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Major Update to Moz Local in June 2019 via @martinibuster http://bit.ly/2Z3dbTX Moz Local is unveiling an important update to its service in June 2019. I interviewed David Pierce, a software engineer for Moz about this update. He shares details on the improvements that promise to make Moz Local even more useful for managing online listings in local search. Moz Local is a popular service that helps local businesses optimize their online presence to gain more leads and sales. So it’s interesting to see how this update will affect the Local Search industry as a whole. Moz Local is adding new distribution partners, growing the features and analytics tools to help Moz Local users take charge of their organic listings. Here are Moz’s details about the new update:
Interview with David Pierce, Software Engineer at MozWhat does Full Location Data Management mean and how does that help a small business generate more inquiries and/or sales?
Regarding review management, how does this integrate with Google and Facebook, and how does this affect lead generation?
What are store locator and location pages?
What is the “suggestion engine for customized recommendations?” What is it suggesting, how does it help generate leads/sales?
Moz Local ImprovesMoz Local has been described to me by a successful real estate professional as a no-brainer for anyone in local search. He said it was something every small business should subscribe to by default. So it’s exciting to see Moz is taking the initiative to improve what already regarded as an indispensable service. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh May 30, 2019 at 04:32PM
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Daily Search Forum Recap: May 30, 2019 http://bit.ly/2JOHji0 Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:Other Great Search Stories:Analytics Industry & Business Links & Promotion Building Local & Maps Mobile & Voice SEO PPC SEO via Search Engine Roundtable http://bit.ly/1sYxUD0 May 30, 2019 at 03:00PM
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“Popular dishes” have arrived in Google Maps listings https://selnd.com/2EKr9SP Google Maps has added a “popular dishes” section to eatery listings, giving prospective diners a faster way to check out a restaurant’s most talked about food and drinks. The popular dishes section is located within a listing’s overview tab and is already available on Google Maps for Android devices. The section will be rolling out to iOS devices over the next few months. Recommendations on a silver platter. The popular dishes section is populated by a machine learning algorithm that matches the names of dishes (supplied by users) to corresponding photos and reviews. As seen above, popular dishes are displayed in a carousel and tapping on a dish will display associated reviews and images. Why we care. Recommendations and reviews are the bread and butter of the food and beverage (F&B) industry and can have a big impact on the bottom line. Restaurant owners now have one more way to optimize their Maps listings by encouraging their patrons to post photos of their meals and/or leave reviews to build out their popular dishes sections. This can be especially useful for F&B businesses in areas that get a lot of tourism, as Maps can translate reviews and provides a visual accompaniment so customers have an idea of what they’re ordering. Since May, Google has launched a number of new features with Maps at its core. It redesigned Explore tab to help users find things to do, added planning features to facilitate groups, created an all-in-one Trips interface for travelers and now its enticing customers with popular dishes. All of these offerings centralize a user’s activities around Google’s services, which can ultimately make business more dependent on Google as well. 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 May 30, 2019 at 02:15PM
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Is Google's Redesign Good for Ads or Brands? http://bit.ly/2KeyD4b Posted by Dr-Pete At the end of last week, Google announced a major design change for mobile search results. Minor design tests and changes happen frequently, but this roll-out included two major changes. First, the green [Ads] indicator was replaced with black, bolded text ... Below is the new ad format in a local pack result. Note that I've removed the surrounding design elements (including rounded boxes) to focus on the elements that have changed ... Reactions from the marketing community were swift and often sarcastic, but one reaction clearly missing was surprise. Google has been moving to make ads look more like organic results for years. Has Google finally gone too far?Does this latest change do too much to blend ads and organic results? If we just go back one iteration, it doesn't seem like a huge shift. The most recent version, shown below, also matched the color of the "Ad" marker to the display URL, substituting a thin rounded rectangle for the newer, bolded text ... Compare both 2019 versions to a desktop ad from 2017 ... The mismatched color and white-on-yellow block stand out quite a bit more than the two most recent treatments. If we go back to 2013, the evolution is much more obvious ... For years, Google ads were displayed in a single block, clearly separate from organic results and with a distinct background color. While that color changed over the years, even this subtle background tied the ads together and separated them clearly from other result types. What about organic results?Unlike some previous ad redesigns, this change arrived with a redesign of organic results. Here's what an organic result for Moz's Algorithm History looked like on most mobile devices last week ... While fonts and sizing and the surrounding UI have changed over the past couple