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Content marketing has made SEO link building harder

Yes good content should generate links back to your website and improve SEO perfomance. The challenge is in helping people differentiate between content marketing strategy and SEO link building tactics, and their respective control.

Content marketing starts with a broader marketing objective, using distributed content to help achieve goals, and in some cases linking back to the website is not even part of the implementation. Our focus is on the marketing, with branding, customer development and relationship nurturing as integral components of the campaigns. Content, well controlled and distributed, is king, this is a strategy.

For SEO link building, there is very little, if any direct control of the general content. Yes, you can have some influence with provided content, but the final call is the publisher’s (the more control to exert, the closer you push link building toward content marketing.) This can lead to some odd pairing of relevant content for SEO that does not necessarily play into the brand’s narrative. And this is where folks can get uncomfortable.

Here are some elements of SEO link building that marketers should become comfortable with:

First, the final call is the publishers. You can negotiate to a certain point, but publishers have their own brand and narrative to follow. If they give into the whims of every link partner, the site will lose continuity and eventually lose audience.

Second, a variety of content and sites is a good thing. While all must be relevant to your respective pages, the internet is a tapestry of interests and points of view. Tying into this helps strengthen your pages inbound linking. Remember that this in someone else’s voice connecting to your brand, it is not your brand.

Third, some sites look cheap, but this should not preclude them from consideration. As long as the site is not being dinged by Google and the content is relevant, don’t sweat the aesthetics.

Keeping a focus on link building’s purpose, to show Google that other sites “like” you, understand that this is a popularity contest. While having some high profile, great looking sites should be part of your program, the vast majority of votes will come from sites that are average or below. They still count.

April 12, 2016
Adobe’s Best of the Best – less engagement is good

As designers and marketers, the best thing we can do for our website users is help them get off our sites a fast as possible.

Take a look at Adobe’s study and a few things stand out:

Traffic from smartphones is growing year over year (no surprise)
For some industries desktops remain dominant
Users are visiting less and spending less time when the do

This last one is a key metric, and though counter to conventional wisdom, it is going in the right direction.

For some time companies have looked at engagement metrics the wrong way. The perspective has been ego driven. Two components have been number of visits and amount of time on site. But, unless you are a media and entertainment company (or social), users don’t usually want to be on your site any longer than necessary, nor do the want to have to come back.

Users want to do just a couple of things. One, find information or two, address an issue. In the ideal user experience, they come to your site, see exactly what they need and leave.

If they come directly to the site, the home page should be designed in such a way that people can get to the key area quickly and easily. If they use a search engine to get to your site, your pages should be optimized so that they land on the most relevant content to their search. If you do your job right and improve content and navigation, users should actually spend less time, view fewer pages and conclude their activity faster. Making this happen requires resources, including your time and attention.

Take a look at the Adobe report and you will see that the Top 20 sites in each category generally have much better performance metrics than the average. Average time spent is declining. To me, this indicates better UX and content planning is being optimized to user experiences. We need to consider KPIs based on what users are trying to do on the site. This may mean less time and fewer pages consumed.

March 31, 2016
AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages

The Problem AMP and FIA Fix

Behind the scenes a browser sorts through a whole bunch of code that tells it how to present the content. This code is an agreed upon standard. Unfortunately, it is not really designed for easy mobile access to information such as news stories or blog articles.

Standard html and the associated scripts, styles and other bits of code take a lot to process. We don’t notice it too much on desktops and laptops because our computers have become extremely powerful and can easily handle all that code and present the web pages to the users.

The complexity allows web developers to create very elaborate websites with a great deal of functionality. But when we are simply looking for information, all this elaborate foundation just gets in the way. This is particularly true on mobile devices that are not powerful enough nor do they have the screen real estate needed to process and present the pages well. Responsive design only addresses part of the problem, arranging elements or hiding them for mobile presentation- but they are still there taking bandwidth and time. Often mobile users will simply back out of the page rather than wait for it to load.

The AMP and FIA solution(s)

The answer to this issue is to streamline the content and the code that is used to present the content, and eliminate the unnecessary functionality.

AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages – is the Open Source project (backed by Google) designed to help companies make their website content more accessible for mobile devices.

Facebook’s approach to this is Facebook Instant Articles which does the same thing, but for now is focused on the Facebook ecosystem.

The focus is on the unique article content. By using the amp method, you process and display just the information unique to that article and do so in a simplified way. Below is the regular page next to the amp version of one of our posts..

