tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25277674918953603482024-03-14T02:09:19.329-07:00Leslie Richards AttorneyLeslie Richards is an Attorney at law now practicing her 35th year in Encino, CA. Leslie and her team are licensed and experienced in all areas of law in the Los Angeles area.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-2507683393298750092016-10-13T00:26:00.001-07:002016-10-13T00:26:31.905-07:00Why Didn't You Recover from Penguin?<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/22897/"">Dr-Pete</a></p>
<p>After almost a two-year wait, the <a href="https://moz.com/blog/penguin-4-was-it-worth-the-wait" target="_blank">latest Penguin update</a> rolled out in late September and into early October. This roll-out is unusual in many ways, and it only now seems to be settling down. In the past couple of weeks, we've seen many reports of recoveries from previous Penguin demotions, but this post is about those who were left behind. What if you didn't recover from Penguin?</p>
<p>I'm going to work my way from unlikely, borderline conspiracy theories to difficult truths. Theories #1 and #2 might make you feel better, but, unfortunately, the truth is more likely in #4 or #5.</p>
<hr />
<h2>1. There is no Penguin</h2>
<p>Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. Ok, this is the closest I'll get to full-on conspiracy theory. What if this new Penguin is a ruse, and Google did nothing or rolled out something else? We can't know anything 100% without peering into the source code, but I'm 99% confident this isn't the case. Interpreting Google often means reading between the lines, but I don't know of any recent confirmed announcement that ended up being patently false.</p>
<p>Google representatives are confirming details about the new Penguin both publicly and privately, and algorithm flux matches the general timeline. Perhaps more importantly, we're seeing many anecdotal reports of Penguin recoveries, such as:</p>
<p class="full-width"><a href="https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes/status/781533697665294336" target="_blank"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fe9dfac679e1.95797221.gif" rel="border: 0px;" alt="" style="border: 0px;" /></a></p>
<p>Given the severity of Penguin demotions and the known and infrequent update timelines, these reports are unlikely to be coincidences. Some of these reports are also coming from reliable sources, like <a href="https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes" target="_blank">Marie Haynes</a> (above) and <a href="https://twitter.com/glenngabe" target="_blank">Glenn Gabe</a> (below), who closely track sites hit by Penguin.</p>
<p class="full-width"><a href="https://twitter.com/glenngabe/status/785541147896623105"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fea03beb36f9.38398160.gif" rel="border: 0" style="border: 0" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h2>2. Penguin is still rolling out</h2>
<p>This Penguin update has been unusual in many ways. It's probably best not to even call it "Penguin 4.0" (yes, I realize I keep calling it that). The new, "real-time" Penguin is not simply an update to Penguins 1–3. It replaces them and works very differently.</p>
<p>Because real-time Penguin is so different, the roll-out was broken up into a couple of phases. I believe that the new code went live in roughly the timeline of Google's announcement date of September 23rd. It might have happened a day or two before that, but probably not weeks before. This new code, though, was the kinder, gentler Penguin, which devalues bad links.</p>
<p>For this new code to fully take effect, the entire link graph had to be refreshed, and this takes time, especially for deeper links. So, the impact of the initial roll-out may have taken a few days to fully kick in. In terms of algorithm flux, the brunt of the initial release hit MozCast around September 27th. Now that the new Penguin is real-time, we'll be feeling its impact continuously, although that impact will be unnoticeable for the vast majority of sites on the vast majority of days.</p>
<p>In addition, Google has rolled back previous Penguin demotions. This happened after the new code launched, but we don't have an exact timeline. This process also took days, possibly a week or more. We saw additional algorithm spikes around October 2nd and 6th, although the entire period showed sustained flux.</p>
<p>On October 7th, <a href="https://twitter.com/methode" target="_blank">Gary Illyes</a> from Google said that the Penguin roll-out was in the "final stage" (presumably, the removal of demotions) and would take a "few more days". As of this writing, it's been five more days.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fe6135f326e7.48031501.gif" rel="border: 0" style="border: 0" /></p>
<p>My best guess is that 95%+ of previous Penguin demotions have been removed at this point. There's a chance you're in the lucky 5% remaining, but I wouldn't hold my breath.<br /></p>
<hr />
<h2>3. You didn't cut nearly deep enough</h2>
<p>During the few previous Penguin updates, it was assumed that sites didn't recover because they simply hadn't cut deep enough. In other words, site owners and SEOs had tried to surgically remove or disavow a limited number of bad links, but those links were either not the suspect links or were just the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>I think it's true that many people were probably trying to keep as many links as possible, and were hesitant to make the deep cuts Penguin required. However, this entire argument is misleading and possibly self-destructive, because this isn't how the new Penguin works.</p>
<p>Theoretically, the new Penguin should only devalue bad links, and its impact will be felt on a more "granular" (in Google's own words) level. In other words, your entire site won't be demoted because of a few or even a lot of bad links, at least not by Penguin. Should you continue to clean up your link profile? Possibly. Will cutting deeper help you recover from Penguin down the road? Probably not.</p>
<hr />
<h2>4. Without bad links, you'd have no links at all</h2>
<p>Here's the more likely problem, and it's a cousin of #3. Your link profile is so bad that there is practically no difference between "demotion" and "devaluation." It's quite possible that your past Penguin demotion <em>was</em> lifted, but your links were so heavily devalued that you saw no ranking recovery. There was simply no link equity left to provide SEO benefit.</p>
<p>In this case, continuing to prune those bad links isn't going to help you. You need to build new quality signals and authoritative links. The good news is that you shouldn't have to wait months or years now to see the positive impact of new links. The bad news is that building high-quality links is a long, difficult road. If it were easy, you probably wouldn't have taken shortcuts in the first place.</p>
<hr />
<h2>5. Your problem was never Penguin</h2>
<p>This is the explanation no one wants to hear, but I think it's more common than most of us think. We're obsessed with the confirmed update animals, especially Penguin and Panda, but these are only a few of the hundreds of animals in the Google Zoo.</p>
<p>There were algorithmic link demotions before Penguin, and there are still parts of the algorithm that look for and act on bad links. Given the power that links still hold over ranking, this should come as no surprise. The new Penguin isn't a free pass on all past link-building sins.</p>
<p>In addition, there are still manual actions. These should (hopefully) show up in Google Search Console, but Google will act on bad links manually where it's warranted.</p>
<p>It's also possible that you have a very different algorithmic problem in play or any of a number of technical SEO issues. That diagnostic is well beyond the scope of this blog post, but I'll offer this advice — dig deeper. If you haven't recovered from Penguin, maybe you've got different or bigger problems.</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-8354222023699708492016-10-12T09:06:00.001-07:002016-10-12T09:06:39.080-07:003 New Upgrades Make the Web's Best Keyword Research Tool Even Better<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/63/"">randfish</a></p>
<p>If you know me, you know I'm hyper-critical of the software, data, and products Moz releases. My usual response to someone asking about our tools vs. others used to be to give a rundown of the things I like about the competition and why they're great, then look down at ground, shuffle my feet in embarrassment, and say "and Moz also has a good tool for that."</p>
<p>But <a href="https://moz.com/explorer" target="_blank">Keyword Explorer</a> (and the progress Moz Pro & Local have made this year) brings out a different behavior in me. I'm still a little embarrassed to admit it, but admit it I must. KW Explorer is the best keyword research tool in the market, period*.</p>
<p>But we are never satisfied, so today, it's getting even better with the addition of some killer new functionality.</p>
<h2>#1: Rank checking inside KW Explorer lists</h2>
<p>First on the list is the ability to easily see whether a given domain (or URL) already ranks on page 1 for any of the keywords on a list. Just enter a domain or page, hit "check rankings," and the Rank column will fill in with your data.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fdc7db114443.25630849.gif" /></p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fdc7e7da2391.68383161.gif" /></p>
<h3>Why is this crucial?</h3>
<p>Because many of us who do keyword research need to know whether to add a list of keywords to our "already visible/getting traffic" set, or to the "in need of content creation or optimization" set. This feature makes it simple to build up a multi-hundred keyword list for targeting, and quickly include or exclude the keywords for which we're already ranking page 1 (or above/below any given position). This column now appears in the CSV export, too, so you can mash up and filter the data however you'd like.</p>
<p>Quick aside: If you have a keyword list with expired SERPs (after 14 days, KW Explorer assumes that Google's results may have changed substantially enough to invalidate the prior Difficulty & Opportunity scores), you'll get this experience when checking rankings. Just refresh the keywords on the list to fetch the latest SERPs and you'll be good to go.</p>
<p>But, of course, there's also the need to get more ranking data — the ranking positions beyond page 1, tracking over time, comparison to competitors, etc. And that's why, we've also added...</p>
<h2>#2: Send keywords directly from a list to Pro Campaigns for rank tracking</h2>
<p>Undoubtedly, our most-requested feature of the summer was the ability to import a list (or selected keywords from a list) over to a campaign to track. The previous export/import system worked, but it was an unnecessary hassle. Today, you can simply use the "I want to" menu, choose "Add XYZ to Campaign," and then select which campaign you want (or create a new one).</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fdc9266a13e8.91310856.gif" /></p>
<p>The keywords will auto-magically copy themselves into your campaign, using whatever default settings you've got for rank tracking (US-English, Google.com is most common, but you can rank track in any country or language).</p>
<h3>Why is this crucial?</h3>
<p>Because once you know the keywords you're targeting, you need to know how you're performing over time, how your competition's doing on those terms/phrases, and how the rankings are changing to include or exclude various <a href="https://moz.com/blog/announcing-serp-features-beyond-10-blue-links" target="_blank">SERP features</a> (yup, as of August, we also track all the SERP features in Pro Campaigns).</p>
<p>The challenge, of course, is that you've got to know which keywords are worth targeting in the first place, and how relatively important they are, which is why we've worked like mad to deliver...</p>
<h2>#3: Better, more accurate keyword volume and coverage than ever</h2>
<p>(that's way, way frickin' better than whatever Google AdWords is doing with their <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-officially-throttling-keyword-planner-data-low-spending-adwords-accounts-255795" target="_blank">"low spending"</a> accounts)</p>
<p><a href="https://moz.com/community/users/4260765" target="_blank">Russ Jones</a> and the Keyword Explorer team have been going full-force on a new, more powerful solution to replacing Google AdWords's <a href="https://moz.com/blog/google-keyword-planner-dirty-secrets" target="_blank">weird, imprecise, always-30-days-or-more-behind</a> keyword data with better information. We started working with clickstream data (searches and click patterns gathered from browser extensions, anonymized, and sold to us by various folks) early this year; Russ wrote a <a href="https://moz.com/blog/google-keyword-unplanner-clickstream-data-to-the-rescue" target="_blank">detailed account of the process here</a>.</p>
<p>But now our volume numbers are even better, with the addition of dramatically more data via a partnership with the awesome crew at <a href="https://www.jumpshot.com/" target="_blank">Jumpshot</a>. Their clickstream-based search behavior, plus what we get from other sources, combined with our modeling against AdWords' impression counts on real campaigns, gives us higher accuracy, more coverage, and faster recognition of volume trends than ever before.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fdca2a3891e2.67723886.gif" /></p>
<h3>Why is this crucial?</h3>
<p>When you enter a term or phrase into Keyword Explorer, you can now expect that we're providing the best, most accurate volume ranges available*. Marketers need to be able to trust the numbers in their keyword tools, or else risk prioritizing the wrong search terms, the wrong content, and the wrong investments. We have confidence, thanks to our test comparisons, that the volume ranges you see in KW Explorer's ranges will match real volume for the prior 30 days 95%+ of the time.</p>
<p>In the months ahead, Russ will have more to share comparing Moz's keyword volume data to AdWords' and, hopefully, an external API for search volume, too (especially after all the <a href="https://twitter.com/randfish/status/785909677011775488" target="_blank">resounding requests on Twitter</a>).</p>
<p>If that wasn't enough, we've also added volume numbers to <a href="https://analytics.moz.com/manage-campaigns" target="_blank">Pro Campaigns</a>, so you can see this high-quality information in the context of the keywords you're tracking.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fdcab5b428d6.19617401.gif" /></p>
<p>Not too shabby, eh?</p>
<hr />
<p>Let's get real. Moz had a number of years where getting one change to one product, even a small one, felt like pulling teeth. It took forever. I think you could rightly point at our software and say "What's going on over there?" But those days are long gone. <a href="https://moz.com/blog/announcing-serp-features-beyond-10-blue-links" target="_blank">Just</a> <a href="https://moz.com/blog/duplicate-management-upgrade-moz-local" target="_blank">look</a> <a href="https://moz.com/blog/onpage-seo-unlimited-access-mozbar" target="_blank">at</a> <a href="https://moz.com/blog/keyword-explorer-upgrades-new-features-more-lists-and-better-metrics" target="_blank">all</a> the <a href="https://moz.com/blog/announcing-keyword-explorer-mozs-new-keyword-research-tool" target="_blank">useful</a>, <a href="https://moz.com/blog/top-12-moz-pro-q1" target="_blank">quality</a> <a href="https://moz.com/blog/my-business-console-free-tool" target="_blank">updates</a> in <a href="https://moz.com/blog/related-topics-in-moz-pro" target="_blank">2016</a>. This team is firing. on. every. cylinder. If you work on Moz's software, you should be proud. If you use our software, you can feel like you're getting your money's worth and more. And if, like me, you tie far too much of your self-worth to the quality of your company's products, well, even you can start holding your head high.</p>
<p>Rock on, fellow Mozzers and Moz subscribers. Rock on.</p>
<hr />
<p>* In the English-language market, that is; outside of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia (where we get Jumpshot and other clickstream data), the suggestions aren't as comprehensive and the volume numbers are often missing. Sadly, it'll probably be this way for a while as we're focusing on English markets for the time being, and will need to find and make deals with clickstream providers in each country/language in order to match up.</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-8388788597270356442016-10-11T00:47:00.001-07:002016-10-11T00:47:07.563-07:00We Fought the Comment Spam (and the Comment Spam Didn't Win)<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/3991533/"">FeliciaCrawford</a></p>
<p>All across the Internet, comments sections are disappearing.</p>
<p>From your <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/09/what-happened-after-7-news-sites-got-rid-of-reader-comments/" target="_blank">high-profile news sites</a> to those that <a href="http://marketingland.com/editors-desk-dropped-comments-marketing-land-search-engine-land-170426" target="_blank">share the online marketing space</a>, more and more sites are banishing that unassuming little text box at the bottom of a post. And frankly, it’s not hard to understand why.</p>
<p>First, you have your good ol’-fashioned spam comments. These are the commenters that hold dear the idea that those nofollowed comment links are valuable:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91ab5a2130.26651389.png" alt="commentlink5.png" /></p>
<p class="caption">The usual.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91abe78fc3.20757174.png" alt="commentlink2.png" /></p>
<p class="caption">Spicing it up a bit with some solid industry advice.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91ac89fb94.58423627.png" alt="commentlink4.png" /></p>
<p class="caption">Really going for the gold!</p>
<p>Then you have your thin comments. Often left with (we assume) good intentions, they don’t add much value to the discussion:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91ad30b755.71451589.png" alt="thincomment1.png" /></p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91adc13f08.58393492.png" alt="thincomment2.png" /></p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91ae5d1cd5.81799000.png" alt="thincomment3.png" /></p>
<p>These poor souls usually end up with a lot of downvotes, and if they receive upvotes, it’s often a clear sign that there’s a nefarious MozPoint scheme afoot.</p>
<p>Sometimes even the best of us are lured by the glamour of spamming:</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fc918d979948.66461796.jpg" /></p>
<p>Finally, lest we forget, you have your inflammatory comments. Those comments that, although perhaps on-topic, are derailing or just downright unkind. We don’t get too much of that here on the Moz blog, thank goodness (or thank <a href="https://moz.com/about/tagfee" target="_blank">TAGFEE</a>), but I’m sure we’ve all read enough of those to last us several lifetimes.</p>
<p>And comment moderation is a thankless, wearying task. Though we fight the good fight, comment spammers are constantly finding ways around our barriers, poking their links into the chinks in our armor. It takes valuable time out of a Mozzer’s busy workday to moderate those comments.</p>
<p>So why are we battling to keep them?</p>
<h2>In the beginning, there was the blog.</h2>
<p>Before the Moz Pro toolset was even a twinkle in Roger’s optical sensors, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050721002728/http://www.seomoz.org/blog.php" target="_blank">Moz was a blog</a>. A community of brave folks banding together to tackle the mysteries and challenges of SEO. If you look back across the years and rifle through the many, many comments, you’ll begin to notice a few things:</p>
<ul>
<li>People learned from one another.</li>
<li>People leaned on one another.</li>
<li>People networked and cultivated relationships that otherwise may not have blossomed.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Google says they're good for SEO, and I'm not gonna fight with Google.</h2>
<p>Now, I don’t want to cheapen the sentiment here, but it has to be said: the smart folks over at Google <a href="http://www.thesempost.com/comments-good-for-google-seo/" target="_blank">have made it clear</a> that a healthy, vibrant online community is one signal of a site’s quality. Comments can be considered part and parcel of what constitutes good (nay, even great) content, and <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-featured-snippet-comments-disqus-21964.html" target="_blank">have even been spotted</a> in a featured snippet or two.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I’m not one to argue with the Big G.</p>
<h2>But there's always been comment spam. Why do you care now?</h2>
<p>Comment spam isn’t a new or novel phenomenon. It’s been plaguing blogs almost since the very first public bloggers put fingers to keyboard. Most blog posts on Moz show traces of its corrupt spamalicious influence in the comments section. So what was the catalyst that steeled our resolve?</p>
<p>It just got <em>annoying.</em></p>
<p>Authors pour heart and soul into crafting their posts. They take valuable time out of their regular work day to engage in the comments section, answering questions and driving thoughtful discussion. <strong>They deserve better than a slew of spammers aiming to place a link.</strong></p>
<p>Readers devote hours of their ever-so-precious lives to reading the blog. Some folks even read for the <a href="https://moz.com/blog/tie-marketing-metrics-data-boards-cxos-investors-care-about-whiteboard-friday#comment-389430" target="_blank">comment conversations alone</a>. <strong>They deserve to benefit from those invested hours, to be inspired to join the conversation.</strong></p>
<h2>We knew we had to do something. What that was seemed unclear, though.</h2>
<p>We began to notice something. When we promoted a YouMoz post to the main blog, it tended to garner more of what we’d call <em>quality</em> comments. Comments with depth, that ask pertinent questions, that respectfully challenge the article in question. These posts came prepackaged with their own discussions already in full swing from their time on YouMoz; often, the first few comments were engaging ones, and they were just as often upvoted to remain on top (the blog auto-sorts comments by popularity).</p>
<p>Conversely, when the first several comments on a brand-new post were thin, spammy, or otherwise low-quality, it seemed to grind any potential discussion to a screeching halt. Internally, our Mozzer authors like Dr. Pete and Rand began to take notice. I received some concerned questions from other frequent contributors. At first, I wasn’t sure how to tackle the problem. After all, we already seemed to be doing so much.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;" rel="margin-left: 20px;"><strong>Comment moderation?</strong> Check. Certain triggers catch comments in a queue, which we clear out daily.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong>Subject <em>every</em> comment to approval by an editor?</strong> No, that would stymy the natural discussions that make our blog comments section special in the first place. No one should have to wait for my morning meetings to finish before they can engage in intellectual banter with their peers.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;"><strong>Close the comments section?</strong> No way. This was never on the table. It simply didn’t make sense; we’re fortunate in that a good majority of comments on the blog <em>are</em> high quality.</p>
<p>It boiled down to the fact that there was the potential for our comments section to nurture not only good content, not only great content, but <em>fantastic</em> content. 10X, if you prefer that term. The most royal darn content outside of Buckingham Palace.</p>
<p>Okay, that might be going a little far. But something incredibly special happens here on the blog. You can ask questions about a Whiteboard Friday and Rand will do his best to answer, thoughtfully refute, or discuss your point. You can get to know your peers in an industry largely cooped up behind a screen half a world away. You can joke with them, disagree with them, metaphorically high-five them. And it’s not limited to a relatively low character count, nor is there pressure to approve the friend request of anyone you’ve just hotly debated.</p>
<p>We had to preserve that.</p>
<p>And that’s when we devised our grand experiment.</p>
<h2>We began to seed discussion questions as the first comment.</h2>
<p>Inspired by sites like the New York Times with their “NYT Pick” featured comment option, we decided there was a better way.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91af0f8902.64207724.png" alt="nytpick.png" /></p>
<p class="caption">Marvel at that nifty gold badge!</p>
<p>For one week in August (8/1 through 8/5), I asked authors to contribute a discussion question, something to spark a decent conversation in the comments early on, before you could even say “thanks for the nice post.”</p>
<p>This question would appear at the top of our comments section, the first thing a reader would see after consuming the post and <em>potentially</em> feeling inspired enough to share their thoughts.</p>
<p>Rand kicked it off a little early, in fact, <a href="https://moz.com/blog/should-seos-track-report-keyword-rankings-whiteboard-friday#comment-392322" target="_blank">with this zinger</a> on July 29th:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91afca6100.77562704.png" alt="randsfirstcomment.png" /></p>
<p class="caption">Those upvotes looked mighty promising to a despairing blog editor.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that, for the most part, posting these discussion questions is a very manual process. We don’t currently have the framework built to display a “featured question.” We tend to publish around 12am Seattle time; to get these little puppies in place early enough to make a difference, I would...</p>
<ul>
<li>Stay up until midnight</li>
<li>Assume the identity of the author (with permission, of course) using magical Moz admin abilities</li>
<li>Publish the comment</li>
<li>Sneak back to my main account and — yes, here’s the shady bit — thumbs it up to ensure it stayed “on top” for a few hours</li>
</ul>
<p>I do struggle with the guilt of these small betrayals (that is, gaming the thumb system), but ‘twas for the greater good, I swear it! As you can see from the screenshot above, that high visibility — combined with a ready-to-go thought-provoking question — earned more upvotes as the day wore on. Almost without fail, each seeded discussion question remained the top-voted comment on every post that week. And it seemed to be working — more and more comments seemed to be <em>good quality. Great</em> quality. Sometimes even <em>fantastic</em> quality. (I just shivered.)</p>
<h3>What's spam to me might be a sandwich to you.</h3>
<p>Now, quality is a very subjective thing. I can’t vouch for the absolute science of this experiment, because it was very squarely rooted in a subjective analysis of the comments. But when we compared the results from our experiment week (8/1 through 8/5) to two separate weeks in which we didn’t make any special effort in the comments (7/18 through 7/22 and 6/27 through 7/1), the results were quite telling.</p>
<h3>Cut to the chase — what happened?!</h3>
<p>Manually going through the comments section of each post, I tallied how many comments I considered <strong>high-quality or useful that were not given by the author</strong>, and how many comments I considered <strong>so thin or spammy as to be detrimental</strong> to the section as a whole.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;" rel="margin-left: 20px;">For the control week of June 27th through July 1st, <strong>26%</strong> of total comments were high-quality and <strong>26%</strong> were spammy.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">For the control week of July 18th through July 22nd, <strong>23%</strong> were high-quality and <strong>29%</strong> were spammy.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">For the week of our discussion questions, August 1st through August 5th, <strong>35%</strong> of total comments were high-quality and <strong>11%</strong> were spammy.</p>
<p>My subjective, unscientific experiment had great results. Since then, I’ve asked our authors to contribute discussion questions to kick off a good conversation in the comments. Every time, I can anecdotally say that the commentary was more vibrant, more overtly helpful, and more alive than when we don’t meddle.</p>
<h2>You like it, you really like it!</h2>
<p>Seeded discussion questions far and away have more upvotes than your regularly scheduled top comments. Often they top the double digits, and <a href="https://moz.com/blog/wake-up-seos-the-new-new-google-is-here-2016#comment-392750" target="_blank">this very apt discussion question by Gianluca</a> (a long-time supporter and champion of the Moz community) earned a whopping 27 thumbs pointing toward the heavens:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/we-fought-the-comment-spam/57fc91b08a1f15.52899894.png" alt="gianluca.png" /></p>
<p>In addition, people are <em>answering</em> those questions. They're answering each other answering those questions. The questions are helping to get the gears turning, adding another layer of thoughtfulness to a piece that you otherwise might be content to skim and then bounce off to another magical corner of the Internet.</p>
<p>The greatest and most humbling triumph, of course, would be to help transform the spammers into supporters, to inspire <em>everyone</em> to think critically and communicate boldly. If even one person hesitates before dropping in a promotional link and instead asks the community's advice, my spirit shall rest easy forevermore.</p>
<h2>There's a light at the end of the tunnel.</h2>
<p>Sure, there are still comment spammers. There have always been comment spammers. And, though it pains me to say it, there will always be comment spammers. It’s just a part of life we must accept, like the mud that comes along with a beautifully rainy Seattle afternoon or when your last sip of delicious coffee is muddled with grounds.</p>
But I want to give you hope, O ye commenters and readers and editors of the world. You need not sacrifice the intrinsic goodness of a community-led comments section to the ravages of spam. There is another way. And though the night is dark and full of spammers, we’re strong enough and smart enough to never yield, to hold firm to our values, and to nourish what goodness and helpfulness we can in our humble territory of the Internet.<br />
<p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!</p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-87024274997248004002016-10-10T00:32:00.001-07:002016-10-10T00:32:24.999-07:00The Complete Guide to Creating On-Site Reviews+Testimonials Pages<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/13017/"">MiriamEllis</a></p>
<blockquote><em>“Show your site’s credibility by using original research, citations, links, reviews and testimonials. An author biography or testimonials from real customers can help boost your site’s trustworthiness and reputation.”</em> <em>–</em> <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001093?hl=en&ref_topic=4631146" target="_blank">Google Search Console Course</a></blockquote>
<p>2017 may well be the year of testimonials and reviews in local SEO. As our industry continues to grow, we have studied surveys indicating that some <a href="https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/" target="_blank">92% of consumers now read online reviews</a> and that 68% of these cite positive reviews as a significant trust factor. We’ve gone through a <a href="https://www.getfivestars.com/blog/google-updates-schema-review-guidelines/" target="_blank">meaningful overhaul of Google’s schema review/testimonial guidelines</a> while finding that <a href="https://www.getfivestars.com/blog/real-reason-review-incentives-are-bad/" target="_blank">major players like Yelp will publicly shame guideline-breakers</a>. We’ve seen a major publication post a controversial piece suggesting that website <a href="http://searchengineland.com/forget-testimonials-page-2016-year-reviews-239395" target="_blank">testimonials pages are useless</a>, drawing <a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-reviews/39136-testimonials-pages-useless.html" target="_blank">thoughtful industry rebuttals</a> illustrating why well-crafted testimonials pages are, in fact, vitally useful in a variety of ways.</p>
<p>Reviews can impact your local pack rankings, testimonials can win you in-SERP stars, and if that isn’t convincing enough, the above quote states unequivocally that both reviews and testimonials on your website can boost Google’s perception of a local business’ trustworthiness and reputation. That sounds awfully good! Yet, seldom a day goes by that I don’t encounter websites that are neither encouraging reviews nor showcasing testimonials.</p>
<p>If you are marketing local enterprises that play to win, chances are you’ve been studying third-party review management for some years now. Not much has been written about on-site consumer feedback, though. <strong>What belongs on a company’s own testimonials/reviews page? How should you structure one? What are the benefits you might expect from the effort?</strong> Today, we’re going to get serious about the central role of consumer sentiment and learn to maximize its potential to influence and convert customers.</p>
<p>Up next to help you in the work ahead: technical specifics, expert tips, and a consumer feedback page mockup.</p>
<h2>Definitions and differentiations</h2>
<h3>Traditional reviews: Direct from customers on third-party sites</h3>
<p>In the local SEO industry, when you hear someone talking about "reviews," they typically mean sentiment left directly by customers on third-party platforms, like this review on TripAdvisor:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac7192f61a7.26027463.jpg" alt="rt1.jpg" /></p>
<h3>Traditional testimonials: Moderated by owners on company site</h3>
<p>By contrast, testimonials have traditionally meant user sentiment gathered by a business and posted on the company website on behalf of customers, like this snippet from a bed-and-breakfast site:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac719cd2f84.60020691.jpg" alt="rt2.jpg" /></p>
<p>Review content has historically been outside of owners’ control, while testimonial content has been subject to the editorial control of the business owner. Reviews have historically featured ratings, user profiles, images, owner responses, and other features while testimonials might just be a snippet of text with little verifiable information identifying the author. Reviews have typically been cited as more trustworthy because they are supposedly unmoderated, while testimonials have sometimes been criticized as creating a positive-only picture of the business managing them.</p>
<h3>Hybrid sentiment: Review+testimonial functionality on company site</h3>
<p>Things are changing! More sophisticated local businesses are now employing technologies that blur the lines between reviews and testimonials. Website-based applications can enable users to leave reviews directly on-site, they can contain star ratings, avatars, and even owner responses, like this:</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fac38b4c5d10.24612122.jpg" /></p>
<p>In other words, you have many options when it comes to managing user sentiment, but to make sure the effort you put in yields maximum benefits, you’ve got to:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Know the guidelines and technology</strong></li>
<li><strong>Have a clear goal and a clear plan for achieving it</strong></li>
<li><strong>Commit to making a sustained effort</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>There is a ton of <a href="https://www.getfivestars.com/blog/how-to-get-more-reviews-part-one/" target="_blank">great content out there</a> about managing your reviews on third-party platforms like Yelp, Google, Facebook, etc., but today we’re focusing specifically on your <strong>on-site reviews/testimonials page.</strong> What belongs on that page? How should you populate and organize its content? What benefits might you expect from the investment? To answer those questions, let’s create a goal-drive plan, with help from some world-class Local SEOs.</p>
<h2>Guidelines & technology<br /></h2>
<p>There are two types of guidelines you need to know in the consumer sentiment space:</p>
<h3>1) Platform policies</h3>
<p>Because your website’s consumer feedback page may feature a combination of unique reviews and testimonials you directly source, widgets featuring third-party review streams, and links or badges either showcasing third-party reviews or asking for them, you need to know the policies of each platform you plan to feature.</p>
<p><strong>Why does this matter?</strong> Since different platforms have policies that range from lax to strict, you want to be sure you’re making the most of each one’s permissions without raising any red flags. Google, for example, has historically been fine with companies asking consumers for reviews, while Yelp’s policy is more stringent and complex.</p>
<p>Here are some quick links to the policies of a few of the major review platforms, to which you’ll want to add your own research for sites that are specific to your industry and/or geography:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en&topic=1656880&ctx=topic&visit_id=1-636099144627914664-3921149364&rd=1" target="_blank">Google</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.yelp-support.com/Managing_Your_Business_with_Yelp?l=en_US&biz=1" target="_blank">Yelp</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/434605260012677/" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.citysearch.com/aboutcitysearch/users/terms_of_use" target="_blank">Citygrid</a></li>
<li><a href="https://foursquare.com/legal/terms" target="_blank">Foursquare</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.yellowpages.com/about/legal/terms-conditions" target="_blank">YP</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>2) Google’s review schema guidelines</h3>
<p>Google has been a dominant player in local for so long that their policies often tend to set general industry standards. In addition to the Google review policy I’ve linked to above, Google has a completely separate set of <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/reviews" target="_blank">review schema guidelines</a>, which <a href="https://www.getfivestars.com/blog/google-updates-schema-review-guidelines/" target="_blank">recently underwent a significant update</a>. The update included clarifications about critic reviews and review snippets, but most germane to today’s topic, Google offered the following guidelines surrounding testimonial/review content you may wish to publish and mark up with schema on your website:</p>
<blockquote style="margin-left: 42px;"><em>Google may display information from aggregate ratings markup in the Google Knowledge Cards. The following guidelines apply to review snippets in knowledge cards for local businesses:</em><br />
<br />
- Ratings must be sourced directly from users.<br />
- Don't rely on human editors to create, curate or compile ratings information for local businesses. - These types of reviews are critic reviews.<br />
- Sites must collect ratings information directly from users and not from other sites.</blockquote>
<p>In sum, if you want to mark up consumer feedback with schema on your website, it should be unique to your website — not drawn from any other source. But to enjoy the rewards of winning eye-catching in-SERP star ratings or of becoming a "reviews from the web" source in Google’s knowledge panels, you’ve got to know how to implement schema correctly. Let’s do this right and call on a schema expert to steer our course.</p>
<h2>Get friendly with review schema technology.</h2>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac71a9d9042.95582990.jpg" alt="rtdavid.jpg" data-pin-nopin="true" align="right" /></p>
<p>The local SEO industry has come to know <a href="https://plus.google.com/+DavidDeering" target="_blank">David Deering</a> and his company <a href="http://www.touchpointdigitalmarketing.com/" target="_blank">TouchPoint Digital Marketing</a> as go-to resources for the implementation of complex schema and JSON-LD markup. I’m very grateful to him for his willingness to share some of the basics with us.</p>
<p>Here on the Moz blog, I always strive to highlight high quality, free resources, but in this case, free may not get the job done. I asked David if he could recommend any really good free review schema plugins, and learned a lot from his answer:</p>
