I’m getting a little tired of all of the Emails and cold calling happening recently. Every morning, I open my inbox and it’s jam-packed full of messages trying to sell me services – anything ranging from SEO and social media, to call-center staffing, Email campaigns, database lists and advertising. It’s no wonder why most of your Emails don’t even get opened. Or if they do, they promptly end up in the trash.
When I’m not deleting your Emails, I’m answering calls from you. You fire off on your script, without taking pause or asking questions. It’s like I’m being shouted at by the headmaster all over again. It’s no wonder why I’ve been avoiding calls being forwarded to me from the front desk.
Despite this, I feel bad about the situation. So I wanted to take this opportunity to help out a little with some pointers that would help save both of us some time here.
Find out what I actually do
Please at least try to figure out what I do first. It’s really not that hard; I have profiles all over the Interwebz. If you specialize in services that target the right people within organizations, then why are you asking me to forward your message to the right person in my organization? I’m not a hub. I also don’t forward crap to my colleagues like some kind of dirty chain letter that no-one wants to receive.
Awards don’t impress me
Well done for winning that artsy-fartsy award five years ago, but it doesn’t mean that much to me. And unfortunately, I don’t have a gazzillion dollar budget to help you win your next one either. I know that campaigns that focus on generating leads aren’t sexy and won’t win me any silverware, but it keeps me in a job. So rather than spend $10 million on some “chest-thumping” Super Bowl-like advert that makes us feel good, I would rather focus on programs that help drive actual business, which helps me pay the bills and go on nice holidays.
You, you, you. But what about me?
What is it that you can do for me, again? Did you even take the time to look at my company’s website or even do a little bit of research? Did you ask me questions to understand what keeps me up at night? Or share examples of how you can help me overcome the headaches I’ve been facing so I can blow away my targets and look like a hero? If not, then please move along.
I know this whole process is draining on the both of us. But if you can at least start off the conversation with something that is specific and relevant to me, and something that is meaningful for my situation, it will really help to set yourself apart from all of the noise that’s out there. If you figure it out, then let’s talk. This is marketing after all.
The question of, “Do I attempt to complete this work with in-house resources vs. getting an agency to help?” is a dilemma that comes up often, particularly when it comes to digital marketing. Here are some benefits I’ve personally experienced when it comes to taking work out to an agency.
1. Get access to deep expertise across multiple disciplines and sub-disciplines
As an in-house digital marketer, lots of varied demands are placed onto you every day, and often we are required to dabble in different areas in a Jack-of-All trades way. In a prior in-house role, I had responsibility for all paid, earned and owned digital marketing. Although I was pretty comfortable on the search, social and analytics side, I was less clued up when it came to affiliates and media partners.
This is where agencies can make great partners. Not only do they have people with deep subject area expertise, but also people who are experts within subject sub-disciplines. For example, you can be good at SEO – but are you equally an expert at SEO strategy, keyword research, site audits, on-page SEO, technical SEO, content marketing, social amplification, or link development? Because these have become such deep subject areas in themselves, it can often be hard for you to be a true expert across all.
2. Keep your projects on schedule
It’s a sad state of affairs that whenever times got tough, one of the first roles to go within the marketing department at the companies I worked for was the Project Manager. We’d then often end up wondering why a project that should have taken three months to complete was knocking on the two year mark, with no end in sight. Go figure.
Good agency partners know the value of experienced Project Managers and are committed to keeping your project on track – their profitability depends on it. Having recently spent a bit of time in an agency, it has been interesting to see how on-time completion within every major and micro project milestone truly counts when it comes to getting campaigns out on time. You really can’t put a price on having good Project Managers on your side.
3. Benefit from flexible resources
Keeping projects in-house may mean saving money on agency services. However, often that also means you don’t get to spend money on bringing in additional resources in-house either. So the additional workload then gets placed onto existing members of the team who already have their plates full of other projects that take higher priority. Is it worth the saving vs. getting things done well and on time? Things that will ultimately help drive more business. Sometimes it may be, but mostly I’ve found not.
4. Get access to best (and next) in class practices
Agencies work with varied clients, some highly mature in the digital marketing space. These many different experiences really help to build up knowledge around best and next practices along the way. So why reinvent the wheel? From performance benchmarks to more efficient processes and testing out new ideas and theories, you get access to key learnings and expert help from your agency to supercharge your own digital marketing efforts.
What have your experiences been when it comes to taking work out to an agency vs. keeping it in-house?