Using this method lets the content be streamlined for faster processing and makes it easier for the information to be cached on the different servers. This has two great benefits. When the content is indexed it is stored on the servers (in this case Google, but any server can do this because it is an open source effort) so the server does not have to always come back to the site every time a person wants to see the information. The trip to get the information is shorter. Secondly, the format is something that mobile devices can process very quickly, eliminating a great deal of the wait time.

AMP and SEO

Duplicate Content?
If executed properly, this is not an issue. On the amp page, standard canonical ref will tell the engines the original page sources (standard practice).

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://fd.idatatools.com/blog/2016/02/google-compare-shutting-down/” />

While the original page provides a reference to the amp page so the indexing site can pick up the mobile friendly (amp) version.

<link rel=”amphtml” href=”https://fd.idatatools.com/blog/2016/02/google-compare-shutting-down/amp/” />

As Google pushes further down the mobile friendly path, more weight will be placed on content that delivers quickly and easily to mobile devices. For those companies that rely on their blog and news content to attract more people, this will have a significant impact. AMP was initiated in October of 2015 and you can see in GWT / Search Console what pages on the site are being ‘flagged’ for not being AMP friendly. While we have not yet seen a degradation in the results directly tied to this, it is just a matter of time.

At the moment the SEO landscape does not have a lot of competition with AMP pages. That will change and when it does, the search engines will have a choice between your content and content that is “AMPlified”. Guess who wins.

February 25, 2016
Google Compare Shutting Down

Google will close down its lead gen platform, Google Compare, by the end of March. Compare was, as the name infers, a way for shoppers to compare pricing and get quotes for services focused primarily in finance and insurance. After a 12 month run, Google sent an email to the partners letting them know that the lead gen platform was being eliminated.

Optimizing for clicks is one thing. Optimizing for conversions at various target CPAs, for different brands and products is a whole different game. Getting someone to click on the ad is just the beginning of the challenge.

When I was at Leapfrog Online we managed and optimized these programs for financial services, automotive and telecom all the way through the pipeline to the sale. Supplying leads is one thing (we generated our own), but managing them through to process, to optimize what works and either fix or trash what doesn’t is not just an algorithm. It’s about people and it is hard.

The lead gen space is tricky. It requires constant attention. The companies getting the leads need quality, at an affordable price, consistently. But, it doesn’t stop there. At different points, the companies will have an initiative and need more volume and are willing to pay for it, but only for certain segments and only if the volume actual goes over a minimum amount. There is a constant dialogue about the quality of the leads, placement of the client, and requests for more information; constant hand holding.

I am guessing that this side of the equation is not what Google was counting on. It requires resources well beyond media optimization. It requires a lot resources to manage the customers.

It may be that Google’s target margins for their operating units are just too high for the lead gen space. Perhaps good quality leads were coming from Google Compare. Whether Google was good at it or not, there is a lead gen community both breathing a sigh of relief and muttering “I told you it wasn’t that easy.”

February 23, 2016
Big changes coming to Google paid search results

Fewer Ads to Show on Google Search Results Page – No Right Sidebar

Google will remove the right sidebar ads from desktop search results, globally. There is an exception for product listing ads only.

In some cases Google may add a fourth ad to the top results if it is a localized (inferred or explicit) commercial query.

The change in Google search results is big, no two ways about it.

The impact on cost per click and click through rates will be seen quickly, as will impressions.

If you are a position 3 or higher player in adwords, then expect an upward cost pressure. Those who are normally on the right side of the first page will have to make a decision, drop to virtually no impressions or start bidding up the landscape to try to make it to the top three positions. It is one thing to accept lower CTRs while on the right sidebar. Its another to get virtually nothing.

For those who played the right sidebar, they are coming to a crossroads. To continue to be in Adwords with any real volume of clicks, they will have to pay more, perhaps much more. If they are not willing to do that, then one has to question if being in the game at all is worth it. The time it takes to manage a program well has a cost on top of the media spend. Is there enough volume at the bottom of page one, or pages two+ to justify the time? Something to seriously consider.

For those who stay in the game, what is the best next step?
Most companies have a limited budget. With the increase in CPC, this will get tapped out more quickly. Within any program there is an “averaging” that happens. Some clicks are more valuable, others less so, but to get the volume, the managers accept the range and average to the target. PPC manager will have to tighten up and shift to the higher end of that range. This could be more narrowly defining the keywords, dayparting, geography or ad copy. If you are not familiar with the top performing segments of your program, do the analysis asap. You have decisions to make.

