How to get your SEO work prioritised in-house. A look at how the different ways of working in-house can determine whether or not your SEO initiatives are implemented.

1. C2 General
How to get your SEO
work prioritised in-house
Maddie McCartney
#brightonSEO

2. C2 General
Non-agile
#brightonSEO

3. C2 General
#brightonSEO
SEO team
Dev team
Content
team

4. C2 General
#brightonSEO

5. C2 General
Agile
#brightonSEO

6. C2 General
#brightonSEO

7. C2 General
Only 5% of
companies
surveyed
globally
reported “No
agile use”

8. C2 General
Agile + SEO =
#brightonSEO

9. C2 General
What we’ll
learn today
#brightonSEO
What agile is and how it works
The challenges and
opportunities it brings for SEOs
Tried and tested ideas to help
you get your SEO work
prioritised in-house in an agile
environment

10. C2 General
What is agile?
#brightonSEO

11. C2 General
It’s a way of
working
#brightonSEO

12. C2 General
Based on 4 values
#brightonSEO

13. C2 General
People coming
together
#brightonSEO
Documented
processes
Value 1

14. C2 General
Something that
works
#brightonSEO
Something that’s
perfect
Value 2

15. C2 General
Work with the
customer
#brightonSEO
Design something for
them
Value 3

16. C2 General
Welcome change
#brightonSEO
Rigid plans
Value 4

17. C2 General
Agile manifesto
“While there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.”
https://agilemanifesto.org/
#brightonSEO

18. C2 General
How does agile
work?
#brightonSEO

19. C2 General
Many
frameworks
Scrum
Kanban
SAFe
#brightonSEO

20. C2 General
Squad [insert fun name]
#brightonSEO
Team Product
Owner
Scrum
Master

21. C2 General
The
Product
Owner
#brightonSEO
Manages and prioritises
the squad’s work

22. C2 General
The
Scrum
Master
#brightonSEO
Figures out how the team is
going to get the work done

23. C2 General
The team
#brightonSEO
Delivers the work

24. C2 General
Content
Designers
#brightonSEO
Expert
Capable
Capable

25. C2 General
Where are the
developers?
#brightonSEO

26. C2 General
#brightonSEO

27. C2 General
Cards
#brightonSEO
“As a [persona], I [want
to], [so that].”

28. C2 General
Cards
#brightonSEO
Epic
Feature
User story

29. C2 General
Epic
#brightonSEO
Technical
audit

30. C2 General
Feature
#brightonSEO
Improve site
speed

31. C2 General
User story
#brightonSEO
Fix redirect
chains

32. C2 General
Boards
#brightonSEO

33. C2 General
Sprints
#brightonSEO

34. C2 General
Ceremonies
#brightonSEO
Sprint planning
Standups
Sprint review
Retro
Refinement

35. C2 General
Sprint planning
#brightonSEO
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Sprint backlog
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Refined

36. C2 General
Standups
#brightonSEO

37. C2 General
Sprint
review
#brightonSEO

38. C2 General
Retro
•What worked well?
•What could be improved?
•What will we commit to
doing in the next sprint?
#brightonSEO

39. C2 General
Refinement
#brightonSEO

40. C2 General
#brightonSEO

41. C2 General
How can agile
make things
difficult for SEOs?
#brightonSEO

42. C2 General
Silos
#brightonSEO
SEO team

43. C2 General
Product Owners
don’t always have
an SEO background
#brightonSEO

44. C2 General
You don’t
prioritise the
backlog
#brightonSEO

45. C2 General
Focus on
efficiency and
delivery
#brightonSEO

46. C2 General
No results at the
end of the sprint
#brightonSEO

47. C2 General
What do we
do with our
audit?!
#brightonSEO

48. C2 General
We still need a dev…
#brightonSEO

49. C2 General
What are the benefits
of agile for SEO?
#brightonSEO

50. C2 General
Customer first
#brightonSEO
People Robots

51. C2 General
Takes us out of the SEO team bubble
#brightonSEO
SEO team
PPC
Site
architects

52. C2 General
We can estimate customer and business
value
#brightonSEO
Search volume Keyword difficulty Revenue forecast

53. C2 General
SAFe
(Scaled
Agile
Framework)
#brightonSEO
Demand
Discovery
Readiness
Build

54. C2 General
Collaboration
#brightonSEO
Team Individual

55. C2 General
The work goes live
#brightonSEO

56. C2 General
#brightonSEO

57. C2 General
Tips to help make
agile work for SEO
#brightonSEO

58. C2 General
Training
#brightonSEO

59. C2 General
Agile
courses
#brightonSEO
CSM (Certified Scrum Master) -
Scrum Alliance
CSPO (Certified Scrum Product
Owner) - Scrum Alliance
Agile Fundamentals - ICAgile
scrum.org
LinkedIn Learning

