SES Magazine February 2013

Sneak Preview

SES London

18–21 February 2013

SESConference.com

February 2012

Envisioning New Ways of Working and Living Speaking with Microsoft UK’s Dave Coplin 10 Predictions for SEO in 2013 6 Using hreflang for Multimarket Ecommerce 7 Measuring the Success of Your Content 10

staff

about SES

Matt McGowan MD, North America Mike Grehan Publisher Sharon Morabito Head of Events, Americas Ro Osborne Marketing Director, Americas Program Development Senior Conference ManageR Conference Producer

Laura Roth Anna Lee

Operations Senior Event Manager, UK Operations Executive, UK Customer Service Manager Customer Service EXECUTIVE

Steve Brown Nicola Aspell Charisse Rosales Amanda Targowski

ClickZ & Search Engine Watch special projects editor Copy Editor Asia Desk Editor

Melanie White Caitlin Rossman Adaline Lau

Sales & Marketing Sales Directors

Director, Client Services Head of Events Marketing, UK Marketing Manager, UK Marketing Manager, US Marketing Associate, US Web Designer Online Operations manager Online Operations associate

Elaine Mershon Elaine Romeo Peter Westerholm JoAnn Simonelli Sophie Eke Rosie Perkins Amy Xu Ploy Tangtrakul Rebecca Holz Louise Laberge Aleksey Gershin

In addition to the four-day learning environment, there will be many opportunities for informal networking throughout the conference. See you there!

Best regards, Mike Grehan, Chair SES Advisory Board Chair Publisher Incisive Media

Matt McGowan Managing Director, North America Incisive Media

SES Advisory Board

Magazine Editor Contributors

Welcome to the London issue of SES Magazine. SES London will consist of four days of unparalleled education in online marketing, including the latest techniques and trends in search, social media, display, mobile, email, and more. We’re pleased to have Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer for advertising and online at Microsoft UK, as keynote speaker. He will discuss how the Internet is becoming more about “doing” and less about “finding,” and how shifting to a more human, consumer-centered approach can increase customer satisfaction and brand relevance.

Several UK-based practitioners featured in this issue will be speaking at SES London.

Zazzle Media’s Simon Penson will discuss “Content-Driven SEO on a Shoestring.” Nichola Stott of The Media Flow will explore an earned-link strategy that combines technical tools, creative ideas, and client resources. Dave Naylor, SEO of Bronco, will provide a deep dive into SEO tools.

See pages 14–15 for sample sessions.

To make the most of your time in London, be sure to download the SES London app. The most up-to-date agenda can also be found on the conference website, SESLondon.com.

And don’t forget these upcoming events: •• SES New York, 25–28 March, New York Marriott Marquis (SESNewYork.com) •• SES Shanghai, 29–30 May (SESShanghai.com) •• SES Toronto, 12–14 June, Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre (SESToronto.com)

Dawn Cavalieri Dave Coplin Peter Handley Dave Naylor Simon Penson Nichola Stott Suren Ter-Saakov Bas van den Beld

Comprised of both industry thought leaders and real-world practitioners, the SES advisory board brings together top players in the field of interactive media and search. The team works to deliver continually cutting-edge search techniques, more integrated and relevant content, and professional development resources to SES attendees.

Mike Grehan, Chair PUBLISHER SES/Search Engine Watch/ ClickZ

Paul Fegan Head of e-Learning Incisive Media

Jon Myers VP, Commercial Director EMEA Marin Software

Matthew Bailey President Site Logic Marketing

Andrew Goodman President Page Zero Media

Lee Odden CEO TopRank Online Marketing

Chris Boggs CMO Internet Marketing Ninjas

Bill Hunt President Back Azimuth Consulting

Giovanni Rodriguez CoFounder and CEO SocialxDesign

To subscribe, contribute, or view past issues, visit www.sesconference.com/ses-magazine

Mikel Chertudi Sr. Director, Online & Demand Marketing Adobe

Anne F. Kennedy International Search Strategist Beyond Ink USA

Laura Roth Senior Conference ManageR SES Conference & Expo

To advertise, contact sales at sales@sesconference.com or +1 (212) 457-4993.

Eddie Choi Managing Director Frontiers Digital

Anna Lee Conference Producer SES Conference & Expo

Crispin Sheridan Sr. Director of Search Marketing Strategy SAP

Corporate Chief Executive Group Managing Director

Tim Weller James Hanbury

SES: Volume 7, Issue 1 | February 2013 © 2013 Incisive Media plc

Comments? Want to unsubscribe? E-mail us at magazine@sesconference.com Incisive Media, U.S. 55 Broad Street, 22nd fl.

New York, NY 10004-2501 tel +1 (646) 736-1888 fax +1 (646) 390-6612

Incisive Media, head office 28-29 Haymarket House London SW1Y 4RX, UK tel +44 (0)20 7316 9609 fax +44 (0)20 7930 2238

Bryan Eisenberg Bestselling Author bryaneisenberg.com

contents

Follow SES at twitter.com/SESConf

cover Story

1

Columns

Envisioning New Ways of Working and Living Speaking with Microsoft UK’s Dave Coplin

5

Marketing Using Influentials Reach Your Target Audience by Getting People They Trust to Like You

6

Predictions for SEO in 2013 High-Quality Content, Transparency, and Branded Domains Will Be More Important Than Ever

Conference Information

2 14

Sponsors & Exhibitors

7

Sample Sessions at SES London

Using hreflang for Multimarket Ecommerce Improve Your International Targeting with New, Region-Specific Code

February 2013

8

You Can’t Get Something for Nothing Earn Your Links by Intelligently Positioning Your Excellent Content

10

Measuring the Success of Your Content Customisable Reports and Secondary Metrics Can Help You Meet the Toughest Data Challenge of 2013

13

Revisiting the Past to Predict the Future View Your Competitors’ Past Trends to Anticipate Changes in Advertising and Traffic

Envisioning New Ways of Working and Living Speaking with Microsoft UK’s Dave Coplin interview by Dawn Cavalieri

T

he way we use technology is rapidly changing. No longer merely a place in which we look for information, the Internet is a web of knowledge, people, places, and relationships. Dave Coplin, Microsoft UK’s chief envisioning officer, advertising and online, is just the person to describe the potential inherent in this transformation. He took some time to speak with Dawn Cavalieri, editor of SES Magazine.

Dawn Cavalieri: You’ll be delivering the keynote at SES London. On what do you plan to focus during your session?

Dave Coplin: In our modern society, the role of technology is something of a paradox: to most consumers, technology is invisible (or at least it should be), yet to brands and businesses it has become a massive focus, an area where all can be won or lost.

Although technology will play a massive part in our future, the most complex and interesting part of the equation is how customers and consumers have changed and will continue to change in their use of it. We firmly believe that success will come to those brands and businesses that are able to successfully marry the changes in

technology with the changes in society, and focus on the outcomes that make the most sense for consumers based on the context that surrounds them.

