Why you shouldn’t be ignoring Bing advertising

Back in February, Google removed paid search ads from the right-hand side of the search engine results page (SERPs) and gave this space to their Shopping Ads.

Previously, Google’s paid search ads were always displayed in the same format with three ads above organic search results and a number of ads down the right-hand side of the page. Google’s changes now mean there are now only 2-4 paid search results at the top and bottom of the SERPs and it’s becoming far harder to compete and appear at the top of the page because there are fewer ads appearing.

Seeing as it is becoming more difficult and competitive for advertisers to compete against competitors on Google, we have been looking into alternative options for our clients to invest in and see a strong ROI.

One of the channels we are currently focusing on is Bing.

The Leapfrogg Paid Engagement Team recently attended Marin Super Users event in London, where Javed Laher, Account Director at Bing presented the latest opportunities available to us.

Currently, 1.5 billion users use the Windows operating system every day and it’s estimated that 3 out of 4 PCs is a Windows PC. As Bing is the default search engine on Windows devices, it’s estimated that it’s powering 1 in 10 searches in the UK. In addition, Cortana and Siri (personal assistants on Windows and Apple phones) are also powered by Bing. Therefore, creating or maintaining a presence on Bing is becoming increasingly important.

We’ve been running Bing campaigns for a number of our clients and have seen some very positive results so far. On average, our clients spend approximately 10% of their Google spend on Bing, however, the return on investment is much higher than that. In some cases, we have seen an ROI of over £50.00 for some of our clients and there is still room for expansion and improvements.

In the last couple of months, Bing has launched Bing Shopping Ads after being in beta for some time.

We have been taking advantage of this opportunity and have been rolling out campaigns for a number of our clients. The principle of Bing Shopping campaigns is the same as Google Shopping campaigns – the ads showcase product specific information including an image of the product, text such as brand name and a product title, pricing, and promotions and your company name.

The main advantage we see with Bing Shopping is that early adopters will see less competition and cost-per-clicks (CPCs). Bing states that CPCs are 29% lower than non-brand text ads when compared to Google. This means that with the same spend as on Google, we can expect to receive more clicks, which should result in higher Return on Investment. According to Bing, the conversion rate for Bing Shopping campaigns is 49% higher than of the non-brand text ads. As we saw with Google Shopping when first launched, this state of lower competition won’t last forever as more competitors realise the opportunity they are missing!

And finally, Bing Shopping can strengthen your acquisition strategy by getting your brand in front of more new customers, as well as supplementing the traffic that you’re already getting from Google Shopping campaigns.

We are excited about Bing developments and are looking forward to having more data to measure and compare the results and revenue.

The latest from Google: Panda 4.2, Alphabet and Google Local

Over the past couple of months, Google has made a number of changes and announcements. With the big G maintaining dominance in search, it’s important that brands are aware of the changes in order to stay ahead.

Below is a short summary of some of the latest Google updates affecting natural search to help keep up-to-date and ensure your strategies are robust.

Panda 4.2

On July 18th Google began a Panda refresh which aims to devalue pages with thin or low quality content. Unlike past Panda updates, this is a long slow roll-out so sites are unlikely to see any immediate impact.

Google wants to index and reward useful pages that provide good quality, unique content that is highly relevant to a users’ search. If you are concerned you may have been affected by Panda previously, and you have addressed your on-site content, you could see your natural visibility improve over the coming months. On the flip side, if you are still not integrating quality content into your pages, you could see the opposite effect.

A lot of eCommerce sites still seem hesitant to add content to important category/sub category pages for fear that it will detract from the products. There of course needs to be a balance, but your on-site content should help guide, inform and support users when making a purchase so a lack of content will be detrimental from both a visibility and conversion perspective.

Local SERP tidy up

Google’s local products have evolved quite a bit over the years. From ‘Places’ to ‘Local’ to ‘My Business’– it’s fair to say that this hasn’t been one of their most streamlined offerings!

For too long, there has been confusion around how to connect your historic ‘Places’ or ‘Local’ pages with Google+ brand pages and Google Map listings. Google was not quick to solve this issue which led to an over-saturation of inactive, unpopulated or duplicate map listings, not to mention some frustrated webmasters!

So when Google announced that they would be closing down inactive or unresponsive Google+ My Business pages on July 28th, this wasn’t an unwelcomed move.

Google has also decided to reduce the local ‘7 pack’ of results to a ‘3 pack’, with business addresses and phone numbers being removed altogether. This will improve mobile user experience but also further refines local search results.

