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Bing Introduces Personalized Image and Video Feeds by @MattGSouthern

6/30/2017

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Bing Introduces Personalized Image and Video Feeds by @MattGSouthern

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Bing has introduced the ability to personalize your image and video feeds based on interests and favorites.

When you visit the Bing homepage, and navigate to the images or video sections before conducting a search, you will see the “Feed” tab.

Bing’s video and image feeds are based on trending searches. Now you can personalize either of those feeds by signing in, then selecting some interests or saving favorite images.

To save a favorite image or video, just click on the ‘+’ icon in the bottom left corner. Bing will then curate more images based on your personal tastes. You can see everything you’ve saved in the ‘Saves’ tab at the top of the page.

Once Bing starts to understand what you’re interested in, it will start suggesting other interests you may want to follow. These suggestions will change every day, encouraging users to check their feeds on a regular basis.

You can click on any interest to see the content that is curated for that topic. If you like what you see then you can follow that interest.

Personalized image and video feeds will be synced across devices, as long as you’re signed into your account.

In July, Microsoft will be bringing Bing’s ‘Interest Feeds’ to the new Skype app on Android. These can be accessed by tapping on the “Find” panel within any chat window.





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June 30, 2017 at 10:32PM
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Google AdWords Editor 12 is Now Available: Heres Whats New by @MattGSouthern

6/30/2017

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Google AdWords Editor 12 is Now Available: Here’s What’s New by @MattGSouthern

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Version 12 of Google’s AdWords Editor is now available worldwide to all advertisers.

In addition to a new design, new features in AdWords Editor 12 include custom rules, faster account downloads, support for bidding to maximize conversions, and more.

Refreshed Design

Google has updated the design of AdWords Editor to make the look and feel more consistent with the rest of Google’s products.

The new material design will not change how AdWords Editor is used, the update is purely cosmetic.

Custom Rules

AdWords Editor 12 allows advertisers to set custom rules for ads according to the advertiser’s own best practices.

For example, if you want all of your search ads to contain four or more sitelinks as Google suggests, you can set that as a custom rule. AdWords Editor will then alert you of campaigns or ad groups that are not following your custom rules.

Faster Downloads

When you update AdWords editor to version 12, more of your data from the previous versions will be transferred over. This will result in your account information downloading faster than before.

Bidding to Maximize Conversions

Google’s ‘Maximize Conversions‘ technology, which was introduced to the web version of AdWords last month, will now be available in AdWords Editor 12.

Maximize Conversions automatically sets the ideal bid for each ad auction, which helps you get as many conversions per day as possible according to your daily budget.

Other Features

Other features that are new to AdWords Editor include the ability to upload 20 images and/or videos for Universal App Campaigns, and new customization fields for responsive ads.

The following optional fields have been added for responsive ads: “4:1 logo,” “Price prefix,” “Promotion text,” and “Call to action text.”

You can start using these new features by downloading the new AdWords Editor here.





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June 30, 2017 at 10:32PM
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SearchCap: Google AdWords Editor Danny Sullivan podcast & conversions

6/30/2017

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SearchCap: Google AdWords Editor, Danny Sullivan podcast & conversions

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Google AdWords Editor, Danny Sullivan podcast & conversions appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.




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June 30, 2017 at 03:00PM
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The June 25 Google Update: What You Should Do Now by @beaupedraza

6/30/2017

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The June 25 Google Update: What You Should Do Now by @beaupedraza

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A significant Google algorithm update happened on June 25. This update has had webmasters and SEOs buzzing all week about the significance of its effects on websites across the world.

Rather than succumbing to the information overload that comes with frequent “quality updates” from Google and forgetting about the other times that you saw the same problems, let’s cover the steps that turn a reactive or response into a proactive plan that can help your struggling online presence recover for good.

Google Algorithm Updates Will Only Continue Coming (As They Have for Years)

It’s no secret that Google updates its algorithm often, and based on what we’ve seen since 2000, it will likely continue to do so for years to come.

