Search engine optimization has evolved significantly over the years. However, it has proven time and time again that it is not going anywhere.
Thus, if you’re not already familiar with and using the latest SEO strategies and tactics, you’re being left behind.
Enterprise SEO is a bit bigger than other SEO efforts, but that just means it requires that much more attention in order to make sure that everything is in place.
In this guide, we’ll help you learn all about enterprise SEO, including how it works, what challenges you may face, and how optimization can help you succeed.
Search engine optimization is the single-most effective way to improve organic search rankings and increase targeted traffic. When you’re an enterprise-level business with thousands of pages of website to optimize, this can make or break your success in a matter of minutes.
Keep reading to find out what makes enterprise-level optimization different and why you might want to enlist the help of professionals in your efforts.
As the saying goes, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”– if you’re not optimizing your SEO correctly at the enterprise level, it’s going to have a much bigger impact than it would on a smaller business or eCommerce site.
What is enterprise SEO?
Put simply, enterprise SEO is just the optimization process as it specifically relates to enterprise-level organizations, stores, and eCommerce websites. Essentially, it’s all about everything on a bigger scale: a bigger need for resources, more pages and material to optimize, and bigger budgets to do so.
When you have more pages, you have more visibility to address. You also have a much higher risk of problems or losses related to your enterprise SEO efforts. Therefore, the stakes are higher and the process is much more complex.
A simple failure that might not have a huge effect on traditional SEO efforts could cripple the entire enterprise optimization process, for example.
There is no specific definition of what qualifies a site or eCommerce platform as an “enterprise” site. However, it is generally used to refer to sites that have literally hundreds, if not millions, of pages that need optimized and indexed. Because there is so much more to do, the strategy needs to be that much more complex.
Common understanding is that a site becomes an enterprise site only based on the page volume (more than 1,000), but brand authority also has some play in the matter.
After all, even if you’ve got 5,000 pages of content, that doesn’t qualify you as an “enterprise” operation if you have no authority to back it up.
You can argue all day about what is or isn’t qualified as “enterprise” when it comes to SEO, but the bottom line is that it’s all about high-volume optimization needs. Keep reading to learn more about enterprise SEO and whether it is the solution that your website needs.
How does enterprise SEO work?
As mentioned above, the biggest difference here is scale. Let’s look at things from that perspective, because that’s where the success of enterprise SEO begins. The optimization process and best practices are still the same.
SEO doesn’t completely upend itself based on business size. It just becomes that much more critical to get it right.
Enterprise SEO means more targeted keyword research. It means implementing a long list of useful keywords and targeting pages, categories, and products specifically for optimization efforts. It’s about finding the best areas to capitalize on and make improvements, and then going for it.
Often, most brands get lost somewhere in the scaling of things. We’ve done a lot of SEO campaigns for clients of all sizes, and the enterprise solutions seem to take the most time and effort, by far. After all, at the enterprise level, small changes make a much bigger impact.
If you really want to look at this process compared to other types of SEO, it’s much more like turning a large ship. You have to consider every move carefully and understand that changes will take time to make themselves known.
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, really. You get amazing brand authority with the sheer size of your site, but you also have to be very careful about updating content and SEO efforts so as not to undermine yourself.
Enterprise optimization involves the same steps as any other optimization efforts– there are just a lot more of them and the details make the difference.
The unique challenges of enterprise SEO
We’ve already touched on some of the differences of enterprise-level SEO, of which some may be considered “challenges”.
Of course, at the enterprise level, most of the difficulties come from the sheer scalability required and the detail involved. If you think optimizing 20 or 30 pages of a simple website is difficult, imagine trying to optimize 3,000 pages.
Enterprise SEO is unique in that it has to be done very carefully. What might be a simple optimization effort on a regular site has to be a well-thought plan at the enterprise level.
The domino effect is going to be much bigger here, and that’s part of the reason you have to make sure that your optimization is always on point.
More Complex Site Architecture
One of the biggest elements of SEO is your site architecture. In an enterprise operation, the structure and hierarchy of your site are going to make all the difference. It still needs to be easy to navigate, and probably even more so since there’s so much content to get through.
We know we keep harping on the complexity and sheer size of things, but that’s really the biggest element of enterprise SEO, and you’ll see that in the following areas, as well– it’s all about more.
