tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67059895665402715542024-03-15T03:09:47.849-07:00Angeles Cielitolind40727Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.comBlogger266125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-80551568698706807312020-05-12T22:30:00.001-07:002020-05-12T22:30:20.725-07:00Google’s May 2020 Core Update: What You Need to Know<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/serpchanges.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>On May 4th, Google started to roll out a major update to its algorithm. They call it a “core” update because it’s a large change to their algorithm, which means it impacts a lot of sites.</p>
<p>To give you an idea of how big the update is, just look at the image above. It’s from <a href="https://www.semrush.com/sensor/">SEMrush Sensor</a>, which monitors the movement of results on Google.</p>
<p>The chart tracks Google on a daily basis and when it shows green or blue for the day, it means there isn’t much movement going on. But when things turn red, it means there is volatility in the rankings.</p>
<p><em>Now the real question is, what happened to your traffic?</em></p>
<p>If you already haven’t, you should go and check your rankings to see if they have gone up or down. If you aren’t tracking your rankings, you can <a href="https://app.neilpatel.com/en/dashboard">set up a project on Ubersuggest</a> for free and track up to 25 keywords.</p>
<p>You should also log into your Google Analytics account and check to see what’s happening to your traffic.</p>
<p>Hopefully, your traffic has gone up. If it hasn’t, don’t panic. I have some information that will help you out.</p>
<p>Let’s first start off by going over the industries that have been most impacted…</p>
<span id="more-92486"></span>
<h2><strong>So what industries were affected?</strong></h2>
<p>Here are the <a href="https://searchengineland.com/googles-may-2020-core-update-was-big-and-broad-search-data-tools-show-334393">industries that got affected</a>.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/semrush-industry.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As you can see, travel, real estate, health, pets & animals, and people & society saw the biggest fluctuations with rankings.</p>
<p>Other industries were also affected… the ones at the bottom of the list were the least affected, such as “news.”</p>
<p>There was also a <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenShaw_/status/1256425879334350859">shakeup in local SEO results</a>, but that started before the core update.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/localseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>One big misconception that I hear from people new to SEO is that if you have a high domain authority or domain score (if you aren’t sure what yours is, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/backlinks/">go here</a> and put in your URL), you’ll continually get more traffic and won’t be affected by updates. That is false.</p>
<p>To give you an idea, here are some well-known sites that saw their rankings dip according to our index at <a href="https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/">Ubersuggest</a>:</p>
<ul><li>Spotify.com</li><li>Creditkarma.com</li><li>LinkedIn.com</li><li>Legoland.com</li><li>Nypost.com</li><li>Ny.gov</li><li>Burlington.com</li></ul>
<p>More importantly, we saw some trends on sites that got affected versus ones that didn’t.</p>
<h2><strong>Update your content frequently</strong></h2>
<p>I publish 4 articles a month on this blog. Pretty early every Tuesday like clockwork, I publish a new post.</p>
<p>But do you know how often I update my old content?</p>
<p><em>Take a guess?</em></p>
<p>Technically, I don’t update my own content, but I have 3 people who work for me and all they do is go through old blog posts and update them.</p>
<p>On any given month, my team updates at least 90 articles. And when I say update, I am not talking about just adjusting a sentence or adding an image. I am talking about adding a handful of new paragraphs, deleting irrelevant information, and sometimes even re-writing entire articles.</p>
<p>They do whatever it takes to keep articles up to date and valuable for the readers. Just like how Wikipedia is constantly updating its content.</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting stat for you: We know for certain that 641 sites that we are tracking are updating old content on a daily basis.</p>
<p><em>Can you guess how many of them saw a search traffic dip of 10% or more?</em></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/refresh.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Only 38! That’s 5.92%, which is extremely low.</p>
<p>What’s crazy, though, is that 187 sites saw an increase in their search traffic of 10% or more.</p>
<p>One thing to note is when we are calculating organic search traffic estimates, we look at the average monthly volume of a keyword as well as click-through rates based on ranking. So holidays such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day">May 1</a>, which is Labor Day for most of the world, didn’t skew the results. </p>
<p>Now, to clarify, I am not talking about producing new content on a daily or even weekly basis. These sites are doing what I do on NeilPatel.com… they are constantly updating their old content.</p>
<p>Again, there is no “rubric” on how to update your old content as it varies per article, but the key is to do whatever it takes to keep it relevant for your readers and ensure that it is better than the competition.</p>
<p>If you still want some guidance on updating old content, here is what I tell my team:</p>
<ol type="1"><li>If the content is no longer relevant to a reader, either delete the page and 301 redirect it to the most relevant URL on the site or update it to make it relevant.</li><li>Are there ways to make the content more actionable and useful? Such as, would adding infographics, step-by-step instructions, or videos to the article make it more useful? If so, add them.</li><li>Check to see if there are any dead links and fix them. Dead links create a poor user experience.</li><li>If the article is a translated article (I have a big global audience), make sure the images and videos make sense to anyone reading the content in that language.</li><li>Look to see the 5 main terms each article ranks for and then Google those terms. What do the pages ranking in the top 10 do really well that we aren’t?</li><li>Can you make the article simpler? Remove fluff and avoid using complex words that very few people can understand.</li><li>Does the article discuss a specific year or time frame? If possible, make the article evergreen by avoiding the usage of dates or specific time ranges.</li><li>If the article covers a specific problem people are facing, make sure you look at Quora first before updating the article. Look to see popular answers on Quora as it will give you a sense of what people are ideally looking for.</li><li>Is this article a duplicate? Not from a wording perspective, but are you pretty much covering the exact same concept as another article on your site. If so, consider merging them and 301 redirect one URL to the other.</li></ol>
<h2><strong>Fix your thin content</strong></h2>
<p>Here’s another interesting stat for you. On average, Ubersuggest crawls 71 websites every minute. And when I mean crawl, users are putting in URLs to check for SEO errors.</p>
<p>One error that our system looks at is thin content (pages with low-word counts).</p>
<p>On average, 46% of the websites we analyze have at least one page that is thin in content. Can you guess how many of those sites got impacted by the latest algorithm update?</p>
