Benchmark issue 2 - Summer 2018 by ClickConsultLtd

SEARCH MARKETING MAGAZINE

GOING HYPERLOCAL Is hyperlocal search the next big thing?

BENCHMARK 2018 Look ahead at our upcoming Benchmark Search Marketing Conference 2018

THE BIG INTERVIEW Canonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Senior Technical SEO, Omi Sido talks to the team

MOBILISING THE MARKET

Mobile-First Indexing Is Here! Summer 2018

LETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BEGIN

A WORD FROM THE CEO

CONTRIBUTORS

Hello and welcome back to the Benchmark Search Magazine, a quarterly publication from the team here at Click Consult. We bring you a mix of news, features and opinions from across the search marketing industry.

Features: Mark McGonigle John Warner Scott Rumsey Chloie Brandrick Omi Sido Nick Wilsdon

Those with a keen eye will notice that the first issue was titled Go Viral but we have taken the decision to bring all of our offerings in-line and have tied the publishing of this magazine in with our industry leading conference - Benchmark Search Conference 2018 - which takes place in September, hence the name.

Vlog: Jacob Booth Stuart Jones

Our industry is dynamic and we are delighted to be bringing you this magazine as part of our commitment to driving search marketing forward.

Design: Dave Ashworth Chloe Ridgway

With that in mind, and coinciding with this issue coming hot on the heels of Google’s announcement that ‘Mobile-First’ is now a real, live thing, we thought that we’d launch with copy that focuses on what to expect moving forward and how to prepare your business accordingly.

Published By Click Consult Ltd

We have features and infographics on the big trends ahead as well as predictions and theories on what might make the biggest impact over the coming months. We discuss Mobile-First, how to check if you are ready to be indexed and the rise of hyperlocal search. We also have a packed news section in which we look at the most important developments of the last 3 months. I hope that you enjoy this issue and that you pick up on a few of the valuable insights our writers have provided. Until next time….

Matt Bullas, CEO & Founder

Address: Unit B1 Willow House Oaklands Office Park Hooton Cheshire, CH66 7NZ Phone: 0845 8671 752 Website: www.click.co.uk

CONTENTS

P 5 - 11

P 20 - 21

P 38 - 42

INDUSTRY NEWS

FROM OUR EXPERTS

THE BIG INTERVIEW

A round up of everything search marketing, bringing you the most important updates of the last few months

Our Head of Organic Search, Mark McGonigle looks at how the industry reacts to Google algorithm updates and how you can prepare and adapt to them

Chloie Brandrick speaks to Canon Europe’s Senior Technical SEO, Omi Sido about balancing content led SEO and the more technical side of the industry

P 22 - 27

P 43

BENCHMARK SEARCH

OUR RESOURCES

P 12 -13 Mobile-First INFOGRAPHIC Following Google’s confirmation of Mobile-First indexing we look at the history of mobile search in this handy infographic

CONFERENCE 2018 We preview the 4th Benchmark Search Conference which takes place in Manchester this September

The chance to download on of our free resources. In this issue we showcase our ‘Making the move to mobile’ boxset

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

P 28 - 37

P 44 - 45

Adam McKinley covers all of the latest social media developments and stories of the last 12 weeks

P 14 - 17

P 18 ON.CLICK VLOG Senior Organic Search Strategist, Stuart Jones discusses the SEO factors that can have the greatest impact on your organic rankings

THE RISE OF HYPERLOCAL

Scott Rumsey looks at one of the most talked about topics in the industry and explains why businesses should be branching out into this area of search

SEARCH MARKETING 101 Relive all the action from Benchmark 2017 with Vodafone’s Nick Wilsdon and his insightful talk on the MobileFirst Index P 46 - 51 KNOWLEDGE BASE We hear from John Warner on some of the search marketing factors that are picking up traction in 2018

INDUSTRY NEWS

INDUSTRY NEWS Keeping up to date with everything that the search marketing world throws up can be difficult, but as you know by now, here at Click Consult we are dedicated to keeping you informed and making the constant updates easily digestible. With that in mind let’s look at what the industry are talking about in this quarter in search…

Mobile-First FINALLY CONFIRMED BY GOOGLE While it has been on the cards since 2016, Google has recently announced that Mobile-First is in the process of rolling out. For anyone following the Click Consult blog, it will be no shock to hear about the existence of Mobile-First – we’ve been reporting on it since it was first announced, writing our first article in May of 2016 and a second following the official announcement in the November of the same year. What may be surprising is that it’s taken so long. Google even goes so far as to note the wait in their official announcement on the Webmasters blog: Fan Zhang, Software Engineer, Google

“Today we’re announcing that after a year and a half of careful experimentation and testing, we’ve started migrating sites that follow the best practices for Mobile-First indexing.” There was also a statement about the potential sending of confirmation messages through Google Search Console to tell people when they have been switched (though, to my knowledge, no one has received one). While this may happen eventually, for the time being, there is always another blog here which will help you spot whether the switch has been made. It remains to be seen how the rapid pace of change in mobile technology drives search forward, with a recent report from Searchmetrics highlighting the need for a ‘Universal Search’ approach, rather than a mobile or desktop focus, but the first push has finally arrived and it will certainly be interesting to participate in the evolution of the industry.

GOOGLE REMOVES ‘VIEW IMAGE’ OPTION Google has removed the ‘view image’ button from search results – now people only have the option to see the picture on the page that hosts it. The popular button’s removal is part of a settlement that Google reached with Getty Images after the stock photo provider filed a complaint with the European Commission in 2016, which accused the search giant of “creating captivating galleries of high-resolution, copyrighted content” that fail to direct users to an image’s original source site.

GOOGLE AD REVIEWER IN ‘CLICK FARM’ CLAIM Moderators who have worked for Google say they were put under pressure to label content as ‘family safe’ even though they did not understand the language of the material. A former Google employee told The Times the Dublin-based team sometimes resembled a ‘click farm’, such was the speed at which they were required to approve content. The team, part of an operation run by Accenture on behalf of Google, review material on behalf of AdWords and YouTube to ensure nothing illegal or inappropriate is posted. Google promised to recruit 10,000 content reviewers by the end of 2018 amid increasing concerns from advertisers about the type of content posted on platforms such as YouTube. In response to the allegations, Google said it “demand[s] high standards of our contractor companies and never ask them to prioritise speed over careful review of ads. “We continue working closely with Accenture to maintain high standards,” a spokesperson said.

INDUSTRY NEWS FACEBOOK VS BELGIAN COURT A Belgian court has ordered Facebook to stop tracking people without their consent and to delete all the data on non-Facebook users that it said was collected illegally, the BBC has reported. The social network could face fines of up to $311,000 a day — up to $125 million — if it does not comply. The decision marks latest chapter in longstanding conflict between the Belgian data privacy commission and the social media giant. However, there’s an extension for Chrome that brings back the defunct button.

GOOGLE CHANGES REQUEST RECRAWL LIMITS Google has removed the quotas in the Search Console interface for how many URLs you can resubmit to Google from the Fetch as Google tool, reports Search Engine Land.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has a tough job on its hands, but more must be done to enforce the rules and educate the public and influencers themselves as to what is acceptable and what is not. In fact, our survey revealed that 71% of those we questioned feel that the ASA should be doing more to force disclosure.

DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: 2018 DIGITAL TRENDS Companies are continuing to focus on customer experience (CX), as well as the content required to facilitate this, according to recent research, and organisations committed to CX are shown to outperform their peers. eConsultancy and Adobe’s annual global survey of 12,795 marketing, creative and technology professionals also found: •

Data-driven marketing increasingly seen as exciting opportunity.

