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SMX West just wrapped in San Jose, CA, on Thursday, February 20. There were tons of thoughtful and useful presentations shared with the SMX community. Here are a few that we thought you wouldn’t want to miss.
How to Get Your Traffic Back from Google
The Longtail UX team presented on the Main Stage during lunch on how to get your traffic back from your biggest competitor: Google. The Zero-Click search, where searchers find what they need on the SERP and do not click on any of the websites presented in the results, which Search Engine Land said in August 2019 had been “on a steady rise for years.” Moreover, the study in the article noted that more than 50% of Google searches end without a click to other content, which was an all-time high in June 2019.
Andreas Dzumla, Co-founder of Longtail UX and former Google Product Specialist Team Leader in 2004, wrote about the problem in the Search Engine Journal. He refers at the beginning of his article to Rand Fishkin’s presentation in November at SMX East in NYC. Dzumla also says that Fishkin didn’t have a ton of solutions at the time.
To remedy that, Dzumla shared simple solutions in his presentation called, “Google is Hogging Half Your Traffic: How to Get it Back.” He shared ways you can use to defend yourself against On-SERP distractions, Google Carousels, and Widgets, and the latest core algorithm update BERT. All three of these changes from Google compete with SEO and SEM efforts by digital marketers to promote websites for which they are responsible.
One of the first things you can do, per Dzumla, is know how much you are losing with Longtail UX Search Scorecard. The Search Scorecard tells you the long tail pages you could use to reclaim them by employing your Search Terms from Google.
To read the full article by Dzumla, including a few strategies for winning in this losing game, please click here.
Standing Out and Selling More
Ayat Shukairy, the Invesp Co-Founder and CCO, shared her expertise at a short but sweet session on Thursday morning. Her presentation with Purna Virji, Microsoft Senior Manager, Global Engagement called “How to Understand and Beat Your Competitors,” explored how to design customer experiences and offers for which customers will pay a premium. They also took a deeper dive into the real motivations that drive customer decision-making for or against products.
She offered the following advice to attendees:
- Knowing your competitors starts with knowing why you were hired in the first place.
- Always think of all competitors.
- What’s the difference that makes the difference in customers’ minds?
- Customers love certain aspects about your product or service: double down on it!
To read more about how to convert more sales, check out the Invesp blog here.
Pinterest and Snapchat advertising
First-time presenter Duane Brown, Founder and Head of Strategy at Take Some Risk, Inc., shared his experiences with Pinterest and Snapchat advertising in his session called, “Social Commerce Beyond Facebook: Drive Sales With Pinterest And Snapchat Advertising.” These sites have users with money to spend, and Brown wants to help you talk to them with your ads.
Brown sees Snap Ads as a rising platform with 210 million users, despite its reputation as a site strictly for the under-18 crowd. Per their Snap Ads Guide on the Take Some Risk website, a whopping 25 percent of these users are over 25. Moreover, when you use the ad pixel, you can track leads, subscriptions, product sales, or any other metric you want. Also, these measurements are from multiple sessions on multiple devices.
Brown and his team created the Snap Ads: The Complete Guide for Ecommerce to help online marketers incorporate these platforms into their overall strategy, which he shared with attendees. In it, you learn how to set up the account, verify implementation, how to create custom audiences, and customize columns for ad performance metrics. They even share their Single Image & Video Ad Creative Best Practices to help you get started.
If you want to know more about Snap Ads using the Take Some Risk guide, click here.
There are a lot of changes we can expect in 2020. However, one thing that will never change is the generosity and camaraderie you can experience at the SMX conference.
If you are feeling bummed you missed it, do something about it. The SMX West Advanced is June 8-10, 2020, in Seattle.
PPC Ad Editor is the first all-in-one tool that allows teams to create, share, and edit PPC ads with their clients and then upload directly into Google Ads. For more information, visit www.ppcadeditor.com.
Sources:
Nguyen, George. “Now more than 50% of Google searches end without a click to other content, study finds.” Searchengineland.com. 14 August 2019. Web. 21 February 2020. < https://searchengineland.com/now-more-50-of-google-searches-end-without-a-click-to-other-content-study-finds-320574>
Dzumla, Andreas. “Google’s Hogging Half Your Traffic: How to Get it Back.” www.searchengine journal.com. Web. 21 February 2020. < https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-hogging-half-your-traffic-how-to-get-it-back/341831/>.
Snap Ads: The Complete Guide for eCommerce.” Takesomerisk.com. 9 February 2020. Web. 21 February 2020. <https://www.takesomerisk.com/snap-ads-guide/>.