Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
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Bing Ads has a conversion tracking fix for Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention http://ift.tt/2ErLxHa In September, Google announced its solution to maintain campaign tracking from Safari, with a new Google Analytics cookie. Now Bing is introducing its method for addressing the challenge of tracking ad clicks from Safari posed by Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP). Some advertisers may have noticed an alert in their Bing Ads accounts to enable auto-tagging of Click ID “for accurate conversion tracking”. You guessed it, this has to do with Bing Ads’ solution to ITP tracking issues. Checking the box will automatically tag destination URLs with the Microsoft Click ID. It can be set at the account level under URL options in the Shared Library as shown in the screenshot below. Some advertisers will already have the Microsoft Click ID auto-tagging enabled. Its what underpins Bing Ads’ offline conversion imports, for example. First, a quick overview of ITP, and then we’ll get into how Bing Ads’ solution actually works. What is Intelligent Tracking Prevention?With ITP, third-party cookies deemed able to track users across sites can only be used in a third-party context for 24 hours from the time a user visits a website via Safari. After 24 hours, those cookies can only be used for supporting user log-ins. After 30 days, the cookies are purged entirely. For marketers, that means that unless a user converts within 24 hours of visiting an advertiser’s site after clicking an ad, for example, third-party cookies are purged and conversion tracking is lost. As a result, with Safari accounting for nearly 50 percent of mobile web traffic share in North America by some measures, ITP has the potential to make a mess of mobile ad conversion attribution. The fix: Microsoft Click ID and Universal Event TrackingBing Ads uses the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag to power conversion tracking. The tag, when placed on advertiser sites, captures what users do once they click through from an ad, including conversion actions they take. Like Google, Bing is responding to ITP with a method that is in line with Apple’s guidance around ad attribution, which states, “We recommend server-side storage for attribution of ad impressions on your website. Link decoration [ e.g., padding links with information] can be used to pass on attribution information in navigations.” Note: only the JavaScript version of the UET tags supports the ability to set these cookies. If you’re using the non-JS version, you might consider switching. When advertisers enable auto-tagging for the Microsoft Click ID, or MSCLIKID, the following process occurs:
This applies for conversions happening outside of the 24 hour window after a user visits the advertiser’s site. If a conversion happens within the 24 hours, the Microsoft cookie will still be present, and Bing Ads will use the IDs in that cookie for attribution as it does currently. Without auto-tagging enabled, the _uetmsclkid first party cookie won’t be set and Safari/ITP will likely purge the third-party UET/Microsoft cookie after the 24 hour window. The solution is already working for advertisers that enabled auto-tagging for other purposes. For everyone else, it will start working as soon as it’s enabled at the account level as shown above.It will also be selected by default when creating new conversion goals. As with Google’s solution, this fix only addresses tracking for attribution, it does not address how retargeting works (or doesn’t after 24 hours) on Safari. Bing Ads says is working on a solution for that. About The AuthorAs Third Door Media's paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/1BDlNnc January 31, 2018 at 06:00AM
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SearchCap: Google featured snippets, Bing Ads audience segmentation & link building http://ift.tt/2rQHMIm Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Google featured snippets, Bing Ads audience segmentation & link building appeared first on Search Engine Land. Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/1BDlNnc January 30, 2018 at 03:01PM Daily Search Forum Recap: January 30, 2018 http://ift.tt/2FuOBS6 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Search Engine Roundtable Stories: Other Great Search Forum Threads: SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://ift.tt/1sYxUD0 January 30, 2018 at 03:00PM
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Google publishes comprehensive guide to featured snippets http://ift.tt/2DOeVWG Google has published one of the most comprehensive explanations yet of their featured snippets in a post on the search blog. Featured snippets, in short, are the quick direct answers you see at the top of the Google search results page that appear in response to some search queries. In this blog post, Google explains what featured snippets are, the various user interfaces and treatments you can get from these featured snippets and how they interact with desktop, mobile and voice search results. Google says featured snippets are important for mobile search and with voice-activated digital assistants. Google said “in these cases, the traditional ’10 blue links’ format doesn’t work as well, making featured snippets an especially useful format.” Google added that they will “continue to show regular listings in response to searches along with featured snippets.” That is “because featured snippets aren’t meant as a sole source of information…. …they’re part of an overall set of results we provide, giving people information from a wide range of sources,” Google added. Here are some of the screen shots of