Revisit the landing pages.
If you can’t decrease the cost of the click, you need to make the click more valuable. Too many programs become complacent with landing pages. It takes a lot to do it well, so there is an aversion at times to putting in the effort. Use this as an opportunity to refocus on conversion rate optimization. Make each click worth more to your program.

Impact on SEO?
There is also an argument to be made that this move puts an emphasis on organic search results. As users have fewer paid options to click on, will they take the organic into higher consideration? This is something to be watched very carefully. Know where your page one keywords are landing people on your site and monitor them carefully. Really optimize the description tags and titles for ctr. You have an opportunity here, take it.

Google’s decision to change paid search results is going to have a broad impact and be a real pain for some programs. Look at it as an opportunity to focus and leverage more of what works, weed out the borderline stuff and increase the value of each click.

February 21, 2016
Video Advertising – bike style

Video advertising is all around us in different forms. From the computer and phone to large outdoor billboards. But, this video advertising platform form Kino-mo is totally cool.

The technology has the video reflecting off the spokes of the wheels while the bike is in motion. Relying on the visual trickery of the spokes seeming to form a solid surface, the video projects and then reflect off them.

Aside from being attention getting and really awesome, this provides opportunities where people can see the video in places that might have been off the table before. They trick is to create something with impact in the few seconds a passerby might see the bike.

For more on this platform, check out http://kino-mo.com/bikes

February 12, 2016
What to look for in a search marketing agency
Organizational and cultural fit.

There are a lot of search marketing agencies out there. And, putting our competitive natures aside, there is a lot of good talent spread throughout. Often it is not the competencies of the search marketers themselves, but the culture of the agency that will determine if they are a good fit for your company.

Because of the nature of search marketing, virtually all agencies share characteristics. The difference comes in the mix of things such as reliance on bid management automation, reporting tools, processes and procedures, newbies vs highly experienced staff, and media partner relationships. Where companies put their focus directs where their culture goes, or their culture drives their focus, depending on the agency. Even this nuance says a lot about the fit.

Price based agency

Some client companies are price driven. There is a culture of tough negotiation and getting the cost for everything to the bare minimum. There are some search marketing agencies that thrive in this environment. Some characteristics include very regimented processes, standardized reporting and a heavy reliance on automation to offset a higher mix of newbies vs experienced search marketers. Essentially these are good for marketers who are purely price driven and don’t need / want high touch search management.

Cutting edge agency

I’ve seen clients who are heavily focused on being cutting edge. They like the bragging rights that come with always being the first to try new technologies, be in all the betas, and blog about how they were “there first”. Search agencies that do this well tend to be larger, often combined with other digital marketing capabilities, have a lower dependence on automation and standardization. You’ll typically find a higher mix of more experienced search marketers vs newbies. Generally, these elements have a higher price tag, but that comes with the ‘cutting edge’ search marketing label. For some brands this is a great fit.

Performance focused agency

Performance based search marketing agencies focus in on maximizing a client’s goals for each dollar spent. We didn’t say ROI because some companies can’t directly measure it. But, they do have goals that are important such as leads, content consumption, engagement, sharing etc. While the ideal is to measure direct ROI, the inability to do that does not preclude these companies from setting goals and optimizing their search marketing accordingly. These agencies tend to be more balanced in their approach because optimizing programs depends on the nuances of the programs; they can’t be too rigid yet they need the capacity to focus. They test into new areas (usually a predefined portion of the budget) and keep what works, trash what doesn’t. Often this is where knowing what to do when search marketing best practices aren’t working and how to integrate that with automation tools comes into play. Clients who can or want to start setting goals and developing reporting to guide decisions (not just fill up in boxes) work well with these agencies.

Starting down the right search path

For those looking for a search marketing partner, the trick in all of this is to be honest with your assesment of your own company. Too often, we’ve seen companies say they are performance based yet negotiated for a price point that simply cannot support the mix of talent to do that. Or, they’ll say they are performance based, but then constantly push for the new stuff (ie, unproven). Not properly managed, new stuff blows up performance based search marketing programs. As companies seek a new search marketing agency, they first need to prioritize their own objectives. One isn’t better than the other, but they all require different approaches and most agencies are simply better suited for one versus the others.

