Ross Hudgens - From Deck to Dev: Getting SEO Recommendations Shipped at Enterprise Scale

Transcript

1. From Deck to Dev: A proven playbook from 13+ years of agency experience working with Fortune 500 companies Getting SEO Recommendations Shipped at Enterprise Scale Ross Hudgens, Founder & CEO
2. 2 @RossHudgens
3. 3 @RossHudgens This implementation rate isn’t inevitable. It’s a symptom of company selection, weak business cases, and poor communication design.
4. 4 @RossHudgens We need to take personal responsibility for implementation velocity.
5. 5 @RossHudgens This talk will share the playbook of how to get your recommendations pushed into production, from an agency with 13+ years of experience working with enterprise brands.
6. 6 @RossHudgens There are four areas we can strongly impact implementation velocity: 1. Company selection 2. Building business cases 3. Communication design 4. Ongoing company evaluation
7. 7 1 @RossHudgens Company selection
8. 8 @RossHudgens
9. 9 @RossHudgens When interviewing at a company, there are a few things we can look for: SEO velocity on the live website.
10. 10 @RossHudgens “SEO potential” is sometimes alluring, but if they have title tags from 1995 yet are still hiring, that’s an indication that SEO is undervalued and traction will be hard to see.
11. 11 @RossHudgens What are some recent SEO recommendations that went live on the site, and when? What does the SEO ticket backlog look like? Questions to ask in the interview:
12. 12 @RossHudgens How would you describe the executive team’s search acumen/buy-in? Questions to ask in the interview:
13. 13 @RossHudgens Is this new headcount or additive headcount for the SEO department? Questions to ask in the interview:
14. 14 @RossHudgens Questions to ask in the interview: Where will SEO be located in the org chart? Marketing or product?
15. 15 @RossHudgens What is your relative credibility to this company?
16. 16 @RossHudgens You may be able to get a job as an SEO, but if you can’t say “We implemented this change at the NY Times and it created a lift of 10%, so PUBLISHER NAME should do the same,” you may be walking into a situation where your recommendations are less likely to happen.
17. 17 @RossHudgens Beyond making you better at the job, industry experience is effective for change velocity once you’re inside the door.
18. 18 2 @RossHudgens Building Business Cases
19. 19 @RossHudgens SEO won’t get done without the business case to justify it. Here are a few ways to build effective business cases.
20. 20 @RossHudgens Use an “effort/expected lift” matrix when making recommendations. You can do it qualitatively: Estimated benefit: Estimated effort: HIGH HIGH MEDIUM LOW Estimated benefit: Estimated effort: Estimated benefit: Estimated effort: Estimated benefit: Estimated effort: HIGH MEDIUM LOW MEDIUM 1
21. 21 @RossHudgens Or even better, quantitatively:
22. 22 @RossHudgens Include a case study with every recommendation. 2 • SearchPilot tests • Ahrefs before/after views • ChatGPT Deep Research/Google search • Ask in SEO communities/network for “behind the scenes” results • Bring in outside agencies for validation/case studies
23. 23 @RossHudgens Build outcome velocity, starting with low effort, high lift options. 3 Title Tag Metadata H1 Adjustments Month 1 Internal Linking Adjustments Month 2
24. 24 @RossHudgens Create outcome models. “Google “Content Marketing ROI Calculator”
25. 25 @RossHudgens One of the common models we like: Take the average of a top competitor’s content section.
26. 26 @RossHudgens And then dampen outcomes accordingly.
27. 27 @RossHudgens We are increasingly conservative due to ChatGPT and the potential for AI Mode to become the default, for this reason we are mostly leaning on Traffic Value. • Expected Traffic Increase of 8,698/mo in 12 Months • Expected Traffic Value Increase of $13,253/mo in 12 Months • Expected Traffic Value Added to Following 12 Months - $159,040 • Expected Overall Organic Traffic Value in Following 12 Months - $869,436 • ChatGPT Traffic Value Increase Expected Proportional to Google Traffic
28. 28 @RossHudgens Mitigate and understand risk. Losses significantly impact implementation velocity. Can we “A/B” test this change on a cohort of lower value pages, before rolling out to all?
29. 29 @RossHudgens Make recommendations in “expected lift”, not “actual lift”. There are no certainties in SEOs, just expected value (+EV or -EV decisions).
30. 30 3 @RossHudgens Communication design
31. 31 @RossHudgens To see consistent velocity, communication design is paramount. SEO reporting to product makes it far easier to get things accomplished. In marketing, you will not have consistent alignment with decision makers.
