SEO activity is not something you can dial up and down like other direct response channels around seasonal campaigns.

Organic performance is strongly aligned to a consistent “always on” approach and as such requires a consistent all year-round effort.

This work transcends SEO and as identified at the start of the guide you need to look back at your previous years multi-channel performance to assess channel effectiveness, along with sales quantity, volume, price point of highest sales and to gain an understanding of where within the sales funnel the channel activates the customer awareness to conversion.

If you are working with an Ecommerce SEO agency or have an internal SEO team, you will know that the work completed by the SEO team is multi-faceted and contains everything from:

/ Editorial content
/ Optimisation of the core high traffic/buyer demand landing pages
/ Digital PR
/ Wireframes
/ Merchandising within product listing pages (PLPs)
/ Refining the product detail page optimisation.

These are tasks largely placed with the marketing team working in collaboration with the SEO team.

The tactics above are pretty general and usually don’t require too many stakeholders, or investment outside of the marketing/ecommerce/brand content team. The above tasks can also be done pre-phase and amended slightly before the event to tweak further based on feedback/optimisation opportunities (continuous optimisation) driving a higher return on output for marketing over time however, it doesn’t matter how great your digital PR coverage, on-page content and editorial are if your technical SEO is not on point.

If your website cannot be crawled efficiently; has a broken ecommerce checkout journey on certain devices, or is using filter pages for high demand pages, then SEO performance will be technically limited.

The challenge that internal SEO and marketing stakeholders have is that in the first instance SEO opportunities need to be audited, evaluated, validated and then put into schedule before any code freezes.

Without an expert technical SEO agency, it is often challenging to determine the priority and impact of requests against each other. This is the first hurdle to overcome in getting IT and Dev stakeholders onside with your SEO strategy.

Marketing stakeholders must be fully informed in the prioritisation of all technical SEO requests and their potential impact in order to represent and explain the requests within scope planning meetings with dev teams.

Scope planning meetings are the first opportunity for SEO stakeholders to present and discuss technical requests. This is the time where SEOs must explain the impact potential of requests to communicate the reasoning behind the request.

Developers will push-back on items where they do not see a simple solution because their priority is to protect code bases and work with a code first view. In many instances, creating work arounds and hacking code can lead to issues and challenges that also require debugging, and fixing, and so developers have a natural reaction to protect the existing solution as best as possible.

This is a buy-in challenge and one you need to address early on in the journey to have a progressive relationship between all parties aligned around website performance.

Without being able to clearly justify the rationale for technical requests and then comfortably challenge developers when they push back you will not achieve parity which leads to success.

 

By considering the following areas, SEO stakeholders can build healthy productive relationships with IT & development to drive SEO impact through technical optimisation.

/ Fair-process: Through developing a fair process approach this ensures the successful roll-out of the SEO strategy into technical execution. Key within the process is to build knowledge sharing, transparency, and inclusion through engaging all the parties affected. Explain the business reason for proposing the technical requests and share performance potential so that IT / Devs understand the upside potential in real world numbers. Share documents, data, competitor insights and live screen share webpage walkthroughs so everyone can see the experience.

/ Getting team on side: An addition to the above especially in new engagements it is key to build the relationship between all parties. Often the developer and marketing team will be used to working with each other, the SEO stakeholder is introduced later on. Take the time to understand each other; explain what you are planning to do and get the developers to feedback on current sprint list/backlog as they know the site capabilities a lot better than you. Take the time to understand any challenges they have faced in the past when considering SEO and let them share any questions and concerns they have. Then make it clear how much SEO counts towards upcoming performance targets, and how the business is deeply vested into making the channel work.

/ Know your role and function and stick to it: It’s essential to remember to stick to your skills and your remit within the equation. Technical SEO’s understand basic code/programming frameworks and developers understand foundation level SEO. However, neither are experts in these fields. Do not try and advise on the other parties role and expert area and never estimate time/effort on delivery from the other side. This approach creates “eyerolls” and can be the foundational layers of a bad working relationship in the future. Trust each other, give consideration but be firm in your SEO pursuits.

/ Build sprint requirements together, always: After any workshop it is imperative that tasks are clearly documented for progression. It is essential that the SEO team write the first draft of these, defining the purpose, business goals, assumptions, team involvement and acceptance criteria to ensure everything is understood by all parties. A lot of times one of the common challenges even after the workshop phase is that there are still misinterpretations of tasks as developers will focus on functional aspects whilst SEO teams focus on performance. The requirements document must detail everything and should be reviewed by the developers who can then add their criteria, so all is shared/understood by all parties before the sprint starts.

 

To ensure ultimate buy in from IT and Dev teams, share the wins. They only know what you have all achieved if you tell them.

Often developers are not aware of channel performance. Make sure your developer partners are aware that what was done within the Sprint has aided performance. This increases trust over time as developers can see first-hand the results achieved through onsite performance, rankings, traffic and sales that the combined effort and cooperation has achieved.

Also, remember to focus on supporting the developers and building capabilities to enhance future performance rather than raising problems. Developers appreciate insights and guidance that comes from marketing or SEO to help focus on creating solutions, not more problems.

 

Work with development teams to keep to code freezes and protect Q4 peak trading by planning well ahead.

In relation to Q4 performance some brands have a complicated sprint process – especially if not ringfenced and sitewide areas being worked on not just specifically SEO. With peak code-freeze around October for Christmas any technical work should be completed 3 months prior to that date so any large-scale SEO technical changes should be scoped in now for deployment in June/July for UAT testing and regression work as if there are any issues (which there often are) you will have 3 months to fix before peak.

You don’t want to make any significant template, global rule automation, checkout or architecture/categorisation changes close to peak as this can be disastrous for Q4 trading. The risk is simply too high.

 

Uniting Efforts for Digital Success

Effective SEO hinges on seamless collaboration between IT, development stakeholders and marketing teams. It’s imperative to maintain a consistent, year-round commitment to SEO, aligning technical execution with strategic objectives. This requires establishing fair processes, fostering transparent communication, and ensuring everyone understands the business rationale behind the technical requests.

By building strong relationships and defining clear roles, businesses can streamline operations and enhance productivity in executing SEO initiatives. Celebrating shared successes and communicating the impact of SEO efforts promotes a sense of ownership and collaboration among team members.

Looking ahead, strategic planning is essential to navigate peak trading seasons successfully. With Q4 being one of the busiest times for many ecommerce brands, businesses must proactively scope and execute technical changes well in advance to mitigate risks. By adhering to code freezes and anticipating potential challenges, brands can safeguard their online performance during critical periods.

By encouraging collaboration and strategic planning, businesses can overcome SEO barriers and drive sustainable growth and enhanced online visibility.

For further guidance and expertise in optimising your digital presence, consider partnering with a dedicated SEO Agency to ensure sustainable growth and success.

 

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