This past month, members of the Go Local Interactive marketing team had the opportunity to attend the SEMPO Cities KC event in downtown Kansas City. Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) is a global nonprofit that serves marketing professionals and the search engine marketing industry. Not only did the event have information-rich presentations, they also supplied nerdy puns and a networking happy hour. Speakers covered a variety of topics from utilizing data to inspiring content. From these presentations, the team gathered four main takeaways:
- If you have better ideas, you can form better strategies
- More efficient internal processes will lead to more success
- Better decisions can be made with more relative data
- Optimizing past practices while advancing your tactics will lead to the best results
In the first round of speakers, Bethany Andrew (@bethanyf88) discussed how new paid media tactics/features will be affecting the way people interact with a company. She mentioned that “68% of people would prefer to use click-to-message/book rather than call for things such as scheduling appointments” which is why the new click-to-pay/message feature is so up-and-coming. She talked about a multitude of new tools that can be utilized in paid media, including promotional ad extensions and in-store traffic tracking. Overall, the ideas she presented showed that if you implement new, better ideas you can then create a better strategy for targeting consumers.
In his presentation, Brody Dorland (@brodydorland) talked about how the internet is busy and crowded resulting in consumers having the majority of control. Dorland offered content as the solution to these problems and its quality being the main source of traffic. Tylor Hermanson quoted Dorland on Twitter, saying “Get cozy with buyer intent so you can boost relevance” (@MyNameIsTylor). To generate better content, Dorland suggested creating a cumulative “bucket” or an “I-bucket of ideas” where everyone within a company can store their plans and concepts. Using stronger internal processes, as Dorland mentioned, can lead to higher success in the internet’s competitive environment.
The third round of presentations focused mainly on the use of data. Yosef Silver (@ysilver) talked about how data needs to be utilized in order to know your audience. It’s important to set tangible, numerical goals based on the application of the data to a particular audience. Setting goals is important for streamlining the process of navigating the massive amounts of data available. He offered useful tools for “navigating the sea of data” using products such as Screaming Frog, Google Analytics, Raven, Semrush, Agency Analytics and Moz. Overall, the decision to set goals with your audience in mind will help make data more relevant.
In the last round, the speakers discussed their own opinions of the best current tactics for success. Tylor Hermanson (@MyNameIsTylor) talked about how the “old way” of tracking keywords is dead; however, the use of keywords is not. For example, conducting voice searches (ex. Siri) is proof that keywords are dead because it is a more humanistic approach to search. So rather than conducting a traditional search with more dry language, voice searches use a more conversational style.
Hermanson recommended not starting with an SEO keyword tool; rather, begin by researching and understanding the entirety of a company first. Then, when you do begin keyword generation, be sure to keep your options open and don’t limit yourself to one keyword planner. The multitude of tools all have the same general purpose but can be useful in targeting specific niches. When it comes to the selection of keywords, be sure to incorporate the background research you collected and use long-tailed support. Hermanson quoted that “15% of searches each day have NEVER been seen before by Google.” This is why elaborating on your keywords is important while using these tactics. Always keep in mind that you need to understand your data and translate your spreadsheet so that you can optimize your information.
These are just a few of the takeaways from the discussion on the ever-changing world of search engine marketing discussed at the 2016 SEMPO event. You can view all of the presentations from the event on slideshare. For more information about SEMPO events, refer to their website and follow them on Twitter.