In today's corporate world organisational structure can be a big hurdle when executing an effective SEO strategy. But using a start up approach can work as the perfect SEO strategy that circumvents the silos created by organisational culture.

1. Small Thinking in a Big Organisation
How using a start up approach can work as the perfect SEO strategy

2. I’m currently the Director of SEO of Expedia EMEA
Who is Jose Truchado
But apart from that: I’m an entrepreneur, Executive
coach and Myers Briggs practitioner
I’ve spent most of my life building projects and
mentoring people, which means that I have a great
curiosity in understanding people’s behavior off-line
and on-line.

3. Small Thinking
Big Organisation
How going against
the company’s
culture worked well
for our SEO

4. Companieswantyouto:

5. Little room for
innovation
Buttheirwellestablishedprocessesaresocomplexthatthereis

6. Happening
inside the box
Andeverythingendsup

7. Start-up strategy
The
Successful start-ups have in
common their capacity to adapt
their product to the market needs
almost instantaneously

8. Change
Thechallengesof
Online marketing require constant
changes in strategies, constant
adaptation to the new resources
available and flexibility to adapt to new
circumstances

9. Knowing my team
Challenge1

10. I have the best team in the world

11. Myers Briggs
Tools
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an
instrument designed to evaluate people and
provide descriptive profiles of their personality
types. It's the most popular and widely used
personality-assessment tool of its kind in the
world, being administered annually to
individuals, including to employees of most
Fortune 500 companies

12. Know your team!
2
3
4
1
Guardians: Oscar
Project Management & Risk assessment
Artisans: Ronan
Design & Build
Rationals:
Jose, David, Roberto, Felix
Facts & Fi, gures
Idealists: Anna
Ideas, Vision
By knowing my team
members’ skills and
preferences I was able to
distribute tasks more
efficiently
DavidKeirsey’sTemperaments

13. The in-house team
In-house Collaborators
Local collaborators
Vendors
Team Structure & Headcount
Structure that allows us to achieve scalability
Having the correct
permanent in-house team is
pivotal to the success of the
campaign. A team that not
only knows the product well
but also knows the customer
that will consume the
product. This team defines
the strategy that needs to
be followed
Content writers, designers,
project managers all form
part of the SEO team that
work in ad-hoc projects
Social Influencers, local
experts and local
copywriters that are part of
the local market
Whether it’s about
distributing the content to
relevant media outlets or
developing companies for
ad-hoc projects they all play
a big role in the success of
the SEO campaign
In-house Team Responsibilities

14. The processes
Challenge 2

15. The lean start-up approach
↘ Be more innovative
↘ Flexibility to build, measure and learn
↘ Speed in implementation
↘ Be reactive to the market’s needs

16. Our “start-up” way of working
We created a new step in the usual process
We brainstorm
We execute
Measure results
We apologise
In order to be able to adapt to the constant changes in our strategy we had to circumvent several hurdles
created but the company’s culture and legacy of stiff processes that didn’t allow us to react in time.

17. Working in Silos
Challenge3

18. When KPIs are defined so
departments focus on their own
objectives without looking at what’s
going on outside their own projects
KPIs
We we are so focused in the ROI of
our own projects without looking at
the big picture, and how what we do
might affect the other areas of the
company
ROI
Well established processes hinder
spontaneity and the capacity to react
in a timely manner to the market’s
needs. It also creates
interdepartmental barriers
Process
People who spend significant time in
a single department or division often
develop loyalty to their immediate
group and distrust in the motives of
others, even if they are in the same
organisation
Loyalty
Silos
Thewordsthatcreate

19. vision
Organizational silos don't just appear
spontaneously. They're created by a mix of
mindset, culture, and process factors that
many associations share.
 Working in silos make any cross-platform ideas too far fetched as they involve
far too many stakeholders to get off the ground
 Opportunities are missed when information is not shared or it’s lost in processes
 People in teams can’t be developed to their full potential if they are limited in
things they can do within a content marketing strategy
 SEO, PPC, Social Media, Email, PR… what do they mean other than marketing
initiatives for brand positioning and customer acquisition.
0504030201
passion
creativeWorkingasaSilo,
whyshouldn'twe?
An efficient team believes in the
power of strategic design thinking
coupled with hands on execution and
is not limited by structures or
processes
 Think of overlapping actions as opportunities for efficient initiatives: i.e.
Blogger outreach helps both PR and SEO

20. PR is looking at brand expansion
and is trying to locate and collaborate
with influencers that will advocate for
the brand, in order to do so PR is
organising activities with a selected
group of bloggers that is getting
some attention from the media.
SEO is trying to cover a niche in the
market for which they have created a
new set of optimised landing
pages. They are doing blogger’s
outreach as part of their link building
initiatives. One of the things they are
offering bloggers is a new and very
interesting infographic
PPC team is looking at expanding
their campaign and improve their
efficiency, for which they need to
find a niche and create a set of well
optimised landing pages.
Email Marketing team is looking for
new interesting content that can be
included in the newsletters,
something that is not the same old
deals list, something that engages
the consumer into getting used to
opening the newsletter and
interacting with it.
PR
Contacts
Bloggers
SEOis doing
blogger
outreach
PPCNeeds
newlanding
pages
Emailneeds
interesting
content
Who needs who in the process
Savingontimeandeffort

21. Breaking the rules
Challenge 4

22. The rules that we broke
And we got into trouble for this…
Maximise
ROI
Scallability
Branding
Guidelines
Because as SEOs we are creating
content for users and not for
machines, scalability principles can’t
always be applied
Scallability
As SEO we had to try new content and
optimisation techniques without
proving their ROI first.
Maximise ROI
Brand guidelines tend to be very strict
and may clash with SEO on-page
optimisation techniques
Branding Guidelines
A pre-imposed structure and the lack
of flexibility for hiring temporary
workforce may hinder the creativity
and execution of projects
Team Structure
Team
Structure

23. Overachieving
Thepowerof

24. People
Wearefocusingoncreatingcontentfor
Not for robots! An approach that is
not scalable but allows us to be
closer to our audience

25. For the London Olympics we collaborated
with PR, Email Marketing and PPC to
produce a series of videos about attractive
places in London
The videos where subtitled in 9 different
languages and although in some countries
were more successful than others they
resulted in an average of 10 – 30
links from media outlets per
video
LondonVideos
Concept:
Date: 2012
Tourist Videos
London Videos
Cost: $400
Clients: 9 different Expedia POS
Services: • Link Building
• PR
• Email Content
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2BJqbmk5Dw

26. What my team & I have achieved
Expedia UK’s has increased it’s exposure in SE by 766%
345,086.00
976,733.00
1,266,712.00
2,643,214.00
1/1/10 1/1/11 1/1/12 1/1/13
Expedia.co.uk
Source: SEMRush.com
Was it worth it?... Yes!

28. http://about.me/truchado
Twitter: TruchadoSEO
Email: jose@truchado.com
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/josetruchado/
Instagram: joetru
Linkdex SEO Now 2014:
http://www.linkdex.com/resources/r/seo-now-2014-
ebook/
State of Digital:
http://www.stateofdigital.com/digital-marketing-teams/
Find me inThankyou