Benchmark issue 4 - Winter 2018

SEARCH MARKETING MAGAZINE

THE FUTURE OF SEARCH… VOICE IN 2019

Winter 2018

UNDERSTANDING EAT

GAP ANALYSIS

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LETS BEGIN

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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 looking at the search marketing industry and bringing you a mix of news, features and opinions from across the industry.

Features: Mark McGonigle John Warner Andreea Gheorghe Scott Rumsey Adam McKinley Sophie–Leigh Edwards Chloie Brandrick

This is the fourth issue of the magazine and the first since our industry leading conference - Benchmark Search Conference 2018.

At the conference, as many of you will know, we looked to the future and that gives us the basis of this issue. We want to explore topics that push the boundaries of search marketing.

Our clients and the brands that we talk to depend on this type of approach and in our industry you constantly have to ask ‘what next?’

With 2019 firmly in sight and front of mind, we have features and infographics on our top tips for the year ahead, Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, running a content gap analysis, the effect of bounce rate and EAT. We also look at PPC, content marketing and voice search.

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….

Vlog: Chloe Ridgway Design: Chloe Ridgway

Published By Click Consult Ltd Address: Willow House Oaklands Office Park Hooton Cheshire, CH66 7NZ Phone: 0845 322 5213

Matt Bullas, CEO

Website: www.click.co.uk

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CONTENTS P 5 - 11 INDUSTRY NEWS A round up of everything search marketing, bringing you the most important updates of the last few months

P 12 - 15 THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL Adam McKinley covers all of the latest social media developments and stories of the last 12 weeks

P 16 - 17 FROM OUR EXPERTS Straight from our Design Team, Chloe Ridgway, discusses a recently attended design conference and her thoughts for the year ahead

P 28 - 29

P 41

MIND THE GAP

OUR RESOURCES

Content and Marketing Executive Scott Rumsey, looks at the importance of conducting a regular gap analysis on your content

The chance to download one of our free resources. In this issue we showcase our ‘SEO in 2019 - 11 things you need to know’ eBook

P 32 - 33

P 42 - 45

FROM OUR EXPERTS...

SEARCH MARKETING 101

Senior Content Marketing Executive, Sophie–Leigh Edwards, covers three reasons why you should be doing content marketing

Content and Marketing Executive, John Warner covers voice search in 2019

P 18 ON.CLICK VLOG Digital Design Executive, Chloe Ridgway gives her three top tips P 20 - 21 UNDERSTANDING GOOGLE’S QUALITY RATER GUIDELINES Content and Marketing Executive Chloie Brandrick looks at how Google’s Quality Raters look at sites and assist rankings P 22 - 25

P 34 - 35 FROM OUR EXPERTS...

Paid Search Executive, Andreea Gheorghe, explores expanded text Ad formats

P 46 - 47 BENCHMARK TALK Following on from John Warner’s piece we look back at Vodafone’s Nick Wilsdon’s Benchmark Talk

EAT Head of Organic Search, Mark McGonigle, asks if the latest EAT update has given brands indigestion?

P 26 - 27 INFOGRAPHIC Find out more about the 10 key factors in search for 2019

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P 36 - 40

P 48 - 51

FROM OUR EXPERTS...

KNOWLEDGE BASE

Scott Rumsey helps brands understand the complexities behind cross device browsing

We take a look at bounce rate and how to keep your audience engaged

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 is talking about in this quarter in search…

PAGESPEED INSIGHTS NOW POWERED

BY LIGHTHOUSE Google has rolled out a new update to its PageSpeed Insights tool, the first large update since January 2018 when Google began using real user data from the Chrome browser to measure page speed of a site.

On its blog, the search engine said:

“We’re happy to announce that PageSpeed Insights (PSI) now uses Lighthouse as its analysis engine.

This allows developers to get the same performance audits and recommendations everywhere: on the web, from the command line, and in Chrome DevTools.

PSI also incorporates field data provided by the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). Version 5 of the PageSpeed Insights API will now provide CrUX data and all of the Lighthouse audits.

Previous versions of the PSI API will be deprecated in six months.”

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INDUSTRY NEWS GOOGLE ADDS NEW ‘VETERAN-LED’ ATTRIBUTE TO GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PROFILE Google has confirmed that it will be adding a ‘veteran-led’ attribute to Google My Business profiles, the second such business owner identity attribute, following ‘women-led’ in March.

In a blog post to announce the new feature a spokesperson for Google said: “Google is making it easier to identify your local business as veteran-led on Google Search and Maps. If your business is owned, led, or founded by a veteran, you can enable this “VeteranLed” attribute through Google My Business, and it will appear on your Google listing alongside other details like “Has Wifi” or “Outdoor Seating”.

Based on US government data, Google says that there are roughly 2.5 million small businesses owned or majority owned by veterans. That’s roughly 10% of the total number of US small businesses in the country today.

Google will be adding more of these attributes over time.

GOOGLE ADS INTRODUCES ‘AD STRENGTH’ INDICATOR AND REPORTING FOR RESPONSIVE SEARCH ADS Ad strength will now be visible when advertisers create responsive search ads as well as in a new column in the web interface according to a post by Search Engine Land.

Writing on the blog, Ginny Marvin said: “One of the loudest complaints I’ve heard so far about Google’s new responsive search ads — which are still in beta — is a lack of reporting on which combinations work best. Another is how to tell if there is enough variety in the options advertisers provide while still being relevant to the ad group.”

Google has pushed advertisers to have at least three ads per ad group for more than a year now, and responsive search ads are aimed at helping advertisers meet that goal. The ideas is that more ads should drive more impressions and clicks for an ad group overall.

Advertisers can preview some of their ad combinations as they create responsive search ads, and now new reporting shows stats on top combinations, headlines and descriptions. To see this reporting in the Google Ads interface, go to Ads & extensions and add a filter for Ad types, located under Attributes, and select Responsive search ad.

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NEW GOOGLE DATASET SEARCH A new search service has been launched to allow searchers to find data from sciences, government, some news organisations. Using dataset schema, you can mark up your data to get it included in the new Google Dataset Search engine.

On its blog, Google said:

“There are many thousands of data repositories on the web, providing access to millions of datasets; and local and national governments around the world publish their data as well.

To enable easy access to this data, we launched Dataset Search, so that scientists, data journalists, data geeks, or anyone else can find the data required for their work and their stories, or simply to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.”

It added: “We developed guidelines for dataset providers to describe their data in a way that Google (and other search engines) can better understand the content of their pages. These guidelines include salient information about datasets: who created the dataset, when it was published, how the data was collected, what the terms are for using the data, etc. We then collect and link this information, analyse where different versions of the same dataset might be, and find publications that may be describing or discussing the dataset. Our approach is based on an open standard for describing this information (schema.org) and anybody who publishes data can describe their dataset this way. We encourage dataset providers, large and small, to adopt this common standard so that all datasets are part of this robust ecosystem.

GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE OUT OF BETA The new Search Console has been officially rolled out, Google has announced. Launched at the beginning of the year, Google has been fine tuning the Search Console interface based on user feedback, adding new features such as the URL Inspection Tool, and migrating key reports and features.

Google has also added a ‘manual actions’ section to the sidebar, making it available to users in both the old and new versions. Not all features have been migrated, however.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Google said: “The old Search Console still has some features that are not yet available in the new one, we believe that the most common use cases are supported, in an improved way, in the new Search Console… When an equivalent feature exists in both old and new Search Console, our messages will point users to the new version.”

The old reports are still available in the sidebar, but Google said, that after a reasonable period, this will be removed.

GOOGLE MISSES GDPR DEADLINE When GDPR took effect in May, Google told publishers and ad tech vendors it expected to implement the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) by August.

But Google’s consent management solution, Funding Choices, is still not an IAB-registered consent management platform (CMP) and isn’t interoperable with many IAB members, with no new timeline set for Google to launch an official CMP. “We have been working closely with IAB Europe over the last several months to ensure our ad products are interoperable with the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF),” a Google spokesperson told AdExchanger. “We are in the process of formalising our participation in the framework and hope to integrate as quickly as we can.”

