SEO Tips

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SEO Tips Real-life examples

• Laura Lippay, Dir. Technical Marketing, Yahoo!
  Audience

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Choose your own adventure!

• In-House SEO Organization Real Examples at
  Yahoo
• In-House SEO Risks Real Examples at Yahoo
• SEO Salaries

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What does the In-House SEO org look like?
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What does the in-house SEO org look like?

• Poll
• Where do you report into
• Marketing
• Engineering/development
• Product
• Other

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What does the in-house SEO org look like?
Example where Marketing Engineering report into
Product
REPORT INTO MARKETING UNDER PRODUCT
ALL TEAMS ARE ACCOUNTABLE DECENTRALIZES SEO IF
MULTIPLE PRODUCTS IN ONE BUSINESS UNIT
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What does the in-house SEO org look like?
Examples where Marketing, Engineering Product
are horizontal groups
2. REPORT INTO ENGINEERING HORIZONTAL TO PRODUCT
1. REPORT INTO MARKETING HORIZONTAL TO PRODUCT
EASIER TO INCORPORATE SEO AS A MARKETING
CHANNEL PRODUCT AND ENGINEERING DO NOT HAVE
ACCOUNTABILITY
EASIER TO INCORPORATE TECHNICAL ON-PAGE SEO AND
SEARCH-FRIENDLY CMS SEO MAY NOT BE ACCOUNTABLE
FOR SEARCH TRAFFIC IN MARKETING MIX
3. REPORT INTO PRODUCT HORIZONTAL TO MARKETING
ENGINEERING
4. SPLIT INTO MKTG ENG HORIZONTAL TO PRODUCT
PRODUCTS ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR FULLY IMPLEMENTING
SEO SEO MAY NOT BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR SEARCH
TRAFFIC IN MARKETING MIX
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TECHNICAL STRATEGIC SEO NO
ONE ACCOUNTABLE IF BOTH TECHNICAL STRATEGIC SEO
TEAMS DONT COLLABORATE
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What does Yahoos In House SEO org look like?
First we started like this
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What does Yahoos In House SEO org look like?
Then we moved under marketing and grew
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What does Yahoos In House SEO org look like?
Split SEO into strategy technical subgroups
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Risks The Hard Times (this aint always easy)
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In-House SEO Risks
RETAINING TALENT
NO ACCOUNTABILITY

• WHY
• Slower pace
• Tough to influence
• TO DO
• Play to strengths
• Strong relationships

• WHY
• Many teams responsible
• Dont understand SEO
• TO DO
• Exec buy-in mandatory
• Always educate train

NOT PRODUCING RESULTS
NOT BROADCASTING RESULTS

• WHY
• No regular reporting
• Think ppl already know
• TO DO
• Reports to key players
• Be proactive

• WHY
• Slower pace
• Spread too thin
• TO DO
• Set expectations
• Small wins first

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How Yahoo handles these In-House SEO risks
RETAINING TALENT
NO ACCOUNTABILITY

• Have fun regularly
• Communicate a lot
• Shape team roles and functions around peoples
  talents

• Prove what EO is worth to top level players
• Provide reporting results to teams
• Educate one-on-one or with intranet resources,
  newsletter, team training and internal
  conferences

NOT PRODUCING RESULTS
NOT BROADCASTING RESULTS

• Regular reporting
• Tools opened up to anyone (let them own it)
• Show results in training newsletter, company
  meetings, intranet
• SEO Hotness award for teams embracing SEO

• Set expectations based on project
• Track SEO in bugs
• Report on where process failed who involved
  (strategy, implementation, fixes/bugs, etc)

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In House SEO Project management. Its not
always easy
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SEO Salaries
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SEOmoz post November 2006

• Salaries
• VP/Director of Search Marketing 100,000 -
  350,000
• Director/Manager of Organic Search 75,000 -
  150,000
• SEO Guru 75,000 - 200,000
• Campaign Manager 55,00 - 100,000
• SEO Specialist (Links, Content and/or KW
  Research) 40,000 - 80,000
• Factors that can Create Wide Disparity
• Reputation
• Geography
• Experience
• Supply/Demand

http//www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-salaries-how-much-s
hould-you-make
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2007 SEMPO In-House SEM Salaries Survey

• Who are the respondents?
• Mostly Managers, then Directors
• Most 0-3 years experience, followed closely by
  3-5 years
• Managing either 0-25K/mo SEM budget or over
  200K/mo
• Majority of companies either under 100 or over
  1000 employees
• Mostly metropolitan areas
• What are they making?
• Bulk of the bell is between 30,000 and 80,000
• Peak of the bell curve is in the 60,001 -
  70,000 range
• Considerations
• Salary variances per geographic location
• SEMPO audience possibly Marketing skewed

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SEOmoz 2008 SEO Industry Survey

• Who are the respondents?
• 21 SEO specialists
• 12 web developers
• 9 President/CEOs
• 8 marketing managers
• (and additional positions below 8)
• What are they making?
• Salary peak at 30K, and a downslope from there
• With the exception of another peak in the 75K -
  100K range
• Considerations
• Salary variances per geographic location
• SEOmoz audience possibly Engineering/Web Dev
  skewed

http//www.seomoz.org/dp/seo-industry-survey-resul
ts
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Online Salary Tools

• SimplyHired

Indeed.com
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Trends are In-House SEO Salaries hitting a
tipping point?

• None of these are on obvious downtrends
• SEO Director SEO Specialist trends are fairy
  parallel, and both trend fairly flat from April
  07 starting point to Jan 09 end point.
• SEO manager is very flat over time, and does
  trend a smidgeon down since April 07
• Search Marketing title trended up until Jan 09
  where its back where it started in April 07

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Thanks!BookshelfThe Dip (Seth Godin)Covert
Persuasion (Hogan Speakman)The Corporate
Dominatrix (Lisa Robyn)The rest of the
Ultimate Guide to In-House SEOwww.lauralippay.com
/blog