normal featured snippets that Google may show to searchers on desktop or mobile: In addition, those suggested video clips, which jump directly into a video result, are also a form of featured snippets. Google said they “recently launched” this experience, but it has been live for at least the past several months: Those who use Google Assistant or Google Home devices can access their full search results later, when they get to their mobile phone, within the Google Home app. In the post, Google explains that their featured snippets are not perfect — acknowledging cases of inaccurate or insensitive information, people trying to vandalize the results and spam issues. Google admits they have more work to do and will continue to improve these results over time. As evidence, Google points to their voice quality raters guidelines and those efforts to improve the quality of those results. Google shared how they may explore showing more featured snippet results to offer more diversity, in the form of adding a “more results” link under a featured snippet: Or featured snippet tags, to refine the query: Or showing more options to your question with multiple featured snippet boxes right away in the search results: “There are often legitimate diverse perspectives offered by publishers, and we want to provide users visibility and access into those perspectives from multiple sources,” said Matthew Gray, a Google software engineer. We’ve covered time and time again how featured snippets sometimes get it wrong. Google asks that you submit feedback using the “Feedback” link found within the featured snippets so that the company can continue to make improvements over time. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/1BDlNnc January 30, 2018 at 12:00PM
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Google Explains Why the New Search Console Has Missing Data by @MattGSouthern http://ift.tt/2DNk853 A recently published Google help document explains why reports are missing in the new Search Console. There are two fairly straightforward reasons for the missing data. 1. It Hasn’t Been Migrated YetThe first and most likely reason why some reports are missing from the new search console is that Google simply hasn’t migrated them yet. Google is still in the process of building the new search console— keep in mind it’s still in the very early stages of a public beta. It will take some time before all the reports are migrated. Google notes that more reports will be added in the coming quarters. 2. There’s a Better Way to Present the DataNot every report will be migrated exactly the same way it exists in the classic version of search console. There may be a better way to present the data, according to Google. In some cases there may even be a few different types of data combined into one report. Google also notes that some reports, which once stood on their own as top-level reports, are now part of a flow. If you haven’t found the data you’re looking for, and it exists in the classic search console, then you may find it by looking in other reports. Rest assured that Google will not just stop showing important Search Console data to users. Missing data either hasn’t been migrated yet, or it has been moved to a different report. If the data you need isn’t in the new Search Console right now then you can always toggle back and forth between the new and classic versions. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh January 30, 2018 at 11:18AM
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Can Social Live Video Help SEO? Yes, Here’s How by @amelioratethis http://ift.tt/2BCdt7T Live social video is all the rage, but it isn’t just something the social media marketers and brand managers should care about. Social livestreaming can boost your SEO, too – if you do it right. Freshness, dwell time, chatter. These are all important factors that can help your SEO, and they’re all natural qualities of social live video. Keep reading to understand how you can use social live video to amplify your organic reach. Social Live Video: Stand Out in a Crowded NewsfeedSocial marketers freak out about Facebook algorithm changes the way SEO pros do about Google’s updates. Social networks are on a constant mission to do everything within their power to strongarm brands into playing exclusively on their networks. Some platforms, like Instagram, notoriously don’t even allow links in posts. Others, like Facebook or LinkedIn, do a bait and switch: sure, you can add links to your posts, but only at the cost of it then getting heavily deprioritized by the algorithm in the main feed. As marketers, we get it – it’s good for their ad dollars and their stockholders to keep users in-network, but it sucks for our brands. What’s an SEO pro to do? This is where social live video comes in. By 2021, experts predict video will represent 82 percent of internet traffic. Consumers want more content from the brands they follow, but 80 percent would prefer it take the form of live video over a blog. It’s no surprise, then, that Facebook claims live videos generate 600 percent more interactions. Here’s the best part: some platforms, like Facebook, make it a point to boost “live” content in their feed. With Facebook consistently making it near impossible for brands to show up in the news feed, social live video is one way that still works. Social live video is no longer opt-in; it’s required. Brands must create social livestreams that delight their followers. The key is to make it good for your SEO, too. Focus on the Right Social Media PlatformsWhile everyone’s hopping aboard the social livestream train, certain platforms are friendlier for brands. For your live video to succeed from both a social and an organic perspective, you need to choose the right social network.
