Hieronder vind je een aantal kernboodschappen op Search University 2012 in Brussel op 15 juni.

Je kan ook ALLE PRESENTATIES GRATIS BEKIJKEN.

Gerald Claessens & Wouter Schikhof (Knewledge) - De belangrijkste Search Marketing hoogtepunten uit 2011. En wat zijn de trends voor 2012?

Freshness Update (november '11)

Content Freshness is now more rewarded and scores better. Fresh content on high authority websites will be rewarded.

How to benefit? Fresh Content - Opportunities to connect with "trending topics"

Adspent Trends '11

Google controls 46% of all online spending

November '11: Launch of Youtube Belgium + Google Street View Belgium

Why is Youtube interesting for advertisers?

  • 2.2 milion home page impressions per day
  • 1.1 milion Unique visitors per day.

Parked Domains (december '11)

Search algorithm has been altered on 9 points.

  • related query result refinements
  • comprehensive indexing
  • new parked domain classifier
  • more autocomplete predictions
  • fresher and more complete blog search results
  • original content
  • live results for major league soccer and canadian football league

For advertisers it means big improvements towards the inventory of the GDN + less chance of wasted adspent.

Also, it gives a far better quality in search results

January '12: Search + Your World

What happened? Personal results are extended, G+ profiles appear in search, people/related topics/+pages are linked.

Impact on search: People and related topics are linked to G+ Pages

Search Alliance Bing and Yahoo

Search Alliance begins first adcenter, testing in europe.

Microsoft adcenter ads are coming to yahoo pages in France, Ireland and the UK

What's in it for you? You can now target users of Bing in BE with Adcenter.

February '12 - Panda 3.3 update

- New method of link evaluation - re-evaluates link characteristics such as link title tags, texting around links, link type, ... Your organic rankings MIGHT have been effected IF your back link profile has flaws.

What should you do? Monitor rankings, monitor organic traffic, conduct a back linkg investigation + OPTIMIZE

Adwords update

More transparency on Quality Scores parameters - more insight on what drives quality scores.

Adwords wil automatically match for misspellings and other variants.

Penguin update

New search algorithm to fight webspam.

Decreased rankings for over optimized pages applying: (meta) keyword stuffing, link schemes, purposeful duplicate content, black hat SEO, ...

What should you be doing? Re-anallyse organic traffic (compare period before and after), check your Google webmaster central for possible notifications, check your On Page Optimization with Google's Guidelins (make sure you have unique content), check for duplicate content issues (content available with or and without www. or ... - duplicate on several domains)

If you're hit, remove over-optimized elements, then apply for reconsideration.

Google Places merges with G+

Google Places Page merged with Google+ Local Pages - integration into Google+ Interface

(only on .com - not on .be)

 

Christoffel Hiltermann (Google Ireland) - Google SEO perspectieven. Hoe een efficiënte, meertalige site bouwen?

How to work with international and multilingual websites?

1 - Geotargeting

In the first place Google tries to divide sites on the web on a country level.

Factors for geotargeting

  • Country Code Top level Domain (.be .fr)
  • generic Top level Domain (.com) - Webmaster Tools: you can set the Geotargeting even if you have a generic top level domain. You can choose the country and that will give you an edge when users from that country are searching.
  • Server location (less valued then the first 2) - assumtion here is that the content should be hosted close to your users to ensure a faster load-speed and better user experience.
  • Other signals - mostly content, also ads on the side or the currencies used on the page.

2 - language handling

  • Google can pick up on multiple languages per page
  • One primary language per page

Tips:

  • Don't be afraid of duplicate content - Google algorithms can detect if it's a translation or with bad intentions to over-optimize
  • Use separate URL's
  • Avoid automatic redirects - example: if a dutch person is travelling in another country, he still would like to visits his sites in his own language (frequently visited sites like webshops or ..).

3 - link rel=alternate hreflang

Line of code to link alternative (language, country, ..) pages with each-other. We will soon upload the presentation so you'll be able to study this.

Sven De Meyere (Wijs) - SEO Optimization voor grote websites. Hoe je inspanningen optimaal indelen?

SEO & Big websites

  • Horizontal & vertical linking
  • navigation
  • breadcrumbs
  • footer links
  • header logo

Smart use of XML sitemaps:

  • standard XML sitemaps = band-aid solution
  • site architecture is more important then sitemaps
  • Index sitemaps (if you use this properly, you can see the amout of submitted or indexed URL's)
  • ...

