The Sunday Talk – Benchmark Search Conference 2018

The Sunday Talk – The Benchmark Search Conference

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. — 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

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, SEO Expert, SearchBrothers.com
‘Optimising for Search Bots’

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.

15th July 20182nd August 2018

The Sunday Talk – Be The Best You Can Be

This week’s got a very interesting start. Natasha Woodford from ClockworkTalent invited me to The Tower Of London and see the famous Ceremony of the Keys.

Tower of London

The Beefeaters – I am not entirely sure why we call them Beefeaters. Probably like me, they like their steak rare. So the Beefeaters have been performing this ceremony for the last 700 years. Let me repeat this one: 700 years every single night. What a dedication. Nothing like me trying to go to the gym 2-3 times a week for the last 2-3 years.

You don't need much to be happy! — You don’t need much to be happy!

In all honesty, I’ve never been to this iconic building. Never. But as usual, I am not going there for the building or the ceremony. I am going there for the people. Some people are happy when they see an old and beautiful building. Some people are happy when they attend a famous ceremony. In all honesty, I am only happy when I see good, intelligent, funny people like David Iwanow, Lukasz Zelezny or Arriane from Epiphany. Man, I am excited.

David Iwanow with Dom Hodgson, Lukasz Zelezny and Arianne Donoghue

Becoming Who You Are

Meeting Natasha yesterday made me realise how much I’ve changed in the last 4-5 years. Natasha was the first one to interview me for an SEO position and then she sent me to 3 companies for an interview. But I didn’t get the job. The jobs.

So Natasha was the first one to come back to me and tell me ‘You are not good enough. Go and study more’. Now I can go all inspirational and be like ‘She didn’t believe in me. She was trying to put me down but look at me now’. But the simple truth is I didn’t have enough knowledge to be a good SEO. See it doesn’t matter how hard you think you work. It doesn’t matter how smart you think you are. If you think you deserve more, you are wrong. Stop for a second.

Understand who you really are. Accept it so you can empower yourself and be a better version of yourself in the future.

Also, don’t blame anybody for your failures. See life is very simple. Don’t stop taking action until you become who you really want to be.

Who is Zara Altair?

Zara Altair is a Professional Ghostwriter and one of the best Semantic Writing and Marketing professionals out there.

Writer and educator Zara Altair work with website developers and business owners to create semantically oriented text.

The Sniper Mind: Eliminate Fear, Deal with Uncertainty, and Make Better Decisions Book by David Amerland — The Sniper Mind: Eliminate Fear, Deal with Uncertainty, and Make Better Decisions
Book by Mr David Amerland

Find happiness in the misery

It’s not easy saying something smart after Zara. So let me give you some of my thoughts. When it comes to being the best you can be there are two parts: the physical and the emotional. So for example, if I am trying to lose weight the emotional part is telling me all you have to do is stop eating the crap food you are eating every single day. Stop drinking. Start running. But then you go home, it’s Friday evening, you are tired and you just can’t resist this glass of red wine.

See a lot of inspirational speakers only talk about the emotional part. But from my experience, if you don’t satisfy, if you don’t feed both of them you not gonna succeed. So to use the same example if you are trying to lose weight and you are hungry and you are miserable because of that you not gonna do it.

In a way, you have to try and find happiness in the misery.

So it’s like yes I am hungry, yes I am miserable, yes I am down but I am walking towards my goals.

Talking about goals today is a big day. The final of the Football World Cup and it doesn’t get any bigger than that in any sport so – I don’t have a watch – so it’s about time for me to go and meet my friends. But you do come back here next Sunday. In fact do come back here every single day cause if you have questions and issues in Digital Marketing or in life I’ve got the answers.
Bye.

24th June 201811th September 2018

The Sunday Talk – What makes us happy?

The perfect Summer day: the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing…and you are probably not in the UK.
Joking aside, this week I want you to be so happy that when others look at you they become happy too.

Guys, can I say something. I am sorry for interrupting you but I have to say something. Before we start talking about creating powerful, impactful content you must understand something. It’s not about the content. It’s not. It’s all about your audience.

First, you have to know your audience and then you start creating content.

In a way, you must know your audience even more than the subject. If the audience cannot connect to your content, if the audience can not relate to what you are saying, in my opinion, you are wasting your time and money.

Content is like a bridge between you and the customer.

If the bridge looks a little bit shaky the customer may not cross the bridge to give you the money.

