SEOJournal Summit Recap

A Recap of the Biggest Search Engine Optimization Summit

Over the course of 2016, Search Engine Journal held conferences for anyone and everyone interested in search engine optimization. The conferences, entitled “A Day of Keynotes” after the Apple presentation software, barred any form of sales pitches or product demonstration in an attempt to provide actionable content that participants would be able to apply to their businesses, covering a range of topics such as social media, content marketing, SEO and more. In an attempt to connect with search marketers throughout the country, the summit included keynotes from popular brands such as Google, Twitter, Microsoft and many others.

For those of you who were not able to attend this year’s SEJ Summit, do not fret. We have compiled a summary of some of the event’s most impactful speakers and topics just for you.

Maile Ohye – Delight Your Customer
Throughout her presentation, Maile Ohye, a developer Programs Tech Lead for Google, emphasized the importance of accelerated mobile pages or AMP. Essentially, AMP is a project designed to make mobile pages load more quickly by using a stripped-down version of HTML that is intended solely for faster readability.

Maile also spoke about the difference between satisfying and delighting a customer. By referencing a pyramid model based on the Gold Standard of the Ritz-Carlton, Maile explained how marketers can interact with customers on three levels: expected, requested or delighted.

• Expected: doing what your customer expects will result in them possibly returning
• Requested: doing what your customer personally and specifically request will result in repeat purchasers
• Delighted: delighting your customers in every way possible will result in loyal purchasers who promote your brand.

Anne Ohola Ward – Mobile SEO
As media author and CEO of circleclick, Anne spoke about the evolution of SEO in a world increasing dominated by mobile technology. Similar to Maile’s points about AMP, Anne emphasized the importance of speed and mentioned that users will lose interest if mobile pages do not load quickly enough. She also spoke about the importance of Facebook instant articles, which are already starting to raise the bar for instant loading of mobile pages.

Anne also spoke about what she called the nth screen. Essentially, she believes that there is no one dominant platform, and that marketers should develop a digital presence that allows the merging of devices, people and places to create a new, shared experience.

Kevin Henrikson – Entrepreneur Style Growth Tactics for Big Brands
Kevin, who is a partner group manager of engineering at Microsoft, spoke about the fact that failing is fine as long as you do it quickly and move on. The key to failing fast, he believes, is to track everything you do so that you know exactly when something starts to go wrong. Once you know where the problem is, it is easy to make small tweaks to a strategy and move forward. Kevin also claimed that positive ROI is like breathing – without it you wont survive very long.

Summary
While there were many speakers who made very important and interesting points, the most prominent takeaways from the conference are the following:

• AMP and mobile page loading time is incredibly important.
• In today’s world speed is king. If your page doesn’t load quickly, customers lose interest and businesses lose conversions.
• The world is becoming increasing more mobile orientated, so apps are more popular. However, it is important not to make an app simply for the sake of making one.
• Without positive ROI it is impossible to succeed.