brand: the only future ranking factor - malcolm slade speaking at leeds loves search

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Malcolm SladeBrand: The Only Future Ranking Factor

@seomalc@epiphanysearchhttp://www.slideshare.net/epiphanysearch

Evolution to date

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Content Relevance

LinksPageRank

™

AuthorityTrust

SomethingElse!

@seomalc @epiphanysearch #LeedsDigi17

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“Write loads of great content.” S.EOer et al. (2016)


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Content Relevance

LinksPageRank

™

AuthorityTrust

SomethingElse!


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“Get loads of great links.” S.EOer et al. (2016)


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Content Relevance

LinksPageRank

™

AuthorityTrust

SomethingElse!


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“Get better links via PR.” S.EOer et al. (2016)


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“I’m still on page two” A.Client (2016)


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SEO got noticeably harder in 2016!


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2016: Best Practise Is Not Enough

https://www.slideshare.net/Branded3/stop-best-practicing-start-doing-stephen-kenwright-at-searchleeds-2016

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Content Relevance

LinksPageRank

™

AuthorityTrust

SomethingElse!


Understanding the SOMETHING

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PhantomUpdate

User Experience

Artificial Intelligence

Quality Signals

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PhantomUpdate

User Experience

Quality Signals

Good technical housekeeping• Fix site errors• Manage your crawl• Reduce Google bloat

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PhantomUpdate

User Experience

Quality Signals

Google quality guidelineshttps://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

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PhantomUpdate

User Experience

Quality Signals

Create for your users• CRO• UX testing• Audience / user analysis

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Phantom3.0

Phantom2.0


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Artificial Intelligence

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We are not going to go into Artificial Intelligence


Why does Google need AI?

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Google has more data than ever before!Android, ISP, Chrome, Free WiFi, GA, AdWords, Home…

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Google is becoming more Human!

Panda, Penguin, Phantom, HTTPS, UX, Mobile First

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Old ranking signals seem less valuable!

Keywords, H1 Tags, Anchor Text, Links


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This is not significant


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Google is looking for new ways to grade websites using AI


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Brand as a ranking factor

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2012: The Rise of Brands in Search

https://www.slideshare.net/epiphanysearch/the-rise-of-brands-in-search-11912606


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Brands seem to get a significant boost in SERPs.


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We looked at Brand Search Volume.


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We found it didn’t correlate very well.


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Best Practice gets you to page 2.


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What if Google applies more thought to Page 1?


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We looked at Brand Search Volumelimited to Page 1.


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It still didn’t correlate very well.


The End! Thanks for coming.

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We then got creative (random / mental).


What if we segment?

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Information: -0.13 Products: -0.44Head Terms: 0.48


What if we use humans?

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Generate SERP images.


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#brightonSEO

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Poll Humans.

Identify recognised brands.


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#brightonSEO

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Look at Brand and Brand + Term.


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Car Insurance: 0.92


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Online Bingo: 0.84


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It doesn’t always go so well.


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Holidays

-0.07

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TSMEasyjetTeletext

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0.78

But the data is crap!

What have we learnt so far?

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For head commercial terms brand traffic correlates pretty well.


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Brand is massively important.


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We have much more data to look at.


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@seomalc #brightonSEO

The bigger picture.

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Brand search volume is not a ranking factor.


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Brand may represent the entity type Google is looking for.


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There may be no “ranking factors” any more.


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Do you fit the traits of a brand entity?


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There will be many traits.


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This can’t be reverse engineered or gamed.


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Brands are only going to get more dominant!


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2016: Surviving the Machine Revolution.

https://prezi.com/klh8pleoiavj/surviving-the-machine-revolution-how-to-become-the-digital-marketer-of-the-future/


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All prices are the same.


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Personal assistants make our decisions.


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Why choose you?


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Recognised / preferred brand.


What are our goals?

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Get more people thinking about us!


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Get more people talking about you!


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Get more people searching for you!


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Get more people searching for you and what you do!


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Get more people clicking your SERP listings.


What can we do?

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Be memorable.


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Online advertising.

PPC, Display, Video, Content…


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Offline advertising.

TV, billboards, buses, whatever else is appropriate.


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No more Silos.


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Drive people to your site!


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Use PR to drive people to your online content.


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Use TV to get people searching for you.


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Craft good SERP listings.


SEO is not dead!

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A good website is more important than ever.


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Technically sound, audience appropriate.


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Many brands don’t rank due to this.


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This will change.


Does it work?

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Case 1: Doing it all


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Very competitive niche.

All on and offline techniques.

Brand built over time.


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Massively successful.


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Case 2: Just Online


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Competitive niche.

Online techniques only (PPC, Display, SEO).

No focus on brand.


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Used to dominate the niche.

No investment in brand building.

Bigger brands are now overtaking.


What if I can’t do this?

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At the moment, information and product is less impacted.


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This will not always be the case.


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You will start having to do this.


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Google doesn’t care if you can’t.


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An AI powered algorithm cares even less.


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There is always PPC.


The real end!

brand: the only future ranking factor - malcolm slade speaking at leeds loves search

Marketing