Most people who are familiar with the concept of Search Engine Optimization will know about the Google Keyword Planner. However, many in the search world were not too happy with the loss of Google’s Keyword Tool to Keyword Planner last year, forcing SEOs and search marketers to turn to other alternatives to get additional levels of insight. So what other tools are out there that can help you with your search efforts? Here are five of my favourite:
1. YouTube Keyword Tool Alternative
Video has, and continues to be, a great way to rank high in the search engine results. However, Keyword Planner is not video-specific and I’ve always found YouTube’s keyword suggestion tool rather limited, particularly when it comes to researching any non-mass consumer segment area. The YouTube Keyword Tool Alternative uses YouTube’s autocomplete feature to help you find longer tail keywords that users type into YouTube’s search box.
As you can see from the example below for “data center”, it provides autocomplete suggestions based on your query. Given the nature of video, very often you see suggestions based around educational themes, such as “fundamentals” and “tutorials”. I’ve found this to be a great research tool for video SEO that can uncover good ideas for video content and topics based upon what users are looking for.
2. FAQ Fox
If you want to find questions your target audience are asking, then FAQ Fox is the tool for you. Input your topic, select or type in a URL and FAQ Fox presents you with questions that these people are asking. One of the big benefits is that you are seeing exactly how people are typing in the question and the language they use, uncensored and all.
Very often, these are questions that users aren’t finding a good answer for in the search results, so again it is a great research tool that can help guide content development efforts.
3. Mozbar
Do you want to see key SEO site metrics at a glance every time you conduct a search? Mozbar is the best way to see metrics such as domain authority, page authority, link counts, social metrics, and more — all of the basics to help you understand a page’s ranking ability.
I love this tool for the easy competitive comparisons that show why certain pages rank higher than others and how easy or difficult it would be to rank for a particular keyword. Mozbar is available as a plug-in for Firefox and Chrome.
4. SEO Book’s Rank Checker
If you don’t have the budget for an Enterprise SEO tool and are having to check up on keyword rank, then make sure to use Rank Checker.
Rank Checker is a handy Firefox plug-in that allows you to quickly see where you and/or your competitors are ranking for a keyword, and which page is ranking. It covers all Google country domains and some Yahoo country domains. I’ve used this tool for a number of years now (even alongside enterprise SEO tools). I found this particularly useful when going through optimization and comparison exercises for international SEO projects.
5. MobileDev HQ
Over the past few years, we’ve seen how much mobile apps have taken off, giving rise to a new kind of optimization; commonly known as App Store Optimization (ASO).
Having dabbled a little in ASO, I’ve found MobileDevHQ to be a pretty handy tool when it comes to keyword app store discovery and ongoing monitoring. Their helpful dashboards and summary emails cover things such as: Top 5 keywords by ranking change, ratings added in the last 24 hours, and actual app downloads. With the free version of the tool, the number of keywords you are able to track are unlimited and you can access up to three months of historical data.
What are your favourite free SEO tools?
Mobile apps now account for more than half of all time spent on digital media (comScore, 2014). With over 2 million mobile apps and growing, many companies – from small startups to big retailers, airlines, financial firms, and more – are jumping on the mobile app bandwagon. But according to Forbes, only 0.01% of consumer mobile apps will be considered a financial success.
Amidst the excitement of mobile app development, often times companies take the “build it and they will come” mentality and give less thought (or more after thought) about how their app will actually get found by users.
The truth is, more apps are found through app store searches than by any other method – 63% according to Forrester research. This is why App Store Optimization (ASO) is such a critical component when it comes to your app strategy. If you are not optimizing your app for search, then you are missing out big time.
So how do you optimize a mobile app for search?
1. Conduct Keyword Research
As with traditional SEO, it all starts with keyword research. Doing your research up front will help you understand what words and phrases users are searching for in volume and relevance, as well as in terms of competition level. If you are looking for a mobile app keyword research/monitoring tool, my favorite is MobileDevHQ but I’ve also heard good things about Sensor Tower.
2. Optimize Your App Title and Description
Once you have your keyword phrase identified, make sure that you include the keyword in the title and description – as you would with standard HTML and video SEO. The description is also a good place to include any additional or secondary keywords that you may have identified as part of your research.
3. Drive Downloads
Number of app downloads is an important factor when it comes to mobile app rank since downloads is an indicator of app popularity. The thinking being that the more popular an app, the more relevant it is likely to be for the searcher. This can cause quite a quandary when your app is just starting out, particularly when you are competing with well-established apps that have many downloads.
