The Missing Link: Using SEO to Support Brand, PR & Social @JamesFinlayson

This year, so far, we’ve built 4.7k links

on sites like these

New York Post Washington Post

The Mirror The Metro The Sun

Daily Mail

Greenpeace WWF

NASA

TV3 (Denmark) NBC (US) ITV (UK)

TV2 (Denmark)

We’re becoming ad-blind + The way we’re searching is changing

How we do it

= brand is more important than ever

Brands need to be storytellers + News media has changed

= opportunity to make the news

(1)

(2)

(3)

We’ve Become Ad-Blind

65%

10%

your

brand

word-of-mouth

posters

TV

billboards

radio

telemarketing

print ads

point-of-sale

mailshots

product placement

PR

sponsorship

celebrity endorsements

seminars

whitepapers

reputation management

your

brand

word-of-mouth

posters

TV

billboards

radio

SEO PPC

email

point-of-sale

mailshots

product placement

PR

native content display ads

retargeting

remarketing

sponsorship

celebrity endorsements facebook

paid facebook

blogging

podcasts

online video seminars

webinars whitepapers twitter

snapchat

native advertising

paid twitter

pinterest

reputation management

print ads

telemarketing

1,707 Banner ads per month

1,707 Banner ads per month

0.04% Average

click through rate

1,707 Banner ads per month

0.04% Average

click through rate

50% of clicks

on mobile are accidental

millennials are “able to filter out advertising and commercial messages on social platforms across the board” Professor Barnes, University of Massachusetts

By 2021,

74%

of all ad revenue is predicted to be spent on

native advertising

can’t recall

the sponsor of

native content

HubShout survey, 2014

We’ve Become Ad-Blind

the way we’re searching is changing

increasingly our preferences, whether communicated explicitly or implicitly,

are key

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Rank

We saw 3x the CTR for an international brand in a country where it’s dominant vs countries where it’s not.

[John Lewis]

How do you become the default choice?

We’re becoming ad-blind + The way we’re searching is changing

How we do it

= brand is more important than ever

Brands need to be storytellers + News media has changed

= opportunity to make the news

(1)

(2)

(3)

Brands as Storytellers

Try to remember the last Samsung advert.

Try to remember the last any Samsung advert.

Samsung spends $9.9Bn a year trying to create impact with their ads.

Now, do you know:

What was sent to CNN’s office recently?

What’s wrong with Trump’s phone?

What did Merkel recently announce?

53% now read news online at least once a day

news media has changed

$0

$10.000.000.000

$20.000.000.000

$30.000.000.000

$40.000.000.000

$50.000.000.000

$60.000.000.000

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Print Ad Revenue Combined Online & Offline Ad Revenue

for every $1 of ‘digital’ revenue gained

$55 of print revenue had been lost

1,200 stories, graphics and videos

per day

15 articles a day

What has this got to do with link building?

People don’t invest in things they don’t understand

…mostly

Traditional link building doesn’t make sense to non-SEOs

73 websites

everything else

50% Of Traffic In The UK Goes To These 73 Sites

100 websites

everything else

Google Penalty

Link Building

Traditional link building doesn’t make sense to non-SEOs because:

1. You’re contacting blogs with little-to-no audience

2. Blogs are inherently risky as they sell links

3. That leads to a cycle of link building and link removal

4. It contributes nothing to other marketing channels

Bringing it together

We’re becoming ad-blind + The way we’re searching is changing

= brand is more important than ever

Brands need to be storytellers + News media has changed

= opportunity to make the news

(1)

(2)

SEO’s have a tendency to ask ‘how can we appear authoritative’ When we should be asking ‘how can we become more authoritative’

Moz popularized the concept of the T-shaped marketer

The T-Shaped Campaign

Expertise

Authority

Trust

Links

Rankings

SEO PR Social Brand PPC/Display Email

Relevancy

211 pieces of coverage

6 million views

211 pieces of coverage

In print On TV On Radio

New York Post (250k)

Yahoo Finance (131k)

Today Show (NBC) (2.5 million)

Virgin Radio Canada (7.8k)

ESPN Radio (59k)

WKRC Radio (79k)

E!News (3 million)

The T-Shaped Campaign

SEO PR Social Brand PPC/Display Email

211 links

Average TF35

Top 10 ranking for ‘casino’

>50% organic traffic increase

The T-Shaped Campaign

SEO PR Social Brand PPC/Display Email

211 links

Average TF35

TV & Radio 6 million views 7k shares 510k retargeting list talking point

Top 10 ranking for ‘casino’

>50% organic traffic increase

You’ll need to get comfortable with unknown unknowns

GIF For Twitter Behind the Scenes Video for Youtube

168 Links

Account Followers

40.4 million

7.8 million

2.1 million

1.3 million

911k

204k

112k

23.5k

26k

419 links

>15k shares

Washington Post

How we do it

Make the news

Target where the attention is

Have grit