<p>We don’t have enough data on all of the URLs as the majority of those sites get very little to no search traffic as they are either new sites or haven’t done much SEO.</p>
<p>But when we look at the last 400 sites in our system that were flagged with thin content warnings for pages other than their contact page, about page, or home page, and had at least 1,000 visitors a month from Google, they saw a massive shift in rankings.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/thincontent.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>127 of the sites saw a decrease in search traffic by at least 10% while 41 saw an increase in search traffic by at least 10%.</p>
<p>Sites with thin content saw a roughly 3 times higher likelihood of being affected in a negative way than a positive one. Of course, the majority of the sites with thin content saw little to no change at all, but still, a whopping 31.75% saw a decrease.</p>
<p>If you don’t know if you have thin content, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/">go here</a> and put in your URL.</p>
<p>You’ll see a report that looks something like this:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/seoanalyzer.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>I want you to click on the “Critical Errors” box.</p>
<p>You’ll now see a report that looks like:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/criticalerrors.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Look to see if there are any “low word count” errors. If there is, click on the number and it will take you to a page that shows you all of the pages with a low word count.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/lowwordcount.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>You won’t be able to fix them all, as some pages like your contact page or category pages, which may not need thousands of words.</p>
<p>And in other cases, you may be able to get the point across to a website visitor in a few hundred words or even through images. An example would be if you have an article on how to tie a tie, you may not have too many words because it’s easier to show people how to do so through a video or a series of images.</p>
<p>But for the pages that should be more in-depth, you should fix them. Here are the three main questions to consider when fixing thin content pages:</p>
<ol type="1"><li><strong>Do you really need to add more words</strong> – if you can get the message across in a few hundred words or through images or videos, it may be enough. Don’t add words when it isn’t needed. Think of the user experience instead. People would rather have the answer to their question in a few seconds than to wait minutes.</li><li><strong>How does your page compare to the competition</strong> – look at similar pages that are ranking on page 1. Do they have more content than you or less? This will give you an idea if you need to expand your page, especially if everyone who ranks on page 1 has at least a few thousand words on their page.</li><li><strong>Does it even make sense to keep the page </strong>– if it provides little to no value to a reader and you can’t make it better by updating it, you may want to consider deleting it and 301 redirect the URL to another similar page on your site.</li></ol>
<h2><strong>Fix your SEO errors</strong></h2>
<p>Another interesting finding that we noticed when digging through our Ubersuggest data is that sites with more SEO errors got impacted greatly.</p>
<p>Now, this doesn’t mean that if you have a ton of SEO errors you can’t rank or you are going to get hit by an algorithm update.</p>
<p>More so it was one type of error that hurt sites more than others. It was sites with duplicate title tags and meta descriptions.</p>
<p>One thing to note was that many sites have duplicate meta tags, but when a large portion of your pages have duplicate meta tags, it usually creates problems.</p>
<p>So we dug up sites that contained duplicate meta tags and title tags for 20% or more of their pages.</p>
<p>Most of these sites didn’t get much traffic in general, but for the 363 that we could dig up that generated at least 1,000 visits a month from Google, 151 saw a decrease in traffic by at least 10%.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/duplicatemetas.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>89 of them also saw increases in traffic by 10% or more, but still, 41.59% of sites with duplicate meta tags saw a huge dip. If you have duplicate meta tags you should get this fix.</p>
<p>To double check if you do, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/">put your URL in here again</a>. It will load this report again:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/seoanalyzer.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>And then click on the critical errors again. You’ll see a report that looks like this:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/criticalerrors.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Look for any errors that say duplicate meta description or title tag. If you see it, click on the number and it will take you to a page that breaks down the duplicates.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/duplicatemeta.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Again, your site doesn’t have to be perfect and you’ll find in some cases that you have duplicates that don’t need to be fixed, such as category pages with pagination.</p>
<p>But in most cases, you should fix and avoid having duplicate meta description and title tags.</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion</strong></h2>
<p>Even if you do everything I discussed above, there is no guarantee that you will be impacted by an algorithm update. Each one is different, and Google’s goal is to create the best experience for searchers.</p>
<p>If you look at the above issues, you’ll notice that fixing them should create a better user experience and that should always be your goal.</p>
<p>It isn’t about winning on Google. SEO is about providing a better experience than your competition. If that’s your core focus, in the long run, you’ll find that you’ll do better than your competition when it comes to algorithm updates.</p>
<p><em>So how was your traffic during the last update? Did it go up or down, or just stay flat?</em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-may-2020-core-update/">Google’s May 2020 Core Update: What You Need to Know</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com">Neil Patel</a>.</p>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/KISSmetrics/~4/6W1YDwhKhRk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><br /><br />
<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KISSmetrics/~3/6W1YDwhKhRk/" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-39817280341894454912020-05-12T04:12:00.001-07:002020-05-12T04:12:14.829-07:00Use the Blank Sheet of Paper Test to Optimize for Natural Language Processing<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/212948\">Evan_Hall</a></p><p>If you handed someone a blank sheet of paper and the only thing written on it was the page’s title, would they understand what the title meant? Would they have a clear idea of what the actual document might be about? If so, then congratulations! You just passed the Blank Sheet of Paper Test for page titles because your title was descriptive.</p>
<p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/content-rule-1-blank-sheet-paper-test.htm">Blank Sheet of Paper Test (BSoPT)</a> is an idea Ian Lurie has talked about a lot over the years, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ianlurie.com/seo/seo-101-the-blank-sheet-of-paper-test/">recently on his new website</a>. It’s a test to see if what you’ve written has meaning to someone who has never encountered your brand or content before. In Ian’s words, "Will this text, written on a blank sheet of paper, make sense to a stranger?" The Blank Sheet of Paper Test is about clarity without context. </p>
