MozCon bills itself as “not your typical marketing conference.” Does it live up to the claim? Well, with a single conference track, and a well-curated speaker list, it’s a great opportunity to immerse yourself in provocative presentations and identify opportunities for innovation, within an overall online marketing mix.
Opening the conference, Moz’s own Rand Fishkin talked about the sacrifices that companies like Google and Facebook make in order to stay relevant, placing long term growth before short term gain. He challenged SEO marketers to consider the innovation required to remain relevant, especially given that marketers have limited influence in shaping the online landscape. Fishkin points to mobile as an exciting playing field, with third-world users skipping computer ownership to jump directly to the mobile web. In particular, the appearance of mobile apps in search results may create an entirely new marketing opportunity for SEOs.
Also from Moz, Matthew Brown lead a session on “the insane world of content”, where content marketing is on the rise, and “just make great content” is an oft-quoted maxim, but hardly an easily actionable strategy. Brown focused on building content for specific personas, evolving evergreen content, and building loyalty through content that drives return site visits. The bad news? It can take 12 – 17 months to see results from all that hard work.
For SEO Managers, Google five years from now looks like a scary place, with an increasingly-populated search landing page, offering direct answers to search questions, knowledge cards, new ad hybrids, and less reasons for searchers to click through to organic results. Moz’s Pete Myers demonstrated that it is possible to win visibility by optimizing your content for Google’s featured snippets. How to deliver content that Google can’t resist featuring? Start by asking yourself how you can make your content ten times better than your competition.
While much of Moz focused on innovation, there were some solid tips offered on familiar territory like A/B testing, with conversion marketer Chris Dayley recommending that redesign tests need to run three to four weeks to take account of weekly fluctuations that come into play regardless of initial statistical relevance. If you have a high traffic site, it may be tempting to assume A/B testing will offer quick and clear direction, but when testing radical redesigns, Dayley makes a persuasive case for being more patient.
As an SEO manager, conferences like MozCon help keep me up to date on the latest SEO strategies and tactics. If you’d like to put Kiosk’s SEO skills to work on your website, please give us a call.