Surround yourself with happiness

I am just about to go to Ealing to see a good friend of mine. So I am thinking. Is it me or every time I am surrounded by people I am happy. To add to this every time I am surrounded by happy people I am actually happier.

So to conclude: first try and be more social. Second, surround yourself with people who make you happy.

Life is far too short to be surrounded by miserable people.

On a side note, on a more serious note if you see a friend going from a happy to a miserable state and you think he may suffer from depression don’t run away. Don’t avoid him. Help him. Helping people definitely makes me happy.

Life is far too short to be surrounded by miserable people.

Instagram launches IGTV app for creators

It’s early in the morning but one of the news in my news stream is super exciting. A new video app, yes you’ve heard me, a new video app from Instagram called IGTV. I assume Instagram TV. The first thing I’ve noticed videos should be vertical and they can be up to 10 minutes, yes you’ve heard me, 10 minutes long. I am super excited.

Why does this app exist?

On top of my head and before my first cup of coffee I can give you two main reasons. The first one is people like videos on Instagram. Despite starting as a photo app videos have taken over the platform. So now Instagram is just giving us a better and longer way to watch them.
The second reason and probably the most important: Facebook has been trying to become a video platform for a very, very long time. Ads placed next to videos are significantly more expensive. Whatever the reason I am super excited.

One thing I forgot to tell you. How to watch videos on the new platform. All you have to do is download the new app and connect it to your Instagram profile. As long as you are following me on Instagram you will be able to see my videos straight away. You do follow me on Instagram, don’t you?

Who is Zara Altair?

Internet entrepreneur helping people make money by creating content, capturing leads, and converting to sales.

For years Zara has been helping screenwriters and fiction writers with their stories. If you want help with your story, give her a call at +1 503 468 7008.

Meanwhile, why not watch Mystery Monday.

No One But You Can Make You Happy

Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet.

I really wanted to end up this Sunday Talk on a high. I had an amazing week. Lots of fun. But this morning I woke up to the news that the brother of a friend of mine was killed here in Greenford yesterday morning. I really didn’t know the guy well but what a loss.

If you haven’t realised it yet life is very short. So it’s entirely up to you to make it sweet.

17th June 201821st June 2018

The Sunday Talk – SearchLeeds SEO Conference

The Sunday Talk - SearchElite SEO Conference

Monday morning.
Smile. Send a thank-you email. Call just to see how they’re doing. Pick them flowers. Make them a cup of coffee. Give them a cherished book. Praise them publicly. Help them get ahead. Be proud of them.

How difficult is to make somebody happy?

New summer gloves from ARMR. Let me describe them to you: comfort. Very often when the customer can happily describe your product in one single word you are on the right path to success.
Meanwhile Happy Monday everybody.

Intelligent search and intelligent assistants: Exploring the AI- Era of Search.

Purna Virji, Microsoft.

Who is Purna Virji?

Purna Virji is Senior Manager, PPC Training at Microsoft. Named by PPC Hero as the most influential PPC expert of 2016, Purna specializes in SEM, SEO and Voice Search. With over a decade in search, she is a regular keynote speaker at conferences across the globe such as MozCon and SMX Advanced and is a popular industry columnist. An award-winning former journalist, Purna was the CEO of Purview Marketing prior to joining the Bing Ads team.

Useless projects: Where AI meets human creativity

Rob McGowan, Edit

Who is Rob McGowan?

Rob is a Group Strategy Director at Edit – agency that specialities in customer, data, loyalty and insight strategy, customer engagement, insight-driven marketing, communications planning and execution.

Entities, Search, and Rank Brain: How it works and why it matters.

Kristine Schachinger, Sites Without Walls

Kristine Schachinger with Juan González and Dawn Anderson at Searchleeds — Kristine Schachinger with Juan González and Dawn Anderson

Who is Kristine Schachinger?

Kristine Schachinger is the owner of SitesWithoutWalls.com and the CEO & Founder of The Vetters Agency. Kristine Schachinger has 17 years digital experience including a focus on website design and implementation, accessibility standards and all aspects of website visibility involving SEO, social media and strategic planning.

What lies beneath – ‘The Iceberg Approach’.

Dawn Anderson, Move it Marketing

Who is Dawn Anderson?

Dawn Anderson is an SEO & Search Digital Marketing Strategist focusing on technical, architectural and database-driven SEO. Dawn Anderson is the Managing Director of Move It Digital Marketing Agency, International SEO Consultant, Trainer, Lecturer and Speaker.