Microformats: (www.schema.org)

  • Improvement in CTR
  • Small cost
  • template, so it has a scalable impact
  • semantic data markup

Site Speed

  • Crawl rate & indexation
  • Server cost
  • User experience
  • Amazon research: 0.1s loading time = -1 % sales !

More info you will get from the presentation but he expressed one very important part: Get everyone on board! Everyone can help (HR, PR, Marcom, ...), people like to get involved, get them to optimize the site and even provide content by writing blogs for exemple. You could get a competition going, with prizes for the best content created (what performs best)

Large website SEO Toolset

on-site and off-site monitoring

  • Google Webmaster Tools
  • Bing Webmaster Tools
  • SeoMoz campaigns

Rankings

Webceo

Link analysis

  • MajesticSEO
  • Open Site explorer

How to measure your success?

There are different metrcis: business (ROI), SEO metrics, Link metrics (domain level and page level)

8 Key Takeaways!

  • Horizontal and Vertical internal linking
  • Use Index XML sitemaps to discover weak spots
  • Microformats boost your organic CTR
  • First things first, get your basics right
  • Automate when possible, adjust when necessary
  • Get everyone on board
  • API's, use them!
  • Larger websites - - different metrics for success

Laurent Bousis (iProspect) - Search Study 2012 - Deel 1: Hoe gebruikt de Belg zoekmachines? - INTRO BY: Laurent Moreau, Ant Research

Online Search Behavior Study (second part at 14h40)

Goal: to have actualized data

They wanted to look at actual, statistically validated data on the behaviour of belgian users with search engines

Methodology

  • 988 online interviews
  • Fieldwork 14/03-22/03
  • Interview duration: 18 minutes
  • Completion rate: 82%
  • Max margin of error: 3.1%
  • Surfers over 18 (gender, age, language)

How often do you use a search engine?

  • 28% is doing between 10-50 searches a day
  • Search engines are not only used for information but also for discovery (deals, new stuff, gift ideas, unknown sites, ...) So it is also used for discovery.
  • 41% of women searched for clothes and 28% bought online
  • 52% of men searched for electronics and 28.5% bought online
  • Also restaurants, travel, books and concerts are amongst the most popular.
  • 75% bought online after informing themselves, also online.

Which search engines do you know and use?

94.1% uses Google at least once a month (99.9% know Google)

7.3% uses Yahoo! at least once a month (96.4% know Yahoo!)

3.6% uses Bing at least once a month (only 74.4% know Bing...)

What drove you to search?

25% will search after having visited a physical store

52.9% search after a verbal recommendation

36% after viewing ads in magazines/papers

27.4% after viewing ads on TV

20.8% after seeing a banner online

Which social networks do you know and use?

52.7% use facebook at least once a week (98.5% knows FB)

24.4% uses Youtube at least once a week (95.3% know YT)

...

35.3% of online Belgiance will share pictures on Facebook (51.8% use Facebook Chat)

27% does nothing with Google+ (51.2% just consults it, without doing anything)

23% does nothing with Linkedin (66% only consults profiles and does nothing actively)

Aissam Mezhoud (Microsoft France) - Het perspectief van Microsoft/Bing. Hoe een Pay Per Click Campagne monitoren & traceren?

How to monitor and track Campaign Performance in Bing adCenter?

All info about the Bing adCenter and Bing/Yahoo! goals and plans will be in the presentation we'll upload by monday.

Jonathan Van Parys (Semetis) - Technologie binnen Search: Hoe apps en data benutten?

Check the presentation, very interesting.

Caroline Coesemans (Google France) - Een juridisch kijk vanuit de Google bril. Voor Ad Targeting, Privacy en Trademarks

Koen Verbrugge (Wijs) - Search en Social groeien naar elkaar toe. 5 essentiële Focus Punten voor de SEO- & Online Marketeer

Rankings are becoming less relevant to score on search engines. Engaging content (that gets shared) scores better.

Sites with autority used to score good, no matter what page, nowadays 'small players' can beat them as long as they are fast, relevant and lean. This means that there needs to be continuous updates with very relevant content.

Content that gets shared is good, but keep in mind that if it's not being reshared, it will drop dead. So try to make it more appealing and relevant so it goes more viral.

Tips:

  • Use the backchannel
  • Make it about 'us' - people share when it's about them
  • use Facebook Markup in your CMS
  • Let an autority write for you
  • Gather an audience - critical mass to build on
  • Cater to the public

One validation leads to the next, we call it viral. Viral is never promised or guaranteed.

