Prior to the SEMDays conference which was held in Bucharest between 24th -25th of September, we sat down with one of the key speakers, Andrea Pernici, to discuss the latest digital marketing trends and what to expect when it comes to AdWords and SEO.
BC: What are the most dangerous AdWords mistakes that marketers make?
Andrea Pernici: I think we need to define “dangerous” before answering the question.
We can tackle it from 3 sides to be more concise:
- Dangerous in the sense of wasting money.
- Dangerous in the sense of not fully exploit the potential of the marketing campaign.
- Dangerous in the sense of boring customers or potential customers.
The first one is pretty straightforward and it is one of the main problems you will find in all kinds of campaigns: not targeting the right audience, not focusing on the right keywords combination. This is what I like to call “inability to decide”.
It’s unbelieveable, but In 2015 this is still one of the most common mistakes.
Google also makes this mistake…look at the image. Why do you need to advertise a tool on a brand search for a well known event? Maybe they have a reason for it, but my guess is that they don’t have one.
The second pretty basic mistake (but with a lot of implications) is on building a coherent message and a connection between the message advertised and the landing page.
But, the most dangerous one, in my opinion, is the third meaning of “Dangerous”, that has some bigger implications on the customer side and on the brand perception.
Remarketing for example is a very powerful way to advertise based on very specific actions of our already acquired customers or interested ones, but the lack of planning of a real remarketing strategy is one of the worst mistakes (lazy) marketers tend to do. One of the classic example is on checkout abandonment and I’m not here to explain what it means…in any case if someone wants to go deeper we can use the comments section.
BC: How can you write original content on a topic like marketing nowadays considering that almost everything has already been written?
A.P.: I don’t think “original” is the right word to use here.
We’re entering the era of “Product with voice” and this can really enlarge the meaning of “content”.
I mean, when I think about content I never think about what is written down. Content cannot exist without a design & research phase. In a more connected, structured and multi-device world, the biggest challenge is to create great experiences and a greater value using (new or already existing) content.
This is not only marketing related, but it generally fits for any topic out there. You only need to find the best kind of content for your specific niche.
One great trick is to fuel your mind with non-marketing related executions.
The other obvious thing is to find the best piece of content about the subject you want to cover and make it better. In 2015, technology gives you the power to make dreams come true.
To conclude…instead of trying to be original, try to make something missing in terms of how your audience can experience a piece of content.
BC: Have you considered creating Ad campaigns for other search engines like Bing, for example? If yes, how did it go?
A.P.: At least in Italy there is very little competition on Bing and so you can have good traffic at a relatively low cost.
Another good thing about Bing Ads is that you can promote your Windows App, so for mobile players it is fundamental.
BC: If you were to recommend some key influencers whose posts you never miss, who would they be and why?
A.P.: Follow as many people as possible delivering the topic of your interest, but not blindly:
- Question everything.
- Experience everything.
- Give everybody a possibility.
After some trials you will naturally find reliable people. If you want to follow some interesting SEO people (you can truly trust) on Google I strongly suggest people like Eric Wu, Enrico Altavilla, AJ Kohn, Bill Slawski, Aaron Bradley, Barbara Starr, Jarno Van Driel, Ammon Johns, Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Alistair Lattimore and Dan Petrovic.
They are very good “Quality Curators” on the topic.
BC: There are many digital marketing agencies nowadays….the competition is really high! If you had to choose one to work with, what would be the most important elements that you’d take into account? Depending on which criteria would you make the selection?
A.P.: Trust. People. Research.
But the most important part is how much they love their job, and one of the best ways to understand it is watching how the team (People) contribute honestly and passionately (Trust) to the evolution of the market (Research).
BC: Everybody seems to want to migrate their website from HTTP to HTTPS. Why is this important and how does it affect SEO?
A.P.: I think the best way of answering the “Why and How in relation to SEO” is to stop thinking about it in terms of SEO. Looks strange, but it is exactly how it is intended to work.
To find the key to the real potentials of SEO we should really start asking ourselves the right questions and not trying to answer again and again the same little things.
In terms of HTTPS, we need to look at it from a technical side. We’re approaching the HTTP/2 era and we’re going in a direction where the biggest players in the Browser’s field are blocking not secure websites in a very strict way so we should start thinking a lot about the risks of not being prepared for a sudden migration.
Who cares about SEO if visitors cannot see my website or are deterred with a red flag by their favorite browser?
Andrea Pernici is Co-Founder at GT Idea. He is also Search Marketing Manager of the consulting department in GT Idea and in charge of the project planning for the community gt. Keeps relations to industry events and writes on the main italian SEO blog. He likes to write on advanced topics and wrote on SemRush, Dejan SEO, Moz (and once hacked Google). He is particularly devoted to destroying the SEO misinformation and to make the web faster. Studied Computer Science focusing on HCI and CAS, he is particularly passionate about design and making fun stuff for the sake of experimentation.
