What is Enterprise SEO? An Executive’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization & Organic Lead Generation

When was the last time you heard someone say “I love Google” and “this ranking stuff isn’t that hard”, especially in a boardroom? Probably never.

As a whole, search engine optimization (SEO) is a mix of art, science, and standard operating procedures for any company. The vast majority of the SEO industry focuses on SMBs and mid-sized companies, personal sites, and even side hustles, but it looks different and is much more complicated for large companies.

At its core, Enterprise SEO is the practice of helping large enterprise companies achieve success through organic traffic, visibility, and online growth.

To achieve this, it is essential to create content aimed at ranking for featured snippets, particularly for informational queries.

In this post, I’ll explore the basics of enterprise SEO, including why it matters, how it differs from traditional SEO, and some tips to keep in mind.

What Is Enterprise SEO?

Enterprise SEO is an extensive, dynamic approach for aiding large-scale organizations in improving brand presence to reach their target audience more effectively and, therefore, increasing profitability.

The term SEO is a common entity in the market, but Enterprise SEO is an entirely different element to profitability and success. In addition, the SEO strategies and tactical approaches small businesses use will not be effective with larger organizations, making understanding Enterprise SEO critical for market positioning.

Empowering experts and employees within the organization to participate in creating content can bring unique insights that enrich the material and enhance marketing efforts.

Enterprise SEO differs from regular SEO based on the sheer volume and scale of the available market and its complexity. Where a standard SEO strategy may focus on dozens, hundreds, or thousands of keywords, an Enterprise SEO strategy is targeting hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of keywords. Instead of hundreds of potential landing pages, a team focusing on enterprise will be working towards ranking millions, and even tens of millions, of unique pages.

Example industries include: 

Ecommerce	Automotive	Job Boards	Real Estate	Travel
Amazon	Autotrader	Indeed	Zillow	Tripadvisor
Walmart	Kelly Blue Book	FlexJobs	Redfin	Kayak
Home Depot	Cars.com	LinkedIn	Apartments.com	Hotels.com
Etsy	CarGurus	Monster	Homes.com	Booking.com
eBay	Edmunds	Glassdoor	eXp Realty	Airbnb
Target	Carfax	Nexxt	ez Home Search	Expedia

Where regular SEO efforts often sit within the marketing organization, Enterprise SEO teams almost never do. They instead either sit with the consumer-facing product and technology teams for the reasons I’ll discuss in this article, while in some cases they sit independently and work daily with those product and technology teams.

However, Enterprise SEO is not a one-size-fits-all approach, either. Your organizational needs will be significantly different from your competitor’s, even when you are vying for the same top rankings in search results. Knowing how a unique SEO strategy can benefit your company will ensure that your team of experts makes the most out of the information you receive and the resources you provide.

Enterprise SEO In Action

High-quality enterprise SEO will consist of four main elements and potentially a fifth, including: 

• On-Page SEO

• Off-Page SEO

• Technical SEO

• Product-Led SEO

• Local SEO (potentially)

On-Page SEO 

On-page SEO refers to all the optimization tasks that cover your website content, ensuring it is optimized for both search engines and users. These elements include headers, meta titles and descriptions, images, keywords, body content, and more.

At the basic level, on-page SEO should focus on relevant keywords within your website. They should appear in your content, headers, meta descriptions, and other elements that tell a search engine everything it needs to know about your page.

In addition to making sure your content creation is engaging your audience the way you want, you need to ensure it will engage the search engines by including these components.

While some of this can be covered with your Product-Led SEO effort, there will always be page and section specific optimizations required when implementing content and evaluating results over time.

Off-Page SEO 

Off-page SEO pertains to anything that happens off your website. From third-party links to backlinking reviews and brand mentions, all off-page SEO tasks will help build your site’s authority.

With this connection off-page, Google will transfer some of the authority from the third party to your enterprise website, helping raise your rankings for the search engine results page (SERP). 

Digital PR is related and does have some overlap with this effort; digital PR is focused on the brand itself and typically sits within the company’s marketing department. Companies that are successful in ranking millions of pages and keywords almost always take the approach of treating off-page SEO and digital PR as related, independent efforts. This allows the efforts to maintain their independent focus and build the required momentum overtime, while avoiding the “red tape” that too often limits the efforts of both initiatives.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO covers any optimization task that makes your website easier for crawlers to index and improve a user’s experience. For example, better website speeds, mobile-friendly websites, lower bounce rate, and an easy-to-navigate hierarchy fall under technical SEO duties. 

This element continuously changes as search engines update their algorithms and ranking requirements. Therefore, more complex guidelines can mean low-ranking results if your enterprise site does not have continuous monitoring. 

Product-Led SEO 

Product-Led SEO centers around creating the core product or platform that potential customers and search engines interact with. This model upends traditional marketing by focusing on the product itself to generate the content experience blended with the user experience of traditional product teams. It would be impossible to create the millions of pages with unique content and a great experience manually. Instead, product-led SEO involves the close collaboration with software engineers, product managers, a large content team, strategic growth marketers, business leaders, and others to create a “product” or platform that meets the needs of tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of monthly users.

Local SEO 

Local SEO methods hyper-focus on your organization’s distinct geographical service area. While expanding to larger markets, many enterprises ignore the high potential that local SEO can provide when done correctly. 

It involves having dedicated content and search tools highlighting how your company helps at the most local level. This could include larger areas of a city or somewhere as narrow as specific neighborhoods.

There are additional local off-site opportunities for local SEO too. Even though Google Business Profiles (formerly Google My Business) and other sites are free local SEO resources, you should not overlook them. Unfortunately, many large organizations do not take advantage of this no-dollar-cost option (often a personal and tool cost) to help increase local rankings. Inputting your company’s address, business hours, online reviews, photos, and more, will help target the local relevant audience you choose. 

When Do You Need Enterprise SEO?

Determining the best SEO strategy for your business can be daunting. How do you know when Enterprise SEO is necessary? The answer lies within the type of site your organization employs and your short and long-term goals.

