The Future of Search Marketing

I

you

hi everybody this is SOSSKA I am the

director of marketing here at blue found

media and I'm going to be doing the

webinar today talking to you guys a

little bit about the future of search in

2018 just people will get started if you

have questions throughout the webinar

feel free to submit them in the

GoToWebinar chat box and we'll be

answering those at the end of the

presentation so let's get started

talking about some trends in the

industry that are going to continue for

the rest of 2018 that we that we think

are really important for you to know

about and be taking into account in your

SEO and paid search strategies so I want

to start off by talking about social

because this is one of the most

important changes that we've really seen

become more recognized over the past

year and continuing forward in 2013 and

really if there's something that you

should take away from this presentation

it's that search loves social and really

that's sort of a factor of how we've

seen social signals be integrated more

and more in estimating the value of

content and the organic ranking of

content maybe not officially as as

stated by the search engines but what

I've highlighted here is an industry

survey done by SEO Moz which is a

software provider a tool provider and

thought leader in the SEO industry a

great blog if you don't read it I highly

recommend it but they took a took a poll

of some industry professionals to ask

them which ranking factors they think

are going to become more important

moving forward in the next year and

which ones will become less important so

what you're looking at here in orange is

the the amount of respondents who said

that the factor in question would would

become more important yellow is it will

stay the same and gray

is that it would become less important

so you can see sort of in descending

order the things that will be more

important versus less important over the

next year based on you know the opinions

of people in the industry and the reason

that I've highlighted this obviously is

because the two of the top three are

actual actually social signals so the

first is social signals at a page level

and that would be shares likes tweets of

your of content on a webpage or of a

page of your website and the second is

social signals at a domain level so

overall likes and shares of your website

for example as opposed to just one page

of your website so i like to highlight

this just because it's it's a really

strong indicator that that people who

are in this industry and and are

involved in doing SEO on a day-to-day

basis understand that social signals are

becoming more important to determining

the value of content and there are a few

very logical reasons that this is

happening and that we see search engines

taking social signals into account more

and more the first is that it's

certainly considered a lot more

trustworthy so when i say more

trustworthy i mean in some other ways of

evaluating content so there are a few

ways that search engines evaluate the

you know keyword relevance of content

and that would be on page factors like

how many times a keyword is in the

content of the page in which areas of

the page that keyword shows up and then

of course inbound links as well and

those things are not seeing necessarily

as trustworthy as social signals because

social signals aren't controlled by the

webmaster or that by the the person

doing the SEO of the site so they're

coming from a lot of different people so

it's it's seen as something that is less

easily gained which is my second point

here

so social likes and shares there's

certainly some manipulation that can

happen you know you can be getting your

friends to like your your content you

can be creating fake accounts but it's a

lot harder to do that then to do some of

the sort of spammy link building that

you used to be very easy to do and used

to have a big effect on rankings so

social is more trusted as a result by

search engines and then finally social

can actually legitimize links so there

are a lot of different ways in which you

could acquire a big volume of links

quickly but much of the time when that

happens it's because you're doing

something that's not legitimate so maybe

you purchased 500 links and they all

sort of came in at one time usually

that's seen by search engines is highly

inorganic and not trusted but social is

actually a way to figure out if if

something like that is being caused by

legitimate popularity of content so

let's say for example that I had a

tumblr blog and you know it was it was

based around you know something that

happened at the Oscars for example to

take a recent example and it went it got

very popular overnight and I got 1,000

inbound links in four hours that would

usually look like I was doing something

shady or spammy but the if I also got

you know 500 likes of my tumblr you know

a thousand read blogs on tumblr and then

600 tweets of my content suddenly the

search engines are able to better

understand what's going on there and to

better estimate that my content is

legitimate and that I haven't done

anything shady so to speak so those are

three key reasons that we think that

search engines trust social are

beginning to factor in social signal

more and more and so I just went over

some of the reasons that social signals

have been have we think social signals

have become more of a ranking factor but

social is also becoming more integrated

in the search results themselves so

we're actually seeing social content

show up in the way that we browse and

the way the way that we interact with

search engines themselves and the

results that we're seeing so the first

example here is from bing who has a

partnership with Facebook where as a

logged in facebook user you can't you'll

see on a right sidebar um who how other

people have interacted with the search

term that that you've that you've

searched for so in the example here I've

searched for Star Wars I'm able to see

which of my friends like Star Wars if

any of my friends had you know written a

review i would be able to i would be

able to see that and interact with that

content there on the right and it's not

you can't see it in this example but

there's also sort of an indicator of

which results on the search page itself

have been shared by my friends on

facebook had any of them shared it so

it's just a way of integrating the way

that we you know the way that we

interact with our social network into

the way that we're searching on the web

so it's becoming a much more personal

experience and then this example is from

google who obviously does not integrate

facebook results but integrates results

from their own social network google+ so

for the same query i'm seeing images

shared by people in my Google+ circles

at the bottom there and I'm also seeing

articles that were shared by people in

my network showing up in the actual

search engine result page itself so

that's you know I've highlighted here in

green but it's also denoted by this

