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10 Effective Ways to Increase Your Facebook Page Fans by @krisjonescom http://ift.tt/2ndq9Lk As of October 2016, 60 million businesses have a Facebook page. Why wouldn’t they? With over a billion active monthly users on Facebook, businesses can quickly expose their product or services to prospective customers. And since pages are free to create, there is zero overhead — initially, anyway; a portion of any advertising budget should include paid advertising on Facebook, which can target the exact demographics of your ideal customer. Facebook provides more than exposure. Businesses can also quickly learn about their current and prospective customers and their overall market’s intentions. But how about garnering page likes and follows? Firstly, many remain confused about the differences between “Like” and “Follow.” When someone likes your page, they automatically follow it. But this doesn’t mean they’ll always see your post. Under the follow tab are two options: Default or See First; the latter is the following a business wants because that business’s post feed will always show up on the visitor’s page. With that said, you obviously want your audience to not only like a page, but “See First” follow it. The easiest way to do this is simply ask your audience. Don’t push it, simply ask and offer a valuable reason of why they should see your posts first. Let’s get back to the basics of garnering page likes. Like any good marketing initiative, a strategy should be developed. The following are ten tactics that can be used to increase your Facebook page fans. Engaging ContentThe key to any successful digital marketing campaign begins with engaging content. From blog posts on your website to an infographic in a newsletter, quality and relevant content is a must for sustained success. The same goes for Facebook. Make sure all posts add value in some way, either through entertaining or providing solutions to problems for your visitors. Just as the actual copy should engage, so should photos. Also, make sure a photo is used in every post; Buzzsumo says posts experience 2.3x engagement when an image is used. This all leads to your current page followers sharing your content on their personal pages, which helps attract new page likes. Remember, content truly is king across all online marketing channels. In regards to promoting yourself in posts, the standard practice across various verticals is 20% promotional and 80% non-promotional. Live VideosLast summer, Facebook said that users spent 3x more time watching Live Video over traditional video. This trend continues, and all the top companies are using them, from Dunkin Donuts to Airbnb. Live video engages by nature and helps others share, which will assist in reaching a new audience and bolstering likes. A great example is a Buzzfeed live video from last summer. The live video showed two employees trying to explode a watermelon with rubber bands, something you’d expect from the masters of click bait material. The results? Facebook reported that during the 45-minute video’s peak, over 800,000 viewers were watching. Talk about going viral, and many of those watchers joined the page because of the traction the video was receiving. I recently started my own Live Video feed, “Ask Me Anything,” which provides insights on SEO, personal development, and crushing it in business and life. I answer questions from viewers, and it’s helped further build my personal brand, all businesses I’m associated with, and of course my Facebook Likes. Post RegularlyThis is simple — have a routine for posting. If you have many divisions, post X amount of engaging content for each division at scheduled times during the week. For example, in the digital marketing world, content marketing posts may run once a day around noon, whereas technical SEO related content may run every day around 3 pm. Also, make sure experts are helping create the posts for their respective divisions. Capture an audience and make the feed consistent, week-by-week, day-by-day. Humans crave consistency, and it will help your online social media presence. Promote Page on Other Social Media ChannelsCross-channel marketing in social media is vital for new Facebook page likes. Have Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Snapchat accounts? Promote your Facebook page across all of those channels. A good rule is to promote your Facebook page on these channels at least bi-weekly to capture the most amount of likes to your Facebook page from new viewers. ContestsWho doesn’t like a contest, or anything free for that matter? Be creative and create a few contests every month, and give away free swag or services. Make sure the content engages, which will help your audience share your page, and attract their friends. Engage: Make Responses a PriorityAlthough over 60 million businesses are on Facebook, only 87% of posts are responded to by business page owners. Be part of the 13% that actually responds, and witness more traction in current page like interaction, which will lead to more shares and new likes. The size of the business shouldn’t matter; if you’re larger, you’ll have your own social media people who take care of all this work. But for smaller companies, recruit — don’t appoint — team members who display a passion for Facebook outreach. Divide the workflow of each of these social responders by expertise for the subject of engagement. Facebook AdsIf you want to build your Facebook page likes quickly, paid advertising is a must. Facebook makes it simple to purchase and create ads, and allows you to target whatever demographic you need. Keep the ads simple, and provide a valuable reason why the targeted audience should like your page. Here’s where you also mention that you run frequent contests and offer valuable information respective to your industry. Engage With Other Similar BusinessesRegularly add valuable comments and respond to other businesses within your market, which attracts their audience. Just make sure you’re posting as your page and not your personal pages, a mistake that’s easy to make. Reference Facebook Page on Blog PostsBesides having a plugin on your website for social media likes, also invite people to like your page via native advertising within your blog posts. Practices vary on this, either with a text link or a small banner-style ad that says “Like us on Facebook” or something as simple. Also, if your web platform allows it, use a plugin that provides Facebook sign-ins, which will help garner new likes. Offer Discount on Services/Products for New Facebook LikesThis one works well. Think about it: “Like our Facebook Page, Receive 10% Discount.” That’s a value add right there. Make it even more appealing that the new likes also have to engage with content for a few weeks before they receive the discount. Concluding ThoughtsFor any business size, large or small, having a Facebook presence is a must. The more likes, the better social signal you will provide for not only your audience and customers but also others within your industry. The stronger the social signal, the stronger the brand. Start utilizing the tips above to not only build your Facebook followers but become a leader of the competition. Featured image and In-post photo: alexmillos/DepositPhotos SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 28, 2017 at 03:18AM
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AdWords Dynamic Search Ads gain page feeds, will soon support expanded text ads http://ift.tt/2neUqu6 Google announced updates to AdWords Dynamic Search Ads on Tuesday, including support for expanded text ads. Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) will transition to expanded text ads through April, bringing them in line with search and display campaigns. Google is introducing a new solution for DSAs called page feeds. Page feeds consist of two columns: Page URL and Custom Label. The feeds enable advertisers to designate exactly which landing pages to include in a DSA campaign. There are several benefits and use cases for page feeds, such as these:
After uploading a page feed to the Business Data section of the Shared Library in AdWords, add it to the relevant DSA campaign in settings. Custom labels are applied from the Auto targets tab. Click to add a new Dynamic ad target and enter the custom label. Bid modifiers can be applied to custom labels. Google also says it has continued to make quality updates for DSAs, such as taking location signals into account, and that the latest changes have led to better conversion rates and lower CPAs, on average. 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/fN1KYC March 28, 2017 at 03:01AM
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Study: PPC cannot accurately identify winning organic titles http://ift.tt/2ocUPy7 Title tags are a meaningful on-page ranking factor and are among the most influential factors in determining click-through rate (CTR) from search engine results pages. Higher CTR not only drives more traffic immediately, it also improves organic rankings when combined with good on-site metrics. Title tag CTR is also difficult to test: it requires a large number of pages that drive a lot of organic visits, and a pretty big chunk of time — usually around two months to give Google time to index all the pages in the test and then collect enough data to have statistically significant results. A tempting alternative is to use PPC ads to get quick answers about what title tag is best. Unfortunately, testing at Wayfair.com shows that PPC ads are not always an accurate measure of what titles will perform well in the organic results. The reason is that users who click on paid ads are not a random sample of searchers; they are a biased group. We know they behave differently from overall searchers because they are in the minority of users who click on ads. And it turns out they respond differently to titles than users who click on organic results — specifically, it appears that promotional messaging (“on sale,” “discount,” “free shipping,” “50% off”) performs far better in paid ads than it does in organic results. Titles that performed best in ads often drove organic users away. Testing shows that PPC ads are not always an accurate measure of what titles will perform well in the organic results. Three title testing methodsThe Wayfair SEO team wanted to know if there was a faster way of testing title tag variations that gave accurate answers, so we tested a list of 10 different title tag formulas in three different ways:
Each test used the same 10 title tag variations (except the Mechanical Turk test, which had only seven) and the same control title tag, and the tests ran separately over a three-month period in the summer. Here is the methodology and findings of our tests. Mechanical TurkWe used the Mechanical Turk & SERP Turkey method. We tested our title tag variants with two different keywords, and tested them in the #1 position and the #3 position. Our goal was to get 1,000 clicks in each bucket: not large enough to detect very small changes in CTR, but that was fine, because we were looking only for meaningful wins. This test took about a month. It’s worth noting that it was difficult to get enough survey completions through Mechanical Turk, and we had to pare down our list of title variations to seven so we could get sufficient clicks in each bucket. A meaningful negative of Mechanical Turk is the fairly limited number of title variations that can be tested at once. Interestingly, the results of this test were actually different based on what position the title tag was ranked:
SERP Turkey pages — basically mockups of search engine results pages (SERPs) that you build yourself — do not include any paid ads above the results, and my hypothesis is the users who might have clicked on those ads are instead clicking on the organic results (particularly the ones at the top), and we’re seeing that paid click behavior in the organic results. This biased the #1 ranking position greatly and had a smaller bias on rankings farther down the page. Ultimately, I think SERP Turkey would be a much more valuable platform for this kind of testing if we could also insert fake ads into the fake SERPs, to draw those users out of our test data. That said, this method — using the #3 ranking position and not #1 — correctly predicted the winning title tag; however, it also measured some title tags as performing significantly better than control that actually lost in the live SEO test. PPC adsThe PPC testing was by far the easiest and fastest way to get results — we had strong results in under a week. We tested our list of 10 variants on a few dozen different keywords, including the same keywords targeted in the SERP Turkey test, with the same control. We ensured only the first line changed between variants and keywords, and over-bid to guarantee visibility. Unfortunately, the results did not correctly predict the winning title tag — instead, they gave victory to losing title tags. Of note:
It seemed very clear that users who click on paid results are positively influenced by promotional (“hot deals,” “buy it now” and “save save save”) language. There did appear to be some other discrepancies with the live SEO test that were harder to explain, other than to say what’s good for a paid ad title isn’t necessarily good for an organic title, and vice versa. Live SEO testThe live SEO test is the tried-and-true method we were trying to replace. The test took about two months to run (30 days for everything to get indexed, then another three weeks to collect visit data). We took a large number of product listing pages in similar furniture categories, generally ranking on the first page, and randomly distributed 2,000 URLs each into groups for the variants and a control group. We used the same control and variants as the PPC test, and all of the SERPs associated with the pages had ads present (usually three). Almost all also had the Google Shopping block. As an example, the groups might look something like this:
Each variant was tested on 2,000 pages, and each 2,000-page group received over 100,000 organic visits each week. We measured the change in organic visits to the test pages vs. the control pages to see how the groups performed, and also spot-checked CTR changes in the Search Console, though these numbers are only relevant for terms with large search volume. This method remains the best way we’ve found of testing title (or meta description) changes. We saw that groups with promotional language in the title tag all performed worse than the control — sometimes substantially worse. We also saw winners, including some that also did well in the PPC and Mechanical Turk tests. TakeawaysIn our testing, paid ads did not consistently identify winning organic title tags. While trying to improve your title tags is definitely a very smart SEO play, relying on PPC might end up steering you wrong. PPC was able to identify some winners, but also mislabeled losers as winners, particularly when it came to promotional language. Mechanical Turk fared similar to PPC ads, particularly in the #1 ranking position. I hypothesize that you really need a test set with top ads in them for an effective test. The number of variants you can test is fairly limited due to the lack of huge numbers of people on Mechanical Turk, and it still took a pretty long time to generate results. Mechanical Turk is probably only a viable testing platform for sites that don’t have enough search traffic to their pages to do an on-site test. Neither method mislabeled winners as losers. If it did badly in either Mechanical Turk or PPC, it also did badly in organic, so using PPC ads or Mechanical Turk can be a good way to at least weed out very bad title variants. But ultimately, neither was a replacement for actual live SEO testing on high-traffic pages. A winning formulaOne piece of general title advice I can give after several rounds of testing over the years is this: It is incredibly difficult to find an e-commerce title tag better than a simple “[category name] | [site]” formula. So “Mustache Wax | Rand’s ‘Stache” is almost always a winner. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorBrian Wood has worked in SEO for over 10 years and leads the SEO team at Wayfair.com. He was once a minor World of Warcraft celebrity with an item named after him in the game, and he runs a SEO-learning blog at DoctorMcAwesome.com. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 28, 2017 at 02:44AM
