**by Duane Forrester**
In a world where everything changes at break-neck speed, it seems
like not a day goes by where I dont utter some version of the same
words and advice. After a recent chat with a couple of other in-house
SEOs, it occurred to me& we sound like a broken record.
Are we destined to repeat the same litany of items over and over?
ALT tags are empty& URL is not friendly& Dont use duplicate titles&
Dont use more than one title on a page& Make sure the description is
well written& Use absolute links& Be careful when using rich media& Is
there a good down-level experience? The list is almost endless.
In most cases, these refrains have been uttered for years now; a
staple of good ol fashioned, grass-roots SEO work. They have been,
and will remain, the nuts and bolts of on-page SEO. So, yes, we are
all repeating many of these same things over and over, it seems. While
the world does change and evolve (and along with it so do search
algorithms and an SEOs response to those changes), we need to make
sure we dont get complacent.
Its too easy to get caught up in a loop of providing the same
feedback over and over, simply because someone didnt fix it the first
time you asked them too. This is not a long-term strategy for success.
Success is measured in dollars, conversions, action. Hard numbers. So
lets take a look at breaking this moldy mold.
If you find yourself having the same conversations with the same
people a few times each year, perhaps there are other issues that need
to be addressed. It is entirely likely those you approach actually
want to do the work you suggest. Maybe they simply lack the head count
to make it happen, along with other work. In other cases, it could be
the language barrier. SEOs do tend to have their own unique language;
just like so many other professional groups.
If you dig deeper into the mix, you will likely find the root cause
of why things havent been done. When you have this cause, you can
effect change.
Maybe you need to have a heart-to-heart with yourself and be honest
if youve approached your program and work from the right direction.
If you work at a law firm, talking to the lawyers about SEO is a dead
end. Sure to get you uninvited form the summer picnic. If you approach
them and speak in terms of attracting new clients, pre-qualifying them
based on keywords & topics and lower acquisition costs with higher
profits, then that will likely get them to pay attention. After that,
theyll sign off on the technical needs you place before them to get
to the better place youve described.
This heart-to-heart should also reflect on your level of approach.
Like landing an airplane, success is the desired option, and
approaching a runway too high, or too low can have dire consequences.
Best to think about this and nail it the first time. When you built
the program (or inherited it), were the correct people brought in to
support the project? Did the right people have input and sign off?
If you approached a Senior VP, you might have gone too high. Their
view of the world is very macro, so many small details are missing.
This often leads them to think in broader terms. The downside here is
over-simplification. The opposite of this is engaging the ground-level
folks (graphic designers, programmers, Sysadmins, etc.) and getting
them moving. At this level, there is a need for a great deal of
detail, which can overload people, processes and systems if not
properly planned for and fed into the work stream.
Throw into this lines of communication, and there are many easy paths
to lead you astray. Imagine you are a department lead, Manager or
mid-level executive responsible for people, work and projects. You
walk into work one day to find your staff all engaged in a bright,
shiny new (SEO) project you know nothing about. That might be just
disconcerting enough to the Manager to make them pull all of their
people away from the (SEO) project.
I think one of the best approaches is to view your SEO program (or
even smaller projects) through as many different filters as possible.
Ask yourself whose support you need, then build a story that supports
a win for their area of interest. By doing this in key areas, the end
result is a storyline with many points of support across the company -
just what you actually need to successfully move the work forward.
Make sure you help everyone, at every stage and level, craft the
messages, too. One poorly worded communication could lead to a lot of
confusion as groups try to interpret what your directions mean to
them. Over-simplification can be as damaging as too much detail, so
think strategically when crafting your communications, and trace the
work back to an expected ROI relevant to the group being addressed.
Though it may seem to you like endless repeatition of the same
message over and over again, this process is important to ensure the
right messages reach the right people.
Who knew SEO work could prep you for a career in politics?
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Duane Forrester
<http://searchengineland.com/author/duane-forrester/>
is an in-house SEM <http://www.sempo.org/public_groups/ih/>
with Microsoft, sits on the Board of Directors with SEMPO, can be
found at his blog <http://www.theonlinemarketingguy.com/>
where he speaks about online marketing and monetizing websites and
is the author of How To Make Money With Your Blog.
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