<p>But what if we’re performing the BSoPT on a machine instead of a person? Does our thought experiment still apply? I think so. Machines can’t read—even sophisticated ones like Google and Bing. They can only guess at the meaning of our content, which makes the test especially relevant.</p>
<p>I have an alternative version of the BSoPT, but for machines: If all a machine could see is a list of words that appear in a document and how often, could it reasonably guess what the document is about?</p>
<h2>The Blank Sheet of Paper Test for word frequency</h2>
<p>If you handed someone a blank sheet of paper and the only thing written on it was this table of words and frequencies, could they guess what the article is about?</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-05-11-at-2-15790.png" data-image="stnlfmzywq1i"></figure>
<p>An article about sharpening a knife is a pretty good guess. The article I took this word frequency table from was a how-to guide for sharpening a kitchen knife. </p>
<p>What if the words "step" and "how" appeared in the table? Would the person reading be more confident this article is about sharpening knives, or less? Could they tell if this article is about sharpening kitchen knives or pocket knives?</p>
<p>If we can't get a pretty good idea of what the article is about based on which words it uses, then it fails the BSoPT for word frequency. </p>
<h2>Can we still use word frequency for BERT?</h2>
<p>Earlier natural language processing (NLP) approaches employed by search engines used statistical analysis of word frequency and word co-occurrence to determine what a page is about. They ignored the order and part of speech of the words in our content, basically treating our pages like bags of words. </p>
<p>The tools we used to optimize for that kind of NLP compared the word frequency of our content against our competitors, and told us where the gaps in word usage were. Hypothetically, if we added those words to our content, we would rank higher, or at least help search engines understand our content better.</p>
<p>Those tools still exist: Market Muse, SEMRush, seobility, Ryte, and others have some sort of word frequency or TD-IDF gap analysis capability. I’ve been using a free word frequency tool called Online Text Comparator, and it works pretty well. Are they still useful now that search engines have advanced with NLP approaches like BERT? I think so, but it’s not as simple as more words = better rankings.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/what-is-bert">BERT is a lot more sophisticated</a> than a bag-of-words approach. BERT looks at the order of words, part of speech, and any entities present in our content. It’s robust and can be trained to do many things including question answering and named entity recognition—definitely more advanced than basic word frequency. </p>
<p>However, BERT still needs to look at the words present on the page to function, and word frequency is a basic summary of that. Now, word location and part of speech matter more. We can’t just sprinkle the words we found in our gap analysis around the page.</p>
<h2>Enhancing content with word frequency tools</h2>
<p>To help make our content unambiguous to machines, we need to make it unambiguous to users. Reducing ambiguity in our writing is about choosing words that are specific to the topic we’re writing about. If our writing uses a lot of generic verbs, pronouns, and non-thematic adjectives, then not only is our content bland, it’s hard to understand. </p>
<p>Consider this extreme example of non-specific language:</p>
<p>“The trick to finding the right chef’s knife is finding a good balance of features, qualities and price. It should be made from metal strong enough to keep its edge for a decent amount of time. You should have a comfortable handle that won’t make you tired. You don’t need to spend a lot either. The home cook doesn’t need a fancy $350 Japanese knife.”</p>
<p>This copy isn’t great. It looks almost machine-generated. I can’t imagine a full article written like this would pass the BSoPT for word frequency.</p>
<p>Here’s what the word frequency table looks like with some stop words removed: </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-05-11-at-2-22244.png" data-image="eaq4vc2m86wk"></figure>
<p>Now suppose we used a word frequency tool on a few pages that are ranking well for “how to pick a chef’s knife” and found that these parts of speech were being used fairly often:</p>
<p><strong>Entities</strong>: blade, steel, fatigue, damascus steel, santoku, Shun (brand)<strong><br>Verbs</strong>: grip, chopping<strong><br>Adjectives</strong>: perfect, hard, high-carbon</p>
<p>Incorporating these words into our copy would yield text that’s significantly better:</p>
<p>“The trick to finding the perfect chef’s knife is getting the right balance of features, qualities, and price. The blade should be made from steel hard enough to keep a sharp edge after repeated use. You should have an ergonomic handle that you can grip comfortably to prevent fatigue from extending chopping. You don’t need to spend a lot, either. The home cook doesn’t need a $350 high-carbon damascus steel santoku from Shun.”</p>
<p>This upgraded text will be easier for machines to classify, and better for users to read. It’s also just good writing to use words relevant to your topic.</p>
<h2>Looking toward the future of NLP</h2>
<p>Is improving our content with the Blank Sheet of Paper Test optimizing for BERT or other NLP algorithms? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think there is a special set of words we can add to our content to magically rank higher through exploiting BERT. I see this as a way to ensure our content is understood clearly by both users and machines.</p>
<p>I anticipate that we're getting pretty close to the point where the idea of optimizing for NLP will be considered absurd. Maybe in 10 years, writing for users and writing for machines will be the same thing because of how far the technology has advanced. But even then, we’ll still have to make sure our content makes sense. And the Blank Sheet of Paper Test will still be a great place to start.</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/lFXl3jw3BHY/blank-sheet-of-paper-test-optimize-natural-language-processing" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-61345086390436430882020-05-11T04:09:00.001-07:002020-05-11T04:09:40.784-07:00How to Stay Creative With an SEO-Driven Content Strategy<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/14871943\">Caroline-Forsey</a></p><p>When I first joined HubSpot's blogging team in January 2018, I loved our writing process. Once a month, we all met in a conference room with a list of ideas on Google Docs which were pitched one-by-one (intricate, I know). </p>
<p>The process was extremely creative, iterative, and collaborative. Of course, it was also often a matter of guess-and-check. Plus, brainstorming can be a bit of a selfish process. The ideas I pitched in those meetings, I pitched in part because I wanted to write them and because I was interested in them as a reader. I could only hope our audience would be interested as well. </p>
<p>While we developed a pulse for understanding what our readers liked from reviewing top viewed posts from the past, our process didn't enable us to develop content that matched what our potential readers wanted from us. </p>
