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Data and analysis from BrightEdge on Google search, AI Overviews, and answer engine visibility.

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What Share of Voice Really Means for Search in 2026

What Share of Voice Really Means for Search in 2026

There has never been a more important time to understand your true share of voice in search.Share of voice has always been one of marketing's most critical metrics—whether you're measuring GRPs in TV, impression share in paid media, or brand mentions in social. The principle is simple: what percentage of the conversation do you participate versus your competitors?As the industry and innovation leader, BrightEdge was the first company to define and patent Share of Voice capabilities for organic search. Search had become the most critical channel for brand discovery, and marketers needed the same competitive visibility they had in every other channel.Share of voice used to mean measuring your brand's presence in Google results — because that's where most searches happened. Simple enough.But AI has changed the landscape in two important ways. First, AI Overviews now appear across millions of queries, and brand presence there might be a mention buried in the middle of a summary rather than a blue link you own. Second, new discovery channels like ChatGPT and Perplexity have emerged — and people are using them to research brands and products.The good news? This doesn't have to be complicated. Share of voice isn't broken by AI — it's extended by it. The core question is still the same: where does your brand show up versus competitors, and what do you do about it? You just need visibility across more surfaces now.It All Runs on Search — Including AIOrganic search remains as important as ever.BrightEdge AI Market Pulse data shows Google still commands over 90% of all search traffic. AI search platforms combined account for less than 1% of total referrals. And organic search consistently outperforms every other channel on conversions.But the role organic plays in your customer's journey is evolving. AI is now part of how people research before they convert. Our research also shows AI search functions primarily as a discovery channel—users ask questions, gather information, then convert through organic search or direct.AI isn't replacing the purchase journey. It's adding a layer to the top of it. That means you need visibility into both—not to choose between them, but to understand how they work together.  For share of voice, that means understanding where your brand shows up when customers are researching and being recommended by AI—and whether you're there in organic search when they're ready to visit or buy.We Saw This Play Out Over the HolidaysThe holiday season gave us a preview of what the competitive landscape looks like when organic and AI search work side by side.Google AI Overviews acted as the trusted advisor—only 4% of citations went to direct retailers. The rest went to editorial sources, helping users research before buying. ChatGPT took the opposite approach, linking directly to retailers at 9x the rate of Google.The result? Google maintained dominance because consumers still want help with the research phase. They're not ready to delegate purchase decisions to AI.What does this mean for share of voice? You need visibility in both places. Your organic rankings get you in front of buyers ready to convert. Your AI presence gets you into the research phase where decisions are shaped.Expanding How We Think About Share of VoiceYou've always been able to see where you stand on the SERP. The question now is: can you see where you stand across the full discovery journey?Think about how your customers actually search today. They might start in ChatGPT or Perplexity to explore options. They might see your brand—or your competitor—recommended in a Google AI Overview before they ever see a blue link. They're getting answers, recommendations, and comparisons from AI before they decide what to click.This is where share of voice needs to extend. Not just your rankings on the SERP, but whether ChatGPT is recommending you when someone asks for options in your category. Whether Perplexity is citing your content or your competitor's. Whether you're appearing in AI Overviews for the queries that matter to your business.It's not a replacement for organic visibility—it's an extension of where competitive intelligence needs to reach. The brands that understand their position across this full landscape will make better decisions about where to invest and how to win.This Is Why Platform MattersThis is what share of voice looks like in 2026: your competitive position across organic search and AI discovery, connected in one place. When you can see both, you can optimize once and win everywhere. That's the power of an integrated platform.It's not about tracking more dashboards or stitching together point solutions. It's about having a connected view of your true share of voice—one that shows how organic performance and AI visibility work together to drive business outcomes. With BrightEdge, this happens without adding new views or extra manual work. It's all connected.Share of Voice gives you the competitive landscape on the SERP—who's outranking you, how their content is structured, where you can win back real estate. It's the foundation.AI Catalyst extends that visibility into AI search—tracking your brand across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, showing where you're being cited versus competitors. It's the emerging layer.StoryBuilder brings it together—dashboards that are ready to use out of the box but adaptable to your specific business needs, combining organic rankings, AI visibility, and business outcomes in one unified view.When these pieces connect, you're not just seeing data. You're seeing the full competitive picture—and that's what lets you optimize once and win everywhere.Looking AheadThe brands that win in 2026 will be the ones that understand the role each channel plays in their customer's discovery path. Organic search. AI Overviews. AI-first engines. They're not competing priorities—they're connected surfaces that require connected measurement.  And this is only going to matter more. Emerging capabilities like Instant Checkout and Google's Universal Commerce Protocol could collapse the entire journey from research to purchase into a single AI-driven experience. Understanding your share of voice across that full journey isn't a nice-to-have — it's how you stay visible when the path to conversion gets shorter.Here's to making 2026 the year your brand wins across the full search landscape! We're excited to keep building alongside you!If you want to see what your Share of Voice looks like across AI + organic in one view, let's connect!
Enterprise SEO Platforms vs SEO Tools: Choosing the Right Solution for Scale

