Convince your stakeholders to make SEO a priority

Kerstin says: "Convince your stakeholders to make SEO a priority. Time and time again, SEOs are unable to implement all the amazing things they could be doing because of this. You need to bring people on board before anything else. Make sure that all your wonderful ideas actually have a chance of coming to life."

Why don't stakeholders have SEO as a priority?

"I wish SEO was front and centre but it's not that simple, and there can be different reasons. Usually, it's because SEO is not sexy. It can take quite a long time and it's not as measurable as other channels, so the results can sometimes be a bit vague.

Stakeholders are often not able to forecast as well for SEO as they can for other channels. They are not able to know exactly what's going to happen when they invest more. Plus, it takes longer than other channels to implement. A lot of times, SEO is the ugly stepchild within marketing, and it can take a bit more effort to get people to buy in."

Are SEOs at fault for not articulating its value, or is it stakeholders that are not recognising it?

"I don't want to point fingers; I think it really depends on the type of company you're dealing with. The background of the senior stakeholders, or the marketing leaders, will have an effect. If you're lucky, everyone's already on board when you start, and that's fine. Usually, if you're working on your own projects then it's not an issue. At a smaller company, you might have the liberty to do things that demonstrate the success of SEO.

However, there are situations where SEO gets deprioritised in favour of other channels. It's not that other people in the business don't think SEO is important, it just falls behind because it is slower, and harder to measure. Business objectives, and targets to hit, are often easier and faster to achieve through paid channels.

SEOs can also be quite technical. We often don't use the right language to be convincing, especially when communicating with people that don't have a background in SEO. I would highly recommend that you adjust your language, adjust your communication, depending on who you're speaking to in the business. To you, KPIs are super important, it's what you look at every single day, but senior management probably don't consider individual rankings. They are focussed on business impact, and meeting targets."

How should SEOs communicate the impact of their work, and what kind of business impact are most stakeholders looking for?

"It depends on who you are speaking to; the key is to tailor your message to your audience. Senior management, in every company, have their targets. It could be to increase revenue, increase the customer base, or both. You should know what the business is trying to achieve. That usually gets broken down into overarching marketing targets. As an SEO, you should be able to say how you will be able to contribute to hitting those targets.

That's for senior management, but you also need to get other people on board with SEO. You need people from many different areas to get your campaigns implemented - developers, designers, product owners, and more. Again, you have to adjust your language and focus on what the individual is trying to achieve, and how your work contributes to that. Tailor your approach, depending on who you're speaking to.

In most cases, you will have to start very early to create awareness about SEO - what it is, how it works and what it can achieve. For example, you could run workshops across the business, that would be different depending on who you're running them for. That's a way to start the conversation and get a seat at the table, where important decisions get made."

Do you need to get SEO involved in the marketing strategy conversation, so the business understands how it can be implemented effectively?

"Definitely, especially at the planning stage. You have to be there to explain what's realistic, and what the expectations should be, because SEO does take longer. If the awareness isn't there, then you might not be able to deliver against expectations. It might look as if you're not performing, when in reality you were not involved in planning, so you didn't set the right expectations.

You need to be plan how you can contribute to the goals of the business. It's hard for someone else to do that for you. SEO is not as well understood as it could be, and it can be harder to relate to than other channels. Paid search can say that 'Investment X' is going to give 'Output Y'. SEO is not like that. There are so many areas to cover within those conversations - from tech, to content, to off-page. So many things influence performance in SEO that it can be difficult for people to understand.

SEOs should have the opportunity to input in planning, budgeting, and performance reviews as well."

Is it helpful to describe SEO as something that can funnel new traffic and awareness to the brand, or is that too simple?

"I'm not sure I would describe it that way, though it is one option. We always discuss with our data team that there are so many different touchpoints to SEO that it's like a football team playing together. Many different people are involved before one person at the end scores a goal. Within my setting, I think everyone's aware that different channels play together, and that they are needed at different stages.

Marketers should recognise that SEO has touchpoints throughout the user journey, not only at the top of the funnel, especially if you consider content marketing as well. You need to communicate that SEO is not only there at the beginning, with discovery. At midpoint, you've got potential customers asking questions, that you can provide a direct answer to. Further down the funnel, brand queries may almost be resulting in a sale. It provides the opportunity to optimise the brand online. SEO is present throughout, to increase the awareness and reach of the company's marketing."

How do you deal with a stakeholder that's fixated on vanity metrics, like ranking for a particular keyword phrase that doesn't really matter?

"It takes some convincing, but it starts with a bit of education. It's up to us as SEOs to take a step back from using keywords as a success metric and change the conversation. We should be talking about traffic, or lead generation, or conversion - things that are relevant to the business. We should be the ones to take the conversation in that direction, so that people don't measure us against the ranking of one particular keyword.

As an SEO, you need to take the responsibility to communicate more effectively within your business. You need to proactively train different departments and start speaking in a language that people understand. You should be creating awareness and providing education to get the people you work with on board."

What's one thing that you suggest SEOs should stop doing to focus more time on educating their business about SEO?

"Don't worry about how to counter Google's updates. Google wants to show the best results for any given search query. You should try to be user first - focus on the audience and creating the best user experience and worry about Google second. Don't get too hung up on every single update and trying to chase external factors. You will save yourself time. Don't ignore it completely, and do test things, but don't focus all your energy on the next Google update.

You are better off investing time in championing SEO within your business, getting people on board and making sure they understand and buy into it. Then you will have the freedom to do what you need to do for good performance. If you come back with results, you get more buy-in for SEO. It's a cycle that you need to start at some point, and you need to invest the time to make it happen."

You can find Kerstin Reichert over at SeedLegals.com.