Optimizing various aspects of your website is crucial to succeed in competitive search results and achieve your business goals.

Enterprise SEO provides a comprehensive and successful approach for large businesses that have larger websites with hundreds of thousands of web pages and require more strategic marketing for profitability and brand awareness.

Consequently, Enterprise SEO is not dependent on the size of your company or how many employees you have. Instead, it relies solely on how many web pages you maintain and the volume of data and information your organization needs for proper rankings from search engines. The complexity of data sources may also be a factor in pushing your team into this approach to SEO.

A website may also fall under the enterprise classification if your organization runs it with large-scale online payment processing, franchise business models, and various customer support options, plus it employs multiple methods of providing and receiving information for the overall user experience. Additionally, Enterprise SEO methods can benefit from a network of sites that relate together and require correlation for optimal success.

Why Is Enterprise SEO Important?

Enterprise SEO is critical for these large-scale websites. However, due to their complex elements and features, traditional SEO methods, content creation, and website building SOPs (standard operating procedures) will not produce the desired results organizations want to achieve.

I wanted to share valuable insights about enterprise SEO to help organizations understand its importance and how to implement it effectively.

Simply put, traditional SEO tactics typically use a relatively small number of long-tail keywords to go up against a small competitive market. Enterprise SEO methods use short-tail, competitive keywords in combination with numerous long-tail keywords that are highly competitive among other large organizations.

Rather than focusing on a few simple keywords and phrases, enterprise sites should be aiming at hundreds of thousands or even millions of keywords to rank effectively against competitors. Instead, much of the enterprise solutions deal with scalability options.

Product managers and software engineers will often be the key individuals to implement code changes and make changes to view different results. These expansive tasks require much more involvement for enterprise sites than traditional businesses would. Technologies such as Ruby, Rails, Next.js, headless CMS, and others are necessary to implement these SEO tasks properly. In most cases, there will be large content and in-house, off-site teams working alongside these teams to create a combined solution and experience.

SEO for enterprise websites requires careful planning and implementation by trained consumer technology and growth marketing specialists. Organizations can assess, prioritize, and perform SEO campaigns and tasks on a grand level across multiple sites and locations with scalable options.

In addition, SEO practices overlap with conversion rate optimization (CRO), making this correlation even more relevant. Although some unique SEO methods will not affect the CRO, and some CRO elements have no effect on SEO results, much more falls on both aspects of enterprise SEO.

What Does Enterprise SEO Entail?

While standard SEO involves optimizing website content for better rankings in search engines, Enterprise SEO goes much further. The aim is to attract more potential traffic to the top of your funnel and support those visitors in their customer (or client) journeys. Once you have the visitors, additional SEO tactics and a dedicated user experience team can help your conversion rates as they work through the customer journey. 

Because of the larger scale, including hundreds or thousands of web pages, enterprise solutions require additional elements for success. These factors include: 

• Automation 

• Collaboration 

• Concentrated competitor analysis 

• Deep market research 

• Project management 

• Scalability 

• Advanced and time-sensitive tactics 

• Alternative features

Automation 

What does automation mean for Enterprise SEO? This feature can help with keyword research, especially when analyzing title tags and meta descriptions throughout hundreds or thousands of websites. Automated templates can make quick work of simple tasks when rolled out through an enterprise platform. 

Identifying problems throughout enterprise websites, monitoring all the backlinks, and effective quality control all benefit from automation. In addition, project management workflow processes will remain identical throughout all locations and remote teams, making tasks simple and scalable. 

Essentially, automation is vital for a scalable enterprise SEO strategy and profitable tactics. While some of this automation can be, and should be, accomplished with dedicated 3rd party tools, much of this work will also be built into the core platform the company builds and managed by a host of internal teams.

Collaboration 

Collaboration within extensive corporate SEO services ensures that all data remains on a central platform. Even with hundreds and thousands of websites and comprehensive data for analytical purposes, collaborating this information makes it simple to identify patterns and areas that are profitable as well as ones that are not.

The SEO industry evolves every week, making efficient collaboration among marketing departments crucial for timely content production and publication.

Organizations can explore their customers’ journeys at every touchpoint and compare multiple websites for any variances. Collaboration can also ensure that your company implements a unified design model for every branch and remote location.

Concentrated Competitor Analysis 

Large organizations will face more competition within the market, making Enterprise SEO an essential element to the company’s medium-to-long-term success. Analyzing what the competition is using for their SEO solutions, including keywords and tactics, can provide more in-depth reasoning for search rankings. 

Exploring your competitor’s snippets in a Google search can indicate Google’s preference. Keeping this in mind, your organization can produce similar, if not better, results that can boost your rankings with your target audience. 

Competition will come from a small number of other large organizations but may also come from numerous smaller companies, and even solopreneurs, that are highly focused on a small piece of your market (e.g. local car dealer competing with Autotrader, local real estate agent competing with Zillow, locally owned pest control company competing with national franchise brand, etc.).

Deep Market Research 

Deep market research for Enterprise SEO services is more straightforward and faster at the start when using specialty software platforms. In addition, many of these solutions help make research faster and more efficient and cover more areas for optimal results. 

Using non-branded keywords can produce more organic traffic for your brand, helping to gain market exposure. However, Enterprise SEO solutions should also include category and branded keywords and bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFu) keywords to increase conversions. 

Proper deep market research will give your organization more awareness of where you stand and the necessary changes you need to come out ahead of the competition. 

In time, your organization will end up supplementing any 3rd party research tools with customer solutions built in-house that will incorporate internal data, external tools (e.g. ahrefs API), and external data sets. 

Project Management 

Any Enterprise SEO solution should include efficient project management. By enforcing workflows throughout the organization, all expert teams will follow identical procedures and tactics in their SEO efforts. 

More comprehensive project management tasks that define multiple workflow processes can enhance scalability and efficiency. Ideally, when working with Enterprise SEO tactics, your organization should have a designated team of individuals to handle project management as it moves through each step to completion. 