Google developed an interim solution in June so publishers with an IAB CMP can still pass consent to Google for targeted ad buys, and the company has worked out deals with some of the largest programmatic players, including AppNexus, Rubicon Project and Criteo, to pass consent.

Google’s delay will be seen as a blow for in fully joining the TCF is a blow for many programmatic publishers and tech vendors.

AMAZON TO SURPASS MICROSOFT AS THIRD HIGHEST AD SELLER Amazon will surpass Oath and Microsoft to become the third largest digital ad seller in the U.S. behind Facebook and Google. In a report from data and research company, eMarketer it was announced that Amazon will more than double their ad growth over the course of the year.

The research estimates that the business will bring in $4.61 bn from all of their digital advertising over the next 12 months, a total which equated to just over 4% of the market. If the projections are true and the growth remains on a steady trajectory, then Amazon can expect to control 7% of the market by the end of 2020. This will be seen as a major coup, but the figure will still be well short of the market leaders – Google and Facebook – who between them control nearly 58% of the market.

TRIPADVISOR GOES DEEPER INTO SOCIAL WITH RELAUNCH AS A TRAVEL ‘HUB’ One thing that we often talk about here at Click Consult is the way that the search marketing industry is developing and the way apps are increasingly embracing search. One such app is that of TripAdvisor who has revamped the website and moved closer to a social media platform.

According to Marketing Week the relaunch will allow users to save recommendations, follow friends and influencers and create their own “inspiring” content.

Speaking to the press about the launch CEO and cofounder of TripAdvisor Stephen Kaufer said the website is “going from the world’s largest travel site to the most personalised and connected travel community ever”.

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LARGE SEARCH BUDGETS MOVE TO AMAZON ACCORDING TO AGENCIES

BING ADS EDITOR NOW SUPPORTS INMARKET AUDIENCES

A small survey of agencies found some advertisers are making large moves to Amazon advertising according to Search Engine Land.

Bing Ads advertisers can now manage in-market audiences in Bing Ads Editor according to a recent blog post.

The reported on a CNBC survey of several advertising execs which found some advertisers are shifting large percentages of their Google search budgets to Amazon.

Executives in the survey said some advertisers that sell on Amazon are moving 50% or more of their search budgets to the site.

In-market audiences, currently available only in the US, are comprised of people deemed to be in the process of making a purchase in a particular product or service category. Bing Ads’ algorithms take into account numerous purchase intent signals from Bing, MSN and other Microsoft properties. It will be interesting to see how this works for users and when it is rolled out to other markets.

BING TO IMPROVE WEB CRAWLER EFFICIENCY According to a story on Search Engine Land, Bing is working on making sure their crawler doesn’t miss new content and at the same time overload your web servers.

Fabrice Canel, principal program manager for Bing Webmaster Tools, provided an update on his team’s efforts to improve the efficiency of their web crawler, BingBot. In a blog post Tuesday, Canel said the team has made numerous improvements based on this feedback and thanked the SMX audience for its contributions. He said they will “continuing to improve” the crawler and share what they’ve done in a new “BingBot series” on the Bing webmaster blog.

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INDUSTRY NEWS GOOGLE DEBUTS SHOPPABLE IMAGE ADS In the last few weeks Google have announced two new ad formats for retail and brand advertisers that will deliver shopping experiences on third-party sites, in Google Image Search and in Google Search.

Showcase ads are the multi-image Shopping format that Google rolled out last year. When users click on the ads, they go to a Google-hosted landing page that features promotions, descriptions and select products from the advertiser’s product feed. They typically display on brand and broad queries.

CONSUMERS NERVOUS ABOUT BRANDS USING GPS DATA Just 20% of people in general say they’re comfortable with the idea of brands using GPS data from their phones to target them, but when faced with more practical scenarios of how this would work the response is much more positive.

For example, 43% of people said location-based communications is helpful if it comes from a shop they already use. The findings come from Mindshare Futures’ Location Matters report.

Videos are displayed in the featured image position. After clicking on the ad, the video plays in full at the top of the Google-hosted landing page that features a selection of products from the advertiser’s product feed.

ANDROID WARNING: GOOGLE SMARTPHONE USERS ALERTED ABOUT INCREASING NUMBER OF FAKE APPS

The option is currently available to advertisers already running Showcase Shopping ads.

Android users have been put on alert and warned by security experts about dozens of fake malware filled apps to stay away from.

DUCKDUCKGO REACHES 30 MILLION QUERIES PER DAY DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, posted on Twitter that it has reached a new milestone, breaking 30 million queries per day on average.

The company said it took seven years to reach 10 million searches in one day. To get to 20 million searches, it took another two years. Now, less than a year later, it is now at 30 million searches per day, therefore showing a 50% growth YoY. Speaking about the growth to Techcrunch, Founder of DuckDuckGo, Gabriel Weinberg said: “We’ve been growing by approximately 50% a year pretty consistently so at a macro level it isn’t too surprising, just the numbers are getting bigger!

“That said it has been even increased on top of that this year, especially in the past two months.”

Android is one of the most used pieces of software in the world, with more than two billion active devices running the Google mobile OS each month.

But there have been a number of high profile security alerts recently with shock threats affecting Android users.

Arguably, one of the most high profile instances was the Judy malware scam when 36.5 million Android devices were feared to be infected by 41 apps.

Speaking about the warning, Top10VPN’s Head of Research Simon Migliano said:

“Our biggest concerns relate to the excessive permissions.

“We found apps that can be used to spy on people by tracking location, reading contacts, using the camera – even secretly making phone calls.”

QUORA ROLLS OUT BROAD TARGETING Question and answer platform Quora has announced the launch of broad targeting to its ad offering, which it launched last year. With this targeting option, ads run across the platform and adapts its targeting as the system learns which audiences engage with the ads.

The company says it now has an audience of 300 million monthly unique users, up from 200 million reported last year.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

AMAZON DETHRONES GOOGLE IN PRODUCT SEARCHES

YOUTUBE NOW COUNTS AD ENGAGEMENT EVEN FASTER

More than 54% of all product searches are now happening on Amazon instead of Google. What this means is that brands must make Amazon SEO their priority in order to show up near the top of product searches for their related keywords.

YouTube now counts ‘engagement’ for YouTube for action ads at 10 seconds, not 30 according to the latest news, with Google suggesting that the new attribution will better reflect the role of video in the customer journey.

INNOVATIVE BRANDS FARE WELL IN MOST VALUABLE BRANDS RANKING Consumers place more value on innovation as food and drink is named the most innovative sector in the BrandZ Top 75 Most Valuable UK Brands ranking. Newer brands Just Eat, Innocent, Deliveroo and Brewdog have entered this year’s UK list, along with bet365 and Compare the Market. Vodafone remains at number one, followed by HSBC and Shell. The top 75 are worth a combined £205 bn – just over 10% of UK GDP. David Roth, of WPP, which co-authored the report, says: “The nation’s most valuable 75 brands have all risen to the top in a highly competitive, crowded and uncertain environment. Consumers value innovation, and it is key to helping UK companies’ future-proof their brands, deliver sustainable growth and increase in value; ever more vital in a post-Brexit world.”

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In an update this week, YouTube announced it is changing the attribution criteria for TrueView for action video ads.

TrueView for action ads are designed for performance advertisers and feature call-to-action banners at the base of the video ads.

The announcement mentioned that two key attribution points were changing and they are as follows: •

YouTube will now count an ‘Engagement’ whenever a user clicks or watches 10 seconds or more of a TrueView for action ad when using maximise conversions or target CPA bidding. That’s a change from 30 seconds.

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A ‘Conversion’ will be counted, by default, when a user takes action on an ad within 3 days of an ‘Engagement.’ If you want this changed, you will have to ask your Google rep to customise this time frame.

That’s a change from 30 days.

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For users who click your ad, YouTube will still attribute conversions according to the conversion window you have set (the default is 30 days).

•

The shorter engagement-to-conversion window will mean faster ramp up times for target CPA campaigns and more current reporting, says Google.

