Rachel Anderson - Gaining Velocity: Building SEO into a Continuous Development Process

Transcript

1. Gaining Velocity: Building SEO into a Continuous Development Process Rachel Anderson
2. Rachel Anderson Sr. SEO Manager @ Weedmaps Richmond, VA
3. Gaining Velocity: Building SEO into a Continuous Development Process
4. Getting Dedicated Resources for SEO Projects So you’ve made a business case for engineering, product, and design resources for SEO projects - what’s next? Assumptions • New features to support SEO KPIs will roll out quarterly • SEO will dictate requirements of projects • Tech debt cleanup will be a one-time major project, with a few new tickets submitted each quarter Reality • The SEO team wasn’t making much progress on new features & spent most engineering resources on tech debt
5. Step 1: Tech Debt Vs. New Features Analysis So I asked myself some questions about SEO tech debt vs new features • How many new technical SEO tickets were filed in the past quarter? • How many sprint points went to tech debt vs new features in the last quarter? • How many new features for SEO were released on schedule?
6. Step 1: Tech Debt Vs. New Features Analysis So I asked myself some questions about SEO tech debt vs new features • How many new technical SEO tickets were filed in the past quarter? • How many sprint points went to tech debt vs new features in the last quarter? • How many new features for SEO were released on schedule? 30+ ⅓ of total points each sprint were not enough to keep up 0, all projects were delayed by tech debt
7. Step 2: Defining the Problem How is tech debt identified and prioritized? Screenshot from a recent partial Sitebulb crawl Reactive Sitebulb, GSC & Manual Checks Auditing for SEO regressions is necessary, but means code is already visible to search engines
8. Step 2: Defining the Problem Product Category Page rollout failure
9. Step 2: Defining the Problem Problem: We have dedicated resources for SEO initiatives, but all web engineering teams are also releasing code that introduces new SEO tech debt. Tech debt is causing SEO regressions and destroying velocity on new initiatives. Tech debt will always be a problem - How do we reduce the negative impact?
10. Step 3: Defining the Solution Solution: Move from a reactive tech-debt identification processes to a multi-pronged, proactive tech-debt elimination process. Proactive Methods to Reduce Tech Debt A. CI/CD pipeline automated tests B. SEO signoff in business processes C. SEO QA on high-risk tickets D. Engineering education
11. Step 4: Implementing the Solution Part A: CI/CD automated tests
12. Step 4a: CI/CD pipeline automated tests What is a CI/CD pipeline? • CI/CD stands for: Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery • The goal of CI/CD is to allow continuous deployment of code, without need for human intervention. This works well when you have a series of tests in place to check for bugs in code. Graphic from Civo
13. Step 4a: CI/CD pipeline automated tests CI/CD FAQs for SEOs CI/CD explainer from Gitlab Does your organization have a CI/CD pipeline? • Probably, if you work for a technology company - most tech companies utilize a CI/CD pipeline Does your company have automated tests configured for SEO in the CI/CD pipeline? • Probably not, unless your team configured them yourself How do you configure SEO tests in the CI/CD pipeline? • Work with your QE/QA team to identify the platform used & to assist with setup • Some venders like Deepcrawl (Lumar) have special tools specifically for CI/CD SEO checks
14. Step 4: CI/CD pipeline automated tests What types of tests to set up • List out all web surfaces & example URLs • Check critical HTML elements for errors ◦ Meta robots ◦ Title ◦ Canonical ◦ H1 ◦ Schema • Do pages load different content based on a user’s geo-location? If so, add regional tests. Playwright planning screenshot
15. Step 4a: CI/CD pipeline automated tests What did this process look like for Weedmaps? • Weedmaps uses Playwright for our QE tests, so this is where SEO set up our tests • We met weekly with our QA/QE team to learn about Playwright and configure tests • Weedmaps has a full-time technical SEO who is responsible for maintaining our Playwright tests
16. Step 4: Implementing the Solution Part B: SEO signoff in Product Development Process
17. Step 4b: SEO Signoff on PDP What business processes exist to prioritize product and engineering work? Business Requirements Development Product Requirements Development Design & Engineering Go To Market Weedmaps business process workflow
18. Step 4b: SEO Signoff on PDP What business processes exist to prioritize product and engineering work? Business Requirements Development Product Requirements Development Design & Engineering Go To Market Weedmaps business process workflow
