3 Methods To Best Optimize Scaled Content for Enterprise SEO

Optimal content strategy practices vary from business to business, with enterprise search engine optimization (SEO) being unique due to the sheer scale of such a project. Planning content clusters and implementing strict writing guidelines are the most basic steps to ensure this strategy’s effectiveness.

Below is an in-depth look at how to apply enterprise SEO tips to your content strategy, including:

• What sets enterprise SEO apart from other SEO.
• Challenges in applying enterprise strategies.
• Three methods to refine your enterprise content.
• How to establish effective content creation tactics.

There is a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

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Defining and Differentiating Enterprise SEO

The easiest way to tell an enterprise apart from other business types is to look at the scale of its operations. It offers a wide array of products and services and serves several locations, meaning its content pages rise to hundreds or thousands in almost no time.

In short, enterprise SEO deals with structuring massive websites and setting them up to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It requires a lot of foresight to optimize and specialized skills in digital marketing are a major determining factor in its success. 

Not just large companies benefit from enterprise SEO. Ecommerce websites benefit from it when the extent of their product pages exceeds hundreds. Most types of SEO cannot resolve issues such as link building on this scale.

Like other types of SEO (e.g., local SEO), enterprise SEO tackles a specific issue: creating strategies that optimize large websites for SERP visibility. Another focus is creating a website architecture that centers on user experience (UX).

Unique Challenges of Enterprise SEO

The main problem enterprises face is maintaining hundreds, if not thousands, of pages and optimizing them for SEO success. Ranking for the same keyword across multiple pages is not a suitable answer because it results in keyword cannibalization, which is a loss for you.

Ranking concerns include the issue of building coherent internal links among so many pages in a cohesive manner. It affects crawling and, more importantly, exhausts your website’s crawl budget if not monitored. Backlink building poses a similar issue of which pages to prioritize.

Though shortcuts for enterprises are few and far between, they do exist. Prime solutions include automating internal links and using tools built for enterprise needs. These chip away at budgets but are the fastest way to optimize hundreds of pages and reduce the chances of human errors.

Consistency and coherence are other challenges that enterprise content strategies have to manage, which is why extensive and strict style guides are necessary. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) complements it well, thanks to its ability to speed up content creation and topic research without harming quality.

3 Methods to Optimize Enterprise Content

To fully utilize enterprise SEO, it is best to start with the most obvious first step: setting realistic SEO content goals. That helps reduce the burden on financial resources and manpower while limiting the focus of every SEO effort. In short, it keeps everything running smoothly.

Part of setting achievable goals is adjusting strategies that might be too broad or lacking direction. Often, a simple shift in perspective is all that is needed to optimize content. Below are three actionable strategies that every enterprise needs in its SEO plan.

     1. Overhaul Your Keyword Strategy

The problem with recycling target keywords is that every page that uses a keyword chips away at the ranking potential of the others. More pages with the same keyword mean less traffic going to each one. That seriously hurts SEO efforts because it hinders critical ranking factors.

An easy way to circumvent this roadblock is to use more long-tail keywords in content. Using longer keywords allows your content strategy to expand without hedging all of your bets on the same word every time. Long-tail keywords are also generally best for matching buyer intent.

Going from “marketing software” to “small business marketing software” can be the difference between gaining 1,000 and 1,500 monthly visitors to your website. Long-tail search terms often have less competition and lower search volume. However, caution is required to pick the most efficient ones.

     2. Switch to Topic Cluster Strategies

In addition to being more selective with target keywords, changing your approach to content is a crucial step to better SEO. New search algorithms focus on UX and are incompatible with standalone blog posts and product pages. Cohesion is the best way forward.

Google and other search engines are now leaning more on UX in their algorithms, part of which is providing content relevant to human users rather than over-optimized for machines. Creating topic clusters around a core theme is the perfect solution for any enterprise.

This approach prepares content for internal links and also improves topical authority, which is a key SEO rank factor. Search engines want to display content that users engage with and are best suited to meet user needs. Topic clusters do this by making a library of exhaustive content.

     3. Apply E-E-A-T to Every Blog Post

Rounding off the best methods to optimize enterprise content is Google’s experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) rating system. Today, SEO favors content quality over quantity because it is the easiest way to ensure that users receive invaluable insight and solutions.

For instance, ecommerce websites cannot rely on hundreds of product pages alone to appear in search results. Given how easy it is to shop online, consumers are more critical of which brands to trust. This is where E-E-A-T becomes vital. Businesses have to create content that builds credibility and expertise.

