Go Viral Search Marketing Magazine - Issue 1 (Spring 2018)

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TRENDS AND
PREDICTIONS
SEO & UX
MOBILE FIRST
INDEXING
What will be the major
ranking factors in 2018?
SEARCH MARKETING MAGAZINE
BY CLICK CONSULT
A match made in
heaven
Is your business
prepared?
Building
For 2018
Spring 2018

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Hello, and welcome to the first issue of Go Viral, 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.
Each year the digital industry seems to double
in size, there are a plethora of new tools and
techniques and competition can be fierce. With that
in mind, and coinciding with this issue coming at the
start of the year we thought that we’d launch with
copy that focuses on what to expect in 2018 and
how to prepare your business accordingly.
We have features and infographics on the big trends
ahead as well as predictions and theories on what
might make the biggest impact over the coming year.
We discuss Mobile First, the interaction between
SEO and user experience (UX) and the benefits of
visual search on businesses looking to boost their
visibility and performance.
We also have a packed news section in which we
look at the most important developments of the last
three months.
I hope that you enjoy this issue and that you pick up
on a few of the valuable insights our writers have
provided. Until next time….
Features:
Dave Karellen
John Warner
Scott Rumsey
Chloie Brandrick
Vlog:
Jacob Booth
Lucy Nixon
Stephanie Whalley
Design:
Dave Ashworth
Chloe Ridgway
Published By
Click Consult Ltd
Address:
Unit B1
Willow House
Oaklands Office Park
Hooton
Cheshire, CH66 7NZ
Phone:
0845 869 7166
Website:
www.click.co.uk
Matt Bullas, CEO & Founder
A WORD FROM THE CEO CONTRIBUTORS

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P 14 - 15
FROM OUR EXPERTS
Our Head of Paid Search
(PPC), Dave Karellen,
discusses attribution and the
things you should be looking
out for over the next 12 months
P 20 - 21
HAVE YOU MOVED
TO MOBILE FIRST
INDEXING?
How to spot if Google has
made the change and if not
how to ensure you are ready
to have your site crawled
P 22 - 25
SEO & UX, A MATCH
MADE IN HEAVEN
For too long SEO and UX have
been the focus of different
teams. Here Scott Rumsey
looks at how and why the two
can help each other
P 26 - 30
THE VALUE OF VISUAL
SEARCH
Chloie Brandrick looks at the
added value you can bring to
your site through imagery and
infographics
P 16 - 17
2018 TRENDS
John Warner reviews a host
of predictions from across the
industry and presents what he
feels the major ranking factors
will be in 2018
P 18 - 19
INFOGRAPHIC
The 20 points you should be
focusing on for a positive 2018
P 5 - 12
THIS QUARTER IN
SEARCH
Our quarterly round up of
everything search marketing,
bringing you the most
important updates of the last
few months
P 13
ON.CLICK VLOG
Stephanie and Lucy, two
members of our content
marketing team, discuss the
rise of the online influencer
and why it is important for
brands to build relationships
CONTENTS

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The newest addition to AdWords Smart Bidding
strategies has been launched and is titled –
Maximize Conversions.
Smart Bidding strategies in AdWords use
machine learning to adjust bids tailored for
every auction. The algorithms take a number of
factors into account, including, of course, the
type of bid strategy.
According to a company announcement:
“Maximize Conversions will help you get you
the most number of sales from your existing
budget by factoring signals like remarketing
lists, time of day, browser and operating system
into bids”.
GOOGLE ADDS MAXIMIZE CONVERSIONS
AUTOMATED BID STRATEGY IN ADWORDS
“Maximize Conversions also
takes historical performance
into account. Unlike Target
ROAS or Target CPA bid
strategies, Maximize
Conversions is concerned
with conversion volume rather
than return on investment
goals. Maximize Conversions
will spend the daily budget in
pursuit of more conversions.”
Google also revealed that one early adopter
has seen a 73% increase in conversions, a 59%
increase in conversion rate and a 42% lower
CPA in its first test using Maximize Conversions.
Maximize Conversions is now listed as a Bid
strategy option under campaign settings in
Search campaigns.
Keeping up to date with everything that the search marketing world
throws up can be difficult, but as you know by now, here at Click Consult
we are dedicated to keeping you informed and making the constant
updates easily digestible. With that in mind let’s look at what the industry
are talking about in this quarter in search…
THIS QUARTER IN SEARCH

