How to make the corporate C-Suite better aware of the value of SEO and how to increase profits. Ash Nallawalla describes how the SEO position is buried too deep in corporate structures and why it needs to be raised higher, possibly with an accountable manager tasked with "website success". He suggests alternative titles for such a role, such as Chief Web Officer, Chief Webmaster, Web Success Officer and so on.

1. Promoting the SEO
to the C-Suite
ASH NALLAWALLA – FRACTIONAL SEO

2. About Ash
Author of Accidental SEO Manager (Amazon), with two more in the series to
come soon.
Judge, Australian Web Industry Awards 2023
Moderator at Webmasterworld forums
Fractional SEO consultant to SMB clients
Previously in enterprise SEO roles, notably Carsales, Suncorp Group, NAB,
ANZ Bank, UBank, Optus, Yellow Pages and Melbourne IT (SME clients).
Pubcon speaker since 2007
Book URL: https://accidentalseomanager.com
Please connect on LinkedIn (mention SEO Collective)

3. BACKGROUND
EXAMPLES
C AN YOU R ELATE TO TH ESE
SITU ATION S?

4. DISCLAIMER
•My examples are usually
composite, or historic and
usually won’t apply to the
current website.
•Not all examples are my
past employers – some
were overseas clients that
won’t show in my LinkedIn
profile. Others are
observations from the
outside.

5. ATMs and Branches in Map Results
∙ In 2010, NAB had around 700 physical branches, and over 1,300
ATMs.
∙ So did the other banks, great and small…
∙ Some addresses were out of date - customers left nasty reviews.

6. ATMs and Branches in Map Results
∙ Data accuracy (fixed with a bulk Excel upload).
∙ Data accuracy (ATMs moved or closed).
∙ Data accuracy (Branches moved or closed).
∙ More recently, at Suncorp Bank:
• Differentiation (Posts – Offers?)

7. Separate Desktop and Mobile Pages
∙ Separate code bases lead to different content that confuses
customers.
∙ Some companies still have separate desktop and mobile code
bases!
∙ Even Googlebot does not know which one to crawl.

8. SEO IS
OFTEN
LEFT OUT
CAN YOU RELATE
TO TH IS?

9. Technology Selection
Raise your hands if you are
invited to discussions about the
selection/
purchase/implementation of:
• Replacement CMS
• Scraper blockers (firewall)
• New domains
• Subdomains

10. Policy Decisions
Raise your hand if you are
included in decisions about:
• Annual budgets (for your
silo)
• Blocking AI crawlers
• Potential company
acquisitions

11. RAISING
AWARENES
S
OF SEO
FLYING THE SEO
FLAG

12. How to Make C-Suite More Aware of
SEO?
Of course, the C-Suite is “aware” of SEO, but
not much more than the word “SEO”. So, how
can we improve upon this awareness?

13. Money Talks
•Two truisms in enterprises:
• The C-Suite is usually incentivised with
sales bonuses and share price, more
than the minions.
• Good news spreads fast.
• Ensure that all analytics reports include a
breakdown from all conversion sources, e.g.
Organic, Direct, Paid, Email etc.
• Share SEO wins in the company-wide Slack
channels.
• Keep reminding the C-Suite about SEO
wins.

14. Collaborate!
• Start and cultivate regular conversations with
stakeholders in other silos, e.g.:
o “How can the SEO team help you to hit
your OKR (Objectives and Key Results)
and KPI (Key Performance Indicators)
targets?”
o Attend the OKR-setting meetings when
they occur.
o Ask to be in their daily standups as an
optional, but ensure they ping you if SEO
topics might come up.
• Form cross-functional teams across the
company to decentralise tasks

15. A Good Collaboration
Example
All brands and silos inside each brand had
small, cross-functional teams, e.g. the sole
SEO (me) was in the “Research & Editorial”
squad, which comprised:
• Product Manager (Research Pages)
• Scrum Master (dev background)
• iOS dev
• Android dev
• 3 x CMS devs (mobile and desktop)
• QA
• UX
• SEO

16. Where Is the SEO
Positioned?
Group CEO
• Australian MD and Senior Leadership Team
• Executive Leadership Team
• Product Manager
• SEO (me)
Group CEO
• Brand CEO
• Executive Leadership Team
• Senior Leadership Team
• Senior Manager
• Less Senior Manager
• Even Less Senior Manager
• SEO Manager (me)
• SEO Team and Agency

17. Bad News Can Be Good
News
•Leverage the drops in rankings and
conversions:
• If any drop can be attributed to the
SEO team not being kept informed,
be sure to point it out tactfully.
• Ask to be added to meetings (as
optional)

18. What Is All This
Achieving?
• Middle managers become more aware of the
benefits of SEO when you point out how it was
done.
• The C-Suite becomes more “Aware of SEO”.
• Web governance improves.