The web is quietly, but quickly, undergoing a social revolution, blending the analogue and digital worlds to become even more powerful in the way we all live, work, and play.

Search is at the very heart of this change as the Internet evolves to be more about “doing” and less about “finding.” Understanding this change is crucial, not just for the satisfaction and welfare of consumers and customers, but equally for the success and relevance of brands and businesses. This session will uncover the challenges and opportunities we face as we move further into this new way of living and working. It will describe how shifting to a more human approach enables us to unlock the full potential of all that technology has to offer a modern society.

Dawn: You’re the chief envisioning officer, advertising and online, at Microsoft UK. De­scribe your role at the company. What does a “chief envisioning officer” do?

Dave: We’re a technology company, and one of the easiest things to do in a technology

company is to spend all your time focusing on technology and thinking about products.

Envisioning is the antidote for that: it takes us out of that cycle and helps us understand the human element of what we do. Understanding how people might use technology is really important, especially when we as people get locked into doing the same things over and over again because it’s what we’re used to. How many times do you hear “we’ve always done it that way”? For me, that’s not always a great answer. continues on page 9

sesconference.com • SES 1

sponsors & exhibitors SES London | 18–21 February 2013 Expo Hall Hours: Tuesday, 19 February, 10:00–6:30pm | Wednesday, 20 February, 10:00–3:15pm

PLatinum sponsor Marin Software Stand 11 www.marinsoftware.co.uk Marin Software provides a leading digital ad management platform. Global brands measure, manage, and optimise more than $4 billion in annualised ad investments on Marin. Offering an integrated platform for search, display, social, and mobile marketing, Marin helps advertisers and agencies improve financial performance, save time, and make better decisions. Headquartered in San Francisco, with offices worldwide, Marin’s technology powers marketing campaigns in more than 160 countries. For more information, please visit: http://www.marin software.co.uk.

sponsors & Exhibitors Adobe Keynote Sponsor www.adobe.com Adobe keeps your ad campaign on point, on time, and on budget.

Effective advertising starts with putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. Adobe® Media Optimizer, part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, gives you a single view across your media channels, so you know which placements and messages are producing the best results. What’s more, by giving you a precise forecast of how your advertising will perform, Adobe can help you make the most of every dollar in your budget.

Adthena Stand 13 www.adthena.co.uk Adthena is one of the UK’s most popular Competitor Search Intelligence Solutions.

Adthena’s Search Competitor Intelligence is unique—it finds all your competitors and all the keywords that are relevant to your marketplace. It not only reports on the competitors and keywords but also reacts to the fluidity of ranking, spend, share of voice, and all other PPC / SEO and SEM activity—giving you matchless power in your market.

So don’t fret; benchmark all your SEM campaigns with one complete tool and be the king of your market. For your free demo please request now, call us at +44 845 201 2211, or send a message at @adthena.

2 SES • February 2013 {London}

AuroIN LLC Stand 06 www.auroin.com AuroIN, a recognised organization in Internet marketing, has shown commendable advancements in the near future and brought forth heaps of changes in the general perceptions of people that the temple city of Bhubaneswar carried.

AuroIN visualized its dawn in the ideas of a person who showcased an unbeatable energy and chivalry to give his dreams an image, a physical existence that flaunts his undying efforts to bring about a change in the ongoing corporate scenario. This prestigious enterprise owes its every brick to the quick wit and strategic notions of its chairman and managing director, Mr. Annada Prasad Padhy. He took this dauntless initiative and today stands aloof for establishing the largest digital marketing industry in the country.

AuroIN’s accomplishments in this year are really noteworthy and will sit as a milestone. Through these years AuroIN got the chance to work with highest budget clients. It runs three other companies, Makerank, Reputation Head and SEO World Class, along with AuroIN. AuroIN has started a project exclusively for its resellers—“SEO Sales Engineer.” Our services broadly include professional SEO services, SMO, and SEM. Our SEO tools are appreciated by all our clients. The company has its existence in India as well as in New York and Singapore, catering and extending its services to over 40 countries across world with a client base of 1,400. The AuroIN family comprises 700 employees spread across the world.

Bing Ads Accredited Professional Sponsor www.BingAdsAccreditedPros.com

BrightEdge WiFi Sponsor www.brightedge.com BrightEdge is the global leader in enterprise SEO, helping more than 4,500 of the world’s largest brands stay ahead in the rapidly evolving Internet landscape. BrightEdge S3 harnesses the power of analytics on big-data to drive revenue from web sites, search engines, and social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA, with offices in New York City and London.

ClickZ Academy Stand 25 www.clickzacademy.com/elearning ClickZ Academy presents a range of online training courses that offer a comprehensive learning opportunity and allow you to progress at your own pace. Authored by industry experts (including SES speakers), the course material helps marketers develop core competencies to build and execute successful strategies.

product & service guide Content Management Linkdex..................................................24 Textbroker...............................................1 Vocus....................................................... 4 Content & News Feed Providers Textbroker...............................................1 Display Advertising Adobe......................................... Sponsor Marin Software..................................11 General Search Engines Textbroker...............................................1 Interactive Marketing Associations & Publications Search Engine Watch......................25 topseos.com.......................................... 9

Stand #s on right.

Local Search Marketing Services & Directories AuroIN LLC............................................ 6

Pay-Per Click Networks & Management Services DoubleClick.............................. Sponsor

Marketing Optimisation Solutions Adobe......................................... Sponsor BrightEdge.............................. Sponsor DoubleClick.............................. Sponsor Linkdex..................................................24 Search Engine Watch......................25 seoClarity.............................................26 topseos.com.......................................... 9 Trusted Proxies.................................... 3

Search Marketing Agencies AuroIN LLC............................................ 6

Organic Search Marketing BrightEdge.............................. Sponsor Linkdex..................................................24 seoClarity.............................................26 SEOmoz.................................... Sponsor topseos.com.......................................... 9 Vocus....................................................... 4

Search Marketing Software Adobe......................................... Sponsor Adthena Competitor Intelligence...................................... 13 BrightEdge.............................. Sponsor DoubleClick.............................. Sponsor Majestic SEO........................................ 2 Marin Software..................................11 seoClarity.............................................26 Trusted Proxies.................................... 3

Specialised Search Engines (Multimedia, Mobile, Shopping, International, etc.)

Majestic SEO........................................ 2 Staffing Solutions AuroIN LLC............................................ 6 Training Courses & Certification in Search Marketing ClickZ Academy.................................25 Web Analytics Adthena Competitor Intelligence...................................... 13 Website Search & Technologies Adthena Competitor Intelligence...................................... 13 Majestic SEO........................................ 2 Search Engine Watch......................25

DoubleClick by Google

Majestic SEO

Sponsored Session www.doubleclick.com/search DoubleClick Search is a search management platform that helps agencies and marketers efficiently manage some of the largest search marketing campaigns in the world, across multiple engines and media channels. Streamlined workflow, powerful reporting, and its very familiar AdWords interface enable buyers to efficiently run campaigns, while strategic bid optimization improves campaign performance. Last but not least, native integration with the DoubleClick platform, as well as other Big Data capabilities, allows users to create campaigns that can standout from the competition.