INDUSTRY NEWS

UK TO REMAIN FOURTH IN THE LIST OF TOP TEN AD MARKETS IN 2020 Zenith has upgraded its forecast for UK ad spend growth this year from 0.7% to 2.4% after demand from advertisers turned out to be higher than expectations. According to the media agency’s latest Advertising Expenditure Forecasts, the UK is expected to remain fourth on the list of the world’s top ten ad markets in 2020, despite ongoing economic uncertainty over Brexit. Ad spend in the UK was £24.21 bn last year, the report said, and this is forecast to grow to £26.07 bn by 2020.

However, time to purchase is faster for shoppers who use Google search and buy on a marketplace other than Amazon, on average; while 35% of Google searches, and less than 20% of Amazon searches led, to a transaction within five days.

READ NOW

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THIS THIS QUARTER QUARTER IN IN SOCIAL SOCIAL

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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.

TWITTER BRINGS BACK CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINES

FACEBOOK BEATS TWITTER AT FIGHTING FAKE NEWS

For those out there like me that use Twitter as a rolling (live) news feed and not as a forum for discussion, the latest change is a welcome addition. Twitter users can now opt-out of the algorithm that displays what the platform thinks are the most relevant tweets to the user.

Tweets will now be displayed in chronological order and this may be of some concern for the for advertisers who will have to see how it impacts their visibility on the platform.

A new study from authors at Stanford University and New York University, has analysed the performance of stories posted on fake news sites from January 2015 to July 2018.

Announcing the change on their “show the best Tweets first” setting so that when it was turned off, the user would only see tweets from followed accounts displayed in reverse chronological order. Previously, when the setting was turned off, Twitter would still display missed tweets, tweets from recommended accounts and a not exactly “pure” chronological timeline.

FACEBOOK ANNOUNCES STORIES ADS Following the launch of Instagram stories ads last year, Facebook is to follow suit with the same offering for advertisers. The format supports every objective that’s currently available for Instagram stories ads, including reach, brand awareness, video views, app install, conversion, traffic and lead generation. Facebook’s full suite of targeting and measurement capabilities is also available for stories ads across platforms.

According to Facebook, 68% of people say they use stories on at least three apps regularly, and 63% plan to use stories more in the future.

Authors Hunt Allcott, Matthew Getzkow, and Chuan Yu assembled a list of 570 sites that had been identified as peddlers of false stories in previous stories. It then measured engagements for a range of publishers — big mainstream ones, small mainstream ones, and niche business culture sites, alongside the fake ones.

Here they describe the key findings: “The results show that interactions with the fake news sites in our database rose steadily on both Facebook and Twitter from early 2015 to the months just after the 2016 election. Interactions then declined by more than half on Facebook, while they continued to rise on Twitter.

“The ratio of Facebook engagements to Twitter shares was roughly steady at around 40:1 from the beginning of our period to late 2016, then fell to roughly 15:1 by the end of our sample period. In contrast, interactions with major news sites, small news sites, and business and culture sites have all remained relatively stable over time, and have followed similar trends on Facebook and Twitter both before and after the 2016 election. While this evidence is far from definitive, we see it as consistent with the view that the overall magnitude of the misinformation problem may have declined, at least temporarily, and that efforts by Facebook following the 2016 election to limit the diffusion of misinformation may have had a meaningful impact.”

Consumers nervous about brands using GPS data Just 20% of people in general say they’re comfortable with the idea of brands using GPS data from their phones to target them, but when faced with more practical scenarios of how this would work the response is much more positive.

For example, 43% of people said location-based communications is helpful if it comes from a shop they already use. The findings come from Mindshare Futures’ Location Matters report.

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THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

HAVE YOU TRIED FACEBOOK’S 3D PICTURES? You might have seen a few brands or individuals testing this new feature out this month, and we feel it is very effective for markets, 3D pictures on your timeline. It’s not available to everyone at the moment, but if you are one of the lucky ones it’s been rolled out to, and you have a iPhone with dual cameras (anything after iPhone 7 will work), then you are able to create these.

3D photos draw from the depth map that is automatically created using the dual cameras and creates a 3D rendering that moves as the user scrolls and moves their mobile device whilst viewing it on Facebook. Some advice from Facebook… make sure the photo is about 3 feet away, think about the contrast and use texture such as straight edges. We can’t wait to see how brands and influencers will utilise this feature.

MAJOR ADVANCEMENTS TO PERISCOPE’S LIVE STREAMING As you’ll know, the majority of live streams through Twitter are with third party app, Periscope, and they’ve released a whole load of new updates with their latest release. So what’s included? Well, they’re really focused on the stream replays part of their function, allowing for broadcasters to create more shareable assets once the stream has been completed.

Broadcasters and social media managers alike can now edit the thumbnail to their creation, which can show off the best part of their stream. The thumbnail previously was aut-picked by Periscope, with no control over what is picked. There’s also now the option to edit titles afterwards, which is great for search marketing purposes (include those keywords!) and to avoid any spelling mistakes. Lastly, you can now set a custom start spot, so if the video is over an hour long, and you want to showcase a specific part when sharing, then you can pick a custom start spot for this.

FACEBOOK UPDATES BRANDED CONTENT FEATURE To coincide with Facebook expanding it’s ‘Brand Collabs Manager’ to several new countries, the social network has updated its branded content feature. You’ll recognise this when brands or influencers are working together

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and promoting posts it will say “Paid”, well this will now read “Paid Partnership” and they’re adding a “About this Partnership” icon for users to gain more information on where it has come from, and information on the pages involved in the partnership.

The second update involves those pages and brands that have partnerships with other pages or influencers, but without payment. They are currently rolling out the option to tag another page in their post (as a partnership), which is only available for paid partnerships at the current moment.

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

FACEBOOK PAGES CAN NOW JOIN GROUPS Great news for those running a Facebook page and wanting to push it further, Facebook has now introduced the option to join in with groups as the brand page. What does this mean for social media marketers then? Well, there’s plenty of groups out there which might talk about your brand or industry, so now you can get involved with the conversations, which is great for brand awareness on the social channel.

Until now, it was only individuals that were able to join groups, but now the new function is being tested, with many group admins noticing the option in their settings.

This is a great opportunity to get involved with a variety of communities. Facebook have confirmed the new feature, saying: “We’ve heard from people that engaging with public figures, non-profits, publishers, and businesses in a more intimate setting can be meaningful”. If you’re managing a brand’s Facebook page, give it a go.

LINKEDIN ANNOUNCE NEW LINKEDIN PAGES LinkedIn has announced the roll-out of a new interface to LinkedIn Pages.

Pages have been rebuilt from the ground up to make it easier for brands, institutions and organisations, from small businesses to large enterprises, to foster

constructive conversations with LinkedIn’s community of more than 590 million members and 30 million Pages.

According to the network: “Our new Pages experience is built to foster active communities and conversations on LinkedIn with a company’s employees, customers and followers.

“Pages are designed to help organizations authentically connect with members, grow their business and build lasting connections. To achieve this goal, Pages are built atop three key pillars: ·

Joining conversations

·

Growing your audience

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Engaging with ‘your’ people – (employees)

“We have started rolling out the new Pages experience in the US and will make it available to all business worldwide soon.”

TWITTER WANTS YOU TO WATCH LIVE BROADCASTS It’s no secret that Twitter has recently been expanding its live stream offerings, with the launch of audioonly broadcasting through Periscope, but it now wants to focus on getting people watching and listening to these live broadcasts through the channel.

So what is it doing to get these in front of people? It’s introducing new stream notifications at the top of users’ timelines, making it easier to get involved with these broadcasts.

The notification comes in the form of a highlight at the top of the feed, which will undoubtedly get more people watching. Have you noticed these on Twitter yet?

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito. - African Proverb

WE’RE ONLY GETTIN 16

FROM OUR EXPERTS

Design is powerful, it has an impact that goes beyond just aesthetics.

Making something look good and designing something aren’t the same thing, design solves a much bigger problem, it has the ability to evoke emotion, to tell a story, push boundaries and drive meaningful change.

This year’s Design Manchester conference celebrated the creative noise makers in the industry - those whose work influences and inspires others and which has transformed the current global climate. This is done by sharing their message through design at the event.

