Session Summary

Marcus Tandler, CEO and Partner at Tandler.Doerje.Partner gives us a whistlestop tour through 477 slides (in 45 minutes) showing us where, in his educated opinion, the future of search lies.

If staying one step ahead of the search engines is one of the keystones of a successful SEO campaign, then a well-prepared SEO must always consider what could be in the pipeline. Find out what to watch out for in the future and ensure your campaigns aren’t on the path to destruction.

We encourage you to freely share and embed this video, but please ensure to attribute it to ionsearch.co.uk.

ionSearch 2013 might be all wrapped up but with so much going on at the conference, there are bound to be talks or panels you either missed or want to revisit.

Thankfully, we had the foresight to film the entire thing and over the next couple of weeks we’ll be releasing one video per day of a speaker from one of our keynote theatre presentations. Each video will be completely free to view and we encourage you to share and embed as freely as you feel is appropriate, but please attribute any content to ionsearch.co.uk.

Please let us and our expert speakers know exactly how you feel in the comments.

Here’s what we’ll be serving up for your viewing pleasure this week:

Wednesday 22/05/2013 – Marcus Tandler (Tandler.Doerje.Partner), “What’s next in Search?”

Thursday 23/05/2013 - Ross Hudgens (Siege Media), “Rapid-Fire Content Marketing”

Friday 24/05/2013 - Nicola Stott (TheMediaFlow), “Link Earning: Marketing Strategies for Earning Your Links and How to Survive the Grey Borderlands”

And if that’s whetted your appetite for top quality SEO video content, why not check out our video archive of last year’s ionSearch 2012 conference?

There was one talk among the various sessions throughout the two day event that particularly stood out for me, and that was Aleyda Solis from Seer Interactive discussing best practice mobile SEO.

Mobile is becoming increasingly crucial to any well optimised digital presence. However, despite Google offering recommendations and W3C offering detailed mobile web best practices, making a decision on how to make the most out of mobile for your brand can still be an incredibly complex and often expensive process.

Aleyda clearly outlines the distinction between the three options for mobile web, their pros and cons and how best to utilise them for different circumstances and effect.

However, before even beginning to invest time/resource/energy/coffee into identifying which mobile experience is best for your brand and users, Aleyda recommends gathering some GA data on which to base your decision:

Compare traffic and conversions between mobile and desktop

Are there differences? Are your users interacting with your site differently on mobile?

Verify your mobile devises

This may have an impact on how to best optimise your mobile activity, depending on which devices your users are currently using.

I once had a client who spent x-thousands on building an iPhone app, only to later realise that over 70% of their mobile usage came from android devices. Simple data analysis can prevent expensive mistakes like this in the future.

Verify Mobile Keywords

For what queries do you already have good visibility for in mobile? What pages perform well both in terms odd driving traffic and converting? Knowing how your site is already performing in mobile organic search gives a solid indication on how to improve this.

Use a mobile Emulator!

How does your site already render in mobile? Aleyda recommends this emulator and the Opera developer, however I am also a big fan of the Google mobile tool, which gives tips on how the site is performing more generally.

Use Tools

GWT contains various features detailing mobile crawling issues and top pages. There is also a filter within Screaming Frog that allows you to crawl a site using Googlebot Mobile.

Again, standard tools such as SEM Rush or Google Keyword Tool allows you to filter by mobile, so you can identify which key areas on which to focus for mobile traffic.

Identifying your Mobile Approach

This section was took up the most part of Aleydas talk, and was acutely thorough and in-depth.

The options

Responsive Design allows the content to change and shift depending on the device on which it is being displayed. Responsive design has no duplicated content risks and as the content served is exactly the same; developers simply add a script which determines that size of the screen and the site then modifies its appearance based on this.

Img source.

Benefits

• The content displayed is the same and consistent across all devices so there is no risk of content duplication.
• Easier and cheaper to maintain.

Cons

• There is less of a focus on the ‘mobile experience’. Users may want to be served different content depending on their device, bandwidth or screen size.