Enterprise SEO Platforms vs SEO Tools: Choosing the Right Solution for Scale

2026 is shaping up to be the biggest year for SEO investment in half a decade. According to BrightEdge research, 90% of digital teams are increasing their SEO investment this year—the highest surge in five years, surpassing even COVID-era pivots. At the same time, over 90% of SEO professionals have either fully integrated AI search into their workflows or are actively testing it.This convergence creates a critical decision point for marketing leaders: do you continue managing SEO complexity with a collection of specialized tools, or do you consolidate into a unified platform?The answer depends on where your organization is today and where it needs to go. Here's how to think through the decision.Understanding the Difference: Platforms vs. Point SolutionsSEO tools and enterprise SEO platforms both serve important functions, but they're designed for different contexts.Point solutions excel at specific tasks. A technical crawler audits your site structure. A rank tracker monitors keyword positions. A backlink analyzer maps your link profile. Each does its job well—and for smaller organizations or focused use cases, that's often enough.Enterprise SEO platforms take a different approach. Rather than solving individual problems, they provide an integrated environment where technical SEO, content optimization, competitive intelligence, and performance analytics work together. The goal isn't just functionality—it's alignment across teams, data sources, and strategic priorities.The distinction matters because the challenges facing enterprise SEO teams aren't primarily technical. They're organizational. The Hidden Cost of Tool FragmentationHere's the reality most enterprise SEO teams face: the tools work fine individually, but the system doesn't work as a whole.According to the 2026 Marketing Intelligence Report from MarTech, 72% of in-house marketers say they're overwhelmed by the data they collect and find it difficult to turn into usable insight. When your rank tracker, site auditor, analytics platform, and content tools all operate independently, you end up with:Multiple sources of truth. Is performance up or down? Depends on which dashboard you're looking at—and which metrics it prioritizes.Siloed insights. Technical SEO lives with engineering, content optimization lives with marketing, and nobody has a unified view of how they connect.Metric misalignment. Teams optimize for different KPIs because they're working from different data sets.Duplicated effort. Extracting, cleaning, and combining data becomes a recurring project rather than a solved problem.For organizations managing thousands of pages across multiple domains, markets, or business units, these coordination costs compound quickly.When a Platform Becomes EssentialSo when does a platform become the right choice? Certain conditions make consolidation not just helpful—but necessary.You're coordinating across multiple teams. When SEO involves developers, content creators, product teams, and executives, a shared platform creates alignment that tool-hopping can't. Everyone sees the same data, tracks the same priorities, and measures success the same way.Teradata's SEO transformation illustrates this well. Ron Weber, their Global Digital Strategist, inherited what he described as "a house on fire"—major technical and content issues across a large enterprise site. As the only dedicated SEO resource, he needed to coordinate with content teams, development resources, and leadership to drive change. Using BrightEdge's platform, Weber unified technical diagnostics, competitive intelligence, and content strategy in one place. The result: 723% traffic growth to key content in five months and a 3x increase in leads. More importantly, he could bring data to content stakeholders that gave them "the reason to believe" why they needed to prioritize SEO.You're managing traditional SEO and AI search as one strategy. With AI Overviews now appearing in a significant percentage of search results—and AI-first search engines like ChatGPT Search gaining traction—optimizing for both traditional rankings and AI citations isn't optional. It's the same strategy executed across different surfaces.This is where fragmented tools become particularly limiting. If your rank tracker can't show AI Overview presence, your content tool can't identify citation opportunities, and your analytics can't distinguish AI-driven traffic, you're flying blind in half the search landscape.Overdrive Interactive faced exactly this challenge. The digital agency recognized that their clients were increasingly using AI to find and evaluate agency partners—meaning traditional SEO visibility wasn't enough. They needed to be cited in AI-generated responses. By leveraging BrightEdge's integrated capabilities—Recommendations for strategic insights, Data Cube X for keyword research, Copilot for content optimization—they executed what they called "The Authority Project." The outcome: 710% growth in AI Overview citations in just three months, along with #1 featured snippet rankings for competitive terms.When you have a unified platform you can execute all of this in one motion.  They didn't treat AI search as a separate initiative requiring separate tools. AI is an extension of their SEO strategy, using a platform designed to connect those efforts.  This is how you optimize once and win everywhere.You need enterprise-grade integrations. At scale, SEO doesn't exist in isolation. It connects to web analytics (Google Analytics 4, Adobe Analytics), search console data, CMS platforms, business intelligence tools, and existing workflows. Point solutions may offer individual integrations, but platforms provide unified data flows that maintain consistency across your marketing technology stack.You're accountable for business outcomes, not just rankings. When leadership asks what SEO is contributing to pipeline or revenue, can you answer quickly and confidently? Enterprise platforms connect search performance to business metrics in ways that tool aggregation typically can't—because the data architecture is designed for that connection from the start.Making the Transition: What to ExpectIf you've ever been through a CRM migration, you might assume platform transitions are inherently painful—months of data mapping, legacy cleanup, and retraining teams on new workflows.SEO platforms are different. There's no customer data to migrate, no historical records to reconcile, no integrations that break downstream processes. The platform connects to your existing data sources—Search Console, analytics, your site—and starts generating insights immediately.That said, a quick audit of your current tool landscape is still valuable—not because the transition requires it, but because it clarifies what you're consolidating and helps you measure the efficiency gains. Which tools drive daily decisions? Where do you spend the most time on manual data work? That context makes onboarding faster and helps teams see the value sooner.The right platform should feel like it's reducing complexity from day one, not adding another system to manage.The Opportunity AheadThe next year presents significant opportunities for organizations that get their SEO infrastructure right. AI search is expanding visibility for brands that understand how to optimize for it. Google's continued emphasis on quality and authority rewards organizations with strong technical foundations and unified content strategies.But capturing that opportunity requires the ability to execute—quickly, at scale, and with alignment across teams.Point tools have their place. For focused use cases or organizations with limited SEO complexity, they can be exactly the right choice. But for enterprise teams facing the dual challenge of scale and the AI search transition, a platform approach solves problems that tools alone cannot.The question isn't whether platforms are "better" than tools. It's whether your current infrastructure can support where your SEO program needs to go. 
Shopping Ads in AI Overviews: What SEO Teams Need to Know About Google's Organic-Paid Convergence

Shopping Ads in AI Overviews: What SEO Teams Need to Know About Google's Organic-Paid Convergence

The SEO Landscape Just Shifted (Again)After monitoring AI Overviews daily for over three years with our BrightEdge's Generative Parser™ platform technology, for the first time we're now observing Shopping Ads appearing within AI Overviews in live search results! For Search professionals, this represents a critical evolution in how organic and paid results converge - one that fundamentally changes how we think about content optimization and SERP visibility.   For example, when a user searches for something like “How to choose an ebike”, the AI Overview gives practical advice on what to think about with this purchase.  But then it goes a step further and recommends some bikes using sponsored listings:For those following our weekly AI insights, this development follows a predictable pattern we've been tracking throughout 2025. That said, it has profound implications for how Search teams approach content strategy, especially heading into the holiday season. Why This Matters for Organic Search The traditional line between organic and paid search continues to blur. AI Overviews already changed the game by synthesizing information from multiple sources into a single answer. Now, with ads integrated directly into these AI-generated responses, the organic search landscape has become even more complex. Consider this revealing example: A search for "how to sear a steak" generates an AI Overview with cooking instructions, followed by a sponsored ad for a cast iron skillet. This isn't just about ads appearing on the SERP - it's about commercial results being woven into organic, informational content. Prior to this, commercial results were only reserved for commercial queries.  This new connection between the information and commercial is enabled by AI!For SEO teams, this means your informational content now competes not just with other organic results and AI-generated answers, but also with intelligently placed ads that Google's AI deems contextually relevant.What This Means for SEO and AEO StrategyAccording to their official statements, Google's AI determines ad placement by understanding "the user's intent is based on not just the user's query but also the content of the AI Overview."  This fundamentally changes the game: media teams running Performance Max campaigns no longer bid on keywords or write unique ad copy. Instead, they rely on Google's "AI-powered targeting solutions like broad match on Search or the keywordless targeting technology" to match ads based on context.The Critical Shift: Your product pages need a connection to the problems they solve.Take the cast iron skillet for example. That skillet ad appears for "how to sear a steak" because the product pages address things like the ideal cooking temperatures, searing techniques, and steak preparation. Without this context on the page, Google's AI may not consider your skillet recommendable for someone looking to sear steaks.  Or, in the very least, they may recommend another product that explicitly states it first.This means media teams now depend on SEO and content teams to create the signals that trigger AI-driven ad placement. BrightEdge’s integrated SEO and AEO/AIO platform delivers three core capabilities:Understand the questions – Data Cube X’s conversational filters quickly surface the real questions people are asking in your space, defining where your products are most likely to be recommended.Track brand mentions – AI Catalyst reveals which prompts trigger AI Overviews that reference your brand (and competitors), showing exactly where commercial opportunities emerge and what gaps your content should close.Build topical authority – Autopilot automatically structures and interlinks your content to demonstrate expertise (e.g., “cooking steaks”) in ways that AI systems can easily recognize.As Google notes, this approach requires “investing in high-quality creative on your websites,” because AI draws directly from “your existing ads, website content, and landing pages.”In other words, SEO now shapes paid media outcomes more directly than ever. Your content’s topical authority and contextual relevance increasingly determine whether Google’s AI chooses your products for high-intent informational queries.The Evolution We've Been Tracking in eCommerceOur BrightEdge data reveals Google's methodical approach to eCommerc:September 2025: AI Overview presence in ecommerce jumped from 14.4% to 20.7%, focusing on research-oriented queries in gift categories.October 2025: The dramatic 57% pullback where Google refined which queries deserved AI Overviews - keeping them for research (56% retention in Grocery) while removing them from transactional searches (97% removed in Furniture).November 2025: Shopping Ads now appearing within these refined AI Overviews, particularly where Google anticipates commercial intent within informational queries. This progression shows Google preserving AI Overviews for research while finding ways to monetize that research phase - directly impacting organic visibility strategies.
Introducing BrightEdge AI Catalyst: Innovating to Give You Complete Search and AI Visibility

Introducing BrightEdge AI Catalyst: Innovating to Give You Complete Search and AI Visibility

