Challenges of Working In-House... Brighton SEO Autumn '21
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
0 likes•25 views
My presentation slides from my talk at the Brighton SEO Autumn 2021 event.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Challenges of Working In-House... Brighton SEO Autumn '21
Similar to Challenges of Working In-House... Brighton SEO Autumn '21 (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Challenges of Working In-House... Brighton SEO Autumn '21
- 1. The challenges of working in-house for a brand…and how to overcome them Andy Davies | Cartridge People SLIDESHARE.NET/ANDREWDAVIES85 @andydavies84
- 2. Who am I? SEO and Content Manager at Cartridge People. Manchester United, The West Wing.… Mason Mason (after Greenwood).
- 3. What is your job when you’re an in-house SEO Manager?
- 4. It’s not to be the best SEO Manager in the UK.
- 6. “Nobody gets paid in traffic.”
- 7. Nobody wants to look an idiot in a meeting.
- 8. Know where to look for answers Know your brand Know your products Know your market
- 9. Get the basics nailed early on...
- 13. Communication is the most important skill in SEO.
- 14. Good communication will help you… Get sign off on projects Implement recommendations Manage expectations Keep your SEO strategy on track
- 16. The 10% rule…
- 17. £ = add 10% £
- 20. Start pitching from the start
- 22. “Red Team” Ideas
- 24. Tell the business people how it’ll benefit the business
- 25. Tell the creative people how awesome it’ll be to do it
- 28. How Can You Get Recommendations Implemented?
- 30. The end goal is to get your changes and recommendations put live.
- 31. That’s it.
- 32. When things are dragging, try not to start nagging!
- 37. You can’t manage expectations without people knowing the full picture.
- 38. When the MD asks how an algorithm update is going...
- 40. October 2018...
- 41. It’s not good enough to deliver the news, deliver it and then tell them what you’re going to do next.
- 42. Be first with the news.
- 43. Think like a journalist, break the news first and you can control the story.
- 44. “It depends”
- 45. “I don’t know”
- 46. You will get found out.
- 47. Your job isn’t to know everything.
- 48. That’s management, being in control.
- 49. How to manage the worst question you get asked as an in- house SEO Manager…
- 50. “Hi Andy, what’s up with organic performance this afternoon?”
- 51. I mean…
- 52. Honestly…
- 54. @andydavies84
- 55. Count to 10...
- 56. Moving Your Strategy Forward
- 58. Enjoy it.
- 59. Get to know the people around you and how you can bring out the best in each other
- 60. “How can we do that… but better”.
- 61. “How do we stay number one?”
- 62. “Work as hard as if you were number two.”
- 64. Keep pushing.
Editor's Notes
- Away from work Joke about United The West Wing theme through presentation Mason
- Just read the slide
- Your job isn’t to be the best SEO Manager in the UK. I’ve never had an appraisal at the end of the year where I’ve had to sit an SEO quiz.
- The important questions you’ll be asked are: Revenue Orders Cash
- Tell the story. End on “because….”
- Read the slide
- You need to know SEO, yes. You absolutely have to know where to look for answers. But above all else you have to know your brand, their products and their market.
- Read the slide
- Being in-house means that you’ll have the opportunity to work closely with all of the departments, use it to your advantage.
- Find out the terminology of the products you’re looking to rank for, definitely find out what customers say about them and tap into the “team” you’re working in.
- It’s crucial to get to know the departments within the team and to see them as that. Don’t ever see it as “us and them”. You’ll hear it but if you let it take over how you view the commercial, dev and even other marketing teams then you’ll struggle later on with getting things done. Explain image.
- Read the slide
- Read the slide. Bullet point order: sign off on projects implement recommendations manage expectations keep your strategy moving forward.
- Communication vital for getting sign off on projects.
- Remember to use the 10% rule on projects
- anything you think you’ll spend, add 10%. *click*
- Anything you think you’ll achieve, take away 10%. *click*
- Trust me, this will seriously help you.
- For content campaigns, treat it as though you’re pitching to a journalist.
- Don’t send a voice note at 11pm on a Friday. When you think of the idea, make your plan clear.
- “Red Team” ideas for big projects you think you might have a hard time selling. From red teaming you can anticipate any problems and draw up what you’ll do.
- 4 clicks through the slide
- Read the slide
- Read the slide
- Read slide
- Agencies can carry out audits, make recommendations and when they’re not carried out say “why haven’t you done it” and almost blame the client. In-house you’ll do audits, make recommendations and if they’re not done, guess what, it’s still your fault! Agencies who are getting paid a monthly fee will get their recommendations carried out more quickly than someone who is ‘part of the furniture’.
- So how can you get recommendations implemented? Firstly, zero in on how you get that message across.
