If you’ve been within the technical SEO world greater than a scorching minute, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled throughout technical SEO platform Deepcrawl in your on-line travels.It’s the enterprise SEO platform of alternative for large manufacturers equivalent to Adobe, Disney, IBM, and Twitch – and the companies and SEO professionals who serve them, as nicely.Aside from its product, Deepcrawl can also be a thought chief within the technical SEO house through its webinar sequence and weblog, convention audio system, and contributing authors who generously share their experience with the {industry} (together with proper right here at Search Engine Journal).I had the chance just lately to interview Craig Dunham, CEO of Deepcrawl, about what’s occurring inside his firm – and within the search house as a complete.He’s constructing on his background in martech and SaaS – and his historical past of serving to to develop a software program model by $1.5 billion – to proceed rising Deepcrawl as an industry-leading technical SEO platform.In this unique interview, Dunham shares his plans for Deepcrawl, how his groups are faring within the distant work atmosphere, what he’s realized actually issues in carving out a rewarding digital advertising and marketing profession, and extra.AdvertisementContinue Reading Below1. What’s new at Deepcrawl – any thrilling new hires, options, or different information to share?Craig Dunham: We’ve acquired some fairly huge bulletins coming subsequent yr round our platform.SEO, as you understand, is an ever-changing area, so we’re all the time arduous at work on new product options, upgrades, and constructing out occasions for our technical SEO group.At the beginning of the pandemic, Deepcrawl took a while to actually look at the instructions we wished to develop in. The entire world has skilled a whole lot of adjustments for the reason that pandemic started and it was vital to us that we spent the time to replicate and transfer ahead with function.We’ve revamped a whole lot of inner processes to higher help our workers – not simply throughout the pandemic however as a part of our ongoing dedication to making a incredible firm to work at. We’ve had new developments on the personnel entrance, as nicely.We have been thrilled to have Shachar Radin Shomrat be part of Deepcrawl not too way back as CMO, constructing on her years of expertise as a tech-focused advertising and marketing chief.AdvertisementContinue Reading BelowShe is spearheading our advertising and marketing actions as we scale and serving to to additional cement Deepcrawl as the perfect technical SEO platform accessible immediately.To help our ongoing progress, Panos Savopolous has additionally just lately joined as our new VP of Global Sales, bringing with him a whole lot of SaaS expertise acquired throughout his tenure with firms like Oracle and Beeswax.I’ve additionally just lately stepped into the CEO position right here at Deepcrawl, after initially serving as COO. I come from a background in martech as nicely, having beforehand been a part of the manager management workforce at Seismic, the place I helped develop the model’s valuation by roughly $1.5 billion in seven years.I really like the problem to enhance and to develop rapidly in SaaS, and so coming to Deepcrawl at this stage in our growth has been a super alternative for me. I used to be impressed by the workforce’s modern concepts and ambitions for what’s subsequent and jumped on the alternative to tackle the management of the corporate at a time when technical SEO has by no means been extra related.As for the product itself, we’re making some huge waves within the SEO house since launching the first-ever technical SEO automation software in our Automation Hub. Taking a extra expansive view towards our shoppers’ wants has helped inform new product concepts, evolve partnerships, and new occasions.But we’re all the time engaged on new options and enhancements; our objective is to have the world’s most clever and accessible SEO platform that may function at an enterprise scale.We’ve additionally been scaling up our buyer success {and professional} providers departments to make sure we companion with our shoppers within the methods they’d count on and supply them with the experience wanted to higher attain their aims. We make use of among the world’s main technical SEO professionals, and our shoppers leverage them as extensions of their very own groups.2. Did 2021 convey you any actual surprises within the search house?Craig Dunham: Organic search is all the time altering, so I can’t say we’ve been shocked by new developments. But it’s thrilling to see how technical SEO is increasing and the way search algorithms are bettering.