Now, Google has updated its help documentation page to specify exactly what changes have occurred with these recrawl limits and quotas. Google said:

•

Investment in technology and related skills is paying dividends, with integrated platforms fast becoming a prerequisite for success.

For the “Crawl only this URL,” the limit is now “up to 10 individual URLs per day.” It used to be 500 individual URLs within a 30-day period.

•

AI is set to play a growing role in helping marketers to deliver more compelling real-time experiences.

For the “Crawl this URL and its direct links,” the limit is now “up to 2 of these site recrawl requests per day.” It used to be “up to 10 requests of this kind within a 30-day period.

FACEBOOK ADS IN FRESH PRIVACY CLAIMS

Google has combined its two payment services, Google Wallet and Android Pay, into a new app: Google Pay.

INFLUENCER ADVERTISING RULES “CONFUSING AND UNCLEAR” 61% of the UK public believe influencers don’t have to disclose that they have been paid to talk about a product, research by competition agency Prizeology has found. The regulations governing how social media influencers advertise products online are confusing and unclear with the UK public overwhelmingly believing the system should be more transparent, new research reveals. Sarah Burns, Managing Director of Prizeology and a leading expert in compliance and regulation in the promotional marketing sector said: “The results are extremely interesting and overwhelmingly show a shocking lack of knowledge and confusion amongst all age groups – including teenagers – about the way that brands use social media influencers to advertise their products.” 6

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is promoting a ‘Loyalty Prediction’ AI ad service tool that lets advertisers target users based on predicted behaviours versus past actions, according to a leaked document seen by The Intercept.

INDUSTRY NEWS

The Intercept’s story notes the document does not define the exact user information Facebook is indexing through its prediction engine for the service, but it does list location, device information, WiFi network details, video usage, affinities and friendship details. The Intercept reports: “One slide in the document touts Facebook’s ability to ‘predict future behavior’, allowing companies to target people on the basis of decisions they haven’t even made yet.” This would, potentially, give third parties the opportunity to alter a consumer’s anticipated course. Here, Facebook explains how it can comb through its entire user base of over 2 billion individuals and produce millions of people who are ‘at risk’ of jumping ship from one brand to a competitor. These individuals could then be targeted aggressively with advertising that could pre-empt and change their decision entirely — something Facebook calls ‘improved marketing efficiency’.

WIDER AMP ROLLOUT PLANNED Google has announced that it’s embarking on a project to convince the group in charge of web standards to adopt technology inspired by its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) framework. If successful, this would mean that virtually any webpage could gain the same benefits as AMP: near-instantaneous loading, distribution on multiple platforms, and (critically) more prominent placement on Google properties. It said in a blog post: “We are taking what we learned from AMP, and are working on web standards that will allow instant loading for non-AMP web content. We hope this work will also unlock AMP-like embeddability that powers Google Search features like the Top Stories carousel. Meanwhile, AMP will be Google’s well-lit path

to creating great user experiences on the web. It will be just one of many choices, but it will be the one we recommend. We will continue to invest heavily in AMP. A key example of how we continue to innovate on user experience on the web are AMP Stories and we hope to provide insights to future web standards along that way.”

YOUTUBE ADS NEW ANALYTICS YouTube has announced that its updated YouTube Studio channel management tool – previously called ‘Creator Studio’ – will now become the default for all creators, after being in beta testing for the last eight months. YouTube Studio is designed to be your one-stop shop for all your channel management needs – including organising your channel, analytics, managing your videos and interacting with fans. The upgraded YouTube Studio merges more functionality into one tool, with a particular focus on streamlining communication between fans and other creators. And as part of the expanded roll-out, YouTube has also announced a set of new metrics to help creators better understand their channel performance.

INDUSTRY NEWS NEW AMP FEATURE TO TO LOAD ADS FASTER WHEN BROWSERS SIT IDLE The team behind Google AMP has launched a new feature called ‘Render on Idle’ now available for publishers using the DoubleClick AMP ad tag, and any ad network choosing to implement Fast Fetch can also take advantage of it. With Render on Idle, ads load 12 viewports from the user’s scroll position (as opposed to 3) when the browser is idle, no other page content is being retrieved or rendered. This delivers better ad performance by loading ads earlier in the page lifecycle. Keith Wright, AMP Project’s Technical Lead, says:

“In early tests with publishers using DoubleClick AMP ad tags, we’ve seen a 13% increase in impressions per page (giving Fast Fetch an overall +18% increase compared to Delayed Fetch) and 0.5% increase in clicks and viewable queries from this feature.” WETHERSPOONS ABANDON SOCIAL MEDIA The pub chain took to Twitter to announce it would be deleting its social media accounts, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter itself. The pub chain linked the move to bad publicity surrounding social media including the trolling of MPs.

Chairman Tim Martin told the BBC

“We are going against conventional wisdom that these platforms are a vital component of a successful business.” GOOGLE HOME ADDS CALLS The Google Home smart speaker has finally added voice calls in the UK, catching up with its Amazon rivals. Google announced the feature was coming to its smart speakers last May with US customers being able to make handsfree voice calls since August.

SEARCH TRUMPS SOCIAL FOR CONTENT DISCOVERY Search outstripped social in the percentage of overall traffic that it delivered in 2017 – reversing a trend of social dominance that began in 2014 – research has shown.

Content marketing platform Shareable looked at externally referred traffic from over 400 million internet users and 250,000 mobile and desktop sites. A year ago site visitors were more likely to be referred from social networks, but search seems to have made a comeback in 2017.

INDUSTRY NEWS Search drove 35% of site visits in 2017 compared to 26% from social. Shareaholic consider the changes to the Facebook news feed algorithims to be a major factor in the shift over the last 12 months. Another important factor is that search engines are indexing more and more social content and including it within their rankings and results pages. This means that internet users are increasingly finding social content being aggregated by search engines, rather than only being accessible through searches on individual social media networks.

FACEBOOK ENDS ITS EXPERIMENT EXPLORE NEWSFEED

On its blog, Facebook’s Adam Mosseri admitted:

“People don’t want two separate feeds. In surveys, people told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn’t actually help them connect more with friends and family.” He added that Facebook was acting on the feedback by updating the way it evaluates where to test new products, and how it communicates about them.

Rolled out in October as a trial across six different countries, the feature has been dropped after just a few months.

BING ROLES OUT SEARCH ENTITY SEARCH API

The idea behind the Explore Feed was to show Facebook users more content across the social network, beyond posts from friends and Pages they already followed, such as that similar to those they’d already liked, or those popular among their network of friends, and included posts, articles, photos and videos from sources like Facebook Pages and other posts from publishers or news organisations.

The API enables you to pull Bing Knowledge Graph information about people, places, things, and local businesses into your sites and apps. It allows developers and creators to programmatically pull in Bing Knowledge Graph structured data on topics such as people, places, things, and local businesses into their application, blog, or website for a more engaging user experience, and is similar to Google’s Knowledge Graph Search API. The Search Entity API is now available in the UK, US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, and Spain.

This basically split the feed into two, but Facebook received complaints from users in the test countries that this made it harder for people to access important information, and that the social giant didn’t communicate the test clearly.

INDUSTRY NEWS WORD WAR E Search Engine Land reports a coming war between Google and Amazon as their advancement into new spheres finally sees the two tech giants entering the otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary market, with Amazon selling advertising and Google becoming a retailer. In a blog that, amongst other things, deals with plans to conscript every human in to a military force bearing the logo of the tech company with which they have spent most time, with family against family and brother against brother in a bloody fight to the death to see which company gets to use humanity as power cells in their future world spanning machine intelligence, and also where you should spend your advertising budget. A must read.