Paid social methods, particularly Facebook app ads, are a good way to reach and segment a high volume of potential app users. The reach and targeting options of Facebook is unparalleled, not to mention that 78% of Facebook users are mobile.
An Example of Facebook’s Mobile App Ads
However, many app developers do not see paying for ads as a worthwhile investment, particularly when comparing the cost per click amounts to the revenue earned per app download — the average paid app retails for around $0.99. However, sometimes it is important to think beyond the initial low (or sometimes negative) returns. Rather, as with all SEO, this upfront investment helps to increase visibility and drive up downloads, which can help organic visibility in the long-term.
4. Encourage Ratings and Reviews
Whilst social signals can be positively correlated with SEO rank, ratings and reviews are a definite factor when it comes to ASO rank. Of course, the number of ratings and reviews that you secure will be dependent on your number of app downloads (another reason why paid social ads is often worth the upfront investment).
This is why it is important to encourage your existing users to rate your app when they are using it – this is a tactic often seen in many popular gaming apps such as The Sims, Smurf Village and Angry Birds. But remember, when it comes to ratings and reviews, ASO cannot help when it comes to the actual quality and usefulness of your app; it can’t polish a turd.
These are just some of the basics that you need to be thinking about when it comes to App Store Optimization. As digital marketers, we need to remember that as with SEO, ASO is also a long-term effort and investment, but definitely an important and worthwhile one.
1. Digital marketing budget is expected to increase to over half of a company’s overall marketing budget by 2016 (source: IDC)
More companies are realizing the power, efficiency, and accountability that digital marketing activities can bring and this is being reflected in the amount of investment over time. With buyer journeys becoming more complex and unique, companies are realizing that they must show up at the right time, in the right place, and more often.
Being where customers are searching and consuming content is critical, and a lot of this is taking place online. According to Google’s Shopper Sciences study, “The largest hub for every category was online search. No matter where consumers entered their journey, they touched down on search at least once, and usually many times”.
2. Mobile users check their phone 150 times each day (source: Huffington Post)
Admit it, most of us own multiple devices and we go to bed with our mobile phones. According to SAP, there are now more mobile devices than what there are people on Earth. It is difficult to ignore the rise of mobile usage and the impact that it will have on your marketing efforts.
As we are reminded that more searches will come from mobile than desktop in 2015, not to mention the penalties that Google say they are applying to non-mobile friendly sites, the time to get your company’s mobile presence in order is fast running out.
3. Apps continue to dominate the mobile web with 86% of time spent (source: Flurry)
From airlines, hotels, insurance companies, banks and Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and start-ups, mobile app development has gone through the roof – some more useful and well-thought out than others. With over 2 million mobile apps in the app store (and growing), app store optimization is becoming increasingly important for companies and app developers who want to get found.
4. Social Media is the most powerful content distribution channel (source: Business Insider)
- …83,333 links are shared
- …85,000 comments are left
- …54,976,850 pieces of content are posted or shared
With stats like these, the power of social media (and the growing correlation of social factors on SEO) as a content distribution system cannot be ignored. But with this, companies have to remember that we can no longer rely on just organic social media to drive results. The development of well-targeted paid social advertising is an important driving force when it comes to social media.
5. Photos increase sharing, with 27% of photo tweets being retweeted (source: Twitter)
Pictures really do speak a thousand words, especially when it comes to social media. In a study looking at the effects on retweets (tweets that are re-shared with a person’s followers), tweets that included a photo URL came out on top, further reinforcing the power of imagery in social media. It’s no wonder why sites such as Instagram and Pinterest have grown in popularity. In a study by ROI Research, 44% of respondents were more likely to engage with brands if they posted pictures compared to any other media.
This month I attended the Digital Strategy Innovation Summit in beautiful New York City. This is the first time that I attended a more general digital marketing conference that wasn’t specifically focused upon search and social disciplines.
It was refreshing to hear several sessions from a client’s perspective and that many of the challenges client companies are facing likely aren’t that much different to your own. Here are my four key takeaways from the summit.
1. Digital Marketing is Everyone’s Job
Digital marketing cannot be operated within a silo; it spans horizontally across organizations, touching many different areas within marketing and sales. Price Floyd, VP of Digital Marketing at BAE Systems, went as far to say that in the future, digital-specific roles like his within companies would go away.
