Did someone say RankBrain?

Day 2 of MozCon 2016 hasn’t disappointed, with another delicious breakfast and great coffee to kickstart our brains (yes, that’s pretty darned important, especially when you’re getting up at 6.30am to make it on time…). The crowds of IT, SEO and marketing enthusiasts are buzzing: it’s only the second day, but we all feel like we’ve slipped back into university gear. And it’s GREAT.

So – the line up for day 2? Pretty intense, and jam packed. Way too much info for one blog post, so I’ve condensed it down to just the highlights. No offense to the other speakers, but these are the impacting ideas that struck a chord with me!

Dr Pete Meyers: Rank Brain, Deep Learning, and Relevancy in Search

Exploring the path between typing a search and getting a result, this session was FANTASTIC. Dr Pete is a bit of a legend in the industry, and boy does he know his stuff. In short? Yes keywords still matter, but we really need to change the way we approach them. We should be identifying and grouping them by recognising conversational search terms, and we can use the Google Trends Related Queries section as reference for this. Which, incidentally, is also a great way to check out snippet options… More on that in a later blog! Dr Pete (who does actually have a real doctorate) laid it all out: Conversational search, the Hummingbird update, complex voice searches, and the evolution into (and launching of) RankBrain. From there he broke down the actual process of Deep Learning, which is the base layer of RankBrain intelligence. Once you comprehend this, you start to get a feel for why Google is now offering results on searches that don’t feature the actual keywords searched. It’s fascinating – and extremely relevant for content creation and SEO copy.

So what we’re looking at now is:

The 3 G’s

• Gather keywords
• Group keywords
• Generate ideal phrases

Guess what? Keyword stuffing is still happening (NO!) and Google has recognised that this is not natural speech. It’s drawing it’s own conclusions on whether your content is relevant, based on whether you’re answering the questions that your readers want to know. Whether they realise it or not. Scary smart: time to upskill!

Joanna Wiebe: Marketing emails: WIN, KEEP, and MONETISE attention

Yes – this is possibly the most relevant topic. We all need to monetise our actions online, (by we, I mean SEO and marketing agencies, just to be clear!) and to do this, we need to first win attention, and then KEEP IT. This is the key part of the process, and it’s what Joanna focussed on. How are we supposed to keep the attention of our readers in an environment that is already overstuffed with marketing messages? Your clients (my clients, YOU!) have become hardened, you’re tired, you’re immune to new messages, there’s no white space anymore. So how, in the face of all this, do we reach our market? Here’s what Joanna had to say:

• Get Specific: get rid of voiceless copy, make sure your readers know the email is specifically for them alone.
• Feed The Ego: people love it. Draw them in with a compliment in the greeting, talk about their latest video, mention their city: anything!
• CTA First: put a clear call to action in the FIRST SENTENCE. Weird right? It works.
• Connect the Dots: don’t make your readers work – for anything. It’s your job to make things as easy as possible for them. Frictionless copy leads to conversions!
• Anchor your Concepts: abstract concepts don’t create mental images. Anchor concepts in reality so readers can visualise and take action.

Joanna signed off with a strong message: longer text in emails is OK, as long as it’s engaging and personalised, with an emphasis on EASY ACTION and ENGAGING COPY. Easy, right?

So that’s just a brief overview of only 2 of the amazing speakers from MozCon 2016 day 2. Want to know more? Get in touch!