Machine SEO: March 2017

Friday, March 31, 2017

How to Build the Right Content Strategy for your Mobile App

In order to be a successful business in today’s saturated marketplace in the digital sphere, it’s important to have a website that translates beautifully onto mobile devices. It is estimated that by 2017, the United States will have approximately 222.9 million smartphone users.

After India and China, the U.S. has the largest number of mobile phone users, which means, having a great content strategy for mobile websites & mobile app is no longer a choice but a necessity.

So, how do you create a successful mobile-optimized content strategy? Below are 6 ways to do just that!

1. Create Longer Content

Today, it is not enough to quickly write-up a 500-word article and hope to attract traffic to your website. Since longer content has greater potential to discuss any given subject matter in greater depth, it is likely to be read more and possibly shared more across social networking sites as well.

In recent years, Google has updated its search algorithm to include ‘content quality’ as a metric to rank websites. The more relevant and well-written the article, the more likely it is to be read by the audience. Ultimately, the likelihood that someone will read your 1000-word article depends on various factors such as the subject matter, the market and its relevance to the user’s query.

Although longer content will allow better use of SEO, you still need more compact articles with plenty of useful information packed into a small space. Regardless of how long the article is, the first two paragraphs — the part of the content known as lede in journalism — is the hook which brings the reader in. This portion of your content is especially important in a mobile environment where attention spans tend to be a lot shorter and readers click away if not interested.

2. Think ahead

According to Google, in 2015 there were more online searches taking place through a mobile device than ever before. The company said that more Google searches took place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries which included the United States and Japan.

When designing the look of your website, it is imperative to think of how it will look on a phone, not just on a laptop or desktop. A mobile site cannot have a ton of adverts as compared to its desktop version which could contain two sidebars on either side of the page with advertising space.

3. Know your reader

With zero understanding of your audience, you are setting yourself up for failure. To create a truly successful mobile content strategy, it’s important to know your audience. For example, a few points to note regarding audience behavior include:

Where does your audience spend the most time when they are online? Which social media platforms are most popular among your target audience?
Do they access the internet using smartphones or tablets?
What percentage of total audience access to your website comes through mobile devices?
How popular is visual content?
Which type of content is the most shared and which type gets the most audience engagement?

These are just a few questions to ask when trying to decipher your audience in order to create a great mobile content strategy. Understanding what your audience prefers doing online will allow you to tailor content to their interests.

An important point to note is that when you are creating content meant to increase audience engagement, don’t tailor content to fit your marketing objectives. Instead, create great content first and then think of creative ways in which to tailor the content to fit your marketing objectives.

4. Better Metrics & Better Formatting

To figure out which content is doing well with your audience, you need to look at a number of factors. Instead of focusing solely on the number of likes and shares your published content generates, try to focus on more substantial goals such as:

Higher conversion rates from visitors on landing pages

Lower bounce rate: The lower the bounce rate, the longer your visitors are staying on your site and not instantly clicking away. A high bounce rate means that your page is not user-friendly and it also means that visitors to your site aren’t clicking on calls-to-action or converting into valuable contacts.

A high bounce rate also means that the visitor wasn’t able to find what he or she was looking for, which indicates a need for improving your content quality. A few ways to improve bounce rate are:

Choose the right keywords in accordance with your content
Write useful meta-descriptions for users being directed by search engines
For a more attractive page use a larger font, ensure white spaces on your page, use large headlines and make use of bulleted lists. All this helps to make your text more readable
Ensure you are using responsive web page design which translates seamlessly across various devices.
Don’t ramble and get to the point, fast.
Utilize images and videos, to add an extra layer to your content.

5. Pick the right type of content

Knowing your audience’s habits online is not enough when it comes to creating great content. You also need to know that different type of content works with different businesses. Although E-commerce sites have a greater chance of success with quizzes and contests, white papers and case studies are better suited to B2B marketers.

Being able to efficiently re-purpose content across various marketing channels is a skill you need to have an excellent content strategy. Switching content between newsletters, social media, e-books or a blog post will make sure you get the most exposure for any piece of content.

Using video content is another option if you want to convey your message quickly and succinctly on a mobile app, allowing your readers to make more efficient use of their time. Other similar visual content options include infographics and images to convey your message.

6. Smart content

Along with following the age of copywriting rule of ‘writing how you speak’ to achieve maximum clarity, it’s important to know what to say and what to skip. This means that when you are making a point and some of what you say feel superfluous, instead of including everything in the same article, use a hyperlink to send readers away to read that point in depth on a separate page. This allows your reader to focus solely on what you are saying with minimal distractions.

When your reader’s attention span is getting shorter, focus on making their experience on your mobile site as streamlined as possible.

Conclusion

By carefully crafting your mobile content strategy, you are more likely to see results and surpass your marketing goals. Knowing your audience is only one part of the puzzle. You need to know how to optimize content across different platforms including smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops.

Finding the right mix of SEO, quality, quantity and usefulness will help you craft the perfect mobile content strategy.

Source: SEMrush blog

The slow (but inevitable) advent of CRO in the PPC world

When I organized the first ADworld Experience back in 2012, there was only one big giant in the PPC world: Google AdWords.

The event was even mimicking their logo (to be perfectly clear to potential participants) and it was a clever way to better my own AdWords campaigns optimization capabilities by knowing what best practices were used by my smartest competitors.

Facebook was still desperately trying to find a way to increase revenue with improbable un-targetizable ads.

At that time I did not even think to myself if Facebook ads case histories should have space in the event. AdWords in Europe had no real competitors.

That was a fact.

Only 3 years later, in 2015, the situation was radically changed.

I had to really start asking myself if other PPC platforms should have been covered.

The progressive shifting from an AdWords dominated, PPC scenario to a more open online advertising market was a reality.

Facebook was gaining positions with more and more effective targeting options, together with several other native advertising platforms.

Real Time Bidding was a consolidated reality in all the most advanced online markets in the world (covering at that time almost a 30% of US online advertising market).