I don’t see this as a bad thing for retailers. This is more like ‘house-keeping’ on Google’s part. There’s no denying that having an optimised Google+ My Business page remains a significant part of any local strategy, but the changes do highlight the importance of ensuring your pages are well optimised, that local information is accurate and that your page is correctly linked to your map listing. (If you still haven’t linked your Google+ accounts, here’s how.)

I then think Google will start placing more emphasis on retailers that are actively engaging with their audience through their My Business page. This is where I think brands still have work to do. Your listing is not just a location marker. Make the most of this additional natural exposure and post content, encourage reviews and communicate with your local audience.

LF_GPLUS_BlueThe future of Google+

Alongside the local changes, Google has finally announced its plans for Google+. Part of the plans include the popular decision to no longer force users to sign up to a Google+ account in order to use services such as YouTube and Gmail. It is also separating out other elements such as fully migrating Google+ photos onto a separate stream called Google Photos.

The problem with Google+ was that it never quite found its niche. It failed to compete with Facebook which retains dominance as the ‘socialising’ platform of choice. Google+ also failed to gain ground in other areas, with niche newbies like Instagram ploughing ahead in terms of visual networking and content sharing.

However a lot was invested in Google+ so they are not going to let years of development go to waste; they just need to give Google+ a focus. Many of the thoughts in this article reinforce that its longer-term value will be as a platform to share, engage and discuss interests and topics.

A feature released in May, Google+ Collections, enables users to create, contribute to and discuss various topics. Since launch, users have demonstrated high engagement with Collections, with many stating that this could give positive direction to the platform.

Could Collections pave the way for Google+ to (dare I say it) succeed? Only time will tell. I might even log in myself sometime soon.

 

Alphabet_Inc_Logo_2015.svg Google becomes Alphabet

Finally, let’s end with Alphabet. Google’s most recent announcement on 10th August detailed plans to restructure into new holding company called Alphabet. The new company will head up a collection of companies, the largest of which will be Google.

Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced (a surprise) shake-up of the company’s structure and management. In the announcement, they will be handing control of the Google search engine to Sundar Pichai who will replace Larry Page and become CEO of Google.

 

What does this mean for brands? Well not much right now. It will be interesting to see where Google steers itself in the future but for the short term, its business as usual.

Image credits

Google Logo
Alphabet logo 

Five digital marketing must-haves for retailers

As consumer expectations continue to rise, there are a wealth of digital marketing tactics that were once a “nice to have” which have fast become “must-haves” in order to win and retain customers.

In this blog post, we have picked out the top five digital marketing must haves that all retailers selling online should have as part of their digital marketing mix.

 

1. Customer Personas

How can you market effectively to your customers if you don’t have a clear picture of who they actually are? There is a wealth of information that you should know about your customers that I have covered in many previous posts. No matter how much information or data you have about the people who buy from you, your marketing team must use that knowledge to formulate a set of customer personas.

A customer persona is a succinct profile of each type of customer that purchases from you. It should contain demographic information (e.g. age, gender, family, salary, location, education) as well as emotional intelligence such as their personal values, aspirations, shopping behaviours, buying drivers, media consumption, hobbies and lifestyle.

Mapping this information around a visual representation of the customer with a name will allow you to really bring your customers to life. This means you can start to engage with them on an increasingly emotional level, which in turn allows you to create far more engaging and focused marketing tactics. In fact, user personas have been found to make websites 2-5 more effective and easier to use by targeted users.

Customer personas in marketing have been around forever, but we are constantly surprised to find digital marketing teams who don’t have access to this type of insight on their customers, therefore missing a huge opportunity to focus their marketing more effectively. Having this insight is absolutely crucial as engaging content is becoming increasingly important as part of the digital marketing mix.

Customer Personas

2. Segmented email campaigns

Up until recently, a segmented or automated email program was deemed a “nice to have” for many retailers with the complex email strategies left to the larger retailers. Today, with the high level of personalisation expected by consumers, those retailers who are not carrying out any segmentation or personalisation of their emails will be losing a large amount of retained revenue and market share. According to HubSpot, personalised emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%.

Make sure you have some form of welcome program for those who are signing up to receive email communication from you. Gather as much information as you can when they register to allow you to tailor your communications to them – even if it is only sending different emails to men and women.