of years, the core placement has been the same: (1) display title, (2) display URL or breadcrumb, and (3) snippet. Like the new ad format, the new organic format flips lines (1) and (2) ... The new format also adds a small version of the site's favicon. Google seems to also be shifting toward showing the brand name, when available, versus the site's root domain, but this is another change that Google has moved gradually toward over the recent past. When do the lines blur?While Google isn't using the exact icon we'd prefer at Moz, the square, color-filled logo representation is clearly pretty different from Google's black "Ad" marker. Some brands aren't so lucky. Consider these two results for Adidas.com ... The Adidas logo doesn't render well at this size, and ends up looking like a black triangle, which may be hard to distinguish from the "Ad" text at a glance. Associated Press has a similar problem ... At this size and resolution, "AP" could arguably be mistaken for "AD". For well-known brands, this may not pose a problem (the AP logo is fairly recognizable), but it could impact click-through rates on smaller brands. These are extreme examples, of course, but in the previous iteration (the green "Ad" text in a rounded rectangle) there was no analogous text or shape for organic results. The addition of a favicon to organic results adds an element that could mirror the "Ad" text in paid results, creating potential confusion. Should I update my favicon?Marketers were quick to brainstorm ideas and more than a little mischief over the weekend. That may be fun for a while, but Google has already pushed back on manipulating favicons and posted their guidelines. Long story short, manipulative, inappropriate, or constantly changing favicons are probably going to be removed. If you don't have a favicon, Google will serve up a default. Here's an example from my personal site: The default icon isn't terrible, but if you don't currently have a favicon, it's worth putting one together that matches your branding. Google currently recommends providing a favicon at 48X48 pixels (or a multiple of 48). There are many free tools on the web to convert standard graphics formats to a favicon (.ico) file. I created a new favicon on Tuesday, May 28, and resubmitted the home-page to Google Search Console. The updated favicon appeared the morning of Thursday, May 30 (just under two days) ... Anecdotally, most people are reporting favicons being updated in a day or less. My personal site has some mobile-friendly errors, which could have caused delays, but there are currently no errors or updates within GSC to tell you when to expect your favicon to appear in search results. Is Google's future brand-first?It's easy to get hung up on the ad changes, but by moving the brand or domain to the first line and adding a favicon, this design reflects a brand-first approach, an emphasis of brand and site over specific content. Reading between the lines of Google's announcement, this design shift makes it clearer that everything in the "card" (the search result container, essentially) belongs to a single brand. Consider the Moz blog, for example: The wrapper makes the card a bit more apparent, but by leading with the brand, the new design makes it clearer that all of these elements — the organic result, site-links, and blog posts — are tied to a single source. Taking a brand-first approach may also be a part of Google's larger strategy to combat false information and help searchers attribute content to its source. Of course, like all changes, we don't know how long this one will last. Like most major design shifts, we can assume that Google has been testing this one for some time, but if favicons are manipulated or abused to the point that automation can't handle the problem, they may have to change course. For now, I'd make sure your favicon accurately reflects your brand and doesn't look too similar to the black "Ad" text. Ultimately, you want your organic listings to positively represent your brand and drive relevant clicks. While these changes are unlikely to impact rankings, I would recommend monitoring your click-through rates (CTRs) on both major organic pages and paid results. It may be some time before we fully understand the impact of these changes. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! SEO via SEOmoz Blog https://moz.com/blog May 30, 2019 at 11:09AM
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Now live: Google 3D images and AR integration in mobile search https://selnd.com/2I5Kpem Google announced at Google I/O a few weeks ago support for 3D images and AR within search — that feature is now live. Many searchers are able to search for objects such as [shark], [lion], [panda], [alligator] and so on and see those 3D objects in search and then project them into their environments with AR. How it works. Open your mobile browser on Android or iPhone and search for those types of terms. If you scroll down and see an option for “View in 3D” then you can click on that to load the object. Then you can click on the AR option to see the object in your location through your mobile phone’s camera. What it looks like. Here are some quick videos of this in action, as I posted on Twitter: How do I get 3D images into Google? A few weeks ago we posted a slide showing 3D markup you can potentially add to your images to help them show up as 3D images in mobile search. Here is that slide again: Why we care. Numerous apps already support AR to enable consumers to see how furniture and other objects look in their homes or to see what different eyeglasses or makeup would look on them. This shows how Google can start to enable those kinds of capabilities in the SERP for commercial queries. Over the past several months, Google has been dropping hints that image search is something SEOs, webmasters, developers and content producers should pay attention to. It is a good way for searchers to discover new content and information and can be helpful in not just driving eye-balls but potentially even conversions. Some of these new features may help with those efforts. Plus, this is a lot of fun to play with and geek out on. About The AuthorBarry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics. SEO via Search Engine Land https://selnd.com/1BDlNnc May 30, 2019 at 10:58AM