Stand 02 www.majesticseo.com Majestic SEO provides competitor backlinks intelligence to SEO specialists. Majestic SEO is the planet’s most comprehensive backlinks information provider, and offers a number of tools to access to this valuable resource. Most recently, Majestic launched Site Explorer— offering more data than anyone else by a considerable margin.

Majestic enables registered users to test its services free of charge by generating reports for sites users control. Registration is free, and highly competitive subscription plans start at low prices, with a 1-month minimum commitment. Subscribers have a range tools to enable link analysis of competing domains to be performed.

For Enterprise users, Majestic offers an API service for internal use, which enables developers to integrate the data into new or existing suites of reports and applications.

Link data includes 3 trillion links on the web by: •• Anchor text •• Link strength •• Crawl date •• Country source •• IP number •• Follow/frame/redirect and other flags

Linkdex Stand 24 www.linkdex.com Linkdex is the data and technology partner to leading agencies and brands around the globe. With accurate data at the heart of an award winning platform, we extract actionable business intelligence for SEO, content marketing, social media, and public relations.

Powered by innovative technology such as influential author discovery, social circle suggestions, content 360 analysis, and geoperformance benchmarking, Linkdex allows clients to build relationships with key influencers in a market, optimise content and engage with the people that matter, and measure performance all from one integrated suite. Please contact support@linkdex.com for more information.

Stop by their stand to request a demo and trial.

sesconference.com • SES 3

sponsors & exhibitors SES London | 18–21 February 2013 Search Engine Watch

topseos.com

Stand 25 searchenginewatch.com Search Engine Watch provides tips and information about searching the web, analysis of the search engine industry, and help to site owners trying to improve their ability to be found in search engines.

Stand 09 www.topseos.com The independent authority on search vendors, topseos.com evaluates and ranks the top internet marketing companies. Categories ranked by topseos include: search engine optimization, pay per click management, affiliate marketing, social media optimization, and many more.

Since 2002, topseos has been a trusted resource for businesses looking to launch or improve internet marketing campaigns. The pathfinder service allows topseos to work directly with you to help find companies that best fit your business needs. Why waste time searching through thousands of sites with false promises? Go straight to the authority, gain insight into the industry, and work with the best.

seoClarity Stand 26 www.seoclarity.net seoClarity is the first and only enterprise SEO platform that provides you complete visibility into ALL of your SEO efforts—from search engine crawler activity and on-page optimization to keyword rankings, click-through rates and conversion rates—and updates it daily. seoClarity is comprised of professionals with strong direct marketing backgrounds, a team of incredibly smart statisticians, and the brightest minds with over 30 years combined of SEO experience working in and with enterprises. The result is a platform that delivers unparalleled SEO intelligence and ease of use, all adding up to a formula that saves you time and effort, while contributing to a positive ROI.

Trusted Proxies

Lanyard Sponsor www.seomoz.org SEOmoz develops the industry’s #1 SEO and social monitoring platform with a robust link intelligence API. Plus, we host a comprehensive collection of free SEO and inbound marketing resources and a vibrant community of 300,000 online marketers. SEOmoz PRO combines SEO management, social media monitoring, actionable recommendations, and so much more in one easy-to-use platform. Mozscape, our unique index of the web that crawls over 350 billion URLs, powers the popular Open Site Explorer link analysis tool. Take a 30 day free trial! SEOmoz is also home to Roger MozBot, the world’s most helpful and cuddly robot.

Stand 03 www.trustedproxies.com Trusted Proxies provides highly anonymous geo-specific enterprise class private proxy servers for the SEO and online publishing industries.

Speed up keyword ranking reports and SEO research reports, avoiding search engine bans.

Get geographically accurate SERPs by being able to run your SEO reports as if you were in the same countries as your clients.

Surf the web and see geographically specific content and restrictions the same way your customers experience the web from their country.

Manage multiple social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter on behalf of multiple clients without getting blocked.

Perform in-depth competitor research without revealing your own online identity.

Visit www.trustedproxies.com to get free advice and start an immediate free trial!

Textbroker

Vocus

Stand 01 www.textbroker.co.uk Textbroker is the online marketplace for custom-made, unique written content. It brings together customers looking for unique and exclusive textual content with an ever-increasing number of freelance authors who can write about virtually any topic. Orders include SEO-optimised web copy, blog posts, articles, press releases, news, ecommerce descriptions, buyer guides, and beyond.

The parent company was founded in Germany and offers its services for German, English, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish speaking content. Typical customers comprise SEO and marketing agencies, internet portals, and ecommerce vendors and publishers.

Stand 04 www.vocus.com Vocus is a leading provider of cloud marketing software that helps businesses reach and influence buyers across social networks, online, and through media. Vocus provides an integrated suite that combines social marketing, search marketing, email marketing, and publicity into a comprehensive solution to help businesses attract, engage, and retain customers. Vocus software is used by more than 120,000 organizations worldwide and is available in seven languages. Vocus is based in Beltsville, MD, with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.

SEOmoz

4 SES • February 2013 {London}

Marketing Strategies

focus

Marketing Using Influentials Reach Your Target Audience by Getting People They Trust to Like You

by Bas van den Beld

O

ur minds tend to play tricks on us, tricks that make us believe that we see something or that we want something. And because our minds do this, we tend to want to “control” them by creating structure and making things simple.

To do that, we look to others.

Trust

(for example, the partners who will like or dislike the shoes) and authorities we look up to (teachers, celebrities, and experts). If they support something, it is likely that we will.

Marketers have always used the trust we put in other people. Advertisements feature celebrities for this very reason, and people close to us “advertise” products as well, by word of mouth. What brand of detergent do

Trust is very important in our lives. Because you use? Chances are that it’s the one your we are rarely sure of things, we like to find mother uses. What phone provider did you trust in the people around us. If another choose? Maybe it’s the one your colleague person has seen something similar to what recommended. you have seen, it is an acknowledgement—it “proves” you are right.

Find the influentials— We are trained to trust based on the peothe people around your ple around us. We trust our teachers; we trust target audience, both the our parents and partners. We trust them to authorities and the people make us feel stronger and secure. They are the ones acknowledging our decisions. In a close to them. Target them way, we let others make decisions for us so separately and make sure that we don’t have to make them. After all, that they embrace you. making choices is difficult.