Once the consumer has made a purchase, use the information you have about their purchases to personalise future communication with them. You could send them curated products they might like, inspirational content related to the category they have bought from, or sneak previews of new products within that category. The increase in conversion rates from a tailored email communications are huge, so make sure you are looking at how you can start segmentation as soon as possible.

Here is a great example of targeted email that I received recently from Missguided which led straight to a purchase.

Missguided-email

3. A well-structured content plan

It is no longer enough to have different teams or individual people within your business producing content for your customers independently. A brand that delivers engaging content across all digital touchpoints can create a seamless experience for their customers that will aid both acquisition and retention. This cannot be achieved if there is not one central content plan for all teams adhere to.

A well-structured and successful content plan will contain the following:

  • Identified customer personas to engage with
  • A set of natural search terms to be woven into content
  • A central theme of content relevant to the customer and the brand
  • Channel by channel content creation around the central theme
  • Channel by channel content seeding and amplification
  • 3rd party content engagement elements (influencers, bloggers)
  • Week by week delivery and resource planning
  • A full set of financial and activity focussed KPIs

And most importantly – delegate a member of staff to own the plan and ensure everyone delivers their elements on time!

4. Google Shopping

If you sell products online and you do not have a Google Shopping feed or Product Listing Ads, then shame on you! Accordingly to research encompassing large-volume retailers, last year product listing ads drove 56% of non-brand clicks and 30% of overall Google search ad clicks.

Google Shopping results feature at the top of search results and are a key way to drive customers who are searching for particular products straight through to your product pages. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and images are processed 60,000 times faster than text, therefore if consumers process ads before anything else on the search results page, then you could be missing out on a high proportion of clicks if you do not have your products there.

Google Shopping

5. Rich Pins

Rich Pins are a very simple digital marketing tactic you can utilise in order to make the most of the fast growing Pinterest platform. Although product information on Pins has been around for a while now, the amount that retailers can do on this platform to generate commercial results has been growing rapidly in recent months.

By placing a small amount of code on your website means that any product that is pinned can be shown alongside relevant information such as stock availability and price. Pinners may also get notifications when prices drop by more than 10%.

Rich PinsThe increase of product information can lead to a much higher proportion of Pinterest users clicking through and purchasing. A recent study co-sponsored by the platform found that pins actually influence purchasing decisions. Over half the active Pinterest users surveyed said that the site helped them find items to buy. In addition, 32% said they purchased something in-store after viewing content on Pinterest.

Your competitors are probably doing it already! What are you waiting for?

The tactics above are by no means the only “must haves” within digital marketing, but are some of the most common tactics that we come across which are not being implemented by retailers.

Make time today to start just one!

SEO in web development, keyword analysis & monitoring the bottom line

Over the past few months, a number of articles have caught my eye as they reinforce important learnings about how search has evolved. In light of these articles, I’ve looked at how brands and retailers need to shift their mind-set around ‘SEO’ and use it more strategically within marketing campaigns.

SEOs have a role in development

SEO has evolved greatly over the years and it doesn’t operate in silo. Search engine algorithms have advanced significantly to weed out spam and reward sites that have relevant and valuable content – ultimately sites that provide users with what they want.

SEO and UX go hand-in-hand and which is why it’s important that the SEOs of today have good knowledge of usability and experience design as well as the technical aspects of search.  All these skills can be a huge asset when redeveloping a website.

Your optimisation team will have in-depth, historic knowledge of your current site’s performance, what works and what doesn’t as well as your business goals. They also have knowledge of a number of different platforms so can advise on the best platform even before the project has kicked off.

When developing a site, use your SEO team’s experience, learnings and advice to your advantage. Get their input on technical requirements and recommended specification for your new site to ensure that important elements, for both the search engines and users, are factored into scope.

Then by the combined ideas of your optimisation team, designers and developers will ensure you end up with a site that exceeds expectations in terms of architecture, content, optimisation and user experience.

Keyword analysis

I recently read a good post about the relevance of keyword analysis in Search Engine Land. I couldn’t agree more with the points raised and want to reinforce how brands should be using search term analysis today.

The Hummingbird update in 2013 was an important step in Google’s quest to provide better quality search results. By better understanding the intent of search queries by looking at context (rather than specific keyword matching) they have been able to provide smarter, more relevant search results.

Of course, bespoke on-page optimisation still has its part to play, but brands need to forget trying to rank for certain keywords and focus on adding relevant, more varied content around topics or subjects.