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Google is bringing new forms of local search to
the Google Assistant and Google Home. The
company announced it’s working with local
home service providers “like HomeAdvisor and
Porch”.
On any platform where Google Assistant
is available, users will be able to ask for
contractors (eg, “Ok Google find me a
plumber”). That initiates a structured interaction
which generates a lead or contact with a local
service provider.
Users can ask to be connected by phone at the
end of the process to a contractor or receive
a list of relevant, pre-screened contractors.
This is a highly structured local search and
lead generation experience that will bypass
conventional search results (ie, business
listings).
In its blog post, Google said the new
functionality would be rolling out in the next
week or so but didn’t say anything about its own
advertisers or how many third-party directories
might eventually be involved. There’s also no
word on whether Google will collect a share of
the lead price or any sort of “toll” otherwise.
Currently, if you ask Google Home for a
local service provider (eg, ‘I need a house
painter’) you’ll get three ‘thin’ listings with
address information but little else. The coming
experience will supplant that, offering a more
personalized result based the specific request
and subsequent information provided.
The Alexa voice assistant from Amazon has
been a huge success in 2017 and as Google
and Apple attempt to catch up in the home
market, Amazon is pushing into a new market
with Alexa for Business.
GOOGLE BRINGS LOCAL LEAD
GENERATION TO GOOGLE ASSISTANT
AND GOOGLE HOME
AMAZON’S ALEXA HEADS TO THE
WORKPLACE
According to an update by the company, office
workers will soon be able to use the firm’s
Echo smart speakers to set up meetings with
colleagues, book conference rooms and other
basic tasks.
Discussing whether or not the service would
be trusted in a business setting Geoff Blaber,
analyst at CCS Insight said: “Without a doubt
privacy and security is the number one issue,
arguably that’s more important than the
functionality”.
Companies will undoubtedly be cautious about
putting Alexa into meeting rooms and offices
where sensitive information is being discussed
due to their constant listening system.
Amazon have assured user that they don’t
collect information until activated with the
‘Alexa’ wake word, but there are times when this
happens by accident.
Mr Blaber said it made sense for Alexa to start
with mundane office tasks, such as ordering
more printer paper, before anything too
adventurous.
Presenting at AWS Re:invent, Amazon’s annual
cloud computing conference, the firm said it
was working with major enterprise software
companies, including Concur – which handles a
lot of travel and expenses for businesses – and
Salesforce. They also suggested that adopters
will be able to create their own customised
skills such as directions around a building, or to
answer questions about the business.

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Google has announced updates to Featured
Snippets, Knowledge Panel information and
suggestions for related topics.
According to a post on Google’s The Keyword
blog, a selection of featured snippets will now
be longer (now 320 characters), as well as
including more images and related search
suggestions within the box displaying the
featured snippet content.
UPDATES TO GOOGLE’S FEATURED
SNIPPETS AND KNOWLEDGE PANEL
Google told SERoundtable:
“We recently made a change to
provide more descriptive and
useful snippets, to help people
better understand how pages
are relevant to their searches.
This resulted in snippets
becoming slightly longer, on
average.”
Meanwhile, Knowledge Panels will begin to
show related content directly inside the result.
In addition to these confirmed updates, Search
Engine Land has reported that Google is testing
a new feature that displays a carousel with a
list of answers directly within the search results
snippet.

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Digital influencers represent the largest
majority group that brands have worked with
for endorsement and commercial opportunities
this year. According to The Age of Influence
research report from Celebrity Intelligence.
Megan Falconer-Taylor, Director of Product
at Celebrity Intelligence said:”The findings
from this year, compared to our 2016 report,
demonstrates the impact digital influencers
have had on brand endorsements and the
marketing value they have delivered.
“Does this mean the end of traditional celebrity-
led campaigns? Quite the opposite! To have a
truly long-term and scaleable digital marketing
strategy, marketers need to blend celebrities
with digital influencers to offer deeper layers of
engagement for consumers.
“Only then will we close the gap between
the worlds of ‘celebrity’ and social talent and
understand the true meaning of influence.”
Instagram is testing a standalone app for private
messages called Direct, a first step toward
possibly toward removing messaging features
from the core app. Direct, which opens to the
camera in the same way Snapchat does
INFLUENCER MARKETING IN 2018
INSTAGRAM TRIAL PRIVATE
MESSAGING PLATFORM ‘DIRECT’
Other key findings include:
42% of respondents said their budgets would
increase moderately or significantly in the next
12 months.
Three quarters are continuing to identify
influencers and celebrities to work with via
manual research across social media platforms
and forums, etc.
Niche or ‘unconventional’ talent is set to become
the new ‘sweet spot’ for marketers in 2018.

