Announcing the shortlist of 2017 Search Engine Land Awards nominees

The 3rd annual competition puts the spotlight on SEO & SEM professionals at the top of their game.

For the third consecutive year, the selection process in the Search Engine Land Awards became even more difficult, as the field of competition grew to nearly 300 worthy submissions from leading digital agencies, in-house marketing teams and individuals around the world.  

Michelle Robbins, the newly appointed SVP of content and editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, was incredibly impressed by the depth and scope of entries in this year’s competition. “As a first-time judge, having the opportunity to pull back the curtain and examine the campaigns executed by some of the top search marketers in the industry was inspiring. The work done, creativity expressed and results achieved demonstrate what a truly talented community it is that we serve.”

Robbins and Ginny Marvin, associate editor at Search Engine Land, will also co-host this year’s awards presentation.

Marvin, now in her third year of judging the growing field of applicants, added, “The consistently sophisticated, creative and inspiring quality of the campaigns submitted for the awards this year made judging a true honor. There is incredible work happening in search marketing, and the entries this year exemplify that.”

Independent research firm Clutch.co vetted the top candidates in the Agency of the Year categories for the second year in a row. Tim Clarke of Clutch noted the increasing quality of the work submitted. “We were especially impressed by the volume of metrics and quantifiable evidence of success from all the 2017 submissions. The dedication to client service, communication and innovation stood out from this year’s entries. The agencies that entered truly are cutting edge.”

And the finalists are …

In alphabetical order by category:

Best Retail Search Marketing Initiative — SEM

• Adtaxi for a pet retailer (client name withheld)
• Brainlabs for London Theatre Direct
• PMG for a luxury apparel retailer (client name withheld)
• Resolution Media Canada for Sport Chek
• Wolfgang Digital for Littlewoods Ireland

Best Retail Search Marketing Initiative — SEO

• Digital Third Coast for a home & garden retailer (client name withheld)
• Go Fish Digital for Bella Ella Boutique
• iCrossing for a pet retailer (client name withheld)
• Nebo for Buy-Rite
• Nina Hale, Inc. for Room and Board

Best Local Search Marketing Initiative — SEM

• DAC Group for Bridgestone Retail Operations 
• Local Search Masters for child development programs (client name withheld)
• LSEO for Manhattan CryoBank
• Merkle | Periscopix (UK) for Housekeep
• Resolution Media Canada for Belron Canada

Best Local Search Marketing Initiative — SEO

• Blue Wheel Media for Monark Premium Appliance Co.
• Odd Dog Media for a Puget Sound Region Healthcare System (client name withheld)
• Single Interface for PizzaHut (India)
• Trimark Digital for  Fairview Garden Center
• Workshop Digital for The Compass School

Best Mobile Search Marketing Initiative — SEM

• Elite SEM for American Home Shield
• Merkle (US) for Custom Ink
• Northern Commerce for Oxford Learning Center
• Precis Digital for Zmarta
• Pure Oxygen Labs for WEC Energy Group

Best Mobile Search Marketing Initiative — SEO

• 97th Floor for Lawn Doctor
• Back Azimuth for Absolut Drinks
• iProspect for TEN: The Enthusiast Network
• Wolfgang Digital for Zurich Life

Best B2B Search Marketing Initiative — SEM

• EliteSEM for Revel Systems
• Ledger Bennett for Linkedin
• Media Horizons for Lightning Labels
• Millipore Sigma
• Reprise Media for Stericycle

Best B2B Search Marketing Initiative — SEO

• BMC Software
• iCrossing for Republic Services
• inSegment (client name withheld)
• NICE inContact
• Overit (client name withheld)

Best Overall SEO Initiative — Small Business

• Chris Beck SEO Consulting for Highland Pharms
• Djital Search for Chicago Steak Company
• Power Digital Marketing for PlushCare
• Stone Temple Consulting for kimkim Travel
• Trimark Digital for Fairview Garden Center

Best Overall SEM Initiative — Small Business

• Hallam Internet for Brand Outlet
• Merkle | Periscopix (UK) for Housekeep
• Nina Hale, Inc. for Mazuri® Exotic Animal Nutrition
• Publicis North America for Doctors of the World
• Todd Silverstein for WipeRecord, a division of Eastman Meyler, PC.