FACEBOOK APIPOCALYPSE Another domino fell recently in what must be another step to stem accusations of Facebook data mismanagement in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica investigation as the social media giant cut off API access to both Instagram and Facebook. The news, seen here at Tech Crunch, which has taken a lot of social media focused companies by surprise, will likely cause ripples across the digital sphere that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve yet to fully see. The Tech Crunch article has a lot useful information on the move from Facebook, with a summary of the changes.

READ NOW

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Announced in 2016, the Mobile First Index took until 2018 to fully roll out, with Google using the mobile version of a site ahead of the desktop purposes of ranking.

With voice search likely to surpass standard search in the early 2020s, and the processing power of handheld devices growing all the time, wearable devices and internet ready appliances (IOT) into our everyday life. While this may spell the end of traditional SERPs, the increase in screened voice devices and inevitable rise of interrogative search will see SEO take on greater rather than diminished importance.

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL ABOUT OUR EXPERT - ADAM MCKINLEY After studying Media Professional Studies & Television at Liverpool John Moores University, Adam discovered an interest in social media and went on to work for Cream/Creamfields as a digital executive, using his interest in digital and skills learnt from his course to edit videos, create assets for social purposes, and manage social accounts with a combined following of over 1.5 million. Since joining Click, Adam has worked on several high profile social media accounts.

FACEBOOK ENTERS THE WORLD OF 3D Through all the news of Facebook’s algorithm changes, fake news stories and privacy woes, it’s always the first when it comes to new technologies for posts that can really benefit brands and companies using the channel for its marketing efforts. The company recently introduced 3D posts, letting people interact and see 3D models directly on their news feed, with the likes of LEGO, Wayfair and Sony Mobile being the first to showcase these. So how can brands use this feature? Well instead of a simple picture of your product (a car for example), the user can now click and spin the 3D image to analyse the product in more detail. Artists using 3D authoring software can directly drag/drop their 3D files to Facebook to create a 3D post. Expect to see this a lot more throughout next month, and the first foray into their future plans of VR.

SPRUCE UP YOUR INSTAGRAM AND SNAPCHAT STORIES WITH GIFS Every brand should be using Instagram’s ‘stories’ feature, and with last month’s update on being able to feature stories on a brand’s profile, it’s a great opportunity to be creative with promoting your products and services, along with gaining an insight into which followers are switched on and viewing your posts. Well now it’s easier than ever for companies to be ‘fun’ with their posts with both Instagram and Snapchat introducing the ability to add gifs to your pictures and videos. It’s as simple as swiping up on your post, searching for a GIF topic and placing this in the desired position, along with hashtags, location tags and more text fonts than ever before. It’s time for brands to get creative.

HASHTAGS AND MENTIONS IN INSTAGRAM BIOS PLUS NEW ‘SHOPPING EXPERIENCE’ If you’re a business on Instagram, you’ll know all about the struggles when it comes to linking through to certain content or sites, other than the one link available in the bio. Well, the latest update from Instagram helps slightly, you can now include clickable hashtags and profile @s in the bio, making it easier for people to click through (and follow) your bespoke campaign hashtag, or any sister profiles you might have. So what’s an effective way of using this update? Create a bespoke hashtag for your Instagram campaign, and use this for every post on your timeline you upload. Once the campaign is complete, or during campaign, prompt people to see all the posts in one place by including it in your bio with something like “View our launch at #_______”. This is an effective way to promote your campaign in the same way you would in the likes of Twitter. This works well with last year’s Instagram update of following hashtags.

SCHEDULE INSTAGRAM POSTS (FINALLY) This is definitely something everyone has been crying out for on Instagram, the ability to schedule posts through social media management tools, in the same way as you would for the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Gone are the days of social media managers setting an alarm to make sure they’ve posted on Instagram. As you might know, Facebook = Instagram, and last year they introduced business profiles on Instagram, where you connect it to your Facebook business page for extra insights on the app. Well now, if you’ve connected them up, you’re able to schedule through Hootsuite and Sprout Social, with rumours of more social media management tools offering this service in the future.

If it’s a profile page you’re including in your bio, then Instagram send a notification to that account, letting them know you’ve added this, they can then remove it if it isn’t relevant. Time to edit your bio! The second and most substantial update as far as Instagram goes is the rolling out of a new shopping experience in the platform to the UK market. With shopping on Instagram, users are given a visual shopfront to explore new products from businesses they follow. With easy access to pricing and product details, shoppers can tap on a tagged post within feed or through the shop button on a business’s profile. Businesses in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK will now have access to the tool. With more than 200 million accounts visiting one or more business profiles daily, shopping on Instagram offers more opportunities for businesses to showcase their products, and more time for people to explore the brands and products they love.

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

LINKEDIN ADDS TEXT AND FILTERS FOR VIDEO LinkedIn is changing, and changing fast. Following on from its recent mobile app update allowing users to upload native video to profiles, it’s now introduced its joining Snapchat and Instagram in letting you add text and video filters prior to uploading. Whether you’re an avid video creator or your standard recruiter looking to stand out from the crowd on the platform, this is a good move. We already know it’s a highly successful feature on other platforms, and with the company itself recently saying that video content is being shared 20 times more than other content, it makes sense. There’s not many filters and text styles to currently pick from but as it becomes more popular this would change. Perfect for getting your message across in a more creative way, and allowing people to share the message directly with the text overlay.

FACEBOOK MAKES A SMALL CHANGE TO PRIORITISE LOCAL NEWS When Facebook recently changed the way people see their news feed, it also announced it will put more emphasis on priorities local news on our timelines, and after being rolled out in the United States, it’s now arriving in more locations, including the UK. In a statement, Facebook said: “Local news helps people connect to their communities,” and with communities being their main focus on changing the news feed in the first place, this was an expected update. So what does this mean? Well, there will be more posts on timelines from local news sources from the city the user lives in, and any other locations the user has noted down as previously living in, or a fan of visiting. For publishers, this means that Facebook will automatically help them reach audiences more effectively in the cities they want to be viewed in, including surrounding areas.

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

FROM OUR EXPERTS

How much of an impact do factors such as external links, Page Quality Score and page speed have on organic ranking? Click Consult’s Senior Organic Search Strategist, Stuart Jones, explains all in this vlog. Stu walks through how to use regression analysis for predicting ranking positions organically. If ‘regression analysis’ sounds scary, don’t worry. In this case, it’s a way of statistically analysing the impact of factors such as external links, Page Quality Score and page speed on organic ranking positions, enabling you to make predictions about future performance. Stu takes you through the process step-by-step with screenshots, using an example data set for one of

our own clients. He also shares the Python script he references in the tutorial to help you carry out the process for your own website. “Google tells us that there are over 200 ranking factors”, explains Stu, “But the truth of it is nobody knows exactly what they are so we have to play with the data that we have at hand and that we know to some degree affects the output of Google’s search engine ranking pages (SERPs) and where you sit for certain keywords.” Stu is interested to explore this topic more and welcomes any comments or other input you might have!

FROM OUR EXPERTS

2018

Hilton Manchester Deansgate 05/09/2018 Apply Today! Speakers include representatives from:

To find out more - visit the Benchmark Website 19

FROM OUR EXPERTS

OH NO, WHAT HAS GOOGLE DONE NOW?! ABOUT OUR EXPERT - MARK MCGONIGLE Having worked previously in the public sector, Mark joined Click in 2014. Mark is responsible for the performance of the Organic Search proposition which Click offers. He provides support to the Account Management and Business Development teams, and also manages the technical and strategy teams to find solutions to performance issues and strategies.