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“We want Instagram to be a place for all of your
moments, and private sharing with close friends
YOUTUBE CRACKS DOWN ON BRAND
SAFETY ISSUES
TWITTER INCREASES CHARACTER LIMIT
YouTube has revealed it has an action plan to
tackle brand safety issues caused by videos
and comments that violate its policies.
In a blog post, YouTube CEO said: “Human
reviewers remain essential to both removing
content and training machine learning systems
because human judgment is critical to making
contextualized decisions on content.”
YouTube’s brand safety woes began in March
when brands including Verizon, Johnson &
Johnson and PepsiCo pulled their ads from
the platform after an investigation found ads
appearing next to extremist videos.
In its latest blog post and indeed technical
update, Twitter has now announced that users
will now be able to use 280 characters instead
of the original 140. According to those behind
September’s test, tweeting has been made
easier and the increased limit is part of their
plan to attract new users and increase their
growth.
According to the latest report by Twitter Product
Manager, Aliza Rosen: “During the first few days
of the test many people tweeted the full 280
limit because it was new and novel, but soon
after behavior normalised.
“We – and many of you – were concerned that
timelines may fill up with 280-character tweets,
and people with the new limit would always use
up the whole space. But that didn’t happen.
“We saw when people needed to use more than
140 characters, they tweeted more easily and
more often. But importantly, people tweeted
below 140 most of the time and the brevity of
Twitter remained.”
At present there are around 330 million
active users on the platform in comparison to
800 million Instagram users and two billion
Facebook users.
is an important part of that,” Hemal Shah, an
Instagram product manager, told The Verge.
“Direct has grown within
Instagram over the past four
years, but we can make it even
better if it stands on its own.
We can push the boundaries
to create the fastest and most
creative space for private
sharing when Direct is a
camera-first, standalone app.”

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Google has seen one of their historical cases
reopened and face potential charges of up to $1
billion, after a class action lawsuit was opened
in the UK.
Back in 2012, Google paid $22.5 million
to settle an FTC claim that the company
“misrepresented to users of Apple Inc.’s Safari
Internet browser that it would not place tracking
cookies or serve targeted ads to those users
. . .” The company bypassed Safari’s cookie-
blocking settings, it said, to deliver a “signed-in”
user experience.
Google explained that it “used known Safari
functionality to provide features that signed-
in Google users had enabled,” adding that
“advertising cookies do not collect personal
information.”
This same conduct is now the subject of a
class action lawsuit in the UK, which potentially
includes 5.4 million people who owned iPhones
between June 2011 and February 2012.
GOOGLE FACING $1 BILLION IN
POTENTIAL LIABILITY WITH UK CLASS
ACTION
Hypothetically the liability in the matter could
exceed $1 billion, an amount much higher than
the settlement in the US action.
The UK lawsuit is being framed as a privacy
case about the “misuse of personal data.”
Google says that it believes the suit is meritless
and will contest it.
According to Search Engine Land the group
pursuing the case is called “Google You Owe
Us.” On the group’s website it makes the
following statements about the case, called a
“representative action” in the UK: “We believe
that Google took millions of iPhone users’
personal information illegally in 2011 and 2012.
Google did this by bypassing default privacy
settings on the iPhone’s Safari browser.
“We want to ensure that big companies like
Google respect our privacy in the future. Our
personal information is valuable and it must be
used it in a way that is trustworthy and fair.”