Dynamic Serving alters the HTML displayed on the same URL depending on the device used. For example, whilst the desktop version may focus on information and exploration, the mobile version may focus on targeted conversion funnels.

Img source.

Benefits

• One web address
• No duplication (although this sounds an awful lot like cloaking, it’s not as Google users different bots to crawl the different sites).
• Serves the optimum mobile experience

Cons

• Technical difficulty and expensive

Parallel Mobile Sites render mobile users to a specific mobile site using an m. subdomain

Img source.

Benefits

• Easy implementation
• Allows for an optimised mobile experience

Cons

• Can cause complications with URL sharing and essentially splitting link equity out across two sites.
• Potential dupe content issues.

The advantages of the above three options vary depending on user behaviour and what you are looking to get from your mobile presence.

If your site is transactional and you are looking to drive conversions from a mobile device, then responsive may not be the best option in this instance; as the focus would be best placed on optimising the mobile experience to best allow for strong CTAs, a quick checkout process and large product images.

If the focus is on brand discovery and customer engagement, then responsive may prove the best option in this instance, giving the user access to all content that is available on a desktop version.

Remember as with any other SEO process, continue to test and monitor, making tweaks to content, user journey and landing page focus in order to continually develop and grow your mobile SEO ROI.

Slides

Image taken by CST Photography

Here at ionSearch we would like to thank everyone who attended the conference over the two day event.

As the digital world is filled with bright and brilliant people, there are just  a few great write ups and live blogs from the two days dotted around the internet.

Here are some of the best, so that you can check to see if you missed anything special:

• Zazzle Media
• Koozai
• Label Media
• Mark Rushworth
• SEO Weather
• Quba
• PushON
• Fluid Blog
• Refined Practice

You can also access the top Tweets from the event here, as compiled by Mathew Marley alongside photographs from both days on the official ionSearch Flickr page.

Hope to see you all for 2014!

The reason these corporations treat SME’s in this way is that to them you are just another number and another target reached. This is almost the polar opposite of a freelancer or digital marketing agency who will treat you as an individual they really want to help and grow.

But let’s look why corporations and others act as they do.

Big Corporations have a big reputation in a marketing, which is usually somehow related to digital marketing (eg Yell as a business directory). This reputation usually, along with proof of growing customer numbers and revenue, keeps shareholders happy and stock prices growing (or at least level). It is because of these shareholders that corporations tend to have big targets to meet, and these are not targets to get your business to the top of a search engine or your users converting – it’s simply a target to sell you a product and get your cash. This at the end of the day is all they care about.

Digital Marketing Agencies and freelancers also have a reputation to uphold, but it’s not based on another market or a growing client base. Reputations of agencies and freelancers is based on client success and happiness. If a client has great success online they will usually talk about it to friends and family, it’s the same if something goes really wrong – they will talk. In addition to this, yes agencies will have targets for growth, but they won’t be for a single salesman to sell 100 websites a week or anything like. For any agency or freelancer I’ve known, the targets they have are based on customer results and customer happiness. By their nature digital marketing agencies work on a small scale, they in most cases are SME’s who thrive on client communication – to an agency or freelancers a client will never be just another number.

But I am a tad bias in my opinion of big corporations, a few years ago I wrote an article which lambasted Yell for their horrendous (so-called) web design services. Take a read of my article entitled “Yell websites a waste of space!” and my later article examining Yell’s Use of Templates. Add to this I work for RedStar a Digital Marketing Agency in Manchester and you may think even more that I am bias. But let us consider, I work with SME’s every day, I have done since 2008 – in addition to this I’ve had the chance to discuss openly this subject and am fairly objective about it. Still not convinced, ok let’s look at an example of big corp website design.

What do others say?

Still thinking I am far too bias? Well it may shock you that I am not alone in my views about whether or not to trust your marketing needs to corporations such as Yell and BT. Here are just a few things that others have said:

@JDRWebsites says in its blog Reasons Not to Use Yell that “you are just a ‘number’” and that “Your account manager will be a salesperson who gets in touch once a year to renew your contract rather than a marketer who works with you regularly to improve results”, they also add that you can’t make changes to your website content yourself – you have to request it and on many occasions these updates just don’t happen.

