Thriving as an SEO Specialist: Frameworks & Tips to Manage Complex SEO Processes

#SEOSUCCESS BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WTSFEST

SEO is continuously evolving and becoming
 
more complex

It’s true that we have
now tools to help us
automate the SEO
process although
SEO is too complex
to entirely do it
HTTPS://WORDLIFT.IO/BLOG/EN/SEO-AUTOMATION/

… we also now have tools to proactively monitor to identify
SEO f*ck ups…
CONTENTKING AND LITTLE WARDEN

But then somehow there are always #SEOhorrorStories!
HTTPS://WWW.SLIDESHARE.NET/ALEYDASOLIS/THE-WORST-TECHNICAL-SEO-NIGHTMARES-AND-HOW-TO-AVOID-THEM

Better
user search
experience
and higher
retention and
growth
Shift and
sophistication
in user search
behavior
Search
algorithm and
presentation
improvements
There are more resources but search is more sophisticated…

Higher
SEO maturity
across most
profitable
industries
The
evolution of
Websites Tech
Stack (JS)
Growing
competition and
barriers to entry
…requiring more maturity to compete in a complex landscape

This only makes the SEO process more difficult to execute…
and achieve results
You need
to be able to
influence change
and align
multidisciplinar
y efforts
You need to
be agile to
identify always
changing
opportunities
You need to
be fast and
consistent to
move faster than
competitors

HTTPS://TWITTER.COM/ALEYDA/STATUS/1371100587849355264
And it seems that
I’m not the only
one who thinks this

It’s possible to minimize these challenges by also evolving our
SEO to be more competitive w/ 3 core characteristics
Be fast and agile
Influence to earn
support
Be consistent and
error free

Let’s see how by leveraging
 
principles and frameworks
 
that can be applied to SEO

Influence to earn Support?

FAST SITE
SPEED
STRUCTURED

DATA THAT SPECIFIES
CONTENT
MEANING
BACKLINKS INTERNAL LINKS
MULTIDEVICE
FRIENDLY
INDEXABLE
CONTENT
AUDIENCE
SEARCH
BEHAVIOR
RELEVANT,
COMPREHENSIVE TEXT,
VIDEO & IMAGE
CONTENT THAT
FULFILLS SEARCH
INTENT
CRAWLABLE
NAVIGATION &
CONTENT
SECURE
WEBSITE
NO INTRUSIVE
AND STABLE
LAYOUT
CONTENT EXPERTISE,
AUTHORITATIVENESS,
TRUSTWORTHINESS
PR/SOCIAL/CONTENT MARKETING
CONTENT STRATEGY/COPYWRITING/
CONTENT MARKETING/WEB
DEVELOPMENT
WEB DESIGN/WEB
DEVELOPMENT/DEVOPS
AUDIENCE RESEARCH / MEASUREMENT
POPULARITY
RELEVANCE
CRAWLABILITY & INDEXABILITY
On one hand, our recommendations impact and need the
alignment and support of many other areas for execution…

…on the other,
SEO needs
resources approval
from decision
makers who don’t
understand
technicalities but
about revenue

It’s hard. We’ve all
been there!

Use Robert Cialdiani’s 7th principle of
influence, “unity” to gain support across
areas and by decision makers
….

Cialdiani’s is a highly respected psychologist and best selling
author, that established 6 initial principles for persuasion
HTTPS://CXL.COM/BLOG/CIALDINIS-PRINCIPLES-PERSUASION/

HTTPS://CXL.COM/BLOG/CIALDINI-UNITY/
… he then added a
7th principle: Unity,
which is sense of
belonging. Use it to
influence change &
gain support, via the
most important
aspect we all share
and look to: goals

Establish your SEO goals by following a top-to-down
approach to connect and “unify" them to business ones
COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE COMPANY
Biz Goals
 
[What Decision
Makers care
About]
INCREASE 150% SALES FOR COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE BY REMOTE
PROFESSIONALS
INCREASE 400% TRAFFIC TO MID-BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL
CONTENT OF COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE FOR REMOTE WORKERS
GROW 250% ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC TO COMMS
SOFTWARE LISTINGS, COMPARISONS, REVIEWS AND
PRODUCTS PAGES
….
SEO goals
 
