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SMX Overtime: Evaluating and managing your ad options https://ift.tt/2CGCjaj Senior Associate at Red Ventures, Sean Murphy, spoke at the SMX West session, “The Text Ad Reboot: How To Evaluate & Manage Your Current Options” in San Jose. Questions emerged about how to win clients over with responsive ads as well as experimenting with new ad formats and trying new things with hard-close ads. How do you get clients comfortable with the idea of responsive ads, when they’re used to approving specific copy? Murphy: It can be tricky to get clients comfortable with responsive search ads, but I suggest following this process to move forward:
How important is it to reach stat sig (95 percent) when testing new ad formats? Murphy: Not at all, with optimized ad rotation, the champion ad is dead. You’re not testing a single new ad format to expecting it to be uniformly better than previous ad formats. There’s too much machine learning optimization on top of whatever “statistically significant” A/B test you run. Instead, embrace the move to ad personalization and provide ad platforms with a wide variety of ads to choose from. See also How Not To Run an A/B Test by Evan Miller. With so much more space should we push a harder close? Book now! Inventory is running low! Murphy: Love the thought process: What can we do differently now than before, taking advantage of extra ad space? Hard-close ads have a place in an optimized ad portfolio, where the engine can choose which customers are ready to respond to that messaging. Depending on the search term, they won’t typically stand alone as the most-served ad, but providing an ad for people in that stage of the customer journey is important variety that should improve performance. Is there more pressure to bid for position 1 with Expanded text ads considering that they take up more real estate? Murphy: How much your CTR scales with position will vary based on your brand and the competitiveness of the landscape. I’ve been in non-brand accounts where CTR triples from the 2.5 to the 1.5 and where it increases much more modestly. Understanding that is key to choosing bids that maximize value and ROI. Lean on new metrics like click share and impression absolute top % to help you understand what click potential is still untapped. About The AuthorWendy Almeida is Third Door Media's Community Editor, working with contributors for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. She has held content management roles in a range of organizations from daily newspapers and magazines to global nonprofits. SEO via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc March 28, 2019 at 07:01AM
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Google Info Command Is Now Dead https://ift.tt/2UZIjlB As expected, Google's info command no longer works. It stopped working yesterday afternoon. So now if you try to do the special search operator, you will just get search results from that site and nothing special. Here is a screen shot: Glenn Gabe noticed it went away at 1:45pm eastern time yesterday and posted about it on Twitter. Now you can no longer get the Google selected canonical for URLs outside of your domain name space. You can however see if a URL in your property is a Google selected canonical for a domain name outside of that property. For example, I have the http of this site verified and it shows that the Google selected canonical for an http URL on this site is the HTTPS version, which is a different property:
Goodbye info command! Forum discussion at Twitter. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/1sYxUD0 March 28, 2019 at 06:58AM
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11 Habits of Content Creators Who Optimize ‘Creative Spend’ by @ronlieback https://ift.tt/2UeRP7b The greatest content creators and writers know how to optimize what I call “creative spend,” which is measured in creative units, or CUs. Visualize one of those old-school wooden rulers used in elementary schools. Picture it having 100 CUs. When you’re around 100, your creative energy is at its peak, and you complete high-quality work in less time. If you’re around 0 CUs, your creative energy is depleted. Here, the work is unacceptable and takes much more time. For simplicity, say the average content creator can finish work at around 50 CUs. The key word here is average (a.k.a., stale, boring, dull, or however you want to describe it). These are the ones who just get by and do nothing to scale a business. Anything below 50 and the content fails. The ideal situation is to keep your CUs well above 50 and as close to 100 as possible. And the longer you remain there, the more quality work you’ll complete and in less time – giving us back a bit of the only thing we can never get back. How do you keep the creative energy hypercharged all day? Create new daily habits to recharge those CUs, and replace the negative habits that quickly rob your CUs inventory. The smallest things like replying to a social media post or an email may seem unharmful, but they deplete creative units. Say you are on Facebook just before you start a project that requires much creative energy. You were fully charged with 100 units before this action but now lost 30 – providing you with 70 units of creativity. You will complete the work, but not in the best possible way. And this is just one example. Others include distractions from co-workers, daydreaming, or answering an unknown phone call that you know will be somebody offering life insurance. There are two ways to optimize your creative spend so you create only the best content in the least amount of time.