Amazon set their own “AdWords style” ads in favor of Sponsored Products.

LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter opened their own advertising programs to the world.

Bing was still there and gaining visibility, thanks to the successful launch of Windows 10.

The PPC landscape in the world was radically changed. Probably forever.

A lot of things happened in only 3 years and I had to acknowledge it.

Even the payoff of the conference changed from the original “Success cases by the best AdWords advertisers” to “Success cases by the best online advertisers” and, in 2017, we changed it again to “Online advertising success stories”.

AdWords real case histories were still one of the main focuses of the event, but Facebook, other PPC platforms and especially CRO gained their well-deserved space in the program.

I just had the privilege to hear Larry Kim (founder of Wordstream and one of the most renowned PPC professionals in the world) state at SMX Munich that “Conversion Rate Optimization stuff craps”.

In his opinion, the real important things in today’s online market are a strong & renowned brand along with a credible and well-presented offer.

I completely agree with him on brand and offer importance, but I think that CRO is definitely the new guy in the block of PPC.

And it came to stay (otherwise why he would have felt the necessity to deny it).

I normally use a “6 month rule” to evaluate new trends in web marketing.

If a new thing comes up and still stays after 6 months, then I start to consider it seriously.

CRO popped out to my attention somewhere in 2015.

CRO is a consolidated reality with companies specifically heading to it in their payoffs, dedicated events made all over the world and CRO professionals coming out daily in all advanced markets.

If you think about it, this is a normal evolution in a multi-platform PPC world, because it may affect revenues of all your advertising channels at once.

We have seen it happen several times in our industry: adapt (enhance your knowledge about it) or die!

If you are doing SEO or PPC today without knowing at least the basics of Usability and CRO, you are going to have serious troubles in accomplishing your goals in the next coming years.

You can bet on it.

That is why I have added an entire day of advanced seminars about CRO and several conversion rate optimization case studies to the program for the next event, held by 5 top professionals like John Ekman (founder of one of the first European CRO companies and of Conversion Jam, the largest CRO event in the world), Karl Gilis & Els Aerts (AGConsult), Dave Walker (Segmatic) and Rossella Cenini (the Italian “queen of CRO”).

And that is why I am still really surprised when I hear PPC professionals consider Conversion Rate Optimization as a separate and optional field of specialization, not strictly necessary to run successful campaigns (even if I can perfectly understand their restraint to specialize in a sector that requires a full set of new skills).

I would really love to have feedback about this dichotomy.

What do you think about it?

CRO & PPC should continue to go as separate worlds or should be considered parts of the same job?

In other words, do you believe in hyper-specialization or in a global holistic approach?

Source: SEMrush blog

8 Outdated SEO Strategies to Stop Using Right Away

Web technology changes rapidly. I mean, let’s face it: the Internet is different today than it was just a few years ago. So when it comes to website optimization, this leaves many people confused as to which SEO strategies are still relevant. Even if you create a compelling, interesting site — employing outdated SEO strategies can affect you negatively.

Below I’ve outlined 8 outdated SEO strategies you need to cut out right away. Using the following methods would result in penalties that can hurt your presence in the SERPs. Thankfully, they’re easy to avoid once you’re aware. Let’s get to it.

1. Stop Ignoring Other Search Engines

Google has the most comprehensive set of resources for SEO. Anyone interested in SEO should definitely get a Google Search Console account, and follow the Google webmaster guidelines for the best practices. But that does not mean you should ignore other search engines like Bing, and Yahoo.

These search engines are still a major source of organic traffic. Additionally, tools such as Bing’s Webmaster Tools can supplement your SEO efforts — giving you more data to work with.

2. Stop Using SEO Data in Your WordPress Themes

This is more of a preference than anything, but I have seen people lose all their SEO data because they used the built-in SEO features. Adding meta descriptions to hundreds of pages because they were all lost in the move doesn’t not sound like fun. It’s a part of best practices to follow the convention to separate presentation from content to avoid this.

Otherwise, when you switch themes, you will either:

Lose all your data
Or have to migrate everything, which isn’t easy.

3. Stop Ignoring Mobile Site Optimization

On January 10, 2017, Google announced that

…pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as high.

Most web designers have noticed the mobile-first trend that took over web design a few years ago. Despite this, a large majority of sites are still not mobile-friendly. Even if the majority of your audience views your content from a desktop computer, you will still miss out on mobile traffic.

What you can do:

Make sure your text has readable zoom.
Use a mobile responsive WordPress theme.
Avoid using Flash or other software that isn’t common on mobile devices.
Place links far enough apart so they can be tapped easily.
Read up on Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), because it’s becoming increasingly important.

Check out the Google’s webmaster’s guide on mobile friendly sites for more in-depth information on keeping your site mobile-friendly.

4. Stop Using Intrusive Interstitials for Mobile Traffic

Browsing some sites on a mobile device isn’t always easy. We’ve all been intruded upon by an interstitial at one point or another. Don’t be ashamed, it’s not your fault. In Google lingo, an intrusive interstitial is anything that makes your content less accessible. Whether it’s by design, or by accident, stop using methods that do this on mobile devices. The following images from Google’s webmaster blog show examples of intrusive interstitials.

From left to right: Intrusive pop-up, intrusive standalone interstitial, intrusive standalone interstitial

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There are many cases where an interstitial is necessary. The images below show examples of interstitials that are acceptable.

From left to right: interstitial for using cookies, interstitial for age verification, a banner

5. Stop Trying to Rank Multiple Keywords on a Single Page

Targeting keywords is still as important as ever. But trying to target more than one keyword is not as effective as focusing on a single keyword or phrase.

What you can do:

If you have more than one target keyword you want to focus on, consider breaking your article up into multiple posts.

6. Stop Posting Daily

There’s nothing wrong with posting daily, if you can manage to maintain high-quality posts. In the past, anyone could post poorly curated content to trip the search engines and get better rankings. Nowadays this can actually harm standings with search engines, and your reputation.