<blockquote><em>“</em><em>Boy, that's a tough one because I don't use any plugins or tools to do the markup work. I find that none of them do a good job at adding markup to a page. Some come close, but the plugin files still need to be edited in order for everything to be correct and properly nested. So I tend to hard-code the templates that would control the insertion of reviews onto a page. But I can tell you that GetFiveStars does a pretty good job at marking up reviews and ratings and adding them to a site. There might be others, too, but I just don't have any personal experience using them, unfortunately.</em><em>”</em></blockquote>
<p>It sounds like, at present, best bets are going to be to go with a paid service or roll up your sleeves to dig into schema hard coding. *If anyone in our community has discovered a plugin or widget that meets the standards David has cited, please definitely share it in the comments, but in the meantime, let’s take a look at the example David kindly provided of perfect markup. He notes,</p>
<blockquote><em>“The following example is rather simple and straightforward but it contains everything that a review markup should. (The example also assumes that the review markup is nested within the markup of the business that's being reviewed):”</em></blockquote>
<pre>
"review": {
"@type": "Review",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Reviewer's Name",
"sameAs": "<a href="http://link-to-persons-profile-page.com">http://link-to-persons-profile-page.com</a>"
}
"datePublished": "2016-09-23",
"reviewBody": "Reviewer's comments here...",
"reviewRating": {
"@type": "Rating"
"worstRating": "1",
"bestRating": "5",
"ratingValue": "5"
}
},
</pre>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">This is a good day to check to see if your schema is as clean and thorough as David’s, and also to consider the benefits of <a href="https://whitespark.ca/blog/the-json-ld-markup-guide-to-local-business-schema/" target="_blank">JSON-LD markup</a>, which he describes this way:<br /></p>
<blockquote><em>“JSON-LD is simply another syntax or method that can be used to insert structured data markup onto a page. Once the markup is created, you can simply insert it into the head section of the page. So it's easy to use in that sense. And</em> <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data" target="_blank"><em>Google has stated their preference for JSON-LD</em></a><em>, so it's a good idea to make the switch from microdata if a person hasn't already.”</em></blockquote>
<h3>There are some do’s and don’ts when it comes to schema + reviews</h3>
<p>I asked David if he could share some expert review-oriented tips and he replied,</p>
<blockquote>“<em>Well, in typical fashion, Google has been fickle with their rich snippet guidelines. They didn't allow the marking up of third-party reviews, then they did, now they don't again. So, I think it would be a good idea for businesses to begin collecting reviews directly from their customers through their site or through email. Of course, I would not suggest neglecting the other online review sources because those are important, too. <strong>But when it comes to Google and rich snippets, don't put all of your eggs (and hopes) in one basket.</strong></em><br />
<br />
<em>*As a rule, the reviews should be directly about the main entity on the page. So keep reviews about the business, products, services, etc. separate — don't combine them because that goes against Google's rich snippet guidelines.”</em></blockquote>
<p>And any warnings about things we should <em>never</em> do with schema? David says,</p>
<blockquote><em>“Never mark up anything that is not visible on the page, including reviews, ratings and aggregate ratings. Only use review markup for the entities that Google allows it to be used for. For example, the review and rating markup should</em> <em>not</em> <em>be used for articles or on-page content. That goes against Google's guidelines. And as of this writing, it's also against their guidelines to mark up third-party reviews and ratings such as those found on Google+ or Yelp.</em>“</blockquote>
<p>Ready to dig deeper into the engrossing world of schema markup with David Deering? I highly recommend this recent <a href="http://localu.org/blog/video-local-u-advanced-speaker-series-david-deering-schema/" target="_blank">LocalU video</a>. If the work involved makes you dizzy, hiring an expert or purchasing a paid service are likely to be worthwhile investments. Now that we’ve considered our technical options, let’s consider what we’d like to achieve.</p>
<h2>Define your consumer feedback page goals.</h2>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac71b124017.54820976.jpg" alt="rtmike.jpg" data-pin-nopin="true" align="right" /></p>
<p>If I could pick just one consultant to get advice from concerning the potential benefits of local consumer feedback, it would be <a href="https://www.getfivestars.com/" target="_blank">GetFiveStars</a>’ co-founder and renowned local SEO, <a href="http://blumenthals.com/blog/" target="_blank">Mike Blumenthal</a>.</p>
<p>Before we dive in with Mike, I want to offer one important clarification:</p>
<p>If you’re marketing a single-location business, you’ll typically be creating just one consumer feedback page on your website to represent it, but if yours is a multi-location business, you’ll want to take the advice in this article and <em>apply it to each</em> <a href="https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages" target="_blank"><em>city landing page</em></a> on your website, including unique user sentiment for each location. For more on this concept, see Joy Hawkins’ article <a href="http://searchengineland.com/solve-duplicate-content-local-seo-issues-multi-location-businesses-255509" target="_blank">How to Solve Duplicate Content Local SEO Issues for Multi-Location Businesses</a>.</p>
<p>Now let’s set some goals for what a consumer feedback page can achieve. Mike breaks this down into two sections:</p>
<h3>1. Customer-focused</h3>
<ul>
<li>Create an effective page that ranks highly for your brand so that it becomes a doorway page from Google.</li>
<li>Make sure that the page is easily accessible from your selling pages with appropriately embedded reviews and links so that it can help sell sitewide.</li>
</ul>
<h3>2. Google-focused</h3>
<ul>
<li>Get the page ranking well on brand and brand+review searches</li>
<li>Ideally, get designated with review stars</li>
<li>Optimally, have it show in the knowledge panel as a source for reviews from the web</li>
</ul>
<p>This screenshot illustrates these last three points perfectly:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac71ba82bb8.35071599.jpg" alt="rt4.jpg" /></p>
<h3>Time on page may make you a believer!</h3>
<p>Getting excited about consumer feedback pages, yet? There’s more! Check out this screenshot from one of Mike’s showcase clients, the lovely <a href="http://barbaraoliverandco.com/" target="_blank">Barbara Oliver Jewelry</a> in Williamsville, NY, and pay special attention to the average time spent on <a href="http://barbaraoliverandco.com/reviews-testimonials/" target="_blank">http://barbaraoliverandco.com/reviews-testimonials/</a>:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac71c652225.37279953.jpg" alt="rt5.jpg" /></p>
<p>When customers are spending 3+ minutes on any page of a local business website, you can feel quite confident that they are really engaging with the business. Mike says,</p>
<blockquote><em>“For Barbara, this is an incredibly important page. It reflects almost 9% of her overall page visits and represents almost 5% of the landing pages from the search engines. Time on the page for new visitors is</em> <em>4 minutes</em> <em>with an average of over 3 minutes. This page had review snippets until she recently updated her site — hopefully they will return. It’s an incredibly important page for her.”</em></blockquote>
<h3>Transparency helps much more than it hurts.</h3>
<p>The jewelry store utilizes GetFiveStars technology, and represents a perfect chance to ask Mike about a few of the finer details of what belongs on consumer feedback pages. I had noticed that GetFiveStars gives editorial control to owners over which reviews go live, and wanted to get Mike’s personal take on transparency and authenticity. He says,</p>
<blockquote><em>“I strongly encourage business owners to show all feedback. I think transparency in reviews is critical for customer trust and we find that showing all legitimate feedback results in less than a half-point decline in star ratings on average.<br /></em><br />
<em>That being said, I also recommend that 1) the negative feedback be held back for 7 to 10 days to allow for complaint resolution before publishing and 2) that the content meet basic terms of service and appropriateness that should be defined by each business. Obviously you don’t want your own review site to become a mosh pit, so some standards are appropriate.</em><br />
<em><br />
I am more concerned about users than bots. I think that a clear statement of your terms of service and your standards for handling these comments should be visible to all visitors. Trust is the critical factor. Barbara Oliver doesn’t yet have that but only because she has recently updated her site. It’s something that will be added shortly.</em><em>”</em></blockquote>
<h3>Respond to on-page reviews just as you would on third-party platforms.</h3>
<p>I’d also noticed something that struck me as uncommon on Barbara Oliver Jewelry’s consumer feedback page: she responds to her on-page reviews, just as she would on third-party review platforms. Mike explains:</p>
<blockquote><em>“In the ‘old’ days of reviews, I always thought that owner responses to positive reviews were a sort of glad handing ... I mean how many times can you say ‘thank you’? But as I researched the issue it became clear that a very large minority of users (40%) noted that if they took the time to leave feedback or a review, then the owner should acknowledge it. That research convinced me to push for the feature in GetFiveStars. With GetFiveStars, the owner is actually prompted to provide either a private or public response. The reviewer receives an email with the response as well. This works great for both happy and unhappy outcomes and serves double-duty as a basis for complaint management on the unhappy side.<br /></em><br />
<em>You can see the evolution of my thinking in these two articles</em> —<br />
<br />
<em>What I used to think: <a href="http://localu.org/blog/business-respond-every-positive-review/" target="_blank">Should A Business Respond to Every Positive Review?</a></em><br />
<em>What I think after asking consumers their thoughts:</em> <em><a href="http://localu.org/blog/business-respond-every-positive-review-heres-consumer-view/" target="_blank">Should A Business Respond to Every Positive Review? Here’s The Consumer View.</a>"</em></blockquote>
<h3>Reviews on your mind, all the time</h3>
<p>So, basically, consumers have taught Mike (and now all of us!) that reasonable goals for reviews/testimonials pages include <strong>earning stars, becoming a knowledge panel review source, and winning a great average time on page,</strong> in addition to the fact that <strong>transparency and responsiveness are rewarded.</strong> Before he zooms off to his next local SEO rescue, I wanted to ask Mike if anything new is exciting him in this area of marketing. Waving goodbye, he shouts:</p>
<blockquote><em>“</em><em>Sheesh ... I spend all day, every day thinking about these sorts of things. I mean my motto used to be ‘All Local, All the Time’… now it’s just ‘All Reviews, All the Time.'<br /></em><br />
<em>I think that this content that is generated by the business owner, from known clients, has incredible import in all aspects of their marketing. It is great for social proof, great user-generated content, customer relations, and much more. We are currently 'plotting' new and valuable ways for businesses to use this content effectively and easily.<br /></em><br />
<em>I’m experimenting right now with another client,</em> <a href="http://kaplaninsurance.com/testimonials/" target="_blank">Kaplan Insurance</a><em>, to see exactly what it takes to get rich snippets these days.”</em></blockquote>
<p>I know <em>I’ll</em> be on the lookout for a new case study from Mike on that topic!</p>
<h2>Plan out the components of your consumer feedback page</h2>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages/57fac71cd25a19.81716235.jpg" alt="rtphil.jpg" data-pin-nopin="true" align="right" /></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/philrozek" target="_blank">Phil Rozek</a> of <a href="http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/" target="_blank">Local Visibility System</a> is one of the most sophisticated, generous bloggers I know in the local SEO industry. You’ll become an instant fan of his, too, once you’ve saved yourself oodles of time using his <a href="http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2014/10/14/ultimate-list-of-review-widgets-and-badges-for-your-local-business-website/#comment-506826" target="_blank">Ultimate List of Review Widgets and Badges for Your Local Business Website</a>. And speaking of ‘ultimate,’ here is the list Phil and I brainstormed together, each adding our recommended components, for the elements we’d want to see on a consumer feedback page:</p>
<ul>
<li>Full integration into the site (navigation, internal linking, etc.); not an island page.</li>
<li>Welcoming text intro with a link to review content policy/TOS</li>
<li>Unique sentiment with schema markup (not drawn from third parties)</li>
<li>Specification of the reviewers’ names and cities</li>
<li>Owner responses</li>
<li>Paginate the reviews if page length starts getting out of hand</li>
<li>Provide an at-a-glance average star rating for easy scanning</li>
<li>Badges/widgets that take users to the best place to leave a traditional third-party review. Make sure these links open in a new browser tab!</li>
<li>Video reviews</li>
<li>Scanned hand-written testimonial images</li>
<li>Links to critic-type reviews (professional reviews at Zagat, Michelin, etc.)</li>
<li>A link to a SERP showing more of the users’ reviews, signalling authenticity rather than editorial control</li>
<li>Tasteful final call-to-action</li>
</ul>
<p>And what might such a page look like in real life (or at least, on the Internet)? Here is my mockup for a fictitious restaurant in Denver, Colorado, followed by a key:</p>
<p><a href="%E2%80%9CShow%20your%20site%E2%80%99s%20credibility%20by%20using%20original%20research,%20citations,%20links,%20reviews%20and%20testimonials.%20An%20author%20biography%20or%20testimonials%20from%20real%20customers%20can%20help%20boost%20your%20site%E2%80%99s%20trustworthiness%20and%20reputation.%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%93%20Google%20Search%20Console%20Course%202017%20may%20well%20be%20the%20year%20of%20testimonials%20and%20reviews%20in%20Local%20SEO.%20As%20our%20industry%20continues%20to%20grow,%20we%20have%20studied%20surveys%20indicating%20that%20some%2092%%20of%20consumers%20now%20read%20online%20reviews%20and%20that%2068%%20of%20these%20cite%20positive%20reviews%20as%20a%20significant%20trust%20factor.%20We%E2%80%99ve%20gone%20through%20a%20meaningful%20overhaul%20of%20Google%E2%80%99s%20schema%20review/testimonial%20guidelines%20while%20finding%20that%20major%20players%20like%20Yelp%20will%20publicly%20shame%20guideline-breakers.%20We%E2%80%99ve%20seen%20a%20major%20publication%20post%20a%20controversial%20piece%20suggesting%20that%20website%20testimonials%20pages%20are%20useless,%20drawing%20thoughtful%20industry%20rebuttals%20illustrating%20why%20well-crafted%20testimonials%20pages%20are,%20in%20fact,%20vitally%20useful%20in%20a%20variety%20of%20ways.%20Reviews%20can%20impact%20your%20local%20pack%20rankings,%20testimonials%20can%20win%20you%20in-SERP%20stars,%20and%20if%20that%20isn%E2%80%99t%20convincing%20enough,%20the%20above%20quote%20states%20unequivocally%20that%20both%20reviews%20and%20testimonials%20on%20your%20website%20can%20boost%20Google%E2%80%99s%20perception%20of%20a%20local%20business%E2%80%99%20trustworthiness%20and%20reputation.%20That%20sounds%20awfully%20good!%20Yet,%20seldom%20a%20day%20goes%20by%20that%20I%20don%E2%80%99t%20encounter%20websites%20that%20are%20neither%20encouraging%20reviews%20nor%20showcasing%20testimonials.%20If%20you%20are%20marketing%20local%20enterprises%20that%20play%20to%20win,%20chances%20are%20you%E2%80%99ve%20been%20studying%20third-party%20review%20management%20for%20some%20years%20now.%20Not%20much%20has%20been%20written%20about%20on-site%20consumer%20feedback,%20though.%20What%20belongs%20on%20a%20company%E2%80%99s%20own%20testimonials/reviews%20page?%20How%20should%20you%20structure%20one?%20What%20are%20the%20benefits%20you%20might%20expect%20from%20the%20effort?%20Today,%20we%E2%80%99re%20going%20to%20get%20serious%20about%20the%20central%20role%20of%20consumer%20sentiment%20and%20learn%20to%20maximize%20its%20potential%20to%20influence%20and%20convert%20customers.%20Up%20next%20to%20help%20you%20in%20the%20work%20ahead:%20technical%20specifics,%20expert%20tips,%20and%20a%20consumer%20feedback%20page%20mockup.%20Definitions%20and%20differentiations%20Traditional%20reviews:%20Direct%20from%20customers%20on%20third-party%20sites%20In%20the%20local%20SEO%20industry,%20when%20you%20hear%20someone%20talking%20about" they="" typically="" mean="" sentiment="" left="" directly="" by="" customers="" on="" third-party="" like="" this="" review="" tripadvisor:="" rt1.jpg="" traditional="" testimonials:="" moderated="" owners="" company="" site="" testimonials="" have="" traditionally="" meant="" user="" gathered="" a="" business="" and="" posted="" the="" website="" behalf="" of="" snippet="" from="" bed-and-breakfast="" site:="" rt2.jpg="" content="" has="" historically="" been="" outside="" while="" testimonial="" subject="" to="" editorial="" control="" owner.="" reviews="" featured="" owner="" other="" features="" might="" just="" be="" text="" with="" little="" verifiable="" information="" identifying="" author.="" cited="" as="" more="" trustworthy="" because="" are="" supposedly="" sometimes="" criticized="" creating="" positive-only="" picture="" managing="" them.="" hybrid="" sentiment:="" functionality="" things="" sophisticated="" local="" businesses="" now="" employing="" technologies="" that="" blur="" lines="" between="" testimonials.="" website-based="" applications="" can="" enable="" users="" leave="" contain="" star="" even="" this:="" in="" you="" many="" options="" when="" it="" comes="" but="" make="" sure="" effort="" put="" yields="" maximum="" got="" to:="" know="" guidelines="" technology="" clear="none" goal="" plan="" for="" achieving="" commit="" making="" sustained="" there="" is="" ton="" great="" out="" about="" your="" platforms="" today="" focusing="" specifically="" on-site="" page.="" what="" belongs="" how="" should="" populate="" organize="" its="" benefits="" expect="" answer="" those="" create="" goal-drive="" help="" some="" world-class="" seos.="" two="" types="" need="" consumer="" space:="" platform="" policies="" feedback="" page="" may="" feature="" combination="" unique="" source="" widgets="" featuring="" third="" party="" links="" or="" badges="" either="" showcasing="" asking="" each="" feature.="" why="" does="" since="" different="" range="" lax="" want="" most="" permissions="" without="" raising="" any="" red="" flags.="" fine="" companies="" consumers="" policy="" stringent="" complex.="" here="" quick="" few="" major="" which="" add="" own="" research="" sites="" specific="" industry="" geography:="" google="" yelp="" facebook="" citygrid="" foursquare="" yp="" schema="" dominant="" player="" so="" long="" their="" often="" tend="" set="" general="" standards.="" addition="" linked="" completely="" separate="" recently="" underwent="" significant="" update.="" update="" included="" clarifications="" critic="" germane="" offered="" following="" surrounding="" wish="" publish="" mark="" up="" website:="" display="" aggregate="" ratings="" markup="" knowledge="" cards.="" apply="" snippets="" cards="" businesses:="" must="" sourced="" users.="" rely="" human="" editors="" curate="" compile="" businesses.="" these="" reviews.="" collect="" not="" sites.="" if="" drawn="" source.="" enjoy="" rewards="" winning="" eye-catching="" in-serp="" becoming="" implement="" correctly.="" do="" right="" call="" expert="" steer="" our="" course.="" getting="" friendly="" rtdavid.jpg="" seo="" come="" david="" deering="" his="" touchpoint="" digital="" marketing="" go-to="" resources="" implementation="" complex="" json-ld="" markup.="" very="" grateful="" him="" willingness="" share="" basics="" us.="" moz="" i="" always="" strive="" highlight="" high="" free="" get="" job="" done.="" asked="" he="" could="" recommend="" really="" good="" learned="" lot="" answer:="" tough="" one="" use="" plugins="" tools="" work.="" find="" none="" them="" at="" adding="" plugin="" files="" still="" edited="" order="" everything="" correct="" properly="" nested.="" hard="" code="" templates="" would="" insertion="" onto="" tell="" getfivestars="" pretty="" marking="" site.="" personal="" experience="" using="" sounds="" best="" bets="" going="" go="" paid="" service="" roll="" sleeves="" dig="" into="" coding.="" anyone="" community="" discovered="" widget="" meets="" standards="" please="" definitely="" take="" look="" example="" kindly="" provided="" perfect="" rather="" simple="" straightforward="" contains="" should.="" also="" assumes="" nested="" within="" being="" rt6.jpg="" day="" check="" see="" clean="" thorough="" consider="" describes="" way:="" simply="" another="" syntax="" method="" used="" insert="" structured="" data="" once="" head="" section="" easy="" sense.="" stated="" preference="" idea="" switch="" microdata="" person="" review-oriented="" tips="" typical="" fickle="" rich="" guidelines.="" allow="" then="" again.="" think="" begin="" collecting="" through="" email.="" suggest="" neglecting="" online="" sources="" too.="" all="" eggs="" basket.="" main="" entity="" keep="" etc.="" combine="" goes="" against="" warnings="" we="" never="" anything="" visible="" including="" ratings.="" only="" entities="" allows="" for.="" rating="" articles="" on-page="" content.="" such="" found="" ready="" deeper="" engrossing="" world="" highly="" recent="" localu="" video.="" work="" involved="" makes="" hiring="" an="" purchasing="" likely="" worthwhile="" investments.="" considered="" technical="" achieve.="" define="" goals="" rtmike.jpg="" pick="" consultant="" advice="" concerning="" potential="" co-founder="" renowned="" mike="" blumenthal.="" before="" dive="" offer="" important="" clarification:="" single="" location="" represent="" yours="" multi-location="" article="" city="" landing="" location.="" joy="" solve="" duplicate="" issues="" breaks="" down="" sections:="" customer-focused="" effective="" ranks="" brand="" becomes="" doorway="" google.="" easily="" accessible="" selling="" pages="" appropriately="" embedded="" sell="" sitewide.="" google-focused="" ranking="" well="" searches="" designated="" stars="" show="" panel="" web="" screenshot="" illustrates="" last="" three="" points="" perfectly:="" rt4.jpg="" time="" excited="" showcase="" lovely="" barbara="" oliver="" jewelry="" pay="" special="" attention="" average="" spent="" http:="" barbaraoliverandco.com="" reviews-testimonials="" rt5.jpg="" spending="" minutes="" feel="" quite="" confident="" engaging="" business.="" incredibly="" reflects="" almost="" her="" overall="" visits="" represents="" search="" engines.="" new="" visitors="" over="" minutes.="" had="" until="" she="" updated="" hopefully="" will="" return.="" transparency="" helps="" much="" than="" hurts="" store="" utilizes="" chance="" ask="" finer="" details="" pages.="" noticed="" gives="" wanted="" authenticity.="" strongly="" encourage="" feedback.="" critical="" customer="" trust="" showing="" legitimate="" results="" less="" half="" point="" decline="" average.="" negative="" held="" back="" days="" complaint="" resolution="" publishing="" meet="" basic="" terms="" appropriateness="" defined="" obviously="" become="" mosh="" appropriate.="" am="" concerned="" bots.="" statement="" handling="" comments="" visitors.="" factor.="" yet="" something="" added="" respond="" struck="" me="" uncommon="" page:="" responds="" platforms.="" explains:="" thought="" responses="" positive="" were="" sort="" glad="" handing="" times="" say="" researched="" issue="" became="" large="" minority="" noted="" took="" acknowledge="" it.="" convinced="" push="" getfivestars.="" actually="" prompted="" provide="" private="" public="" response.="" reviewer="" receives="" email="" response="" well.="" works="" both="" happy="" unhappy="" outcomes="" serves="" double="" duty="" basis="" management="" side.="" evolution="" my="" thinking="" think:="" every="" after="" thoughts:="" view.="" taught="" reasonable="" include="" earning="" fact="" responsiveness="" rewarded.="" zooms="" off="" next="" exciting="" area="" marketing.="" waving="" shouts:="" spend="" sorts="" things.="" motto="" generated="" known="" incredible="" import="" aspects="" social="" relations="" more.="" currently="" valuable="" ways="" effectively="" easily.="" experimenting="" kaplan="" exactly="" takes="" lookout="" case="" study="" components="" rtphil.jpg="" phil="" rozek="" visibility="" system="" generous="" bloggers="" industry.="" instant="" fan="" saved="" yourself="" oodles="" ultimate="" list="" website.="" speaking="" brainstormed="" recommended="" elements="" full="" integration="" internal="" island="" welcoming="" intro="" link="" tos="" specification="" names="" cities="" paginate="" length="" starts="" hand="" at-a-glance="" scanning="" place="" review.="" open="" browser="" video="" scanned="" hand-written="" images="" critic-type="" serp="" signalling="" authenticity="" tasteful="" final="" call-to-action="" real="" life="" mockup="" fictitious="" restaurant="" followed="" key:="" herbivorekeysmall.jpg="" key="" mockup:="" integral="" part="" top="" level="" navigation="" nod="" honesty="" appreciation="" paginated="" action="" button="" easy-to-read="" marked-up="" sample="" url="" available="" professional="" handwritten="" live="" beautifully="" thoughtfully="" planned="" given="" ideas="" refresh="" overhaul="" publishing.="" wild="" inspiration="" seen="" promoting="" pointed="" proviso="" inspiration.="" totally="" love="" real-world="" www.icedamremovalguys.com="" about-us="" ice-dam-removal-reviews="" www.themandisteam.com="" client-comments.htm="" www.kammescolorworks.com="" reviews.html="" lightning="" round="" adept="" acquisition="" let="" guy="" ever="" minute="" encouraging="" meaningful="" once.="" in-person="" plus="" follow-up="" usually="" best.="" give="" choices="" instructions.="" conversational="" way.="" rotate="" on.="" try="" snail-mail="" phone.="" people="" organization="" says="" phil.="" off-site.="" saying="" big="" numbers="" unhelpfully="" short="" appear="" forced="" fake.="" dashed-off="" no="" one.="" bad="" least="" kind="" in-depth="" sustain="" facilitate="" story="" sharpens="" focus="" particular="" element="" clearly="" doing="" gift.="" clanging="" intercom="" letter="" letting="" us="" shifting="" toward="" facet="" where="" gets="" draw="" extra="" sustaining="" ourselves="" ahead="" interest="" intersects="" desires="" who="" transactional="" decisions="" internet="" indicates="" acquiring="" amplifying="" form="" ugc="" fell="" swoop.="" expressing="" end="" reading="" war="" peace.="" news="" write="" thousands="" volunteer="" tolstoys="" reviewing="" phenomenal="" modern="" hobby.="" moves="" start="" variety="" ongoing="" publication="" user-friendly="" tomorrow.="" saw="" profile="" week="" glaring="" sure.="" better="" approach="" conversation="" ensuring="" possibly="" manageable="" techniques="" resulted="" improved="" inspire="" sharing="" target="_blank"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57fac17ce3f448.50298138.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<p class="caption">Click to open a bigger version in a new tab!</p>
<h4>Key to the mockup:</h4>
<ol>
<li>Page is an integral part of the top level navigation</li>
<li>Welcoming text with nod to honesty and appreciation</li>
<li>Link to review content policy</li>
<li>Paginated on-page reviews</li>
<li>Call-to-action button to leave a review</li>
<li>Easy-to-read average star rating</li>
<li>Schema marked-up on-page reviews</li>
<li>Sample owner response</li>
<li>Links and badges to third party reviews</li>
<li>Link to SERP URL featuring all available review sources</li>
<li>Links to professional reviews</li>
<li>Handwritten and video testimonials</li>
<li>Tasteful final call-to-action to leave a review</li>
</ol>
<p>Your live consumer feedback page will be more beautifully and thoughtfully planned than my example, but hopefully the mockup has given you some ideas for a refresh or overhaul of what you’re currently publishing.</p>
<h3>Scanning the wild for a little sentiment management inspiration</h3>
<p>I asked Phil if he’d recently seen local businesses recently making a good effort at promoting consumer feedback. He pointed to these, with the proviso that none of them are 100% perfect but that they should offer some good inspiration. Don’t you just totally love real-world examples?</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.icedamremovalguys.com/about-us/ice-dam-removal-reviews/" target="_blank">http://www.icedamremovalguys.com/about-us/ice-dam-removal-reviews/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.themandisteam.com/client-comments.htm" target="_blank">http://www.themandisteam.com/client-comments.htm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.kammescolorworks.com/reviews.html" target="_blank">http://www.kammescolorworks.com/reviews.html</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Lightning round advice for adept feedback acquisition</h3>
<p>Before we let Phil get back to his work as "the last local SEO guy you’ll ever need," I wanted to take a minute to ask him for some tips on encouraging meaningful customer feedback.</p>
<blockquote><em>“Don’t ask just once. In-person plus an email follow-up (or two) is usually best. Give customers choices and always provide instructions. Ask in a personal, conversational way. Rotate the sites you ask for reviews on. Try snail-mail or the phone. Have different people in your organization ask so that you can find ‘The Champ’,” says Phil. “</em><em>Encourage detail, on-site and off-site. Saying things like ‘It will only take you 60 seconds’ may be great for getting big numbers of on-site testimonials, but the testimonials will be unhelpfully short or, worse, appear forced or fake. Dashed-off feedback helps no one. By the way, this can help you even if a given customer had a bad experience; if you’re encouraging specifics, at least he/she is a little more likely to leave the kind of in-depth feedback that can help you improve.”</em></blockquote>
<h2>Sustain your effort & facilitate your story</h2>
<p>Every time Google sharpens focus on a particular element of search, as they are clearly doing right now with consumer and professional sentiment, it’s like a gift. It’s a clanging bell, an intercom announcement, a handwritten letter letting all of us know that we should consider shifting new effort toward a particular facet of marketing and see where it gets us with Google.</p>
<p>In this specific case, we can draw extra inspiration for sustaining ourselves in the work ahead from the fact that Google’s interest in reviews and testimonials intersects with the desires of consumers who make transactional decisions based, in part, on what Internet sentiment indicates about a local business. In other words, the effort you put into acquiring and amplifying this form of UGC makes Google, consumers, <em>and</em> your company happy, all in one fell swoop.</p>
<p>If you took all of the sentiment customers express about a vibrant, given business and put it into a book, it would end up reading something like <em>War and Peace</em>. The good news about this is that <em>you don’t have to write it</em> — you have thousands of potential volunteer Tolstoys out there to do the job for you, because reviewing businesses has become a phenomenal modern hobby.</p>
<p>Your job is simply to provide a service experience (hopefully a good one) that moves customers to start typing, back that up with a variety of ongoing feedback requests, and facilitate the publication of sentiment in the clearest, most user-friendly way.</p>
<p>Some more good news? <em>You don’t have to do all of this tomorrow</em>. I recently saw a Google review profile on which a business had "earned" over 100 reviews in a week — a glaring authenticity fail, for sure. A better approach is simply to keep the sentiment conversation going at a human pace, engaging with your customers in a human way, and ensuring that your consumer feedback page is as good as you can possibly make it. This is manageable — <strong>you can do this!</strong></p>
<p>Are you experimenting with any page elements or techniques that have resulted in improved user feedback? Please inspire our community by sharing your tips!</p>
<br />
<p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!</p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-90538607200694383622016-10-07T00:19:00.001-07:002016-10-07T00:19:05.953-07:00Penguin 4.0: How the Real-Time Penguin-in-the-Core-Alg Model Changes SEO - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/63/"">randfish</a></p>
<p>The dust is finally beginning to settle after the long-awaited rollout of Penguin 4.0. Now that our aquatic avian friend is a real-time part of the core Google algorithm, we've got some changes to get used to. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains Penguin's past, present, and future, offers his analysis of the rollout so far, and gives advice for going forward (hint: never link spam).</p>
<p class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:5.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/hl4r8yr2sa?seo=false&videoFoam=true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="wistia_embed" name="wistia_embed" allowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" width="100%" height="100%"></iframe></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/penguin-4-0-how-the-real-time-penguin-in-the-core-alg-model-changes-seo-whiteboard-friday/57f691c035dbc4.51087800.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/penguin-4-0-how-the-real-time-penguin-in-the-core-alg-model-changes-seo-whiteboard-friday/57f691c035dbc4.51087800.jpg" rel="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" alt="" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br /></p>
<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week, it is all about Google Penguin. So Google Penguin is an algorithm that's been with us for a few years now, <strong>designed to</strong> <strong>combat link spam specifically</strong>. After many, many years of saying this was coming, Penguin 4.0 rolled out on Friday, September 23rd. It is now real-time in Google's algorithm, Google's core algorithm, which means that it's constantly updating.<br />
<br />
So there are a bunch of changes. What we're going to talk about today is what Penguin 1.0 to 3.x looked like and how that's changed as we've moved to the Penguin 4.0 model. Then we'll cover a little bit of what the rollout has looked like and how it's affecting folks' sites and specifically some recommendations. Thankfully, we don't have a ton.</p>
<h2>Penguin 1.0-3x</h2>
<p>But important to understand, if people ask you about Penguin, people ask you about the penalties that used to come from Penguin, you've got to know that, back in the day...</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Penguin 1.0 to 3.x</strong>, <strong>it used to run intermittently</strong>. So every few months, Google would collect a bunch of information, they'd run the algorithm, and then they'd release it out in the wild. It would now be in the search results. When that rollout happened, that was the only time, pretty much the only time that penalties from Penguin specifically would be given to websites or removed.<br />
<br />
This meant that a lot of the time, you had this slow process, where if you got penalized by Penguin, you did something bad, you did some sketchy link building, you went through all the process, you went through all the processes of getting that penalty lifted, Google said, "Fine, you're in good shape. The next time Penguin comes out, your penalty is lifted." You could wait months. You could wait six months or more before that penalty got lifted. So a lot of <strong>fear</strong> here and a lot of <strong>slowness</strong> on Google's side.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f713f348cde1.26118285.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Penguin also penalized</strong>, much like Panda, where it looks at a portion of the site, these pages maybe are the only ones on this whole domain that got bad links to them, but old Penguin did not care. <strong>Penguin would hit the entire website</strong>.<br />
<br />
It would basically say, "No, you're spamming to those pages, I'm burying your whole domain. Every page on your site is penalized and will not be able to rank well." Those sorts of penalties are very, very tough for a lot of websites. That, in fact, might be changing a little bit with the new Penguin algorithm.</li>
</ul>
<img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f71427222561.03585321.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" />
<ul>
<li><strong>Old Penguin also required a reconsideration request process</strong>, often in conjunction with disavowing old links, proving to Google that you had gone through the process of trying to get those links removed.<br />
<br />
It wasn't often enough to just say, "I've disavowed them." You had to tell Google, "Hey, I tried to contact the site where I bought the links or I tried to contact the private blog network, but I couldn't get them to take it down or I did get them to take it down or they blackmailed me and forced me to pay them to take it down." Sometimes people did pay and Google said that was bad, but then sometimes would lift the penalties and sometimes they told them, "Okay, you don't have to pay the extortionist and we'll lift the penalty anyway." Very manual process here.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f714f7268873.36703304.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Penguin 1.0 to 3.x was really designed to remove the impact of link spam on search results</strong>, but doing it in a somewhat weird way. They were doing it basically through penalties that affected entire websites that had tried to manipulate the results and by creating this fear that if I got bad links, I would be potentially subject to Penguin for a long period.</li>
</ul>
<p>I have a theory here. It's a personal theory. I don't want you to hold me to it. I believe that Google specifically went through this process in order to collect a tremendous amount of information on sketchy links and bad links through the disavow file process. Once they had a ginormous database of what sketchy and spammy bad links looked like, that they knew webmasters had manually reviewed and had submitted through the disavowal file and thought could harm their sites and were paid for or just links that were not editorially acquired, they could then machine learn against that giant database. Once they've acquired enough disavowals, great. Everything else is gravy. But they needed to get that huge sample set. They needed it not to just be things that they, Google, could identify but things that all of us distributed across the hundreds of millions of websites on the planet could identify. Using those disavowal files, Google can now make Penguin more real-time.</p>
<h2>Penguin 4.0+</h2>
<p>So challenges here, this is too slow. It hurt too much to have that long process. So in the new Penguin 4.0 and going forward, this runs as part of the core algorithm, meaning...</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>As soon as Google crawls and indexes a site and is able to update that in their databases, that site's penalty is either lifted or incurred</strong>. So this means that if you get sketchy links, you don't have to wait for Penguin to come out. You could get hurt tomorrow.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Penguin does not necessarily any longer penalize an entire domain</strong>. It still <em>might</em>. It could be the case that if lots of pages on a domain are getting sketchy links or some substantive portion or Google thinks you're just too sketchy, they could penalize you.</li>
</ul>
Remember, Penguin is not the only algorithm that can penalize websites for getting bad links. There are manual spam penalties, and there are other forms of spam penalties too. Penguin is not alone here. But it may be simply taking the pages that earn those bad links and discounting those links or using different signals, weighting different signals to rank those pages or search results that have lots of pages with sketchy links in them.