@MMKDigital says “they’re no worse than the ‘cowboy-builders’ of our industry, but they seem to be using their household brand name to peddle substandard quality websites” about BT websites – something I agree with.

@OmptimiseWeb mexplain that “Yell sales are based on commission, which means they want to sell you as much as they can, not what you actually need” and “they’ll  hassle you for days until you finally relent to buy their product” which are both true and common stories that I hear from SME’s. More about Yell Selling Tactics here.

And finally…

@r_hemingway says on his blog “the wording of many websites by Yellow Pages is really just nothing more than keyword spamming. Spamming keywords affects the natural flow of your content making it more difficult to read and is essentially a lazy way of trying to bring in additional visitors.” This is something which is very true, and considering they claim to use “professional copywriting” on every website this strikes me as a little odd – what copywriting are Yell professional in exactly?

If not a corporation, then what for SME’s?

In my own post, I make no bones about the fact I was a web designer and that I am a digital marketer. But as with this post, I also make clear I am not here to sell my services or anyone elses. So what advice would I give an SME looking for a new website or digital marketing services?

My advice would be simply to do you research and take your time. To help you on your way here are a few things to consider when doing research:

1)      Your Objectives
If you are wanting a website ask yourself what you want the website to do and say for your business. Is it a simple contact conduit or are you selling products or otherwise? If you are looking to market your brand and website online, ask what others in your market are doing and what you can do to beat them.

2)      What Others Are Doing
One of the best indicators of what your website needs to be doing online is to look at competitors in your market. Consider their approach to digital marketing and whether it would suit your business or not. Then go further, look outside your market (outside the box) and ask what other companies doing well online are doing.

3)      Consider More Than One Option
In the world of digital marketing there are many companies who could perform the tasks which you have.  So, ask a few of them at least, if you are a local business it may be worth looking at a local agency or freelancer, if you are a bigger SME you may want to also look at a broader range of national agencies. Either way don’t just look at a single option.

4)      Ask For Advice
We live in a world of social media, where anyone can ask anyone anything. Use this facility to ask questions of Digital Marketing experts about what they would advise you to do. There are many a digital marketer online, such as myself, who will happily help anyone who asks.

Up for grabs is a TWO-DAY conference ticket - this is the final chance to win your place at ionSearch.

To enter, simply follow the ionSearch Twitter account and tweet us with your favourite speaker and why you are looking forward to seeing them…

We will pick the best and most imaginative use of 140 characters to win!

To familiarise yourself with who’s speaking take a look at  the agenda.

Good Luck!

Terms & Conditions

• Competition is open to UK residents aged 18 and over only.
• There is 1 prize available consisting of a two-day ticket to ionSearch.
• Prize is non-transferable and non-exchangeable and there is no cash or credit alternative available.
• In the event of circumstances outside of its control, ionSearch reserves the right to substitute an alternative prize of equal or greater value should the prize be unavailable for any reason.
• The competition closes at 5pm  on 15th April 2013
• Winners will be announced on Monday 15th April 2013.
• Travel and accommodation for the conference are NOT included.
• Entries to be counted will be following ionSearch on Twitter and have tweeted with a chosen speaker

If you haven’t yet got your ticket for ionSearch 2013 next week, and can’t make it for both days, which day should you attend?

Both Thursday and Friday of ionSearch have fantastic line-ups, but this short quiz might help you make a decision. Simply answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to each questions and keep a tally of your score:

• Do you understand Mobile SEO? Yes (5 points)/No (1 point)
• Do you want to see SEOmoz appearing for the first time in Leeds? Yes (5 points)/No (1 point)
• Do you want to find out how Adobe assess the value of social media? Yes (5 points)/No (1 point)
• Do you want to find out more about risk management in link-building? Yes (5 points)/No (1 point)
• Do you want to know how Hootsuite grew its user community to over 5 millions users with social media? Yes (5 points)/No (1 point)
• Do the BBC and other big organisations need to do SEO? Do you want to find out the answer from the BBC’s homepage analytics consultant? Yes (5 points)/No (1 point)

If you scored between 6 and 14 points you should be looking at Friday. If you scored between 20 and 30 points you need to look at attending on Thursday.

