7 ways marketers can pump up search and SEO efforts

Today's marketers know that if you're not first, you're last.

That's especially true when it comes to search marketing and SEO tactics that marketing pros must embrace for successful, well-rounded campaigns.

Consider these seven insights from experts who spoke at a recent State of Search conference:

1 . Use structured data.

Structured data, or Schema Markup, is no longer a fun micro-advantage, but a crucial component to ranking and to creating usable insights in analytics. Google and other search engines rely on "structured data" to understand the relationship between your website (including your products and team) and those searching for it. It's also an important component to ranking in position.

Martha van Berkel of Schema App said brand managers can use this structured information for their own analytics by using the tags created for search engines as custom dimensions in Google Analytics.

If marketers are providing exceptional detail to search engines, use that information to further understand how users interact with your site at a granular level—rather than looking at what URLs are most frequently visited.

2. Rely on machines .

The key to automation is to reduce the burden of rote tasks. Frequent tasks (automated SQRs, data analysis, bid adjustments, etc.) are perfect examples.

The value that experts provide is the ability to implement automation that allows small or repetitive tasks to be taken care of by a machine, freeing up your focus for tactics that make your work invaluable.

Former Googler Dan Gilbert of BrainLabs said marketers are consistently working across hundreds of data points every single day. He asked, Who do you think is better equipped to pull insights across that large of a spectrum: a human or a machine?

3. Aim for cohesion across channels.

A unified strategy will always be more successful than individual departments. Working as a team to develop a strategy that supports both sides allows marketers to do better work for their clients.

John Leo Weber of Geek Powered Studios said several problems can develop when agencies don't share their knowledge while working toward the same goal. Luckily, there are several tactics you can implement to better market across channels.

4. Focus on voice search, not artificial intelligence.

Voice search is here to stay, and will only become more important to marketing efforts. That means you have to understand how it works.

Ask:

· Where are devices pulling their information?

· What information do people want when they ask their phones or devices questions?

· How can I optimize this?

Remember, providing answers to consumer questions is providing value to (potentially) happy customers.

Marketers can capture excessively long tail queries, dig through reports for conversational snippets and build content that provides detailed answers.

[RELATED: Discover the digital strategies you need to break out of your siloand succeed in today's changing marketing communications mashup.]

5. For SEO, location still matters.

Filtration can kill an organization, but there are a few ways that it can be solved.

Proximity will always matter significantly, but reviews, proper categorizing and citing, evaluating competition, grabbing snippets, capturing intent and being active in the community are all ways that marketers can ensure clients retain their visibility.

The most cruciall component is garnering real reviews and notoriety from local organizations through digital PR. No matter how optimized your website is, reviews from a many sources can better sway consumers.

6. Influencers are changing.

Reviews have a massive impact on local SEO. Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp and general product reviews matter, but the internet contains more than those places.

Duane Forrester said influencers in a consumer's life are starting to shift. He shared that 70 percent of teenage YouTube subscribers say they related to YouTube celebrities rather than traditional celebrities. Four in 10 say their favorite creator understands them better than their friends, and 7 in 10 indicated that YouTube creators are directly driving changes and reshaping culture.

As marketers, we must be aware of who our audience trusts and how we can get involved.

7. Occupy position 0…or else.

These days it's amazing how much you can do within Google. For instance, it's now possible to look up a movie summary, find where it's playing, buy tickets and get directions to the theater without ever leaving the search giant.

Google curates the content it wants and prefers its own sources. This means you must play into Google's game and provide as much structured data as possible so that Google can manipulate and display it to its users.

For marketers, it's no longer a game of ranking No. 1, below the ads. It's about being the first result, period.

Mike Kaplan is an SEO analyst at Workshop Digital, a digital marketing company in Richmond, VA. A version of this article first appeared on Workshop Digital's blog.

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