Optimize through the Customer Lifecycle

If there is one thing I’ve seen over these years of con-tin-ual Google updates, it’s that the search mar-ket-ing community’s response to adjustments in search behav-ior is often unstruc-tured and lacks effec-tive-ness.

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

• The search impact life cycle is a closed-loop series of stages.
• Gath-er-ing POV and buy-in from stake-hold-ers is essen-tial to devel-op-ing a pri-or-i-ti-za-tion sched-ule that aligns with com-pany goals.
• Search teams should be con-sis-tently iden-ti-fy-ing oppor-tu-ni-ties to enhance search mar-ket-ing and SEO results.

Unfor-tu-nately, the com-mon approach is typ-i-cally inef-fec-tive because search mar-keters are not devel-op-ing strate-gic adap-ta-tions accord-ing to a dis-tinct set of search man-age-ment stages. Instead they aim to chase the algo-rithm.

For exam-ple, com-pa-nies large and small have suf-fered from penal-ties incurred fol-low-ing search algo-rithm changes—in some cases, falling com-pletely off the map. This leaves search mar-ket-ing man-agers scram-bling to adjust site search, paid search, and organic search strate-gies to the new envi-ron-ment. Some are suc-cess-ful at respond-ing quickly to algo-rithm changes while many face weeks of rehabilitation.

For com-pa-nies that have remained entrenched in an SEO strat-egy, there is still hope when try-ing to recover from a search engine penalty or search behav-ior mod-i-fi-ca-tion. The first step to address-ing algo-rithm penal-ties is to develop an approach that incor-po-rates the mul-ti-ple stages that define what we call the search impact life cycle.

The search impact life cycle is a closed-loop series of stages that takes search man-agers from change iden-ti-fi-ca-tion to a deter-mi-na-tion of sup-ple-men-tary steps used to adapt to said changes. Let’s exam-ine the stages within the search impact life cycle.

Search Impact Life-Cycle Stages

1. Change: A change can result from a num-ber of sit-u-a-tions: algo-rithm changes, search trends, new avail-able tools. Once a change has taken place, search mar-keters must be quick to rec-og-nize when the change occurred. Not all updates are announced, so global search market-ing man-agers have to be vig-i-lant in mon-i-tor-ing results. Once a change has been iden-ti-fied, it is an oppor-tu-nity to adapt that requires analy-sis, pri-or-i-ti-za-tion, and implementation.

2. Analy-sis: This is a crit-i-cal point that many search mar-keters avoid or mis-han-dle. To what extent does the new oppor-tu-nity impact search results? In which geo-gra-phies is the change most notable? Which seg-ments are affected? What adap-ta-tion options are avail-able? Dur-ing the analy-sis stage, man-agers must exam-ine both the change and their sub-se-quent responses. Once that task is com-plete, the impact of their response should be fore-cast in order to pro-vide recov-ery goals.

3. Pri-or-i-ti-za-tion: Every solu-tion will not be equally effec-tive or easy to imple-ment; there-fore, solu-tions must be pri-or-i-tized to address speed and cost of imple-men-ta-tion. Search man-agers must gauge the impact of a pro-posed response ver-sus the dif-fi-culty of imple-ment-ing it. Gath-er-ing POV and buy-in from stake-hold-ers on your SEO team (such as IT, C-suite, prod-uct man-agers, Web strat-egy, etc.) is essen-tial to devel-op-ing a pri-or-i-ti-za-tion sched-ule that aligns with com-pany goals and max-i-mizes the effec-tive-ness of your response.

4. Imple-men-ta-tion: This stage is pretty straight-for-ward. Enhance-ments to search mar-ket-ing strate-gies are rolled out accord-ing to the prior-i-ti-za-tion defined in the pre-vi-ous stage. Opti-mally, response to change should be imple-mented in a man-ner that returns the biggest bang for the buck first then addresses affected seg-ments individually.

5. Impact: Another crit-i-cal step that search mar-keters and SEO man-agers often miss is the mea-sure-ment of how effec-tively their responses impact search rank-ings and traf-fic pat-terns and then dis-sem-i-nat-ing the impact among stake-hold-ers. Search mar-ket-ing man-agers should take every oppor-tu-nity to share results on a reg-u-lar basis with key stakeholders. It’s one thing to ana-lyze the impact, but shar-ing enables a wider audi-ence to under-stand how and why your enhance-ments worked and which responses may lead to the next change.

6. Next Steps: Finally, search teams should be con-sis-tently iden-ti-fy-ing oppor-tu-ni-ties to enhance search mar-ket-ing and SEO results. We must man-age for future updates and con-tinue look-ing for addi-tional change response oppor-tu-ni-ties. With-out a con-stant eye toward improve-ment, your SEO team may strug-gle to become a cen-ter of excel-lence (COE) for your enterprise.

Each stage of the life cycle deliv-ers oppor-tu-ni-ties to improve response to change and enhance site struc-ture, paid and organic results, and local-iza-tion prac-tices. I encour-age each of you to cre-ate and fol-low a search impact life cycle that aligns with your global search prac-tices and allows you to respond effec-tively and effi-ciently to the next big change.