How to fix the most common technical SEO issues.

Craig Campbell, CraigCambellSEO

Who is Craig Campbell?

Craig Campbell is an SEO based in Glasgow in the UK who has over 16 years in the industry, starting out as a freelancer working from home to building up a successful digital marketing agency.

In recent years Craig’s focus has changed and is now providing consultancy and training services as well as speaking in any Digital Marketing events to help people learn from the experience Craig has made over the years.

The Mobile First Index: What, why and, more importantly, when!

Jon Myers, DeepCrawl

Who is Jon Myers?

Jon is an experienced senior leader with over 19 years’ experience within the Digital Marketplace working for large corporate organisations to startups within the sector. Jon has a strong understanding of all sides of the market, very strong business and people connections across EMEA and recognised for his experience and thought leadership within the European online advertising industry. Having worked in Paid Search since its inception, with many years’ experience in SEO, Display and Paid Social as well

He is a regular speaker/moderator at conferences worldwide and frequently judges Awards in the Industry. Currently, Jon is the Chief Growth Officer at DeepCrawl.

Will robots destroy us all? Putting ethical debate back into the narrative about the future of AI.

Kristal Ireland, Virgin East Coast Trains

Who is Kristal Ireland?

An experienced digital leader and digital transformation specialist, Kristal Ireland heads up the E-commerce and Retail team at Virgin Trains East Coast. With over a decade of experience in all facets of digital marketing and technology development, she has worked with some of the UK’s biggest brands to define and deliver digital futures fit for the modern day consumer.

SearchLeeds Conference Review

Honestly, guys, I am absolutely knackered. But let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about the conference. SearchLeeds is getting better and better and better every single year. This conference – and it’s free – can compete on so many levels with so many paid conferences in the UK, in Europe and even in the United States.
Stephen Kenwright, Branded3 team honestly guys: Well done!

At the beginning of this week, I asked you to make somebody happy. So today I am thinking: What makes us happy?

And I can’t give you a definite answer as I am still exploring this subject but what I’ve realised so far is that the same thing can make us happy or unhappy at the same time.

Say I busted my knee yesterday. So today I could be like I can’t go to the pub and watch the World Cup. I can’t go and see my friends. I can’t play football. So I am unhappy, I am sad, I am angry. At the same time, I could be like hmm yesterday I busted my knee so today I can stay at home, read my favourite book, learn something new or maybe talk more to my mother and I am happy.

What makes us happy. I will continue exploring this subject. So if you really wanna know I think about happiness please do come back here next Sunday cause maybe my videos make you happy. No. You’ve got the questions and I can give you the answers.

10th June 201821st June 2018

The Sunday Talk – The Search Elite Conference

Hi Guys, I know I am pushing you every Monday to be happy, to work hard but let me also be very real with you: You are not going to fix your life in one single day or in one single week or even in a month.

On a macro level take it easy. On a micro level make one day perfect and then keep doing that every single day.

Happy Monday everybody.

Wednesday morning. On my way to the Search Elite conference. Special thanks to Sistrix for inviting me and giving me the chance to see some of my favourite speakers – Nichola Stott, Gerry White and of course Nick Wilsdon from Vodafone.

Nick’s presentation – How to use voice devices within your marketing strategy

Voice devices have faster adoption rate than mobile phones. This year they have hit the mainstream and should now become part of your marketing mix. Beyond the statistics, Nick will explain how voice can work for your business. What you need to prepare for voice strategies, what are the common pitfalls and how to avoid them. What role should voice play and how can these platforms give you a competitive edge.

Gianna Brachetti-Truskawa’s presentation – AI vs Human Translation in Localisation

Localisation is often misunderstood, or the resource requirements underestimated – we’ll show you what to expect when it comes to localisation and helps you decide why or when human translation might be a better fit.

Fili Wiese’s presentation – Structured Data Explained

Want to know how and which structured data to implement on your website? This no-hype session focuses on SEO tips that will help you move the needle. No complex theory but highly actionable SEO tips. This session will have SEO tips for all levels of experience. Join ex-Google engineer Fili Wiese to learn all about structured data and how to make it work for you and avoid common pitfalls. Having programmed websites and Google internal tools, Fili Wiese is the go-to guy when it comes to technical and international SEO.

Check Nichola Stott’s presentation here.