<p>So, just a few months into 2018, our team pivoted and <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/hubspot-blog-traffic-record-flat-year?__hstc=103427807.31e8db3f52d2efd3171465e5b8b83c57.1585991805462.1588030616643.1589178990451.5&__hssc=103427807.6.1589178990451&__hsfp=3901330155">created a brand new SEO-driven content strategy to address our inability to move forward</a>. Take a look at the organic growth we've seen as a result of that strategy over the past two years: </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-stay-creative-seo-content-strategy/5eb44c835298b7.37222537.jpg" width="624" height="293" data-image="ndfjwxvl98e9"></figure>
<p><br>How did we do it? To start, the blogging team partnered with the SEO team. The SEO team now delivers a <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-search-insights-report?__hstc=103427807.31e8db3f52d2efd3171465e5b8b83c57.1585991805462.1588030616643.1589178990451.5&__hssc=103427807.6.1589178990451&__hsfp=3901330155">fresh Search Insights Report</a> (what we've come to affectionately call the "SIR") to us every quarter, which are packed with blog topics vetted for search potential. We diligently move down the list, assigning individual blog topics to be written or updated by writers on the team. From the graph above, you can see the almost immediate growth we expereinced as a result of this new strategy. Within two years, we more than doubled the keywords for which we rank on page one. </p>
<p>As Editor of HubSpot's Marketing Blog, this left me with a bit of a void. I was thrilled to see the results of the SIRs and recognized how they helped us reach new audiences and rekindle our organic traffic, but, from a personal perspective, I missed the creativity that came with pitching big-risk ideas and watching them pay off. (Believe it or not, articles like "What Is Semi-Structured Data?" wasn't exactly what I dreamt about publishing when obtaining my English degree.)</p>
<p>However, I've learned over the past year that there are ways to remain creative even within a grander, primarily SEO-driven strategy. Here, let's dive into six tips to ensure you don't have to sacrifice your own creative freedom for the sake of organic growth. </p>
<h2>1. Enlist the help of experts to spark creativity while ensuring posts are still keyword-driven.</h2>
<p>A few months ago, I tackled the topic of first versus third party APIs. While I am confident in writing about our product line, "Force quit" is about the extent of my software knowledge (option+command+esc, for those wondering), so I dreaded writing the post. It was both daunting and not particularly inspiring to me as a writer. </p>
<p>Of course, I could've written this post the way I've written about plenty of other dry topics — by sludging through it, chugging copious amounts of coffee, and listening to Spotify to make it a little more "fun". </p>
<p>However, when I began writing the post, I wasn't impressed with my work. Since I didn't fully grasp the concept, it was surface-level and ambiguous. If a marketer stumbled across it, they wouldn't learn much. </p>
<p>To solve for this issue, I reached out to a few IT specialists at HubSpot and ended up speaking to two developer support specialists. I even met with one of them via Zoom to further discuss the intricacies of APIs, and recorded the meeting to transcribe later on.</p>
<p>Suddenly, I felt like an investigative reporter. I collected quotes from experts in the field, drafted up a new post that made sense to both myself and the developer support specialists, and published it. I was incredibly proud of the piece because I felt I'd worked as a liaison between the developer world and the marketing world, making the whole concept of APIs a little clearer to my team while ensuring it remained accurate and tactical.</p>
<p>If you're feeling frustrated by a topic you don't feel comfortable writing about, don't hesitate to reach out to experts — even within your own company. Their passion for the subject will fuel your desire to write the piece from a more human angle. Remember, keyword-driven content still leaves plenty of room to angle the piece in a number of interesting directions, as long as the insight you're providing aligns with the intent of the keyword you're targeting. </p>
<h2>2. Interview leaders in various industries and tell their stories.</h2>
<p>Over the past year, I've spoken to happiness researcher and speaker Shawn Achor on how happiness leads to success, Harvard professor Amy Edmondson on psychological safety in the workplace, and leadership consultant Simon Hazeldine on using performance psychology to get ahead in the workplace, among many others. </p>
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<p>These posts, which enabled me to synthesize complex psychological issues and translate them into tactical strategies for marketers, allowed me to exercise my creative muscle. I interviewed experts via email or on the phone, and used their responses to craft meaningful, coherent narratives. Ultimately, I never felt more "in the flow" than I did when writing these posts. </p>
<p>Your industry undoubtedly has leaders that interest you. If you're a marketer in the catering or hospitality industries, consider speaking to top chefs in the area. Alternatively, if you're a marketer for an e-commerce website, try reaching out to e-commerce consultants to get quotes about the future of the industry. </p>
<p>It's not impossible to align your own interests with business impact, even if those interests are outside the scope of traditional marketing. As someone who's personally interested in psychology, for instance, I was able to find the intersection between psychology and workplace performance, which helps our readers grow in their own roles. </p>
<p>Including feedback from experts can also give you a competitive advantage in the SERPs. For instance, we published "HubSpot Marketers Give 6 Tips for Fighting Burnout", on January 20, 2020, and within one month, it already had over 5,000 views. This piece, over time, will likely perform better than a more generic "how to fight burnout" piece without the expert angle. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it's important to consider who you're interested in speaking with and how that expert's experience might align with your audience's interests, and brainstorm ideas from there. </p>
<h2>3. Find the human connection.</h2>
<p>As marketers, we're often tasked with writing about less-than-thrilling topics, particularly if these topics are part of a keyword-driven strategy. For example, take a quick glimpse at some of the pieces we've seen on our SIR in the past: </p>
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<p>These titles are helpful for our readers, but presenting the information in a creative way becomes difficult. I often tell new writers on the team that you can find an interesting human angle to any topic, no matter how boring it may seem, which makes writing about the topic more exciting and offers more ways for readers to connect with the piece. </p>
<p>The easiest way to find the human angle is to consider the reader's point of view when searching a topic on Google. Start by asking yourself, "why would I ever search for this topic?"</p>
<p>Searches don't happen in silos. Nowadays, Google is increasingly trying to continue a "searcher's journey" through People Also Ask boxes, People Also Search For panels, and Related Search links at the bottom of most SERPs. These features enable searchers to rethink their search and find similar, relevant answers to other questions they might have. </p>
<p>Ultimately, anyone searching for one keyword is searching for that keyword as part of a larger marketing and business strategy. As a content creator, it's critical you find the bigger picture element and use these new SERP features to tell more creative, holistic stories around the topic at hand. </p>