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Google Chrome is stamping out methods that
lead to poor UX while browsing the web. It is
tackling unwanted redirects, where a webpage
unexpectedly navigates to a completely
different page for no clear reason.
Google say that 20% of feedback reports it
receives from Chrome users on desktop include
complaints about encountering unwanted
content. To combat this, Google will roll out
three updates.
The first of these will prevent third party content
embedded in webpages from redirecting you to
another page.
“We’ve found that this redirect often comes
from third party content embedded in the page,
and the page author didn’t intend the redirect to
happen at all,” Chrome Product Manager Ryan
Schoen wrote.
GOOGLE TO PUNISH HIDDEN LINKS
“To address this, in Chrome 64
all redirects originating from
third party iframes will show an
infobar instead of redirecting,
unless the user had been
interacting with that frame.”
Chrome 65, meanwhile, will tackle sites that
open the desired destination in a new tab when
you click a link, but redirect the main tab to a
completely different page.
“This is effectively a circumvention of Chrome’s
pop-up blocker, one of users’ favourite
features,” said Mr Schoen.
According to the Independent, Google also
plans to give the browser the ability to mute and
even block intrusive ads.

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This means retail advertisers (from the US, the
UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Australia)
can start creating Bing Shopping Campaigns
targeting these two new markets. Over the
next few months, Bing says it will continuously
improve the platform and plans to add Shopping
capability in more international markets.
According to Bing’s blog:
“We will continuously improve the product ads
experience for both shoppers and retailers.
With this launch, Bing users in Canada and
India will see a more engaging product search
experience.”
Life event targeting, released earlier this year, is
now available to all AdWords advertisers. This
allows advertisers to target users around major
life events, specifically graduating college,
moving, and getting married. With the targeting,
you can pinpoint users before or after the event
to maximise efficiency.
For example, if you are a wedding venue you
can target people as they are planning their
wedding or if you are a local furniture company
you can target users after they have moved to
your area.
BING SHOPPING CAMPAIGNS LAUNCH IN
CANADA AND INDIA
ADWORDS ROLLS OUT TARGETING
BASED ON LIFE EVENTS

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Why is it so important for brands to build
relationships with bloggers and online
influencers? Click Consult’s Lucy and
Steph explain in this vlog.
An influential social profile can amass
hundreds of thousands of followers, and
that’s really an audience you can’t afford
to be missing out on. Online influencers
can come in all shapes and sizes, so it’s
important to find the right fit for your brand.
“Influencer marketing isn’t actually new”,
explains Lucy, “Celebrities and high-
profile people have been used by brands
to support causes, products and brands
themselves for years; the only difference
is that these influencers have a little bit
more street cred.”
Lucy and Steph from our content
marketing team – both, themselves,
accomplished bloggers – explain how
your brand can harness the power of
social media to reach a highly targeted
and engaged audience.

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As self-confessed geeks, there’s nothing the
PPC team at Click Consult don’t know about
paid search. Like any other aspect of digital
marketing, this form of advertising is continually
developing and no marketer can afford to
stand still if they want to remain successful and
competitive
Earlier this year, ad customisers expanded out
to time of day, device, and audience, in line
with my prediction at the end of 2016 that paid
search would increasingly move towards true
personalisation.
As also anticipated, implementing AMP
(accelerated mobile pages) has grown in
importance and will continue to do so into next
year, and this will include AMP for PPC landing
pages
Here are my other predictions for 2018:
GDPR
A big focus on adapting to GDPR (General Data
Protection Regulation) and, particularly for PPC,
how this will affect remarketing lists.
DATA-DRIVEN ATTRIBUTION
A move to data-driven attribution, with last
click becoming a bit of a dirty phrase. Prepare
to allocate more budget to display and video
as they become more valued and trackable by
data-driven attribution.
PAID SEARCH (PPC) IN 2018:
WHAT TO EXPECT
ACCEPTANCE OF MACHINE LEARNING
Machine learning will come into its own
rather than simply being a buzzword thrown
about. The distinction between automation
and machine learning will be thrown into the
spotlight with people who’ve always shunned
automation conceding that machine learning –
true machine learning – is something that at the
very least we should all be testing.
FURTHER PERSONALISATION
I imagine personalisation to continue to be a
focus into 2018. The stage is set for it now, but
it’s not being embraced by all. There are clear
ways in which this can continue – demographic
ad customisers and interest ad customisers,
using the same interest categories as the
Google Display Network. The latter may also
finally be brought over as a search bid modifier,
to help push Google’s drive on focusing on the
audience.
CONTENT ADVERTISING
The only other point is that last year we
predicted an increase in content advertising
usage (the process of producing content
with the intention of promoting it through
paid distribution channels). While this has
experienced limited adoption this year, I’d
say it’s one we can roll over as a next year’s
prediction. I guess we were looking too far
ahead last year!
ABOUT OUR EXPERT - DAVE KARELLEN
Dave has been with Click since 2011 and heads up the Paid Search
(PPC) team as well as taking responsibility for key PPC accounts.
FROM OUR EXPERTS

