Enterprise SEO: Simple Guide to the Absolute Best Practices

Expanding your market share in a cutthroat digital market is challenging. Changes are constant, and the scope is immense. You invest significantly in your campaigns, but so do your competitors.

The secret to an engaging, impactful online presence is a well-planned enterprise search engine optimization (SEO). This article discusses the topic extensively, covering the following:

• Unique challenges of the marketing tactic.
• Best practices in enterprise search.
• Steps in creating your SEO strategy.

We have a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes. Let’s go!

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

Enterprise SEO: Special Issues and Challenges

Enterprise search engine optimization differs from general SEO, especially in scope. Strategies must align with the needs and goals of large-scale businesses. Because the structure is more complex, attention to nuance is vital.

Getting business SEO right demands a firm understanding of what makes it unique. The following explains its distinct features:

• Large-scale website management: Enterprise websites are typically as large as the companies that own them, often containing thousands of pages. Optimizing all of them for search engines is a complex task.
• Coordination across teams: A single team cannot handle the entire enterprise search campaign. Instead, you need input, data, and feedback from sales, customer support, marketing, and information technology. Coordinating all efforts is another big challenge.
• Brand consistency: Maintaining a consistent brand message in massive campaigns is tricky. Imagine modifying hundreds of pages to align with your brand voice.
• Legacy content: A large website most likely has obsolete content that needs updating to meet the current SEO and content marketing standards.
• International search optimization: Many enterprises are global, which means they need international SEO. This involves optimizing content for different regions, languages, and cultures, adding another layer of complexity.

More issues are distinct to enterprise search, but the ones discussed above are the most relevant. Understanding these helps you remain competitive online.

The Absolute Best Enterprise Search Optimization Practices

Every enterprise is unique. The best SEO plan depends on its goals, target audience, resources, and market share. However, it usually includes the following best practices:

     1. Efficient Growth

Although enterprises have bigger budgets to run aggressive marketing campaigns, efficient resource use still matters. Doing this increases profits, decreases value capture, reduces costs, and provides more room for growth. 

Efficient SEO involves fixing simple technical SEO issues, choosing keywords based on user intent, and improving high-performing content to boost its ranking.

A multinational retailer might also streamline search optimization by automating meta tag updates across hundreds of pages, identifying duplicate content, and analyzing mobile site performance. 

     2. Leverage Forecasting to Prioritize Efforts

Data fuels business success online. Besides tracking current performance, use historical data to anticipate trends and prioritize SEO based on potential market changes, resources, and competition.

Consider a healthcare company dealing with a significant website traffic loss following an algorithm change. To avoid the same problem in the next update, it uses predictive analytics to identify which pages are at risk. The data reveals that seasonal pages are the most vulnerable.

Together with an expert digital marketing agency, they reduce the impact of future updates by creating evergreen articles, planning a year-round social media engagement, and implementing dynamic content.

     3. Prepare for Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE)

SGE is integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into search. Although it is still in the testing phase, its adoption is imminent. As of November 2023, users in over 100 countries have experienced it when doing Google searches. 

Enterprises that fail to adapt to SGE will likely see a massive drop in traffic and ranking. Avoid this scenario with these tips:

• Improve content quality. SGE indirectly influences ranking, with quality content taking higher positions and getting more exposure in the search results. Write diverse types of relevant, valuable copy.
• Monitor AI-generated summaries. Google uses AI to summarize web content. Monitor how the search displays yours. Doing so helps you refine the copy.
• Invest in AI and machine learning expertise. Now is the best time to include AI content experts in your team. They are better capable of understanding SGE and helping you align the marketing plan to this change. 
• Double down on other SEO tactics. Improve UX and comply with industry regulations about online marketing. 

SGE readiness is crucial to enterprise search engine optimization. It either sustains your growth or puts you behind competitors. 

     4. Focus on Search Visibility and Share of the SERP

Because of their scale and audience reach, large companies need significant search visibility so that users can discover their many products and services. 