I’ll save some of your work for you – the clear winners here are YouTube Live and Facebook Live. Instagram Live disappears 24 hours later while Meerkat doesn’t offer a replay option, and Twitch isn’t really applicable unless you’re in the gaming industry. But with Facebook Live, you can create a permanent post, download your video for embedding on your own website, add a description to your post, and review analytics during and after your stream. YouTube Live offers the same features – and it’s owned by Google. Enough said. Amplify Your Other Marketing ChannelsLive streams in and of themselves are not a go-to SEO option. The SEO comes when you use social live video to improve results from your other channels, from events to content marketing. As they say, a rising tide lifts all ships. The more social video you create, the more you have to embed on your related blog posts or landing pages. Once the stream is over, you can update your video description with links to said blog posts or landing pages to drive traffic. Videos do wonder for your dwell time – video watchers tend to click through to 2.3 pages per visit, and they’ll stay on your website for up to six times as long as a visitor who doesn’t see any video. YouTube videos are often pulled for featured snippet results, which is one way social live video can directly impact your SEO. But you can hack your other popular content tactics into compelling live streams for an added, albeit indirect, SEO boost. Product TutorialsHow-to videos are among the most popular type of YouTube video. Instead of a traditional tutorial, make yours exciting by filming live. Benefit Cosmetics has done this to great success with their weekly Tipsy Tricks series. Their products are so simple to use, you can apply them over drinks with friends. Event MarketingSocial live video gets more people talking about, hyped up for, and attending your event. In fact, this is one of the most common types of livestreams you’ll see. Before social live video, only people at an event got to enjoy it, while others would read about it afterwards. With social live video, you can infinitely scale your audience and invite all your Facebook fans to enjoy it, too. Promote, Promote, PromoteAs with any campaign, promotion is essential to a successful live video. Hype your livestream beforehand to drive eyeballs and increase your visibility on the platform when you do go live.
The more eyes see your video, the more click-through you’ll see for your links, and the better the long-term visibility of the video overall. One of the best ways to promote your live stream is simply to do it often. The more consistent you are about going live, the more your fans will look out for it, driving views. Remember that precious “freshness” factor? It doesn’t just apply to content on your own site. Google pays attention to how much people are talking about you online. If there’s a surge in people talking about you on Facebook from your latest live video, you can bet Google’s going to notice. Go LiveDuring the live stream itself, follow social live video best practices You can permanently post videos on YouTube and Facebook for long-term visibility, but you’ll get the most eyes for your video while it’s live, so you want to make the most of it.
Keep the Ball Rolling Once You PublishOnce you finish live streaming, publish the video to your page and follow all the steps in your typical SEO checklist for regular video. This includes:
ConclusionThere’s an inherent urgency built into live stream video that makes it irresistible to watch. Just imagine if you can put that momentum to work for your SEO. More Video Marketing Resources: Image Credits SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh January 30, 2018 at 11:18AM
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What to get right before launching a global business http://ift.tt/2nrvKQn Taking your brand to an international stage is exciting. You reach untapped audiences and expose your brand, product and services to a global market! But with every great opportunity come challenges, and a global presence means time and resources must be dedicated to understanding new buying habits, laws, and, of course, online behaviors. Today, search results are more and more personalized, and they vary by country, even if browsers, devices and search terms remain the same. With the search engines constantly changing and evolving, what happens when you add the international component to your website? Before you kick off a global campaign, it’s important to develop a marketing strategy with a local audience in mind. Consider the following four points on how to best engage your target audience, bridge cultural differences and successfully promote your brand globally. Become familiar with regional laws & regulationsWhen you market to a global audience, your brand should be aware of all regional regulations on specific products, advertising and sales tactics. A thorough understanding of tax, customs and corporate laws is essential, as these laws can be decisive factors in determining if the expansion is worth the cost. In many regions, advertising specific products is subject to approval by the government or various governing bodies. For example, in many countries, pharmaceutical ads must be approved by health bureaus. In the United States, competition is encouraged, but there are very strict principles in place for competitive messaging. Wireless providers will often describe themselves as having the best service and coverage across the states. Due to the misleading sales tactics, this isn’t common or even permissible in other countries. Offering a sale or sweepstakes? There is a high likelihood it is different across borders. Make sure your sales and promotions tactics don’t conflict with the nation’s laws before running them. Same goes for your actual product line. When you’re selling products to an international audience, those products are subject to developmental regulations concerning safety, materials, performance and sizing. Create a global-friendly websiteThere are a few steps to properly optimize your site design for ultimate flexibility for global visitation. There are several considerations when developing an international website, but these few considerations are imperative:
Customize SEO strategiesTaking your search engine marketing strategies international is a mixture of the right search engines, understanding keywords and localizing your content. Discover which search engines are used in the markets you’re going to target. In the United States, we know Google, Bing and Yahoo to be the top search engines. Globally, however, this is very different. Often, other countries use more localized search engines, as English-language based search engines do not always work as well for niche, cultural content. It’s important to work with native speakers with expertise in search marketing to develop content and optimize your website. This local connection will allow you to discover the best native keywords that should be associated with your site and its corresponding content. Don’t serve second-rate content to your international audiences on your website or through social media; localize your messaging for each market you serve. Understand new culturesWhen you’re looking to expand globally, it is important to become familiar with the local audience. Consider working alongside a local professional. The hands-on experience will take you farther than reading books and reports. By getting to know other cultures and respecting their customs, you will have an easier time expanding your message globally. Before you understand a new culture, it is crucial to improve cross-cultural competency and understand the cultural or operational barrier to marketing success. Having your content and marketing message translated is a good start, but having translated content in place is not enough. Understanding the culture and its norms can have a significant impact on the perception an audience has of your brand. Final thoughtsWhen expanding your business into global markets, your goal is to broaden your exposure and make it easy for an international audience to find your website. By understanding new cultures and tweaking your search engine marketing, site design and social media outreach, you will pave the way to successful international marketing. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorThomas Stern oversees the architecture and evolution of our services lines as Chief Innovation Officer at ZOG Digital. He has over 10 years of digital marketing experience through a range of industries like retail, insurance and travel/hospitality. He has been featured in numerous digital marketing publications, has received graduate level internet marketing education and is a board member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) Arizona. Follow us on Twitter @ZOGDigital. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/1BDlNnc January 30, 2018 at 09:40AM
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Channel your inner explorer to find link-building prospects http://ift.tt/2DZh8C0 Every time I conduct an in-house survey and ask my linking team, “What do you think is the hardest part of your job,” they answer, “The discovery process!” Just to clarify, when they say “discovery,” they are referring to the process of finding new sites to contact for a link. They are right; it is one of the hardest aspects of link building. I feel their pain. When I am building links, I can go through 10 search engine results pages (SERPs) and not find a single website I think is worth reaching out to. Sometimes I get lucky and find five in the top 20 results, but overall, it is getting harder and harder to find good prospects. Coming up with ways to find new sites is tough, my link builders complain all the time. They brainstorm as a team, but I wonder what solo practitioners do? If you work on your own, how do you keep the creative juices going and dream up new angles for finding prospects? Here are a handful of ways to channel your inner explorer and find quality link-building prospects. Ideas from the clientIt is rare to have clients who don’t know which keywords they view as significant. We can conduct keyword research for them, but they usually have this information, plus industry jargon, so we use their primary keywords as a starting point for discovery. When you start the research process, it’s good to have everything written down. Use any system you’re comfortable with. I’m loyal to Evernote. I have a master “note” for each client where I list all the information they give me. When I get stuck during the discovery process, the first thing I do is re-read the entire note and ask a few questions: 1. What are some keywords you rank for but don’t seem to convert? 2. What are some keywords you aren’t highlighting in existing content? 3. What keywords do a few of your employees think are valuable for you? I add these “new” words into my notes, list them as secondary keywords and add a handful of quick thoughts so I now have a good list of basic information and terminology to research. Here is a typical brainstorm list I create: Don’t forget all your modifiers — normal terms plus words you think might be a little crazy. We have a few employees who use mild curse words in their search strings with great results! Ask very specific questions when you are searching, enter incorrect statements and then compare and contrast, like this:
I would add these searches into my discovery sources and then head to my tools and resources to help with the next step. Helpful toolsOver the years, I have refined my research process and now only use a handful of tools during the discovery phase. Link Prospector from Citation Labs is the main tool I use when prospecting. I used to be very anti-tools for the discovery process, preferring to search manually, but my team and I feel using Link Prospector speeds things up, so we use it. The tool also lists sites you may have missed when searching by hand. I tend to only look at the top 10 results when searching manually, but Link Prospector digs much deeper and brings back more opportunities, which is extremely helpful. You can customize your report in various ways, filter the final version and export whatever you like. I tend to export paths rather than the domains and then sort the spreadsheet by different variables, looking at the higher-rated results first. I also use Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts in the discovery process and find I get different results from each. Since they are free, I recommend you use both and set alerts for your brand, URL, your primary keywords and anything else you think might be helpful. If you aren’t using alerts, you may be missing out on discovery potential, content ideas and taking advantage of unlinked mentions of your brand. Using social media for discoveryWhen it comes to social media, I am a Twitter fan and look for link-building prospects here over most other social networks. We have gotten some great links by searching bios on Twitter. There are commercial tools for this, such as Followerwonk, but I use Twitter’s advanced search feature the most. It is easy to use and brings back conversations using your keywords. Using search engines other than GoogleGoogle is not the only search engine in town, and I urge you to use Bing and DuckDuckGo when researching for link prospects. When you find a site you want to use in your link-building campaign, be sure it’s indexed in Google. If it’s not, that could be a bad sign. Competitive analysisI don’t usually mine competitors’ backlinks. I’d rather find fresh sources than copy someone else. Even if you feel the way I do about copying competitors, looking at a competitor’s backlinks can be helpful when developing discovery ideas and strategies. Discovery tipsHere are some of my top prospecting tips:
Keep moving forward while glancing backIt is easy to get frustrated when looking for link prospects, but don’t give up! Find a number of tools you are comfortable with. I really love Evernote since it keeps me organized and helps me stay focused. Search results change daily, and for a link builder, that’s a good thing because anything “new” might turn into an opportunity — we just have to find it! Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorJulie Joyce owns the link development firm Link Fish Mediaand is one of the founding members of the SEO Chicksblog. Julie began working in search marketing in 2002 and soon became head of search for a small IT firm. Eventually, she started Link Fish Media, where she now serves as Director Of Operations, focusing on working with clients in ultra-competitive niches all over the world. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/1BDlNnc January 30, 2018 at 09:32AM
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What is multilingual SEO? http://ift.tt/2DPofxN If your online business is doing well in your country, you might consider expanding to international markets. To be successful in new markets requires some extra investments in SEO though. You’d better start thinking about multilingual SEO, if you want to be sure your website will be found and used well in other countries! Here, I’ll explain what multilingual SEO is, why it’s important and which elements it consists of. What is multilingual SEO?Multilingual SEO deals with offering optimized content for multiple languages or multiple locations. Let’s explain this with an example. Imagine you have an online shop: you sell WordPress plugins in many countries. To increase your sales in Germany, you’ve decided to translate your content into German and create a German site. Now, you have two variations of the same page: an English and German version. Pretty straight-forward, you’d say? Well, there’s more. Especially if you want to target countries with similar languages or countries where multiple languages are used, this will pose some challenges. Let’s explore the situation displayed in the image below. This is a simplified example; there are obviously many more potential audiences than we’ve included, like British users. Obviously, you want people who search in German to be directed to the German site. Maybe you even want to have a specific site for German speakers in Switzerland. It would be even better to have a French alternative for speakers of French in Switzerland as well, of course. Let’s assume for now that you don’t have the required resources for that, though. In that case, it’s probably best to send users from Switzerland who speak French to the English site. On top of that, you need to make sure that you send all other users to your English site, as they are more likely to speak English than German. In a scenario like this, you need to set up and implement a multilingual SEO strategy. Because it’s not easy to get the right website ranking in the right market we decided to set up a Multilingual SEO training, which will be available soon! In this course we’ll guide you step by step through all important multilingual SEO elements. Don’t miss the launch, subscribe to our newsletter now! Why is multilingual SEO a thing?You want your website to be found with Google. In a standard SEO strategy, you optimize your content for one language: the language your website is written in. Sometimes, however, you want to target audiences in multiple countries and regions. These audiences are probably similar, but there are always differences. This presents you with an opportunity. By targeting your audiences specifically, it is easier to address their needs. One of these differences is the language they speak. When you make your site available in several languages and target specific regions, you achieve two things:
Let’s revisit the example we discussed before in light of this. By making a German variation of your original English site, you’ve made it possible for users searching in German to find your product. In the end, multilingual SEO is all about addressing the needs of your users. It all sounds rather clear-cut, but multilingual SEO can be hard. A lot can go wrong, and a bad multilingual implementation can hurt your rankings. This means that you need to know what you’re doing. One of the biggest risks of multilingual SEO is duplicate content. If you present very similar content on your website on multiple pages, Google won’t know which content to show in the search engines. Duplicate pages compete with each other, so the individual rankings of the pages will go down. You can avoid this particular issue with hreflang, an element of your multilingual SEO strategy. But there’s more to multilingual SEO. Let’s discuss the main aspects below. Multilingual SEO: content, domains and hreflangContent for international sitesContent is a very important aspect of your multilingual SEO strategy. If you want to write content in different languages, you’ll need to adapt existing content or create new content. Adapting your content while maintaining good SEO can be a challenge. Your content strategy should always start with keyword research for the region and language you’re targeting. You can’t just translate your keywords using Google Translate. You’ll have to get inside the heads of your new audience. You need to know which words they are using. Same words can have different meanings in languages used in multiple countries, as my colleague Jesse explained before. Translating content is a challenge as well. Take into account the cultural differences that exist between countries. Otherwise, your copy won’t be appealing to your new audience. If possible, you should have native speakers translate or at least check your translated content to prevent your from making awkward mistakes. If you want a complete list of what to consider when translating content read Marieke’s post on how to create SEO-friendly copy in a foreign language. Domain structure for international sitesTo successfully target your audiences, you need to consider which pages you want them to land on. There are several options as to what domain structure you’re going to use. Do you need to get the ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain) like example.de for Germany? Or could you create subdirectories for countries like example.com/de? Or, will you use a subdomain like de.example.com? And what about countries where multiple languages are spoken? How do you set up a domain structure for those countries? There’s a lot you have to consider to take these decisions. This is where domain authority, but also the size of your business and marketing capacities in your target countries come into play. If you want to really dive into this, you should check out our Multilingual SEO training, that we’ll launch February 7! HreflangHreflang is the technical implementation you’ll need to put in place if you’re offering your content in multiple languages. Simply put, you’ll tell Google which result to show to whom in the search engines. It’s not as easy as it might sound though and this is something that often goes wrong, even on the big sites. Joost wrote an extensive post on how to implement hreflang the right way. International ambitions? Get your multilingual SEO right!Multilingual SEO focuses on optimizing content for different languages for the search engines. With a proper multilingual SEO strategy, people in different countries will be able to find your website for their market, in their native language. Multilingual SEO can be hard though and you need to know what you’re doing. It touches on a lot of different aspects of website optimization. If you really want to get it right, take our Multilingual SEO training! Read more: ‘How to create SEO friendly copy in a foreign language’ »
The post What is multilingual SEO? appeared first on Yoast. SEO via Yoast • SEO for everyone https://yoast.com January 30, 2018 at 09:29AM
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Why You’re Not Ranking Where You Should Be (And How to Fix It) http://ift.tt/2GuS1Wg As you’ve probably already discovered, ranking in Google’s results is easier said than done. No one needs to tell you that there are millions of different websites trying to steal your rankings and, in some cases, many of those competitors succeed. Of course, you don’t want them to. But beating them isn’t a matter of simply publishing content and hoping for the best. In fact, the people who lose are the people who think that SEO is just that simple. Fortunately, you know better. That’s why you’re here, after all. To illustrate my point, I typed “how to win at everything you do” into Google. And how many results came up? Over 39 million. That’s a lot of action surrounding a silly keyword. And how many results actually show on the first page and have a reasonable chance of getting clicked? Ten. Ten results. That’s it. That means you can’t afford to not land on that first page. Putting in a ton of SEO work and landing even on page two doesn’t just hurt your ego, it hurts your pocketbook. As the adage goes, time is money. And unfortunately, the longer a page exists, the higher chance that it’s going to rank in the top ten results of Google’s SERP. In fact, the average age of a result ranking in 10th place is 650 days. That’s almost two years. Maybe, however, your pages haven’t existed for two years. The good news is that there are some key things you can do (and not do) to help your rankings immediately. Because here’s the thing: marketers make a lot of mistakes when it comes to SEO, and those mistakes kill their rankings. The same might be happening to you without you even knowing it. Do you feel like you’ve done everything right and yet, you’re still not ranking where you ought to be? Don’t worry. That’s why I put this seven-point list together of the most common ranking mistakes that marketers make and how to fix each one. Let’s get started. Mistake #1: You have duplicate content on your websiteDuplicate content is the bane of many SEO efforts. You don’t want to create content, publish that content, and then find that your SEO juice is getting split between the original page and an unintended duplicate of that page. That would cause both pages to rank mediocrely instead of having one page rank exceptionally. Ideally, you want to combine the SEO juice of those two pages and not leave each to its own devices. Because here’s how Google sees duplicate content. And when