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10 Takeaways From SMX East, NYC in November 2019

By Gordon Smith on 14-Nov-2019
Digital MarketingGoogleBlogsGoogle AdsSEO

Gordon Smith, Head of SEO at Dotwise, travelled to New York in November 2019 to check out the East Coast’s premier SEO and Search Engine Marketing conference, SMX East.

He said:

SMX was a great experience. I learned a ton of new techniques and tricks and it was great to meet and chat with the top movers and shakers in SEO in the US at the moment.

The conference gives a real insight into the state of the Search Engine Marketing landscape. If we can
make it again next year, we will!

Here are Gordon’s top 10 takeaways from the conference:

In Google Ads and paid search

  1. Monetisation is coming to more areas of search though. For example Google are rolling out Google Shopping ads on YouTube feeds. Whilst we might see this as a threat to SEO it can also be seen as an opportunity to expand brands’ reach through paid search.

In SEO

  1. SEO is still huge. Despite Google’s very successful monetisation of all forms of search – from search to shopping, images and videos, the value of being placed top in the organic search results is still massively important.

In content creation

  1. In content writing, you should always know the reading grade you are writing to. This means understanding the level of knowledge your audience typically has when visiting your website.
  2. This can be measured using the Flesch-Kincaid grade scoring system.
  3. Top-of-funnel traffic may require benefit from lower grade writing than bottom-of-funnel traffic.
  4. Consider using different content for returning traffic than for new visitors. Users who have visited your site before may further into the buying journey and benefit from more detailed content.

In blogging

  1. In blogging: do an annual or six-monthly blog audit. Understand your best and worst performing content. This can done using Google Analytics. Purge your worst-performing content or consider merging it with better-performing content.
  2. One single great-quality blog post is worth more than a ton of weak, thin content. So purge and combine your content.
  3. Lookout for keyword cannibalisation. Ensure all blog posts are focussed around just one or two keywords. Regularly do a Google search for those keywords and check that the correct pages are ranking. If not, purge and combine as above.

In conclusion

  1. Search Engine Marketing is fun! Enjoy!