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How to Choose the Right Facebook Ad Objective for Your Goals via @hoffman8 http://bit.ly/2ELcPcJ Facebook Ad objectives are the backbone of any Facebook campaign: the objective controls your bidding options, your ad unit options, and, the way your campaigns are optimized. There are 13 campaign objectives to choose from but not much supporting content to help make that selection. Because of this, getting started with Facebook can be a little bit overwhelming. I remember back when I was setting up my first Facebook Ads account – I searched for tips or guides that would help me to determine which objective was the best fit for my use-case. Unfortunately, I came up empty-handed. What I found was:
Facebook groups their objectives into three parts of the funnel:
While they’re not wrong that the campaign objectives that they’ve grouped into each funnel stage could play a positive role in their respective sections, it’s also really oversimplified. If you’ve run media before, it’s easy to overthink it – without much solid documentation, it’s hard to validate the decision. If you’re here, you’re probably as I was – searching for more information about how to use each objective to your advantage without settling for what might seem most obvious. It’s also really easy to under-think it. The conversion objective, from the accounts that I’ve audited and onboarded, appears to be the most popular by far. It’s no surprise really – given that the objective is called “conversions” and that’s what we all want. Don’t get me wrong – I love this objective – but using it in the wrong context can be a really expensive mistake. A Guide to Each Facebook Ad Objective: When to Use Each & Your Bidding Options1. Store Traffic ObjectiveThe store traffic objective isn’t exactly as it sounds. This objective is really geared toward chains. If you wanted to drive local awareness for multiple brick-and-mortar locations or to help people contact the right location, this objective could be a good option. According to Facebook Ads Help Center:
With the store traffic objective, you can create customized ads for each of your locations and deliver them to people nearby to theoretically increase store visits and sales. Right now, store visits reporting is in testing which means that not all advertisers that have access to the Store Traffic objective have access to store visits reporting and optimization. Instead, most Store Traffic campaigns will optimize for daily unique reach by default, which is what makes the objective name a bit misleading. For those that have access to store visits reporting and optimization, Facebook uses a combination of data points to report on store traffic, including:
Facebook attempts to filter out people that they believe are employees. It admits that its methodology isn’t perfect, so they use the information to extrapolate results and then they attempt to verify it through polls to validate the accuracy of their measurement and extrapolation. All that said, because the results are estimates, the more data that Facebook has, the better. For smaller retailers, this data is more likely to be less accurate. If you have just one store location and want to try to drive in-store visits, Facebook suggests using the daily unique reach objective (that’s the default optimization KPI for the Store Traffic objective anyway). Another option could be to use offline events to track in-store purchases, which could lend itself to other campaign objectives. 2. Reach ObjectiveThe reach objective is going to try to maximize the number of people that see your ads and the number of times that they will see your ads. Plain and simple, the goal of this objective is to try to maximize exposure. One of the benefits of this campaign type is that you can set frequency controls, which is often not the case with Facebook campaigns. You can control the frequency by defining X number of impressions per X number of days. With the Reach objective, you can pay per impression (CPM) or per “Reach” (CPM but based upon your defined frequency controls). The Reach objective is often thought of as being top of funnel. This could potentially be a cheap way to get a lot of exposure for your brand but, it can be a little difficult to quantify – especially if you have a sales cycle that is long enough that Facebook may not accurately track view-through conversions. Even top-of-funnel, I prefer to have a metric to quantify (beyond impressions) to ensure that we’re beginning to get some high-level traction with prospects and, more importantly, to begin to build audiences to use lower in the funnel. That said, I’ve had success in using the Reach objective for remarketing, as you can define frequency, you know it’s a low funnel audience, and it can be cheaper than the conversion objective. 3. Brand Awareness ObjectiveThe Brand Awareness objective is geared toward driving ad recall. With many of the objectives, you can choose different options for how you bid. With this objective, you don’t get to choose – Facebook is going to serve your ads to the people that they believe will remember seeing them and you’ll be charged based upon CPM. Facebook reserves the right to survey your audience to try to improve their delivery optimization. As with the Reach objective, I don’t love to optimize for impressions. This isn’t an objective that I use often for that reason. That said, if you have a brand without much awareness, it could be worth testing. Side Note: I realize I’ve now said that I don’t really like to use either of the two objectives that are in the ‘Awareness’ bucket for top of funnel initiatives. Am I saying that I don’t run top of funnel campaigns? Not at all! But this is exactly the purpose of this post: I think you’ll find there are better ways to use the objectives beyond just their suggested purposes. 