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SEO, Content, Data and More – The 2019 Digital Expert Week in Review

The SEO community is all about sharing knowledge. As the industry is continuously changing, even experienced SEOs and online marketers are always facing new challenges. At the same time, new trends and strategies emerge, because as long as the internet isn’t finished, an SEO has to keep on learning. That’s why we at Searchmetrics value events that bring SEO professionals, content marketers and data enthusiasts together – to teach, to exchange ideas and to provide inspiration for that next big project. Those were the goals of the 2019 edition of the Digital Expert Week in Berlin – in this recap post, we’ll run down the content, topics and highlights of the five-day event.

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A week is a long time in digital marketing

The concept of the Digital Expert Week finds it origins in individual one-day events. Searchmetrics has often gathered SEO and content experts for an exchange of ideas, to present strategies or to provide insights into our software Suite.

The Digital Expert Week takes these separate parts and turns them into a greater whole – five consecutive days from 3rd to 7th June 2019 were full of presentations, training events, workshops and discussions, with a different focus each day:

Before we look more closely at the topics of each day, we would like – in keeping with our passion for data and in the spirit of transparency – to share the participant feedback with you. Participants were able to pass judgement on three aspects of the event, as well as their overall impression, by giving a score on a scale of 0 to 5.

Sales Certification – Building strong relationships with your clients

Coaches: Christian Broscheit (VP Services & Sales EMEA), Philipp Weisswange (Account Executive)

The week started by focusing on the topic of sales. Convincing decision-makers of the value and potential of investing in search engine optimization remains one of the SEO industry’s challenges. At Searchmetrics, we are always looking for solutions and we have developed methods of communicating the sustainable advantages of SEO in a clear way. And of course, we always back up our arguments with data.

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Whether you are dealing with your own management or whether you are preparing for a client pitch, the same things are important: Recognize concrete problems, work with real examples and establish a common language with your client. If you understand the needs of the person you are pitching to, and if you can support your solutions with facts and data, then you have a good chance of establishing a fruitful partnership.

Carsten Dohme, Senior Copywriter at moskito, summarized his impressions of the Sales Certification: “As hot as it was in Berlin, that’s how hot some of the tips and tricks were – we learnt how to use Searchmetrics to prepare client pitches and how to present hard facts instead of empty phrases. Thanks to the whole team.”

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Content Day – How can we create content that people will really read?

Coaches: Michael Dziewior (Team Lead Content Services, Digital Strategies Group), Marlene Borst (Project Manager Digital, Digital Strategies Group), Katharina Lübke (Content Creation Manager, Digital Strategies Group)

It’s an open secret that only 20% of online content is read by its intended audience. This happens largely because the content’s position within the sales funnel isn’t properly defined. The Content Day dealt with the whole content process: From the development of a content marketing strategy to topic research and analysis and then the creation of optimized content with the Searchmetrics Content Experience.

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The day was a mix of presentations and practical sessions. The information part is important for communicating theoretical basics and for creating content for the practical tasks. In this way, everyone could understand the important of personas for a content marketing strategy, and was able to apply this knowledge when using personas for topic analysis. This process leads up to the final content creation, which is tied to clearly defined goals and is done according to a data-driven methodology.

Sandra Schumacher, Marketing Manager at S&K Solutions, found a lot to take away: “Searchmetrics’ speakers gave us useful knowledge and showed us practical examples of how to identify topics and create high-quality content. Thanks to the practical presentation of the content, it should be easy to apply what I’ve learnt to my daily tasks at work.”

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Green & Orange Belt – Discovering the Potential of the Seachmetrics Suite

Coaches: Nadine Caspers (Team Lead Client Success Management EMEA), Andre Krüger (Director Client Success Management EMEA), Malte Landwehr (VP Product)

The third day of the Digital Expert Week was dedicated to the Green and Orange Belt Certifications. If you don’t know the Searchmetrics color code yet: Green stands for SEO and orange means content. And our belt certifications are intended to give participants a more intimate knowledge of our software, so that users can get the greatest possible benefit out of working with the different features. Accordingly, the Green Belt dealt with the Search Experience and Research Cloud, and the Orange Belt introduced participants more closely to the Content Experience.

