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Google Really Wants You To Use Remote Job Markup For Job Schema http://bit.ly/2GJEJrb In February, Google sent out Search Console notifications that you can and should add job opportunities that are available to remote workers after launching markup around that a year prior. Okay, so Google is reminding people to use the markup - okay. But yesterday, Google posts on the search blog there is a new way to find jobs for work-from-home job seekers. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 April 25, 2019 at 06:57AM
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App-marketer spending on Apple Search Ads equals Google, Facebook Combined https://selnd.com/2Vkdf3p App marketers on the Kenshoo platform “spent roughly the same amount on Apple Search Ads as Google and Facebook combined,” according to Kenshoo’s Q1 2019 Quarterly Trends Report. Growth in a very short time frame. The company also said that since Q3 2018, spending on Apple Search Ads (on the Kenshoo platform), has grown by nearly 90 percent. As the chart below indicates, Kenshoo platform advertisers over-index for Apple Search Ads. The data in the Kenshoo report is drawn from campaigns generating 500 billion impressions, 14 billion clicks, representing a total of $6 billion in ad spend. Apple Search Ads are billed on a CPI basis. Source: Quarterly Trends Report (Q1, 2019) The magic of paid-search. Kenshoo makes a relatively straightforward observation to explain Apple Search Ads’ growth: they’re shown in response to queries in the App Store and therefore are more strongly aligned with user intent than many competing channels. Earlier this year, AppsFlyer found that Apple was generally the third leading site/network for mobile app installs after Facebook and Google. Source: Apple Search Ad for Expedia Apple Search Ads originally launched in GA in October, 2016. They come in two flavors: basic and advanced. The former is a simplified product, which has no keywords or bidding. It’s intended for marketers with budgets under $10,000 per month (per app). Why we should care. Apple doesn’t specifically disclose revenue associated with Search Ads. However, third parties have estimated that they will generate roughly $2 billion in revenue for the company by next year. By comparison, Amazon made nearly $10 billion in ad revenue last year. The latter is slated to become the number three ad platform after Google and Facebook. SEO via Search Engine Land https://selnd.com/1BDlNnc April 24, 2019 at 01:27PM
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Instagram Introduces Quiz Stickers by @MattGSouthern http://bit.ly/2GDOhnd Instagram has officially launched quiz stickers which allow users to create multiple-choice questions for their followers to answer. Quiz stickers are designed for use in stories and function similarly to other interactive stickers, such as the poll sticker and emoji slider. Users can add quiz stickers to their stories by selecting it from the sticker tray after taking a photo or video. Write your question and add between two to four possible answers. Select the correct answer and share it to your story.
When other users interact with the quiz sticker you can see their answers in the story viewers list. Why Use Quiz Stickers?The greatest benefit of using quiz stickers, or any other interactive sticker, is the engagement. When a user interacts with one of your stories it sends signals to Instagram’s algorithm. Those signals may then be used to rank your stories higher in the user’s story carousel. Getting users to not just view your content, but interact with it also, is key to reaching a greater percentage of your followers. Quiz stickers can also be used to help your audience get to know you and your business. Asking questions specifically related to your business can educate your followers, and help you discover who your biggest fans are. Quiz stickers are available as of today by updating your Instagram app. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh April 24, 2019 at 12:24PM
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Google updates Custom Search mobile layout https://selnd.com/2XHEdzw Google’s Custom Search is presenting users with a new mobile layout. The features getting a refreshed look include the search box and refinements, thumbnails and pagination. The changes mostly affect mobile searchers but some of the updates have been extended to desktop as well. Why we should careGiving mobile users a fluid experience is crucial to converting — especially when they’re trying to locate something specific on your site. The updated Custom Search layout is a step towards providing that, which may also help improve behavioral success metrics. Sites that monetize using AdSense search ads (which must be configured to add a Custom Search Engine to your site) may also stand to earn more from mobile traffic. Over 630,000 sites use this product, yet, prior to this announcement, the Custom Search Blog had not received an update since July, 2018. This layout refresh is an indicator that Google is still paying attention to its Custom Search Engine. What’s changed
Site owners have the option of disabling the mobile-specific changes by setting the “mobileLayout” attribute of the search element to “disabled.” About The AuthorGeorge Nguyen is an Associate Editor at Third Door Media. His background is in content marketing, journalism, and storytelling. SEO via Search Engine Land https://selnd.com/1BDlNnc April 24, 2019 at 11:11AM