[What SEOs care about]
TAKE INTO TOP 3 POSITIONS OF CURRENT
TOP 10 FOR MID-BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL
QUERIES TARGETED BY SOFTWARE
LISTINGS AND COMPARISONS PAGES
 
TAKE INTO TOP 10
PILLAR PAGES OF
COMMS SOFTWARE
FOR REMOTE
PROFESSIONALS

… this will allow you to show the impact that your SEO goals
will have to the business ones, & why you need support
COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE COMPANY
Biz Goals
 
[What Decision
Makers care
About]
SEO goals
 
INCREASE 150% SALES FOR COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE BY REMOTE
PROFESSIONALS
INCREASE 400% TRAFFIC TO MID-BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL
CONTENT OF COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE FOR REMOTE WORKERS
GROW 250% ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC TO COMMS
SOFTWARE LISTINGS, COMPARISONS, REVIEWS AND
PRODUCTS PAGES
TAKE INTO TOP 3 POSITIONS OF CURRENT
TOP 10 FOR MID-BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL
QUERIES TARGETED BY SOFTWARE
LISTINGS AND COMPARISONS PAGES
 
TAKE INTO TOP 10
PILLAR PAGES OF
COMMS SOFTWARE
FOR REMOTE
PROFESSIONALS
….
1. YOU’RE TRYING TO GET THIS
2. TO OBTAIN THIS!

INCREASE 150% SALES FOR COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE BY REMOTE PROFESSIONALS
INCREASE 300% TRAFFIC & 50% CONVERSIONS OF MID-BOTTOM OF THE
FUNNEL CONTENT OF COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE FOR REMOTE WORKERS
….
The top-to-down goals should be also applied to other areas to
establish shared goals, showing why you need to collaborate
TOP-TO-DOWN SEO GOALS
Biz Goals
 
[What Decision
Makers care
About]
SEO goals
 
TOP-TO-DOWN CONTENT GOALS
INCREASE 150% SALES FOR COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE BY REMOTE PROFESSIONALS
IMPROVE KEY REMOTE WORK USER JOURNEY CONTENT
ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC BY 250%
INCREASE 300% TRAFFIC & 50% CONVERSIONS OF MID-BOTTOM OF THE
FUNNEL CONTENT OF COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE FOR REMOTE WORKERS
GROW 250% ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC TO COMMS SOFTWARE
LISTINGS, COMPARISONS, REVIEWS AND PRODUCTS PAGES
TAKE INTO TOP 3 POSITIONS OF CURRENT TOP
10 FOR MID-BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL QUERIES
TARGETED BY SOFTWARE LISTINGS AND
COMPARISONS PAGES
 
TAKE INTO TOP 10
PILLAR PAGES OF COMMS
SOFTWARE FOR REMOTE
PROFESSIONALS
IMPROVE KEY REMOTE WORK USER
JOURNEY CONTENT SOCIAL TRAFFIC BY 50%
Content goals
 
[What the Content
team cares about]
….
IMPROVE KEY REMOTE WORK
USER JOURNEY CONTENT
ENGAGEMENT BY 50%

Whenever asking for resources or support use the
 
unified goals to talk about what they actually care about
WITH DECISION MAKERS WITH OTHER AREAS [EG. CONTENT]

Also remember to
not only ask for
support and
resources, but also
share with them
your “unified”
results making all
involved areas part
of the wins too

Validate your SEO goals by using the SMARTER principles,
 
to ensure impact, meaningfulness & easier communication
SMARTER
Specific
 
[Significant]
Measurable
 
[Meaningful]
Attainable
 
[Action
 
Oriented]
Relevant
 
[Rewarding]
Time-Bound
 
[Trackable]
Evaluated
 
[Ethical]
Reviewed
 
[Rewarding]

“Grow 250% commercial organic search traffic by taking top
10 to 3 positions mid+bottom funnel queries in 1 year”
Specific [Significant]: Will allow to achieve the desired business goals (+150% sales)

Measurable [Meaningful]: Organic search revenue, traffic and rankings can be tracked

Attainable [Action Oriented]: You’ll have reasonable time to see results (1 year)

Relevant [Rewarding]: It will impact the relevant areas/sections to achieve sales goals

Time-Bound [Trackable]: It should be achieved during a specific time (1 year)

