I
you
hi everybody this is SOSSKA I am the
director of marketing here at blue found
media and I'm going to be doing the
webinar today talking to you guys a
little bit about the future of search in
2018 just people will get started if you
have questions throughout the webinar
feel free to submit them in the
GoToWebinar chat box and we'll be
answering those at the end of the
presentation so let's get started
talking about some trends in the
industry that are going to continue for
the rest of 2018 that we that we think
are really important for you to know
about and be taking into account in your
SEO and paid search strategies so I want
to start off by talking about social
because this is one of the most
important changes that we've really seen
become more recognized over the past
year and continuing forward in 2013 and
really if there's something that you
should take away from this presentation
it's that search loves social and really
that's sort of a factor of how we've
seen social signals be integrated more
and more in estimating the value of
content and the organic ranking of
content maybe not officially as as
stated by the search engines but what
I've highlighted here is an industry
survey done by SEO Moz which is a
software provider a tool provider and
thought leader in the SEO industry a
great blog if you don't read it I highly
recommend it but they took a took a poll
of some industry professionals to ask
them which ranking factors they think
are going to become more important
moving forward in the next year and
which ones will become less important so
what you're looking at here in orange is
the the amount of respondents who said
that the factor in question would would
become more important yellow is it will
stay the same and gray
is that it would become less important
so you can see sort of in descending
order the things that will be more
important versus less important over the
next year based on you know the opinions
of people in the industry and the reason
that I've highlighted this obviously is
because the two of the top three are
actual actually social signals so the
first is social signals at a page level
and that would be shares likes tweets of
your of content on a webpage or of a
page of your website and the second is
social signals at a domain level so
overall likes and shares of your website
for example as opposed to just one page
of your website so i like to highlight
this just because it's it's a really
strong indicator that that people who
are in this industry and and are
involved in doing SEO on a day-to-day
basis understand that social signals are
becoming more important to determining
the value of content and there are a few
very logical reasons that this is
happening and that we see search engines
taking social signals into account more
and more the first is that it's
certainly considered a lot more
trustworthy so when i say more
trustworthy i mean in some other ways of
evaluating content so there are a few
ways that search engines evaluate the
you know keyword relevance of content
and that would be on page factors like
how many times a keyword is in the
content of the page in which areas of
the page that keyword shows up and then
of course inbound links as well and
those things are not seeing necessarily
as trustworthy as social signals because
social signals aren't controlled by the
webmaster or that by the the person
doing the SEO of the site so they're
coming from a lot of different people so
it's it's seen as something that is less
easily gained which is my second point
here
so social likes and shares there's
certainly some manipulation that can
happen you know you can be getting your
friends to like your your content you
can be creating fake accounts but it's a
lot harder to do that then to do some of
the sort of spammy link building that
you used to be very easy to do and used
to have a big effect on rankings so
social is more trusted as a result by
search engines and then finally social
can actually legitimize links so there
are a lot of different ways in which you
could acquire a big volume of links
quickly but much of the time when that
happens it's because you're doing
something that's not legitimate so maybe
you purchased 500 links and they all
sort of came in at one time usually
that's seen by search engines is highly
inorganic and not trusted but social is
actually a way to figure out if if
something like that is being caused by
legitimate popularity of content so
let's say for example that I had a
tumblr blog and you know it was it was
based around you know something that
happened at the Oscars for example to
take a recent example and it went it got
very popular overnight and I got 1,000
inbound links in four hours that would
usually look like I was doing something
shady or spammy but the if I also got
you know 500 likes of my tumblr you know
a thousand read blogs on tumblr and then
600 tweets of my content suddenly the
search engines are able to better
understand what's going on there and to
better estimate that my content is
legitimate and that I haven't done
anything shady so to speak so those are
three key reasons that we think that
search engines trust social are
beginning to factor in social signal
more and more and so I just went over
some of the reasons that social signals
have been have we think social signals
have become more of a ranking factor but
social is also becoming more integrated
in the search results themselves so
we're actually seeing social content
show up in the way that we browse and
the way the way that we interact with
search engines themselves and the
results that we're seeing so the first
example here is from bing who has a
partnership with Facebook where as a
logged in facebook user you can't you'll
see on a right sidebar um who how other
people have interacted with the search
term that that you've that you've
searched for so in the example here I've
searched for Star Wars I'm able to see
which of my friends like Star Wars if
any of my friends had you know written a
review i would be able to i would be
able to see that and interact with that
content there on the right and it's not
you can't see it in this example but
there's also sort of an indicator of
which results on the search page itself
have been shared by my friends on
facebook had any of them shared it so
it's just a way of integrating the way
that we you know the way that we
interact with our social network into
the way that we're searching on the web
so it's becoming a much more personal
experience and then this example is from
google who obviously does not integrate
facebook results but integrates results
from their own social network google+ so
for the same query i'm seeing images
shared by people in my Google+ circles
at the bottom there and I'm also seeing
articles that were shared by people in
my network showing up in the actual
search engine result page itself so
that's you know I've highlighted here in
green but it's also denoted by this
little you know man icon that you can
