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Share14 was high on my list of 2014 conferences not to miss, and it delivered. The impressive speaker line-up included SEO professionals from large enterprise organisations such as BING, Google, M3 and Marriott International sharing insider tips and tactics that we can use to help clients at our own agency.<\/p>\n
The overall focus of this year\u2019s SEO conference was on local, site usability, mobile and of course, content. With that in mind, I want to share with you the top 4 things that I learned at the conference.<\/p>\n
1. What does local really mean?<\/h2>\n
Google\u2019s more recent algorithm update hummingbird<\/a> has really pushed the emphasis on local, exposing its importance in the mind of Google. But what does local really mean? Quite often when we talk about local we don\u2019t really put ourselves in the users shoes and think about the practical user experience and what their true intent is at the time they search.<\/p>\n Duane Forrester<\/a>, from Bing, really put a practical light on what local actually means and the challenges the search engines have when it comes to understanding the true intent of a local searcher<\/a>.<\/p>\n He talked about how data signals are everywhere and anywhere, especially in local search. When we as users search for local information there are many different data points that the search engines must consider, one of these being \u2018what is the users true search intent\u2019?<\/p>\n When discussing intent the search engines want to understand the true need of the users and provide them with the most accurate results in the fastest way possible.<\/p>\n Although this is not an official definition of what local is it definitely helps us understand the complexity of how we need to interpret local search.<\/p>\n Duane went on to say that local can be any or all of the following things:<\/p>\n Reviewing these perspectives helps SEO professionals<\/a> think about user true intent and how this can relate to business. Prompting such questions as: As a business what type of service or product do you offer and where does it fit into local users purchase cycle? Does your content match up with the intent of your target users? Is your business a local to me now or later for searchers?<\/p>\n As the search engines continue to focus on the local search results it is important to really think about who your customers are and figure out how your business fits into THIER lives. This perspective alone should help shift the way you position your SEO content strategy<\/a> and the type of information you are offering potential customers. With the amount of content being put online every day, it is important to get to the point and provide the best answers for customers no matter where they are or, when or how they need you.<\/p>\n Everyday millions of people are adding content to the web; at times, the rate of new content available can be overwhelming to users.<\/p>\n With all of this content, consumers have more choice than ever before. However, how does this impact the customer purchase journey? How does this impact what type of content businesses need to publish online?<\/p>\n\n
2. The Challenging Customer journey<\/h2>\n