SES Chicago 2010 - SEO and the Development Life Cycle

Sustainable & Scalable In-house SEO
© SEMinhouse.com, LLC 2010 | 1
SEO and the Development
Life Cycle
Jessica Bowman
SEOinhouse.com

About
 Former in-house SEO.
 Advocate for in-house SEO.
 In 2008 started SEOinhouse.com.
• The agency I wanted as an in-house SEO, but couldn’t find.
• Someone who understood the in-house challenges and dynamics.
• Someone who could infiltrate the rest of the organization on my
behalf to get them to do SEO as part of their job.

THE PROCESS INTEGRATION

Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
Design Development QA Testing Live on Site
Typical Development Life Cycle w/SEO
How to Incorporate SEO into
the Development Life Cycle
Who knows what happens before project inception?

Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
Who knows what happens in detail in the design phase?

Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
Who knows what happens in detail in the development phase?

Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
Who knows what happens in detail in the design phase?

Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
Who knows what happens in detail in the launch phase?

Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
When SEO is 1st brought into projects: or or
Where SEO needs to be incorporated into the Development Life Cycle
Project Inception
Requirement
Gathering
Extremely Expensive
Opportunity Costs & Rework
Inexpensive
SEO requirements met
within scope & budget

Typical Roles & Deliverables
Phase Roles Involved Common Deliverables
Inception
(idea created)
Upper Management
Business Sponsor
Scope Document
Project Charter
PRD (product release document)
Requirements
Gathering
Business Sponsor
Product Manager
Project Manager
User Experience Designers
Sr. Programmers
Requirements documents
PRD (product release document)
Wireframes may get started
Design Business Sponsor (review/approve only)
Product Manager
User Experience Designers
Project Managers
Sr. Programmers
Finalized Wireframes
Finalized Visual Designs
Page Specifications
Finalized Use Cases
Development Product Managers (minimal)
Project managers
All Programmers
QA Test Scripts
Logged Bugs/Defects
Launch Development Team
QA Team
System Administrators
Changes Live
Thumbs up – Everything is Good
Logged Bugs/Defects
SEO SEO

For each phase you should know
 Deliverables
 Meetings
 Conversations
 Collaborations
 Approvals
 Etc.

Project
Inception
Requirements
Gathering
Phase
Design Phase
Development Phase
Final QA Testing
Go Live
SEO Project Involvement Pyramid
Best of Class
SEO Programs:
Involve SEO
intensely at the
beginning of any
release, and
SEOs
involvement
declines as the
project
progresses.
Project Inception
Requirements Gathering Phase
Design Phase
Development Phase
Final QA
Testing
Go Live

WHAT IT’S LIKE WITH
FULL SEO INTEGRATION
Example Project:
We’re adding a new section to the site
to meet the needs of a new niche target audience

Project Inception
 Business sponsors talk about
the idea

Project Inception
 Business sponsors reach out to SEO
to get their take on SEO
opportunities

Project Inception
 SEO Team does research for
SEO requirements:
– Brainstorms potential
opportunities
– Looks at competitor sites for
their SEO Strategies
– Identifies what people are
typing into search engines related
to this subject area
– Identifying requirements to
make the new section maximize
opportunities

Scope Document
 SEO contributes to the Scope
document
– SEO success factors to the
document
– Potential SEO traffic lift
– Potential SEO revenue gain

Project Approval
 Project is approved and
scheduled
 SEO is contributes to the
project plan

Bang for Money is Here
Requirements Gathering - Meetings
 Everyone gives requirements
 SEO sits as a key stakeholder in all sessions.
 SEO listens for:
– Content areas that can be leveraged for SEO
– Functionality being requested that may not be
search engine friendly
 SEO Contributes:
– SEO requirements – what needs to happen
and not happen to make the site search
engine friendly once.
– How to take ideas further with SEO
– Potential functionality being requested that
may not be search friendly, how to make it
search friendly and what to review in more
detail during analysis
Most Companies Live here
Most
SEO programs go
wrong here.