Both of these can be fully achieved by creating a new set of daily rituals that eventually turn into habits. What follows are 11 habits that great content creators utilize to always work within 100 units of their creativity. I’ve divided this into two sections:
I spent the past two decades making money as a writer, and have trained people about how to write everything from emails to white papers. Writers continue to take the brunt of most creative tasks at businesses, especially SMBs where budgets are slim. This is exactly why I dedicated a few habits just for the writer. For All Content Creators1. Prioritize Physical Health HabitsI’m no doctor, and far from a health expert. But it’s easy to understand that if you don’t feel your best, you won’t create your best content. I had lived a bulk of my early 20s as a musician and wannabe fiction novelist, spending serious time in barrooms thick with smoke and a drink always near. I also only slept for about three hours each night. I was never overweight or sick, but looking back, my full potential was never in reach. My CUs were depleted through many fun but unproductive activities. This all led to a nervous breakdown in my late 20s that became the proverbial wake-up call. Health became a priority, and even more so when I launched my agency over two years ago. Nowadays if I don’t perform at my best, my business fails. And you simply can’t perform your best if your not both physically and mentally fit. Physical fitness is simple – eat well and exercise. Mental fitness is a bit more challenging – especially for content creators who must exist near those 100 CUs daily to achieve true success. But mental fitness, which for content creators is the ability to sharply focus with clarity, relies on physical fitness first. With that said, to have a sharp mind begins with physical fitness. Of course, some unfit content creators exist, but if you’re physically fit you’ll enjoy a lifetime of optimal content creation, and can capitalize easier on developing the following habits. 2. Design a Distraction-Free Zone for Deep FocusDuring creative hours, make it a habit to create distraction-free time that will allow your CUs to remain high and your mind to get into a super deep focus. Become truly distraction-free – don’t check emails, text messages, social media feeds, etc. Make this a habit, and your content production will skyrocket – in both quantity and, more importantly, quality. If you’re like most content creators, you work via computers with your phone nearby. Make sure all notifications are off for both computers and other electronic devices. Only work in one screen or browser window. For deep focus, anything that may cause distractions must be turned off. Also, notify co-workers and/or bosses when you’re in your distraction-free modes. Email and social media are certainly the biggest culprits of sucking up precious creative units, but office distractions are definitely the next. 3. Find Your Creative Time Limit & Habitually Return to ItHow long should you spend in your distraction-free creative time zone? This varies for every content creator – and for some, the time may vary on a project-by-project basis. For example, if I’m writing about business, self-development, writing, or motorcycles, I can remain non-exhausted for up to three hours. But if I’m creating content strategies or editing blogs for clients, sometimes my maximum time for peak performance is around 90 minutes. This doesn’t mean you only have three hours or 90 minutes of peak creativity during any given day. This only means you have to replenish your CUs by doing something else for a certain amount of time. This may be a 15-minute walk around the block, a non-digital reading session, washing dishes, or cutting down a tree. It doesn’t matter the task of the break; what matters is that you get your mind off what you’re doing for a quick recharge. For some, it may be tough to completely replenish their CUs, and they may only get one extra period of high energy to work on their project. How often you can replenish your CUs during a day depends solely on your approach – if you remained distraction-free and are feeling good, you can do this all day. If not, don’t worry; the more you make it a habit to recharge your CUs throughout the day, the more periods of creative energy you’ll have to finish your content projects. 4. Organize Time Every Week for ProjectsDon’t wait for those proverbial creative juices to start flowing or that muse of yours. Consistently block time into your calendar every week or day, depending on how you manage your workflow. Again, don’t wait for a creative awakening – initiate it daily, and this ritual will become a habit and allow you to produce more work – and more quality work – on a consistent basis. As E.B White says, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” 5. Try to Accomplish the Most Creative Tasks EarlyAfter a great night’s sleep, the mind is fresh, and this is when you can truly take advantage of your most creative units. On my “creative” days – say when I need to edit a final draft of something important – I refuse to check email, social media, or even my phone until all my creative work is complete. This sometimes goes through 3 p.m. – even if I’m up at my usual 6 a.m. to start work. As you can imagine, this is also super refreshing because you can’t worry about the things you don’t know about. I say “Try” in the subheading because some people still have other times when their creativity is highest. I used to have my peak creativity from 11 p.m. through whenever I went to sleep, but after starting my own business, priorities changed and so did my mind’s freshness times – mostly because of the healthier habits I developed such as a strict sleep schedule, dieting, and biohacking. I still do some late-night work, but it doesn’t treat my sleeping patterns correct. Again, it’s all rituals I changed to create habits that would help me to capitalize on my creativity while optimizing my health and life. Another tactic I use is working after short naps. Einstein was the king of naps, and his creativity was obviously high at all times. I sometimes take 15-to-20-minute naps before I have to create some content, and it energizes my freshness. 