The In-house SEO Exchange at SMX West is fast approaching and we’ve lined up three veteran in-house SEOs for the speaker’s panel. We’re excited to have Jeremiah Andrick, Senior Manager of Online Customer Acquisition at Logitech; Michael Nguyen, Director of SEO at Shopzilla, Inc.; and Ryan Currie, Product Manager at AT&T Interactive (responsible for the SEO performance of YellowPages.com).
We got a chance to sit down with them and ask a few questions about SEO and the In-house SEO Exchange. Here are a few of the answers (with more to follow next week):
Imagine…. Its 8am, Monday morning and you arrive at work to find that SEO traffic has plummeted. What are the first places you would look to begin diagnosing the problem?
Jeremiah: For me the first place to look is always the change log in our code repository. Public changes to our CMS that were not vetted by the SEO team are a common source of problems. Second to that would be a deep dive into our analytics to see what changed. I look internally first and work my way outward in any root cause analysis.
Ryan: I would first check that handful of keywords that everyone in the organization cares about just to make sure nothing catastrophic has happened. After that, I would check my analytics and compare keyword traffic to historic performance. I would be looking to see if there was an issue with a particular page (or type of page for larger sites) or if there was a site wide decline. Lastly, I would reference rankings data for the keywords that had the largest drops to see how my position in the SERPs was effected. Additional concerns would be: seasonality, site releases, and external events.
Why are you excited to contribute to the in-house SEO Exchange?
Michael: The In-house SEO Exchange is flat out the best reason to attend an SMX conference. Every time I attend, I find that I learn more than I end up contributing. Every attendee has something to share. My favorite thing about the exchange is that it isn't a conference - there are no set sessions, no one is pitching, and no one is sitting around hoping the speaker gets to the Q&A portion. The exchange is heavily participant driven, so it's dynamic yet always focused on important themes and pressing issues.
What do you wish someone had told you when you started as an in-house SEO that would have propelled your SEO program to the next level faster?
Ryan: When working as an in-house SEO you will mostly likely have to sell your ideas to a number of stake holders. Sometime a great idea with solid projections isn’t enough, and you will have to learn to navigate the political waters of your organization.
Jeremiah: Buy more beer for the software developers.
Meet Michael, Ryan, Jeremiah, and many other seasoned in-house SEO’s at the In-house SEO Exchange and get candid answers to your most pressing issues. This full-day, closed-door event is February 27th in San Jose, CA – the day before SMX West. Tickets can be purchased with or without registration to SMX, but hurry, because early bird registration ends on Saturday. We hope to see you there!
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