4. Traffic ObjectiveThe Traffic objective is most useful if your goal is to get people to your site or app. I like the traffic objective for advertisers that have a long buyer journey and likely won’t convert prospects on the first interaction as it is often less expensive than the Conversion objective (not always – but we’ll get to that later) and it still gets people to the website. This allows you to start educating prospects and build remarketing lists at the same time. This is especially valuable if you don’t have videos to use for a video view campaign. With the Traffic objective, you have a few different bidding options. By default, the setting is to bid for “link clicks”, which means Facebook will deliver your ads to the people that it believes is most likely to click on them. By default, it’s a CPM bid model, even though your target is link clicks, but you have the option to change it to pay per link clicks. However, you don’t have the option to set the CPC – Facebook automatically optimizes for the lowest CPC or CPM, whichever bidding option you choose. I highly recommend updating the bidding defaults – I’ll come back to that but first, the other options. You can alternatively opt to bid on:
The reason that I don’t like to bid on link clicks is that it doesn’t really mean that you are getting traffic. If you review your “link click” stats versus your landing page views, you’ll find that the numbers are often vastly different. There’s a variety of reasons for this – one being that people that click don’t always wait for the site to load. For this reason, link clicks are much less valuable to me than landing page views. 5. Engagement ObjectiveI personally find engagement campaigns to be underrated. (Hear me out!) The goal of these campaigns is to drive engagement. I know it sounds like a vanity metric. Facebook will show your ads to the people in your audience that are most likely to engage. Now – an engagement campaign likely isn’t going to convert people. It can – I’ve seen it – but it typically isn’t best suited for that. Rather, the engagement campaign can serve as:
I especially like it for the latter. Then, after we’ve built social proof on the ad, I take the same ad (using the ad ID) and I plug it into other campaigns. The result is that we now have ads with a lot of engagement that are plugged into campaign objectives that are better for driving the funnel. With the Post Engagement objective, you can choose to optimize for post engagement, impressions, or reach. 6. Lead Generation ObjectiveI’m a big fan of the lead generation campaign because it is really, really versatile. Facebook suggests using this objective in the consideration stage but I find that it can really be used in any stage of the funnel – with the right content. One of the best things about the Lead Generation objective is that you can capture email addresses to start to build up your email marketing efforts in tandem with your paid social efforts. Here’s how I suggest using it:
I’ve also seen the Lead Generation objective work as a means to drive quote requests from low intent prospecting audiences but, they (unsurprisingly) seem to have lower close rates, so I don’t recommend using it for that. If you have the content, I highly recommend testing out this objective. It can be incredibly cost-effective. 7. Video Views ObjectiveThe Video Views campaign is another one of my very favorites. Facebook recommends using it in the consideration stage. I find that I typically like it best for Top-of-Funnel campaigns but, with the right content, it can also be useful for mid-funnel campaigns. The beauty of the Video Views objective is that you optimize for video views and those are typically really inexpensive, comparative to other objectives. With good creative, you can also see decent click-through-rate, which then means that not only are you driving traffic, as you could do with many other objectives, but you’re first educating them with the video content so they are that much more informed before they even arrive on-site. For one client, I compared a Video View objective campaign with a Traffic campaign, both having targeted the exact same audience. I found that the number of landing page views was nearly the same but yet the cost per landing page view was cheaper with the Video View campaign. So, to summarize: the cost per landing page view was cheaper and they also had the added benefit of having watched the video. Win-win! You can also build audiences off of video views, so there are a ton of ways to use this objective to tee yourself up for lower funnel campaigns. With video view campaigns, you can optimize for:
You can opt to be charged for impressions or for ThruPlays. 8. MessengerMessenger campaigns are ideal for engagement. If your prospects are likely to require certain pieces of information before converting, then messenger campaigns may be ideal. When creating your messenger ad within Facebook, you have a few options:
With a welcome message, you have an option to pre-populate actions for your prospects, such as the option to select one of a few FAQ or other requests that they can click on to receive an automated response. With an automated chat, you can collect information from prospects prior to routing them to the correct place for a response. For instance, you might ask their email or their ZIP code. Where possible, Facebook can help prepopulate their answers to make for a better experience. You can also ask short answer questions or give them multiple choice answers to choose from. There are a lot of different ways and reasons to use Messenger campaigns. In some cases, you may prefer to use a chatbot to help manage those campaigns instead. Check out this post for tips. Messenger campaigns are automatically optimized for the people that are most likely to message you. You can set a bid cap. 9. Catalog SalesThe Catalog objective is meant for ecommerce advertisers that have a catalog connected to their business manager. One of the most popular functions of this campaign objective is the ability to run dynamic remarketing. It can also be used for other purposes, though; such as cross-sell, upsell and even prospecting. With this objective, Facebook makes it really easy to set parameters for:
Product sets can be defined in a number of ways, including but not limited to: If you’re an ecommerce marketer, I highly suggest giving this campaign objective a test, especially if you plan to run a remarketing campaign. There’s quite a bit of flexibility in what you can optimize for conversion events, clicks, or impressions. Depending on what you choose to optimize for, you’ll have different bidding options. If you choose to optimize for conversion events then you’re able to choose which one (Add to Cart, Purchase, etc.) You can then choose to optimize for the lowest cost conversion or set a target cost to optimize for. If you choose to optimize for link clicks or impressions, Facebook will optimize for the lowest cost of each, respectively, and you can also choose to set a bid cap. If eligible, you’ll be able to optimize for value which tells Facebook to optimize for a certain ROAS. 10. ConversionsAh, the Conversion objective. This is probably the most widely used objective because the name is synonymous with nearly everyone’s goals. I’m not bashing the Conversion objective – I love it – but it has a time and a place. A Conversion objective campaign is going to do everything it can to optimize for as many conversions as it can. So, the main pitfall is when clients try to use this campaign objective to convert high-funnel/low-intent prospects on a high-intent conversion type, especially with products that require a high degree of consideration. The Conversion objective works best in scenarios where:
The conversion objective needs data in order to be able to best optimize itself, so it’s important that when using this objective:
Don’t let any of this deter you from using the Conversion objective – just keep in mind that it will work best if you set it up for success. With the Conversion objective, you’ll be able to set the conversion you’d like to optimize toward at the ad set level. You can choose to optimize for lowest cost conversions or for target cost (a target CPL that you’d like to achieve). Ultimately, you’ll be charged a CPM but Facebook’s algorithms will work to optimize toward the bidding objective of your choice. If eligible, you’ll be able to optimize for value, in place of lowest cost or target cost conversions. Optimizing for value tells Facebook to optimize for a certain ROAS. If you prefer, you can optimize toward impressions, link clicks, or daily unique reach but it isn’t recommended. 11. Event Response ObjectiveThis one is pretty self-explanatory and unique in its purpose. The Event Response objective is great for promoting an event that you’ve created on Facebook in an effort to try to drive awareness and attendance of an event. With an Event Response objective, you can choose to optimize for event responses, impressions, post engagement, or daily unique reach. 12. Page Likes ObjectiveThis objective is super straightforward. The Page Likes objective can be used to drive more… well, likes. This is only available for your Facebook page (it isn’t available for Instagram). With this objective, you can only optimize for page likes but you can choose to bid per impression or per page like. You also have the option to set a bid cap. 13. App Install ObjectiveApp install campaigns are great for driving people to install your app but also for driving app events. You can choose to optimize for:
Note: you can optimize for app traffic and app conversions through other campaign objectives but this is the only campaign type that allows you to optimize for app installs. Testing Different ObjectivesI’m all for thinking outside of the Facebook Objective boxes. No doubt the intention of creating these objectives was to try to make it simple and easy for advertisers to determine which objective to use at each stage of the funnel. The reality, though, is that many of these objectives work in other areas of the funnel – even, at times, better than objectives designed for said parts of the funnel. You won’t know unless you test. For that reason, if you’re on the fence about which objective to use, pick out a few different campaign objectives to test against each other for a specified goal and determine which is more successful at achieving the pre-determined goal. More Resources: SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh May 30, 2019 at 10:48AM