Best Overall SEO Initiative — Enterprise

• Edible (a division of Edelman Digital) for the Florida Department of Citrus
• iCrossing for DirectTV
• Reprise Media for a fortune 100 insurance company (client name withheld)
• SapientRazorfish for H&R Block
• Wolfgang Digital for Zurich Life

Best Overall SEM Initiative — Enterprise

• Cloudflare
• Jellyfish (client name withheld)
• Nebo for Brookdale
• Nebo for Mobile World Congress 2017
• Point It for PEMCO

Best Enterprise SEM Initiative — Travel & Lifestyle

• Mediahub for Royal Caribbean
• Smarter Ecommerce for Eventim
• Travel Tripper for ROW NYC Hotel
• Trimark Digital for Pinehurst Resort
• Wolfgang Digital for Dublin Airport

Best Enterprise SEM Initiative — Financial Services

• Eden Advertising for The National Benefit Authority
• Merkle (US) for Metlife
• Precis Digital for Zmarta
• Spark Foundry for Morgan Stanley

Best Enterprise SEM Initiative — B2B

• iCrossing for Qlik
• Mediative for Ruby Receptionists
• Mediative for Shortel
• Metric Theory for Servicemax
• Optum, a division of United Healthcare Group

Best Enterprise SEM Initiative — B2C

• Beeby, Clark + Meyler for Marriott
• Brainlabs for Domino’s EuroPizza
• Horizon Media for Safelite AutoGlass
• Merkle (US) for HBO Now
• Point It for PEMCO

Best Integration Of Search Into Cross-Channel Marketing

• LSEO for Manhattan CryoBank
• Power Digital Marketing for CannaPet
• Precis Digital for Daniel Wellington
• Spark Foundry for Morgan Stanley
• Wolfgang Digital for Littlewoods Ireland

Best Overall Search Marketing Initiative — SEO & SEM

• AARP
• HiveMinds (client name withheld)
• Nebo for Gas South
• Web Full Circle (client name withheld)
• Wolfgang Digital for Littlewoods Ireland

Search Marketer Of The Year — Female

• Chelsea Ashe, Merkle (US)
• Kerry Curran, Catalyst / GroupM
• Genevieve Head-Gordon, Metric Theory
• Laetitia Kieffer, Catalyst/GroupM
• Lily Ray, Women’s Marketing

Search Marketer Of The Year — Male

• Dan Gilbert, Brainlabs
• Aaron Levy, EliteSEM
• John Lincoln, Ignite Visibility
• Manny Rivas, AimClear
• John Shehata, Condé Nast

In-House Team Of The Year — SEM

• Comcast
• Flight Centre Travel Group Australia
• Macy’s
• Millipore Sigma
• UPMC Health Plan

In-House Team Of The Year — SEO

• Comcast Xfinity
• Conde Nast
• Millipore Sigma
• Thermo Fisher Scientific

Agency Of The Year — SEM

• iProspect
• Kubix Digital
• Merkle (US)
• Metric Theory
• wPromote

Agency Of The Year — SEO

• HigherVisibility
• Merkle (US)
• VML
• Wolfgang Digital
• Workshop Digital

Winners will be announced during an evening awards ceremony and celebratory gala held on October 25, 2017, in New York City. The gala takes place during the week of Search Engine Land’s annual SMX Conference, where the search industry gathers for continuing education on best practices in SEO and search advertising.

The Search Engine Land Awards Gala is produced by Third Door Media, with the support of Marquee Sponsor Google. A portion of proceeds from the event benefit charity, with Third Door Media guaranteeing a minimum donation of $5,000 this year’s selected organization, Women Who Code.

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Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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What is customer marketing?

Maybe it’s time to rethink your approach...

B2B marketers are focusing more and more on making sure their customers are successful after they’ve signed the contract and started using your product or service.

This renewed attention helps in a couple of ways. First, successful customers are happy customers, and they are more likely to renew with you. The second reason is that successful, happy customers are also great advocates for your brand.

“Your best salespeople aren’t on your payroll,” said Jill Rowley, speaker, startup advisor and social selling evangelist, on the Rethink Podcast. “They’re your customers who are willing to advocate for your brand, your company, your solution, your people.”

It’s where the worlds of customer marketing and customer success collide. At Act-On, we see this falling in the Expand (retention) phase of marketing, joining Brand (awareness) and Demand (acquisition). All three phases are important, and they feed into the success of the others.

As a view into how some people think of marketing, Act-On is releasing a series of videos styled in the “Big Short” style, using metaphors to humorously explain Brand, Demand and Expand and how marketing automation can help marketers adapt to the ever-changing buyer’s journey.

In the Expand video, we discuss the importance of customer marketing, or what the video describes as sustainable marketing … dude.

In recent years, there has been a shift in B2B marketing from looking at customer marketing as an activity to leverage customers to supporting lead generation activity through case studies, reference calls and so forth. And while that is necessary, today’s modern marketer is recognizing the importance of ensuring their customers’ success so that they are more likely to renew with you, more likely to speak at your event and more likely to tell their peers about you.