The Giant Speed Benchmark: Your Emotional Support Dog

We all know that mobile speed matters for user behaviour, conversion and is an important ranking factor; but what do we need to do? Which metrics really matter and how much time and effort should we assign to this?

Data without context is useless.

Because data without context is useless, in this session Nichola Stott gives you an introduction to speed and performance metrics for standard mobile configs, then she reviews the UK’s top 5,000 websites by sector, looking at the benchmark timings across key measurements (TTFB, RenderStart, VC, FL ). This will help give you the confidence and support required to understand “how fast is fast?”

Search Elite Conference Review

I’m gonna be totally honest with you. I am pleasantly surprised and I am eager to return to this conference next year. What started with a simple invite from Craig Rayner ‘Omi, come on over mate. Tell us what you think about our conference’ ended up with a conference that has a clear objective. We gonna show you how to significantly increase your online visibility and make more money from your online business through search marketing.

With Cristina Sturza – www.seomonitor.com

Do I have any suggestions for next? Yes. We need more of Jono Alderson. One hour of him is simply not enough.

We are all focusing on platforms and technology and JavaScript. He (Bart Schutz) very much focuses on emotions, the behaviour of individual human beings and tries to optimise for that rather than the mechanics.

And then Tim who is a bit of anomaly…my words are going. Tim is an anomaly. What is it? Tim is an extraordinarily competent technical optimisation person and the jack of all trades similarly to Gerry.

Julia Logan, Jo Turnbull and Dawn Anderson

Stop Making Excuses!

I am about to go to the gym. I have to be honest with you I haven’t been exercising a lot recently cause I’ve been very busy going to conferences, roundtables, travelling abroad. See finding excuses not to do something is the easiest thing on Earth. Let me repeat that statement.

Finding an excuse not to do something is the easiest thing on Earth.

Which reminds me of a saying: From the moment we are born, we begin to die. So when you think about it time is the most precious thing on earth. Not money, not fame not anything. Time. And the way we spent this time is entirely up to us. So like a CRO expert we have to start asking ourselves – Why?

Why am I spending time watching this pointless sitcom every single day? What’s the ROI? Why am I spending time every single day browsing on my phone instead of reading a book and really learning something new?

Why do I make these excuses?

How do they prevent me from moving forward?

How do they cripple my ability to get what I want?

See to get the right answers you need to ask the right questions.

Talking about questions do come back here next Sunday cause you probably wanna see me losing some weight. No. Cause you’ve got questions and issues in digital marketing and I’ve got the solutions.

27th May 201821st June 2018

The Sunday Talk – Personal Branding

Today on my way back home I was hit by a car. I am ok, honestly, I am ok. The elbow is a bit swollen. It probably needs a bit of icing. So it makes you think. You can die in a blink of an eye. It also makes you think: What is my legacy? What am I actually leaving behind? Let me tell you something. Let your very identity be your legacy. Try an touch as many hearts as you can in your lifetime.

Being good to people is probably the greatest legacy you can leave behind.

I am sorry but I have to completely disagree with this statement. In my opinion, nowadays customers have a natural dislike for big corporations which are often seen a greedy, lying and faceless. On the other hand, yes, on the other hand, personal brands are individuals with unique personal qualities.

The more trustworthy they are the easier will be t generate trust among your shared user base. This can lead to more passionate followers and better initial customer relationships especially if you are trying to penetrate new markets.

Use different personal brands to cater to different audiences

My advice will be to use different personal brands to cater to different audiences. For example, you may want to develop two separate personal brands each of which becomes an expert in two opposite fields. For example, I may like mirrorless cameras. John may like DSLRs. This will greatly help you build niche expertise in separate areas without fully alienating the audience of your core corporate brand.

After talking for an hour about personal branding I realised that people will not listen to you if they don’t like you. How to change that? Well, you have to promise and then you have to deliver.

The importance of your personal brand

Is personal branding important?

Well in a word yes. But in order to understand it completely, we need to talk about two things. We need to talk about Social Identity Theory and Brand Behavioural values. And those two things although they are separate they are actually connected and the moment we take everything online they converge upon the individual and we come to question we are trying to address now.
I can talk about this pretty much all day and we don’t have all day so I am going to be as succinct as possible. Social Identity Theory essentially says that we join groups and we then enhance those groups through a behaviour sharing activity, judgements, biases and so on. Because the more powerful the group and the more enhance it is they are better that reflects upon us.