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Broken Link Building: What You Need to Know to Get Links via @AdamHeitzman http://bit.ly/2JM2xNA Link building tactics have a tendency to go in and out of style. Broken link building is one such tactic. It was once a convenient, scalable tool in a link builder’s toolbox. But then folks started saying it wasn’t as effective as guest posting (which, you know, is supposed to be dead in its own right). The reality, of course, is somewhere in the middle. A modern, comprehensive link building strategy requires a variety of different tactics to achieve your goals. When used appropriately, broken link building still rocks. It’s scalable, reliable, and should be a staple you turn to when you need to put together a link building strategy. Time has changed how an SEO should go about building broken links, though. Here’s what you need to know to successfully build broken links today. What Are Broken Links?A broken link is a link on a website that no longer leads to the content that it’s supposed to be referencing. Instead, you get one of these big, unpleasant 404 graphics: A broken link can happen in a myriad of ways. The website might have made a mistake when linking to outside content, for example, or the linked website has removed the page in question. The big issue with this is that broken links hinder the user experience for anyone browsing your website. In fact, too many broken links can even hinder the linking site’s SEO. That is where broken link building comes into play. With any sort of link building, an SEO has to ask themselves this question: Why is this site better off by including the link that I’m asking for? When it comes to broken link building, that question is extremely easy to answer. By pointing out a broken link to a webmaster, and offering a convenient replacement, you’re providing value. You’re helping the webmaster improve their site quality and making their lives easier. In theory, at least. The circumstance mentioned above is fairly idyllic. And, to be fair, if you’re dealing with a new webmaster or one servicing a website that doesn’t generate a massive amount of traffic, it might actually be that easy. However, the vast majority of webmasters see requests like this all the time. They know the game that’s being played. And that means broken link building is harder than ever before. How to Find Relevant Broken LinksLuckily, the process of finding broken links isn’t all that hard. In fact, it’s one of the reasons so many people tout broken link building for its scalability. There are a variety of different ways to look for broken links. The most straightforward method would be to start by running backlink checks on websites and competitors in your niche. Let’s look at HubSpot.com as an example. HubSpot is an awesome resource for marketing information – but more importantly, they’re also a popular website that will give you an idea of how broken links can be found. Using Ahrefs as our broken link checker, we can look at every 404 that currently exists on HubSpot. And not only that, a tool like Ahrefs provides information on which pages are currently linking to these broken pages. If you’re running a marketing website and had a piece on the buyer’s journey, for example, you now have 172 leads to go after broken links. The fun doesn’t stop there, either. It’s a pretty good bet that those 172 sites care about marketing, right? So you can also check to see if they have any broken links that you could pursue as well. See why this strategy is so great for scaling? There’s another conventional method for finding broken links: scraping resource pages. With this method, an SEO uses advanced search terms in Google or another search engine to find resource pages relevant to their niche. So what does that look like in practice? Let’s say you’re trying to promote a marketing website. You would type things like this into Google:
From there, you pursue the SERP results that look promising, and manually check that all the resources they list have working links. If you come across a broken link, toss it into Ahrefs or a similar tool to see who else might be linking to the broken page. Here’s what finding broken links looks like in action. If we enter “marketing intitle:resources” into Google, we get the following SERP: That “50 Content Marketing Resources” link looks promising; there has to be a decent chance that one of their links no longer works, right? Clicking on this we found that the Blue Glass one is broken: Checked Ahrefs: 12 referring domains, including a really nice link from Moz. The Key to Converting Broken Links Into WinsFinding these links is easy, nowadays. There are plenty of backlink tools that can show you which websites are referring to broken pages. To name a few:
But now we’ve reached the hard part – asking a webmaster to replace a broken link with one to your own website. Outreach is difficult, no matter what link building strategy you’re using. However, that’s actually one of the advantages of broken link building. In theory, helping a webmaster to identify broken links and fix them is something that could help you to establish a working relationship. By being helpful and sincere, they might be more willing to help you out and add your link. In reality? Oftentimes, link builders take the scalability of broken link building a bit too far. They’ll send out emails that look like this: Hello [webmaster], My name is ___ and I’m an avid fan of your website [insert URL here]. However, I came across a broken link today that I thought you might like to know about. The link is in this post [insert page here] and here’s the anchor text in question. I actually have a similar guide you could use if you wanted to replace the link. Here’s the link to my version: [insert your own link here] Thank you! Link Builder Now, is that necessarily bad? No. The main advantage of this email is that you can use it as a template and really speed up the process of your outreach. It even includes some spots where you can customize the email to suit the webmaster you’re reaching out to. The problem, however, is that webmasters get requests like this all the time, especially if you’re trying to reach out to a popular blog or website. If they’ve seen this tactic before, they know the game. They know you’re in it for a link and not their website’s success. And so the success rate of these templates falls dramatically. So what should you do?