We are all navigating a constantly changing search and AI landscape. As the ground shifts beneath our feet, marketers have never had a more critical time to evolve and stay ahead. Today, together with our customers, we are making a monumental step forward as we launch BrightEdge AI Catalyst. For The First Time Ever: Get the Complete View of Your Brand Across Traditional and AI Search As AI and Search accelerates how brands are perceived and perform, I am proud to announce that our customers now have access to the first comprehensive solution that enables brands to influence their presence across multiple generative AI search engines. Customers can track their digital footprint and track, understand, and optimize their presence across all aspects of search, from core and traditional search through to multiple Generative AI search engines. And It Is All in One Enterprise-Grade Platform! Building on our history and foundations in AI and data-driven insights, BrightEdge AI Catalyst allows brands to instantly amplify impact, outperform competitors, and confidently navigate AI search engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. At the heart of our customer success approach are three core principles: Inspiration, Innovation, and Impact. Inspiration: Inspire New Ways of Thinking We inspire marketers to better understand their audiences using data insights to help customers connect with them in more meaningful ways. Innovation: Innovate With Cadence We innovate to keep customers ahead of digital market changes through a regular cadence of market-leading technology product launches. Impact: Impact Multiple Business Outcomes We help marketers deliver real, tangible results and business outcomes that genuinely transform their business. These principles guide our commitment to empowering marketers with the tools and insights they need to succeed in today's dynamic landscape. Let me share some more context on how we got to today! The Transformation Is Here as Billions of People Turn To AI ChatGPT just surpassed 500 million weekly active users in late March. Gemini's web traffic grew to 10.9 million average daily visits worldwide. Bing's Copilot increased to 2.4 million. Anthropic's Claude reached 3.3 million daily visits. DeepSeek's chatbot eclipsed 16.5 million visits. I find it super interesting that people are increasingly trusting in AI technology. Research from Attest reveals that 68% of consumers trust information from Generative AI, with 41% having more confidence in AI search results than paid search listings. As these AI engines are growing fast monthly, each has its own interface and logic, and each shapes perceptions of brands in different ways. BrightEdge Generative Parser ™ data shows that March referral traffic from these AI-first search engines continues to grow significantly. ChatGPT +19% Perplexity +12% Gemini +19% Claude +166% However, while Google still dominates the industry with a 92% market share and optimizing for AI Overviews is always your first step, it shows that more and more brands are being discovered and interpreted across multiple AI platforms, each with their own: Interface Logic Way of shaping brand perceptions Furthermore, some platforms will position your brand negatively; many leave you out entirely. The Era of AI Inevitability AI is actively shaping what customers know, trust, and believe. People are not just searching anymore; they are asking AI and AI is giving an opinion. This represents a fundamental shift from focusing on just search rankings to understanding how AI presents brands. Introducing BrightEdge AI Catalyst I am thrilled to announce BrightEdge AI Catalyst, enabling brands to see where and how they are perceived everywhere it matters by AI engines. BrightEdge AI Catalyst Completes Search Picture for Brands to Win in AI Era Building on our two-decade history of pioneering innovation in search and AI markets, we are providing our customers with a unified overview of where they are winning and losing in key conversational moments across critical AI platforms. But it is not just visibility that matters. It is the proven performance results delivered with action from AI. By leveraging billions of historical and real-time data points, customers can act around crucial revenue-generating touchpoints across both traditional search and AI search. The AI Catalyst Advantage Cross-Platform Visibility Monitoring brand performance across multiple AI platforms has become increasingly complex. That is why we developed Catalyst to provide unified cross-platform visibility: Customers can now track their brand presence and sentiment simultaneously across Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Our dashboards allow brands to monitor performance across the entire AI search ecosystem. It is all in one place, providing the complete picture needed to make strategic marketing decisions. AI Search Behavior Insights Understanding how audiences use AI search platforms often leads to ineffective content strategies. Marketers can now bridge the gap between understanding AI search behaviors and prompt research: Together with BrightEdge Copilot, customers can eliminate guesswork with precise AI prompt suggestions based on actual audience behavior. It taps into our deep knowledge and data repository to analyze your website, existing search patterns, and billions of historical queries. This delivers accurate, targeted insights that align with actual AI search usage. Multi-Platform Optimization Creating separate content strategies for each AI platform is inefficient and costly. As marketers face resource constraints—especially when trying to optimize for multiple AI platforms simultaneously—we have placed efficiency at the core of this innovation: Customers can optimize once and rank everywhere with efficient content strategies that work across multiple AI-driven search environments. This saves valuable time and resources while maintaining consistent messaging. Real-Time Intelligence The AI search landscape evolves weekly, if not daily, and keeping pace with change is hard: BrightEdge AI Catalyst provides real-time intelligence and targeted, actionable recommendations for improving AI-driven visibility. We process billions of data points in real-time, allowing our customers to make quick strategy adjustments when they matter most. AI-Influenced Journey Mapping Understanding the customer journey has always been crucial, but AI has fundamentally transformed how customers discover and engage with brands: With BrightEdge AI Catalyst, we have pioneered new approaches to mapping these AI-influenced journeys. This includes advanced features for persona development, intent mapping, and journey analysis. It reveals how your audience interacts with AI systems throughout their decision-making process. It identifies key AI touchpoints that impact engagement and conversion, helping our customers create more effective targeting strategies. The Full Picture: AI-Driven Brand Perception and Driving Performance AI Catalyst gives brands the complete picture of how AI highlights their brand—where they appear, where they do not, and how they are presented. But it also does much more by connecting the data dots: Built on 20 years of working with top brands, using billions of searches to give marketers the clarity they need now. It connects this information directly to business plans, goals, and results—all inside the BrightEdge platform. It shows the complete picture and helps brands act (with confidence and trust in data) whenever and wherever AI affects presence, perception, and performance. Learn more about BrightEdge AI Catalyst here: https://www.brightedge.com/ai-catalyst This is Your AI Moment – Let Us Guide You AI is rewriting the rules of search. We are not just keeping up—we are leading the way. And we are here to make sure you do not get left behind. And there is more. With GSC Reporting, we are helping you answer the question every leader is asking: How is AI impacting my existing Search business? Now, you can finally measure that directly. And with the new BrightEdge Chrome Extension, we are putting real-time optimization into your workflow so that every page, update, and decision happens with AI insights behind it. This empowers you to act at the speed that AI demands. This Is What Enterprise AI Is: Connected, Actionable, And Built for Impact. Together with our customers, we are not just adapting to AI—we are building the capabilities to win. Let us keep pushing forward to shape the future of search and AI. Want to learn more about how BrightEdge can help your business navigate the AI search revolution?

Helping You Navigate the Multi-Search Universe with New Perplexity Research

Helping You Navigate the Multi-Search Universe with New Perplexity Research

There has never been a more exciting time to be in search than today.  As the broader industry moves towards personalized, AI-informed search experiences, the $200bn search market is attracting new investments, new entrants, and the creation of multiple types of search engine models. As this market trajectory skyrockets, time is moving fast for those at the forefront of AI and search. At BrightEdge, our commitment is to keeping marketers and the community ahead of the evolving landscape and the post-generative AI world. This is precisely why we built BrightEdge Generative Parser™ (BGP) and have regularly released new insights on the evolution of SGE since last fall.It’s great to see that SGE has now been gradually rolled out into regular search results. However, did you know that BGP also tracks and monitors multiple AI-based search engines?That is why we have released some exciting new research on Perplexity AI today. Perplexity referrals are growing almost 40% month over month, and 60% of Its citations overlap with the top 10 organic Google results. Perplexity is carving its niche into how marketers should approach optimizing content for AI-first search engines. The good news for organizations that have already leaned into SEO is that many of the technical best practices and guidelines around good and authoritative content apply universally, as 60% of citations overlap.However, optimizing for multiple AI-led search engines also involves many nuances. This is especially true as citations become a new form of ranking. As we did with SGE, we have built a free community guide to Perplexity that explains all the differences between SGE and Perplexity, where overlaps lie, and how to prepare and optimize to win with this fast-growing new entrant.You can learn all about it here: The Ultimate Guide to Perplexity As we look toward the future, my goal is to ensure that your brand wins where it deserves to win and becomes one of the ‘cited sources’.I am so excited to see how this dynamic industry develops, and I want to thank our customers and the BrightEdge team for helping drive the market forward with these insights and innovations.Together, we evolve and win in a post-generative AI environment. We have more insights to follow soon!
Preparing for the “Searchquake” that Will Impact Every Industry and Marketer