Keyword analysis today should help identify popular keyword themes, product opportunities and review what questions are being frequently searched for. This kind of analysis will help you find gaps and opportunities for targeted content, be that additional products, improved categorisation or filtering functionality, enhanced product information, how-to guides or FAQs.

Think about the role your content plays in a conversion and investigate terms that will target more of the right customers throughout their search.

Measuring your marketing

Another interesting read was this article on Moz which discussed why looking at correlation rather than focusing on causation needs to be more of a focus for modern SEOs and marketers.

It is becoming harder and harder to predict and measure success from individual channels and the key statement in this article is that SEOs are “becoming more complete marketers, with greater influence on all of the elements of our organisations’ online presence.”

All these articles reinforce that SEO shouldn’t be treated as something that operates in isolation. Retailers need to change their view on traditional SEO tactics such as keyword analysis, as these should be used far more frequently and strategically to inform content creation. Expanding quality, engaging content is always going to be the best long-term strategy for natural success, not focusing on specific keyword rankings as many brands still do!

Retailers also need keep focused on the bigger-picture. Of course monitor granular channel specific metrics, but don’t obsess over them. Tie everything back to your bottom line. If your marketing channels are working, you will be able to see this in your sales, revenue and market share.

And finally, be sure to get the most from your agencies by pooling their knowledge to ensure your marketing campaigns are joined up. Whether it is a new site build or a strategy review, get your agencies in the same room to work together, share plans and collaborate on strategy to ensure you maximise the effectiveness your marketing.

The Weekly Shop (8th – 12th Dec)

Welcome to one of the last Weekly Shop’s of the year – where has the year gone! This week we have featured some stories you may have missed around ecommerce returns, the importance of mobile-friendly websites in 2015 and the future of Google’s search algorithm.

Social engagement within the premium furniture sector

During the latter part of this year, we have been investigating how premium retailers are delivering relevant content and engaging socially with their customers. In the first report of the series, we have looked at 20 leading retailers in the premium furniture sector and assessed how well they are engaging their audiences which produced some interesting insights. You can download the full report here.

Men shop very differently from women online and require a completely new approach

Moving onto some retail news, this article from Internet Retailing looks at how men and women shop for clothes in a very different way online and looks at how websites can cater to the male market.

15 tips for improving ecommerce returns policies

With Christmas being the busiest time of year for returns volumes, how should retailers handle returns? In this next article, Econsultancy have rounded up 15 best practice tips from various retailers.

Why a mobile-friendly website is essential to a successful SEO strategy in 2015

Moving onto search news, this article from Search Engine Watch looks at the importance of having a mobile-friendly website in order to have a successful SEO strategy in 2015 .

Press releases are not an SEO strategy

This next article from Clickz explores how press releases and press release websites are not an SEO strategy and explores how you can get much better results contacting journalists directly.

Why SEOs Need To Care About User Experience

Next up, URL profiler looks at how Google doesn’t really care about SEOs and that they only really care about user experience and optimising the experience of Google for their users.

The Future of Google’s Search Algorithm: Refinement Vs. Overhaul

To finish of this week, some interesting reading from Search Engine Land on Google’s search algorithm and specifically where Google search is headed and the signals it relies on.

That’s it for this week!

The Weekly Shop (27th – 30th Oct)

In this week’s Weekly Shop, we feature a report on the importance of integrating branded content  into the customer journey, how fashion and luxury brands can gain insight into what their customers care about and what’s hot and happening in premium retail this month.

Content + commerce = retail winner: study

A new report this week has shown how the ability to bring content and commerce together “may be what separates retail winners from losers.” The report found that more than three quarters (78%) of consumers now browse online before buying in-store highlighting an opportunity for brands to win the sale before shoppers go instore through branded content. The study points to tactics used by successful brands, which include integrating blogs onto the main site experience, putting links to product pages into article, and promoting blog content on the homepage.

How can fashion and luxury brands develop an understanding of what their customers truly care about and reflect this in their digital strategy?

Head over to the new ‘Ask the Experts’ section of the Masterclassing website to read our commercial director, thoughts on the question above.

The Hype: what’s hot and happening in premium retail this month?

Alexander Wang x H&M, Selfridges new £40m website, Jimmy Choo’s online personalisation service and accessible luxury are just some of the developments in premium retail that have got our Premium Panel excited this month. Head over to ‘The Hype’ on our blog to find out what other products, trends and innovations have been catching their eye in October.

