Enterprise SEO (search engine optimization) has similar goals as small businesses and local SEO but differs in several key ways.
Understanding what makes enterprise SEO different from traditional SEO allows you to create a strategy that ensures the best results for your business.
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What Is SEO for Enterprise?
SEO for enterprises is a type of search engine optimization that focuses on driving increased traffic to enterprise websites.
Enterprise SEO, unlike traditional SEO, requires you to optimize a site for scalability.
Often, it requires a multi-location content marketing approach, as enterprises typically have numerous locations and branches.
An SEO team, with countless members working together, typically brings the best results for an enterprise site looking to increase its rankings.
For example, an SEO company might have different people working on content marketing, social media, on-page SEO, and more.
What Is an Enterprise Website?
An enterprise website serves to inform users about an enterprise’s operations.
The website can also serve as an eCommerce store or a portal providing customers with a way to manage their accounts, contact support, sign up for memberships, and other functions.
Typically, an enterprise website will have multiple pages, each targeting a different service or customer segment.
The enterprise site might also have subdomains targeting different cities.
What Makes a Company an Enterprise?
It is important to understand what makes a company an enterprise to explain what makes search engine optimization for enterprises different.
Multiple Locations
A common distinguishing factor of enterprises is that many enterprises have multiple locations.
Think of Mcdonald’s or Starbucks, for example, both of which have multiple locations.
However, you don’t need to have locations in multiple countries to be an enterprise.
Even if you have a few locations in different cities or towns, you operate an enterprise.
Multiple Departments
Enterprises typically have multiple departments as well.
A small business owner might take care of everything.
An enterprise, on the other hand, might have the following departments:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Human resources
- Market research
- Customer support
- Accounting
- Production
- General management
- General operations
- And more
Multiple Divisions
Similarly, an enterprise will typically have several divisions, which exist to market separate products and services to different customer segments.
Divisions might also exist to market the same product to customers in different cities and locations.
Sometimes, those customers will speak different languages.
Difference Between Regular and Enterprise SEO
Now we can discuss why a traditional SEO strategy does not apply when doing digital marketing for an enterprise SEO.
Scalable Tactics
An SEO service targeting enterprises must allow for a lot more scalability than traditional SEO allows for.
For example, while you might target long-tail keywords as a small business, you need to target shorter keyword phrases as an enterprise.
Organic Market Share Growth
An enterprise needs to worry about additional factors, such as brand visibility, brand awareness, reputation management, social signals, and more.
All of these factors tie in with a good SEO strategy and ensure that the enterprise can increase its market share organically.
With a broader target audience, enterprises have more competition to worry about.
Organic SEO can be highly leveraged and organizations can usually see terrific gains as a result.
Reduce Risk
There’s more at stake if an enterprise SEO strategy turns out to be inefficient or even black hat.
Having an inefficient SEO strategy can affect the company’s sales all over the world.
A black hat strategy that leads to penalization can seriously impact an enterprise’s chances of success.
Multiple Departments Sign Off on Changes
Since an enterprise has multiple departments, all of which have to sign off on changes, an SEO agency working for enterprises needs to have a good communications strategy to ensure there are no delays or misunderstandings between departments.
Each department needs to have a say, as they are all responsible for how the SEO strategy will impact them.
Why Is SEO for Enterprise Important?
Why is using enterprise SEO services important?
Here is why you can’t rely on a regular SEO agency as an enterprise business.
Regular SEO Strategies Do Not Apply
Regular technical SEO strategies will not work for enterprise brands.
For example, an enterprise business that has branches in multiple locations needs a unique kind of national SEO.
One that optimizes each subdomain for the specific region it is targeting.
Even an SEO agency skilled in regular local SEO might not know how to produce content for multi-location SEO.
Not only do you need to optimize each location for Google search results, but you need to target Google Maps users in each city as well.
If a large enterprise has multiple franchises, both the parent company and the franchise owners need control of their own profiles in Google My Business.
This is a tricky situation as it can create conflicts.
You Need Specialized SEO Teams
Due to the nature of enterprise SEO, you need specialized teams who can quickly and efficiently bring an enterprise’s website up to speed.
People who have experience working with enterprises will know how to properly design a website and do both on-page and off-page SEO correctly.
