How to Become the CEO of Your SEO!
Your CEO comes charging into your office and says, “I Googled one of our key benefits and we did not come up on the first few pages, but our competitor did. Do something about that!”
For many the first impulse in reaction to the CEO’s unpredictable request is to drop everything and either a) run for the hills or b) spin your wheels trying to make it happen.
This scenario happens every day in corporate America (apparently even in Antarctica, judging from the penguins to the right). And it’s got to stop!
It’s time you took control over the unpredictable nature of your boss, and become the CEO of your SEO.
And there is really only ONE way to do it.
1. Conduct an SEO audit.
2. From the audit develop a search engine optimization strategy that is realistic and achievable.
3. Present your plan to your CEO and establish achievable expectations.
The key to gaining control lies in the SEO audit.
Keyword research and analysis. The SEO audit begins with identifying and analyzing those keywords that mean the most to your company and will bring you the highest quality leads. It also means evaluating how well your competitors are ranking. You can easily come up with hundreds of keywords but realistically you need to focus on those that generate the best traffic to your website. What we do is build a keyword list with traffic estimates, analyzing broad and long tail keywords. There are a number of tools that anyone can use, such as, Google Keyword Traffic Estimator Tool, SEO Book Keyword Tool, SpyFu Keyword and Competitor Tool, Wordtracker Keyword Tool and Keyword Spy Tool.
From this analysis, you would create a keyword heatmap to see how well the website is covered with those keywords you have selected. You would also look at the URLs to make sure they are optimized for search engines. At this point you are ready to identify those keyword opportunities that you can optimize through your content, and by content we mean product and services pages, articles and blog posts.
Evaluation of SEO On-Page Factors. Google has come up with a wonderful tool, the Google SEO Report Card. It’s an extensive document that takes your through countless ways to optimize your web pages. There is a faster way to see how your site stands in relation to its marketing strength. It’s HubSpot's Website Grader. Just type in your website and within seconds you’ll get a quick assessment of your grade in relation to over 3 million other websites. It does a snap analysis of your blog, metadata, headings, images, interior pages, linking, conversion forms and social media.
Evaluate PR strategy. Public relations can have a key role in improving your search rankings through content. You should work with your PR department to establish a steady flow of outgoing information that incorporates the use of keywords and that generates in-bound links.
Analysis of website architecture. This is where you need to look under the hood, so to speak. Things you want to evaluate are website speed, robot.txt files, domain details, site navigation, breadcrumbs, footers, URLs, site maps and most important of all internal links. Key here is to make sure you build links from your home page or category pages as a way to shift and improve ranking factors.
Content analysis. Every major page (home, category, product, services, about us, news etc.) needs to be reviewed for the quantity and the quality of the content. Things to look for are geo-targeted content (when applicable), SEO keyword rich headings and alt tags, avoidance of keyword stuffing, and how integrated your blog strategy is with your site.
Link popularity analysis. The main juice for SEO is links that are directed to your site from other websites. Start by quantifying your current number of inbound links. Look at quick ways to increase your numbers (Backlinks from Twitter, YouTube, blogs, RSS directory submissions, Wikipedia). Figure out link bait ideas and remember the power of .gov and .edu links.
Titles and meta tags audit. There are two purposes for titles and meta data. The first is for search engines. But more importantly, you need to consider what happens when someone does find you on Google or Yahoo. What do they read in the meta description? Many companies forget that the meta description is a mini-advertisement. So make sure it reads well for that keyword.
Traffic sources. Evaluate top search engine keyword referrers of traffic. Find out where your traffic is coming from and what terms they are using to find you. There are several tools you can use to help you do this. One is Google analytics, or if you are on the HubSpot platform (which we are), you can use their search analysis tool.
Your SEO audit, once complete, will give you all of the information you need to create a realistic SEO strategy. It also gives you a benchmark from which you can judge your progress.
But don’t keep this information to yourself. You need to present the key findings of your audit to your CEO. He or she needs to know the reality of organic SEO and you need to educate him or her on realistic goals.
If you do it right, you will minimize those unpredictable outbursts and reestablish your control of SEO.
If you would like more information about how to conduct an audit, feel free to contact us about our SEO audits.
Image source: Jean-Louis Bouzou
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