Never use on facebook

automatic push - it lowers visibility, it makes your message generic

shortlinks - it takes away SEO-worth, it makes link less trusted

People won't share:

advertising space with content

why you are so important

Measure like a publisher

1 - Segment your content per topic (analyse topic clusters and landingpages - don't miss the keyword data, check if clusters serve their purpose or are leveraged.

2 - implement social tracking/conversations

3 - Measure your distribution channels

Christoffel Hiltermann (Google Ireland) - Hoe webmasters kunnen communiceren met Google ? * * * * * Uniek

How webmasters can communicate with Google

SEARCH QUALITY TEAM

These are the meetings during wich they evaluate how to optimize the search results.

All the improvements have the same focus: Provide a better user experience.

ALGORITHMS AND MANUAL ACTIONS

This team focusses on these 4 subjects

  • Algorithmic adjustments
  • Manual actions
  • Analysis of new trends
  • Communication

GOAL: Surface high quality sites (rather than big sites with overoptimized pages)

In specific cases, Google takes manual actions on sites that violate their Quality Guidelines.

COMMUNICATION

Place to be: www.google.be/webmasters

Here you get notifications about manual actions or certain updates, even if you have an outdated CMS system (for example). You can get these messages fowarded to your standard inbox. If you are not sure about the meaning (or if your score drops), you can ask questions on the forum.

If there is a violation, you will get punished. Later you can put in a reconsideration request. Be honest about what you did and what you did to solve it. Clear context and concrete examples.

Example: "I had previously purchased links to my site. I have contacted the source of the links (see list belowà and they are no longer linking to my site. (give examples)"

Reporting an issue about another site

File a Spam Report and again, be specific.

 

Laurent Bousis (iProspect) - Search Study 2012 - Deel 2: De impact van SEO & SEA op uw business - INTRO BY: Laurent Moreau, Ant Research

Scroll up to get the first part.

Trustworthiness of search results

159 changes is the last 12 months

17.5% thinks it gets better, 10.7% think it declines

70.5% of the occasional users don't know the difference between paid or organic search results, but the majority don't care. 
20% thinks says they know there are never paid results. People are 6 times more likely to click natural results, because they trust it more.

Surprisingly, most of those who know that the right side is paid, don't know the top 3 results are also paid. So that gets clicked much more then the ads on the right side.

CONCLUSIONS

The most efficient positions by far are the top3 sponsored results and the top3 natural results - If your business can maintain a position in both, you will capture a quarter to half the search volume.

Side sponsored results have been declining for some time (check your top vs other KPI's) - If your business is not visible in natural results and only on side sponsored results you will capture ten to twenty times less search volume.

We demonstrated this search behaviour can be explained by the evaluation belgian users make of the search results and their knowledge and perception of the difference between paid and natural links.

Gabriel Goldberg (Semetis) - Hoe content creëren en benutten doorheen meerdere platformen? Sites, Blogs, News, Social, Mobile, ...

How to leverage content on different platforms

"Content Still Rules"

SEO-STRATEGY

Long Term View

  • Decide to publish more content - this means you have more publications landing pages and your visits will grow.
  • "Spread the word" with social
  • Social Traffic: In some situations, social links will be taken into account to calculate ranking. To deide this, search engines evaluate the authority and the quality of the post. Note that in Facebook, only links from FAN PAGES are taken into account, and not the links from people's personal walls.
  • Social media helps you get indexed faster.
  • Amount of fans, shares, likes contribute to authority

SEO KPI's

- Volume and reach - organic visitors and visitors, referral + social visits

- Quality - % New visits

- IT - Load Time, Error pages (important for google)

Segmenting

  • SEO traffic
  • SEO non branded
  • SEO branded

Dashboard

Create an addapted dashboard to optimize your data analysing.

CONCLUSIONS

1. be consistent

2. do not neglect the basics

3. Fix your IT

Claudia Kosny (Knewledge) - Introductie van het Google affiliate netwerk (gebaseerd op US/UK launches)

Presentation coming soon ...

Noah Samuels (Google UK) - Keynote: Hoe Google tegemoet komt aan de noden van adverteerders. Van Search tot Social.

From Search to Social

"Not showing your ads on Mobile is as if you would close your shop one day a week."

"It is not a matter of online or offline, it is a matter of reaching your customers"

Ecommerce is becoming commerce, people find something or hear about it and they do their research, maybe look for a professional review and a few reviews from customers.