see to
left of the result so this is just a way
in which social content is actually
showing up in our search results and and
making them a lot more personal to us as
users
so that's social let's move on to
talking about users and and usability
and the real theme here is that making
users happy is ultimately going to make
Google happy with you as a website so
Google makes money by selling ads
obviously and but what they what they
really need to achieve is to become well
not to become because they already are
but to continue to provide the most
relevant content to their users so that
users keep coming back to Google to do
searches so obviously you know the more
volume they have aa using their search
engine the more they're able to sell
advertising so that's really just to say
that obviously the end goal for Google
is to provide the most relevant content
possible and to make users feel really
happy with the experience and so there
are a few things that I'm going to talk
about the first of which is having a
strong content strategy so content
really is king I know that's vivek leash
a but it's certainly true and there's a
reason that people say it um having
excellent content is going to become
even more important as time goes on so
we'll talk about some algorithm updates
that have happened on the next in the
next section of this presentation but I
wanted to highlight a few people who are
doing content really well right now the
first is Amex so this is their open
forum and the reason that I want to
highlight this is because this is an
entire microsite it's not directly about
promotion of American Express obviously
you know it's branded as american
express and everybody knows that it's
brought to you by American Express but
it's about providing a resource to
people who you know would potentially be
interested in American Express
especially from you know a small
business perspective so of course they
offer business credit cards so that's
certainly the demographic that they're
operating in and what they
I've done really well obviously I think
probably everybody on this webinar has
heard of open forum it's it's a
well-respected content hub but what
they've done really well is that they
they talk about content and they they
present content that is actually useful
to the users and interesting too so you
know it's not five reasons that you
should have an amex card it's five dirty
negotiation tactics and how to beat them
so this is content that that people keep
coming back to that people share
genuinely share um you know you don't
have to force them to send this out to
people they they want to engage with it
and they may be know somebody who's not
great at negotiation and they need a
little help with this and so they send
that article along to that person or
shared via their social network so
that's one example of somebody who's
doing content marketing really well the
next is from mint com and if you're not
familiar they provide a platform for
sort of aggregating all of your
financial data and you know tracking it
creating budgets you know so it's sort
of about financial health and knowing
where your money goes and setting
financial goals etc and so it's
important to know that because then you
can really understand how this blog that
they've created speaks really well to
that audience again without being overly
promotional and mint itself so it's of
course it's all branded very well with
to fit with you know sort of their their
brand standards and their their tell the
tone of their overall content and
website but they're talking about things
that are that are useful to their users
so somebody who uses mint is serious
about their finances and and wants to
reach certain goals that they've laid
out for themselves from a financial
perspective so offering this sort of
foodies Friday blog series where they're
talking about you know ways to save
money with
with regards to food is really useful
information for their users so and not
only for their users but for people who
could potentially become users so you
know I wanted to talk about content
because and highlight some people who
are doing it really well to show that I
think a lot of people a lot of websites
have trouble getting away from the
highly promotional content and generally
that doesn't work very well and it's not
very interesting to your users so
focusing on what you can offer that's
valuable to potential users is where you
should be headed in the future in order
to you know enhance whatever search and
SEO efforts you have underway so this
kind of content is going to get shared
which is something that we just talked
about social signals so that's
definitely the direction that you want
to make sure you're focusing on in the
future so next up we have usability in
mobile so
a lot of us are aware of the trend of
you know mobile the increase of mobile
activations that are happening each year
so of course this is a trend that we
expect to continue you know mobile
devices and activations are going to
become even more prevalent and different
sizes too so not only is there you know
an iphone and an ipad there's tons of
different android phones you know
windows phones there are all different
sizes and and consumers are going to
continue to buy these and access content
even more frequently on these mobile
devices and tablets so the statistics
that I've pulled out here are really
important because seventy two percent of
consumers at this point actually expect
a mobile-friendly site if they are
browsing the web via mobile device and I
can say for a fact that seventy two
percent of websites are definitely not
mobile friendly so there's a huge
disconnect their brands and and websites
have been slow to pick up on this and
the next statistic is also really key
because then seventy-nine percent of
searchers actually hit back if the site
they land on delivers a bad experience
and if you can imagine you know you
seventy-two percent of us are going to a
website and expecting it to be mobile
friendly and it's not then we're going
to hit back and the what I've
highlighted down here is actually from
within your Google account you can block
sites from appearing in your results and
there are certainly a lot of reasons
that you might do that if it was a
spammy site but also if it just had
really terrible usability and you didn't
feel comfortable using it and you
weren't able to find the information
that you are looking for and Google
actually says here those sites will only
be blocked for you but they may use that
information to improve the ranking of
search results overall so this is a
pretty strong signal
but it's google's thinking about you
know content and usability especially so
if a site continues to get blocked by
multiple different users that's going to
ultimately probably result in a penalty
for you so as the website so focusing on
making sure that your site delivers what
your users were expecting and what they
wanted is very very important so I want