Brand Behavioural values essentially say that brands behave in very specific ways which project very specific characteristics in a consistent manner which allows that brand to be recognisable.

So if we are working online or even if we are existing online which is an intentional activity we essentially engage in activities which are intended to both enhance us and the groups which we join by association which then reflects back on us and this is classic Social Identity Theory and we also engage upon activities designed to basically make us stand out from the crowd which are essentially copies of brand behavioural, brand behavioural elements.

So, in a nutshell, how do we, what do we do when we get online we use a conflation of those two to enchase our own identity and enchase the groups which we basically join and reflect well upon ourselves. And in a manner of speaking, we are creating personal brands.
So there it is very quickly. I hope it helps.

Building an authentic personal brand

The first and the more important part of building a personal brand is to be authentic. Don’t insult your follower’s intelligence. People can spot a faker from a mile away no matter how convincing you think you are.

When it comes to building your personal brand online the biggest mistake I see is lack of clarity. So let me give you 3 powerful questions to help you a strategic, thoughtful approach to growth.

Who is your target audience?

The first question is ‘Who is your target audience? Who are you trying to reach online? And the answer cannot be everybody cause it just doesn’t work. I am sure you’ve seen this quote online a lot: If you are trying to reach everybody you end up reaching nobody.

What is your value proposition?

The second question is: What is your value proposition? Or in other words what type of content are you posting online and how often?

Who are you and how do you help people?

The third question is Who are you and how do you help people?

These 3 questions are critical to really standing out and getting noticed online.

One thing I wanna say here is:

Building your personal brand you should try and be as human as possible.

So for example, if you are an SEO like me yes you should be also talking about food, good movies, books but if I come to your online profile within 5 seconds I should be able to tell what your core, main value proposition is.

Talking about online profiles, don’t forget to come here next Sunday so you can ask me the questions and I can give you the answers.

13th May 201821st June 2018

The Sunday Talk – Marketing Business Summit 2018 – Milan

What do you do when the weather is so nice? Well, you go to the beach.

What an amazing view.

It’s Tuesday and I have to go to work after 3 days off. And then Alexa woke me up an hour earlier. What a life. But then I think this week gonna be great. Tomorrow I am going to the British Council where I’m gonna be talking about SEO and Digital Marketing. And then on Friday, I am going to another roundtable where I’m gonna be talking about well SEO and Digital Marketing. I think Churchill once said

‘You make a living by what we earn, but you make a life by what you give.’

SEO and Digital Marketing roundtable

Wednesday morning and I am on my way to the British Council to teach them some proper SEO. Basically, we gonna be talking SEO and Digital Marketing trends in the UK. Meanwhile what a lovely weather. Honestly, people, I wish I was actually going to the beach.

Two hours later…

Ok, it’s done now. I had an amazing time at the British Council. The conversation wen wild. We were talking about AMP, JSON-LD, artificial intelligence (AI) just name it. The thing is you are learning from me and I am learning from your questions.

Now that I am at home I’d like to say a big, massive ‘Thank you’ to Ann Hutchings for organising this meeting. I said it earlier today but I will say it again:

I love sharing my knowledge with others because they learn from me but I also learn from their questions.

So this morning I woke up I and so worried – Oh my God, am I gonna be able to give them enough value. Do they know more than me? Do I know more than them? Why do people invite me to these meetings? And then it hit me:

It’s not about how much I know, it’s about how much I care about their Digital Marketing problems and questions.

Marketing Business Summit – Milan 29-30 November 2018

Hi, guys. My name is Omi Sido. I am the senior technical SEO at Canon Europe and this November I will be speaking at the Marketing Business Summit in Milan. I will be talking about SEO and Machine Learning.

We all know that the machine learning revolution is affecting SEO and shaping the future of Digital Marketing so I’m gonna give you some insides and some tips on how to survive and how to succeed in a machine learning driven SEO environment. Guys, I know we gonna have a lot of fun so I hope to see you all there. Ciao.

Yes, yes I am going to Milan this Autumn and I will be talking about SEO and Machine Learning. Why do I talk so much about machine learning? Well, nobody wants to talk about it but at the same time, it affects us all not just in SEO and Digital Marketing but also in real life.

From Google Search to Google Maps to Netflix to Uber to PayPal. Well, Machine Learning is everywhere around us. With that in mind make sure that I am always around you so you can ask me the questions and I can give you the answers.