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2018 IN SEARCH
– SOME OF OUR EXPERTS’
PREDICTIONS DIGESTED
We have our annual predictions infographic live on the site now, but I wanted
to go through the forecasts of our experts in a little more detail.
This will be a regular on predictions across
agencies over the next few years, so it’s no
wonder our SEO experts have picked this
trend to highlight for 2018. Google’s machine
learning capacity is progressing in leaps and
bounds, with impressive victories in GO having
been followed quickly by a foray into extrasolar
planetary detection (where Google’s AI was
employed to analyse data from the Kepler
space telescope).
USER EXPERIENCE (UX)
It is no stretch to assume that the extreme
weather conditions detailed by the daily
Mozcast and the various high levels of activity
across a range tools (all of which Google have
denied are specific updates) are a result of
machine learning. There have been Google
patents in existence detailing methods of
parsing consumer intent from interaction with
SERPs since the mid-2000s, so it would almost
be surprising if the increasingly regular and
BY JOHN WARNER
FROM OUR EXPERTS

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SEO and PPC will have similar concerns in the
coming year, though PPC is uniquely positioned
to address personalisation with various options
– from demographic ad customisers to interest
ad customisers and beyond. While SEO is
able to produce content and a journey that
fits various demographics, PPC is capable of
such targeting that articles are now common
that deal with the eerie nature of personalised
advertising.
However, as mobile increasingly becomes
the device of choice, personalised, localised
PPC is going to become a vital weapon in the
armoury of brands with a paid search budget –
it will also be interesting to see whether 2018
sees paid search increase its presence and
personalisation in the augmented and virtual
reality spheres.
While it’s been around for a while, we can
expect an increase in the practice say our PPC
experts – and this seems reasonable, especially
as Google has begun to
experiment with media
in search results, the
same can’t be too far off
for PPC. Whether or not
this happens, however,
advertising key or gateway
content is a natural
progression from content
marketing.
Expect to see big brands
advertising ‘how to’ guides
for tricky industry problems
and increasing use of
relationship building tactics
from content marketing
as brands roll the dice on
a new way to engage an
increasingly segmented
and fragmented audience.
Dovetailing nicely with user experience, the
shift to Mobile First (currently rolling out) is
likely to catch a few brands by surprise despite
the ample warning that Google has given. This
update, which will represent a boost to sites
with a good mobile experience and could see
rankings drop for sites without, will represent
one of the biggest shifts in power to mobile
from desktop since mobile
search surpassed desktop
back in 2016.
This, along with updates
to the local pack and
various tweaks to local
search rankings will
need to precipitate some
thought from brands
both large and small as
to how they approach
a period in search
marketing which is likely
to be driven increasingly
by personalisation,
localisation and ease of
access. Whether this sees
brands throw themselves
increasingly in to apps
or local organic and paid
campaigns (or both) is a
question we may have an
answer to in 2018.
PERSONALISATION
CONTENT ADVERTISING
MOBILE FIRST
sustained fluctuations in rankings were not
somehow related to machine learning.
This (possible/probable) use of machine
learning seems to be directed at UX – if not
exclusively, then to a large extent – as rich
results and other user focused elements of
SERPs (content quality, for what became known
colloquially as the ‘Fred’ update, for example)
and will no doubt play a part in improving voice
search. As is its raison d’etre, machine learning
will only improve at its task, so UX is almost
certainly going to play an enormous part in the
success of brands in the coming months and
years.
FROM OUR EXPERTS

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MOBILE FIRST
It’s here at last (mostly), and Google have
offered a helping hand for those who want to
know if the switch has happened to them –
check the log file, but how do you do that and
what do you look for?
This will be the first question from many people
and, as one of the easier to answer questions
in this process, we may as well begin here. The
log file for your site is a simple .txt file listing
all interactions with your website as a series of
coded information on visits, URLs, dates and
time which capture all activity and interaction on
and with your site.
HOW TO SPOT IF YOU’VE BEEN MOVED
TO MOBILE FIRST INDEXING
WHAT IS YOUR LOG FILE?
FROM OUR EXPERTS
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.