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4 major barriers to being linkable http://ift.tt/2oupFRV When it comes to being unlinkable, there’s a lot more to consider besides boring content, poor quality writing and low-end design. Of the many issues that could cause users not to want to link to your content, here are four major ones that I see all the time: intrusive intersitials, gated content, excessive pagination and avant-garde design. You can find someone to argue for and against all four of these barriers, and I’d probably see some of those points in the last three cases, but I’m not sure much can change my mind about interstitials. Intrusive interstitialsIt’s only been a few months since Google rolled out the mobile intrusive interstitial penalty, so I’m still not surprised to see them being used occasionally, but they really are annoying, in my opinion. Intrusive interstitials are annoying on mobile devices and on my laptop. Forbes.com definitely has to be among the most notable offenders here, with their “quote and countdown” interstitial. Their quotes don’t offend me or anything, but if I click on a link, I want to see the site — not wait three seconds (an eternity!), and then have to click another button to say that I really, truly do want to go to the site. That’s like emailing to confirm that I really did want to unsubscribe from your email newsletter. I am pleased to say that I do think most sites are paying attention. In doing some research for this article, I visited several sites that had been listed as having intrusive interstitials (in various articles surrounding the topic), and most of them were no longer using them. Gated contentSpeaking as a business owner who has to deal with a lot of “tire kickers” from web leads, I love the idea of narrowing down to the serious customers. However, an as SEO and link builder, I prefer the benefits of not putting content behind a gate. There’s a great piece on when to gate vs. when not to gate that lists six good examples for each. Of course, you want to gate content such as a live demo or anything that’s proprietary, but gating content like a normal blog post is silly. No one should have to enter their email before reading your latest blog post. In my case, the only gated content that I have is an e-book where you have to enter your email address to get a link to the download. If I did on-site quotes, I’d gate that area, too. If I had a blog or a video where I was explaining our process, I would not gate that. While there are some good guidelines about when to gate content and when not to, it still comes down to what you want from your content. Conversion rate optimization, usability and SEO don’t always seem so black and white. I was recently looking at potential homeschool/online school resources and ran across this site: http://ift.tt/2neRC0b Their guide is a physical guide that will be mailed to you. That obviously costs money for printing and shipping, so in order to get it, you have to give them some information, including your phone number. While I totally understand that, I can’t really see anything that I want to see without getting the guide. I can’t access content behind the main links on the home page, as all they do is take me to a form to request the guide. That’s not a great use of gated content. Maybe I am just browsing around, kicking tires, but why can’t I see an example curriculum or read a few success stories? Want to guess how many referring domains link to them? TWO. Excessive paginationI love to blow time by looking at ridiculous things like photos of cats attacking toddlers and Siberian huskies being weird. In cases like that, I expect to have to click through page after page. However, when it comes to finding a source to link for an article that isn’t about vicious cats or funny dogs, there’s no way I am going to waste my time clicking around pages in order to find one to link to. I bolt immediately when I come to those sites. Google has guidelines for paginated content, and that’s good for sites that need to paginate. I don’t have an issue with an article that is in four parts. I do have an issue with a piece of content that requires me to click 20 times in order to reach the end of it. When content exists to show ads and make money, I’m just not a big fan — and I’d definitely hesitate before linking to it. Here’s an example from WebMD of foods that dogs shouldn’t eat. This piece has 25 slides to view! Why can’t it be a list? If I’m looking to point users to a resource for foods that dogs shouldn’t eat, I’d rather link to something like this ASPCA article on the no-no foods. It’s a nice list — no need to click “Next” 24 times, and no chance to view 25 different ads. Looking at the links to each example above, the ASPCA page has 1.3K referring domains, while the WebMD has 404 referring domains. I’m sure there’s more to it than just the annoying pagination, but it’s interesting to note nonetheless. Avant-garde designYears ago, my friend and I went to New York City and ended up having to call the hotel staff to come help us figure out how to put the plug in the sink. While he was up there, I realized we also didn’t know how to turn on any of the lamps. As the trip wore on, it became obvious that the bathtub placed right in front of the bed, protected only by a sheer curtain, was really not as cute as we first thought. Oh, and let’s not forget that the only reason we even found this hotel was that I recognized a potted tree that was at the entrance, as I’d seen a photo of it on the web. Cool designs for everything overall, but I’ve never been back. Do you see my point? When a cool design hides basic functionality, it’s not that beneficial unless you’re a site that exists to sell cool designs that hide basic functionality. I tend to bounce right off those types of sites. If I did stick around to look through one, I might link to something internal if I found a good resource — but in my experience, if the site is that difficult to navigate, I’m not likely to find what I’m looking for. These sites may contain fantastic information presented in various formats, and maybe that’s all they need. So I’m certainly not saying that they’re not good sites for content consumption. I’m just saying that, in general, I would only link to one to use as an example of a site that wasn’t very linkable. Isn’t that ironic? Final thoughtsWhile there are other irritations that would prevent me from wanting to link (like making link text blend in with the background, or making it stand out in glaring colors), I do find these four to be the major offenses. I also recognize that not everything is about links; not everyone considers linkability a top concern when making a choice about their site or content. However, links still make you rank, and they bring you traffic — so if something is preventing you from getting the links you deserve, it’s worth taking a second look at how you can fix that. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The 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/fN1KYC March 28, 2017 at 02:32AM
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6 Ways to Increase Soft Conversions Before the Sale by @LEHoneycutt http://ift.tt/2ocprj4 Most marketing strategies focus on the hard conversion — that is, the actions that represent the greatest likelihood of purchase, such as a request for a quote, consult, or an online purchase. However, the best strategies will focus on soft conversions as well.