The Enterprise SEO team may also utilize different project and product management tools for different sub-teams and SOPs (standard operating procedures). For example:

• Team leaders may use Asana or Trello

• Outreach team may use Buzzstream and Outreach.io

• Product and engineering teams may use Shortcut or Jira, alongside a platform like Prodctboard.

• Content teams may use Asana or Trello

Scalability 

Templates help make scalability with Enterprise SEO simpler. Scaling an enterprise website will ensure that you can accommodate increasing growth and volume. Without proper workflow processes to adjust for more web traffic, your website can become sluggish, appear out-of-date, or even vulnerable to online threats. 

Scalability also pertains to the volume of data you will receive when conducting market research and collecting customer data. Therefore, having a built-in, proprietary content management system will simplify collecting and analyzing this information without hindering your website’s performance. 

Advanced and Time-Sensitive Tactics 

Combining advanced and time-sensitive tactics within your Enterprise SEO strategies will help support immediate and long-term goals for the organization. This way, an organization can reach potential customers at every touchpoint of the purchasing journey. 

Using various Enterprise SEO tacts will help protect your organization’s websites from any negative impact when Google updates algorithms periodically. In addition, being ready for adjustments helps ensure that your pages still produce higher rankings even after changes in organic search engine parameters. Your team should be focused on best practices that protect from major search algorithm updates, but there will always be changes that your entire team may need to shift to address in the short-term and optimize based on changes in the industry. When needed, this needs to be done quickly.

Alternative Features

Because handling hundreds of thousands of pages will require different management than standard SEO procedures, Enterprise SEO will involve alternative features. Some of these characteristics that are not present in traditional optimization processes will be: 

• Managing high volumes of data 

• Stringent keyword and keyphrase selection

• Optimizing thousands of web pages efficiently and sometimes in real-time

• Website optimization for multiple locations and languages  

• Working with remote teams 

Managing High Volumes of Data

Analyzing information across enterprise websites will involve high volumes of data. This includes both the data and content to generate the public facing experience as well as the behind the scenes data required for research, optimization, future product development, etc.

We are talking about terabytes, petabytes, etc. As an example, when I was at HERE Technologies (formerly Navteq), our core data set was tracked in petabytes and that was 2000 – 2010 for the “static” (ever-changing but relatively static) data with our real-time traffic supporting traffic.com (and thousands of other sites) being calculated in terabytes. The core data would then be compiled into a more appropriate, and smaller, format for sites like Google Maps, Mapquest, etc or to be used in location-based apps like Garmin run trackers. 

Companies like Autotrader may pull in data from hundreds of data sources, with millions of photos, location-data, etc. That data then must be assimilated, massaged, and then adjusted for display within vehicle search applications. The engineering teams often must maintain the data in different formats for search and rendering the pages that consumers (those shopping for vehicles in this case) and search engines experience.

In addition, your teams will need to track, store, and utilize usage and organic search presence data for a variety of purposes. So, naturally, the more data you collect for analytical purposes, the more need you have for efficient collection and examination methods.

Utilizing proper data management should involve identical processes with every page for continuity. This strategy helps to get the most out of the information for effectiveness while still remaining efficient. 

Stringent Keyword and Keyphrase Selection 

The difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords is apparent when comparing the small business market to the large enterprise efforts discussed in this article. Selecting long-tail keywords and phrases that are highly specific and that have a lower search volume, are easier to place for better rankings, and produce higher conversion rates. 

With lower competition for these long-tail options, an organization can focus on these beneficial elements at every customer journey touchpoint. However, short-tail keywords are highly competitive in the rankings and require hyper-focused enterprise SEO strategies to maintain relevance and benefit an organization. 

Optimizing Thousands of Web Pages Efficiently 

Optimization can be tedious if not implemented correctly. However, Enterprise SEO calls for efficient use of optimization due to the sheer volume of web pages. Online tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights and Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool help simplify tasks across thousands of web pages, while more focused tools like Botify, Conductor, seoClarity, Siteimprove, SEMrush, etc. will provide solutions for your team’s specific needs as it grows. 

Website Optimization for Multiple Locations 

Enterprise SEO will typically include multiple locations due to the extensive business size. Additionally, popular organizations may operate in different countries or regions simultaneously, creating the need for website optimization for these various locations. While the efforts and core technologies will overlap with your primary location, there will be differences. 

As an example, shopping for a car in the United States is similar but different from buying a vehicle in South Korea, Peru, or Saudi Arabia, and the search competition for those buying a vehicle in different locations will be different as well. 

Working with Remote Teams 

Large organizations will have multiple branches and involve teams of individuals for SEO tasks. Enterprise SEO is effectively working with these remote teams to adhere to identical workflow processes and SEO strategies across all company areas. This includes all areas of the effort from outreach (e.g. link building) to product management to writing the code for the platform.

Examples of Sites That Need Enterprise SEO

If determining site needs for enterprise SEO solutions is still challenging, compare your current website to these giant brands. Similar page sizes and thousands of necessary short and long-tail keywords can indicate the urgency for Enterprise SEO strategies. 

• Amazon

• AutoTrader

• FlexJobs

• Home Depot

• Hotels_com

• Indeed

• Kelly Blue Book

• SurveyMonkey

• TripAdvisor

• Walmart

• WebMD

• Zillow

One of the most common features of these 12 organizations includes thousands to millions of web pages which consist of products, product/location specific pages, and categories. Depending on the search criteria, these websites connect individuals near and far and see millions of website traffic every day. 

Potential visitors can be local or within a target area that is relatable to the company’s product offering. For example, AutoTrader benefits from connecting potential visitors in Seattle with sellers who post an ad in that local area. Alternatively, Walmart may switch the focus of its SEO efforts to winter clothing in locations that face dropping temperatures during the colder months. 

Benefits of Enterprise SEO

The benefits of utilizing Enterprise SEO are many. Therefore, if your organization is suffering against the competition or not growing the way you need it to, it is time to explore how this strategy and the required investment can provide the results you need for growth and better exposure in your industry. 

