Meet Acronym’s Kelly Marcus

SEO Analyst, Travel Services

When did you join Acronym?

I joined Acronym a little over a year ago. I started only a month after graduating from Penn State last spring.

What do you do for Acronym and which clients do you work for?

I am an SEO Analyst on the travel team. As an analyst, my duties include preforming technical and social media audits, crafting on-page recommendations and content strategy ideas, as well as contributing to monthly reporting and client insights. The travel team’s list of clients includes Denihan Hotel Group, Canada Tourism Commission, Viceroy Hotels & Resorts, and Four Seasons Residential Rentals.

If you had to cite the most impactful change affecting the SEO business that Google has made over the past 12 months, what would that be?

In the travel world, the constantly changing SERPS have definitely had an impact on our clients. OTAs have been gaining more and more visibility within search results, and hotels have had to deal with that heavy competition. Individual hotels have been pushed down to the bottom of the first page and on to the second and third pages, meaning a revamped strategy is essential in dealing with this encroaching competition. Over the past few months, Google has also been making updates to the SERPs on a regular basis. Whether small additions to a hotel’s Knowledge Graph, such as including hotel amenities, or larger edits such as the removal of the Local Carousel last fall.

What are the lingering effects of that change and how has Acronym helped its clients adjust to it?

With regard to the OTA competition, Acronym has increased search synergy between SEO and PPC to ensure that our clients are maximizing visibility across all targeted queries and driving as much qualified traffic as possible. We have also revamped our clients’ overall SEO strategy to focus on creating and optimizing high-quality content that provides customers with the information they need during all sections of the conversion path. All of these changes to the SERPs are just a reminder to Acronym that Google wants to provide the most useful information possible, so our team is consistently looking for new ways to incorporate that idea into our strategy. Local search is a constantly changing field, so Acronym aims to prepare for these changes in advance and jumps ahead to ensure our clients are not affected by any of these SERP changes once they are announced.

What do you consider the most interesting aspect of digital advertising overall and the current state of search marketing?

I think it is fascinating how search marketing is no longer segmented strictly into its own marketing vertical. If you want to be successful in SEO, you need to have an understanding of social media, public relations, advertising and content marketing, and also be familiar with the technical aspects of a website. The lines between the marketing verticals are being blurred and I love facing the challenge of pulling in aspects of all different forms of marketing to create the most comprehensive SEO strategy for our clients.

What do you like to do best when you are not working?

I have a serious case of wanderlust, so I will take any excuse I have to travel on the weekends—even if it’s only an hour outside Manhattan. I am also turning into somewhat of a fitness-freak. I usually try to get in a workout before heading to the office in the morning. I’m a huge fan of spinning, yoga, and Pilates and I’m currently in the process of training to run a half marathon.