32. 32 @RossHudgens Aim to have biweekly to weekly group meetings with product, “the team meeting.” • Biweekly Team Meeting With Product
33. 33 @RossHudgens Soft meetings with recurring agendas with product owners can be critical for building relationships, rapport, and making arguments over time for high impact SEO requests. • Biweekly Team Meeting With Product • Quarterly Check-ins With Product Owners
34. 34 @RossHudgens High Output Management by Andrew Grove Chapter 4: “Meetings - The Medium of Managerial Work” Recommended read:
35. 35 @RossHudgens Show monthly progress to executives via email. • Biweekly Team Meeting With Product • Quarterly Check-ins With Product Owners • Monthly Summary Slides to Executives
36. 36 @RossHudgens Provide recommendations in slide format, with an executive summary. Include immediate asks in the TL;DR summary of that message.
37. 37 @RossHudgens By showing progress, you build credibility velocity that makes change easier. Executives will pay attention to and invest more in channels that are working. Communicating that things are working makes that happen.
38. 38 @RossHudgens Create a “QBR” meeting with executives, to discuss key outcomes and asks. • Biweekly Team Meeting With Product • Quarterly Check-ins With Product Owners • Monthly Summary Slides to Executives • Quarterly Business Review w/ Executives
39. 39 @RossHudgens Summarize takeaways of the last few months in a once-a-quarter meeting to be respectful of executive time. Send the deck as a pre-read to be more efficient.
40. 40 @RossHudgens Actively show gratitude to cross-departmental leads, in Slack/Teams/your tool of choice. • Biweekly Team Meeting With Product • Quarterly Check-ins With Product Owners • Monthly Summary Slides to Executives • Quarterly Business Review w/ Executives • Daily/Weekly Mass Communication of Wins
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42. 42 @RossHudgens Structure JIRA tickets for success. Example Template: • Title: • Description: • Acceptance Criteria: • Priority: • Testing Notes: • References:
43. 43 @RossHudgens Example Template
44. 44 @RossHudgens Map SEO recommendations to company priorities/company roadmaps.
45. 45 4 @RossHudgens Macroeconomics, Company Evolution and When to Move On
46. 46 @RossHudgens For big companies, have LLMs summarize earnings calls to better understand priorities. In 2026+, more companies are being disrupted than ever before. This means the product focus, and engineering priorities are changing.
47. 47 @RossHudgens Some companies are changing from SEO-first to sales-led.
48. 48 @RossHudgens Some companies are having their entire SEO motion wiped away as potential traffic splits change.
49. 49 @RossHudgens These aren’t all going to play out in minutes, but you should start to see company revenue from SEO adjust. If that starts to shrink significantly, expect engineering time dedicated to search to also shrink.
50. 50 @RossHudgens At large company sizes, sometimes fighting hard for more resources to reverse that trend may be impossible (and misguided) for the return on that time.
51. 51 @RossHudgens That’s nobody’s fault, besides our own for hanging on too long when our skills could have been better used elsewhere.
52. 52 @RossHudgens Company Selection Business Cases Communication Design Am I Actively Communicating Success to All of These Groups? Company Evolution ⚪ Improve crawling, indexing, and site architecture ⚪ What is the expected future state of this company? ⚪ How much revenue does SEO drive for them today? ⚪ Where is SEO located in the organizational chart, product or marketing? ⚪ What is my relative credibility at this company? ⚪ Am I recommending effort against lift for all changes? ⚪ Am I providing a case study with every recommendation? ⚪ If I don’t have one, can I find someone who will be able to provide support? ⚪ Have I built a reliable projection model for this change? ⚪ Can we “A/B” test this change on a cohort of pages, before rolling out to all? ⚪ Are we setting expectations around possible lift, not guaranteed lift? ⚪ The team meeting w/ product ⚪ Quarterly check-ins with product owners ⚪ Monthly email summary for executives ⚪ Quarterly business review with executives ⚪ Daily/weekly wins to team contributors on Slack/Teams ⚪ Structured Jira tickets ⚪ Recommendations mapped to company roadmap ⚪ Optional: blog posts/emails on company Wiki ⚪ Level 1: The close collaborators ⚪ Level 2: Leadership ⚪ Level 3: The wider company ⚪ Am I actively assessing public statements from the CEO/executive team to fully understand company direction? ⚪ How has my company's implementation velocity changed? ⚪ What is the expected future state of this company's organic traffic, and my impact on it? ⚪ How can I expect my company's implementation velocity to change?
53. 53 @RossHudgens Which path will you choose?
54. hello@siegemedia.com | 512.710.2510 Thank you. ross@siegemedia.com // @rosshudgens