This document discusses search marketing strategies for 2016. It emphasizes the importance of fast, high-quality, mobile-optimized content and internal/external links to ranking well organically. Paid search requires optimizing click-through rate and extensions. Remarketing lets advertisers target past visitors, and Google Shopping is becoming more integrated with AdWords. The key is understanding searchers' intent and providing relevant, trusted experiences across platforms.

1. Search
Marketing in
2016
Dan Richardson

2. A Quick Recap...
Organic
Quality
Speed
Mobile
Content
Links
Paid
Extensions
Testing
Quality Score
Landing Pages

3. …so what’s changed?
A: It’s got tougher – it’s got BIGGER
• You have to be fast, you have to be of good quality, you have to be mobile and
you absolutely need to have good, unique and expert content
• Remember: people still trust Organic results – some are sceptical of Paid
• Search queries are getting longer and results are becoming more visual.

4. Understanding Google in 2016
• Google's job is to return, for any given search query, the most relevant and
trusted web pages.
• It is constantly changing to become better at this and to avoid those trying to
cheat. This is what the various algorithms combine to achieve.
• Your job is to make it easy for Google to put your site on the first page:
• Authority
• Relevance
• Credibility
• Originality

5. Organic – how to do that?
• It’s not just about keywords any more
• It’s about related & connected terms on rich pages that provide great UX
• Search engines are measuring post click activity (e.g. bounce rate)
• You don’t just have to earn the click you have to satisfy the intent
• For eCommerce this means great, crafted product descriptions on fast, rich
pages

6. Organic – ways to help
• Do a proper Site Audit and check for click depth, meta info and bad things like
redirect chains
• Use Schema to mark up product pages
• Use tools such as SEMrush & keywordtool.io to look for competitive plus longer
tail keywords
• Consider new technologies such as “Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)”
• Use video to showcase

7. Link Ideas
• Leverage relationships – build on your network (esp gov and edu)
• Build something new and better – calculators, checklist, infographics
• Utilise lesser pages such as Careers – earn brand links from job boards/forums
• Guest blog posting still works, but needs to be highly relevant and trusted
• High quality, curated and related directories are still ok
• Use Google search queries to help
keyword "add your business" site:.gov.uk
intext:brandname -site:domainname.com

8. Internal Link Building – 5 good
reasons
• Getting good external links is hard, but one thing you can get control over is
Internal Linking
• Remember: Links in text, body count more than those in footers and menu
1. Internal linking improves usability through good anchor text
2. Internal linking helps spread link juice and boost PA
3. Internal linking boosts page views
4. Internal linking improves time-onsite
5. Internal linking helps towards crawl and indexing

9. Paid Search with Google
• It’s all about CTR
• Good CTR means good QS which means lower CPC
• Branded search cheap way of boosting CTR
• Use Search Terms report to check for waste and longer tail search queries
• Extensions have +ve impact on CTR and QS

10. Remarketing – the non stalking way
RLSA – Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
• Build lists based on interaction – or even non-interaction – of visitors to your
site
• e.g. Non converters who have added to cart – can offer those free shipping or
discount
• Can also be used to bid on broader match (and often expensive) search terms
• Permutations are endless!
Customer Match
• Upload list of email addresses to Google and target those people directly.
• Returning visitors are often also better-converting customers

11. Google Shopping
• Becoming more integrated to Adwords ecosystem
• Tougher to optimise – no QS, Avg. Pos or keywords
• DOES use –ve keywords though (check Dimensions tab >> View: Search
Terms)
• Remember those great product descriptions?? BIG win here
• Google adding more insights to help with competitive knowledge
• Benchmark comparisons plus Auction insights – who else is bidding?
• New tool – DataFeedWatch – anyone using this or similar?

12. Remember
Organic
• Fast
• Modern
• Content
• Links
Paid
• CTR
• Extensions
• Remarketing
• Shopping

13. Further reading, links and resources
Search Operators Guide for link prospecting: http://firecask.com/resources/search-
operators-guide/
Good article on modern SEO:
https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/seo-rules-2016.aspx
Accelerated Mobile Pages: http://equilater.al/accelerated-mobile-pages-what-you-
need-to-know/
Customer Match: http://www.ppchero.com/adwords-customer-match-advertising-
to-your-email-database/
Adwords Shopping Enhancements:
http://searchengineland.com/roundup-shopping-ads-enhancements-236702

14. Thanks
dan@notjustseo.co.uk