<p>For instance, recently I wrote a post on <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/embed-video-in-email?__hstc=103427807.31e8db3f52d2efd3171465e5b8b83c57.1585991805462.1588030616643.1589178990451.5&__hssc=103427807.6.1589178990451&__hsfp=3901330155">how to embed videos in emails</a>. The body of the post itself, I knew, allowed for little creativity — it was essentially a brief step-by-step guide to embedding video. However, I could still find space for creativity in my introduction, and I knew that meant developing empathy for my reader.</p>
<p>I started by imagining the motivation behind any marketer searching "how to embed video in email". They are likely someone who's struggling to increase CTR or email subscriptions, so I introduced the topic with a brief, big-picture overview on why email is important for a business's bottom line (in case you wanted to know, it’s because <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-video-marketing-new-data?__hstc=103427807.31e8db3f52d2efd3171465e5b8b83c57.1585991805462.1588030616643.1589178990451.5&__hssc=103427807.6.1589178990451&__hsfp=3901330155">87% of businesses use video</a> in their marketing tactics). </p>
<p>Then, I <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content">empathize with the reader</a>, acknowledging that sprucing up your emails isn't always easy, and neither is embedding videos — particularly since major email clients don't support video embeds. </p>
<p>Suddenly, a topic I'd initially found boring became exciting to me because I could sense the urgency and real-world impact that publishing the piece and answering the reader's query would have. In essence, what they’re really asking is "How can I continue creating engaging content for my audience?" </p>
<p>That's a human angle to which I think we can all relate.</p>
<h2>4. Use multimedia to freshen up old content.</h2>
<p>If you're struggling with a particularly dry topic, you might evoke creativity by adding multimedia elements like podcasts, YouTube videos, images, or graphs — all of which open up new traffic opportunities since you can generate image traffic through the SERPs as well. </p>
<p>These designs can help you stay engaged when writing the piece, and can also help your post rank on Google, since search engines prefer multimedia components such as images or video. </p>
<p>For instance, we embedded a video in "How to Create An Incredibly Well-Written Executive Summary [+ Example]". Readers have the option of reading my post, but alternatively, they can watch the discussion take place on-screen. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-stay-creative-seo-content-strategy/5eb44c85bb83f7.82726205.png" width="624" height="712" data-image="i9jnj6f5i4qx"></figure>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/executive-summary-examples?__hstc=103427807.31e8db3f52d2efd3171465e5b8b83c57.1585991805462.1588030616643.1589178990451.5&__hssc=103427807.6.1589178990451&__hsfp=3901330155"></a>Of course, multimedia depends on your budget. We aren't able to add a video to every post we produce. However, there are plenty of simpler forms of multimedia that are free, such as embedded images and graphs. </p>
<p>Additionally, if you're interested in other aspects of marketing besides writing, this is a good chance to expand your professional portfolio and learn a new skill as well. </p>
<h2>5. Frame your content from a unique angle that differentiates it from other search results.</h2>
<p>It's important to note: not all posts need to agree with what's already on the SERPs for you to rank. </p>
<p>For instance, my colleague Lestraundra wrote "<a target="_blank" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/why-you-need-crm?__hstc=103427807.31e8db3f52d2efd3171465e5b8b83c57.1585991805462.1588030616643.1589178990451.5&__hssc=103427807.6.1589178990451&__hsfp=3901330155">10 Reasons Why You Don't Need a CRM</a>". This article currently ranks on page one for the search query "you don't need a CRM" ... but the article actually explains why you <em>do</em> need a CRM, in a playfully sarcastic way. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-stay-creative-seo-content-strategy/5eb44c86982c93.61008742.png" width="624" height="148" data-image="7oze5fx620ln"></figure>
<p>We managed to rank well while also giving readers something they weren't expecting. You might consider similar provocative arguments you can make, as the uniqueness (and sometimes controversy) of your writing will enable you to rise up the ranks on the SERPs while providing fresh, interesting content to your audience.</p>
<h2>6. Engage with your readers in real life whenever possible.</h2>
<p>On one particularly uninspiring day, I set up a 30-minute chat with a customer to learn more about her personal marketing challenges. </p>
<p>As we spoke, I realized how out-of-touch I'd become with some of our readers’ primary struggles. For instance, she was a team of one, which meant while she understood the importance of blogging, she didn't always have time to develop an in-depth strategy since she was juggling content creation for social media, email marketing, and PR for her small business. </p>
<p>When I got back to my desk, I had no problem writing my assigned post about free social media analytics tools, because I understood the real-world importance of this post for that reader's daily life. Ultimately, she didn't have time to research the pros and cons of various tools, and she didn't have a budget for anything fancy. The inspiration and creativity I felt that day derived from my in-person interaction with my reader. </p>
<p>Of course, it's not always possible to set up a call with a customer, but there are plenty of other options for engaging with readers. For instance, you might consider creating a poll for your social media audience, engaging with readers in a Twitter chat, or sending a survey to your readers in an email newsletter to learn more about what they want from your brand. </p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Ultimately, it can be difficult to stay creative when your department is primarily focused on using technical SEO to achieve major goals. And, of course, you'd never want to entirely forgo SEO for the sake of creativity, since that prevents you from reaching a larger audience and ensuring your content is useful and actionable for your readers. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, if there's anything I've learned over the past two years as a result of our new strategy, it's that analytics and creativity can, indeed, work hand-in-hand. Ideally, with these six tips, you'll be able to inspire some creativity in your daily process. Feel free to comment below with your own thoughts — I'd love to hear them! </p>
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Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-6534535243580599602020-05-08T23:12:00.001-07:002020-05-08T23:12:21.318-07:00A Must-have Keyword Research Process for Winning SEO - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/155620\">Cyrus-Shepard</a></p><p>Smart keyword research forms the basis of all successful SEO. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard shares the basics of a winning keyword research process that you can learn and master in a short amount of time.</p>
<p><strong>Bonus: </strong>Be sure not to miss Cyrus's upcoming webinar,<strong> <a href="https://moz.com/webinars/registration-keyword-research">Build a Winning Keyword Strategy: Start-to-Finish</a> </strong>on May 21, 2020 at 10am PST:</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://moz.com/webinars/registration-keyword-research" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta yellow">Save my spot</a></p>
<p>You'll walk through his keyword research process start-to-finish with real keywords, topics, and websites to create a complete keyword research strategy. It's a great follow-up to this Whiteboard Friday!</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!