BAE Systems rely on their employees to moderate their social community. What they initially found was that fear is the biggest obstacle for getting employees to adopt and support company social media efforts. This is why internal training programs are so important to teach best practices, provide tips and tricks on how to get set up and running, and have guidelines in place to prevent any potential social media mishaps that can cause havoc with a company’s reputation.
2. Use Social Media as a Content Distribution System
There is no doubt that these past couple of years, content has been the new darling of the digital marketing world. So much so that companies are struggling to keep up with an increasing appetite for content. However, content by itself is worthless unless you have promotion behind it – driving traffic to the content on your site, using it in a way that builds relationships with your prospects, and ultimately creating sales.
Bloomberg found that social media is the most important form of news distribution, helping them to demonstrate thought leadership amongst their audience. Forbes readers no longer just consume content, they share it with their networks & participate through comments. Content visits and social sharing was so important to Forbes that they adapted their reporter compensation model based on the number of visitors to site and articles shared.
However, an important note to make is that we can no longer rely on just organic social media to drive results. I think Marty Weintraub put it best in his ClickZ New York session: “Search PPC is to SEO as Social PPC is to content marketing. Social media without advertising just doesn’t work.”
3. Have a Clear Strategy That Utilizes Digital Maturity Models
According to Booz and co, 49% of companies are distracted and surprisingly two-thirds of companies do not know what to do.
When it comes to business strategy, companies must have a clear strategy, own this strategy (not outsource it or let an agency define it) and most importantly stand behind it. The importance of understanding the larger goal from a business perspective, in order to shape the tactics and success measures that you subsequently use, almost goes without saying but unfortunately is often forgotten. For example, when it comes to social media, the question you have to ask is: What is your business goal? (not what is your social media goal?).
A strong strategy will help to provide a company with focus, especially amid all of the digital distractions. One good method to help maintain focus is to understand where your organization’s level of digital maturity is currently at. You can then align resources and analytics with your digital maturity model and use this to inform your longer term roadmap.
For example, if your organization is still in the planning phase of maturity, then you may require outside expertise from a digital marketing agency and utilize basic metrics like visits and conversions. Whereas if your organization is in the advanced phase of maturity, then you may have teams of vertical in-house PPC/SEO/Social Media/Content specialists and utilize attribution and predictive analysis.
4. Do Not Underestimate the Important Role of Agencies
The question of in-house vs. outsource is a topic that comes up every once in a while, particularly as organizations look to make more efficient use of their marketing budgets.
It is important to combine what is inside of your company with fresh, outside perspective and ensure ongoing cover and continuity, especially when you are still building the foundations of digital marketing within your organization.
Whilst the numbers may look good on paper, remember that not all of the smart people work for your company — all companies (even the mighty Google) get outside help. Good agencies have a high level of deep expertise and will be the ones keeping up-to-date with all the latest goings-on in the ever-changing digital marketing industry.
Despite an abundant amount of information online, coupled with Twitter and other news delivery feeds, conferences are still an important and necessary source of education.
Conferences help to:
- Open your mind to fresh ideas and different perspectives
- Facilitate best practice sharing, not just limited to your company
- Keep you up to date with the latest news and goings-on
- Allow personal interaction with your peers, thought-leaders and industry-known figures (“Matt Cutts – OMG!”)
When you start to get a few conferences under your belt, you soon start to realize that some are out of this world amazing, whereas others make you think, “Wow, that’s two days of my life that I’ll never get back again”.
So other than a tropical beach location and catchy session-filler music, here’s a list of essentials that I look for to help separate the good from the bad.
1. I don’t just want the latest and greatest. Are there also lessons that will stand the test of time?
It’s always good to hear the most up-to-date news and changes going on in an industry, particularly in fast-moving areas like search and social marketing. But with so many changes happening so often, things can become out of date relatively quickly.
I’ve always found the most conference value from topics that stand the test of time. A good example of this was the 5 Stages of SEO Maturity model from SES Conference & Expo. Even though I saw this session several years ago, I still find myself applying this model today.
2. One size does not fit all. Has the content been tailored to different experience levels and has this been communicated clearly by the event organizers?
There’s nothing more disappointing than being geared up for a conference expecting one thing, only for it to end up being something completely different — particularly when it comes to topic levels being either too basic, or so complicated that it leaves you confused.
Conferences that match their content to experience levels of the audience, and clearly communicate this up front, really help to set the right expectations for attendees so that they aren’t wasting time and training budget. Sometimes it isn’t immediately clear by reading through the session descriptions whether a session is going to be skimming the surface of the topic or getting into the real, technical grit.
