I spent the first couple years of my SEO career in the B2C arena and everybody wanted and needed SEO to establish their presence online. Individuals really understood that they needed SEO to make an impression on the internet. A few years later, I moved into a predominantly B2B market and the love for SEO just wasn’t there as much.
Many of the larger companies that I have worked with tend to think that they are already big enough when it comes to online brand awareness or that their new micro-site is aimed at such a small, focused group of consumers that they don’t need SEO.
Large companies tend to have marketing messages and branded material that they’ve used for years and they’re not very interested in having someone else write the content for their new website. Nine times out of ten they do not even take into consideration that the web is an entirely different medium then what they’re accustomed to writing for.
Granted, most consumers aren’t going to search for “luxury automobile” and then suddenly remember BMW, but what if I asked them to name 10 of the top department stores? Of course they are going to be able to name at least 10, but are they going to name your company?
One of the biggest challenges that I have faced is trying to educate marketing departments on the fact that not everyone thinks the way they do. As SEO’s, keyword research is usually our first indication that the general public thinks and talks about their company in a slightly different way than industry professionals.
Show Them Results
One of the best ways I have found to convince larger corporations that they need SEO is to actually show them with results how much better their pages can perform on the search engines.
- I usually start off with baby steps: by recommending that I rewrite just one of the website’s existing pages, I can usually avoid major hurdles with corporate approval and extensive edits. Ideally for this experiment, you’ll want to keep that existing page online to show them later how much better your new page is performing.
- Optimize the page to the best of your ability and send as many links to it as possible. Don’t forget to focus on factors that can help drive conversion to really make the most of your test page.
- In a few weeks, your new page should be ranking higher than their existing page, and it should be performing better with users as well.
- Show the results to your client and continue explaining the benefits of SEO as part of a comprehensive online strategy.
In these tough economic times it can be hard getting a client to sign up with SEO when they already have established brand awareness and respectable online exposure. Lure them in with small one or two page additions to pique their interest and you can prove the value of SEO by letting your results speak for themselves. Even though they might be doing well, they can always improve their rankings.
What about you? What are some other ways you have convinced large companies to get into SEO?
The guest post is by Drew Stauffer of Alibi Productions: Design Development & SEO.
Nice article. How are some ways I can show results for a before and after SEO’d page?
@ Joe
I would look at your analytics for a lot of your clues.
1) is the new page performing better than the old one (top content)
2) is the new page being found for your new keywords
3) you could even look at the bounce rate of the new page compared to other pages
4) on Google…is the new page appearing higher in the rankings than the old page
These are just a few suggestions, but there are really numerous ways you could shine a positive light on your new page.
I’ve managed to get the B2B I work for to believe in SEO, now they’re obsessed with keyword positions. Beware you don’t create a monster!
I’m trying to get them to do social marketing now. If you think SEO is fight, wait till you say you want users to create content, not marketing…
I have a client who really are too big for SEO. In their industry, there are only really 5 companies who do what they do, and all are global players.
The volume of traffic they get is quite high, incredibly specific and targeted. Anyone who needs to know who they are already know, so SEO is just a needless indulgence to them.
And I have to agree with them. However, the mechanical SEO is essentially borne out of good design principles and accessibility, which is the angle I’m coming from.
That alone is worth their time because it’s mandatory by law…
That’s a good tip Drew, thanks.
There’s nothing like data to prove a point, and by working on just one or two pages you don’t run into a wasted, massive time suck if the client still isn’t interested.
Drew-
I have this same conversation all the time with my clients, who are primarily larger brands. Initially they’re happy seeing traffic and revenue from branded terms, and don’t really see what the fuss over non-brand terms is about.
What I find helpful is showing them the interest level in non-brand terms using tools like Google Insights, search volume from the Google Keyword Tool, and then show them how they stack up against their competitors for those competitive non-brand terms. It is usually an eye-opening exercise.
As far as content creation goes, I usually provide samples of copy and rely on teaching best practices related to content to get them pointed in the right direction. Then it’s a matter of being a tutor to their content managers.
I do agree that brands can be their own worst enemy and I have seen many successful companies get caught up in the minutiae of guidelines and miss huge opportunities. When that happens, I encourage them to consider pursuing those valuable phrases in paid search!
Sometimes it just pays to be small I guess.
For a long time it amazed me how so many big brands were clueless to the value of the web, let alone SEO. Then one day I realized that it’s almost always because they’re so entrenched in 20th century marketing. So it’s a cultural issue in many cases.
Your idea to offer starting with just one page is brilliant! Never thought of that til now…