SEO for M&A and Due Diligence
Buying and selling websites is a hobby of mine, and I’ve been lucky enough to incorporate it in previous roles too (I lead the SEO Due Diligence for a business purchase worth £100m). I support companies looking to grow and diversify through M&A by handling all of the SEO parts of what to purchase, how to migrate it and what needs to happen after.
How I support with M&A and Due Diligence?
Having had the benefit of being involved in finding, shortlisting, building out acquisition narratives and helping with the purchasing and on-boarding of several online businesses, I help clients through guiding them through the considerations and trade-offs every step of the way.
Sourcing and Shortlisting
Finding acquisition targets requires good deal flow and a well-defined thesis about what you are after and intend to do with the target. I can support with auditing your current business and making recommendations about what would be a good addition to your portfolio. I can then support in finding and shortlisting candidate businesses based on their SEO performance and ability to grow your SEO.
Strategy and Pricing
Purchasing online businesses is a mix of art and science, which often results in varied prices depending on who you talk to. I support my clients with building out a comprehensive SEO narrative about the strengths, weaknesses and how the target stacks against the wider market and DIY’ing the growth. This narrative then informs where and how they can negotiate on pricing.
Due Diligence
As someone who has worked in several industries and across a large number of different types of sites (e.g. ecom, JS SEO, publishing, affiliate), I help clients to meticulously work through the parts and behaviours of websites and their SEO performance. I highlight to clients areas for improvement, where the domain is strong and what things need looking at quickly once acquired as they carry some on-going risk.
Onboarding and future strategy
Assuming all goes well, we then begin the work of moving the site over and starting with the strategy to grow and improve the newly acquired business. I can support with both, and typically help my clients with their next steps in terms of strategy and integrating the newly acquired teams and ways of working.
How the Process Works
Step 1
Thesis Development
Before approaching the market, I help brands to review their current business and to figure out where they can look at M&A to strategically grow. As a SEO, I help them to consider the benefits of growing domain authority, improving topical authority and how internal linking can be leveraged to growth SEO performance.
Step 2
Sourcing and Qualifying
With our thesis in hand, we can then approach the market and start courting businesses. I help clients by reverse engineering nearby topics and high authority domains which should be looked at for both their revenue and also SEO impact.
Step 3
Due Diligence
When businesses have been shortlisted, I begin going through all aspects of their SEO performance. I check for manual actions, investigate drops and lifts in SEO visibility and more generally review the SEO practices which have taken place over the years.
Step 4
Strategy development
An often overlooked part of M&A is once bought, then what? I’m a fan of creating a strategy for integrating the business before going too far along the process to confirm upstream issues are not likely, e.g. do your engineers have time to manage the work and/or given resources are finite what should be the immediate focus and why.
Step 5
Site migration
Moving websites carries a significant amount of risk and typically acquisitions with SEO in mind have the goal of consolidating the domain onto another property. I help with all aspects of minimising risk to SEO performance and effectively consolidating the domain, as well as how to install best practices across a site with a whole new section.
FAQ's
At what point should I involve a SEO in M&A considerations?
Will you sign a NDA?