A fast growing trend following the political climate of recent years sees brands taking a stand with campaigns that make noise on current issues across the globe.

A recent example is the festive Iceland advert which features an animated film showing the destruction of animal habitats for the harvesting of palm oil. The ad caused uproar on social media when the governing body did not approve the ad for broadcast, saying that it had too much of a political agenda. Aside from the beautiful illustrated animations and story, this disruption caused the ad to see a huge amount of media coverage and be shared across the internet.

In a time of global turmoil, brands have a great power to make an impact by disrupting the normal and getting people involved in making a difference.

Y NG LOUDER The daylong conference showed us just how important the role designers and creatives play in making an impact is and how designers can continue to think differently in the future.

WHAT DOES 2019 HOLD FOR DESIGN?

Nowadays a brand is not simply just a logo, it is a communication of the brands identity at every touch point across all platforms. Brands are finding new ways to stand out from the crowd and express their personality through a whole user experience where the content does the talking and creates meaningful connections and interactions between the brand and consumer.

Heading into 2019 we have seen technological advancements leading the way in how we can use design and we are seeing the two come together like never before.

This means smarter websites and apps and the use of virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and 3D becoming more prominent.

Combine these with bold and bright design and vivid dreamy gradients the coming year will transport us into a mesmerising future world.

BY CHLOE RIDGWAY

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

A graduate with a first class honours in graphic design, Chloe was YCN Award overall winner in 2015 and her strengths include illustration, Photoshop and idea generation.

Chloe discusses three ways that she keeps creative in her day to day. She talks about what it is like being on the design team at Click Consult and why she loves being in the creative industry.

Her three tips were: Tip 1 Always strive to learn and improve your skills.

Tip 2 Don’t compare yourself to others – but take inspiration from creative work that you admire.

Tip 3 Always be open try something new

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

2019

2019 Launch - Coming Soon!

Hilton Manchester Deansgate September 2019 Previous speakers include representatives from:

To find out more - visit the Benchmark Website

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UNDERSTANDING GOOGLE’S QUALITY RATER GUIDELINES

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101 ABOUT OUR EXPERT - CHLOIE BRANDRICK With more than 20 years’ experience as a B2B copywriter, journalist, and social media and content marketer, Chloie has a track record of developing powerful, engaging content for a wide range of industries, audiences and channels, both print and online. Chloie’s role in the Marketing Team sees her creating content marketing assets, blogging, and inbound marketing, as well as managing Click’s social media accounts and quality control processes for copy.

Keeping an eye on Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines is really important if you want your website to perform well on search engines results pages (SERPs) and to help visitors convert.

Content marketing campaigns using a mixture of offpage content, outreach and social media are high on the agenda of most marketers looking to increase brand exposure and their search engine visibility. But neglecting on-page content can hit your rankings – something Google underlines with a recent update to its Quality Rater Guidelines to emphasise the importance of ‘EAT’: • • •

Expertise Authority Trustworthiness

In fact, several references to “high quality” were updated to refer instead to “high EAT”.

The massive 164-page document outlines what Google is looking for in quality websites, and gives detailed instructions to the team of 10,000 people who manually evaluate the quality and value of websites that appear in search results, and whose feedback helps to hone Google’s algorithm.

The basic purpose of the Quality Rater Guidelines is to ensure good content does well and low quality, spammy content doesn’t.

The main thrust of the update is that Google wants its raters to not only look at the quality of a website’s content, but also the quality and authority of the people who write it.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO ENSURE YOUR SITE DEMONSTRATES EAT? Demonstrate your writers’ credibility One of the key things you can do is make sure that the people who are writing the content on your site are credible sources and if they’ve got relevant experience and qualifications, make sure they’re mentioned on your site.

You should also use author pages on your site detailing their areas of expertise and links to their social profiles where appropriate.

It’s also a good idea to encourage your writers to contribute to leading blogs within your industry and niche to help establish them as an expert. This can help your website to rank as you’ll be seen as having writers who really know their stuff.

When bad content happens to good marketers Other small updates to the Google Rater Guidelines: AVOID CLICKBAIT Google is following Facebook’s lead in cracking down on sensationalistic headlines – stick to the facts and avoid misleading ‘clickbait’.

MEET USER INTENT Make sure your content caters for your users’ needs and answers their questions clearly and in-depth. If your answer is only 200 words, but you really need 1,000 words to give a complete and thorough answer then it may need fleshing out (obviously, without waffle or keyword stuffing).

For example if you’re trying to rank for “how to make pancakes” the user is probably expecting step-bystep instructions, such as a video or written recipe, on what actions they need to take. If you don’t go into the expected level detail, the user’s needs aren’t served, so you’re unlikely to rank as well. So understanding how content needs to meet specific needs and tailoring for user intent isn’t just about keywords; you need to be strategic and this involves defining what you want to achieve, and knowing your market and your audience inside-out.

DON’T STUFF YOUR SITE WITH ADS Our SEOs have seen sites struggle in rankings because of this. It slows down your site, which doesn’t make for a great user experience, and it also sends a signal to Google that you’re more concerned about monetising your site than about serving the user. Keep ads minimal.

DON’T LOOK FOR SHORTCUTS It’s the general ethos of the Search Quality Guidelines that you should focus on building quality over time to continue to build your website’s value to users and reap the benefits in terms of growing your search visibility and site performance.

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

HAS THE LATEST EAT UPDATE GIVEN YOU INDIGESTION? 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.

Early indications suggest Google is rewarding sites that adhere to its Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness (E-A-T), guidelines. Google has said it is among its top three considerations for Page Quality. With this in mind it seems only fair to ask; “Has the latest EAT. update given you indigestion?”

If it has then carry on reading but if hasn’t then you are clearly undertaking the correct steps which should have been part of your ongoing strategy for the past couple of years.

There have been numerous signals given by Google over the past couple of years on what Google wants their users to see and what signals sites should be providing which Google will then subsequently return in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Each ‘broad algorithm update’ is looking to improve the

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user experience of Google’s users and return the most appropriate results – obviously!

These updates will happen several times a year now, so if you have been affected then ensure you are taking immediate action!!

FROM OUR EXPERTS

THE EAT UPDATE So this update took hold in early August, it was quickly labelled as the ‘Medic’ Update by Barry Schwartz as Moz’s, and other, tools were picking up that ‘Health’ terms were the most affected.

But as the roll out continued it came more commonly known as the EAT update, which is looking at the expertise, authoritative and trustworthiness of sites.

This down to the user’s perception of a site’s overall value, as well as being able to instantly tell the content is from a reputable source, making it more likely to be trusted and shared.

But this update shouldn’t have come as any surprise to anyone in the industry; Google informed everyone that

This data, along with the Moz data, was telling us that there is a greater emphasis on the quality of YMYL sites, ie, those that demand a high degree of trust as they could impact a user’s life, and therefore are held to highest standard by Google.

If these pages could negatively affect a user’s health, happiness or financial stability, they will rank less well. All shopping sites fall under this category. If a rater wouldn’t buy from, or submit personal info to, your site, it’s unlikely to rank well.

updates are happening this year – Quality, Mobile and Speed are all different elements Google has thrown at us just in 2018 alone.

The fact that Google updated their Google Rater Guidelines in the middle of July was a big signal and historically once they have amended these then the roll out usually happens soon after.

These guidelines of course mentions expertise, authoritive and trustworthy as a signifier of good quality content and in particular query the Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) elements.

This update was a big one as well and it soon became clear that more sites were affected, rather than just the medical terms.

Let’s be clear here, Google doesn’t actually define clear examples of what they are looking for when it comes to EAT, however the data and the sites which are affected does build a picture in order to steer a strategy (or give approval to your current SEO strategy should you have benefited from this update).

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

STILL ONGOING? The Mozcast chart is still in a highly fluctuated state which suggests that this is still being rolled out.

Everything that Google is telling us is that ‘Machine Learning’ is now a key part of these algorithmic updates and tied into this was the reports that the update pushed a large amount of spam like websites (especially around terms such as “Buy Viagra”) up into the SERPs.

CONTENT The signals and data which we are reviewing suggests that Google has significantly tweaked the ranking factors for YMYL content.