Soft conversions are actions that indicate a demonstrable interest in your products or services, where the customer seeks more information before making the final purchase decision. These conversions are valuable, though they require more time and nurturing. Optimize Your FunnelBefore doing any kind of work to improve conversion rates — hard or soft — take the time to examine your funnel. The top needs to be focused on generating traffic, to get the leads off on the right path in the first place, but you need to know which content sources are bringing in the traffic. Once you’ve moved the prospects into the funnel, you must get them through the middle — the conversion. At this point, you’ve got their attention, but you must bypass the three common reasons people won’t convert. They either don’t need it right now, can’t afford it right now, or don’t trust you right now. Your optimization process should focus on conveying urgency, so people start to feel like they cannot wait to invest in your products or services. While offering a discount can do a great bit to entice them over the edge, you can also try the scarcity principle or exclusivity. By offering a limited number of something, urgency comes into play. If you make it known the special offer is only available to your social media followers for a limited time, you’re playing into both exclusivity and scarcity. After urgency comes conveying value — not why it’s valuable to you but why it’s valuable to the customer. Describe it in a way that is most likely to resonate with them based on what you know about your target audience. Then, make sure they trust you. Build social proof with third-party reviews, testimonials, and evidence of shares across social media. Include an easy-to-understand, honest guarantee that you can support if your audience calls you on it. But, no matter how great your funnel is, the path to conversion must be simple and clear, or people won’t follow it. Make it incredibly easy for them. Add a tab to your Facebook page that allows them to see your website so they can convert there, rather than having to click on the info tab and then dig around the website itself to find what they’re looking for. Provide More Opportunities for the Soft ConversionLooking at your funnel, how many chances do your prospects have to soft convert? The more, the better — because each chance gives you a connection to the potential customer. Typically, soft conversions include:
Soft conversions are everywhere. When you go car shopping and the salesman asks a series of questions about your preferences: color, two doors vs. four doors, stripped down vs. fully loaded features, budget and ideal payment amount, and so on… each of those questions is a soft conversion for them. In the end, they either present you with the perfect car for your needs — exactly what you described as willing to buy — or something close enough that you’ll convert. If they cannot do that, you’ll leave, either satisfied with the decision to go to another dealership or content with the current vehicle you’re in. But, it’s only when you drive off the lot in a new-to-you vehicle that they’ve met their end goal. When it comes to soft conversions online, one of the most critical things you can do is focus on creating killer content assets. Each time someone downloads your free e-book or report or views your video series, you’ve got a soft conversion. When people are in the early stages of the purchase process, they’re seeking information, and if they can’t find it from you, they’ll get it from your competition. But beyond creating valuable content, you must make it easy for people to access your website, especially when logging in or registering is required. Oftentimes, sites require users to create an account, and while many will do that, others will walk away. That’s where bypassing yet another password with a social login comes in handy. Users click a single button and they automatically have an account with you. They can then access the content or information they’re seeking, and you have valuable permission-based social network data about your customers so you can better engage with them. Win-win. Consider adding a live chat option to your site, so visitors can quickly get in touch with someone at your company for more information. While you should also have a thorough FAQ section to address the most common questions your prospects ask, the idea of having someone there to answer questions right away is appealing for many potential customers. Nearly half of online consumers (44%) say having live chat support during online purchases is one of the most important features a company can have. Change Up Your Email MarketingWhen someone signs up for your email list, that’s a soft conversion. They’ve obviously seen enough to want more from you, whether they’re ready to buy or not. Your social media leads are not the same as your traditional leads and must be nurtured differently. If you rely on a traditional sales email campaign, you’re risking killing the sale from the social media lead. These leads typically enter your funnel at earlier stages of the buying process, meaning you have to adjust your campaign to include value and content to facilitate the decision-making process. Your strategy must include decision-making content, which answers questions that are frequently asked when someone purchases your products or services, overcomes objections, and provides opportunities to convert them into a hard lead. From the hard lead stage, it is much easier to convert to a buyer. Drive Traffic to Soft Conversion PagesHave a page with an e-book to download? Use both on-page and off page SEO tactics to drive traffic to any soft conversion landing pages. While you wait on those efforts to start paying off, you could use pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to jump-start the traffic. Use social media channels you know your audience is using to build brand awareness and drive traffic to those soft conversion pages. Use software like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule updates with calls to action, but remember to be present and actually engage with your audience, too. If you’ve already got an established email list, send out a short blast to let them know you’ve just published an awesome new resource to help them. Include Related Product RecommendationsIf there’s a visitor looking around on your website, unsure of whether they want to buy Product A, seeing recommendations for Product B, Product C, and Product D may spur them to buy one of those instead, or better yet, more than one. Those recommendations may help someone who was only thinking about buying see that they can get everything they need from you — rather than shopping in three places. This approach also helps build trust and credibility, because it shows them what other customers who’ve purchased Product A also bought. Get Fans InvolvedYour social media fans are likely a mix of people who are soft conversions and people who’ve been a customer for a long time. Either way, creating a promotion that gets them involved can boost conversions and sales. Lay’s Do Us a Flavor contest is a prime example. Every year since 2012, the company has reached out to fans to ask them for input on what should be the next flavor. Then they vote, and the top three flavors go to stores. The flavor with the most votes, also considering sales, wins and becomes part of the product lineup. The person who came up with the flavor gets $1 million cash prize, too. Even though people may not actually eat chips on a regular basis, the idea of contributing to the brand and earning the prize is the incentive. And people who don’t regularly buy the products may consider trying the new flavors. It works well; it’s now in its fifth year. Of course, we want those hard conversions because we want revenue and customers. But don’t let chasing those hard conversions get in the way of ignoring the soft conversions that play a major role in the customer acquisition process. Image Credits Featured Image: StevePB via Pixabay In-post Image: Tumisu via Pixabay
