SEO Whales:
Inside Large
Enterprise
Sites
Keith L. Goode
Sr. SEO Strategist, IBM

Keith Goode
Position: Sr. SEO Strategist, IBM
Experience:
• 20+ Years in Online Marketing
• 10+ Years of Experience in In-
House SEO
• Previous Employers: AMD,
HomeAway, Dell, seoClarity
• Appearances: Pubcon, SMX
West, Digital Summit
• Follow: @keithgoode

Some Light Housekeeping
* Disclaimer: Opinions expressed herein are my own. No forward-looking statements regarding
IBM have been included. None of IBM’s secret sauce has been revealed. Statements made in this
presentation have not been tested by the FDA.

Let’s Get Started
“I know not all that may be coming,
but be it what it will, I'll go to it
laughing.”

Originally, there were two…

… but I kind of liked the Whale analogy

Whales are…
Slow
Powerful
Intelligent
Impactful on many levels

“I try all things, I achieve what I
can.”
Agenda
• SEO Whales, what they care
about, their day-to-day, their
challenges and their
strengths
• Should you be Captain Ahab
and chase SEO whales?
How to win an even better
prize

A Day in the Life…
“It is the easiest thing in the world for
a man to look as if he had a great
secret in him.”

Less Than
Desirable
Aspects
Humans – personal quirks,
political aspirations, conflicts …
magnified
Meetings, many of which have
nothing to do with SEO
Hurry up and wait

Frankly Great
Aspects not
SEO-related
Payday always comes regardless
Exploring other disciplines
Training, even through MIT

The Importance of
Brand
“Woe to him whose good name
is more to him than goodness”

Innovation Spurs Brand Spurs Links

Innovation Spurs Brand Spurs Links

Innovation Spurs Brand Spurs Links

Innovation Spurs Brand Spurs Links

Innovation Spurs Brand Spurs Links

Much of this work was done before I ever
joined IBM.

Google Updates and
Macro Changes
“In this world, headwinds are far
more prevalent than winds from
astern ...”

Big Ships Don’t
Sweat Small
Waves
Many updates barely register as a
ripple

But there are challenges.

The Human Element
“…for there is no folly of the beast of
the earth which is not infinitely
outdone by the madness of men ”

Imagine the Population of Iceland – Many of
Whom Can Negatively Affect the Site

Corporate Myopia
“Consider the subtleness of the sea;
how its most dreaded creatures glide
under water, unapparent for the most
part, and treacherously hidden
beneath the loveliest tints of azure.”

Examples
• Using language no one else
uses
• Code changes without proper
review
• Marketing jargon instead of
decent content
• Focusing too much on brand
terms

Share of Voice Where It Matters
It’s very easy to focus on the big names in Share of Voice
Reports, when the vast majority of your SERP competitors are
smaller organizations.

Brand Terms Are Much Later in the Buyer’s
JourneySearchVolume
Specificity
Discovery
Early
Learn
Late
Learn
Try Buy

The average B2B user performs 12 searches before they ever use
a brand search. You must be present all along their journey, so
they begin to associate you with the solution they seek

Setting Strategies
on a Global Scale
“It is not down on any map; true
places never are.”

Globalization
Challenges
Language and Localization
Design considerations based on
local needs
Varying availability of products
and services

Becoming an SEO
Whale

Things You Can Implement
• Aligning the whole organization behind to SEO
• Understanding your real competitors
• Focus on the user and their journey
• Avoiding the lure of easy wins

Democratization of
Search Basics
“Ignorance is the parent of
fear.”

Companies Want to Build Internal Teams
According to Forrester Research:
• Number of marketers with no dedicated SEO staff in 2016 was
26%
• Companies without dedicated SEO staff reduced to 13% in 2017
Source: Forrester

Limited Availability of Skilled Talent
Back in 2015, these were already hard to find skills
Source: Indeed Blog

Microsoft
Reports that
SEO is the #1
Hard Skill for
2020
Source:
https://about.ads.microsoft.com/e
n-us/blog/post/january-
2020/2020-vision-trends-to-
define-the-next-decade

The key is to democratize SEO, but a simple SEO 101 course for
everyone won’t work.

Discipline-Specific
Enablement
“Top-heavy was the ship as a
dinnerless student with all Aristotle in
his head.”

Show each discipline their impact
Crawling
• Googlebot
• Barriers to
Success:
• No Nav Links
• Not in Sitemap
• Robots.txt
Disallow
• Content in
JavaScript
• Orphaned
Pages
• Robots
“Nofollow”
Indexing
• Stored @
Google
• Barriers to
Success:
• Robots
“Noindex” tag
• Excessive
Duplication
(bad canonical
tag)
• Innaccurate
Localization
• Text isn’t
readable
Ranking
• PageRank
• RankBrain
• Organic SERP
• Barriers to
Success:
• No relevance
• Slow Page
Load
• Not mobile
responsive
• No internal
links
• No external
links
• No Keyword
Use
Useful
Responses
• Instant Answer
• Knowledge
Graph
• Barriers to
Success:
• No Structured
Markup
• No Schema
• Lack of
relevant, easy-
to-follow
content
Technical/Systemic Technical/Project Content-Related

Mapping to the
User’s Journey
“There is, one knows not what sweet
mystery about this sea, whose gently
awful stirrings seem to speak of
some hidden soul beneath...”

Bow-Tie Funnel …
Referral
Support
Advocate
Community
Discover
EarlyLearn
LateLearn
Try/Buy

… A.K.A. The Loyalty Loop
Discover
Early Learn
Late Learn
Try/Compare
Buy
Support Need
Buy Accessories
Become a Fan
Active Advocate
Buy Again

Competitive Gap
Analyses and Share of
Voice
“…for there is no quality in this world
that is not what it is merely by
contrast. Nothing exists in itself.”

Who Beats you in
SERPs
• Market competitors are likely
not to be your SERP
competitors
• Their SEO isn’t that great
either
• Evaluate why they win and
you don’t

Competitor Gap
Analyses
• 10X Content
• SWOT
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats
• Topics for which they
rank better

Avoid Blackhat
Techniques
“... an utterly fearless man is a far
more dangerous comrade than a
coward.”

If I damage IBM’s reputation with blackhat techniques, I could cost
far more than just my job.

Key Takeaways
• As a company, brand and reputation are the most valuable
things for search efficacy.
• Democratization and enablement will go a long way to aligning
your organization.

Thank You!
“Where lies the final harbor, whence
we unmoor no more?”
Follow me at @keithgoode on
Twitter.