to talk a little bit about paid search
as we've been talking mostly about
organic and what types of changes and
improvements and new targeting we can
expect coming coming and sort of down
the down the line here the first is more
and more remarketing so this is not a
remarketing is not a new thing and if
for those who aren't familiar with what
remarketing is as soon as I describe it
i'm sure you're going to be like oh
that's happened to me a ton of times but
it's it's basically when you go to a
website and you know you browse around
and then you decide oh I don't want that
product after all or you know I don't
need that service after all on you leave
the website you go about your day and
then later on maybe that same day maybe
you know a week later you start seeing
ads for that either that company or the
product that you specifically were
looking at on the website so those ads
start sort of quote-unquote following
you around the web and that's because
that website has collected a little
cookie from you and has hit go on a
remarketing campaign to show you ads
either specifically for what you are
looking at or for the website in general
and the idea here is that they're trying
to get you to come back to the website
to finish the conversion and this is
something that is was sort of a newer a
newer thing over the past year but is
going to become more and more prevalent
moving forward so as more people learn
what this is
and start sort of employing these types
of campaigns it's actually right now
it's a pretty cost-effective method of
advertising so it's it can be a big win
for your company so the next is
segmentation and improvement of mobile
advertising so having specific mobile
campaigns that target the needs of your
users who are searching you know via a
mobile device those needs are often
different than the needs of a user who's
sitting at a desk top so if i search for
dry cleaning from my phone you know I'm
may be looking to find the hours of the
dry clean of a dry cleaner nearby one
that's open late so I might want to call
them and the ability to do that right
from right from the ad itself is really
useful so having mobile campaigns that
really effectively target then needs the
specific needs of a mobile user is going
to is going to allow you to be more
profitable and more effective with those
campaigns and then finally real-time
bidding this is something that um that
is in progress and we expect to be
happening for real sometime in the near
future um but what real time fitting is
is the ability for an advertiser to bid
up a specific keyword or you know their
bit up their ad for a specific heuer
based on the search history of that user
so to it this is sort of complicated but
in order to make it easier to understand
I've highlighted an example here so
let's say that you know we have I have a
friend Lindsey and she's done a search
for the term SEO well we don't really
know what she means what she's looking
for when she searches SEO maybe she's
looked maybe she doesn't know what what
it is and she just wants a definition
maybe she's thinking about going to
school for SEO or she needs a job doing
SEO there are a lot of different intense
that could be possible when somebody is
searching that keyword but let's say
that then Lindsay you know a day later
searches for the term digital marketing
see that knowing that she searched for
SEO and then digital marketing agency
makes it a lot more likely that what
Lindsay was actually looking for was
somebody to do SEO for her so as an
advertiser in the future we'd be able to
bid up that keyword so you know we want
to bid higher to show up in a better
position for that keyword because we
know that Lindsay is a more qualified
visit potentially based on her search
history and then finally enhanced
results so we're going to see more and
more of this happening in the future
what the example here that I used is I
searched for Lincoln and you know I did
this search a little bit a little bit of
a while ago so you're seeing movie times
actually show up right there on the page
because you know that was at the time
that I did this search that was very
relevant I was maybe looking to see the
movie and wanted to find out movie times
near me you're also seeing biographical
information come up in the in the search
engine result itself so right there on
the right-hand sidebar but then what I
really wanted to highlight from you know
all those things actually do really
affect websites and you know web
property owners because if you were
optimizing for you know you wanted to
show up for Abraham Lincoln for some
reason maybe sell Abraham Lincoln
t-shirts it's actually going to be a bit
harder for you to do that because Google
is integrating what it considers to be
very relevant results you know right
there into the page itself so it's
actually pushing down the rest of the
content but what I also really wanted to
highlight was the enhanced search
results that you see on the third result
down Linkin 2012 from IMDb you can
actually see star ratings coming in
there you see um links to people in the
movies really state etc you all can you
can also see who's the director of the
movie who stars in them
me and that's because IMDB is using
what's called schema or rich snippet
data so it's basically code on the page
which tells search engines a little bit
more about what the specific elements of
the page are so it's telling Google hey
Steven Spielberg is a director he
directed this movie and Daniel day-lewis
starred in this movie that's content and
and designations that search engines
can't understand on their own because
they are robots but so by providing this
by providing this enhanced markup we can
actually show enhanced results on the
search engine pages and there are a lot
of different ways that are different
designations so you can do you know
location or an event so it'll show up
differently on the page itself and the
whole point of doing this is to make
your result look a lot more enticing to
users so you can imagine that if I'm
doing this search and I wanted to learn
more about the movie Lincoln IMDB looks
like a really great result because it
has these you know stars it has ratings
it it's just that it's an it more
engaging and visually captivating result
on the page so it can positively impact
click through on your results all right
step we're going to talk about some
algorithmic improvements that we've seen
happen over the past year that are going
to going to affect going to affect your
efforts moving forward specifically from
an SEO perspective so the first change
that I want to talk about is penguin
which happened in April of 2012 and
really penguin targeted
sorry uh-huh i have this backwards so
panda was the update that targeted thin
content so just you know you can you can
just swap those out there so the Panda
update which did not happen in April
happened there have been many iterations
a lot of which happened over
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