3rd May 201821st June 2018

HTTPS Migration Gone Wrong

The Homebase website was already dying….why kill it with a bad https migration?!

I am sure you’re wondering how a process that’s supposed to boost your site’s rankings could possibly send them plummeting instead.

Here are some observations:

First, we see pages that are being redirected 4 times – yes 4 times – before reaching their final destination, e.g. http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/bathroom/bathroom-accessories/bathroom-essentials.

From my experience redirect chains do not affect small websites much. Unfortunately for Homebase, their website is big.

When it comes to big websites crawl budget is vitally important.

Every redirect wastes a little bit of a website’s crawl budget. When a website has long redirect chains, i.e. a large number of 301 and 302 redirects in a row, the Googlebot may drop off before it reaches the desired destination page, which means that important business pages may not be indexed. When it comes to redirects have as few as possible on your website, and no more than two in a row.

How many redirects can you do at the same time? We follow up to 5 in a chain (please keep any redirect chain as short as possible), but you can redirect as many URLs on your site as you want at the same time. – JohnMueller, Google

If we deep dive into these redirects it is also quite noticeable that the redirects go from HTTP to HTTPS and then again to HTTP and then again to HTTPS. Not sure why an SEO would do that but at this point, it’s very obvious that there was no HTTPS migration plan in place.

A successful website migration starts with planning – Omi Sido

Could this be the reason for their rankings going in the tank?

Yes and no (this is not the only reason).

Carefully looking at the same starting page http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/bathroom/bathroom-accessories/bathroom-essentials you will probably notice that the original page is targeting the keyword ‘bathroom accessories’ with a search volume of 27 000

and the ‘new’ page is targeting a keyword with a search volume of 14,800.

At this point, I am laughing…

Who is advising these people?

Going into more detail, let’s have a look at the history of the keyword ‘bathroom accessories’ that for many years was always ranking in the top 3 positions for Homebase.

We can now see what is going on here:

Only a week after the HTTPS migration Homebase went from position 3 to position 21 in the SERPs and few months down the line Homebase is ranking in position 97 for the keyword “bathroom accessories”.

It makes you think why they didn’t redirect http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/bathroom/bathroom-accessories/bathroom-essentials to https://www.homebase.co.uk/our-range/bathrooms-and-plumbing/bathroom-accessories-and-decor.

( It’s not very clear from the picture above but at one point between December 2017 and February 2018, this page was indeed ranking for the keyword “bathroom accessories” in position 30)

As this is not enough another page (www.homebase.co.uk/en/static/bathroom-ideas) targeting the keyword ‘bathroom ideas’ with a search volume of 60,500 is now redirecting to the home page. Lol and LOL.

I explicitly told you last year – https://youtu.be/jtgZ5dxYbHM?t=782 – not to redirect pages to the Homepage when migrating your website.

Can these costly mistakes Be Fixed?

If your SEO or web developer mishandles your site migration, can the mistakes be rectified? Of course. In many cases of an HTTPS migration gone wrong, I’ve been working with clients for some time, and we’ve made significant progress.

The real issue is that the ranking destruction done by a website migration gone wrong is almost always a long-term issue.

Finding and repairing the problems isn’t particularly complicated. You just have to look at the stats and everything becomes clear very quickly.

But improving your site’s reputation (especially in a competitive market) with a search engine once’s it’s damaged can be a very slow process, and of course completely at their discretion.

Fixing the technical SEO issues that caused Google to lose trust in your website isn’t enough. A business needs to give Google a good reason to start trusting its content again but also let’s not forget that while your pages were ‘away on holiday’ somebody else took your position in the SERPs.

18th March 201821st June 2018

The Sunday Talk – Adapt or Die

Interview with OnCrawl

New week, new online interview. In about 10 minutes I’m gonna be talking to Emma Labrador about my favourite SEO crawler called OnCrawl. Before you ask me I’m gonna tell you. OnCrawl is a very visual, data-driven SEO tool that can help you build your SEO strategy with confidence. Link in the description.

I used to be a front-end developer and used to build a lot of websites for big companies like for example Vecton Mobile. At the time you know we are talking about 6-7 years ago, even yeah 6-7 years ago there was nothing like Digital Marketing. So very quickly I realised that Internet would be, you know would be big one day and traditional marketing has to evolve. With that in mind at the time, I was building those websites I was, I literally wanted them to be first findable and second be profitable.