<ul>
<li>It is also the case — and this is not 100% confirmed yet — but some early discussion between Google's representatives and folks in the webmaster and SEO community has revealed to us that <strong>it may not be the case that Penguin 4.0 and moving forward still requires the full disavow and whole reconsideration request process.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>That's not to say that if you incur a penalty, you should not go through this. But it may not be the case that's the only way to get a penalty lifted, especially in two cases — no fault cases, meaning you did not get those links, they just happened to come to you, or specifically negative SEO cases.</p>
<p>I want to bring up Marie Haynes, who does phenomenally good work around spam penalties, along with folks like Sha Menz and Alan Bleiweiss, all three of them have been concentrating on Google penalties along with many, many other SEOs and webmasters. But <a href="https://www.mariehaynes.com/penguin-4-0-recovery-case-studies/" target="_blank">Marie wrote an excellent blog post</a> detailing a number of case studies, including a negative SEO case study where the link penalty had been lifted on the domain. You can see her results of that. She's got some nice visual graphs showing the keyword rankings changing after Penguin's rollout. I urge you to do that, and we'll make sure to link to it in the transcript of this video.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Penguin 4.0 is a little bit different from Penguin 1.0 to 3 in that it's still designed to remove the impact of spam links on search results</strong>, but it's doing it by not counting those links in the core algo and/or by less strongly weighting links in search results where many folks are earning spammy links.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, for example, your PPC, your porn, your pills, your casino searches, those types of queries may be places where Google says, "You know what? We don't want to interpret, because all these folks have nasty links pointing to them, we are going to weight links less. We're going to weight other signals higher." Maybe it's engagement and content and query interpretation models and non-link signals that are offsite, all those kinds of things, clickstream data, whatever they've got. "We're going to push down the value of either these specific links or all links in the algo as we weight them on these types of results."</p>
<h2>Penguin 4.0 rollout</h2>
<p>So this is what we know so far. We definitely will keep learning more about Penguin as we have more experience with it. We also have some information on the rollout.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>S</strong><strong>tarted on Friday, September 23rd, few people noticed any changes</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p>In fact, the first few days were pretty slow, which makes sense. It fits with what Google said about the rollout being real-time and them needing time to crawl and index and then refresh all this data. So until it rolls out across the full web and Google's crawled and indexed all the pages, gone through processing, we're not going to get there. So little effect that same day, but...</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>M</strong><strong>ore SERP flux started three to five days after</strong>, that next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We saw very hot temperatures starting that next week in MozCast, and <a href="https://twitter.com/dr_pete/status/781503649767829504" target="_blank">Dr. Pete has been detailing those on Twitter</a>.</li>
<li><strong>As far as SEOs noticing, yes, a little bit</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f7175947d4b7.30421632.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>So I asked the same poll on Twitter twice, once on September 27th and once on October 3rd, so about a week apart. Here is the data we got. "Nope, nothing yet." "Went from 76% to 72%," so a little more than a quarter of SEOs have noticed some changes.</p>
<p>A lot of folks noticing rankings went up. Moz itself, in fact, benefitted from this. Why is that the case? Well, any time a penalty rolls out to a lot of other websites, bad stuff gets pushed down and those of us who have not been spamming move up in the rankings. Of course, in the SEO world, which is where Moz operates, there are plenty of folks getting sketchy links and trying things out. So they were higher in the rankings, they moved down, and Moz moved up. We saw a very nice traffic boost. Thank you, Google, for rolling out Penguin. That makes our Audience Development team's metrics look real good.</p>
<p>Four percent and then six percent said they saw a site or page get penalized in their control, and two percent and then one percent said they saw a penalty lifted. So a penalty lifted is still pretty light, but there are some penalties coming in. There are a few of those. Then there's the nice benefit of <strong>if you don't link spam, you do not get penalized</strong>. Every time Google improves on the Penguin algorithm, <strong>every time they improve on any link spam algorithm, those of us who don't spam benefit</strong>.</p>
<p>It's an awesome thing, right? Instead of cheering against Google, which you do if you're a link spammer and you're very nervous, you get to cheer for Google. Certainly Penguin 4.0 is a good time to cheer for Google. It's brought a lot of traffic to a lot of good websites and pushed a lot of sketchy links down. We will see happens as far as disavows and reconsideration requests for the future.</p>
<p>All right, everyone, thanks for joining. Look forward to hearing about your experiences with Penguin. We'll see you next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/" target="_blank">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/" target="_blank">Speechpad.com</a></p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-54498598189398003192016-10-05T00:22:00.001-07:002016-10-05T00:22:15.484-07:00How Your Brand Can Create an Enviable Customer Experience for Mobile Web Searchers<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/493595/"">ronell-smith</a></p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57ad48ab1f61d5.60768283.jpg" alt="57ad48ab1f61d5.60768283.jpg" /></p>
<p class="caption">Not very edible corned beef hash</p>
<p>Here I am, seated in a Manhattan, New York restaurant, staring at corned beef hash that looks and tastes like what I imagine dog food to look and taste like.</p>
<p>I'm pissed for two reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>It cost nearly $25 and was entirely inedible</li>
<li>I should have known better given the visuals depicted after doing a Google image search to find the dish, which was offered at a nearby restaurant</li>
</ul>
<p>In retrospect, I should have checked A and B on my phone before ordering the $25 plate of Alpo. And though I didn't do that, other would-be customers will, which means the business owner or SEO had better follow the steps below if they wish to stay in business.</p>
<p>The bad news is I no longer relish the thought of eating at high-end NY restaurants; the good news is this experience totally reshaped the way I view mobile, opening my eyes to simple but very effective tactics businesses of all types can immediately put to use for their brands.</p>
<h2>My mobile education<br /></h2>
<p>We've all heard how mobile is transforming the web experience, reshaping the landscape for marketers, brands and consumers.</p>
<p><img src="https://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57ad39752f7dd4.15352822.jpg" alt="57ad39752f7dd4.15352822.jpg" /></p>
<p>As marketers, we now have to account for how our content will be accessed and consumed on mobile devices, whether that's a phone, tablet or phablet. As brands, we realize our efforts will be judged not only on how well or high we show up in the SERPs, but also on much we can delight the on-the-go prospect who needs information that's (a) fast, (b) accurate and (c) available from any device.</p>
<p>As prospects and consumers, we've come to know and value customer experience in large part because brands that use mobile to deliver what we need when we need it and in a way that's easily consumed, have earned our attention — and maybe even our dollars.</p>
<p>But that's where the similarities seemingly end. Marketers and brands seem to get so wrapped up in the technology (responsive design, anyone?) they forget that, at the end of the day, prospects want what they want <em>right now</em> — in the easiest-to-access way possible.</p>
<p>I've come to believe that, while marketers appreciate the overall value of mobile, they have yet to realize how, for customers, it's all about what it allows them to accomplish.</p>
<p>At the customer/end-user level it's not about mobile-friendly or responsive design; it's about creating an enviable customer experience, one web searchers will reward you for with traffic, brand mentions and conversions.</p>
<p>I was alerted to the prominence of mobile phone use by noticing how many people sit staring at their phones while out at dinner, even as family members and friends are seated all around them. "How rude," I thought. Then I realized it wasn't only the people at restaurants; it's people everywhere: walking down the street, driving (sadly and dangerously), sitting in movie theaters, at work, even texting while they talk on the phone.</p>
<p>One of my favorite comments with regard to mobile's dominance comes with the Wizard of Moz himself, when he shared this tweet and accompanying image last year:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Mobile isn't killing desktop. It's killing all our free time. <a href="https://t.co/pXb7F7aWsP">pic.twitter.com/pXb7F7aWsP</a><br />
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) <a href="https://twitter.com/randfish/status/678639616199557120">December 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<p>But my "aha!" moment happened last year, in Manhattan, during the corned beef hash episode.<br /></p>
<p>After working until brunch, I...</p>
<ol>
<li>Opened iPhone to Google</li>
<li>Typed "Best corned beef hash near me"</li>
<li>Scanned list of restaurant by distance and reviews</li>
<li>Selected the closest restaurant having > 4-star review ratings</li>
<li>Ended up disappointed</li>
</ol>
<p>That's when it hit me that I'd made errors of omission at every step, in large part by leaving one very important element out of the process, but also by not thinking like a smart web user.</p>
<p>Normally my process is as follows, when I wish to enjoy a specific meal while traveling:</p>
<ol>
<li>Open iPhone to Google Search box</li>
<li>Type "Best _________ near me"</li>
<li>Scan list of restaurants by distance and reviews</li>
<li>Select restaurant having > 4-star review rating but has excellent reviews (> 4.5) of the dish I want <em>and</em> has great images of the dish online</li>
<li>Delight ensues</li>
</ol>
<p>That's when three things occurred to me like a brickbat to the noggin':</p>
<ul>
<li>This is a process I use quite often and is one that has proved quite foolproof</li>
<li>It's undoubtedly a process many other would-be customer are using to identify desirable products and services</li>
<li>Marketers can reverse-engineer the process to bring the customers they're hoping for to their doors or websites.</li>
</ul>
<p>(<strong>Eds. note:</strong> <em>This post was created with small business owners (single or multiple location), or those doing Local SEO for SMBs, in mind, as I hope to inform them of how many individuals think about and use mobile, and how the marketers can get in front of them with relevant content</em>. <em>Also, I'd like to thank Cindy Krum of <a href="https://www.mobilemoxie.com/consulting/" target="_blank">Mobile Moxie</a> for encouraging me to write this post, and Local SEO savant Phil Rozek of Local Visibility System for making sure I colored within the lines.)</em></p>
<h2>Five ways to create an enviable customer experience on mobile</h2>
<h2>#1 — Optimize your images</h2>
<p>Image optimization is the quintessential low-hanging fruit of online marketing: easy to accomplish but typically overlooked.</p>
<p>For our purposes, we aren't so much making them "mobile-friendly" as we are making them search-friendly, increasing the likelihood that Google's crawlers can better decipher what they contain and deliver them for the optimal search query.</p>
<p>First and foremost, do not use a stock image if your goal is for searchers to find, read and enjoy your content. Just don't. Also, given how much of a factor website speed is, <a href="https://authoritylabs.com/blog/9-things-might-getting-wrong-blog-images/" target="_blank">minify your images</a> to ensure they don't hamper page speed load times.</p>
<p>But the three main areas I want us to focus on are file name, alt text and title text, and captions. My standard for each is summed up very well in <a href="https://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/content-rule-1-blank-sheet-paper-test.htm" target="_blank">a blog post</a> from Ian Lurie, who proposes an ingenious idea:</p>
<blockquote><em>The Blank Sheet of Paper Test: If you wrote this text on a piece of paper and showed it to a stranger, would they understand the meaning? Is this text fully descriptive?</em></blockquote>
<p>With this thinking in mind, image optimization becomes far simpler:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>File name:</strong> We're all adults here — don't be thickheaded and choose something like "DSC9671 . png" when "cornedbeefhash . jpg" clearly works better.</li>
<li><strong>Alt text and title text:</strong> Given that, in Google's eyes, <a href="https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/IBnIzp-_D4w" target="_blank">these two are the priorities</a><a href="https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/IBnIzp-_D4w"></a>, you must make certain they're as descriptive as possible. Clearly list what the image is and/or contains without weighing it down with unneeded text. Using the corned beef hash from above as a example, "corned beef hash with minced meat" would be great, but "corned beef hash with minced meat and diced potatoes" would work better, alerting me that the dish isn't what I'm looking for. (I prefer shredded beef and shredded potatoes.)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Caption:</strong> Yes, I know these aren't necessary for every post, but why leave your visitors hanging, especially if an optimal customer experience is the goal? Were I to caption the corned beef, it'd be something along the lines of "Corned beef hash with minced meat and diced potatoes is one of the most popular dishes at XX." It says just enough without trying to say everything, which is the goal, says Lurie.</li>
</ul>
<p>“'Fully descriptive' means 'describes the thing to which it’s attached,' not 'describe the entire universe,'" he adds.</p>
<p>Also, invite customers to take and share pictures online (e.g., websites, Instagram, Yelp, Google) and include as much rich detail as possible.<br /></p>
<p>What's more, it might behoove you to have a <a href="http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2014/11/10/10-reasons-to-get-a-google-business-view-photo-shoot/" target="_blank">Google Business View photo shoot</a>, says Rozek. "Those show up most prominently (in the Knowledge Panel) for brand-name mobile searches in Google."</p>
<h2>#2 — Make reviews a priority</h2>
<p>Many prospects and customers use reviews as a make-or-break tactic when making purchases. Brands, realizing this, have taken note, making it their charge to get positive reviews.</p>
<p>But not all reviews are created equal.</p>
<p>Instead of making certain your brand gets positive reviews on the entirety of its products and services, redouble your efforts at getting positive reviews on your bread-and-butter services.</p>
<p>In many instances, what people have to say about your individual services and/or products matters more than your brand's overall review ratings.</p>
<p>I learned this from talking to several uber-picky foodie friends who shared that the main thing they look for is a brand having an overall rating (e.g., on Yelp, Google, Angie's List, Amazon, etc.) higher than 3.5, but who have customer comments glorifying the specific product they're hoping to enjoy.</p>
<p>"These days, everyone is gaming the system, doing what they can to get their customers to leave favorable reviews," said one friend, who lives in Dallas. "But discerning [prospects] are only looking at the overall rating as a beginning point. From there, they're digging into the comments, looking to see what people have to say about the very specific thing they want. [Smart brands] would focus more on getting people to leave comments about the particular service they used, how happy they work with the result and how it compares to other [such services they've used]. We may be on our phones, but we're still willing to dig into those comments."</p>
<p>To take advantage of this behavior,</p>
<ul>
<li>In addition to asking for a favorable review, ask customers to comment on the specific services they used, providing as much detail as possible</li>
<li>Redouble your efforts at over-delivering on quality service when it comes to your core offerings</li>
<li>Ask a few of your regulars, who have left comments on review sites, what they think meets the minimum expectation for provoking folks to leave a review (e.g., optimizing for the desired behavior)</li>
<li>Encourage reviewers to upload photos with their reviews (or even just photos, if they don't want to review you). They're great "local content," they're useful as social-proof elements, and your customers may take better pictures than you do, in which case you can showcase them on your site.</li>
</ul>
<p>Relevant content:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2015/09/16/60-plus-questions-to-troubleshoot-and-fix-your-local-reviews-strategy/" target="_blank">60+ Questions to Troubleshoot and Fix Your Local Reviews Strategy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2014/03/18/how-to-execute-the-perfect-local-reviews-strategy/" target="_blank">How to Execute the Perfect Local Reviews Strategy</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>#3 — Shorten your content</h2>
<p>I serve as a horrible spokesperson for content brevity, but it matters a great deal to mobile searchers. What works fine on desktop is a clutter-fest on mobile, even for sites using responsive design.</p>
<p>As a general rule, simplicity wins.</p>
<p>For example, Whataburger's mobile experience is uncluttered, appealing to the eye and makes it clear what they want me to do: learn about their specials or make a purchase:</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f3dd4b0c9037.76728058.jpg" alt="57f3dd4b0c9037.76728058.jpg" /></p>
On the other hand, McDonald's isn't so sure what I'm looking for, apparently:
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f3dfdb8ba5c6.40363967.jpg" alt="57f3dfdb8ba5c6.40363967.jpg" /></p>
<p>Are they trying to sell me potatoes, convince me of how committed they are to freshness or looking to learn as much as they can about me? Or all of the above?</p>
<p>Web searchers have specific needs and are typically short on time and patience, so you have to get in front of them with the right message to have a chance.</p>
<p>When it comes to the content you deliver, think tight (shorter), punchy (attention-grabbing) and valuable (on- message for the query).</p>
<h2># 4 — Optimize for local content</h2>
<p>Like all of you, I've been using "near me" searches for years, especially when I travel. But over the last year, these searches have gotten more thorough and more accurate, in large part as a result of Google's Mobile Update and because the search giant is making customer intent a priority.</p>
<p>In 2015, Google reported that <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/i-want-to-go-micro-moments.html" target="_blank">"near me" searches increased</a> by 34-fold since 2011.</p>
<p>And though most of these "near me" searches are for durable goods/appliances and their associated retailers, services, including "surgeons near me," "plumbers near me," "jobs near me," etc., and other things that are typically in a high consideration set are growing considerably, according to Google via its website, thinkwithgoogle.com.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://moz.com/ugc/case-study-why-it-makes-sense-to-optimize-your-site-for-near-me-searches" target="_blank">recent case study</a> of 82 websites (41, control group; 41, test group) shows just how dramatic the impact of optimizing a site for local intent can be. By tweaking the hours and directions page titles, descriptions and H1s to utilize the phrases "franchise dealer near me" and "nearest franchise dealer" the brand saw mobile impressions for “near me” more than double to 8,833 impressions and 46 clicks. (The control group's “near me” impression share only rose 11%.)</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f3e93b3725a6.45545049.jpg" alt="57f3e93b3725a6.45545049.jpg" /></p>
<p class="caption">Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.cdkglobal.com/industryinsider/your-website-near-your-customers" target="_blank">CDK Global</a></p>
<h3>Additional steps for optimizing your site for “near me” searches</h3>
<ul>
<li>Prominently display your business name, address and phone number (aka, NAP) on your site</li>
<li>Use <a href="https://whitespark.ca/blog/why-your-local-business-schema-sucks-and-how-to-make-it-better/" target="_blank">schema markup in your NAP</a></li>
<li>In addition to proper setup and optimization of your Google My Business listing, provide each location with its own listing and, just as important, ensure that the business name, address and phone number of each location matches what's listed on the site</li>
<li>Consider <a href="http://www.seobythesea.com/2013/09/driving-directions-reviews-ranking-signals-google-maps/" target="_blank">embedding a Google Map prominently</a> on your website. "It's good for user experience," says <a href="http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/" target="_blank">Rozek</a>. "But it may also influence rankings."</li>
</ul>
<h2>#5 — Use Google App Deep Linking</h2>
<p>We've all heard the statistics: The vast majority — in some circles the figure is 95% — of apps downloaded to mobile devices are never used. Don't be deceived, however, into believing apps are irrelevant.</p>
<p>Nearly <a href="http://searchengineland.com/smx-advanced-recap-advanced-google-app-deep-linking-253134" target="_blank">half of all time spent on the web</a> is in apps.</p>
<p>This means that the mobile searchers looking for products or services in your area are likely using an app or, at the very least, prompted to enter/use an app.</p>
<p>For example, when I type "thai restaurant near me," the first organic result is TripAdvisor.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f3f59f25e451.06227108.jpg" alt="57f3f59f25e451.06227108.jpg" /></p>
<p>Upon entering the site, the first (and preferred) action the brand would like for me to make is to download the TripAdvisor app:</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f3f5888e0c16.02910367.png" alt="57f3f5888e0c16.02910367.png" /></p>
<p>Many times, a "near me" search will take us to content within an app, and we won't even realize it until we see the "continue in XX app or visit the mobile site" banner.</p>
<p>And if a searcher doesn't have the app installed, "Google can show an app install button. So, enabling your app for Google indexing could actually increase the installed base of the app," writes Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting.<br /></p>
<p>For brands, <a href="https://www.stonetemple.com/why-deep-linking-takes-apps-to-the-next-level-heres-why-81/" target="_blank">App Deep Linking</a> (ADL), which he defines as "the ability for Google to index content from within an app and then display it as mobile search results," has huge implications if utilized properly.</p>
<p>"Think about it," he writes. "If your app is not one of the fortunate few that get most of the attention, but your app content ranks high in searches, then you could end up with a lot more users in your app than you might have had otherwise."</p>
<p>(To access details on how to set up Google App Deep Linking, read Enge's Search Engine Land article: <a href="http://searchengineland.com/smx-advanced-recap-advanced-google-app-deep-linking-253134" target="_blank">SMX Advanced recap: Advanced Google App Deep Linking</a>)<br /></p>
<p>If your brand has an app, this is information you shouldn't sleep on.</p>
<p>Typically, when I conduct a "near me" search, I click on/look through the images until I find one that fits what I'm looking for. Nine times out of ten (depending upon what I'm looking for), I'm either taken to content within an app or taken to a mobile site and prompted to download the app.</p>
<p>Seems to me that ADL would be a no-brainer.</p>
<h2>Optimizing for mobile is simply putting web searchers first</h2>
<p>For all the gnashing of teeth Google's many actions/inactions provoke, the search giant deserves credit for making the needs of web searchers a priority.</p>
<p>Too often, we, as marketers, think first and foremost in this fashion:</p>
<ol>
<li>What do we have to sell?</li>
<li>Who needs it?</li>
<li>What's the cheapest, easiest way to deliver the product or service?</li>
</ol>
<p>I think Google is saying to us that the reverse needs to occur:</p>
<ol>
<li>Make it as fast and as easy for people to find what they want</li>
<li>Better understand who it is that's likely to be looking for it by better understanding our customers and their intent</li>
<li>The sales process must begin by thinking "what specific needs do web searchers have that my brand is uniquely qualified to fulfill?"</li>
</ol>
<p>In this way, we're placing the needs of web searchers ahead of the needs of the brand, which will be the winning combination for successful companies in the days ahead.</p>
<p>Brands will either follow suit or fall by the wayside.</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-35415094638216725372016-10-04T00:32:00.001-07:002016-10-04T00:32:21.789-07:00SEO Trek: The Search for Google RankBrain* [New Data]<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/402613/"">larry.kim</a></p>
<p>Rand Fishkin posted another brilliant Whiteboard Friday last week on the topic of <a href="https://moz.com/blog/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://moz.com/blog/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNGhPi1QMCoGOMpN9ir-IRGQ6I7R-A">optimizing for RankBrain</a>. In it, he explained how RankBrain helps Google select and prioritize signals it uses for ranking.<br /></p>
<p>One of the most important signals Google takes into account is user engagement. As Rand noted, engagement is a "very, very important signal."</p>
<p>Engagement is a huge but often ignored opportunity. That's why I've been a bit obsessed with improving engagement metrics.</p>
<p>My theory has been that RankBrain *<b>and/or other machine learning elements within Google's core algorithm</b> are increasingly rewarding pages with high user engagement. Not always, but it's happening often enough that it's kind of a huge deal.</p>
<p>Google is looking for unicorns – and I think that machine learning is Google's ultimate Unicorn Detector.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2bf821c85e7.27281906.jpg" /></p>
<p>Now, when I say unicorns, I mean those pages that have magical engagement rates that elevate them above the other donkey pages Google could show for a given query. Like if your page has a 5 percent click-through rate (CTR) when everyone else has a 1 percent CTR.</p>
<p>What is Google's mission? To provide the best results to searchers. One way Google does this is by looking at engagement data.</p>
<p>If most people are clicking on a particular search result – and then also engaging with that page – these are clear signals to Google that people think this page is fascinating. That it's a unicorn.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/seo-trek-the-search-for-google-rankbrain-new-data/57f2c02f042113.88961819.gif" alt="c6i80.gif" /></p>
<h2>RankBrain: Into Darkness</h2>
<p>RankBrain, much like Google's algorithm, is a great mystery. Since Google revealed (in a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-26/google-turning-its-lucrative-web-search-over-to-ai-machines" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-26/google-turning-its-lucrative-web-search-over-to-ai-machines&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNFZklu4L7VsvjhMiNxZ-f-sa74KRQ">Bloomberg article</a> just under a year ago) the important role of machine learning and artificial intelligence in its algorithm, RankBrain has been a surprisingly controversial topic, generating speculation and debate within the search industry.</p>
<p>Then, we found out in June that Google RankBrain was no longer just for long-tail queries. It was "<a href="https://backchannel.com/how-google-is-remaking-itself-as-a-machine-learning-first-company-ada63defcb70#.imxxs0ag2" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://backchannel.com/how-google-is-remaking-itself-as-a-machine-learning-first-company-ada63defcb70%23.imxxs0ag2&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNE9IcOuYYQIFagAbBZ7SOfxkIhe0w">involved in every query</a>."</p>
<p>We learned quite a few things about RankBrain. We were told by Google that <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-no-rankbrain-score-no-seo-22282.html" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.seroundtable.com/google-no-rankbrain-score-no-seo-22282.html&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNEoeCijgUb1upuHX9roCtS3k5uRWg">you can't optimize for it</a>. Yet we also learned that Google's engineers <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-understand-rankbrain-21744.html" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-understand-rankbrain-21744.html&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNHrvSf8OAmLUWXi-ENT1YplDsl1wQ">don't really understand what RankBrain does</a> or how it works.</p>
<p>Some people have even argued that there is absolutely nothing you can do to see Google's machine learning systems at work.</p>
<p>Give me a break! It's an algorithm. Granted, a more complex algorithm thanks to machine learning, but an algorithm nonetheless. All algorithms have rules and patterns.</p>
<p>When Google tweaked Panda and Penguin, we saw it. When Google tweaked its exact-match domain algorithm, we saw it. When Google tweaked its mobile algorithm, we saw it.</p>
<p>If you carefully set up an experiment, you should be able to isolate some aspect of what Google is proclaiming as the third most important ranking factor. You should be able to find evidence – a digital fingerprint.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2bf9e159c57.44247675.jpg" />Well, I say it's time to boldly go where no SEO has gone before. That's what I've attempted to do in this post. Let's look at some new data.</p>
<h2>The search for RankBrain [New Data]</h2>
<p>What you're about to look at is organic search click-through rate vs. the average organic search position for three separate 30-day periods ending <span class="aBn"><span class="aQJ">April 30</span></span>, July 12, and September 19 of this year. This data, obtained from the Google Search Console, tracked the same keywords in the Internet marketing niche.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2bfc97166d8.59897040.jpg" /></p>
<p>I see some of the most compelling evidence of RankBrain (<i>and/or other machine learning search algorithms!</i>) at work.</p>
<p>The shape of CTR vs. ranking curve is changing every month – for the 30 days ending:</p>
<ul>
<li>April 30, 2016, the average CTR for top position was about 22 percent.</li>
<li>July 12, 2016, the average CTR rose to about 24 percent.</li>
<li>By September 19, 2016, the average CTR increased to about 27 percent.</li>
</ul>
<p>The top, most prominent positions are getting even more clicks. Obviously, they were already getting a lot of clicks. But now they're getting more clicks than they have in recent history.</p>
<p>This is the winner-take-all nature of Google's organic SERPs today. It's coming at the expense of Positions 4–10, which are being clicked on much less over time.</p>
<p>Results that are more likely to attract engagement are pushed further up the SERP, while results with lower engagement get pushed further down. That's what we believe RankBrain is doing.</p>
<h2>Going beyond the data</h2>
<p>This data is showing us something very interesting. A couple thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li>This is exactly the fingerprint you would expect to see for a machine learning-based algorithm doing query interpretation that impacts rank based on user engagement metrics, such as CTR.</li>
<li>Essentially, machine learning systems move away from serving up 10 blue links and asking a user to choose one of them and toward providing the actual correct answers, further eliminating the need for lower positions.</li>
</ul>
<p>Could anything else be causing this shift to the click curve? Could it have been the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/googles-right-side-adpocalypse-really-happened-data-245011" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://searchengineland.com/googles-right-side-adpocalypse-really-happened-data-245011&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNFK3sYOXCa3cPpXYon32TtHAIrDvg">elimination of right rail ads</a>?</p>
<p>No, that happened in February. I was careful to use date ranges that were after the right rail apocalypse.</p>
<p>Could it be more Knowledge Graph elements creeping into the SERPs? If that were the case, it would look like everything got pushed down by one position (e.g., Position 1 becomes Position 2, Position 2 becomes Position 3, and so on).</p>
<p>The data didn't show that happening. We see a <em>bending</em> of the click curve, not a shifting of the curve.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2bfdc2ec499.68136316.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Behold the awesome power of CTR optimization!</h2>
<p>OK, so we've looked at the big picture. Now let's look at the little picture to illustrate the remarkable power of CTR optimization.</p>
<p>Let's talk about guerrilla marketing. Here are two headlines. Which headline do you think has the higher CTR?</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Guerrilla Marketing: 20+ Examples and Strategies to Stand Out</b></li>
</ul>
<p>This was the original headline for an <a href="http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/09/22/guerrilla-marketing-examples" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/09/22/guerrilla-marketing-examples&source=gmail&ust=1475612032339000&usg=AFQjCNGAVoDJHyMajiT0isSn80CyuwiktQ">article</a> published on the WordStream blog in 2014.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>20+ Jaw-Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Examples</b></li>
</ul>
<p>This is the updated headline, which we changed just a few months ago, in the hopes of increasing the CTR. And yep, we sure did!</p>
<p>Before we updated the headline, the article had a CTR of 1 percent and was ranking in position 8. Nothing awesome.</p>
<p>Since we updated the headline, the article has had a CTR of 4.19 percent and is ranking in position 5. Pretty awesome, no?</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2bff4e08ca5.01555110.jpg" /></p>
<p>Increasingly, we've been trying to move away from "SEO titles" that look like the original headline, where you have the primary keyword followed by a colon and the rest of your headline. They aren't catchy enough.</p>
<p>Yes, you still need to include keywords in your headline. But you don't have to use this tired format, which will deliver (at best) solid but unspectacular results.</p>
<p>To be clear: <b>we only changed the title tag</b>. No other optimization tactics were used.</p>
<p>We didn't point any links (internal or external) at it. We didn't add any images or anything else to the post. Nothing.</p>
<p>Changing the title tag changed the CTR. Which gave it "magical points" that resulted in 97 percent more organic traffic:</p>
<h2><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2c011c2e061.19858048.jpg" />What does it all mean?</h2>
<p>This example illustrates that if you increase your CTR, you'll see a nice boost in traffic. Ranking in a better position means more traffic, which means a higher CTR, which <i>also</i> means more traffic.</p>
<p>What's so remarkable is that this is on-page SEO. No link building was required! Besides, pointing new links to a page wouldn't result in a higher click-through rate – a catchier headline, however, <i>would</i> result in a higher CTR.</p>
<p>What's also interesting about this is that RankBrain isn't like other algorithms, say Panda or Penguin, where it was obvious when you got hit. You lost half your traffic!</p>
<p>If RankBrain or a machine learning algorithm impacts your site due to engagement metrics (positive or negative), it's a much more subtle shift. All your best pages do better. All your “upper class donkey” pages do slightly worse. Ultimately, the two forces cancel each other out, to some extent, so that the SEO alarms don’t go off.</p>
<h2>The final frontier</h2>
<p>When it comes to SEO, your mission is to seek out every advantage. It's my belief that <a href="https://moz.com/blog/does-organic-ctr-impact-seo-rankings-new-data" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://moz.com/blog/does-organic-ctr-impact-seo-rankings-new-data&source=gmail&ust=1475612032340000&usg=AFQjCNGt_q86d29IMEWpp5mit_EqzZO4qQ">organic CTR</a> and <a href="https://moz.com/blog/do-website-engagement-rates-impact-organic-rankings" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://moz.com/blog/do-website-engagement-rates-impact-organic-rankings&source=gmail&ust=1475612032340000&usg=AFQjCNGhoUoo8ffH-7d-FnVL4VEWoPpYjA">website engagement rates</a> impact organic rankings.</p>
<p>So boldly go where many SEOs are failing to go now. Hop aboard the USS Unicorn, make the jump to warp speed, and discover the wonders of those magical creatures.</p>
<p>Oh, and…</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57f2c029c429b0.75916594.jpg" /></p>
<p>Are you optimizing your click-through rates? If not, why not? If so, what have you been seeing in your analytics?</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-62215299260058655812016-10-03T00:07:00.001-07:002016-10-03T00:07:38.836-07:00Most SEOs Are No Better than a Coin-Flip at Predicting Which Page Will Rank Better. Can You?<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/21379/"">willcritchlow</a></p>
<h2>We want to be able to answer questions about why one page outranks another.</h2>
<blockquote><em>“What would we have to do to outrank that site?”</em></blockquote>
<blockquote><em>“Why is our competitor outranking us on this search?”</em></blockquote>
<p>These kind of questions — from bosses, from clients, and from prospective clients — are a standard part of day-to-day life for many SEOs. I know I’ve been asked both in the last week.</p>
<p>It’s relatively easy to figure out ways that a page can be made more relevant and compelling for a given search, and it’s straightforward to think of ways the page or site could be more authoritative (even if it’s less straight-forward to get it done). But will those changes or that extra link cause an actual reordering of a specific ranking? That’s a very hard question to answer with a high degree of certainty.</p>
<p>When we asked a few hundred people to pick which of two pages would rank better for a range of keywords, the average accuracy on UK SERPs was 46%. That’s worse than you’d get if you just flipped a coin! This chart shows the performance by keyword. It’s pretty abysmal:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/can-you-guess-which-page-ranks-better/57ef16f0e9ee17.03715738.png" /></p>
<h3>It’s getting harder to unpick all the ranking factors</h3>
<p>I’ve participated in each iteration of Moz’s <a href="https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors" target="_blank">ranking factors survey</a> since its inception in 2009. At <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/DistilledSEO/searchlove-london-2015-will-critchlow-practical-tips-for-the-future-of-search/109" target="_blank">one of our recent conferences</a> (the last time I was in <a href="https://www.distilled.net/events/searchlove-sandiego/" target="_blank">San Diego for SearchLove</a>) I talked about how I used to enjoy it and feel like I could add real value by taking the survey, but how that's changed over the years as the complexity has increased.</p>
<p>While I remain confident when building strategies to increase overall organic visibility, traffic, and revenue, I’m less sure than ever which individual ranking factors will outweigh which others in a specific case.</p>
<h3>The strategic approach looks at whole sites and groups of keywords</h3>
<p>My approach is generally to zoom out and build business cases on assumptions about portfolios of rankings, but it’s been on my mind recently as I think about the ways machine learning should make Google rankings ever more of a black box, and cause the ranking factors to vary more and more between niches.</p>
<h2>In general, "why does this page rank?" is the same as "which of these two pages will rank better?"</h2>
<p>I've been <a href="https://twitter.com/willcritchlow/status/780684256100089856" target="_blank">teaching myself about deep neural networks</a> using <a href="https://www.tensorflow.org/" target="_blank">TensorFlow</a> and <a href="https://keras.io/" target="_blank">Keras</a> — an area I’m pretty sure I’d have ended up studying and working in if I’d gone to college 5 years later. As I did so, I started thinking about how you would model a SERP (which is a set of high-dimensional non-linear relationships). I realized that the litmus test of understanding ranking factors — and thus being able to answer “why does that page outrank us?” — boils down to being able to answer a simpler question:</p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Given two pages, can you figure out which one will outrank the other for a given query?</h4>
<p>If you can answer that in the general case, then you know why one page outranks another, and vice-versa.</p>