19. Step 4b: SEO Signoff on PDP Product requirements must be sufficiently detailed to provide accurate SEO requirements Vague Product Requirements Tickets Missing Critical Features or Adding SEO Tech Debt “SEO Thrash” to Fix Tech Debt at GTM Before: At Weedmaps, product requirements were often lacking critical information After: Product requirements follow a template including all relevant information to stakeholders
20. Step 4b: SEO Signoff on PDP SEO provides 2 items for all projects that impact web 1. Googlebot US/AC 2. Project-specific SEO requirements Business Requirements Development Product Requirements Development
21. Step 4b: SEO Signoff on PDP SEO QAs throughout design & engineering process to ensure feature development matches requirements Product Requirements Development Design SEO & PM QA against requirements Engineering Decomps and confirms with SEO SEO & PM QA against requirements Feature development
22. Step 4b: SEO Signoff on PDP SEO Signs off on all web-impacting projects before they GTM • Does the solution meet the product requirements? • Are there any items not in the product requirements that need to be addressed before GTM? Business Requirements Development Product Requirements Development Design & Engineering Go To Market
23. Step 4: Implementing the Solution Part C: SEO QA on High-Risk Tickets
24. Step 4c: SEO QA on High-Risk Tickets Not all code released is part of a business initiative • Software updates • Legal compliance • Small projects • Bug fixes How do we ensure that these tickets don’t negatively impact SEO?
25. Step 4c: SEO QA on High-Risk Tickets We introduced JIRA fields • All tickets that may impact organic traffic are marked for SEO review • SEO reviews those tickets before they are released to production
26. Step 4c: SEO QA on High-Risk Tickets The SEO team uses a dashboard that pulls in tickets from all projects flagged for SEO QA to manage capacity and turnaround time JIRA dashboard screenshot
27. Step 4c: SEO QA on High-Risk Tickets SEO QA Workflow Sprint planning occurs for new sprint EMs tag tickets needing SEO QA Engineering & SEO collaborate on solution SEO QA Completed Ticket released to production Ticket completed by engineering *EMs are accountable for tagging SEO into tickets *Code that needs SEO review but doesn’t have it cannot release to production
28. Step 4c: SEO QA on High-Risk Tickets We communicated with engineering, product, and BizOps teams about the changes Slide from deck introducing Engineering to SEO QA But are engineering managers familiar enough with what matters for SEO to accurately tag tickets?
29. Step 4: Implementing the Solution Part D: Engineering SEO education
30. Step 4d: Engineering SEO Education SEO Education for Engineers in 3 parts Part 1: Engineering wiki documentation Part 2: Engineering education series Part 3: Audit sprints & continued education
31. Step 4d: Engineering SEO Education Engineering wiki documentation
32. Step 4d: Engineering SEO Education Engineering education series
33. Step 4d: Engineering SEO Education Audit sprints & continued education • I manually reviewed all tickets completed during 2 sprints ◦ Identified tickets that missed SEO QA or had process issues • I worked with BizOps to address process flow issues • I am completing a secondary round of education with EMs this month
34. Step 4d: Engineering SEO Education Tips for getting buy in from engineers • Meet with Engineering Managers first • I’m here to solve their problem • Frame it as a time savings initiative that keeps them from working on code that will be rejected or need to be reworked (code reversion) • Frame it as a “thrash avoidance” technique to allow initiatives to launch on time • Explain the other methods (steps a&b) that SEO did to reduce tech debt • Finally - I asked for their help flagging tickets with SEO QA
35. Step 5: Velocity
36. Proactive Processes Effectively Reduce Tech Debt There will always be tech debt tickets. But now we have processes in place to catch SEO regressions.
37. Proactive Processes Effectively Reduce Tech Debt Improvements in the first quarter since roll out • “911” SEO regression bugs cut in half • Engineers proactively pull SEO into ticket QA • Googlebot user story is in all current web initiatives Unexpected improvement: Better collaboration with cross functional teams • Engineering • Product • Design • Legal
38. Proactive Processes Effectively Reduce Tech Debt Proactive Methods to Reduce Tech Debt A. CI/CD pipeline automated tests B. SEO signoff in business processes C. SEO QA on high-risk tickets D. Engineering education
39. Thank you!