While there aren’t many hard, written-down rules when it comes to SEO, we have seen better results from focusing on high-quality content. Fresh content that meets this criteria is great, but it can be equally important to update some of your old content.

What you can do:

Find one of your pages that is doing well in the search results.
Add value to the article or post by adding fresh, relevant content.
Change the publication date.

That not only brings more value to your audience than a hasty post, but it will also rank high in the SERPs. If you are unsure what search engines deem “high-quality,” visit this Google Webmaster blog post to see a laundry list of guidelines and criteria that can help. Joost De Valk also published a helpful article on cleaning up old posts.

7. Stop Submitting Your Site to Search Engines

It’s not hard to submit your site to a search engine, but it’s been practically useless since 2001. Crawlers will be able to find your site. If you’ve made improvements to your website and want that to reflect in the search engine results pages, you can contact Google for reconsideration.

8. Stop Using Outdated SEO Strategies for Linking

The best practice for getting high-quality sites to link back to you is to create relevant content and to network with others who write about the same topic. There’s no shortcut around this. Creating high-quality content will pay off.

Methods of link building like buying backlinks aren’t easy money for SEO companies like it was in 2005. Stop doing these three linking methods:

Unnatural keyword placement for links. Crawlers are much better at detecting natural language than before.
Forum comments with optimized links.
Buying or selling backlinks. This black hat SEO technique can hurt your rankings and it can be difficult to repair.

It’s also important to make sure that anyone you hire for SEO doesn’t use any methods that might result in penalization. Learn more about link schemes so you know what to avoid.

Wrapping Up

SEO has come a long way since the late 1990s, back then it things were much simpler. All you needed to do was tag your site with keywords, submit it to a search engine, and a bot would crawl your site. Now the bots are more sophisticated, and many outdated SEO strategies are no longer effective.

Source: Business 2 Community

4 Keyword Mapping Goals

keyword-mapping

Each page of your site has the potential for search ranking. While your overall domain will carry its own authority and relevance to particular keyword terms, it’s your individual pages that do most of the heavy lifting.

You use your individual pages to target specific keyword phrases, and build up their page authority to earn higher rankings for those pages—but how can you tell if you’re maximizing the effectiveness of your efforts?

Where Keyword Mapping Fits In

Ordinarily, keyword research and content creation are treated as somewhat independent strategies. Keyword research gives you information about potential keyword opportunities, and content gives you a platform to explore those opportunities.

The trouble is, if you treat these strategies as separate for long enough, you’ll start to notice problems with your approach. For example, you may target keyword phrases redundantly, using multiple pages to target the same keyword; this crowds space in SERPs and prevents you from earning new territory elsewhere.

Keyword mapping forces you to evaluate which keyword phrases are sending traffic to which pages of your site. As the name suggests, it’s a way of laying out your site pages and pinpointing the key targets of each page.

Getting The Information

Unfortunately, the keyword mapping process can be a bit tricky. As MediaOne points out, Google gives keyword information (such as search volume) far more ambiguously and less consistently than it has before. The motivation behind this move is to prevent black-hat techniques like keyword stuffing, but it definitely makes life difficult for the average marketer.

Fortunately, there are many third-party tools that can help you fill in the gaps. Companies like Ahrefs and SEMRush offer research tools that allow you to learn more about the keywords you’re targeting, how your pages are ranking in search engines, and potential routes for future development. Use this information, including keyword-based search volume, to map keywords to various pages of your site and understand where your traffic is coming from.

Four Main Goals

What can you hope to achieve from this process? There are four main goals:

1. Target More Specifics

Moz describes a situation known as a “Frankenpage.”

Like Frankenstein’s monster is cobbled together from parts of various dead bodies, a page of your site can be cobbled together to target various different keywords simultaneously.

f you notice one page of your site targeting multiple ambiguous queries, tighten things up by zeroing in on one key target phrase.

2. Update Old Posts

You may also notice that your site targets one of your most important keyword phrases, but only with content that’s outdated. For example, you may see a keyword term present in a blog post from 2009, but nowhere else on your site. This situation doesn’t demand the creation of new content, per se, but you should at least update your older content with new information.

3. Eliminate Redundancy

As SEO Brothers explain, “while it is possible to have multiple rankings in the search engines for a specific search term, your effort is better spent by optimizing the different pages on your website for completely unique keyword groups.” During the keyword mapping process, you may notice that you have two or three pages ranking for one keyword phrase; since users likely aren’t going to click more than one result, it’s in your best interest to take the two lower-ranking pages and update them to target different keywords altogether. Otherwise, it could remain wasted potential.

4. Enter New Territory

Finally, you’ll likely discover new opportunities to explore with altogether new content. You’ll want to target keywords and phrases that offer high potential search volume but low competition, and keywords complementary to the ones you’re already targeting. You can explore these new opportunities by revising some of your redundant content (see previous goal), or by creating new pages on your site entirely.

If you’re new to keyword mapping, it may seem a bit intimidating, but the fundamentals are quite simple. Your job is to properly identify which pages of your site target which keywords, and make adjustments so you earn more traffic and cover more ground.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll have a relatively easy way to analyze and improve the efficiency of your campaign.

^{* Adapted lead image: Public Domain, pixabay.com via getstencil.com}

Source: Search Engine People

Top 10 Online Book Clubs For Entrepreneurial Inspiration

Joining a book club and reading frequently can have a huge impact on your success as an entrepreneur. Online book clubs help you cope with the stress of day-to-day life and can polish certain skills that you will need in your quest to become successful.

How can online book clubs benefit entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs usually consider reading as a hobby, so they tend to put it on the back burner and forget about it altogether. However, reading itself can help enhance communication skills, reduce stress, improve mental agility and improve your focus and concentration. Most entrepreneurs read books about their industry but it’s important to read broadly. Novels, poetry, short stories and biographies stimulate your brain, allowing you to easily understand different opinions and perspectives.

Online book clubs encourage reading through social interaction with people on the same wavelength. Book clubs connect you with peers who have the same interests. You can build a network of valuable contacts while you learn more as a group. Online book clubs allow users to interact with like-minded peers through chat and messaging apps, such as Slack. This is my list of the top online book clubs for entrepreneurial inspiration.