that happens, Google has a chance of choosing the right page as the one to rank. Or… the wrong page. It might, for instance, choose an HTML page that is meant as the print version. Then, not only is the link juice split between two different pages, but Google accidentally chose the wrong page to canonicalize. All because you didn’t clarify that for Google’s robot. But don’t worry, that’s a common mistake. If you want to check for duplicate content, you can go here and type in your URL. Then click the “I’m not a robot” button and click “Perform check.” Scroll down and you’ll see your results. If you scroll even further, you’ll be able to see the specific pages that have duplicate content on them. What, though, do you do if you find duplicate content on your website? The best thing to do is to use the rel=canonical tag to tell which page Google should rank and attribute all SEO juice to. If you’re using a WordPress website, then you can find a list of plugins that will help you do that by clicking here. Once you canonicalize a page, Google will take all of the SEO juice from the duplicates and attribute it to the canonical page. And that means your original page has a far better chance of ranking. Mistake #2: You aren’t registered with Google My BusinessIf you’re not yet registered with Google My Business, you’re losing out on some serious potential. It’s an easy and free step to take that can actually help your SEO. Because here’s how Google works: Google wants to take the easiest and quickest route to finding and delivering relevant results. Choosing Google My Business results accomplishes that for the search engine. Plus, having an account tells Google that you care about ranking, your website is up-to-date, and you want to cooperate with their systems. Google likes that and even tries to prioritize businesses that use Google My Business. Creating your account is simple. Just go to the Google My Business page. And then click on the “Start Now” button. After that, enter your business name and click “Next.” You’ll then need to enter your business address information and your zip code. Then click “Next.” Keep following these prompts until you’ve arrived at the end and your account is active. Eventually, you’ll have to enter more specific business information about what you do, the kind of products you sell, and your target audience. All of that information will help Google quickly and easily place your business in the correct SERP, so take your time on these steps. This is an easy way to rank in Google with very little additional time or effort. Plus, once you’re registered, you can collect reviews, add special offers, and show your address. Mistake #3: You’re not leveraging social signalsAre you active on social media? If you’re like many businesses, you answered “no” to that question. Sure. Lots of businesses run advertisements on social media, and many of them even have accounts. But how many businesses are actually active with their accounts? Probably not very many. And how many of those accounts are out-of-date? Probably more than would like to admit it. Why does all of that matter, though? Because, believe it or not, your social media accounts help determine how you rank in Google. If you want to increase your SEO efforts, which you do, then you should stay active on social media and keep your information updated. Google uses what are called social signals to determine which websites are active, which are stagnant. This tells them which should rank higher. As you see in the graph below, all of the top results stay exceptionally active on their social media accounts. Of course, this doesn’t need to be complicated. Did you publish a blog article? Post on Facebook about it. Did something interesting happen at work today? Tweet about it. Capture a funny picture of an office-hours prank? Post it on Instagram. The more that you post on your social accounts, the better your website will rank. If you think that you’re doing everything right, but your rankings are still suffering, then social signals might be your answer to a brighter SEO future. Take what I do, for instance. Here’s a recent blog post I published: Why Social Media is ‘Pay to Play’ in 2018 (And How to Get the Best Bang for Your Buck). Then, I simply go to Facebook and share it. Nothing special. I just write something quick referring to the blog post and give my audience a link to read it. For me, this doesn’t just help SEO, but it also drives loads of extra traffic to my website. Win, win. If you’re not using social signals to boost your SEO, then you’re missing out. Whenever something interesting happens at your business, or you post a new piece of content, share it on your social accounts. You’ll generate more traffic and increase your rankings this way. You can do everything right, but if you don’t have social signals, the website that does will beat you. Mistake #4: You don’t create consistent contentMaybe you write and publish a blog post every now again. Maybe you record and publish a video sometimes as well. Sadly, “every now and again” and “sometimes” isn’t enough to claim your spot in the rankings. Instead, you should create content according to a rigid and helpful content marketing calendar. Add due dates to your content and this will help keep you on schedule. Frankly, the more content you create, the better. So long as the quality of that content doesn’t lack. You probably already know, for instance, that I write a lot of blog posts on my own. I can often even finish three or four a day if I’m really focused. This is just because I’ve had a lot of practice, though. After a bit of time, you’ll be able to do the same thing. Of course, you’re not alone in your struggle for creating consistent content. 