Because your dynamic enterprise site has more pages and more content to optimize, it needs a more detailed, structured format that is still easy to crawl and index for search engines without overlooking any valuable content or pages. It takes a little more work to build a strong sitemap with this size of an operation, too.
More Keywords and Keyword Research
Again, we’re on the “more” train with enterprise optimization. You’ve got thousands of pages of content that are all unique. As such, they are all going to need their own keywords and optimization efforts put into place.
That’s where it may be helpful to enlist the assistance of SEO experts who can handle the process for you.
Professionals understand the complex nature of enterprise-level optimization and how to capitalize on robust keyword research and implementation strategies.
Not only that, they’ll be able to help you determine which keywords you want to focus on, which sites and pages should be the focus of your primary efforts, and so forth.
Perform keyword research in detail for all of the pages and keywords that you want to optimize. It is going to be a much longer report than it would be for a basic website or eCommerce store, but it’s well-worth the effort.
Plus, it gives you the chance to use more keywords than the average person, giving you another way to stand out from the crowd without even trying.
More Detailed Optimization Efforts
Along with more keywords and research, the optimization efforts involved at this level are also much more detailed. While you might be able to handle basic SEO efforts on your own, the enterprise process is almost always going to take a lot more focus and dedication.
When you’ve got thousands of pages to optimize as opposed to dozens, or even hundreds, of course there’s a lot more to cover. You have to pay attention to every last detail, or at least pay someone who can do the work for you.
As you can see, the biggest difference really comes down to size and complexity. It also becomes the defining reason that most brands are better-suited to tackle enterprise-level SEO with the assistance of professional SEO experts rather than going it alone.
Does your enterprise site need SEO? A checklist
This is kind of a trick question– every enterprise site needs SEO. The actual question should be what kind of SEO efforts does your site need?
If you are asking yourself this question, you’ll easily come up with a handy checklist of things to cover. It’s going to look similar to any other SEO checklist, of course, so don’t be surprised if it’s not anything that unusual or different. It’s just that everything is done on a larger scale.
If you’re auditing and checking up on your site to see what kind of SEO efforts are needed, here’s a quick checklist to help keep you on track.
- Educate and Communicate: Everyone who is getting involved in the SEO process for your enterprise-level organization needs to be educated on the process and communication efforts need to be put in place to keep everyone on the same page.
- Address Technical and Structural Issues First: No matter what keywords you use or how good your content is, if your site isn’t properly setup, indexed, and easily navigated, it’s not going to matter. Fix all the obvious issues first, then move forward with optimization.
- Be Thoughtful in Keyword Usage: This matters more at the enterprise level than it does for smaller websites. You have to be very careful in your keyword choice and strategy to ensure that you’re hitting the mark. Research, analyze, and choose your keywords carefully.
- Leverage Relationships for Link Building: In addition to your own on-page and off-page SEO efforts, you need to capitalize on the relationships that you can make to help build links. Links lend credibility and authority, which at this level are must-have assets.
Enterprise SEO tools
As with any search engine optimization process, there are tools out there that you can use to help you along the way. Using the right tools, of course, will make all the difference.
Typically, these tools fall into a couple of different categories: analytical tools and functional tools.
Analytical tools will be things like Google Analytics and other reporting solutions that help you monitor your campaigns and ongoing SEO efforts. These are an essential part of the process. You may also find analytics tools built into your SEO platform, or through various plugins and extensions that are available to assist with SEO.
Functional tools are the ones that are designed to actually assist in making improvements, such as those that scour for and fix broken links, those that automate keyword research, and more.
A good balance of both will be needed in your enterprise SEO arsenal for best results.
We’ve found some of the best enterprise tools include things like:
- Ahrefs for inbound links
- Screaming Frog to fix broken links
- WebPageTest to test load speed
- BrightEdge
- Linkdex
- Searchlight
Using the right tools isn’t just about taking the time to pick the top ones and implement them. You actually have to include this in developing your SEO strategy and make sure that you think about which tools will be most effective.
It doesn’t matter what tools are popular if they’re not useful to your optimization efforts, after all.
Some handy tips for enterprise SEO
We’ve been talking about how different this process is based on sheer scale and volume alone.
Now, let’s dig into some quick and easy tips to help you make the most of your efforts, in spite of these two big hurdles.
Scalability and Automation
The best way to address the sheer size of enterprise efforts is to take advantage of automated tools and scalable resources.
