Human First SEO and Digital Marketing

Kelly Campbell is an Agency Scaling Consultant at Digital Web Consulting. We recently asked Kelly to share with us what she believes will help businesses succeed in SEO and digital marketing in 2018.

SearchCon: Kelly, tell us a little bit about you.
KC: I started, scaled and sold a digital agency in New York over the course of 14 years (sold in 2016). The agency was the recipient of several national and international awards for creativity and web technology innovation as well as social responsibility. My greatest accomplishments are not being featured in Forbes, selling two businesses, or being the SEO consultant to Facebook, but that the environment of my former agency fostered a culture of ingenuity, teamwork, social impact, and significant personal and professional growth for each of my team members.

SC: What do you see as the most important strategy to understand and focus on in the realm of SEO and digital marketing in 2018?
KC: Think “human-first” in every aspect of digital marketing and SEO.

SC: What are some ways that SEOs and marketers can succeed at implementing a human-first plan?
KC: When writing and optimizing any web content, focus on intent over high volume keyword phases. Ensuring that content is relevant will always be key—and by that, I mean that it both clearly identifies and solves a pain point for the prospect. (This is especially important with warm email and prospecting/growth hacking.) By providing value first, we begin the most natural form of building trust and a relationship. When it comes to user experience on any site, landing page or application, adopt a human-first mindset over a mobile-first mindset. Move toward conversations instead of forms. User testing via chatbot and AI-based surveys, as well as A/B testing of CTA buttons, headlines, etc. will enable you to find out what’s working best with the respective audience. This shift towards a holistic view of the digital ecosystem—and remembering that B2C and B2B are really H2H—leads to higher conversion rates overall.

SC: What is one thing people will learn about during your talk at SearchCon 2018 for optimizing human-first SEO and marketing?
KC: At the Agency Success Workshop, colleagues will learn to think differently about their approach to conversion optimization, which is really about learning how to humanize the web and lead gen communications.