I get surprised when I see SEOs that come out with a template of their so-called best practices and try to apply it to every situation that they face. Unfortunately, SEO is not as simple as some of SEOs want to believe. Of course, we all know that content is king. We all know that links and anchor texts are important for your SEO efforts, but you cannot apply the same aggressive strategy to let’s say companies that are in a highly regulated industry. For instance, it is tough to add SEO friendly content to a highly regulated bank’s website. You have to go through legal and a few other units in order to get your content approved. The same applies to virtually any other strategy that you come up with. Some industries allow you to go fast and aggressive with your SEO strategy, but some other slower industries slow you down. That’s why it is necessary for SEOs to understand the dynamics of the industry they are dealing with in order to be efficient and effective at the same time. In addition, many companies do not have enough resources to implement SEO strategies in a timely manner. So a year long plan may end up being implemented in 2 or 3.  When it comes to SEO, one size indeed doesn’t fit all, so it is essential to be realistic when it comes to planning SEO. Not everything can be implemented!

Search Engine Optimization is a hot topic right now for organizations which have heavily used PPC in the past and now are looking to bring down their overall CPA as their conversions plummets through paid search. One of the deadliest mistakes that upper management of companies make is underestimate the effort that needs to go behind a fully-fledged SEO initiative. There is no question that many VPs and CEOs have heard of SEO but don’t exactly know what it is all about. They think of SEO as a switch that you can flip on and reduce your CPA in an instance. Of course, many organizations would tell you that SEO requires patience and you should expect between 3 to 6 months to see any decent results. What they don’t tell you however is “who” will be implementing the recommendations for you. I have heard of companies that have chosen SEO leaders such as iCrossing and iProspect as their SEO partner just to realize later that they do not have resources to implement the recommendations put forth by these companies.

In order to successfully conduct a successful SEO campaign, superior operational, tactical, and strategic plan is necessary. SEO needs to be treated as a strategic (long-term) customer acquisitions means. But you can not fully execute such long term strategy without dedicating IT resources and know-how to implement operational and tactical SEO plans. There is no question that you can get around your organizations IT restraints by hiring good copywriters and maybe even HTML coders, but things get drastically more complicated if you are running a modern CMS on your corporate site and all the testing that need to go before implementing your SEO tactics could hinder your progress dramatically. In short, if your organizations is planning to undertake its first SEO initiative, it is essential to give your senior management a crash course on what SEO really means to your business. That will allow them to understand the opportunity and challenges at the same time and make more knowledgeable decisions!