The search marketing industry is constantly evolving and in a super fast way! Therefore, if we want to stay on track with the latest changes and the challenges that’ll crop up in the upcoming months, it is essential that everyone involved keeps up to date. Staying in the know means constantly following search marketing blogs, being in regular contact with fellow managers in our industry, and, of course, attending conferences.
Being a fashion tech company, we at Stylight can definitely get inspiration for our day-to-day jobs from tech and marketing conferences. External professionals might have tried and succeeded (or failed) following a certain methodology or using a particular technology, and it’s always interesting to get further insights on the industry. Our digital marketing strategy can only gain from it.
These are some of the reasons why Stylight was in Paris to attend the SMX Paris 2015, one of the most important search marketing conferences worldwide, held this year at a two-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower – needless to say, a pleasant venue!
A pleasant venue with popular experts within the search marketing industry who shared their experience, advices and challenges. Present among this stratospheric panel included: Danny Sullivan (SearchEngineLand), Duane Forrester (Bing), Gary Illyes and Vincent Courson (Google); but also major influencers in the French search marketing playing field such as Sylvain Richard (AxeNet) and Sylvain Peyronnet (Nalrem Médias).
Search engine ‘guru’ Danny Sullivan giving his speech – ©SMX Paris
During this two-day conference, many topics were discussed including SEO, SEA, Content Marketing and Social Media. Two topics, however, kept on coming back in front of the stage: direct answers and the place of mobile search in the whole search marketing strategy of every player in the market. Both are rising questions and challenges we will have to face in a near future.
What does the first topic,‘direct answers’, mean? It’s basically a feature in which Google finds an answer to a user’s typed question in the search engine, and this answer is displayed right above all other results. These boxes are taking up a big part of the space every SEO marketer ties to reach, i.e. the first results, and this seems to be a rising trend according to a study by Moz. The challenge for marketers is actually to deal with this feature, and if possible, to try to find the best way to be sourced as the best answer Google would have for such a query.
What are baggy jeans? Google direct answer knows it very well
The second topic is definitely THE topic of the year. Everyone who works in the SEO field is talking about it: mobile vs. desktop searches is a real match, and the latest result in some countries is now 2-1. Indeed, Google announced recently that the amount of searches on mobile overcame the ones on desktop in many countries.
Mobile vs Desktop Searches: 2-1
This means that companies have to adapt their websites not only to answer the needs and behaviors of desktop searchers but also those of mobile ones. Search marketing tactics such as app-indexing and mobile-friendliness are arguably the most important ones. We at Stylight understood this and launched our websites with a responsive design (an optimal design for all device sizes) as early as 2013, and we are continuously improving it to ensure our mobile users have the best experience possible.
Additionally, in the past few weeks Google launched new features dedicated to mobile searches (e.g. “Touch to Search” or “Now on Tap”). For this reason,, it was fairly natural for Behshad Behzadi, Director of Conversational Search at Google, to present such improvements in the way smartphone users would search from now on.
Understanding how the search industry will react to the mobile vs. desktop searches trend is critical. This is an evolution that has to be closely monitored and time to react and adapt must be as low as possible.
So, if you think you’re up for the challenge and interested in helping us overcome those challenges, there are a few SEO job offers which could interest you!
|By Baptiste Hausmann|
