Having joined Napier in September 2018 as a marketing specialist, I thought it would be a good idea to attend this event to help expand my knowledge and interest in the world of digital. The summit consisted of two days, the first day being conferences and the second workshops.
I attended many conferences and workshops which covered a variety of topics such as search engine optimisation (SEO), conversion rate marketing and page speed politics, although in this blog I will be covering topics that stood out for me and ones that I thought really make a significant impact.
Being able to listen and interact with many speakers was great. We got to hear about their background and wealth of knowledge/experience in the marketing industry. Their speeches, workshops and slides were so compelling and engaging and you could really see that the audience was captivated.
The following tips and information on SEO, paid media strategies and mobile index is what I will share with you throughout this blog.
SEO
As a marketing specialist, a lot of my work involves digital and I thought it was important to attend the SEO conference.
Kaspar Szymanski, SEO expert and former senior Google employee led the presentation with the topic of exploiting SEO honeymoon period – how to exploit it and make your brand new site rank well continuously.
He presented a few steps that we should consider in the honeymoon period for long lasting SEO performance for any new site.
- Site performance is an imperative factor especially when it comes to speed as it an SEO factor. Several factors will determine how quick a site will load. Making sure this a top priority will help with SEO
- Link building is about how users and google find new content and therefore link building should be looked at from the first day you launch a new site. The main focus is to drive conversions and brand recognition to boost positive user signals. The honeymoon period is the best time for building links to maintain traffic to the site and tell Google that a new site is the ‘new place to go’
- User signals – Google will love websites that are popular with users and they will have expectations as they look at the snippets – they will either choose or reject results. Therefore every snippet needs to outline what the landing page has to offer. Ensuring your unique selling proposition
A check list:
- Start link building for conversions from the first day
- Make your site faster than your competitors
- Manage user expectations with snippets and landing pages
The Ever-Changing Landscape of paid media
In this presentation, the speaker walked us through some of the latest features and updates across the main paid media platforms. It was full of inspirations and ideas and her suggestions were applicable for the whole marketing funnel.
In the Awareness stage, at the top of the funnel, she suggested getting more involved in social media such as Instagram stories, Facebook ads, Pinterest promoted pins and Apple Search ads with demographics targeting.
Consideration: local catalogue ads on display, Facebook messenger ads for brand engagement and one that will probably become popular is Facebook augmented ads.
Preference: Google local search map ads, Affiliate location extensions on YouTube Ads and Shopping price benchmarks.
Purchase: Shoppable ads on Instagram, Integration with Google Optimize & Google Adwords and LinkedIn Carousel Ads.
Loyalty: Facebook custom audiences for offline conversions and Facebook messenger ads to communicate post sales.
It was really compelling to hear different strategies that can deployed for all types of industries as many businesses pay too much attention to the bottom of the funnel. One important key element from this is making sure that all traffic you’ve got coming to your site is being used properly and to convert it along the way for any paid media campaign.
The Mobile First Index, what, why and more importantly when
Jon Myers, an experienced leader within the digital marketplace with over 19 years experience talks to us about the shift to the mobile first index by Google. This session gave me a great deal of SEO information and a roadmap of what to do!
Mobile search is the new priority for Google and with 60% of searches via mobile it is vital we keep on top of this. After all, users who have a bad mobile experience are 60% less likely to revisit your page.
The following will be important facts to take away with you:
- Google will not have a separate mobile index, it is the same single index
- Have a responsive or dynamic site
- Desktop pages will be phased out where is a mobile alternative
- Structured data will play a vital part in the mobile-first world
The impact on website performance:
- Keywords ranking will be affected if your mobile content is reduced and doesn’t contain terms the page was previously ranking for on desktop
- To maintain rankings; content, images, metadata and alt attributes need to be consistent across desktop and mobile
- The above needs to be crawlable
We Have Created Napier’s Very Own SEO Tool! – Check it out here