Read With Entrepreneurs

Read with Entrepreneurs is an awesome book club for both young and experienced businessmen and women. The book choices and discussion topics revolve around setting up a successful business with limited resources, as well as other setbacks entrepreneurs often face. Books are recommended and discussed on a monthly basis through a online community, and it encourages all participants to give their individual take on how to set up and run a successful startup in a wide range of industries.

Read With Cynthia

Read with Cynthia offers a great take on modern business models and effective strategies that entrepreneurs can apply in order to grow quickly. The titles discussed will help you build a successful startup and understand the different elements that can affect your business. Group discussions through a online community will help you explore ideologies that can help you:

Create successful SEO and digital marketing campaigns
Find creative ideas for content
Learn how to approach other entrepreneurs professionally
Grow your business
Find motivation
Learn more about yourself and your industry

Read With Marketers

There are not many marketing-centric book clubs out there, so Read with Marketers offers a great option for entrepreneurs looking to polish their marketing skills. This popular marketing onlie book club also offers discussions via Slack, allowing members to interact with mediators and other members on their own terms. Read with Marketers provides independent book recommendations based on new business books that are making a splash. By reading and discussing titles such as Growth Hacker Marketing Revised and Expanded and Everybody Writes, this book club can help you pick up tips and ideas for your next marketing campaign.

Get It Girl Book Club

Becoming a successful woman in male-dominated industries is a huge challenge, so finding like-minded female entrepreneurs is not a common occurrence. The Get It Girl Book Club offers a refreshing option for business women who want to connect with other female entrepreneurs. Their discussions are carried out through an online community and encourage women to share tips on:

How to increase productivity
Finding inspiration
Overcoming common pitfalls faced by female entrepreneurs
Handling the financial aspect of your business
The ins and outs of entrepreneurship
Setting up effective communication channels
Increasing sales

Read With Murray

Read With Murray, dedicated to anything and everything entrepreneurial. From inspirational stories to biographies, educational texts, and other nonfiction books, it covers an array of titles that will help you grow personally and professionally. Its's aim is to create meaningful connections and host thoughtful discussions that work as an inspiration to entrepreneurs around the world.

Motivation Book Club

Many entrepreneurs are lacking inspiration. The Motivation Book Club can help young and seasoned entrepreneurs find motivation by reading and discussing titles on professional and personal development. The Motivation Book Club is free to join and hosts book discussions through an online community.

Productivity Book Club

Entrepreneurs and small business owners often need help finding and managing capital. The Productivity Book Club helps you identify opportunities. Discussion with fellow businessmen and women helps you figure out the best options for you. The Productivity Book Club offers the perfect set of no-fluff books to help you increase productivity while encouraging you to change your habits and cultivate both your personal and professional skills.

Read With Leaders

Leadership roles are among the most desired in any company and are not easy to fulfill. Read with Leaders can help leaders, and those aspiring to fill leadership roles, handle the pressure that comes with higher management positions. Read with Leaders also discusses tips on how to set up companies and make the leap to success. Read with Leaders is a great club for startups and small businesses, but has also proved to be a useful asset for seasoned managers and leaders. The discussion groups consist of leaders who share their thoughts on how to inspire their teams, cut costs, and generate more revenue.

Personal Branding Book Club

Branding is one of the biggest aspects of modern marketing campaigns, and the Personal Branding Book Club can help you achieve this ultimate goal. The premises for personal branding are easy to understand, however, most companies struggle to create an image and become a household name. The titles read in the Personal Branding Book Club can help you create a strong initial connection with your audience, teach you how to nurture the relationship and allow you to create a name for yourself and your company.

Money Book Club

All companies, regardless of industry, are concerned about increasing revenue and making money. The titles discussed in the Money Book Club help motivate entrepreneurs who are short of inspiration, offering ideas on how to assess and understand your market properly. In addition to this, the Money Book Club will help you discover your true passion and allow you to discuss books with fellow entrepreneurs that can provide you with the motivation and drive to get started.

Finally...

Joining a book club will not only help you polish your reading skills and exercise your brain but can also help you achieve success as a professional. These 10 book clubs help you bring out your creative side and provide entrepreneurial inspiration when you least expect it.

Marsha Hunt

Marsha is a Growth Marketing Expert business advisor and speaker with specialism in international marketing.

Source: Entrepreneur

39 questions with Google at SMX West

It always attracts a lot of attention when Googlers are up on stage and open for questioning. The Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Google Search at the recent SMX West conference was no exception. This panel, moderated by Danny Sullivan, featured two prominent Googlers: Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes and Webmaster Outreach Specialist Mariya Moeva.

In this post, I’m going to recount the bulk of the questions asked, and the answers from Illyes and/or Moeva. Please note that responses have been summarized rather than directly quoted. Let’s get started!

1. Does Google maintain any metric along the lines of a “Domain Authority” concept?

Gary Illyes: This is something that Google feels does not really work. For example, on blogspot.com, the user blogs created there really shouldn’t inherit the authority of the main domain. All ranking is page-specific.

2. What about subdomains?

Illyes: No such thing as subdomain authority.

Mariya Moeva: Before we get asked, I’ll add that there is no similar signal for folders, either.

3. Can you talk about the update called Fred?

Illyes: We make tons of updates all the time, and this is not something we would have thought to name or announce. It only got a name because of an interaction on Twitter with Barry Schwartz.

Google won’t communicate about what this particular update did, but you can find the things that it targeted if you carefully read all of the Webmaster guidelines. Unfortunately, we can’t say which particular ones.

Moeva: One of the issues with naming updates is that people start attributing all sorts of things to those updates, even though they aren’t actually related.

4. When will Google stop ranking internal search pages? Why does this still work?

Illyes: We do frown on these pages getting indexed, as they are not that useful for users. We do have algos that try to get rid of them, and for that matter not even crawl them, but sometimes these don’t catch everything, and we may have to manually intervene.