“A lot of companies still see customer marketing as supplying references to the sales team when they need it; for getting customers to be quoted in a press release; for getting customers to get up on stage at your annual conference; or to speak to an analyst,” said Stephen Schleifer, Act-On’s senior director of customer marketing.

“That is just the tip of the iceberg with customer marketing. There is a lot of untapped potential most organizations are not realizing by being able to engage with their customer base way beyond those kind[s] of very lead gen and pre-sales types of activities, including online communities, customer advisory boards, advocacy programs, product adoption, upsell campaigns and events.”

Research from Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, inventor of the net promoter score, which was published in the Harvard Business Review, has found that acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than keeping a current customer. And increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25 percent to 95 percent.

“I love this quote from the Forrester Research in the B2B Loyalty the B2C Way report,” said Schleifer. “They say, ‘It’s time to expand the focus of B2B engagement to the entire customer relationship, including loyalty and retention, which are not traditional priorities for B2B marketers.’”

And in this world of tweets and Facebook live streams, it’s critical to recognize the importance of your customers as ambassadors for your brand when they are talking with their peers.

“Being able to get customers to validate a lot more of what you’re doing is very, very important,” Schleifer said. “You’re really kind of approaching it from we’re successful as a company because we’ve been able to help our customers be successful. The more successful they are using the platform, the more it’s able to deliver on their business objectives, then the stickier it becomes to them as a must-need business tool, and the more they’re going to say, ‘Hey, I’m realizing value and this technology platform is a big part of that.’”

By using a marketing automation workspace like Act-On, marketers are able to grow their customer relationships after the sell in a number of ways, from automating the customer onboarding process through nurture emails to sending emails about product adoption, new features or training opportunities. You can score and measure their engagement with you, whether they are attending a training webinar, opening your nurture emails or sharing your social posts.

By leveraging your marketing automation, CRM and ERP data, you can also better understand when a customer is ready for an upsell or cross-sell. You can use your marketing automation to deploy surveys to gauge their satisfaction and get feedback on your products. From here, you can identify prospective brand advocates.

“There are lot of ways we’re focused on making sure we are engaging with the customer after that contract has been signed, but before that renewal process starts. We’re working on targeting communications and programs based upon where a customer is at in their product use and adoption lifecycle — it’s a highly personalized approach. We want to make sure customers are continuing to adopt, use, and see value,” Schleifer said. “We want our customers to get the most value out of their investment that they can.”

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The future of paid voice search and monetizing the map

Ads are coming to voice search sooner than you think. Columnist Brian Smith discusses what this might mean for local businesses, as well as SEO and SEM professionals.

Last year, Google introduced local search ads and promoted pins to wring a few extra dollars out of Maps. By extra, I mean potentially an additional $1.5 billion in 2017 alone. Maps inherently have local intent; local intent has a high likelihood for conversion. No surprises there.

But ads run counter to a quality user experience.

We as advertisers can perform all the mental gymnastics we want, but the truth is, ads are a nuisance. Especially on maps. When you’re looking for a location, the last thing you want to see is a map resembling a pincushion or a shotgun’s scatter pattern. Striking the right balance between organic and paid listings is critical.

Unfortunately, as the screen size shrinks, the challenge of balancing paid and organic gets magnified on the map. On desktop, there aren’t so many paid ads that you can’t find organic listings. In fact, it’s almost a happy compromise. You get to use Google’s mapping services for free; Google gets to turn a profit. Fair deal.

With mobile devices, populating local searches with ads becomes less user-friendly. Paid ads shove organic listings toward irrelevancy, and small businesses can’t always afford to pay for those critical ad spots. Still, it’s workable.

But voice search is becoming a fundamental aspect of local search. And voice search tends to eliminate the screen entirely. This creates two problems. One, how do Google, Microsoft and Amazon display a map without a screen? And two, how do they make money off the map if you can’t see it?

Problems with visualizing the map

When it comes to general knowledge queries, you can get by without a screen. Ask a search engine what’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, and it will simply tell you the answer (assuming you’ve specified African or European).

But the visual component of a map is rather critical. Sure, Google will read us directions when we’re driving, and we function (more or less) without looking at the map on our phones. But this is after we’ve made a decision to go somewhere, not before it. When you conduct a voice search for nearby restaurants, it’s difficult to choose a location if there’s nothing visual to look at.

This is the problem with in-home digital assistants like Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Are we just supposed to wait patiently while the digital assistant reads us a laundry list of 10 nearby locations before deciding? Doubt it. Are we simply going to trust the one location the digital assistant serves up? Probably not — even if someday that’s possible.

