SEO industry has changed would be
considered a massive understatement. In previous years, for a site to
excel in the SERPs (search engine results page), it needed a few key
important ingredients:
- A strong technical foundation, with a crawl-able and clean
information architecture (that also contained a clear internal linking
structure)
- The strategic use of target keywords on the page and in the URLs
- Key links with targeted anchor text
Now, the rules have simply
changed. Not only are the SERPs displayed differently depending on the
user's specific search query (Dr. Pete's Mozcon presentation pointed out
85 different, distinct features in the SERPs from
knowledge graph to the related search carousel), but our day-to-day
roles have changed. We're now supposed to be knowledgeable about UI/UX,
branding, PR, responsive design, international considerations, content
strategy/design/implementation, social media, structured data, local
SEO, authorship markup, CRO, analytics... the list goes on and on. The
reality is that it will always be important as marketers to have a
high-level understanding about each of these different disciplines and
how they should work together. However, it is impossible to be specialized in all of them.
Many of the specialties above have been established industries for
quite some time, and like SEO, they have improved and matured. In
essence, we need to learn how SEO can integrate itself in a meaningful
way with other marketing divisions, or in simpler terms, leverage
integrated marketing.
Why Integrated Marketing?
Integrated marketing is the
strategy and implementation of leveraging and unifying different
marketing activities. The
overall purpose is to complement and reinforce the overall impact of each of these marketing methodologies,
so that the marketing process is not only more consistent across
different mediums, but also more effective in meeting marketing
objectives and increasing a business's bottom line.
In terms of the industry, here are
some statistics on overall digital marketing spend as compiled by Gartner in 2012.
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Companies in different industries spend an average 2.5% of their annual revenue on digital marketing.
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Companies spend an average 25% of their total marketing budget on digital marketing and specifically, on these type of marketing activities:
As the image above demonstrates,
companies spend, on average, 10.7% of their total digital marketing
budget on search marketing (though I'd venture and guess that the vast
majority of this percentage goes to paid search). However, when it comes
to the activities that marketers view as most attributable to their
marketing success,
only 8-9% of all companies surveyed rated search marketing (including paid) in their top 3.
This perception of search marketing (much
less SEO) directly impacts the amount of budget and, subsequently, head
space we receive from companies for our work. Although SEOs are involved
in many of the activities companies attributable to their marketing
success (like content development, UX/UI of the site, and commerce
experience), it can be challenging as a consultant or working in-house
to be involved in these types of conversations.
As an industry, we need to broaden our scope and find ways to
immerse ourselves into these conversations. Like Wil Reynolds mentioned
during his presentation at Mozcon, it's about knowing what to pitch and how to pitch.
- How can we demonstrate and provide value to a company's marketing activities and integrate SEO meaningfully into the process?
- The goal doesn't necessarily have to be for SEOs to become
specialized experts in PR, branding, content, etc., but more focused on
how we all can leverage our knowledge and provide value to these
existing activities, while also integrating ourselves into discussions
on overall marketing vision, strategy, and implementation.
- How can we stop viewing marketing as distinct channels and,
instead, work with other marketing specializations to reinforce and
complement all marketing activities/goals/KPIs?
As the online marketing industry continues to change,
it becomes more vital for a company to have a consistent mission and vision across all marketing channels.The
purpose of this post is not only to inspire us to think bigger about
the direction of our industry, but also in our day-to-day work. I also
want to showcase examples of other companies I've researched that have
successfully leveraged multiple marketing channels to meet common goals.
Integrated Marketing Examples
PR, Social, and SEO
Being at Distilled has provided me with the
great fortune of being exposed to individuals with specializations
beyond SEO, such as PR. Distilled's previous PR/SEO specialist (now at Dynamo PR), Lexi Mills, and our current specialist, Jess Champion,
have really inspired me to think about how to make a content piece more
compelling to its target audience and the media. For instance, Lexi
once shared how critical it is to ensure that you have enough valuable
resources on-hand to enhance a piece of content or a story. For
instance,
when making a pitch, it's important to ensure that
you've created enough material for people to credit and that enhances
the value of a story. Once you've built that relationship with
the media and they've credited appropriate and legit sources, you've
essentially accomplished link building without realizing it (receiving
links didn't become a primary focus; it became a consequence of
achieving bigger goals). Lexi said that, "As a result, the links you may
have attained don't just look natural; they truly are natural."
For example, Australia.com's "Best Job in the World"
campaign was effective for multiple reasons. It took a different spin
on a concept that could traditionally be seen as "boring" (jobs) and
created a hook to receive significant media attention. From a SEO
standpoint, the team did a great job of attempting to put some of the
campaign on the actual Australia.com domain (even though the actual
competition is on a subdomain)
because so many PR campaigns are placed on a separate domain and are
never mentioned on the actual company website. Not to mention dominating
rankings for the keyword phrase "best job in the world" and "best jobs
in the world" (an effective branding play).
From a social media perspective, the only way to apply for the position was via Facebook.
As a result of the campaign, several media outlets provided links to
both Australia.com, as well as the "Best Job in the World" landing page.
From the campaign, the site received 1,462 links from 442 linking root
domains (including sites like ABC news, the Daily Mail, the Daily
Mirror, etc..) From a social standpoint, the campaign has 483,534 likes
and approximately 1,000 user interactions on every post.
