You’re in charge of an SEO initiative that requires the IT team’s buy in. How can you boost your chances of getting the IT team on-board with the project? Follow these 6 steps to increase your chances of buy-in from IT and the rest of the organization.
1. Do Your Homework First
2. Communicate the Business Rationale
3. Define the Scope & Effort
4. Phase the Rollout
5. Don’t Rule Out the Intangibles
6. Don’t Give Up
1. Do Your Homework First
You should have a solid grasp on the current state of SEO for your website and the opportunity that optimizing presents before attempting to gain support for your initiative.
Analyze current on-page SEO, URL structure, internal link structure, external links, etc to determine which areas need to be addressed. Be prepared to highlight both successes and shortcomings. Highlight the successes as something to build on.
Use whatever existing analytics data you have to determine the current amount of organic traffic. Perform keyword research, using tools such as Word Tracker’s Free Keyword Suggestion Tool (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/), to identify target keywords for which you want to attract traffic. It’s important to understand the relative quantity of searches made by users in order to narrow the list to the highest opportunity keywords.
Next compare your rankings against your competitors for these key terms. Use tools such as SEO Books Rank Checker (http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/) to determine how your website stacks up.
With this information you are ready to build your case for SEO and develop an implementation strategy.
2. Communicate the Business Rationale
Everyone wants their initiative to be the “top priority” for IT. You must make the case why this SEO initiative should be made a priority. Use the current SEO state analysis, competitor analysis and keyword opportunities to assemble your business case.
Make sure that senior management on the business side is on-board before going to IT. IT wants to know that the initiative has clear support within the organization and how the project aligns to the business goals of the company.
Now you are ready to talk to IT about the details of the initative.
3. Define the Scope & Effort
Using your analysis put together a list of prioritized items you would like the IT team to implement. Note: Depending on your current state, some efforts might be undertaken before others. For example, if your on-page SEO is poor, then you may wish to target this aspect before you attack internal link structure. Massive duplicate content might be addressed before implementing a site map.
Your list should also be prioritized by what you believe would have the greatest positive impact on meeting the business goals. Let the IT team determine the effort (for their responsibilities) and you provide the effort for your area of responsibilities.
Don’t expect an immediate determination of effort. The IT team will likely want to provide a more educated effort and risk analysis. Ask for a date to receive their estimate. If the date is too far out, ask for something looser that can be used to gauge relative efforts.
4. Phase the Rollout
The IT team doesn’t have unlimited resources and most likely won’t be able to take on all the items on your list. Be flexible and willing to work with IT on how this initiative fits into their schedule.
Companies that commit themselves to SEO should understand that it is a long term initiative. Impact is seen over time and conditions change so set expectations that SEO is something that should be built into processes and regularly re-evaluated.
5. Don’t Rule Out the Intangibles
Individual IT team members are generally more excited to work on projects that they learn a great deal from or ones that enhance valuable skills. SEO projects often allow them to expand their skill sets and challenge their creative thinking.
If the project has high visibility within the organization, then convey this fact to the team. Their contributions to success will be made evident.
6. Don’t Give Up
Since your project will like have to be prioritized with all other initiatives, you likely won’t get everything you want exactly when you want it. Discuss regularly with IT the progress of the initiative, including regular updates (monthly, quarterly) containing your analysis of the impact based upon analytics. Positive results will motivate the IT team to want to work more on the initiative.
When presenting results to the business side of the organization, make sure you highlight IT’s cooperation and essential contributions to the project. The IT team will appreciate the recognition and you will gain respect for not hogging the spotlight.Â
Following these 6 steps should increase the likelihood that the IT team will be on-board with your SEO initiatives.