Some common advantages of implementing enterprise SEO across your organization include: 

• Providing a higher authority presence 

• Driving sizeable organic traffic 

• Better ranking with short-tail keywords 

• Attracting new audiences  

Enterprise websites ensure your organization has a higher authority presence on the internet. As a result, companies can have more control over their brand content and the image they present online. Additionally, using links from other credible websites and sources helps increase an organization’s authority and improve its impression on visitors. 

Driving Sizable Organic Traffic 

Local search results and mobile device queries measure over half of online searching, with much of these focusing on “near me” suggestions. As a result, Enterprise SEO solutions that concentrate on customizable local markets can drive sizable organic traffic and improve growth and brand awareness.

Better Ranking with Short-Tail Keywords 

While short-tail keywords pose a higher competitive nature than long-tail alternatives, Enterprise SEO strategies provide an advantage for organizations. With a higher authoritative presence in the market and industry, larger sites will find a better ranking for popular short-tail keywords to attract their target audience. 

Attracting New Audiences 

Proper Enterprise SEO strategies can attract new audiences with current and new offerings by analyzing search patterns and trends. This way, organizations can uncover new opportunities for existing products or services while revealing potential advances that align with the company’s brand and future goals. 

Drawbacks of Enterprise SEO

Naturally, Enterprise SEO can have some difficulties, making it critical that organizations use this method correctly for the best results. Being aware of these challenges can ensure your company implements proper enterprise SEO strategies. 

• Need for optimizing thousands to millions of individual pages

• Avoiding duplicate content 

• Often does not produce immediate results 

• Requires continuous attention

• Requires a sizeable investment and unique team 

Need for Optimizing Thousands to Millions of Individual Pages 

Optimizing thousands to millions of individual web pages takes time. However, large enterprises will need every page at its best because they want to make the customer’s journey simple and easy for the optimal user experience (UX). 

While automated software platforms can help tackle millions of individual pages, it will still require time and effort. Ideally, software specialists will dedicate their time and energy to optimization tasks and analyzing data for better results. Unfortunately, this process requires dozens to even thousands of people across software engineering, product, content, and growth marketing. It simply is not possible to achieve meaningful results with borrowed time and resources from other projects. 

Avoiding Duplicate Content 

Avoiding duplicate content on an enterprise site is vital to avoid being penalized for manipulating search results. It can be easy to overlook duplicate or thin content, but proper Enterprise SEO solutions can customize elements such as meta tags, long-form content, image names, etc. to ensure unique content on every page. 

This element is more prominent with enterprise sites with multiple domains in different languages. While these web pages in separate languages are necessary to attract foreign market visitors, Enterprise SEO solutions are vital in keeping these websites indexed correctly for proper SEO results. 

Often Does Not Produce Immediate Results 

Enterprise SEO solutions can be costly in the beginning. These efforts call for software specialists that will spend much time determining the right approach to maximize an organization’s efforts. Therefore, a company’s ROI will not be apparent until much later. 

It can take anywhere from six to 12 months to see initial results from implementing Enterprise SEO efforts. This lag is partly due to search engine indexing that can take up to six months and attempting to reach further into possible target audiences than before. 

Requires Continuous Attention

Because Enterprise SEO takes time to show results, it requires continuous attention. This strategy is not a set-it-and-forget-it method, unfortunately. Instead, it takes a team of specialists to continuously analyze collected information to determine results and make adjustments as necessary. 

Without proper monitoring, an organization cannot determine if its efforts are successful or where to make adjustments. 

Requires a sizeable investment and unique team

While the ROI from even moderate success can be incredible, leadership needs to plan on a sizable investment that will vary depending on the complexity of data sources, competition, and required user experience. It would be rare to find an Enterprise SEO effort that does not start well into the millions of dollars per year.

Companies can get started with a team of a dozen or so spread across engineering, product management, content, outreach, and other efforts. However, to truly compete in most industries, the total dedicated team size will often scale to the hundreds and even thousands. The good news is that many companies in your industry may be public, allowing you to gauge resource levels through annual reports and LinkedIn profiles. In addition, there are only a small number of Enterprise SEO and product-led growth leaders with proven track records – if you’re wanting to bring in those that have found repeatable success in the past. These leaders may allow you to find innovative ways to compete against established companies with a smaller investment.

Enterprise SEO vs Traditional SEO

While there are similar elements within traditional SEO and Enterprise SEO practices, many factors will differ, producing unique benefits for each application. Knowing these variances can help CEOs and other major organizational players determine current goals and make necessary adjustments. 

In simple terms, Enterprise SEO works backward from traditional SEO strategies. Small to medium businesses use SEO methods to build authority and increase content, while large enterprises have expansive content and active, solid branding strategies. 

Enterprise SEO involves large databases of content and the creation of technology to deliver the overall experience, in addition to a much larger (often 100x or more) efforts seen in traditional SEO. Additionally, Enterprise SEO requires specialized, more involved tools to execute strategies for effective organic search traffic. 

Therefore, successful companies always separate Enterprise SEO efforts from traditional marketing and branding. While these teams will collaborate and each have an important role in the success of the company, the Enterprise SEO leadership and efforts often sit within “product” or “consumer technology”.

Comparing Enterprise SEO to traditional SEO elements is more prominent when exploring these contributing factors: 

• Size of the website

• Strategies

• Budget and investment

• Keyword selection

• Scalability 

• Growth goal 

• Platforms and services available 

Size of the Website

One of the first indicators of which SEO is suitable for an organization is the size of the website. 

Small businesses can see effective results from traditional SEO strategies when they only require limited pages with associated products or services. However, larger enterprise websites will have thousands to millions of online pages. 

The sheer volume of pages and potential organic traffic will require specialized Enterprise SEO methods for efficiency and profitability. Additionally, having numerous topic clusters call for special handling to avoid duplicate content.

Strategies

While both traditional and Enterprise SEO strategies include the same three pillars—discovery, relevance, and authority—each area is unique to its alternative. Therefore, how a small business works through each phase will be entirely different than a large organization. 