Evaluated [Ethical]: Its evolution will be assessed at the end of each month

Reviewed [Rewarding]: Its activities will be reviewed based on their impact

Run different forecast scenarios to verify attainability
 
(and different ways to achieve) your SMARTER goals
SEOMONITOR

Do you want to develop the forecasts from scratch yourself?
Take a look at these excellent resources!
HTTPS://MOZ.COM/BLOG/SEO-FORECASTING-IN-GOOGLE-SHEETS
HTTPS://ERUDITE.AGENCY/INSIGHTS/FORECASTING-FOR-SEO-
CREATING-EXPECTATION-AND-SHOWING-RETURN-ON-INVESTMENT/

In your communications use the “Genchi
Genbutsu” principle to gain support by
allowing others to “see for themselves”

The “Genchi Genbutsu”
principle means “go and
see… To understand a
situation one needs to
observe what is
happening at the site
where work actually
takes place”

Use it to gain support, when building a case or
recommending, like requesting budget to decision makers
SHOW THE SERPS AND HOW THE
OTHER PLAYER PAGE IS GETTING
THE TRAFFIC! SHOW HOW MUCH
THE TRAFFIC COSTS TOO

… if you’re talking with decision makers, always show the
impact to the bottom line of not being optimized
SHOW HOW YOU’RE LOSING MONEY WITH NON-OPTIMIZED
CATEGORIES COMPARING WITH OPTIMIZED ONES

Influence to earn Support!

Be fast and agile?

You have limited resources within a restrictive timeline to
release way too many changes! What do you do?

Use the Eisenhower matrix, a productivity framework to
prioritize tasks by categorizing using urgency and importance

IMPACT
EFFORT
1.

To Execute
 
Now
Don’t
Do
2.

To Assess
 
&
Prioritize
2.

To Assess
 
&
Prioritize
To maximize your SEO productivity use the same principle to
prioritize your SEO activities based on impact and effort

IMPACT
EFFORT
1.

To Execute
 
Now
Don’t
Do
2.

To Assess
 
&
Prioritize
2.

To Assess
 
&
Prioritize
Assess and prioritize those with high impact/high effort
 
and low impact/low effort
Recommendation Impact [1-10] Effort [0-10] To Prioritize Higher
Medium impacting with
high effort
6 4 12
Low impacting with high
effort
4 4 8
Low impacting with very
high effort
4 2 6
Very low impacting with
very high effort
2 2 4

What happens when you have activities that seem to have
similar effort and impact?

HTTPS://FS.BLOG/2016/04/SECOND-ORDER-THINKING/
Use second-order thinking to select the one that will ultimately
have more positive implications towards goals achievement

What will be the task
ultimate impact towards
the site functionality
and business beyond
SEO? Choose that with
the most positive one, it
will allow you to gain
easier support too
HTTPS://WWW.ALEYDASOLIS.COM/EN/SEARCH-ENGINE-OPTIMIZATION/SEO-PRODUCT-TRIANGLE/

Remember the R of smarter goals! These and the activities
 
tied with them should be reviewed every month…
SMARTER
Specific
 
[Significant]
Measurable
 
[Meaningful]
Attainable
 
[Action
 
Oriented]
Relevant
 
[Rewarding]
Time-Bound
 
[Trackable]
Evaluated
 
[Ethical]
Reviewed
 
[Rewarding]

How are your activities impacting goals? Are they still “making
the boat to go faster”? Do they need to be updated?
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=Q_CSUBQYKZI

This will allow you to
change what is not
impactful anymore and
identify opportunities to
leverage

Be fast and agile!

Be consistent and error free?

No SEO process can
be successful without
effectively managing
time, quality, and
budget, which is why
we need to integrate
Project Management
principles while
avoiding bureaucracy

HTTPS://WWW.IPMA.WORLD/5WS-1H-A-TECHNIQUE-TO-IMPROVE-PROJECT-MANAGEMENT-EFFICIENCIES/
Start by asking the 5Ws
(and the H) that should
be answered by every
project that manage
efficiencies when
planning and executing
activities