Our minds are constantly making choices; however, most of the time we are not aware Online Decision Making that we are making them. According to Har- In the online word, the choices we have to vard professor Gerald Zaltman (see article make have only increased compared to those in the Harvard Business School’s newsletter), in the offline world. But the principle is the 95% of our decisions are made without our same: we base our decisions on the people conscious awareness. This includes actions around us and on authorities—those we trust. like scratching an itch, but it also involves Social media plays a big role in this buying decisions. decision making. If someone we trust liked We may think that we are making just one a page, we are more likely to like it, or at decision when buying something—to pur- least read it. If an industry expert has shared chase or not to purchase—but in fact we are something on Twitter, the link will probably making numerous decisions, subconsciously. be clicked more than if a relatively unknown Many of these decisions are based on our person has shared it. It’s the same game that environment or on the authority of others. our mind plays with us offline.

For example, when buying a pair of shoes, Google knows this and is constantly lookwe do not just think about whether we like ing at human behaviour to see how we could them and can afford them. We also consider or would respond online. And it is adjusting (possibly without realizing we are doing so) its services accordingly. The introduction of how our partners, parents, or colleagues “rel=author” shows that Google knows that we would feel about them. If these people would like to read things from authoritative people. like them, chances are higher that we will The more authority you have, the higher the actually buy them. chances are that your picture will show up in The people whose opinions we trust can front of your article in the search results, and be separated into two types: those around us that people will actually click on it.

Google also takes our environment into consideration. It no longer bases personalized search results just on your search behaviour; it also bases results on your online behaviour and that of the people around you.

How Online Marketers Can Use Trust The big question for us as marketers is how should we act on this. Are we going to do the same things that we did offline? Or will we adapt?

Most marketers apply the offline principle to online: take your message, shout it as loudly as possible, and hope that someone picks it up and maybe retweets or reshares it. This, however, is the least effective way to approach online marketing.

As a marketer, you should find the influentials—the people around your target audience, both the authorities and the people close to them. Target them separately and make sure that they embrace you. They shouldn’t retweet you; they should tweet about you. They should really tell the people around them how much they like you, because they like you. Get them to like you— and I don’t mean to click a button. Get them to really like you.

Bas van den Beld is a web and search strategist, speaker, trainer, and blogger. He owns Stateofsearch.com, winner of the “Best European Search Blog Award.”

Don’t miss this session at SES London:

Activating the Social-Search Dynamic Wednesday, 20 February, 3:15–4:15pm Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Speakers will include: •• Nick Beck, Managing Director, Tug •• Bas van den Beld, Founder, Stateofsearch.com See page 15 for details.

sesconference.com • SES 5

focus

SEO

Predictions for SEO in 2013 High-Quality Content, Transparency, and Branded Domains Will Be More Important Than Ever

by Dave Naylor

A

nyone working in the SEO industry in 2012 felt the effects of Panda, Pen guin, and the notorious “unnatural link profile” emails. It was a tough year for link building. Many link-building techniques resulted in unnatural link profiles, which were easy for Google Penguin to spot algorithmically.

Panda, which began in early 2011, is still going strong. The latest update ran on 21–23 December (it takes a couple of days). Panda penalises low-quality websites, and there are many factors to consider when it comes to quality. People tend to ignore items such as contact details (including phone number and email address), logo, and testimonials—all of which could be ranking factors.

With Penguin there is a host of considerations: What percentage of keyword anchor text links have you got compared to brand anchor text links? What percentage of nofollow versus follow links? Site-wide links versus single-page links? What percentage of links point to your home page versus deep pages? Which links are considered low quality? All of these make for an extremely confusing, and risky, business.

So what will 2013 look like?

Link Building Gets a Shake-Up For starters, I think we are going to see link building take a back seat as it loses effectiveness and the risk goes up. More people will carry out white-hat link building, using social media, particularly Google+, for SEO. We’ll see a shift towards online PR and away from link buying and controlling anchor text in order to build more natural link profiles.

Could Facebook Search Be a Google Killer?

Facebook and Yahoo! are rumoured to be discussing a joint search engine. A Facebook search engine could be devastating for Google, but it would open up a huge new area for SEOs.

Quality, Not Quantity, Is the Key

Transparency Is Good for Everyone

It’ll be harder for those with large amounts of content to play the numbers game. Google will continue to punish low-quality content, emphasizing unique content including images and videos.

As links decline in importance, on-site factors will play a larger role. Any technical SEO problems will probably knock you off page one.

The communication and transparency that we saw from Google in 2012 will likely continue, and this can only be a good thing for both sides: Google will get higher-quality websites, and website owners will improve their rankings.

Google has started to focus more on site quality and less on keyword usage.

As more people adopt smart TVs, smartphones, and tablets, responsive websites will receive greater weighting in the rankings. A mobile version of a website just won’t cut it anymore.

Google has started to focus more on site quality and less on keyword usage. (You can see this with title tags, which don’t have quite the impact that they used to, possibly because of overuse.) As more people adopt smart TVs, smartphones, and tablets, responsive websites will receive greater weighting in the rankings. A mobile version of a website just won’t cut it anymore. That brings me to usability.…

Make Sites for Users, Not Search Engines Sites that have lots of pages targeting specific key phrases are dead. Now it’s all about having a usable site. Concentrate on usability, make sure that you have all of your goals created in Google Analytics, and check bounce rates by device, browser, and screen size. Split test big changes—after a while the difference really adds up.

Panda and Penguin Become Built In At the moment, Panda and Penguin are running as updates every month or so. This is how Google used to run its index, in what was called the “Google Dance.” We may see Panda and Penguin more often until the point at which they are running every day or perhaps all the time as part of the algorithm.

It’s All about the Brand There was an update towards the end of 2012 that focused on brands. A client of ours who didn’t have a well-known brand but who was ranking well suddenly got bumped down a few places by big names. In 2013, brands are going to take the lion’s share. So forget those keyword domains; branded domains are now where it’s at.

One thing is certain: it will be another interesting and challenging year for SEOs! David Naylor (commonly known as DaveN) owns Bronco Internet, a successful web development and SEO agency. He is considered one of the best SEOs in the world.

Don’t miss this session at SES London:

SEO Tools Deep Dive Thursday, 21 February, 11:45am–12:45pm Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Speakers will include: •• Richard Baxter, Founder and Director, SEOGadget •• David Naylor, SEO, Bronco See page 15 for details.

6 SES • February 2013 {London}

SEO

focus

Using hreflang for Multimarket Ecommerce Improve Your International Targeting with New, Region-Specific Code

by Peter Handley

A

common problem with multimarket ecommerce and international search engine optimisation is the target ing of website content to the correct region, to allow search users in a specific area to find the pages relevant to their location.

It’s particularly difficult where there are substantially similar websites or pages targeted for those regions and languages, as duplicated content tends not to perform strongly in Google search. This is an especially common issue for ecommerce websites.