Images courtesy of Australia.com
PR alongside SEO doesn't just apply to bigger
organizations, but also to start-ups or any organization participating
in crowd funding. Also according to Lexi, when doing PR for a start-up
or an organization participating in crowd funding, it's important to
make sure that the
actual site is receiving link equity (and not just the crowd funding site). This is important when
maintaining the sanctity of the brand because
you still want to sell the product on a website once the crowd funding
round is complete. You always want to rank first in search engines for
your product name. Hence, leveraging the PR surrounding your crowd
funding round will help get your potentially new site off to a great
foundation.
Or, you can ultimately decide to crowd fund on the
product's actual website and reap all the benefits from PR and media
coverage directly for your site, such as the case with the Tile App.
Finally, like many other online marketing
channels, it's important to make decisions off the back of data. SEO and
PR can support one another because SEOs and PRs can work together to
determine the specific keywords they want to target for a campaign (both
from a branding and from a search engine/user intent perspective) using
tools like
Google Trends and
Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
We can also work together to help establish the sites we want to target
both from a publicity and a link equity standpoint using metrics, such
as DA and PA, as well as what types of credit we want to receive
(dofollow link vs image, etc...).
Overall, as SEOs, we also want to help ensure
that once a PR campaign is complete, the company can still reap
long-term benefits from it whether it be from a technical standpoint
(during the course of researching this post, I observed countless PR
campaign sites containing 3-5 duplicate home pages and non-indexable
content in iframes, sites built in flash, broken links, etc.). In
addition, doing so will help ensure that the company will continue
ranking for that campaign name in the future, instead of only the PR
agency ranking for it (when they publish client case studies).
Offline (Events/Print Advertising/Billboards), Mobile, and SEO
Offline campaigns (like events/print
advertising/billboards) have historically been a powerful marketing
medium. At the same time, it can be challenging figuring out how offline
channels can work seamlessly with online ones. I found inspiration
through this image of a recent
American Express campaign seen in London (unfortunately it's a little blurry).
There's so much potential from a campaign like this.
Having users search for an easy-to-remember keyword phrase on their
mobile devices (in this case, having them search "AMEX Gold Tube" is
another
opportunity to gather data for a traditionally difficult-to-measure channel).
Depending on the brand, it's an opportunity to measure traffic (and
some of the keyword data that brought users to the site, with the
notable exception of "not provided" and others), as well as some compelling mobile usage data (do your research beforehand, especially as it pertains to iOS6 and Android 4
search traffic). It's also an opportunity to create a seamless offline
to online interaction that could result in SERP dominance for specific,
brand-based terms. Also, depending on the search term that was chosen,
it could also be an effective medium to immediately convert users from
both a PPC and a SEO perspective. The biggest challenge and goal for a
SEO is to ensure that the correct landing page for the specific keyword
lands on the number one spot in the SERPs while also creating an ideal
SERP landscape (alongside improving conversions for that specific
landing page).
Another interesting offline campaign that has become more and more popular is the emergence of pop-up stores. I found the use of Debenhams virtual pop-up stores
particularly fascinating. Debenhams created a tour of London's most
famous sites and once shoppers were in the correct location on an app,
users could "try on" different outfits using augmented reality
technology with a backdrop of famous London landscapes. Shoppers could
then upload their favorite outfits and receive opinions via social
media. If they choose to purchase any of the outfits, they'd
automatically receive a 20% discount. Debenhams also implemented SEO
best practices in a compelling way by
leveraging the press to garner links to key category pages, such as in press releases and asking for any articles or media coverage mentioning the Debenham's virtual pop-up store to give the company proper credit.
Content, Branding, and SEO
Content is one of my greatest passions because I find
telling compelling stories and helping my clients build a brand so
personally fulfilling. In many ways, content and SEO work seamlessly
together, especially in an era where so many individuals have developed
the habit of researching information on their own using the Internet.
For example, Adria Saracino
and I have repeatedly found (whenever we conduct customer surveys),
that so many individuals decide to purchase a product based on what they
read over the Internet. This means that in order to become successful
at SEO (not just in the form of rankings, but in conversions), we need
to ensure that
we're consistently developing content that relays
trustworthiness/authority/loyalty to our customers, while also
remaining vigilant about our online reputation.
There have been so many amazing companies that create
content for the benefit of their intended audience and subsequently reap
the benefits of it like the often mentioned Survey Monkey Survey Templates and MailChimp Resource Guides.
However, not all amazing content is in written form. Sometimes content
in image form is as, if not more effective (especially if it's pertinent
to your brand).
Take, for instance, Polyvore's
vision "to capture the breadth of soft goods and people's tastes better
than any other platform thanks to a unique, vibrant community of
contributors and cutting edge technology." (more detail about the vision
can be found here.)
Polyvore encapsulates its vision by providing its users with a platform to essentially create their own content using their editor (it's so simple, yet fits so seamlessly with their target audience and vision). Its
editor has generated 18,664 links from 237 linking root domains.
However, Polyvore also created a tool that doesn't limit its users to
build collages out of products that can be found on their site. You can
drag, edit, and link any clip onto your collage using their clipper
(and for SEOs, the clipper landing page has generated 18,646 links from
70 domains. Plus, from an SEO standpoint, all the tools are a part of
the domain, which is an added bonus. Oh, and if you really fall in love
with your collage, you can purchase it immediately on their site
(content merging with commerce...so many opportunities!).
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