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46 SEO Job Interview Questions to Assess a Candidate’s Knowledge by @stoneyd http://ift.tt/2ndZrDa Knowledge-based interviews in the SEO world can be tough. Even with the most experienced SEOs, there’s little universal agreement regarding search ranking factors and their importance. So instead of putting together questions that feel like a test — too many wrong answers and you fail — I have created questions that focus on the candidates’ ability to explain what they know and why. Many of the questions below are nothing more than a jump off point to a discussion. It’s not always about the correctness of the answer but their ability to demonstrate their knowledge of a topic. While these questions can lead to discussions on the candidates’ experience and specific SEO strategies, they don’t necessarily have to go in that direction — yet. Think of these knowledge-based questions as a primer for the experience and strategy questions to come. If the candidate doesn’t demonstrate sufficient knowledge, there may be no need to go further. Presented below are 46 knowledge-based SEO job interview questions, with a brief explanation as to where that question should lead the conversation. How do you define SEO?You want to start by establishing the foundation of what the candidate believes the role of SEO to be. This ensures that the interviewee is applying for the position you have in mind or to see if you have two different ideas as to the nature of what will be expected of them. How did you learn SEO?You’re looking for insight on the candidate’s overall interest and passion in SEO. Look for clues as to whether or not they are a self-starter or fell into SEO following the path of least resistance. Their answer here could tell you a lot about what kind of employee they will be. How do you stay current with the almost-daily changes that occur in digital marketing?You want to get a sense of the candidate’s educational process. Specifically, you want to know how much time they invest in education, the resources they utilize, and the people they follow to stay up to date. What is the difference between a search engine friendly and search engine optimized website?How they answer this question will tell you quite a bit about their knowledge and skill level overall. If they don’t know the difference, then you’re looking at someone extremely green. If they do know, they should be able to provide some strong details and examples of those differences. How would you define a successful SEO campaign?Similar to the first question, this one helps you make sure that you and the candidate are on the same page in regard to successful SEO. You should be looking for answers that go beyond “top search engine rankings” and into the realm of actual business improvement issues. Where is the line between black hat and white hat SEO? Where do you fall on the spectrum?Every SEO has different lines they will push and lines they won’t cross. You want to know where this candidate falls to ensure it’s a fit with your needs. More importantly, however, is to find out if the candidate can adhere to the lines you establish. You want to be sure they’ll be as aggressive as you need but not so aggressive that they cross lines you don’t want to be crossed. What are the most important search engines and what makes them important?Any mention of MSN (and even Yahoo) is ground for immediate disqualification. What you are looking for is how familiar the candidate is with the world of search outside of Google. Aside from Bing, the candidate should have at least surface knowledge of Duck Duck Go, Yandex, and Baidu. What do you do differently to optimize for search engines other than Google?The candidates may want to discuss how the various search engine algorithms differ, however, the crux of their answer should indicate that proper SEO is good for all search engines. They should be clear on the point that you should not tailor optimization for one specific search engine. The candidate should also demonstrate knowledge of some specific architectural issues that will need to be addressed when optimizing internationally. Explain PageRank, its importance, and how it factors into SEO.The candidate should be able to provide a layman’s explanation of PageRank. If the position requires direct interaction with non-technical people, it will be important that they are able to convey this in an easy to understand way. What factors were impacted in the most recent (significant) Google updates?Google is always making updates, but there is always a handful that stands out. You’re not looking for a complete history of Google algorithm changes or even the names of them, necessarily. The most important thing is they know how search engines are changing and what things they look for. Name some of the regular features of SERPS.Search engine results pages are much more than a list of paid and organic links. Local results, answer boxes, carousels, and more are all important parts of search results. Candidate should demonstrate a knowledge of these SERP enhancements and how those factor into their optimization efforts. What percentage of a site’s traffic should come from Google? Where should the rest come from and what percentages?You’re not looking for exact percentages but rather a general idea of how the candidate sees organic search falling into the overall spectrum and what other areas contribute to a site’s success. The candidate should show that they understand the value of bringing in traffic from multiple sources, not just Google (or organic search). What are the five most important on-page optimization factors?Every SEO focuses on different things and has different priorities. Here (and for the next three questions), you’re not looking for a “correct” answer. Instead, assess the answers given, which will tell you a great deal regarding what each candidate finds important. Even though there may be no right answers, that doesn’t mean there are no wrong ones, so keep on the lookout for anything you know to be unimportant. That’s a giant red flag. What are the five most important off-page optimization factors?Just as in the question above, you want to know what the candidate sees as important for off-page optimization. These answers don’t need to be specific to SEO, and in fact, a good SEO should know a few non-SEO factors that are important. Tell me one on-page optimization factor that is commonly believed to be important but isn’t.This could be a controversy-stirring question and deliberately so. You want to hear their opinion on specific “known” ranking factors where they disagree with conventional industry wisdom. Whether you agree or disagree with their answers is beside the point (unless they’re just so far off base it’s ridiculous). What you should get is an impassioned, reasoned, and thoughtful analysis of why this factor is not relevant. Tell me one off-page optimization factor that is commonly believed to be important but isn’t.Same as above but with the broader canvass of off-page optimization. On both this and the question above, you can solicit more than one example, just leave time to discuss each thoroughly. What are some common SEO mistakes?Where the questions above focus on SEO misconceptions, this one focuses specifically on bad SEO practices or mistakes that impact the success of SEO. The list can be almost endless. What you want to see is an awareness of things beyond optimization strategies. This will tell you what the candidate will keep an eye on once they start working for you in order to ensure the work they do for you is successful. Explain the value of links in an SEO campaign.This should include a discussion of both incoming, outgoing, and internal linking, and how the search engine algorithms factor them. Don’t let them get away with simplistic “quality over quantity” answers. What is the importance of the title, description, and keyword meta tags?The candidate should be able to articulate the value (or lack thereof) of each of these tags and why they are important to the SEO campaign. Since tag length changes frequently, this is not an important aspect of the question, though they should indicate that they understand how tag length impacts the optimization. Define duplicate content and its relation to search engines.The candidate should demonstrate a working knowledge of what does and does not constitute duplicate content along with how search engines treat it. Let the conversation move into areas of duplication of distributed content to partial duplication of product descriptions, etc. Don’t worry about discussing strategies here, but rather the impact of various forms of duplicated content. How important are exact match domains to the optimization success?Candidate should demonstrate sufficient knowledge regarding how search engines view exact match domains and how that impacts the success of your site specifically. Hint: Exact match domains have very little, if any, relevance to search, but there are other benefits the candidate should be able to articulate. What is the difference between a sub-domain and a sub-folder? How do the search engines value these differently?The candidate should be able to thoroughly explain the differences between the two. However, the more important aspect of this question is if they can demonstrate an understanding on how search engines treat each of these two options. What makes a URL SEO friendly?This might have been addressed in one of the earlier questions. If not, it bears asking here. The