If you’re noticing the reduction of impressions in Google Search Console over the default view of 28 days, expand the range to 90 days.

If you’re examining site traffic in Google Analytics across the week, expand to a full historical view. If you have access to Google Analytics data that is filtered for your IP and your historical view doesn’t go back far enough, switch to the unfiltered master view.

If you were hit by Google’s algorithm update this week, there’s a chance you’ve been hit before. You may not even realize it.

Why Switch to an Unfiltered View?

Switching to an unfiltered view isn’t exactly the most scientific approach as it will show site visits by employees, webmasters, and those who provide digital support, which tends to be omitted in an IP filtered view when done properly. This will largely depend on your site’s general volume of traffic and weighed against how many daily and monthly visits you believe those visitors generate.

If your site receives tens of thousands of sessions a week and filtered sessions are in the single or double digits during the same time frame, the numbers won’t be exact, but you can still assess the historic damage with minimal variance.

What You Should Look For in Historic GA Data

In short, you’re looking to find evidence of other events similar to June 25 that may have been overlooked. A simple way to handle this includes:

  • In GA, navigate to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium.
  • Extend the time frame from the default seven-day view to as far back as you can, preferably before 2015. I’ll explain later on.
  • Under the Source/Medium columns, select google/organic.
  • Look at the line chart in a Weekly or Monthly manner, especially if you’re working with years of data.

Let’s use a test site of mine to uncover what a long, slow decline looks like if left untreated:

Two-year organic performance on Google Search for a test site

From here, you should have a pretty good glimpse at how your site has performed on Google Search. Now, you’ll need to ask yourself a couple of questions:

  • Where are the dips in traffic? Any gains? When did the decline start?
  • Can those be explained by seasonal factors or poor tracking issues?
  • Are there any annotations that can provide a better understanding? Often these can answer questions that you may not have considered if they cover site maintenance and migrations. If you’re lucky, you may even have a digital record showing correlation between performance and Google’s algorithm updates.

Annotations in Google Analytics which note site and algorithmic events

At this point, you have a number of options. One of my favorite things to do after an algorithm rolls out involves looking at the site’s top landing page performance before and after an algorithmic event.

Glenn Gabe developed a timeless tutorial on identifying low-quality landing pages affected by the Panda algorithm update using GA and Excel magic which still works wonders today.

What Does Panda 4.2 Have to Do With Google’s June 25 Update?

In short, Google’s Panda 4.2 refresh began slowly rolling out on July 18, 2015, taking weeks to fully go into effect. At the time, Panda was the name for Google’s algorithm that targeted sites of “low quality” content and rewarded sites that adhered to the search engine’s site quality recommendations.

Many of the points that Google made regarding Panda’s intent in 2014 are still focused on in 2017, most notably, with the March 7 rollout of the “Fred” algorithm update.

Here is the same site’s organic performance on Google, comparing “Fred” to this week’s update on a daily basis:

Comparing the June 25th algo update to Fred

The Next Step is Admitting You Have an SEO Problem

Being able to accurately identify the root causes plaguing your website can seem like a scary proposition for some.

Using the scientific method can help you figure out whether you have a big SEO problem.

For those who have left their memories of childhood science fairs at the door of adulthood, here are the steps along with a general example for each situation:

Make an Observation

This is where many of us were at just a few days ago. For others, this might not have happened yet! One example of an observation I’ve seen across the web has generally followed the format of “My organic traffic on Google is down!”

Ask a Question

After identifying the downward trend, you may be asking yourself “Why did my organic traffic take a hit?” This is where most tend to stall, unsure of where to go or how to proceed. For SEOs, there’s a good reason for this…

Form a Hypothesis

The reason why many digital marketers and webmasters never reach this step is that when it comes to handling “The Google Dance”, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of ranking factors that come with the territory. However, by taking a step back and reviewing your site’s historic performance and comparing them to any changes that have been made on your site, you can make the case that “Turning hundreds of pages with thin content into ones that speak to the intent of each page will restore our site’s previous rankings.”

