The one-day event features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including:
Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you.
Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor.
Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks.
Do you regularly find yourself spending long hours manually extracting data cutting and pasting to create reports? Do you often have to repeat the whole thing, time and time again? If you have grown to love data crunching numbers and creating reports can be a tedious process.
I’ve never seen anybody who likes doing the same things over and over again. So is there a better way to do this?
Yes, there is. And it’s called automation.
I strongly believe that report automation allows companies to have more control over process and data and, therefore, better efficiency, as the highly qualified people involved in the report creation process have additional time to focus on more valuable tasks.
John Warner is an internal marketer at Click Consult where he spends his time accruing industry certifications, tinkering with code, plotting strategy and writing articles on all aspects of search marketing.
John Warner at the Benchmark Search Conference 2018
While having a master’s degree in creative writing and a background predominately in content, John Warner has found himself drawn to the technical side of SEO – developing a passion for data, research, interactivity, artificial intelligence and voice search.
John features regularly on a number of leading search marketing blogs, including regular articles for SEMRush, State of Digital and on the Click Consult blog, he also contributions to the quarterly magazine ‘Benchmark Search Marketing’, occasionally hosts the ‘on.click’ podcast and has spoken at a number of leading UK conferences.
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search. The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Keeping your cool, especially during stressful situations, is one of the most important attributes of a good leader.
Even if you always try to do your best to stay cool, inevitably there will be times when you feel emotional at work. Usually, this happens when the stakes are high or you feel strongly about something — that you’re the right person to take on a big new project, that you deserve a promotion or that you’ve been treated unfairly by a colleague, for example.
The best thing to do in those moments is to be prepared beforehand, so your emotional reactions and impulses don’t take control. Determine who in your company is best to approach, set up a meeting in advance and make sure you’re clear on your agenda. Write down your strongest points on a piece of paper you can refer to if needed — then walk in and hold your head high.
Kristal Ireland is an award-winning, strategic and experienced digital and technology expert. Experienced public speaker on all things digital and technology with a passion for AI and all things transformative.
Kristal Ireland at the Benchmark Search Conference
Previously voted as one of the UK’s Top 30 Women in Digital Under 30 by The Drum Magazine. A specialist in Digital Transformation, E-commerce and Digital Brand Strategy she has worked with some of the major UK and international clients to build their brands online.
Passionate about all forms of marketing but with a specialism in digital marketing including; Website Design and Development, Mobile, E-commerce website design and management, SEO, PPC, Social Media, Email Marketing, Online Analytics packages, Customer Journey Analysis and Customer Relationship Management.
Kristal Ireland’s Top Tips For Survival
Acknowledge, accept and respect people’s emotions.
Select, energise and cement your A-Team.
Accept help… Even if it’s painful
Be clear and consistent on MVP … Communicate to senior stakeholders what this is and manage expectations.
Plan, Plan and re Plan… Also, Plan what happens if you fail (because you might).
Don’t sack your agencies … They are part of your team.
Celebrate success at every opportunity.
Tea, Cake, Gin.
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search. The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
We all know that having a tightly focused business online that appeals to a small audience in a specific niche can be very rewarding (and indeed profitable). Getting to that point, however, is difficult.
Niche businesses online, almost by definition, aren’t very popular. They appeal to a specific subgroup of internet users, and that group can be very small. A site that’s all about using VoiceOver on the iPhone to help the elderly in their daily lives will not appeal to young people by default. So is a site about selling old vinyl discs.
These are the kinds of niche businesses that don’t have broad appeal. And it’s easy to disregard them as not as important, or not as successful, as more broadly focused sites that attract millions of readers.
But there is an important difference between the audiences at these sites.
Regular visitors to niche websites are more likely to be very committed to those sites.
Why? Because they answer exactly the questions that those people are asking or they sell the specific product searchers are looking for. Let’s go back to the selling old vinyl discs idea. If you regularly look for information on this topic, you might find only a few articles here and there on selling, buying or preserving old vinyl discs.
That direct appeal generates a lot of loyalty. And that’s why niche businesses are so important.
And then it comes video.
Some companies like Cisco predict that by the year 2021 almost 82% of all internet traffic will be video traffic.
It is very clear that people want someone to both show them and tell them the information they’re looking for, instead of having to read it.
Who is Lee Wilcox?
An enthusiast of all things tech and social media related – Lee Wilcox is the 33-year-old co-founder and CEO of On the Tools.
In the space of three years ‘On the Tools’ has become the biggest Construction Community in the world with over 2 million followers across their social media channels. Lee Wilcox also consults for brands in the construction industry on their social media strategy.
Lee Wilcox at the Benchmark Search Conference
“I’m a very work orientated person with a ‘healthy’ obsession of Social Media, a lover of technology and a keen interest in company culture and the ideology of having the right to an enjoyable workplace.