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8 SEO Job Interview Questions That Cut Through the BS by @RyanJones http://bit.ly/2IEk3Tt At a recent conference, I was talking with some other SEO professionals about hiring for some open positions on my team when the conversation turned from “do you know anybody looking?” to “how do you find good SEOs?” As a profession, we’re pretty good at bullsh!tting and marketing speak and selling – so there’s no doubt we can all apply those skills to selling ourselves. So how do you see through it? How do you find a good SEO professional? The secret is in the interview questions you ask. Here are eight interview questions I always ask SEO job candidates. Doing an SEO InterviewWhen I do SEO interviews, I don’t ask standard questions that you’d get at your typical interview. Most of the standard interview questions bore me. I’ve found that most technical SEO questions are usually the interviewer attempting to show off how smart they are rather than gauge the applicant’s SEO knowledge. Too many SEO interviews are passed simply by letting the interviewer talk about himself the whole time. I’m not that interviewer (I’m just that guy at the bar). In general, though, most SEO knowledge can be taught pretty quickly. If a candidate doesn’t know how to use Screaming Frog I can show them in an hour, so it isn’t worth it to ask questions like that on an interview. Instead, I’d prefer to examine their approach to problem-solving, thought process, client interaction skills, and general outlook on SEO. Basically, if I can find somebody who thinks rationally, critically, and logically who knows the basics and has some tech skills, then I can train them up in the other stuff. Best Interview Questions to Ask SEO Candidates1. Tell me about yourself.This is the first question I ask. It’s one you’ve heard in every interview. What am I most paying attention to with this question? What the candidate thinks is important:
There’s no real wrong answer here – unless they recite qualifications like a checklist. 2. Tell me about your biggest accomplishment at your last job.This simple question is my favorite. This answer will, most likely, instantly make up my mind about the rest of the interview. You would be shocked at how many people can’t answer this question. Take a look at your average resume. Most people list what they were tasked with doing or assigned to do, but they don’t tell you what they actually did in that role. This is the candidate’s chance to brag – to tell me about their results:
I will ask a few followup questions about whatever the candidate lists, but it’s basically just a conversation about the work to make sure he or she was actually involved in doing it and find out what part the person played. 3. Why SEO?I’ll only ask this question when hiring for any entry-level positions or if the candidate has less than a couple of years experience. I’m curious why they chose this profession. What motivates them? If you tell me “I need a job” or “it pays well” you aren’t getting the job or paid well. 4. Tell me about your personal projects, websites, blog, side hustle, conferences, etc.There are two reasons for this question:
I want somebody with a passion for search and marketing and technology. I don’t care how that passion manifests. You don’t need to have a blog or a side hustle or a personal website or speak at conferences. Just have the passion, and show it to me. 5. Tell me something most SEO professionals think is true that you think is BS (Or, something you think is true that most SEO pros think is BS).This is my second favorite question to ask and one I usually reserve for near the end. It’s a modified version of a great Peter Thiel (who I’m not personally a big fan of) interview question. I had to limit this one to SEO or marketing though, as people had a tendency to go really political on this (flat earth, vaccines, abortion, etc.). While these are entertaining answers, they really aren’t relevant to work and I don’t want to discuss them in that setting. This question helps a ton with evaluating a candidate’s critical thinking skills. I’m looking to see how they react when put on the spot. (I guarantee nobody has anticipated this question and it will take time to answer.) I want to see the candidate uneasy – without a prepared answer – because that’s how many client interactions go. I also want to see candidates defend their answer because I’m going to ask a few followups asking them to do just that. 6. Given a random URL, walk me through how you diagnose it for SEO issues. What’s your first step?For SEO specific skillsets, I like to go open-ended. For this question, I’ll keep asking, “Then what? Then what?” I want to see how their thought process works. Not everybody is the same. Some will start with research or do a crawl; others will start by understanding the business goals; others will pull out their checklist. (You can earn bonus points if you mention one of my SEO tools.) I’m not a fan of checklists. Also, I don’t want to hear, “I’d run this tool.” I want you to tell me what you’re using the tool to do. For senior-level roles, I’ve often asked candidates to do a couple of slides on how they’d improve a random site. It’s never a client site (we really don’t ask for free work). It’s usually a brand site of whatever brand clothing I notice the person wearing, or if they tell me they play hockey it might be a hockey equipment manufacturer, etc. If I want to be an ass, I’ll ask them to evaluate wtfseo.com or something. It’s always random. 