57% of B2B marketers are right alongside you. And so are 46% of B2C marketers. Why is creating consistent content such a challenge for you and the vast majority of other marketers? The answer is simple. Writing, recording, and editing all takes a lot of time. And sometimes, it’s even harder when you don’t see immediate results. At the end of the day, though, companies that blog see about 55% more visitors than companies that don’t blog. Obviously, you want to be in the blogging category that sees more traffic. Part of the reason, of course, that they see more traffic is because each piece of content they create and each new page they publish gives them another chance to rank in Google. And if you’re creating content consistently, then it’s only a matter of time until you start to rank. Mistake #5: Your website is not mobile-friendlyMaybe you’re doing everything else right. Maybe you don’t have any duplicate content on your website. Maybe you’re registered with Google My Business. And maybe you even leverage social signals and create consistent content. Then, you check your results and still, you’re not ranking. What gives? Well, if you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, then that is what gives. In today’s world where people browse the Internet on different devices every single day, you need to cater to all of those different screen sizes. There’s a low chance that Google will even rank you if your website isn’t device flexible. Not sure if your website is mobile-friendly? No problem. Go here to find out. Type in your URL. Then it will quickly tell you if your page is mobile-friendly or not. As you can see below, mine is. And that’s totally intentional. I know that if my website weren’t mobile-friendly, I’d have an even harder time ranking in search engines. Google puts a lot of bearing on this because 80% of people use a smartphone to browse the Internet and 27% only use a smartphone. Whatever Google cares about, you need to care about as well. Making your website mobile can be easy. Simply select a WordPress theme that fits your needs and is device-flexible. And voila, that change will automatically help your rankings. Mistake #6: Google hasn’t indexed your websiteDoes this situation sound familiar? You’re curious about your website’s rankings, so you open up Google and type in your target keywords. But you don’t see your website on the first page. So you click through a few pages and still don’t see your result. Then, more desperate to make sure everything is working correctly, you type your actual business name into the search engine and maybe your URL as well. Still to no avail. What is happening? Why aren’t you showing up anywhere in Google? Well, the first and most harmless reason is that Google hasn’t yet had time to index your new page. If you just created your page, then give it a bit of time before searching for yourself in the results. But this might be happening because you accidentally blocked Google from crawling your website. You’ll need to undo that and make sure that Google is crawling your website whenever it wants to. Then, to request Google to crawl your website as soon as possible, go to Google Search Console. Type in your website and start by making sure that Google doesn’t note any crawl errors. Then, click the “Fetch” button and wait a moment. Finally, you’ll be able to click “Request Indexing.” Once you do that, you’ll see this page come up where you can finalize your request. Google’s robot will then crawl your website at its earliest convenience. Remember, if Google isn’t able to crawl your website and analyze it, then you have absolutely no chance of ranking. Make sure your settings in Google Search Console are correct and that the code of your website doesn’t block crawling bots from looking at it. Mistake #7: Your website is too slowFew things are worse than browsing the Internet, finding a result you like, and then waiting more than 10 seconds for that website to load. You want information, and you want it fast. Your audience and target market are no different. For that reason, Google puts significant ranking weight on how quickly your website loads. The faster, the better. Even in terms of seconds. There are two reasons that rankings decrease with slower load times. The first is that Google directly ranks websites with fast load times better than those with slow load times. People don’t want to wait, after all. And Google doesn’t want to make them wait. The second reason, though, is that when your website has a slow load time, your bounce rate increases which, in turn, hurts your rankings. It’s a double whammy of loss. Fortunately, you can check your website speed for free by going here and typing in your domain. Then click “Analyze” and you’ll see your results. This will tell you how fast your website is and how optimized it is for speed. If your speed is low and your optimization is also low, that means you can take steps to increase your website speed. Try, for instance, compressing your image files or simplifying your design. The faster your website loads, the higher your rankings. ConclusionIf you’re anything like other ambitious entrepreneurs, you know what it’s like to struggle through the rankings and come out on page ten. No one wants that to happen. And yet, more often than not, it does happen. There are, after all, only ten positions that actually matter in Google and as I showed you earlier, there are millions of results. How in the world are you going to claim your spot? Well, it all starts with doing the right things: generating backlinks, for instance. But once you’ve done all the right things, sometimes you still don’t rank. That’s when you need to take a look at potential mistakes you’re making. And now you know what some of the most common mistakes are: having duplicate content on your website, not registering with Google My Business, ignoring social signals, and creating content sporadically. But beyond those, using only a desktop version of your website, blocking your website from Google, and having a slow load speed also hurt your chances of ranking. Fix those problems, though, and you’ll be ranking in no time. What problem have you encountered before that hurt your rankings and how did you fix it? The post Why You’re Not Ranking Where You Should Be (And How to Fix It) appeared first on Neil Patel. SEO via Neil Patel https://neilpatel.com January 30, 2018 at 09:02AM |
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