As CEO of On the Tools, I believe it to be my responsibility to ensure the happiness and welfare of everyone at the organisation. We have to spend so much time at work that it needs to be a place that people feel safe, trusted and valued. My mission is to create a culture and environment that people can flourish in and ultimately never feel that ‘Monday morning’ feeling ever again.”
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search. The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Artificial intelligence (AI) already touches some form of your life every day. From smarter web searches to e-commerce recommendations to voice assistants – AI is integrated into how you live, work, and communicate in the world. It’s the standard by which you evaluate your digital interactions with brands – expecting that every touchpoint will be as easy and intelligent as ordering paper towels from Alexa or finding what you were searching for on Google in your top three search results.
On the other hand, even at its most powerful, artificial intelligence doesn’t replace human intelligence, it simply helps people do what they love better and faster while opening the door to new and exciting ways to experiment, test, and learn from customers to create dramatically improved experiences.
Who is Ellie England?
Passionate about search, women in technology and making a lasting impact, Ellie England began her career in sales working in an inner-city secondary school ‘selling’ the importance of modern languages to disaffected teenagers. She got into the world of search working for Google for 6 years, before eventually relocating to Manchester and joining Microsoft.
Ellie England at the Benchmark Search Conference
As a Sales Director for Bing Ads, Ellie has been spearheading the continued investment in the North of the UK and leads a growing team of search account managers.
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search. The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Monday, 3rd of September. So the conference season has officially started. Between now and Christmas I’m gonna be attending a conference or a roundtable almost every single week. This week I am going to the Benchmark Search Conference in Manchester organised by Click Consult and I am super excited.
How often do you see Nick Wilsdon, Kristal Ireland, Bas, Fili and Lukasz Zelezny in the same room?
If I was them I will call it ‘Digital Marketing Heaven’. Do you want to go to the Digital Marketing Heaven? Come to our conference.
Adapt or Die (Digital Marketing is Adaptation)
One thing that SEO taught me over the years is ‘Adapt or Die‘. And I really don’t understand why people are crying about House of Fraiser. Now, let’s be honest. When the Internet came along House of Fraiser was rich and powerful. But House of Fraiser didn’t respect the new reality. And the new reality is digital. Everything digital. Digital is really changing the way people live. So let me give you one more example. And it’s very recent as well.
Yesterday I am coming back from Portugal, my holiday in Portugal and my neighbour sees me reading a book about Artificial intelligence. And he is like ‘Because of people like you a lot of people gonna lose their job’. So I just looked at him, he was holding an iPhone watching a movie and I was like ‘Because of people like you a lot of people at Nokia already lost their job. Why didn’t you stick to Nokia?’ And he just looked at me and he was like ‘I know what you mean. I am sorry.’
See people wanting to better their life is not something new and digital…
I just had a lengthy conversation online so let me summarise it. We are a society driven by digital technology. Let’s look around us. Let’s be honest with ourselves. There are countries out there where citizens don’t have running water but they own smartphones.
If your brand wants to be successful now and in the foreseeable future you need to invest in digital platforms and digital talent in order to stay ahead of your competitors.
Some people wish it would happen, others make it happen.
On my way to Benchmark Search Conference in Manchester. In front of me is Euston station and behind me here is the building where I made this crucial decision to stop doing front-end development and jump into digital marketing. At the time the idea was…it looked a bit crazy. Everybody was like ‘Omi you are crazy. Don’t do it. You’ve got a bright future in front-end development but I’ve decided to do what I love anyway…
Only time will tell if I was right.
I can accept failure. But I can’t accept not trying.
Yeah, I am in Manchester. I am in Manchester and I am seriously lost. Google Maps just doesn’t work here. It’s just throwing me in all directions. I am sure the hotel is over there but it’s telling me that it’s like 40 minutes away. And it’s almost 10 O’Clock.
Finally arrived and the hotel, the room, everything is just perfect. Ok, this is my room but have a look at the view. Oh my god, it’s just beautiful.
It’s a bit too late for food now so managed to find an open Tesco and bought a bunch of bananas.2, 4, 6 and a bottle of orange juice. Can’t wait for my breakfast tomorrow.
Actually, I know it’s 12 O’Clock but probably I should go and visit Dawn Anderson. Maybe she can give me some food.
Benchmark Search Conference
Benchmark Search Conference 2018
Ellie England, Sales Director, Bing Ads. ‘Let’s do AI – How Artificial Intelligence is Amplifying Human and Also Marketing Ingenuity – Today.’