Discovery

Discovery within traditional SEO methods may include researching the local competition and exploring high-ranking keywords and phrases. These tasks can be somewhat time-consuming, but they are achievable. 

However, the discovery phase within Enterprise SEO is not a task that an organization can do individually. The extensive volume of pages and information on the niche for an organization will be all-encompassing, taking an infinite amount of time without ever reaching completion using traditional strategies. 

Thankfully, many Enterprise SEO discovery methods rely on automation and collaboration with several teams and departments to make this strategy more straightforward to implement and simple to understand. 

Relevance 

Relevant strategies will differ significantly between traditional and enterprise SEO. What may provide benefit and valuable information for a small business will not apply to large organizations that are aiming for a global market. 

Traditional SEO will require alternative relevant keywords, meta tags, media, and onsite elements. These elements will aim to gain local market exposure and place them ahead of their competition. 

Enterprise SEO strategies focus on more relevance for a larger market, including attracting new audiences locally and globally. 

Authority 

Authority within SEO strategies can increase the exposure and branding a company wants for its target market. Search engines that find a website they deem a reputable source will rank them higher than others with less authority. 

Traditional SEO strategies may focus on internal links to their other products or service pages and external links to local suppliers or relevant organizations. However, these external links do not often contain competitor pages. 

Enterprise SEO methods will utilize hundreds and thousands of internal links and authoritative, relevant third-party links throughout their web pages. The focus here is on creating a truly “gravitational force” of information and authority for both visitors and search engines.

Budget and Investment

Naturally, the budget and investment for effective SEO strategies within a company will reflect its available resources. 

When analyzing traditional SEO methods, small businesses require simple SEO strategies and localized optimization. These elements are not as time-consuming as Enterprise SEO methods and can produce beneficial results on a smaller scale. 

Often, small businesses will start with a budget and build on SEO strategies around that amount. The common question for these companies is, how much SEO benefit can we get from this budget? 

Small businesses typically invest to see immediate and short-term results helping to produce a favorable ROI. Alternatively, investing in training for current staff can ensure they periodically analyze and use traditional SEO strategies.

Large organizations will require a more significant budget and investment to implement and oversee enterprise SEO throughout their company’s platform. In addition, the expansive web page volume belonging to them requires more advanced SEO methods for proper execution. 

Because big businesses are focusing on a long-term investment, results are not immediate and can take up to 12 months for factual data. Therefore, organizations will also invest in a designated organic team of professionals rather than having the existing marketing team tackle this complex task. 

Rather than starting with a dollar amount, large enterprises will have an SEO goal in mind and focus on the budget after. Additionally, enterprises typically have more resources at their disposal than smaller businesses, making it easier to invest in SEO strategies that will pay off later. 

Keyword Selection

The keyword selection between traditional SEO and Enterprise SEO strategies will differ greatly because they have alternative goals. 

With traditional SEO methods, a company may be successful and rank well with hundreds of long-tail keywords for their market niche. Although this approach is successful for small businesses, it will reach a point where growth is stagnant. 

Enterprise SEO will expand the keyword selection to maintain high rankings for long-tail keywords and ensure short-tail keywords bring in more organic traffic. In addition, enterprise strategies will include keyword mapping for organizations to analyze current keywords and monitor SEO strategies.  

One of my early clients had an initial list of more than 500,000 keywords for their organic growth, and I’ve worked with clients targeting millions of keywords within just a few years. The approach to keyword groups deals with lists of variants and optionality that require a more systematic approach to keyword targeting.

Scalability

The scalability between traditional SEO and Enterprise SEO strategies is apparent. This difference comes with the content and volume of information available. 

Traditional SEO methods are ideal for smaller businesses that possess websites of only a few pages. Any SEO changes are within each page individually and do not require specialized professionals, although they can help provide more benefits. 

Therefore, the scalability of their corresponding web pages is simple and independent. Although it can become time-consuming with dozens and even hundreds of pages, it is not an impossible task. 

However, Enterprise SEO demands optimal scalability for proper operation. Handling thousands to millions of web pages is a never-ending job if an organization completes it manually or with traditional marketing tactics. Scalability ensures the most efficient use of time when extracting data, determining new keywords, and collaborating with other teams to move forward with any changes. 

Growth Goal

Traditional SEO methods are ideal for small and medium businesses to gain awareness in their target market and build authority. Therefore, their growth goals are small compared to enterprises and are limited to a small market niche. 

These smaller-scale SEO solutions will often show results in the short term. Alternatively, this almost immediate reporting helps guide a company on what adjustments are helpful or harmful as they establish themselves in the market. 

Alternatively, Enterprise SEO solutions are specific for handling a massive volume of information. These reports and details help organizations fine-tune SEO strategies as they expand to alternative markets or additional countries. However, large amounts of data take time to analyze and instead provide results after some time passes. 

Because of the volume of information enterprise websites handle, any SEO adjustments can substantially impact the growth goals of an organization and its reputation in the market. As an example, think about how TripAdvisor has fundamentally changed how people look for “things to do” when traveling or making weekend plans. 

Platforms and Services Available

Naturally, the platforms and services available for SEO strategies will alter when switching from traditional to Enterprise SEO. Knowing which tools are best suited for your company’s needs will ensure the most effective use of time and money. 

Traditional SEO platforms are readily available for small and medium businesses, often at no-cost or low-cost options. These smaller-scale platforms have limited capabilities but offer many features that can provide SEO benefits for companies. 

Some options for traditional SEO services include: 

• Semrush 

• Synup

• BiQ

• Google My Business 

• Google Search Console

A few of the best choices for enterprise SEO platforms are: 

• BrightEdge

• seoClarity 

• Botify 

• Conductor 

• MarketMuse

BrightEdge 

BrightEdge is an exceptional Enterprise SEO platform with several benefits for all sizes of organizations. This platform can help improve your local SEO rankings by combining backlink management and listing management. They also offer content optimization and page speed analysis for improving UX. 

seoClarity 

Another popular Enterprise SEO option is seoClarity. With this platform, your organization can use backlink management to help build authority in your market and target local SEO rankings. seoClarity also allows content optimization and page speed analysis to provide the best user experience. 