Seven customer experience case studies that generated loyalty and ROI

This article from Econsultancy looks at seven customer experience case studies from the likes of Triumph, Cadbury and Homebase which have optimised experiences to increase satisfaction and loyalty.

5 Ways behaviour has changed in the last 10 years

This last article this week takes a look at five ways in which search behaviour has changed in the last 10 years following Mediative’s excellent eye-tracking study of Google search results.

That’s it for this week. Happy Halloween!

 

The Weekly Shop (6th – 10th October)

Welcome to another edition of The Weekly Shop. This week we take a look at how you can build loyalty for customer retention, paid, owned and earned media, innovations that are set to change retail and how searchers user behaviours are evolving.

10 loyalty-building strategies for customer retention

Ongoing profit from a customer’s lifetime value is generally much higher than any one single transaction. However, in order to achieve higher customer lifetime values, you need to have some strong customer retention strategies in place which Econsultancy have round up in this article.

What’s the difference between paid, owned and earned media?

Next up, is a useful refresher on the difference between paid, owned and earned media and how SEO fits into the three categories.

The four disruptive innovations set to change retail

Our next article this week looks at four trends that are set to change retail, including payments, logistics, computing platforms and marketplaces.

New Google eye tracking study shows the downfall of the golden triangle

A new Google eye tracking study from Mediative has shown how the evolution of the Google search results from 2005 to today has resulted in searcher looking outside of the ‘golden triangle,’ which is the term used to describe how searchers looked at Google search page results in 2005.

The evolution of SERPs and user behaviors

Following on from the article above, this article from Clickz takes a more in-depth look into the study from Mediative and how SERPS and user behaviours are evolving.

7 obsolete SEO tactics you’re wasting your time on

And to finish off this week, a useful reminder on how SEO has changed over the years and how some of the old tactics will result in stagnant traffic and may actually cause your traffic to drop.

Remember, if you’d like to receive your Weekly Shop straight to your inbox, you can do so by signing up in our footer.

The Weekly Shop (23rd – 27th June)

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Weekly Shop. This week we take a look at new consumer laws, modern age SEO myths, content marketing tips for small businesses and creating a single view of stock.

New consumer laws and their impact on retailers

In retail news this this week, two sets of consumer laws have been announced that are set to have a major impact on UK retailers. The two pieces of legislation make substantial changes to consumers’ contractual rights and as a result of these changes, retailers must ensure that they comply with these new consumer laws by updating both their standard consumer agreements and consumer facing procedures accordingly.

Doddle rolls into stations across the UK

Also this week, Doodle, the UK’s first fully dedicated and staffed online shopping collection and returns service has announced it will open in 300 new locations in the next three years. Doodle operates in railway stations and major hubs, and is partnering with a number of well-known retailers including Asos and New Look. We’re looking forward to trailing the service when it launches in Brighton.

Creating a single view of stock: five key considerations

Adopting a single view of your stock across retail channels is an essential precursor to a true multichannel strategy. This next article from Econsultancy provides five key factors for retailers need to consider when looking to create a single view of their stock.

Uh-Oh…Looks Like We Might Have Lost the Customer

Here’s a good, quick read on the importance of creating a customer centric business from Clickz. The article highlights the three key questions you need to be asking yourself when migrating to a customer-centric organisation, versus a product-centric organisation.

Pinterest Moves a Step Closer to Search Engine With Guided Search

Pinterest has recently announced that it will be rolling out guided search on Pinterest over the next few weeks, as it did for its mobile app in April. Pinterest users will soon see a new search bar when they visit Pinterest.com, and just as it works on mobile, the search features will surface recommended keywords intended to help generate more specific queries and better search results. These adjustments to Pinterest functionality over time demonstrate the site’s vision for the future.

7 Outstanding Content Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

As SEO has evolved in recent years, it has become clear that small businesses need to adopt the content marketing strategies that corporate marketers use to remain competitive in rankings. If you’re struggling for creative ideas for interesting new content, then this article from Search Engine Watch provides seven tips for providing outstanding content.

7 Modern Age SEO Myths

One of the challenges that the world of SEO presents us with is its lack of clarity as search engines obscure and continuously tune their algorithms. This insightful article from Forbes aims to draw a bigger picture of how you need to process the claims that people make about SEO and debunks some of the newer myths about SEO that have emerged only in the past few years.

Thanks for reading!

