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Andy Betts
M Posted 9 years ago
t 4 min read

It's exciting times as Share14 kicks off tomorrow at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco tomorrow!! As part of our series connecting with leading brands and marketers ahead of Share 14 I managed to catch up with Binti Pawa, Head of SEO for Time Inc.'s Affluent Media Group. Binti is speaking and sharing insights on the "SEO Best Practices Makes Perfect" session at 10:30am - 11:30am on Friday 22nd August. Below are a few extracts from our conversation.

Andy Betts: How much has the SEO landscape changed over the last year? 

Binti Pawa (BP): As marketers, our jobs should be to adapt to the ever changing landscape, learn, and move forward. That said, the landscape has changed in the last year with ‘keywords not provided’ and the on-going algorithm updates for Panda and Penguin to the most recent changes with Google dropping authorship images from their SERPs (although it does not affect rankings directly it does affect CTR for sites). These changes are not the end. There will be more to come. What has not changed, is the way we SEOs optimize sites. The old school SEO will always be the same—things such as optimized title tags, keywords, original content and links.

AB: What change has had the biggest impact for you and your company? 

BP: The biggest impact for us has been the loss of keyword data. For many SEOs in the industry, including myself, this forced us to look at our strategy, and, more specifically, how we report our metrics. A lack of keyword data meant we had to look at alternatives of finding trends, new measurements for non-branded growth, and low-hanging fruit. It forced us to look at GWMT tool query data (in addition to other tools) and page-level metrics more than ever.

AB: Tell me more about your session?

BP: I will be speaking on “Best Practice Makes Perfect – SEO Success Stories”. This will be my first time at Share and I’m very excited to present how we drove organic search success for our Time Inc. brands, Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine. I will discuss the challenges our websites faced and our solutions, in addition to our results-driven approach. I will also include tips on how attendees can do the same.

AB: Tell us more about how you use BrightEdge and how the platform helps you achieve your business objectives?

BP : We use BrightEdge for measuring and reporting our SEO success.  The Data Cube and social signals are great features for content targeting and competitive analysis. Our editors use Data Cube to discover, assign and write content on topics that will drive higher engagement and referral such as localized content. One of my favorite things about the platform is that it’s easy to use and the dashboards are simple yet very efficient.

AB: What do you love about BrightEdge?

BP: I love the speed at which BrightEdge adapts to the evolving search landscape. The company has come along a long way since I started working with them in 2010, when there were only dashboards, keywords and basic analytics. Today, the BrightEdge platform provides marketers and editors with full capability and features to run an in-house or agency-side campaign. The Data Cube, so far, has been one of the best feature additions to the platform.

About Binti Pawa Binti Pawa is a Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimization veteran with over ten years’ experience in in-house leading performance-driven growth for both start-ups and corporate heavyweights. She is presently the Head of SEO for Time Inc.'s Affluent Media Group, working on such brands as Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine, where she is responsible for leading, developing, and integrating SEO and content strategies. Before working in Digital Publishing, she was immersed in Travel as the head of Social and SEO for enterprise brands CheapOair, OneTravel and Travelocity. Binti is a graduate of Hofstra University, and lives on Long Island, New York with her husband and two children. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bintipawa/

About Share14 Share14 is the must attend event of the year for content, search and digital marketers. Hear what search and social titans from Google, Bing, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook have to say on the future of content, search and social. Marketing leaders from brands such as Adobe, Macys, 3M, SAP, HP, Marriott and Hilton share insights, case studies, and best takeaways on how to win with content performance marketing. The full line up of speakers, and links to registration, can be viewed here.