6. Slow the Mind Drastically Before A ProjectThis is a hack I use over and over for projects that I start during the middle of the day. Again, I like doing things in the morning with a fresh mind, but meetings need to go on, and unexpected events happen. After such occurrences, most content producers are drained, and the day is a waste. Instead, you need a hack, and that’s where slowing the mind drastically before starting or continuing a project can help supercharge your creative units. If I have something that’s going to use nearly all of my creative spend for that day, like back-to-back client meetings, I’ll spend an hour or so doing something that has nothing to do with my upcoming project. Make it something you enjoy doing – a downtime that can shake your mind off the project in a second. This can be a hike or jog around town; for others, it may be video games or cooking. It doesn’t matter what the downtime is – just get it done. My personal favorites are a hot bath while reading, a fast motorcycle ride, or a blues guitar jam session. Also, consider time limits. An hour is what works perfectly for me; I can then head into my creative zone with complete energy and get much quality work completed in less time. Others may need more or less time; find what works best for you, and if you discover this simple acts of enjoyable downtime builds more energy for your project, make the acts a ritual that will turn habit. For the WritersRegardless of the type of business, writers typically absorb most of the creative work. And for writers to succeed, they need some serious time to optimize their CUs. Here are a few healthy habits that all writers can benefit from. 7. Habitually Deny Writer’s Block; It’s a B.S. DelusionI’ve written about this numerous times. People that say they have writer’s block either:
From working with myself and many writers, I’d argue laziness is the main culprit of writer’s block, and laziness is a primary outcome of depleted creative units. Make it a habit to deny any delusion of writer’s block. The only issue you have is lack of CUs – that’s it. 8. Just Start WritingSometimes all of the energy is there, and the CUs are maximized, but the words won’t flow. Try developing a habit to simply start writing about anything pertaining to the subject. Just get those fingers moving. Start babbling on about what you know and is easiest at first. Don’t worry how sloppy the initial draft is; simply get your thoughts flowing. Sometimes it only takes the physical movement of the fingers on the keyword to get your words flowing. From there, ideas will start to take shape. Unless your a novelist, don’t go all Kerouac and write stream-of-conscious style. Strong online writing – think blogs, service pages, newsletters – need organization for both user experience and search purposes. That takes us to the next habit of great content creators. 9. Outline, Write, Edit & Edit AgainThis is a simple process that writers have used for centuries. When you outline a piece of writing, you are forced to organize the information in smaller blurbs. This makes arranging them into the most coherent layout a simple task. In one quick search, you’ll find multiple ways to outline any type of writing, from fiction novels to essays. But let’s focus on the typical writing that takes place every day – blog-style articles. What works for me is a super basic outline:
The arrangement of creating each outline item change constantly. Sometimes I write a conclusion and support it with sub-headings before writing the title (hence why it’s a “working title”) and intro, and sometimes I do things the exact opposite. It all depends on prior knowledge to the subject, or what you have just learned from research. This also plays into SEO because those subheadings turn into header tags, where you can further insert important keywords, and it helps to organize the information for search engines. I wrote about writing for SEO over and over, so I’ll keep this one from a strictly content creation perspective. Back to creative units – it’s wise to spend as much creative energy on this outline as you do on the writing itself. Once the first draft is complete, it’s time to edit. And edit again. And again if necessary. Always approach the final edit after at least a full day away from the subject, and complete the final edit when your creative units are at peak. For me this is the early morning of my “creative” days – I don’t check email or news or my phone until I have completed my final edits. 10. Read Daily, Including Every Book on WritingMake it a habit to read daily. Audiobooks and podcasts are great for learning, but if you want to write well, you must read. The more you read, the more you’ll absorb all the elements of writing, including syntax, voice, the organization of topics, etc. The more you read, the better you’ll write. As my number-one writing coach William Zinsser says:
Make sure to mix in books on writing. You want to read the great ones such as Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” and Roy Peter Clark’s “Writing Tools,” but there’s something to learn in the lesser-famous titles. Yes – even the ones you find on the discount rack at your local Barnes & Noble. You may only find one snippet of helpful information in some of the less-known books on writing, but that snippet may add another writing hack into your life, something that is more valuable than you’d expect due to the unpopularity of the book. And if it’s super dry, go all 80/20 and browse through the chapters for the valuable information. 11. Try a Standing DeskErnest Hemingway wrote standing up. As did Charles Dickens and Winston Churchill. And they did this long before companies began generating revenue on stand-up desks. After two decades of writing, this past January I finally tried one that can easily transition from a standing to sitting desk. It was a game changer, not only for my writing but my posture. Standing keeps more energy flowing throughout the day, and nowadays I typically spend 80 percent of my working day on my feet. It’s become a new habit that helps me produce more quality content in less time. Concluding ThoughtsThe top content creators understand how to hyperactivate their creative zones, and remain within peak CUs throwout the day. And it’s all because of the habits they create along the way – ones that keep the energy high and the mind and body sharp. These types not only produce more quality work – they do so in less time, something nobody can can’t get back in life. This opens time for other tasks, whether it’s another project to earn more, or hanging out with loved ones. And this open time can be spent with zero stress about getting a lingering project completed – all because of some simple daily habits that optimize your creative spend. More Resources: SEO via Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 28, 2019 at 06:58AM
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Google Help Video On Angular SEO https://ift.tt/2JI4xHl Here is the next video in the series of JavaScript SEO videos from Google. This one is on Make your Angular web apps discoverable in search and SEO friendly. Martin Splitt from Google digs into the tech behind how this works and how you can help Google discover the content within your Angular web apps. He discusses how to get your titles and meta descriptions to be indexed by Google in these cases. He also gets into Angular Universal and how that can work with Google search. Here is the video: VIDEO Forum discussion at Twitter. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/1sYxUD0 March 28, 2019 at 06:41AM Matt Cutts, Still Leaves Honeypot Traps For SEOs https://ift.tt/2uzVQo4 Matt Cutts, the former Google spam fighting lead, now the Administrator of the United States Digital Service, said on Twitter that he still has a "few honeypot traps" to catch SEOs and then will report them for fun.
I suspect when he said "honeypot traps" he means his blog, which probably still get a lot of traffic from SEOs and probably a lot of spammy requests as well. The funny thing is this happened a lot when Matt was actively working at Google. We all get these types of emails asking for links, selling DA, PR, etc. I am sure Matt does as well, and I am sure many Googlers do too. Forum discussion at Twitter. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/1sYxUD0 March 28, 2019 at 06:33AM
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5 Strategies for Customer Uploads in PPC Campaigns by @michellemsem https://ift.tt/2JJKzME Customer upload lists are not new to the PPC toolbox, but I feel that they’re regularly underused. The name itself can sound a bit limiting and I think that’s where people get caught up. Customer uploads are not only for “customers.” They’re really for any segment of your potential customer pool that you have personal information for (or can get through a third party) that usually hinges around an email address. Depending on who that list is comprised of, there can be tons of different purposes within our accounts. Here are five of my favorite. 1. Users to Be ExcludedThe first is likely the most basic. Upload a list of users you don’t want to target anymore. This could be any number of groups:
Essentially, anyone you don’t want to pay to have click on your ads. We’ve found adding employees to client accounts can be a great money saver despite not quite understanding the reason for clicking on your own employer’s ad. For lead generation, you really only need the person’s information once. So once you have it, they can be excluded from your lead generation efforts since you would only be paying for the same information twice. 2. Audiences for TargetingOn the flip side, there may be instances where you want to specifically target only your customer upload list. This could be any number of users:
Having these lists of users separated from everyone else means you can have dedicated campaigns, ad copy, landing pages, etc., to speak to them in a way that makes the most sense. All optimizations can then be made based on how this group reacts, whether it’s similar or different from the rest of your account. 3. Audiences for ObservationSimilar to that above, there are sometimes when you want to target an audience, but only to see how they perform in relation to your normal audiences. From our customer databases, there could be any number of groups we want to see performance for:
We tend to use these if we’re curious about audience engagement from different user groups. Spend some time looking through your CRM and see if there are any groups that perplex you or that you think might be outliers. Create a separate list for them and upload them into the platform. Next, we’ll layer them in as observation only audiences to our search campaigns. To do this, click into the campaign you want the audience applied to and click Audiences in the left-side navigation. Then, click the blue pencil icon on that page to add an audience. You’ll then be able to choose whether you want to apply the audience at the campaign or ad group level and then set your targeting to Observation. Once data starts flowing in, we’ll have separate line items for each of our Observation audiences and the ability to adjust our bid modifiers up or down for those users. Now we’ll be able to see how each performs in relation to each other, but also in relation to users who are not in any of the lists we’ve added as observation layers. We can start to understand how the users in our CRM differ from those not yet recorded and maybe try to find some patterns. And that’s a great place for the next strategy to come in. 4. List for Modeling Purposes OnlyNearly all platforms that have a customer upload option also have some form of Lookalike modeling in their arsenal of targeting options. So why not leverage it? Think of that list of people you would love to find more of. It could be something like the following:
Nearly every business owner I’ve talked to has had that one group of users within their database where they say, “I want more of them”. Well, this could be a great way to try and do just that. Export your list of those folks, upload them to the platform, create a Lookalike, and see what happens. These models certainly aren’t perfect, but you may be surprised what you find out about how that highly coveted audience behaves on different platforms. 5. Customer Uploads for InsightsThe last option is likely the least used of all of the five. Within Google Ads, we’re able to upload a list of users and then get further insights into their make up. Head into your account and find the Audience Insights tool that can be found in the upper left of the Audience Manager tab. You can then choose from any type of audience… …and review how it stacks up against many of the target options on the GDN, including demographic information and In-Market & Affinity Segments. ConclusionDon’t let the name “customer upload” stand in the way of you taking full advantage of this powerful tool. Think of all the different segmentations you can make within your CRM user list and how you can leverage that in your PPC campaigns. What are the strategies you’ve used for uploading customer lists? What have you seen work well in your campaigns? Share with us in the comments! Happy uploading! More Resources: Image Credits All screenshots taken by author, March 2019 SEO via Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 27, 2019 at 08:09AM
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How to Grow Your Cannabis Brand with Digital Marketing by @lisabuyer https://ift.tt/2CFkwjv Cannabis is one smokin’ industry. CBD, hemp, medical marijuana, and recreational marijuana are making headlines in all news sectors including politics, finance, health, wellness, cosmetics, and fashion. While the cannabis industry is one of the hottest industries, marketing cannabis can be quite the buzzkill. This is especially true if you are trying to use Google Ads and social ads such as Facebook or Twitter. Even the Super Bowl rejected a PSA-type ad promoting the legalization of medical marijuana, deeming it inappropriate and not up to the broadcaster’s standards. Here’s what you missed. On the contrary, SXSW 2019 had its first ever cannabis track featuring more than 40 sessions as part of its “cannabusiness track”. The panels included sustainability, marketing, CBD, the impacts of THC on the aging brain, industry predictions, investment strategies, artist licensing opportunities, and political policy. There were also podcast tapings and a meet-up for women in the cannabis business, which reportedly has the highest percentage of female executives compared to any other industry. About the Cannabis IndustryThe cannabis industry is one that has experienced its share of ups and downs. In the U.S. alone, it’s faced an uphill battle with Congress from the Anti-Drug Abuse Act to the “War on Drugs.” But the industry’s history traces back even further. Merchants and traders in China have been buying, selling, and using cannabis and its multifaceted use for centuries. While we’ve seen significant triumphs as society and government have shifted toward a (more) supportive environment, there are still major obstacles that the cannabis industry faces to promote and market. Let’s fast-forward to the digital age. It’s 2019, and we’re no strangers to the disrupting industries that have catapulted us into a world of instant connection and satisfaction through clicks, playbacks, and tweets. We’ve seen the benefits for brands that have successfully ridden the waves of the disruption. Cannabis DisruptionAnalysts are predicting a $150 billion global