So, what kind of search marketing agency is Fanatically Digital?
- We focus on our clients’ program performance.
- We use bid automation and reporting software to help manage the daily flow of search efficiently.
- We employee search marketing experts to oversee programs and develop recommendations to make them more effective.
- We implement Google Analytics to provide nuanced understanding of users activities.
- Our reports are developed for each client to focus on the key elements of their program so we can, together, make well informed decisions.
We offer our clients the option to be deeply involved with access to our own project management tools so they can (if they desire) know exactly where we are in our program management and optimization processes.
January 20, 2016
FTC Issues Guidelines on Native Advertising

Ever read an article on the internet that has a link embedded in it that appears to be linking to information similar to the article, only to click on it and be pitched with something that is, at best, only remotely related to the original content? You’re not alone. This is Native Advertising at its worst. Native Advertising is intentionally created to look like part of the content in order to give it credibility in the eyes of the reader. The publishers and advertisers tried to make it appear okay by calling it promoted content, as if the content was independent of the advertisers. The deception got the attention of the FTC a couple of years back and now the body has given 11-pages of guidance for advertisers on, well, how to be honest.

Those little in content ads lead to big revenue. According to SocIntel360 spending on these ads will climb to $8.8B by 2018. This is not an insignificant amount of advertising. With the new FTC guidance advertisers will need to be more clear on the nature of the advertising and so I wonder if the $8.8B project is still inline. With the new guidelines, there may be fewer clicks reducing the spend for pay per click deals and the negated fee for placement deals.

However, the expense is not necessarily representative of the value. Advertisers may receive less traffic, but that traffic comes with higher intent as the initial ad was clearly identified as such. If done well, it can add value to the user experience and the value of each interaction, on average, will increase. Time will tell.

The IAB and publishers are not overly concerned, though the IAB did express some reservation about the wording in one section that refers to advertisers / publishers clearly identifying the content as an ad. There is more on their response in the Ad Age article on the FTC action.

For now, the key elements of the FTC guidelines are here: FTC Native Ad Guidelines. The FTC provides direction on placement, prominence and clarity of meaning (it’s an Ad). The better publishers have been trying to keep the content and the ads relevant to their reader base and seem not to have any issue here.

The guidelines give plenty of examples and instructions. They also reference the 2013 guidelines for making disclosures. So, the new ad format still needs to follow basic disclosure practices.

An interesting note, and something that may eventually spur publisher concern is that the language refers to both publisher and advertiser responsibility in clear disclosures. Previously, it has been the advertisers’ responsibility. With the addition of the publishers on the block, it we may see them being more assertive in monitoring and enforcing guidelines.

December 31, 2015
SEO: Don’t underestimate the basic practices

Over the years SEO tactics have evolved to try to keep up with the changes in how Google ‘enforces’ what it considers to be quality websites and content. As we engage with new clients we see that many of the problems are related to ignoring the basics in favor of chasing the latest tactics. It is not that we should put aside these tactics, but they should be employed judiciously and only when the basics are covered. It is what we refer to as good SEO hygiene. Keeping your site clean helps avoid surprises and saves time in the long run. While SEOs can argue over priority, here are the areas we usually address first either because of their volume or their importance.

Image alt elements are a lost opportunity for most sites

The base intent of the “alt” elements(alternative text) is for a better user experience for the visually impaired users, as the alt text is used to say what is in the image. Search engines also use this information to identify the image content, as well as affirm the connection to the content on the page itself. Additionally, should the image not load in the browser, the alt text will appear in its place.

Key to good alt text is an accurate description of the image content. Without spamming the text, it should provide the subject description and setting of the image. Chances are, if the alt text is one or two words, it is not enough to provide useful information for the users or the search engines. Keep the description focused and thorough to give the search engine enough to connect the image content clearly with the page content. (google on image optimization)

H1 tags: none or too many

H1 Tags (and subsequent H tags) are your way to indicate the primary subject area of the page. It should be a few words covering the broadest scope of the page content, using lower Hn tags to indicate sub-content. Generally, the more focused you can make your content subject matter while providing useful information, the better.

We tend to see one of two errors. First, no H1 tags. This is a relatively simple fix provided you’ve done the keyword research to identify the best way to identify the content.

The second issue is too many H1 tags. We see this when developers / designers decide to take a shortcut and use H1 tags because of their styling. Take the time to create a css style that will be used for paragraph or content area titles instead of using the H1 tags.

