Step Wise SEO

Whether it’s an IT department of 60 or a single programmer hiding out in the server closet, your SEO campaign is going to need a lot of help from your company’s technical experts.

Not only will they be the final implementers of edits to your website, but they hold the keys to many important technical features of the site that can spell SEO success or failure.

What if you’re a smaller organization and you are the one handling your own technical needs?

Count yourself lucky in many ways-you won’t have the workload and communication conflicts that often arise between SEO and IT.

But once you start doing SEO in earnest, be ready to plug into the tech mindset a little more often than usual.

At a minimum, you will need IT to help with edits to website content, conversion tracking, server settings, programming standards, and the robots.txt file.

Sound overwhelming? It can be, if you don’t prepare yourself. We suspect that working with your technical staff is going to be the most challenging part of your increase SEO adventure.

We have observed three major areas of difficulty:

• IT and Marketing speak such different languages it may be hard to get the communication rolling.

• IT is likely to be extremely cautious about taking on any additional workload.

• It may be difficult to find a way that SEO excellence benefits the IT department. There’s a lot to say here, so let’s discuss these three issues in more detail.

Communicating with IT
Your first task in working with IT will be finding a common language. Your IT comrades are technical thinkers.

They like numbers, logic, specifications, and processes that can be repeated. They are less fond of mysterious or amorphous organic processes.

They probably won’t be responsive to a request unless they fully appreciate the logical reasons behind it.

Ideally, you will go into this conversation with some amount of technical skill under your belt.

You may even want to take a crash course in HTML. But even if you think that HTML stands for “HoTMaiL” and a “server” has something to do with gettting your eggs Benedict before they get cold, you can still develop a good rapport with your IT department if you follow this simple rule:

Never fudge about your technical knowledge.

You need to be very honest about what you know and don’t know. Express your needs, and let them do their jobs by telling you the right way to get things done.

Bringing IT on board as a partner rather than a servant in SEO can make all the difference in your ongoing success.

Obviously you may not want all the information that IT is prepared to share with you. You probably don’t want or need to know the details of why something can’t be done.

If your eyes glaze over at the first mention of “meta refresh,” don’t just, stand there feeling miserable and trying to nod convincingly.

Keep the focus on the overall goals: You need something done. Is it possible or not? If not, what alternatives are available?

There is a give-and-take in play here. If you ask for a layman’s explanation, and genuinely try to understand, you might learn something about the way your site is structured that will help you and Your SEO Plan.

If you explain your SEO needs clearly, avoiding marketing jargon, your IT team will come to understand your SEO needs better and be more helpful to you in the long run.

A word of caution: If you are lucky enough to get your IT department extremely enthusiastic about SEO, you may find some ideas coming your way that fall into the realm of “black hat.”

The IT Workload Puzzle
Like most departments, IT teams are feeling overworked. But even worse, their work is likely to be unrecognized and underappreciated.

Unfortunately, your SEO campaign will probably require a large number of relatively small tasks from IT.

And these tasks can’t be done all at once because you need to assess and adjust throughout the campaign.

If you are frustrated that it’s taking weeks to get even simple requests handled, please realize this:

IT really hates when you call things “simple.”

Here are some possible issues to consider:

• Are there a large number of different people all clamoring for simple changes? If so, it’s only fair that your request is handled in order.

• Could the task be more complicated than you think? If you don’t have the tech savvy to know exactly what it takes to get your task done, be very careful about throwing around the word simple!

• Do the folks in the IT department understand the reasoning behind the change, or do they think it’s just a whim on your part?

Educate on a need-to-know basis; giving them a solid background will help the process.

If you consistently find yourself bumping into roadblocks in the IT department, look for some creative solutions:

• If you have cumbersome work request procedures, can the department create an “Express Lane” for small SEO requests, bypassing the normal pathways?

• Can the department keep your work orders open for a little while, allowing you to make adjustments?

• Is there an individual in the department that can be “yours” for a certain number of hours per month?

Have a sit-down with the department leadership and figure out a way to make it happen.

IT tasks needed for your SEO campaign are almost never urgent. This means that, if you agree to it, they can fit into some of the slower times in the department.

If, like a lot of smaller companies, your IT department is outsourced, you will probably find that you need more hours-at least up front-to get your site up to snuff.

Although it can be frustrating to wait, stockpiling several little SEO requests and submitting them on a weekly or monthly basis may save time and money.

If your IT “department” is a friend, it may be time to stop asking for favors and either figure out how to do it yourself or set up a payment situation.

SEO will generate quite a few site modifications over time, and you’ll fare best if you don’t leave them to the ups and downs of your friend’s generous nature.

How SEO Benefits IT
Can you believe it? Your SEO campaign can actually be a positive thing for the IT department. Here are a few examples:

Interdepartmental collaboration Bringing together the efforts of marketers, wordsmiths, artists, and techies is a very positive thing. Surprising new relationships, new alliances, and synergies can result.

Recognition for IT It’s not often that IT tasks can directly result in sales and profits. This is one of those times.

Participating in the SEO campaign can bring the IT department out of the obscurity of the computer rooms and give them some of the attention and acclaim that they deserve.

New toys Because the SEO campaign can depend on IT for so many things, such as server uptime and server log analysis, the SEO campaign may be a driving force behind getting some new hardware.
How do you see the pros and cons of handling your own technical needs if you’re a smaller organization and you are the one to take care of these things?

Can you think of any other ways that SEO might be positive for IT in your organization?