What I like about SearchFest is that their session tracks clearly indicate beginner, intermediate, or advanced. I also love SMX Advanced because I know it’s going to be skipping the basics and jumping right into meaty discussions. They also split out their tracks by key topic areas, including Paid Search, SEO, Local, Social and Mobile.
3. I’m here to learn. Are the actual topics really relevant to what I care about and do they carry substance?
When I go to a conference to learn, I’m not that interested in company sales pitches or session fillers. What is important is whether the topics being covered are relevant, timely, and provide enough substance in the time allocated.
There’s nothing more boring for an audience than having to listen to a presenter:
a.) Do a blatant sales pitch for themselves or their company
b.) Spend the entire session telling the audience how great they are
I think you’d agree that as paying attendees we are there to learn things, not there for the hard sell. The best way for people to sell themselves or their company at a conference is to teach us something we can use to make us heroes and blow away our targets. If they can do that, then we will remember them.
4. I want to listen to a speaker who can captivate an audience. Is there a strong keynote and speaker line-up?
Audiences can often tell within a few moments whether a speaker knows their stuff or not. Throwing out general statements like, “LinkedIn helps your SEO” just doesn’t cut it. I often find that a good speaker doesn’t just speak about theory and strategy but can also demonstrate that they have been in the weeds, gotten their hands dirty, even made mistakes along the way. It makes for a more credible talk.
There are definitely people and speakers that draw crowds – and rightfully so – but variety is also good. If, like me, you saw that same speaker the last time, and the time before that, and the time before the time before that… you can quickly start to lose interest.
In addition, coming from a client company, I don’t just want to hear from agencies all the time. I also want to hear things from the client perspective. A healthy mix of agency and client representation makes for better appeal since client attendees relate to the challenges faced by other clients, not agencies… and especially not agencies who whine about their clients.
5. I don’t just want to hear theory, I want real world examples. Most importantly, are these examples going to be applicable to my company?
Hearing about the number of viral hits for a Super Bowl ad is definitely cool but the reality is that most people aren’t lucky enough to have that kind of budget to work with. Additionally, some companies require measures that go beyond just “hits” and impressions.
If the example or case study is relatively unique to the speaker’s company and not applicable to a wider audience, then the talk becomes an interesting listen, but not really something that can be used.
These are just a few questions to consider when evaluating the usefulness of a conference. Feel free to share some of the lessons you have learned about your conference experiences.
For those who know me, you will know how much I LOVE data. Even more so the lessons you can learn, how to take action, and what to do better the next time.
This is why I love seeing the annual blog stats review that WordPress provides, not just because they make it look so pretty, but because you pick up so many interesting tidbits. For example, I learned that last year alone, there were SEM Booty Blog visitors from 114 different countries *mind blown*.
But in general, it is always a good idea to understand which blog posts have been the most popular, in terms of visits, commentary, and sharing. Looking at such data helps to give blog managers and content developers a better idea of popular topics, what’s on people’s minds and how interest may have changed from years past.
So with that, here is a quick round-up of the Top 3 SEM Booty Posts from 2013. A big thank you to everyone who has ever read, shared and commented.
1. How Much Do Your PPC Campaigns Really Contribute Towards Business?
The topic of attribution continues to be hot, hot, hot – and I do not see this changing any time soon. This post discusses both direct attribution and assisted attribution methods in relation to Pay-Per-Click advertising, and the key things you need to think about when showing the real business value of PPC.
2. 5 Mind-Blowing Takeaways From The Covario-Google Executive Summit
Covario’s Executive Summit held at Google’s Mountain View campus did not fail to disappoint. From the “real” year of mobile, to the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMoT), and the died-and-gone-to-heaven conversion path and assisted conversion reports in Google Analytics, this summit was packed full of great takeaways straight from the mouth of Google. I’m sure Covario’s INFLECTIONPoint Conference next week will also have a ton of useful lessons for the coming year.
3. How Promoted YouTube Videos Can Boost Your Video SEO Efforts
Winning in the SERPs is not just about getting your page to the top. You also need to think about PPC, shopping results, local listings, images, and of course video! But is Video SEO as straightforward as it seems? Running various test cases in YouTube helped to uncover a ton of things that influence rank, including… paying for promoted videos (gasp!). Make sure you check out this interesting case study about how paying for promoted videos can boost your video SEO efforts.