Preparing for the “Searchquake” that Will Impact Every Industry and Marketer

The field of online search is set for a seismic change in 2024. The shift to Search Generative Experiences (AI Overviews) is not just Google’s next algorithmic change. It's the Search engine's most significant change ever and represents a tectonic change that will impact every industry, company, and marketer.If you recall, I shared some initial insights in December to help you stay ahead of changes in AI and SEO in 2024.Since then, Google's experimentation with generative AI has been nothing short of prolific. At the same time, more and more organizations are questioning how this will impact their business.Today, powered by BrightEdge Generative ParserTM, we are sharing new research into the potential impact of AI Overviews - industry by industry!Read the full release: BrightEdge Releases New Data, Shows Companies How Significantly Google’s New AI-Powered Search Engine Will Impact Their BusinessThe AI Overviews Searchquake Our research shows 84% of search queries will include Generative AI when AI Overviews is fully deployed by Google.Understanding how your brand will be affected by AI Overviews and how the competitive landscape will change is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. Brands across every type of industry will be at the epicenter of this change, and the impact of AI will vary depending on the vertical space in which you operate.Here’s what our analysis reveals: You can view and download the full data infographic here. We have found that Healthcare, e-commerce, and B2B technology industries will be significantly impacted. The most surprising finding was seeing how Generative AI is so present on health-related queries. However, these AI suggestions come with clear disclaimers and reference information from highly authoritative sources so it makes sense they would be widely used to answer health-related questions.The Fundamental Inflection Point for Marketers in Every Type of Industry As Google is adapting to new search behaviors, organizations need to prepare themselves for a new search revolution where Google will present unique experiences, offering more informed perspectives about your brand.For consumers, this means more immersive and engaging experiences and more time spent on Google, ensuring they find the most relevant and useful websites for their specific needs.For marketers, this means that managing your brand's online search presence will be more complex but more rewarding. Pinpointing high-value searches that trigger multiple types of results will become critical. The monetized value of clicks will increase, driven by improved conversions as consumers are more primed for action based on their prior interactions and information from Google.This is a new dynamic to which every industry marketer needs to adapt now!Searchquakes are unpredictable, but you can prepare for when they hit by keeping up to date with changes in The Ultimate Guide to AI Overviews.In my next post, I will share more insights about new AI experiences and the latest changes that we are seeing. Stay tuned!
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Elevate Marketing Success - Cindy Phan at Share15

Cindy Phan is the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing Strategy at VMware and this is her 3rd time at Share15! Cindy first joined the company back in 2011 and since then has largely created her position. As the company went through organizational changes and shifted towards digital marketing, she found herself leading the digital marketing strategy for the group. We thought her insights into the industry and the ever-changing digital marketing space made her an excellent resource and we were excited to have the chance to chat before Share15 kicks off on 21 . Excitement about Share15 BrightEdge (BE): What are you looking forward to most about Share? Cindy Phan (CP): This is my third time attending Share. I have always tried to attend at least a few sessions and networking events each year because it is an exciting few days. I love having the chance to meet the different industry greats and exchange ideas at Share. Of course, the fantastic food and fun times at the parties do not hurt the experience either! BE: What are you planning on speaking about at Share? CP: I plan on sharing a case study that we did here at VMware. We focused on determining the value of our social and major components, starting about a year ago, and we have some exciting insights to share. I plan on diving into the information and explaining how we plan on putting it to good use and how to optimize and leverage this value at your own organization. Many people do not consider all the levels of optimization. For example, in-channel optimization is big. You can optimize pieces within your social media presence, such as your LinkedIn page or your Facebook page, to attract more traffic and enhance the value of these profiles. I really want to help people see the big picture and how all the little things they do along the way can come together to make their brands an online success. The Role of BrightEdge in Digital Success BE: How has BrightEdge helped you accomplish your goals? CP: BrightEdge has always been the backbone of our website. When I was a part of the web team we were focused on going international and leveraging BrightEdge to make sure that all the pages had relevant content. Producing content for an international audience has its own type of challenges, including the struggle to understand the local audience and what they want to read. BrightEdge made it possible for us to monitor our websites closely so that we could see how they were performing. We used a number of the different components available on the platform: Share of Voice, keywords, traffic monitoring, recommendations. The platform allowed us to amplify our efforts and really grow our online presence. Common Marketing Mistakes to Avoid BE: What do you think is one of the most common mistakes of marketers? CP: I think that people spend too much time measuring metrics that really do not matter at the end of the day. It is fantastic if a lot of people are reading and sharing your content, but that does not really put money in the bank. You have to see how much your material actually contributes to your pipeline and ROI. When you are beginning a marketing campaign you are given a budget, and you need to spend that money like it was your own. Chances are, you do not go out and spend your money without thinking about the consequences. You make decisions wisely about what will best serve you. When you start a new campaign you want to carefully measure and execute the campaign according to what will best serve the brand best financially. You need to choose the best tools and tactics and then track everything from a-z. How to Become a Successful Marketer and Elevate Your Career BE: What do you think makes a successful marketer? CP: Marketers are an interesting bunch. Successful ones are hybrids. They have to be both creative and analytical. It takes a special type of person to be both. You have to really enjoy the field and be willing to always try new things. It will get boring very fast if you are always doing the same thing day in and day out. If you are willing to experiment and look for new things to try, it can be an incredibly exciting field. The Fun Stuff BE: Can you tell us something fun about yourself? CP: I actually ran a tea shop for a about 4 years. I think that gives me a unique perspective on the role of a business. This really helps me remember the importance of being customer-centric. It is a lot easier to remember the customer when you deal with them every day as they come into your shop than when you are a large business locked away in an office building, but keeping the customer is critical no matter how big you get. It was fun having the opportunity to speak with Cindy before Share. We look forward to seeing her again in just a few weeks at the event. If you have not had the opportunity to register for Share15, make sure you head over to our conference page and sign up. We look forward to seeing you there! Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St Francis San Francisco, CA 