With Big Data and predictive analysis, search engines will get pretty darn good at serving optimized search results for each user. On the surface, this seems like a great way to winnow down the number of search results.

Only there’s a problem. Google and the others don’t rely on you picking the best answer; they rely on you picking the paid answer. Once you get to a certain point, providing optimized organic results runs counter to the business models of these companies.

So that brings us to the real question: How will Google, Amazon and the others make money from paid voice search?

Problems with paid voice search

The problem with selling ads through voice search, whether they have local intent or not, is that it erodes user trust. If the only answer Amazon Alexa provides is an ad, why would you trust any of its search results?

Granted, no search engine would be foolish enough to go this extreme route. But even if you’re giving only one paid answer to every three organic results, it’s no longer easy to ignore those paid results with voice search. With a screen, your eye can skip right over those ads in a matter of milliseconds. But with voice search, you’ll have to wait seconds to listen through an ad. Sure, we do it on YouTube and television. But we don’t like it. And we certainly won’t like it if we came to the digital assistant for a specific answer, not entertainment, and we still have to listen through an ad just to get an answer.

So how will search engines solve the paid search conundrum? With a screen, of course — only a virtual one.

Virtual and augmented reality — the screens of the future

There’s no doubt that the brain trusts at Google, Microsoft and Facebook have been thinking about this problem for a long time. There’s a reason that all of these companies are pushing hard into virtual and augmented reality.

With the exponential growth of connected devices hitting over 20 billion by the end of the decade, more users will expect to interact with their devices without a screen, fueling the rise of voice search. But we still need screens if Google and the others want to turn a profit. Otherwise, we won’t be able to rapidly process information to make our decisions.

The most likely solution will be to simply project a screen in virtual and augmented reality. This will allow you to visualize the map, or any other product or service you’re considering buying, only you’ll be doing it without ever touching a mouse or a screen.

In the short term, your smartphone screen will provide the same function as your future virtual screen. In the long term, expect to see augmented and virtual reality glasses to take your phone’s place. Don’t be surprised when you start seeing more products like Google Glass popping up.

Other solutions to the paid voice search conundrum include selling digital assistants as a service or these companies simply choosing not to monetize voice search and the map. The first option raises huge ethical questions about who gets access to digital assistants. The second option would be asking Google and Amazon to pass up a chance to make money. Neither is a likely alternative.

What should search marketers do?

Ads are coming to voice search sooner than you think. Last week, Amazon already started toying with the idea of selling ads on Alexa. Still, my advice for marketers is to begin optimizing for organic voice search. In the future, organic listings won’t go away; they’ll just be harder to earn.

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Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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Improve search rankings and increase productivity with local marketing automation software

Managing online citations, claimed and unclaimed listings, reviews and ratings, landing pages and data feeds for hundreds or thousands of locations has become time-consuming and costly for enterprise brands. Automating these processes can improve search rankings, increase productivity and lower CPCs due to better SEO.

Marketing Land’s “Enterprise Local Marketing Automation Platforms” examines the market for local marketing automation platforms. The 50-page report reviews current trends and issues in enterprise local marketing automation, including omnichannel marketing, tag management and mobile measurement and optimization.

Also included in the report are profiles of 17 leading enterprise local marketing automation vendors, pricing charts, capabilities comparisons and recommended steps for evaluating and purchasing.

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BrightLocal opens its 2016 local SEO survey to see how the industry has changed over the last year

Survey questions cover everything from SEO agency size and revenue to services offered and retainer fees.

BrightLocal has posted its annual local SEO survey, asking SEO professional to answer 22 questions about the state of the local search marketing industry.

Questions range from the size of the survey participant’s company and its annual revenue to services offered and retainer fees.

“The goal of this survey is to help us gain a better understanding about the evolution and changes in the local search marketing industry, and what the mood and outlook is for local SEO in 2017 and beyond,” wrote a BrightLocal spokesperson in an email to Search Engine Land.

BrightLocal says it will share survey results with the participants, its customers, followers and the SEO industry at large on January 18, 2017. Survey responses will be collected until January 15, 2017, and anyone who completes the survey can enter their email address for a chance to win a $1,000 Visa gift card.

The survey can be completed on BrightLocal’s website at: Local SEO Industry Survey 2016.

Last year’s BrightLocal survey results were covered on Search Engine Land by the company’s founder and CEO Myles Anderson: 78% Of SEOs Believe That 2016 Is Going To Be A “Great” Year For Business

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Digital assistants, conversational search and the future of local

As digital assistants like Alexa and Google Home become more popular, how can local search marketers adapt? Columnist Brian Smith shares his tips.

