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miercuri, 16 aprilie 2014
The cost of inaction:
The @VP, on Instagram
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Search Marketers Need to Evolve: Google is Rewarding Marketing Strategists
Search Marketers Need to Evolve: Google is Rewarding Marketing Strategists |
Search Marketers Need to Evolve: Google is Rewarding Marketing Strategists Posted: 15 Apr 2014 05:16 PM PDT Posted by RonGarrett In the last three years at Distilled, I have sold approximately $5 million in marketing services to over 100 businesses. Initially, the vast majority of the business I sold was in search, but over time it has evolved to encompass different facets of marketing because we are now headed towards a hyper-competitive future. In order for our industry to continue to thrive, we need to set ourselves apart. I wanted to share some of my experience in how I was able to overcome some of the challenges our search industry is facing when it comes to competing in this post-Hummingbird, post-Penguin, post-(not provided) environment. I've found that it is extremely important to:
For many years now, search marketing has been a wide open market, with more business to go around than we have known what to do with. Brand after brand has recognized their need for help with search visibility, but they have not necessarily been clear on what that would entail. This led to the gold rush of search.
While many larger agencies were focused on media buying, creative, and television campaigns, the digital landscape was taking form with SEO, PPC, social, display, conversion rate optimization, email marketing, outreach (PR for the web), and much more. We as search marketers know there is a massive opportunity to be had as the digital landscape continues to mature, but whether it is ours for the taking remains to be seen. In order for us to survive, search marketers need to become more well-versed into all digital marketing channels and gain a concrete understanding of when it is appropriate to invest into some of them.
The combination of secure search (not provided), Google's continual innovation upon their ability to crawl and understand both the web and search behavior (with Hummingbird being the most recent example), their successful moves against scalable link building tactics (Penguin and manual penalties), and an overall increase in competition will push search marketers down either of these two paths:
Given the picture I have described above, I want to provide you with a framework with supporting examples for how you, the search marketer, can better get more of the resources you will need in order to pursue path 2.
Search marketing challenges: a top-level lookChange is hard, especially at the pace required to be successful digital marketers, but Google, competing agencies, and the competition of brands on the web are forcing our hands as search marketers to pick our paths quickly and adapt. Let's start off by taking a closer look at some of the macro trends that add complexity to our jobs: Google is a businessSEOs are dependent on a third-party platform that provides them with no proprietary information and gives them no advantage. The reality is that as Google's ranking algorithm becomes increasingly complex, what exactly the right recommendation is for any given site becomes more ambiguous. Google simply isn't in the business to support SEOs; they're in the business to build the best technology in the world, so that they continue to attract the greatest number of users and generate the greatest amount of revenue. If SEOs continue to chase the algorithm, they'll simply continue down a rabbit hole of becoming dependent on short-term tactics that at best, have no longevity, and at worst, damage the core of a business.
Not providedNot provided impacted how SEOs were able to directly attribute their work to organic growth. It has brought challenges not only to reporting, but also to how the previous work SEOs did was valued within an organization. With the advent of not provided, different marketing departments within an organization such as content, SEO, PR, and creatives can all justify that their work is what led to organic traffic growth. This makes it difficult for any organization to invest significant budget into SEO.
PenguinPenguin sent a very clear signal to SEOs that many of the link building tactics they were reliant on in the past were not only no longer effective but could even provide long-term damage to the bottom line of a business. Recovering from Penguin and any algorithmic update is uncertain, difficult, and extremely expensive. It also forced SEOs to step back and assess whether a tactic that might work today may also be detrimental to the site in the future.
HummingbirdAlthough Hummingbird may not appear to have significantly impacted search results at an initial glance, the reality is that the underlying algorithm has changed to become much more adept at understanding semantics. Hummingbird, in combination with not provided, indicates that a continued emphasis on keyword-focused strings is not sustainable. Future SEO initiatives cannot be siloed into keyword research, keyword-focused landing pages, and building links to those keyword-focused pages; wider context-based approaches are required.
Google crawlers handling technical challengesAs Google implements more updates to its underlying search algorithm, it has also become capable of resolving (for better or for worse, depending on the circumstance) many of the technical issues that SEOs used to manually correct on their own, whether it be duplicate or keyword-stuffed meta titles/descriptions, mobile alternative issues, resolving 302 redirect issues that were meant to be 301s, etc. The reality is that barring very specific technical issues on a site (penalty, migrations, development of new processes/capabilities on the back-end), the "low-hanging fruit" of on-page SEO will shrivel.
Actionable ways for search marketers to get more buy-in at the beginning to execute a broader marketing strategyThe only way to execute the broader marketing tactics that will benefit search (e.g. dedicating resources to creating content, improve the UX of the site) is to say the right things to the right people. In this era of not provided and Penguin/Panda/Hummingbird, we need to be involved in much more overarching marketing goals/objectives in order to stay relevant, have budget, and become a priority for the organization. 1. Get in front of key stakeholders. Then, ask the right questions.There are several key stakeholders who can impact the work you do, the budget you get, the visibility your work gets, and the amount of internal resources you can utilize. They tend to be the CMO, Director of Marketing, and VP of Sales (especially if marketing is a purpose of lead-gen). The biggest challenge most individuals have when they are granted an opportunity to pitch to the executive team is how to ask the right questions that will demonstrate their expertise in not just a specific marketing channel, but how your marketing efforts will positively impact a business's bottom line.