- If you’re speaking to devs, speak their language, but that doesn’t mean talk to them like you’re a dev. Often you’ll be asking for something to be done that you have no idea how to actually make the fix so don’t try and bullshit them. When I say “speak their language”, I mean talk to them in a way that you know will resonate. Don’t make it seem like you’re pointing out their mistakes straight from the off, again, you’re one team. Try and get to know what they like, if they’re into sports or gaming or a TV series and open with that before you get into asking them to do work to help your strategy. Perfect offices with SEO as the cornerstone of everything that goes on won’t need to do this, but in the real world, you have to adopt this approach. You have to play the game.
- The end goal is to get your changes and recommendations put live.
- That’s it. It doesn’t matter one bit if you got them over the line by submitting a 20-page brief or whether you said to a dev “…get this done by Friday and I’ll get the beers in after work”.
- Nobody has ever done a good job of something after being nagged to do it 50 times. As important as it is to get the work done, it also needs to be done well. So don’t hammer home the same message, think about your negotiating tactics.
- try and think of what’s in it for them and hone in on that.
- Build relationships and view other departments as an extension of your own team. Always tell them too how it helped your strategy, it’ll build trust for next time.
- Read the slide Soon into my job I was told by an external consultant and Brighton SEO speaking veteran that they’d never had to give bad news to a client.
- From there I had to walk into a meeting with the directors and tell them where we were and what I was going to do. I decided to tell the truth, the best thing I ever did.
- SEO can sound fluffy at times to directors and managing directors. They can see it as hopeful, not like PPC where it’s spend that, get this. “It depends” is usually met with a look that says “it won’t do”. For that reason, don’t try and bluff and throw in SEO terms to try and “sound” like you’re in control. Be straight up with key stakeholders. I repeated what I was told in that initial meeting and also repeated another agency’s suggestion that Cartridge People was a torched domain! I did that because you can’t manage expectations without people knowing the full picture. At that time, the business had to know what was happening and yeah it was a gut wrenching moment but you can’t always hide and hope.
- At that time, the business had to know what was happening and yeah it was a gut wrenching moment but you can’t always hide and hope.
- When you give bad news like that, and since when algorithm updates might not have gone our way, (like in October 18 *CLICK!!!*
- the crucial bit is what you say after.
- It’s not good enough to deliver the news, deliver it and then tell them what you’re going to do next. That doesn’t mean give a 12-point plan on how everything is going to be back to normal in a month. It can be something like “we’re looking at these areas, speaking to these people and working on a strategy when the picture is clearer”.
- The same applies to when there’s an algorithm update or you can see things starting to become an issue. Be first with the news. You should work to make sure that there’s never a scenario where a director or MD says “has there been an algo update”.
- Think a bit like a journalist, break the news first and you can control the story.
- “It depends” are two words SEO is never shy of using but don’t ever be scared of using these three words….*CLICK*
- “I don’t know.” Because trust me, if you don’t know and try and act like you do… *click*
- you’ll get found out. It’s fine to say you don’t know and you’ll go find out.
- Your job isn’t to know everything. If a question gets asked in a meeting, say you’ll look into it and when you know the answer, communicate it to the person that asked.
- That’s management, being in control.
- Read the slide
- Read the slide
- Pause then click
- Pause. This will be asked, many times, and whilst we know that it’s almost impossible to answer, you do have to try.
- Go to your ranking tools
- go to your SEO news feeds Look at Twitter check the site check for context (school holidays, weather)*click*
- Count 10 and then reply, explain that you’d need to really judge any drop over a number of weeks to get the full picture then sit back and wait till the exact same question is asked a month or so later. It’s hard, really hard. But done be arsey over it. Think about why you’re being asked, often it’s a colleague in commercial who’s panicking, it’s never personal and so take the time to explain it. If rankings are fine, show them they’re fine. Give them visibility of what’s happening (or what isn’t happening) and it’ll promote SEO to another person.
- Read slide Those are my hints and tips on what you can do in those areas and as a result then see your organic performance improve. They’re from my own experience and hopefully if you’re just starting in-house or even if you’ve been in that type of role for a while, there are things you can take away and use to help you.
- I’ll keep going back to communication though, its such an important part of SEO in general now that it shouldn’t be ignored. Be part of the bigger team and look beyond SEO. We’re lucky in SEO that we have transferable skills that can help other areas, don’t be scared to use them and get involved in conversations that aren’t just about SEO.
- Enjoy it. It can get lost in the world of SEO twitter and the success cases that are shared everyday but at the end of the day, and if you find yourself getting envious or even wound up about what you see then just ask yourself “what difference does it make to my life”. If competition are doing things, ask “how can we do that better”.
- Read the slide
- Don’t get caught in a mindset of trying to keep up with others, always think about how you can beat them.
- Sir Alex Ferguson once asked a sports psychologist how he should keep United as the number 1 team in the country.
- He was told “work as hard as though you were number 2”.
- Important to remember Challenge yourself and other to keep working hard to improve
- Keep pushing. Embrace the challenge and enjoy working with who you work with.
- You’ll be amazed what you’ll achieve when you’re one team working towards something rather than trying to do it all on your own.
- Recommend you check out Kristina Azarenko article