In this episode. of the B2B Lead Gen Podcast, digital marketer and strategist Nick Wilsdon talks about the enterprise SEO strategies of major brands, working with SEO specialists, why big changes at Google could make or break your search engine visibility, and more. Nick is the co-founder and CEO of TorquePartnership, a company that provides digital consultancy and search engine optimization advisory programs to enterprise clients. A speaker, blogger and contributor to industry publications such as The Drum, Reuters and The Moscow Times, Nick is passionate about digital performance, integrated digital marketing campaigns and joining up the dots. Advertisement Enterprise SEO vs Small Business SEO According to Nick, there are major differences in the ways enterprises and small businesses approach SEO. Small businesses, for instance, are more focused on link building, whereas enterprises are more focused on the technical side of SEO, since they deal with considerably larger websites. Enterprise SEO is B2C SEO. Small businesses serve consumers and other businesses, but it's fair to say that most SEO B2B campaigns are launched on behalf of small business. “Link acquisition isn't really as important for them,” Nick reveals. “They've got the authority. Usually, the thing that's holding them back is tech, SEO, and implementing that.” Nick also mentioned that in order to get a decent SEO strategy up and running for an enterprise, there’s a complex process that involves a lot of tweaking, fixing, and approvals. “There's a lot of process and politics behind that, to get those things fixed. That takes a huge amount of strategy and thinking to kind of push that through those organizations.” https://youtu.be/Y48wU7S2mbY Another key difference is the sheer scale of enterprise SEO, which is the kind of problem that small business SEO strategies don’t have to deal with. Even the seemingly simple act of making SEO changes must take the different teams and interests of the organization into consideration; Nick says that this often requires a “very strong business case” to justify those changes. “It involves [the specialist] having an understanding of the commercial nature of the business, far more than most of the technical SEOs. So you have to have a balance between your technical knowledge, but also an understanding of what the business is trying to do and what the objectives are through the business.” Value of Soft Skills in Enterprise SEO That’s why soft skills are important for people working in SEO: Being an expert on the nitty-gritty of SEO can only take you so far. “If you can't convey the value of what you're trying to do to senior stakeholders, then you're never going to move up in your career, and you're never going to make these kinds of projects land.” Nick also took the time to emphasize the importance of internal linking, whether for enterprise sites, small business sites, or any other type of online business site. “Those internal links are absolutely fundamental,” stresses Nick, “and you should be always thinking, ‘If [I] have highly linked pages, and [I’m] going out with something that does attract links, where am I linking to internally from from that page?” https://youtu.be/bXLk91CDAZ4 Ironically, this is the aspect of SEO that’s often overlooked, according to Nick. One example is how when an internal link goes dead and goes to a 404 page, it no longer transfers any equity to your site. “As a small business owner, what are you doing to recover those links that are coming into your site?