And as you know I am still talking a lot about SEO being part of Digital Marketing and not a separate entity.

Or the way I call it “rankings to revenue.”

So basically that’s me Omi Sido. I normally talk about technical SEO, rankings and revenue.

Emma: That’s a good start.

Yeah, I will try to be as serious as possible, ok?

Personal Branding

It's difficult to achieve success without hope and confidence. — It’s difficult to achieve success without hope and confidence – Omi Sido

Emma: And you really, how do you say, you really like to share best practices with the community.

Yes, I am always me. I am always Omi Sido. I am never, you know, I am not afraid to show my strengths and my weaknesses. Because people learn from me and I learn from them. Right? And don’t be afraid to be vulnerable basically. Because we all have weaknesses. Let’s be honest. This is why I said you have to really find your strengths, your weaknesses and you have to kind of make a, find a way to make them visible. When people see you as a human being online they like you.

Emma: That’s true.

Omi: Sounds very serious.

Emma: What are you doing in your free time when you are not doing SEO?

Teamwork in Digital Marketing

I know I don’t talk a lot about it and it may seem online that I do everything on my own. But the truth is I am surrounded by a bunch of very good people. Teamwork is essential to success and growth. And I know there are a lot of people out there who think they can do it all on their own but the truth is they can’t.

Having a good team of individuals around you not only helps you to stay grounded but it also enables you to think in different ways.

Tuesday evening. Eight o’clock. A lot of my mates went to the pub to watch the game, you know, Real Madrid PSG. But me no no no no no no. I am collecting my new drill.

You know you are getting old when you are excited about a new drill.

What is RankBrain?

Somebody just asked me online “Omi, can you describe RankBrain in one sentence? Describing RankBrain in one sentence is not an easy job. On the other side, if you can’t describe something in one sentence you probably don’t know it well. With that in mind, my answer would be.

RanBrain: give your audience the best content and work your hardest to get them to stay on your page.

How to Start a Career in Digital Marketing

Today I wanna give a big, massive shout out to Liam Fallen. “I’ve just started my first Technical SEO role today. Aiming to have a career like you mate!”
Liam, your words mean a lot to me. It feels so unreal that somebody actually wants to be like me. I’ve started my Digital Marketing journey because of a guy named David Amerland. And I still remember all the advice he gave me in the beginning. So today I’m gonna give you my advice.

From today hard work, numbers and creativity should be your best friends. In fact, they should be your only friends.

The best travel mug

Guys, have you seen my new coffee mug from Bodum? Such a great idea. You just put some coffee, you pour some hot water, you screw the lid, you wait for 3 minutes and you press. Freshly brewed coffee anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, something that I’ve noticed this morning. Time in New York and no search results. Google, thank you very much. How shall we call this new feature? Voice search in the SERPs.

What’s Hot in Digital in 2018?

This was Apple big update last year in about the third quarter. But going all the way through to being able actually to update your sit on a flight. To have that capability in a messaging App when we think about messaging kind of in our heads is a little bit more as text originally. We go from texting into basically an App.
Yes, it’s messaging. Yes, you are talking to it but it’s doing all the things that you used to do in an App. And actually, this is just what WeChat did 3-4 years ago now. I mean it’s really we are copying WeChat where there were years ago. The other thing that Apple has launched…

All Toys R Us stores to close their doors

Unfortunately, this week the store that we all remember from our childhood Toys “R” Us decided to close all its stores across the UK and the USA forever.
I know a lot of people are mentioning a lot of reasons online for the collapse of the toy giant but let me tell you the real story. The real story is: Toys “R” Us never believed in the Internet.

First, in early 2000 they outsourced themselves to Amazon which literally forced everybody to start buying from Amazon rather than the Toys “R” Us network.
Second, the never really adapted to the new business online e-commerce reality.If Toys “R” Us the dominant niche retail leader in a multi-billion industry is dead what do you think it’s gonna happen with your business in the next 5 years?

Or in short “Adapt or Die.”

On a more happier note next week I am going to my favourite city Paris where I’m gonna be talking about Technical SEO. But you do come back here next Sunday cause you’ve got the problems and I’ve got the solutions.

4th March 201821st June 2018

The Sunday Talk – I Do Technical SEO

It’s all set and ready for my first ever SEO podcast with Click Consult – a top Digital Marketing agency based in the North of England. In about half an hour I’m gonna be talking to Chloie Brandrick about technical SEO. If you wanna know more about technical SEO you have to listen to my first ever SEO podcast.