Purpose of rel=”alternate”, hreflang=“x” In December 2011, Google introduced a method to help webmasters with this targeting: rel=”alternate”, hreflang=“x”. This lets you indicate to Google the content that you want to show up in search engine results for various regions. This is most effective when you have one powerful website ranking in all regions, despite having specifically targeted websites or sections of the site that would be more suitable in that area or language.

This doesn’t directly affect the rankings for these webpages; rather, it helps to make the right pages visible to the correct audience. If you have a US-focused ecommerce site that ranks in Google.co.uk, despite having a dedicated UK ecommerce area for the UK audience, you can “swap” the pages that rank and send customers to the correct version of the page.

Implementation Choices There are two ways to use rel=”alternate”, hreflang=“x”: add the appropriate code to the <head> tag on a page-by-page basis in all versions of that content, or employ a particular type of XML sitemap.

•• <head>. When Google launched rel= ”alternate”, hreflang=“x”, the only way to implement it was by adding the appropriate markup to the <head> of each page of your website. You would

tell Google that page “x” was for one particular language or region, and that pages “y” and “z” were for other respective locations or languages.

This is a laborious method, as it requires updating all pages that you want to reference. Doing this across sites with hundreds or thousands of pages, each with its own regionally targeted version, is a logistical nightmare.

Since this proved costly and time-consuming to implement, Google created a second option.

•• XML Sitemaps. Introduced in May 2012, the XML sitemap approach simplifies the processes. You just have to map the variations, work out the country code for each region, and use that map to create the appropriate XML sitemap.

This is something to plan carefully. Get the implementation of this method wrong, and it could cause all sorts of havoc to visibility in your targeted regions. In the right circumstances this is a powerful tactic to serve up the correct localised products to each region that you target.

Selecting the Correct Language and Regions Each region or language for which you have content requires the correct code. For an English-language, internationally targeted site, the code is “en“, whilst for an Englishlanguage, British site, it is “en-gb“. It’s important to get this right to make sure that the right content is visible in the correct versions of the search engines.

Why Use hreflang?

The beauty of this technique is that it works across different domains and subdomains and even on subfolder setups, all of which are common ecommerce setups.

During our initial implementation on an ecommerce site operating in three distinct English-language regions, we found that it worked as intended—for the most part. We used it because there was one strong site that ranked in all three regions we were targeting, despite the existence of individual websites for each location.

We’ve seen marked increases in traffic from search for the regional domains that didn’t previously have any visibility, and the rankings in each country now mostly lead users to the correct version of the website for them. As we expected, rankings haven’t changed at all as a result of this, but the goal wasn’t to change rankings; it was to make sure that the content being served to users was correctly localised to them.

This is something to plan carefully. Get the implementation of this method wrong, and it could cause all sorts of havoc to visibility in your targeted regions. In the right circumstances, this is a powerful tactic to serve up the correct localised products to each region that you target.

This procedure allowed us to piggyback on the visibility of one of the company’s existing web properties. When coupled with other international SEO work to increase visibility, it can dramatically improve your international targeting, particularly when you’re entering a new region.

Peter Handley is the SEO director at theMediaFlow, a boutique online marketing agency that focuses on search with earned link-building strategies. theMediaFlow has also created the hreflang XML Sitemap Generator tool.

sesconference.com • SES 7

focus

SEO

You Can’t Get Something for Nothing Earn Your Links by Intelligently Positioning Your Excellent Content

by Nichola Stott

B

e honest. When was the last time you really got something for nothing? ¶ If I get extra reward points at my chosen supermarket, I know that it’s a calculated exchange against the data I’ve provided about my shopping habits and the likelihood of my future custom. If I get a voucher for a free muffin from my local coffee shop, you can rest assured that there’s small print to the tune of “with any purchase.” Truly receiving something of value for absolutely nothing in return seldom happens, and that’s just life—which is why I find it hard to understand why there’s an institutionalised practise within some sectors of the SEO industry that seeks to build links that have no reason to be there. Nothing of any relevant value has been offered to earn them.

You might ask, but what about cold hard cash? Surely offering financial compensation means that I’ve earned the right to have that link to that page? Not at all: paying for something and actually earning it are two entirely different things. Do a Google search for “Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends” and tell me if you still think I’m being naïve. Any argument about manipulated, bartered, or bought links has been moot anyway since 24 April 2012, the day that Google really did become proficient in identifying such links (as many webmasters experienced) with the launch of the Penguin algorithm update.

I’ve never understood why some agencies and online businesses support the strategy of engineering, bartering, or purchasing links over and above actually earning them?

Every single method (even malicious spam programs) requires effort and some level of budget. If you or your SEO agency uses any of the above, it still takes budget, staff, and analysis. Why not put these things to work on a method that’s going to be an investment, not just an expense. SEO is part technical discipline, part marketing discipline, and I feel strongly that any good SEO agency should be able to help your online business earn links. All this requires is an understanding

8 SES • February 2013 {London}

of marketing principles, which should be second nature.

Identify Your Assets What do you do that makes you special?

Maybe you sell curtains and you think that’s not so special—maybe not at that level—but why should I buy my curtains online from you? Do you offer next-day delivery on made to measure? Were you established in 1925? Does your site have a tool that allows users to add a photo of their room and superimpose your curtains onto it? Do you have a crazy CEO with a rags-to-riches entrepreneurial story?

The attributes that we might consider to be traditional “USPs” (in marketing speak) can be translated into linkable assets on your site, or in content that can be positioned to interested media off site.

Think about: •• •• •• •• •• •• ••

Your people and their stories Your products and features Research and data Awards and merits Ethical and social policies How you innovate Points of difference

All of these things can be used for the creation of content that is interesting, engaging, humanising, and even newsworthy. Content like this can be used on your own site and marketed to the relevant audience so that it attracts links on autopilot. Or such content can be created exclusively for online media with a readership that would find this content interesting or beneficial.

Find the Angle Getting your content messages, quotes, inspirational stories, and quirky data positioned off site can take skill and experience.

This is why a good SEO agency that works in this way can be valuable for you. Knowing how, when, and to whom to position “the

angle” to another website is what you’re paying for as a service.

The skill in positioning such content to a high-quality site is in understanding what makes the content interesting or beneficial to the sites’ readers. After all, regardless of whether you’re pitching to journalists or bloggers, the main question they will be asking themselves is “why should my readers care about this?”

Whether a piece of content is relevant and newsworthy is often straightforward, and the angle will come naturally. On occasion, in drier markets this can require some creative thinking. We find that this often happens in business-to-business sectors where a client may feel that their product has very limited appeal and only to purchasers of that product. In such cases we find that when taking a product to its human application, there’s always a story to be found.

As an example, think of a business that manufactures temperature-control systems, designed to be integrated into incubators for premature infants. It’s not the product itself that’s appealing; it’s the human application. Manufacturers of software components such as Intel use this approach. Most of us wouldn’t have a clue what an Intel Xeon processor does, but through the company’s advertising and marketing efforts, we’re familiar with their brand and know that their products help other products do cool stuff faster.

