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Slide 1: Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO SEO and the Development Life Cycle Jessica Bowman SEOinhouse.com Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 1
Slide 2: About  Former in-house SEO. Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  Advocate for in-house SEO.  In 2008 started SEOinhouse.com. • The agency I wanted as an in-house SEO, but couldn’t find. • Someone who understood the in-house challenges and dynamics. • Someone who could infiltrate the rest of the organization on my behalf to get them to do SEO as part of their job. © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 2
Slide 3: Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO THE PROCESS INTEGRATION © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 3
Slide 4: How to Incorporate SEO into the Development Life Cycle Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development QA Testing Live on Site Who knows what happens before project inception? © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 4
Slide 5: How to Incorporate SEO into the Development Life Cycle Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development QA Testing Live on Site Who knows what happens in detail in the design phase? © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 5
Slide 6: How to Incorporate SEO into the Development Life Cycle Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development QA Testing Live on Site Who knows what happens in detail in the development phase? © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 6
Slide 7: How to Incorporate SEO into the Development Life Cycle Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development QA Testing Live on Site Who knows what happens in detail in the design phase? © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 7
Slide 8: How to Incorporate SEO into the Development Life Cycle Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development QA Testing Live on Site Who knows what happens in detail in the launch phase? © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 8
Slide 9: How to Incorporate SEO into the Development Life Cycle Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Extremely Expensive Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development Opportunity Costs & Rework QA Testing Live on Site When SEO is 1st brought into projects: or or Where SEO needs to be incorporated into the Development Life Cycle Project Inception Requirement Gathering Design Development QA Testing Live on Site Inexpensive SEO requirements met within scope & budget © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 9
Slide 10: Typical Roles & Deliverables Phase Inception (idea created) Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Roles Involved Upper Management Business Sponsor SEO Common Deliverables Scope Document Project Charter PRD (product release document) SEO Requirements Gathering Business Sponsor Product Manager Project Manager User Experience Designers Sr. Programmers Business Sponsor (review/approve only) Product Manager User Experience Designers Project Managers Sr. Programmers Product Managers (minimal) Project managers All Programmers Development Team QA Team System Administrators Requirements documents PRD (product release document) Wireframes may get started Design Finalized Wireframes Finalized Visual Designs Page Specifications Finalized Use Cases QA Test Scripts Logged Bugs/Defects Changes Live Thumbs up – Everything is Good Logged Bugs/Defects Development Launch © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 10
Slide 11: For each phase you should know       Deliverables Meetings Conversations Collaborations Approvals Etc. Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 11
Slide 12: SEO Project Involvement Pyramid Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Project Inception Requirements Gathering Phase Design Phase Project Inception Requirements Gathering Phase Design Phase Development Phase Final QA Testing Go Live Development Phase Final QA Testing Go Live Best of Class SEO Programs: Involve SEO intensely at the beginning of any release, and SEOs involvement declines as the project progresses. © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 12
Slide 13: Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO WHAT IT’S LIKE WITH FULL SEO INTEGRATION Example Project: We’re adding a new section to the site to meet the needs of a new niche target audience © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 13
Slide 14: Project Inception Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  Business sponsors talk about the idea © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 14
Slide 15: Project Inception Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  Business sponsors reach out to SEO to get their take on SEO opportunities © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 15
Slide 16: Project Inception Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO Team does research for SEO requirements: – Brainstorms potential opportunities – Looks at competitor sites for their SEO Strategies – Identifies what people are typing into search engines related to this subject area – Identifying requirements to make the new section maximize opportunities © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 16
Slide 17: Scope Document Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO contributes to the Scope document – SEO success factors to the document – Potential SEO traffic lift – Potential SEO revenue gain © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 17
Slide 18: Project Approval Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  Project is approved and scheduled  SEO is contributes to the project plan © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 18
Slide 19: Requirements Gathering - Meetings    Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Everyone gives requirements SEO sits as a key stakeholder in all sessions. SEO listens for: – – Content areas that can be leveraged for SEO Functionality being requested that may not be search engine friendly Most SEO programs go wrong here.  SEO Contributes: – SEO requirements – what needs to happen and not happen to make the site search engine friendly once. How to take ideas further with SEO Most Companies Live here – Bang for Money is Here – Potential functionality being requested that may not be search friendly, how to make it search friendly and what to review in more detail during analysis © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 19
