On November 13th we had the chance to meet Tom Schuster, CEO of Searchmetrics at Paris Visibility 2014. He presented extracts from the latest Searchmetrics “Ranking Factors” study and insisted on the rise of content-related factors in those correlated with high rankings in Google. This was one of the reasons this day was to a large extent oriented towards Content Marketing and its importance for SEO results.
The second speaker was Maud Cochet, the global SEO manager for Accor Hotels who is in charge of 14 international websites in the Accor group. The SEO budget for the group has multiplied by 4 in the past 3 years and has created an increase of 30% in revenues.
Maud’s presentation was addressing the way you organize for SEO in a large organization in order to put SEO at the core of discussions rather than at the margin. One of the key takeaways for generating SEO awareness according to Maud is education. She has invested a lot of time and effort into educating the e-commerce teams on SEO by doing internal workshops.
The third speaker was Raphaël Fremont, digital performance director at Publicis Modem. His focus was on data and trends –Search Data and Search Trends to be more precise. As Raphaël said: “Google Trends and the Google keyword tool are your best friends”. Raphaël illustrated how analyzing and understanding user search trends over time and across different territories can provide strategic insight and shape a market approach. His recommendation was to build any Search Strategy on the basis of advanced keyword data and trend analysis.
To conclude the series of conferences, Anders Hjorth from BDBL MEDIA addressed the theme of Content Marketing Optimization. BDBL MEDIA has a dedicated Content Marketing subsidiary called Aznos, which was created in early 2013 in order to approach SEO in a much wider context than before. Anders focused initially on the importance of Ideas and concepts when shaping a Content Marketing strategy.
According to Anders, in order to succeed in Content Marketing you require just as much Social Media Optimization competence as you do SEO competence because the two are complementary and work hand in hand.
To optimize your Content Marketing for the coming years, Anders suggested focusing on 3 things in your approach:
- Ideas
- Distribution
- Results
The importance of Ideas was illustrated with the concept of the « Idea Generator » – a method where you can take any idea and twist it to create unique contents that can generate the necessary engagement and interest among users.
With regards to Distribution, Anders explained how you need to multiply the different formats of your message in order to optimally distribute to the various social networks where you address your existing communities and also hope to go beyond them. The illustration of going beyond your initial community was the famous ‘oh hi becky’ tweet and its way to 25,000+ retweets.
Oh hi Becky who refused to kiss me during spin the bottle in 6th grade & now wants to play FarmVille, looks like tables have fucking turned
— Chris Scott (@iamchrisscott) 15 Mai 2014
Addressing the focus on Results, Anders illustrated a complete Content cycle: an article called “How to do Search Marketing with a French Flavor” was cogenerated together with topic-related influencers, then distributed on a strong information site where influencers helped relay and promote the article and finally generated both initial traffic via Social Networks and subsequently long lasting visibility thanks to the durable Search Engine positions.
As a conclusion, Anders suggested the following three success criteria for your Content Marketing:
- Ideas that stick
- Quality of contents over quantity
- Powerful distribution
For a look at the full presentation: