the future of search - five trends to follow
DESCRIPTION
You ask a question out loud and get the answer on the screen of your smartphone, tablet or wearable. These digital personal assistants also aim to bring you the information you need even before you ask. Search engines are getting smarter. Instead of only matching keywords, Google can now extract the meaning and intent behind your queries and combine it with your location, tastes and social connections in an effort to deliver the best results. We’re in the era of Semantic Search, but what does this mean for brands, marketing and SEO professionals? Is this the end of SERP rankings? How do we move from keyword to conversation and determine searcher intent? WBS will share their thoughts on the future of search and marketing, and give some recommendations on how to stay ahead of the game. This talk was presented at ad:tech London on 22/10/2014.TRANSCRIPT
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THE FUTURE OF SEARCH 5 trends to follow
22/10/2014 Agnieszka Szrubkowska, Ana Gasston
The Future of Search …
… will be semantic
Mobile
Some stats …
Source: Nokia
User behaviour • 81% of mobile searches are driven by speed and convenience
• 56% of mobile searches done on the go have local intent
• 55% of conversions that are triggered by a mobile search happen within one hour
Source: Google/Nielsen/Econsultancy
Mobile searches
62% of organic searches show
different results depending
on whether the search was
performed on a desktop or
a smartphone
Source: Search Engine Land
Content strategy
Your content has to be available when and where necessary to be effective
Structured Markup
Schema.org
Rich Snippets
Note: a study found that only 0.3% of websites use Schema: http://bit.ly/schemaorg-study
Google Testing Tools
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
Authority
Authority • Google Authorship is gone
• Trust, reputation Authority
• Focus on your expertise, targets and right channels
• Build meaningful relationships
• Authenticity
User Centered Content
Optimise for users, not SE Content can’t be useful if you don’t know why it’s needed and who’s looking for it
Know your audience • Predict search intent
• Who are they?
• What they want?
• What they need?
• How they search?
• How they use the website?
• What questions they are asking?
• Which content they are consuming the most?
• Are they finding what they are looking for?
• Why they are visiting the website?
• What pages they are looking at?
• How long do they stay on the site?
• Where they came from?
• What is their conversion rate?
• … ?
• Create personas
Content strategy Deliver the right content at the right time on the right device
Don’t make users think Think about user experience – design to use, browse and explore
High Quality Content
Google updates
SPAM
From keywords to topics
Relevant term
Keyword Keyword variation
Keyword variation
Keyword variation
Keyword variation
Keyword Proof term
Relevant term
Proof term
Relevant term
Proof term
1 Keyword (+variations)
1 Landing page 1 Topic 1 Landing
page
The Hummingbird effect
pre-Hummingbird post-Hummingbird
Screenshots taken from http://bit.ly/ranking-factors-study
Avoid confusion What some people have said about recent changes:
Sprinkle questions across articles.
Optimise pages for long queries – perhaps in a
FAQ section.
If longer blocks of content rank higher, then you should have longer and more content which mobile users won’t like.
Notes: Google extracts the meaning behind longer queries, it doesn’t match keywords to your content. The rise of long-form journalism driven by mobile apps.
Conclusion
SEO role
SEO
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Content
Feedback
Keyword research
Links building
Sitemap optimisation
Software development
Web design
Strategy
Social network
Traffic monitoring
Ranking
Website optimisation
Recap
Optimise for mobile
Implement structured markup
Build reputation, develop authority
Optimise for your customers, not search engines
Produce less and higher quality content
Questions? Visit us at our kiosk IM - I
Thank you!