Botify 

Botify takes an alternative direction to enterprise success. It focuses on a URL-first approach instead of a standard keyword-first method that other software options provide. 

This platform relies on three elements to provide the most comprehensive Enterprise SEO solutions. Using Botify Analytics, Botify Intelligence, and Botify Activation, these suites all work together to increase ROI through higher organic traffic. The platform will aid in maximizing your crawl budget for deep crawls with actionable advice and real-time insights.

Conductor 

Conductor is one of the easiest Enterprise SEO platforms to use in the market. Their focus on simplicity, consistency, and available insights make this an attractive choice for many organizations. Additionally, it offers competitive insights, keyword alerts, optimization opportunities, and highlights of content performance. 

MarketMuse 

MarketMuse is a dynamic approach to handling Enterprise SEO. This platform ranges from simple optimization to extensive content strategy development for your organization’s website with tiered offerings. Many know it for its AI strategies and can predict content performance before it is live, giving your company more insight into possible results. 

7 Helpful Enterprise SEO Tips To Keep in Mind

Whether you are new to enterprise SEO or want to realign your organization’s goals, keeping these seven helpful SEO tips in mind is beneficial. 

• Create topic clusters

• Demonstrate EAT—Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness

• Use a solid internal linking strategy 

• Ensure content is not duplicated 

• Technical SEO is vital 

• Build quality links through digital PR 

• Execution is key 

Create Topic Clusters

Creating topic clusters is an effective way for potential website visitors to find you and your products or services through similar pieces of content that loosely relate to each other. Much like the spokes of a wheel, each cluster will have a central topic that more specific web pages will identify with on a more general level. 

When using topic clusters as an Enterprise SEO tool, your organization will include the main pillar page with relatable cluster pages that contain internal links. The use of internal links throughout your website will keep visitors interested and increase the potential for a better ROI. 

Topic clusters help Google and other search engines determine your website’s hierarchy and see it as an authoritative source for that particular topic. Your organization’s pillar pages should provide a general umbrella overview of a topic and links to more detailed information cluster pages. 

Demonstrate EAT—Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness

The acronym EAT is one element Google uses in its evaluation process to determine your webpage’s overall quality. All three aspects—expertise, authority, and trustworthiness—complement one another. This way, they help to solidify an enterprise’s ranking among search results. 

Search engines analyze your organization’s expertise at the content level. Therefore, your organization will need website content that proves your knowledge of the target area rather than your opinions or feelings on a subject. 

Authority comes from reputation and branding through your organization and how potential visitors see your company. Features including reviews, ratings, recommendations, and references help build your company’s authority in your market. 

Trustworthiness comes in the form of accuracy, legitimacy, and transparency in your organization. Elements such as up-to-date contact information, security policies for online purchases, customer support options, and factual information all help solidify your company’s trustworthiness. 

These three elements are just part of what Google, and other search engines, look for. For more detailed insights, see the Webmaster guidelines that Google makes publicly available. This 400+ page resource is part of what the Google algorithm follows and is what Google’s 10,000+ person team of manual reviewers uses daily to train the algorithm. 

Use a Solid Internal Linking Strategy

Solid internal linking throughout your enterprise website has several benefits. This element is a crucial part of Enterprise SEO management. Internal links should follow some strategic guidelines to be effective. 

Internal linking can fall into four distinct categories: contextual, footer, image, and navigational links. Each type serves an essential purpose for website visitors and can provide numerous benefits. 

Keep these points in mind when building your Enterprise SEO internal linking strategy: 

• Create extensive content for internal linking options

• Use anchor text 

• Include relevant links 

• Use follow links 

• Link deep into other cluster pages 

When your enterprise website has a solid internal linking strategy, you will find it: 

• Improves the crawling and indexing of your pages

• Increases visitor retention time 

• Boosts link juice, or authority for backlinks to the pillar page

• Improves your search ranking 

• Boosts your company’s page views 

• Improves usability and ease of use

Ensure Content Is Not Duplicated

Search engines cannot determine which content to provide for best results when a website has duplicate content, hindering a site’s visibility and organic search traffic. Information that appears on two or more web pages in the same form is considered duplicated by search engines and will not rank multiple pages accordingly. 

Several methods ensure your enterprise website does not contain duplicate content and keep your pages ranking effectively. 

• Canonical Tags

• Duplicate URLs 

• Parameter Handling 

• Meta Tags  

• Redirects 

• Taxonomy 

In addition, if your website includes any content that is identical to a competitor’s, Google will not rank your page due to plagiarism. Therefore, companies including unique content are essential for their organic efforts when actively competing against other large-scale organizations for top results. A comprehensive content audit done at the enterprise level will help you create a roadmap to follow, even to the point of telling you the next piece of content and the search intent to target to boost search visibility.

Although it can be challenging to have 100% unique content, the less similar your webpages are to others, the better results you will find. With multiple instances of duplicate content, there will be less organic traffic to your website as a result. Having a content marketer involved in the content production who is thinking through the business goals, user intent, ideas for visual search, and a holistic approach to content production will make sure your team is producing valuable content for both potential clients and search engines.

Technical SEO Is Vital 

Technical SEO is a vital element when designing and implementing your Enterprise-Level SEO strategy. You want your company website to be easy to navigate and free of technical SEO issues and errors for your visitors. For example, minimizing image file sizes can speed up your website’s loading time on mobile devices. 

Any negative UX can cut the dwell time short on your pages and decrease your accuracy and authority in the market. For example, pages that take too long to load or do not display correctly will have your visitors feeling frustrated and moving on to a more user-friendly website. In addition, pages that take too long to load may appear blank to search engine crawlers when they review the content on your website.

One required feature that will help your enterprise website will be to purchase SSL (secure sockets layer) certificates. This visible added level of security protects customer data, confirms identities, and provides a higher level of trust in your organization to visitors. At one point this was a nice-to-have but has been a requirement for real rankings for many years. 