Repurposing Content with Robert Reneau at Share15

As the Director of Digital Marketing for Maxim Integrated, Robert Reneau is in charge of managing the user experience, site planning and international business strategy for the group. Robert leads a team of marketers in the development of useful web applications and finding new ways to enhance the experience of a website visitor. Robert will be joining us at Share 15 to speak about scaling content and how you can develop internal content-building processes that help enhance your digital marketing efforts while also creating a culture of content throughout your group. He was kind enough to sit down with us to talk about the latest in the industry and give some insights about his upcoming presentation. About Maxim at Share BrightEdge (BE): Can you tell us a bit about your presentation? You do not have to give away the game, but give us some teasers about what we can expect. Robert Reneau (RR): I am going to explore the art of repurposing content. I have found that many companies are challenged to produce consistent content at scale, so I will discuss how to take content and repurpose it so that it supports mass usage across multiple channels. I will share some of the best practices we use here at Maxim and I hope to provide some valuable insights for attendees about how to best succeed with content development. Scaling content is something that is faced by many companies, so the topic should be relatable for just about anyone in the audience. I work on a global scale with the Maxim brand, developing successful marketing and business strategies. I believe that many attendees will be able to take away some great ideas for making content work for their businesses. About the BrightEdge platform BE: How has BrightEdge helped you succeed as a brand? RR: As I already mentioned, at Maxim we are dealing with a global audience. We needed a system that would allow us to monitor our progress and see how our sites were performing. “BrightEdge allows us to do that. Its capacity to scale to handle our traffic from around the world and monitor the performance of our SEO efforts and our site rankings is incredible.” Recommended reading BE: Have you read any great business books lately that you would recommend? RR: I really enjoyed the book Sound Investments by Neville Goddard. The book is about making solid decisions that help you continually grow in abundance. This does not only apply to financial decisions, but also to a general way of living your life so that you can be successful in the areas that matter most to you. I have found that the lessons from the book are excellent from a personal standpoint. It really reminds you to look at factors, such as where you are spending your time, and how that impacts your success and your goals in life. About the industry BE: What do you think are some common challenges for people in the industry? RR: I think demonstrating ROI, especially financial ROI, is critical for many businesses but struggling with accurate metrics is common. You have to track ROI across all your different channels and that can be a challenge, particularly for those in the B2B sector. I am regularly concerned with being budget conscious-- and I cannot imagine that I am the only one with those concerns. I find that the key to accurately tracking financial ROI is looking beyond the basic metrics that tell you how many people read your content or how many people shared your content. You have to measure your cost per lead during your content marketing campaigns as well as your cost per sale. Use this information to refine your campaigns and gain a better understanding of your marketing financials. BE: What new marketing frontiers are you excited to explore? RR: I am really looking forward to trying advanced personalization techniques - taking user information and leveraging it to provide the most relevant content at a user’s fingertips. The techniques have been evolving for us at Maxim and we have been looking to build out a platform. We are now in a position to dive in deeper during the next fiscal year and it should be an exciting adventure. It was wonderful having the opportunity to speak with Robert Reneau in preparation for Share15. We are just weeks away from the start of the conference and it will be fantastic to listen to Robert’s presentation. If you have not signed up yet, register today. We hope to see you there. Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA 

Grow Internationally: David Fisher, Schneider Electric

David Fisher serves as the Global Head of Search Marketing for Schneider Electric, an international company that has been around for more than 150 years. He is responsible for managing SEO for all the Schneider Electric web assets as well as PPC advertising, strategic direction and the on-site search capabilities for the brand. He has been spending the last year optimizing the web properties of the company, which has been a considerable undertaking that intrigued us. David sat down with us to discuss his excitement for Share, the progress he has made at the company, the role of BrightEdge as well as his thoughts on the industry in general. It was a fantastic discussion that we cannot wait to continue at Share in a few weeks. The Networking at Share BrightEdge (BE): What are you looking forward to most about Share? David Fisher (DF): This is my first Share and I am really excited about the interpersonal connection. I do not really know anyone who does what I do, but I look forward to having the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best in the industry-- to meet people that I can connect with and send that email or call when I want to bounce ideas off someone. “It will be great to meet others who fully understand my job and what I am trying to accomplish.” I really think the best way to get the most out of Share, or any conference experience, is to never be shy about introducing yourself. Turn to the person sitting next to you and just start talking. You never know if they are going to have the advice or experience you need. On Share and Global Marketing BE: What will you speak about at the conference? DF: I will discuss how a brand can push a global effort while managing it on a local level. The biggest piece of this puzzle is realizing that unless you can speak every language, you are going to need people to help you with your global effort. You need to find a balance between giving people free reign and micromanaging them. I will also be discussing the challenges of translating and analyzing content on an international level. For example, we have worked to develop a database of keywords and translations of those words to ensure that our content is optimized for the different countries and that the words are always translated the same way. I will look to share some of the insights I have gained working at Schneider. About BrightEdge BE: Can you tell us a little more about how BrightEdge has helped you with your goals in the past year? DF: I was actually brought on last fall and I have really been focused on change management and helping to bring the brand up to speed. We have been using the BrightEdge platform to track our variety of different web properties. We are a global brand and we have different domains for most countries where we operate-- that means that we have 60 different domains. While this system might not work for everyone, it works well for us. It does make my job a bit more complicated. I have to monitor the optimization, track keywords, traffic and all other analytics for all of our sites-- not just one. We needed a system that could handle our enormous needs, and BrightEdge met the challenge with ease. “BrightEdge is like a data cruncher on steroids. I have shown it to others and they have been amazed at its capabilities. The Share of Voice, data analysis, Data Cube and other applications make it easy for us to easily see how our different sites are performing. I love introducing people to the program. Even people who are not really ‘techy’ get excited about the features, which then helps me sell them on the larger idea of SEO and optimization. We already have probably 400 users on the platform and we are looking to add even more in 2016.” Growing with Your Marketing Efforts BE: What insights about the shift from keyword to page performance strategies have you gained from your work at Schneider? DF: That is where we are. All the latest advice says, “keywords do not matter”... I tell people: keywords do not matter-- once you have already optimized your content. We are still at that initial stage, getting our content properly optimized. I have found it to be very important to take a step back and evaluate your site. Brands really need to look at their long-term strategy and how they want their website to fit in with their company. Will it be for brand awareness? Will it be used for ecommerce? Once you see how your website fits into your long-term goals, you can work to begin to design pages that fit with that goal and measure more meaningful metrics. Right now we are working to increase our content production and encourage people to opt in and let us know who they are, such as establishing newsletter opt-in or signing up for a callback. In the next year, we hope to begin the shift towards using data instead of hunches. We also want to make the switch from having web assets because that is what you are supposed to do and actually leveraging them for conversions. BE: What advice you give people about the convergence of paid, owned and earned media? DF: If you are not at least strategically aligned, then you are really missing out on key opportunities. It is going to be a challenge because there are significant differences in the strategies between the different types of marketing, but you should have at least a high level agreement across all the types of media about your goals and how they fit together. Make it a priority to establish their core alignment to see success in your marketing strategies. The fun stuff BE: Can you tell us something fun about yourself? DF: I am actually a milliner. In other words, I am an experienced hat maker. It was a bit of a spontaneous interest. I was watching Alice in Wonderland and googled hat making. I ended up stumbling upon a class at a local community college and the rest is history. It has been a hobby for about 6 years now. BE: What about your company, anything interesting there? DF: I find it intriguing that I do not actually share an office with anyone else with whom I work. I have colleagues in Paris, Rhode Island, California... it really is a global team! It was great chatting with David in preparation for Share15. Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA 

How to Convince Your Boss to Send You to Share15

You know you want to attend Share15, but your boss may need some convincing. If it’s not enough to share what previous attendees have to say about the conference, let us help prepare you with ways to convince your boss. Three main reasons: Product Knowledge Industry Insights and Skills Networking You will gain valuable insights with incredible learning opportunities Share15 is packed with great ways to learn the latest skills, techniques and the latest thinking. From BrightEdge certification courses for those new to the platform and for more experienced users, to hands-on labs, group discussion forums, breakout and general sessions and more.  Whether you want to roll up your sleeves and learn new products and features, hear experts discuss the latest trends or contribute to discussion forums on marketing challenges, Share15 has something to offer for your interests and expertise. Sponsors and BrightEdge will be showcasing the latest technologies at the solution showcase and during hands-on labs held throughout the conference. Attending Share15 will elevate your performance The agenda has been created to focus on delivering answers to the key challenges facing digital marketers, content marketers and search professionals today. You will hear from practitioners, experts and leaders in the industry who will offer insights from case studies of real-world application of the latest marketing techniques.  With over 60 case studies from marketers at leading brands, you will walk away with practical solutions you can put immediately into use. You will network with leaders in our industry and our peers Share15 is full of marketing leaders and practitioners.  With over 60 speakers and attendees from many of the world’s largest brands you will make connections you can only imagine. Whatever your role, industry or company type Share15 will have attendees and speakers ready to share their insights, knowledge and skills with you, or to just chat about industry gossip over lunch or drinks. We’ve designed the event to give you plenty of opportunities to engage with the other attendees in a fun and meaningful way. If this information alone isn’t enough,  we’ve created justification letters you can share with your boss to convince them to send you. You can download versions customized for Search Professionals, Content Marketers, and those most interested in Digital Marketing. They help explain the benefits you and your company will gain from your attending the event and will help you create an approximate budget to show what the investment will be. We hope you are able to use all of this to convince your boss to let you join us at Share15. 

