Learn Inbound 2017 - Our Top 8 Most Memorable Take Home Points

1. Engagement is higher with chatbots

Learn Inbound kicked off with an excellent session from Purna Virji from Bing on chatbots. With the forecasted rise in popularity in use of bots like Alexa and Cortana, it is estimated that by 2020 the average person will have more conversations with bots than their partners!

It is becoming increasingly important to optimise your content for voice search, and that means optimising your content to answer questions. The words "How", "What", "Where", "Who" and "Why" need to be in your heading tags. Why? Because Google likes snippable content that is easy and concise. This is the sort of content that is used in Google's Featured Snippets - i.e. position zero. 

And just think about the importance of position zero and voice search using chatbots for a moment. If you ask bots such as Alexa or Cortana a question, it performs a search and will most likely return the Featured Snippet as the answer. Not only is the featured snippet the most prominent answer and there are others listed - but in the case of voice search it will often be the only answer!

2. 1 out of 3 searches deals with local intent

When searching for businesses and services online, users are more likely to buy from an organisation that is located closer to where they are. You wouldn't order pizza from somewhere in the US, if living in Dublin! Ok, a bit of an extreme example, but similarly if you are looking for a company to help you with your next digital media campaign, you're more likely to engage with someone in the same city as you than further away. Not only that, but voice search is 3 times more likely to be local-based than text search.

With that in mind, if you are running any sort of PPC advertising campaign, stop paying for ads in regions where you are not based. You are far less likely to convert those clicks, than the local-based targeted ad campaigns.

3. Use content to connect with your users

These days SEO is not enough, you need to also build a reputable brand. How do you do this? Well, consumers build relationships with brands the same way they do people, so you need to use your content to connect with them.

First, you need to understand your audience, and the best way to do that is by asking them! Use whatever means are available to you - interviews, surveys, and so on. Build personas for your users and get to know them better. Find out where your audience hangs out online, what websites and forums they use. Forums are a great source of insight into your users.

Don't just write content on what you want to tell. Find out what do your users actually want to see. Know it, produce it and then help them find it! Remember to always provide value and make the journey easier for your visitor.

4. 76% don't have enough data at start of project

Sound familiar? How about "81% of designers have to design without content"? Oli Gardner of Unbounce explained in his highly engaging talk that it doesn't have to be this way. Data is all around us - we just need to know which data to use. Oli advocates the use of Data-Driven Design (3D) (or, as he prefers to call it, Data-Informed Design) to make informed changes to your digital marketing experiences. Using the 3D Playbook, you can narrow hundreds of sources of overwhelming data into the few you actually need, and then it's important to measure how your design decisions impact on-page behaviour. His slides and the 3D Playbook are well worth checking out.

5. Bad data kills good projects

Annie Cushing made a number of excellent points during her session, but the one that stuck with me the most is that "bad data kills good projects". Make sure that you are measuring the right data, and more importantly, that your data is clean and not corrupted through duplication, misconfiguration or other errors. Looking at bad data and making decisions based on those is sure to doom your project.

6. Google is moving towards a mobile-first index

We've known since late 2016 that Google was testing a mobile-first index, which would primarily look at the mobile version of your website when determining how to rank your site. It will still index desktop-only sites, but instead using a mobile browser. Originally forecast to be released towards the end of 2017, it is now believed that 2018 is more likely. However, we're already at November 2017, so the time to start preparing is now!

In advance of the release, it is highly recommended that you should make your website mobile-friendly. There are a few different ways to do this, namely (a) having a separate mobile site (e.g. m.example.com), (b) having a dynamic serving site (often the same content, but different HTML markup) and (c) a responsive site (same content and markup which adapts to screen size). All three methods will remain valid after the introduction of the mobile-first index, assuming they are implemented correctly, though it seems to be generally recommended to use responsive design.

If you don't prepare for this correctly, and don't have a mobile-version of your site, then you are likely to experience a negative downturn in your search engine rankings. If you are concerned about this, or have any questions in relation to this, be sure to get in touch and we'd be happy to help.

7. Discover opportunities by comparing PPC search queries to Google Search Console

Wil Reynolds of SEER Interactive gave a passionate talk on how PPC marketers and search marketers need to talk more and learn from each other. By sharing data and tactics, both marketing activities can benefit. For example, paid PPC campaigns can easily identify the best converting keywords, so why not ensure your SEO activities include optimising your content for those keywords? It was all fairly obvious when you thought about it!

8. All the tools

Same as in 3XE Digital, almost every speaker had their own recommendations and preferences for tools. From dashboard tools such as Cyfe, Data Studio and Tableau, to data aggregators such as Blockspring, and audience intelligence solutions such as People Pattern and Crystal Knows, there was a wealth of tools being recommended. It was perhaps Mike King of iPullRank who had the most tools references in his awesome session which was full of technical (and actionable) SEO tips . You can find the slides to his session on https://www.slideshare.net/ipullrank/modern-seo-players-guide

To summarise

Much like the 3XE Digital conference we attended back in October, and even the UXDX conference before that, it's becoming increasingly evident that the use of chatbots and tools such as Alexa is on the rise, and that it is high time we start optimising our content for voice search. 

However, possibly the most remarkable take-away we had from the day was the extremely high quality of all the speakers. They were all excellent, engaging, informative and, at times, funny. It was an amazing day, after which we were left with lots of inspiration and food for thought. 

If you want to stay ahead of your competitors and not get left behind, if you are worried about the mobile-friendliness of your website, or if you want to optimise your content for your users and search engines alike, then why not have a chat with our team. Get in touch with us here.