So the likelihood that the changes we are seeing now are either a mini roll back or rectifying the SERPs manually to assist with “Machine Learning” in the future.

Not that you wouldn’t anyway but I would keep a closer than normal eye on your organic data is Google Analytics, just to be on top of this update.

Google certainly doesn’t want to be returning serving inaccurate or misinformed content around the YMYL topics as this could have significant consequences for Google’s users if they follow the given advice.

But you are already looking after your on page content since Panda, right?!?!

Poor information, especially around health is a high risk for Google which they have appeared to stem by implementing this update.

This update aligns itself with the ranking shifts within health and legal sectors, but also the changes in finance rankings which other tools picked up on.

A good health example of this is the NHS, which in searchmetrics saw a significant increase form this update

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

SO HOW DO WE RECOVER? Sites which have seen the most benefit have been those which serve informational content, but anyone can create the great content – that is correct.

SEO strategies are now a lot more detailed and cover a variety of subjects and shouldn’t be solely down to just one area, as you never know what Google is going to throw at you next and give you further digestion.

Part of the trustworthy element of EAT would be how well your link profile is set up in passing through authority to these pages.

This, I believe, will now be the main part of ranking within the SERP’s – good content and good links, easy right!! eCommerce sites that provided information around “Buy Viagra” at first saw positive spikes but this has subsequently been amended, and was in line with the data first seen at the start of August – but these sites were deemed ‘spammy’ by many and have subsequently fallen back.

Your on page strategy for the past year or so should have been around creating unique and informational content, something which I have stressed many times to my clients.

Overall your SEO strategy should have many arms to it that covers a users experience on your site.

So: • • • • •

Is it quick? (Speed Update July 2018) Is it mobile friendly? (Mobile update Early 2018 and still rolling out) Does it have good quality pages (E.A.T update and beyond) Look at who is around you and how their content is laid out and what they are saying.

A small tip is to look at sites which perform well that have a lower DA (than your site) as Google clearly likes the content.

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The road to SEO success in 2019...

BUSINESSES ARE CONSTANTLY TWEAKING THEIR SEARCH MARKETING STRATEGIES AND SO THEY SHOULD BE…

Here at Click Consult, we’ve spent a huge amount of time preparing clients for the future and the following infographic highlights the considerations that you should be making on your journey to SEO success in 2019.

IT’S ALL ABOUT EAT

(EXPERTISE, AUTHORITY AND TRUSTWORTHINESS) Google has a huge team of human contractors (Google Quality Raters) checking webpages against queries to ensure good content ranks well and low quality, spammy content doesn’t. It provides these raters with a detailed set of instructions so make sure that you are abiding to their guidelines. Remember also to demonstrate EAT beyond your own webpages.

GOOGLE FOCUSES ON AUTHORITY Users should be able to instantly tell the content is from a reputable source. While you don’t need an author bio for every page (for example, product pages), but your 'About' page should talk about the EAT of your authors.

IT’S ‘YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE’ Google classes YMYL (‘your money or your life’) sites as those that could affect a user’s health, happiness or financial stability, and holds them to a higher standard of quality. It is therefore vital that you keep readers updated with the latest news if your content fits this profile.

NATURAL PAID LINKS We always hear how paid-for links are bad, but links which have a barrier to entry can add credibility. For example, you have to pay to become a member of a chamber of commerce, but they will still vet the sites they link to for quality, so payment does not automatically guarantee a link.

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UTILISE SEED SITES Authoritative sites are more likely to obtain links from trusted seed sites, such as universities and government organisations, and national and international press sites with high readerships. Make your site stand out and become a voice for your industry.

THE CIRCLE OF TRUST Look at your competitors and pay attention to their backlinks.

Are they getting more links from reputable sites? Do they have more authority? Are you in the ‘circle of trust’? This is something to focus on in 2019 or risk falling behind.

MATCH CONTENT TO SEARCHER INTENT Google now has the ability to identify the context and intent behind each search, and return specific, personalised results.

Check your queries in Google Search Console. If they don't match the content you actually have on your site, this can cause quality issues.

NO SURPRISES Google is cracking down on sites that mislead the public.

Offer the best possible user experience (UX) by optimising your content to make sure it is highly relevant.

SPEAK UP Speakable markup is already available in the US and will roll out globally over the next few months so making sure you are ready to optimise for voice search is a must.

IMAGE SEARCH 27% of all searches across ten major properties are for images and with Google beginning to roll out the ability to search Google Image results on mobile, it’s time to get savvy about optimising your images.

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

MIND THE THE IMPORTANCE OF A CONTENT GAP ANALYSIS One of the things that we have covered in detail over the last few months has been the importance of conducting a regular gap analysis on your content – we get asked about it so often we’ve even released an eBook dedicated to the subject!

SO WHAT IS A GAP ANALYSIS, WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT AND HOW DO YOU GET STARTED? A gap analysis is the method of assessing and understanding whether or not a business’ objectives are being met and, if not, the tactics that will need to be employed to ensure that they are. The ‘gap’ is the space between where a business currently sits and where they want to be within a certain time-frame.

In some circles, a gap analysis may also be referred to as a ‘needs analysis’, ‘needs assessment’ or ‘need-gap analysis’.

For the purposes of SEO, however, a gap analysis looks at several things: - Missing content - Undiscovered topics - Undiscovered keywords - Content your competitors are targeting - New industry developments - New product information

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SO WHAT CAN YOU CHANGE? With testing, and a trial and error approach, playing such a vital role in a gap analysis, you need to ensure that your planning is prepared properly and that you can adapt your strategy as and when you need to. The following Five tips will help your discovery phase and can lead you to a successful gap analysis.

1. IDENTIFY WHAT YOU PLAN TO ACCOMPLISH The reason you started your gap analysis is because you are trying to improve something. That could be a better ROI, more sessions, an expanded audience or overall business growth. Many of these things lead to another and all play a part in a business’s strategy. One of the most important questions to ask yourself is whether or not you have noticed a business decline or an acceleration from one or more of your market rivals.

You can also ask the following questions: - What are the objectives you are trying to achieve?

- Is your content not showing up for relevant queries?

- Is it not ranking high enough or bringing you non- converting traffic?

2. ANALYSE EXISTING CONTENT For each objective, specify what the current situation is after looking at data. If you need additional information, list the resources or help you need to proceed. Visualise the result as this is always the best way to see trends.

Compare your content performance to that of your competition. If they are doing better than you, get some ideas why and how to catch up to them.

FROM OUR EXPERTS

GAP 3. LIST YOUR KEYWORDS Keywords are vital, they are the terms you want to rank for in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and the terms that ultimately help your content rank well.

You should have an active list of keywords that you monitor. These should be a list of those you are ranking for already and those based on either new product or services that you offer as well as those of your competitors – leading us on nicely to point four.

4. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS Perhaps the most important aspect of a content gap analysis is understanding and utilising the keywords for which your competitors rank. The first step is to discover which keywords your competitors rank for, but you do not. This data will give you great examples of potential keywords that could be valuable to your business and the types of content your competitors are using to rank for those keywords.

The second stage is to look at the long tail terms that they are targeting moving forward. These are the terms with less traffic but that could be useful to target as the business expands.

5. BUILD A CONTENT STRATEGY The next step is to create a tactical plan to bridge the gap and reach your goals. This should be a mix of the first four points with a special focus on the keywords. Build an achievable plan in terms of how many pieces of content you are able to produce and look at where and when you will publish them. You can also add in things such as a social media plan and some external link building.

These five points skim over the content gap analysis and as it is such an importance tool for growth, we have produced a comprehensive eBook which can be downloaded here.

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

3 REASONS YOU SHOULD BE DOING CONTENT MARKETING IN 2019

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

Content marketing is a very general term that can be used to refer to many individual areas, from digital PR to the creation of blog content. Put simply, it is the creation of content that is shared online using a variety of marketing channels and assets. However, it can be so much more than this. Here are three ways content marketing can be useful for your business.

ABOUT OUR EXPERT SOPHIE EDWARDS Sophie has worked for Click since 2016, working on award-winning campaigns as part of the content marketing team.