How to Use Content Syndication Successfully

For both B2C and B2B companies, exposure and driving relevant traffic is critical to finding new leads and improving the brand’s reach. Content syndication offers brands an opportunity to leverage the audience of other popular sites to increase the visibility of their original site. Content syndication can be controversial in the minds of some marketers, because like many other SEO methods, there is both a right way and a wrong way to use it. If you do not use this system correctly, you can end up penalized because of duplicate content, hurting your marketing efforts. If you are considering using this method as a part of your lead generation tactics, here is what you should know about using it successfully. Understanding how content syndication can boost lead generation Content syndication means publishing a copy of your existing content from your website on another site. You might choose to do a copy of an entire article, a snippet or just a headline. The goal behind this type of tactic is to attract the interest of the audience on the more popular site and send them back to your original site and grow your own brand reach. By publishing on a more established website, you can also give your content greater authority because you will be associated with the site and brand the audience already trusts. Generating greater traffic and improving your brand authority are both valuable aspects to finding new leads, and content syndication can be a successful method for both B2B and B2C companies. The key to using this method appropriately is selecting the right content and posting it on the right website while also avoiding any potential Google penalties that could end up hurting your original website. Choosing your website Using content syndication successfully requires sites that can help you attract the traffic you need. That means finding a website that targets your own ideal audience and has a higher authority than your site. This can help bolster your own reputation and encourage the people who visit your brand site after reading your content to trust what you have to say. Choosing your content Generally, it is best to syndicate some of your highest quality content. You have to remember that the site publishing the content is considered an authoritative website. If you publish only mediocre work, then the article will not attract the desired attention. At the same time, the entire purpose of the syndication process is to send the traffic from the publishing site back to your original site. That means you do not want to publish all of your best work on other sites. There should be enough left that is unique to your site so people who visit your page will find something valuable which encourages them to stay and explore. You also need to consider the type of content you want to publish. If you are interested primarily in growing traffic, for instance, it might make more sense to syndicate just headlines or smaller portions of your pieces. This will offer the audience enough to interest them and encourage them to click through and learn more. If you are taking more of a brand awareness approach to building leads, you might find success by syndicating entire articles or longer excerpts, which will increase the number of people who read your ideas in full on the original site. Avoiding penalties Avoiding Google’s duplicate content penalties is always a chief concern for those interested in syndicating some of their content. After all, recent Google updates, including the famed Panda update, have played a large role in trying to eliminate duplicate content from SERPs. Fortunately, when content syndication is done well, you do not have to worry about incurring any problems. Here are a few tips you can use to let Google ‘understand’ your content. Rel=canonical Whenever possible, this solution is the best choice for avoiding Google penalties. You place this tag on the page with the syndicated content and have the tag list the original address of the article. This tells Google that the second version is just a copy and where the original lives. Not only does this allow you to avoid potential problems, but any links that go to the copy of the article will be ‘counted’ for the original version. The canonical tag for an article about green dresses would look like this according to Google: NoIndex If you cannot place a canonical tag on the copy of the article, see if you can place a NoIndex in the copy of the article. This tells Google not to ‘read’ this version of the article, so there is only one copy in the Search Engine Index. While this will solve your duplicate content problem, any links that the copy accrues will not point back to your original piece, which can limit the benefits of the syndication process. According to Google, using this meta tag should look like this: Including an attribution link Sometimes you might be publishing a syndicated copy on a website that does not want to include a canonical tag or a NoIndex. In that case, the best solution may be a direct attribution link. This link should go directly to the original version of the article. This will generally be enough to let the search engines know that this is a copy of the original article. Like the NoIndex solution, however, any links that reference the copy will not acknowledge your original site. If the site that will be hosting your content will not agree to any of these conditions, you will have to carefully evaluate whether the syndication is worth the effort. It is possible that the copy of the article will end up ranking higher than your original, since it is a more authoritative site. If the site is a fantastic match for your marketing efforts, however, and has the potential to generate some traffic and leads for you, then the risk may be worth it. Paid syndication In addition to syndicating your content through other industry websites, you also have the option of using one of the many paid options. For this system you will select vendors who will reprint your content on popular websites to help you get your material in front of the ideal audience. Some of the more popular vendors are: - Emedia - Netline - Reachmail - ThirdDoorMedia - Ziff Davis These sites work on a Cost Per Lead (CPL) system. It is generally best for you to start with tight filters that allow you to focus on cultivating the most appropriate leads. You can always loosen your filters as you gauge your success with the system. Tighter filters will increase your CPL, but the higher quality of the leads should offset the higher investment. Working with paid syndication requires some experimenting to find the system that will work best for you. Begin by confirming with the vendor exactly what they will be doing to generate leads. You will then want to begin with about two to three assets in rotation. It is best to use pieces that have helped you bring in leads in the past. If at all possible, supply your own marketing content as well. If you do not have any available, most vendors will supply it and you can then make modifications to better suite your brand. Beginning with a small budget and a short rotation time will allow you accurately gauge the success of the system based upon your current parameters without spending unnecessarily. You can then modify your filters or content and try again as you better understood your path to success. Content syndication can be a wonderful means of growing traffic and establishing authority through already-popular sites. To use this system correctly, however, you need to be careful with your selections and employ best practices to minimize risk and maximize yield.  

SEO and Reputation Management: Duy Vu, Assurant

Duy Vu is the SEO manager at Assurance, overseeing all the SEO initiatives for their web properties. He is their self-described ‘go-to’ SEO guy, and we thought that it sounded like he would have some excellent insights into the ever-developing digital marketing industry. Duy Vu will be joining us in just a few weeks for Share15, so we took the time to sit down with him and talk about the upcoming conference and his latest insights into the digital marketing world. Building Your SEO Brand and Reputation Bright Edge (BE): What project will you speak about at Share15? Duy Vu (DV): I plan on exploring the intersection of SEO and reputation management. It is a topic on the mind of many marketers and brands who want to venture into digital marketing but worry about controlling how their brands are perceived online. They want to know how to remain up-to-date on what people are saying about their brands and what they can do to improve their brand perception. I plan on delving into a variety of tactics people can employ to strengthen their SEO while also improving their reputation and their relationship with their customers. The people who are most successful with SEO and managing their brand perception focus chiefly on building a strong, positive relationship with their customers. Understanding How People Search for Your Brand at Share15 BE: Why will attendees want to be sure to attend your session? DV: Search and reputation management are critical subjects for all brands. We all know how quickly a bad customer experience or a poorly thought-out ad campaign can go viral and hurt a company’s reputation overnight. This prospect scares many companies. They know that they need to leverage digital media, but they want to make sure they do it right. It is becoming increasingly common knowledge that digital media and SEO offer you powerful tools for getting your message in front of customers, but people do not want to get burned by those same methods. I think that attendees at my session will learn a lot about search and reputation. I will delve into understanding how people search about your company, including brand and non-brand queries. I believe that reputation management is an area of SEO that does not get enough attention. BE: How do you leverage BrightEdge to succeed in your goals? DV: When you are looking to monitor and manage your reputation through social media, you have to be able to accurately measure your Share of Voice and what people are saying about you. The BrightEdge platform makes it easy to analyze your site and how it is performing as well as your Share of Voice and how people are responding to your brand across the digital world. It is an excellent tool that allows us to leverage all that our SEO strategies are capable of accomplishing. The Mobile Opportunity BE: What do you think are some of the biggest challenges facing people in SEO? DV: I think fully-integrated marketing is definitely up there. Many companies have siloed experiences rather than integrated. The problem with keeping your various channels separate, however, is that every challenge and development in one area of your campaign has implications across the other channels. It is important to learn how to bring the groups together. This past year has also been big with the various algorithm updates, particularly the mobile update. Some of our web properties had not been mobile-optimized and we really had to get on the ball and make sure they were ready. I think that experience was shared by people across the marketing world. It is important to always be looking ahead and staying abreast of the latest developments to try and stay in front of the changes. The Need to Experiment with Content and SEO BE: What would you recommend to people looking to succeed in SEO? DV: Always experiment. It sounds simple, but so many people get caught up in just doing the recommended updates and implementing the advice from the latest gurus. The reason why those thought leaders have obtained their position, however, is that they are always looking for new ways to improve their SEO-- they are experimenting. You also need to play around with different aspects of your content and see how your website and brand reach responds. You could find some great new broad insights or just learn new ways to implement techniques specifically for your brand. It is always a pleasure to chat with Duy, and we look forward to continuing the conversation at Share15 in just a few weeks. If you have not registered to join us, sign up now! Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA

Wiley CMO: Transforms Traditional to Digital Excellence

This year Clay Stobaugh, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Wiley will be delivering a fascinating general session keynote on how Wiley has transformed their digital business. For those familiar with digital marketing thought leaders and influencers Brian Solis from Altimeter/Prophet, Lee Odden from Top Rank, Rob Garner (formerly i-crossing), Paul Roetzer from PR 20/20, Dan Siroker from Optimizely and Ann Handley from Marketing Profs all have books published with Wiley. Wiley: Helping people and organizations to develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Wiley is a global provider of knowledge and knowledge-enabled services that improve outcomes in the areas of research, professional training and practice, and education. Through the Research segment, the Company provides scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, magazines, databases and websites. The Talent Solutions & Education Services segment provides services, technology, insights and content that support learners and institutional partners in business and higher education to improve effectiveness by developing knowledge and skills. In Knowledge and Learning, higher education institutions, faculty and students benefit from Wiley’s print and digital content, online program management services and course management tools. As Chief Marketing Officer at Wiley, Clay Stobaugh is responsible for the company’s marketing, communications and government affairs efforts worldwide. He leads Wiley’s revenue-driving marketing initiatives through key disciplines in the global “Marketing Revenue Center” including customer experience, demand generation, CRM, sales enablement, social media, content marketing, digital commerce, digital analytics and SEO/SEM. Clay is focused on developing customer relationships and driving new revenue opportunities, he is helping to lead Wiley’s transformation from a traditional book publisher to a global provider of digital content and content enabled solutions. Last week BrightEdge had the privilege of meeting with Clay to talk through the Wiley digital marketing transformation. Below are a few extracts and insights from our conversation. A brief history of change at Wiley BrightEdge (BE): Please tell us a little about the history and the transformation at Wiley Clay Stobaugh (CS): Wiley operates in three closely connected fields – higher education; professional development and lifelong learning; and scholarly research. In higher education many people still think that we’re simply a book publisher. That perception is changing as Wiley is actually helping people to learn online. In higher education we have witnessed a transformation from traditional textbooks to adaptive online learning environments. If I take a business or accounting class using WileyPlus, for example, the platform will not just provide me the digital book content, but it will also offer assignments, tutorials and study aids that help me understand the material better, as well as the social capability to interact anywhere at any time virtually with the instructor and other students taking the course. In our Talent Solutions and Education Services business, Wiley is investing in technology that will help a corporation skill-test people to ensure that they’re ready for the job. We also provide certification and online learning solutions such as Cross Knowledge so employees can continue to grow and learn once they have the job. Finally, in our Research business, Wiley works with authors, societies and librarians to publish research that has an impact on our day-to-day lives. Here we are seeing some great changes in how information is used and shared, and as the needs of the research community continually transform, Wiley invests in tools and technology that supports these changes. What makes Wiley unique is that through each of these fields, we support all the elements of the knowledge economy – from education, to job skills, and research and innovation. Digital transformation at Wiley – mind-sets, skillsets, and toolsets BE: How do you view the role of the modern day digital marketer at Wiley? CS: If you think about modern marketers there are three things we talk about - mindset, skill set and tool set. You are not a modern marketer if you have the mindset, but not the skills or tools. As management, it is our job to provide the tools, but they are expensive and complex, so we are responsible for training and creating organizational structure around those tools. As a marketer, I look at the digital tools and platforms that will give us the ability to measure and derive performance. We can then choose the tools that best drive revenue and have a place at the executive table. Transformation, training,and certification BE: How did you go about transforming Wiley to a digital organization? CS: I work very closely with Dan Mooney (who is going to share more insights on this at Share15), and the digital and SEO team, in our marketing revenue center and we’ve been working on centralizing our efforts for SEO. Search and content are pivotal to digital transformation success. BrightEdge is our trusted enterprise Content and SEO platform, and we have mirrored the excellent BrightEdge training and certification program to establish a certification for content and SEO within Wiley. There are three levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced). Basically, we are making it easier for people to understand content and SEO — we have over 340 of our colleagues around the globe enrolled in our SEO certification. Bottom-up we have certifications and top-down we have SEO scorecards that evaluate the ‘SEO health’ of our businesses. It helps people to understand the importance of content and SEO and then how to act on that. The skill development and roll out of BrightEdge training and certification has been key. As with other marketing channels and disciplines we’re making this a part of our culture to be modern marketers. Measurement and success BE: How do you approach measurement and results of content success? CS: We are currently building out our CRM and our measurement capabilities, but we need that holistic single customer view of what we are doing. But before that is beneficial we need to make sure our employees know how to use/are trained on the sales and social and CRM tools and BrightEdge content and SEO platform. This mindset of delivering the skills and ultimately holding people accountable by measuring results is important. BE: How does BrightEdge help you with this digital transformation? CS: With BrightEdge the ability to identify content and SEO areas where we can improve and then show the transformation of that work has a high-value impact. The BrightEdge platform enables us to identify problems most people didn’t know existed. Removing silos in the organization BE: What is your approach towards digital collaboration? CS: We have created an internal customer engagement framework. This is an 8-step process that goes through all the steps of modern marketing best practices. It starts with research to identify personas and customer journey maps and determine the correct KPIs. We then use these insights to drive our content strategy. Throughout the process, we measure and optimize. BrightEdge’s Data Cube has been an incredibly valuable tool for researching and measuring our content strategy. With this framework marketers are equipped to evolve into modern marketers and they are not siloed into a single business department. I will be sharing much more on this and a framework for modern-day marketing success at Share15. To hear Clay speak register for Share15 before tickets sell out fast.  End Note: digital thought leaders - further reading For those who like to read we highly recommend looking through the list of Wiley authors and the wealth of digital content and information. 