Because this is a cause and effect relationship, be mindful of your variables – the aspects of your site that you’re changing. If you aren’t familiar with the site or if your experience in handling general website optimization efforts is minimal, you may want to control your other variables to ensure that any other changes outside of the ones stated in the hypothesis don’t turn your poor rankings into non-existing ones.

Make a Prediction

“I predict that if I turn my site’s thin pages into vibrant pages that people want to read, share, click, and convert on, then my rankings will return.” Easy enough, right?

Conduct an Experiment

Now, this is where we turn a good idea into action. For this example, identify site pages that you believe are the source of your traffic (and rankings) issues identified and also confirm that if those pages are to be updated, that other unaffected pages won’t be next as a result. It needs to be said that if you’re going to write great content, you should know how Google defines “great content”.

If all goes well, you stand to see your site return to its former glory or even better, have it reach newer heights!

If this doesn’t affect your site at all, you may have other issues at play such as over-optimized anchor text or poor mobile experience, which means you’ll need to return to the hypothesis drawing board.

Since you’ve produced content that marketers dream of, this shouldn’t be a detriment once you begin your next experiment.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

One piece of advice I was given early in my professional career came from my first agency mentor, who recommended that I focus less on the algorithms and more on the path towards consistently improving on the smallest of every detail.

With Google’s algorithms, there are no easy fixes for a poor showing. SEO success takes effort.

Your website is a single entity composed of hundreds of interconnected parts and numerous off-site accessories that if focused on individually using a detailed plan of action backed by tested best practices and continuous research, will add up to success in the long run.

Image Credits

Screenshots by Beau Pedraza. Taken June 2016.





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June 30, 2017 at 01:30PM
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A winning process yields winning results: Conversion optimization tips from SMX Advanced

6/30/2017

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A winning process yields winning results: Conversion optimization tips from SMX Advanced

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Earlier this month, keeping with the traditions of a welcoming summer, Seattle opened its doors to data junkies, optimization nerds and the search-obsessed in celebration of yet another SMX Advanced.

Not speaking this year, I had more flexibility to sit in on some of the many useful presentations. Among the most compelling was a session led by Jeremy Epperson of 3Q Digital and Khalid Saleh of Invesp titled, “Conversion Optimization: Turning Quick Wins into Winning.”

In my role at Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, my primary responsibility is to help North American companies succeed in Russia. Russia is a top 7 Internet Audience in the world, so I’m frequently approached by North American CMOs with a desire to “test the market.” Of course, my initial reaction is, “фантастика!” (“Fantastic!”) In today’s digital petri dish, let the data determine direction — testing is always a good start.

Both Epperson and Saleh not only communicated the value of testing, but also emphasized the necessity for testing well. It’s a waste of resources to conduct a test that yields results contaminated by ignored variables or absent processes.

Both speakers presented multi-step approaches to Conversion Rate Optimization.  For the purposes of this article, I’ll introduce a blended step-by-step comprised of their shared components. (Before engaging in your own testing, I encourage you to take a peek at the full presentations, which appears at the end of this article.)

1. Work towards strategic business alignment

Whether it be on-page button testing, ad creative testing, or even tag testing from the SEO team, multiple departments/concentrations are going to be involved at different levels. In order to complete an actionable test, it’s crucial that all actors buy in on the test’s potential impact. Involving all departments throughout the process creates a necessary culture of optimization and a shared desire to be better.

2. Design a documented growth plan

Identifying where you want to go encourages engaged parties to consider the optimal path to get there. Applying deadlines and targets will organize the testing process and cultivate shared accountability.

3. Conduct a heuristic analysis

Now the fun begins. The need to be better has been identified, but where to begin? A heuristic analysis should identify the bottlenecks for growth and shape the testing battlefields. This is where expert opinion is applied to identify the broken component.