The ever so often cry of businesses, and business owners, around the world when Google is either testing or is in the process of rolling out an algorithmic update. Search engines are constantly improving the search experience and, as a result, search engine optimisation is a continual transformation ranging from small daily updates to more significant updates several times a year. So it is unlikely that these cries are going to stop! The latest update appears to be around content and intent further, and pages that were previously under rewarded have now been rewarded. This can only lead to further speculation that this maybe in line with either machine learning, optimisation for voice search or further refining the user intent journey. But the challenge for businesses is to play the SEO game and it isn’t to understand the science behind the algorithms but to understand their own strategies through actual data in relation to competitors around them. This will include plugging gaps in content through to ensuring strong natural links are continually earned and ensuring all SEO technical issues are in line with Google webmaster guidelines. You also need to ensure that the overall user experience on your site is of a high quality for users, this will include page load speed, mobile experience and a natural flowing site structure.

Over the past few years, it has been both exciting and challenging for SEO’s, marked by a series of algorithm updates, evolving techniques and fast-advancing tools. To stay on top of the trends and changes businesses are utilising SEO tools, and certainly SEO agencies, further as to ensure they are prepared for the ever evolving shape of search engine optimisation. So where is SEO in 2018 taking us, now this is the big crystal ball question, it is expected that machine learning, voice search to the increasing role of RankBrain in providing search results, we’re expecting bigger changes on the horizon. We already know that mobile experience is a factor, and is likely to be refined further. In December 2017, John Mueller tweeted about webmasters asking for voice search data in Google Search Console, which gives us the insight that large scale marketers are now starting to optimise for voice searches – with Google obliging and providing the relevant data. More and more tech giants are investing in virtual assistants and, by extension, voice search. Google have launched Google Assistant and Google Home, Apple has Siri, Microsoft has Cortana, Amazon has Alexa – these investment are by no means coincidental and could be the main route SEO is taking. I still expect to hear “Oh no, what has Google done now!!” many more times over the forthcoming year!!

FROM OUR EXPERTS

BENCHMARK 2018

BENCHMARK SEARCH CONFERENCE Passionate about your brand’s online performance? Looking to upskill and ramp your search marketing knowledge up a notch?

thinkers and speakers from a diverse range of global brands covering subjects across SEO, PPC, content marketing and social media.

Benchmark Search Conference is the North’s leading search marketing event, offering an inspiring, engaging and entertaining day where world-class experts discuss the latest strategies and techniques, and share their own success stories.

Highlights of last year’s event include Canon Europe’s Omi Sido discussing RankBrain and what it means for the world of SEO in 2018, Bas van den Beld talk through the power of storytelling within content marketing and Vodafone’s SEO Lead, Nick Wilsdon, talk about Google’s Mobile-First Index and what brands need to do to prepare for this event.

Now in its fourth year, Benchmark has established a reputation for attracting the best search marketing

WHAT IS THE BENCHMARK SEARCH CONFERENCE? The one-day event has been designed exclusively for senior in-house marketing professionals and features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including: Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords 22

Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks

BENCHMARK 2018 WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND? Benchmark is for you if: - You’re a senior in-house marketing professional who’s passionate about achieving search marketing success - You want inspiration to become a better marketer - You’ve got a desire to learn and get actionable insights and practical advice from the best in the industry - You want to meet other digital marketing professionals who are on your wavelength - You’re not satisfied with simply ‘adequate’ performance when it comes to your brand’s online visibility - You fancy spending a productive day out of the office in a friendly and collaborative atmosphere To enquire, contact Click Consult on 0845 205 0292 or email hello@click.co.uk

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES:

Sponsorship of this event offers your business:

Benchmark Search Conference is a unique event which provides an unparalleled opportunity to network with over 200 of the UK’s senior in-house/client side SEO and PPC marketing professionals – all this, throughout a day of interactive activities and cutting-edge ideas. This year, the conference takes place on 5th September at Manchester’s Hilton Deansgate.

- High quality lead generation opportunities with highly targeted delegate audience - A chance to develop contacts with speakers who are highly influential within the digital marketing industry - Augmentation of your existing marketing and advertising activities

BENCHMARK 2018

BAS VAN DEN BELD

ELLIE ENGLAND

SABRINA GARUFI

BEN IRONS

DAVE KARELLEN

JON MYERS

Chief Growth Officer DeepCrawl

Search & Acquisition Manager Barclays

KERSTIN REICHERT

JAMES ROWLAND

JO TURNBULL

JOHN WARNER

Digital Marketing Strategist State of Digital

Digital Director notonthehighstreet.com

SEO Team Lead TSB Bank

SEO & Online Marketing Specialist, Search London

Sales Director Bing Ads

Head of Paid Search Click Consult

Search Manager Thomson Reuters

Marketing and Content Executive, Click Consult

KRISTAL IRELAND

SHYAM DATTANI

VICTORIA OLSINA

COLIN WOON

OMI SIDO

IRUM SULTANA

RUMYANA MITEVA

NICK WILSDON

LUKASZ ZELEZNY

FILI WIESE

Agency Development Manager Google

Senior Technical SEO Canon Europe

Search Product Owner Vodafone Group

Head of Ecommerce& Retail, Virgin Trains East Coast

Head of Social Deloitte UK

Head of Organic Acquistion uSwitch.com

Director of Strategic Partnerships Searchmetrics

Global Head of SEO William Hill

Head of Search Secret Escapes

SEO Consultant SearchBrothers.com

BENCHMARK 2018

PANEL SESSIONS Our speakers have a breadth of search marketing wisdom and experience to share, but how will you put theory into practice when you get back to work? Panel Session 1 (1 hour) Succeeding in Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mobile-First World

Panel Session 2 (1 hour) Perfecting Your PPC in 2019

James Rowland Search Manager, Financial & Risk, Thomson Reuters

David Karellen Head of Paid Search, Click Consult

Jo Turnbull Strategic Account Manager, Searchmetrics

Sabrina Garufi Agency Development Manager, Google

Omi Sido Senior Technical SEO, Canon Europe

Rumyana Miteva Head of Search, Secret Escapes

Colin Woon Global head of SEO, William Hill 25

HILTON MANCHESTER DEANSGATE 05/09/2018

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

THE RISE OF HYPERLOCAL SEARCH MARKETING ABOUT OUR EXPERT - SCOTT RUMSEY Scott joined Click in late 2013 but has worked as a journalist and copywriter for the last nine years, editing various publications and working with large brands in the B2B sector. He is an avid reader and diligent researcher.

There are several topics in search marketing that come up over and over again and one such example is personalisation. Users want to be targeted with the correct content at the correct time and, when it comes to the results that are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs), they are no different.