Both certifications are recognized throughout the industry and have a strong hands-on approach. The knowledge gained about the Searchmetrics Suite enables those who are awarded Green and Orange Belt Certificates to independently analyze and optimize online content.

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Even though the main focus of this kind of training event is transferring knowledge, course leader, André Krüger, was extremely happy with the discussions amongst participants: “My highlight of this certification was exchanging ideas with the participants and answering questions form the audience. It was fun to discuss suggestions and to generate several useful take-aways from participants’ input.” The participants were also able to take a lot of positives from the event – to go nicely with their certificates and many new ideas.

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Data Day – Best Practice for Reporting

Coaches: Lisann Kohnke (Client Success Technical Analyst), Christian Broscheit (Vice President Sales & Services EMEA), Andre Krüger (Director Client Success EMEA)

Data is powerful. But is only of any practical use if it can be communicated in an understandable way. That is the fine art of data reporting. How can I present my data so that my audience (boss, team, clients etc.) can understand it quickly and draw the most important conclusions? Examining solutions to this challenge was the main focus of the activities on Data Day.

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It is often advantageous to combine data from a range of different sources. This can help provide context or emphasize an issue. To achieve this, there are various presentation tools that can be used. At the Data Day, our course leaders demonstrated how Searchmetrics data can be automatically integrated into dashboards and templates set up in popular tools like Domo, Google Data Studio and PowerPoint. Connecting to the Searchmetrics API was also covered, with the aim always being to spend more time focusing on what the data says, rather than on fiddling around with how to put it together.

Lisann Kohnke was pleased with how well received her workshop was: “The participants understood the practical introductions very well and were able to successfully apply them to their own tasks. This produced some great ideas.”

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Black Belt – Who’s got what it takes to be an SEO Sensei?

Coaches: Marcus Tober (Searchmetrics CIO & Founder), , Svetlana Stankovic (Team Lead Professional Services), Felix Oey (Senior SEO Consultant), Lukas Krawieczek (Senior SEO Consultant), Sebastien Edgar (Senior SEO Consultant)

The Black Belt is the most demanding certification offered by Searchmetrics. It is only completed by genuine SEO experts who have had both strategic and operative success. It’s not just the input from our speakers that makes the Black Belt special – it’s the way it brings together participants, each of whom has their own experience, strategies and ideas. This helps create a dynamic atmosphere of exchange and cooperation that you only get when you get top-level SEO professionals around a table.

One part of the workshop was led by Searchmetrics Founder and CIO, Marcus Tober. He discussed issues raised by the most recent Google Core Updates. Another speaker was international SEO expert, Sebastien Edgar, from our Searchmetrics Team in the US, who was invited to discuss and evaluate SEO best practices with the participants. They also conducted detailed, targeted analyses using data from the Searchmetrics Suite.

marcus-tober“A lot has happened in the online world since we started offering the Black Belt back in 2014. We have to make sure we keep pace with changes and constantly update our expert knowledge. We want to learn from the experiences of SEO professionals who work in different industries and define how we can support them with our expertise.” – Marcus Tober, CIO and Founder of Searchmetrics

 

In the afternoon, working groups tackled complex SEO challenges, working on problems and developing strategies and solutions. This meant that, at the end of an intense, information-packed day, everyone who had completed the Black Belt Certification had not only learnt a lot themselves, but they had also made their own contribution to knowledge exchange within the SEO community.

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Who’s coming to the next Digital Expert Week?

That’s it for our recap of the 2019 Digital Expert Week. We hope you could get a good idea of the aims, activities and results of the event. All that remains is for us to say a big thank-you to all participants and to congratulate our new generation of freshly certified SEO and content professionals! If you’ve got any feedback regarding the Digital Expert Week or suggestions for future events, then please use the comment function below. Events like this are nothing without participants, and they always work best if the program is closely aligned to your needs and interested.

And finally, if you want to be the first to know when the dates are fixed for the next Digital Expert Week, then sign up here and get 10% off your ticket for the Black Belt certification:

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