Why should marketers be more strategic about the way they approach Search? Jordan Koene, CEO of Searchmetrics Inc, shares some practical ways to leverage search as a strategic part of marketing in 2019.
Search is always hiding in plain sight. We all know it’s there; but its esoteric and keeps evolving, and typically left to the ‘search expert’ – either inhouse or the Agency. While no marketer will ignore Search in their strategy, they also shy away from getting completely involved or even treating it as a strategic part of their marketing efforts. Let’s face it – once your team or Agency has managed to hit page one of Google for your ‘focus keywords’, just how much attention do you focus on search?
While marketers have been faced with the specter of Google’s ‘changing algorithms’ for a while now; at MarTech Advisor we are sensing a slightly altered narrative. Just as the approach to Content Marketing is shifting to Content Experiences, there is a definitive shift in the way marketers are approaching search too. The tow are anyway inextricably linked. New concepts such as voice, visual and vertical search aside, Search is also helping drive content discoverability more purposefully through the customer journey. In other words, it is becoming more strategic to marketing, rather than a box that needs to be checked. We spoke with Jordan Koene, CEO of Searchmetrics Inc, about what Strategic Search means in practice, and came away with some pretty practical and powerful tips for you to try! You may find that you’ve been missing the obvious.
Also Read: Winning with Search in 2019: Talking SEM & SEO with the other Alexa
He starts by telling us that CMOs typically approach Search from the brand or direct traffic point of view. “SEO is often taken for granted – as a guarantee. However, the dynamic nature of SEO requires CMOs to understand various factors which are often outside the scope of ‘marketing’, making it challenging to understand the evolution and factors which drive results.” Perhaps that is why marketers have tended to ‘leave search to the search guys’ so far. The first mistake.
So, what other the typical misconceptions or missteps do marketers make with their Search – both paid and organic – strategy? Jordan says “The most common misconception and misstep is overlooking your website. The website matters! The quality of a website is the most important driver of success in search. Commonly this is considered mostly as being important for conversions, but it stretches beyond. The quality of a website includes areas such as site speed, user experience and mobile experience. When measuring the outcome, it becomes critical to have the right tools to help you understand the impact of website quality factors. And since these factors are not limited to your own website, it is important to monitor rankings and changes within competitive sets. These data points help marketers reach the best possible outcomes.”
Its critical to get Search right; because “Competition for rankings has grown exponentially, today we have 4 times the number of websites from 2010, nearly 1 trillion websites.” To leverage Search, especially in content-marketing driven scenarios, marketers need to focus on “a content strategy which constantly evolves and makes changes to address customers’ needs.”
Here are Jordan’s Top Tips on some essential facets of Search:
1. For mobile search:
- Mobile search success is no longer about being mobile ready. Having a mobile website was a requirement 5 years ago. Today the game is about mobile capabilities – including your mobile speed, UX factors and content accessibility.
- Focus on optimizing your mobile experience to outperform competition- this is the new normal for winning in mobile rankings.
2. For small to mid-size marketers
- With limited resources, what should SMBs wanting to build a competitive search strategy prioritize?
- Focus on making your website fast! Reduce image sizes, challenge vendors on improving speed and reduce tags and other elements which require load time. From here, ensure your content coverage is adequate for the keywords you wish to target. Create a keyword topic graph and ensure you are covering all of them adequately.
Also read: Voice Search Habits and their impact on local business
3. For B2B marketers
- B2B marketing is centered around content marketing, and content marketing in the digital space itself is very dependent on search. How can B2B marketers better leverage search? Jordan agrees that B2B businesses often invest in “high cost, high return content such as whitepapers, research studies and long form content” (whereas B2C businesses are often more focused on scaling content by prioritizing content sources like reviews, articles, descriptions and Q&A content.) The best policy for B2B marketers would be:
- Refine, add, refine, add and refine more. Successful Content has a life cycle which changes over time and requires investment from content teams to keep the content fresh and relevant. No static content will maintain any form of rankings.
4. On Vertical and Voice Search:
New ways of consuming content will mean new models for search optimization.
- Both vertical and voice search will grow at a significant rate over the coming years.
- In vertical search, the user value is identifying results quickly and within the addressable vertical, for example finding a restaurant on Yelp.
- For voice search to evolve and grow will require an expansion in the use of IOT and other devices in our lives. Its true value will be connected to the devices and tools we use in everyday life and how voice commands make life easier.
Also Read: The New Search: Four Trends Reshaping Consumers’ Most Fundamental Digital Activity
5. On new or important trends in Search
- I continue to monitor the clean-up process many “old” websites undertake. This includes the technical and content debt removal from websites. This is a new phenomenon but critical to prioritizing website performance and important content.
- The second trend I am watching is the evolution of search integrations and how brands leverage them. This includes how they use knowledge graphs and other universal search integrations within Google. At some point, these will be a critical component for voice search and leading brands will have to find ways to capitalize on these positions.
More about Jordan
Jordan is a digital marketing expert who, aside from leading and executing various strategic needs of the US operations of Searchmetrics, also presents at various industry events on search and content marketing. Before Searchmetrics, Jordan was the Head of SEO and Content Development at eBay.
As a digital marketing expert, Jordan has presented at various industry events (SMX, Pubcon and Digital Summit Series) sharing insights about successful Search and Content marketing.