Can yours?

Nichola Stott, managing director at theMediaFlow, has worked for some of world’s largest digital communications businesses.

Don’t miss this session at SES London:

Earned Link Strategies Wednesday, 20 February, 2:00–3:00pm See page 15 for details.

Cover Story

focus

Envisioning New Ways of Working and Living continues from page 1 The way technology has changed our lives over the past 30 years is incredible, but in reality, it’s nothing compared to what we can achieve if we open our minds to different ways of working and living. Envisioning helps us see the possible so that we can decide what may be most appropriate for us.

It’s a way of focusing on outcomes rather than products or tactics. At Microsoft, we have fertile ground in terms of being able to see the most incredible ideas and innovation years before they might hit the mainstream.

By combining that with a view on how society might evolve, we end up with a pretty intoxicating combination. I’m incredibly lucky to be able to say that is my job.

Dawn: You say that the Internet is evolving to be more about “doing” and less about “finding.” What do you mean by that?

Dave: Today, we use the Internet as a means of helping us achieve all that we need in everyday life. What used to be a novelty is now a necessity, a normal part of everyday life. When you take a step back and think about how much our use of the Internet has changed in just the past 10 years, it’s pretty staggering. In this incredibly narrow period of time, the Internet has become part of the very fabric that connects all aspects of how we live our lives. Implicit in this change is that we no longer use the Internet merely as a source of information—remember when the web used to be about just pages and links? Instead, that web of knowledge has been joined by a web of people and relationships through social media, and now slowly but steadily by a web of places as we start to digitise every aspect of the world around us.

Combined, these take us from the World Wide Web to a “web of the world”—effectively, a digital copy of the world around us that we can use to build incredible services that transform the way we live, work, and play.

The move from “finding” to “doing” is implicit in this and the evolution of how consumers use the Internet. It simply means that people no longer use the Internet just to find information; they use it to achieve outcomes (e.g.,“don’t just tell me about the product; help me buy it at the right price/ location, too”).

Brands and businesses need to really take time to understand that, and success will come to those that can connect across the web of the world to deliver information and services that revolve around the consumer rather than waiting for consumers to step through the (virtual) door.

Success will come to those businesses and brands that can connect across the web of the world to deliver information and services that revolve around the consumer rather than waiting for consumers to step through the (virtual) door.

Dawn: What will be the challenges and opportunities for digital marketers in 2013 and beyond?

Dave: The role of technology in our society has radically changed in the past decade. It’s not all that long ago when in order to see a personal computer, you needed to be in a place of work or a place of study. These days, most people go home to better technology than they have at work; as a result, their expectations of what can be achieved are also radically different.

Mobile technology offers yet another disruptive change as it provides a window into the digital world, wherever we are, enabling us to use the incredible power and insight

of the Internet in the context of what we are doing and where we are to help us make better decisions in the real world. Added to this, the very proximity of the device (it’s with us pretty much all the time) means that the best information is never out of arms reach regardless of where we are or what we’re doing.

There has been (and will continue to be) much hyperbole about mobile marketing.

The crucial thing for marketers to understand is the unique nature of the dialogue that mobile marketing allows. The personal nature of the devices affords a very different conversation, but the real transformation comes when brands and businesses understand the power that comes from understanding the context of the customer (where they are and what they are doing) and incorporating that into the service or information being provided.

Dawn: What can SES attendees expect from your presentation? What tips or insights will they take away from it?

Dave: Interestingly (for me at least), I don’t expect to provide many explicit answers about the future for the SES audience, but I do hope to start a dialogue, opening eyes and minds to a potentially different future. Along the way I hope to expose some of the incredible potential that lies hidden because we aren’t able to break away from our historical programming in order to take advantage of it.

Technology is an inevitable part of our future, but the real opportunity and challenge lie in understanding how people will change and adapt to use it. Throughout the presentation, the audience will get some tips and insights for their brands and businesses to make the most of the changes we know are coming, and better still, to help spot those that are further out.

sesconference.com • SES 9

focus

analysing customer data

Measuring the Success of Your Content Customisable Reports and Secondary Metrics Can Help You Meet the Toughest Data Challenge of 2013

by Simon Penson

2

013 is the year in which digital will fully embrace a content-led future.

Following years of technology obsession, we’ve realized that the only way to create a long-term business (irrespective of platform) is to produce great “stuff” that people will find valuable. The major stumbling block is tracking that value back to the bottom line.

While a lot of marketing and advertising spend can indeed be easily measured online, clearly defining the value of content creation is more difficult. Sixty-eight percent of CMOs report that they are shifting more spend to content-led initiatives in 2013, indicating a palpable need to measure how effective that budget is going to be.

And while there is no foolproof, headslappingly obvious way to measure it, there are metrics I use across the various campaigns that I manage day to day.

Questions to Ask Before building your organic segments in Analytics or setting up your social sentiment or listening campaigns, create a list of questions (about actions, conversions, reactions, and behaviours) that you believe are important. This list may include: •• How many times has the content been viewed?

•• How long was spent viewing it per visitor and in total?

•• Did readers “convert” and perform the task you wanted them to?

•• Was content shared via social channels and, if so, how much and by whom?

Could Klout or amplification metrics add more insight value here?

•• Were other pages viewed, or was the value siloed?

•• What might that additional earned “traffic” have cost you as paid traffic?

•• Have readers engaged with the content and, if so, what percentage overall? How many shares and comments did it gain?

10 SES • February 2013 {London}

•• How often is your brand being men­tioned across the social graph? Is this number growing?

•• How is brand sentiment? Is it improving or declining over time?

•• How many purchases or conversions can be directly measured today, in 6 months, and in 12 months from that activity?

•• Is the average value of that conversion/sale higher or lower than average?

•• What is the revenue per reader of the piece?

•• What is the average order size in terms of both number of products and dollar amount?

From these questions, you can begin to establish the key segments and custom reports that you want to create in Analytics.

Organic Search Metrics Most businesses are used to using analytics tools to decipher ROI, and among all the tools, Google’s are the most widely tested and trusted.

But how do you avoid drowning in average data? To get a true grasp of value, you must first understand what you should measure. There are four types of content marketing metrics: consumption, sharing, leads, and sales. For the majority of marketers, the first two are the focal points, but in reality the latter pair represents the clearest signs of success.

To discover what gets the biggest bang for the buck, I often use one or more of the following custom reports or segments.

You can customize both how you segment and drill into the data using the various parameters as dimensions, and which metrics are included in the report. This will provide you with the greatest flexibility in how you view your data.

