SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been around for a while and by now, every marketer and business person is aware of its importance in marketing. As far as search engine optimization in India goes, while most marketers understand the basic concept, many are unaware of a new and emerging trend in SEO – Enterprise SEO for large businesses.
Why this new trend?
Before going into what is enterprise SEO, let’s look at how this new trend evolved. Large enterprises like Fortune 1000 companies and conglomerates have a spectrum of products, services, and brands. This means they have multiple websites – or perhaps a single huge website – running into tens of thousands – and even millions – of pages besides other digital collaterals such as landing pages, lead-generation content, guest blogs, and a whole lot more.
SEO for such an enterprise this size requires a specialized skillset not only because of the sheer volume but also because they have a lot more at stake. These skills may be hard to find in a single individual or small SEO firms.
Enterprise-level SEO requires a team of experts who work together to promote a brand or company.
While the main goal of traditional SEO may be to increase the visibility of a business and drive traffic, the goal of Enterprise SEO is to track the entire marketing and sales funnel, ensuring visibility and driving conversion at each stage. Another objective that Enterprise SEO strives to accomplish is that of promoting and upholding a brand’s values and reputation.
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So what is Enterprise SEO Exactly?
Simply put, enterprise SEO is a set of search engine optimization strategies targeted at increasing the digital presence of large enterprise websites adopting a much more subtle approach. It is different from traditional SEO in its approach, size, and goals. Enterprise SEO reaches customers at every stage of the marketing and sales funnel. It is goal is not merely to drive traffic or expand the customer base but also to build relationships with customers and enhance value for the customer.
The strong pillars of enterprise SEO
As marketers began realizing that SEO is not merely about keywords or other technical stuff, there came a slight shift in focus from a specific to a holistic approach. In large enterprises, apart from keyword research, SEO also involves analytics of consumer behaviour, the impact of visuals, and a whole lot more. Emerging from these realizations, marketers have identified four important pillars of Enterprise level SEO.
Mitigation
Large enterprises have a large number of marketing collaterals. The mitigation team works closely with the various teams creating these collaterals in an effort to ensure that the marketing strategy is implemented perfectly. With websites running into thousands, and even millions of pages, along with tons of other marketing collateral, this requires a dedicated team with a unique set of skills. Moreover, it is important to nip any problems in the bud to reduce waste in terms of effort, resources, and post-incident analysis. The mitigation team, therefore, works closely with the website development team, content marketing team, production team, technical engineering team, and other teams, to ensure that any irregularities are identified and mitigated early in the process of SEO.
Mitigation is, therefore, the first and most important pillar of Enterprise SEO.
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Analysis
SEO is not merely an exercise in keyword research. It is important to understand the impact of keywords, which keywords drive traffic, how much of this traffic is converted to sales and what revenue it generates. This is a humungous exercise for large enterprises with multiple websites, brands, and verticals. But it is an important exercise nonetheless and assumes greater significance considering that every penny of your marketing budget must be accounted for. Understanding what is working and what is not enables the business to channel its efforts in the right direction, increase conversions, and eventually drive revenue.
Analysing and Reporting on keyword and other SEO performance is, therefore, the second most important pillar of Enterprise SEO.
Project Management
Enterprise SEO requires a number of teams – such as the keyword research team, the content team, and the marketing team to work collaboratively. The SEO project manager ensures the smooth flow of information from one team to the next, watching out for trends, gaps, deadlines, and other pitfalls thus ensuring that the end goal is achieved with minimal loss and maximum revenue. The team also identifies opportunities for growth and expansion and makes suggestions to the other teams.
Keeping an eagle eye on the efforts of the entire SEO project is the third pillar of Enterprise SEO.
Relationship Management
SEO is not an isolated effort. It touches every aspect of the business. It is therefore important for the SEO team or department to maintain relationships with all other teams within the organization as well as with outside stakeholders such as customers, vendors and so on. This may not seem significant in the initial stages but as the SEO team grows and expands it assumes greater importance. Having a relationship management executive in place ahead of time will help the organization quickly adapt to the changing dynamics.
Relationship management is, therefore, the last yet important pillar of Enterprise SEO.
SEO has escalated from merely a tool to drive traffic to your website and increase your search engine ranking to a specialized skill. More and more companies are realizing that SEO is not just a small part of the marketing team but rather a team effort in and of itself.
Litmus Branding offers search engine optimization in India. We have an SEO team already in place. All you need to do is tap into its potential. Write to us now for your very own Enterprise SEO.