The professional 2.0 is born and every day is remade

The ideal result for a user will not always be the one that holds the leadership of the niche, but the one that combines quality and proximity

Linked to the digital company since 1999, the MarCom Manager of Webpositer Alexis López offers us this week his “technical” and “expert” vision of the 2.0 business through an interview where he demonstrates to have an extensive and multidisciplinary knowledge of the sector.

Alexis López Vidal (1979) is a professional with a global vision of the digital business. Publicist, trained in communication and marketing, and knowledgeable about the technologies developed by the online media, he has developed and coordinated the business model of various projects on the Web. From the management of communication cabinets to his work in the definition of new products , through his teaching, this Alicante reveals his vision of each of the aspects of marketing and communication 2.0.

In addition, during his professional career, this digital entrepreneur has made learning a way of life, training in the main professional areas to promote innovative projects and reformulate the foundations of Webpositer.

In our agency, he also directs other SEO professionals to improve the results of their clients, an activity that he combines with his functions as Marketing Specialist in the directory of certified companies for search engines.

You are a versatile professional. How many times have you encountered the problem of being able to define yourself? Are so many aspects necessary to work in the online world?

I am convinced that practically all of the 2.0 professionals you asked this question would have a very similar answer to mine: there are few professional fields where having a holistic view of your work is so necessary, and where, in addition, you are directly responsible for undertaking much of all that work. And, since it is me you are asking, I will add that I have the conviction that those of us who have chosen the Network as a scenario did not really have a choice: we were already restless by nature and this profession gave us the opportunity to fit in. The professional 2.0 is born and, every day, it is remade.

Have the borders between offline and online communication been blurred or, directly, have they disappeared?

Online communication is a very direct way of contacting the client, conveying the idea of ​​providing the possibility of the message passing through any type of space-time filter. Therefore, formulas that synergize both worlds, offline and online, are constantly being sought, and the conclusion is reached that the borders that delimit both planes are blurred or disappear. Also those of us who develop our activity from an eminently digital position, we look for formulas every day to penetrate into spaces that are alien to us (conventional press, radio, TV, direct marketing …) even knowing that the measurements and the calculation of ROI They will pose an additional difficulty that we are not used to.

Why do we seek hybridization from both sides?

Because, in the end, we seek to surprise an objective user who has become accustomed to our message reaching him in a certain way. I do not think that the border fence has disappeared, but rather we propose a guerrilla war consisting of passing it in unexpected ways and surprising our potential customers in an unprecedented situation, either exclusively with a message or providing added value.

Increase visits to a website is no longer enough, the companies what they demand is to improve sales. What is the relationship of SEO with the convertibility of a website and ROI?

There is a problem of bias quite common when talking about analyzing the convertibility of a website. I want to say that, faced with a question as complex as the analysis of conversion, we tend to face their response from the point of view of the professional with whom we talk: an SEO is required to be responsible for convertibility, a designer is it demands the responsibility on the convertibility, to a traffic analyst it is demanded the responsibility on the convertibility, to a responsible of usability it is demanded to him … follow?

The increase in traffic to a website has never been enough to estimate the success of your business model. Not only do you have to know and analyze this traffic (for still assuming that it is qualified traffic, its origin will define its degree of orientation to convert: is it about organic traffic visits, where there is a high percentage of paratrooper traffic , that simply “land” on the site ?, traffic paid from search engines ?, new or recurring users?), we must also analyze the relationship and interaction of these users with the website. Therefore, the relationship of SEO with the convertibility of a website and the return on investment can not be seen from an isolated perspective, but within a set of internal and external factors.

So far, something known and put into practice whenever there is talk of working towards the convertibility of a website. What I would like to add, in particular, is that there are other factors that tend to be overlooked and that end up making a difference. Too often, the marketing analyst concludes satisfied his task if he has determined the optimal sources of traffic, the keywords that best convert, polish the processes of purchase or registration and defined the best acceptance offers in the segment. And although there seems to be nothing else to do, only the level of excellence of the convertibility is reached if attention is paid to these, to other aspects involved in the sales process: professionalism of the commercial team (or support or assistance , if we analyze cross-selling), corporate reputation … and,

The importance of social networks for the communication strategy of the company is something indisputable but to what extent does it influence SEO positioning?