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderWe’ve been busy constructing out academic assets for our shoppers round Google’s Core Web Vitals, which have been launched earlier this yr and heralded a brand new emphasis on web page expertise.Of course, we’ve all additionally seen the elevated demand from customers and legislators round privateness referring to internet marketing and paid channels.Obviously, we’ve lengthy been champions of natural search as a advertising and marketing channel, however with new developments across the paid digital channels, I feel we’re prone to see a good increased diploma of curiosity within the SEO aspect of issues.There are a whole lot of alternatives available for manufacturers that prioritize natural search proper now, notably because the paid advert house is dealing with new challenges and fewer choices for viewers focusing on.It’s one thing we’ve been speaking about rather a lot at Deepcrawl recently. I feel we’re actually in a search-first age, the place there’s a larger acknowledgment of its significance not simply to advertising and marketing but additionally to quite a lot of broader enterprise capabilities.AdvertisementContinue Reading Below3. How has Deepcrawl developed to accommodate the fast acceleration of distant work?Craig Dunham: We have places of work throughout three nations and other people working carefully collectively in many alternative time zones, so the acceleration of distant work was, all issues thought of, a fairly easy adjustment for our workforce.Like many firms, we perceive that enterprise is a worldwide alternative. The significance of getting a workforce in place that may work nicely collectively throughout geographic, cultural, and temporal variations was clear to us even earlier than the pandemic began.We have been fortunate on this sense as a result of we already had the platforms and processes in place to allow the excessive stage of collaboration wanted inside distant international groups.Our firm tradition has all the time inspired flexibility to make sure our folks have the autonomy required to carry out their greatest. The ‘arduous half’ was already achieved—having good, passionate folks in place.But the pandemic actually accentuated how vital it’s for everybody to be well-equipped to work in versatile methods.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderWhen COVID hit and it turned clear that distant work was seemingly going to be a long-term actuality, we offered funds to assist our employees create higher at-home workspaces and ramped up digital alternatives to socialize.We should thank our incredible IT and HR departments for persevering with to handle all the knowledge, instruments, and assets we would have liked, and naturally our workers for taking the additional transition of their stride and making it work!4. Shifting gears to the upcoming vacation season – what can e-commerce retailers do to maximise visibility, engagement, and gross sales?Craig Dunham: For the ecommerce {industry}, making ready for the vacation procuring season generally is a year-round effort. There’s rather a lot that may be achieved by means of technical SEO to help visibility, conversions, and assist drive income for on-line retailers.Technical SEO is an extremely highly effective software within the ecommerce house.Utilizing a strong SEO software to audit your web site and flag the place your weakest factors are is a superb place to begin to constructing out a strong SEO plan. I take a fairly holistic view of technical SEO and from that perspective, it’s vital to know how every a part of your web site works collectively to enhance rankings and finally drive conversion.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderFor ecommerce on the enterprise stage, you’re seemingly coping with hundreds of product pages throughout a number of classes. It generally is a lot to handle however with the suitable instruments, you may get the insights you want irrespective of what number of pages are in your web site.When you’re working with numerous pages on a web site, you’ll wish to do all the things you possibly can to assist engines like google establish your most vital content material and share these key pages to customers so that you’re not losing crawl price range or driving folks to outdated pages.This might be tough on an ecommerce web site with hundreds or thousands and thousands of URLs. It’s positively not the form of factor you’d wish to do manually, so investing in the suitable instruments and platforms might be an vital step towards effectively executing your SEO plans.Ensuring your web site structure is stable is vital, in fact, that’s the foundational factor for your whole URLs to have the ability to rank nicely. But you additionally wish to be sure you’ve acquired your indexing and crawling directives arrange appropriately.AdvertisementContinue Reading BelowNot to say, you could guarantee your content material is comprehensible by each people and engines like google alike. If engines like google can’t discover and index your pages, your would-be prospects gained’t see them within the search outcomes.With extra folks than ever doing their vacation procuring on-line, it’s clear why SEO must be a precedence for ecommerce manufacturers!User expertise can also be extra vital than ever — each for SEO within the wake of Google’s algorithm updates, and since customers are more likely to transform into shopping for prospects if their expertise on a web page is easy.So hold an eye fixed out for issues like web page loading