Welcome to a new edition of Whiteboard Friday! Today, we’re going to dive into the important topic of translating SEO work into business value for executives. Executives tend to focus on business problems that impact the overall trajectory of the business, while SEO work tends to be concentrated on the more tactical aspects of projects. So how can we translate these two concepts? Let’s take a look at two models: The Value Pyramid and The Four Forms of Business Value.
The Value Pyramid
Starting with the value pyramid, it’s a simple construct, with four layers that help teams understand the work they are doing and what clients need. For SEO, we can think about the bottom layer as link building, which is crucial to getting rankings and traffic, which in turn leads to engagement on the website and conversions. Conversions can increase revenue, which is the ultimate goal.
But as we move up the pyramid, it’s important to focus on the type of people you’re interacting with. As you move up the pyramid, you’ll typically see more strategic conversations with people like directors, vice presidents, chief marketing officers, and occasionally a director of finance or a CFO.
To move up the pyramid, we need to tie our work more closely to the business problems that these executives care about. Career progression is also essential to moving up the pyramid because these individuals control budgets and will ultimately decide whether or not to work with us.
The Four Forms of Business Value
The next step is to think about the four types of business value. We can increase revenue and gross profit, reduce costs, avoid costs, or provide insurance value. It’s important to understand which of these types of business value might be the most appealing to a particular executive.
When it comes to reducing costs, our value proposition is less about driving top-line growth and more about reducing expenses for the company. Cost avoidance is also an option, where we help clients avoid costs in the future by making the right recommendations.
Finally, insurance value is essential to helping clients avoid losses. Companies will happily pay an insurance premium to avoid potential larger losses down the road. SEOs can provide insurance value by helping a client avoid pitfalls during a website migration or relaunch, for example.
Conclusion
To sum it up, we need to translate our SEO expertise into the language of client executives by focusing on their key business problems. We’ll also need to understand the four types of business value to provide value beyond increased revenue and ensure we’re in the room with executives when it comes time to renew or pitch work.