Naturally, technically savvy websites that are easy to view and load on all platforms—including mobile devices—without broken links and contain a sitemap are simpler for search engines to index and rank.

Additionally, Enterprise SEO audits are imperative to analyze any technical weaknesses and should be a regular activity for your professional SEO team. 

The language declaration for foreign web pages is a simple technical SEO factor that many large enterprise companies overlook when expanding to global markets. You want to declare your default language so you will have fewer issues with international SEO information and results. 

Build Quality Links Through Digital PR

Digital PR is one way of providing information to outside sources, such as relevant journalists, publications, and other high-authority sites. Collaborating with these external sources can establish links through quality partnerships and relationships, which help increase your overall Enterprise SEO strategies. 

Digital PR should not intimidate you. Like old-fashioned methods, your organization should be reaching out, talking to others relevant to your market, making connections, and establishing your brand presence in the industry. Thankfully, today’s digital world makes this task much more straightforward than before. 

Ensure that you provide high-quality content that is beneficial for you and the outside source. Your organization can reach a wider audience and increase organic traffic by building these relationships. Therefore, you will raise brand awareness online and offline. 

There are several methods for obtaining these backlinks from outside parties, including: 

• Obtaining product or service reviews 

• Guest posts 

• Q&A interviews 

• Creating visual content for social media shares

• Ask authoritative sources for a backlink 

Increasing your digital PR with quality links will, in turn, improve your Enterprise SEO results because search engines will see your page as authoritative, relevant, and valid in your niche. Although you may have an established brand for your organization, it will be more difficult for new customers to find you without these high rankings. 

The efforts of the core marketing team around branding, marketing, and online presence, while separate from Enterprise SEO efforts, will have a meaningful impact on rankings as well. A strong brand with positive relationships with traditional media outlets will aid in the overall organic efforts and can be a place where the teams collaborate. Many parts of traditional marking including unlinked mentions, social proof, wider public relations, and white papers can aid your effort.

Execution Is Key 

Having a well-planned Enterprise SEO strategy is only the beginning of your organization’s journey to obtaining high-ranking results. Proper execution and consistent SEO management will keep your company on track by using collected data and making adjustments as necessary. 

Every great plan is terrific on paper (or in Trello), but putting it into action is key. Your organization’s SEO team must follow the workflows and processes outlined in your SEO strategy, or your company risks any potential benefits. 

Enterprise SEO is not for beginners. On the contrary, this intense method of SEO practice requires highly-skilled individuals and teams who can collaborate and ensure proper execution for the best success.

Measuring Enterprise SEO Success

Measuring the success of an enterprise SEO strategy is crucial to understanding its impact on the business. Here are some key metrics to track:

• Organic Traffic: Monitor the number of visitors coming to your website from search engines. This metric is a direct indicator of how well your SEO efforts are driving traffic to your site. An increase in organic traffic suggests that your SEO strategies are effective in attracting more visitors.

• Search Engine Rankings: Track the position of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs) for target keywords. This includes both short-tail and long-tail keywords. Higher rankings typically lead to increased visibility and more organic traffic.

• Conversion Rates: Measure the number of visitors who complete a desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. This metric helps you understand how well your website is converting traffic into leads or sales, which is ultimately the goal of any SEO strategy.

• Return on Investment (ROI): Calculate the revenue generated by your SEO efforts compared to the cost of implementing and maintaining them. This metric provides a clear picture of the financial impact of your SEO strategy and helps justify the investment.

• Keyword Rankings: Traditional keyword tracking tools (e.g., ahrefs, SEMrush, etc.) are inadequate for this job for a variety of reasons that deserve their own article. Tools like BrightEdge can be better but still do not work for truly enterprise, programmatic, and or topical authority level projects. You need a platform that pulls in vast amounts of data from Google Search Console on keyword impressions per page through the GSC API. For more details, you can click here to read an article where I cover this in more depth.

• Page Speed: Monitor the loading speed of your website. Page speed is a critical factor for both user experience and search engine rankings. Faster-loading pages tend to rank higher and provide a better user experience, leading to higher conversion rates.

• Comparison Metrics: Compare your website’s performance to that of your competitors. This includes metrics such as domain authority, backlinks, and overall traffic. Understanding where you stand in comparison to your competitors can help identify areas for improvement and opportunities for growth.

• Leading Indicators: Your enterprise SEO strategy will truly succeed when both your C-suite team and SEO team understand and implement strategies based on leading indicators. These indicators help predict future SEO success and guide proactive adjustments to enhance outcomes. Key leading indicators include:

  • Impressions in Google Search Console: Monitoring impressions helps you identify how often your website appears in search results, providing insights into visibility trends and potential keyword opportunities.

  • Number of Programmatic Landing Pages: Monitoring the number of programmatic landing pages helps assess how well your site is structured to capture search intent and drive targeted traffic.

  • Implementation of Relevant Types of Schema: Utilizing schema markup can enhance how search engines interpret your content, potentially improving your visibility in search results and driving more traffic.

  • Amount of Articles Written and Optimized to Support Topical Authority: Keeping track of the number of articles written and optimized for specific topics indicates your efforts in establishing authority and relevance within your industry.

  • Return Visitors: Tracking the number of return visitors indicates user satisfaction and engagement, suggesting that your content resonates well with your audience.

  • Time on Page: Analyzing the average time visitors spend on your pages can reveal the effectiveness of your content. Ensuring visitors are engaged and satisfied encourages them to return and recommend your site to others.

  • Bounce Rate: A low bounce rate suggests that visitors find your content relevant and are interested in exploring more pages on your site.

  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measuring the CTR of your pages can help assess the effectiveness of your titles and meta descriptions in attracting clicks from search results.

By tracking these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your enterprise SEO strategy and make data-driven decisions to optimize and improve it. Regularly reviewing these metrics will help you stay close to your goals and ensure that your SEO efforts are aligned with your business objectives.

Choosing the Right Enterprise SEO Agency

Choosing the right enterprise SEO agency can be a daunting task, especially with so many options available. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Experience: Look for an agency with extensive experience in enterprise SEO, including a proven track record of success. An experienced agency will have the knowledge and expertise to handle the complexities of large-scale SEO projects.