Duplicate content on… everything

From page titles and meta descriptions to page content duplication, we see this a lot. The culprit is typically a CMS that was not configured or implemented properly. The CMS may use categories and tags that create folders. If you apply more than one tag or category to a page, there will be more than one url leading to the page. There are other causes, but these tend to be among the most frequently seen.

Duplicate content is not good, but engines have a tolerance for it when it’s on your own site. However, the issue is that the inbound links to your site on a given topic are diluted if they are spread among duplicate pages of the same content. By directing the inbound and internal links to a single source page, you increase the juice or PageRank of that page relative to the topic.

Take the time to understand the CMS implementation and plan your categories, tags or other content organizational standards, and prioritize or eliminate components (use 301s if you eliminate). If you cannot eliminate duplicate content, select a primary page source and use canonical ref of all other pages to it, so the search engines know which page to give the ‘juice’ to.

Broken Links lead to 404s and empty images

Companies have to move fast nowadays and sometimes that means never looking back. But, when this happens we often see things break, but prospective clients didn’t notice. You’re giving up historical benefits and potential content validations when links break. Perusing your site, if it is not too big, or using SEO audit tools can help keep you on top of broken links.

Counting for, not against

We have seen some SEOs dismiss issues like this on the basis that the engines can be forgiving as long as the ‘important’ content is clean. However, overall site quality will eventually be affected, which will impact your rankings as user experience deteriorates. On the other side, you are foregoing the benefits derived from juice flowing freely through your site. While the algorithms change and the weight given to anyone aspect of SEO alters, keeping your basic site hygiene up will decrease the impact of any algorithm changes.

December 14, 2015
How you can leverage programmatic buying

Adadyn conducted research with MORAR to get a better feel for perceptions and actions of digital shoppers. The focus is holiday season, but the lessons are applicable year round.

Consumers don’t hate ads
As much hype as ad blocking technology has received in the last year or so, it does not truly represent the actions of the consumers. Most consumers actually find ads useful if properly targeted. By applying what we know about the users, we can increase the likelihood that they will not just click on the ad, but take action on the site… like buy the products.

More men than women shop online on a Weekly basis
While women are “the shoppers”, men are more likely to shop online on a weekly basis (36% for men, 29% for women.) It is likely that women shop more, but men just avoid the stores by doing more of their shopping online. Whatever the motive, online advertisers should not ignore the preferences men have for online shopping.

Remind shoppers with your ads
Remarketing has been a powerful tool for online advertisers. Once a person has demonstrated interest in your company or products, they become key prospects for ‘closing the sale.’ Go beyond the simple retargeting by tracking the products or services viewed while on your site and use those product images in your ads. While some advertisers may not be able to do a one for one product to ad creation(there are technologies to help), at the very least, categorize your products by associated pages and deliver more relevant ads. These relevant ads are found useful by nearly 70% of users when shopping.

Local still matters for online shoppers
Use geo targeting to create local relevance. Even though people are shopping online, they have a preference for businesses that are nearby (71%). Let them know you are there. For national advertisers, reminding the shoppers of local stores may also help.

Programmatic buying, really?
Yes. The term brings forth images of highly complex algorithms that require PHDs to create, and in many ways it does. But the magic of the tools is that they have made the application of basic programmatic buying available for the masses. This is especially true as you consider the 80/20 rule. Much of the benefits of these highly targeted ads are available with the very basic tools.

Geo targeting is build into nearly every ad platform. It may take a little time to create your targets and ads, but it is worth doing.

Targeting ads based on the content users viewed is also a common feature of many ad platforms. Segment your URLs by content type. The more narrowly you can define these types, the more targeted you can make your ads. Again, this can take a bit of time to setup and manage, but the benefits of doing so can be fantastic, especially when you consider that your potential customer wants to see this.

Take the above and layer on demographics and interest profiles (again, available in some ad platforms) and you can begin to develop highly targeted, effective ads. Many ad platforms will create “like” targets based on your website users, extending the targeting beyond remarketing. These are a bit “black box” and should be tested into cautiously, but it does provide another opportunity for targeting likely prospects.

Do not let the term ‘programmatic buying’ put you back. Take advantage of the low hanging fruit of programmatic now, and over time as the PHDs continue to make the complex simple, expand your access to even more benefits of programmatic buying.

November 30, 2015