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Building an Integrated Marketing Solution with SEO
STEPHANIE CHANG
Understand a Company’s Key Business Values
Example: Maintaining Brand Image
A brand is a person’s feelings about the company/product/service
http://www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap
Likewise Being Off Brand
Can feel like a company is breaking their promise, which results in decreased trust
Especially for larger, more established companies
SEOs must absolutely understand brand considerations
Image Credit: Portent
Otherwise they risk
the relationship they have with the company = no changes made and no value created
This includes everything from
Keyword Research
to Content Creation
(especially when creating on-page content or content for PR)
to Content Design
Example: a modern, fashion-forward company might not want to promote fun/cute-looking content
Because that’s not the company’s
key target audience
It’s Your Job as a SEO to ensure
that you have a full understanding of all brand considerations before you start anything
http://moz.com/rand/domain-bias-why-branding-search-marketing-cannot-be-separated/
Ask these type of questions
to ensure you have full understanding of a company’s brand considerations
What is the mission/vision of the organization?
What are your company-wide initiatives for the year (including development, redesigns, etc…)?
Can we gain access to your company’s brand guide and style guide?
Who approves the posting of new content to the blog?
Who approves the creation of new page types?
Doing so builds trust, while
creating opportunities to move up the organizational chain and get buy in for bigger projects
Case Study 1: Fashion Brand
Company came to us for a very short-term, defined project
with tight deadlines & relatively limited access to teams
Their brand was their number 1 priority
They were willing to risk organic search traffic numbers in order to fulfill brand considerations
All recommendations for this company
were extremely tailored (like keyword research) and not based on what’s best for only SEO
Although SEO quick wins were not achieved as a result,
ultimately the client’s trust was earned. Your goal is to meet and exceed expectations.
And we became the company’s go-to SEO company
While also gaining access to additional teams and negotiations for larger projects, such as
Helping the company develop a brand new site
that would integrate several teams (PR, social, content, retail) to provide a consistent online UX
Stake Holders
Understand a Company’s Needs
Ask questions until you have a clear understanding of the company’s
Business Goal• Increase Sales
Business Strategy• Target mommy
bloggers looking for a bargain
Marketing/Communication Goal
• Create awareness among mommy
bloggers
KPIs (long-term/short-term goals, metrics, soft benefits) and internal governance processes
When you do, outline a strategy that
directly addresses the company’s key needs and existing processes
http://www.slideshare.net/juliancole/what-is-digital-strategy-14637370
Always recommend the right strategy
regardless of how difficult the solution may be
Even if it feels like you aren’t getting
anywhere keep edging your way in the right direction
With a clear risk/reward assessment
that will make it easy for the company to say “Yes”
Case Study 2:Job Search Site
The Problem: Legacy Site
The company’s site structure/UX had not changed in over 10 years
Technical issues
Duplicate content across multiple URLs, poor UX to users who land on expired job listings, etc…
www.example.com/jobs?city=5&marketing=6www.example.com/jobs?marketing=6&city=5
Proposed Strategy
Redesign of site to ensure that only 1 URL existed for each job search facet combination
Priority:
Create a single URL using each parameter as a unique identifier
This means parameters with the same combinations need to
appear in the same order each time
The Result
Company has agreed to dedicate 6 months of development resources to improve URL structure with full integration from marketing teams,
analytics teams, product managers, and access to Directors
Selling Your Ideas Into the Company
Once you have the initial buy in for your strategy,
provide the company with data that they didn’t already have to meet their goals
This can be in the form of market research or gap analysis
which will make subsequent marketing implementations more efficient and accurate
Case Study 3: B2B Company
The Problem
Consistent leads from organic traffic, but no long-term strategy for sustained and improved growth
Stephanie Chang@stephpchang
Adria Saracino, Head of Outreach at Distilled
“In the future, content marketing will become more
strategic.
We’ll start front-loading the planning with extensive
customer research to make informed decisions and not
making content as marketers and calling it ‘content
marketing’.”
The Strategy
Used market information, customer research, and existing assets to develop a content strategy
Customer Surveys and Interviews
Results: 917 responses or approximately 50% of customer email list
Content Funnel + Metrics
Assess existing assets using qualitative + quantitative metrics
Awareness
Trigger
Search
Consideration
Buy
Stay
Consumption Metrics
Share Metrics
Lead Generation Metrics
Sales Metrics
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing-2/the-4-types-of-content-metrics-that-matter/
Findings
Content was disorganized and duplicated with too much emphasis on sales and retention. Few pages resulted in
conversions.
Output: On-going content plan + creation of an internal governance process for all on-
page content
Work gained the attention and subsequent collaboration of the Senior Marketing Director, Product, Customer Experience, Social
Media, and PR Teams
“Create Relevant,
Purposeful Content.”