<h3>It turns out that people are terrible at answering this question.</h3>
<p>I thought that answering this with greater accuracy than a coin flip was going to be a pretty low bar. As you saw from the sneak peak of my results above, that turned out not to be the case. Reckon you can do better? Skip ahead to <a href="https://goo.gl/forms/hpeshCRl7EIBZy2k2" target="_blank">take the test</a> and find out.</p>
<p>(In fact, if you could find a way to test this effectively, I wonder if it would make a good qualifying question for the next moz ranking factors survey. Should you only listen only to the opinion of those experts who are capable of answering with reasonable accuracy? Note that my test that follows isn’t at all rigorous because you can cheat by Googling the keywords — it’s just for entertainment purposes).</p>
<h2>Take the test and see how well you can answer</h2>
<p>With my curiosity piqued, I put together a simple test, thinking it would be interesting to see how good expert SEOs actually are at this, as well as to see how well laypeople do.</p>
<p>I’ve included a bit more about the methodology and some early results below, but if you'd like to skip ahead and test yourself you can <a href="https://goo.gl/forms/hpeshCRl7EIBZy2k2" target="_blank">go ahead here</a>.</p>
<p>Note that to simplify the adversarial side, I’m going to let you rely on all of Google’s spam filtering — you can trust that every URL ranks in the top 10 for its example keyword — so you're choosing an ordering of two pages that do rank for the query rather than two pages from potentially any domain on the Internet.</p>
<p>I haven’t designed this to be uncheatable — you can obviously cheat by Googling the keywords — but as my old teachers used to say: "If you do, you’ll only be cheating yourself."</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Google Forms seems to have removed the option to be emailed your own answers outside of an apps domain, so if you want to know how you did, note down your answers as you go along and compare them to the correct answers (which are linked from the final page of the test).</p>
<p>You can try your hand with just one keyword or keep going, trying anywhere up to 10 keywords (each with a pair of pages to put in order). Note that you don’t need to do all of them; you can submit after any number.</p>
<p>You can take the survey either for the US (google.com) or UK (google.co.uk). All results are considering only the "blue links" results — i.e. links to web pages — rather than universal search results / one-boxes etc.</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://goo.gl/forms/hpeshCRl7EIBZy2k2" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta">Take the test!</a></p>
<h2>What do the early responses show?</h2>
<p>Before publishing this post, we sent it out to the <a href="https://twitter.com/distilled" target="_blank">@distilled</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/moz" target="_blank">@moz</a> networks. At the time of writing, almost 300 people have taken the test, and there are already some interesting results:</p>
<h3>It seems as though the US questions are slightly easier</h3>
<p>The UK test appears to be a little harder (judging both by the accuracy of laypeople, and with a subjective eye). And while accuracy generally increases with experience in both the UK and the US, the vast majority of UK respondents performed worse than a coin flip:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/can-you-guess-which-page-ranks-better/57ef16f17489b5.52075022.png" /></p>
<h3>Some easy questions might skew the data in the US</h3>
<p>Digging into the data, there are a few of the US questions that are absolute no-brainers (e.g. there's a question about the keyword [mortgage calculator] in the US that 84% of respondents get right regardless of their experience). In comparison, the easiest one in the UK was also a mortgage-related query ([mortgage comparisons]) but only 2/3 of people got that right (67%).</p>
<p>Compare the UK results by keyword...</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/can-you-guess-which-page-ranks-better/57ef16f0e9ee17.03715738.png" /></p>
<p>...To the same chart for the US keywords:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/can-you-guess-which-page-ranks-better/57ef16f1f346f3.11347874.png" /></p>
<p>So, even though the overall accuracy was a little above 50% in the US (around 56% or roughly 5/9), I’m not actually convinced that US SERPs are <em>generally</em> easier to understand. I think there are a <em>lot</em> of US SERPs where human accuracy is in the 40% range.</p>
<h3>The Dunning-Kruger effect is on display</h3>
<p>The <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect" target="_blank">Dunning-Kruger effect</a> is a well-studied psychological phenomenon whereby people “fail to adequately assess their level of competence,” typically feeling unsure in areas where they are actually strong (impostor syndrome) and overconfident in areas where they are weak. Alongside the raw predictions, I asked respondents to give their confidence in their rankings for each URL pair on a scale from 1 (“Essentially a guess, but I’ve picked the one I think”) to 5 (“I’m sure my chosen page should rank better”).</p>
<p>The effect was most pronounced on the UK SERPs — where respondents answering that they were sure or fairly sure (4–5) were almost as likely to be wrong as those guessing (1) — and almost four percentage points worse than those who said they were unsure (2–3):</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/can-you-guess-which-page-ranks-better/57ef16f3807966.31966390.png" /></p>
<h3>Is Google getting so me of these wrong?</h3>
<p>The question I asked SEOs was “which page do you think ranks better?”, not “which page is a better result?”, so in general, most of the results say very little about whether Google is picking the right result in terms of user satisfaction. I <em>did,</em> however, ask people to share the survey with their non-SEO friends and ask <em>them</em> to answer the latter question.</p>
<p>If I had a large enough sample-size, you might expect to see some correlation here — but remember that these were a diverse array of queries and the average respondent might well not be in the target market, so it’s perfectly possible that Google knows what a good result looks like better than they do.</p>
<p>Having said that, in my own opinion, there are one or two of these results that are clearly wrong in UX terms, and it might be interesting to analyze why the “wrong” page is ranking better. Maybe that’ll be a topic for a follow-up post. If you want to dig into it, there’s enough data in both the post above and the answers given at the end of the survey to find the ones I mean (I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t tried it out yet). Let me know if you dive into the ranking factors and come up with any theories.</p>
<h2>There is hope for our ability to fight machine learning with machine learning</h2>
<p>One of the disappointments of putting together this test was that by the time I’d made the <a href="https://goo.gl/forms/hpeshCRl7EIBZy2k2" target="_blank">Google Form</a> I knew too many of the answer to be able to test myself fairly. But I was comforted by the fact that I could do the next best thing — I could test my neural network (well, my model, refactored by our R&D team and trained on data they gathered, which we flippantly called Deeprank).</p>
<p>I think this is fair; the instructions did say “use whatever tools you like to assess the sites, but please don't skew the results by performing the queries on Google yourself.” The neural network wasn’t trained on these results, so I think that’s within the rules. I ran it on the UK questions because it was trained on google.co.uk SERPs, and it did better than a coin flip:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/can-you-guess-which-page-ranks-better/57ef16f4017065.25606660.png" /></p>
<p>So maybe there is hope that smarter tools could help us continue to answer questions like “why is our competitor outranking us on this search?”, even as Google’s black box gets ever more complex and impenetrable.</p>
<p>If you want to hear more about these results as I gather more data and get updates on Deeprank when it’s ready for prime-time, be sure to add your email address when you:</p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://goo.gl/forms/hpeshCRl7EIBZy2k2" target="_blank">Take the test</a> (or just <a href="https://www.distilled.net/email-signup/" target="_blank">drop me your email here</a>)</h4>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-83667276830313588652016-09-30T00:37:00.001-07:002016-09-30T00:37:09.887-07:00Optimizing for RankBrain... Should We Do It? (Is It Even Possible?) - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/63/"">randfish</a></p>
<p>If you've been stressing over how to optimize your SEO for RankBrain, there's good news: you can't. Not in the traditional sense of the word, at least. Unlike the classic algorithms we're used to, RankBrain is a query interpretation model. It's a horse of a different color, and as such, it requires a different way of thinking than we've had to use in the past. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand tackles the question of what RankBrain actually is and whether SEOs should (or can) optimize for it.</p>
<p class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:5.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/7ync4qge3g?seo=false&videoFoam=true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="wistia_embed" name="wistia_embed" allowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" width="100%" height="100%"></iframe></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday/57edad6c644c81.31975701.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday/57edad6c644c81.31975701.jpg" rel="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" alt="" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br /></p>
<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about RankBrain SEO and RankBrain in general. So Google released this algorithm or component of their algorithm a while ago, but there have been questions for a long time about: Can people actually do RankBrain SEO? Is that even a thing? Is it possible to optimize specifically for this RankBrain algorithm?<br />
<br />
I'll talk today a little bit about how RankBrain works just so we have a broad overview and we're all on the same page about it. Google has continued to release more and more information through interviews and comments about what the system does. There are some things that potentially shift in our SEO strategies and tactics around it, but I'll show why optimizing for RankBrain is probably the wrong way to frame it.</p>
<h2>What does RankBrain actually do?</h2>
<p>So what is it that RankBrain actually does? A query comes in to Google. Historically, classically Google would use an algorithm, probably the same algorithm, at least they've said sort of the same algorithm across the board historically to figure out which pages and sites to show. There are a bunch of different ranking inputs, which we've talked about many times here on Whiteboard Friday.<br />
<br />
But if you search for this query today, what Google is saying is with RankBrain, they're going to take any query that comes in and RankBrain is essentially going to be a query interpretation model. It's going to look at the words in that query. It's potentially going to look at things possibly like location or personalization or other things. We're not entirely sure whether RankBrain uses those, but it certainly could. It interprets these queries, and then it's going to try and determine the intent behind the query and make the ranking signals that are applied to the results appropriate to that actual query.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57ed94968b9bd1.79865261.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>So here's what that means. If you search today — I did this search on my mobile device, I did it on my desktop device — for "best Netflix shows" or "best shows on Netflix" or "What are good Netflix shows," "good Netflix shows," "what to watch on Netflix," notice a pattern here? <strong>All five of these searches are essentially asking for the very same thing</strong>. We might quibble and say "what to watch on Netflix" could be more movie-centric than shows, which could be more TV or episodic series-centric. That's okay. But these five are essentially, " What should I watch on Netflix?"</p>
<p>Now, <strong>RankBrain is going to help Google understand</strong> that each of these queries, despite the fact that they use slightly different words and phrasing or completely different words, with the exception of Netflix, <strong>that they should all be answered by the same content or same kinds of content</strong>. That's the part where Google, where RankBrain is determining the searcher intent. Then, Google is going to use RankBrain to basically say, "Now, what signals are right for me, Google, to enhance or to push down for these particular queries?"</p>
<h2>Signals<br /></h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57edd8df9da466.22517393.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>So we're going to be super simplistic, hyper-simplistic and imagine that Google has this realm of just a few signals, and for this particular query or set of queries, any of these, that...</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Keyword matching</strong> <strong>is</strong> <strong>not that important</strong>. So minus that, not super important here.</li>
<li><strong>Link diversity</strong>, neither here nor there.</li>
<li><strong>Anchor text,</strong> it <strong>doesn't matter too much</strong>, neither here nor there.</li>
<li><strong>Freshness, very, very important</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Why is freshness so important? Well, because Google has seen patterns before, and if you show shows from Netflix that were on the service a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, you are no longer relevant. It doesn't matter if you have lots of good links, lots of diversity, lots of anchor text, lots of great keyword matching. <strong>I</strong><strong>f you are not fresh, you are not showing searchers what they want</strong>, and therefore Google doesn't want to display you. In fact, the number one result for all of these was published, I think, six or seven days ago, as of the filming of this Whiteboard Friday. Not particularly surprising, right? Freshness is super important for this query.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Domain authority</strong>, that is <em>somewhat</em> important. Google doesn't want to get too spammed by low-quality domains even if they are publishing fresh content.</li>
<li><strong>Engagement</strong><strong>, very, very important signal here</strong>. That indicates to Google whether searchers are being satisfied by these particular results.</li>
</ul>
<p>This is a high-engagement query too. So on low-engagement queries, where people are looking for a very simple, quick answer, you expect engagement not to be that big. <strong>But for something in-depth,</strong> like "What should I watch on Netflix," you expect people are going to go, <strong>they're going to engage with that content significantly</strong>. Maybe they're going to watch a trailer or some videos. Maybe they're going to browse through a list of 50 things. High engagement, hopefully.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Related topics</strong>, Google is definitely looking for the <em>right</em> words and phrases.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you, for example, are talking about the best shows on Netflix and everyone is talking about how hot — I haven't actually seen it — "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/" target="_blank">Stranger Things</a>" is, which is a TV program on Netflix that is very much in the public eye right now, well, if you don't have that on your best show list, Google probably does not want to display you. So that's an important related topic or a concept or a word vector, whatever it is.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Content depth, that's also important here</strong>. Google expects a long list, a fairly substantive page of content, not just a short, "Here are 10 items," and no details about them.</li>
</ul>
<p>As a result of interpreting the query, using these signals in these proportions, these five were basically the top five or six for every single one of those queries. So Google is essentially saying, "Hey, it doesn't matter if you have perfect keyword targeting and tons of link diversity and anchor text. The signals that are more important here are these ones, and we can interpret that all of these queries essentially have the same intent behind them. Therefore, this is who we're going to rank."<br /></p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57edd962b09d81.29172489.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>So, in essence, <strong>RankBrain is helping Google determine what signals to use in the algorithm or how to weight those signals</strong>, because there's a ton of signals that they can choose from. RankBrain is helping them weight them, and they're helping them interpret the query and the searcher intent.</p>
<h2>How should SEOs respond?</h2>
<p>Does that actually change how we do SEO? A little bit. A little bit. What it doesn't do, though, is <strong>it does not say there is a specific way to do SEO for RankBrain itself.</strong> Because RankBrain is, yes, helping Google select signals and prioritize them, you can't actually optimize for RankBrain itself. You can optimize for these signals, and you might say, "Hey, I know that, in my world, these signals are much more important than these signals," or the reverse. For a lot of commercial, old-school queries, keyword matching and link diversity and anchor text are still very, very important. I'm not discounting those. What I'm saying is <strong>you can't do SEO for RankBrain specifically</strong> or not in the classic way that we've been trained to do SEO for a particular algorithm. This is kind of different.</p>
<p>That said, there are some ways SEOs should respond.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>If you have not already killed the concept, the idea of one keyword, one page, you should kill it now</strong>. In fact, you should have killed it a long time ago, because Hummingbird really put this to bed way back in the day. But if you're still doing that, RankBrain does that even more. It's even more saying, "Hey, you know what? Condense all of these. For all of these queries you should not have one URL and another URL and another URL and another URL. You should have <strong>o</strong><strong>ne page targeting all of them</strong>, targeting all the intents that are like this." When you do your keyword research and your big matrix of keyword-to-content mapping, that's how you should be optimizing there.</li>
<li><strong>It's no longer the case</strong>, as it was probably five, six years ago, <strong>that one set of fixed inputs no longer governs every single query</strong>. Because of this weighting system, some queries are going to demand signals in different proportion to other ones. <em>Sometimes</em> you're going to need fresh content. <em>Sometimes</em> you need very in-depth content. <em>Sometimes</em> you need high engagement. <em>Sometimes</em> you don't. <em>Sometimes</em> you will need tons of links with anchor text. <em>Sometimes</em> you will not. <em>Sometimes</em> you need high authority to rank for something. <em>Sometimes</em> you don't. So that's a different model.<br /></li>
<li><strong>The reputation that you get as a website</strong>, a domain earns a reputation around particular types of signals. That could be because you're publishing lots of fresh content or because you get lots of diverse links or because you have very high engagement or you have very low engagement in terms of you answer things very quickly, but you have a lot of diverse information and topics on that, like a Dictionary.com or an Answers.com, somebody like that where it's quick, drive-by visits, you answer the searcher's query and then they're gone. That's a fine model. But <strong>you need to match your SEO focus, your brand of the type of SEO and the type of signals that you hit to the queries that you care about most</strong>. You should be establishing that over time and building that out.</li>
</ol>
<p>So RankBrain, yes, it might shift a little bit of our strategic focus, but no, it's not a classic algorithm that we do SEO against, like a Panda or a Penguin. How do I optimize to avoid Panda hitting me? How do I optimize to avoid Penguin hitting me? How do I optimize for Hummingbird so that my keywords match the query intent? Those are very different from RankBrain, which has this interpretation model.</p>
<p>So, with that, I look forward to hearing about your experiences with RankBrain. I look forward to hearing about what you might be changing since RankBrain came out a couple of years ago, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/" target="_blank">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/">Speechpad.com</a></p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-46512957733164508922016-09-29T00:07:00.001-07:002016-09-29T00:07:11.236-07:00How to Build Backlinks Using Your Competitors’ Broken Pages<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/4603542/"">TomCaulton</a></p>
<p id="promoted">This post was originally in <a href="/ugc">YouMoz</a>, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.</p>
<p>We all know building backlinks is one of the most important aspects of any successful SEO and digital marketing campaign. However, I believe there is an untapped resource out there for link building: finding your competitors' broken pages that have been linked to by external sources.</p>
<p>Allow me to elaborate.</p>
<p>Finding the perfect backlink often takes hours, and it can can take days, weeks, or even longer to acquire. That’s where the link building method I've outlined below comes in. I use it on a regular basis to build relevant backlinks from competitors' 404 pages.</p>
<p><em><strong>Please note:</strong> In this post, I will be using Search Engine Land as an example to make my points.</em></p>
<p>Ready to dive in? Great, because I'm going to walk you through the entire link building process now.</p>
<p>First, you need to find your competitor(s). This is as easy as searching for the keyword you’re targeting on Google and selecting websites that are above you in the SERPs. Once you have a list of competitors, create a spreadsheet to put all of your competitors on, including their position in the rankings and the date you listed them.<br /></p>
Next, download <a href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/" target="_blank">Screaming Frog SEO Spider</a> [a freemium tool]. This software will allow you to crawl all of your competitors website, revealing all their 404 pages. To do this, simply enter your competitors' URLs in the search bar one at a time, like this:<a href="http://imgur.com/OOskptt"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-build-backlinks-using-your-competitors-broken-pages-40978/57a89bb19ba0f8.98367022.png" title="source: imgur.com" alt="OOskptt.png" /></a>
<p>Once the crawl is complete, click "Response Codes."</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/e4LciHG"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-build-backlinks-using-your-competitors-broken-pages-40978/57a89bb2029da3.34290081.png" title="source: imgur.com" alt="e4LciHG.png" /></a></p>
<p>Then, click on the dropdown arrow next to "filter" and select "Client Error 4xx."</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/HYi6TWa"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-build-backlinks-using-your-competitors-broken-pages-40978/57a89bb257c3c3.37018352.png" title="source: imgur.com" alt="HYi6TWa.png" /></a></p>
<p>Now you'll be able to see the brand's 404 pages.</p>
<p>Once you've completed the step above, simply press the "Export" button to export all of their 404 pages into a file. Next, import this file into to a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Docs. On this part of the spreadsheet, create tabs called "Trust Flow," "Citation Flow," "Referring Domains," and "External Backlinks."</p>
<p>Now that you’ve imported all of their 404 pages, you need to dissect the images and external links if there are any. A quick way to do this is to highlight the cell block by pressing on the specific cell at the top, then press "Filter" under the "Data" tab.<a href="http://imgur.com/H3YN9BG"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-build-backlinks-using-your-competitors-broken-pages-40978/57a89bb450ce01.08018770.png" title="source: imgur.com" alt="H3YN9BG.png" /></a>Look for the drop-down arrow on the first cell of that block. Click the drop-down arrow, and underneath "Filter by values," you will see two links: "Select all" and "Clear."</p>
<p>Press "Clear," like this:</p>
<a href="http://imgur.com/ZERYiSm"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-build-backlinks-using-your-competitors-broken-pages-40978/57a89bb4b5b8b5.86314717.png" title="source: imgur.com" alt="ZERYiSm.png" /></a>This will clear all preset options. Now, type in the URL of the competitor's website in the search box and click "Select all."<a href="http://imgur.com/SKqXxQ2"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-build-backlinks-using-your-competitors-broken-pages-40978/57a89bb5086624.00202475.png" title="source: imgur.com" alt="SKqXxQ2.png" /></a>
<p>This will filter out all external links and just leave you with their 404 pages. Go through the whole list, highlighting the pages you think you can rewrite.</p>
<p>Now that you have all of your relevant 404 pages in place, run them through <a href="https://majestic.com/" target="_blank">Majestic</a> [a paid tool] or <a href="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/" target="_blank">Moz’s Open Site Explorer</a> (OSE) [a freemium tool] to see if their 404 pages actually have any external links (which is what we're ultimately looking for). Add the details from Majestic or Moz to the spreadsheet. No matter which tool you use (I use OSE), hit "Request a CSV" for the backlink data. (Import the data into a new tab on your spreadsheet, or create a new spreadsheet altogether if you wish.)</p>
<p>Find relevant backlinks linking to (X’s) website. Once you've found all of the relevant websites, you can either highlight them or remove the ones that aren’t from your spreadsheet.</p>
<p><em><strong>Please note</strong>: It's worth running each of the websites you're potentially going to be reaching out to through Majestic and Moz to find out their citation flow, trust flow, and domain authority (DA). You may only want to go for the highest DA; however, in my opinion, if it's relevant to your niche and will provide useful information, it's worth targeting.</em></p>
<p>With the 404s and link opportunities in hand, focus on creating content that’s relevant for the brands you hope to earn a link from. Find the contact information for someone at the brand you want the link from. This will usually be clear on their website; but if not, you can use tools such as <a href="https://www.voilanorbert.com/" target="_blank">VoilaNorbert</a> and <a href="https://emailhunter.co/" target="_blank">Email Hunter</a> to get the information you need. Once you have this information, you need to send them an email similar to this one:</p>
<hr />
<div class="box-bordered-left">
<p><em>Hi [THEIR NAME],</em></p>
<p><em>My name is [YOUR NAME], and I carry out the [INSERT JOB ROLE – i.e., MARKETING] at [YOUR COMPANY'S NAME or WEBSITE].</em></p>
<p><em>I have just come across your blog post regarding [INSERT THEIR POST TITLE] and when I clicked on one of the links on that post, it happened to go to a 404 page. As you’re probably aware, this is bad for user experience, which is the reason I’m emailing you today.</em></p>
<p><em>We recently published an in-depth article regarding the same subject of the broken link you have on your website: [INSERT YOUR POST TITLE].</em></p>
<p><em>Here's the link to our article: [URL].</em></p>
<p><em>I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind linking to our article instead of the 404 page you’re currently linking to, as our article will provide your readers with a better user experience.</em></p>
<p><em>We will be updating this article so we can keep people provided with the very latest information as the industry evolves.</em></p>
<p><em>Thank you for reading this email and I look forward to hearing from you.</em></p>
<p><em>[YOUR NAME]</em></p>
</div>
<hr />
<p><em><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> The email example above is just an example and should be tailored to your own style of writing.</em></p>
<p>In closing, remember to keep detailed notes of the conversations you have with people during outreach, and always follow up with people you connect with.</p>
<p>I hope this tactic helps your SEO efforts in the future. It's certainly helped me find new places to earn links. Not only that, but it gives me new content ideas on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Do you use a similar process to build links? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-50061920880891010642016-09-28T00:22:00.001-07:002016-09-28T00:22:41.290-07:00How a Single Piece of Content Increased Our DA by +7 Points [Case Study]<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/629953/"">sergeystefoglo</a></p>
<p>Content marketing has been discussed and researched more in the last 5 years than ever before.</p>
<p><a href="https://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf05491dc07.96406503.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf05491dc07.96406503.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<p class="caption"><em>Source: Google Trends</em></p>
<p>There are various kinds of content marketing strategies out there. Blog promotion, infographics, video strategies, and creative content are some. Depending on your goals, some are more effective than others.</p>
<p>At Distilled, we’ve been fortunate enough to work on <a href="https://www.distilled.net/services/#creative" target="_blank">many creative content pieces</a> with some incredible clients. This article is going to focus on a piece of content that my team and I created for a client. We’ll take a look at both the creation process and the tangible results of the piece we made.</p>
<p><em><strong>Note:</strong> In general, you don’t want to rely on one piece of content for link acquisition. It’s recommended to focus on multiple pieces throughout the year to add link diversity and give your content pieces a good chance to succeed. The following is simply a case study of one piece of content that worked well for my client.</em></p>
<hr />
<h2>Client backstory: We need links!</h2>
<p>Our client is <a href="http://www.ginnys.com/" target="_blank">Ginny’s</a> (shoutout to Matt and Cailey). Ginny's is an ecommerce business based in the beautiful state of Wisconsin.</p>
<p>We knew that regardless of how much optimization was done on the site, their lack of incoming links would be a huge barrier to success. This quickly became a topic of discussion for us.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf0555b62b0.56067355.jpg" /></p>
<p>The general rule of thumb: the more linking root domains (LRDs) your site has, the stronger the <a href="https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority" target="_blank">domain authority</a> should be. And the stronger the linking root domains are, the better it is for your DA. In other words, it’s better to get 1 strong link (DA 80+) than 10 weak links (DA 20-). Kudos if the links are topically relevant to your website/brand.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf0563adc24.73128089.jpg" /></p>
<p>So, my team and I sat down and started thinking of different ways we could accomplish the task of increasing LRDs and (hopefully) DA for my client.</p>
<hr />
<h2>The process of creating a link-worthy story</h2>
<p>Here are the steps my team and I went through for this particular client.</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> For an extensive look at creating creative content, please see the following articles:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.distilled.net/resources/how-to-make-award-winning-content-1/" target="_blank">How to Make Award-Winning Creative Content - Part 1</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.distilled.net/resources/how-to-make-award-winning-content-2/" target="_blank">How to Make Award-Winning Creative Content - Part 2</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Ideation</h3>
<p>The first step in the creative process is ideation, because without great ideas you can’t a have a great piece of content. It’s important to give yourself enough time for ideation. Don’t rush it, and be sure to include various team members with different backgrounds to get as many ideas as possible. Note: stock up on coffee/Red Bull and snacks for this.</p>
<h3>Validation</h3>
<p>Typically after an ideation session you'll have many potential ideas. It’s important to go through and validate them. When I say "validate," I mean making sure others haven’t already done something similar, or that creating the piece is actually possible (you have access to the right data, etc.)</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> For more information on researching and validating your creative ideas, read this post titled “<a href="https://www.distilled.net/resources/visual-research-10-dos-and-donts/" target="_blank">Researching Creative Ideas: 10 Dos and Don'ts</a>.”</p>
<h3>Pitching</h3>
<p>At this point you'll have a handful of ideas that are not only on-brand and interesting, but have great potential in being picked up by various sources. Put together a nice deck and pitch your ideas to the client. The goal is to get your client to pick one (or a few, depending on the budget).</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Here’s an awesome write-up on a <a href="https://www.distilled.net/resources/relevant-resonant-different-a-framework-for-pitching-creative-ideas/" target="_blank">framework for pitching creative ideas</a> to your clients.</p>
<h3>Gathering the data</h3>
<p>Once your client signs off on a piece, it’s time to dive into the data! Depending on the piece you're creating, this might look like scraping websites and doing a ton of research to get the right data you need. Take your time on this, as you want to make sure your data is accurate and relevant.</p>
<h3>Design</h3>
<p>During this part of the process, it’s a great idea to start mocking up some potential designs. If your piece is smaller, this might be a quick and simple task. If you have a data visualization, this will be longer. Typically, it’s a good idea to create 2–3 mockups and give your client some options.</p>
<h3>Development</h3>
<p>Once your client signs off on a particular design, it’s time to dive into development.</p>
<h3>Copy</h3>
<p>The actual copy for the piece doesn’t have to happen after the development, but it’s usually a good idea to allow the copywriter to see how much space they have to work with. What you don’t want is for your copywriter to write 500 words when the designer has made space for 100. Communication is key in this process.</p>
<h3>Testing</h3>
<p>Once the piece is built, it’s important to test it out on various browsers and devices. Ask people to give it a run and try to fix as many errors/bugs as possible.</p>
<h3>Promotion</h3>
<p>Depending on your timeline, you might want to start promotion sooner than this. The important thing to note is to consider pre-pitching and reaching out to contacts to gauge their interest in the piece as soon as possible. Keep your contacts updated and be sure to give them everything they need for their stories.</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> For further reference on pitching journalists, please see this post titled, “<a href="https://www.distilled.net/resources/beyond-the-media-list-pro-active-prospecting-for-pitching-creative-content/" target="_blank">Beyond the Media List: Pro-Active Prospecting for Pitching Creative Content</a>.”</p>
<h3>Launch</h3>
<p>It’s time to launch!</p>
<h3>Push</h3>
<p>On the day the piece launches, be sure that you are reminding journalists, reaching out to contacts, sharing the piece on social media, and making your social campaigns live.</p>
<h3>Celebrate</h3>
<p>There are a lot of steps to building a creative piece, so don’t underestimate the work that goes into it! After you launch the piece be sure to have a beer, give yourself a pat on the back, or do whatever it is you need to do to celebrate.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Post-ideation: What we came up with</h2>
<p>After the process outlined above, our team came up with <a href="http://www.ginnys.com/50-states-of-bacon/" target="_blank">50 States of Bacon</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf05874f5f6.40556769.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf05874f5f6.40556769.png" alt="" /></a></p>
<p>The idea was simple: Everyone likes bacon, but who likes it the most? Ginny’s caters to a lot of people who love deep frying, so this was on-brand. We decided to use Instagram’s (now difficult to access) API to extract 33,742 photos that were tagged with #bacon and located within the USA. To normalize for population distribution and Instagram usage, we also collected 64,640 photos with the tags #food, #breakfast, #lunch, and #dinner.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf0596908b9.31662639.jpg" /></p>
<p>To make this data more visual, we made it interactive and included some fun facts for each state.</p>
<p><a href="https://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57eb06183f04e9.44525233.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57eb06183f04e9.44525233.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h2>What happened after we launched the piece?<br /></h2>
<p>So, what happened after we launched the piece? Let’s dive in.</p>
<p>Here are some of the larger websites 50 States of Bacon got picked up on.</p>
<table class="table-basic table-row-hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>
<h4>Website</h4>
</th>
<th>
<h4>Domain Authority</h4>
</th>
<th>
<h4>Other</h4>
</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>US News</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>94</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Tweeted from account (115K+)</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Mashable</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>96</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Tweeted from account (6.95M+)</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>AOL Lifestyle</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>98</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Referred 1,200+ visitors</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Eater</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>85</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>N/A</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Daily Dot</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>85</p>
</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">
<p>Tweeted from account (274K+)</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Here is what the LRDs and DA looked like before we launched the piece, and then after 4 months of it being live:</p>
<table class="table-basic table-row-hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th></th>
<th>
<h4>Before Launch</h4>
</th>
<th>
<h4>4 Months Later</h4>
</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;"><strong>Linking Root Domains</strong></td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">450</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;"><strong>Domain Authority</strong></td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">29</td>
<td style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 102%;">36</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Let’s break this down by metric. Here's a graph of the LRDs over time (we launched the piece at about the start of the uplift).<br /></p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-increased-da-7-points-case-study/57eaf05ad84095.88972073.jpg" /></p>
<p>The domain authority didn’t budge until about 4 months after we launched the piece. We weren’t actively pursuing any other link-based campaigns during this time, so it’s safe to say the creative piece had a lot to do with this boost in DA.</p>
<p><em><strong>Note:</strong> Since DA is refreshed with new pools of data, this observation wouldn’t have been as valid if the DA only moved one or two positions. But, since it moved 7 positions so close to the launch of this piece, I feel like it’s safe to assume the piece contributed greatly.</em></p>
<p>Does this mean if you do a similar piece that your DA will also increase? No. Does it give us a good example on what can happen? Absolutely.</p>
<hr />
<h2>A note on LRDs, DA, and setting expectations</h2>
<p>Setting expectations with clients is hard. That's even more true when you both <em>know</em> that links may be even more important than user engagement with your campaign. To make sure expectations are reasonable, you may want to encourage them to see <em>this</em> campaign as one of many over a long period of time. Then there's less pressure on any individual piece.</p>
<p>So, it’s important to set expectations upfront. I would never tell a client that we can <em>guarantee</em> a certain number of links, or that we <em>guarantee</em> an increase in domain authority.</p>
<p>Instead, we can guarantee a piece of content that is well-built, well-researched, and interesting to their target audience. You can go one step further and guarantee reaching out to X amount of contacts, and you can estimate how many of those contacts will respond with a "yes" or "no."</p>
<p>In fact, you should set goals. How much traffic would you like the piece to bring? What about social shares? What seems like a reasonable amount of LRD’s you could gain from a piece like this? Benchmark where you currently are, and make some reasonable goals.</p>