It’s easy to start thinking too clinically with outreach, as if you’re attempting to make a transaction. But that’s just not a winning formula for link building. Strive to be affable and easy to work with, while also providing webmasters with a reason to work with you. Final Tips to Win Broken LinksBroken link building is still a fantastic tool for earning meaningful links. In fact, it even has significant advantages over link building staples like guest posting. And as long as you use it in the correct manner, you will see results. Don’t assume that simply having a replacement resource will be enough, though. Webmasters get emails and pitches all the time; for you to stand out in their inbox, you need to communicate quickly, effectively, and give them a reason to work with you. The best way to do that is to lean into your own personality to make your emails friendly, helpful, and approachable. The longer you work at it, the more you’ll improve. All forms of link building take some trial and error. The nice thing about it though is that you can track what emails work the best. Over time, you can change your style to generate even more wins. Image Credits Featured Image: Paulo Bobita SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh May 30, 2019 at 08:58AM
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3 conversations to have when testing low volume ad accounts https://selnd.com/2Kcthq1 Testing is essential for anybody running a paid search account, and there are many guides for how to go about executing one. However, the majority of them cover how to test in high volume accounts, accounts where it is arguably much easier to accrue the data necessary. In low volume accounts, tests typically take 30 to 60 days to reach any sort of significance, and on occasion up to 120 days. If you’re isolating a variable, that’s a long time to keep things the same in a testing environment that by definition, is ever-changing. One thing I have learned while working with low-volume ad accounts is that setting expectations with key stakeholders is a necessity. These expectation setting conversations typically revolve around three themes. ‘It is going to take time’This conversation should be had early on, as soon as the line “let’s test it!” is triumphantly declared in a meeting. My immediate reaction is to see how long the test will take and investigate the reality of running it, before agreeing it’s a good idea. Chances are, in any account with a lower budget, your test is going to take 30 – 60 days and now is the time to bring that up. It is in your best interest to address what you’re looking to find, the hypothesis, the metrics you are going to measure success by, and then use historical data calculate how long it is going to take. Sending an email about the test you are going to run, how long it will take, and why it will take that long puts the information in writing and ensures that everybody is on the same page. If you receive any pushback later, it can be helpful to refer back to what everybody decided on initially. ‘Please don’t touch that’ (aka: ‘If you change that it will affect results’)Things change over the course of 30 to 120 days, and it is inevitable that the “please don’t touch that” conversation is going to come up. Due to the length of tests in low volume accounts, I’ve had to train myself and my team to check what is currently being tested before doing optimizations so as not to disturb any tests in progress. It’s natural that people will forget testing is occurring when it can take up to four months. Any change to the testing environment will affect results, and if the test is multi-campaign, then you have to be incredibly careful about every change you make. However, there are numerous occasions where you may need to make a change, whether out of necessity for the account or simply because a superior/client requests it. In these situations, the best thing to do is to describe the effect making that change will have on the test and document the fact that the environment has now been disturbed. This helps ensure that everybody is on the same page for when you interpret the results later. ‘These results are going to be random’It isn’t unusual for somebody to simply declare an end to the test, a ‘winner’ per se, whether or not we have reached statistical significance. One way to avoid this is to be very thorough in the first conversation, by defining what metrics you are going to measure success by. However, if you have an unavoidable end to a test, it is important to explain what this means. The results of that test, without significance, are random. You cannot be sure that the favoring of one variable over another is scientific, or due to chance. Therefore, any decisions made off that test will also be random. The danger here is that you continue to test variables by building off of random results, and ultimately missing out on making the better decision because the test didn’t run to significance. However, it happens, and when it does, the best thing you can do is explain why the results are no longer scientific to those involved. In that case, you’ve done your due diligence. The bottom lineThere is no perfect testing environment in PPC, and there never will be, as there are many variables we cannot control. Low volume ad accounts are especially vulnerable, as things like user intent and seasonality will always affect tests that run for multiple months. Controlling how we communicate testing to those involved in our accounts, and ensuring that we are proactively discussing testing, will allow us to make the best possible decisions when optimizing them going forward. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorAmalia Fowler is the director of marketing services at Snaptech Marketing. She manages a team of strategists who develop holistic digital marketing strategies for clients. Passionate about testing, marketing psychology and digital strategy, Amalia speaks frequently at industry conferences and events. Outside of marketing, she's a coffee, paddleboarding and Vancouver enthusiast. You can follow her on Twitter @amaliaefowler for all things marketing related. SEO via Search Engine Land https://selnd.com/1BDlNnc May 30, 2019 at 08:47AM
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Instagram is Testing an “Order” Sticker for Stories via @MattGSouthern http://bit.ly/2EHfWT9 Instagram has been spotted testing “order” stickers in stories, which may indicate it’s working on new ways to complete transactions. Matt Navarra spotted the sticker in his Instagram app and shared a screenshot on Twitter.