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<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to a very special edition of Whiteboard Friday talking about keyword research today. Now keyword research, you know how important it is, and it forms the basis of all successful SEO. People who are good at keyword research and having a good research strategy, that often makes the difference between winning and having an SEO campaign that just goes nowhere. </p>
<p>I love keyword research because we all have an idea of what we think we want to rank for, right, but when you use keyword research, you can use data to find opportunities and surprises that you didn't even know existed. So I want to dispel a myth about keyword research. A lot of people think it's about finding the right tool, and you enter the keyword into a tool and you get a list. </p>
<p>Technically, that is keyword research, and that's a fine starting point. But it's not so much about the tool. It's about a process. It's about a process of creating a strategy for your entire website and finding those winning keywords that you can rank for and getting traffic from that are relevant to your business. So it's more than just a tool. </p>
<p><strong>It's a process. </strong>There are entire guides and webinars about this. But I think we can simplify it. In the next few minutes, I want to show you the basics of a winning keyword research process that I think you can start to master in just a few minutes and get the fundamentals. In fact, I did <a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide">write a guide about this</a>. We'll talk about it at the end of the video. It's completely available. </p>
<p>But I want to go over the basics so you can start to get an understanding of the process that will help you win with keyword research. </p>
<h2>1. Seed keywords</h2>
<p>So first of all, a concept that you are probably familiar with is the idea of seed keywords. We call them seeds because they help grow your keyword list and expand it. Seed keywords are more important than people think, and I'll tell you why you in just a second. </p>
<p>So many tools will give you seed keywords. But I want to dismiss the idea of thinking in terms of tools for just a second. When researching seed keywords, I propose that you think of it in terms of questions, questions that you want to ask yourself. </p>
<h3>a. What do I want to rank for?</h3>
<p>The first is simply, "What do I want to rank for?" In this hypothetical example, our client sells calligraphy pens. <br></p>
<p>They're like, "Cyrus, I want to rank for calligraphy pens." That's great. That will be your starting point, your first seed keyword. </p>
<h3>b. What do I already rank for?</h3>
<p>So a second question you can ask is, "What do I already rank for?" Well, let's say the client has an existing website. They sell some pens. Maybe they do well, maybe they don't. </p>
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<p>So we want to dig into the data of what is already sending them traffic, and we can do this with a lot of keyword research tools — Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush. I prefer Moz, <a href="https://moz.com/explorer">500 million keywords</a>, it's a great set. But you can use whatever you want. So you want to search keywords by site or keywords by URL. We can enter our client's site and see that, oh, they rank for "pen starter kit." </p>
<p>Their rank is number one. It only receives 10 visits a month, so maybe that's not such a good seed keyword. But "best calligraphy pen," they rank number 8, 500 visits a month. "Calligraphy supplies," 14th, 750 visits a month. Those are excellent seed keywords. So we're going to make note of those and use them a little later in the process. </p>
<p>You can also get this data from Google Search Console, rank and volume. Wherever you get it from, these are what you want to search for great keywords that you already rank for, but maybe not number one, with good search volume. </p>
<h3>c. What do my competitors rank for?<br></h3>
<p>Finally, let's say you don't have an existing website, or you're starting a new project from scratch. </p>
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<p>You don't have a lot of existing data. You want to ask, "What do my competitors rank for or the top ranking sites?" So I might Google "calligraphy pens" and see who ranks number one. Pop it into <a href="https://moz.com/explorer">Keyword Explorer</a> and see all their ranking keywords here and start to find the good seed keywords. So I can see that they rank for "calligraphy kit" -- that sounds pretty relevant — 750 visits a month. </p>
<p>"Pen starter," not so much. I'd probably throw that one out. "Learn calligraphy," that's a great seed keyword. I'm going to make note of that, 1,200 visits a month. You can get seed keywords from literally any keyword tool. Some of our favorites, beyond Keyword Explorer: </p>
<ul><li><a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/">Google Trends</a></li><li><a href="https://answerthepublic.com/">Answer the Public</a></li><li><a href="https://moz.com/blog/people-also-ask-how-to-take-advantage">People Also Ask</a></li></ul>
<p>Anywhere you want to get your seed keywords, that's where you form the basis of your list. </p>
<h2>2. List building</h2>
<p>So next we're going to start building our list. Seed keywords move into list building. So this is where we want to use a robust keyword research tool, such as Moz, Ahrefs, or whatever you want. We're entering our seed keywords "calligraphy pens." </p>
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<p>We're going to get a list of keywords, sorted by relevance and volume. Now there are many metrics in keyword research, such as keyword difficulty, click-through rate, importance, things like that. For right now, we only want to be concerned with two metrics — <strong>relevance</strong> and <strong>volume</strong>. </p>
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<p>You can concern yourself with the other metrics a little later when we're sorting and filtering. But right now, we want to find more seed keywords. That's the key difference here in this process. We're not just finding related keywords. We're finding more seed keywords. We're reiterating. So "calligraphy pen set," highly relevant. </p>
<p>Five means highly relevant. Volume of 100. All right, we're going to mark that. That becomes a new seed. "Calligraphy Amazon," okay, that only has a three relevance score. Unless you're Amazon, that's probably not the most relevant keyword. We're going to cross it off the list. </p>
<p>"Calligraphy fonts." "Calligraphy pens price," well, that's great. "Calligraphy ink," great with high volume. So what we have done now is we have collected more seeds, and we're going to throw those seeds back in and discover even more related keywords, more seeds. In other words, we're going to start building out our list. </p>
<p>That's the process. Not just get a list of related keywords, but you're finding more seeds. When you find more seeds, continually do this, these become new pages of your site or a new entire content section. So we could have a section on calligraphy ink. We could have a page on price. We're going to group these in our spreadsheets together, and every time we find a new seed, it can become a new topic, a new page, a new idea. </p>
<p>The idea is you want to find as many seeds as possible. </p>
<h2>3. Competitor analysis</h2>
<p>So when we get these seeds, we're going to reinsert them back, but we're also going to do one final step that a lot of people forget or just don't realize, and that is the competitive analysis. The keyword tool is going to find a lot. <a href="https://moz.com/explorer">Moz Keyword Explorer</a> does a particularly excellent, excellent job of this. </p>