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Your log file data is stored on your server, so
you’ll need to have access to the server and
have it configured to save log files (if someone
else manages your server or site, you’ll need to
ask them for the log file).
If you have access, you will – more often
than not – find your log file in your control
panel where you’ll see a prompt to download
something called ‘raw log files’ or ‘raw log data’
or similar. It will be a .txt extension and, once
unzipped, can be imported into Excel (or a
database, text editor etc).
When you open your log file (it may take some
time depending on the volume of your site’s
daily traffic), you’ll see what initially looks like an
enormous block of letters and numbers.
At the top of the data, however, the first three
lines detail the date the file was generated and
describe the server. The fourth line serves as
column headers (#Fields) and will vary from
server to server and then comes the actual data.
While this data can tell you a lot (which we can
tackle at some point if requested), for the time
being, what you’re looking to see which of the
Googlebots are frequenting your site. Ordinarily,
the split between the desktop and mobile bots
is 80% desktop and 20% mobile; this will be
reversed if you’ve been switched to Mobile First
indexing.
You would probably recognize it in the log files.
If you see, if you look now, probably something
like 80% of the crawling is with the Googlebot
desktop and maybe 20% is with mobile with the
smartphone Googlebot.
HOW TO ACCESS YOUR LOG FILE
HOW TO ACCESS YOUR LOG FILE
“That will shift over and most of
the crawling will be done with
the smartphone Googlebot and
less crawling with the desktop
Googlebot. So if you really
watch out for your log files
probably you can notice that
fairly obviously.”
John Mueller – Google
There are, therefore, two agent strings you
need to look out for:
bot names
Using the find all function and searching for
both of these bots (from the Mozilla to the
close of the first brackets will be enough to
differentiate the two) will give you the count you
need in order to make the call.
find all
As things stand, for example, Click Consult
is currently showing 430 instances between
the two Googlebots with a weighting of 84%
desktop vs mobile. So we can safely say, while
we’re ready for the roll out, we’re not yet being
indexed Mobile First. The video below (starting
at 3:40) features the relevant announcement.
FROM OUR EXPERTS

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FOCUS ON
SEO AND USER
EXPERIENCE (UX)
The days of businesses operating 9 to 5 are
long gone and customer habits have evolved
to the point where you have to be able to trade
24/7, 365 days of the year or risk losing out to
your competitors
Today’s consumers are not only savvy but they
are time starved and as such, they want what
they want instantly; this means that the need to
fill this demand is huge. User experience (UX)
is one of the areas that businesses are focusing
on to ensure that they not only offer the
products and services but that their customers
stick around or return.
The relationship between SEO and UX has
never been bigger, largely because it is the ‘end
point’ of most consumer journeys. Good SEO, in
terms of ranking highly (visibility) and ranking for
the correct or relevant keywords (optimisation)
means that you have the best chance of being
chosen by the user. Once this user becomes a
visitor to your site, it is the UX that bridges the
gap between a visit and a conversion.
If you are offering the product or service that you
say you are and it is easy to read more about it/
them, then you are increasingly likely to keep
the interest of the visitor. Additional content
that answers any questions that they may have
or gives them the technical specifications of
a product will help your business to sound
more authoritative and knowledgeable. This in
turn builds trust in the brand and can lead to a
purchase or conversion.
According to the Digital Marketing Institute: “The
ideal online customer journey is a user-friendly
website that combines seamless navigation;
a clean cut purchasing journey; dynamic and
digestible content; top notch customer support
and mobile device compatibility. By combining
these elements a business can create an online
environment that can make a brand.”
A survey that followed this definition of a good
UX website revealed that 79% of all customers
admit to searching for another site if the one that
they ended up on didn’t live up to expectations.
FROM OUR EXPERTS
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.

23
So why is this the case and why do so many
visitors look for another website for the same
product or service? Well it could be that
historically there was a very loose attitude
towards SEO by some businesses and websites.
Many of these sites would gain poor quality links
and would fill the pages of their site with ‘over-
stuffed’ content, fitting in as many keywords
as possible. This led to them ranking higher
on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for
products or services that they may not even be
able to offer.
If this was the case then the bounce rate for the
site in question or the landing page would be
significantly higher and conversions significantly
lower.
As we all now know Google has rolled out a
number of updates to tackle these sites and
penalise those with spammy links and poor
quality content.
BAD PRACTICE + FAKE PROMISES =
POOR RESULTS
Confirming this was a piece by Search Engine
Journal where the following was published:
“Early optimisation practices constituted getting
the keyword on the page as many times as
possible without ruining the visitor’s on-page
experience.
“The industry at large, have come a long, long
way since then. In fact, if there was just one very
significant evolution that has happened over
the years (and there have been many), it would
be the transition of SEOs (aka digital marketers,
web marketers, inbound marketers, etc) growing
up to be real marketers.
“They realised things like search engine
rankings were important, but what was even
more important was helping businesses do a
better job at reaching, attracting, and converting
their target audience.”