Users want information that best serves a need and a major part of this is to do with advanced local searches or hyperlocal searches. Imagine the scene â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you are at home and want to head out for dinner. Your search might appear similar to the following:

FROM OUR EXPERTS

With the advancements in technology however and with location services more accurate than ever there is now a precedent for a hyperlocal search which means you can look ‘on the go’ for businesses that best suit your need and which are in your vicinity. We have covered extensively the importance and indeed the shift towards a Mobile-First environment and how this is perhaps the most significant development in recent years. A search in this format might display the following results, for example:

We have covered extensively the importance and indeed the shift towards a Mobile-First environment and how this is perhaps the most significant development in recent years. With the time poor, information rich nature of the users searching habits it is no surprise that they are using both mobile search and local search more frequently. Google has adapted to this and over the last few years paid particular attention to how searches with hyperlocal intent are displayed and, indeed, ranked. From a consumer perspective, the very reason that a search is conducted is for research purposes. Buyers want answers and access relating to where, how and when they can purchase and that doesn’t change whether they are buying a coffee or a car. According to a report by Forbes Insights customers still like to do their research online but make their purchase instore (NB this is changing and will continue to do so). In their study “A Split Screen: Online Information and a Human Touch,” customers prefer to mix technology and in-store visits for major purchases. It also found that nearly 50% of retailers surveyed said that their customers are looking for an ‘omnichannel’ shopping experience. In terms of those using a search engine prior to buying and choosing where to buy from the number is 82%, which shows the sheer power of being at the top of SERPS for your most relevant and your industry’s most competitive keywords.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

For businesses who are trying to gain local business with a local search strategy, Google Trends has identified the importance of utilising the ‘near me’ suffix to searches as is displayed below:

This search for ‘coffee near me’ is on an upwardly mobile curve and this directly correlates with the idea that mobile search and local search have been given a greater level of importance over the last five years. This phenomenon is sure to continue and, in reality, I’d say it’s highly likely that instead of being one way of conducting a search I feel it will become ‘the way’ to search and with Mobile-First finally being announced in March 2018, the shift will continue to turn this from a mobile marvel to standard practise. Google said:

“Across our client base we are still seeing more than 50% of the traffic from these queries coming from desktop — and more than 80% of the clicks but there is a shift”. Trying a different search, this time for ‘shoes near me’ the results are very similar (see right) and simply looking for ‘near me’ also shows the upward trend.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

If we also go back to the search relating to ‘coffee near me’ you can pull some additional data and see related topics and queries which can help you to build out your keywords strategy.

WHAT ARE THE ‘NEAR ME’ RANKING FACTORS? ‘Near me’ queries as a whole are a relatively small (but expanding) part of local search volume, but these searches are clear signals of local intent and consequently represent high-quality traffic for businesses targeting locally. In a statistic-led study of Google’s Local SEO Ranking Factors report by Search Engine Land, they found that when looking at ~600 searches, which included

~6,000 Google My Business (GMB) pages, as well as the corresponding domains/pages that the GMB pages linked to, the following factors had the strongest positive correlations with ranking well in Google’s and ‘near me’ searches: Google reviews Total number of backlinks with searched city/region in the anchor text Percentage of backlinks with searched city/region in the anchor text

They also found that link metrics were some of the strongest indicators of good rankings, so it’s not surprising that they also matter for ‘near me’ queries. The example that they used was that TripAdvisor have an aggressive use of ‘near me’ in internal link anchor text may be one of the reasons those URLs rank so well for local queries:

FROM OUR EXPERTS

One area where there was a differing of opinion in terms of ranking factors was in relation to distance as a search ranking. The search below shows a selection of coffee shops near to the searcher. These are sorted apparently by distance. Yet when you expand the results in the second image the distance does not become the natural order proving that although it is the primary factor for the users it is not the primary result that is displayed.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

Indeed it appears as though the GMB ranking carries more weight. Moz, a respected authority on Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ranking criteria, collects data each year from industry experts about what they believe are the main local search ranking factors and assigns each of them a weighting:

FROM OUR EXPERTS

HOW TO BE ‘HYPERLOCAL’ READY Getting started with hyperlocal SEO is all about ensuring it is easy for Google to know your business is relevant to hyperlocal searches. The best way to ensure that you are prepared is to follow these steps:

Set up your Google My Business profile With a log in/sign-up page that promises to help you ‘Manage’, ‘Connect’ and ‘Understand’, Google My Business seeks to be a hub for a number of Google’s small business products including (but not limited to) local listing info for maps, Google reviews, ‘Insights’ and the latest addition ‘Website’. The platform (not to be confused with Google Business Solutions) is a good starting point for any start-up looking to hit the ground running. By signing up to Google My Business you can tell Google directly the name of your business, the exact location, what it does, opening times, what it looks like (upload your own images), and many more attributes. It is of particular relevance to the map results and the 3-pack listings. For instance, Google smartly tells the searcher whether the business is open or closed right now and pulls out images to give users more of an idea of what to expect. In order to view performance in a hyperlocal environment GMB also offers a huge amount of data in Google Analytics, so you have the stats to back up the strategy. Not only does Google My Business make it easier for it to know what’s what about your business, it also improves the search experience for your customer – giving more ‘at a glance’ information than the traditional SERPs listings do. What’s more the service is free to use.

Reflect hyperlocal terms in your on-page content An important aspect of local SEO is ensuring that the copy across your website is high quality and extensive. In the case of local SEO, this must be the case on all local pages on your website. Location-specific landing pages should ideally be 300 words in length and include information about the local area. If you have multiple local pages on your website, you have to ensure that each page has unique content. Once you’re sure of your hyperlocal term, make sure it is reflected in your titles, descriptions, body text, alt. text of images etc. so when Google crawls this content – and potential customers read it – both know your business is there. A top tip from searchenginewatch on this is that if you are located near a well-known place or landmark (university, sports stadium, monuments etc)? It might be worth reflecting this in your onsite content. Please use schema markup When optimising your website for local SEO, it’s critical to optimise your website with semantic markup. For local businesses, the markup of important information such as the business address, telephone number, opening hours and map data is important as it allows Google to understand the context of the information shown on the page. By including the relevant markup, you can make Google’s job of displaying the necessary information and calls-toaction about your business even easier.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

Currently Google accepts markup for (among other things): Opening Times. Even down to seasonal changes Including latitude and longitude Restaurant-specific properties. Such as food served, how it can be delivered, how to reserve a table etc Consider adding markup to the content pages on your site as a best practice accompaniment to the information in your Google My Business profile. It will ensure that when Google is crawling your site, it will deliver the most trustworthy, up-to-date and relevant information. An example of local schema markup, using Schema.org, and the corresponding local listing on Google can be seen below:

PPC impact of hyperlocal search marketing Although there are many businesses that feel the reason that their organic performance has improved is because it is in line with their increase in PPC spend, we have to say that this is a myth. The correlation is not proved but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be a consideration in your strategy especially in terms of Google Maps and branded pins. Branded Pins are the next stage of mobile marketing, incorporating Google’s highly used Google Maps. Advertisers have the opportunity to display as a ‘pinned’ location on the map. This is perfect for such moments as when a consumer looks up directions to a meeting, allowing available coffee shops to advertise en route. When touched, the pin expands to provide the user with all the key information a mobile user would need: directions, address, phone number, opening times, in store promotions and product inventory searches. This connection is the strongest so far made available between the digital and the physical in terms of marketing. By combining such features with the developing ‘store visits’ metric, marketers will now be able to begin to quantify the effect of these features. When it comes to this form of geotargeting there are also benefits in terms of PPC not just SEO Google, Bing and most display networks support geomarketing and are able to serve ads to the user based on their location. If the search conducted is for an Italian restaurant then future ads for similar restaurants can be served based on where the device is connecting from. Businesses can also use location as a type of remarketing/retargeting strategy. To do this, businesses can use indoor proximity systems. These devices use Bluetooth technology to communicate with nearby mobile devices.

It might also be worth noting that if you have multiple locations then make sure that you make landing pages for each of the sites. This will maximise your appearance in search and allows you to optimise the content further.