<p>But if you're not using Keyword Explorer, one thing I like to do is I'll take my seed keyword, "calligraphy ink," and I'll put it into Google and I'll see who's ranking in the top 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 positions. I'll look specifically for sites that specialize in this. I might throw out Amazon or things like that. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-05-06-at-1-377199.jpg" data-image="l75s2kihj2gj" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"><span id="selection-marker-start" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span><span id="selection-marker-end" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span></figure>
<p>But Ink Warehouse, Shop Calligraphy Inks, I'll take this page and I'll put it in Keyword Explorer, keywords by site or URL, and I'll get all the other keywords that this page or site ranks for, because they've undoubtedly tried a lot of content. They know what works, what doesn't work. </p>
<p>I'll find new seeds that way. So I can see that Ink Warehouse ranks for "best calligraphy ink," and that's a good one. "Calligraphy ink set," great new seed keyword. "Calligraphy ink bottle," another great seed keyword. So then, we have new seeds, new pages, new topics. We can take these and start the process again, and we do this over and over and over again until we have a complete set of keywords for every page, every conceivable ranking position, and we can start to build a strategy out from that. </p>
<p>After this, we can start to sort and filter by keyword volume and difficulty and things like that. But that's a process for another time. So I've documented this strategy and so much more in a brand-new keyword research guide, "<a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide">The Master Guide to Keyword Research</a>." We just released it. It's available free. It covers this topic in depth, and we try to make these concepts as easy as possible to help you win SEO. We're going to link to it below. You can download it and let me know what you think. </p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta blue">Read the new guide</a></p>
<p>So I hope you learned something today. If you liked this video, please share it with anybody that you can. It would be a great favor to me. Okay. Until next time, thanks, everybody. </p>
<p>Best of luck with your SEO.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/">Speechpad.com</a></p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Cyx3Z7dk5wM/winning-seo-with-keyword-research" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-43355684704843124512020-05-07T06:33:00.001-07:002020-05-07T06:33:38.014-07:00Take the COVID-19 Local Search Marketing Business Impact Survey<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/13017\">MiriamEllis</a></p><p>The poet Burns once observed that the best laid plans “gang aft agley.” At Moz, we were about to publish our State of Local SEO industry report, based on our local search marketing survey to which hundreds of you generously replied. Then the public health emergency unexpectedly arose, and we decided to pause in our planning. </p>
<p>The findings of the survey, as they currently stand, contain valuable and surprising insights which are as relevant today as they were pre-COVID-19. Yet, in order to reflect the substantial changes the local business community is currently weathering, we are reaching out to you with a timely additional request.</p>
<p>If you market local businesses in any capacity, whether in-house or for an agency, please take our quick, supplementary six-question survey. Your answers will help everyone gauge the impacts of the past few weeks on our industry, and hopefully help in planning for the future. We would be so grateful for just a few minutes of your time to be sure the final report reflects the full picture of local business marketing.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p><center><a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RYDT26V" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta orange">Take the Survey Now</a></center><p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>Thank you for your time, and please know that all of us at Moz are wishing your local businesses and agencies well!</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/9djWGm7fJg8/covid19-local-search-marketing-business-impact-survey" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-60114698456923600872020-05-06T01:57:00.001-07:002020-05-06T01:57:08.541-07:00Diagnosing Traffic Drops During a Crisis: Was It You, Google, or the Whole World?<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/22897\">Dr-Pete</a></p><p>We want to fix things and believe we're in control. When your house is filling with water, you grab a bucket. If there's a hole in your roof, the bucket might help. If your sink is overflowing, the bucket is distracting you from the real problem. If the river is overflowing, that distraction could be deadly.</p>
<p>When traffic is falling, it's easy to panic and focus on what you can control. Traffic isn't just a nice-to-have — it puts food on the table and the roof over your head that keeps the water out. In the rush to solve the problem, though, we often don't take the time to validate the problem we're solving. Fixing the wrong problem is at best a waste of time and money, but at worst could deepen the crisis.<br></p>
<p>In any crisis, and especially a global one, the first question you need to ask is: is it just me, or is it the whole world? The answer won't magically solve your problems, but it can keep you from making costly mistakes and start you on the path to a solution. Let's start with a fundamental question:</p>
<h2>(1) Did your traffic really drop?<br></h2>
<p>My "fundamental" question might sound like a stupid question, especially given the wide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it's important to remember that traffic fluctuates all the time — there are weekends and seasonality and plain, old regression to the mean. What goes up must come down, and as much as we'd like it to be true, business is not perpetually up and to the right.<br><br>Using Google Analytics, let's consider some ways we can validate a traffic drop. Here's four weeks of GA data (March 1-28) for a site which was seriously impacted by COVID-19:</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-1-7077.png" data-image="9tubs2oj3b1b"></figure>
<p>Given the known timeline of COVID-19 (the WHO declared it a pandemic on March 11), this is about as clean a picture of a traffic drop in the presence of a known cause as you're going to get. Most situations are far messier. Even here, we've got the impact of weekends and day-to-day fluctuations. One quick way to get a cleaner view is to summarize the data by week (make sure your date-range covers full weeks, or this data will be skewed).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-2-5468.png" data-image="ijobobl66r0d"></figure>
<p>The trend is much clearer now. In a two week period, this site lost more than half of its traffic. I'm restricting the timeline for clarity, but as we gather more data, we can validate the trend pretty easily. The graph above covers all traffic sources. From an SEO perspective, let's add in a traffic segment for Google traffic:</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-3-6768.png" data-image="ekrq4ys147ia"></figure>
<p>This graph is just eight data points, but it tells us a lot. First, we can clearly see the trend. Second, we can see that the trend is almost identical for both Google traffic and overall traffic. Third, we can see that this site is very dependent on Google for traffic. Don't underestimate what you can learn from small data, if it's the right data.</p>