2013 was a roller coaster year and as expected, Google did not disappoint with their mass of algorithm updates and continued knowledge graph expansions. But Google weren’t the only ones who were keeping us on our toes. Bing teamed up with Klout in a move to better incorporate social influence, and Yandex (where mass link buying often got you to the top) set themselves on a path towards not attributing any ranking factors to links.
In between all of the algorithm shuffling, there were many other important lessons to be learned. So keeping with the tradition of December posts, here are my three key lessons from 2013:
1. Never Forget The Basics
No matter what you do, there are always lots of new, shiny things around to consume your time and attention. But if you are not building from a strong foundation to begin with, then your efforts can often end up being wasted. In SEO, sometimes just sticking to the basic values of clean on-page factors and valuable content that people will want to share, can help to reduce the time you spend on being reactive and playing catch up to the never-ending algorithm updates.
Search marketing can sometimes feel so overwhelming and fast-moving that it can be easy to forget about the basics. This year, I learned not to be afraid to put on the brakes when needed. Remember to keep in mind that search is a marathon, not a sprint.
2. Get Your Analytics in Order
It doesn’t matter how well or successful you think your program is doing, if you aren’t accurately measuring the outcome – in a way that is meaningful – you may as well not be running anything at all.
This year, going through a new CMS launch, I re-learned the importance of tracking accuracy and picked up some new tricks along the way, particularly with regards to attribution. A key takeaway I learned is that whenever possible, make sure you use actual numbers and don’t rest your laurels on numbers based on averages and calculations, which can vastly skew reality.
3. Life is About Making Big Moves
I couldn’t have said it any better than my Twitter pal, @sdmktgguy. Regardless of what the future holds, 2013 will always be a memorable year for me. It was the year that I left my first employer of 14 years, to work for a different company, in a different state, in a different industry. And despite all of the scariness that change can bring, I’ve never felt more excited and eager to make a difference.
I’ve attended quite a few conferences over the years and although sessions that talk about the latest industry news, trends, and search engines updates are interesting, the discussion can become very dated, very quickly. The sessions that I’ve found most useful are those that provide lessons which you can take with you and apply right now, or even several years down the road.
One session in particular, at SES San Jose, talked about the 5 Stages of SEO Maturity. Even though I heard this talk at one of the first SES conferences I went to many moons ago, I found myself referring to it just the other day. So I wanted to share this in a blog post, and also thank Alex, as I’ve found it to be such a useful model over the years. I’m sure you will too.
Stage 1: TRY
This is when an organization has heard about SEO and wants to try it out. As part of experimenting with a SEO program, they allocate part-time resources (often adding these duties to an existing employee’s role) and focus on a small selection of striking distance keywords that can help to increase visibility in the search engine results and bring in website traffic.
Try Checklist:
- Part-time in-house SEO resource
- Strategy: Focus on low-hanging fruit and priority keywords
Stage 2: INVEST
At this stage, the organization realizes that SEO has the potential to really benefit the business and so they start to take it more seriously. They go beyond priority keywords and simple on-page optimizations, and delve more into content development efforts as well as the wider education of the company. As they invest more resources, time and money, there is the need to show the value of the program (beyond traffic), often through conversion and lead tracking.
Invest Checklist:
- Full time dedicated in-house SEO resource
- Strategy: Expand out keyword set to more than just priority keywords
- Allocate dollars for content and link development
- Invest in technology to track success
- Pro-active site audits
- Ongoing training and education for content providers
Stage 3: MEASURE
As the organization becomes more advanced in SEO practices, measurement becomes even more important – particularly the need to tie SEO directly to overall business measures, including sales, revenue and ROI.
Measure Checklist:
- Bring on additional SEO resources
- Strategy: Efficiently monitor and tie SEO metrics to business metrics
Stage 4: SCALE
At this stage, the organization is pretty well versed in the SEO space, and so the focus is on how to better scale company efforts. There are specialized SEO roles within the team, including strategists, writers, and analysts, with the goal to dominate the search engine results.
Scale Checklist:
- Specialized SEO resources (strategists, dedicated content writers, outreach specialists, analysts)
- Strategy: Organize and prioritize – make all keywords winners
Stage 5: COMPETE
At the compete stage, organizations don’t just want a great presence within the search engine results, they are out to crush the competition as well as stay ahead of the game by planning ahead for future trends. This seems very unicorn-like, and although I’ve never experienced a company who is anywhere near this stage, it certainly provides a great goal to strive towards.
Compete Checklist:
- Multiple SEO teams
- Strategy: Crush the competition — predict the future using existing data
- Monitor SEO market share
SEM Booty Blog 