• Expertise: Ensure the agency has a team of experts in SEO, including technical SEO, content creation, and link building. A well-rounded team will be able to address all aspects of your SEO strategy, from technical optimizations to creating high-quality content.

• Scalability: Choose an agency that can handle the complexity and scale of your enterprise website. Your SEO needs may grow over time, and the agency should be able to scale their efforts accordingly.

• Customization: Opt for an agency that offers customized SEO solutions tailored to your business goals and objectives. A one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to be effective for enterprise SEO, so look for an agency that takes the time to understand your unique needs and develop a tailored strategy.

• Communication: Select an agency that provides regular updates and transparent reporting, including metrics and outcomes. Clear communication is essential for ensuring that you are kept informed of progress and can make informed decisions based on the data provided.

• Onboarding: Ensure the agency has a smooth onboarding process, including a thorough understanding of your business and website. A well-structured onboarding process will help the agency get up to speed quickly and start delivering results sooner.

• Product Teams: Consider an agency that has experience working with product teams to optimize product pages and improve search engine rankings. Collaboration with product teams can help ensure that SEO efforts are aligned with product development and marketing strategies.

• Search Engines: Choose an agency that has expertise in optimizing for multiple search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo. While Google is the dominant search engine, optimizing for other search engines can help capture additional traffic and improve overall visibility.

While these factors can guide you in selecting an enterprise SEO agency, in my experience—having been brought in to consult and coach the CMOs and in-house teams at dozens of the largest websites and those aspiring to join their ranks—few agencies that claim expertise in enterprise SEO are truly equipped to deliver what is needed. Many struggle to communicate effectively with internal teams, especially engineers.

Moreover, they often lack a comprehensive understanding of modern SEO, which has evolved significantly with the shift to topical authority and the advanced algorithm changes outlined in thousands of Google patents and white papers. This has been further confirmed by the 2024 Google API leak, underscoring the complexity and depth required to succeed in today’s SEO landscape.

Why Enterprise SEO Requires an Outside Expert: Lessons from Thousands of Organizations

Why does enterprise SEO require outside help? It’s not just about rank and file—it’s about transforming your entire digital footprint. Many organizations believe they can handle SEO in-house, but the truth is that only those with true experience—the likes of Koray Tuğberk Gübür, Kyle Roof, or myself—can really make a difference. Think about it: in this new world of AI and content marketing, how many experts can truly say they’ve driven hundreds of millions of monthly visitors across dozens of brands? The answer? Surprisingly few.We’ve seen it all—the tech stacks, the analytics, the internal dynamics that make or break SEO success. We’ve helped CMOs, CEOs, and CFOs navigate the data-driven world of decision-making, transforming teams into nimble powerhouses. This isn’t just consulting—it’s partnership at the highest level.

Here’s the truth: enterprise SEO isn’t just science or just art—it’s both. Success demands a strategic approach that balances short-term wins with long-term transformation. Let’s take a look at why bringing in an outside expert isn’t just helpful—it’s transformative:

1. Holistic Expertise: It’s like having a battle-hardened military strategist who’s won countless campaigns on every front. Our expertise spans industries, and we understand the intricacies of modern SEO—from topical authority to technical implementation. This isn’t theory—it’s hard-won experience.

2. Fresh Perspective: A new pair of eyes sees what an old pair misses. When we walk in the door, we bring outside perspective, untainted by internal agendas. We identify opportunities and challenges that others might miss. We see the forest and the trees—and we know which one needs attention most.

3. Executive Communication: If you want to know what really sets us apart, it’s because we speak the language of the C-suite. We don’t just understand SEO, we translate it into business results that inform executive-level decisions about resource allocation and priorities.

4. Unbiased Coaching: As fractional-CMOs, our incentive isn’t to sell agency resources—our purpose is to coach. Think of us as your guide to success, free from ulterior motives. That truly comes into play when you need different resources on your internal team than you may currently have. Do you train, coach, or replace?

5. Safe Sounding Board: Innovation requires the courage to ask uncomfortable questions. Servant leaders create a space where teams are encouraged to explore ideas without fear of judgment. Confidence is built in tandem with competence.

6. Industry Insights: Why spend years developing industry insights when you can borrow from the best? Through our network and expertise, we give you cutting-edge ideas that would take decades to learn on your own. While we can’t share specifics, we can point out the patterns of success.

7. Advanced Tools and Technologies: AI, machine learning, the works—it’s all changing the way we do SEO. But here’s the thing: tools matter less than implementation. We’ve worked with organizations to make this transition, so we know what works and what doesn’t.

8. Ability to Derisk Your Efforts: I’m part of a mastermind group of forward-thinking marketing leaders, and they share insights with me (with confidentiality, naturally) that help organizations succeed with modern SEO – what works, what doesn’t, and what experiments they are testing. You benefit from their experience in the form of your competitive advantage.

Your Next Steps

Enterprise SEO isn’t just a marketing tactic—it’s a revolutionary approach that transforms how brands grow, without the astronomical costs of traditional advertising. Done right, it enables scalability that paid campaigns simply can’t achieve. And it’s not just about traffic—it’s about aligning your CMO’s goals with your business model to create never-before-seen opportunities for hypergrowth.

To win in this space, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable—it’s where the real magic happens. Don’t let fear hold you back from speaking with the experts, such as myself, Koray Tuğberk Gübür, Kyle Roof or the whole team Koray leads. We cannot help everyone individually, but we want to make sure that you get help on your enterprise SEO journey. Are you ready to change the way you grow?

Conclusion

Enterprise SEO, while related, is a completely different effort and skill set than traditional SEO, traditional product development, and other marketing efforts. Creating an effective Enterprise SEO program requires substantial planning and effort. However, the results keep multiplying through organic visibility and lead generation.

Share this guide with your team so they can learn the approach successful hyper-growth companies have followed to find success with both search engines and hundreds of millions of customers.

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