time, damaged hyperlinks, and points associated to rendering and animations.Many customers are low on time across the vacation season so if they will’t discover what they need simply and rapidly, chances are high they’ll go elsewhere.Improving your SEO might help you retain your current prospects engaged — and might help new prospects discover you!AdvertisementContinue Reading Below5. How do you are feeling the SEO house is altering and what ought to entrepreneurs have on their radar for 2022 planning?Craig Dunham: Best practices within the SEO house are consistently altering as Google and different engines like google launch new updates to their algorithms and instruments.With the discharge of Core Web Vitals earlier this yr, we see that consumer expertise is changing into an more and more vital facet of SEO. That makes it an space that technical SEO professionals and entrepreneurs alike ought to actually be listening to.With the adjustments we’ve seen round paid digital channels referring to privateness that I discussed earlier, natural search is prone to be getting extra precedence amongst advertising and marketing groups within the years to come back.All in all, it’s an attention-grabbing and thrilling time to be working in SEO.The emergence of Search Operations as an organizational idea can also be associated to this elevated emphasis on technical SEO, as leaders are starting to acknowledge the significance of cross-discipline groups working collectively to enhance search optimization.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderSearch Ops entails bettering operational buildings in order that advertising and marketing, product, and growth groups can higher work collectively within the pursuit of SEO. I feel in 2022, we are going to see a continued dialogue round this.Luckily, the instruments and platforms that help technical SEO are additionally consistently bettering to replicate the newest developments, so entrepreneurs and SEO groups can have some nice choices to have interaction with round their natural search efforts.We’ve developed a collection of automation instruments that may assist manufacturers higher monitor their web site code releases for SEO points earlier than the code is reside, for instance. These types of automation instruments are a brand new growth within the house and may save a whole lot of time (and forestall a whole lot of misplaced visitors) by routinely testing, flagging, and stopping any probably dangerous code points which may negatively influence an internet site’s SEO.We’re anticipating automation in SEO to garner increasingly traction throughout the board heading into 2022.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderIt’s an thrilling transition and one that can make SEO more practical and accessible. That’s all the time been a problem for the self-discipline, but it surely’s come on the proper time.Of course, getting buy-in from senior management round SEO generally is a problem. There is an unbelievable quantity of information that may be derived that may inform significant choices on how prospects discover your model and the way they expertise your model by means of your web site; and the way that impacts conversion and drop-off charges.Learning the way to merely talk the broader enterprise impacts that search optimization can have throughout main KPIs goes to be extra vital than ever, as nicely.6. What do you suppose would be the most difficult subject for SEO professionals within the yr forward?Craig Dunham: SEO is all the time difficult as a result of there’s a whole lot of competitors on the internet, so except your web site could be very area of interest you’ll all the time be in a battle to remain forward of the competitors. But that’s additionally why it’s so thrilling.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderUtilizing the rising know-how at your disposal will allow manufacturers to harness new efficiencies, higher knowledge, and get the insights they should compete.I feel manufacturers that disregard the advantages automation supplies for SEO will discover themselves more and more struggling to satisfy greatest practices.With such strong new instruments accessible for SEO, failing to implement the suitable platforms and processes may put companies on the again foot.And if that’s the case, they’ll battle to compete with web sites which can be discovering extra environment friendly and efficient methods to enhance their content material and code for higher search outcomes.7. Are you hiring SEO professionals and in that case, for which positions?Craig Dunham: Deepcrawl is presently at an thrilling stage in our progress and we frequently have new alternatives developing for individuals who are obsessed with SEO.Our LinkedIn web page is a superb useful resource to remain up-to-date with alternatives at Deepcrawl, and naturally, we additionally submit these to our careers web page.