It’s unclear what functionality this sticker might offer. Instagram has been rapidly expanding its shopping capabilities as of late. However, shopping in stories has been available since last year. What else could Instagram allow people to order from stories? My first thought is that an “order” sticker may lend itself well to selling tickets to events. Instagram stories are a popular channel for promoting upcoming events, so it would be fitting to let users order tickets from stories. However, that would probably be a logistical nightmare compared to selling products. In any case, it’s important to note that Instagram hasn’t officially acknowledged that it’s rolling out an “order” sticker. So until Instagram makes an announcement, I can’t confirm any details beyond what is shown in the screenshots. For what it’s worth, Matt Navarra has been the first to spot several unannounced features from Facebook and Instagram in the past. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/1QNKwvh May 29, 2019 at 07:26PM
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A favicon is worth a thousand keywords https://selnd.com/2Xd2L3B Last week, Google began rolling out some mobile search redesigns — namely, a new black label for ads and favicons for organic search results. The company said that during testing, the favicons made it easier for the majority of users to identify websites and more than two-thirds of users reported that it was easier to scan results more quickly. Whether that’s an accurate reflection of user sentiment or not, content creators and digital marketers feel as though Google has designed aspects of its business model to ride on the coattails of what’s best for the user while leaving them to do the heavy lifting. Ads? Favicons? Fadvicons?Part of the controversy is how subtle the new ads label is, especially compared to past iterations.
While this may be advantageous for advertisers who don’t want to broadcast that they’re paying to appear at the top of search results, it’s frustrating for SEOs…
…especially because our content becomes less distinguishable from paid placements and because Google makes money every time someone clicks on an ad — whether they know it’s an ad or not. This combination can potentially mislead users on a large scale, particularly in instances when the URL isn’t visible.
Can the guidelines save us?Introducing new features can inadvertently introduce new ways to exploit the system as well. To Google’s credit, they generally publish guidelines so webmasters know what’s fair game. The SERP favicon guidelines are as follows:
The second item is the most ambiguous as publishers are the ones that define what their brands are about. Bill Hartzer decided to put this to the test.
And, two days later…
But, how did Google find out?
Search Engine Land’s own Barry Schwartz reported that there doesn’t seem to be a penalty in terms of rankings or placement in search — just the loss of your custom favicon in SERPs. This has some site owners scrambling to adjust or replace their favicons to meet the guidelines and yearning for more details on how the entire favicon screening process works. And, where there’s a lack of transparency, people will try to make money…or at least, joke about it.
The LOLsAs passionate and poignant as some SEOs are about these changes, some are just as keen to share a meme, have a laugh and remind one another that we’re all in it together. Here’s Itamar Blauer’s take on the new black ads label:
Lily Ray on the restrictive favicon dimensions:
And, Cyrus Shepard, trying to make author photos a thing again.
Gifs and jokes aside, these unilateral decisions have enormous implications for the marketers, publishers, brands and creators whose content Google relies on to attract searchers. Earlier this month, the announcement of support for How-to markup had many SEOs feeling as though Google was appropriating content so that it could keep users on SERPs and serve them more ads. In March, a very belated pagination announcement also made SEOs feel like they had been unnecessarily kept in the dark. As this behavior becomes more prevalent, so too do the discussions about how we can affect the features and policies that Google puts in place, and if not, how we can free ourselves from them. 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 May 29, 2019 at 03:51PM |
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