{"id":4163,"date":"2022-01-19T08:42:07","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T08:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/19\/avoid-these-9-enterprise-seo-reporting-mistakes-that-devalue-your-data\/"},"modified":"2022-01-19T08:42:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T08:42:07","slug":"avoid-these-9-enterprise-seo-reporting-mistakes-that-devalue-your-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/19\/avoid-these-9-enterprise-seo-reporting-mistakes-that-devalue-your-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoid These 9 Enterprise SEO Reporting Mistakes That Devalue Your Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Enterprise SEO can seem slow, expensive, and burdened with process. This is particularly true in reporting, where workflows and deliverables can be extensively detailed and nuanced.<\/p>\n

Whether you deliver physical reports or have online reporting, dashboards, or presentations, there\u2019s a lot to talk about.<\/p>\n

As SEO professionals, we\u2019re never short on metrics, segments, and ways to fill up paper \u2013 or webpages of data.<\/p>\n

We have a tendency to throw the kitchen sink out there to justify our efforts, explain the complexity of SEO, and get buy-in.<\/p>\n

And despite our best efforts, many of us make reporting mistakes that can actually hinder our enterprise SEO strategy and how it\u2019s perceived by others.<\/p>\n

In this article, you\u2019ll learn more about nine common enterprise SEO reporting mistakes that devalue your data and take away from the important opportunities you have to use reporting as a positive way to enhance your strategy and efforts overall.<\/p>\n

More importantly, you\u2019ll learn how to solve and avoid them, as well.<\/p>\n

1. Not Aligning With Broader KPIs And Goals<\/h2>\n

So many of my articles start out with goals and that\u2019s because without them, SEO can get off track from the start.<\/p>\n

Worse, SEO might end up doing extra work that isn\u2019t necessary or has to be thrown out anyway.<\/p>\n

Investing in any area without clear goals or an understanding of how SEO efforts drive toward ultimate marketing or business goals is setting yourself and your team up to fail.<\/p>\n

Enterprise SEO can include reporting to a lot of different types of stakeholders. Implementing technical and on-page updates can move slowly \u2013 especially if you need to get new content deployed.<\/p>\n

Many clients, managers, and executives don\u2019t know or care about the details of SEO.<\/p>\n

They care about what it drives. What it needs to drive toward are goals they understand and you want to connect those dots from the start.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Spend time within SEO and with other channels or stakeholders to define specific KPIs<\/a> that tie into broader business goals.<\/p>\n

2. Lacking Baselines And Benchmarks<\/h2>\n

Most reporting compares one timeframe to another.<\/p>\n

Even with comparisons in place, stakeholders will often ask, \u201cIs that good?\u201d The context of where we started and what impact specific optimizations had is essential.<\/p>\n

That means you need to find meaningful milestones for comparison in your reporting.<\/p>\n

Whether that means a year-to-date compared to the same timeframe the previous year, or month-over-month, have a reason and justification for it.<\/p>\n

Know for sure what the data is showing in terms of trends and performance for your own organization \u2013 and how it compares to the marketplace as a whole.<\/p>\n

SEO reporting and data is meaningless if it is in a vacuum and lacks context.<\/p>\n

Is 1000% traffic growth good? Maybe. But was it bad to start with and we\u2019re still below industry average? Not as impressive.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Work with key stakeholders to get agreement and buy-in on meaningful milestones, baselines, and benchmarks to use going forward (and backward) in SEO reporting<\/a> for objectivity.<\/p>\n

3. Missing The Customer Journey<\/h2>\n

When we talk about enterprise SEO, we\u2019re likely managing a large site that is driving toward lead capture, a sales transaction, or maybe even large-scale page views (e.g. publishers).<\/p>\n

Yes, there are visitors who will come here and convert on the first visit and within a click or two. Focusing on those visitors alone limits your potential, though.<\/p>\n

In an enterprise organization or for an enterprise-level SEO strategy, there could be an untapped wealth of customer journey and conversion funnel data available from others in the organization.<\/p>\n

Find the right brand, product, sales, or marketing manager to get it.<\/p>\n

This will help you greatly in organizing your reporting showing how SEO is contributing at each stage (or could be in the future).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re simply reporting in aggregate on average position, traffic, and conversions, you\u2019re missing out on an opportunity to tell a bigger story, get deeper into what is happening, and justify SEO strategy needs from others.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Organize your SEO reporting in a way that matches the known customer journey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Build the funnel around keywords, topics, and conversion paths so SEO can be measured objectively compared to other channels and sources.<\/p>\n

4. Not Separating Keywords By Type<\/h2>\n

One of the biggest mistakes in enterprise SEO reporting is blending all keywords and intent signals into one metric.<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019m a big fan of executive summary-style, streamlined KPI reporting.<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

Brand terms should rank well on their own if there aren\u2019t SEO issues.<\/p>\n

As SEOs, we often don\u2019t have a lot of control over demand and search volume for branded terms.<\/p>\n

Why would we want to provide reporting with them blended in with generic terms that are in our specific optimization strategy and plan?<\/p>\n

Upward and downward swings in brand traffic can be tied to PR, seasonality, and other demand drivers that we don\u2019t control.<\/p>\n

Blending them in with generic and focused SEO strategy terms can tell the wrong inflated or underwhelming story in your reporting.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Segment performance data between brand and generic keywords<\/a>, at a minimum.<\/p>\n

Go deeper where you can into specific focus topics and in alignment with the customer journey tied to your strategy if possible.<\/p>\n

5. Focusing Too Much On Indicator Metrics<\/h2>\n

I learned early in my career that I didn\u2019t ever want to hear a client or manager say, \u201cThat\u2019s all good, so is there ROI?\u201d<\/p>\n

