Brand search, ethics and the future
Robin Fishley | Search Director | Saatchi & Saatchi | 14:30pm – 14:45pm
Robin’s mission is to “Evangelise search” and convince brands to take search more seriously.
Robin Fishley’s slides:
In his words “Nothing is impossible!”
What do we mean by search?
- Search is the biggest channel
- Search is almost always the first step in terms of customer intent
- Search makes you visible to your most relevant audience
- Search is driven by the content we create
Search is not as ‘Cool’ as it once was in the early naughties – it’s now seen by many within the business as the un-sexy cousin.
However, 60% of all transactions include a search at some point within the journey.
What do we mean by content?
Content, by definition, is anything that’s purposefully communicated. Content is just a tick-box to a lot of companies – in terms of search, content is a LOT more complex than this.
Brand content and hierarchies
- Facebook is trying to be everything to everyone
- Google is a mess
- Apple is monolithic; it’s content is largely the same and it works
Create content aligned with hierarchies
If content is aligned with hierarchies and business structures, users will be entering the funnel at the right point and converting.
The ethics of search and ethics as a future ranking factor
If all sites are perfectly optimised in a level playing field, all signals being equal, we are lead to think of the role of content and the importance of being beneficial to users. We’d start to ask questions like: Does this content make the world a better place? With machine learning, will Google be able to soon assess the ethical ‘Good’ness of content, and will ethics one day be a top ranking factor?
Purposeful content
Search content needs to be relevant, multifunctional and beneficial to both the user and brand.
Robin Fishley's Brighton SEO takeaway:
- Align your content strategy with your business strategy
Robin Fishley
Search Director, Saatchi & Saatchi