Building a business from the ground up is a great opportunity to develop amazing content, disrupt, and embrace effective SEO. But what about established organisations - those with entrenched processes, legal teams, departmentalisation and small marketing teams? In the real world, large businesses don't change direction quickly or easily. Many organisations struggle to develop content strategies, implement technical changes, and embrace modern, integrated, effective SEO not because they don't want to or don't understand the opportunity, but because they can't. It's too big. Too complex. Too hard. So, as a consultant or in-house practitioner, how do you effect change and move the needle? We explore some practical, tactical hacks for getting things done in a world which struggles to live up to our expectations.

1. ORGANISATION
HACKING
bit.ly/organisationhacking

2. I don’t think that you can
take a ‘legacy’ organisation
and really, truly, integrate
SEO effectively.

3. So cheat.

4. Everybody

5. Jono Alderson
Head of Insight @ Linkdex
@jonoalderson
Collette Easton
VP Enterprise @ Linkdex
@gincollette
Tactical
execution
Organisational
Strategy

6. Our Challenges

7. Websites, platforms,
tech, CMS, IT, dev...

9. In-house...
It’s getting harder to effect change
without actually changing stuff

10. Agencies...
It’s getting harder to outsource SEO as a
stand-alone or compound service

11. We Struggle
Understanding
Content/campaign signoff
Technical improvements
Disruptive or real-world change

12. Legacy Organisational Structure
Departmentalisation

13. Some organisations can’t,
and never will, have a
content strategy.

14. You’re trying to do new,
complex things

15. You’re relying on
processes which don’t
exist
(many organisations don’t have mechanics
for any kind of structured change)

16. Has everybody seen this?

17. ...and this?

18. Yikes.

19. Opinion, experience &
entrenched behaviours.
So what can you do?

20. Strategies for winning

21. Don’t underestimate politics
It’s bigger than you,
and bigger than
SEO.

22. Stakeholder Impact
Hint: Individual,
human beings, with
goals, fears, and
motivations

23. The ultimate in change
management?

24. Stakeholder alignment
Start at the top
A CEO’s job is to be in
control. Frame your
language around this.
Talking in terms of
management and
competition makes it real
and familiar.

25. Stakeholder Persuasion
5:10 - 6:10 ish

26. Stakeholder buy-in

27. Create a plan

28. Some Tactical Thinking

29. Overcoming Objections
Anticipate, kill, and wow people.
Get off the defensive.

30. The biggest objection...
There’s a finite amount of this

31. Newsflash!
Budget holders don’t care about your campaigns,
Google, Pandas or links.
Show the numbers.

32. Removes opinion Nobody’s gonna’
challenge this! Compelling.Detail available
Show your working.

33. People struggle to maintain
an understanding of
complex concepts
Visualise it. “Can you do me a one-pager on that?”
means they struggle to grasp the
complete concept

34. Manages
objections!
Visualises a complex
concept
Tells a hard truth,
safely, with a solution

35. But also…
...focus on opportunity cost
Fear, greed and loss aversion

36. Lost salary for 2 months whilst finding a new job
X hours repairing social reputation, on an equivalent day rate of Y
20% pay cut to overcome hiring challenges x 18 months to recover
Total negative ROI = ???
What’s the ROI of not wearing
your trousers to work?
Trousers it is, then.

37. Equity is a sexy concept
...and equity loss is scary
Great language for
C-levels!

38. Join up your strategy
with your tactics and
metrics

39. Connect Objectives to KPIs to Tactics
bit.ly/digital-marketing-by-numbers
Objective Goal KPI Key Segments Performance
Be seen as
thought leaders
Get people reading
and engaging with our
blog
# > 2 minute, 60%
scroll visits to unique
blog posts (per month)
Category
Author
Post
Total daily applause
rate from all blog
content (rolling, daily)
Provide the best
customer service
in our sector
Provide great content
which answers to (and
pre-empts) user
questions and needs
% satisfaction rate
(rolling, monthly)
Site section
Page type
Author
Enable visitors to fulfil
their objectives
% task completion
rate (rolling, monthly)
Task
Persona
Full process here

40. Define what competitor
strategy looks like
Pretend you’re your
competitor. Articulate
their strategy in the first
person.
Back up with
supporting evidence
Highlight
weaknesses/opportunitie
s
...before pitching your own

41. Define what tactical success
looks like
...with specific outcomes
Manages
expectations

42. USPs suck
...and you can’t create them.
Unique value proposition
Create a UVP instead.

43. All of this can get quite complex...
...so make education a freemium commodity

44. Roadmaps
Reassuring(ly complex)
Reaffirms the
strategic context
of tactical
actions
Highlights enablers (and vanity requirements)

45. Complex
decisions
Visualising stops
back-and-forth
One sheet of paper,
every aspect,
requirements and
results
Having a
recommendation
reaffirms you
as the expert

46. ...aren’t really
for the techies.
Technical
Briefings

47. Practice with easy stuff
Change something
inconsequential, just to
stress-test the process*
*This will be a horrendous experience

48. Processes
Provides transparency
and reassurance
(any process is better than no
process)
Gentle reminder of
effort, skills and
decision-making
involved
Clear next steps
and owners, with
escalation
processes
Applies to simple
processes, too.

49. Play games to solidify understanding
Allows people to
safely admit that
they’re not the
experts Validates your
recommendations
& tactics

50. Entropy sucks
Relationships, businesses and services (d)
evolve

51. In Summary
Align your expectations & behaviour with
wider business needs

52. In Summary
Engage with stakeholders in their language,
in their world, in a way they understand

53. In Summary
Don’t oversimplify, but make it easy.

54. In Summary
We’re human; we struggle; make it easy to
consume, share, champion.

55. In Summary
Be transparent, confident, and in control.
People look for opportunities to object.

56. In Summary
Get the right people to tell compelling
stories in the right language, considering
the bigger picture scenario in a way which
pre-empts objections.

57. Thanks!