DSS User Group October 2012 Lessons Learned from SMX East 2012

DSS User Group October 2012 Agenda What is SMX and why does it matter to you? Lessons learned from SMX What do search engines care about? Content recommendations from the pros What measurements really matter? Schema markup matters Local SEO The future of SEO Open Q&A New DSS features Upcoming DSS features

What is SMX and Why Does it Matter to You? SMX stands for Search Marketing Expo, a conference hosted around the world by Third Door Media / Search Engine Land.com Opportunity to meet SEO and marketing vendors, peers in the industry and search marketing luminaries…and hear directly from Bing and Google on various topics. You benefit from events like SMX it helps FWM stay on top of SEO and marketing trends.

SMX – What Search Engines Care About Overwhelming response from Google, Bing and search experts: QUALITY CONTENT. Answer people’s questions with your best content. You are not writing for Google!! Do not – repeat do NOT – make changes to your website for SEO purposes only. Instead, ask how does this help a site visitor? How does it make my site more usable? Trust signals that matter now: authorship, social media engagement, reviews.

SMX – Content Tips from the Pros Think of your website as a publication: Create a strategy Have a specific intent with each content posting Develop an editorial calendar Know what interests your readers Promote your content!

SMX – Content Tips from the Pros (cont’d) Questions to ask before you write content: Does it focus on our keyword needs? Will we earn authoritative links? Will the content perform on the social networks? Will other websites be interested? What's trending right now?

SMX – Content Tips from the Pros (cont’d)

Audit your content: What pages have high bounce rates? What pages aren’t being viewed often? Make changes: Define the purpose of the page Revise to make the content more compelling

SMX – What Measurements Really Matter? Set your marketing goals first, then decide what to measure in order to track those goals Don’t obsess over site visits – focus on conversion Search keywords are not same as converting keywords – know the difference for your site Consider seasonality of search terms (i.e. motorcycle accidents increase in warm weather, decrease over winter) Track conversion & ROI by practice area so you know how marketing for each PA is performing

SMX – Schema markup matters On-page markup helps search engines understand the information on web pages and provide richer search results. Schema.org provides a shared markup vocabulary for Google, Bing and Yahoo. New kinds of data being continually evaluated for inclusion in the schema.org vocabulary We have office addresses (for local search), Bio and video schema markup (Google says schema markup is the “recommended way to describe videos on the web.”) Considering a review module, with ranking. Calendar module with event markup is another option.

SMX – Succeeding With Local SEO You need to have a presence on each local platform, including: –Google+ Local –Bing Local –Yahoo Local –Yelp What is working in local SEO? –Data consistency –Local citations (same as backlinks in organic SEO) –If you want an easy button, use Yext.com Number one thing is to answer the phone!

SMX – Where is SEO going in 2013? SEO is just a component of marketing – it should not stand alone. Incorporate it into your traditional marketing. More important than ever to write for your perfect client, not for the search engines. Don’t put all your eggs in the Google organic basket – diversify your marketing efforts. Include things like: –Community outreach –Social engagement –Newsletters / drip campaigns to nurture your herd Authorship as a trust signal – get authority through authorship! Social media is growing as a trust signal and ranking factor Schema – applying the right schema for your industry will become increasingly important (this is our job!)

Questions?

DSS Updates Content search features Contact log: see page user was on when form filled out Coming tonight! –Author tags on Home page, About Us page, Contact page, Case Results –Mobile sites have link to show desktop version

Questions? (Last Call!)