Getting Things Done the Enterprise Way #SEJSummit Liveblog

Jeff Preston is the senior SEO manager at Disney Interactive. Disney Interactive includes the company’s websites, video games, mobile apps and more in the “Getting Things Done the Enterprise Way” session at Search Engine Summit in Santa Monica.

First, he shares the challenges of the enterprise SEO job:

• Lots of content
• Lots of sites
• Lots of links
• Different publishing platforms
• Stakeholders varied

3 Takeaways for Enterprise SEO at Disney

1. Technical Excellence
2. Team Culture
3. Win Influence

Technical Excellence

Make sure site is crawled right

Internal crawl: CMS list of published URLs

• Set a goal to get these numbers (Google indexed pages and published URLs) as close as possible

Watch out for conflicts:

• rel=”canonical”
• http canonical
• OG URL

Use structured data

Deploy:

• Open Graph
• Schema.org
• Twitter Cards

• Validate and re-validate all code; things can break easily
• Keep up with latest changes and opportunities

Check for redirect hops

Scan site for redirect links. Avoid having chains of redirects to a page.

Add it to the monthly checklist.

Check code updates in dev cycles

• Take time to write clear instructions and requirements
• Explain benefits to the changes
• Check work as soon as possible
• Recheck throughout development cycles
• Let quality assurance know a change request is coming down the pipe so they can act as an advocate

Team Culture

Should the SEO team be structured like a NASCAR team? Football team? He thinks they should be like a Navy SEAL team ━ experts at everything. Every individual can do first aid, fight, communicate.

Team structure

• SEO team members are accountable for their own sites
• Seo team members manage relationship with site stakeholders
• Help each other as needed

Recruiting

• Hire someone that runs their own sites
• Use conferences to spot talent
• Remember: tech skills are easier to teach than people skills. Charisma and persuasion go far in getting things done and can’t be taught.

International

Have international goals? Hire a native speaker from the target market.

Remember: use conferences to hire talent.

Get trained

Keep up on the latest in search engine algorithm changes.

Learn to be a better manager.

Win Influence

To get buy in, you build your influence in the organization.

If you’re a manager and you’re leading an SEO team and you’re responsible for SEO and it falls on your shoulders, you need help. You don’t build the site yourself. It’s great to have the support of senior leadership, but you can’t run to the top (“mommy and daddy”) every time. You may need to convince other directors and managers for assistance. Have regular meetings with these key people.

Have a big internal network

• If there’s anything non-SEO you can do to help out, you should do it
• Build an internal network of friends and connections
• Celebrate other internal team wins
• Be sincere and dependable
• Volunteer for non-SEO projects that will build your network
• Soft answer turns away wrath

Invite to act

• People respond better to invitations
• Be convincing rather than commanding
• Remember: meet one-on-one with key players as needed

Attitude

• Have a positive mental attitude toward your site
• Take personal responsibility for results
• Be calm, be patient and learn as you go

We’re reporting live from the SEJ Summit in Santa Monica! Read more liveblog coverage here.

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.