An ecommerce retailer selling office supplies and equipment wanting to leverage E-E-A-T in its SEO could write a blog post comparing office chairs based on ergonomic design. That not only aids prospects in their decisions but casts the retailer as a reliable authority on office equipment.

How to Establish Effective SEO Practices

Choosing enterprise SEO strategies should come with a well-defined plan to keep it consistent. The last thing your strategy needs is to run into a fresh set of problems after implementation. Content is your best tool for driving traffic, so having an airtight process is important.

Below are five adjustments you can make to your strategy to improve the quality of any content that you publish and augment its SEO benefits. Each adjustment can stand alone and contribute greatly to SEO success, but they all provide a practical approach to optimizing your content.

     1. Assign Specialized Content Roles

A project on the magnitude of enterprise SEO relies on the effort of skilled team members working as a cohesive unit. Given the scale at which enterprise websites operate, the ideal content marketing setup looks like a factory assembly line, flowing smoothly one way.

Every person has a specific role that they focus on to efficiently apply their abilities. For example, asking writers to edit each other’s outputs only slows down the process and burdens them, putting a dent in their writing quality and quantity.

Instead, the best solution is to hire people to fulfill distinct, well-defined roles (i.e., writers create content, editors review articles, content managers oversee the process). That makes it easier to divide tasks and ensure that the entire team follows SEO practices at every step.

     2. Employ a Robust Oversight Process

Mistakes are inevitable in content creation, especially at the level of an enterprise. For instance, if a group of ten writers produces two blogs daily, that amounts to 20 articles for an editor to check. Aside from grammatical errors, broken links and weak sources are a real threat.

Managing the workflow and how quickly or slowly the process moves along is crucial in reducing critical errors that harm SEO. Placing checks along the way keeps everything in line and on par with quality standards. Meeting your team to clarify and align action items and goals also helps.

Using a centralized system to manage tasks and monitor the flow of work is another way to add oversight to content creation. Software like Asana and Monday.com provide additional avenues to gather valuable data on productivity and bring potential issues to your attention sooner.

     3. Establish a Style Guide for Writers

Consistency is a colossal concern in content strategies, and more so in enterprise SEO, which oversees page counts that are at minimum in the high hundreds. Content composition affects vital SEO aspects, such as having a unique brand identity and a seamless website UX.

Creating a style guide ensures a level of quality control, making it possible for an entire team of writers to produce content that maintains a cohesive brand voice and identity. A style guide is a must within SEO (i.e., optimizing and scaling content) because the content itself drives SEO. 

By laying out clear guidelines on what should be included or excluded, any content that you produce is already built to capitalize on search engine algorithms for maximum visibility. For example, using local cases in content boosts relevance in local searches, allowing it to rank higher there.

     4. Scale Entire Content Operations

Adapting content strategies (or digital marketing strategies in general) to current growth is not a simple or linear process. Take the buyer’s journey, for instance, which includes four stages. If your content strategy has four people writing articles, then scaling could mean expanding to cover all stages.

Delegating a specific stage to each writer is one way to scale content, but so would hiring a new writer to increase productivity. Adapting your oversight process and style guide to include all four stages of the buyer’s journey is also vital. Targeting new market segments also calls for scaling.

Throwing money at the problem (hiring more and more writers) is never the right way to resolve issues with optimizing scaled content strategies. Instead, incorporating solutions, such as using AI tools to aid in researching and drafting new articles, is the most sensible and effective response.

     5. Run Audits and Repeat Each Step

SEO is never a one-and-done strategy for driving online traffic. It has a shelf-life that depends on marketing trends, which tend to change over time. The top keywords also evolve as people’s search habits change. The current emphasis on long-tail keywords to match voice searches shows this.

This is why conducting regular audits is crucial to verify whether your strategy still works with enterprise SEO best practices. Failing to adapt to new trends greatly reduces the effect and value of SEO strategies. Audits also bring attention to stale or old content needing updates.

Running an audit, yearly at the very least, is a basic part of any SEO strategy. This keeps content in top form and stops you from falling behind competitors. Choosing the right platform or system to build your website makes this easier to apply even on the level of enterprise websites.

Summing Up

Optimizing and scaling content are essential practices for enterprises (or any business) because they help expose a brand to consumers on search services. However, it is not a simple process given the fast rate at which enterprise websites grow and the diversity of their content.

Taking the time to assemble a sensible and scalable content strategy, from keyword research to a style guide to topic clusters, makes all the difference in how well a website captures traffic. It can be challenging to manage, but the rewards in higher lead generation rates are well worth it.

Need help optimizing and scaling content for your enterprise? Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) to learn how we can help.