Answer the 5Ws and H in each of your SEO recommendations,
facilitating actionability and prioritization
WHAT IS IT ABOUT
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT
HOW IT SHOULD BE IDEALLY
WHO SHOULD IMPLEMENT
WHERE HAS IT BEEN FOUND
1. RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE X
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
HOW DOES IT AFFECT THE SITE RANKINGS?
WHERE HAS BEEN FOUND AND IS GENERATED?
Screen
shot
SCENARIO 1
HOW CAN IT BE FIXED?
Screen
shot
SCENARIO 1
Screen
shot
SEO
Effect
Affected
Areas
Business
Importance
Optimization
Status
Execution
Difficulty
Required
resources
Priority
High Paginations Medium Low Low Technical High
WHEN SHOULD IT BE DONE

RECOMMENDATIONS
AFFECTED
AREAS
SEO
EFFECT
BUSINESS
IMPORTANCE
CURRENT
OPTIMIZATION
CONTENT
SUPPORT
TECH
SUPPORT
LINKBUILDING
SUPPORT
IMPLEMENTATION
DIFFICULTY
VALIDATED
PRIORITY
PAGE
PERSON IN
CHARGE
IMPLEMENTA
TION DATE
LAUNCHING
DATE
NOINDEX AND BLOCK
CRAWLING OF INTERNAL
SEARCH RESULT PAGES
THAT GENERATE CONTENT
DUPLICATION
INTERNAL
SEARCH RESULT
PAGES
HIGH LOW LOW NO YES NO LOW 1 1 MARIA 01/08/2021 15/08/2021
INDEX THE PAGES OF
COLORED FILTERS WITH
SEARCH VOLUME HIGHER
THAN 100
COLORED
FILTERED PAGES
OF SUB-
CATEGORIES
HIGH HIGH LOW YES YES NO MEDIUM 2 5 MARIA 15/08/2021 30/08/2021
301 REDIRECT OLD PAGES
WITH 404 HTTP STATUS
PAGES ATTRACTING
EXTERNAL LINKS
OLD BLOG
POSTS FROM
PREVIOUS BLOG
VERSION
MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW NO YES NO MEDIUM 4 10 JAVIER 30/08/2021 15/09/2021
DIFFERENTIATE SUB-
CATEGORIES pages TITLES
INCLUDING THE SUB-
CATEGORY NAME IN THEM
SUB-CATEGORY
PAGES
MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM YES YES NO MEDIUM 3 15 JAVIER 15/09/2021 30/09/2021
WHAT WHY
WHERE WHO WHEN
HOW
… use the 5Ws and H to plan and coordinate the
 
SEO activities effective execution and progress

Use the RACI model to establish the SEO process
responsibilities & who you’ll need to coordinate with
RACI
Who is RESPONSIBLE
for the job?
Who is ACCOUNTABLE for final
decisions and ultimate ownership?
Who is CONSULTED before a
decision or action is taken?
Who is INFORMED that the
decision or action has been taken?

Establish and agree on
minimum viable
requirements
 
to accept the
implemented tasks as
“done” for which you can
use agile’s User Stories
to specify what you need
to get done
HTTPS://WWW.ATLASSIAN.COM/AGILE/PROJECT-MANAGEMENT/USER-STORIES

Define and agree on a communications protocol to avoid
“missing” important information
WHAT WHERE WHEN WHO
Non-Urgent, Non-Complex
 
SEO Tasks Coordination
Jira On-going YODA, LEIA, REY
Non-Urgent SEO Tasks Clarification Slack On-going YODA, LEIA, REY
Urgent and complex SEO Tasks
Coordination
Zoom On-demand, within 24h YODA, LEIA, REY
SEO Tasks planning and review Zoom Every two weeks YODA, LEIA, REY
…. …. … …

WEB PLATFORM CONFIGURATION/SETTINGS CHANGES INTEGRATED VALIDATION
ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS
WEB RANKINGS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS
QUERIES SEARCH POPULARITY DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS
WEB CONTENT & TECHNICAL CONFIGURATION CHANGES ALERTS
CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO CONFIGURATION CHECKLIST FOR COMMON WORKFLOWS
COMPANY CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO GUIDELINES/WIKI
ONLINE SEO TRAINING AND Q&AS FOR TECH/CONTENT/[STAKEHOLDERS] TEAMS
RECURRING / ONGOING SEO TECH/CONTENT VALIDATION PRE & POST WEB RELEASES
EDUCATION
SET RECURRING CRAWLS
 
