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#DigitalPriorities Digital Marketing Priorities 2018 brought to you by

How to develop a customer-centric SEO strategy in 2018

Mike McDougall,Organic Search Director of Stickyeyes@Stickyeyes @mikeymcdougall

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SEARCH IS EVOLVING

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Google got smart.

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What users want: What search engines want:

• Great content

• Content depth

• Fast loading on any device

• Clear & concise messaging

• Excellent UX

• Logical navigation

• Great content

• Content depth

• Fast loading on any device

• Clear & concise messaging

• Excellent UX

• Logical navigation

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What is Rank Brain?

• Google’s machine learning technology

• Future of its ranking algorithm

• “Dialling down” human elements

• “Things not Strings”

• This will change and personalise the search experience

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Rank Brain in Action

NAME: JILL MCDOUGALL

OCCUPATION: RETIRED / MY MUM

INTERESTS: ORNITHOLOGY (BIRD WATCHING TO THE LAYMAN), FOOTBALL

GOOGLE VITAL INFO:BIRD SPOTTING APPS DOWNLOADED, OWNS UNFATHOMABLY EXPENSIVE BINOCULARS

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Rank Brain in Action

NAME: MIKE MCDOUGALL

OCCUPATION: DIGITAL MARKETER

INTERESTS: TRAVEL, MOUNTAIN BIKES, SNOWBOARDING, COOKING

GOOGLE VITAL INFO: TORONTO BASED SEARCHES, LIKES BASEBALL & BEER

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ENGAGEMENT NOW KEY TO THE ALGORITHM

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Less Reliance on Links

70%

75%

80%

85%

90%

95%

100%

Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14 Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15 Jun-15 Jul-15 Aug-15 Sep-15

Ave

rage

Co

rrel

atio

n S

core

Changing Algorithmic Patterns - Links

Links & Authority

Source: Stickyeyes Proprietary tool “Roadmap”

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More Focus on Good User Experience

240

260

280

300

320

15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Ave

rage

Tim

e on

Site

(s)

Ranking Position

Average Time on Site – Ranking Correlation

Source: Stickyeyes Proprietary tool “Roadmap”

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“Blinds” Keyword Set – Time on Site & Bounce Rate

4:49

5:54

5:22 5:20

4:07 4:15

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

0:00

0:30

1:00

1:30

2:00

2:30

3:00

3:30

4:00

4:30

5:00

5:30

6:00

6:30

247blinds.co.uk directblinds.co.uk blinds-2go.co.uk dunelm.com blindsuk.net hillarys.co.uk

Bo

un

ce R

ate

Tim

e o

n S

ite

(m:s

)

Time on Site & Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate Time on SiteSource: Alexa Time on Site and Bounce Rate data

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Site Speed Increasing in Importance

75

80

85

90

95

100

Mar-16 Apr-16 May-16 Jun-16 Jul-16 Aug-16 Sep-16 Oct-16 Nov-16 Dec-16 Jan-17

Roadmap Page Load Speed Correlation (all Sectors)

Non-HTML Page Load Speed HTML Page Load Speed Page Load Speed

Source: Stickyeyes Proprietary tool “Roadmap”

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Hosting Keyword Set – Site Speed Data

72% 72%75%

62% 61% 61%

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

40%

45%

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

75%

80%

godaddy.com 123-reg.co.uk 1and1.co.uk tsohost.com fasthosts.co.uk hostgator.com

Aggregated Site Speed Score vs. Search Visibility

Source: Aggregated data from Pingdom, GTMetrix & Google Developer Tools

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UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE SEARCHING

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Understand Micro-moments

I WANT TO

KNOWExploring or

researching but not yet in purchase mode.

Users want useful information and

inspiration.

I WANT TO

DOBefore or after

purchase, these are those key ‘how to’

moments when people want to get things

done .

I WANT TO

GOThe user is actively

looking to visit somewhere – they’re looking for ideas and

inspiration.

I WANT TO

BUYSomeone’s actively

ready to make a purchase and may

need help – we need to be there to help

them.

INFORMATIONAL SEARCH COMMERCIAL SEARCH

These different segments will use search very differently – we need to use insights to understand the search ‘micro-moments’ which are relevant to each one.

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Understand Seasonal Trends – the “When”

Category Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Generics 108.9K 91.8K 109.4K 107.0K 91.9K 79.2K 92.8K 95.1K 93.8K 91.5K 87.1K 75.6K

Accessories 206.1K 168.8K 192.7K 159.0K 170.2K 144.3K 145.1K 154.1K 149.7K 136.8K 140.1K 149.9K

Amino Acids 56.9K 47.9K 59.8K 65.2K 56.6K 53.5K 53.4K 50.2K 47.2K 46.3K 50.3K 49.0K

Blends & Formulas 12.7K 10.4K 11.4K 10.3K 10.4K 10.9K 9.8K 10.5K 9.0K 8.0K 8.1K 6.4K

Carbohydrates 143.3K 141.4K 116.9K 116.6K 116.8K 79.9K 65.9K 96.3K 206.8K 170.0K 114.6K 114.8K

Clothing 235.5K 209.1K 229.9K 198.7K 169.8K 160.6K 178.7K 191.5K 162.7K 148.4K 171.6K 180.0K

Creatine 252.9K 250.3K 253.4K 243.2K 252.4K 206.6K 207.2K 245.8K 209.5K 202.4K 199.9K 171.2K

Food & Drink 205.7K 182.8K 204.7K 181.9K 169.0K 150.1K 150.7K 152.3K 150.0K 126.2K 112.8K 110.8K

Pills & Tablets 669.0K 640.7K 646.9K 627.4K 583.0K 477.7K 497.4K 539.3K 638.5K 531.6K 476.4K 437.9K

Protein Powders 499.8K 425.6K 452.5K 426.8K 398.5K 376.1K 366.4K 389.8K 346.3K 304.7K 293.2K 286.4K

Vitamins & Minerals 439.2K 435.0K 463.5K 395.9K 375.9K 328.4K 324.7K 338.0K 389.5K 387.3K 382.5K 334.1K

Source: Seasonal Search Volume from Stickyeyes tool Ad Hoc Metrics

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VOICE SEARCH

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Smarthome Speakers Smartphone Assistants

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Voice Search Soundbites

• “50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020” according to comScore

• “About 30% of searches will be done without a screen by 2020.” via Mediapos

• “We estimate there will be 21.4 million smart speakers in the US by 2020”

according to Activate

• “By 2019, the voice recognition market will be a $601 million industry”,

according to a report from Technavio via Skyword.

• “This year (2017), 25 million devices will be shipped, bringing the total number

of voice-first devices to 33 million in circulation.” based on a new study

by VoiceLabs via Mediapost

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Apart from being THE SEO hot topic for 2018 what does this actually mean for your search strategy?

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Changing the Language of Search

• We talk to search engines

differently to how we type

• This will change the make

up of search queries

• QA formatting &

conversational queries will

increase

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MAP YOUR CONTENT TO INTENT

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Functional Content Mapped to Search

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Generate Unique Content Relevant to Query

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MARK-UP YOUR DATA FOR SEARCH

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Use Structured Data to Control SERP Real Estate

This code snippet…. Will give you this!

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For more SEO insight and free, in-depth intelligence reports:

https://www.stickyeyes.com/intelligence/

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#DigitalPriorities Digital Marketing Priorities 2018 brought to you by

How to develop a customer-centric SEO strategy in 2018

Mike McDougall,Organic Search Director of Stickyeyes@Stickyeyes @mikeymcdougall