4. Perform qualitative research

Employ fast-action data collectors to complement the expert analysis. Polls and surveys can be easily deployed to communicate with the customers and obtain opinions from the front lines. Software in this space continues to evolve and can be implemented with ease; use your institutional knowledge to ask the right questions, and listen to what the customers have to say.

5. Perform quantitative research

When your in-house analysis has been supported by your customers, it’s time to dig in on the quant side with the hopes of locating supportive evidence. What do the numbers look like?

6. Develop a hypothesis

The groundwork has been established, but before an A/B test can be executed, a hypothesis needs to be developed. The documented hypothesis is the trophy you get to raise after your successful test: “I thought if we did X, the result would be Y.”

7. Launch your test

The necessary preparation has been completed, and the test is ready to run. Each test is unique, but Epperson typically tries to complete a test within two to four weeks. The shorter the testing interval, the more testing we can perform.

8. Post-mortem

Though the post-mortem analysis is often a forgotten victim to the jubilation or devastation of the test’s results, it is necessary to the success of future efforts that you find the time to properly assess the test.

Final thoughts

I’ve long been of the opinion that in the digital world, a properly executed test should precede as many business decisions as possible; the arena we operate in facilitates an ease of access to speedy and reliable data unparalleled in competing industries — to not exercise this advantage would be careless.

Q2 is just getting under way, so there’s plenty of time left in 2017 to scratch that itch and test the hypothesis you’ve long been kicking around! A winning process yields winning results.

See the full presentations here:


Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About The Author

Brendan McGonigle is the Director of US Business Development for Yandex, Russia's largest search engine. Prior to joining Yandex, Brendan spent years in the travel industry, working most recently for Tripadvisor. Brendan joined Yandex to assist US-based companies with their business in Russia and neighboring CIS markets. When he's not chatting digital and collecting cross-Atlantic airline miles, Brendan enjoys running, fly fishing and pumpernickel bagels.





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June 30, 2017 at 10:56AM
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LISTEN: Danny Sullivan reflects on 21 years covering the search industry

6/30/2017

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LISTEN: Danny Sullivan reflects on 21 years covering the search industry

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There aren’t many people who can claim to have created an industry, but Danny Sullivan is one of them. When he first published “The Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines” in 1996, he attracted an audience of online marketing pioneers who wanted to understand how search engines of the day — think Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos and the like — ranked online content. Soon after, he launched Search Engine Watch and started hosting search marketing conferences. And in 2006, he co-founded Third Door Media — the company behind Search Engine Land and its younger siblings, MarTech Today and Marketing Land.

As journalists, we don’t like to consider ourselves “the news,” but when Danny announced earlier this week that he’d be stepping away from daily duties as our Chief Content Officer and taking an advisory role, it was industry news. Big news. And so we think it’s apropos to spend this week’s episode of Marketing Land Live chatting with Danny about his beginnings as a search industry reporter, the evolution of both SEO and online journalism and, of course, his decision to shift careers. I had the pleasure of doing the interview, and I think you’re gonna love it.

This week’s show runs just over an hour. You can listen here or use the link below to subscribe via your favorite podcast service.

We invite you to subscribe via iTunes or Google Play Podcasts.

Show notes

Danny Sullivan: My new role as advisor for Third Door Media

10 big changes with search engines over my 20 years of covering them

Thanks for listening! We’ll be back soon with another episode of Marketing Land Live.

[This article originally appeared on Marketing Land.]


About The Author

Matt McGee is the Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. After leaving traditional media in the mid-1990s, he began developing and marketing websites and continued to provide consulting services for more than 15 years. His SEO and social media clients ranged from mom-and-pop small businesses to one of the Top 5 online retailers. Matt is a longtime speaker at marketing events around the U.S., including keynote and panelist roles. He can be found on Twitter at

@MattMcGee

. You can

read Matt's disclosures

on his personal blog. You can reach Matt via email using our

Contact page

.





