As your business and website expand, your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts should also scale accordingly. This is because as you increase your products and diversify to other locations and target customers, you will inevitably add new pages to your site. Conventional search optimization tactics will no longer be enough—you’ll need SEO for large businesses, also known as enterprise SEO.
Regular SEO vs enterprise SEO
Conventional SEO is a broad practice focused on optimizing a website to increase its ranking in search results through tactics like keyword research, content creation, and link building. Enterprise SEO is a more advanced strategy specifically for large and complex websites that target multiple locations, products, and audiences.
Think of regular SEO as a small-scale, contained operation, while enterprise SEO is a large-scale one. Although they have the same objective—improving visibility and driving traffic to your site—their approach and execution differ.
To elaborate, regular SEO typically focuses on individual pages or smaller websites, while SEO for enterprises takes a more holistic approach and optimizes the entire website. It often involves strategies like creating a cohesive structure for all pages, implementing keyword strategies across various product or service categories, and maintaining consistent branding throughout your site.
There is a common misconception that SEO for large businesses works only for Fortune 500 companies and similar-scaled companies. However, it applies to any business with a significant online presence and complex website structure, regardless of size or industry.
Reasons to invest in SEO for enterprises
Enterprise-scale search optimization is the key to successfully maintaining your growing business’s online presence. Here are the reasons why:
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Fierce competition. Expanding your offerings, locations, and target audiences also increases your competition, including larger businesses with a more substantial online presence and marketing budget. You need specialized SEO strategies to stay competitive and remain visible in search results.
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Long-term ROI. SEO takes time to deliver returns, but you shouldn’t be discouraged. It offers sustainable and lasting benefits that compound over time, leading to consistent growth in both traffic and revenue.
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Increased customer trust. Maintaining a high rank in search results can help enhance your credibility and make customers more likely to trust you. This is especially critical when you’re competing against more established brands.
Investing in SEO for enterprises helps you stay relevant and profitable, even as your business needs change, making you more adaptable to industry and market shifts.
Strategies to enhance enterprise visibility
Follow this SEO guide to scale your optimization efforts:
Keyword research at scale
Creating pages for new markets, products, and locations means you’ll have to target and manage more keywords than ever. Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Keyword Planner to identify high-volume, low-competition keywords relevant to your business. As you expand, you should create separate keyword strategies for each business segment to target all potential customers.
During your research, do not focus solely on popular keywords. While their search volumes may look impressive, their high competition means ranking for them would take more time, effort, and resources. Instead, try targeting long-tail keywords, as they usually capture user intent better, making them more conducive to conversion.
Optimize your site structure
Adding more pages to your website can result in a messy site structure, which can be confusing for both users and search engines. This can impact user experience and lead to lower visibility in the search results. Here are some large business SEO tips to avoid these issues:
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Use categories and subcategories. Assign similar content under logical categories and subcategories. For example, if you’re an electrician, you can separate your services by categories like “residential,” “commercial,” and “industrial.”
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Avoid duplicate content. As your web pages increase, so does the risk of duplicate content. These dupes can be confusing and lead to lower rankings. You can address the issue by implementing canonical tags, which tell search engines which pages to index.
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Ensure mobile-friendliness. With mobile devices accounting for more than half of all website traffic, it’s critical to have a mobile-friendly site. This means using a responsive design and simple navigation and speeding up your pages’ loading times.
Improving structure also makes your website more professional, polished, and reputable, enhancing customer trust and loyalty.
Leverage content at scale
Most SEO strategies hinge on high-quality content, and this remains true even as you shift towards optimization strategies for enterprises. Well-made, relevant content attracts visitors and builds your site’s authority, so it’s an absolute must-have. Here’s a content SEO guide you should follow:
Create targeted content. Write blogs, guides, and videos that address your audience’s needs and answer their questions. This is especially crucial as more people use voice search to answer questions and find information.
Automate content creation. Some AI tools, such as Jasper and ChatGPT, can speed up content creation and reduce its cost. However, make sure to review the end product to ensure it’s accurate and aligned with your brand voice and messaging.
Use internal linking. Link related pages on your site to one another. This helps users and search engines understand how your content is interconnected, and it distributes authority throughout your site.
Stay updated on SEO trends and changes to search engine algorithms to ensure that your content strategy follows best practices.
Invest in tech SEO
No matter how good your content, keyword research, and site structure are, it doesn’t matter if search engines cannot crawl or index your pages. Here are some technical SEO strategies for enterprises:
Improve page speed. Optimize images in your pages by compressing them, reduce code bloat, and consider using a content delivery network. These measures lighten your web pages and reduce their loading times.
Implement XML sitemaps. These help search engines understand your website’s structure and index your pages correctly. You can create an XML sitemap using tools like Yoast or Google Search Console.
Use a schema markup. Adding schema code to your site provides additional context about your content, helping search engines understand it better. Use Schema.org’s markup generator or Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to create the code.
Regularly performing tech SEO audits helps you identify issues that can significantly impact your site before they cause any major problems.
Use analytics to monitor performance
Enterprise SEO leverages advanced tools and analytics to measure performance and identify areas for improvement. Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console and pay attention to the following metrics:
Organic traffic
Keyword ranking
Engagement
Reviewing these metrics helps you identify what aspects of your strategy are working and what are not. Thus, you can update and improve them accordingly.
SEO success doesn’t happen overnight, but a strategic enterprise approach can help accelerate your growth. These business SEO tips can help you navigate the complexities of a growing business and focus on scalable strategies that attract a wider audience.
However, if you find SEO for large businesses overwhelming, consider hiring a professional SEO agency. An agency can help you create and implement a comprehensive SEO strategy tailored to your specific business needs, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your growing enterprise. With these strategies in place, you can establish a strong online presence and reach more potential customers, boosting visibility and ultimately driving growth.
Invest in SEO today and continue growing your business!