candidate should be able to articulate the difference between a friendly and non-SEO friendly URL accompanied with discussion as to when a site should or should not change their URLs. How much do broken and redirecting links impact your optimization efforts?This should be a discussion not just of the search relevance of these issues but also of the impact they might have on the visitor. Lead the candidate to tell you when and why URLs should (or shouldn’t) be redirected and what problems are created when not handled properly. How do you check the crawl rate of a site and why is this important?Candidates should be able to outline tactics and tools they use to review how frequently Google crawls the website. This should include a healthy understanding as to why crawl information is important. How do you see what pages on your site Google has indexed, and why is this information important?The interviewee should be able to provide one or more ways they can check a page’s indexed status. But more importantly, they should be able to outline the importance of getting this knowledge and how they integrate it into their SEO campaign. What is the best way to get a page indexed in Google?There may be no right answer to this question, but there are plenty of wrong ones. They should demonstrate an understanding of search spidering and page indexing and what specific marketing efforts factor into it. How often should a page be updated for good SEO?This is probably the closest to a “gotcha!” question on this list, though it’s not intended to be. What you want to learn is how often the candidate would revisit the page and to outline when and why they would make changes to it. If you get an answer that indicates they make changes to a page without any real strategy behind it, this is likely not the candidate for you. How quickly after making changes to a page should you expect to see an impact in search?The correct answer here varies from site to site and the candidate’s answer should reflect that. This can also merge into a discussion regarding how long it takes for SEO changes to produce strong, measurable results. For what reason would you want to exclude pages from search engines?Candidates should demonstrate a knowledge of various types of pages and content. Specifically, they should be able to outline several page/content types that are better kept from search engines. On a scale of one to ten, how important is a mobile friendly site to successful SEO?You want to make sure the candidate can articulate the importance of having a mobile-friendly website and how it factors into today’s digital marketing landscape. The discussion should cover both search and usability issues. What are the various configurations for a mobile site? Which do you prefer and why?The candidate should be familiar with the various ways to build a mobile website. You should get a clear understanding of why they prefer one over the other. They should also demonstrate knowledge of Google’s preferences as well. On a scale of one to ten, how important is site speed to the optimization process?The detail provided in this answer will tell you quite a bit about the candidate’s knowledge on the subject. They should be able to explain why site speed is or isn’t too important. On a scale of one to ten, how important is site security (HTTPS) to successful SEO?As with the question above, you’re looking for a reasoned explanation as to why they believe as they do. Many SEOs disagree on the level of importance of any aspect of SEO, but every SEO should understand the issue’s complexities. On a scale of one to ten, how important is validated HTML and CSS to optimization?Validated code is decidedly not important to the search engine algorithms. However, the candidate should understand the potential ramifications of poorly constructed code and how validation factors into preventing it. What is the function of the robots.txt file?The candidate should be able to explain what the robots.txt file is used for and outline some of the dangers of misusing this file. What is the function of the .htaccess file?As above, the candidate should have a solid understanding of how this file is used to help (or hurt) the web marketing campaign. How does PPC impact SEO?Most SEOs agree that PPC does not have any impact on organic rankings, though there are some that vehemently disagree. Overall, you want a candidate that can explain the value that PPC brings to organic even without impacting the organic rankings specifically. For what reasons will Google actively penalize your site?Most things described as penalties from Google are not penalties at all, just negative repercussions from doing something they don’t like. The candidate should be able to distinguish from an active penalty and a negative result. Algorithm aside, what type of sites does Google want to rank in the organic search results?This question is designed to see how forward thinking the candidate is or if they merely react to known Google algorithm updates. They should be able to articulate a solid understanding of the purpose of the algorithms and what they are ultimately trying to achieve. Outside of SEO, what other factors are relevant to a site’s organic success?You want to make sure that your candidate doesn’t have SEO tunnel vision and can see the bigger picture when it comes to digital marketing. You want to hear how they believe social media, content strategy, link building, and even PPC can be a factor in helping SEO succeed. What is the single best way to find out what your customers are looking for?The candidate should be able to demonstrate an ability to think beyond rankings and talk about how to find their target audience. They should outline a number of ways to find keywords and discuss how they are valued. Their knowledge should extend to understanding other signals consumers provide that tell us more about their interests. What are related words and their value to the optimization process?Keyword optimization is less about optimizing phrases into a page than it is about addressing the overall topic. The candidate should have an understanding of topical optimization as well as finding and using related words in content being optimized. What is more valuable, long-tail or short-tail keywords?Both long- and short-tail phrases have value. Let the candidate explain to you how each is important to the overall success of the campaign while also highlighting their weaknesses. What is your preferred CMS and why?This is where you find out what content management systems the candidate has experience with and whether or not they’ll be ready to jump into the CMS your own site uses. They should demonstrate an understanding of the pros and cons of their favorite CMS as it pertains to SEO. How do you think SEO will be different in five years?This last question is to see how much they have thought about the future of SEO and what changes are coming our way. If they haven’t given it much thought, it’s possible they are reactionary rather than visionary. That may not be a deal breaker for you, but it can be important when you compare them to other candidates. The questions outlined above cover a full spectrum of SEO knowledge. Are there specific questions missing? Probably. But these questions are designed to go beyond the scope of the specific question itself. There should be plenty of room here for the candidate to demonstrate their full knowledge. Let the conversation meander a bit. Let the candidate talk. And by the end, you’ll have a strong feel for what they do (or don’t) know. Image Credits Featured Image: Image by Stoney deGeyter SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 27, 2017 at 11:28PM Are you keeping up with the increasing demands of content marketing today? http://ift.tt/2mJrYUT Content demands have risen exponentially, driven primarily by changes in consumer tech adoption. Mobile has changed how marketers communicate with their audiences. What’s different with mobile compared to older mediums is the frequency and mindset of consumers. People are in discovery mode on mobile. They devote almost their entire attention to one thing on the screen at a time. The change in behaviours is creating a content challenge for brand marketers. The number of stories you need to tell is getting larger. But budgets are staying the same. This white paper from Flashstock helps you understand what you need to know about the content economics of your production process, and solutions that will allow you to scale and meet the increasing demands of content marketing today. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “How to Scale Content Creation for Social and Digital Channels.” About The Author