We definitely need to track keyword performance, rankings, traffic, and conversions.<\/p>\n

That alone is not good enough for enterprise SEO strategies, though. What is converting? What is the ROI on that? Can we justify this level of investment in SEO?<\/p>\n

These questions must be answered or no one will want to hear about average position, impressions, or visits.<\/p>\n

Starting at the end \u2013 the most important metric or business driver that SEO can impact.<\/p>\n

Lead with that. Then, where relevant on other pages, tabs, or in deeper conversations, get into the SEO-specific indicator metrics.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how you can keep your executive-level audience engaged.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Provide an executive summary or lead with the result that came from your amazing solution.<\/p>\n

Go deeper into the \u201chow\u201d you got that result in an appendix or separate part of the report.<\/p>\n

6. Nerding Out Too Much<\/h2>\n

I love hearing about how getting a database-driven canonical strategy implemented across 100k product pages solved a year-long issue.<\/p>\n

I could talk for hours about those types of successes. But this is what I do.<\/p>\n

If your reporting is full of our SEO language and your key audience doesn\u2019t understand or care about it, they\u2019ll completely miss the point.<\/p>\n

Lead with outcomes, read your audience, and structure your reporting and communication around what will resonate most with them.<\/p>\n

Be sure to take credit for the wins; just make sure those wins and how SEO drove them are actually understood.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Have others give you feedback and advice on how deep they want you to go technically in reporting. You can always adjust what you\u2019re already doing based on helpful feedback.<\/p>\n

Get help on translating terms and metrics<\/a> if they aren\u2019t resonating with your audience.<\/p>\n

7. Lacking A Connection To Broader Strategy<\/h2>\n

Large organizations have big marketing teams, content efforts, PR, and a lot more.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s typically good news for enterprise SEO campaigns.<\/p>\n

That means we\u2019re not hurting for content, relationships to drive inbound links, and resources to help us with funnels, modeling, and customer engagement data.<\/p>\n

It is easy to want to stick with just core SEO metrics \u2013 on reporting what we control.<\/p>\n

However, your reporting is a great opportunity to show how content, links, and website technical aspects are helping or hindering overall SEO performance.<\/p>\n

If you want more resources, buy-in, or support from content creators, IT, developers, PR, and others, then show the connection between those efforts and your own.<\/p>\n

For example, if a PR campaign ended and we have fewer links now, bring that up!<\/p>\n

If we have been asking for new or optimized web copy for months and the content writers have focused on other priorities, show the cost of that missed opportunity.<\/p>\n

Reporting can be a great way to call attention to opportunities and therefore make the case for resources.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, SEO isn\u2019t an island. Showing data and the real impacts of not getting collaboration can help.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Find areas where you have great support or need it and highlight those in your reporting.<\/p>\n

Tie cause and effect together in your narrative<\/a> (written or spoken) and emphasize that SEO can\u2019t operate in a silo.<\/p>\n

8. Simply Providing \u201cReports\u201d<\/h2>\n

Does your enterprise-level SEO reporting platform include a lot of default KPIs and metrics?<\/p>\n

Templates and automation are great.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re an agency scaling reporting across clients or in-house building your own, having a starting point and data that is aggregated from multiple sources is key.<\/p>\n

The challenge is that without customization and tailoring your report to the company, specific baselines\/benchmarks, and KPIs that uniquely matter, then you\u2019re providing something that looks and feels generic.<\/p>\n

If your strategy is custom-tailored to the brand, then make sure your online or physical reporting reflects that.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let it look like you just swapped out a logo and plugged in some data sources and that was it.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Invest time to tailor the deliverable<\/a> so it is a tool to leverage for communication versus a burden or task to complete.<\/p>\n

This could mean customizing the report\u2019s look and feel, changing up the metrics, or considering other methods for sharing the information.<\/p>\n

9. All Data And No Insights<\/h2>\n

This is a mistake that becomes most critical when stakeholders have access to a real-time reporting dashboard, or when we send reports to them via email without a meeting to walk through them.<\/p>\n

Go a step further than avoiding the mistake of having a simple or generic report \u2013 make sure you\u2019re telling a story<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Data is simply data. It is open to interpretation or frustration without context.<\/p>\n

Frame the context. Tie the strategy to the results. Good or bad, you need to be able to articulate what the data means and inspire others to actually care.<\/p>\n

Come armed with several key insights and ideas to get a step ahead and make reporting time productive.<\/p>\n

When things are performing well, it is easy to show a few percentage increases and to go on your way.<\/p>\n

However, in good or bad times, pull out details on what drove the performance, what is working well, what isn\u2019t, and how we can keep or stop doing something to impact performance in the future.<\/p>\n

Reporting shouldn\u2019t be disconnected from conversations around strategy and collaboration.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/strong>: Create space in documents, presentations, or conversations for sharing insights and smart thinking. Think insights first in your presentation.<\/p>\n

Maybe you don\u2019t even have to show the data behind them or the reporting details. That\u2019s a huge win, as you\u2019re talking about things that matter more than the raw numbers that got you there.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Enterprise SEO requires a lot of effort, collaboration, time, and investment. It can all be tanked by reporting mistakes that can have serious consequences.<\/p>\n

By not showing the proper value of SEO to an organization, it can get cut or the resources you need can be hard to get.<\/p>\n

When lacking context, insights, and leveraging the opportunity to report to your audience, you can lose their attention and make your own work more difficult or scrutinized in ways you don\u2019t want.<\/p>\n

Work toward a tailored reporting focus to make it a powerful tool tied back to your strategy and into bigger picture impacts that SEO has on the brand.<\/p>\n

More resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Featured Image: PROKOPEVA IRINA\/Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n