<p>The point I’m trying to make is that you shouldn’t promise your client a certain amount of links because, frankly, you'd be lying to them. Be upfront about what this looks like and show examples of work you’ve done before, but make sure to set their expectations correctly up front to avoid any conflicts down the road.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>There's a lot to be learned from the results of creative campaigns. The goal of this article is to share one piece that I’ve worked on with a client while highlighting some things that I learned/observed along the way. If you'd like to see more campaigns we’ve worked on at Distilled, take a look at our <a href="https://www.distilled.net/resources/Distilled-Creative-Roundup/" target="_blank">creative roundup for last year</a>.</p>
<p>To wrap things up, here are the key takeaways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Creative pieces take a lot of thought, work, and time. Don’t underestimate the task at hand.</li>
<li>Don’t frame the project as <em>only</em> focused on gaining links. Instead, aim for creating a compelling piece of content that is on-brand and has the potential to gain traction.</li>
<li>Oftentimes it’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. Plan multiple pieces throughout the year.</li>
<li>If your research is right and you pitch the piece to the correct people, this is a strategy that can gain your domain some very strong LRDs. In this particular case, 110 linking root domains (and counting).</li>
<li>…But those links won’t come easy. You need to pre-pitch, remind, and re-pitch your contacts. There are many great pieces of content being published daily; you need to be proactive about ensuring your spots online.</li>
<li>There are other benefits to doing pieces like this aside from links. Social shares, brand awareness, and referral traffic are some other metrics to look at.</li>
<li>It is possible to increase your DA by doing a piece like this, but it takes time. Be patient, and continue doing great work in the meantime.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2>Other thoughts</h2>
<ul>
<li>There are some arguments to be made that a piece of content like this only has spikes and doesn’t do any good for a brand. I don’t believe this to be true. The way I see it, if a piece is too evergreen, it might not gain as many strong links. At the same time, if a piece is completely left-field and doesn’t fit with the brand, the links might not be as impactful. I think there's a fine line here; it should be up to your best judgment on the pieces you should create.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>This piece could potentially be updated every year to gain more links or traction (although it would be a lot more difficult with Instagram drastically limiting their API).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>It’s possible that this piece didn’t have a direct impact on DA, but because there were no other link acquisition strategies during the 4 months, we can safely assume the two are correlated.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>There's an argument to be made that jumping from the 20s to the 30s is much easier than from 40s to 50s when you’re speaking of DA. We know that it gets more difficult to increase DA as it gets higher, so do keep that in mind.</li>
</ul>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-67590543089882532622016-09-27T00:21:00.001-07:002016-09-27T00:21:08.757-07:003 Surprising Lessons From Building 26,000 Links<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/437563/"">KelseyLibert</a></p>
<p>The Fractl team has worked on hundreds of content marketing projects. Along the way, we’ve kept track of a lot of data, including everywhere our client campaigns have been featured, what types of links each campaign attracted, and how many times each placement was shared.</p>
<p>While we regularly look back on our data to evaluate performance per campaign and client, until now we’d never analyzed <em>all</em> of these data in aggregate. After combing through 31,000 media mentions and 26,000 links, here’s what we found.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/3-surprising-lessons-from-building-26-000-links/57e40ef49a7950.94942863.jpg" alt="What-Building-26000-Links-Taught-Us-About-Content-Marketing.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Most high-authority links don’t receive a lot of social shares.</h2>
<p>Most marketers assume that if they build links on high-authority sites, the shares will come. In a <a href="https://moz.com/blog/social-media-as-your-primary-link-building-tactic-probably-wont-work-whiteboard-friday" target="_blank">Whiteboard Friday</a> from last year, Rand talks about this trend. BuzzSumo and Moz analyzed 1 million articles and found that <a href="https://moz.com/blog/content-shares-and-links-insights-from-analyzing-1-million-articles" target="_blank">over 75 percent received no social shares at all</a>. When they looked at all links – not just articles – this number rose to around 90 percent.</p>
<p>We (wrongfully) assumed this wouldn’t be the case with high-quality links we’ve earned. It turns out, even the majority of our links on sites with a high Domain Authority (DA) didn’t get any social shares:</p>
<ul>
<li>52 percent of links with a DA over 89 received zero shares.</li>
<li>50 percent of links with a DA over 79 received zero shares.</li>
<li>54 percent of links with a DA over 59 received zero shares.</li>
</ul>
<p>On average, our campaigns get 110 placements and 11,000 social shares, yet a single link accounts for about 63 percent of total shares. This means that if you exclude the top-performing link from every campaign, our average project would only get 4,100 social shares.</p>
<p>Since most links don’t yield social shares, marketers with goals of both link building and social engagement should consider a strategy for gaining social traction in addition to a strategy for building a diverse link portfolio.</p>
<p>The social strategy can be as simple as <strong>targeting a few key websites that routinely yield high social shares</strong>. It’s also helpful to look at target sites’ social media accounts. When they post their own articles, what kind of engagement do they get?</p>
<p>Of all the sites that covered our campaigns, the following five sites had the highest average social shares for our content. We know we could depend on these sites in the future for high social engagement.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/3-surprising-lessons-from-building-26-000-links/57e40ef57e8898.68809122.jpg" alt="sites-with-social-shares.jpg" /></p>
<h3>Exceptions to the rule</h3>
<p>Some content can definitely accomplish both high engagement and social shares. The BuzzSumo and Moz study found that the best types of content for attracting links and social shares are research-backed content or opinion pieces. Long-form content (more than 1,000 words) also tends to attract more links and shares than shorter content. At Fractl, we’ve found the same factors – <a href="https://moz.com/blog/content-marketing-campaigns-earning-links" target="_blank">an emotional hook, a ranking or comparison, and a pop culture reference</a> – tend to encourage both social sharing and linking.</p>
<h2>Few sites will always link to you the same way.</h2>
<p>To ensure you’re building a natural link portfolio, it’s important to keep track of how sites link to your content. You’ll learn if you’re earning a mix of dofollow links, nofollow links, cocitation links, and brand mentions for each campaign. We pay close attention to which types of links our campaigns earn. Looking back at these data, we noticed that publishers don’t consistently link the same way.</p>
<p>The chart below shows a sample of how 15 high-authority news sites have linked to our campaigns. As you can see, few sites have given dofollow links 100 percent of the time. Based on this, we can assume that a lot of top sites don’t have a set editorial standard for link types (although plenty of sites <a href="http://www.frac.tl/nofollow-link-case-study/" target="_blank">will only give nofollow links</a>).</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/3-surprising-lessons-from-building-26-000-links/57e40ef66ce8d6.10003789.png" alt="link type.png" /></p>
<p>While getting a site to cover your content is something to be celebrated, <a href="http://www.frac.tl/what-types-of-links-are-created-when-i-execute-a-successful-content-marketing-campaign/" target="_blank">not every placement will result in a dofollow link</a>. And just because you get a dofollow link from a site once doesn’t mean you should always expect that type of link from that publisher.</p>
<h2>Creating a lot of visual assets is a waste of time in certain verticals.</h2>
<p>There’s an ongoing debate within Fractl’s walls over whether or not creating a lot of visual assets positively impacts a campaign’s reach enough to justify the additional production time. To settle this debate, we looked at our 1,300 top placements to better understand how publishers covered our campaigns’ visual assets (including both static image and video). This sample was limited to articles on websites with a DA of 70 or higher that covered our work at least four times.</p>
<p>We found that publishers in different verticals had divergent tendencies regarding visual asset coverage. The most image-heavy vertical was entertainment, and the least was education.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/3-surprising-lessons-from-building-26-000-links/57e40ef7d78d65.14432343.jpg" alt="assets-per-vertical.jpg" /></p>
<p>Some of the variation in asset counts is based on how many assets were included in the campaign. Although this does skew our data, we do receive useful information from this analysis. The fact that top entertainment publishers used an average of nine assets when they cover our campaigns indicates a high tolerance for visual content from outside sources. Verticals with lower asset averages may be wary of external content or simply prefer to use a few key visuals to flesh out an article.</p>
<p>Keeping these publisher vertical preferences in mind when developing content can help your team better allocate resources. Rather than spending a lot of effort designing a large set of visual assets for a campaign you want to be placed on a finance site, your time may be better spent creating one or two awesome visualizations. Similarly, it’s worthwhile to invest in creating a variety of visual assets if you’re pitching entertainment and health sites.</p>
<p>Analyzing our entire link portfolio taught us a few new things that challenged our previous assumptions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>High DA sites don’t necessarily attract a lot of social engagement.</strong> Just because a site that linked to you has a huge audience doesn’t mean that audience will share your content.</li>
<li><strong>Most sites don’t consistently use the same types of links.</strong> Got a dofollow link from a site one time? Don’t expect it to be the norm.</li>
<li><strong>Certain publisher verticals are more likely to feature a lot of visual assets.</strong> Depending on which verticals you’re targeting, you might be wasting time on designing lots of visuals.</li>
</ul>
While I hope you’ve learned something from Fractl’s internal study, I want you to see the broader lesson: the value of measuring and analyzing your own content campaign data as a means to improve your process. If you’ve done a similar analysis of links earned from content marketing, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.<br />
<p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!</p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-81323792042938514882016-09-25T10:53:00.001-07:002016-09-25T10:53:15.419-07:00Brad Pitt’s Airplane Incident Being Evaluated By The FBI<p>The alleged airplane incident involving Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and their kids are being evaluated by the FBI whether to conduct an investigation or not.</p>
<p>Brad Pitt allegedly got wasted and went wild while on a private jet flight with Angelina Jolie and their kids last September 14th 2016, Wednesday.</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-3476" src="http://www.leslierichards.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Brad_Pitt_Lunged_At_Son.png" alt="Brad Pitt Lunged At Son" width="531" height="330" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong><a href="http://mashable.com/2016/09/23/brad-pitt-investigation-fbi-airplane/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial#UJeC.yhloaqB" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">FBI deciding whether to investigate Brad Pitt over alleged airplane incident</a></strong></h3>
<blockquote>
<p>In a statement, the agency said it is "continuing to gather facts and will evaluate whether an investigation at the federal level will be pursued".</p>
<p>The Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI had been informed of "a child welfare incident" involving Pitt. According to the site's anonymous source, the allegation involved... <a href="http://mashable.com/2016/09/23/brad-pitt-investigation-fbi-airplane/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial#UJeC.yhloaqB" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Read more at Mashable</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sources claimed that during their flight home from France, their son Maddox got on a heated argument with Brad Pitt. Then Brad Pitt allegedly 'lunged' at Maddox.</p>
<h3><strong><a href="http://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/celebrity-news/brad-pitt-lunged-son-maddox-8896955" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Brad Pitt 'lunged at son Maddox when he tried to defend mum Angelina Jolie on private jet'</a></strong></h3>
<blockquote>
<p>Brad Pitt "lunged" at his son Maddox during a flight on a private jet as the teen tried to defend his mum Angelina Jolie, it has been claimed.</p>
<p>The actor - whose wife Angelina filed for divorce and ended their 12-year relationship following the reported incident - is accused of being... <a href="http://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/celebrity-news/brad-pitt-lunged-son-maddox-8896955" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Read more at Irish Mirror</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-87736124443465257112016-09-23T00:43:00.001-07:002016-09-23T00:43:26.762-07:00How to Appear in Google's Answer Boxes - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/63/"">randfish</a></p>
<p>Featured snippets are the name of the rankings game. Often eclipsing organic results at the top of the SERPs, "ranking zero" or capturing an answer box in Google can mean increased clicks and traffic to your site. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains the three types of featured snippets and how you can best position yourself to grab those coveted spots in the SERPs.</p>
<p class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:5.25% 0 28px 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/fyb386b5c1?seo=false&videoFoam=true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="wistia_embed" name="wistia_embed" allowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" width="100%" height="100%"></iframe></p>
<script src="http://fast.wistia.net/assets/external/E-v1.js" async="" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-appear-in-google-s-answer-boxes-whiteboard-friday/57e4460797d176.47131585.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-appear-in-google-s-answer-boxes-whiteboard-friday/57e4460797d176.47131585.jpg" rel="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" alt="" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br /></p>
<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week, we're going to chat about answer boxes, those featured snippets that Google puts in ranking position zero, oftentimes above the rest of the organic results, usually below some of the top ads, and sometimes they can draw a ton of the clicks away from the rest of the 10 results that would normally appear in Google's organic ranking.</p>
<p>Now, thanks to our friends up at <a href="https://getstat.com/" target="_blank">STAT</a> in Vancouver — Rob Bucci specifically, who did <a href="https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/sbzn8ajzp93mjjg94261xcd57dn9q5x3.pdf" target="_blank">a great presentation at MozCon</a>, he delivered some really interesting research — and so we know a little bit more about the world of featured snippets. Specifically, that there are three kinds of featured snippets or answer boxes, if you prefer, that appear in Google's results on both mobile and desktop. Now, Rob used desktop-based, but in my research I checked through all the examples that I could find, and the same featured snippets that we saw in desktop were replicated on mobile. So I think this is a pretty one-to-one ratio that's going on here.</p>
<p>The three were <strong>paragraphs, lists,</strong> and <strong>tables</strong>. I'll show you examples of all of those. But globally, we're talking about 15% of all queries in STAT's database that came up with one of these answer boxes.</p>
<h2>Paragraphs</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57e43a17303591.04513876.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>So I did a search here for "<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=istanbul+history" target="_blank">Istanbul history</a>." You can see that Wikipedia is not just ranking number one, they're also ranking number zero. So they have this nice featured snippet. It's got a photo or an image that'll appear on the right-hand side on desktop or on top of the text in mobile, and then the snippet, which essentially tries to give you a brief answer, a quick answer to the question. Now, of course, this query is pretty broad, I probably want to know a lot more about Istanbul's history than the fact that it was a human settlement for 3,000 years. But if you want just that quick answer, you can get those.</p>
<p>There are paragraph answers for all sorts of things. These are about 63% of all the answer boxes are in paragraph format.</p>
<h2>Lists</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57e43ac5423de3.17536434.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>Lists look like this. So I search for "<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=strengthen+lower+back" target="_blank">strengthen lower back</a>," I get, again, that image and then I get — this is from wikiHow, so quality, questionable — but back strengthening exercises. They say, number one, do pelvic tilting. Number two, do hip bridges. Number three, do floor swimming. Number four, do the bird dog exercise. That sounds exciting and painful. This is from an article called "How to Strengthen Lower Back," and it's on wikiHow's URL there. These lists, that are usually in numeric or they can be in bullet point format, so either one can appear, they're about 19% of answers.</p>
<h2>Tables</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57e43afa94dfa7.64484053.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>And then finally, we have ones like this. I searched for "<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=wordpress+hosting+comparison" target="_blank">WordPress hosting comparison</a>." These tables show up in a lot of places where you see a comparison or a chart-type of view. In this case, there actually was a visual of an actual graph, and then performance of the best WordPress hosting companies, the name, the account type, the cost per month. This is from wpsitecare.com. Again, this was ranking, I believe, number two or number three and also ranking number zero. So this is sort of great. I can't remember who was ranking number one, but they're ranking ahead of the number one spot, as well, by being in this position zero.</p>
<p>These are about 16% of answers, so really close on tables and lists. This is via STAT's featured snippet research, which I will link to. It's a great <a href="https://seomoz.box.com/shared/static/sbzn8ajzp93mjjg94261xcd57dn9q5x3.pdf" target="_blank">PDF document</a> that you can check out from Rob that I'll point to in the Whiteboard Friday.</p>
<p>In addition to knowing this about featured snippets, that, hey, it's a fairly substantive quantity of things, it can also jump you above the rest of the results, and there are these three different formats, we had a bunch of questions and we keep getting them on, "How do I get in there?" I actually have some great answers for you. So not only has Rob and his team been doing some research, but we've done some research and some testing work here at Moz, and Dr. Pete has done a bunch. So I do have some suggestions, some recommendations for you if you're going to try and get into these featured snippets.</p>
<h2>Best practices to appear in the answer box/featured snippet</h2>
<h3>1. Identify queries in KW research that, implicitly or explicitly, ask a question.</h3>
<p>You actually need to do your keyword research and <strong>identify those queries that implicitly or explicitly are asking a question</strong>. The question needs to be slightly broader than what Google can deliver directly out of Knowledge Graph.</p>
<p>So for example, if you were to ask, "How old is Istanbul," they might say "3,000 years old." They might not even give any citation at all to Wikipedia or any other website. If I were to ask, "How old is Rand Fishkin," they might put in 37, and they might give absolutely no citation, no link at all, no credit to any page of mine on the web. Again, very frustrating.</p>
<p>So these are essentially queries that we're looking for in our keyword research that are slightly broader than a single line or single piece of knowledge, but they do demand a question that it's being answered. You can find those in your keyword research pretty easily. If you go into <a href="https://moz.com/explorer" target="_blank" onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'blog', 'wbf_link', 'KWE']);">Keyword Explorer</a>, for example, and you use the suggestions filter for our questions, virtually all of those are. But many things, like Istanbul history, it's an implicit question, not an explicit one. So you can get featured snippets for those as well.</p>
<h3>2. Seek out queries that already use the answer box. If the competition's doing a poor job, these are often easy to grab.</h3>
<p>You want to <strong>seek out queries that already use the answer box</strong>. So again, if you're using a tool like Keyword Explorer or something — I believe STAT does this as well — where they will identify the types of results that are in the query. You're looking for these answer box- or featured snippets-types of results. If they are in there and someone else already owns it, that means you can usually leapfrog them by providing a better-formatted, more accurate, more complete, or higher-ranking answer.</p>
<p>So if you're ranking number three or number four and the number two or number one result is producing that answer box and you reformat your content (and I'll talk about how we can do that in a sec), you reformat your content to meet one of these items, the correct one, whichever one is being triggered, you can leapfrog them. You can take that position zero away from your competition and earn it for yourself. It's especially easy when they're doing a poor job. If they've got a weak result in there, and there are a lot of these that are very weak today, you can often take them away.</p>
<h3>3. Ranking #1 can help, but isn't required! Google will pull from any first page result.</h3>
<p><strong>Ranking number one is helpful,</strong> <strong>but it is not required</strong>. <strong>Google will pull from any first-page result</strong>. In fact, you can test this for yourself. Very frequently, if you do a query that pulls up an answer box and then you take the query string and you add "&num=100", or you change your settings in Google Search such that Google shows 50 or 100 results, they are often going to pull from a lower-down result, sometimes in the bottom 30 or 40 results rather than the top 10. So Google is essentially triggering this answer result from anything that appears on page one of the query, which is awesome for all of us because it means that we could be ranking number 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and still get the answer box if we do other things correctly, like...</p>
<h3>4. Format and language are essential! Match the paragraph, or table, and use the logical answer to the query terms in your title/caption/label/section header.</h3>
<p><strong>Format and language</strong>. <strong>These are essential</strong>. The language means the language used. We need to use the terms and phrases a little more literally than we would with a lot of other types of keyword targeting, because Google really, really seems to like, if I search for "strengthen lower back," they are showing me an article called "strengthen lower back," not "back strengthening for newbies" or that kind of thing. They are much more literal in most of these than we've seen them be, thanks to technologies like RankBrain and Hummingbird, with other kinds of queries.</p>
<p>We also need to make sure that we're <strong>matching the paragraph, the list, or the table format and that we're using a logical answer to those query terms</strong>. That answer can be in the <strong>title of your web page</strong>, but it can also be in the <strong>caption of an image</strong>, the <strong>label</strong> of a section, or a <strong>section header</strong>. In this case, for example, part three of this article was back strengthening exercises. That's where they're pulling from. In this case, they have "City of Istanbul" and then they have history and that's the section. In this case, it's the performance chart that's shown right at the top of the web page. But they will pull from inside a document. So as long as you're structured in one section or in the document as a whole correctly, you can get in there.</p>
<h3>5. Be accurate. Google tend to favor stronger, more correct responses.</h3>
<p>You want to <strong>be</strong> <strong>accurate</strong>. <strong>Google actually does tend to favor more accurate results</strong>.I know you might say, "How do I know I'm being accurate? Some of this information is very subjective." It is true. Google tends to look at sources that they trust to look for words and phrases and structured information that matches up many, many times over across many trusted sites, and then they will show results that match what are in those trusted sites more often.<br />
So for example, many folks point out, "What about in political spheres where there might be arguments about which one is correct?" Google will tend to prefer the more accurate one from a scientific consensus-type of basis or from trusted resources, like an NPR or a Wikipedia or a census.gov or those kinds of things. Not necessarily from those domains, but information that matches what is on those domains. If your census numbers don't match what's on the actual census.gov, Google might start to trust you a little less.</p>
<h3>6. Entice the clicks by using Google's maximum snippet length to your advantage.</h3>
<p>This is less about how to rank there, but more about how to earn traffic from it. If you're ranking in position zero, you might be frustrated that Google is going to take those clicks away from you because the searcher is going to get the answer before they ever need to click on your site, thus you don't earn the traffic.</p>
<p>We've seen this a little bit, but, in fact, most of the time when we rank number zero, we see that we get more traffic than just ranking number one by itself. You're essentially getting two, because you rank number zero plus whatever normal or organic position you're in. You can entice the click by using <strong>Google's maximum snippet length to your advantage</strong>. Meaning, they are not going to put all the different numbered answers in the lists here from wikiHow, they're only going to put the first four or five. Therefore, if you have a list that is six or seven or eight items long, someone has to click to see them all. Same thing with the paragraph. They're only going to use a certain number of characters, and so if you have a <strong>paragraph that leads into the next paragraph</strong> or that goes <strong>long with the character count</strong> or <strong>the word count</strong>, you can again draw that click rather than having Google take that traffic away.</p>
<p>With this information at your disposal, you should be armed and ready to take over some of those result number zeros, get some answer boxes, some featured snippets on your side. I look forward to hearing your questions. I would love to hear if you've got some examples of featured snippets, where you're ranking, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.</p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-83319976477865006602016-09-21T00:27:00.001-07:002016-09-21T00:27:50.333-07:00How to Fix Crawl Errors in Google Search Console<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/332674/"">Joe.Robison</a></p>
<p>A lot has changed in the five years since <a href="https://moz.com/blog/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-webmaster-tools" target="_blank">I first wrote about</a> what was Google Webmaster Tools, now named <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://t.sidekickopen06.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lC8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7t5XYg3N1RMTW5wvHVx1p8f1RW4WYmcW56dS15dj53_T02?t%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252Fwebmasters%252F%26si%3D6677993384837120%26pi%3D6443a774-be03-451d-e40d-1741c2b197e7&source=gmail&ust=1474527707834000&usg=AFQjCNENFYGOcH-_yD_-FHKLYDXyKI4i-w">Google Search Console</a>. Google has unleashed significantly more data that promises to be extremely useful for SEOs. Since we’ve long since lost sufficient keyword data in Google Analytics, we’ve come to rely on Search Console more than ever. The “Search Analytics” and “Links to Your Site” sections are two of the top features that did not exist in the old Webmaster Tools.</p>
<p>While we may never be completely satisfied with Google’s tools and may occasionally call their bluffs, they do release some helpful information (from time to time). To their credit, Google has developed <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35120" target="_blank">more help docs</a> and support resources to aid Search Console users in locating and fixing errors.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that some of this isn’t as fun as <a href="https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-friday" target="_blank">creating 10x content</a> or watching which of your keywords have jumped in the rankings, this category of SEO is still extremely important.</p>
<p>Looking at it through <a href="https://www.portent.com/mkstack/" target="_blank">Portent’s epic visualization</a> of how Internet marketing pieces fit together, fixing crawl errors in Search Console fits squarely into the "infrastructure" piece:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d33f8bd825.29528956.png" /></p>
<p>If you can develop good habits and practice preventative maintenance, weekly spot checks on crawl errors will be perfectly adequate to keep them under control. However, if you fully ignore these (pesky) errors, things can quickly go from bad to worse.</p>
<h2>Crawl Errors layout</h2>
<p>One change that has evolved over the last few years is the layout of the Crawl Errors view within Search Console. Search Console is divided into two main sections: Site Errors and URL Errors.</p>
<p>Categorizing errors in this way is pretty helpful because there’s a distinct difference between errors at the site level and errors at the page level. Site-level issues can be more catastrophic, with the potential to damage your site’s overall usability. URL errors, on the other hand, are specific to individual pages, and are therefore less urgent.</p>
<p>The quickest way to access Crawl Errors is from the dashboard. The main dashboard gives you a quick preview of your site, showing you three of the most important management tools: Crawl Errors, Search Analytics, and Sitemaps.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d340315a33.98209503.png" /></p>
<p>You can get a quick look at your crawl errors from here. Even if you just glance at it daily, you’ll be much further ahead than most site managers.</p>
<h2>1. Site Errors</h2>
<p>The Site Errors section shows you errors from your website as a whole. These are the high-level errors that affect your site in its entirety, so don’t skip these.<br /></p>
<p>In the Crawl Errors dashboard, Google will show you these errors for the last 90 days.</p>
<p>If you have some type of activity from the last 90 days, your snippet will look like this:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d340e92e10.86241453.png" /></p>
<p>If you’ve been 100% error-free for the last 90 days with nothing to show, it will look like this:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d34159a352.07956005.png" /></p>
<p>That’s the goal — to get a “Nice!” from Google. As SEOs we don’t often get any validation from Google, so relish this rare moment of love.</p>
<h4>How often should you check for site errors?</h4>
<p>In an ideal world you would log in daily to make sure there are no problems here. It may get monotonous since most days everything is fine, but wouldn’t you kick yourself if you missed some critical site errors?</p>
<p>At the extreme minimum, you should check at least every 90 days to look for previous errors so you can keep an eye out for them in the future — but frequent, regular checks are best.</p>
<p>We’ll talk about setting up alerts and automating this part later, but just know that this section is <em>critical</em> and you should be 100% error-free in this section every day. There’s no gray area here.</p>
<h3>A) DNS Errors</h3>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>DNS errors are important — and the implications for your website if you have severe versions of these errors is huge.</p>
<p>DNS (Domain Name System) errors are the first and most prominent error because if the Googlebot is having DNS issues, it means it can’t connect with your domain via a DNS timeout issue or DNS lookup issue.</p>
<p>Your domain is likely hosted with a common domain company, like Namecheap or GoDaddy, or with your web hosting company. Sometimes your domain is hosted separately from your website hosting company, but other times the same company handles both.</p>
<h4>Are they important?<br /></h4>
<p>While Google states that many DNS issues still allow Google to connect to your site, if you’re getting a severe DNS issue you should act immediately.</p>
<p>There may be <a href="http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/latency" target="_blank">high latency</a> issues that do allow Google to crawl the site, but provide a poor user experience.</p>
<p>A DNS issue is extremely important, as it's the first step in accessing your website. You should take swift and violent action if you’re running into DNS issues that prevent Google from connecting to your site in the first place.</p>
<h4>How to fix</h4>
<ol>
<li>First and foremost, Google recommends using their <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6066468?rd=2" target="_blank">Fetch as Google</a> tool to view how Googlebot crawls your page. Fetch as Google lives right in Search Console.<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d34208c157.27452557.png" /><br />
<br />
If you’re only looking for the DNS connection status and are trying to act quickly, you can fetch without rendering. The slower process of Fetch and Render is useful, however, to get a side-by-side comparison of how Google sees your site compared to a user.</li>
<li>Check with your DNS provider. If Google can’t fetch and render your page properly, you’ll want to take further action. Check with your DNS provider to see where the issue is. There could be issues on the DNS provider's end, or it could be worse.</li>
<li>Ensure your server displays a 404 or 500 error code. Instead of having a failed connection, your server should display a 404 (not found) code or a 500 (server error) code. These codes are more accurate than having a DNS error.</li>
</ol>
<h4>Other tools</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://isup.me/" target="_blank">ISUP.me</a> – Lets you know instantly if your site is down for everyone, or just on your end.</li>
<li><a href="http://web-sniffer.net/" target="_blank">Web-Sniffer.net</a> – shows you the current HTTP(s) request and response header. Useful for point #3 above.</li>
</ul>
<h3>B) Server Errors</h3>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>A server error most often means that your server is taking too long to respond, and the request times out. The Googlebot that's trying to crawl your site can only wait a certain amount of time to load your website before it gives up. If it takes too long, the Googlebot will stop trying.</p>
<p>Server errors are different than DNS errors. A DNS error means the Googlebot can’t even lookup your URL because of DNS issues, while server errors mean that although the Googlebot can connect to your site, it can’t load the page because of server errors.</p>
<p>Server errors may happen if your website gets overloaded with too much traffic for the server to handle. To avoid this, make sure your hosting provider can scale up to accommodate sudden bursts of website traffic. Everybody wants their website to go viral, but not everybody is ready!</p>
<h4>Are they important?</h4>
<p>Like DNS errors, a server error is extremely urgent. It’s a fundamental error, and harms your site overall. You should take immediate action if you see server errors in Search Console for your site.</p>
<p>Making sure the Googlebot can connect to the DNS is an important first step, but you won’t get much further if your website doesn’t actually show up. If you’re running into server errors, the Googlebot won’t be able to find anything to crawl and it will give up after a certain amount of time.</p>
<h4>How to fix</h4>
<p>In the event that your website is running fine at the time you encounter this error, that may mean there were server errors in the past Though this error may have been resolved for now, you should still make some changes to prevent it from happening again.</p>
<p>This is Google’s official direction for fixing server errors:</p>
<blockquote>“Use <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/158587" target="_blank">Fetch as Google</a> to check if Googlebot can currently crawl your site. If Fetch as Google returns the content of your homepage without problems, you can assume that Google is generally able to access your site properly.”</blockquote>
<p>Before you can fix your server errors issue, you need to diagnose specifically which type of server error you’re getting, since there are many types:</p>
<ul>
<li>Timeout</li>
<li>Truncated headers</li>
<li>Connection reset</li>
<li>Truncated response</li>
<li>Connection refused</li>
<li>Connect failed</li>
<li>Connect timeout</li>
<li>No response</li>
</ul>
<p>Addressing how to fix each of these is beyond the scope of this article, but you should reference <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35120?hl=en" target="_blank">Google Search Console help</a> to diagnose specific errors.</p>
<h3>C) Robots failure</h3>
<p>A Robots failure means that the Googlebot cannot retrieve your robots.txt file, located at [yourdomain.com]/robots.txt.</p>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>One of the most surprising things about a robots.txt file is that it’s only necessary if you don’t want Google to crawl certain pages.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35120?hl=en" target="_blank">Search Console help</a>, Google states:</p>
<blockquote>“You need a robots.txt file only if your site includes content that you don't want search engines to index. If you want search engines to index everything in your site, you don't need a robots.txt file — not even an empty one. If you don't have a robots.txt file, your server will return a 404 when Googlebot requests it, and we will continue to crawl your site. No problem.”</blockquote>
<h4>Are they important?</h4>
<p>This is a fairly important issue. For smaller, more static websites without many recent changes or new pages, it’s not particularly urgent. But the issue should still be fixed.</p>
<p>If your site is publishing or changing new content daily, however, this is an urgent issue. If the Googlebot cannot load your robots.txt, it’s not crawling your website, and it’s not indexing your new pages and changes.</p>
<h4>How to fix</h4>
<p>Ensure that your robots.txt file is properly configured. Double-check which pages you’re instructing the Googlebot to not crawl, as all others will be crawled by default. Triple-check the all-powerful line of “Disallow: /” and ensure that line DOES NOT exist unless for some reason you do not want your website to appear in Google search results.</p>
<p>If your file seems to be in order and you’re still receiving errors, use a server header checker tool to see if your file is returning a 200 or 404 error.</p>
<p>What’s interesting about this issue is that it’s better to have no robots.txt at all than to have one that’s improperly configured. If you have none at all, Google will crawl your site as usual. If you have one returning errors, Google will stop crawling until you fix this file.</p>
<p>For being only a few lines of text, the robots.txt file can have catastrophic consequences for your website. Make sure you’re checking it early and often.</p>
<h2>2. URL Errors</h2>
<p>URL errors are different from site errors because they only affect specific pages on your site, not your website as a whole.<br /></p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d342d0ff23.80718039.png" /></p>
<p>Google Search Console will show you the top URL errors per category — desktop, smartphone, and feature phone. For large sites, this may not be enough data to show all the errors, but for the majority of sites this will capture all known problems.</p>
<p><strong><em>Tip:</em></strong> <strong>Going crazy with the amount of errors? Mark all as fixed.</strong></p>
<p>Many site owners have run into the issue of seeing a large number of URL errors and getting freaked out. The important thing to remember is a) Google ranks the most important errors first and b) some of these errors may already be resolved.</p>