For example, they’ll know which sources to use for local citations.
Smarter and More Sophisticated
To succeed at enterprise SEO, you need an SEO team that is smarter and more sophisticated than the average SEO specialist.
It requires people who are up to date on the latest algorithms as soon as they come out.
People who can adapt their strategies to the ever-changing times to get the best results and beat the competition.
SEO for Enterprise Tips
Having said all that, here are some essential tips to keep in mind if you want to be successful at enterprise SEO.
If you are hiring an agency, ask them about the following.
Page Speed
Google considers page speed (the amount of time it takes for a page to load) as a critical ranking factor.
A slow-loading site offers a terrible and frustrating user experience, and Google wants to avoid giving its users such an experience.
As an enterprise, having a slow-loading website reflects poorly on you and will lead to fewer conversions.
Use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to determine which factors slow down your page speed.
Use Subdomains
Enterprises that have multiple locations should avoid creating separate sites for each one.
Each smaller site will have little SEO power.
Instead, use one main domain and set up subdomains to represent specific locations.
For example, you might have NewYorkCity.YourBusiness.com and Chicago.YourBusiness.com.
Thus, your overall domain will be an SEO powerhouse, helping you rank in each location.
Refresh Old Content
Enterprises typically pump out a lot of content, so it can sometimes be hard to keep track of all the content on the site.
There are several benefits to running content audits and updating old content consistently.
First, it allows you to notice errors you overlooked the first time.
In addition, content can sometimes become outdated due to industry changes.
Having multiple branches complicates that, especially when each branch might have to deal with new local laws and regulations.
An example might be how each location adapted to local Covid-19 regulations.
Finally, refreshing old content gives it a second chance at ranking, even if it didn’t rank well before.
Google might consider the refreshed content as new content, but you should update the publishing date.
Content Creation on a Large Scale
Having a content creation plan is always critical, but it’s even more critical for large enterprise businesses.
They almost always outsource blog writing, or use AI writing software to heavily scale their outputs.
You need to figure out a plan that ensures you keep creating new content, for each subdomain or division, without any hiccups or delays.
Create a content calendar for each subdomain, and assign writers, editors, and managers to be in charge of one or several subdomains.
You can have a manager that oversees all general content creation activities to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Keyword Strategy
A solid keyword research strategy is essential.
Each division or location needs to target a separate set of keywords.
One strategy that works for many enterprises is having a “base keyword” and then tweaking it for multiple locations.
For example, you might target:
- New York City tax accountants
- Chicago tax accountants
- Los Angeles tax accountants
In that example, the base keyword is “[city] tax accountants.”
You may need to find variations of the modified base keyword for enough searches.
Unlike a small business, you can’t rely on long-tail keywords, which are easier to rank for but don’t have enough monthly searches to scale.
Automation
Automation can help you save time, be more productive, and grow your business faster.
Automation tools exist in all aspects of digital marketing and SEO:
- Tracking competitors
- Tracking your rankings
- Backlink outreach
- Social media posting
- And more
Market Research
You should set aside a budget for market research for each division or location.
Find out what local customers want, features they are interested in, things they want you to improve on, etc.
That way, you can create content and find keywords targeted to your audience in each location.
Look International
When expanding internationally, you have to consider several things.
First, you need to ensure you accurately understand the needs and wants of your target audience in different countries.
Having a team on board that accurately understands the culture of each country will help more than you think.
You’ll also have to create content in each country’s dominant language.
Using a translation tool is a horrible idea – you won’t pick up on seemingly insignificant nuances that can make a big difference to native readers.
You must have a team of fluent speakers who can do keyword research and write content in each language.
Create Templates
When you have multiple locations, it helps to create a template that you use for each subdomain.
You can create templates for your product catalog, mobile app, checkout page, location page, about page, and so on.
That helps create brand consistency, which is important if you want to be seen as a global or national brand like KFC or Starbucks.
It will help you attract repeat customers – people who used your services in one city will continue to enjoy the same, familiar experience after moving.
Wrapping Up
You might not have considered just how different enterprise SEO is from regular SEO until now.
Hopefully, this article has shed some light on just how indispensable it is to have an SEO team trained in optimizing and ranking enterprise websites.