little you know man icon that you can

see to

left of the result so this is just a way

in which social content is actually

showing up in our search results and and

making them a lot more personal to us as

users

so that's social let's move on to

talking about users and and usability

and the real theme here is that making

users happy is ultimately going to make

Google happy with you as a website so

Google makes money by selling ads

obviously and but what they what they

really need to achieve is to become well

not to become because they already are

but to continue to provide the most

relevant content to their users so that

users keep coming back to Google to do

searches so obviously you know the more

volume they have aa using their search

engine the more they're able to sell

advertising so that's really just to say

that obviously the end goal for Google

is to provide the most relevant content

possible and to make users feel really

happy with the experience and so there

are a few things that I'm going to talk

about the first of which is having a

strong content strategy so content

really is king I know that's vivek leash

a but it's certainly true and there's a

reason that people say it um having

excellent content is going to become

even more important as time goes on so

we'll talk about some algorithm updates

that have happened on the next in the

next section of this presentation but I

wanted to highlight a few people who are

doing content really well right now the

first is Amex so this is their open

forum and the reason that I want to

highlight this is because this is an

entire microsite it's not directly about

promotion of American Express obviously

you know it's branded as american

express and everybody knows that it's

brought to you by American Express but

it's about providing a resource to

people who you know would potentially be

interested in American Express

especially from you know a small

business perspective so of course they

offer business credit cards so that's

certainly the demographic that they're

operating in and what they

I've done really well obviously I think

probably everybody on this webinar has

heard of open forum it's it's a

well-respected content hub but what

they've done really well is that they

they talk about content and they they

present content that is actually useful

to the users and interesting too so you

know it's not five reasons that you

should have an amex card it's five dirty

negotiation tactics and how to beat them

so this is content that that people keep

coming back to that people share

genuinely share um you know you don't

have to force them to send this out to

people they they want to engage with it

and they may be know somebody who's not

great at negotiation and they need a

little help with this and so they send

that article along to that person or

shared via their social network so

that's one example of somebody who's

doing content marketing really well the

next is from mint com and if you're not

familiar they provide a platform for

sort of aggregating all of your

financial data and you know tracking it

creating budgets you know so it's sort

of about financial health and knowing

where your money goes and setting

financial goals etc and so it's

important to know that because then you

can really understand how this blog that

they've created speaks really well to

that audience again without being overly

promotional and mint itself so it's of

course it's all branded very well with

to fit with you know sort of their their

brand standards and their their tell the

tone of their overall content and

website but they're talking about things

that are that are useful to their users

so somebody who uses mint is serious

about their finances and and wants to

reach certain goals that they've laid

out for themselves from a financial

perspective so offering this sort of

foodies Friday blog series where they're

talking about you know ways to save

money with

with regards to food is really useful

information for their users so and not

only for their users but for people who

could potentially become users so you

know I wanted to talk about content

because and highlight some people who

are doing it really well to show that I

think a lot of people a lot of websites

have trouble getting away from the

highly promotional content and generally

that doesn't work very well and it's not

very interesting to your users so

focusing on what you can offer that's

valuable to potential users is where you

should be headed in the future in order

to you know enhance whatever search and

SEO efforts you have underway so this

kind of content is going to get shared

which is something that we just talked

about social signals so that's

definitely the direction that you want

to make sure you're focusing on in the

future so next up we have usability in

mobile so

a lot of us are aware of the trend of

you know mobile the increase of mobile

activations that are happening each year

so of course this is a trend that we

expect to continue you know mobile

devices and activations are going to

become even more prevalent and different

sizes too so not only is there you know

an iphone and an ipad there's tons of

different android phones you know

windows phones there are all different

sizes and and consumers are going to

continue to buy these and access content

even more frequently on these mobile

devices and tablets so the statistics

that I've pulled out here are really

important because seventy two percent of

consumers at this point actually expect

a mobile-friendly site if they are

browsing the web via mobile device and I

can say for a fact that seventy two

percent of websites are definitely not

mobile friendly so there's a huge

disconnect their brands and and websites

have been slow to pick up on this and

the next statistic is also really key

because then seventy-nine percent of

searchers actually hit back if the site

they land on delivers a bad experience

and if you can imagine you know you

seventy-two percent of us are going to a

website and expecting it to be mobile

friendly and it's not then we're going

to hit back and the what I've

highlighted down here is actually from

within your Google account you can block

sites from appearing in your results and

there are certainly a lot of reasons

that you might do that if it was a

spammy site but also if it just had

really terrible usability and you didn't

feel comfortable using it and you

weren't able to find the information

that you are looking for and Google

actually says here those sites will only

be blocked for you but they may use that

information to improve the ranking of

search results overall so this is a

pretty strong signal

but it's google's thinking about you

know content and usability especially so

if a site continues to get blocked by

multiple different users that's going to

ultimately probably result in a penalty

for you so as the website so focusing on

making sure that your site delivers what

your users were expecting and what they

wanted is very very important so I want