<p>If you’ve made some drastic changes to your site to fix errors, or believe a lot of the URL errors are no longer happening, one tactic to employ is marking all errors as fixed and checking back up on them in a few days.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d3436306e4.88842163.png" /></p>
<p>When you do this, your errors will be cleared out of the dashboard for now, but Google will bring the errors back the next time it crawls your site over the next few days. If you had truly fixed these errors in the past, they won’t show up again. If the errors still exist, you’ll know that these are still affecting your site.</p>
<h3>A) Soft 404</h3>
<p>A soft 404 error is when a page displays as 200 (found) when it should display as 404 (not found).</p>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>Just because your 404 page looks like a 404 page doesn’t mean it actually <em>is</em> one. The user-visible aspect of a 404 page is the content of the page. The visible message should let users know the page they requested is gone. Often, site owners will have a helpful list of related links the users should visit or a funny 404 response.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57e1c4979a0b02.84644638.jpg" /></p>
<p>The flipside of a 404 page is the crawler-visible response. The header HTTP response code should be 404 (not found) or 410 (gone).</p>
<p>A quick refresher on how HTTP requests and responses look:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d34415aab2.38097182.png" /></p>
<p class="caption"><em>Image source:</em> <a href="http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/http-headers-for-dummies--net-8039" target="_blank"><em>Tuts Plus</em></a></p>
<p>If you're returning a 404 page and it's listed as a Soft 404, it means that the header HTTP response code does not return the 404 (not found) response code. <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=181708" target="_blank">Google recommends</a> “that you always return a 404 (not found) or a 410 (gone) response code in response to a request for a non-existing page.”</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d3449b6cf5.21093800.png" /></p>
<p>Another situation in which soft 404 errors may show up is if you have pages that are 301 redirecting to non-related pages, such as the home page. Google doesn’t seem to explicitly state where the line is drawn on this, only making mention of it in vague terms.</p>
<p>Officially, Google says <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708?hl=en" target="_blank">this about soft 404s</a>:</p>
<blockquote>“Returning a code other than 404 or 410 for a non-existent page (or redirecting users to another page, such as the homepage, instead of returning a 404) can be problematic.”</blockquote>
<p>Although this gives us some direction, it’s unclear when it’s appropriate to redirect an expired page to the home page and when it’s not.</p>
<p>In practice, from my own experience, if you're redirecting large amounts of pages to the home page, Google can interpret those redirected URLs as soft 404s rather than true 301 redirects.</p>
<p>Conversely, if you were to redirect an old page to a closely related page instead, it's unlikely that you'd trigger the soft 404 warning in the same way.</p>
<h4>Are they important?</h4>
<p>If the pages listed as soft 404 errors aren't critical pages and you're not eating up your crawl budget by having some soft 404 errors, these aren't an urgent item to fix.</p>
<p>If you have crucial pages on your site listed as soft 404s, you’ll want to take action to fix those. Important product, category, or lead gen pages shouldn't be listed as soft 404s if they're live pages. Pay special attention to pages critical to your site’s moneymaking ability.</p>
<p>If you have a large amount of soft 404 errors relative to the total number of pages on your site, you should take swift action. You can be eating up your (precious?) Googlebot crawl budget by allowing these soft 404 errors to exist.</p>
<h4>How to fix</h4>
<p>For pages that no longer exist:<br /></p>
<ul>
<li>Allow to 404 or 410 if the page is gone and receives no significant traffic or links. Ensure that the server header response is 404 or 410, not 200.</li>
<li>301 redirect each old page to a relevant, related page on your site.</li>
<li>Do not redirect broad amounts of dead pages to your home page. They should 404 or be redirected to appropriate similar pages.</li>
</ul>
<p>For pages that are live pages, and are not supposed to be a soft 404:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ensure there is an appropriate amount of content on the page, as thin content may trigger a soft 404 error.</li>
<li>Ensure the content on your page doesn’t appear to represent a 404 page while serving a 200 response code.</li>
</ul>
<p>Soft 404s are strange errors. They lead to a lot of confusion because they tend to be a strange hybrid of 404 and normal pages, and what is causing them isn't always clear. Ensure the most critical pages on your site aren't throwing soft 404 errors, and you’re off to a good start!</p>
<h3>B) 404</h3>
<p>A 404 error means that the Googlebot tried to crawl a page that doesn’t exist on your site. Googlebot finds 404 pages when other sites or pages link to that non-existent page.</p>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>404 errors are probably the most misunderstood crawl error. Whether it’s an intermediate SEO or the company CEO, the most common reaction is fear and loathing of 404 errors.</p>
<p>Google clearly states <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35120?hl=en#diagnosing_url_errors" target="_blank">in their guidelines</a>:</p>
<blockquote>“Generally, 404 errors don't affect your site's ranking in Google, so you can safely ignore them.”</blockquote>
<p>I’ll be the first to admit that “you can safely ignore them” is a pretty misleading statement for beginners. No — you cannot ignore them if they are 404 errors for crucial pages on your site.</p>
<p>(Google does practice what it preaches, in this regard — going to google.com/searchconsole returns a 404 instead of a helpful redirect to google.com/webmasters)</p>
<p>Distinguishing between times when you can ignore an error and when you’ll need to stay late at the office to fix something comes from deep review and experience, but Rand offered some <a href="https://moz.com/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo" target="_blank">timeless advice on 404s</a> back in 2009:</p>
<blockquote>“When faced with 404s, my thinking is that unless the page:<br />
<br />
A) Receives important links to it from external sources (Google Webmaster Tools is great for this),<br />
B) Is receiving a substantive quantity of visitor traffic, and/or<br />
C) Has an obvious URL that visitors/links intended to reach<br />
<br />
It's OK to let it 404.”</blockquote>
<p>The hard work comes in deciding what qualifies as important external links and substantive quantity of traffic for your particular URL on your particular site.</p>
<p>Annie Cushing also prefers Rand’s method, and <a href="http://searchengineland.com/a-data-centric-approach-to-identifying-404-pages-worth-saving-152844" target="_blank">recommends</a>:</p>
<blockquote>“Two of the most important metrics to look at are backlinks to make sure you don’t lose the most valuable links and total landing page visits in your analytics software. You may have others, like looking at social metrics. Whatever you decide those metrics to be, you want to export them all from your tools du jour and wed them in Excel.”</blockquote>
<p>One other thing to consider not mentioned above is offline marketing campaigns, podcasts, and other media that use memorable tracking URLs. It could be that your new magazine ad doesn’t come out until next month, and the marketing department forgot to tell you about an unimportant-looking URL (example.com/offer-20) that’s about to be plastered in tens thousands of magazines. Another reason for cross-department synergy.</p>
<h4>Are they important?</h4>
<p>This is probably one of the trickiest and simplest problems of all errors. The vast quantity of 404s that many medium to large sites accumulate is enough to deter action.</p>
<p>404 errors are very urgent if important pages on your site are showing up as 404s. Conversely, like Google says, if a page is long gone and doesn’t meet our quality criteria above, let it be.</p>
<p>As painful as it might be to see hundreds of errors in your Search Console, you just have to ignore them. Unless you get to the root of the problem, they’ll continue showing up.</p>
<h4>How to fix 404 errors</h4>
<p>If your important page is showing up as a 404 and you don’t want it to be, take these steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ensure the page is published from your content management system and not in draft mode or deleted.</li>
<li>Ensure the 404 error URL is the correct page and not another variation.</li>
<li>Check whether this error shows up on the www vs non-www version of your site and the http vs https version of your site. See <a href="https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization" target="_blank">Moz canonicalization</a> for more details.</li>
<li>If you don’t want to revive the page, but want to redirect it to another page, make sure you 301 redirect it to the most appropriate related page.</li>
</ol>
<p>In short, if your page is dead, make the page live again. If you don’t want that page live, 301 redirect it to the correct page.</p>
<h4>How to stop old 404s from showing up in your crawl errors report</h4>
<p>If your 404 error URL is meant to be long gone, let it die. Just ignore it, as Google recommends. But to prevent it from showing up in your crawl errors report, you’ll need to do a few more things.</p>
<p>As yet another indication of the power of links, Google will only show the 404 errors in the first place if your site or an external website is linking to the 404 page.</p>
<p>In other words, if I type in your-website-name.com/unicorn-boogers, it won’t show up in your crawl errors dashboard unless I also link to it from my website.</p>
<p>To find the links to your 404 page, go to your Crawl Errors > URL Errors section:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d3453e9c09.42874147.png" /></p>
<p>Then click on the URL you want to fix:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d345e20e63.55538104.png" /></p>
<p>Search your page for the link. It’s often faster to view the source code of your page and find the link in question there:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d346a19b38.05718494.png" /></p>
<p>It’s painstaking work, but if you really want to stop old 404s from showing up in your dashboard, you’ll have to remove the links to that page from every page linking to it. Even other websites.</p>
<p>What’s really fun (not) is if you’re getting links pointed to your URL from old sitemaps. You’ll have to let those old sitemaps 404 in order to totally remove them. Don’t redirect them to your live sitemap.</p>
<h3>C) Access denied</h3>
<p>Access denied means Googlebot can’t crawl the page. Unlike a 404, Googlebot is prevented from crawling the page in the first place.</p>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>Access denied errors commonly block the Googlebot through these methods:</p>
<ul>
<li>You require users to log in to see a URL on your site, therefore the Googlebot is blocked</li>
<li>Your robots.txt file blocks the Googlebot from individual URLs, whole folders, or your entire site</li>
<li>Your hosting provider is blocking the Googlebot from your site, or the server requires users to authenticate by proxy</li>
</ul>
<h4>Are they important?</h4>
<p>Similar to soft 404s and 404 errors, if the pages being blocked are important for Google to crawl and index, you should take immediate action.</p>
<p>If you don’t want this page to be crawled and indexed, you can safely ignore the access denied errors.</p>
<h4>How to fix</h4>
<p>To fix access denied errors, you’ll need to remove the element that's blocking the Googlebot's access:</p>
<ul>
<li>Remove the login from pages that you want Google to crawl, whether it’s an in-page or popup login prompt</li>
<li>Check your robots.txt file to ensure the pages listed on there are meant to be blocked from crawling and indexing</li>
<li>Use the <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?expand=test1&rd=1" target="_blank">robots.txt tester</a> to see warnings on your robots.txt file and to test individual URLs against your file</li>
<li>Use a user-agent switcher plugin for your browser, or the <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/158587" target="_blank">Fetch as Google</a> tool to see how your site appears to Googlebot</li>
<li>Scan your website with <a href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/" target="_blank">Screaming Frog</a>, which will prompt you to log in to pages if the page requires it</li>
</ul>
<p>While not as common as 404 errors, access denied issues can still harm your site's ranking ability if the wrong pages are blocked. Be sure to keep an eye on these errors and rapidly fix any urgent issues.</p>
<h3>D) Not followed</h3>
<h4>What they mean</h4>
<p>Not to be confused with a “nofollow” link directive, a “not followed” error means that Google couldn’t follow that particular URL.</p>
<p>Most often these errors come about from Google running into issues with Flash, Javascript, or redirects.</p>
<h4>Are they important?</h4>
<p>If you’re dealing with not followed issues on a high-priority URL, then yes, these are important.</p>
<p>If your issues are stemming from old URLs that are no longer active, or from parameters that aren't indexed and just an extra feature, the priority level on these is lower — but you should still analyze them.</p>
<h4>How to fix</h4>
<p>Google <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2409684?ctx=MCE&ctx=NFoll&hl=en" target="_blank">identifies the following</a> as features that the Googlebot and other search engines may have trouble crawling:</p>
<ul>
<li>JavaScript</li>
<li>Cookies</li>
<li>Session IDs</li>
<li>Frames</li>
<li>DHTML</li>
<li>Flash</li>
</ul>
<p>Use either the Lynx text browser or the Fetch as Google tool, using Fetch and Render, to view the site as Google would. You can also use a Chrome add-on such as <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-g/ffhkkpnppgnfaobgihpdblnhmmbodake" target="_blank">User-Agent Switcher</a> to mimic Googlebot as you browse pages.</p>
<p>If, as the Googlebot, you’re not seeing the pages load or not seeing important content on the page because of some of the above technologies, then you've found your issue. Without visible content and links to crawl on the page, some URLs can’t be followed. Be sure to dig in further and diagnose the issue to fix.</p>
<p>For parameter crawling issues, be sure to review how Google is currently handling your parameters. Specify changes in the <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6080550?hl=en&ref_topic=6080547" target="_blank">URL Parameters tool</a> if you want Google to treat your parameters differently.</p>
<p>For not followed issues related to redirects, be sure to fix any of the following that apply:</p>
<ul>
<li>Check for redirect chains. If there are too many “hops,” <a href="https://youtu.be/r1lVPrYoBkA?t=1m42s" target="_blank">Google will stop following the redirect chain</a></li>
<li>When possible, update your site architecture to allow every page on your site to be reached from static links, rather than relying on redirects implemented in the past</li>
<li>Don’t include redirected URLs in your sitemap, include the destination URL</li>
</ul>
<p>Google used to include more detail on the Not Followed section, but as Vanessa Fox <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-webmaster-tools-crawl-errors-how-to-get-detailed-data-from-the-api-115153" target="_blank">detailed in this post</a>, a lot of extra data may be available in the <a href="https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/?csw=1" target="_blank">Search Console API</a>.</p>
<h4>Other tools</h4>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/" target="_blank">Screaming Frog SEO Spider</a> is an excellent tool for scanning your live site and digging up redirect errors. This tool will show you at scale how your redirects are set up, and whether they're properly set as 301 redirects or if they’re set up as something else.</li>
<li><a href="https://moz.com/products/pro/features" target="_blank">Moz Pro Site Crawl</a></li>
<li><a href="https://raventools.com/site-auditor/" target="_blank">Raven Tools Site Auditor</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>E) Server errors & DNS errors</h3>
<p>Under URL errors, Google again lists server errors and DNS errors, the same sections in the Site Errors report. Google's direction is to handle these in the same way you would handle the site errors level of the server and DNS errors, so refer to those two sections above.</p>
<p>They would differ in the URL errors section if the errors were only affecting individual URLs and not the site as a whole. If you have isolated configurations for individual URLs, such as minisites or a different configuration for certain URLs on your domain, they could show up here.</p>
<hr />
<p>Now that you’re the expert on these URL errors, I’ve created this handy URL error table that you can print out and tape to your desktop or bathroom mirror.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-search-console/57e1d3475614e4.84555201.png" /></p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I get it — some of this technical SEO stuff can bore you to tears. Nobody wants to individually inspect seemingly unimportant URL errors, or conversely, have a panic attack seeing thousands of errors on your site.</p>
<p>With experience and repetition, however, you will gain the mental muscle memory of knowing how to react to the errors: which are important and which can be safely ignored. It’ll be second nature pretty soon.</p>
<p>If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read up on Google’s official documentation for Search Console, and keep these URLs handy for future questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://productforums.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/webmasters" target="_blank">Webmaster Central Help Forum</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--crawling--indexing---ranking#duplicate-content" target="_blank">Webmaster Central FAQs: Crawling, indexing, & ranking</a></li>
<li><a href="https://webmasters.googleblog.com/" target="_blank">Webmaster Central Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35120?hl=en&ref_topic=4610900" target="_blank">Search Console Help Crawl Errors report</a></li>
</ul>
<p>We're simply covering the Crawl Errors section of Search Console. Search Console is a data beast on its own, so for further reading on how to make best use of this tool in its entirety, check out these other guides:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.quicksprout.com/2016/06/15/the-ultimate-guide-to-using-google-search-console-as-a-powerful-seo-tool/" target="_blank">The Ultimate Guide to Using Google Search Console as a Powerful SEO Tool</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.linkresearchtools.com/case-studies/the-ultimate-guide-to-google-webmaster-tools/" target="_blank">The Ultimate Guide to Google Webmaster Tools</a></li>
<li><a href="https://yoast.com/google-webmaster-tools-search-appearance/" target="_blank">Yoast Search Console series</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Google has generously given us one of the most powerful (and free!) tools for diagnosing website errors. Not only will fixing these errors help you improve your rankings in Google, they help provide a better user experience to your visitors, and help meet your business goals faster.</p>
<p><em><strong>Your turn: What crawl errors issues and wins have you experienced using Google Search Console?</strong></em></p>
<br />
<p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!</p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-42378993776279552032016-09-19T06:32:00.001-07:002016-09-19T06:32:36.529-07:00Generate 100+ Blog Topic Ideas in Seconds<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/4578285/"">BrianChilds</a></p>
<p>Coming up with blog titles and topics can be a struggle. Most small businesses aim to publish blogs 3-10 times a month and then use these blog articles to populate everything from newsletters to conversion funnels. When you publish content on a regular basis it's easy to burn through your initial list of blog titles in a few months. Coming up with good titles also takes a lot of time, and when you work on a team defining what's "good" becomes subjective.<br /></p>
<p>Because regular blogging has such a <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-frequency-benchmarks#sm.00019nyfisiwnefgwiv10q1tofn10">positive impact on inbound traffic</a>, the process of coming up with ideas shouldn't be a burden. Never worry about blog topics again: I'll show you how to generate 100+ long-tail blog title ideas that include estimates of search volume and competitiveness.</p>
<h2>What makes a good blog title?</h2>
<p>Before jumping into how to generate 100+ blog topics quickly, let's discuss the importance of having good titles.</p>
<p>I think of blog content development as having two parts: blog articles that form the core of my SEO or inbound marketing strategy, and a backup list of blog ideas I can pull from in a pinch. Both types benefit from having great titles.</p>
<p><strong>Good topics generally follow some basic rules, including:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Your posts should answer common/valuable questions.</li>
<li>They should focus on your target buyer's search intent.</li>
<li>They should tap into sufficient organic traffic to make them worth blogging about.</li>
</ul>
<p>When it comes to generating a great backup list of blog topics quickly, it can be hard to identify titles that meet those criteria without succumbing to clickbait. There are several blog title generator tools available, but I find that they tend toward clickbait or "catchy" titles that are more useful for paid channels rather than the long-term value expected from organic search.</p>
<p>Some of the more popular blog title generators are:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator">HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.impactbnd.com/blog-title-generator/blogabout">Impact's BlogAbout Title Generator</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker">Portent's Content Idea Generator</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator">Linkbait Generator</a></p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that there's been a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/technology/facebook-moves-to-push-clickbait-lower-in-the-news-feed.html?_r=0">backlash against clickbait titles</a> recently.</p>
<p>I recommend against using traditionally clickbait titles since they often result in only one type of beneficial metric: page views. To positively impact both search rank position and on-site conversions you need to focus on valuable content that delivers high engagement measured by things like better-than-average time on page, good page depth, and low bounce rates. Clickbait titles and content <a href="http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/07/15/clickbait#Dark%20Side">generally do not provide this</a>.</p>
<h2>A better way to generate</h2>
<p>Okay, so let's take a look at a quick way to generate blog titles. Read it, try it, and time it.</p>
<ol>
<li>In Moz Pro, navigate to <a href="https://moz.com/explorer">Keyword Explorer</a> and enter in your target keyword. (Even if you don't have a subscription, you can try it free or get <a href="https://moz.com/checkout/freetrial">Moz Pro free for 30 days</a>.)<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds/57df6c8b6321d2.08953020.png" /></li>
<li>On the Overview page, click on Keyword Suggestions.<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds/57df6c8c2d1088.66644672.jpg" alt="Robot Army- KWE screengrab.jpg" /></li>
<li>Use the "Display keyword suggestions that" dropdown to select "are questions."<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds/57df6c8d3ad3c9.09244870.jpg" alt="Robot Army - Suggestions page - KWE.jpg" /></li>
<li>Here's your list of potential blog titles for your topic. <strong>Note</strong>: The "Relevancy" column shows how closely the search term matches the initial query you used, and the "Volume" column displays estimates of monthly organic search traffic.<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds/57df6c8de64784.00159142.png" /></li>
<li>Access <a href="https://moz.com/blog/keyword-research-2016-going-beyond-guesswork">Difficulty and Opportunity scores</a> for your search queries by selecting all the relevant check boxes and clicking the "Add selected to" drop-down to create or add them to a Keyword List in Moz Pro. (Rand put together a great presentation on <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/the-power-of-mozs-keyword-explorer/11-Keywords_the_pages_sites_in">how to do this</a>.) In the Keyword List, you're able to view, segment, and sort your blog titles by all the factors available in the Keyword Explorer Overview.</li>
</ol>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/generate-100-blog-topic-ideas-in-seconds/57df6c8ec16022.77448212.png" /></p>
<p>Boom! There you have it. Never hunt for blog titles again. You've created a list you can choose from in a pinch, knowing you have quality titles based on search volume, difficulty, and opportunity.<br /></p>
<p><a href="https://moz.com/explorer">See how fast you can create</a> a great list of blog titles!</p>
<h2>More tips for professional marketers</h2>
<p>As you analyze results from the Keyword Suggestions feature in Keyword Explorer, here are some additional things you can do to learn about your target customers:</p>
<p>Look for trends in the questions people ask. Do most questions center on a specific pain point, such as cost, quality, or ease of use? Consider segmenting your users based on these different pain points and their associated value drivers.</p>
<p>Find the "best question." In your list of blog titles, look for the one question that best aligns with your target customer. Then run a Keyword Explorer query on that question by selecting the magnifying glass icon on the right side of the webpage. Often, these results will display an even longer, more targeted list of questions to choose from.</p>
<p>Hope this helps your blogging efforts! Tell us about your experience using Keyword Explorer to generate targeted blog titles. If you want to keep mastering keywords and blog titles after your Moz Pro free trial ends, check out <a href="https://moz.com/products/pro/pricing">Moz Pro Medium</a> or <a href="https://moz.com/products/pro/keyword-explorer/pricing">Keyword Explorer standalone</a> subscriptions.</p>
<br />
<p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!</p>
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MozBlog/~4/Ckyx0POTHVI" height="1" width="1" alt="" />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-73165819094075207442016-09-19T00:22:00.001-07:002016-09-19T00:22:39.977-07:00Google Is Grouping Keyword Volumes - What Does This Mean for SEO?<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/4125327/"">sam.nemzer</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.thesempost.com/googles-keyword-planner-now-combines-keywords-for-search-volume/">As of June this year</a>, Google is now grouping keyword volumes for similar keywords in Keyword Planner. I wanted to investigate whether or not this is having an impact on the pages that rank for these similar, grouped keywords. My hypothesis is that, given that Google is associating keywords closely enough to group their volumes, we should expect that the search results would be very similar too.<br /></p>
<h2>What has Google changed and why does it matter?</h2>
<p>The grouping of keyword volumes is a problem for anyone working in search because Keyword Planner is the primary source for volume data that we use in keyword research, whether that be from Keyword Planner directly, or through a third party tool that takes Keyword Planner data as its input—such as SEMRush, BrightEdge or SearchMetrics.</p>
<p>By "grouping keyword volumes," we mean that different keywords that are slightly different (but generally convey the same meaning) are given the same volume, which represents the combined volume of every variation. For example, if (hypothetically) [SEO] is searched 21,000 times per month in the UK, and [Search Engine Optimisation] is searched 12,100 times per month, once these keywords are combined, each will be reported as receiving the total of the two—33,100 searches per month.\</p>
<p>On top of this, in the last few weeks Google have also been reducing access to keyword planner data for some accounts. Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/AdWords-Announcements/Updates-to-the-Keyword-Planner-Tool/m-p/601961#">it was announced</a> that Keyword Planner data will be given only in very broad buckets for advertisers with "lower monthly spend" (<a href="https://twitter.com/screamingfrog/status/766282333561450496">although some ways around this have been found</a>). This is a separate change from the volume grouping, which is the main focus of this article.</p>
<p>The fact that Google is grouping keyword volumes in this way implies that they see these keywords as equivalent, at least to some extent. The questions that this raised for me were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Does this mean that we should see keywords with grouped volumes as identical?</li>
<li>From an SEO point of view, should we focus our targeting efforts on any one of the grouped keywords, given that Google is seeing them as the same?</li>
</ul>
<p>There is further reason to think this way given the simple fact that Google is always getting smarter. As well as <a href="https://research.googleblog.com/2016/05/announcing-syntaxnet-worlds-most.html">Parsey McParseface</a>, the English language parser that Google released to the public, much of the research output that we see in patents and journal articles from Google relates to natural language processing, so it is clear that this is an area that Google see as a priority for their research.</p>
<p>One way to test whether or not Google does indeed consider grouped keywords to be identical is to look at search results. The theory is that if keywords are viewed identically, we should see exactly the same pages ranking for the keywords.</p>
<h2>What's going on in the SERPs?</h2>
<p>I did a <a href="https://moz.com/blog/are-keywords-really-dead">similar analysis</a> a few months ago, which was focused more on general distinctions between keywords within a topic. This analysis is much more focused on the types of variations of keywords that we are seeing being grouped. These types of variations were categorised by, among others, <a href="http://www.thesempost.com/googles-keyword-planner-now-combines-keywords-for-search-volume/">Jennifer Slegg at The SEM Post</a>.</p>
<p>The five types of variations that I've looked into for this analysis are the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Initialisms/Abbreviations. For example, comparing SERPs for [BBC] and [British Broadcasting Corporation]</li>
<li>Plurals. For example, [waffle maker] and [waffle makers].</li>
<li>Verb stems with and without suffixes. For example, [calculate], [calculated] and [calculating].</li>
<li>Keywords with and without punctuation. For example, [midnight's children] and [midnights children]</li>
<li>Keywords with and without typos. For example, [heart rate monitor] and [heart rat monitor].</li>
</ol>
<p>For each of these five categories, I put together a list of 50-100 keywords, along with a variation for each. Within these keyword pairs I investigated whether or not Keyword Planner reported the same volume, and also used the rank tracking tool <a href="https://getstat.com/">STAT</a> to see what pages are ranking for each keyword.</p>
<p>From that analysis, I was able to measure the prevalence of grouping keyword volumes within each category (i.e. the percentage of keyword pairs that have grouped volumes), and the similarity of the SERPs (the number of top ten results that were shared between the two keywords) for grouped and ungrouped keyword pairs.</p>
<h2>Results</h2>
<p>The results for those metrics are the following:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/google-grouping-keyword-volumes-what-does-this-mean-for-seo/57dc0eb936e9e0.80304626.png" /></p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/google-grouping-keyword-volumes-what-does-this-mean-for-seo/57dc0eb9cb4aa1.89482716.png" /></p>
<p>I also looked at how common it is that SERPs are exactly identical, that is that the top ten results are the same pages, in the same order. This showed an interesting pattern. There are only two categories with significant numbers of identical SERPs—Punctuation and Typos. In the case of keywords with and without punctuation, you are more likely to see identical SERPs (implying that Google sees the pair of keywords as identical) if keyword volumes are grouped than if they are not. This is not a hard-and-fast rule though – there are still some ungrouped keywords which have identical SERPs.</p>
<p>In the case of Typos, there are no grouped keyword pairs at all that have identical SERPs. Given also the low prevalence of grouped keywords in this category, it appears that the identical SERPs are coming from "showing results for" SERPs, where Google replaces results for the mistyped keywords with the correct one.</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/google-grouping-keyword-volumes-what-does-this-mean-for-seo/57dc0eba6bfde9.96743643.png" /></p>
<h2>What conclusions can we draw?</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>The prevalence of keyword grouping is highest for plurals, and very low for typos</strong><br />
<br />
This may be a result of the sample of keywords used in this study, but overall, around 50% of keywords in the sample are grouped. This indicates that, although this volume grouping is a growing phenomenon in Keyword Planner data, it is not yet consistent across all SERPs.<br /></li>
<li><strong>There is not a lot of difference between keywords that are grouped by Keyword Planner, and those that aren't.</strong><br />
<br />
This is a surprising result. The motivation for conducting this study was to confirm the suspicion that Google associating keyword volumes means that it also associates the search intent. This is comprehensively disproven by this data. There is no significant difference between grouped and ungrouped keyword pairs when it comes to SERP similarity.<br />
<br />
The one group where there is a larger difference is the verb stems category. This is likely because there are many verbs where the present and past tense mean very different things, indicating different search intent. For example, the keywords [march] and [marched] have completely different intents due to the multiple meanings of the word 'march.' This means that there's no chance that these SERPs will be similar. On the other hand, some verbs have little intent difference between past and present forms (for example [admire] and [admired]). These types of keyword pairs generally have grouped volume, and also have more similar SERPs.<br /></li>
<li><strong>Overall, there is not a very high rate of similarity of SERPs for similar keywords<br />
<br /></strong>When starting this analysis, I expected to see much higher rates of similarity between very similar keywords. This is not the case, and to me that is surprising for two reasons. The first is that, as mentioned above, I saw the grouping of keyword volumes to be a clear signal that the keywords were seen as identical intents. This appears not to be the case.<br />
<br />
The other reason is that I have a lot of faith in how smart Google is. Its developments in natural language processing and intent assessment give me the impression that it is able to associate similar keywords in the results it shows.<br />
<br />
It may be that things are heading in this direction, but it's too early for it to have been fully implemented. The alternative explanation would be Google <em>is</em> that smart, and can interpret the subtle difference between keywords with incredibly similar content.<br /></li>
</ol>
<h2>What should we take away from this?</h2>
<p>What does this mean for SEOs doing keyword research? Rank tracking companies such as STAT are looking into ways of splitting keyword volumes between the constituent keywords, so there is hope for at least semi-accurate volume data. What it does mean is that we should ignore the grouped volumes when targeting keywords—just because keywords are given the same volume, it doesn't mean you shouldn't target them individually on your site.</p>
<p>On a wider scale, this tells us something about how the anthropomorphised "Google" thinks and works. There are two very separate factors at work here—what Google tells us, and what we actually see. This is something Rand picked up on in his recent <a href="https://moz.com/blog/when-and-how-to-listen-to-googles-public-statements-about-seo-whiteboard-friday">Whiteboard Friday</a>, and it applies across all of search—Google tells us one thing, but search rankings don't necessarily behave the same way. This backs up my belief to never take anything at face value, and always do your own research.</p>
<p>Do these results surprise you as much as they do me? Let me know in the comments.</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-55241441541953524302016-09-16T00:32:00.001-07:002016-09-16T00:32:34.931-07:00How To Support Data with Real-Life Interviews - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/371226/"">rcancino</a></p>
<p>With all the data that today's marketers can access, there's often still no substitute for the quality of information you can get from interviewing real people. In today's Whiteboard Friday, we welcome Rebekah Cancino -- a partner at Phoenix-based <a href="http://onwardand.co/" target="_blank">Onward</a> and #MozCon 2016 speaker -- to teach us the whys and hows of great interviews.</p>
<p class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:5.25% 0 28px 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/d8wzkdu36u?seo=false&videoFoam=true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="wistia_embed" name="wistia_embed" allowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" width="100%" height="100%"></iframe></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-support-data-with-real-life-interviews-whiteboard-friday/57db29ca3f5b01.51572806.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-support-data-with-real-life-interviews-whiteboard-friday/57db29ca3f5b01.51572806.jpg" rel="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" alt="" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></a><br /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!<br /></p>
<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Hi, Moz fans. I'm Rebekah Cancino. I'm a partner at Onward, and I lead content strategy and user experience design. Today I'm here to talk to you about how to support the data you have, your keyword data, data around search intent, analytics with real life user interviews.</p>
<p>So recently, Rand has been talking a little more about the relationship between user experience design and SEO, whether it's managing the tensions between the two or the importance of understanding the path to customer purchase. He said that in order to understand that path, we have to talk to real people. We have to do interviews, whether that's talking to actual users or maybe just people inside your company that have an understanding of the psychographics and the demographics of your target audience, so people like sales folks or customer service reps.</p>
<p>Now, maybe you're a super data-driven marketer and you haven't felt the need to talk to real people and do interviews in the past, or maybe you have done user interviews and you found that you got a bunch of obvious insights and it was a huge waste of time and money.</p>
<p>I'm here to tell you that coupling your data with real interviews is always going to give you better results. But having interviews that are useful can be a little bit tricky. The interviews that you do are only as good as the questions you ask and the approach that you take. So I want to make sure that you're all set and prepared to have really good user interviews. All it takes is a little practice and preparation.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57db61da509d28.47018269.jpg" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>It's helpful to think of it like this. So the data is kind of telling us what happened. It can tell us about online behaviors, things like keywords, keyword volume, search intent. We can use tools, like KeywordTool.io or Ubersuggest or even Moz's Keyword Explorer, to start to understand that.</p>
<p>We can look at our analytics, entry and exit pages, bounces, pages that get a lot of views, all of that stuff really important and we can learn a lot from it. But with our interviews, what we're learning about is the why.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57db6284055131.78624344.jpg" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>This is the stuff that online data just can't tell us. This is about those offline behaviors, the emotions, beliefs, attitudes that drive the behaviors and ultimately the purchase decisions. So these two things working together can help us get a really great picture of the whole story and make smarter decisions.</p>
<p>So say, for example, you have an online retailer. They sell mainly chocolate-dipped berries. They've done their homework. They've seen that most of the keywords people are using tend to be something like "chocolate dipped strawberries gifts" or "chocolate dipped strawberries delivered." And they've done the work to make sure that they've done their on-page optimization and doing a lot of other smart things too using that.</p>
<p>But then they also noticed that their Mother's Day packages and their graduation gifts are not doing so well. They're starting to see a lot of drop-offs around that product description page and a higher cart abandonment rate than usual.</p>