For instance, if you blog regularly, understanding the real value of your effort is very useful. Begin by creating what we call an “editorial report.” This will give you the specific performance of each blog post, showing organic searches, entrances, bounce rate, revenue, conversion rate, and other figures. Members of my team use it regularly to compete against each other (and me) on our own work and also across our client portfolio. Below is the actual setup created from within the Custom Reports section.

analysing customer data

You can add to it by generating similar reports based on author if you want to measure individual performance.

Another useful area of the Analytics platform is the Multi-Channel Funnels segment.

While it is not designed purely to measure content performance, with a few tweaks it becomes very useful for attribution.

The best way of fine-tuning the funnel reports is to build a New Channel Grouping from within the Top Conversion Paths subsection of Conversions.

focus

a simple way of understanding the value of specific pieces of content. This works well if you want to track the value of a download or a piece of content where there is a specific URL on which users land after carrying out a specific action. Google offers a simple guide to setting it up.

And If You Want Really Advanced…

Clicking on the Create New tab will give you the option of creating a number of new Labels for each key section of the site.

Once these are added, you will be able to clearly map which sections of the site are responsible for which conversions and what value they have to the business. This can help you channel resources to further improve underperforming sections or A/B test others. You can also include whitepaper download URLs here to understand the wider value they bring.

The wonderful world of Regex (or Regular Expressions) can help you suck amazing data from your usual platforms into Excel, for instance, to play around with even more.

In simple terms, Regex is a pattern that allows you to describe a certain amount of text so that you can pull out very specific data—for example, “keywords attracting more than 1,000 visits that feature the words perfume, aftershave, and moisturizer.” Annie Cushing is a Regex and Excel guru, and you could do worse than follow her for more on this subject.

This can prove really useful when examining specific content campaigns, and can be used to create advanced segments within Analytics to track things like nonbrand organic searches (to prove the value of SEO). In a content scenario, you can use the advanced filtering to distill traffic sources to particular content campaigns or areas of the site.

By navigating to the Content section of Analytics, you can look at specific URLs to understand the value of total campaigns or areas of the site.

Here the content you’ll want to inspect is placed within the /amazingcontent/ section, and by adding it to the advance filters section, you can exclude everything else and understand revenue per page/section, visits, bounce rates, and more for the campaign (see next page). continues on page 12

Tracking Lead Value If you really want to drill down into the detail, you can set up Goal tracking to do a similar thing. It doesn’t give you the full picture that the Channel Groupings report does, but it is

sesconference.com • SES 11

focus

analysing customer data

Measuring the Success of Your Content continued from page 11

A great way to understand the wider picture is to investigate the Conversions subsection of Standard Reporting and then simply add in Basic Channel Grouping Path as a secondary dimension. This will give you the funnel path users took before converting. You can then use the same New Channel Grouping process as in the organic example earlier to visualize actual pages with which they have interacted before converting.

Secondary Metrics

Other Considerations

The value doesn’t end there, of course. The whole point of content marketing is that it should be measured over a 12-, 24-, or even 36-month period, and that’s when secondary indicators come into play. If you are measuring then you should certainly include such proxies as:

You can, of course, go on forever with data analysis. The key is to create something that suits your business and its unique set of measurement requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

There are many platforms out there to help you understand the lifetime value of customers and how you can better retain them. Closed loop marketing is the next step in the process, where the insights you have gained can begin to play out over the longer term—when things such as content flow and other lifecycle marketing techniques come into their own. But that’s a subject for another day.

•• •• •• •• ••

Quality of leads Retention period Lifetime value per lead Length of sales cycle Number of new customers referred by lead

Social Metrics If you are heavily using social to market your content, it is also worth understanding how to measure each channel’s value in that overall campaign.

As most marketers know, measuring social value is one of the most challenging parts of the ROI mix, and quite often businesses default to simplistic audience-size metrics to try to understand it. The reality is that we should be digging deeper to look at engagement and proxies such as: •• •• •• •• •• •• ••

Facebook likes Retweets LinkedIn and other shares Links back Comments Time spent on page Average page views per visitor back to site •• Mentions Again, it is easy to build social-specific Analytics reports by using the Social section within standard reporting. The Social Value tool clearly shows you the value you are seeing from social referral and interaction.

12 SES • February 2013 {London}

Simon Penson is the founder of Zazzle Media, which specialises in content marketing and strategy. He began his career as a journalist and magazine editor.

Actionable Analysis

focus

Revisiting the Past to Predict the Future View Your Competitors’ Past Trends to Anticipate Changes in Advertising and Traffic

by Suren Ter-Saakov

G

oing back in time is something that many of us wish we could do. Fortunately, we now have the ability to do just that—at least with Internet marking and PPC. We can go back an entire year to view our competitors’ data. Each new year brings new challenges, and there’s no way to know for certain what will happen, but the question remains: how can we use 2012’s competitive historical data to our advantage in 2013?

Many struggle to find a way to forecast the future and apply their predictions to Internet marketing and PPC. Ultimately there is no right or wrong method, but utilizing historical PPC data makes the task simpler. By looking at last year’s trends, we gain the ability to predict rises and falls in advertising or traffic. Surprisingly enough, the application of this data is rather practical.

Say we are planning our ad spend and budget for 2013. The ability to see what our competitors were doing at this time last year would be extremely useful. Figure 1 shows a sample of things that we can view back to January 2012.

Step 1: Decide Whom and What to Track In this example, we examine Zappos. Once we choose our competitor, we can find out how much money they allocated to keywords and ads; we can even view the ad text for a specific month. We may want to focus more on keywords, ad traffic, or ad texts, or explore a combination of them to analyse the most data possible.

Step 2: Look at the Competitors’ Trends We can investigate trends of the advertiser to see where their advertising may have fluctuated. In Figure 2, we can see that Zappos gradually increased their keywords over time, but we also find a bit of a dip in June of 2012, followed by a sizeable increase.

Step 3: Look at the Month Desired and Analyse the Data To discover what Zappos was doing with their advertising in June 2012 and why it may have changed, we’ll start by taking a look at ad texts.

We find that Zappos was focussing on various types of shoes including Uggs, Converse, and Michael Kors. Obviously, we would go in for a closer look at the keywords on which they were bidding, and extend our investigation to the following months.

Figure 1

Step 4: Use Historical Data to Your Advantage When creating a PPC plan, your decisions should always be data driven. Guessing whether a strategy will work is not a sound way to begin a sustainable marketing plan.

Take a look at the past and present strategies of your competitors in order to determine what worked and what didn’t. The examples here represent only a fraction of all of the historical information that we can find.

Summary With PPC data, we can spot gaps in our competitors’ advertising and deduce the reasons for those gaps, or find that their advertising remained consistent. Whatever the findings, using historical data for up to twelve months back sheds light on our competitors’ histories and helps us make appropriate, datadriven decisions.

Figure 2

As the COO of the SEOquake Team, Suren Ter-Saakov utilizes his extensive knowledge of search engines to help develop tools that serve those who make their living online.