Traditional search has us conditioned to speak like cavemen: choppy sentences, verbs optional. But that’s all starting to change with the rise of digital assistants and conversational search.

Conversational search comes with the expectation that digital assistants will actually converse with us. Our primitive two-word queries (grunts and hand gestures included) have evolved into full-fledged, honest-to-goodness questions.

The age of digital assistants is upon us. For practitioners of local SEO, here’s everything you need to know to thrive in this new environment.

The impact of digital assistants on local search

The most common way we’ll interact with digital assistants is through voice search. The problem with voice search is that it makes having a screen optional. You can receive your answers from digital assistants without ever having to read a word of it.

This puts greater pressure on brands to have the best answer, as there is no guarantee how many results will be read.

While the absence of a screen will impact both general and local search, conversational search clearly favors local. After all, general knowledge queries will simply be answered, resulting in few opportunities to lure customers back to your site.

For example, when you ask Google Assistant a general knowledge query, it answers the question and gives a shoutout to the original source, but it doesn’t dump you on the source’s website. If you have a follow-up question, the digital assistant will run a new search and answer that question with the best source available. This may or may not come from the same source as the first question.

General search queries will not drive as much traffic as they used to. You may have written an excellent white paper that ranks well with traditional screen-based search, but a digital assistant will only pull what is needed from your paper without the user needing to visit the page. This will undoubtedly cut into profits from general search traffic and related PPC ads.

But digital assistants are less likely to disrupt local search. The very nature of local search is its local intent. If you ask about a nearby restaurant, there’s a good chance you intend to go there. Any follow-up question will also be about that location. As such, the specific location should be the source that the digital assistants pull from.

Thus, digital assistants will not erode the profitability of local search like it will with general search. If anything, digital assistants are far more likely to drive local sales, especially considering how effective chatbots have been at doing the same thing.

But there’s a catch. You must rank high enough in local search to be selected by the digital assistant. While the competition for the top organic local spots will be fierce, here are 10 steps you can take to encourage digital assistants to pick you as the right answer.

1. Optimize your location data

Getting your location data in order for all of your locations will be key. Digital assistants will still be only as good as the data that they have. That means making sure your data is always updated and correct, as well as consistent across the web.

2. Speak the language of the digital assistants

If you want the digital assistants to choose you in local search, it’s critical that you make it easy for them to gather and understand your page content. Be sure to use structured data markup (using schema.org vocabulary) on your local landing pages. If you’re not implementing schema, now is the time to do so.

3. Fill out all relevant business categories for Google My Business

You’ll need to make it easy for digital assistants to find your name, address and phone number (NAP), of course — but that’s not all. You should make your Google My Business (GMB) profile as complete as possible, filling in all the other data attributes specific to your locations. If you have outdoor seating, but you haven’t entered it into GMB, you aren’t likely to rank for those queries. Don’t handicap yourself by not getting credit for the things your business already does.

4. Focus on the broader picture

The complexity of location data will continue to expand. At the same time, digital assistants will get better at finding that information. Be sure that you’re maintaining your local search ecosystem. Keep ahead of your location data, wherever it may be found.

5. Cultivate reviews

As users rely more on reviews for verifying the quality of a business or product, so, too, will search engines. Make sure you’re monitoring reviews and addressing complaints quickly. More importantly, cultivate reviews from satisfied customers by asking them for feedback.

6. Enable API connectivity

It will be critical for brands to connect directly to digital assistants. Right now, digital assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are new enough that users don’t necessarily expect an API connection for completing transactions. But this is rapidly changing, and brands that don’t streamline these transactions will be left out in the cold.

7. Find your niche

Examine each competitive search environment on its own when looking to improve your SEO performance. Artificial intelligence is starting to delineate ranking factors among markets. After all, a quality retail website is likely to look different from that of a quality restaurant. Stay niche.

8. Target long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are going to be crucial for PPC and the future of local search. Improve the targeting accuracy of your bids by choosing the best answers that have local intent and the highest probability of conversion. Remember, conversational search is moving us beyond the parlance of cavemen. Take advantage of it by targeting keywords that incorporate natural speech patterns.

9. Be willing to experiment

As I stated in a previous article, once you have the basics down, SEO is mostly trial and error to drive improvements. Be a data scientist and try new experiments. Always strive for improvements.

10. Write in a conversational tone

Digital assistants often read your answers out loud. Make sure your website copy sounds natural — that means it is written for humans first, not search engines. Always read your copy aloud before publishing.

Final thoughts

Local search will continue to transform as digital assistants and conversational search becomes mainstream. However, if you apply the above steps, you should thrive in this new era of SEO.

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