Sophie has a First Class BA (Hons) Degree in Marketing with Tourism from the University of Chester, and a Diploma in Travel and Tourism during which time she won the Student of the Year Award.

1. STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD In a world where almost everything is online, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd and that is where content marketing comes in. The aim is to provide content that is useful to the user so that people want to share and engage with your brand and in many cases this means staying away from branded content that looks to sell.

It’s important to consider what your target audience wants to know or talk about, this information can be found on platforms that are probably already used by your business such as social media or social news aggregators.

2. BRAND IDENTITY Initial thoughts are that content marketing does not benefit a business instantly or directly however it can help build relationships and loyalty. This is developed over time and whilst users are engaging, they are also

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

acknowledging your brand and you are creating a persona, providing an emotional aspect that the user can relate to in a digital landscape.

So, the next time potential customers look for answers or need a certain product your brand will be there in the forefront of their minds ready to assist and provide the answer.

3. LEARN ABOUT YOUR TARGET MARKET Understanding consumers wants and needs can sometimes be baffling, especially at the pace they change today, so running content marketing campaigns means you are always monitoring your target audience’s interests. Ultimately, providing a deeper understanding of your market, which can be useful when looking to expand or change your product offering.

However, content marketing is experimental so not every creation will be a success, but you can learn from this. It is all about the research, talking to your users, experimenting with mini campaigns, and learning from experiences. Analysing the performance of a digital campaign is much easier than a traditional marketing campaign, if you choose your platforms wisely.

Just like most elements of marketing, nothing stays the same for long, so how do we expect content marketing to grow in 2019?

2019 CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS As we learnt at the Benchmark Search Conference this year, we are now in the age of assistance and so the content we produce may see a change in 2019. Providing content that answers a question for the audience will meet the need for assistance, whilst also positioning your brand as thought leader in the industry.

During 2016, there was an 80% increase in live videos viewed online, and in 2018, 78% of people watch videos online every week, and 55% every day. With video playing such a big part in daily life written content alone just won’t cut it – it is time to use video to share content, of course written content still has its place, and it’s important to accompany any video with some optimised text.

Authenticity plays a big part in marketing today with consumers wanting to know where, when, and how products are made. When it comes to content marketing, authenticity can come into play with the type of content you create and the way that it is shared.

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GOOGLE’S NEW EXPANDED TEXT AD FORMAT ABOUT OUR EXPERT - ANDREEA GHEORGHE Andreea has a First Class degree in Film Studies and Economics from the University of Liverpool, where her favourite modules included mathematics for economics and business, statistics and Spanish and Latin American cinemas. In her free time, she blogs about the Eurovision Song Contest and gets involved in the Merseyside filmmaking community.

Following the introduction of responsive search ads in beta, Google announced that expanded text ads are also undergoing important changes. Extra headline, longer descriptions and main advantages – the PPC team at Click Consult have got it all covered for you!

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

WHAT ARE EXPANDED TEXT ADS? The new expanded text ads were introduced at the end of August and have one more headline and one more description line than the standard expanded text ads. As a result, the new ad format will give you the opportunity to show up to three headlines and up to two descriptions.

The headlines will be of the same length as before (30 characters per headline), while the length of the descriptions will increase from 80 to 90 characters each.

Overall, the new expanded text ads can have a maximum length of 300 characters.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN ADVANTAGES OF USING THE EXPANDED TEXT ADS? Firstly, the additional third headline and second description offer advertisers more space to show their message, therefore helping towards improving the ad’s visibility.

Secondly, more space means more opportunities to make the ad’s message more relevant, allowing you to differentiate yourself from competitors, and include more information about your business, products and/or services. What does this mean? An improved chance of increasing your click through rate and Ad Rank. However, since the third headline and second description might not always show up on smaller screens, we recommend you test different versions and include business specific information, but not essential information that might not be shown in the end.

NEW EXPANDED TEXT ADS VERSUS RESPONSIVE SEARCH ADS Since the new expanded text ads and responsive search ads have similar structure, and the same ad components and character limits, one might wonder what the main differences are and which type would suit one’s advertising goals better.

Responsive Search Ads will give you the opportunity to write up to fifteen different headlines and up to four descriptions, and Google Ads will then test different headline and description combinations in order to provide the most relevant ad to customers. This ad format will therefore be suited for advertisers who are looking for a

large amount of flexibility. Using Responsive Search Ads also ensures that your ads will show up in more relevant searches.

If you are looking for more control over the message you want to send across to your audiences, the new expanded text ads may be the right choice for you.

Because the text and the exact order are ultimately chosen by the advertiser and not by Google’s advanced machine learning algorithms, the new expanded text ads will give you the perfect opportunity to make use of the additional character space, while being in control of how your ads show up on the results page.

WHAT NEXT? As the new expanded text ads are a very new ad format, the PPC team at Click Consult suggest that you make full use of this new opportunity, but regularly monitor the performance and status of your new ads in order to make the most out of them!

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

CROSS DEVICE BROWSING AND USER-ID IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS 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.

We all know the importance of having a fully optimised website and the role this has on building a positive user experience (UX). However, with mobile search overtaking desktop and becoming the number one method of search it is especially important

With that in mind, we thought it best to look at cross device browsing, how the user interprets their experience of your site in terms of its value to them and the ways in which businesses can track their activity via the “User ID� features in Google Analytics.

WHAT IS CROSS DEVICE BROWSING? Cross device browsing relates directly to the method with which a user searches. This could be on desktop, mobile or tablet and, in recent years, the technology has been developed to include voice search. The key for businesses is not necessarily where the user looks for the information, but that they are directed to the appropriate site or page and that the experience is the same on all devices.

In order to get the most from their audience and to attract and retain new customers, businesses have to constantly test their platforms to ensure they are offering the best possible performance. With that in mind, it is vital to understand where the traffic is coming from and for businesses to have full tracking in place so that they are best serving their audience.

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WHAT IS CROSS DEVICE TRACKING? Cross device tracking refers to technology which enables tracking of logged in or registered users across multiple devices. Though this sort of tracking has privacy implications, it allows for more detailed tracking of users than traditional methods.

Under the latest GDPR (general data protection regulations), data can be collected from multiple devices used by a single user and correlated to form a more accurate picture of the person being tracked. This is the reason why businesses are now putting cookies on their websites and have been scrambling to reconfirm permissions.

The regulations mean that businesses also have to focus on performance. Cross device tracking helps with this as it identifies which channels are most successful in helping convert browsers into buyers.

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

UNDERSTANDING THE BENEFITS OF USER ID AND TRACKING One of the best tools for looking at where your traffic is coming from and how to best monitor the performance of your traffic, is Google Analytics, specifically the “User-ID” feature.

“User ID” lets you connect multiple devices, sessions, and engagement data to the same users.

According to Google webmasters:

“The User-ID feature allows you to associate a persistent ID for a single user with that user’s engagement data from one or more sessions initiated from one or more devices.

“Analytics interprets each unique user ID as a separate user, which provides a more accurate user count in your reports.

“When you send Analytics an ID and related data from multiple sessions, your reports tell a more unified, holistic story about a user’s relationship with your business.”

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

There are four main benefits when it comes to using the User-ID feature. They are: MORE ACCURATE USER COUNTS In order to truly understand your audience you want to have the most relevant data to hand. Currently there are not many analytics platforms that can identify unique users across multiple devices or sessions. User-ID allows you full visibility each time someone switches to a different device or starts a new session.

Historically if the same person was engaging with your content on a phone and a tablet and logs in for two sessions they were counted as two users.

User-ID can associate multiple sessions (and any activity within those sessions) with a unique ID. When you send a unique ID and any related engagement data to Analytics, all activity is attributed to one user in your reports. Because every unique user ID is considered to be a unique user in your Analytics reports, you get more accurate user data that better reflects the real world.

USER EXPERIENCE (UX) ANALYSIS This feature allows you to implement User-ID in conjunction with your authentication system, so that a unique (signed in) ID is sent to Analytics. Any activity that happens when an account is signed-in can all be associated with that ID. Because signed-in users usually engage with your content more than users that don’t sign in, the User ID lets you segment this subset of your traffic in your Analytics reports.