Traditional SEO often focuses on ranking high on targeted keywords. Although it still works in enterprise search, large companies require more. For example, they need to expand the space they occupy on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

These businesses need to secure multiple positions, featured snippets, and knowledge panels for several of their listings. A hotel chain benefits more from SEO when it belongs to various local map packs. At the same time, an ecommerce site widens its reach by optimizing product pages for organic and image searches.

     5. Explore User-Generated Content (UGC) Opportunities

Many enterprises have a large volume of user-generated content (UGC). This type of copy supports business SEO in the following ways:

• It provides diverse content types that help target multiple keywords and user intents.
• UGC is a form of social proof, building consumer trust and influencing purchasing decisions. Both indirectly contribute to improved search engine rankings.
• It enhances engagement metrics by lowering bounce rates and increasing page views and the time spent on the website. 
• UGC offers fresh, timely, and relevant visual and written assets. 
• It fosters brand loyalty and builds communities. 

UGC helps expand your customer base, improves your relevance, lets you adapt to consumer changes, strengthens your credibility, and enhances online marketing strategies. This makes it a valuable addition to your enterprise search strategy.

     6. Invest in Good SEO Software

Another best practice is investing in useful SEO platforms to effectively scale campaigns. Such tools automate tasks and streamline workflows so the team spends more time on other high-impact business activities. These include product development, conversion optimization, and branding.

Take, for example, a global financial services firm that needs help managing its large-scale web presence. Eager to improve its website, the company invests in advanced optimization tools for site audits and competitor analysis. The data reveals areas of improvement and provides recommendations to simplify website management.

     7. Target Striking Distance Keywords

An underrated enterprise search optimization tactic is targeting “striking distance” pages. These types of content are close to securing a higher rank or even the first position but require further optimization. This approach maximizes their visibility and promotes efficient SEO because they likely need only a few tweaks to perform better. 

Consider an online furniture store that seeks to boost its overall visibility and traffic. They examine product page rankings on the second page for key search terms. They then optimize those pages by improving the content and enhancing internal linking with striking-distance keywords. The result includes 5% of the product pages appearing on the first page for their targeted terms.

Steps in Creating an Enterprise SEO Strategy

Now that the best practices have been discussed, how do you integrate them into your plan? Here are steps to building an effective large-scale SEO strategy:

1. Perform an SEO audit. A comprehensive website audit determines your optimization performance. It also highlights technical issues, content quality, and UX.
2. Do keyword research. Research keywords extensively to identify your campaigns' most relevant, high-converting terms. Balance high-traffic and long-tail words and phrases.
3. Develop a content strategy that aligns with your target audience and keyword research. Focus on creating high-quality, helpful, and engaging copy.
4. Address critical technical SEO aspects such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, and website architecture. This improves crawlability, indexability, and UX. Good technical optimization also supports other online marketing strategies, including off-page and local search.
5. Enhance on-page. Optimize individual webpages with relevant keywords. Focus on meta tags, headings, and content quality.
6. Do off-page SEO. Acquire high-quality backlinks to enhance your site’s authority and search engine ranking.
7. Analyze your performance. Track key metrics such as rankings, traffic, and user engagement.
8. Update the strategy. Continuously refine your SEO strategy based on performance data and evolving search engine algorithms.

An enterprise has two options when planning and executing an SEO strategy: build an in-house team or outsource it. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

An in-house team understands your business better. Their focus is long-term, and their marketing approaches likely align with business goals. However, they are resource-intensive, and some need more training in SEO. 

An online marketing agency has broader expertise and experience. They are more cost-effective for specialized tasks, helping you scale. However, they are less familiar with your firm’s culture. Communication may also be challenging. 

A hybrid approach is advisable if you already have an in-house team but want to supplement it with external expertise.

Summing Up

Enterprise SEO solidifies your position online and helps you stay relevant despite the changing market and industry changes. However, it is also highly competitive. 

Hiring an SEO agency specializing in established businesses and huge websites makes good business sense. If you are ready to take on the challenge of enterprise optimization, contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) to schedule a free consultation.