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June 30, 2017 at 10:46AM
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Victor Hugo Google doodle marks publication of the French novelists classic Les Misérables

6/30/2017

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Victor Hugo Google doodle marks publication of the French novelist’s classic, ‘Les Misérables’

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Today’s Google doodle is a callout to French novelist, poet and human rights activist Victor Hugo. The doodle marks the publication date of what is arguably his most well-known novel, “Les Misérables.”

“Before he turned 30, Hugo was already an established poet, dramatist, artist, and novelist,” writes the doodle team on the Google Doodle Blog. “Hugo appeared on a French banknote and is honored with streets, parks, hiking trails, and statues in most large French cities, as well as in Guernsey, where he lived in exile.”

Designed by doodler Sophie Diao, the doodle leads to a search for “Victor Hugo” and includes a slide show depicting key scenes from his work.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Les Contemplations

Les Misérables

Google notes that Hugo was exiled for nearly 10 years because of his political views, and it was during that time that he wrote numerous poetry collections and books about social injustice. He would go on to start the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, an organization supporting artists’ rights.

Sophie Diao, the artist behind today’s doodle, has been the creative force for many of Google’s doodles, including last November’s Louisa May Alcott doodle, celebrating the “Little Women” author.

Last year, Diao gave Search Engine Land a glimpse behind the curtain and answered our five most pressing questions about Google’s Doodle team and the work they do: Creating Google doodles that ‘Surprise & Delight’: 5 Questions with Doodler Sophie Diao.


About The Author

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media's General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including

MarketingProfs.com

,

SoftwareCEO.com

, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.





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June 30, 2017 at 10:24AM
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AdWords Editors new custom rules let you quickly see whats missing in your accounts

6/30/2017

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AdWords Editor’s new custom rules let you quickly see what’s missing in your accounts

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Google really wants advertisers to adopt their best practices. The latest version of AdWords Editor, version 12, has a whole new section to show you where you’re not complying, along with some other new features.

Custom Rules

The new “Custom Rules” section can be found in the left navigation pane in AdWords Editor (AWE). It will report on warnings for not having at least four sitelink or callout extensions, using manual bidding, not having search audiences assigned to campaigns, not having conversion tracking set up and more. And if it wasn’t clear yet that Google really, really, truly wants advertisers to quit it with the basic A/B ad testing, there’s a built-in custom rule to show you how many ad groups have fewer than three ads.

Below is a screen shot showing the list of built-in custom rules. They will show up even if there are no violations, just with a “0” in that column.

Also shown in the screenshot is the editor pane for setting up your own custom rules to be able to quickly spot warnings and errors. You build the filter for the custom rule in the violation criteria box. Custom rules can also be set up to apply to campaign and ad group labels, which is pretty handy.

To then see what entities are in violation for any custom rule, there are a couple of ways to go about it:

  1. From the Custom rules section, you can right-click on a rule and select “Show violations” at the bottom of the menu (h/t Jonathan Maltz).
  2. You can build a filter by clicking in the filters box and scrolling down to select among the drop-down options under “Custom rule violation filters,” as Frederic Harnois pointed out in the tweet below.

Other updates

The first thing you’ll notice when you update to the new AWE 12 is a subtle new design change (you can tweet feedback to the AdWords team). As far as features go, the new AWE supports maximizing conversions bid strategy, image uploads for Universal App campaigns and responsive ads creation and editing.


About The Author

As Third Door Media's paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.