For example, below are the type of questions I ask executives based on their specific position within the organization. CEO: High-level business picture
CFO: High-level financial picture
VP of Sales, CMO/VP of Marketing: High-level growth picture
Director of Marketing: A more granular look into growth strategy/plans
2. Convert bad project requests into great briefsHere are the most typical reasons I have seen companies offer when requesting services from a search marketing agency:
Clients often ask for the wrong things for a number of reasons:
There is nothing wrong with this, but we should not let it stop us from focusing on the things that matter most. Business equates to revenue, and revenue increases lead to more confidence in your skill set. For a specific example, if a client comes to you and asks you for links, reframe the conversation by asking them why they want links. Most clients ask for links for the following reasons:
In this sample scenario, I would respond by saying links are an output you receive when you create great content. In order to deliver great content, you need to first start by understanding the data you have on-hand (via their CRM, customer surveys, their analytics, and their existing internal resources). The first step is for us to gain access to all this information in order for us to assess the potential opportunity this channel has on your business.
It is critical that you train your clients to talk in terms of business goals, objectives, and KPIs because that is the only opportunity in which they will allow you to determine the marketing strategy, rather than you becoming their outsourced vendor for a variety of different marketing activities like link building. 3. Research and know which channels to invest inOnce you have a concrete understanding of the business's goals, objectives, and KPIs, it's the search marketer's job to determine which specific marketing channels are the ones the client should be investing in. Is the goal to generate the quickest possible ROI in the least amount of time? CRO. Is the goal to understand product-market fit? Then perhaps paid search is the best medium. Is the goal to build a community and brand awareness? Creative content + PR + social media. It's crucial to prioritize the specific marketing channels and activities that are most aligned with the company's business goals, while simultaneously also being the channels you feel the most confident will deliver the highest likelihood of ROI for your client. The reason is because whenever a client first signs with an agency, the first 6 months are the trial period. The client has taken a risk by partnering with an agency and they want to ensure that it's a good fit, that you follow your word, and that you're able to deliver results. Essentially, they're determining whether you are a good long-term partner for them.
Once you're able to deliver meaningful results that are aligned with the client business goals and objectives, you've passed the trial period. After that, the client is much more likely to opt for longer-term, higher-budget activities because you've successfully demonstrated your knowledge and expertise in marketing. Bigger budgets often times mean larger access to resources, which again significantly increases the chances that you will be building a long-term, meaningful relationship with your client. ConclusionClients want you to succeed in helping them achieve their marketing goals, but they will be selective about when and how they spend their time getting you what you need. We, as search marketers, need to get better at identifying the channels that will increase the probability of success during the first 6 months of the campaign, while demonstrating our ability to think critically by asking the right type of questions and gaining the important knowledge that will give us what we need to be successful at the beginning of the project. Fight the urge to think that if I see success you will be rewarded later on. Although that sentiment is mostly true, if you don't get enough of what you need to be successful in the first half of the project, you may not get to a point where you can create enough value to justify them keeping you around for follow up work. For instance, if you agree to build links for a client, it's highly likely you'll always be perceived as a link building vendor to the client. Great search marketers don't just plan to be successful, they plan for all of the scenarios that could keep them becoming successful and structure in solutions to position them for an optimal outcome. This means we need to build a concrete understanding of how different marketing channels integrate with search and understanding when it is appropriate to invest into which channels. We can no longer operate in solely a search silo; ironically, in order for us to survive the future of search, we need to broaden our scope and play a much more strategic digital marketing role for us to generate returns in search for clients. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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Seth's Blog : The thing that happened before this
The thing that happened before this
The most underrated scene in the Wizard of Oz is the hallway leading up to the audience with the great and powerful one.
One of the reasons that Oz is seen as being particularly great and powerful is that it's just so much trouble to get to see him--and that hallway is the perfect metaphor.
I still remember visiting a talent agency in Hollywood a decade ago. The lobby was far bigger than most people's homes, and it was totally empty, a long, long walk from the automatically opened door to the Centurion at the desk.
Contrast this with a doctor's office I recently visited. He was sharing space with a chiropractor, and the office was in the back of a grade B strip mall. Inside the waiting room were dozens of mimeographed signs (I didn't even think you could mimeograph stuff any more) offering weight loss schemes and warnings about what sorts of payment weren't accepted, and how it needed to be proffered immediately.
By all means, your work better be good, not a fraud, something worth paying for. But if the (metaphorical) hallway is a let down, it's an uphill battle to gain the confidence, trust and enthusiasm of your customers.
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