Duane Forrester has over 15 years’ experience in the search, social and digital marketing fields, and is also the author of
How To Make Money With Your Blog and
Turn Clicks Into Customers. He has a background in SEO, PR, and marketing. Duane spoke to us about the quickly changing ways that we interact with data and machines, and how we as marketers should pay attention.
Know Your Buyer
7 trillion dollars will be transferred into millennials control. The millennials came about at a time when everything was laid out on the internet. They were the first people to graduate from university and told them there were no jobs. It's time to learn how to market to millennial. It's critical to know your buyer. Either align your strategy, or fail.
Mobile First
A common theme throughout DMC 2015 was the importance of mobile. Duane also reminded us all of how important this truly is. There are more mobile than desktop queries now. Responsive design is now the standard. There are specific algorithms that analyze mobile performance. And this is just the beginning. All kinds of things will change the world that your customers will live in. With these changes comes a change in their expectations. If you don’t keep up, you’ll fail. Here are a few numbers that look at the global penetration of mobile: World’s population: 7.1 billion mobile phones Mobile connections: 7 billion Mobile subscribers 3.45 billion
Changing Behaviors
With an increasing preference for mobile usage and new technology, consumer habits are changing in very real ways. For example, many people are moving towards Apple Pay or other mobile payment systems. This gives users a secure one-time random ID per transaction, not to mention that it's easy to use and easy to track. While there are some hurdles to overcome with adoption and consumer trust, it will happen one way or another.
Data and New Technology
We have to compromise personal data to find what we want. We are producing data at a rate today that is absolutely mind boggling. In 2015, we create the same amount of data from the start of time to 2003 in the time it takes you to order coffee. While we’re building up machine intelligence, we’re also building up machine ethics. Search systems now have the raw data to start making sense of the world in which they live. Google learned how to identify faces without having to be told. We’ve got a really interesting conglomeration of data. You can use it to get into people’s wallets, or conglomerate it and sell it to others.
The Future of Search
We live in a time of limitless expectations and technology. We are living at a pace and expectation of efficiency that people can’t keep up with. People want to do less of what they have to and more of what they want to. Focus on what matters to them without distraction. Help people feel in control and empowered. Your goal should be to be the bridge between a user’s intent and the experiences the world has to offer. You should stirve to allow users to express themselves in a natural and intuitive ways, not just punch keywords.
Will SEO Still Matter?
Things are a lot more complicated. There is so much you have to know. Can you see how there is so much more to this effort today? Are we ready for it? Here are Duane's parting words of advice:
- Data is critical
- Think about visitor task completion
- If you’re not focused on what the visitor wants to accomplish, someone will eat your lunch.
Thank you to Duane for joining us at DMC 2015!