Moeva: If you’re trying to get these pages out of the index for your site, you can use the parameter handling feature in Search Console to say, “Don’t look at these pages.”

5. What data does Google use to see the “also try” info in a Knowledge Panel?

Illyes: Maybe we leverage the Knowledge Graph categories to find similar pages, but that’s just a guess.

6. What if your site does not get a Knowledge Panel? How do you get one?

Illyes: There is no way to do that really. Google does consume Wikidata, so that could get you in. Google also uses the CIA World Factbook. Anything that gets in requires multiple sources of data to support the need for it to be in there.

7. How do I control the picture that shows up for my business in the Knowledge Graph?

Illyes: If an incorrect image comes up, report it. Note, though, you need many people to report it for it to get looked at, and they have to come from accounts that have not previously abused the system.

(Illyes then mentioned the example of Stone Temple Consulting, which shows an incorrect image of a Chinese temple, and explained that sometimes the problems are hard to fix, but they are working on it.)

8. Can you bring back the link operator?

Illyes: No.

9. We heard you say that Baidu uses AMP, but we thought they had their own thing.

Moeva: Baidu started with mobile instant pages (MIP), which they still support, but more recently, they have expanded to support AMP pages as well.

10. Do you plan to expand the Google Posts feature? (Note: This is a feature where people can post information directly into the search results, but it’s used in a very limited way today. You can read more about it here).

Moeva: This feature was used during the US elections, and we are looking at future potential uses. Of course, for this to work it has to be high-quality info. The target groups are usually not really savvy on the SEO side, so the feature is good for the website-challenged. So we don’t know how we’ll expand it, but we’re trying to see what kinds of groups it makes sense for.

11. In Search Console, when we see links from hacked sites, should we disavow them?

Illyes: Do you trust the links? If you don’t, then disavowing them makes sense. Our algorithms do their best to auto-discount these, but these algorithms are written by humans and sometimes subject to error.

12. Should I have my exact keywords in the domain name?

Illyes: Exact match domains (EMDs) are not inherently bad, but some people do things with them that makes them bad. If you see someone else that’s ranking and you think it’s because they have an EMD, our advice is to not worry about it and try to figure out the other reasons it ranks.

13. If we have an EMD, but it is really the company name, do we need to worry about EMD algos?

Moeva: Unless you have really poor content on 50 EMDs simultaneously, don’t worry about it.

Danny Sullivan: If you have an EMD that matches the really good solid content you are already doing, you’re on the right side of history, and you’ll be fine.

14. Is a subdomain or subdirectory better for targeting different countries?

Moeva: Our site has a good post on this. It shows a table for when/how to pick which variant.

15. How does Google deal with the new domain names (such as .SHOP).

Illyes: These are treated the same as any other TLD.

16. Is it true that Google won’t crawl a URL that has more than two folders?

Illyes: No.

Moeva: There is a limit to the characters in a URL, though.

17. Does folder depth make a difference ranking wise?

Illyes: No.

18. If we launch a subdomain, and it gets penalized, will the domain be impacted?

Moeva: It depends on the reason why. If a blog got hacked, then that impacts only the subdomain. Generally, we try to be as surgically granular as possible.

19. Does Google access info from Gmail and other sources to personalize results?

Illyes: Yes, if you’re logged in.

Sullivan: This happens only within Gmail (I think).

20. Why did you decide to do a video on how to hire an SEO?

Moeva: Our target was non-savvy people, to help them understand how to approach it.

21. How many sites do you manually review in a week?

Moeva: Every Googler has to do 20 sites before breakfast (joke). Seriously, scale is the main objective. Google is trying to find patterns, more than sites. Ideally, we do this in a way that you find a pattern that scales across many sites.

22. How does it affect our ranking if our responsive mobile site has the same content as the desktop?

Illyes: This is the desired behavior, and there is no duplicate content issue since they are on the same URL. Also, there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.

(Author’s note: If you have duplicate content because you are scraping other people’s sites, this can result in your site being hit by Panda, but that is not what Illyes is addressing in his response.)

Having a responsive site will help you, especially in the future. With mobile-first, when it rolls out, responsive sites won’t have to change anything. Other sites may have to do something more to not suffer when that transition happens.

23. What would be harmed by Google being more open and transparent?

Sullivan: To be fair, they are very open on many things.

Moeva: The issue is that we’re trying to get people to focus on the right things. If we start dissecting (and sharing) what we do every day, this would prevent people from focusing on their sites. You should try to focus on the good stuff. Worrying about what Google change happened, when the next one will be, etc., diverts your focus from where it belongs.

Illyes: Both of us teach a class to Nooglers (new Googlers) called the “life of a query.” We know a lot about how it works, and this class is very specific. But, we have to decide if revealing a piece of information will hurt us in the long term. If we share info that causes people to do the wrong things, this can hurt the search results, and we can’t allow that. But we try to be as transparent as possible.

24. Can Google see a bounce on your site, even if not from a search result, and is it a negative result when that happens?

Sullivan: In other words, do you use click-through rate (CTR) as ranking factor?

Illyes: We only use CTR for QA purposes, not direct ranking purposes.

Moeva: We also don’t use things like Chrome to capture data like that.

25. If CTR is not a ranking factor, then why do tests sometimes show that it does influence rankings?

Sullivan: What if you believe that Google is lying about this — that you believe they’re using CTR, even though they say they aren’t? What would you do differently with your site? In principle, nothing. You should be trying to optimize to improve CTR and retain users anyway!

26. What about RankBrain and machine learning? What’s up with that?

Illyes: Not really anything new happening. The team is focused on some other machine learning ideas, and I can’t say what they are or whether they will be applied to search. But we’re always throwing out ideas on how to better understand pages or queries and working to make search better. Machine learning is just a tool that you can apply to different things.

Moeva: A great example is what video to show you next on YouTube; that’s an interesting challenge that is a perfect application for machine learning. We can leverage what people have watched and match them up with choices made by others with similar affinities.

Sullivan: Could you have a machine learning search algorithm system now?