You’ll be able to get things moving and spend less time dealing with the details yourself. If you can invest in proper tools for scaling and automation, the optimization process should come easy.
Local Optimization
Local optimization is a must for any business that has a local presence. We’re not going to spend a lot of time on this because it might not apply to all enterprise-level clients, but if you have a local operation, you need to invest in local SEO and make sure that you’re incorporating location-based keywords into your content.
Reputation Management
One of the biggest parts of optimization for an enterprise business that doesn’t matter as much to other companies is reputation management. Sure, it matters for every brand, but at this level, it really makes an impact on SEO rankings and how search engines see the brand. If your SEO strategy doesn’t include solutions for improving or managing your reputation, it’s not going to be effective.
Technical vs. Content Optimization
One of the major differences in SEO at this level is the importance of focusing on the technical aspects of optimization. You can optimize content and integrate keywords all day long.
If the architecture and structure of your website aren’t optimized, none of that matters. In fact, the technical optimization is often what makes or breaks SEO at this level, so give it the attention that it deserves.
Keyword Competition
In many other SEO efforts, the idea is to find long-tail keywords that have less competition and offer more opportunity for visibility. In the enterprise world, competition is key.
You have to choose the highest-performing keywords and incorporate them where necessary. You’ll be working with popular keywords so it’s even more critical that they are used properly and effectively.
These are just a few of the biggest tips to keep in mind when you’re dealing with enterprise SEO. Because it’s so different, it can often be intimidating or overwhelming to some people, but that is usually just due to a lack of knowledge and insight.
Fortunately, you’ve now got the inside scoop so you’ll be ready to take your SEO to the next level for your enterprise organization.
Up next, let’s talk about the value of backlinks and the importance of creating the right partnerships and connections for the benefit of your search engine optimization.
Ways to boost your backlinks
Backlinks are the backbone of a solid brand authority in the eyes of search engines. After all, it’s one thing for your site to look credible and say that you know what you’re doing. It’s another thing entirely for someone else to say so.
Therefore, if you’ve got backlinks, you’ve got a good reputation for authority in the eyes of the search engines.
As a bonus, this also looks great to your customers.
Below, we’ll discuss three of the most reputable options for boosting your backlinks as part of your enterprise SEO strategy.
Publishers
Publishers are an obvious choice to some, and an unknown option to others. You can get your site posted on plenty of authoritative websites and generate backlinks with some of the best publishers on the web.
You’ll find link opportunities with news sources like NPR and Forbes, Vox, Business Insider, and others.
Publishers are also available within your industry for specific and relevant backlinks, as well. This is a great way to get noticed and help build your authority.
Publishers are some of the most trusted sources online, after all, so if they’re promoting your site it’s going to benefit your SEO greatly.
Corporate partnerships
Corporate partnerships are another way you can increase your backlinks. You might be thinking you’re not a “corporate” type of mingler, or that you don’t know enough enterprise-level peers to make this work. You’re probably wrong. Look around and see what’s out there.
If you’re looking for complementary partnerships or mutually beneficial relationships, this is the place to find them. Get creative. Stop limiting your options. Find new ways to connect to new people and build your backlinks.
The only way to grow is up, which means it’s time to step up the corporate partnerships for authoritative backlinks.
Influencer partnerships
Partnerships with influencers can be a helpful way to increase backlinks. What are influencers? These are the people or sources that have a sway on your market’s decisions.
Every market has its own influencers and industry experts that give credence to the industry and impact people’s buying decisions.
Don’t worry, because you don’t have to know where to go to find these solutions. There are apps and resources online that can help you explore the influencers in your niche and get those links established. Find out who these people are and get them to help build your brand reputation.
Of course, the most important partnership for your enterprise SEO is going to be the partnership that you establish with professional SEO solutions like ours.
At Ranq, we know all about the complexities of enterprise-level SEO strategies and how to help your site thrive. We’ve spent years perfecting the art of custom SEO solutions to assist with situations just like this.
Call us today to discuss your needs for enterprise-level search engine optimization. Our dedicated team will be able to help you dig into the details and come up with a solid strategy that works.
Plus, we’ll help you find the best tools and learn as much as you can along the way, putting you in a better position to oversee your SEO campaigns and other marketing efforts because you are informed every step of the way.
Again, it all comes back to the details. We’re masters at that, so let us help you with your enterprise SEO needs now and in the future. Your enterprise operation depends on it.