24
There are six distinctive stages to the consumer
journey when it comes to the link between SEO
performance and UX and by following this route
you will gain better traction, build brand image
and ultimately realise your KPIs.
The first step is the user intent phase. This is
where the potential customer asks a question of
a search engine that they hope will take them to
the appropriate results and which will ultimately
begin them on the path to fulfilling a need.
Next is the ranking stage, this is where the
SEOs optimise the content on a site to make
sure that it is picked up and that it hits the top
of the SERPs – the higher the rank the more
positive the correlation between the number of
sessions and level of traffic.
Up next is the qualifying stage where the SEOs
use keywords and other tactics to qualify the
traffic that has been received. They learn from
this and alter strategies and approaches if there
is such a need. Constant testing in the form of
CRO with any SEO work is a must and can lead
to a more polished, profitable performance.
Stage four is the digital interaction stage where
both teams (SEO and those tasked with UX)
work together to optimise performance and
boost conversions.
Up next is the work on the website footprint.
This is where the SEO team look at the data
and give a larger viewpoint of the customer
journey. Those working on the UX side of things
continue to test.
The final stage is the review where teams build
upon what they have learnt and update, the
navigation of a site or things like meta data. This
is also the stage where they refine the strategy
for moving forward.
UX & SEO – THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
FROM OUR EXPERTS

25
TOP TIPS FOR CREATING GREAT UX
When it comes to implementing changes in
order to boost UX here are some of the things
that you should be mindful of:
Branding – One of the first things that you
should do is to make sure that your branding
is attractive and memorable. Although this may
be a task for a different team, in terms of SEO
it is important that you are mentioning your
brand alongside all of the relevant searches
and in terms of UX there is a lot to be said for
reinforcing the branding message across the
site and keep it front of mind. This is especially
important when it comes to gaining return visits.
Layout and consistency – Keep the navigation
the same for your site and make all of the
buttons easily recognisable. If you are able to
do this people will know where they need to go
in order to find the information that they need. It
will also help them to navigate to the end of the
buyer’s funnel and conversions will therefore
increase. You can also add in similar or partner
products here to further boost revenue.
Functionality – Structure your content to fit
the needs of your user and make sure that
the design of the site is responsive. Speed is
also important here especially in B2C sites,
particularly those in retail, where a customer can
be put off if images are slow to load. Always test
and tweak your site speed where possible.
Mobile responsiveness – Talking of
responsiveness, make sure that you are ‘mobile
ready’ as an increasing number of transactions
and searches are performed on mobile devices.
If the appearance, speed or navigation of your
site is poor on mobile then you could lose out to
a rival.
Live chat – One thing that is often overlooked
when it comes to UX is a live chat function. More
and more websites are now using this in order
to add an additional layer of customer support. If
someone has a query once they reach you page
or need help with the navigation then this can
be a good area for them to have access to.
Data collection – What is the point in having
visitors to your website if you aren’t going to see
what they are doing and look at ways in which
you can improve. Look at things like heat maps
to see where the users are on the site and also
monitor things such as where they click and how
much time they are spending on your page. A
quick exit from the site could be indicative of a
poor UX. Make changes and learn from the data
that you have.
FROM OUR EXPERTS

26
101 – THE SEO VALUE
OF VISUAL SEARCH
Our brains process visual content such as infographics, video and slideshows
more effectively than text alone. In fact it’s estimated that it’s up to 60,000
times faster. Visuals express and spread ideas quickly, which means that this
kind of content is popular and highly shareable on social media.
There was a time when text dominated online
and on email, not least because images took so
long to download. But imagery is powerful and
at the centre of our culture. It’s estimated that
93% of all human communication is visual and
90% of information transmitted to the brain is
visual.
Which is why your brand should be focusing
not only on producing and optimising visuals as
part of your marketing strategy, but capitalising
on the fact that, when you create and distribute
good quality images, other websites may wish
to share them. The idea: using Google’s reverse
image search to get more backlinks.
101
ABOUT OUR EXPERT - CHLOIE BRANDRICK
With 20 years’ experience as a B2B copywriter and journalist, and social
media and content marketer, Chloie produces contentfor Click Consult’s
audience and manages the brand’s social media presence.

