Technical SEO at scale
- Part 1 Technical SEO at scale
Show Notes
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02:10The challenges of technical SEO at scaleTechnical SEO at scale requires that you make changes that will impact millions of URLs at once, rather than numerous small fixes. Ultimately, it requires a different mindset and approach compared to managing technical SEO for smaller websites.
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07:00Identifying and prioritizing technical issues on large websitesTo identify technical SEO issues at the enterprise level, focus on top-line metrics like traffic and conversions. Investigate exceptions in the data, form hypotheses, run tests to validate them, and communicate findings effectively to stakeholders for action.
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10:06Evaluating enterprise technical SEO recommendations for scalabilityEnterprise SEOs should possess deep SEO and data science knowledge, alongside an understanding of computer science, information theory and AI. This skill set enables technical SEOs to effectively access the practicality and scalability of proposed ideas.
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12:17Selling technical SEO initiatives to product managersBased on the Product Manager's objectives, create a menu of options including expected outcomes and risk-adjusted values. Presenting a strong business case helps PMs understand the potential impact and resources required, building credibility for SEOs over time.
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16:25How to ensure your technical SEO initiatives get executed by dev teamsCreate a detailed product requirements document outlining objectives, requirements, and expected outcomes for each initiative. Collaborate with PMs and devs to scope the project, define KPIs for success, and follow up with A/B testing and measurement to demonstrate value.
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22:14Demonstrating the value of technical SEO efforts in a large organizationUtilize methodologies like A/B testing and causal impact studies to quantify the impact of interventions. Communicating these findings to engineers in agile ceremonies reinforces SEOs value and highlights developer contributions.
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25:11Crawling and indexation challenges in enterprise SEOAt the enterprise level, crawling and indexation challenges stem from the vast amount of UGC. To prioritize content for exposure to search engines, a regression-based approach is applied to identify the pages most likely to answer user queries and do well in Google.
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29:22The benefits of operating at a larger scale in SEOIt means having access to more resources and tools, which allows for running tests with potentially higher impact. Even small uplifts can lead to millions of new users on the site, offering substantial leverage and opportunity for growth.
Quotes
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"The most important skill for technical SEO at the enterprise level is being able to pull the data, and then weave it into a coherent narrative that you can explain to other people." - Chris Reynolds
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"Enterprise technical SEOs require deep SEO and data science knowledge, alongside understanding computer science and AI, to assess the practicality and scalability of ideas on million-page-plus sites." - Chris Reynolds
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"In a requirements document, detail precisely what actions will occur. Being specific allows others to visualize the implementation process, leading to better scopes from engineers." - Chris Reynolds
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"In enterprise SEO, we shift from heuristics to a modern machine learning or regression based approach to make Google's life as easy as possible by only giving it pages we think are likely to answer external user queries."- Chris Reynolds
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"Half of the tests I run generate no meaningful uplift. But the ones that do, even the ones that maybe only get 1%-5% uplift, that 1%-5% uplift accounts for 10s of millions of new users on the site." - Chris Reynolds
Up Next:
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Part 1Technical SEO at scale
Chris Reynolds, SEO Director at Indeed, delves into managing technical SEO on large enterprise sites. Transitioning from smaller websites to the enterprise-level requires a mindset shift for technical SEO practitioners. Ultimately, the focus shifts from fixing numerous small issues to addressing problems that affect millions of URLs and will drive the most impact.Today, Chris discusses technical SEO at scale.
