Building a Business Culture for Digital Success

Mike McDougall - Head of SEO

March 9th 2016

With over 14 years in digital, I’ve helped build teams and worked in a variety of roles in agencies in the UK & North America.

I have led and built search marketing teams for a number of leading agencies and have also worked client-side for a number of prominent online brands, including lastminute.com.

In my current role I head up the Search team, ensuring Stickyeyes’ clients are leading the way with forward thinking, content-led digital strategies and driving digital change within their businesses.

A bit about me

SEO out of the Silo

• Delivering great SEO is harder now

that it’s ever been

• No longer a “Bolt-On”

• Search must be considered in the

planning stage

• Let data and insight drive decision

making

Can you guys “SEO” this

for me please?

We need some “SEO”

copy

Make sure “SEO” are ok

with it

Digital as a disruptive force• More customer-focused and digitally agile businesses are winning

• Long-established brands have been over-taken

• Brands like Netflix are a prime example

• ESPN lost an estimated 7.2 million subscribers as more people

“cut the cord”*

• Uber shows how a brand can solve consumer problems and

change traditional behaviours

• Relying on your brand strength, operational scale and reputation

could be disastrous

*Source: Nielsen

Are we approaching a “Search Singularity”?

On-Site Technicals

Functional Content

Engaging Content

Brand AuthorityLink Profile

Quality

User Engagement

Mobile Capability

Machine Learning

Google is changing

• Google serves as an example of digital evolution

and change.

• Constant change and flux has driven it forward.

• It has sought to hone the search engine

experience.

• The elements that effect organic rankings are

hugely diverse.

• Machine learning & AI key to the future of

algorithm.

What is “RankBrain”?

• “RankBrain” is Google’s machine learning

technology.

• Google set to announce that “RankBrain” will soon

be the key component of it’s ranking algorithm.

• Expected to “dial down” human tweaked elements of

their algorithm.

• Machines are starting to understand context and

think like humans.

• This contextual layer will change and personalise the

search experience.

Historically Divergent Strategy

It wasn’t abnormal for site’s to have different strategies and content for

end users and search engines.

Customer Strategy Search Engine Strategy

• Flash / Ajax elements

• Image driven

• Focus on Search

• Offer / campaign pages

• Link lists in footer

• Hidden / buried content

• Keyword stuffed text

• Thin / dupe content

A Singularity of Purpose

• Needs of search engines & end users have never

been closer!

• 9 times of 10, if something is good for end user

then it’s likely to be great for search engines.

• This leaves the algorithm less open to

manipulation.

• Links, and content that existed only for search

engines, is now irrelevant and even damaging.

Changing Ranking factors

The last 18 months have seen a significant shift in the Google algorithm placing much

greater emphasis on user engagement factors. Time on site is now #1.

240

260

280

300

320

15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Ave

rage

Tim

e o

n S

ite

(s)

Ranking Position

Average Time on Site – Ranking Correlation

What does this mean for you as digital experts?

A new digital practitioner

• SEO’s are losing the “techie” image and coming out of the

basement.

• Digital practitioners need to be well rounded marketers

with acute business acumen.

• Demands on SEO professionals have become more

broad covering content, UX, PR as well a technical bread

and butter.

• This new practitioner is geared up to evolve with digital

change.

The evangelist and teacher

The role of the “SEO guy” is a million miles away from what it used to be.

• An evangelist – can they sell the digital dream internally and win hearts and minds?

• Inspirational presenter and good orator.

• A teacher – vital to be able to educate internal teams and stakeholders to create a new

legion of digital believers.

• Convincing senior stakeholders is not easy – force of personality needed

A shift in language and vocabulary

• Antiquated concepts like “white hat” no longer part of a modern digital

language

• Demystification of SEO as a “dark art” or a “black box” – it’s not

• Losing the obsession with Google and “gaming the system” – quit trying to

outsmart the smartest people on earth

• Replacement of phrases like “link building” with classic marketing concepts

like “owned, earned and paid”

Adapt your hiring strategies

• Need to think about how they’re going to fit your

organisation – will they mesh with other departments.

