Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

site is structured that will help you and Your SEO Plan. If you explain your SEO

needs clearly, avoiding marketing jargon, your IT team will come to understand your

SEO needs better and be more helpful to you in the long run.

A word of caution: If you are lucky enough to get your IT department extremely

enthusiastic about SEO, you may find some ideas coming your way that fall into the

realm of “black hat.” We once had a meeting with a large multidepartmental team. We

had just finished going through a point-by-point explanation of the SEO plan we had

developed for their site when we saw a man in the back seem to get very excited. His

hand shot up, and he said, “Wouldn’t it be even better if we just used the web server

to show the search engine robots one thing but the site visitors would see the regular

page?” Yep, he had just “thought up” the concept of cloaking. Of course, his inten-

tions were honorable; he was using his technical knowledge in a way that he thought

would benefit the company. As SEO team leader, be prepared to communicate the

things that will get your site into trouble—and find common ground with those who

proclaim to be SEO know-it-alls.

Some of those techie qualities that may seem, at first, like challenges might ulti-

mately work to the advantage of your SEO campaign. For example, IT folks are more

likely than other departments to actually follow specifications. That means that if you

all sit down and agree on a file-naming convention, you can probably count on IT

to carry the torch. Second, your IT department is likely to be very process oriented.

While you may find it frustrating to wait three months for a simple HTML change, at

least you can trust that the task will be handled and documented in an orderly fash-

ion. And third, what some may call “geekiness,” others recognize as an enthusiasm

for learning new things and lots of energy for the challenges that SEO will bring.

The IT Workload Conundrum

Like most departments, IT teams are feeling overworked. But even worse, their work is

likely to be unrecognized and underappreciated. Unfortunately, your SEO campaign

will probably require a large number of relatively small tasks from IT. And these tasks

can’t be done all at once because you need to assess and adjust throughout the cam-

paign. If you are frustrated that it’s taking weeks to get even simple requests handled,

please realize this:

Pearl of Wisdom:

IT really hates when you call things “simple.”

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