Figure 3

sesconference.com • SES 13

sessions SES London | 18–21 February 2013 | hosted by Sample Sessions

Download the app or visit www.SESLondon.com for complete agenda and session descriptions.

Day 1—Tuesday, 19 February 10:30–11:30am

Track 1 Link Building in a Post-Penguin World Developing and executing a link-building strategy, even after the Penguin update, does not have to be a daunting task if you separate it into internal and external strategies. Externally, you’d be surprised by the rich landscape of links you already have. You need to determine what your priorities are and what links you already have, and fill in the key gaps in a way that won’t get you into trouble with the engines and that takes advantage of social linking to get visitors to do some of the heavy lifting. Internally, you probably have many links that are just not right, so you may need to spend a bit more time fixing them.

This session will guide you along the process, provide simple steps to get the most out of the links that can contribute to your site performance, and discuss the tools you can use to do it.

Moderator: •• Bill Hunt, SES Advisory Board; President, Back Azimuth Consulting Speakers: •• Kevin Gibbons, UK Managing Director, BlueGlass Interactive •• Paul Madden, Owner, Automica Limited

2:00–3:00pm

Track 3 The Age of Big Data & the Modern Marketer While most marketers today are well-versed in the metrics of their online marketing channels, far fewer are leveraging their “Big Data” across all digital marketing channels for cross-functional insight into customer behaviour, to gain efficiencies across all channels, and to grow traffic and revenue. Key takeaways from this session will include: •• The impact Big Data will have on modern marketers, forcing them to become part marketer, part chief information officer.

•• How to leverage the latest advancements in technology to gather, analyse, and react to new consumer behaviour uncovered by Big Data, with an emphasis on visibility, optimisation, and automation.

Moderator: •• Matt McGowan, Managing Director, Marketing & Americas, Incisive Media Speakers: •• James Murray, Digital Insight Manager, Experian Marketing Services •• Jon Myers, SES Advisory Board; Commercial Director EMEA, Marin Software

Day 2—Wednesday, 20 February

11:45–12:45pm

Track 2 Creative Content Marketing— Winning Hearts, Minds, & Wallets Investments in content marketing are on the rise, but few companies have fully realised what the best practices are for creating high-quality content over a long period of time. Developing ideas for effective marketing can be a challenge. This session will help you to: •• Develop a framework for creative and efficient content creation.

•• Find resources and ideas where others cannot.

•• Leverage a mix of evergreen, repurposed, curated, and cocreated content for better marketing results.

•• Apply SEO and social media optimization principles to amplify content reach and engagement.

Speaker: •• Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board; CEO, TopRank Online Marketing

14 SES • February 2013 {London}

2:00-3:00pm

Track 1 Content-Driven SEO on a Shoestring Quality content is at the heart of any post-Panda SEO strategy. To develop quality content, you need a steady stream of ideas and executions that engage your audience and build search equity. But how can you create this when budgets and resources are being squeezed? This jam-packed session will include multiple case studies and statistics to teach you: •• How to plan and produce effective content marketing with limited budgets, resources, and expertise.

•• Great tips and techniques to create high-quality, searchable content on an ongoing basis.

•• Who in the market is getting it right and how imitation can save you time and money.

Moderator: •• Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board; CEO, TopRank Online Marketing Speakers: •• Simon Penson, Managing Director, Zazzle Media •• Catherine Toole, CEO, Sticky Content

Download the app or visit SESLondon.com.

2:00-3:00pm

Track 3 Earned Link Strategies— Leveraging Tools, Ideas, & People The links that provide the greatest benefit to your site are those that are earned. In this presentation, speakers will detail an earnedlink strategy that combines technical tools, creative ideas, and client resources (people) as earned-link ambassadors. Learn how you can help your clients be the most relevant and stay the most relevant. Takeaways will include: •• PR tools for media research •• Blog prospecting tools •• Case study ideas •• Real examples of creative strategies (how to find the angle) Moderator: •• Anna Lee, Conference Producer, SES Conference & Expo Speakers: •• Caragh McKenna, Senior Manager, SEO, The Search Agency •• Nichola Stott, Managing Director, The Media Flow 3:15–4:15pm

Track 2 Activating the Social-Search Dynamic Brands that seek performance from social media must embrace the dynamic between social and search. If search marketing is all about delivering value from consumer intent, social is about delivering value from consumer interest. Search marketers must understand the dynamic between search and social where interest begets intent, and intent reinforces interest. This presentation will discuss: •• How to develop an integrated social-search strategy.

•• Key points of crossover between search and social marketing.

•• Ideas for achieving synergy and efficiency between both channels with actionable strategic frameworks.

•• The importance of combined measurement and analytics strategy.

•• Client examples from some of the world’s most revered brands.

Moderator: •• Jonathan Beeston, Director, New Product Innovation, Adobe Speakers: •• Nick Beck, Managing Director, Tug •• Bas van den Beld, Marketing/Search Strategist, Founder, Stateofsearch.com

sessions

Day 3—Thursday, 21 February 10:30–11:30am

track 1 Living in a “Smart” World—How Mobile & Tablets Are Shifting User Behaviour While mobile users are highly active in updates and sharing, many brands are failing to optimise and engage with them. And from a search perspective, more than 25% of search traffic is from mobile devices. By better engaging with the more mobile customer, brands can achieve better performance. Attend this session to learn: •• Strategies to tap into the potential of the social mobile channel.

•• Which brands have created valuable engagement in the channel.

•• Tactics and practical steps that brands can take to be more effective in mobile social media.

•• Case studies of how brands such as Top Shop, Ford, VW, KLM, Dominos, and Foot Locker are achieving great engagement •• The effects of emerging trends such as Big Data or connected products and how they will change our perception of social media in the future.

•• Strategies to connect more effectively with your mobile consumer through paid search marketing.

Moderator: •• Cindy Krum, Chief Executive Officer, MobileMoxie LLC Speakers: •• Mark Brill, Lead Partner, Brand Emotivity •• Sri Sharma, Founder and Managing Director, Net Media Planet 11:45-12:45pm

Track 2 SEO Tools Deep Dive If you are responsible for your company’s search engine optimisation, then you know that you need all of the various tools of your trade close at hand. This session will describe the tools that will help you to accomplish your tasks, including: •• Indexing •• Competitive analysis •• Diagnosing and remedying problems •• Page- and site-level information •• On-page optimisation Moderator: •• Jon Myers, SES Advisory Board; Commercial Director EMEA, Marin Software Speakers: •• Richard Baxter, Founder and Director, SEOGadget •• David Naylor, SEO, Bronco

sesconference.com • SES 15

Meet the experts at the most educational online marketing event

SES New York, March 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;28 SEO. Social. Website Usability. E-Commerce.

E-mail Marketing. Analytics. And much more.

Make joining the SES community part of your 2013 goal.

SESNewYork.com