Illyes: We probably wouldn’t want that, as we still look at search pages manually, and machine learning algorithms are freakishly hard to debug. For example, if we see some problem manually, it would be impossible to figure out why the decision was made. If we replaced the traditional algorithms with machine learning, we would have a really hard time improving results, because we would not able to identify where the failures are or what caused them.

Moeva: The algorithms are only as good as the training data that we give them, and that’s a big issue in coming up with good ones.

27. How do you measure voice searches? Can the rest of us get to see that?

Moeva: Voice queries are often super long-tail because of their use of natural language, so it’s hard to decide what to show. (Moeva then asked people to provide feedback on what they would do with it.)

28. Is it possible to highlight quick answers in Search Console separately?

Illyes: We get this request a lot, and we’ve talked to the highest possible person in the search team to see if they can, but we have not persuaded them yet. We’re still fighting for it, but it’s not a simple problem. Please ping us on Twitter and tell us how you would use that data to help us.

29. How do you get featured snippets?

Moeva: Create content that is relevant to the query and structured well. Structure it as an answer to a question.

30. Is WHOIS info used as part of local ranking?

Illyes: No idea.

31. Does the percent of 404 pages on your website impact your ranking?

Illyes: No.

32. Should we cross-link between product and category pages?

Illyes: Does it help users?

33. Does a large e-commerce site have a natural advantage over a small site?

Illyes: It doesn’t matter.

34. Will traffic from email and social media help your rankings?

Sullivan: In other words, do you use social signals?

Illyes: We did it in the past for a specific feature, but then the social media site turned off the feature, and it was a really bad thing, and for this reason we’re not willing to be dependent on social signals.

35. Is content length a ranking factor?

Illyes: No. The quality and relevance of the content is the key.

36. Is it bad if we have http and https live on a site at the same time?

Illyes: In general, no — but we have seen situations where sites have some differences between the sites, such as they implement hreflang to the http version of the site, but not the https version. That type of thing could be an issue.

37. Do you look primarily at the source code for a page or the document object model (DOM)?

Moeva: We look at the DOM.

38. Will we see an AMP e-commerce carousel in the near future?

Illyes: We are looking into e-commerce features, and we’re very aware that this functionality is needed. If you want to see what’s planned, check out the AMP roadmap.

39: Is authorship really gone as a ranking factor?

Illyes: Yes.

Sullivan: Dead, dead, dead, deader than Google+.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Source: Search Engine Land

Are Social Networks Search Engines?

Did you know that 37% of all consumers say they use Social Media to find out about products/services?

The big question: Are social networks search engines?

Social Media is not just a place where you can connect with potential customers. Each Social Network now has its own search functionality which is a powerful tools which every business should be utilising.

If you’re new to Social Media, or new to the concept of Social Media Optimisation, and the ability to search, and be found inside of Social, here is a breakdown of each social network, their search functionality and best practices.

Facebook

Facebook are currently testing a new and exciting local search feature that is said to rival the likes of Google Maps and Foursquare. Facebook users will be able to look at recommendations of places in a location near them.

Facebook said the following:

“We’re testing a new way to discover where to go and what to do around you.”

Another great search feature inside of Facebook is Facebook’s Graph Search. You’re probably thinking “I thought this had been removed”. It hasn’t. Well, not entirely.

Facebook Graph Search is still available, but it is hidden. You can use the simple search features but to get the more advanced search functionality, you must search a long-tail keyword and when the results appear, click “see more” to get full access.

If a potential customer is trying to find a business through keywords around your industry, make sure that the keywords are in the posts you share on Facebook, in your description, bio and that you also link back to your website.

If you are going to use Facebook to promote your business, don’t get disheartened by the lack of “reach”. Keep engaging on a regular basis, and look at ways to increase your following by running live webinars, events and competitions.

Twitter

As you probably know, Twitter is my favourite social network. I love Twitter not just because of the engagement I get, but because of its search functionality and the features available to hone in on what’s important.

Using Twitter’s Advanced Search

Advanced search is available when you’re logged into your Twitter account so that you can tailor search results to specific date ranges, people and more. This makes it easier to find specific Tweets about your industry.

Enter your search into the search bar on twitter.com.
At the top of your results page, click More options and then click Advanced search.
Fill in the appropriate fields to refine your search results
Click Search to see your results.

You can refine your advanced search by tweets containing certain words, phrases and hashtags. You can also filter based on language used, tweets from specific users and places as well as by dates.

To make sure you can be found via a potential customers refined search, include your location on your Twitter profile, have a description and a link back to your website. Also use your specific niche keywords for your business in your tweets so that if someone searches for that keyword, it will bring your business up.

Top Tip: Create a “Twitter List” of influencers in your industry so that you can hone in on what’s important. You should also consider using the advanced search feature to find potential customers talk about your business, or products/services that you are currently marketing online.

You might look at Pinterest and think whether it is a social network you should be using. The answer is YES.

Pinterest has an amazing search functionality, and using Pinterest to upload visuals will give you a great Google Image ranking, if done correctly.

I recently wrote an article about the latest Pinterest updates around search which you can read here.

Best Practice

Keywords

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Inside of Pinterest, the use of keywords is crucial. You should have all relevant keywords in your Pinterest bio, the descriptions of pins. You should also make sure that you are using a call-to-action in the description of your pins. Having your keywords in the descriptions of your boards will make them more “searchable” but keep it simple e.g. Social Media Tips.

Branding

When creating a board, use a cover image that matches the overall feel of your brand, and colour scheme.

Re-pinning

80% of pins are re-pins. If you are going to re-pin, do make sure that you only openly re-pin pins that are relevant to your business, and your target market. For consistency, and overall brand awareness, this is important as you do not want to confuse your community.

Linking Back To Your Website

All of your pins, regardless of whether they are a re-pin should link back to your website.

Top Tip: If you are a business, switch to a Pinterest Business Account so that you can take advantage of rich pins. Rich Pins are Pins that include extra information right on the Pin itself. There are 6 types of Rich Pins: app, movie, recipe, article, product and place.