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SMX West session: Harnessing the power of online reviews http://ift.tt/2o2GDeb Closing out the excellent first time slot in the Local track at SMX West this year was Thomas Ballantyne’s session about online reviews. Far too many business owners either ignore or don’t care about reviews, so Ballantyne — the director of marketing at Bulwark Pest Control — built his presentation as a tool to help marketers get buy-in from their clients. Reviews are vital for successBallantyne began by citing a recent BrightLocal survey that showed that 92 percent of consumers read online reviews to determine the quality of local businesses. Whether a business owner wants to pay attention to reviews or not, potential customers are seeking out and reading reviews of the business. Even more important — 51 percent of people trust user-generated content over info on a company website or in news articles. Ballantyne explained that people trust reviews written by other people much more than anything written on your website, which is why it’s so important for business owners to focus on their online reviews. According to Ballantyne, Millennials actually trust user-generated content MORE than what they hear from friends or family, so online reviews are clearly becoming more and more important to younger generations. Reviews are the crossroads of social media and transactions. They simply can’t be ignored. Consumers own your brand messagingIf 51 percent of people trust user-generated content more than what’s on your site, and if online reviews are 12 times more trusted than product descriptions, that means that your customers actually own your brand messaging. It won’t matter what you say about yourself or what you sell — most consumers will care more about what your customers say about you. Amazon is the king of reviewsAmazon is the largest single source of consumer reviews — and they’ve embraced that. In fact, Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, is taking a different approach to reviews, displaying “the good, the bad and the ugly to let truth loose.” Ballantyne notes that Amazon realized that good reviews from customers are equal to trust, and trust is currency. There’s no such thing as a bad review problemIn a “drop the mic” moment, Ballantyne summed up bad review problems with one of the most tweetable lines from this year’s conference: “If you have bad reviews, you don’t have a review problem — you have a business problem.” Business owners always blame bad reviews on crazy customers, but consistent bad reviews are a clear sign that something is wrong with the business or the product you’re selling. You’ve got to take a step back and solve your business problem before you can get good reviews. Utter disaster over a $7 tipBallantyne shared a crazy story about a car dealership that shared a video they thought the public would rally behind — but it backfired and resulted in thousands of negative reviews. The dealership had ordered pizza delivery, and when they paid, they didn’t ask for change. The delivery guy assumed that the extra $7 was his tip, which would have been appropriate given the size of the order. Unfortunately, he was wrong. The dealership called the pizza place and insisted that the delivery guy come back to return their $7. When they posted the video online to show how poorly they’d been treated by their delivery guy, the internet rose up and destroyed their online reviews. They received 7,856 one-star reviews on Yelp and 2,769 negative reviews on Google. That’s over 10,000 bad reviews… over a simple $7 tip. How to get good reviewsBallantyne shared the simple solution to getting great reviews. First, you’ve got to provide good customer service. You’ve got to hire people who will love your customers. Second, you just have to ask. If you ask customers to leave a review, most of them will do it — but most businesses never ask for reviews. Check out the slides from Thomas Ballantyne’s presentation: Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorGreg Gifford is the Director of Search and Social at DealerOn, a software company that provides websites and online marketing to new car dealers all over the country. Check out their awesome blogfor more of Greg’s local search posts and videos. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 27, 2017 at 05:10AM Preparing for local reach in a ‘post-rank’ world: Get your data in line http://ift.tt/2o2oCNa Just last October at the Street Fight Summit, many marketers ranked voice search as the most “over-hyped” marketing tactic of the year. I think this is because many of them aren’t seeing the full scope of the technology. We’re putting on our consumer brains and thinking about the current awkwardness of speaking to Siri in public, not of a future inside self-driving cars or those moments when we just don’t want to get up from the couch. Currently, most voice searches happen on mobile phones. But within the next few years, it seems likely that devices with this capacity will increase in prevalence — and technological capability — in private spaces, where voicing out-loud intent won’t feel so silly. What might voice search mean for local?Most who do believe in a voice-dominated future are in a love/hate relationship with the idea. Some predict we’ll lose all local organic space to ads. Others foresee a future in which anything less than the No. 1 rank is worthless. I see both conclusions as an incomplete picture. A recent Moz study demonstrated that only 3.4 percent of Google local searches result in ad clicks. While it’s possible to anticipate a future in which voice search results are entirely paid ads, the fact that consumers seem to largely prefer organic suggests that Google would have a hard time retaining customers with such a model. Imagine if Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” search were a paid ad spot — who would click that button? Replacing the organic “best” option with the highest bidder changes our perception of the result. For businesses, this is further encouragement to tap into the power of organic local reach via accurate data and local knowledge sharing. Additionally, I think it’s a fallacy to assume that instant answers will beget a world where only the lucky top-ranked result wins. Rather, as I’ll show in this post, voice will make filtering for exactly what a consumer wants a much simpler process. So instead of a single No. 1 rank for a given local keyword (e.g., “divorce lawyer Los Angeles”), there will be dozens of No. 1 pages based on the other parameters a searcher indicates in her query (“a female divorce lawyer within a 20-minute drive from my office in Los Angeles who has experience in custody cases and pre-nups, with at least a 4.5-star rating and who can meet during my lunch break this week”). So a “post-rank” world doesn’t mean “a world where there’s only top-dog answer” — it means “a world where there are many equally top-dog answers.” Below, I’ll go over some ways local and brick-and-mortar businesses should prepare for a voice-dominated future. In the next couple of posts, I’ll explain how this trend will affect national and online-based service providers. Many of the factors that will affect local reach are arguably more organic than SEO tactics. And most will still require the expertise of digital marketers. One note: These are predictions. The closest I’ve come to a crystal ball is a fortune teller in New Orleans who intuited that “sometimes I worry about things.” But many of these predictions have foundations from people in the search and marketing community with far more experience than I do, such as Cindy Krum, Mike Blumenthal and David Mihm. Local results in a voice search futureIn a “post-rank” world, much of the digital effort will be focused on ensuring that a business’s digital presence is an accurate reflection of the real world via detailed service descriptions, numerous reviews and prolific interactions. At least three factors will increasingly affect local results in a voice-first world: 1. Local reach will be affected by searcher proximity to local businessesEssentially, mobile searches that vary by even a mile or so can produce drastically different local rank results. See Darren Shaw’s research for more on this. Desktop-based searches can be less specific, since they depend on IP. For the most part, this factor cannot be influenced unless you move offices. If your location is farther out of town (and farther from the local population than your competitors), your business may not surface as often in voice results for searchers in the center of town. 2. Local reach will be affected by how ‘good’ the business isDavid Mihm pointed out in a recent post that as Google’s capacity to measure real-world engagement with businesses increases, positive engagement signals will mostly likely improve local rank. Many of these signals will be directly affected by the quality of the business’s services, such as:
Hopefully, most local business or franchise owners already care about the quality of their products and services. But soon, this quality — or lack thereof — may directly affect their digital presence. If search engines can only offer one answer, they want to send customers to an experience they’ll be satisfied with. 3. Local reach will be affected by how well the local business’s digital presence serves searchers’ needsSo I need to find a local, well-reviewed appliance repair specialist to come to my home between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. tonight. They also need to have experience with Samsung refrigerators. The screen shot below shows my current (March 2017) mobile result for “fridge repair.” Google already has much of the information needed for my specific request, save the Samsung specification. Looks like today I’m going with Sears Appliance, as they’re the only top-ranked business open at a time that works for this particular request. But I’ve actually had a repair person come to my home who didn’t specialize in my appliance model, wasting my time and his, so I’ll need to call first to ensure that Sears can repair my specific fridge. I anticipate that in a couple of years, Google Assistant will be able to perform this task for me, based on a query like, “Ok Google, I need a fridge repair specialist, rated four stars or higher, for tonight at 7 p.m., and make sure they can work with Samsung products.” And that’s it — Google will take care of the rest; after telling me the name of the business and confirming that I’m OK with a 4.2-star-rated service, the entire process will still take less than a minute. I anticipate that apps integrating service businesses’s team schedules with Google searches will soon become a staple of local search, completing the last piece of this cycle. The pieces for this transaction are almost together on the infrastructure side for Google, but further research on my end shows a plethora of local businesses on Yelp and Facebook that haven’t yet taken the time to build out a clear Google My Business listing or their own website. This includes one local business with excellent reviews that’s been in the area for 20 years and provides services 24/7. Yes, finally. Here’s the voice-search factor marketers can invest in. Optimizing for voice search via detailed contentLocal businesses need to prepare for voice search by ensuring “long-tail” details are clearly displayed on the web. Remember my Samsung model problem? We’ll soon live in a world in which a consumer won’t want to spend 10 minutes calling around with a question like that; she’ll expect to find it, well, instantly. Maybe some weekend, I’ll want to find a local restaurant within walking distance of my home that’s good for a date night, features vegan options and live music and has a booth available at 7:30 p.m. that night. The more details search engines can parse through, the more long-tail local searches a given business will be able to service. Even if Google doesn’t yet have markup options for such specific details, local websites featuring structured data will have an advantage in a voice-search world. More details — even those that don’t yet have markup options — can only enhance a website. Mobile search expert Cindy Krum recently explained why it makes sense to anticipate more integration between search engines and local listings:
I don’t see many small business owners with the technical know-how to apply structured data to their websites, so it’s almost certain that these responsibilities will fall to local marketing agencies. Then again, building a good-looking website is much easier than it was 10 or 15 years ago, thanks to providers like Squarespace and Wix. I don’t see why Google (and/or some savvy startups) wouldn’t work to simplify the data-add process for local business owners in the coming years. Optimizing for voice search via reviewsLocal businesses need to prepare for voice search by curating customer reviews. I’m excited to see how the future of voice affects reviews, and I anticipate it’ll change the experience for both reviewers and review readers. Google already initiates questions on more objective business characteristics. We already have pop-ups after leaving local businesses, inviting us to quickly rate our experience. It’s an easy jump to anticipate voice searches in which customers request a local experience with “good reviews” or “four star or higher reviews.” The extra selective may request “four point five star or higher” experiences. If we’re going to make a quick choice, we want to know that it’s a good choice. I’d be much more willing to make an appointment with a 4.3-star hair stylist whose website I haven’t seen than a 2.7-star hair stylist. At the end of the day, reviews are a reflection of the entire business. No amount of marketing can fix a poor customer experience, but marketers can ensure that customers who do report positive experiences are encouraged to leave reviews on public directories or search engines. Optimizing for voice search via local brandingLocal businesses need to prepare for voice search by establishing a local brand. This is the qualitative branch of local reach. As search engines’ abilities to understand real-world interactions improve, more attribution will be built between local brand and local prevalence. Businesses are already building this capability between digital ads and foot traffic. It’s not a long shot from here to measuring the number of event attendees at a business’s event booth, or the match between your business and its logo on a local Little League team t-shirt. Search will increasingly become a digital map of real-world relationships, whether it’s conveying the quality of a product, the details of a service or a brand’s prevalence in the community. Where next?I performed zero voice searches during my research for this article, as there’s not yet an instant answer for “how will voice search affect digital marketing?” Clearly, we’re still in the toddler years of this technology. But my research methods also highlight a stark difference between search types: quick answers and deep research. Both take space in local marketplaces, but each will respond to different types of queries. And, in my view, each will be serviced by a different business type. So in the next post, I’ll dive deeper into how content and community development may affect local reach, even in a post-rank world. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorMegan is the CoFounder of ZipSprout, a startup agency and tool service that helps brands find grassroots local marketing opportunities. Megan also works on product management for Citation Labs, ZipSprout's parent and founding company. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 27, 2017 at 03:50AM
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SMX West: What Google’s exact match changes mean for AdWords advertisers [Podcast] http://ift.tt/2nsRZqx SMX West was buzzing last week, and much of the conversation was about Google’s recent change to how exact match keywords will work in AdWords campaigns. Although the news just came out last week, the SMX programming team quickly organized a “flash session” that happened Wednesday morning before the scheduled agenda began. Panelists including Marketing Land’s Ginny Marvin and SMX moderators Matt Van Wagner and Brad Geddes took questions for almost an hour from a big crowd of concerned advertisers. They covered topics including
In this week’s Marketing Land Live podcast, Ginny Marvin and I recap that excellent session with two audio clips from the audience Q&A. The episode runs just under 40 minutes. You can listen here or use the link below to subscribe via your favorite podcast service. We invite you to subscribe via iTunes or Google Play Podcasts. Show notesGoogle to further dilute exact match in AdWords; will ignore word order & function words Seriously, Google, can you just make exact match exact? Thanks for listening! Join us again next week for another episode of Marketing Land Live. About The AuthorMatt McGee is the Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. After leaving traditional media in the mid-1990s, he began developing and marketing websites and continued to provide consulting services for more than 15 years. His SEO and social media clients ranged from mom-and-pop small businesses to one of the Top 5 online retailers. Matt is a longtime speaker at marketing events around the U.S., including keynote and panelist roles. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee. You can read Matt's disclosureson his personal blog. You can reach Matt via email using our Contact page. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 27, 2017 at 03:50AM |
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