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June 30, 2017 at 09:29AM
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Search in Pics: Old Google trailer Google Dance Tokyo shirt & really clean Google server room

6/30/2017

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Search in Pics: Old Google trailer, Google Dance Tokyo shirt & really clean Google server room

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In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Really big Google beach chair and beach ball:


Source: Instagram

Old fashion Google trailer:


Source: Instagram

Clean Google server room:


Source: Twitter

Google indoor tire swing:


Source: Instagram

Google Dance – the Tokyo version t-shirt:


Source: Twitter






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June 30, 2017 at 08:42AM
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How Content Can Succeed By Making Enemies - Whiteboard Friday

6/30/2017

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How Content Can Succeed By Making Enemies - Whiteboard Friday

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Posted by randfish

Getting readers on board with your ideas isn't the only way to achieve content success. Sometimes, stirring up a little controversy and earning a few rivals can work incredibly well — but there's certainly a right and a wrong way to do it. Rand details how to use the power of making enemies work to your advantage in today's Whiteboard Friday.

How content can succeed by making enemies

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today, we're going to chat about something a little interesting — how content can succeed by making enemies. I know you're thinking to yourself, "Wait a minute, I thought my job was to make friends with my content." Yes, and one of the best ways to make close friends is to make enemies too.

So, in my opinion, I think that companies and businesses, programs, organizations of all kinds, efforts of all kinds tend to do really well when they get people on their side. So if I'm trying to create a movement or I'm trying to get people to believe in what I'm doing, I need to have positions, data, stories, and content that can bring people to my site. One of the best ways to do that is actually to think about it in opposition to something else, basically try and figure out how you can earn some enemies.

A few examples of content that makes enemies & allies

I'll give you a few examples, because I think that will help add some context here. I did a little bit of research. My share data is from BuzzSumo, and my link data here is from Ahrefs. But for example, this piece called "There Are Now Twice as Many Solar Jobs as Coal Jobs in the US," this is essentially just data-driven content, but it clearly makes friends and enemies. It makes enemies with sort of this classic, old-school Americana belief set around how important coal jobs are, and it creates, through the enemy that it builds around that, simply by sharing data, it also creates allies, people who are on the side of this story, who want to share it and amplify it and have it reach its potential and reach more people.

Same is true here. So this is a story called "Yoga Is a Good Alternative to Physical Therapy." Clearly, it did extremely well, tens of thousands of shares and thousands of links, lots of ranking keywords for it. But it creates some enemies. Physical therapists are not going to be thrilled that this is the case. Despite the research behind it, this is frustrating for many of those folks. So you've created friends, allies, people who are yoga practitioners and yoga instructors. You've also created enemies, potentially those folks who don't believe that this might be the case despite what the research might show.

Third one, "The 50 Most Powerful Public Relations Firms in America," I think this was actually from The Observer. So they're writing in the UK, but they managed to rank for lots and lots of keywords around "best PR firms" and all those sorts of things. They have thousands of shares, thousands of links. I mean 11,000 links, that's darn impressive for a story of this nature. And they've created enemies. They've created enemies of all the people who are not in the 50 most powerful, who feel that they should be, and they've created allies of the people who are in there. They've also created some allies and enemies deeper inside the story, which you can check out.

"Replace Your Lawn with These Superior Alternatives," well, guess what? You have now created some enemies in the lawn care world and in the lawn supply world and in the passionate communities, very passionate communities, especially here in the United States, around people who sort of believe that homes should have lawns and nothing else, grass lawns in this case. This piece didn't do that well in terms of shares, but did phenomenally well in terms of links. This was on Lifehacker, and it ranks for all sorts of things, 11,000+ links.

Before you create, ask yourself: Who will help amplify this, and why?

So you can see that these might not be things that you naturally think of as earning enemies. But when you're creating content, if you can go through this exercise, I have this rule, that I've talked about many times over the years, for content success, especially content amplification success. That is before you ever create something, before you brainstorm the idea, come up with the title, come up with the content, before you do that, ask yourself: Who will help amplify this and why? Why will they help?

One of the great things about framing things in terms of who are my allies, the people on my side, and who are the enemies I'm going to create is that the "who" becomes much more clear. The people who support your ideas, your ethics, or your position, your logic, your data and want to help amplify that, those are people who are potential amplifiers. The people, the detractors, the enemies that you're going to build help you often to identify that group.