cannabis industry, some even saying $500 billion. So why is this budding industry experiencing digital advertising obstacles where other digital retailers have easily been able to capitalize? Well, there is still a lot of red tape involved in the legalization and decriminalization of cannabis. As of 2018, 11 states and the District of Columbia have passed state laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use. An additional 21 states have passed various laws allowing limited use of medical cannabis products. This means that 19 states have still made little-to-no progress leaving online social and advertising platforms like Facebook and Instagram to limit the cannabis-related advertisements. Finding Organic Reach for CannabisJust because there are limits doesn’t mean that the grass isn’t greener on the digital side for cannabis. While cannabis-related brands may have a hard time passing through the pearly gates of paid advertising, they can still find success trying different marketing strategies using a mix of:
Cannabis Getting PublicityPR and media relations are a critical strategy for cannabis-related brands. For example, Forbes magazine has an entire cannabis team of reporters covering all aspects of the industry. Another example is Jilea Hemmings, CEO and founder of Leaf Tyme, who writes for Medium’s Authority Magazine and did a series focused on green rush ancillaries. She also started The Untold Truth, a weekly podcast sharing lessons on life, business, and health with a niche-focus on cannabis movers and shakers. “The best tip for promotion is to follow cannabis industry social media pages and attend their monthly local meetings. This is a great way to find potential customers and build strategic marketing alliances,” said Hemmings who also competed in the 2019 SXSW Release it. Marketing on InstagramInstagram has opened up new doors for visual merchandising with its latest in-app shopping feature, practically transitioning into a digital mall. The equivalent of a mannequin in the display window, the Instagram shopping feature on posts and stories have brought the storefront to your customer’s news feed. The shopping channel in the platform’s Explore feature curates product posts based on the user’s preferences and interests. All that is left is to promote a post to land directly in a potential customer’s news feed. Spoiler alert: Most cannabis industry retailers don’t have the same options but can still build an audience organically on Instagram. Here are some cannabis marketing tips for Instagram:
Podcasts are another option. Create your own or pitch to be a guest. If your cannabis brand is in the health and wellness spectrum look at podcasts such as Wellness Mama, The Skinny Confidential, and The Mission Daily. There are also cannabis-focused podcasts such as Potcast, Green Rush Ventures, and Cannabis Health Radio. Can’t commit to a weekly podcast? Don’t feel bad, you are not alone. In addition to gaining podcast publicity from being a guest on a show, there are abbreviated alternatives with lead generating strategies to convert listeners into customers. “I like to recommend seasonal podcasts,” said Nicole Holland, podcast expert who helps her clients launch profitable podcasts in eight weeks or less. Seasonal podcasts allow brands to focus on niches or special subjects in a series of podcasts versus a continuous weekly podcast. In an industry that is much like the wild west, cannabis brands can use podcasts as a means to educate their audience with expert sources as guests. Social PR Secret: Offer different options for different levels of influencers and brand ambassadors. Smaller Instagram influencers may agree to branded posts in exchange for products or promotions, while larger, more recognizable influencers may require a monetary fee. Marketing on FacebookFacebook allows brands to create a shopping experience for their users within their profile. Business pages are given the option of a shopping template that will enable you to link your ecommerce site to Facebook, allowing users to shop under the shopping tab and within each post. You can create collections of products based on style or price-point, and even run ads on individual posts and videos. Cannabis industry products have a hard time on Facebook. Seriously. If you search the terms “cannabis” or “marijuana,” you won’t find any photos in the results. They have a strict policy on the promotion or the sale or use of drugs or drug-related products. Below are ways to market cannabis on Facebook:
Social PR Secret: Create a Call to Action (CTA) on your cannabis Facebook page that prompts the user to provide their contact information and email address. Then, create an email marketing campaign to follow up and offer product information. Marketing on TwitterThe biggest perks Twitter offers for commerce-driven brands is the use of promoted and retarget posts and its UX built to track trending events and topics. Try the following cannabis marketing tips for Twitter:
Social PR Secret: Create a Twitter list to include journalists who specifically cover the Cannabis industry. Marketing on PinterestAs a platform that functions as a social network, shopping network, and search engine all at once, it’s no wonder the platform has been attracting businesses and brands looking to increase sales and build brand awareness. The platform is Shopify-friendly and allows promoted pins with a few exceptions. Here are some tips to market cannabis on Pinterest.