Instagram

Did you know that 30% of internet users are now on Instagram?

Instagram has been the social network of 2017, with the introduction of slideshow images, and Instagram Stories but, is Instagram a search engine? Yes, it is.

You can now use Instagram to search for a specific person’s followers, and who they are following through a search bar feature. This is a great way for you to find potential customers when looking at a competitor’s followers.

Instagram is known as the social network which relies heavily on searching through hashtags to find a user, image or video (apart from the above feature).

Best Practices

Use Relevant Hashtags

To be found inside of Instagram’s search engine, you need to be using hashtags, and I don’t just mean the odd one or two. You need to be using between 10–20 hashtags per post, and these hashtags need to be relevant to your business.

Quality Photos

For a potential customer to “like” one of your photos, you need to be using hashtags, as well as great quality images. Make sure that you use a tool like Snapseed to add a filter to your images.

Create Video’s Using Instagram Stories Then Post On Your Newsfeed

Use Instagram stories to film a real-time video. Make sure that you also link back to your website inside of the video and then take the video and put it on your Instagram account for those who may have missed your story.

YouTube

YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute so if you aren’t already utilising YouTube’s large audience, you might be missing out on potential sales for your business.

When creating a video, consider the following:

Annotations

You have the option to add a “subscribe” button, a link to a verified website and also a “suggested video”. Use these options to re-direct traffic back to your website, or to give your viewer a chance to get to know your business better by watching another video, and subscribing.

Select A Language

This is extremely important if you are targeting a location which speaks a certain language.

Create Playlists

A great way to keep your viewer engaged, and to be better found inside of YouTube is to create a playlist based on your videos.

Add a date

When searching inside of YouTube, you can search by date so make sure that all of your video’s have a date.

Create Your Unique URL

As you would for your Facebook Page, make sure that you create your own unique URL.

Don’t forget to add a description to every single video you upload including your business keywords, as well as Social Media Links, and where your viewer can find more information about your business.

Google+

Google+ is very different to all of the above social networks and that is because that although it isn’t a search engine, uploading all of your blogs and content rich in keywords will actually give you the chance to rank on the first page of Google for those keywords BECAUSE of the Google+ post.

This is the only reason I use Google+, and how Google actually picked up one of my articles, and share it with their 3M+ audience inside of the Google+ social layer.

So to answer the question of whether social networks are search engines; yes, and I hope that the above will help you better search, and be found inside of each social network.

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On the 13th April I will be holding a BRAND NEW and EXCLUSIVE webinar on Social Media, and creating images that drive engagement, traffic and sales.

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Author: Warren Knight

Warren Knight is a Social Media Strategist, author of Think #Digital First and one of the UK’s leading professional speakers in Technology, Sales and Social Media.
As an award-winning coach and entrepreneur, Warren has helped thousands of Startups and SME’s grow their business through the strategic use of socially selling… View full profile ›

Source: Business 2 Community

How Any Digital Business Can Explode Using Word of Mouth Marketing

We live in a digital age.

Each day we’re bombarded with an endless stream of online ads via social media, websites, search engines, videos, and so on.

Marketing companies spend billions upon billions each year researching, analyzing, and pushing ads to consumers.

But you know what?

No matter how sophisticated and streamlined digital marketing becomes, it still pales in comparison with the power of good old-fashioned word of mouth marketing (WOMM).

According to in-depth studies from Nielsen, “WOMM recommendations still remain the most credible.”

Just look at this graph that ranks consumers’ trust, depending on the form of advertising and the action it produces.

Positioned right at the top as the number one trust factor is “recommendations from people I know.”

It heavily shapes consumers’ opinions on brands/products/services, and this is unlikely to ever change.

Here are a couple more stats that demonstrate the power of WOMM:

“74 percent of consumers identify WOMM as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.”
“WOMM has been shown to improve marketing effectiveness by up to 54 percent.”

Just think about it.

Would you feel more comfortable buying a product recommended by a close friend or by a marketing message shoved down your throat by some slick marketing guru?

I would bet the former.

The full impact

There’s another important detail I’d like to point out.

It has to do with the long-term impact of acquiring new customers through WOMM.

According to the Wharton School of Business,

a customer you acquire from WOM has a 16 – 25 percent higher lifetime value than those you acquire from other sources.

This means you’re far more likely to get repeat business from an individual who’s acquired through WOMM than otherwise.

They also have a higher likelihood of becoming brand advocates or even brand ambassadors.

Consumers trusting other consumers

And there’s one more thing.

You don’t necessarily need to have a person recommend your brand to someone they know directly to benefit from WOMM.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of consumers trust recommendations from other consumers.

According to Nielsen,

68 percent trust online opinions from other consumers, which is up 7 percent from 2007 and places online opinions as the third most trusted source of product information.

Bright Local also reports,

88 percent of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.

The way I look at it, old school WOMM has meshed with the digital age.

Many people now turn to other online consumers, whom they don’t actually know, to find out whether a brand is worth purchasing from.

If you can impress a handful of consumers and turn them into brand advocates, it can have a domino effect: they spread the word, which can lead to a surge in sales.

It can set off a chain reaction.

Have we forgotten about WOMM?

There’s a paragraph in a Forbes article I really like:

The problem is that for the last few years, marketers have been focused on ‘collecting’ instead of ‘connecting.’ In other words, brands are too caught up in collecting social media fans and they are forgetting to actually connect with them.

I think this really hits the nail on the head.

Many marketers (myself included) are guilty of it to some extent.

I feel we’ve gotten so caught up in the latest and greatest marketing techniques that we sometimes forget about what good business is founded on in the first place: relationships.

Before there was social media, SEO, PPC, or even radio/TV commercials, most businesses gained new customers from old school person-to-person recommendations.

But it’s never too late to cash in on WOMM.

However, it does require a slightly different approach from the one used in the past.

The great thing is there are some really potent resources and platforms out there to streamline WOMM and maximize its impact.