Requirements Gathering – Project Plan
 SEO and the Project Manager
incorporate SEO into the
project plan:
– SEO action items
– SEO contributions
– SEO reviews of
documentation

Integrate SEO into the Project Plan

Analysis & Design – Wireframes &
Design Comps
 User Experience and SEO meet
on wireframes BEFORE they are
presented to the project team
 Graphic Designers and SEO
meet on design mockups BEFORE
they are presented to the project
team
 How it works:
– Discussion at the beginning, review at
80% completion

Front-End Development
 SEO QA’s HTML Code for search
friendliness
It’s Quick, Easy & Cheap
to make search friendly
html code tweaks here

Back-end Development
 SEO is involved as needed
 Development pro-actively reaches
out to SEO for input and
clarification

Quality Assurance Testing
 SEO QA’s for SEO Requirements
& Search Engine Friendliness
 SEO enters bugs in the same
system IT.
Some SEO bugs need to be fixed pre-
release:
It can take months to a year
to clean up a mess in the SERPs

OTHER INTEGRATIONS

Integrate SEO to Existing Standards
 All development projects abide by
company standards and
guidelines.
 Goal: Get SEO Best practices and
standards included into these
existing documents
 NOTE:
Many sets of standards exist
within a company

Integrate SEO into Wireframes
Do not put text in image
Make h1 on homepage, no
header tag on interior pages
No header tag on homepage, h1
on interior ages
H2 tag, include keywords always
in this textNo header
tags
No header tags
For rotating banner text, use html text over the image
and when user has CSS turned off, stack the
images/text on top of each other so that search
engines can read it all
Use <me> not CSS class name

Access to Change Management Tool
 SEO should have access to the SEO tool.
 SEO should review every change requested and going live.
 SEO should incorporate to change requests:
– Initial requirements.
– Notation if SEO needs final review.
– Why it is an SEO issue and you are requesting specific requirements.
– This is a few sentences only, not a book.
 Establish a naming convention that allows you to flag things
you need to know:
– “Add new section to target baby market”
– Should be
– “Add new section to target baby market [SEO]”

Integrate SEO into Documentation

You want Ambassadors to become
proficient enough to do this for you…
Long-Term Plan:
SEO team merely reviews and
provides oversight and input on
the complex issues so that SEO
can focus on the big picture and
not the nitty-gritty details.

Set up Accountabilities
 Who is responsible for making sure SEO is involved?
 Create SEO champions
SEO
Website
Product
Manager
User
Experience
Design
Graphical
Design
Programmers
QA Testers
Project
Managers

Roles & Responsibilities Grid
Responsibility/Task Role 1 Role 2 Role 3 Role 4

Everyone Needs to Make SEO a Success
Role Responsibility
Execs Ultimately responsible if projects have SEO Failures
Hold people accountable for working with SEO properly
Don’t approve things if SEO wasn’t involved (ask SEO to find out)
Product Manager Involve SEO in prioritization decisions
Involve SEO in SEO requirements for every change
Ensure SEO is involved in all projects
Ensure SEO requirements are in documentation
Get SEO input BEFORE things go to the business
Project Manager Get SEO input in the project plan tasks
Involve SEO in the right places of the project
Ensure SEO is involved in all projects
Usability Create search engine friendly user experiences
Create information architecture optimal for SEO
Programmers Create search engine friendly technologies
Speak up when it appears SEO hasn’t been involved
QA Testers Test every release for SEO best practices
Ensure SEO QAs each release

 IT’s usually best when SEO is hip-to-hip with the product
manager and product manager of the website.
SEO
Product Mgmt
Project Mgmt
User Exp.
Integrate SEO with the Right Roles

Training Mentoring

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned
 Speak like the natives - learn the IT acronyms and
terminology.
– PPM, CQ, PM, PRD, BD, UE, QA…
 When requesting a change be ultra specific, as though you are
telling a robot.
– “I need a permanent, 301 redirect.”
 Know every single change going live on the site.
– Identify which have SEO impacts and need SEO to review the technical
documentation.
 Get into the release planning meetings.
 Review both business requirements AND technical
specifications.
 Bring in help if you’re not making progress.

Thank youJessica Bowman
jessica@seoinhouse.com
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SES Chicago 2010 - SEO and the Development Life Cycle

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