Technical SEO

You’ve probably heard me many times saying that SEO should never live in isolation. And I see this a lot. I see a lot of blogs out there, a lot of the so-called SEO influencers talking about SEO like SEO is the only thing in Digital Marketing. You know. Which is so wrong. I’ve said it many times:

SEO should be the heart of every company but it’s not the only thing that’s gonna make you successful online.

The Google RankBrain Algorithm

Recently every time I come to central London I would be visiting my SEO agency. So naturally, my brother thinks that every time I come to central London I am visiting my SEO agency which is basically not true.

Now apply the same logic to RankBrain – a machine learning algorithm – and you get the following. If in your industry – and I will repeat this one – in your industry, a big percentage of your audience is interacting with short-form content than naturally, RankBrain would think that short-form content is the best for your industry. If a big percentage of your audience is interacting with a long-form content naturally RankBrain would think that long-form content is the best thing for your industry.

So if you want to be successful online you have to know your audience.

One of my followers on LinkedIn just asked me. Omi, when did you decide that your videos are good enough to upload online? Jeff, mate, I didn’t decide anything. One day I just grabbed my camera and I started shooting.

Don’t wait for perfection. Decide what you want. Make a plan and work on it every single day.

This camera costs me only £100. Look around me I don’t even have a microphone. Cause it’s not about the equipment. It’s all about the story.

What is NAS (Network Attached Storage)?

No. No. I am not hiding from my momma. Although this morning I ate a whole jar of Nutella and I am not going to the gym. I am actually trying to. I am playing with my new toy. My new NAS box from Synology.

It seems to me that a lot of friends and a lot of colleagues don’t’ know what NAS is. NAS is a Network-attached storage.

Basically, you’ve got this small box that you can hide in the cupboard and it acts like a cloud service. So if in the year 2018 you are still paying for cloud services – Dropbox or you are paying money to Google Drive you are definitely doing it wrong.

You can access this thing from anywhere in the world. You can connect it to your mobile all the photos that you take are automatically uploaded on this device so basically, your storage here is always it’s always good.

Vero has taken the social app world by storm

Hi Guys, today is a beautiful day. I know it’s snowing outside and it’s cold and it’s miserable but there is this new social media App that is generating so much buzz. It’s called Vero. Some people say that this App is the new Instagram. I don’t think so. Some people say that this App will kill Instagram. I don’t think so. But I like it. I like it a lot. I just love the idea of a social media app where the algorithm doesn’t tell you what’s good for you. Where everything just comes in a chronological order. And the pictures they look good in portrait or in landscape mode. It’s free for the first one million users so go subscribe straight away.

As it’s super cold outside I hope you can see my bike – it’s covered in snow – let’s do couch SEO.

What is data, and why it’s so important?

Data is simply another word for information.

The best way to describe the word information is by its synonyms – intelligence, guidance, knowledge and last but not least direction. By examining large amounts of information, it is possible to uncover hidden patterns and correlations.
So to answer the question above – data allows businesses to make informed/intelligent decisions about future projects or business directions.

What is technical SEO? And why is it important?

In the last two weeks, I’ve spent a lot of fo time talking about technical SEO. I’ve done a podcast on technical SEO. My first ever SEO podcast. I’ve done two webinars, two roundtables and I’ve written two articles on technical SEO. One may say that Omi is trying to push his agenda. Well, you know me better than that. As long as we are talking about SEO I am happy. But you must have an effective SEO strategy. An effective SEO strategy that leads to more organic visits, more qualified leads, better brand awareness and ultimately more revenue.

If your SEO program isn’t providing all of these benefits you are probably allocating too much time to the wrong tasks.

So what is my favourite SEO framework? I am a big fan of the 80/20 framework. You should be spending 80% of your time doing engagement SEO and 20% of your time doing technical SEO. But when I say 20% I mean 20% of solid technical SEO. No ifs, no buts!
Technical SEO is still the foundation of all SEO efforts. And only when you have a solid technical SEO foundation you should be shifting your focus to engagement SEO.

Guys, it’s Sunday. My team is playing. I am going to the PUB to watch the game with my mates. And I am having an amazing day. And if I am having an amazing day you should be having an amazing day. With that in mind, do come back here next Sunday cause, cause I love spending time with you.