Marketing on LinkedIn
Marketing on Cannabis Websites/Blogs
SummaryThe digital advertising restrictions for the cannabis industry are just a bump in the road and by no means hinder the possibilities of a successful social PR strategy. We are in an era where consumer trust is at an all-time low. Customers are turning to friends, reviews, and third-party credibility to learn about brands. Now is the time for PR to capitalize and make the perfect pitch for cannabis brand success. There’s no better time to invest in media outreach. You know the obstacles and how to navigate them. Put your organic strategy into action! More Resources: Image Credits Screenshot taken by author, March 2019 SEO via Search Engine Journal https://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 27, 2019 at 07:57AM Google Search Ranking Update On March 26th? https://ift.tt/2utoO9g There is some early chatter of a possible Google search algorithm update touching down last night and this morning, March 26th and March 27th. It might be too early for some people to notice or it might just be a blip. It also might be tweaks and tremors from the March 12th Google core update. We've been seeing some tremors recently and this may be a bit more of that. Or it can be something new. Right now, all I know is that there is some initial chatter in the SEO community and some of the tracking tools are showing fluctuations. Here are some comments from both WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World: My traffic seems to be down to a trickle today after a huge recovery last week. Whatever they did today has reversed some of the gains. I think it's better to not get too excited anymore :/ Semrush spiking again for UK..... Mobile in particular. Also even new comments from this site: More changes in the UK today? Yeh we have seen big drops I am not sure if it is just in the UK or not. Eric Hedekar from Moz noticed major changes to featured snippets in the UK:
But this might be different? Here are the tracking tools: The other tools are not showing much fluctuations yet but I'll keep an eye on them and the ongoing chatter. Are you noticing ranking and traffic changes today? Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/1sYxUD0 March 27, 2019 at 07:51AM
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5 additional data blending examples for smarter SEO insights https://ift.tt/2Fql7Gk As I covered in my previous article, data blending can uncover really powerful insights that you would not be able to see otherwise. When you start shifting your SEO work to be more data-driven, you will naturally look at all the data sources in your hands and might find it challenging to come up with new data blending ideas. Here is a simple shortcut that I often use: I don’t start with the data sources I have (bottoms up), but with the questions I need to answer and then I compile the data I need (top-bottom). In this article, we will explore 5 additional SEO questions that we can answer with data blending, but before we dive in, I want to address some of the challenges you will face when putting this technique to practice. Tony McCreath raised a very important frustration you can experience when data blending:
When you join separate datasets, the common columns need to be formatted in the same way for this technique to work. However, this is hardly the case. You often need to preprocess the columns ahead of the join operation. It is relatively easy to perform advanced data joins in Tableau, Power BI and similar business intelligence tools, but when you need to preprocess the columns is where learning a little bit of Python pays off. Here are some of the most common preprocessing issues you will often see and how you can address them in Python. URLsAbsolute or relative. You will often find absolute and relative URLs. For example, Google Analytics URLs are relative, while URLs from SEO spider crawls are absolute. You can convert both to relative or absolute. Here is how to convert relative URLs to absolute: Here is how to convert absolute URLs to relative: Case sensitivity. Most URLs are case sensitive, but If the site is hosted on a Windows Server, you will often find URLs with different capitalization that return the same content. You can convert both to lowercase or upper case. Here is how to convert them to lowercase: Here is how to convert them to uppercase: Encoding. Sometimes the URLs come from the URL parameter of another source URL and if they have query strings they will be URL encoded. When you extract the parameter value, the library you use might or might not do it for you. Here is how to decode URL-encoded URLs Parameter handling. If the URLs have more than one URL parameter, you can face some of these issues:
Here is how we can address each one of these issues. DatesDates can come in many different formats. The main strategy is to parse them from their source format into Python datetime objects. You can optionally manipulate the datetime objects. For example, to sort the dates correctly or to localize to a specific time zone. But, most importantly, you can easily format the datetime dates using a consistent convention. Here are some examples: KeywordsCorrectly matching keywords across different datasets can also be a challenge. You need to review the columns to see if the keywords appear as users would type them or there has been any normalization. For example, is not uncommon for users to search by copying and pasting text. This type of keyword searches would include hyphens, quotes, trademark symbols, etc. that would not normally appear when typed. But, when typing, spacing and capitalization might be inconsistent across users. In order to normalize keywords, you need to at least remove any unnecessary characters and symbols, remove extra spacing and standardize in lower case (or upper case). Here is how you would do that in Python: Now that we know how to preprocess columns, let get to the fun part of the article. Let’s review some additional SEO data blending examples: Error pages with search clicksYou have a massive list of 404 errors that you pulled from your web server logs because Google Search Console doesn’t make it easy to get the full list. Now you need to redirect most of them to recover traffic lost. One approach you could use is to prioritize the pages with search clicks, starting with the most popular ones! Here is the data you’ll need: Google Search Console: page, clicks Web server log: HTTP request, status code = 404 Common columns (for the merge function): left_on: page, right_on: HTTP request. Pages missing Google Analytics tracking codeSome sites choose to insert tracking codes manually instead of placing them on web page templates. This can lead to traffic underreporting issues due to pages missing tracking codes. You could crawl the site to find such pages, but what if the pages are not linked from within the site? One approach you could use is to compare the pages in Google Analytics and Google Search Console during the same time period. Any pages in the GSC dataset but missing in the GA set can potentially be missing the GA tracking script. Here is the data you’ll need: Google Search Console: date, page Google Analytics: ga:date, ga:landingPagePath, filtered to Google organic searches. Common columns (for the merge function): left_on: page, right_on: ga:landingPagePath. Excluding 404 pages from Google Analytics reportsOne disadvantage of inserting tracking codes in templates is that Google Analytics page views could trigger when users end up in 404 pages. This is generally not a problem, but it can complicate your life when you are trying to analyze traffic issues and can’t tell which traffic is good and ending in actual page content and which is bad and ending in errors. One approach you could use is to compare pages in Google Analytics with pages crawled from the website that return 200 status code. Here is the data you’ll need: Website crawl: URL, status code = 200 Google Analytics: ga:landingPagePath Common columns (for the merge function): left_on: URL, right_on: ga:landingPagePath Mining internal site search for content gapsLet’s say that you review your internal site search reports in Google Analytics and find people coming from organic search and yet performing one or more internal searches until they find their content. It might be the case that there are content pieces missing that could drive those visitors directly from organic search. One approach you could use is to compare your internal search keywords with the keywords from Google Search Console. The two datasets should use the same date range. Here is the data you’ll need: Google Analytics: ga:date, ga:searchKeyword, filtered to Google organic search. Google Search Console: date, keyword Common columns (for the merge function): left_on: ga:searchKeyword, right_on: keyword Checking Google Shopping organic search performanceGoogle announced last month that products listed in Google Shopping feeds can now show up in organic search results. I think it would be useful to check how much traffic you get versus the regular organic listings. If you add additional tracking parameters to the URLs in your feed, you could use Google Search Console data to compare the same products appearing in regular listings vs organic shopping listings. Here is the data you’ll need: Google Search Console: date, page, filtered to pages with the shopping tracking parameter Google Search Console: date, page, filtered to pages without the shopping tracking parameter Common columns (for the merge function): left_on: page, right_on: page Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorHamlet Batista is CEO and founder of RankSense, an agile SEO platform for online retailers and manufacturers. He holds U.S. patents on innovative SEO technologies, started doing SEO as a successful affiliate marketer back in 2002, and believes great SEO results should not take 6 months. SEO via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc March 27, 2019 at 07:39AM
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Google: Premier Partners Get No Special Treatment To Core Search https://ift.tt/2HFZpSB This may or may not be obvious but Google Partners have no special access to organic search in Google. They don't get special treatment, they don't simply rank better because they are a Google partner. In fact, there is no Google Partner status for organic search. Google Partners are for Google Ads, Analytics, Google Apps, etc but not for search. Google's John Mueller had to say so again on Twitter:
He had to call out SEOs claiming otherwise in the past. But the truth is, even within Google, Googlers can make this mistake and have done so. Either way - here is Google saying again - nope, Google Partners do not apply to core, organic, search. Forum discussion at Twitter. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable https://ift.tt/1sYxUD0 March 27, 2019 at 07:29AM |
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