The SEO Pulse Is Strong at Pubcon Austin

Outside, it was an unusually rainy, dreary day in Austin. While inside, it was only fitting that the speakers of digital marketing conference, #Pubcon, were busy making it rain -- in the form of tips, insights, advice, and wisdom of course. I spent an invaluable day inside listening to speaker after speaker share their experiences and point of view on all things digital and domain related. 

PubCon is an internet marketing conference held three times a year in Austin, Florida and Las Vegas, respectively. The Austin event is one day, packed with 7 hours of search optimization conference-related topics across 4 main tracks of internet marketing: SEO, PPC, Content Marketing, and Spotlight Sessions. The day finishes with networking drinks making new contacts and catching up with old friends.

Since you couldn’t make it in person, I’ve highlighted a few insights and actionable tips from some of the sessions I attended. You can also catch more PubCon action on Twitter using the event hashtag #Pubcon.

Keynote with Gary Illyes, Google

The morning Keynote kicked off with Gary Illyes of Google (@methode). He mentioned his presentation was the same information that was shared at a previous Pubcon (Las Vegas) about 2 months ago so technically nothing new to report. But he did have a few insights to share around these topics:  

Mobile First Index. Here’s what you need to know.

The imminent switch over from desktop index to mobile, remains imminent. Why is Google focusing on this? Most of their users are searching using their mobile device. “We’re moving slow, there’s no timeline, since we’re making sure the servers can handle the crawl.” Illyes said.

It’s likely Google will never have a fully Mobile First Index since some sites only exist on desktop.

• AMP doesn’t play a role in the Mobile First Index
• AMP leads to a 10% increase in website traffic (based on a study commissioned by Google.)

Search Console is out of BETA. What’s new: 

• This is a great source of information for webmasters. Google has invested in the areas of giving webmasters insights into moving to HTTPS, rendering & crawl budget. Today, HTTPS is supported on the top 100 sites (Illyes cited CNET, Rakuten, Trivago). In many cases, if a site switches over to HTTPS, performance (traffic) improves.
• Key Takeaway: Use structured data. Google loves structured data because it helps them better understand the contents of the page. Illyes made a big point of communicating this too.

During the Ask-Me-Anything Q&A, there were questions around rankings in mobile if less content were to be on the pages.

Essentially, we learned that how the mobile page is structured matters for rankings. Google has a term used to describe the meat or the center part of the content, deemed “center piece”. If that center piece changes between desktop and mobile, rankings will fluctuate. 

Below are a few insightful tweets from industry veteran @Marie_Haynes:

Bottom line:

Content Planning Methodology and Development

This track kicked off with insights by Rachel Meyer (@rachelmeyer1). Her main message was, “have a solid plan.”

Once you’re armed (or aligned) with a solid plan Meyer advised creating a documented strategy that starts with a content calendar. Match the content you intend to produce with the business goals. Lastly, establish a publishing cadence so your audience knows and expects your content.

Build a working document of brand personas populated with visual and informational insights using Xtensio.com (free template). Add in their Goals & Frustrations because you need to have clarity on what matters to the people you’re trying to reach.

Meyer's key concept was about tapping into our content refresh superpowers. It's technically nothing new but always a good reminder to take advantage of proven concepts. This allows you to work smarter and fill in content calendar gaps.

To illustrate, how many versions of Batman have there been? The point is, it doesn’t matter because Batman is a proven concept that gets refreshed year after year. People connect and identify with this character. The same can be true for your customers and your content if you take the time to evaluate what performed in the past and look for ways to reinvigorate the information and resurface the story. 

She very kindly tweeted the link out to her deck posted on SlideShare.

Working with Amazon - Optimization and Excellence

Robyn Johnson (@BestFromTheNest) provided a lot of highly relevant insights to those specializing in optimizing for the e-com giant. As a Prime member myself, I found it fascinating. Amazon is fast becoming a search tool in its own right. In fact, 44% of product searches start on Amazon.

It stands to reason that SEO’s can take a page from the Amazon playbook and apply it to transactional searches happening on Google. Johnson brought to light a metric unique to the Amazon platform: traffic coming to your seller page that doesn’t buy or convert negatively impacts your listing.

The reality is, visitors come and go from web pages all the time. Of course, you don’t want the scale to tip too far in the direction of people exiting. But imagine if Google penalized websites for the bounce rate on their homepage alone. This certainly brings a sense of urgency focused on optimizing user intent and quality. It's not all that dissimilar from the good user experience Google is trying to elevate among the websites it ranks. 

I can’t wait to look through more of her insights when the deck is available on SlideShare. It was time for me to head over to another session.

WordPress Optimization

WordPress is generally regarded as the most SEO friendly content management system but, out-of-the-box, it’s neither optimized for speed nor SEO. Thankfully, David Vogelpohl (@davidvmc) was on hand to provide us with a litany useful plug-ins designed to maximize the search value of WordPress.

Add the name of the plugin to the end of the shortened URL (i.e: litturl.co/phpPlugin) to call up his list: 

/phpPlugin (PHP 7 compatibility checker)

/PerfectDashboard (web management platform for sites hosted on WP Engine)

/Rublon (two-factor authentication)

/WPRocket (improve WP speed)

/PageModified (website audit info to fix technical SEO errors)

/RelatedPosts (increase your page views)

/AdminColumns (edit all meta elements in one table view)

/WeeblrAMP (best AMP plugin)

/AppPresser (create a native mobile app)

Visual and Video Content Marketing

I really enjoyed this panel (Matt Siltala, Casie Gillette, Andrea Corson). It was a combination of an adept photographer and DIY marketer who both used the tools at hand to create engaging touch points for customers online.

Casie Gillette, Sr. Director, Digital Marketing, KoMarketing @Casieg

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Gillette reminded us that video carousels have nearly doubled in number on the SERP (research from @getSTAT). This speaks to the visual nature of the information people are seeking and retaining.

“People remember what they saw.” Gillette said.

True to form, she listed a number of helpful tools that help marketers use existing content to be more visual and engaging. Her fabulous list is available for download here. And here's a snapshot of the incredibly helpful tools she lists:

• Canva – easy drag and drop
• Pixlar – browser based, free
• Snappa – easily create online graphics
• Piktochart – infographics
• Wordswag – quotes from blog posts and sessions (app)
• Pixabay – stock images
• Biteable – create simple video ads and animations 
• Giphy – turn images into gifs

Matt Siltala is someone you should follow on Twitter (@Matt_Siltala) he spoke about getting the most mileage out of visual content. He has kindly made his deck available here.

The day was packed with so many great speakers; I wish I could highlight them all but I know you’ll also get a lot of value looking through the event hashtag (#Pubcon) on Twitter (you'll see me there too @millertime_baby). As a fun bonus, I also uploaded a few pictures and quotes to SlideShare. We really do have an amazing industry.

If you attended PubCon in Austin this year, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. What new or interesting insights did you walk away with? Did anything surprise you or reaffirm what you already see working? 

Following Pubcon, I squeezed in a few extra insights attending the STAT City Crawl. I highly recommend tacking on one of these local events to your next conference. Food, drinks are provided along with their curated lineup of speakers (brain food!) in every city. Check out their event page and get your ticket.