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderWe search for modern, data-driven people who’ve a ardour for all issues search and perceive that, as give attention to digital channels will increase, so ought to the effectiveness of associated instruments.Because we work on the entrance line of SEO software evolution, we’re on the lookout for individuals who know the house inside out and have a transparent opinion on the way it ought to evolve.8. If you might return and inform fresh-out-of-school Craig Dunham one piece of recommendation to assist his digital advertising and marketing profession, what would it not be?Craig Dunham: One factor a whole lot of entrepreneurs, particularly early of their careers, don’t understand is the significance of being data-driven of their strategy – notably of their communication with senior management.It’s vital to know the bigger enterprise impacts of your advertising and marketing efforts and to again up what you’re doing with precise knowledge.When you’re early in your profession, it may be arduous to get buy-in from senior management round new initiatives that may be seen as pretty ‘area of interest.’AdvertisementContinue Reading BelowReally understanding the down-funnel affect and return on funding associated to the channels you’re obsessed with – and with the ability to talk that in broader enterprise phrases – is a useful talent for younger entrepreneurs.It’s an apparent connection for me to make now, however we see it rather a lot within the technical SEO house: Often, particular person contributors on a workforce acknowledge an space that’s ripe for enchancment inside their organizations.But with out gathering the information that exhibits precisely the place the issues are and what bigger enterprise impacts your tasks may have, it may be arduous to steer others to put money into the channels you’re championing.In addition to leveraging knowledge to advertise initiatives internally, it’s vital to notice that we’re now in a advertising and marketing panorama that prioritizes technical automation and optimization.It is subsequently important to know not solely the way to receive knowledge for advertising and marketing functions but additionally to realize information of the underlying martech infrastructure; the completely different advertising and marketing tech platforms and the way they combine with each other.AdvertisementContinue Reading UnderThe earlier a marketer can dive into studying concerning the various elements of martech equivalent to knowledge enrichment platforms, CRM and advertising and marketing automation platforms, crawlers and SEO automation – the higher.It will higher put together you to construct extremely efficient demand era machines for your online business, put together you for future improvements to come back, and aid you use knowledge and instruments extra decisively to realize an edge.There are loads of programs which can be helpful in fulfilling this studying, however you possibly can’t beat hands-on expertise.9. If you had a magic wand and will clear up one persistent downside within the digital advertising and marketing house, what would it not be and why?Craig Dunham: The over-reliance on paid channels. There are many firms on the market nonetheless piling a great deal of time, cash, and energy into prioritizing paid channels and garnering short-term outcomes with excessive buyer acquisition price (CAC) and more and more diminishing returns in consequence.More natural channels like SEO are long-term performs and require some specialised information, however the advantages of performing nicely in channels like natural search are exponential.AdvertisementContinue Reading BelowI suppose many firms would profit from a extra holistic advertising and marketing strategy that enables for prioritization of each natural and paid channels, somewhat than relying totally on paid efforts.There’s a false impression that SEO begins and ends within the SERPs, when the truth is it influences many elements of your digital operation.Operationally, it’s very important for senior management to additionally perceive the advantages afforded by natural search and what alternatives exist for his or her groups to make enhancements on this space.10. What does Deepcrawl have in retailer for customers within the months forward?Craig Dunham: We’re engaged on some fairly huge issues for 2022 and past. We all know that SEO is a quickly evolving area, so it’s all the time been a necessity for us to remain on the very forefront of the newest developments and develop our product in methods that can anticipate and help customers’ increasing necessities.While we will’t disclose an excessive amount of simply but, I can say that we’ve acquired a number of modern software program enhancements coming to Deepcrawl subsequent yr which can be constructed round a extra expansive view of our shoppers’ wants.The workforce is constructing among the greatest new instruments on the market for companies that wish to keep aggressive in our digital world. So customers ought to hold an eye fixed out for some new options, improved experiences, and a few fairly nice group occasions within the close to future!More assets:Featured picture: Courtesy of Deepcrawl
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/craig-dunham-deepcrawl-ceo/428277/
Deepcrawl’s CEO Talks SEO Opportunities, Growth & Planning For 2022