7. Suppose the client wants to do this thing. You think it’s a terrible idea and recommend something else instead. Meeting is tomorrow to discuss. What’s your game plan for the meeting?This is my favorite hypothetical question to ask. There is a right answer to this. I’m looking for a data-driven and actionable plan. Sadly, many candidates instead give what I call an “ego response” where they say something like “I’ll tell the client I’m the expert and they should trust me,” or something similar. That’s not the person I want to hire. 8. What did you hate most about your last job?This question comes from my days as a Wendy’s manager in college. It was required to ask of all applicants and I liked it so much that I stuck with it. Again, there’s no right answer here, but there are plenty of wrong ones. At Wendy’s, I’d get answers like “my manager was always yelling at us for being on our phones” and I’d know the employee had some motivation problems or wasn’t a hard worker. In the SEO industry, it’s different. A recent interviewee told me he hated doing keyword research and reporting and was looking for a job where he didn’t have to do that. (Hint: that job doesn’t exist in SEO.) To Sum UpI ask a few more questions, but I won’t reveal all of my secrets here. There’s a good chance my next interview candidate will read this, so I’m going to have to save a few. However, if you buy me a beer at an upcoming conference, I’ll gladly share them with you. In general, the goal is to evaluate the candidate’s thought process and critical thinking skills and whether they’d be a good attitude/culture fit for the team. I’m super confident in my team’s training abilities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t know what you’re talking about either. I just won’t try to show you that I know more than you or trick you with some crazy technical issue that in real life you’d probably just Google anyway. In fact, that’s how I feel about all those crazy Google-style interview questions like “how would you weigh a Boeing 737?” Sure, you could build an amazing water displacement device and tow the plane onto it or sum up all the individual parts – but I’d rather hire the engineer who calls Boeing for the answer instead of wasting all that time. Best of luck to you, whether you’re interviewing or hiring. Also, I highly recommend reading this great piece on interviewing by Mike King. More Resources: SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh April 24, 2019 at 09:20AM
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6 Tips to Improve Your PPC Landing Page Experience (& Quality Score) by @bigalittlea http://bit.ly/2GDei6m There’s an old adage that our CRO team likes to share. Companies spend $92 of every $100 to bring customers to their site, but only $1 to convert them. Seems off, doesn’t it? Landing page experience is one of the more under-optimized facets of search marketing. It doesn’t fit neatly into a budget, so it’s difficult to find resources. The average search marketer doesn’t have the skillset to design and build a landing page. Powerful development tools like Unbounce and Instapage exist to do the heavy lifting. But without the right starting point in mind, it’s akin to giving a 16-year-old a driving test in a Ferrari. This author has many misgivings around old best practices. Lists of features, minimized form fields, and trust signals are great, but won’t make you stand out. Testing new versions of the same ol’ same ol’ leave you stuck in a feedback loop. You collect small wins, but don’t impact the business. Remember, you aren’t optimizing for conversion rate alone. You’re optimizing for:
All three “targets” point to the same question to help guide your testing efforts. Does this test benefit the end user? With that in mind, here are six top tips to optimize your PPC landing pages. 1. Focus on SpeedAccording to Google, 53% of all mobile visitors abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load. The data that can load in three seconds varies. Users have a different experience depending on the device, connection speed, weather, astrological sign, whatever! Needless to say, landing pages need to be darn snappy to load within a three-second “limit.” Your mobile speed score matters to Google. This wasn’t explicitly expressed as a factor in quality score. But it’s a factor in quality score. The correlation between speed and quality score is directional but clear. Speed kills, especially when it comes to landing pages! Below are a few resources to help with speed: Do faster pages benefit users? You bet! This focus on speed yields our next point. 