19. Friendly
Fire
Sources of
"friendly fire"
Recruiters
Finance –
budgets
Marketing –
brand image,
PPC, campaign
sites etc
Legal Product owners
UX QA testers IT
Content teams Analytics PR teams

20. SEO
MATURITY
MODELS
TALK TH EIR
LAN GU AGE

21. Web Governance Maturity Model

22. Maturity
Models
∙ Maturity models are a quality and
best-practice measurement
framework that guide organisations
towards excellence.
∙ Some are lightweight and thinly-veiled
lead-gen ploys.
∙ Examples:
• Capability Maturity Model for software
development
• Business Process Maturity Model

23. CapGemini SEO MM
Too simplistic and focuses on the SEO process only.

24. Heather Physioc’s SEO MM

25. SEOMM at Microsoft
Focuses only on SEO processes.

26. Website Governance Study
In 2015, Robert Jacoby described a Website Governance Model

27. Ash’s SEO and Web Governance MM
∙ Measures SEO MM in situ – how effective is the SEO capability
within an organisation. Needs a scoring scale to be created.
∙ Examines SEO processes similar to other models and finds
opportunities for improvement. The shortcomings are often
traceable to a lack of support from other teams or senior
management.
∙ Examines organisation’s workflows and internal communication,
then finds opportunities for improvement.
∙ Does not threaten organisation’s existing SEO activities.
∙ The goal is to improve the organisation’s revenue and not just
improve their SEO processes. Somewhat like a chiropractor re-
aligning a body.

28. SEO Audit
∙ A thorough SEO audit finds the usual issues that can be caused by:
∙ Ignorance of internal SEO team or external agency, e.g. missing tags.
∙ External factors, e.g. recent Google update, that are known and will be
addressed.
∙ A competent SEO agency can address the above.
∙ A deeper examination could identify:
• Lack of budget to implement what is needed.
• Human factors – the numerous issues found in most companies, e.g. poor
communication, inadequate responsibilities to achieve the targets, politics,
organisational structure, etc.
• A lack of a defined Web Governance and the score on the WGMM scale.

29. Possible Sc
ale for
SEOMM
1.Initial Chaos – No sign of SEO
2.Repeatable Basics – Basic SEO
knowledge is evident
3.Defined Processes – Advanced SEO
knowledge is evident
4.Managed Measurements – Good
governance is evident
5.Continuous Improvement – Ensures
SEO quality is maintained

30. Web
Governance
Audit
∙ Its details are customised to the
company, but the findings will follow a
study of web workflows as they exist.
NOTE: SEO failure does not necessarily
point to a lack of web governance – sites
do not rank for many reasons, even if
“everything” has been done to best
practice.
∙ It’s possible to get a top score but not
rank well.

31. PROMOTING
SEO TO THE
C-SUITE
R AISIN G SEO
VISIBILITY

32. SEO at the End?
This was a real discussion on LinkedIn, where the (non-
SEO) marketing "guru" showed where the SEO activity
should sit.

33. SEO at the End (Take 2)
The discussion continued, and someone suggested this
sequence.

34. SEO After the Launch?
The discussion continued, and someone suggested this!

35. Ideal
Position for
the SEO
Team

36. Job Title Options
Chief
Webmaster
(CWM)
Chief Web
Officer
(CWO)
Web Success
Officer
(WSO)

37. Chief Web
Officer
O V E R 4 , 6 0 0
R E S U LT S I N
L I N K E D I N . ( 3 1 0 I N
2 0 2 2 )

38. Interview with
Jason Barnard
∙ I spoke about this topic with
Jason. "Why Enterprises
Need a Chief Web Officer"
∙ (Please Google the long
URL)

39. Chief
Webmaster
O V E R 8 6 0 R E S U LT S
I N L I N K E D I N .

40. Web
Success
Officer
UH OH...

41. What
About
CDO, CIO,
CISO, CTO
etc? Let them be.
There are many Chief Digital Officers
and even more Chief Information
Officers, but they rarely have the
SEO function reporting to them.

42. Baby Steps
START W ITH A POSITION BELOW TH E C - SU ITE
BU T W ITH MOR E R ESPON SIBILITY.

43. Responsibilitie
s of the Web
Success
Officer
Everything that the website can
do to maximise sales (but not
product design or marketing):
∙ Maximising online
conversions
∙ Website governance
∙ Website operations and
maintenance
∙ Managing website-related
teams

44. Who Reports to the Web Success
Officer?
Everything that directly affects the website should have its top
manager reporting to the WSO.
Website infrastructure – Web developers, Domains, etc
CMS – Developers, Text entry team
Content – Writers, UX, Accessibility
Others – CRO, QA, etc
SEO Team

45. Plan B: Independent SEO Team
If the company isn't ready to create a Web Success Officer
role, they should create an Independent Website Team, or
Rapid Action Squad, led by an SEO Director, who manages:
∙ SEO team, led by an SEO Manager
∙ Others – Scrum master, Web developer, UX, CMS, Content,
etc
∙ SEO Agency
This team can complete many tasks without waiting for others
to approve/prioritise.

46. Summary
Raise profile of SEO
and tie it to revenue.
Get in front of C-Suite.
Try to change reporting
line.
Be patient.

47. Contact
Ash Nallawalla
Twitter: @ashnallawalla
Email: ash@crm911.com
Web: https://accidentalseomanager.com