I’d now like to discuss some fundamental tactics you can use to make your digital business explode using WOMM in the modern age.

Focus on your core audience, not the masses

The first step to making this strategy work is to understand who your core audience is.

Founding editor of Wired Magazine, Kevin Kelly formulated what I think was a brilliant hypothesis in 2008—the 1,000 true fans theory.

His idea was that any artist, business, etc. could survive on having only 1,000 true fans and that “returns diminish as your fan base gets larger and larger.”

In other words, you’re more likely to have success if you focus on gaining 1,000 true fans rather than tens of thousands, or even millions, of lukewarm fans.

Tim Ferriss has actually embraced this idea, and it has been a key part of his meteoric rise to fame.

Ferriss even talks about the concept of 1,000 true fans in-depth in his new book, Tools of Titans.

And I think this is a good approach to take in WOMM.

You’re far more likely to create brand advocates if you focus on truly connecting with your core audience rather than trying to appease the masses.

This basically goes back to Pareto’s 80/20 principle, which applies to many different areas of life and business.

The premise is that 80 percent of your customers account for 20 percent of your sales and 20 percent of your customers account for 80 percent of your sales.

What you need to do is put most of your attention on “wooing” the 20 percent and deepening your relationships with them.

If you stick with this game plan, your core audience should grow even stronger, and you’ll be creating the perfect environment for WOMM to take place.

Be authentic and transparent

I know saying something like this may sound a little generic and cliché, but it’s still very important.

I feel many brands are out of touch with their audiences, and they end up suffering for it in the long run.

I believe authenticity and transparency are two of the most vital traits a brand can possess.

Most people can spot any ounce of pretentiousness from a mile away.

And with so many sleazeballs out there today, most consumers have developed a sense of skepticism that isn’t easy to stamp out.

I also realize that simply telling you to be authentic and transparent is a little vague.

You might be asking: how exactly does one accomplish this?

Of course, this is a huge topic to tackle, but I really like these suggestions from Copyblogger on how to get your customers to like you and build trust:

When it comes to transparency, it all boils down to being yourself and making it a point to engage with consumers.

You want to “humanize” your brand.

Check out this post from Vision Critical for more on this topic.

It highlights five specific brands that embraced transparency and found success as a result.

Leverage reviews

As I mentioned earlier, most consumers are receptive to online reviews and trust the opinions of other consumers even if they don’t know them directly.

If you can get your satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, you’re almost guaranteed to see a spike in sales.

So, I suggest doing everything within your power to encourage your satisfied customers to leave reviews.

This starts by “claiming” your business on some of the top review sites such as Google My Business, Angie’s List, and Yelp.

I won’t go into all the details of this process, but I recommend you check out an article I wrote on NeilPatel.com on how to get more online reviews.

This will provide you with an in-depth look at and tips on how to make this strategy a success.

I also suggest looking at this post from HubSpot that talks about 19 online review sites that can help your business get more reviews and gain traction.

Add fuel to the fire with a referral program

If you really want to expedite your WOMM, consider implementing some sort of a referral program.

When done correctly, it can lead to an influx of new customers while giving your brand equity a nice boost.

Here is a great example of a referral program that got it right.

Several years ago, Dropbox started a referral program that offered customers up to 16GB of free storage for “inviting a friend” to join.

What was the end result?

The refer-a-friend feature increased signups by 60 percent
Users sent 2.8 million direct referral invites
Dropbox went from 100k to 4 million users in just 15 months
This resulted in a 40x increase, or a doubling of users every 3 months

This just goes to show the power a referral program can have.

The key is to come up with some way to reward existing customers for referring your brand to a friend.

This could be a discount, freebie, cash back, or whatever.

As long as the reward has genuine value and isn’t going to kill your profit margins, it should work.

The specific reward program you’ll want to implement will depend largely on your industry or niche.

That’s why I suggest reading this post from Referral Candy.

It goes over 47 different referral programs that totally crushed it and should give you some ideas on coming up with an approach for your business.

I also recommend checking out this guide from Referral Rock, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know on the subject.

Conclusion

With all the cutting-edge, sleek, and sexy marketing techniques out there, WOMM sometimes gets overlooked these days.

And that’s unfortunate.

If you look at studies involving research on WOMM, it’s easy to see that it’s still alive and well.

In many ways, WOMM is more powerful than ever when you consider the ease with which consumers can share reviews with one another.

I know I usually find myself reading at least a couple of reviews before I purchase something on Amazon or especially before I book a spot on Airbnb.

The way I look at it, it’s never been easier to harness the power of WOMM than it is today.

It’s simply a matter of bringing this old school concept into the modern marketing era.

By using a handful of fundamental concepts like the ones I discussed, you can absolutely make your digital business explode using WOMM.

The best part is that many of the new customers you receive will be repeats and will even recommend your brand to their friends.

And this is the very definition of creating a sustainable business model.

How big of a role do you think WOMM plays in business today?

Source: Click Consult

How Any Digital Business Can Explode Using Word of Mouth Marketing

We live in a digital age.

Each day we’re bombarded with an endless stream of online ads via social media, websites, search engines, videos, and so on.

Marketing companies spend billions upon billions each year researching, analyzing, and pushing ads to consumers.

But you know what?

No matter how sophisticated and streamlined digital marketing becomes, it still pales in comparison with the power of good old-fashioned word of mouth marketing (WOMM).

According to in-depth studies from Nielsen, “WOMM recommendations still remain the most credible.”

Just look at this graph that ranks consumers’ trust, depending on the form of advertising and the action it produces.

Positioned right at the top as the number one trust factor is “recommendations from people I know.”

It heavily shapes consumers’ opinions on brands/products/services, and this is unlikely to ever change.

Here are a couple more stats that demonstrate the power of WOMM:

“74 percent of consumers identify WOMM as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.”
“WOMM has been shown to improve marketing effectiveness by up to 54 percent.”

Just think about it.

Would you feel more comfortable buying a product recommended by a close friend or by a marketing message shoved down your throat by some slick marketing guru?

I would bet the former.