Last week some of our team attended SearchLeeds 2019.

And wow, it was a jam-packed day filled with leading knowledge on a variety of search marketing topics.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend, you really missed out on some unique talks and insights that can help any business excel. But don’t worry too much. We’re here to summarise some of our favourite talks and ensure that you stay in the loop of all the latest news.

New to SearchLeeds?

If you’ve never heard of SearchLeeds before, let’s explain.

SearchLeeds is the biggest search marketing event in the north. Hosted in Leeds’ First Direct Arena, the event hosted 48 talks across its 4 stages, covering everything there is to know about search marketing.

This year, over 2000 people attended. With such a massive turnout, the venue ran out of all delegate bags by 11 am and emergency supplies of teas, coffees and beers had to be brought in.

And praise heavens that they did, because we know how some of our content team get without their brews.

The best talks of 2019

Here are our picks for 2019 and what they taught us.

The multi-million pound keyword

Hannah Perry, Manchester Airports Group, on the Search Laboratory Stage. 

What do you do when a single keyword is responsible for around 60% of all Google Ads revenue for a single product? How do you optimise? How do you beat the competition?

Hannah’s answer in this fascinating talk was segmentation. After spotting that different age groups had significantly different Click-Through Rates (CTRs), she walked the audience through the steps she took to split out the ad groups to precisely target each age group.

This meant the ads could more precisely target the exact features and benefits each age group was looking for. It also meant the bidding for each age group could be adjusted to spend more per click on the competitive demographics, and less on the ones with fewer competitors.

The overall results were outstanding.

CTR (Click-Through Rate) increased by 11%. Clicks increased by 43%. Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) reduced by 22%. Best of all, revenue increased by 60%.

It really shows the power of segmentation and learning not to treat all of your visitors the same. We’d like to thank Hannah for such an insightful talk!

Why social media is more than just numbers

Laura Bartlett, House of Coco Magazine, on the Myposeo stage. 

As a social media enthusiast who loves to travel, this talk was an easy choice for our Social Media Manager Jaye Bonser’s favourite for the day.

The House of Coco Magazine receives a massive 85,000 weekly impressions across their social sites but only has an Instagram following of 14K. Yet, even with such a small Instagram following, they are one of the only brands worldwide to partner with Land Rover. 

Luckily Laura was there to reveal all her tips when it comes to social media. 

Laura said: ‘The seclusion of an island helps us disconnect with the world and reconnect with ourselves’. It is so important as a brand that you find your own voice and you have your own story.

The magazine works with some fantastic brands because they believe in their story and values – which line up with their own goals. Videos are a great way of showing this as you show people the true YOU! 

Another strategy Laura talked about was overdelivering. When you’re given an inch – take a mile and demonstrate what you’re capable of.

Laura also stated the significance of using a collaborative approach. Instead of trying to compete with brands you might see as competitors, you should work with them and show support for each other on social media. This also extends to your employees. Help them to succeed with their own goals and it will help your own business further down the line.

When you’re creating a social media strategy for your brand, it is key to remember that the different social media platforms have different benefits. So, you should have a clear understanding of what works on which platform and base your strategies around this.

But don’t base everything on the numbers. Even if you impact one person, you’ve succeeded. Stay true to your brand values and don’t give up on your plan, stay consistent.

After everything we learned in the talk, we believe that the numbers shouldn’t be completely ignored on social media. Instead, you need to focus on the right kind of numbers for your business, such as views and brand recognition over likes and followers.

As Laura said, brands are becoming smarter and ‘likes’ don’t mean a positive ROI – people believing in your brand does.

The butterfly effect in SEO

Lukasz Zelezny, on the fourth stage. 

Lukasz’s talk was really fun and showed a different side of SEO that you don’t normally see in blog posts and how-to guides. His talk was split into 5 different tactics:

• The Snapshot
• Keyword Magic Tools
• Brand Mentions and Links
• Link and Social Profiles
• Merge

He started his session by outlining the concept of a “snapshot” and how linking Google Data Studio with Google Analytics could help with analysing impressions, CTRs, and ranking keywords. He then showed how he used this concept for his own site, socialmedia.pl.

The most influential part of the talk was his use of SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool and the power of question-based search terms. He showed how important long tail keywords could be with high search volume and low keyword difficulty to immediately boost impressions and conversions.

His third tactic detailed how leveraging brand mentions with incorrect spellings could unearth possible link building relationships. The fourth looked at something similar, regarding people who link to social media profiles and how to ask them to link to your website instead.

The final tactic looked at the advantages of using subfolders rather than subdomains for increased SEO performance and visibility.

We’d definitely recommend reading his slides as they offer a lot of digital marketing insight. And he had the coolest outfit of all the speakers – hands down!

Machine learning for SEOs

Britney Muller, MOZ, on the main stage. 

Making the trip all the way from the US, Britney’s talk on machine learning was a strong highlight for many attendees that day.

Which is no surprise, really. It was fun, lively, engaging and really opened people’s eyes to the power of machine learning and what it’s capable of achieving.

Fundamentally, the talk showed us how machine learning is becoming more accessible and frees up much needed time to get on with higher level strategies. And with our own machine learning technology integrated into Adzooma, we’re inclined to agree.

Machine learning is capable of so much already. To prove that, she demonstrated a number of tools that already exist and how much time they can save people every day when used right.

Britney even showed us some things she’s achieved while experimenting with the tools, including creating an entire album collaboration between Moz’s co-founder Rand Fishkin and Beyonce. 

But one of the main points she pushed is that none of these would be possible without the data. The more data you feed into machine learning programmes, the smarter they get.

This point doesn’t just stand for machine learning either. All parts of your marketing need data. Without it, you have no way of knowing what works, what doesn’t and how to get better.

Research and execution: marketing’s most important relationship

Sal Mohammed & Puneet Vaghela, Adzooma, on the Search Laboratory Stage

We couldn’t pick out our best parts of the day without mentioning our very own Sal Mohammed & Puneet Vaghela!

As our respective Head of Partnerships and Head of Innovation, Sal and Pun head up our London offices. Last week, they delivered a fantastic talk sharing actionable advice on how to successfully research and execute a strategy from a top-line digital marketing perspective.

Their talk was mainly focused on one thing: data. 

Thanks to websites like Statista and Mintel, we can access more data and insights than ever before. This means we fully research and understand a market before we even enter it, knowing the best strategies to take for better results.

But data isn’t just for planning a strategy. 

The talk went on to discuss how data is essential for optimising your strategies and campaigns. Unfortunately, it’s harder to process. Having different pieces from different sources is time-consuming, confusing and can complicate the bigger picture.

So, to really optimise your campaigns, you need to streamline your data into one, quick and easy to access source.

It’s the same logic we use for our very own advertising platform, which currently supports and collates data from both Google Ads and Facebook Ads – with Microsoft Advertising and more to be added soon!

The talk was a huge success and we’d like to give a big congratulations to both Sal and Pun for their hard work!

SearchLeeds in a nutshell

There’s one key element that all our SearchLeeds highlights had in common today and that’s data.

You can never have enough sweet, delicious, data.

It comes down to one thing really. Without research and planning, the chances of pulling off a successful marketing or search campaign are almost impossible.

Having the data is how you achieve this. It’s the key that unlocks the door to your audience, telling you exactly who they are, what channels they use and how they interact with your brand and marketing.

Once you know this, you can better target your audience and improve your success.

And that’s all from us this time. We look forward to attending again next year and seeing what new heights the event can reach!