to talk a little bit about paid search

as we've been talking mostly about

organic and what types of changes and

improvements and new targeting we can

expect coming coming and sort of down

the down the line here the first is more

and more remarketing so this is not a

remarketing is not a new thing and if

for those who aren't familiar with what

remarketing is as soon as I describe it

i'm sure you're going to be like oh

that's happened to me a ton of times but

it's it's basically when you go to a

website and you know you browse around

and then you decide oh I don't want that

product after all or you know I don't

need that service after all on you leave

the website you go about your day and

then later on maybe that same day maybe

you know a week later you start seeing

ads for that either that company or the

product that you specifically were

looking at on the website so those ads

start sort of quote-unquote following

you around the web and that's because

that website has collected a little

cookie from you and has hit go on a

remarketing campaign to show you ads

either specifically for what you are

looking at or for the website in general

and the idea here is that they're trying

to get you to come back to the website

to finish the conversion and this is

something that is was sort of a newer a

newer thing over the past year but is

going to become more and more prevalent

moving forward so as more people learn

what this is

and start sort of employing these types

of campaigns it's actually right now

it's a pretty cost-effective method of

advertising so it's it can be a big win

for your company so the next is

segmentation and improvement of mobile

advertising so having specific mobile

campaigns that target the needs of your

users who are searching you know via a

mobile device those needs are often

different than the needs of a user who's

sitting at a desk top so if i search for

dry cleaning from my phone you know I'm

may be looking to find the hours of the

dry clean of a dry cleaner nearby one

that's open late so I might want to call

them and the ability to do that right

from right from the ad itself is really

useful so having mobile campaigns that

really effectively target then needs the

specific needs of a mobile user is going

to is going to allow you to be more

profitable and more effective with those

campaigns and then finally real-time

bidding this is something that um that

is in progress and we expect to be

happening for real sometime in the near

future um but what real time fitting is

is the ability for an advertiser to bid

up a specific keyword or you know their

bit up their ad for a specific heuer

based on the search history of that user

so to it this is sort of complicated but

in order to make it easier to understand

I've highlighted an example here so

let's say that you know we have I have a

friend Lindsey and she's done a search

for the term SEO well we don't really

know what she means what she's looking

for when she searches SEO maybe she's

looked maybe she doesn't know what what

it is and she just wants a definition

maybe she's thinking about going to

school for SEO or she needs a job doing

SEO there are a lot of different intense

that could be possible when somebody is

searching that keyword but let's say

that then Lindsay you know a day later

searches for the term digital marketing

see that knowing that she searched for

SEO and then digital marketing agency

makes it a lot more likely that what

Lindsay was actually looking for was

somebody to do SEO for her so as an

advertiser in the future we'd be able to

bid up that keyword so you know we want

to bid higher to show up in a better

position for that keyword because we

know that Lindsay is a more qualified

visit potentially based on her search

history and then finally enhanced

results so we're going to see more and

more of this happening in the future

what the example here that I used is I

searched for Lincoln and you know I did

this search a little bit a little bit of

a while ago so you're seeing movie times

actually show up right there on the page

because you know that was at the time

that I did this search that was very

relevant I was maybe looking to see the

movie and wanted to find out movie times

near me you're also seeing biographical

information come up in the in the search

engine result itself so right there on

the right-hand sidebar but then what I

really wanted to highlight from you know

all those things actually do really

affect websites and you know web

property owners because if you were

optimizing for you know you wanted to

show up for Abraham Lincoln for some

reason maybe sell Abraham Lincoln

t-shirts it's actually going to be a bit

harder for you to do that because Google

is integrating what it considers to be

very relevant results you know right

there into the page itself so it's

actually pushing down the rest of the

content but what I also really wanted to

highlight was the enhanced search

results that you see on the third result

down Linkin 2012 from IMDb you can

actually see star ratings coming in

there you see um links to people in the

movies really state etc you all can you

can also see who's the director of the

movie who stars in them

me and that's because IMDB is using

what's called schema or rich snippet

data so it's basically code on the page

which tells search engines a little bit

more about what the specific elements of

the page are so it's telling Google hey

Steven Spielberg is a director he

directed this movie and Daniel day-lewis

starred in this movie that's content and

and designations that search engines

can't understand on their own because

they are robots but so by providing this

by providing this enhanced markup we can

actually show enhanced results on the

search engine pages and there are a lot

of different ways that are different

designations so you can do you know

location or an event so it'll show up

differently on the page itself and the

whole point of doing this is to make

your result look a lot more enticing to

users so you can imagine that if I'm

doing this search and I wanted to learn

more about the movie Lincoln IMDB looks

like a really great result because it

has these you know stars it has ratings

it it's just that it's an it more

engaging and visually captivating result

on the page so it can positively impact

click through on your results all right

step we're going to talk about some

algorithmic improvements that we've seen

happen over the past year that are going

to going to affect going to affect your

efforts moving forward specifically from

an SEO perspective so the first change

that I want to talk about is penguin

which happened in April of 2012 and

really penguin targeted

sorry uh-huh i have this backwards so

panda was the update that targeted thin

content so just you know you can you can

just swap those out there so the Panda

update which did not happen in April

happened there have been many iterations

a lot of which happened over

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