<p>Now, given the data they had, they might make decisions like, "Well, let's see if we can do a little more on-page keyword optimization to reflect what's special about the graduation and Mother's Day gifts, or maybe we can refine the user experience of the checkout process. But if they talk to some real users -- which they did, this is a real story -- they might learn that people who send food gift items, they worry about: Is the person I'm sending the gift to, are they going to be home when this gift arrives? Because this is a perishable item, like chocolate-dipped berries, will it melt?</p>
<p>Now, this company, they do a lot of work to protect the berries. The box that they arrive in is super insulated. It's like its own cooler. They have really great content that tells that story. The problem is that content is buried in the FAQs instead of on the pages in places it matters most -- the product detail, the checkout flow.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57db62039e80a7.54928891.jpg" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>So you can see here how there's an opportunity to use the data and the interview insights together to make smarter decisions. You can get to insights like that for your organization too. Let's talk about some tips that are going to help you make smarter interview decisions.</p>
<p>So the first one is to talk to a spectrum of users who represent your ideal audience. Maybe, like with this berry example, their ideal customer tends to skew slightly female. You would want that group of people, that you're talking to, to skew that way too. Perhaps they have a little more disposable income. That should be reflected in the group of people that you're interviewing and so forth. You get it.</p>
<p>The next one is to ask day-in-the-life, open-ended questions. This is really important. If you ask typical marketing questions like, "How likely are you to do this or that?" or, "Tell me on a scale of 1 to 10 how great this was," you'll get typical marketing answers. What we want is real nuanced answers that tell us about someone's real experience.</p>
<p>So I'll ask questions like, "Tell me about the last time you bought a food gift online? What was that like?" We're trying to get that person to walk us through their journey from the minute they're considering something to how they vet the solutions to actually making that purchase decision.</p>
<p>Next is don't influence the answers. You don't want to bias someone's response by introducing an idea. So I wouldn't say something like, "Tell me about the last time you bought a food gift online. Were you worried that it would spoil?" Now I've set them on a path that maybe they wouldn't have gone on to begin with. It's much better to let that story unfold naturally.</p>
<p>Moving on, dig deeper. Uncover the why, really important. Maybe when you're talking to people you realize that they like to cook and by sharing a food item gift with someone who's far away, they can feel closer to them. Maybe they like gifts to reflect how thoughtful they are or what good tastes they have. You always want to uncover the underlying motives behind the actions people are taking.</p>
<p>So don't be too rushed in skipping to the next question. If you hear something that's a little bit vague or maybe you see a point that's interesting, follow up with some probes. Ask things like, "Tell me more about that," or, "Why is that? What did you like about it?" and so on.</p>
<p>Next, listen more than you talk. You have maybe 30 to 45 minutes max with each one of these interviews. You don't want to waste time by inserting yourself into their story. If that happens, it's cool, totally natural. Just find a way to back yourself out of that and bring the focus back to the person you're interviewing as quickly and naturally as possible.</p>
<p>Take note of phrases and words that they use. Do they say things like "dipped berries" instead of "chocolate-dipped strawberries?" You want to pay attention to the different ways and phrases that they use. Are there regional differences? What kinds of words do they use to describe your product or service or experience? Are the berries fun, decadent, luxurious? By learning what kind of language and vocabulary people use, you can have copy, meta descriptions, emails that take that into account and reflect that.</p>
<p>Find the friction. So in every experience that we have, there's always something that's kind of challenging. We want to get to the bottom of that with our users so we can find ways to mitigate that point of friction earlier on in the journey. So I might ask someone a question like, "What's the most challenging thing about the last time you bought a food gift?"</p>
<p>If that doesn't kind of spark an idea with them, I might say something even a little more broad, like, "Tell me about a time you were really disappointed in a gift that you bought or a food gift that you bought," and see where that takes them.</p>
<p>Be prepared. Great interviews don't happen by accident. Coming up with all these questions takes time and preparation. You want to put a lot of thought into them. By asking questions that tell me about the nature of the whole journey, you want to be clear about your priorities. Know which questions are most important to you and know which ones are must have pieces of information. That way you can use your time wisely while you still let the conversation flow where it takes you.</p>
<p>Finally, relax and breathe. The people you're interviewing are only going to be as relaxed as you are. If you're stiff or overly formal or treating this like it's a chore and you're bored, they're going to pick up on that energy and they're probably not going to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts with you, or there won't be space for that to happen.</p>
<p>Make sure you let them know ahead of time, like, "Hey, feel free to be honest. These answers aren't going to be shared in a way that can be attributed directly to you, just an aggregate."</p>
<p>And have fun with it. Be genuinely curious and excited about what you're going to learn. They'll appreciate that too.</p>
<p>So once you've kind of finished and you've wrapped up those interviews, take a step back. Don't get too focused or caught up on just one of the results. You want to kind of look at the data in aggregate, the qualitative data and let it talk to you.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57db62475e1662.81570570.jpg" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>What stories are there? Are you seeing any patterns or themes that you can take note of, kind of like the theme around people being worried about the berries melting? Then you can organize those findings and make sure you summarize it and synthesize it in a way that the people who have to use those insights that you've gotten can make sense of.</p>
<p>Make sure that you tell real stories and humanize this information. Maybe you recorded the interviews, which is always a really good idea. You can go back and pull out little sound bites or clips of the people saying these really impactful things and use that when you're presenting the data.</p>
<p>So going back to that berry example, if you recall, we had that data around: Hey, we're seeing a lot of drop-offs on the product description page. We're seeing a higher cart abandonment rate. But maybe during the user interviews, we noticed a theme of people talking about how they obsessively click the tracking link on the packages, or they wait for those gift recipients to send them a text message to say, "Hey, I got this present." As you kind of unraveled why, you noticed that it had to do with the fact that these berries might melt and they're worried about that.</p>
<p>Well, now you can elevate the content that you have around how those berries are protected in a little cooler-like box on the pages and the places it matters most. So maybe there's a video or an animated GIF that shows people how the berries are protected, right there in the checkout flow.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57db625ad11b79.85271707.jpg" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>I hope that this encourages you to get out there and talk to real users, find out about their context and use that information to really elevate your search data. It's not about having a big sample size or a huge survey. It's much more about getting to real life experiences around your product or service that adds depth to the data that you have. In doing that, hopefully you'll be able to increase some conversions and maybe even improve behavioral metrics, so those UX metrics that, I don't know, theoretically could lead to higher organic visibility anyway.</p>
<p>That's all for now. Thanks so much. Take care.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/">Speechpad.com</a></p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-53461293914708420212016-09-15T00:21:00.001-07:002016-09-15T00:21:29.952-07:00Introducing Progressive Web Apps: What They Might Mean for Your Website and SEO<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/21380/"">petewailes</a></p>
<p>Progressive Web Apps. Ah yes, those things that Google would have you believe are a combination of Ghandi and Dumbledore, come to save the world from the terror that is the Painfully Slow Website<sup>TM</sup>.</p>
<p>But what actually makes a PWA? Should you have one? And if you create one, how will you make sure it ranks? Well, read on to find out...</p>
<h2>What's a PWA?</h2>
<p>Given as that Google came up with the term, I thought we'd kick off with their definition:</p>
<div class="box-bordered-left blue">
<blockquote>"A Progressive Web App uses modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like user experience."<br />
– <cite><a href="https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps?hl=en" target="_blank">Progressive Web Apps</a></cite></blockquote>
</div>
<p>The really exciting thing about PWAs: they could make app development less necessary. Your mobile website <em>becomes</em> your app. Speaking to some of my colleagues at Builtvisible, this seemed to be a point of interesting discussion: do brands need an app and a website, or a PWA?</p>
<p>Fleshing this out a little, this means we'd expect things like push notifications, background sync, the site/app working offline, having a certain look/design to feel like a native application, and being able to be set on the device home screen.</p>
<p>These are things we traditionally haven't had available to us on the web. But thanks to new browsers supporting more and more of the HTML5 spec and advances in JavaScript, we can start to create some of this functionality. On the whole, Progressive Web Apps are:</p>
<div class="box-bordered-left blue">
<blockquote>
<dl>
<dt><strong>Progressive</strong></dt>
<dd>Work for every user, regardless of browser choice because they're built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Responsive</strong></dt>
<dd>Fit any form factor: desktop, mobile, tablet, or whatever is next.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Connectivity independent</strong></dt>
<dd>Enhanced with service workers to work offline or on low quality networks.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>App-like</strong></dt>
<dd>Feel like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation because they're built on the app shell model.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Fresh</strong></dt>
<dd>Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Safe</strong></dt>
<dd>Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content hasn't been tampered with.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Discoverable</strong></dt>
<dd>Are identifiable as "applications" thanks to W3C manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search engines to find them.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Re-engageable</strong></dt>
<dd>Make re-engagement easy through features like push notifications.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Installable</strong></dt>
<dd>Allow users to "keep" apps they find most useful on their home screen without the hassle of an app store.<br /></dd>
<dt><strong>Linkable</strong></dt>
<dd>Easily share via URL and not require complex installation.</dd>
</dl>
<cite>Source: Your First Progressive Web App (<a href="https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/getting-started/your-first-progressive-web-app/?hl=en" target="_blank">Google</a>)</cite></blockquote>
</div>
<p>It's worth taking a moment to unpack the "app-like" part of that. Fundamentally, there are two parts to a PWA: <strong>service workers</strong> (which we'll come to in a minute), and <strong>application shell architecture</strong>. Google defines this as:</p>
<div class="box-bordered-left blue">
<blockquote>...the minimal HTML, CSS, and JavaScript powering a user interface. The application shell should:
<ul>
<li>load fast</li>
<li>be cached</li>
<li>dynamically display content</li>
</ul>
An application shell is the secret to reliably good performance. Think of your app's shell like the bundle of code you'd publish to an app store if you were building a native app. It's the load needed to get off the ground, but might not be the whole story. It keeps your UI local and pulls in content dynamically through an API.<br />
<cite>– <a href="https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/11/app-shell?hl=en" target="_blank">Instant Loading Web Apps with an Application Shell Architecture</a></cite></blockquote>
</div>
<p>This method of loading content allows for incredibly fast perceived speed. We are able to get something that looks like our site in front of a user almost instantly, just without any content. The page will then go and fetch the content and all's well. Obviously, if we actually did things this way in the real world, we'd run in to SEO issues pretty quickly, but we'll address that later too.</p>
<p>If then, at their core, a Progressive Web App is just a website served in a clever way with extra features for loading stuff, why would we want one?</p>
<h2>The use case</h2>
<p>Let me be clear before I get into this: for most people, a PWA is something you don't <em>need</em>. That's important enough that it bares repeating, so I'll repeat it:</p>
<p><strong>You probably don't need a PWA.</strong></p>
<p>The reason for this is that most websites don't need to be able to behave like an app. This isn't to say that there's no benefit to having the things that PWA functionality can bring, but for many sites, the benefits don't outweigh the time it takes to implement the functionality at the moment.</p>
<p>When should you look at a PWA then? Well, let's look at a checklist of things that may indicate that you <em>do</em> need one...</p>
<h3>Signs a PWA may be appropriate</h3>
<p>You have:</p>
<ul>
<li>Content that regularly updates, such as stock tickers, rapidly changing prices or inventory levels, or other real-time data</li>
<li>A chat or comms platform, requiring real-time updates and push notifications for new items coming in</li>
<li>An audience likely to pull data and then browse it offline, such as a news app or a blog publishing many articles a day</li>
<li>A site with regularly updated content which users may check in to several times a day</li>
<li>Users who are mostly using a <a href="https://jakearchibald.github.io/isserviceworkerready/" target="_blank">supported browser</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In short, you have something beyond a normal website, with interactive or time-sensitive components, or rapidly released or updated content. A good example is the Google Weather PWA:</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d99c7c7f0980.62856254.jpg" /></p>
<p>If you're running a normal site, with a blog that maybe updates every day or two, or even less frequently, then whilst it might be <em>nice</em> to have a site that acts as a PWA, there's probably more useful things you can be doing with your time for your business.</p>
<h2>How they work</h2>
<p>So, you have something that would benefit from this sort of functionality, but need to know how these things work. Welcome to the wonder that is the service worker.</p>
<p>Service workers can be thought of as a proxy that sits between your website and the browser. It calls for intercept of things you ask the browser to do, and hijacking of the responses given back. That means we can do things like, for example, hold a copy of data requested, so when it's asked for again, we can serve it straight back (this is called caching). This means we can fetch data once, then replay it a thousand times without having to fetch it again. Think of it like a musician recording an album — it means they don't have to play a concert every time you want to listen to their music. Same thing, but with network data.</p>
<p>If you want a more thorough explanation of service workers, check out this moderately technical talk given by <a href="https://twitter.com/jaffathecake" target="_blank">Jake Archibald</a> from Google.</p>
<p align="center"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4uQMl7mFB6g?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
<h2>What service workers can do</h2>
<p>Service workers fundamentally exist to deliver extra features, which have not been available to browsers until now. These includes things like:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Push notifications,</strong> for telling a user that something has happened, such as receiving a new message, or that the page they're viewing has been updated</li>
<li><strong>Background sync,</strong> for updating data while a user isn't using the page/site</li>
<li><strong>Offline caching,</strong> to allow a for an experience where a user still may be able to access some functionality of a site while offline</li>
<li><strong>Handling geolocation</strong> or other device hardware-querying data (such as device gyrpscope data)</li>
<li><strong>Pre-fetching data</strong> a user will soon require, such as images further down a page</li>
</ul>
<p>It's planned that in the future, they'll be able to do even more than they currently can. For now though, these are the sorts of features you'll be able to make use of. Obviously these mostly load data via AJAX, once the app is already loaded.</p>
<h2>What are the SEO implications?</h2>
<p>So you're sold on Progressive Web Apps. But if you create one, how will you make sure it ranks? As with any new front-end technology, there are always implications for your SEO visibility. But don't panic; the potential issues you'll encounter with a PWA have been solved before by SEOs who have worked on JavaScript-heavy websites. For a primer on that, take a look at <a href="https://builtvisible.com/javascript-framework-seo/" target="_blank">this article on JS SEO</a>.</p>
<p>There are a few issues you may encounter if you're going to have a site that makes use of application shell architecture. Firstly, it's pretty much required that you're going to be using some form of JS framework or view library, like Angular or React. If this is the case, you're going to want to take a look at some Angular.JS or <a href="https://builtvisible.com/react-js-seo/" target="_blank">React SEO</a> advice. If you're using something else, the short version is you'll need to be pre-rendering pages on the server, then picking up with your application when it's loaded. This enables you to have all the good things these tools give you, whilst also serving something Google et al can understand. Despite their recent advice that they're getting good at rendering this sort of application, we still see plenty of examples in the wild of them flailing horribly when they crawl heavy JS stuff.</p>
<p>Assuming you're in the world of clever JS front-end technologies, to make sure you do things the PWA way, you'll also need to be delivering the CSS and JS required to make the page work <em>along with the HTML</em>. Not just including <code>script</code> tags with the <code>src attribute, but the whole file, inline.</p>
<p>Obviously, this means you're going to increase the size of the page you're sending down the wire, but it has the upside of meaning that the page will load instantly. More than that, though, with all the JS (required for pick-up) and CSS (required to make sense of the design) delivered immediately, the browser will be able to render your content and deliver something that looks correct and works straightaway.</p>
<p>Again, as we're going to be using service workers to cache content once it's arrived, this shouldn't have too much of an impact. We can also cache all the CSS and JS external files required separately, and load them from the cache store rather than fetching them every time. This does make it very slightly more likely that the PWA will fail on the first time that a user tries to request your site, but you can still handle this case gracefully with an error message or default content, and re-try on the next page view.</p>
<p>There are other potential issues people can run in to, as well. The Washington Post, for example, built a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-post-unveils-lightning-fast-mobile-website-1473152456" target="_blank">PWA version of their site</a>, but it only works on a mobile device. Obviously, that means the site can be crawled nicely by Google's mobile bots, but not the desktop ones. It's important to respect the P part of the acronym — the website should enable features that a user can make use of, but still work in a normal manner for those who are using browsers that don't support them. It's about enhancing functionality <em>progressively</em>, not demanding that people upgrade their browser.</p>
<p>The only slightly tricky thing with all of this is that it requires that, for best experience, you design your application for offline-first experiences. How that's done is referenced in <a href="https://youtu.be/4uQMl7mFB6g" target="_blank">Jake's talk above</a>. The only issue with going down that route: you're only serving content once someone's arrived at your site and waited long enough to load everything. Obviously, in the case of Google, that's not going to work well. So here's what I'd suggest...</p>
<p>Rather than just sending your application shell, and then using AJAX to request content on load, and then picking up, use this workflow instead:</p>
<ul>
<li>User arrives at site</li>
<li>Site sends back the application shell (the minimum HTML, JS, and CSS to make everything work immediately), along with...</li>
<li>...the content AJAX response, pre-loaded as state for the application</li>
<li>The application loads that immediately, and then picks up the front end.</li>
</ul>
<p>Adding in the data required means that, on load, we <em>don't</em> have to make an AJAX call to get the initial data required. Instead, we can bundle that in too, so we get something that can render content instantly as well.</p>
<p>As an example of this, let's think of a weather app. Now, the basic model would be that we send the user all the <em>content</em> to show a basic version of our app, but not the <em>data</em> to say what the weather is. In this modified version, we also send along what today's weather is, but for any subsequent data request, we then go to the server with an AJAX call.</p>
<p>This means we still deliver content that Google et al can index, without possible issues from our AJAX calls failing. From Google and the user's perspective, we're just delivering a very high-performance initial load, then registering service workers to give faster experiences for every subsequent page and possibly extra functionality. In the case of a weather app, that might mean pre-fetching tomorrow's weather each day at midnight, or notifying the user if it's going to rain, for example.</p>
<h2>Going further</h2>
<p>If you're interested in learning more about PWAs, I highly recommend reading <a href="https://addyosmani.com/blog/getting-started-with-progressive-web-apps/" target="_blank">this guide</a> to PWAs by <a href="https://twitter.com/addyosmani" target="_blank">Addy Osmani</a> (a Google Chrome engineer), and then putting together a very basic working example, like the train one Jake mentions in his YouTube talk referenced earlier. If you're interested in that, I recommend Jake's Udacity course on creating a PWA <a href="https://www.udacity.com/course/offline-web-applications--ud899" target="_blank">available here</a>.</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-66870916452023069862016-09-14T00:26:00.001-07:002016-09-14T00:26:46.966-07:00Here’s How to Generate and Insert Rel Canonical with Google Tag Manager<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/4745836/"">luciamarin</a></p>
<p id="promoted">This post was originally in <a href="/ugc">YouMoz</a>, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.</p>
<p>In this article, we’re going to learn how to create the rel canonical URL tag using Google Tag Manager, and how to insert it in every page of our website so that the correct canonical is automatically generated in each URL.</p>
<p>We’ll do it using Google Tag Manager and its <a href="http://aukera.co.uk/blog/google-tag-manager-variables/" target="_blank">variables</a>.</p>
<h2>Why send a canonical from each page to itself?<br /></h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/javier_lorente" target="_blank">Javier Lorente</a> gave us a very good explanation/reminder at the <a href="http://ensaladaseo.com/" target="_blank">2015 SEO Salad</a> event in Zaragoza (Spain). In short, there may be various factors that cause Google to index unexpected variants of a URL, and this is often beyond our control:</p>
<ul>
<li>External pages that display our website but use another URL (e.g., Google’s own cache, other search engines and content aggregators, archive.org, etc.). This way, Google will know which one is the original page at all times.</li>
<li>Parameters that are irrelevant to SEO/content such as certain filters and order sequences</li>
</ul>
<p>By including this “standard” canonical in every URL, we are making it easy for Google to identify the original content.</p>
<h2>How do we generate the dynamic value of the canonical URL?<br /></h2>
<p>To generate the canonical URL, dynamically we need to force it to always correspond to the “clean" (i.e., absolute, unique, and simplified) URL of each page (taking into account the www, URL query string parameters, anchors, etc.).</p>
<p>Remember that, in summary, the URL variables that can be created in GTM (Google Tag Manager) correspond to the following components:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b09297f2a240.83710807.png" title="URL variables in Tag Manager" alt="URL variables in Google Tag Manager" /></p>
<p>We want to create a unique URL for each page, without queries or anchors. We need a “clean” URL variable, and we can’t use the built-in variable, for two reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>Although fragment doesn’t form part of the URL by default, <strong>query string params does</strong></li>
<li>Potential problems with protocol and hostname, if different options are admitted (e.g., SSL and www)</li>
</ol>
<p>Therefore, we need to combine Protocol + Host + Path into a single variable.</p>
<p>Now, let's take a step-by-step look at how to create our variable.</p>
<h2>1. Create to compile the section of the URL according to whether it’s an http:// or https://</h2>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b092987701f2.10470861.jpg" title="page protocol" alt="page protocol" /></p>
<blockquote><em><strong>Note</strong>: We’re assuming that the entire website will <strong>always</strong> function under a single protocol. If that’s not the case, then we should substitute the variable for plain text in the final variable of Step #4. (This will allow us to force it to always be http/https, without exception.)</em></blockquote>
<h2>2. Create</h2>
<p>We need a <strong>variable in which the hostname is always unique</strong>, whether or not it’s entered into the browser with the www. The <strong>hostname canonical</strong> must always be the same, regardless of whether or not it has the www. We can decide based on which one of the domains is redirected to the other, and then keep the original as the canonical.</p>
<h3><strong>How do we create the canonical domain?</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Option 2.1: Redirect the domain with www. to a domain without www. via 301</strong><br />
Our canonical URL is WITHOUT www. We need to create Page Hostname, but make sure we always remove the www:<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b09298bd8f50.99952357.jpg" title="Page hostname canonical without www" alt="Page hostname canonical without www" /></li>
<li><strong>Option 2.2: Redirect the domain without www. to a domain with www. via 301</strong><br />
Our canonical URL is WITH www. We need to create Page Hostname without www (like before), and then insert the www in front using a constant variable:<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b0929913c2c1.04036582.jpg" title="Page hostname canonical with www" alt="Page hostname canonical with www" /></li>
</ul>
<h2>3. Enable the built-in variable<br /></h2>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b092995ec787.05196303.jpg" title="Enabled Built-in variables" alt="Enabled Built-in variables" /></p>
<blockquote><em><strong>Note:</strong> Although we have the built-in variable, for this exercise it’s preferable not to use it, as we’re not 100% sure how it will behave in relation to the www (e.g., in this instance, it’s not configurable, unlike when we create it as a GTM custom variable).</em></blockquote>
<h2>4. Create</h2>
<p>Link the three previous variables to form a constant variable:</p>
<pre>
://
</pre>
<h3><strong>Summary/Important notes:</strong></h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Protocol:</strong> returns http / https (without ://), which is why we enter this part by hand</li>
<li><strong>Hostname:</strong> we can force removal of the www. or not</li>
<li><strong>Path:</strong> included from the slash /. Does not include the query, so it's perfect. We use the built-in option for Page Path.</li>
</ol>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b092999cde43.07934857.jpg" title="Page URL canonical" alt="Page URL canonical" /></p>
<p>Now that we have created , we could even populate it into Google Analytics via custom dimensions. You can learn to do that in this <a href="http://aukera.co.uk/blog/guide-analytics-custom-dimensions-in-google-tag-manager/" target="_blank">Google Analytics custom dimensions guide</a>.</p>
<h2>How can we insert the canonical into a page using Tag Manager?</h2>
<p>Let’s suppose we’ve already got a canonical URL generated dynamically via GTM: .</p>
<p>Now, we need to look at how to insert it into the page using a GTM tag. We should emphasize that this is NOT the “ideal” solution, as it’s always preferable to insert the tag into the <head> of the source code. But, we have confirming evidence from various sources that it DOES work if it’s inserted via GTM. And, as we all know, in most companies, the ideal doesn’t always coincide with the possible!</p>
<p>If we could insert content directly into the <head> via GTM, it would be sufficient to use the following custom HTML tag:</p>
<pre>
<link href=”” />
</pre>
<p>But, we know that this won’t work because the inserted content in HTML tags usually goes at the end of the </body>, meaning Google won’t accept or read a <link rel="canonical"> tag there.<br /></p>
<p>So then, how do we do it? We can use JavaScript code to generate the tag and insert it into the <head>, as described in <a href="http://www.simoahava.com/seo/dynamically-added-meta-data-indexed-google-crawlers/#gref" target="_blank">this article</a>, but in a form that has been adapted for the canonical tag:</p>
<pre>
<script>
var c = document.createElement('link');
c.;
c.href = ;
document.head.appendChild(c);
</script>
</pre>
<p>And then, we can set it to fire on the “All Pages” trigger. Seems almost too easy, doesn’t it?<br /></p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b09299e3af52.30688094.jpg" title="REL Canonical" alt="REL Canonical" /></p>
<h2>How do we check whether our rel canonical is working?</h2>
<p>Very simple: Check whether the code is generated correctly on the page.</p>
<p>How do we do that?</p>
<p>By looking at the DevTools Console in Chrome, or by using a browser plugin like like Firebug that returns the code generated on the page in the DOM (document object model). We won't find it in the source code (Ctrl+U).</p>
<p>Here’s how to do this step-by-step:</p>
<ol>
<li>Open Chrome</li>
<li>Press F12</li>
<li>Click on the first tab in the console (Elements)<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b0929a431198.23786392.jpg" title="elements tab" alt="elements tab" /></li>
<li>Press Ctrl+F and search for “canonical”</li>
<li>If the URL appears in the correct form at the end of the <head>, that means the tag has been generated correctly via Tag Manager<br />
<img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/tag-manager-and-seo-how-to-generate-and-insert-rel-canonical-with-google-tag-manager/57b0929aa5de88.24545208.jpg" title="tag generated correctly" alt="tag generated correctly" /></li>
</ol>
<p>That's it. Easy-peasy, right?</p>
<p>So, what are your thoughts?</p>
<p>Do you also use Google Tag Manager to improve your SEO? Why don’t you give us some examples of when it’s been useful (or not)?</p>
<p><br /></p>
<br />
<p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!</p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-70060577312245670252016-09-12T06:12:00.001-07:002016-09-12T06:12:37.615-07:00Duplicate Listings and the Case of the Nomadic New Mexican Restaurant<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/13017/"">MiriamEllis</a></p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d3413022f1e3.55580251.jpg" /></p>
<p>Albuquerque’s locals and tourists agree, you can’t find a more authentic breakfast in town than at Perea’s New Mexican Restaurant. <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/pereas-new-mexican-restaurant-albuquerque" target="_blank">Yelp reviewers</a> exclaim, <em>"</em><em>Best green chile ever!!"</em>, "<em>Soft, chewy, thick-style homemade flour tortillas soak up all the extra green chili</em>," "<em>My go-to for great huevos rancheros</em>," and "<em>Carne was awesome! Tender, flavorful, HOT!"</em> The descriptions alone are enough to make one salivate, but the Yelp reviews for this gem of an eatery also tell another story — one so heavily spiced with the potential of duplicate listings that it may take the appetite of any hard-working local SEO away:</p>
<blockquote><em>“Thru all of the location changes, this is a true family restaurant with home cooking.”<br /></em><br />
<em>“This restaurant for whatever reason, changes locations every couple years or so.”<br /></em><br />
<em>“They seem to wander from different locations”<br /></em><br />
<em>“As other reviews have already mentioned, Perea's changes locations periodically (which is puzzling/inconvenient — the only reason they don't get 5 stars)”<br /></em><br />
<em>“They switch locations every few years and the customers follow this place wherever it goes.”</em><br /></blockquote>
<p>Reading those, the local SEO sets aside sweet dreams of sopapillas because he very much doubts the accuracy of that last review comment. Are all customers <em>really</em> following this restaurant from place to place, or are visitors (with money to spend) being misdirected to false locations via outdated, inconsistent, and duplicate listings?<br /></p>
<h2>The local SEO can’t stand the suspense, so he fires up Moz Check Listing</h2>
<p>He types in the most recent name/zip code combo he can find, and up comes:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/duplicate-listings-and-the-case-of-the-nomadic-new-mexican-restaurant/57d1c3cb1bc3d0.06055444.jpg" alt="nm1.jpg" /></p>
<p>A total of 2 different names, 3 different phone numbers, and 4 different addresses! In 5 seconds, the local SEO has realized that business listings around the web are likely misdirecting diners left and right, undoubtedly depriving the restaurant of revenue as locals fail to keep up with the inconvenient moves or travelers simply never find the right place at all. Sadly, two of those phone numbers return an out-of-service message, further lessening the chances that patrons will get to enjoy this establishment’s celebrated food. Where is all this bad data coming from?</p>
<p>The local SEO clicks on just the first entry to start gaining clues, and from there, he clicks on the duplicates tab for a detailed, clickable list of duplicates that Check Listing surfaces for that particular location:</p>
<p><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/duplicate-listings-and-the-case-of-the-nomadic-new-mexican-restaurant/57d1c3cbbed8f4.62065320.jpg" alt="nm2.jpg" /></p>
<p>From this simple Duplicates interface, you can immediately see that 1 Google My Business listing, 1 Foursquare listing, 3 Facebook Places, 1 Neustar Localeze listing, and 1 YP listing bear further investigation. Clicking the icons takes you right to the sources. You’ve got your clues now, and only need to solve your case. Interested?</p>
<p>The paid version of <a href="https://moz.com/local/overview" target="_blank">Moz Local</a> supports your additions of multiple variants of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of clients to help surface further duplicates. Finally, your Moz Local dashboard also enables you to request closure of duplicates on our Direct Network partners. What a relief!</p>
<p>Chances are, most of your clients don’t move locations every couple of years (at least, we hope not!), but should an incoming client alert you to a move they’ve made in the past decade or so, <em>it’s likely that a footprint of their old location still exists on the web.</em> Even if they haven’t moved, they may have changed phone numbers or rebranded, and instead of editing their existing listings to reflect these core data changes, they may have ended up with duplicate listings that are then auto-replicating themselves throughout the ecosystem.</p>
<p>Google and local SEOs share a common emotion about duplicate listings: both feel uneasy about inconsistent data they can’t trust, knowing the potential to misdirect and frustrate human users. Feeling unsettled about duplicates for an incoming client today?</p>
<p>Get your appetite back for powerful local SEO with our free <a href="https://moz.com/local/search" target="_blank">Check Listing</a> tool!</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-86856268288758752082016-09-12T00:21:00.001-07:002016-09-12T00:21:26.213-07:00A Dozen Digestible Takeaways from 2016's E-Commerce Benchmarks Study<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/416995/"">Alan_Coleman</a></p>
<p>Hey Moz Blog readers.</p>
<p>I’m delighted to share with you a big body of work the Wolfgang team has just completed. It’s our <a href="https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/ecommerce-kpi-benchmarks-2016/" target="_blank">E-commerce Benchmarks 2016 study</a>. We dove into Google Analytics insights from over 80 million website sessions and over one-quarter of a billion dollars in online revenue for travel and retail websites, calculating average e-commerce website key performance indicators (KPIs) for you to use as benchmarks.</p>
<p>I hope these findings help you benchmark your KPIs and gain deeper insights into what you can do to boost conversion.</p>
<p>There are a number of unique features to this study:</p>
<ul>
<li>We’ve divvied the results up into <strong>overall</strong><strong>,</strong> <strong>travel,</strong> and <strong>retail</strong>. Within the retail cohort, we’ve broken out results for our "online only" retailers and "multichannel" retailers. The KPIs are distinctly different for the two sets of retailers.</li>
<li>We’ve conducted a correlation study in which we correlate all the factors of the study with conversion rate and with average order value.</li>
<li>We’ve expanded the scope of the study <a href="https://moz.com/blog/ecommerce-kpi-benchmark-study" target="_blank">since last time</a> and based on your comments, we’ve included site speed analysis, as well as more info around paths to conversion and assisted conversions.</li>
</ul>
<p>In this post I’m going to give you an overview of 12 key takeaways. You can read the full report <a href="https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/uploads/general/eComKPI2016-Public2.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. Or grab some quick insights from our <a href="https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/uploads/general/KPI_Infopgrahic_2016.jpg" target="_blank">infographic here</a>.</p>
<h2>1/ The average e-commerce conversion rate is 1.48%.</h2>
<ul>
<li>Retail websites averaged 1.36%.</li>
<li>Online-only websites converted almost twice as well as their multi-channel counterparts with 2%, compared to 1.12%.</li>
<li>The travel websites in the study averaged a 2.04% conversion rate.</li>
</ul>
<p>It was notable that the travel websites enjoyed higher conversion rates but lower engagement rates than the average retailer. This spiked my curiosity, as that just seemed too darn easy for the travel retailers. After deep-diving the data, I found that the committed retail customer would visit the one retail website multiple times on their journey to purchase. On the other hand, the travel shopper does a lot of research, but on other websites, review sites, via online travel agents, travel bloggers, etc. before arriving at the e-commerce website to merely check price and availability before booking. This finding illuminates the fact that the retailer has more influence on its customers' journey to purchase than the travel website, who's more dependent on an <em>ecosystem</em> of travel websites to warm up the prospect.</p>
<p><a href="https://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d31bcf669ee8.14982826.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/a-dozen-digestible-takeaways-2016-ecommerce-benchmarks-study/57d32affc83eb7.51083713.gif" alt="Average Conversion Rate animated gif" /></a></p>
<p class="caption">Click the image to open a still image in a new tab</p>
<h2>2/ The death of SEO?</h2>
<p>The data states it emphatically: "Hell no!"</p>
