Demonstrating SEO value to your business leadership teams

In today’s digital age, having an effective SEO strategy is essential for any business aiming to thrive in its online marketplace. However, to truly harness the power of SEO, it’s vital to secure the support and buy-in of your business’s leadership teams. In this blog post, we’ll explore the importance of getting board buy-in for SEO and provide you with strategies to make it happen.

Why Does It Matter to Get Board Buy-In for SEO?

First and foremost, it’s crucial to recognise that the board and C-suite executives are the primary decision-makers within your organisation. If they don’t fully grasp the value of an effective SEO strategy and how it can impact your business’s performance, it can make your working relationship more challenging. So, why is it essential to get their buy-in?

1. The Bottom Line Impact: At the board level, what they truly want to understand is how SEO has affected the company’s bottom line. Your reports and objectives should focus on the tangible impact of SEO on business revenue and profit. It’s not just about keyword rankings, visibility, and backlinks; it’s about how your efforts translate into top-level metrics, such as leads and revenue.
2. Exclusive Work Impact: Besides year-on-year trends and overall performance changes, strive to measure the direct impact of the work you’ve exclusively worked on. A useful perspective is to ask, “If we did nothing, what would our performance look like?” instead of taking sole credit for monthly leads and revenue.
3. Aligning with Long-Term Objectives: If your business has ambitious growth goals, increasing investments in paid media each year may not be cost-efficient. Show how an effective SEO strategy aligns with the company’s long-term objectives, especially when it comes to cost savings and sustainable growth.
4. Comprehensive Customer Journey: SEO strategies encompass interaction with users at every stage of the customer journey, from the research phase through informational-related content, to buying intent through non-brand commercial keywords. This sets SEO apart from paid media, which often focuses on the bottom of the funnel.
5. Impacting Other Channels: Unlike other digitial marketing techniques, organic efforts can directly and indirectly improve the performance of other channels. Building out content and improving page experience through an effective SEO strategy can improve overall conversion of a website, and also specifically aid paid performance. Its important to stress the ‘snowball’ affect SEO can have across other channels.

How Can You Do It?

Speak Their Language:

Business leaders might not be familiar with the jargon and metrics commonly used in the SEO world. Tailor your discussions to their level of understanding and use terminology that resonates with their business language. Try and understand the level in which the business understands SEO, and use these metrics. Moreover, if you know their main priority is to increase revenue or page conversion, explain how SEO can help with this.

Emphasise Cost Efficiency:

Highlight the long-term cost efficiency of organic channels compared to paid media. Demonstrate how organic visibility and traffic add significant value without recurring advertising expenses. It’s also crucial to convey how SEO can save the company money in the long run. Organic traffic and results are essentially ‘free’ once the initial SEO service fee is paid. To put this into their language, consider comparing the cost of organic traffic to the cost-per-click (CPC) in paid media channels like Google Ads. This can help board members appreciate the long-term cost efficiency of SEO.

Be Bold:

Business leaders are accustomed to dealing with substantial numbers and ambitious goals. When presenting your SEO strategies, be bold and forward-thinking. Instead of reporting on minor performance metrics like ‘+10 clicks,’ emphasise opportunities with large numbers. Show that you’re thinking as big as they are, but remain realistic in your projections.

In a nutshell, securing board buy-in for SEO is a critical step in ensuring the success of your digital marketing efforts. By focusing on the impact on the bottom line, cost efficiency, and using language and metrics that resonate with business leaders, you can make a compelling case for the value of SEO. Be bold, be strategic, and watch as your SEO initiatives gain the support and recognition they deserve.

If you would like to discuss the value of SEO and how it can impact your business, get in touch with our team.