• Technical skills alone won’t cut it!

• A catalyst for change – will they have the passion and

drive to “evangelise” digital?

• Tenacity and commitment – organisational change is

hard, faint hearts need not apply.

Organisational Culture holding Digital back

It’s not easy – operational complexity &

structure, large staff headcounts across

multiple languages, cultures & time

zones, multiple external agencies and

stakeholders all cloud the waters.

The challenges facing organisations

can be categorised into 4 key areas.

Technical – “it’s too difficult to do”

• Technical challenges can slow down transition within large

organisations.

• Legacy platform limitations, system infrastructure, out-dated CMS

systems and e-commerce platforms.

• Systems not build to meet the demands of modern digital strategy.

• Developing them is hard, time consuming and expensive.

• Code freezes and Dev queues make business unresponsive.

Resource – “There’s nobody to do it until…”

• Digital now spans the breadth of organisations – touching most

departments.

• Digital now everyone’s remit – traditionally not the case.

• Department collaboration is much more necessary.

• SEO, e-commerce, PR, Content, UX – all key players for

digital projects.

• Schedules are already stacked – adding digital responsibility

can meet resistance.

Vision – “We don’t see the value in doing this”

• Making the business case for digital strategy is one of the

biggest challenges.

• Not everyone is a digital native who “gets it”.

• Getting executive level buy-in is vital.

• Change is part of the process in creating a digitally focused

brand.

• Failure to convince leads to delays and poor digital performance

Corporate Inertia – “That’s not how we do things here”

• Inertia leads businesses to remain in a state of normality.

• Challenge existing processes, structures and visions to adapt to

modern consumer habits.

• Lack of digital proficiency within the business.

• Many brands are led by people from traditional, non-digital

backgrounds.

• Natural to focus on areas where they feel most comfortable.

The Centre of Excellence Concept

Companies aren’t in a position to necessarily hire 10 specialists

across multiple sites so how can we ensure this knowledge is at

the heart of business-wide decision making?

The Centre of Excellence Concept

Purpose 1: Education

• Absolutely key to the success of the Centre of

Excellence model.

• Market the Guardian role as one to develop &

broaden skills.

• Tailor training levels to suit your audience.

• Make education programs engaging and accessible.

Purpose 2: Process

• Place digitally trained eyes and ears in key

positions within your business.

• Put a clear communication and issue

escalation process in place.

• Onus is on Guardians to flag issues and

communicate departmental news /

projects.

• Don’t over-load Guardians responsibility

outside of day to day work.

Purpose 3: Collaboration

• Break down walls & ensure inter-department communication.

• Get regular meetings in place with COE members.

• Keep the focus and ensure that

issues are caught in timely fashion.

• Understand where issues are likely

to occur – learn from previous

mistakes.

Case in Point: AdidasExcerpts taken

from an Adidas

presentation

delivered in 2014.

Case in Point: AdidasExcerpts taken

from an Adidas

presentation

delivered in

2014

Takeaways and Next Steps

Creating A Digital Roadmap

• You need to know exactly what you’re trying to achieve – build a detailed plan.

• Breaking down into bite-sized chunks makes change less daunting.

• Use data and projections - what does that digital

opportunity look like in 6, 12 and 18 months?

• Communicate this to a high level – create robust

business cases for the “why”.

• Search is sometimes intangible.

Build a team for success

• Use training & education to Identify key talent and stakeholder to convince.

• Identify traditional blockers and put a plan in place to remove and open up comms.

• Gear up for change – long term plans will shift in the

digital space so be agile.

• New digital converts will help to push through change

& combat natural inertia.

• Open your eyes an consume information – follow

Moz, set up a tweet deck of search influencers etc.

Thanks for listening

If you have any additional questions feel free to get in touch:

Email: mike.mcdougall@Stickyeyes.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=7370476Tweet me: @mikeymcdougall