**by Aaron Bradley**
I recently encountered this tweet from Aidan Beanland, a Regional SEO
Manager at Yahoo!:
When the SEO manager is the last to know about a new site section
that's already live > big fat FAIL.
This is, unfortunately, such a common occurrence for SEO managers
that it should have a name: the Big Surprise (conveniently abbreviated
as BS ). The new site section nobody thought to tell you about. URLs
nobody thought to redirect when file naming conventions were changed.
The top secret regional domain that materialized out of nowhere,
providing Google with a neat duplicate of your site.
While it is unlikely that you will never encounter a Big Surprise
when surfing your site, there are a number of steps you can take to
reduce such incidents from occurring. And when you are blindsided by a
significant change to a website that undermines your SEO efforts, your
response can both help avoid repeat performances and win allies for
your cause.
BS risk reduction
The first step in avoiding unpleasant SEO surprises is early
engagement with key stakeholders in your organization. This engagement
needs to be highly structured for, until you provide specifics,
decision makers are unlikely to know which of their activities impact
SEO and which do not. Especially as in-house SEO efforts are getting
underway, your colleagues are unlikely to know much about how SEO
works, and part of your job is to instruct them.
So when you first approach managers, team leads or other
decision-makers in each area that affects SEO, let them know exactly
what issues they need to consult you about. Keep this list succinct,
especially to begin with: it is better to have someone fully aware of
five things critical for SEO than twenty-five things they will never
remember.
The list of SEO-related issues you raise with each person will vary
by department or area of responsibility; tailor your alert list
accordingly, as per the examples below.
IT and server management:
Changes to existing URLs, including removal or addition of parameters
Any change in the domain environment, including domain acquisitions
Information architecture, usability and design:
Changes to global navigation or bread crumbs
Changes to display technology (e.g., modifications that employ Flash,
Ajax or JavaScript)
Addition, deletion or redirection of pages
Marketing and merchandising:
Marketing or social media efforts that result in new spiderable
content (especially when these are created on other networks that may
not be on your radar)
Changes to affiliate program tracking or content delivery
Substantive changes to product lines being offered on an e-commerce
site
Both for future reference and to drive the point home, follow up your
meet-and-greet with a friendly but focused email, with bullet points
just like the ones above. This also gives you the opportunity to copy
others in the same group (the more eyes that are open on your behalf,
the merrier). Rinse and repeat when new people - particularly managers
and directors - join the company.
Corporate secrecy and the BS it can cause
I once approached a huddle composed of the Art Director and a bunch
of designers. Nothing for you to see here, Bradley, this has no
relation to SEO! Suitably chastened, I walked away. Sure enough, a
few days later came the Big Surprise: an April Fools' micro-site
backing an outrageous rumor intended to go viral and cause a surge
in traffic. Yep, a big heap of inbound links - no relation to SEO, of
course.
In the course of your discussions, let senior strategists know that
your discretion can be assured. You understand that, for a variety of
reasons, foreknowledge of certain web-related initiatives needs to be
restricted to key stakeholders - and that you are one of them.
Responding to the BS: one (but only one) free pass
It is Tuesday morning when, deep in the throes of keyword analysis,
you receive a company-wide email from the CEO congratulating everyone
on the new blog that has just been launched. The one you have never
seen before. The Big Surprise.
Obviously, the first steps you need to take are remedial: doing what
you can to repair any damage that has occurred, or quickly
capitalizing on any SEO benefits from a potentially lost opportunity.
Once any fires have been extinguished, turn your efforts towards
preventing a repeat performance.
Do not panic, and do not let your ire get the best of you. Keep in
mind that the Big Surprise is almost never malevolent, and respond
accordingly. Unless your organization is populated by psychopaths
intent on undermining your optimization efforts, any damage they have
done to SEO is born of ignorance, not intent.
Put together a reasoned response, and amass any analytics data that
demonstrates the impact of the Big Surprise on the company's
performance in search and, if at all possible, on the bottom line.
When you debrief those responsible on the consequences of their
actions, keep the focus on lessons learned from the incident. Provide
one or more updates with more metrics. By making your point civilly
and backing it up with relevant numbers, your underlying message will
not require spelling out: don't let it happen again.
If it does happen again, and you've taken both the proactive and
reactive steps I've outlined, then you can reasonably expect to hold
those responsible accountable. Demanding that accountability is
important, unless you want to see your SEO continually derailed by
carelessness. Typically, SEO efforts must be given visibility by its
practitioners. If an e-commerce website goes down for a day heads
roll; if a site loses 1,000 inbound links because of URL rewrites, it
may only illicit a shrug without a demonstration of why those lost
links matter.
The good news: the BS diminishes over time
By continually educating key people in your organization about SEO,
and by responding appropriately to SEO mishaps, you should see fewer
and fewer Big Surprises in your future. In the best of all possible
worlds, you'll be included in strategic decision-making processes,
further diminishing the chance of tactical mistakes being made. There
will always be SEO-related issues on a website that have been
overlooked, but they need not be a big, fat FAIL.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Aaron Bradley <http://searchengineland.com/author/aaron-bradley/>
Aaron Bradley is SEO Manager for online jewelry store Ice.com
<http://www.ice.com>
, and writes on search issues at his blog SEO Skeptic
<http://www.seoskeptic.com>
. He has been an in-house SEO since 2005, following ten years as a
website designer.
<font size="-1">
Upcoming Search Marketing Expo events you won't want to miss:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-saopaulo/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BSao%2BPaulo%2B2009">SMX
Sao Paulo</a> - August 4</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BEast%2B2009">SMX
East - New York City</a> - Oct. 5-7</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/stockholm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2Bstockholm%2B2009">SMX
Stockholm</a> - Oct. 12-13</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-mexico/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BMexiso%2B2009">SMX
Mexico</a> - November 11</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BWest%2B2010">SMX
West - Santa Clara, CA</a> - March 2-4, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BAdvanced%2B2010">SMX
Advanced - Seattle, WA</a> - June 8-9, 2010</li></ul>Attend a <a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=SMN%2Bgeneral">Search
Marketing Now</a> Webcast - it's free! Upcoming webcasts:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com">PPC Campaign Automation: Bid
Management, Alerts..the Works</a> - August 4</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/">Integrating Mobile Marketing into a
Large-Scale Marketing Campaign</a> - August 12, 2009</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/webcasts/wc090819">Local Business
Listings: Straight Talk With the Data Providers</a> - August
19</li></ul>Interested in advertising or sponsoring Search Marketing Expo
or Search Marketing Now webcasts? <a
href="http://thirddoormedia.com/contact/sales.shtml?utm_source=searchcap&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=General%2BSales">Contact
us</a>.
<div><a href="http://www.superbhosting.net/"><img
src="http://www.searchmarketingnow.com/_images/superb.gif"
border="0"></a></div>
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a Search Engine
Land, Search Marketing Now or Search Marketing Expo newsletter. To update
your subscriptions or unsubscribe, use your newsletter preferences page at
http://third.thirddoormedia.com/lists/?p=preferences&id=2&uid=f9779113b77d03598707df46ae032f9b.
Or send your written request to: 279 Newtown Tpke., Redding, CT
06896</font>
--
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --
0 comments:
Post a Comment