Slide 20: Requirements Gathering – Project Plan Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO and the Project Manager incorporate SEO into the project plan: – SEO action items – SEO contributions – SEO reviews of documentation © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 20
Slide 21: Integrate SEO into the Project Plan Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 21
Slide 22: Analysis & Design – Wireframes & Design Comps Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  User Experience and SEO meet on wireframes BEFORE they are presented to the project team  Graphic Designers and SEO meet on design mockups BEFORE they are presented to the project team  How it works: – Discussion at the beginning, review at 80% completion © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 22
Slide 23: Front-End Development Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO QA’s HTML Code for search friendliness It’s Quick, Easy & Cheap to make search friendly html code tweaks here © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 23
Slide 24: Back-end Development Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO is involved as needed  Development pro-actively reaches out to SEO for input and clarification © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 24
Slide 25: Quality Assurance Testing Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO QA’s for SEO Requirements & Search Engine Friendliness  SEO enters bugs in the same system IT. Some SEO bugs need to be fixed prerelease: It can take months to a year to clean up a mess in the SERPs © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 25
Slide 26: Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO OTHER INTEGRATIONS © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 26
Slide 27: Integrate SEO to Existing Standards Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  All development projects abide by company standards and guidelines.  Goal: Get SEO Best practices and standards included into these existing documents  NOTE: Many sets of standards exist within a company © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 27
Slide 28: Integrate SEO into Wireframes No header tags Do not put text in image Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Make h1 on homepage, no header tag on interior pages No header tag on homepage, h1 on interior ages H2 tag, include keywords always in this text No header tags For rotating banner text, use html text over the image and when user has CSS turned off, stack the images/text on top of each other so that search engines can read it all Use <me> not CSS class name © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 28
Slide 29: Access to Change Management Tool  SEO should have access to the SEO tool. Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  SEO should review every change requested and going live.  SEO should incorporate to change requests: – – – – Initial requirements. Notation if SEO needs final review. Why it is an SEO issue and you are requesting specific requirements. This is a few sentences only, not a book.  Establish a naming convention that allows you to flag things you need to know: – “Add new section to target baby market” – Should be – “Add new section to target baby market [SEO]” © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 29
Slide 30: Integrate SEO into Documentation Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 30
Slide 31: You want Ambassadors to become proficient enough to do this for you… Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Long-Term Plan: SEO team merely reviews and provides oversight and input on the complex issues so that SEO can focus on the big picture and not the nitty-gritty details. © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 31
Slide 32: Set up Accountabilities Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  Who is responsible for making sure SEO is involved?  Create SEO champions Website Product Manager Project Managers User Experience Design SEO QA Testers Graphical Design Programmers © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 32
Slide 33: Roles & Responsibilities Grid Responsibility/Task Role 1 Role 2 Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Role 3 Role 4 © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 33
Slide 34: Everyone Needs to Make SEO a Success Role Execs Responsibility Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Ultimately responsible if projects have SEO Failures Hold people accountable for working with SEO properly Don’t approve things if SEO wasn’t involved (ask SEO to find out) Involve SEO in prioritization decisions Involve SEO in SEO requirements for every change Ensure SEO is involved in all projects Ensure SEO requirements are in documentation Get SEO input BEFORE things go to the business Get SEO input in the project plan tasks Involve SEO in the right places of the project Ensure SEO is involved in all projects Create search engine friendly user experiences Create information architecture optimal for SEO Create search engine friendly technologies Speak up when it appears SEO hasn’t been involved Test every release for SEO best practices Ensure SEO QAs each release Product Manager Project Manager Usability Programmers QA Testers © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 34
Slide 35: Integrate SEO with the Right Roles manager and product manager of the website. Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  IT’s usually best when SEO is hip-to-hip with the product User Exp. Project Mgmt Product Mgmt SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 35
Slide 36: Training Mentoring Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 36
Slide 37: Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Lessons Learned Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 37
Slide 38: Lessons Learned Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO  Speak like the natives - learn the IT acronyms and terminology. – PPM, CQ, PM, PRD, BD, UE, QA…  When requesting a change be ultra specific, as though you are telling a robot. – “I need a permanent, 301 redirect.”  Know every single change going live on the site. – Identify which have SEO impacts and need SEO to review the technical documentation.  Get into the release planning meetings.  Review both business requirements AND technical specifications.  Bring in help if you’re not making progress. © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 38
Slide 39: Thank you Jessica Bowman jessica@seoinhouse.com - Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO Top Services: SEO Training SEO Audits Link Building Social Media SEO Process Development Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO © SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 39