This type of technology could benefit stores, events, or any other kind of local business that wants to communicate with its customers in real time. It allows these businesses to gather insights while highly personalising the content based on their shopping or event-going experience. To make the most of this kind of system, you can offer incentives to customers who provide you with feedback. Just send a quick message like, earn a voucher,’ or ‘earn 25% off your next purchase.’ Keeping the message focused on the incentive can attract people and help to create loyal customers in the process.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT OF HYPERLOCAL SEARCH MARKETING With nearly 3 billion social media users all over the world, it’s a given that the social media marketing must not be ignored by businesses. Hyperlocal marketing is the type of marketing, which is aimed to reach potential customers within certain areas but knowledge hut suggests that: “Brands must think global and act local, and their social media marketing strategy must be modified accordingly.” There are five main reasons why a business particularly in retail can benefit from this type of strategy and in the latest study by Martech they picked up on the following points:

Reach out while your prospect is attentive Hyperlocal Social Monitors can act as both active and passive method of communication. If a user posted a Tweet online, there is a small time frame (approximately 2-3 minutes) where the user is expecting a response, voice, or an opinion to that post. If retail firms respond within that window, they’ll receive the full attention of the customer. The response must provide a call to action, or build a conversation. Personal triumphs vague

Measure success

Marketing is effective when it is more personalised and relevant to the area in question. Build a more intimate relationship between the brand and the customer.

Few Hyperlocal Social Media tools provide the functionality that enables businesses to measure the success of their social media strategy. Combining social media data (sentiment, influence, reach) with retail metrics, means it is now possible thanks to cross-platform technology – such as APIs and cloud technology to get the best results and adapt your strategy.

Targeting social influencers Hyperlocal Social Monitors provide necessary tools and features that will provide deeper insight into the social media user or customer. Rewarding influencers will be the simplest and best way to reach out to new local customers and empower the brand locally. Point of sale is key Customers use social media to reach out to the world to receive an opinion of what they wish to purchase. Encouraging purchase, through sharing the sales for that day, or reward points received. Customers are not always aware of great deals, and for them to be informed will increase UX.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

FINAL THOUGHTS When it comes to the impact of adopting this kind of strategy has on your business is quite clear. Smallbiztrends said:

“You already know that location is paramount for local businesses. But it isn’t just your storefront’s location that can make a big difference to your business’s success. Location can also have a big impact when it comes to your market research efforts. For instance, the questions you would ask someone who is in your store would differ from the questions you’d ask people who are just nearby. And the questions you would ask people nearby might be different from what you would ask those outside your direct neighbourhood or city.”

This sums it up nicely. You need to be an adopter if you haven’t already, you need to be. Look and test different strategies if you are to attract not only those who are directly in your area but those who are passing by. These impulse sales can mean big profits and the ROI of a hyperlocal strategy is not to be sneered at. With a Mobile-First, local search strategy you may also intercept potential sales if you can target those in an area close to a rival company. In the future I’ll look at producing a whitepaper on this sort of strategy and will look into the businesses that are best served by moving forward with this approach.

THE BIG

INTERVIEW

SEO: BALANCING TECHNICAL AND CONTENT FACTORS Canon Europe’s Senior Technical SEO is a popular speaker at Click Consult’s annual Benchmark Search Conference. Omi is passionate about SEO, especially the technical side. Chloie Brandrick caught up with him to talk about getting technical vs content, the impact on voice search and the worst technical errors he’s seen in the wild.

THE BIG INTERVIEW

WHAT IS TECHNICAL ORGANIC SEARCH (SEO)? The internet is a technical platform so, from an SEO point of view, all the content in the world won’t help you without correct set up. So, to me, technical SEO is about making sure a website is fit for purpose. If content is king, then technical website is the throne it sits on. Every king needs a castle – and content needs a solid foundation. Ask yourself the question: Can Google find your pages? Can Googlebot render and index your pages? – these all need to be considered as part of technical SEO. Page load time, Java script, accessibility, structured data, mobile, indexation, crawling, thin content on pages – these are all technical issues. Content optimisation should then follow.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THE TECHNICAL VS CONTENT DEBATE FOR SEO? Some people think content SEO and content marketing are two separate things. If I was interviewing someone who defined themselves as either ‘a content SEO’, or ‘a technical SEO’, I wouldn’t give them the job! A technically well-optimised site without good content means nothing. Good content that sits on an unoptimised website counts for nothing.

Here’s an example: last year a company asked me to carry out a technical audit of their website. They wanted to know why their pages weren’t ranking well. When I looked at it, I found almost 500,000 pages of good content, yet only about 20,000 were generating traffic. I then discovered a huge number of orphan pages (a page on a website that’s not linked to by any other page on the site) – out of 150,000 of these, only 3,000 were getting traffic. This showed clear problems with the site structure, even though they had amazing on-page content. After we fixed the site structure, the company saw an increase in online visibility of more than 60%. The point of the story? There’s only one ‘SEO’!

“A technically well-optimised site without good content means nothing. Good content that sits on an unoptimised website counts for nothing. If content is king, then technical website is the throne it sits on. Every king needs a castle – and content needs a solid foundation”

THE BIG INTERVIEW

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST MAKE OR BREAK FACTOR IN SEO? Take care of technical optimisation first. Content comes next. Every business exists for a reason. You need to know your customers first before you do anything else. Then start thinking about your website, then keyword research, then inbound – then come the sales. The rules aren’t much different from traditional, offline marketing. SEO should never live in isolation – but I see this a lot. SEO is not the only thing that will make you successful. SEO should be at the heart of your business, but it’s not the only thing you need to do to be successful online.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE LINK BUILDING ASPECT OF SEO? Despite getting a bit of a bad rep, building links is still an important aspect of SEO. Google is now using so-called RankBrain (Google’s machine-learning technology) – I’m speculating a little bit here – to apply the same logic as in PPC. Historically, Google never needed backlinks to rank an ad for relevance. Now we’re seeing the same trend 40

in SEO. Links are still important, but not everywhere. I’d recommend people concentrate their attention on customers rather than links. If you’re active on social media, if you engage your audience, people will link back to your site naturally. Talking to your target audience – whether via social media or email – is key. Don’t think about just RankBrain or social media or whatever in isolation– you need to take everything into account. It’s all about relevance: if the relevant people don’t come to your site, they won’t convert, so what’s the point?

THE BIG INTERVIEW

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE OTHER IMPACTS OF RANKBRAIN ON SEO?

WHAT ARE THE TOP TECHNICAL ERRORS YOU SEE THE MOST?

It will force us to understand our audience. Everything starts with the end user. Website owners who value traffic over relevance – people whose prioritise visits as a KPI – just don’t understand the importance of having the right people on your site.

Here’s my biggest bugbear: you should never allow Google to index internal search results (otherwise known as doorway pages).

RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm, it learns from users’ behaviour. This has always been Google’s objective: to return the best answer according to user intent. Black hat tactics such as building irrelevant backlinks were side doors that were bad SEO practice. This has always been a challenge for Google, and why they introduced RankBrain.

Shopstyle.co.uk lost almost 90% of their online visibility because they forgot to tell Google not to index their internal search results. Even when people were discussing it in the media, they were still slow to fix the problem. The way Google sees it, you click on the search result link and you end up in another search engine – the one on the site, which adds no value to the user.

Talking to your target audience – whether via social media or email – is key. Don’t think about just RankBrain or social media or whatever in isolation– you need to take everything into account. It’s all about relevance: if the relevant people don’t come to your site, they won’t convert, so what’s the point?