28
Quite simply, instead of searching using a word
or phrase, you search with an image.
When you search using an image, your search
results may include:
- Similar images
- Sites that include the image
- Other sizes of the image you searched for
According to Google, search using an image
works best when the image is likely to show up
in other places on the web. For example, you’ll
get more results for famous landmarks than you
will for personal images like your latest family
photo.
You can upload an image to search for, or
search using an image URL. On Chrome and
Firefox 4+, you can also drag and drop an image
WHAT IS GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH?
HOW REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH WORKS
into the search box from your computer, or right-
click and choose ‘Search Google for this image’.
On phones and tablets, you can search Google
to find images that are similar to ones you see
in search results using the Chrome app by
pressing and holding an image in search results.
101

29
Building legitimate inbound links, or backlinks,
is an important strategy for marketing your
website for two reasons:
- They can drive referral traffic to your site
- They can help you rank higher in the search
engine results pages.
Reverse image search allows you see a list
of sites where any image or photo you’ve
uploaded to appears. You can then check
whether you’ve been credited for that image
and been given a link back to the original
source on your website.
Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar
and KISSmetrics, suggests using it to build
backlinks to enhance your Domain Authority
(DA) and therefore bump up your search
visibility. This is because when trusted and
established (ie, those with a high DA) link back
to your site, it signals to Google the relevance
and importance of a website.
“If you’re putting lots of work
into everything you do, you’re
probably producing amazing
images that other people
would definitely want to use. If
you’re after backlinks that will
help you build authority, this is
a fantastic strategy to use.”
Neil Patel
WHY ARE INBOUND LINKS IMPORTANT?
USING REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH FOR SEO
101

30
If the site using your image doesn’t link back to
your site, you can send them a polite email and
ask that they do. Generally, this is only really
worth it when that site has a good DA. You can
find out the DA of a website using MozBar – a
free Chrome Extension that allows you to see
the DA of any site and helps you to research
backlinks and find link building opportunities.
I searched for one of our popular infographics,
the pros and cons of social media, and found
the following list of URLS:
reverse image search for Click social
infographic I checked whether each of these
sites had credited Click Consult and contacted
those that hadn’t (or had linked to another site
where they had found the image) to ask them
to link back to us. The majority where happy
to do so, helping us earn eight links with DAs
between 30 and 42.
Click Consult brings you the on.click podcast, featuring news, best practice, how
to and discussions on the key aspects of search marketing - from paid search,
through content marketing, technical SEO and more: on.click wants to be your go
to audio for all things digital marketing.
You can subscribe to Click Consult’s podcast on Stitcher, or here for Apple users.
Bing unveiled its Visual Search earlier this
year, a product which stands out from similar
offerings by Google and Pinterest for its ability
to come up with related images by actually
searching within images. It can then direct users
to a retailer’s website to purchase the item.
This offers huge opportunities for retailers and
marketers.
There have been hints that Google is to follow
suit with the ability to search within images
believed to be in beta.
DID YOU GET A BACKLINK? HOW WE USED REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH
TO CHECK FOR BACKLINKS
IMAGE SEARCH IS AN AREA
UNDERGOING RAPID DEVELOPMENT
THE ON.CLICK PODCAST
101
LISTEN NOW

31
EXPERTS
IN SEARCH.
SIMPLE.
C L I C K C O N S U LT LT D
U N I T B 1 , W I L L O W H O U S E ,
H O O T O N R O A D , H O O T O N ,
C H E S H I R E , C H 6 6 7 N Z
W W W . C L I C K . C O . U K
0 8 4 5 8 6 9 7 1 6 6
@ C L I C K C O N S U LT LT D | F A C E B O O K . C O M / C L I C K C O N S U LT

32
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Register Your Interest Today!
Previous speakers include representatives from:
Hilton Manchester Deansgate
05/09/2018
To find out more - visit the Benchmark Website

Go Viral Search Marketing Magazine - Issue 1 (Spring 2018)

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