<p>Google organic is the largest source of both traffic (43%) and revenue (42%). SEO traffic from Google organic has actually increased by 5% <a href="https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/wolfgang-kpi-study-2014-v-2013/" target="_blank">since our last study</a>.</p>
<p>There was also a strong correlation between websites with a high percentage of traffic from Google organic and higher-than-average Average Order Values (AOVs).</p>
<p>From this finding, we can infer that broad organic coverage will be rewarded by transactions from research-heavy, high-value customers.</p>
<h2>3/ AdWords is the king of conversion</h2>
<p>The strongest correlation we saw with higher conversion rates was higher-than-average traffic and revenue from AdWords.</p>
<p>In my experience, Google AdWords is the best-converting traffic source. So my take is that, when a website increases its spend on Adwords, it adds more high-conversion traffic to its profile and increases its average conversion rate.</p>
<p>AdWords accounts for 26% of traffic and 25% of revenue on average.</p>
<h2>4/ Google makes the World Wide Web go 'round</h2>
<p>When you combine Google organic and PPC, you see that Google accounts for 69% of traffic and 67% of revenue. More than two-thirds! Witness the absolute dominance of “The Big G” as our window to the web.</p>
<p><a href="https://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d31ba2a974e5.97011783.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/a-dozen-digestible-takeaways-2016-ecommerce-benchmarks-study/57d32b03504506.32107840.gif" alt="Revenue Sources" /></a></p>
<p class="caption">Click the image to open a still image in a new tab<br /></p>
<h2>5/ Facebook traffic quadruples!</h2>
<p>In our last study, Facebook accounted for a meagre 1.3% of traffic. This time around, it's leapt up to 5%, with Facebook CPC emerging from nowhere to 2%. When better cross-device measurement becomes available in Google Analytics, I expect Facebook to be seen as an assisted conversion power player.</p>
<h2>6/ Don’t discount email</h2>
<p>Email delivers 6% of traffic, which is actually as much as all the social channels combined — and treble the revenue. In fact, with a 6% share of revenue, Google is the only medium that delivers more revenue than email. Digital marketers often lust after shiny new toys (hello, Snapchat!), but the advice here is to look after the old reliables first. And this 40-year-old technology we all use every day is about as old and reliable as it gets.<br /></p>
<h2>7/ Site speed matters most</h2>
<p>This section was added to the study after comments from you, the Moz Blog readers, last time around, so thanks for your input. The server response time correlation with conversion rate (-0.31) was one of the strongest we saw. It was dramatically stronger than engagement metrics, such as time on site (0.11) or pages viewed (0.10). We also found that for every two-tenths of a second you shave off your server response time, you'll increase conversion rate by 8%. Don’t forget that site speed is a Google ranking factor, so by optimizing for it you'll benefit from a "multiplier effect" of more traffic and a higher conversion rate on all your traffic. Google’s <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/" target="_blank">page speed tool</a> is a great place to start your speed optimization journey.</p>
<p>Check out our conversion rate correlation chart below to get more insights on which metrics can move conversion rate.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d31b86b24be8.37354335.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/a-dozen-digestible-takeaways-2016-ecommerce-benchmarks-study/57d32b0716c227.21161969.gif" alt="Conversion Rate Correlation" /></a></em></p>
<p class="caption">Click the image to open a still image in a new tab<br /></p>
<h2>8/ Mobile is our "decision device"</h2>
<p>2015 was finally "the year of mobile." Mobile became the largest traffic source of the devices, but seriously underperforms for revenue. Its 42% share of traffic becomes a miserly 21% share of revenue, and it suffers the lowest average conversion rate and AOV. Despite these lowly conversion metrics, our correlation study found that websites with a larger-than-average portion of mobile traffic benefitted from larger-than-average conversion rates. This indicates that the "PA in your pocket" is the device upon which decisions are arrived at before being completed on desktop. We can deduce that while desktop remains our "transaction device," mobile has become our "decision device," where research is carried out and purchase decisions arrived at.</p>
<h2>9/ Digital marketers are over-indexing on display advertising</h2>
<p>Despite accounting for <a href="http://www.iabeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/IAB-PwC-online-adspend-2015-infographic.pdf" target="_blank">38% of digital marketers budgets</a> (IAB Europe), display failed to register as a top ten traffic source. This means it contributed less than 1% of e-commerce website traffic.</p>
<h2>10/ Bounce rate don’t mean diddly squat</h2>
<p>Bounce rate actually has zero correlation with conversion rate! Digital marketers feel a deep sense of rejection when they see a high bounce rate. However, as an overall website metric, it’s a dud. While admittedly there are bad bounces, there are many <a href="https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/bounce-rate-misunderstood-metric/" target="_blank">good bounces</a> accounted for in the number.</p>
<h2>11/ Digital marketing "economies of scale"</h2>
<p>Interestingly, websites that enjoyed more-than-average traffic levels enjoyed higher-than-average conversion rates.</p>
<p>This illustrates a digital marketing version of "economies of scale"; more traffic equals better conversion rates.</p>
<p>The corollary of this is lower CPAs (Cost Per Acquisitions).</p>
<h2>12/ People are buying more frequently and spending more per order online.</h2>
<p>Average conversion rates have increased 10% since the last study. Retail average order value has shot up a whopping 25%! This demonstrates people are migrating more and more of their shopping behavior off the high street and onto the Internet. There’s never been a better time to be an e-commerce digital marketer.</p>
<p>You can deep-dive the above digestibles by reading the full study <a href="https://www.wolfgangdigital.com/blog/ecommerce-kpi-benchmarks-2016/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>How do these benchmarks compare to your personal experience? Anything you're surprised by, or that confirms your long-held suspicions?</p>
<p>I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.</p>
<p>Optimize hard,</p>
<p>Alan</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-60381711010617952442016-09-09T00:19:00.001-07:002016-09-09T00:19:37.181-07:00Weird, Crazy Myths About Link Building in SEO You Should Probably Ignore - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/63/"">randfish</a></p>
<p>The rules of link building aren't always black and white, and getting it wrong can sometimes result in frustrating consequences. But where's the benefit in following rules that don't <em>actually</em> exist? In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand addresses eight of the big link building myths making their rounds across the web.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/weird-crazy-myths-about-link-building-in-seo-you-should-probably-ignore-whiteboard-friday/57d03dac67c477.37124058.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/weird-crazy-myths-about-link-building-in-seo-you-should-probably-ignore-whiteboard-friday/57d03dac67c477.37124058.jpg" rel="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" alt="" style="box-shadow: rgb(153, 153, 153) 0px 0px 10px 0px; border-radius: 20px;" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br /></p>
<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about some of the weird and crazy myths that have popped up around link building. We've actually been seeing them in the comments of some of our blog posts and Whiteboard Fridays and Q&A. So I figured, hey, let's try and set the record straight here.</p>
<h2>1. Never get links from sites with a lower domain authority than your own</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f04536ff20.46757903.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>What? No, that is a terrible idea. <strong><a href="https://moz.com/learn/domain_authority" target="_blank">Domain authority</a></strong>, just to be totally clear, it's a machine learning system that we built here at Moz. It takes and looks at all the metrics. It builds the best correlation it can against Google's rankings across a broad set of keywords, similar to the <a href="http://mozcast.com/" target="_blank">MozCast</a> 10K. Then it's trying to represent, all other things being equal and just based on raw link authority, how well would this site perform against other sites in Google's rankings for a random keyword? That does not in any way suggest whether it is a quality website that gives good editorial links, that Google is likely to count, that are going to give you great ranking ability, that are going to send good traffic to you. None of those things are taken into account with domain authority.<br />
<br />
So when you're doing link building, I think DA can be a decent sorting function, just like <a href="https://moz.com/blog/understanding-and-applying-mozs-spam-score-metric-whiteboard-friday" target="_blank">Spam Score</a> can. But those two metrics don't mean that something is necessarily a terrible place or a great place to get a link from. Yes, it tends to be the case that links from 80- or 90-plus DA sites tend to be very good, because those sites tend to give a lot of authority. It tends to be the case that links from sub-10 or 20 tend to not add that much value and maybe fail to have a high Spam Score. You might want to look more closely at them before deciding whether you should get a link.<br />
<br />
But new websites that have just popped up or sites that have very few links or local links, that is just fine. If they are high-quality sites that give out links editorially and they link to other good places, you shouldn't fret or worry that just because their DA is low, they're going to provide no value or low value or hurt you. None of those things are the case.<br /></p>
<h2>2. Never get links from any directories</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f0519fb4e0.15379697.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>I know where this one comes from. We have talked a bunch about how low-quality directories, SEO-focused directories, paid link directories tend to be very bad places to get links from. Google has penalized not just a lot of those directories, but many of the sites whose link profiles come heavily from those types of domains.<br />
<br />
However, lots and <strong>lots of resource lists, link lists, and directories are also of great quality</strong>. For example, I searched for a list of Portland bars — Portland, Oregon, of course known for their amazing watering holes. I found PDX Monthly's list of Portland's best bars and taverns. What do you know? It's a directory. It's a total directory of bars and taverns in Portland. Would you not want to be on there if you were a bar in Portland? Of course, you would want to be on there. You definitely want those. There's no question. Give me that link, man. That is a great freaking link. I totally want it.<br />
<br />
<strong>This is really about using your good judgment</strong> and about saying there's a difference between SEO and paid link directories and a directory that lists good, authentic sites because it's a resource. You should definitely get links from the latter, not so much from the former.<br /></p>
<h2>3. Don't get links too fast or you'll get penalized</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f06494bbf9.62737204.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>Let's try and think about this. Like Google has some sort of penalty line where they look at, "Oh, well, look at that. We see in August, Rand got 17 links. He was under at 15 in July, but then he got 17 links in August. That is too fast. We're going to penalize him."<br />
<br />
No, this is definitely not the case. I think what is the case, and Google has filed some patent applications around this in the past with spam, is that a pattern of low-quality links or spammy-looking links that are coming at a certain pace may trigger Google to take a more close look at a site's link profile or at their link practices and could trigger a penalty.</p>
<p>Yes. If you are doing sketchy, grey hat/black hat link building with your private networks, your link buys, and your swapping schemes, and all these kinds of things, yeah, it's probably the case that if you get them too fast, you'll trip over some sort of filter that Google has got. But if you're doing the kind of link building that we generally recommend here on Whiteboard Friday and at Moz more broadly, you don't have risk here. I would not stress about this at all. <strong>So long as your links are coming from good places, don't worry about the <em>pace</em> of them</strong>. There's no such thing as too fast.</p>
<h2>4. Don't link out to other sites, or you'll leak link equity, or link juice, or PageRank</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f075d6f0d3.46546690.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>...or whatever it is. I really like this illustration of the guys who are like, "My link juice. No!" This is just crap.<br />
<br />
All right, again, it's a myth rooted in <em>some</em> fact. Historically, a long time ago, PageRank used to flow in a certain way, and it was the case that if a page had lots of links pointing out from it, that if I had four links, that a quarter each of the PageRank that this page could pass would go to each of them. So if I added one more, oh, now that's one-fifth, then that becomes one-fifth, and that becomes one-fifth. This is old, old, old-school SEO. <strong>This is not the way things are anymore</strong>.<br />
<br />
PageRank is not the only piece of ranking algorithmic goodness that Google is using in their systems. You should not be afraid of linking out. You should not be afraid of linking out without a "nofollow" link. You, in fact, <em>should</em> link out. Linking out is not only <em>correlated</em> with higher rankings. There have also been a bunch of studies and research suggesting that there's something <em>causal</em> going on, because when followed links were added to pages, those pages actually <a href="https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/long-term-outgoing-link-experiment/" target="_blank">outranked their non-link-carrying brethren</a> in a bunch of tests. I'll try and link to that test in the Whiteboard Friday. But regardless to say, <strong>don't stress about this</strong>.</p>
<h2>5. Variations in anchor text should be kept to precise proportions</h2>
<img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f083824905.69695000.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" />
<p>So this idea that essentially there's some magic formula for how many of your keyword anchor text, anchor phrases should be branded, partially branded, keyword match links that are carrying anchor text that's specifically for the keywords you're trying to rank for, and random assorted anchor texts and that you need some numbers like these, also a crazy idea.<br />
<br />
Again, rooted in <em>some</em> fact, the fact being <em>if</em> you are doing <strong>sketchy</strong> forms of link building of any kind, it's probably the case that Google will take a look at the anchor text. If they see that lots of things are kind of keyword-matchy and very few things contain your brand, that might be a trigger for them to look more closely. Or it might be a trigger for them to say, "Hey, there's some kind of problem. We need to do a manual review on this site."</p>
<p>So yes, if you are in the grey/black hat world of link acquisition, sure, maybe you should pay some attention to how the anchor text looks. But again, if you're following the advice that you get here on Whiteboard Friday and at Moz, this is not a concern.</p>
<h2>6. Never ask for a link directly or you risk penalties</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f08e5de8b2.13394128.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>This one I understand, because there have been a bunch of cases where folks or organizations have sent out emails, for example, to their customers saying, "Hey, if you link to us from your website, we'll give you a discount," or, "Hey, we'd like you to link to this resource, and in exchange this thing will happen," something or other. I get that those penalties and that press around those types of activities has made certain people sketched out. I also get that a lot of folks use it as kind of blackmail against someone. <strong>That sucks</strong>.<br />
<br />
Google <em>may</em> take action against people who engage in manipulative link practices. But for example, let's say the press writes about you, but they don't link to you. Is asking for a link from that piece a bad practice? <strong>Absolutely not</strong>. Let's say there's a directory like the PDX Monthly, and they have a list of bars and you've just opened a new one. Is asking them for a link directly against the rules? No, certainly not. So there are a lot of good ways that you can directly ask for links and it is just fine. When it's appropriate and when you think there's a match, and when there's no sort of bribery or paid involvement, you're good. You're fine. Don't stress about it.<br /></p>
<h2>7. More than one link from the same website is useless</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f0993c10b5.56904374.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>This one is rooted in the idea that, essentially, diversity of linking domains is an important metric. It tends to be the case that sites that have more unique domains linking to them tend to outrank their peers who have only a few sites linking to them, even if lots of pages on those individual sites are providing those links.<br />
<br />
But again, I'm delighted with my animation here of the guys like, "No, don't link to me a second time. Oh, my god, Smashing Magazine." If Smashing Magazine is going to link to you from 10 pages or 50 pages or 100 pages, you should be <strong>thrilled</strong> about that. Moz has several links from Smashing Magazine, because folks have written nice articles there and pointed to our tools and resources. That is great. I love it, and I also want more of those.<br />
<br />
You should definitely not be saying "no." You shouldn't be stopping your link efforts around a site, especially if it's providing <strong>great traffic</strong> and <strong>high-quality visits</strong> from those links pointing to you. It's not just the case that links are there for SEO. They're also there for the direct traffic that they pass, and so you should definitely be investing in those.<br /></p>
<h2>8. Links from non-relevant sites or sites or pages or content that's outside your niche won't help you rank better</h2>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0f0a4813702.12159718.jpg" rel="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" /></p>
<p>This one, I think, is rooted in that idea that Google is essentially looking and saying like, "Hey, we want to see that there's relevance and a real reason for Site A to link to Site B." But if a link is editorial, if it's coming from a high-quality place, if there's a reason for it to exist beyond just, "Hey, this looks like some sort of sketchy SEO ploy to boost rankings," Googlebot is probably going to count that link and count it well.<br />
<br />
I would not be worried about the fact that if I'm coffeekin.com and I'm selling coffee online or have a bunch of coffee resources and corvettecollectors.com wants to link to me or they happen to link to me, I'm not going to be scared about that. In fact, I would say that, the vast majority of the time, off-topic links from places that have nothing to do with your website are actually very, <strong>very helpful</strong>. They tend to be hard for your competitors to get. They're almost always editorially given, especially when they're earned links rather than sort of cajoled or bought links or manipulative links. So I like them a lot, and I would not urge you to avoid those.<br />
<br />
So with that in mind, if you have other link ideas, link myths, or link facts that you think you've heard and you want to verify them, please, I invite you to leave them in the comments below. I'll jump in there, a bunch of our associates will jump in there, folks from the community will jump in, and we'll try and sort out what's myth versus reality in the link building world.<br />
<br />
Take care. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.<br /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/" target="_blank">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/" target="_blank">Speechpad.com</a></p>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-28533575373869113812016-09-08T07:24:00.001-07:002016-09-08T07:24:08.810-07:00Why Content Marketing's Future Depends on Shorter Content and Less Content<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/493595/"">ronell-smith</a></p>
<p>Steve Rayson's latest <a href="http://buzzsumo.com/blog/future-lot-content/" target="_blank">BuzzSumo article</a> is provocative, interesting and well-written. But I do hope he's wrong when he says the future will be about more content, not less. He shares why he thinks content marketing brands will begin producing more content in the days ahead, and how they'll likely be successful by doing so.</p>
<p>Upon reading the piece, I did a facepalm. I was reminded of a conversation I had a few years back, when I walked into the break room of the agency I was working for, and almost bumped into the content specialist on my team.</p>
<p>After we exchanged pleasantries, she informed me of an unwise decision she was about to make.</p>
<p>Her: "Guess what? I'm going to run a marathon."</p>
<p>Me: "Why?"</p>
<p>Her: "I think it'll be fun."</p>
<p>Me: "OK. How many marathons have you run? And have you been training for this one?"</p>
<p>Her: "I've never ran one, but there are a lot of training guides online; they say it only takes 17 weeks to train for it."</p>
<p>Me: "..."</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d04262b548d8.50940299.jpg" alt="57d04262b548d8.50940299.jpg" /></p>
<p>The philosophy of <a href="http://ronellsmith.com/content-strategy/the-production-mindset-is-ruining-content-marketing/" target="_blank">doing a lot what we don't yet do well</a> is ruining content marketing — and the knees, joints and backs of wannabe marathoners.</p>
<p>If you doubt that, please explain why 90% of what's published online barely rises to the level of crap.</p>
<p>Anyone who disagrees with that statement is either (a) fooling themselves or (b) never had to conduct a content audit.</p>
<p>Even for big brands, producing quality content with frequency is seemingly near-impossible task</p>
<p>Therefore, when someone says "create more content," I hear "brands will continue to waste resources that would be better spent elsewhere," for now. Worse still, it means they'll see the failure as not one of execution, but born of content marketing itself.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57cff051a5e331.21709689.jpg" alt="57cff051a5e331.21709689.jpg" /></p>
<p>Rayson is a solid content marketer working for a brand with a strong product. I admire them both. And while I don't mean to attack him, I would like to tackle the logic of the post, which I'll excerpt below.</p>
<p>[<strong>Eds. note:</strong> <em>The primary reason I chose to tackle this topic is because content frequency and content length remain two of the biggest albatrosses impacting our industry. Despite this fact, many fail to see how related they are. That is, many brands are failing fast by chasing the long-form posts and frequent posting unicorn. Also, I'm very clear in understanding that Rayson is not advocating for quantity at the <strong>expense</strong> of quality. My contention is simply that quantity is typically the wrong goal, at least for the vast majority of brands.</em>]</p>
<h2>You're a brand who publishes content, not a brand publisher</h2>
<blockquote><em>The Washington Post now publishes around 1,200 posts a day. That is an incredible amount of content. My initial reaction when I read the statistic was ‘surely that is too much, the quality will suffer, why produce so much content?’ The answer seems to be that it works. The Post’s web visitors have grown 28% over the last year and they passed the New York Times for a few months at the end of 2015.</em></blockquote>
<p>As a former journalist who spent four years in a newsroom, I've always been against the <a href="https://moz.com/blog/you-dont-need-to-be-a-brand-publisher-to-win-at-content-marketing" target="_blank">brands as publisher</a> mantra, in large part because, well, as a brand you ARE NOT a publisher. Publishing content no more makes you a publisher than running 26 miles makes someone a marathoner. Newsrooms are built to produce lots of content.</p>
<p>There are often dozens of editors, copy editors, line editors and writers on staff, so quality control is baked in and a priority. Additionally, a newspaper writer can easily write several stories a day and not break a sweat, owing to an environment that places premium on speed.</p>
<p>By contrast, most many content marketers use junior writers or, worse still, content mills, that deliver low-quality posts for $20.</p>
<p>It's very unlikely that attempting to follow the path of newspapers would prove fruitful.</p>
<p><strong>Better idea</strong>: Determine the cadence with which your brand can create <a href="https://moz.com/blog/how-to-provide-unique-value-in-your-content-whiteboard-friday" target="_blank">uniquely valuable content</a>, which Rand defined and described in a 2015 Whiteboard Friday. The key is to focus the lion's share of your attention on creating content that's exclusive and recognized as best-by-far in its class.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0562dc1a313.02470821.jpg" alt="57d0562dc1a313.02470821.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Will WaPo's strategy work for your brand?</h2>
<blockquote><em>I think whilst it is true that content will take a wider range of forms, including interactive content, the future is not less content but the opposite.<br />
<br />
My reasoning is based on a number of factors including the effectiveness of the strategy adopted by the Post and others. ... As we noted above the number of pages Google has indexed over 7 years from 2008 to 2014 has increased from 1 trillion to 30 trillion.<br />
<br />
That is an increase of 29 trillion pages in 7 years. The number of net additional pages indexed by Google each year appears to be increasing, it was 3 trillion in 2010, 5 trillion in 2012 and 8 trillion in 2014.</em></blockquote>
<p>I'm of the opinion that seeing WaPo's strategy as anything but "effective for them" is a mistake. As anyone who's been around the marketing space for any amount of time can attest, chasing what another brand has been successful at is a bad idea. Yes, you should be aware of what the competition is doing, but seeing their success as anything more than unique to them, or their vertical, is a recipe for pain.<br /></p>
<p>Remember, too, that WaPo isn't selling anything but ad space, not products, so the more real estate the better for them/businesses like them.</p>
<p>Also, the rapid rise in number of pages indexed by Google would seem to highlight one thing: A lot of brands are investing in content; it doesn't mean a lot of brands are being successful with it.</p>
<p><strong>Better idea</strong>: After finding your cadence and nailing quality consistently, test frequency along with elements such as length and content type to find the right balance for your brand.<br /></p>
<blockquote><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d010babc2809.58087145.jpg" alt="57d010babc2809.58087145.jpg" /></blockquote>
<h2>Quality and quantity typically go in the opposite direction</h2>
<blockquote><em>As the costs of production, storage and distribution fell, particularly with online and digital products, it became economically attractive to provide products for the long tail niche audience, in fact revenue from the long tail became greater than the hits because the tail was very long indeed. Companies like Amazon and Netflix were arguably some of the first long tail companies.</em></blockquote>
<p>Unlike WaPo, which buys ink by the proverbial barrel and has a stout staff, most brands have razor-thin content teams, increasing the likelihood that producing more and more content means increased expenditure as new team members must be hired and vetted or contractors are hired.</p>
<p>As I experienced while working for an agency, brands expect that as the cost rises, so too do their rankings and traffic, which is not typically the case. And when those two don't move in lockstep, the spigot is shut off, often for good.</p>
<p><strong>Better idea</strong>: Develop a goal for your content that's in line with your brand's goals, then let your marketing team test and refine the publishing schedule. You're likely to find that the right cadence to nail quality is <em>fewer</em> but <em>bigger</em> content pieces.<br /></p>
<h2>Don't conflate strategy with the goal</h2>
<blockquote><em>By creating over 1,000 pieces of content a day you are more likely to cater for demand in the long tail for specific niche content or simply to produce content that engages a wider audience. ... Sites such as BuzzFeed have also increased their content production, the Atlantic recently reported the following figures:<br />
April 2012 BuzzFeed published 914 posts and 10 videos<br />
April 2016 BuzzFeed published 6,365 posts and 319 videos</em></blockquote>
<p>Again, these are — even in the case of BuzzFeed — media companies we're talking about, so it's not surprising that traffic, frequency and quality can continue in the same direction. For most brands, two out of three is the gold standard and one out of three is the norm.</p>
<p><strong>Better idea</strong>: Stop thinking you're a media company. It's OK to adopt a strategy that includes more frequent publishing, but that strategy must fit inside your brand's overall goals, not vice-versa.</p>
<h2>Shares are the cotton candy of content marketing</h2>
<blockquote><em>When I looked recently at the most shared content published by marketing and IT sites, the data confirmed that on average long form posts achieved more shares. But when I looked in more detail at the 50 most shared posts, 45 of them were short form and under 1,000 words. Thus people are very happy to share short form content and given the pressures on everyone’s time may prefer short form content. ...<br />
<br />
I personally think there is a big opportunity for short form content and I aim to adapt my strategy to focus more on repurposing and republishing short form versions of my research that focus on specific issues. These could be focused around just a single image or chart.</em></blockquote>
<p>On this point, I largely agree with Rayson insofar as <a href="https://moz.com/blog/3-tactics-thatll-make-writing-tighter-as-easy-as-123" target="_blank">shorter content</a>, with rare exception, should be a part of your brand's content strategy (this post notwithstanding). I know, I know, many of you do very well with posts of varying lengths. I get that. What I'm saying is your content should be assigned, not by your whims or the needs of the brand, but by the needs of the audience.</p>
<p>And certainly not based on shares, which, as we know from a recent <a href="https://moz.com/blog/content-shares-and-links-insights-from-analyzing-1-million-articles" target="_blank">Moz and BuzzSumo post</a>, do not correlate with the all-important links.</p>
<p>In many cases and for many brands, shares are a distraction serving to keep our attention away from the important elements of content marketing. I liken them to the cotton candy at the county fair: a lot of puff, but not nearly as filling as that smoked turkey leg.</p>
<p><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/57d0438e9b99b5.91403141.png" alt="57d0438e9b99b5.91403141.png" /></p>
<p>When creating content, we should begin with empathy being top-of-mind. That's when you can allow your inner journalist to soar:</p>
<ul>
<li>Who benefits most from this information (i.e., who, specifically, am I talking to?)</li>
<li>What are their specific needs?</li>
<li>Why is my brand uniquely qualified to satisfy those needs?</li>
<li>How can I best depict and share the information?</li>
<li>When is the optimal time to create, share and promote it?</li>
</ul>
<p>Notice I never mentioned length. That was intentional.</p>
<p>The length of your content should be determined by your audience, not your brand.</p>
<p>A recent study by <a href="http://time.com/12933/what-you-think-you-know-about-the-web-is-wrong/" target="_blank">Chartbeat</a>, which looked at user behavior across 2 billion visits over the web during the course of a month, found that 55% of visitors spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page. 15 seconds!<br /></p>
<p><strong>Better idea</strong>: If readers aren't spending a great deal of time on our site's we should reward them, not punish them: create short but meaty posts; share graphics with a few lines of commentary to invite comments; share videos or podcasts you've enjoyed, as curated content; or ask a question, then be the first answer, nudging others to dive into the fray.</p>
<p>Whatever direction you decide to go in, do so with guidance from your audience and/or would-be audience.</p>
<h2>Imagine a world filled with web searcher advocates</h2>
<p>Again, this post is not meant as an attack on Raysons' post. If anything, I wanted to take the opportunity to reiterate to folks that content marketing isn't an either/or game; it's a long-haul game, a "this and that" game, an iterative game.</p>
<p>As someone who's been made sick from doing deep dives into clients' content, I feel strongly that we often need to protect brands from themselves. Big budgets and large teams don't prevent marketers from making bad decisions.</p>
<p>I've made it clear to prospects and clients that I'm there as an advocate for them, but first and foremost I'm an advocate for web searchers. The more and the better I can help brands be the chosen result (not merely the top result), consistently, the happier we will all be.</p>
<p>Who's willing to join me on the web searcher advocate crusade?</p>
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14682625473420347400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527767491895360348.post-56530417154387754572016-09-08T00:51:00.001-07:002016-09-08T00:51:13.840-07:00The Future of the Moz Community<p>Posted by <a href="/"https://moz.com/community/users/22897/"">Dr-Pete</a></p>
<p>As many of you know, Moz recently went through a <a href="https://moz.com/blog/moz-is-doubling-down-on-search" target="_blank">major reorganization</a>, which included the loss of 28% of our staff. Our Community team was heavily impacted, which has understandably led to speculation about the future of the Moz Community. I want to specifically address those concerns, project by project. The Moz Community is an essential part of our past and future, and while we can’t ignore the reality and difficulty of our recent losses, we believe strongly in our Community and are doing our best to chart a path forward.<br /></p>
<h2>A personal note</h2>
<p>I asked to write this post, knowing it wouldn’t be easy. I’ve been a member of the Moz Community <a href="https://moz.com/community/users/22897" target="_blank">for almost 10 years</a>. When my first YouMoz post was promoted in April 2007, I didn’t realize it would be the start of a decade-long journey. The Moz Community made my career in SEO possible, and I’ll always be grateful for that.</p>
<p>The people affected by the past few weeks are my peers and friends, and I take that loss personally. It’s ok to take that personally. At the same time, there are 160 peers and friends still at Moz trying to figure out how to do more with less, and they believe in our Community, too. We will make mistakes along the way, and we will need your help.</p>
<p>I and the entire Moz team would also like to thank the departing members of the Community team – Jen, Erica, Charlene, and Matt – for all of their contributions over the years building and maintaining a thriving community. This has been a month of difficult decisions driven by both unpleasant financial realities and shifts in Moz strategy, but we do not take their contributions for granted.</p>
<h2>A few clarifications</h2>
<p>Before diving in project-by-project, I’d like to clarify a few points. First, we did not lose the entire Community team – <a href="https://moz.com/about/team/megan" target="_blank">Megan</a> and <a href="https://moz.com/about/team/daniellelaunders" target="_blank">Danielle</a> are still at Moz, and they’ve been with the team since 2011 and 2013, respectively. They know our Community well.</p>
<p>The day-to-day of our main blog is (and has been) run by members of our Audience Development team (<a href="https://moz.com/about/team/trevor" target="_blank">Trevor</a> and <a href="https://moz.com/about/team/felicia" target="_blank">Felicia</a>, with the help of the Marketing team), which is separate from the Community team. Moz Q&A and Social are a joint effort between Community, Customer Support, and a group of dedicated industry experts known as <a href="https://moz.com/about/team/associates" target="_blank">Moz Associates</a>. It takes a lot of hard-working, dedicated people to create a world-class community.</p>
<h2>The Big List</h2>
<p>Here is a list of all of our major Moz Community-focused projects, and the status of those projects as best we know today. I will try to be as transparent as possible.</p>
<h3>(1) MozCon 2016</h3>
<p>Please be assured that <a href="https://moz.com/mozcon" target="_blank">MozCon 2016</a> is full speed ahead. Erica and Charlene graciously agreed to stay with Moz through the conference, and everything will proceed as originally planned. We look forward to seeing many of you in Seattle next week. When you see them, please thank Erica and Charlene for everything they’ve done to make MozCon a great event.</p>
<h3>(2) MozCon 2017</h3>
<p>We’ve had many conversations about MozCon 2017 in the past two weeks, and have committed to moving forward with our flagship event. As originally planned, MozCon 2017 will take place in Seattle, from July 17–19. We realize that an event of the size and quality of MozCon is not an easy thing to pull off, but we have many team members who have been actively involved in past events and we will collectively work hard to maintain the MozCon tradition.</p>
<h3>(3) Moz Blog</h3>
<p>Before Moz was a company and long before it was a product, there was a blog. The Moz Blog has our full support, will remain a core part of our Community, and we will continue to support and update big content projects, including <a href="https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo" target="_blank">The Beginner’s Guide to SEO</a>. We are 100% committed to maintaining strong educational resources for the SEO community.</p>
<h3>(4) YouMoz</h3>
<p>Prior to the reorganization, we had started some difficult conversations about YouMoz. As our Community and the entire world of content marketing has evolved, the quantity of submissions has increased while the quality has suffered. This left our team spending a large amount of time on managing the queue and editing posts. It also meant that good posts had to wait longer to be published, frustrating our best contributors.</p>
<p>In the near future, YouMoz will be phased out in favor of a better guest contributor process and system for the Moz Blog. Our hope is to offer guest authors higher-profile opportunities on the main blog. We will also be exploring ways to allow our community to pitch blog topic ideas without submitting an entire post, to save everyone time and frustration.<br />
<br />
I have a long, personal history with YouMoz, and this is a difficult decision, but as a content marketer I also know that our world has changed dramatically in the past couple of years. We will do our best to adapt to those changes and give our Community the chance to contribute in meaningful ways.</p>
<h3>(5) Moz Q&A</h3>
<p>A few months back, we started looking for a new technology platform for the Q&A forum, one that could better serve our evolving community. Those plans will continue forward. Our Community team is working hard to launch a better Q&A engine that can support both our Moz Pro <em>and</em> Moz Local customer communities, as well as the broader SEO community. We are fully committed to a new and improved Q&A in the coming months that supports a wide range of SEO conversations and helps the next generation of marketers grow in their careers.</p>
<h3>(6) Social media</h3>
<p>Obviously, the Community team had a huge hand in growing and managing our various social channels. Many of those channels have also changed, with Facebook pushing hard toward paid inclusion and Google+ facing an uncertain future. Megan, Danielle, and our Customer Support team are committed to actively supporting Twitter and our other existing channels, even as we look for the best ways to engage our Community in the broader social world.<br />
<br />
We will continue to explore new channels, such as Instagram, as well as better ways to engage with old channels, including LinkedIn. Thanks to support teams in the UK and Australia, we will soon have 24/7 social coverage on major channels.</p>
<h2>The coming months</h2>
<p>Ultimately, our commitment to the Moz Community will be judged by our actions in the coming weeks and months and not just by our words. Our resources are more constrained now, but our dedication is as strong as ever. I’d like to thank all of you for supporting us over the years, and I hope that you will continue this journey with us as we explore the future of the industry and the Community.</p>
<p>If you have specific questions or concerns, please feel free to ask in the comments, and I will do my best to address them (or find someone on our team who can). We look forward to seeing many of you at MozCon next week!</p>
<br />
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