Erin Everhart: Multi-Channel &Omni-Channel Marketing

Content Performance Marketing, the sharing of insights and the elevation of personal and professional performance, is central to the Share15 theme this year. Over 60 global brand speakers and 1000 digital, content, and search marketers come together on September 21 – 23 in the heart of San Francisco. As the search, content and digital marketing ecosystems continue to evolve in synergy Erin Everhart, Lead Manager for Digital Marketing - SEO, from Home Depot states: “Because we consume content in different mediums and because we use so many different media types based on our time of day, device, search query, and maybe even our mood, companies can’t exist on only one channel.” About Erin Everhart and Home Depot Erin is speaking on the content marketing track at Share15 on the Demand for Content: People, Personas & Intent session alongside Michael Mothner, CEO of Wpromote and Jesse Farley from Cabela’s. Erin leads the content marketing team in the digital marketing and SEO department at Home Depot. Her primary focus is content optimization and marketing; better leveraging different channels for both onsite and offsite initiatives to increase .com traffic and demand. Below, Erin shares further insights into how the search landscape has evolved and how the shift from keyword to page performance strategies signify the marriage of search and content performance marketing. SEO is a different ballgame BrightEdge (BE): In your opinion, just how much has SEO evolved in recent years? Erin Everhart (EE): It’s curious, actually, and something I’ve been thinking about more and more as search continues to evolve. You can ask almost anyone and they’ll agree that SEO is a totally different ballgame, if not a completely different sport, today than what it was 10, even 5 years ago. The tactics used today are completely different. I think a large part of that change is attributed to Google. It is becoming much more sophisticated at being able to spot the sites that aim to manipulate their algorithm. Search Engine Watch did a really great write-up of the history of Matt Cutts’ (and by transitive property, Google’s) stance on SEO. Points that were made in the early 2000s are the same things being said now, albeit replacing PageRank with Domain Authority. For example: 2002 - “ranking individual pages based on the number and the importance of the pages linked to them.” 2002 – “stay away from hidden text, hidden links, cloaking, sneaky redirects, lots of duplicate content on different domains and doorway pages.” 2003 – He was one of the inventors on Google’s patent that said it adjusted rankings based on how often a page is clicked, if the page had newer content, traffic and link weight. 2004 – “Thematic incoming links from authority sites carry more weight than on-page optimization.” The point being that maybe SEO hasn’t really changed all that much in the past 10 years; Google has just gotten better at spotting the spam, forcing the old black hat SEOs to legitimize their tactics. Page performance strategies are a new priority BE: How important is page performance compared to keyword strategies in a Secure Search World? EE: Just using keyword strategies doesn’t work too well because they’re often far too granular and really only encompass a small sliver of the landscape. Just think about the number of keywords out there and then the number of keyword variations out there that people use. One keyword is not indicative into how all of your users come to your site; it’s a fraction of a fraction of your potential customer base. Page performance strategies allow you to have a good viewpoint of both how people are getting to your site and what they’re doing once they get there, which ultimately you need both if you’re going to make a successful website. Just as you want your keyword to match your pages content, you also need to match up the intent of both the query and the page itself. Think - What’s the purpose? Transactional? Informational? Inspiration? Ranking a transactional page for an informational keyword is only going to bring you high bounce rates and annoyed users, who have already exited your site and found what they’re looking for on one of your competitors. Content and SEO – “one cohesive bubble” BE: What is your viewpoint and subsequent approach to leveraging SEO and content together? EE: You have to view content and SEO in one cohesive bubble. Search can, and should, be helping drive what content you produce; content can, and should, be one of the key entry points for your users that helps move them through the buying journey. Content comes from a lot of different places, and there’s probably not one person in your organization who owns all the content. So, not only do you need to have writers embedded directly on your SEO team and everyone on your SEO team should have a content-first mentality, but you (as the SEO) need to ingrain yourself within the other teams who produce content. For example, social media, PR, email and web teams. Those will be some of the best relationships you can manage, making sure they understand how their actions impact SEO but more importantly, how you (as the SEO) can make their job easier and help them achieve their KPIs more efficiently. Converged media – multi-channel marking versus omni-channel strategy BE: What role does digital play in the convergence of media, search and content strategies? EE: I don’t really view it as a convergence because I don’t think digital marketing can or could have ever existed without some form of content. They’re not interchangeable terms — content is used in digital marketing; digital marketing distributes the content — but there wasn’t a time when we marketed without content. That’s all marketing, not just digital. Content consumption has grown massively just by the sheer number of ways we, as users, can access it, but that content has to be distributed somehow. Because we consume content in different mediums and because we use so many different media types based on our time of day, device, search query, and maybe even our mood, companies can’t exist on only one channel. However, it’s not enough to just be active across all channels; that is a multi-channel marketing strategy. You have to make sure your messaging is aligned across all channels, and more importantly, they’re all working together to achieve the common business goal; that’s an omni-channel strategy. “If multi-channel is each medium having its own swim line, omni-channel is one giant pool party." How to take advantage of the Share15 networking opportunity BE: What advice can you give share attendees in order for them to make the most out of their Share15 experience? EE: Take advantage of every networking opportunity given to you at Share15, even if that’s coffee or a quick lunch. At Share15, you never know whom you’re going to meet and having that strong network of leading industry peers to bounce ideas off of is critical in this industry. Join Erin and your digital marketing peers at Share15 and become part of the industry leading digital marketing community run by digital marketers for digital marketers. Early bird pricing closes on July 31, so we would strongly advise you to sign up and take advantage of this rate. Capacity is limited. Register here. 

Digital Marketing Integration: Ancestry.com

As the VP of Channel Marketing for Ancestry.com, Mark Fiske understands the art of an integrated campaign. He is in charge of leading the television, display, search, mobile, content and social acquisition programs - helping to build the brand across all channels. Mark is an experienced lecturer at a variety of ecommerce and marketing events, including Share, and we are excited to have him speak again at our industry-leading event Share15 in just a few weeks. Ancestry.com has recently upgraded to the BrightEdge platform and we enjoy working with him and his team. We took a few minutes to sit down and discuss the changes we have seen in the industry and gather some insights about what he will present at Share. The Enterprise SEO talent gap BrightEdge (BE): What key trends and challenges have you noticed in the SEO industry lately? Mark Fiske (MF): I have noticed that it has been remarkably challenging to find talented SEOs. Many people and businesses are interested in the quick fixes. If they are specialized in SEO, then they know how to game the system and see short term results. Others prefer to focus on other areas of marketing where it is easy to see results quickly and efficiently. Finding people who understand not only how to build a long-term campaign but also have the right mix of product, marketing and development background that can create the necessary campaign for an enterprise organization can be a real struggle for many brands. The content development shift BE: What trends have you noticed in the industry overall? MF: There seems to have been a shift in how businesses and marketers look at their content development. In the past, it was viewed more as a link page or the opportunity to rank for different keywords. Lately, people have been paying more attention to their relationship with their customers. They are leveraging their content as an opportunity to capture people’s attention and bring in new visitors. I also believe that producing high-quality content regularly is the best way to actually encourage external link building and development. If you want to attract high-quality links you have to produce the high-quality material that will attract the desired attention. It will allow you to catch the eye of the influencers and get them to share your content and securing the reach. The Ancestry.com and BrightEdge partnership BE: It has been great having the opportunity to work with you and Ancestry.com. Why do you like working with BE? MF: I have found that in SEO, you need every possible advantage. Every 2% here and 3% there can deliver the changes you need to see to accomplish your goals. The BrightEdge content performance platform is a fantastic source of the valuable data that we need to make the necessary adjustments. To succeed in SEO, you need to play the long game-- you need to be able to look down the road and see how your changes can positively impact the brand reputation and result in more leads and sales. It is not as much of a dollar-in-dollar-out game that paid options are, but the potential for long term results and great ROI once the campaign gets off the ground is incredible.BrightEdge technology helps to make that possible. Mark Fiske at Share15 – attribution untangled BE: What are you planning on speaking about with the attendees? MF: I will be speaking about practical approaches to attribution modelling that apply to the front lines. It is my job to make sure that everything is working together towards a common goal, and attribution is key to that. This valuable experience in integrated marketing gives me the insight to hopefully create an informative and engaging presentation that will help attendees better understand how to make integrated marketing work for them. I find that front-line marketers often find attribution modelling and how it applies to their jobs on a daily basis to be confusing. I hope to help them understand what an attribution model is and how they can build their desired model. Not only do I want them to walk away feeling confident in the idea of an attribution model, I want them to be able to see how they can leverage the idea to actually see results in their jobs. BE: What are you looking forward to most about the conference? MF: I have been working with the BrightEdge platform for a while now and I have been excited about the capabilities that I have found so far. I think Share15 will be an excellent opportunity to learn about more of the latest technology and capabilities as well as a chance to network with some of the greatest minds in the industry. It should be an exciting few days. We always enjoy speaking with Mark about Share and about the marketing industry. We look forward to seeing him in less than two months at the event. Come join us! Early bird pricing only lasts until July 31, so register today. Conference details September 21-23 Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA   Take our digital marketing quiz to test your knowledge.

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