Enterprise SEO is a whole different game. Planning and executing an enterprise SEO program can be challenging, given the massive number of content and verticals on an enterprise website. But that doesn’t mean you are without options. Here are a few tips to help you get started with enterprise SEO.
Improve site speed: Ensure that any software updates don’t kill performance by testing changes in a development environment before applying them live. Use Google Page Speed Insights or Pingdom Tools to keep an eye on how well your pages are performing, get feedback from your team members, and make improvements over time based on these metrics. And, of course, use WPTouch Pro so you can check your speed across different devices.
Group content in sub-domains: Arranging content in sub-domains helps Google understand the topics on your site. This way, you can push a particular topic’s page to its subdomain and give it more authority than other pages without a specific topical focus.
Refresh old content, but pay attention to domain authority and backlinks: Refresh outdated content to give Google a refreshed and relevant snapshot of your topic, but pay attention to the authority and backlinks already pointing at that page. You don’t want to lose what you’ve already built up around an old piece of content.
Create a sitemap: Create a sitemap for easy reference while working on enterprise SEO. Site maps provide great navigational tools for both visitors and search engines alike by showing how each section is related within the larger context of your website’s architecture.
Don’t forget about internal linking: Internal links can be optimized in many ways, including anchor text, keyword-rich anchors, link frequency, co-occurrence with other keywords/phrases used throughout all linked documents (in-context) breadcrumbs, and image alt text. Keep in mind that Google gives you a lot of credit for linking out to authority sites.
Create an XML sitemap: Even if you already have a site map, creating an XML sitemap will help search engines crawl your website more efficiently. This will also provide additional navigational tools and indexing information for them to use while they’re crawling through pages on your domain.
Create quality content at a scale: Good content can’t just be good for a blog. It needs to scale up and include everything from company information, products, services, etc. Optimization of all this content will help you rank much better in search engines.
Closely monitor crawling errors: Monitor crawling errors on your site by keeping an eye out for 404 pages or 500 server error messages as Google crawls through your website’s architecture. Fixing these types of issues is important because they impact the user experience, which could lead to a drop in rankings if it goes unresolved.
Strategic keyword selection: Strategic keyword selection involves researching your target audience, determining which keywords or key phrases they would use to search for a service like yours, and including those words in page titles. When you prioritize long-tail keywords, users will likely find what they’re looking for since these terms are less crowded and more specific than short-tail terms.
Automation: Automate all the things! One of the best ways to scale enterprise SEO is by automating tedious processes like site crawling, sitemap creation, and submission. This way, you can focus on more important tasks without getting bogged down in repetitive work.
Don’t forget about mobile: It’s easy to get so caught up with desktop optimization that we forget our sites should be optimized for mobile devices as well. Make sure your website looks good across different screens sizes to provide a better experience for users looking at your content from their phones or tablets. More and more users are browsing the web from their smartphones, so make sure you have a responsive design to accommodate this. From there, your pages must load quickly – as we’ve mentioned before, some 40% of impatient site visitors will leave if they don’t think a page is loading fast enough.
Link building: Link building is an essential part of enterprise SEO. It helps search engines determine the relevancy and authority of your website, which will positively impact where you appear in results.
Meta descriptions: Use meta descriptions that are 150 characters or less to ensure they display properly across all search engine results pages (SERPs). Wherever possible, include keywords within these short snippets as well. It’s also worth making sure there isn’t too much of a contrast between what shows up in the SERP and what you’ve put into your meta description – if your snippet looks nothing like what people will see when clicking through, don’t be surprised if users click back!
Your enterprise SEO efforts will start working for you and create a better user experience by implementing these tips. But make sure you stay up to date with the latest SEO trends.
