Before making a large purchase,
81 percent of shoppers turn to search engines to research their options. Potential customers want information about the product or service they’re purchasing, but most businesses struggle to scale their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and provide the right messaging. Enterprise SEO takes the principles of basic SEO and magnifies them to encompass the broad range of searchers and queries required to support competitive search rankings for an enterprise company.
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What is enterprise SEO?
Enterprise SEO is the process of optimizing an enterprise company’s web properties to perform well on search engines. It includes all of the activities involved in getting a site to rank high on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) and entice searchers to click on those listings.
Some definitions of enterprise SEO detail it as the process of performing SEO protocols for large sites with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of pages. The reality is that it’s actually a combination of both. Large sites generally belong to companies with large revenues that can afford to go after highly competitive keywords and have the resources to improve the technical aspects of their web properties.
Enterprise SEO vs. traditional SEO
Enterprise SEO mainly differs from traditional SEO in terms of the project’s scope. With traditional SEO, approval processes are generally short, and it’s not difficult to get new content published or to make technical website changes. However, with enterprise SEO, more people are involved, like marketers, legal and compliance teams, developers, and IT administrators. The website structure is also more complex, and the SEO team may have to be more intentional about which keywords they’re prioritizing because they’re getting asks from other departments that may be slipping in revenue.
Additionally, traditional SEO may focus on a narrow geographic area or choose keywords targeted towards shoppers at the bottom of the funnel. Targeted keywords like this tend to have lower search volumes, but they’re also usually less competitive. This approach is better for new or small businesses that don’t yet have the capital or domain authority to compete with major players in their industry.
Also read:
SEO Techniques to Know for 2021
What does enterprise SEO include?
From a high level, the actual strategies of traditional and enterprise SEO are pretty similar. To rank well, you need to create high-quality content, target valuable keywords, and regularly audit the site for technical errors.
Automated site audits
On a site with 6,000 pages, it’s really easy to miss duplicate content or a broken link that could be costing you big time in the SERPs. Especially for technical audits, automation is a crucial part of enterprise SEO.
Semrush offers a high-speed audit process that crawls pages quickly, provides detailed insights into any issues, and provides recommendations for how to fix them.
Technical site audits should point out missing meta-descriptions or alt tags,
broken links, pages that load slowly, or pages that return
404 errors. They might also identify accessibility issues within your web properties, as well as incorrect
schema coding.
Also read:
What is Metadata? Data About Data
High-volume keywords
Enterprise SEO techniques generally target keywords that have a large number of monthly searches and are highly competitive. Examples include:
- project management software
- best smartphone
- Insurance
- Lawyers
- artificial intelligence.
These keywords should not only be included in the body of your content, but your team should also optimize meta-titles, descriptions, and image alt tags to include relevant keywords and information.
High-volume and high-competition keywords like this are generally targeted towards consumers who are situated at the top of the sales funnel. Enterprises generally have resources to dedicate to creating content built around these keywords and can afford to target prospects with a longer timeline. But they also have more to gain from the brand awareness that comes from being tied to these high-volume concepts, rather than long-tail keywords with narrower search intent.
For example, Remax wants to be found for “how to buy a home” because they can then funnel prospects to one of their thousands of locations in the buyer’s area. And when they are able to provide that good information when people are just thinking about buying the home, they’ll recognize the name ReMax when they start looking for local realtors.
Competitor analysis
You’ll also need to know what your competitors are targeting and how their web properties are performing. It’s really difficult to win a race when you don’t know where the other challengers are. Many enterprise SEO tools include some form of competitor analysis that shows you what keywords your competitors are ranking for and where your site is ranking in comparison.
Moz Pro compares your keyword rankings against your competitors, helping you identify areas that require some extra TLC. It also provides backlink suggestions based on the domains that are linking out to your competitors. SpyFu takes competitor analysis to a whole new level, showing you Google Ads that your competitors are running or have run in the past, the keywords they’re bidding on, and how much they’re paying per click on average.
Content optimization
Content marketers — who have quite a bit of skin in the game — will tell you that content is the most important part of SEO. But just creating content isn’t enough, especially for enterprise SEO. You’ll need to optimize it in a way that ties in related topics and gives Google a reason to consider you an expert on the topic.
MarketMuse scrapes the top-ranking search results for your target keyword and then gives your content a score based on how it compares. The higher the score, the more likely your content is to rank well. To help you increase the score, it also provides suggestions for keywords to add and how many times you should add them throughout the piece.
Also read:
A (Short) Guide to B2B Content Syndication
Are enterprise SEO tactics right for your business?
Enterprise SEO isn’t for every business. It’s very difficult to get right and typically cost-prohibitive for smaller organizations and startups. However, if your business has hundreds or thousands of website pages and is ready to go after high-volume keywords, it’s probably time to employ enterprise SEO tactics.
To do this, you’ll want to look at tools that provide site audits with an unlimited or high number (in the hundreds of thousands) of page crawls each month, content optimization features, and detailed competitor analysis. Some vendors offer full enterprise SEO suites that include most of these features, but you may also choose to implement standalone tools.
To help you find the right solutions for your business, we’ve put together a list of the
top enterprise SEO tools. We explore the key features that enterprise SEO software should include and provide a comparison of several top vendors in the market.
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Enterprise Search Engine Optimization Tools 
