The document discusses the challenges faced by VMware as it grew exponentially, including a lack of site integration, data/analytics reporting, and siloed web efforts. To address these, they took a simple approach of auditing, standardizing naming conventions and governance, educating teams, and creating quick wins. This included cleaning keywords, aligning groups, and partnering with other teams. A small pilot proved successful, and roadshows were used to communicate SEO's value and share results, leading to reduced 404 errors, increased indexing, and presence for competitive terms.

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Adam Souza, Sr. Manager – SEO, Digital Marketing
Creating Calm Amongst the Chaos

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The VMware Story
Small startup now
large enterprise
Exponential growth in
revenue + employees
Website expansion
across 37+ languages
and countries

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With Growth Comes Challenges
 Lack of site integration (hundreds of microsites,
campaign landing pages, corporate sites, regional sites,
etc.)
 No common data/analytics reporting engine
 De-centralized web efforts (Silo Effect)
 Launch, Launch, Launch (product paralysis)
 SEO more as an afterthought

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Solution: Start Simple, Get Organized
• Housekeeping/auditing
• Standardize – Naming conventions/governance
• Test and validate
• Educate extended teams
• ‘Programatize’
• Create some ‘quick wins’

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Housekeeping/audit
Challenge:
 Thousands of keywords
(mickey mouse amongst other garbage terms for our industry)
 Unclear keyword groupings
 Governance lacking (404s, alt tags, etc.)
 No uniformity to dashboards/reporting
 No clear ownership
Clear out that
Garbage!
We optimized for ‘Mickey-Mouse’?

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Quick Win: Naming Standards and Governance
Keyword Groups Page Groups
• Created clear Naming Conventions
Guidance document
• Aligned KWGs with Page Groups
• Logical/Scanable groupings
• 20% of keywords deleted (clean DB)
BEFORE
AFTER

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Challenge: The Need for Collaboration
 Lots of interest in SEO
 No single point of contact
 Siloed efforts
Digital Marketing
Global Campaigns
Support
Product Marketing
W
W
W

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Quick Win: Office of Search
 Partnership with our paid search team for alignment
 Inserted into appropriate staff and project meetings
Digital Marketing
Global Campaigns
Support
Product Marketing
Search
team
alignment
(SEO/SEM)
WEB PROPERTIES

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Challenge: Selling Your Value to the Business
Trusted foundation (audit/cleaned house)
Created naming conventions/governance
Introduction to extended teams/stakeholders
TEST THE WATERS! – RUN A PILOT

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Quick Win: Ranking Where Previously Absent
Small pilot proved successful
by partnering with:
• Product Marketing
• Social Media (Blogs)
• Content Strategy
• Paid Search
VMware SEM and SEO Coverage on Google
VMware ranks for 2 key
competitive phrases. Previously
VMware was not present on page
1 organically or via Paid Ads

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Roadshow! Become the Company SEO Evangelist
3 most important things to communicate:
- Why SEO is valuable to their business
- Share your use case or pilot results
- Share in the excitement of the opportunity, show how you
can work with them to move the needle

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Results
Through this methodology and program approach we saw
within several months a few key success metrics:
 Housekeeping/auditing results:
 50% reduction in 404 errors
 Page indexing increased by double digits
 Pilot results: Increasing presence around competitive terms previously
left unranked
 SEARCH now involved in content creation, site updates, planning

13. Practical Takeaways
@brightedge #share15
 Start small, establish some quick wins
 Understand and build a trusted foundation
 Trust your data, be able to speak to the ‘why’
 Leverage your success to the business