The Weekly Shop (19th – 23rd May)

It’s Friday so that means a new edition of our Weekly Shop! This week, we look at insights from Social Media London, ugly websites, Google’s release of the Panda 4.0 algorithm and insights from Econsultancy’s new Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report.

Real-time Twitter marketing & personalisation – top takeaways from #smlondon

This week, Alice Reeves, our senior social media and content consultant attended Social Media London’s May event, which was focused on how brands can make the most of ‘real-time’ Twitter marketing and personalise their social channels to boost engagement. You can read her key takeaways from the conference here.

What if Your Ugly Website is Holding Back Your Marketing Efforts? – Whiteboard Friday

Last week, in Moz’s weekly Whiteboard Friday series they discussed the subject of ugly websites and whether they can actually hold you back from the kinds of levels of engagement and progress that you could be making.

Google Begins Rolling Out Panda 4.0 Now

This week Google’s Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have released version 4.0 of the Google Panda algorithm which is designed to prevent sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. It sounds like this update will be a gentler Panda Algorithm and lay the groundwork for future changes in that direction.

Five key insights from our Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report

This next article from Econsultancy highlights five of the key insights from their Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report which contains a comprehensive analysis of the UK search marketing environment. The report, covering search engine optimisation (SEO or natural search), paid search (PPC), social media marketing and display advertising, is based on an online survey of more than 700 client-side digital marketers and agencies and reveals some interesting insights.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

A round-up of Brighton SEO

At the end of last month I attended the best Brighton SEO yet. From the opening keynote to the afternoon’s content-focused talks in the Corn Exchange, the day was packed with actionable takeaways. However, the five talks that really stood out for me were:

  • How I Earned Loads of Links by Ignoring SEO – Malcolm Coles
  • The Habits That Land You Links – Stacey Cavanagh
  • How journalistic principles will shape the digital marketing of tomorrow – Julia Ogden
  • Using Content for Direct Response – Matt Evans
  • The Content Marketing Blueprint for Boring Industries – Mike Essex

Below, you’ll find my summaries (largely taken from my frantically scrawled notes) of the key points from each talk plus links to slide decks where available.

How I Earned Loads of Links by Ignoring SEO – Malcolm Coles

The conference kicked off with a keynote from Malcolm Coles, General Manager at The Daily Mirror and founder of UsVsTh3m. Malcolm spoke about how UsVsTh3m’s goal has always been to gain the biggest share of their traffic through social rather than search. They’ve achieved this through creating topical, highly shareable content in the form of games and quizzes, such as:

  • The ‘Where’s Damascus?’ Game – thousands of people played the game online and failed miserably, including people from the Houses of Parliament, which resulted in news coverage.
  • How Much Are You Hated By The Daily Mail? – though impossible to get to the end of unless you’re Michael Gove, this short piece of interactive content attracted over a million players, multiple pieces of online coverage with hugely authoritative links and caused UsVsTh3m to rank 3rd for the search term ‘Daily Mail’ for months.

Malcolm also spoke about how The Daily Mirror now sees more mobile traffic than desktop. Therefore, you must ensure that any content you outreach to publications (e.g. infographics) needs to look good on mobile. Your outreach email will probably be read in mobile too. What’s more, infographics sent as huge JPEGs won’t look good on mobile – these should be created in HTML and should be responsive. When UsVsTh3m launched their ‘Northometer’ quiz, 85% of plays came from mobile. In fact, the entire UsVsTh3m site is designed for mobile – Malcolm even went as far as to say that they “don’t really care” how it looks on desktop.

The most important takeaway of Malcolm’s talk was about content headlines. The best-performing headlines are interesting (you want to read them) and mysterious (they don’t give too much away) – these are the headlines that get you clicks AND shares.

Essentially, online content can be divided down into four categories: 

  • Gets clicked AND shared (what goes viral)
  • Gets clicked NOT shared (tends to be content that includes swearing – after all, “your Mum is on Facebook”)
  • Gets shared NOT clicked (rubbish headlines, but good content)
  • Doesn’t get shared OR clicked (most online content) 

You want your content to fall into the top category and sites like Buzzfeed work extremely hard to get this right – it’s standard for them to A/B test up to 25 different headlines for each piece of content.

