What is the StephenKenwright |HeadofSearchat
| @stekenwright Photo: gratisography.com

SEO is getting harder Photo:
gratisography.com

We’ve lost our data Photo:
gratisography.com

Links are harder to get
Photo: Rayi Christian Wicaksono

Photo: Forbes Google’s market share
is under threat

Photo: Forbes “Many people think
our main competition is Bing or Yahoo. But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon.” Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

Source: Forrester

But the future is bright
for SEO Photo: Liane Metzler

Google is investing in search
Photo: Forbes

SEO is starting to be
seen as real marketing, not Photo: gratisography.com just nuts and bolts

The biggest challenge for CMOs?
Photo: gratisography.com / SapientNitro survey of 114 CMOs

Photo: Google/Connie Zhou It’s hard
to get more disruptive

change that forces marketing organizations
to undergo signification transformations, as opposed to incremental changes. Source: McKinsey

Photo: gratisography.com
21st April

Photo: gratisography.com “500+ algorithm launches
a year… …means 1-2 a day” Matt Cutts (via Search Engine Land)

We take notice when Google
announces an update

…we should take notice when
consumer behaviour changes

Consumers now use to make
a purchase Source: Marketing Magazine

Source: Google

Tablets and desktops use the
same ranking factors

Being “mobile friendly” doesn’t mean
you’re tablet friendly

Mobile is no longer a
second screen Photo: Jonathan Velasquez

Sources: Jonathan Velasquez / Flurry
We spend 2 hours 57 minutes each day on mobile devices* *including tablets

There’s an app for that
Photo: splitshire.com

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 2013 2014 Time Spent on Apps vs. Mobile Web Mobile Web Apps Source: Flurry Analytics

“Mobile users who search for
content related to your app can see an install button in search results.” Source: Google Developers

“When mobile users with your
app installed search for something relevant…Search results can link directly to content in your app.” Source: Google Developers

Google just purchased Agawi an
app ‘streaming’ startup Photo: TechHive

Soon you’ll see content from
apps you haven’t installed

Apps are for life not
just for Photo: 9to5mac.com smartphones

Photo: gratisography.com Google’s mission is
to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

My job is to provide
information… …and make it accessible and useful

Accessibility

SEO ≠ getting more visitors
SEO is about retention

Google may switch results depending
on where searchers click

Google may demote results if
searchers leave and search again

SEO has changed already Photo:
Splitshire

What we need to do
our job has changed Photo: Todd Quackenbush

SEO Technical optimisation Keyword research
Meta data Reporting Content writing Link building My job in The important bits 2010

Content and links are still
important 2015:

“Only focusing on links is
probably going to cause more problems for your website [than it] actually helps” John Mueller, Google 2015:

Some of our tactics are
outdated Photo: Florian Klauer

Guest posting

Press releases

Blog comments

Infographics

Widgets

Giveaways

You have to be worth
talking about Photo: gratisography.com

You have to be worth
talking about Photo: gratisography.com reading

You have to be worth
talking about Photo: gratisography.com reading linking to

You have to be worth
talking about Photo: gratisography.com reading linking to sharing

Ultimately you have to be
worth searching for

Worth
searching for

SEO Technical optimisation Keyword research
Video Structured mark-up Mobile Local So my job in 2015 is

Being technical is becoming more
important

Google doesn’t just disrupt it
facilitates disruption

Technical can
beat brand

Agile business will win in
search Photo: gratisography.com

Businesses drown in silos

If your PR and SEO
teams don’t talk you won’t win Photo: Matthew Wiebe

If you can’t change your
site prepare to lose Photo: splitshire.com

Getting things done will be
the single biggest SEO challenge

Does Google still care if
you publish fresh Photo: Glen Carrie content everyday?

Photo: Glen Carrie “It can
be difficult to assess how relevant something is…then as more information becomes available, we incorporate that.” Matt Cutts, Google

Photo: Glen Carrie “Some queries
deserve freshness (QDF)…some are better served by evergreen content.” Matt Cutts, Google

Google will be able to
assess quality and relevance more quickly

Penguin and Panda are endangered
quality has to be constant

UK Travel Insurance Industry: April

UK Travel Insurance Industry: May

Future-proofing your SEO strategy Photo:
Davide Ragusa

Where does Google want to
send traffic? Photo: Israel Sundseth

Fast results
Photo: splitshire.com

47% of consumers expect a
website to load in 2 seconds or less Source: Relentless Technology

40% of consumers will abandon
a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load Source: Relentless Technology

A reminder

Local results
Photo: Sylwia Bartyzel

Source: Google

Only 8% of CMOs are
happy that campaigns are well executed on a local level Source: CMO Council

Local pages are often the
first experience a customer will have with your business

Personal results
Photo: Caleb George

Photo: Caleb George “Eventually you
wouldn’t have a search query at all. You’d just have information come to you as you needed it.” Sergey Brin via TED

Search has been personalised for
signed-out users since 2009 Source: Google

Google+ won’t work… …but it
didn’t have to

“Google doesn’t care about websites,
it cares about data.” Marcus Tandler via Search Engine Land

Like Google, we have to
obsess over who our customers are

This is why social won’t
be a ranking factor Photo: Dogancan Ozturan

Do you judge number of
shares to be a measure of success?

Neither does Google

What tactics will be important?
Photo: Timothy Muza

User generated
content
Photo: gratisography.com

Sources: gratisography.com / Search Engine
Land 88% of people say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

Reviews will be a ranking
factor

User experience
Photo: Pawel Kadysz

Photo: Pawel Kadysz “Long-term SEO
= well-served users.” Jakob Nielsen

We won’t just have to
optimise for conversion rate, but all interactions

Photo: splitshire.com
Knowledge vault

19.5% of search queries now
return a rich answer Sources: splitshire.com / StoneTemple Study

“[With the knowledge graph] we’re
at 1% of where we need to be.” Larry Page via VentureBeat

PR
Photo: gratisography.com

Photo: gratisography.com “Brands are the
solution, not the problem…brands are how you sort out the cesspool.” Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

Google won’t need links to
judge accuracy and popularity

Photo: gratisography.com Google’s mission is
to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. A reminder

Thank you
stephen.kenwright@branded3.com @stekenwright Branded3.com