The second most annoying thing for me is when people build their website on a staging server, then when they move it to a live site (a production server) and forget to remove the code from the staging server. I come across a lot of staging environments indexed online so that both sites are indexed. This is madness!

HOW IS VOICE SEARCH CHANGING THE SEO LANDSCAPE? On devices like Google Home and Alexa – there’s only one answer, no search engine results pages (SERPs). This will be the answer that the search engine thinks is the most relevant. So we need to start thinking about relevancy now – tomorrow is too late. RankBrain, or a version of it, will be the main ranking factor in the future.

WHAT SEO TECHNIQUES ARE PEOPLE UNDERUTILISING? Lots of SEOs come from marketing rather than technical backgrounds like me. But the internet is a very technical platform. So making sure your website is technically sound is the number one priority for everybody. I see more people who are struggling because their websites are built the wrong way than people struggling because they have bad content. I see a lot of good content on line; we all know we need good content. But this content needs to live in a good place. You can have the best content in the world, but if no one can find it there’s literally no point!

Here are some examples.

Or people noindex the staging server pages, then transfer all the code to the live site and forget to remove the noindex. Another example is Reference.com. Over two or three years they lost almost 100% of their online visibility because all of their content is noindexed – they’re literally telling Google not to index it! I looked at this site last year. These are big, famous websites making schoolboy errors. Last year History.co.uk migrated their website, but forgot to redirect old pages to the new pages, in many cases using 302 or 301 redirect. Over four or five months they lost almost 80% of their online visibility. Another mistake is when people don’t understand how RankBrain is ranking pages: no algorithm is the same for every website. The way the algorithm sees your website may not be the same as it sees my website. It depends on sector and industry – and even your set of keywords. It’s a machine learning system at end of day – it learns what your customers like. For instance, if they like long form articles, Google will recognise that this type of content is the best for this industry. I often go online to study the SERPs and when big companies are going down, I want to find out why. We learn from other people’s mistakes, plus Google’s algorithm is constantly changing. What’s affecting other people’s websites now my affect mine tomorrow.

PODCAST

THE ON.CLICK PODCAST Click Consult brings you the on.click podcast, featuring news, best practice, how to and discussions on the key aspects of search marketing - from paid search, through content marketing, technical SEO and more: on.click wants to be your go to audio for all things digital marketing. You can subscribe to Click Consultâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s podcast on Stitcher, or here for Apple users.

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BACK CATALOGUE In the years since ‘Mobilegeddon’ was announced, there have been numerous adjustments and updates implemented with the express intention of improving the mobile experience on the web. The Mobile-First Index represents an acknowledgement that the mobile experience isn’t just of equal importance, but the main experience for consumers. With this in mind, it is no longer enough to be ‘Mobile Friendly’, brands must put ‘Mobile-First’ – which can lead to issues regarding the slapdash approach to updating m. sites that some brands have demonstrated and further damage to brands that have yet to implement a mobile reactive or responsive site.

With the mobile versions of sites set to be crawled first (prioritised over desktop versions and non mobile friendly sites), there is every reason to ensure that you have ticked all of the necessary boxes. For this reason, Click Consult has compiled this group of mobile resources to allow you to access everything you need to succeed on the new, mobile web – all in one place.

THE ‘MAKING THE MOVE TO MOBILE’ BOXSET INCLUDES:

MAKING THE MOVE TO MOBILE BOXSET The move to mobile is not only desirable, it’s vital for the future of your brand, so ensure your readiness with the boxset – or share it with someone who needs to know.

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PREPARING FOR GOOGLE’S Mobile-First INDEX – NICK WILSDON’S BENCHMARK 2017 TALK ABOUT - NICK WILSDON Nick started his online career in 1998, giving his first SEO seminar two years later in Brighton. After moving to Moscow, he became an expert on Russian search, working with gaming clients across CIS markets. During this time he was involved in the Russian start-up community, working with Yandex, RF parliament members and the US State Department.

As we head towards the 4th Benchmark Search Conference we thought it best to look back at some of the stellar talks at last year’s conference. In 2017 we welcomed Nick Wilsdon, Search Product Owner at Vodafone Group to discuss how brands could prepare for the official launch of ‘Mobile-First’ which was finally unveiled in March 2018. With more time served in search marketing and digital strategy than most agencies, Nick Wilsdon’s advice is not to be ignored – and so pads and pens were in action again as he discussed the impending arrival of MobileFirst SERPs. As we’ve reported on the Click Consult blog, it will be no shock to hear about the existence of Mobile-First – we’ve been reporting on it since it was first announced, writing our first article in May of 2016 and a second following the official announcement in the November of the same year. What may be surprising is that it’s taken so long. Google even goes so far as to note the wait in their official announcement on the Webmasters blog:

“Today we’re announcing that after a year and a half of careful experimentation and testing, we’ve started migrating sites that follow the best practices for Mobile-First indexing.”

-Fan Zhang, Software Engineer, Google

With this in mind and the changes coming it was no surprise that Wilsdon began by advising that immediate action is key to avoiding a major drop in performance once the roll out arrived – and that a responsive site, unblocked JavaScript and good site-speed are the absolute minimum expectation for brands to avoid such a drop. Once this is achieved – treating mobile as the primary journey for consumers – a brand can move on to the merely urgent. Beginning with technical SEO, Wilsdon then outlined four key areas to focus on achieving before the end of 2017. Which include: 1. Site architecture – obviously, there is a lot of effort involved in migration to HTTPS and it cannot be done while there are issues with CMSs and other underlying architectural features. 2. HTTPS – not only to prevent warnings, but also to unlock access to HTTP2, push notifications and more. 3. Sitemaps/Shopping Feeds – these need to be thoroughly inspected to ensure that there are no legacy issues. 4. Fix crawling errors – there was a nudge toward sponsors DeepCrawl with the recommendation that crawling errors must be addressed.

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Wilsdon then moved to the opportunities that will present themselves with the move to Mobile-First as the primary journey. This includes the demonstration of the improved load speed of HTTP2 versus the last (1999) update to HTTP, then a weighing of the pros and cons of AMP – which, while not his first choice insofar as the future of the web (he would prefer a more open, mature approach to performance), is improving all the time and due to be first indexed and the first port of call for featured snippets. He then moves to the real future of search – that of the conversion of the web into data streams – sources of data that will enable service providers to seamlessly exchange data in order to facilitate ease of purchase, the ease of accessibility of all areas of the web from all areas of your life.

Obviously this presents concerns for brands, as Google seeks to provide all information from the SERPs and, therefore, reducing the necessity for visiting individual sites. Nevertheless, he says, it is necessary to follow the trend, but to do so with our collective eyes open. Whatever your opinions on the future, however, there can be no doubting that Mobile-First is the present and, as Wilsdon reiterates at the end of the talk, action needed to be taken immediately – even if it was to just achieve ‘mobile friendly’ as a damage limitation exercise prior to carrying out the rest of the work.

VOICE SEARCH AND SNIPPETS AND RANKINGS, OH MY! BY JOHN WARNER I’m a voice search evangelist – odd for someone who would literally rather die than speak to my phone in public. Yet, I am, I see the future of search as one completely integrated with our lives in the way I first saw in the early 90’s on Star Trek – which reveals two more things about me than I would like. The reason I believe this is that I see it borne out every day – in the generational shift to acceptance of voice search. While many Gen-X and up may still feel ‘like geeks’, 60% of all searches are now from mobile devices, and 20% of those are now spoken (12% of all searches, therefore, are both mobile and spoken) and it is rising all the time. The improving ability and accuracy of voice recognition software has doubtless played a part in this upward trend, but doubtless too is the influence of normalisation. The most important part of the shift to voice for the search industry, however, comes from the behaviour of Google – whose quick answers are, I believe, at least partially driven by a desire to cater to voice search.