Three more key points from Malcolm’s talk were:

  • If you’re creating content that’s getting shared, the most important thing is that it’s visual – this means people writing about it are forced to link to it because it’s not something that they can describe with the same level of impact
  • The reason quizzes work so well when it comes to generating content that gets shared is because people want to share content that’s self-affirming – i.e. it reinforces the way that people perceive themselves and/or want to be perceived by others
  • Use Facebook Ads to deliver niche content to the right people – when people in a niche start talking about something, it’s likely to get picked up by relevant publications

The Habits That Land You Links – Stacey Cavanagh

Next up was Stacey Cavanagh, Head of Search at Tecmark, talking about getting into the habits that land you links. Stacey spoke about the importance of allowing time to be creative, championing the 6-3-5 method which enables six people to generate 108 ideas in 30 minutes. Next, you should use NUF testing (New, Useful, Feasible) to work out which ideas are worth following up – score each idea out of ten for each of these things and prioritise the highest scoring ideas.

Additional takeaways from Stacey’s talk were:

  • Use a tool such as fivesecondtest.com to A/B test the effectiveness of your tweets
  • Don’t underestimate the importance of having a Flickr page with high quality, original images – ensure all images have a Creative Commons attribution license and include direction as to how to attribute
  • Have regular image reclamation sessions – imageraider.com helps to find sites using your images, then you can request attribution and a link
  • Create stories from surveys – this is a great tactic for getting news links, even if you just write a story about it (you don’t need a fancy infographic to get quality links)
  • Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of offline content – e.g. doing something “real” that results in coverage; links are a by-product of coverage
  • Old-fashioned communications are disruptive – when it comes to outreaching to your contacts, doing something like sending a hand-written letter will get you more attention than an email

How journalistic principles will shape the digital marketing of tomorrow Julia Ogden 

Julia was a journalist before she went on to work at Zazzle. Her talk was about how she’s used the skills she learnt while working in local media to inform her digital marketing tactics. Key points were:

  • Most people don’t read more than 250 words of a piece of content so make sure all the important information is at the top – the introduction to any piece of content needs to hook the reader and make them want to read on
  • The internet is crying out for high quality, well-written content – in essence, this is all that “SEO content” is
  • Content marketers should take advantage of the citizen journalism approach and crowd-source content from brand advocates and social influencers
  • Google rewards a website/business which has a range of followed links, no follow links and even just online mentions – Google recently released a patent to reward content that just mentions a brand or associated keywords, but has no links
  • When you’re creating content, always think about what’s new or different – why should people care about what you have to say?

 Using Content for Direct Response Matt Evans

It was Matt’s first time speaking at Brighton SEO and I thought his talk was one of the most useful from the day. Matt spoke at length about selling through content and provided some really great takeaways.

In essence, we’ve stopped stuffing Google with keywords and started stuffing it with content – but what so many online marketers overlook is that the sales funnel is content.

Matt outlined that there are four stages of the sales funnel that your consumers go through:

  • Unaware – content at this stage should catch peoples’ attention
  • Know the situation – content at this stage should inform people of the situation
  • Product awareness – content at this stage should inform people about the product
  • Purchase intent – content at this stage should push people to sale

Too often, content created “for SEO” overlooks this and completely misses the sales process:

  • Your content should inform your audience – because an informed audience is more likely to purchase
  • Get your content in the right place at the right time – tailor your content to what your audience want / need to see at each stage of the buying journey 
  • Re-market to your content, not just your products – use your content to move your potential customers down the funnel until they’re ready to purchase
  • Don’t underestimate the importance of post-purchase campaigns – it costs 5 x more to acquire a new customer than to sell again to an existing customer
  • Stop thinking about links first – create content with a real purpose

The Content Marketing Blueprint for Boring Industries – Mike Essex

Mike Essex from Koozai spoke about how we’re so obsessed with “great content” that we often totally overlook that fact that “boring content” is actually the best opportunity in content marketing. Great content might achieve awareness, but boring content is what sells.

Opportunities to create boring content include:

  • Your ‘About’ section
  • Technical specifications
  • Press releases (these are still important and great for targeting niche audiences, which can be critically important)
  • Company location pages

Ways that you can achieve stand-out “boring content” are:

  • Repackage boring content in a visually interesting way  – e.g. highly visual technical specification pages
  • Distil your product information down into simple-to-follow comparisons – sometimes you have to focus on what stops people buying and create content to address this
  • Think about customer aftercare – for example, other sites were ranking for Vax user guides so Vax invested in creating their own
  • Have great product pages – Aviva are a great example of a company which uses its product pages to give them a competitive edge

Above all, remember that on-site content such as this MUST convert – that should always be your end goal!