Either way – don’t forget to buy your tickets at the check-out.

P.S. Claim a cheeky discount by using ION13CHM15

Greenlight have now joined the ionSearch roster, with two members of the agency’s SEO team taking part in panel sessions.

SEO Campaign Director Britt Soeder will be taking part in Thursday’s Site Architecture 101 session and Senior SEO Consultant Beatrice Patman joines the Semantic Mark-up session.

Beatrice specialises in providing analytical and technical insights as well as creative optimisation solutions to major international brands spanning the financial services, travel, retail and electronics industries.

Britt develops unique and customised SEO campaigns for small business clients, and has a particular focus on incorporating local search into an efficient results-oriented overall SEO strategy.

To see them both don’t forget to book your ticket today.

We caught up with four of our speakers to see what they thought. Ross Hudgens of Siege Media, Tom Telford of 3WhiteHats, David Harling of Razorfish and Simon Penson of Zazzle Media provide the words.

Feel free to join the debate using the #ionsearch hashtag.

Ross Hudgens, Founder of LA-based Siege Media.

SEO definitely still has value, but there’s no doubt that ad space will continue to eat into our search results. As a marketer I am evaluating every way to profitably send traffic to my websites, so advertising will always be something I consider. Also, I appreciate and learn from the knowledge imparted by PPC – competitive analysis of ads can be used to intelligently create better title tags and meta descriptions that drive more clicks, something we simply don’t have the time or ability to test on the organic side.

Tom Telford, MD of 3WhiteHats

Be it SEO or PPC, first-page real-estate is the most important gain – getting a user to find your website wherever they turn in the SERPS is a key goal.  And it’s not just about getting ranking for your website, but getting a mention, or a display ad, on other sites ranking for your target keyphrase.  With the new paid-search functionality within maps, products and mobile, the interaction between both channels is much more interesting.

PPC is a great discovery channel for keyphrases, with a well-structured use of Broad Match Modifier you can find new, related keyphrases in a controlled environment. It should be integrated with SEO.

Depending upon the nature of your website, these keyphrases can then provide you with some really interesting insight.  Impressions gives you a very accurate view of search volume, which can often vary enormously to the estimations given by Google’s Keyword Tool.  The clicks and cost per click will give you an indication of popularity.  If you’re testing ad copy the click-through rate is a good indicator and this can also help you to form meta descriptions, boosting clicks from SEO for the rank you’ve already got. Of course, conversion will prove the early indicator as to whether users will do what you want them to!

The argument for each medium is purely subjective to the keyphrase and the subsequent conversion you are after.  A good integrated campaign should take each keyphrase on its own merits and ensure spend and return is measured closely.

David Harling, Head of SEO at Razorfish

Search engine results have significantly changed during my time in the industry. One big difference is that organic listings seem to be falling further below the fold in favour of paid listings year-on-year – that said we are consistently reporting higher volume of traffic and conversion rates for our clients from organic search.

Organic search is still the most cost effective way to drive traffic at volume and although Google has obviously tried to increase the opportunities for brands to become more visible to their audiences if they spend money on media, it doesn’t guarantee a higher click-through rate and more traffic.

High visibility in organic search will always remain the bigger prize.

Simon Penson, MD of Zazzle Media

I think you would be crazy to think that it doesn’t. As we all know through studies, research and our own internet use our propensity to click on organic results is much greater than paid and while the creep with alter the percentages slightly that fact will not go away. As we know the key for brand and businesses now is an all-encompassing inbound marketing campaign that includes organic optimisation, content marketing, email marketing, paid search, re-marketing etc to cover of every touch-point possible