WITH SEO CRAWLERS
SEO CONFIGURATION ALERTS TOOLS
 
(LITTLE WARDEN, CONTENT KING)
WEB PLATFORMS SEO
CONFIGURATION CHECKS
SEARCH TRENDS TOOLS
RANK TRACKERS
WEB ANALYTICS TOOLS
VALIDATION
MONITORING
MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS MENTIONS/BACKLINKS TOOLS
WEBSITE SEARCH CRAWLING ISSUES ALERTS WEB SERVER LOG MONITORING TOOL
AND SEARCH CONSOLE
CREATE PERSONALIZED GUIDELINES
WITHIN WIKI/PM PLATFORM
DO LIVE (AND RECORD) WEBINARS &
Q&AS WITH INVOLVED TEAMS
CREATE EASY TO FOLLOW/USE
CHECKLISTS FOR USUAL ACTIVITIES
SPAM OR MANUAL ACTIONS ALERTS GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
HEALTHY SEO FRAMEWORK
Set a “healthy SEO” framework within the company with
manual and automated workflows to avoid errors & friction

Establishing an SEO evangelization program to improve SEO
understanding across teams by doing trainings…
๏ Personalize training to each team

๏ Add relevant company’s examples

๏ Don’t blame, acknowledge is team effort

๏ Record and show to every team member
when onboarding

๏ Do monthly Q&As with relevant teams

HTTPS://DOCS.GOOGLE.COM/SPREADSHEETS/D/1LGC9RXURRTV2K0ZSCKH1CIREQ9E9RP7-04K1WNVIKHG/EDIT?USP=SHARING
Developing consistent
SEO checklists to be
used across teams
whenever there’s a
change on the Website…

INDEXABLE CATEGORY PAGES WITH <3 INVENTORY & NO SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION
HAS > N
TRAFFIC
OBFUSCATE LINKS,
ELIMINATE FROM XML
SITEMAPS AND
CANONICALIZE PARENT
CATEGORY
TARGETS
QUERY > Y
SEARCH
VOLUME
HAS
FEATURED >3
PRODUCTS IN
LAST X
MONTHS
NO
YES
NO YES
NO
KEEP INDEXED AND ADD
SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION
Implementing automated
workflows within the Web
platform to follow SEO
best practices that are
doable to automate, and
facilitate the validation

PRE-RELEASE SEO
VALIDATION: OK?
SEO
IMPLEMENTATION
YES
NO
YES
ON-GOING
SEO
VALIDATION
SEO RELEASE
NO
FIX
POST-RELEASE
SEO VALIDATION:
OK?
YES
NO
FIX
FIX
ON-GOING SEO
VALIDATION: OK?
Agreeing on a validation workflow before
 
and after releasing any change

RYTE & SITEBULB
Setting Recurring SEO Automated Validations
 
Pre & Post Web Releases with scheduled crawls

LITTLE WARDEN & CONTENTKING
Enabling automated monitoring w/ alerts for configuration
 
or content changes to be delivered to PM system…

RYTE, SEOMONITOR AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS
… As well as Web rankings and traffic changes alerts

PRE-RELEASE SEO
VALIDATION: OK?
SEO
IMPLEMENTATION
YES
NO
YES
ON-GOING
SEO
VALIDATION
SEO RELEASE
NO
FIX
POST-RELEASE
SEO VALIDATION:
OK?
YES
NO
FIX
ON-GOING SEO
VALIDATION: OK?
Take into consideration “What If’s” scenarios, establishing
actions within a timeline to be followed in case something fails!
YES
NO
FIX IN LESS
24H
REVERSE
IMPLEMENTATION

Be consistent and error free!

A lot of work?

This makes it worthy! especially in complex scenarios…

… showing also the impact to the bottom line!

SEO is continuously evolving and becoming
 
more complex, but we can shift accordingly
to thrive as SEO specialists

It’s about minimizing SEO challenges by also evolving our
SEO work to be more competitive w/ 3 core characteristics
Be fast and agile
Influence to earn
support
Be consistent and
error free

I’m Aleyda Solis

* SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti

* SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries

* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”

* Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host

* #SEOFOMO Newsletter Wrangler

* Maker LearningSEO.io

* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018
 
* remoters.net Co-Founder
Thanks! Questions?

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