The recent release by Ahrefs of a Rank Tracker tool happened to happily coincide with an invitation to submit to State of Digital and this, in turn, prompted me to expand my constant ranting about voice search beyond the walls of Click Consult (where I write articles and tinker with the technical SEO and strategy and literally wrote the book [a book] on SEO). It is my belief (and doubtless that of numerous others), that the push to provide quick answers in SERPs is part and parcel of Google’s preparation for a future in which voice search is as integral to our lives as search is now. It is for this reason – my hypothesis runs – the position zero ‘quick answer’ does not always come from the top position in SERPs. While other SEO factors undoubtedly play a part (the quick answer almost always comes from one of the top five results, so mastery of other techniques is required to even qualify for the race), there is a definite correlation between voice search and position zero. In an effort to prove this, and to take a first look at the new Ahrefs tool, I decided to run an experiment.

The layout of Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker tool, showing (amongst other things) the absence or presence of a snippet. Source: Ahref Rank Tracker 47

KNOWLEDGE BASE I chose ten of the industry specific long tail keywords for which Click Consult competes (which had a rich snippet quick answer box) and began running some voice searches. Of the ten results, only one search resulted in my being directed to read the SERP, only two quick answers were taken from the top result (none from below position three), four came from Wikipedia and eight were paragraphs, with the other two featuring lists.

Review of key aspects of pages featuring in the answer box. Source: Various While the sample size of my research here is small (by necessity rather than desire, there’s only so much time I can devote to flights of fancy), there were a number of surprising results of even such a small data set. If there are two things you can be certain about in search marketing, they are that the industry terms will be highly competitive and that the companies competing will know exactly how to compete. So why, then, were only 60% of quick answers owned by companies working in the industry?

In my opinion this has a lot to do with Google’s desire to make these quick answers voice search friendly. Take the result for ‘display advertising’ for example, the first position (at the time of writing) was held by a page with great DA (86), featured a comprehensive near 1200 word article which was well linked to and from, while the quick answer came from Marketing Land, which ranked in third position with a category page listing news features about ‘display advertising’. While I’m sure a searcher could learn all they needed to know from the host of display advertising articles on offer there, it was instead the quick, punchy intro that was chosen to feature in position zero.

The quick explanation from the Marketing Land ‘display advertising’ category page. Source: Marketing Land

KNOWLEDGE BASE This, really, is the trend throughout the list of quick answers I looked at. The answer is prominent on the landing page, is short, keyword rich and informative (in all but one case, which I’ll return to).

third and fourth paragraph, was almost twice as long, less keyword rich, beneath an h3 rather than h1 tag and refers to a specific ‘display ad’ rather than ‘display advertising’ as a practice.

The definition from the first placed site for this keyword was no lesser an explanation, but it did feature as the

The quick explanation from the Clickz.com website about what makes a display ad. Source: Clickz.com This is obviously something which should raise alarm bells for SEOs and content writers throughout the industry – especially those writing in industries which feature quick answer boxes at present (though they’re only going to become more prevalent). The continuing roll out of position zero across numerous

services means that SEOs are going to need to reconsider the way they present their content as Google pushes ever onward to a ‘Mobile-First’ rather than ‘mobile-friendly’ strategy – and, as a result, toward a search experience that caters to the ever increasing use of voice.

Important ranking factors measured for position one pages versus rich answer pages. Source: Various

KNOWLEDGE BASE

Position zero will, in many sectors (particularly B2B) simply replace position one as the ultimate aim of the SEO campaign, which means that there will need to be a number of items added to the list of what makes good content for SEO (this in no way underplays the fact that content should always be written with the consumer at the forefront of the mind, but as an industry it would be dishonest to say that SEO value is not of great importance in content production).

This is why, as things stand, Wikipedia occupies so many of answer boxes – the short, descriptive answer is exactly what they do (with thousands of volunteer editors refining and updating answers all the time). While search marketers and SEOs have developed techniques which blend great content with great SEO, Wikipedia has been unknowingly preparing for the answer box since its inception.

Email marketing description. Source: Wikipedia

This answer (trimmed though it is) is the featured snippet for the keyword ‘email marketing’. Email marketing answer box. Source: Google

Pay-per-click keyword strategy answer box. Source: Google

That’s not to say the system is perfect as things stand – and it reinforces the focus of voice search for these quick answers – the one result which was not spoken when searched for was that of ‘pay-per-click keyword strategy’. One of the two answers that came from position one in the SERP, the answer for this search as spoken by the Google Assistant was simply ‘Here’s what I found for pay-per-click keyword strategy’ – the fact that (despite the answer coming from one of the kings of PPC) it did not really address the search must surely have played a part in the Google Assistant’s decision not to provide the answer directly.

KNOWLEDGE BASE

While it is impossible to say for certain that the answer box is driven by voice search, four of Google’s big announcements at I/O 2017 involved Home and the Google Assistant – predominately voice activated technology – showing a clear commitment to the development of voice interaction, as does their recently announced partnership with Walmart on voice-based search. Voice search is, it seems to me, likely to become more conversational – you are likely to be able to ask for elucidation, or more detail on your searches or to refine them using voice commands as various digital assistants begin to recognise continuations of searches rather than see each search as a distinct entity. However, at this point, it’s all about providing the quick fix which requires: Clarity – should be easily understood by the searcher. Brevity – should provide a quick overview even if as part of a longer explanation.

Give Google what it wants! There are numerous varieties of quick answer, whether it’s lists, recipes descriptions, or answers to specific questions. You’ll know which variety applies to your brand, so look at industry terms, see what is presently occupying those position zeroes and look to incorporate the practices when you produce your content. This includes things such as the position of key elements on the page, their length, whether they feature a title and which header tag they should fall between. For the terms I searched for, the model is Wikipedia but for recipes (in the UK at least) it could be BBC Food whose recipe guides fall between headings with their own sub class class=”recipe-method__heading” and whose recipe pages are filled with recipe specific ‘div’s and is structured according to ‘schema.org/recipe’ – so that this:

Relevance – should directly relate to the search term. All of which are key components of the quick answer. However, one aspect of my pet theory is: you don’t need to believe in the driving force behind the proliferation of quick answers. Recipe for sponge cake as a quick answer. Source: Google While the consumer is the audience, it has to be acknowledged that the audience is reached via a number of algorithms and through technology. It would make no more sense for the BBC to ignore the mark-up when writing its recipes than it would for a guitarist to ignore their guitar.

Html inspection of BBCs recipe ‘method’ for sponge cake. Source: bbc.co.uk At some point you will want to rank position zero for an important industry term and whether or not it is voice search that requires it, it is never too early to begin preparing for the coming rush. Here’s how:

In this metaphor, the guitarless guitarist would still have an audience, would still have the necessary expertise, but would lack the means to reach one with the other, no matter how wonderfully personalised and thought provoking, emotional or shareable their riffs may be. Producing great content for consumers should still be the primary concern, but with studies showing that 42% of professionally marketed blog posts receive fewer than ten interactions, better visibility for your great content must be a driving force behind your efforts. Whether it’s due to voice search or not, let your content speak for itself by ensuring you give it the best chance with your markup and by being ‘clear, brief, and relevant’ with sections of your content you want to feature in SERPs.

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