60. C2 General
In-house
SEO training
What is SEO?
#brightonSEO

61. C2 General
In-house
SEO training
Example of a piece of work
(from research to results)
that’s relevant to their
discipline
#brightonSEO

62. C2 General
In-house
SEO training
Practical exercise
#brightonSEO

63. C2 General
How are you going to market
your training?
#brightonSEO

64. C2 General
Align your Epics
#brightonSEO

65. C2 General
Ask for their calendars
#brightonSEO
Brand eCommerce PR

66. C2 General
Ask for their
priorities
#brightonSEO

67. C2 General
Ask to see their
sprint backlogs
#brightonSEO
Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Sprint backlog

68. C2 General
Share your SEO roadmap
#brightonSEO

69. C2 General
Find the forum to
share your SEO
insights and results
#brightonSEO

70. C2 General
#brightonSEO
Team
huddles,
chapter days,
PI planning
Video
roundup
of
results
Slack/
Teams
channels
Email

71. C2 General
Get support
from your
network
•Scrum Masters
•Chapter Leads
•Product Managers
•eCommerce Leads
#brightonSEO

72. C2 General
Documentation
#brightonSEO

73. C2 General
The SEO
work
request
form
Brief intro to how you can
help (increase organic
traffic, improve keyword
rankings)
#brightonSEO

74. C2 General
The SEO
work
request
form
Link to your board for
updates and collaboration
#brightonSEO

75. C2 General
The SEO
work
request
form
Request title
Main contact
Product/site area
#brightonSEO

76. C2 General
The SEO
work
request
form
Purpose/objective
KPIs
Any previous insights
#brightonSEO

77. C2 General
The SEO
work
request
form
Dependencies
Due date
#brightonSEO

78. C2 General
The
essential
brief
Keyword cluster
•Primary keywords
•Secondary keywords
#brightonSEO

79. C2 General
The
essential
brief
Content insights
•Featured snippets and content
formats
•Competitor content
#brightonSEO

80. C2 General
The
essential
brief
Metas and headings
•Meta title
•Meta description
•H1
•Sub heading guidance
#brightonSEO

81. C2 General
Copy checklist
Does the H1 on page make
sense with the context of the
content?
#brightonSEO

82. C2 General
Design checklist
Do images have alt text?
#brightonSEO

83. C2 General
Content checklist
Are there breadcrumbs in
place?
#brightonSEO

84. C2 General
Templates
#brightonSEO
URL Meta title
(Max 60
characters)
Meta
title
character
count
Meta
description
(Max 160
characters)
Meta
description
character
count

85. C2 General
Extensions
and tools
•Meta data plug-ins
•Inspect mode
•Incognito
#brightonSEO

86. C2 General
Work in agile
#brightonSEO

87. C2 General
Organise the SEO team by product
#brightonSEO

88. C2 General
Make time
to help
with the
delivery
#brightonSEO

89. C2 General
SEO agile board
#brightonSEO
1.New requests & roadmap items
2.Needs refining
3.Backlog

90. C2 General
SEO agile board
#brightonSEO
4.Doing
5.Sign off/With delivery team
6.Blocked
7.Done (Live)

91. C2 General
SEO agile board
#brightonSEO
8.Impact reporting
9.Results shared

92. C2 General
Consider becoming
a Product Owner
#brightonSEO

93. C2 General
#brightonSEO

94. C2 General
Key takeaways
#brightonSEO

95. C2 General
Agile + SEO =
#brightonSEO

96. C2 General
Collaboration
•All working towards the same 4
values and 12 principles
•Cross-functional teams decide
how the work will be
completed, together
•Shared responsibility for work
going live by the end of the
sprint
#brightonSEO

97. C2 General
Customer
first
•Focus on working with the
customer
•MVP
•Test and learn
#brightonSEO

98. C2 General
Value focus
•Backlogs prioritised by
business value
•We focus on the high impact
work
#brightonSEO

99. C2 General
Optimise
agile
processes
•SEO briefs still have a place
•Companies constantly refine
which agile practices work for
their business, both now and
for future growth
#brightonSEO

100. C2 General
Thank you
Linkedin.com/in/maddie-mccartney
Slideshare.Net/MaddieMcCartney
#brightonSEO