The "why" becomes much more clear too. The existence of that common enemy, the chance to show that you have support and beliefs in people, that's a powerful catalyst for that amplification, for the behavior you're attempting to drive in your community and your content consumers. I've found that thinking about it this way often gets content creators and SEOs in the right frame of mind to build stuff that can do really well.

Some dos and don'ts

Do... backup content with data

A few dos and don'ts if you're pursuing this path of content generation and ideation. Do back up as much as you can with facts and data, not just opinion. That should be relatively obvious, but it can be dangerous in this kind of world, as you go down this path, to not do that.

Do... convey a world view

I do suggest that you try and convey a world view, not necessarily if you're thinking on the political spectrum of like from all the way left to all the way right or those kinds of things. I think it's okay to convey a world view around it, but I would urge you to provide multiple angles of appeal.

So if you're saying, "Hey, you should replace your lawn with these superior alternatives," don't make it purely that it's about conservation and ecological health. You can also make it about financial responsibility. You can also make it about the ease with which you can care for these lawns versus other ones. So now it becomes something that appeals across a broader range of the spectrum.

Same thing with something like solar jobs versus coal jobs. If you can get it to be economically focused and you can give it a capitalist bent, you can potentially appeal to multiple ends of the ideological spectrum with that world view.

Do... collect input from notable parties

Third, I would urge you to get inputs from notable folks before you create and publish this content, especially if the issue that you're talking about is going to be culturally or socially or politically charged. Some of these fit into that. Yoga probably not so much, but potentially the solar jobs/coal jobs one, that might be something to run the actual content that you've created by some folks who are in the energy space so that they can help you along those lines, potentially the energy and the political space if you can.

Don't... be provocative just to be provocative

Some don'ts. I do not urge you and I'm not suggesting that you should create provocative content purely to be provocative. Instead, I'm urging you to think about the content that you create and how you angle it using this framing of mind rather than saying, "Okay, what could we say that would really piss people off?" That's not what I'm urging you to do. I'm urging you to say, "How can we take things that we already have, beliefs and positions, data, stories, whatever content and how do we angle them in such a way that we think about who are the enemies, who are the allies, how do we get that buy-in, how do we get that amplification?"

Don't... choose indefensible positions

Second, I would not choose enemies or positions that you can't defend against. So, for example, if you were considering a path that you think might get you into a world of litigious danger, you should probably stay away from that. Likewise, if your positions are relatively indefensible and you've talked to some folks in the field and done the dues and they're like, "I don't know about that," you might not want to pursue it.

Don't... give up on the first try

Third, do not give up if your first attempts in this sort of framing don't work. You should expect that you will have to, just like any other form of content, practice, iterate, and do this multiple times before you have success.

Don't... be unprofessional

Don't be unprofessional when you do this type of content. It can be a little bit tempting when you're framing things in terms of, "How do I make enemies out of this?" to get on the attack. That is not necessary. I think that actually content that builds enemies does so even better when it does it from a non-attack vector mode.

Don't... sweat the Haterade

Don't forget that if you're getting some Haterade for the content you create, a lot of people when they start drinking the Haterade online, they run. They think, "Okay, we've done something wrong." That's actually not the case. In my experience, that means you're doing something right. You're building something special. People don't tend to fight against and argue against ideas and people and organizations for no reason. They do so because they're a threat.

If you've created a threat to your enemies, you have also generally created something special for your allies and the people on your side. That means you're doing something right. In Moz's early days, I can tell you, back when we were called SEOmoz, for years and years and years we got all sorts of hate, and it was actually a pretty good sign that we were doing something right, that we were building something special.

So I look forward to your comments. I'd love to see any examples of stuff that you have as well, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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SEO

via SEOmoz Blog https://moz.com/blog

June 30, 2017 at 02:05AM
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