Consumer search behaviour is complex.
You perform multiple searches on multiple devices over multiple days; where everything you see and experience, in the SERPs and beyond, influences your brand preference and purchase decisions.
Traditional funnel analysis and marketing models do a poor job of measuring and managing this ecosystem.
We need to re-think the way we talk about, measure and manage SEO if we want bigger budgets, integrated strategies, and to win big - and we need to move fast; some of the world's biggest companies are already beating us to it.
Practical Research 1 Lesson 9 Scope and delimitation.pptx
Searching higher up the funnel
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Searching Higher Up The Funnel
Jono Alderson, Global Head of Digital @ Linkdex
Jono Alderson
Head of Insight @ Linkdex
@jonoalderson
10. Searching higher up the funnel @jonoalderson
Getting stuff
done
Marketing in
your sleep
Cracking the SEO
code of 2015
Behind Your Integrated
Marketing Strategy
Existential Crisis
Management
And it looks familiar...
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“Knowing SEO” is no longer enough.
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Your success in 2016 and beyond
depends on how you think about
(and beyond) SEO.
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Today’s mission:
1. Share my less simple vision of “the truth”
2. Overcome the technical challenges
3. Overcome the business challenges
4. Overcome the human challenges
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This creates reactive cultures
1. Everybody’s chasing rankings for the same keywords, rather than
chasing (or creating) their ideal customer.
2. Teams are KPI’d on the wrong behaviour; bad experiences all round.
3. All strategies, agencies, and priorities are transient and driven by fear.
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The second lie...
SEO is strategic.
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This positions content
marketing and inbound
marketing techniques as
powerful tools
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The problem is…
Not all searches have
obviously valuable outcomes
“cheapest panasonic 32 inch tv”
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The problem is…
Not all searches have
obviously valuable outcomes
“cheapest panasonic 32 inch tv”
“best new lcd tv”
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The problem is…
Not all searches have
obviously valuable outcomes
“cheapest panasonic 32 inch tv”
“best new lcd tv”
“lcd vs plasma tv guide”
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The problem is…
Not all searches have
obviously valuable outcomes
“cheapest panasonic 32 inch tv”
“best new lcd tv”
“lcd vs plasma tv guide”
“fuzzy sound on TV”
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Your content marketing isn’t
clever, sexy or effective if you
manage it like paid search.
You’re missing the point.
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Attribution
Marketing by moment
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As a concept, this feels cheesy right.
...but how do we make this a useful framework?
And if marketing is about Moments, how do I win?
death to the funnel
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“Moments are behaviours or
psychological states exhibited by
consumers as they interact with
search engines.”
A better definition?
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Can we infer and classify the
moment from keywords/topics?
“best lcd tv” vs “compare cheap 32inch tvs”
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Define topic rules
“best lcd tvs”
Modifier - Quality
List refinement - Quality Product type refinement - LCD
Plural
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Supplement keywords with
ranking & CTR data
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Tiny market share
of huge opportunity!
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To win, you need to engage with
(lots of) different keywords
moments
To be visible, to influence, to win hearts and
minds, at scale
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● The commercial and resource models don’t allow for this level of research.
● This is high-level strategy; beyond your pay-grade, and the scale of it is terrifying.
● Retailer & brands can’t compete with publishers on research-level content
● Where does responsibility start or stop?
● Success is the totality of the user experience; brand. Product, service, culture, etc
Your SEO team can’t impact performance
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The third lie...
SEO is integrated digital marketing.
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“I’m not the expert”
For all considered purchases, manage how the
user becomes an expert.
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You win by managing the
ecosystem and the perceptions
which searchers develop
Change the way you think about SEO
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Imagine you’re responsible for
SEO at Samsung.
You’re tasked with selling more televisions
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The UK TVs Market
● Over 8,600 distinct keywords, which collectively
represent ~3.5 million searches per month, with
a media value of ~£1 million per month.
● 95 topic groups representing brands, product
attributes (e.g., screen size), types of phrasing (e.
g. questions) and TV-related concepts.
● Inferred behaviours and psychological states
spanning 9 moments.
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“List building” is the most significant Moment in the consumer buying
cycle in terms of search volume, across multiple product subcategories.
LED Large TVs Small TVs Smart TVs UHD Total
Broad Search 243,670
Knowledge Acquiring 270 510 4,940 1,570 16,680
List Building 49,650 368,610 48,070 209,270 127,130 1,571,446
Evaluating 2,640 6,840 710 3,930 2,610 133,200
Shopping 650 3,050 10 7,080 3,760 207,560
Cost Reducing 2,770 10,100 70 9,100 3,570 83,680
Monthly Searches by Moment / Topic
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Samsung and its primary
competitors attract only ~5%
of visits within the market.
Total Monthly Searches:
3,487,679
samsung.com, Est. Organic Visits: 71,617 (2%)
lg.com, Est. Organic Visits: 48,335 (1.4%)
sony.co.uk, Est. Organic Visits: 39,873 (1.1%)
philips.co.uk, Est. Organic Visits: 6,746 (0.2%)
The biggest brands’ domains account for very little market.