ACCESS TO ADDITIONAL TOOLS AND METRICS When you set up User-ID, you can access User-ID reporting views and the Cross Device reports. A UserID view is a special reporting view that only displays data from sessions in which you send unique ID and related data to Analytics. A cross device reports gives you the tools to organise and gives a better idea of how seemingly unrelated touch points, sessions, and interactions are connected.

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FROM OUR EXPERTS

Google Webmasters give the following example:

“You might discover that one segment of users searches on a mobile device and purchases on a tablet within the same day, while another segment clicks an ad on a mobile device, browses your site on a desktop the next day, and returns to make a purchase on a tablet a week later.”

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Understanding exactly how this tool works gives you the full picture in terms of the customer journey.

Understand relationships between your acquisitions, engagement, and conversions – With data collected through User-ID, you can find and evaluate relationships between devices and engagement activities across multiple sessions, so you can better attribute acquisitions to conversions and see what your users do between action points. You can use this data to develop new kinds of marketing campaigns that are tailored to different device and engagement combinations, boosting UX.

BACK CATALOGUE

SEO IN 2019: 11 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW Using our experience, expertise and breadth of skills, we’ve put together this guide to 2019’s biggest organic search trends. It covers: •

What Google tells its Quality Raters to look for when reviewing a website

•

How off-site content affects the way Google perceives your reputation

•

Why backlinks are still important

•

How you can’t ignore voice and image search

Here are a couple of tasters: ALL online stores and news sites are classified as YMYL Google classes YMYL (‘your money or your life’) sites as those that could affect a user’s health, happiness or financial stability, and holds them to a higher standard of quality. It is therefore even more important to ensure content on these pages is updated regularly – and Google even wants to see a ‘last updated’ date.

The average human types at 40 words per minute, but talks at 130 words per minute No wonder voice search is on the rise. And this means you net to grips with structured data markup and schema extensions to help to propel your visibility above that of competitors by getting your webpage into ‘position 0’ in traditional search results (as long as the content our want to feature is also clear, brief and relevant). This is also likely to be where Google looks for the best answer to give in voice results – there is a definite correlation between voice search and position zero. Speakable markup is already available in the US and will roll out globally over the next few months.

Download ‘SEO in 2019: 11 Things You Need to Know’ to read all 11 tips each with links to actionable advice – and prepare yourself for your most successful year in search yet!

DOWNLOAD NOW

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“I’m sticking sticking to to my my “I’m guns, we’re still not there there yet, yet, and and not are unlikely to be, with voice voice search search with in 2019, but the need to to prepare prepare need is growing more urgent” urgent” - JOHN WARNER

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VOICE SEARCH IN 2019 ABOUT OUR EXPERT - JOHN WARNER Father of two, keen sitter in chairs and reader of books; John has a 2:1 degree in Literature and an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing. John is Hubspot accredited and Google Analytics and AdWords Certified, he joined Click in August of 2015.

To understand the importance of voice search to the future of a variety of industries you only need look at the amount of money that tech giants are throwing at it. Frankly, within search and digital marketing, there is a lot of noise about voice search – whether it’s the experts claiming that it’s the most important thing, or their counterparts declaiming it as an irrelevancy. I have written a few articles on the subject myself this year – though I’ve attempted to remain relatively neutral on the subject.

There is a real battle going on at the moment between several major tech companies for dominance in the digital assistant market (specifically in smart speakers) with everyone from Amazon to Yandex having a speaker on the market. While Alexa rules the roost at the moment, Google has, for the first time, succeeded in outselling Amazon with it’s Google Home since it went to market.

I find it odd that people believe that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and many other brands would compete so intensely for an automated Spotify player – especially as Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has explicitly stated that we

are entering the age of assistance. Yes, the technology isn’t perfect, and the age of assistance may take a little longer to begin impacting brands’ bottom lines, but it is definitely approaching.

One of the reasons I haven’t written a ‘put all your money in to voice search!’ article – something I might have been tempted to do (may have actually done, I have no idea) for mobile a few years ago – is that the technology still isn’t ready. The point at which it will be, however, is quickly approaching. The main issues for voice search are the following, and I hope to address each of them in turn – to the best of my abilities, at least: 1. It is a technology in its infancy that relies heavily on other technologies in their infancy 2. Nobody buys using voice search 3. I don’t, or don’t know anyone else, who uses it 4. It lacks sufficient comprehension

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1. IMMATURE TECHNOLOGY

2. NOBODY BUYS USING VOICE SEARCH

This is the main reason I’ve expressed doubts about the imminence of a voice search revolution – as the tweet above shows, the assistants are fallible (sometimes laughably so), but it’s not the assistants alone that have prevented what is likely to be the inevitable rise of voice.

In my opinion, for voice to be the force I think it will be, it will require a number of other technologies to reach maturity too. The nature of the technology at the moment is such that it is predominately suitable for basic query and response – so it should not come as any surprise that this is what it is used for.

This is, within a reasonable margin of error, true – hardly anyone has used voice to make a purchase, and most research suggests a distinct mistrust of spending anything more than a trivial amount even among those that do.

However, this was also the case for desktop computers, as it was for mobiles. It is also the case that more than 80% of smartphone shoppers have conducted a ‘near me’ voice search (Uberall) and 46% of voice search users search for local business daily (Bright Local).

However, once augmented reality (AR) technology (which has seen investment in the tens of billions from various companies), once wearables are less cumbersome and awful looking, and once machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) allow for more complex interaction with assistants, voice search is likely to completely replace the mobile handset as our primary interface with the web.

All of these technologies are in the process of their own mini-revolutions – and in the technology community, you’ll find similar back-and-forth arguments as to their particular usefulness – led by, often, the same companies that are investing in voice.

While I think a combination of these technologies will spell the end for mobile devices, it does not take all of these technologies to make voice search an incredibly important part of our lives and, therefore, of importance to the survival of brands. While I don’t see this great leap forward coming in 2019, I am much more confident that one or more of these technologies (AR, AI/ML, wearable tech) will combine with digital assistants to increase the prominence of voice in our lives.

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In this regard, I think the cynicism around voice is somewhat unwarranted – while point one may see a revolution in voice purchases, the amount that voice has to offer in terms of value for local businesses, FMCG, catering and other physical locations is being overlooked.

While direct voice to purchase may be negligible so far, the current state of the market so far can be seen as comparable to the initial preference for ROPO (research online, purchase offline) that was typical at the dawn of eCommerce.

What is missing, so far, is trust – but this will come through exposure and, again, through advances in the technology.

As we become familiar with our digital assistants, we’ll begin to trust them – especially as they begin to handle more complicated tasks on our behalf.

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3. NO ONE REALLY USES VOICE

DIGITAL ASSISTANTS ARE STUPID

This is an understandable concern – especially for those of us that were not raised in the presence of Siri or Alexa – but that doesn’t change the fact that of the approaching four billion searches a day, 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 – or almost 500 million). I think a lot of those concerns around use of voice relate to point two – the lack of definitive link to purchase.

The key to the success of voice is its ability to reduce friction in various interactions – whether commercial, social or for work – and one of the barriers to this is that, frankly, digital assistants are idiots with an encyclopedia.

They are increasingly capable, but you would likely trust a child more than a digital assistant with many of the jobs that they will inevitably be tasked with. Again, this relates to point one – the technology is not up to the job. However, if you’ve watched the YouTube video embedded above, even if we assume an element of exaggeration (which is likely), the technology is definitely developing.

What history has taught us, however, is that very little that is useful remains unused. If something can prove itself to be better than the device, service or approach it looks to replace, it will eventually replace it. My children will undoubtedly feel differently to me when they consider voice technology – while I am still deeply embarrassed to the point of apologetic when speaking to a machine, my children have been using the Google Assistant since it was able to recognise their speech.