If we are talking about Google, as I presume, it is true that those responsible for search engine quality have made public that social signals (or “social signals”, as they define them) will progressively play a greater role in the preponderance that the search engine will give to the websites on the search results pages. This is entirely logical, obviously it is indicators of the level of notoriety of a website.

From Google has also been stressed that they want to work on the promotion of a network of experts, where the leader of a particular niche is necessarily the one that has more authority. Which is also logical. We speak, then, that notoriety will be a conclusion of the level of authority or “expertise”.

But this logical consequence, and desirable for the quality of the results, is not a quick process: a professional or a company needs a minimum time to transcend their know-how and acquire the status of expert or reference figure. What impact does this have for SEO? That we can not dismiss the importance of traditional links so quickly. It is likely that the trend evolves towards the primacy of social signals and other indicators in a few years but, nowadays, traditional link-building can not be dispensed with.

With the latest changes introduced by Google, such as Panda or Penguin, many are talking about the end of SEO. How do you think the sector should adapt?

These are corrections in the algorithm that seek to stop the use of webspam in the search results. From the point of view of the sector, it will affect, therefore, those companies that have based their work model in search engines in the use of this type of techniques. SEO professionals in our country are quite serious, many with many years of experience to have known first hand the vast majority of updates that Google has carried out. So, in reality, the sector should not perform a re-adaptation exercise beyond the continuous learning that is required of us.

Let’s talk about the incorporation of rich snippets in the Google results pages, what benefits can companies obtain from the implementation of these microformats?

Basically, the rich fragments offer two fundamental advantages that make their use more than advisable: first, they make it easier for our snippet to differentiate itself from the competition in a results page that is, with many nuances that we will leave aside, homogeneous. The assessments that other users have made of a particular product or service, the image and authority of the author, the incorporation of images … all this helps to capture the user’s attention on a particular result. In addition, the use of microformats helps the search engine to correctly interpret our content, so that it will be served to the user in the way that best serves their interests and, therefore, will allow us to improve the quality of the organic traffic we receive.

With the Google Venice update, local results began to be more visible than ever and the recent conversion of Google Places to Google Local has been another step in the same direction. How is the future of GeoSEO presented?

Access to the Network has been completely relocated in recent years. We have gone from associating such connectivity with a desktop computer in the office, our home or the library, to assume with total naturalness that we live practically connected in a constant and ubiquitous way. Smartphones, tablets or products that will reach us in two or three years as Project Glass (augmented reality glasses from Google) have redefined local searches. The most intelligent position is to understand what is the underlying basis of these searches: the ideal result for a user will not always be the one who holds the leadership of the niche, but the one that combines quality and proximity.

We have been talking for years about the future of mobile marketing and the sales figures of smartphones continue to grow, but has your time come yet? What do you think it can contribute?

Indeed, we have been hearing about mobile marketing as a promise of the future in recent years. And, indeed, the possibilities offered by mobile devices today to interact and propose response mechanisms in the user are incredible. I think that what had led us to believe that mobile marketing did not end, or that today makes us wonder if its time has come, is the assumption that the irruption of a certain technology must necessarily replace the previous one assuming a rupture . But, in my opinion, in our time the technologies do not behave this way in many cases, but some serve as learning or base of others that arrive in the near future or several of them end up converging in a later that includes the best of their predecessors. I think that’s what happened with smartphones and tablets. The first generations of mobile devices paved the way and offered marketing professionals some limited tools that helped us to experience the user’s relationship with the medium.

Given your extensive experience at the forefront of multiple business projects on the web, what are, in your opinion, the key factors when formulating the strategy? What advice would you give to entrepreneurs in the digital world?

Although there is no recipe for success on the Internet, I believe that there are two key aspects that should govern the strategy of any venture: first, we must have hope and know how to spread it. A good idea, a really good idea, has never come to fruition if those who support it do not feel true illusion to put it into practice and are also capable of spreading that emotion to those who get involved in the project, be they collaborators, investors or the end user. Second, you have to keep things clear. A project must be established with seriousness, defining in a meticulous way all those aspects that support it, its differential value, its development, benefits … Undertaking with a project similar to the existing ones, without innovating or differentiating, just because another one works , it does not usually turn out very well. The digital marketer has to be half technical, half fair. You must combine a deep knowledge of your sector, transmit solvency and provide value, but do it in an accessible and surprising way, which is what the digital user expects.