2. Mobile-First Design (For Most)A question for you, dear readers. How many of test your landing pages on a fast connection, working off a powerful laptop and 32-inch monitors? Now, look at your stats in Google Ads or Analytics. How do the majority of your users access your site? You can all read between the lines here. Design and test your landing pages based on how most of your users will see them. Your gorgeous hero image, precise value propositions, and shiny trust signals may not show when starting with the wrong base. Below is an example: The image is built for and renders perfect on my desktop setup. On my Pixel 3, it’s a different story. The callouts, value propositions, and branding are all pushed far below the fold. The escape hatch (see: point 6) has vanished. The privacy policy is invisible. Most of what made the desktop page great no longer show. If you want to benefit your users, you need to test like your users. 3. Optimize for Customers, Not ConversionsYes, you read right. Do not optimize for conversion rate. This may seem a bit contrarian, but whatever. It’s my post, I do what I want. Optimizing for front end conversion rate is dangerous. Consider the following: You cut landing page form fields to only ask for name, email address, and phone number. Your conversion rate doubles (yay!) which means you beat your CPA goal. Your boss or gives you more money to get more leads at these conversion rates. The business team hires more salespeople to handle the volume. Turns out these new conversions were junk. By removing the form fields, you encouraged everyone to convert without prequalifying them. Your boss is now mad, and you are now sad. This is too common in landing page testing. Advertisers check the success of a test in a vacuum. Instead, look at downstream metrics when conducting a test to make sure it’s a net positive for the business. From a user perspective, it’s a net positive as well – it saves them time and gets the right people to your business. 4. Be a MinimalistThat’s right, everybody – Marie Kondo making an appearance! Cut everything from your landing pages that do not spark joy for the user. No, that does not mean reducing the content to bare bones nothingness. Nor does it mean cutting your landing pages off below the fold or cutting your form fields to two. The best landing pages allow the customer to flow from search to ad to landing page to business. Remove anything and everything that gets in the way. Exit intent or email capture pop-ups have a place in the marketing world, not landing pages. The same goes for marketing pixels on your landing page. Keep pixels limited to what’s necessary. This:
Have I made my point yet? Make sure everything on the page adds value to the end user. 5. Personalize with PurposePersonalization is a delicate topic in the age of privacy. It may be a bit too much to embed a user’s first name and favorite kind of cookie on a landing page. A few audience-based content adjustments can take your experience to the next level. Tweak to the landing pages by adjusting the hero image based on user location. Toy with value propositions or even headlines/taglines based on entry channel. Work for a meal delivery company or a restaurant? I’d put dollars to doughnuts you’d see a huge lift from showing different food to male and female visitors. Localization is a powerful weapon; use it with care. It’s easy to tell if a company is trying to “appear” local, which is worse than not trying at all. If you do localize, get someone who’s a true local area to test and make sure your method fits. As long as you give the users what they’re looking for, you’ll be happy with the results. 6. Test the Little ThingsDon’t shy away from “the little things” in landing pages.
Finally, don’t forget the big things that seem little. Your landing page will always need a findable, legible, and legal privacy policy. To Sum UpIf there’s one point I hope I’ve driven home with this post, it’s to focus your landing page experience on the user. Happy users make happy search engines. Happy search engines make happy quality scores. Happy quality scores make a happy you. More Resources: Image Credits All screenshots taken by author, April 2019 SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh April 24, 2019 at 08:30AM
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5 Top Resources for Google Ranking Factors by @josephrobison http://bit.ly/2UBR8AO Not too long ago, I became obsessed with knowing all of Google’s ranking factors. I was digging into the deep bowels of the web trying to find complete lists. In mad scientist mode, I let some more urgent work slip by so had to get back to the grind. Nevertheless, finding and reviewing these ranking factors lists regularly is a good practice to keep these front of mind while doing your daily SEO work. You never know when a conversation will come up about whether user comments are a ranking factor, and you have to give an answer on the spot. Here are the top five resources for Google ranking factors. Corey Northcutt’s company has put together by far the most useful – and usable – source of ranking factors. My main problem with most popular ranking factors lists is the concreteness of the factor can be dubious and opinionated. This tool takes a scientific approach to allow you to filter down to the level of evidence supporting each factor – from wild speculation to a patent filed by Google itself, the ultimate confirmation. Edit Agency (merged with Branded3) started with Moz’s 2015 ranking factors study as a base and set out on their own to do a followup survey based on their own internal team. They polled with similar questions to what Moz asked in their survey, but they also took into account some of the clients they’ve worked with in the past. A few of the most lucid actionable quotes from their findings:
The two parts of their own research I appreciate the most are where they call out the easiest things to implement and the 10 things they’re confident are not important for rankings: These two are pretty actionable and are different from what we see in most ranking factors articles. Yes, this is old in the world of SEO. But Moz’s ranking factors studies have been one of the mainstays of the industry, and a large portion of those factors are unchanged over time. In this study, as opposed to previous years, they ran a correlation study on “17,600 keyword search results from Google“. Their scientific approach to correlation is appreciated. In addition to the keyword correlation study, they also ran a survey of 150 SEO professionals. I would approach the findings on this survey with a bit more caution, as there’s a lot of dependence on the hive mind of those they surveyed being correct. One of the first blogs I came across in my search for ranking factors was MartiniBuster by Roger Montii. I was fascinated by some of his takes on the algorithm and bookmarked quite a few of the sites. In fact, his 200 ranking signals post made me think differently about the interaction of all the signals and which ones to really prioritize in recent years. Montii has continued his obsession right here on Search Engine Journal and is one of the more prolific posters on the updates and nuances of Google’s ranking factors. My favorite recent post and quote by Montti was Google Discusses Ranking Factors:
Montti details out the importance of thinking about the user and their goals, rather than trying to check the box and say you’ve hit a ranking factor. It’s a strong reminder that Google no longer operates in this simplified ranking factor model, but rather, is using machine learning to constantly test user satisfaction. This resource by Search Engine Land is a great way to visually see how the ranking factors interact and affect each other – positively and negatively. Although last updated in 2017, it still has a large percentage of the known factors covered, and is a great resource for new SEO trainees or non-SEO marketing staff to understand the complex combination of factors. It also vividly highlights some of the most negative factors such as cloaking and keyword stuffing. Reminder: Ranking Factors Are ComplexIt’s always worth repeating that nobody knows for sure the exact factors that come into play for ranking a site. Even the top Google search engineers allegedly don’t fully know the exact model of the algorithms, so you can be sure that us humble SEO pros can only get so close. Some other points to keep in mind: The TakeawayAs with anything in life, you need to find the balance between execution and knowledge. The 80/20 rule applies to Google ranking factors as much (or more) than anything in business. The truth is, the top 20% (by volume) of factors account for more than 80 percent of the reason a site ranks. So the actionable takeaway is to be aware of the vast majority of factors, but to really execute on the top ones that move the needle. In practice, you may want to create an SEO decision matrix to best decide on what matters to you based on your own business, revenue, industry, and goals. Only when you’ve perfectly implemented title tags, you’ve covered every big content topic in your industry, and you’ve earned every important link out there should you go worry about the minute, debatable factors. After all, we’re in it to rank, not to create spreadsheets. More Resources: Image Credits All screenshots taken by author, April 2019 SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh April 24, 2019 at 08:30AM
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Google Can See Disavow Links Between Canonical URLs http://bit.ly/2PtE9QK Google's John Mueller said it is best to disavow all the possible places the link may be pointing to, even if you redirect one URL to another and someone is linking to the original URL. But he said Google can follow and see "links between canonical URLs, so when there's a redirect involved, you'd need to check which one is canonical." SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 April 24, 2019 at 07:23AM Searchers Upset That Easter Got Google Treatment While Passover, Ramadan & Others Did Not http://bit.ly/2IBSYAl Google on Sunday had a pretty unique and new home page feature for Easter. It was the first time they did something like this in general but not the first time they had an Easter Google Doodle. There was no Doodle, but if you clicked on the I'm Feeling Lucky button, Easter eggs would drop and fill up the page. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 April 24, 2019 at 07:08AM
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Google Images, Featured Snippets & Videos More Often In Web Search Results http://bit.ly/2L0tsXD It looks like Google is showing more vertical search features in the core web search results - more often. Yesterday I covered at Search Engine Land that the image search box is showing up way more often in Google's web results than previously. But also it looks like featured snippets and maybe even video boxes are showing up more often this past month. SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 April 24, 2019 at 06:58AM |
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