Google is ploughing money in to artificial intelligence, as are Microsoft – and it’s unlikely that Cortana and the Google Assistant are going to be deprived of any advances that result from that research. While AI is a little way off in its truest sense – artificial general intelligence (AGI), or strong AI – the fully conversational, indistinguishable from sentient machine intelligence; artificial narrow intelligence, or weak AI is already present and capable of increasingly impressive feats. It is the latter kind that defeated the champion Go! player, that already powers Siri and others and is most likely in charge of at least part of Google search and in its campaign to be an Answer Engine.

While digital assistants are pretty stupid – they are particularly narrow AIs – they’re getting better all the time and as they get smarter, we’ll be increasingly trust them to handle certain tasks, make recommendations (as we do with Netflix in a more narrow sense) and they, and voice search, will increasingly become the next technology that we will not be able to do without.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PREPARE

While the above stats refer specifically to the US, the stats (which I can’t seem to lay my hands on at the moment) for the global market are similar. The use of voice is far more prevalent in the generation that came of age around the time that the various digital assistants were making their presence felt – and the next generation will almost certainly use voice even more. Even the privacy concerns that plague smart speakers are, for better or worse, less prevalent in younger generations, with research showing that many young people are happy to sacrifice some privacy in the service of personalisation and usefulness.

The majority of the groundwork you can do revolves around making your content easier to parse for digital assistants. As Google moves to the Answer Engine model, there will be increasingly less focus on driving traffic to your website from search engine results pages (SERPs) and more on mining your site for content. In this regard, your efforts should be aimed toward ensuring that your site keeps ahead of the competition when it comes to structuring your data – and this is done through schema markup. While schema will be familiar to many in eCommerce, it is increasingly important that it is adopted by all industries – to ensure that you’re not left behind as voice increasingly impacts local and then all searches.

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BENCHMARK TALK

UNDERSTANDING ALEXA SKILLS: HOW TO ADD AMAZON’S MARKET-LEADING DEVICE INTO YOUR CURRENT AND FUTURE MARKETING STRATEGY

BY NICK WILSDON At our 4th annual Benchmark Search Conference Search Product Owner at Vodafone, Nick Wilsdon, talked about understanding Alexa Skills, and adding them to your marketing strategy to get ahead of the competition With nearly two decades worth of experience from across SEO and the digital markets, Nick was returning for his third Benchmark Search Conference, and who better to talk about the developments in mobile and voice search, and the progression of technology than a man working within the field everyday.

Nick started by explaining how he works right across the Vodafone group and his teams produce market insights for their audience which now stands at over 513 million users. Welcoming the audience Nick said: “I’m so excited about voice and I know there’s been a lot of hype around this. I want to give you a really practical insight on voice search, what we’ve been doing and what we’ve developed in terms of voice skill.”

To help paint a picture of the digital landscape and the ways in which voice search has crept into the market, Nick looked at three key areas. He looked at the main players in the voice market: Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft and looked at their ‘home’ voice devices, their operating platforms and the assistants on their mobile and voice activated platforms. He then reiterated the point that, with smartphone use at an all-time high and coverage so vast, most of the people in the room would have access to a voice operated device in their pocket.

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BENCHMARK TALK

Nick then asked the question, ‘So what are people doing on voice devices?’ he listed the following, paying particular focus to the last point: - Asking questions - Setting reminders - Syncing calendars - Controlling homes - Using skills and apps - Making a purchase He then told the audience to ‘think beyond’ mobile and voice devices, telling the crowd: “Think about all the devices, all the white goods that you have around your house. Think about Panasonic think about your fridge think about your cooker all these devices can have this technology built into them, so the idea of just telling me that there is a set speaker and that it is going to change dramatically over the next few years is crazy. This whole market can be shaken up completely so there’s really everything to play for.

“Bear in mind, however, that there is nearly 70% coverage in the US when it comes to Alexa and this is something that we are seeing here in the UK. That means if you are going to have a voice skill then using the Amazon products and Alexa is a good starting point.”

“This is what I wanted to speak about. Using Alexa skills to talk to apps. When you ask for an update on the weather, Alexa will now direct you to a specific app and answer the query that way. In essence it’s like a search engine; the best answer gets the top spot.

“At the end of last year we had 7000 voice skills and now we have over 30,000.”

Nick’s talk was, as always, one of the highlights from the conference and watching the above video is a must.

His 2018 talk covered: - The rise of voice skills - Will Amazon maintain market share?

- Aligning your featured snippets with voice - The language of Alexa - Phrase choices - The key to a good voice strategy - Podcasting and audio opportunities - And more…

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KNOWLEDGE BASE

KNOWLEDGE BASE – UNDERSTANDING BOUNCE RATE

BY SCOTT RUMSEY

W

hen it comes to a fully integrated search marketing strategy, businesses become obsessed with the numbers. They want to know where they rank for certain keywords, how many sessions their website is receiving and the number of social followers their accounts have All of these are important and in truth they all play a part in the wider picture which is increasing the return on investment (ROI). This metric is the most valuable and represents the end goal.

If the business makes money then it remains a business, if the ROI increases then revenue rises and that very same business then has the chance to grow.

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KNOWLEDGE BASE

But what about the other metrics and what about those which are often overlooked by marketers?

One such area that is neglected is bounce rate. This metric can give you the clearest indication that your strategy is working or not. So what is bounce rate and what changes can you make to improve your conversions?

WHAT IS BOUNCE RATE? In its simplest form, bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits or web sessions in which a person arrives at a landing page and then leaves without any further interaction.

leave. These reasons form a list of considerations for you to put in place in order to get a deeper understanding of why people might be leaving your content and ‘bouncing’. Here are the key considerations: USER INTENT This is search engine optimisation (SEO) in its rawest form. If the page that you direct a user to does

“Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.

“These single-page sessions have a session duration of zero seconds since there are no subsequent hits after the first one that would let Analytics calculate the length of the session.”

Webmasters at Google say: “A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session.”

not satisfy their query or the need then it is likely that they will leave. Make sure that you conduct the highest quality keyword research and that you are answering a direct set of queries.

IS A HIGH BOUNCE RATE ALWAYS BAD?

Remember here however that bounce rates may still be high if all of the information is on the same page and therefore satisfies the query. One thing that be done here is to set up subpages or links to wider reading.

Well there are two ways of looking at this. If you run a single page blog then a high bounce rate is no bad thing, in fact it’s expected. If however the homepage for your website is the gateway to other information and pages then a high bounce rate could be catastrophic.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT BOUNCE RATE? The majority of the information that you gain relating to bounce rate comes from Google Analytics (GA). You need to be able to understand user engagement, to find out what brings people to you and the reasons which they

TYPE OF WEBSITE As I mentioned earlier the type of website plays a huge part in the reason why users drop off a site. Single page websites could have 49

KNOWLEDGE BASE

a bounce rate of 100% and blogs also see a high bounce rate as it is viewed that the information needed will be on that page and there is no need to read on. Internal linking can solve this problem and may lead the user on to further reading.

Another consideration is that pages build with flash enable may show a high bounce rate, especially if you are not tracking them.

CONTACT PAGES Do not be alarmed by a high bounce rate on contact pages. These types of page fulfil a user’s need (usually) and there is no reason to continue browsing.

VISUALS A landing page littered with poor quality images , too much text, ad after ad after ad, or that doesn’t have a clear call to action (CTA) will see users leave quickly.

NEW VISITORS Those visitors to your site who are new would seem like the perfect audience, if everything on your landing page is relevant and well optimised then there is no

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reason they wouldn’t navigate to other pages. Be warned through, if they don’t see you are a relevant, reputable brand then they may leave.

QUALITY OF TRAFFIC This seems a pretty obvious reason why users may drop off your site. If the audience that you are targeting are the wrong sort of people then they are highly likely to see any benefit from navigating around the site.

MARKETING CHANNELS If you look at two of the main marketing channels, social media and organic search it is easy to see why there is a difference in bounce rates. A social post might draw a user in, but an organic search means that they are actually looking for you or your services in the first place.

If the latter is the case then they are more likely to stick around.

DEVICE TYPE This is one of the reasons for a high bounce rate that has increased in relevance over the last few years. The rise of smartphone and tablet use means that sites which are not fully optimised will give a negative user experience (UX) and therefore encourage higher bounce rates.

KNOWLEDGE BASE

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