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39% of total List Building market size
~280,000 monthly visits JUST for List Building
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Top Pages Est. Visits Media Value
Large Screen TVs (32" and over) 102,290 (6.5%) £22,209
Televisions - Smart LED, 4K, OLED TVs & Accessories 54,583 (3.5%) £12,099
TVs, DVD & Blu Ray, Home Cinema & Gaming 28,609 (1.8%) £7,133
Small Screen TVs (up to 32") Deals 14,951 (1.0%) £3,414
Large Screen TVs (32" and over) Deals 10,599 (0.7%) £3,833
4K Ultra HD TVs – Experience 4x Definition 9,097 (0.6%) £1,574
Samsung Smart TV Range 6,623 (0.4%) £81
Samsung U8500 UHD Curved TV 6,495 (0.4%) £592
LG OLED TV – Explore LG LED & OLED TV Range 6,371 (0.4%) £858
Total (282 Pages) 277,942 £171,220
So, which pages are most visible, visited, influential in the purchase decision?
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Top Pages Est. Visits Media Value
4K TV and Ultra HD: Everything you need to know 18,435 (1.2%) £15,298
Best TV 2015: what TV should you buy? 11,676 (0.7%) £7,950
5 best UHD 4K TVs of 2015 11,227 (0.7%) £9,194
Cheap TVs: The best TV deals in June 2015 9,010 (0.6%) £9,059
10 best 60-65-inch TVs in the world today 7,837 (0.5%) £3,641
10 best 50 and 55-inch TVs in the world today 7,312 (0.5%) £4,175
12 best 40 and 42-inch TVs in the world today 5,893 (0.4%) £3,304
4 best Smart TVs in the world 2015 4,576 (0.3%) £3,538
13 best 32-inch TVs in the world today 3,108 (0.2%) £1,624
Total (93 Pages) 88,312 £64,559
And what about pages which are most visible for people who are researching technologies?
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18k views per month for just one
article - and he’s written over 4,000.
Where does all this content come from?
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“What about me, my site, and
directly transactional behaviour?”
The end of the funnel is still important.
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When you understand moments,
you can turbo-charge your
content strategies.
Here’s the process...
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This doesn’t just apply to
‘Enterprise SEO’
Visits don’t occur in isolation. People research.
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Turn content marketing into a targeted,
Tangible Thing.
This approach enables you to...
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This approach enables you to...
Stop talking and worrying about keyword
rankings, and start thinking about opportunity
and market share
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This approach enables you to...
Capture consumers* higher up the funnel,
earlier in the decision-making process
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This approach enables you to...
Tactically use partners & affiliates to be where
you can’t, or use paid media to fill gaps
throughout the buying cycle
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This approach enables you to...
Put forecasts and business cases against
familiar metrics like ‘visibility’ and ‘share of
market’ in a meaningful way
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This approach enables you to...
Compare apples-with-apples, framed by user
behaviours and needs
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People don’t do this because...
their data is too shallow
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People don’t do this because...
it’s not SEO(?)
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The only thing that matters is
that somebody has searched;
what did they see?
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“Good SEO* is when you
manage the experience and
the opinions that users form
when they search.”
digital marketing / growth hacking / whatever
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“You enable good SEO by
changing the way we think
and talk about it, and the way
we work with others.”
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This elevates SEO from a ‘channel’ to
a sophisticated marketing &
business intelligence function...
...which gets budget, buy-in, and success.
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Today’s mission:
1. Share my less simple vision of “the truth”
2. Overcome the technical challenges
3. Overcome the business challenges
4. Overcome the human challenges
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The ‘business bit’ is really easy
Increase revenue, decrease costs, increase brand
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Use your data to build an
awesome strategy
Don’t underestimate the power of your vision
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Best Strategy != Right Strategy
Pragmatism > Perfectionism
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The ‘people bit’ is harder
Understand motivations, anticipate objections
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C-level
Be in control
“I can set a binding
vision”
Marketing
Minimise risk
“I can change our
priorities”
Finance
Minimise cost
“I can agree to spend, to
accumulate”
Third parties
& other SEOs
Defend themselves
“I can challenge the
status quo”
Tech & Legal
Maintain status quo
“I can veto anything”
bit.ly/linkdex-videos
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And what about you?
The t-shaped marketer isn’t good enough.
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That’s probably all we have
time for.
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Some thoughts,
to leave you with.
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This kind of thinking is quietly
disrupting industries now
Telecoms | Travel | Finance | Insurance | Politics
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This is a seismic, ideological
shift for most organisations.
Take baby steps. Introduce concepts like Moments
into things like campaign briefs. Grow it slowly.
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We only work (and are measured)
the way we work, because that’s
the way we work.
And it only changes if we change it.
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This is a
problem, and an
opportunity...
Right?