And thanks for the kind words.

SEO and SEM are very challenging jobs from every aspect of the work and if you are into this profession you have to face very frequent changes and always you have to keep your self updated with search engines. In this profession if your techniques worked you are successful or completely lost.

By the way, congratulation once again.

I do agree with the fact that now SEO is heavily used to create brand awareness. Many companies are strategically using SEO to build their PR for online and offline presence.

Thanks for the prompt to redo the link – this one should work.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=26166390&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro

This post is generating some nice discussion points and we have discussed them internally here at McDougall. Am looking forward to more good side-topics.

SB

Thanks for the comment – good to meet another MEC guy online! Interestingly, I think I’ll be involved in looking towards running other parts of the agency through various aspects of SEO, in addition to the work in progress meetings…all pretty positive stuff in my opinion.

Cheers for the comment – will be in touch!

@Lanette, I really like this point: “I also enjoy SEO because it does keep you on your toes, and it keeps you sharp. Especially when you end up knowing more about your clients competition as well as other industries.” …invaluable in any SEO and online marketing activity, and always worth considering. (And don’t worry – it’s not that geeky – otherwise that would make us all geeks!).

@SirBigWig, I would say that a lot of the activity to date has revolved around finding opportunities to capitalise on their other marketing or PR opportunities – essentially being very efficient with the SEO efforts. Onsite SEO is still very much the same but scaled-upwards of course. I would always say though that if people can look beyond ‘link-building’ to partnership-building and contact-building and optimisation of marketing efforts, then there is often better scope for offsite optimisation. Great question!

@Stevie Black, please could you add the LinkedIn link again as it’s broken. Thanks for the kind words, and I think you have provided some excellent advice around learning about the company in question.

Thanks all,

Ben

To my surprise, each enterprise account I have spoken with in prep for the podcasts, and even during the podcasts themselves, has revealed astonishingly important information about the company, the business cycles, the business goals, and even the business focus. In a each case, my firm has been working with their brand managers, marketing people, and IT/web departments for more than a year. Based on the info I discovered, we may not have the SEO fixed on the right topics, issues, perhaps even the right areas of the site itself. Major changes have resulted in these organizations, and of course in their websites, as a result.

So the caution here is when starting out with a company, either internal or external, make sure the net is cast far and wide across the organization, especially if the business has global presence and regional offices, because the key to successful SEO -not to mention fiscally-wise SEO- may be to understand all the pieces from their perspective rather than relying on the aggregate view from the top or from the Marketing Division.

Great submission, Ben, keep on writing.

SB

Nice post.

Do you find your strategy changes, the sort of links you try to acquire? Do you think that in some respects Corporate SEO is more like online PR than actual optimisation>?

I used to dabble in SEO a few years back, then moved back into a purley creative role. Over the past year however, I jumped back into SEO and LOVE every minute of it. I love the research, analytics, and ROI tracking and conversions of campaigns.

I also spend a lot of free time researching the latest and greatest trends and technological advancements in SEO. I enjoy keeping up with SEO on a daily basis. It sounds geeky, and most people you speak with have no clue what your talking about. Once clients realize the benefits of SEO, they never go back. You must integrate it into everything you do for the web. (Or you should)

I also enjoy SEO because it does keep you on your toes, and it keeps you sharp. Especially when you end up knowing more about your clients competition as well as other industries. SEO has opened many doors for me, and also gives me outstanding conversational tools to keep people up-to-date on trends, events, and industry standards, and advancements that many people would not be aware of otherwise.

It is quite a unique field and if you get more than one SEO guru in a room – beware – the energy, learning, conversation and inspiration could last for hours!!!