Top Takeaways from MozCon

MozCon 2019 just ended this Wednesday. So why wait until Friday to post this? Honestly, I needed time to digest it all and make sure I don't ramble this entire post.

Let me start by briefly explaining what MozCon is. MozCon is a 3-day conference for Marketing and SEO professionals hosted by Moz. This year it was held in Seattle and had 27 sessions. If you are thinking that none of this will pertain to you because your current role has nothing to do with search, you're wrong. Sorry, there's no easy way of saying that. I would even argue that a few of these will pertain to professionals outside of marketing. We have to stop being siloed, even by way of thinking, if we want to be successful.

Now that that's out of the way, let's dig into some of the top takeaways this year:

1. Stop Worrying About Whether Something Is "Dead"

We've all heard these phrases before: "Mobile has killed desktop" or the one I saw even this morning, "15-Second videos are dead. Long-live long video."

Rather than worrying about whether something is "dead", focus on how it's evolved. TV didn't die with the introduction of mobile phones and apps. Instead, people are watching TV on their mobile phones and apps. As Douglas Adams once said, "Don't panic." Jumping ship from one medium, format, trend to another without good reason will just create more work for your team and not necessarily see any results. Which leads me to point two.

2. Test, Test, and Test Again

While testing sounds like a common-sense idea, how often do you face roadblocks to this? A common excuse is resources, either manpower or financially. Well, as Rob Ousey showcased, split testing can be done efficiently and doesn't have to be taken out-of-house. As an example, while having a controlled set of pages and the test pages, update the variable pages' title tags and metadata and test for change. Rob's team was able to see changes in just 2-4 days. And the beauty of SEO testing, you can revert. If there is a decrease over a week, change it back. There was no change but you prefer the old style, have at it. One of the best statements made about testing (and the way we work as a whole) was this: "Periodically challenge your beliefs" (Rob Ousey).

This aligns well with Heather Physioc's presentation that coalesces in the next point.

3. A Stagnant Mindset will Stand in the Way of Success

I have a new mantra and will create a nice inspiration poster out of this statement that Heather said, "No process is precious". (If I could enter an OOOHHH gif here, I would. You know the one I'm talking about.)

But in all seriousness, staying the same because it's comfortable or it works well enough, will only get you good enough and then eventually nothing at all. As Andy Crestodina expertly put it, “Good content is amazing and bad content is essentially worthless.”

But this isn't just about content, it's also about teams and how you work with others. It is an active effort to not be in a silo. It takes time and energy. You have to work collaboratively. "Collaborative" is a word that's been overused in recent years but it boils down to this: collaborative is a mindset. You have to think about others and make a conscious effort into being a better team. Once you do that, you'll produce at a higher quality and more productively. Speaking of productivity, on to the next point.

4. Repurpose Your Work

This was brought up in more than one presentation. Creating new content is time consuming, so do it right the first time, then "remix" your work. This also goes for testing, data, reports. Learn what works and use it at scale. (Shout out to Dana DiTomaso for showing off Google DataStudio.)

This is probably the most actionable item on my list. Take what works and put it to use in different ways. If it is your top-performing content asset, use it in a different format. Example: Your top blog post is "5 Things to Know Before Buying a House", turn that into an infographic. Parse it into bite-size pieces to share on social.

5. Don't Ignore Zero Clicks and Featured Snippets

While you're repurposing content, update it. Optimize for "zero clicks". Nearly half of all Google searches are zero-click searches. (Thanks to Rand Fishkin for all the great data, which you can see here.) Before freaking out about the idea of not having your page clicked on, think about this, featured snippets are becoming more prominent as well as voice search. If you can answer a searcher's question, do it. Be concise and clear. You will have a better chance of being apart of the featured snippet (which are not attributed to clicks) and it provides a better user experience. Sarah Bird, the fearless leader of Moz, summed it up by saying "Think like Google thinking like a searcher." We have to be more user-focused. "People want answers more than they want websites" (Cindy Krum) and Google knows this. The web will continue to evolve in this way.

6. Accessibility and Inclusion are More Than Design and Alt Text

As I just mentioned, we need to be thinking about the user. Users are diverse. They have different ideologies, cultures, languages, sexuality, ableness, etc. When we neglect to be inclusive, we are not just failing from a UX perspective but could actually be hurtful. Being inclusive and accessible isn't a steadfast ranking factor. But if users notice that you are more inclusive and have taken them into consideration, it builds trust and engagement with you. We don't have to do things just for ranking. It's ok to be good humans too.

And if the human element doesn't appeal to you, think about how much better your copy could be by writing more clearly and with concise words. It really comes down to this: "When we can choose between behavior that upsets some people versus behavior that upsets no one... why wouldn't we choose to upset no one?" (Emily Triplett Lentz)

7. Do You Deserve to Rank?

As we continue to think about the user and the human element to search, we need to dive a little deeper and talk about efficacy. As professionals, we have KPIs or goals we have to reach. One of those goals for SEOs is ranking. We're told to rank at the top for a list of keywords. But we don't stop to ask "should we?" I don't mean are our pages optimized enough, did you use the keyword enough times or in the title tag, but should we from a searcher's perspective. Is your page the best? Does it answer their question? Does it fulfill the searcher's intent?

If the answer is "no", to these questions, then you have work to do. Create the best page you can and then you'll rank. Also, you can start to take away from competitors, not just in search but in link building. Because your page will have the best information for the searcher. “The entire relationship between SEOs and Google has been to seem, rather than to be" and as Russ Jones further explains, that's changing. Google updates and its algorithm learns. In the end, "SEO can be clever, resourceful, and still uphold ethics." (Russ Jones)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Putting 3-days worth of great content in one post was difficult. But, hopefully, this has been insightful. I hope that you break out of your box, go learn something new, test a new tactic, and attend more conferences.

Recommended Readings:

• The Evolution of SEO: Split-Testing for Search, by Rob Ousbey
• Moz Blog
• Orbital Media Blog
• Supercharge Your Link Building with a Digital PR Newsroom
• From Zero to Local Ranking Hero – MozCon 2019
• Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework
• How to Audit for Inclusive Content
• All of the MozCon Presentations- Here's how to access