Battling it out in the SERPs with your competitors is one thing, but battling it out within your own company to get SEO tasks actioned is the real challenge in our industry. Rachel will talk you through how to prioritise and demonstrate the value of your SEO work in order to get tasks moved up the development queue, as well as receiving the buy-in your team deserves. In this session we will cover how to pick your battles for your SEO projects (and win them), building your case for presenting required actions, as well as how to get things done and prove both the results of your projects and the importance of SEO within your company.

1. Pint-Sized Marketing Meetup
Rachel Costello, Technical SEO
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
THE TOUGHEST BATTLES IN
SEO ARE INTERNAL
How to Prioritise & Demonstrate Value

2. Why do we still have to fight tooth and nail
for SEO?
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

3. SEO
a.k.a. Search Experience Optimisation
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

4. Today we do SEO work for the
user, not the search engine.
SEO continues to become more
connected to UX.
UX impacts every digital channel.
WHERE SEO FEEDS IN
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

5. WHERE SEO FEEDS IN
Page Speed
User Journey Optimisation
Keyword Targeting
Onpage Optimisation
Technical Improvements
Link Building
Content
UX
Paid Media
PR
Affiliates
Email
Social Media
Development
SEO Focus Business Area
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

6. SOME TRIED & TESTED
METHODS TO HELP
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

7. WHAT WE’LL COVER
Here’s what we’ll be discussing:
Growing your authority within a company
Streamlining your processes to get results
Building an impactful case for SEO buy-in
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

8. PICKING YOUR BATTLES
(AND WINNING THEM)
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

9. SEOs want to ask for everything because we
don’t have any real control over search.
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

10. @rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
ADVICE
FROM THE
EXPERTS
“Know when to let go
and concede on
smaller projects.”
“Be a team player
and build
relationships.”
“Establish yourself as
the go-to source of
information.”
“Be responsible for
education within
your company.”

11. Source: https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/tag/google-webmaster-central-hangout/@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

12. STREAMLINE PROJECTS &
PROVE RESULTS
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

13. Tips on streamlining your workflow...
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

14. PRIORITISATION
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

15. PRIORITISATION
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
- Maintain a top-down view
Create a map to visualise which projects feed into the
most tasks to identify the biggest wins.
- Calculate risks not just rewards
Quantify what can be lost if you leave an issue unfixed,
rather than what can be gained from new projects.

16. FORECASTING
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17. FORECASTING
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
- Allow stakeholders to visualise ROI
If stakeholders can attach a future return to the
investment you’re asking for, this is very compelling.
- Try forecasting tools to see what suits you
Basing future predictions on existing performance data
and measured opportunity to create realistic goals.

18. PROCESS
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

19. PROCESS
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
This should be split into:
- Technical SEO
A granular, page-level view, WoW changes, immediate
onsite fixes - this should be the foundational work.
- Tactical SEO
A big picture, long term view, seasonality, ranking
strategies - this should be additional work.

20. MEASUREMENT
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

21. MEASUREMENT
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
- The primary technical metrics:
Impressions
Click Through Rate
- The secondary tactical metrics:
Rankings
Traffic

22. REPORTING
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23. REPORTING
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
- A good dashboard can speak volumes
Try out tools like Klipfolio to collect all of the most
valuable metrics for your business together.
- Report on what you’re planning to to
Some of the most meaningful reports look forwards to
what you plan to action, rather than what you’ve done.

24. @rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
BUILDING YOUR CASE TO
FIGHT FOR SEO

25. What you need before you step into the
boardroom to fight your corner...
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

26. THE ELEMENTS OF A STRONG CASE
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
WHY? SEO Knowledge: Compile best practice advice1
HOW? Conversion Impact: Show the impact on customers
WHAT? Website Crawl Data: Your evidence
2
3

27. Google is a big name to have on your side.
Image Credit: Search Engine Land@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

28. Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
“Page speed is a ranking factor: really slow sites
won’t be shown prominently to users in search.”
EXHIBIT 1: SEO KNOWLEDGE
Source: https://twitter.com/googlewmc/status/1016276644321996800

29. Highlight what is failing on your site now.
Especially the customer’s journey to
conversion.
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

30. @rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
“When site load times spiked, so did bounce rates as
our customers abandoned the site.”
EXHIBIT 2: CONVERSION IMPACT
Source: Google Analytics

31. Gather data from
website crawling.
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

32. @rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
“Over ⅓ of all pages on our site take too long to
fetch, let alone load.”
EXHIBIT 3: CRAWL DATA
Source: DeepCrawl

33. LEARN ABOUT SPEED & UX IMPACT
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
Read our comprehensive Site
Speed & Performance Guide:
https://marketing.deepcrawl.com
/acton/media/31628/site-speed-p
erformance-white-paper

34. @rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing
WEBSITE
CRAWL DATA
SEO
KNOWLEDGE
CONVERSION
IMPACT If you can show
these 3 elements
for your project...

35. You’ll have a winning case and get the
resource you need to get the job done.
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

36. TO SUM UP
SEO is an incredibly valuable channel for a business but
this isn’t always communicated effectively. You need to:
Grow your industry knowledge and authority.
- Keep up with and share the latest developments internally.
Focus only on what’s most important in your process.
- Streamline SEO strategy and implementation at every step.
Build an impactful, airtight case to get buy-in.
- Where site conversion issues can be fixed with SEO work.
@rachellcostello PintSizedMarketing

37. THANK YOU!
Any questions? Send me a tweet:
@rachellcostello
PintSizedMarketing
deepcrawl.com @DeepCrawl