Passionate about search, women in technology and making a lasting impact, Ellie England began her career in sales working in an inner-city secondary school ‘selling’ the importance of modern languages to disaffected teenagers. She got into the world of search working for Google for 6 years, before eventually relocating to Manchester and joining Microsoft.
As a Sales Director for Bing Ads, Ellie England has been spearheading the continued investment in the North of the UK and leads a growing team of search account managers.
Kristal Ireland, Head of E-commerce and Retail Technology, London North Eastern Railway ‘5 Weeks to Make It – How to Keep Your Cool and Switch a Major Brand Online in Only 5 Weeks’
Previously voted as one of the UK’s Top 30 Women in Digital Under 30. A specialist in Social Media and Digital Brand Strategy, Kristal Ireland is an award-winning, strategic and experienced digital marketing expert.
A regular digital conference speaker and industry commentator Kristal Ireland has worked in digital for over a decade developing digital solutions for some of the UK’s biggest brands.
Dave Karellen, Head of Paid Search, Click Consult ‘Machine Learning: Friend or Foe?’
Dave Karellen has been with Click since 2011 and heads up the Paid Search (PPC) team as well as taking responsibility for key PPC accounts. Developing best practice, delivering PPC training and liaising directly with clients are also core elements of his role.
Dave’s extensive Excel knowledge has seen him develop a range of PPC optimisation and reporting tools. A further strength is high-level data analysis, developed while studying for a Master’s Degree in Mathematics.
Sabrina Garufi, Agency Development Manager, Google ‘Marketing in the Age of Assistance’
Sabrina Garufi is currently an Agency Development Manager at Google, helping UK agencies on all aspects of their digital activity, with a particular emphasis on growth.
Prior to working with agencies, Sabrina Garufi was a Consultant for the specialised Global Expansions Team, helping Google’s largest advertisers craft and execute their international expansion strategies.
With a background in Finance, Sabrina Garufi began her career in banking, working for five years as a Corporate Cash Manager. A native of Montreal, she completed her MBA in Berlin before moving to Dublin to join Google.
Fili Wiese is a renowned technical SEO expert, ex-Google engineer and was a senior technical lead in the Google Search Quality team.
At SearchBrothers.com he offers SEO consulting services with SEO audits, SEO workshops and successfully recovers websites from Google penalties.
John Warner, Marketing and Content Executive, Click Consult ‘Stop Wasting Time! 5 Steps to Automate Your Google Analytics Reporting’
John Warner is an internal marketer at Click Consult where he spends his time accruing industry certifications, tinkering with code, plotting strategy and writing articles on all aspects of search marketing.
While having a master’s degree in creative writing and a background predominately in content, John Warner has found himself drawn to the technical side of SEO – developing a passion for data, research, interactivity, artificial intelligence and voice search.
John Warner features regularly on a number of leading search marketing blogs, including regular articles for SEMRush, State of Digital and on the Click Consult blog, he also contributions to the quarterly magazine ‘Benchmark Search Marketing’, occasionally hosts the ‘on.click’ podcast and has spoken at a number of leading UK conferences.
Nick Wilsdon, Search Product Owner, Vodafone ‘Understanding Alexa Skills: How to Add Amazon’s Market-Leading Device Into Your Current and Future Marketing Strategy’
Nick Wilsdon started his online career in 1998, giving his first SEO seminar two years later in Brighton. After moving to Moscow, he became an expert on Russian search, working with gaming clients across CIS markets. During this time he was involved in the Russian start-up community, working with Yandex, RF parliament members and the US State Department.
Since his return to the UK, Nick has held head of department roles at Arena Media, part of the Havas Media Group and within the Dentsu Aegis network. As the SEO lead at Vodafone Group, he is standardising and improving online performance across 22 markets and 55 partner markets. He is particularly interested in mobile SEO, cross-channel campaigns and joining up the dots in a logical way.
The Sunday Talk
Now that I am back in London I wanna tell you something. The Benchmark Search Conference is becoming one of my favourite conferences. On one side this conference is big enough to attract good, quality speakers. On the other side, it’s not that big so people can still have this intimate, one-to-one connection with the speakers and the other attendees.
Talking about connections to everybody who sent me a private message on LinkedIn. I promise you I’m gonna answer your message. But saying that last time I checked I had 129 unanswered messages. So please, please be patient.
While you are waiting to talk to me don’t forget to come back here next week cause you’ve got the problems and I’ve got the solutions.
Although universities can facilitate learning, nobody can teach you anything – they can only inspire you to teach yourself. That means if you want to learn search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll have to take matters into your own hands.
David Edmundson-Bird is Principal Lecturer in Digital Marketing & Enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he runs a number of digital communications programmes and is also the Associate Director for Digital Innovation.
David Edmundson-Bird with Tom Cheesewright and Nick Wilsdon
The one-day event features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including:
Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you.
Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor.
Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks.
David Edmundson-Bird with Nick Wilsdon, Gerry White and John Warner
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return on their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search.
The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Nowadays shopping is a complex, non-linear event for consumers that happens at odd hours across multiple devices and channels – both in apps and on websites. Brands and retailers are struggling to measure the path to purchase because it can be difficult to follow consumers’ touchpoints and track their journeys all the way to conversion.
Sabrina is currently an Agency Development Manager at Google, helping UK agencies on all aspects of their digital activity, with a particular emphasis on growth. Prior to working with agencies, Sabrina was a Consultant for the specialised Global Expansions Team, helping Google’s largest advertisers craft and execute their international expansion strategies.
With a background in Finance, Sabrina began her career in banking, working for five years as a Corporate Cash Manager. A native of Montreal, she completed her MBA in Berlin before moving to Dublin to join Google.
The one-day event features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including:
Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you.
Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor.
Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks.
Sabrina Garufi
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return on their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search.
The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Nowadays there is so much room for creativity in PPC search. Not just that but creativity is often the key difference between success and failure of a campaign. A fun, innovative and well executed PPC campaign can work wonders for your business.
Dave Karellen has been with Click Consult since 2011 and heads up the Paid Search (PPC) team as well as taking responsibility for key PPC accounts. Developing best practice, delivering PPC training and liaising directly with clients are also core elements of his role.
Dave’s extensive Excel knowledge has seen him develop a range of PPC optimisation and reporting tools. A further strength is high-level data analysis, developed while studying for a Master’s Degree in Mathematics.
The one-day event features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including:
Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you.
Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor.
Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks.
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search.
The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Today, storytelling may seem like an old-fashioned tool – and it probably is. But this is exactly what makes it so powerful. Life happens in the narratives we tell one another. A story can go where quantitative analysis is denied admission: our hearts.
Bas van den Beld is an award-winning consultant, trainer and professional speaker who has helped businesses worldwide adapt swiftly to the forever changing media landscape.
He is the founder of State of Digital, one of Europe’s largest online marketing and SEO learning platforms and has worked with big brands, like KLM and Viacom, to develop solid marketing strategies based on the innate understanding of the needs and behaviours of their customers.
The one-day event features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including:
Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you.
Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor.
Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks.
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search.
The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
There are so many reasons to move to HTTPS and apart from the slight ranking boost, Google made it very clear that they really want us to protect our site and our users.
1. Data sent using HTTPS is secured via Transport Layer Security protocol (TLS), which provides three key layers of protection:
Encryption. Encrypting the exchanged data to keep it secure from eavesdroppers. That means that while the user is browsing a website, nobody can “listen” to their conversations, track their activities across multiple pages or steal their information.
2. Data integrity. Data cannot be modified or corrupted during transfer, intentionally or otherwise, without being detected.
3. Authentication. Proves that your users communicate with the intended website. It protects against man-in-the-middle attacks and builds user trust, which translates into other business benefits.
Who is Gerry White?
Gerry White is a technical marketing consultant working with Just Eat supporting SEO on the 14 sites they operate around the world, including apps, mobile, technical and outreach. Ensuring that the sites are organic leaders in the markets they operate in.
With a 17 year history in digital – Gerry has worked on sites from the BBC, McDonalds, Premier Inn and DirectGov in various roles from digital analyst, site search but usually in SEO, as well as spending a large part of his career agency side.
Gerry White also co-runs a digital roundtable conference called Take It Offline which aims to replicate the best of the post-pub conversations, typically in a pub.
The one-day event features world-class speakers that cover all of the need-to-know search marketing topics to develop and advance your brand’s search engine presence, including:
Organic search (SEO) – how to achieve and maintain your brand’s ranking in natural search engine results and ensure your customers can easily find you.
Paid search (PPC) – driving targeted traffic to your website by showing ads in search engine results when people search for related keywords.
Social media – enhancing brand awareness and advocacy to support your search visibility; your social authority is increasingly considered by Google as a ranking factor.
Content marketing – how to be smart with your content campaigns to build trust and credibility by returning relevant answers to search queries, and earning quality backlinks.
Who’s behind Benchmark?
Located in North West England, Click Consult is a multi-award-winning search marketing agency with a focus on organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC). With over 70 professionals employed and a portfolio of over 60 clients from across the UK, Click Consult works with businesses looking for a measurable return from their search marketing budget.
Click Consult also provides a range of other services, including content marketing, inbound marketing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO), as well as international and multilingual search.
The company is Google AdWords and Microsoft adExcellence certified and is on the Recommended Agency Register.
Kristal Ireland
Dave Karellen
Sabrina Garufi
Fili Wiese
John Warner
Nick Wilsdon
