Human Difference in Building a Great Enterprise SEO Strategy

You have built a successful company from the ground up. Your products and services are top-notch, and your employees are talented and dedicated. The organization hums along like a well-oiled machine.

Why is it that your website is not ranking well in search results? The culprit likely has less to do with content and backlinks and more to do with people.

An expert enterprise SEO agency acknowledges the “human difference” in successful optimization. It is the most vital in the following:

• Buy-in from leadership.
• Communication that promotes a cohesive strategy.
• Deep understanding of customers.

How do all these elements work together to achieve it? Read the article below. Let’s go!

Want to learn more about the Digital Authority Partners approach to SEO? Watch this video!

Getting Buy-in from the Top Down

For search engine optimization (SEO) to succeed, it must have the full support of company leadership. As the head of a large organization, you set the tone and strategy that others follow. If you prioritize it, your marketing, tech, and product teams will too.  

Look at Starbucks as an example. CEO Kevin Johnson has spoken publicly about the importance of omnichannel customer experiences. This focus transforms the coffee chain into a leader in mobile ordering and payments. The brand even created a special role, VP of Global Coffee and Digital, to bridge digital innovation with its core business. 

How about Salesforce’s approach? CEO Marc Benioff is a huge proponent of “learning to learn.” This agile approach means that the company adjusts its processes, including marketing, based on what works. With a C-suite head being open to constant improvement, Salesforce’s teams feel empowered to evolve their strategies over time. 

Leadership buy-in is even more critical as companies grow. Walmart’s Doug McMillon updates the ecommerce experience to attract new markets. Such a huge enterprise would have remained stuck without this push. 

McMillon’s digital advocacy also compels Walmart to acquire digitally native brands. In addition, it strengthens its omnichannel capabilities and SEO. These are all critical steps in staying competitive against equally big retailers, such as Amazon.

How do you encourage leadership buy-in for SEO in your organization? Consider these ideas:

• Promote the importance of SEO at shareholder meetings. Prepare a presentation showing the business impact of higher rankings and organic traffic. Use concrete data on how optimization lifts revenue and improves brand visibility. Tailor the pitch to shareholders’ interests.
• Allocate an adequate budget for organic growth initiatives, such as content creation and technical SEO. Outline the expected returns. Compare against other marketing channels to demonstrate the strategy’s value.
• Set clear quarterly or annual goals for organic traffic and keyword rankings. Define targets by priority keywords and landing pages. Track progress through monthly reporting. Tie SEO metrics to executive incentives to motivate leadership engagement.
• Get involved in SEO training, audits, and strategy planning. Understand the details and challenges. Ask team members for ideas and feedback. 

The lesson is clear: company leaders must be vocal SEO advocates. This top-down buy-in creates a culture where optimization thrives across departments.

Developing Effective Communication across Silos

The marketing team builds links and writes content all day. However, it still represents only a part of the digital marketing strategy. Truly effective enterprise SEO requires ongoing communication and collaboration across departments. 

Microsoft provides a great case study. Historically, the company operated in rigid silos. Under CEO Satya Nadella, it tore down walls between groups. Besides reducing hierarchies, it now encourages engineers to talk to other departments. These steps help the brand’s core teams identify threats and opportunities to quickly act on them. 

Apple also emphasizes cross-functional collaboration to bolster its strong organic presence. For example, CEO Tim Cook maintains the late Steve Job’s tradition. He schedules a 9:00 a.m. Monday meeting for all its top executives to discuss the firm’s biggest problems. 

Even a behemoth such as Amazon finds ways to collaborate. The company is well known for enabling two-way communication between technical and non-technical teams. This allows seamless sharing of insights that improve SEO and user design.

To instill the same collaborative culture, encourage teams to actively share insights, data, and ideas. 

• Marketers should regularly brief product developers on buyer needs and behavior. 
• Tech specialists should update marketing on website enhancements. 
• Sales must provide real-time feedback on what resonates with customers. 

Break down long-standing company silos with transparency. Create centralized databases and file-sharing systems to make information accessible. Design secure internal communication platforms with enterprise mobile app development. 

Eliminate need-to-know attitudes. Default to openness with data and educate all employees on broader company operations. Most of all, celebrate shared wins and organizational successes. Highlight how various departments contribute to the big picture. Develop incentives for cooperation, not just individual accomplishments.

Killing silos helps your company become more innovative, creative, and strategic in developing SEO marketing campaigns.

Truly Understanding Your Customers

At the end of the day, search engines are not the ones buying your products and services. Your customers are. You will fail to market effectively if you do not know them well. 

This is especially true with SEO. A lack of audience knowledge results in skewed keywords and messaging. Worse, it attracts the wrong customers.

Companies such as Nike excel at truly understanding their core markets. The 50-year-plus shoe brand uses advanced data analytics to study customer behaviors, motivations, and preferences. Then, it uses the information to create tailored content around buyer journeys. Nike even looks outside its target segments to discover emerging trends that inspire new products. 

The Swedish furniture company Ikea has improved its market value by offering interior design services. It trains over 8,000 employees to become advisers and taps Billie, the chatbot, to answer common queries.

These steps allow the brand to use artificial intelligence to streamline customer support, enhance the overall user experience, and collect valuable data for actionable insights. Most of all, they upskill workers to prepare them for future marketing trends. 

An enterprise SEO agency marries the art of human attentiveness and the science of analytics through the following:

• Employing skilled content strategists to craft compelling copy that targets both user intent and search algorithms. 
• Working with subject-matter experts, such as fractional CMOs, to learn more about the industry and translate the knowledge into strategic SEO opportunities.
• Conducting in-depth user research via interviews and surveys to grasp the customer journey.
• Designing analytics dashboards that track quantitative metrics and qualitative metrics.
• Relating rankings and traffic data with business goals and target audiences.
• Balancing proven SEO best practices with testing custom innovative ideas.
• Keeping the focus on long-term visibility gains rather than quick transactional wins.

Although AI supports enterprise SEO at scale, human intelligence is still irreplaceable. It is vital for interpreting data, strategizing creatively, and ultimately driving growth through search. 

Summing Up

While growing, do not lose sight of the human element that makes great SEO possible. Model leadership that values digital transformation. Foster connections across teams and deeply know your customers. These distinguish between an okay strategy and a great one.

Do you need advanced optimization support? Digital Authority Partners (DAP) is an enterprise SEO agency that effectively balances human ingenuity and technological capability to grow complex organizations. 

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.