<p>This isn't meant to be a GA primer, but let's look at one last question: Is this traffic drop seasonal? Usually, your own industry experience and intuition would come into play, but one quick way to spot this is to compare year-over-year traffic. One note: match your full weeks so that you're covering the same amount of weekdays vs weekends. In this case, I've shifted the 2019 range to the four full weeks of March 3-30 ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-4-29282.png" data-image="fe2fxbrxg5uw"></figure>
<p>This isn't the easiest graph to read, and I probably wouldn't put it in a report to a client, but you can see from the green and purple lines that both overall traffic and Google traffic for this site were relatively flat last year during March. This really does seem to be an unusual situation. Even if we knew nothing about the context and COVID-19, we could tell from just a few minutes of analysis that something serious is going on here.</p>
<h2>(1b) Did your rankings drop?</h2>
<p>As a search marketer, and given that we've clearly measured a Google traffic drop, the next question is whether this drop was due to a loss of rankings (we'll get to other explanations in a moment). In Moz Pro, one quick way to assess overall weekly search visibility is to use either the main view under "Rankings" or go to the "Competition" tab. I like the competitive view, because you can quickly see if any changes impacted your broader industry ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-5-27051.png" data-image="vuocfib9vfco"></figure>
<p>I've simplified this view a little bit (and removed the site's and competitors' names for privacy reasons), but the basic story is clear — neither the site in question nor its competitors seemed to have any drop in visibility during March.</p>
<p>For a richer view, go back to the "Rankings" tab and select "Rankings" (instead of "Search Visibility") from the drop-down. You'll see a graph that looks something like this ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-6-28523.png" data-image="sh16at5opg9w"></figure>
<p>This visualization takes some getting used to, but it contains a wealth of information. The bars represent total ranking keywords/phrases, and the color blocks show you the ranking range (see the legend). Here we can see that overall rankings have been relatively stable, with even some small gains in the #1-3 bucket.</p>
<p>If your account is connected to Google Analytics, you can also overlay traffic during the same period, which is shown by the dark gray line. Dual-scale graphs can get tricky, but this visualization really makes it clear that there's a mismatch between the traffic drop for this site and their search rankings.</p>
<h2>(2) Did Google do something?!</h2>
<p>Usually, when we ask [demand / shout / sob] this question, we mean "Did Google do something to the algorithm to make my life miserable?" We can argue about whether Google is trying to make your life miserable at another time (preferably, when the bars re-open), but the core question is valid. Did Google change the algorithmic rules in a way that's negatively impacting your site?</p>
<p>For large-scale algorithm updates, you can check our own <a href="https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change">Google Algorithm History</a> page. For smaller/daily updates, you can check our <a href="https://moz.com/mozcast/">MozCast</a> research project. While having a gut-check against major changes can be very useful, the messy truth is that Google rankings are a real-time phenomenon that's changing minute-by-minute. In 2018 alone, Google reported 3,234 "improvements" to search.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that all Google algorithm tracking tools are based, to some degree, on fluctuations in rankings. In our example scenario, we're not seeing ranking shifts. Let's pretend, though, that we have seen a traffic drop with a corresponding ranking drop, and we're trying to determine if it's just us or if something changed with Google.</p>
<p>Here's a graph of MozCast data from my analysis of the January 2020 Core Update ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/deindexing-bug-6-14979.png" data-image="ieb4ikamfclc"></figure>
<p>In this case, we've got a pretty clear three-day period of ranking fluctuations. If our traffic dropped during this period, it's not absolute proof that an algorithm update is to blame, but it's a solid, educated guess and a useful starting point.</p>
<p>Let's look at the two weeks around when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-7-14190.png" data-image="moixjwred7cl"></figure>
<p>I've kept the same scale and 30-day average reference (from a relatively quiet period early this year). Note that algorithmic activity (i.e. ranking flux) is way up compared to the period before and after the January Core Update. One day (March 18) doesn't even fit on the scale of the original graph and came in at 104°F on MozCast.</p>
<p>What does all of this mean? It's possible that Google is changing the algorithm rapidly to address the broader changes in the world, but I strongly suspect that the world itself is impacting this flux. Sites are changing rapidly, adding and removing products and content, news sources have dramatically shifted their coverage, and some businesses are closing completely. On top of that, we're seeing an unprecedented shift in searcher and consumer behavior.</p>
<p>Algorithm flux can be a useful answer to the question "Is it just me, or is it Google?" during normal times, but all that it's telling us right now is that the world has turned upside-down. While that's an accurate assessment, it's not particularly helpful. If you'd like to hear more about the impact of COVID-19 on Google rankings, check out <a href="https://searchengineland.com/live-soon-seos-talk-covid-19-search-disruption-332397">"SEOs talk COVID-19 search disruption"</a> from Barry Schwartz with myself, Marie Haynes, Olga Andrienko, and Mordy Oberstein.</p>
<p>If traffic has dropped, but rankings haven't, it's also possible that the behavior of searchers has changed. We can get some insights into this by using Google Search Console. Here's the graph of total clicks for our example site from March 1-28 (corresponding with the GA data) ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-8-10770.png" data-image="nxt0rz4d72t2"></figure>
<p>As expected, total clicks on Google results show roughly the same trend as Google organic traffic in GA. Total clicks are a function of two variables, though: (1) search impressions, and (2) click-through rate (CTR). Let's look at those individually. Here's the graph of total impressions for the same time period ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-9-10529.png" data-image="t0b57o34g0i9"></figure>
<p>Now we're getting somewhere — there's an overall drop in impressions. This isn't just about the example site, but searcher behavior before they even see or click on that site. People are searching less for the phrases that drive traffic to our example site. Finally, let's look at CTR ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-10-10518.png" data-image="lpzawgn14f15"></figure>
<p>CTR has also dropped, even a bit steeper than impressions. This is a bit harder to interpret. Knowing what we know, it's likely that people are clicking less because of overall lack of interest. This is consistent with the COVID-19 scenario. People are less likely to be looking for the service this site offers. On the other hand, it could be that something about the site or the competitive landscape has changed that's driving down CTR.</p>
<p>If you see a CTR drop without a corresponding impression drop, review recent changes to the site, especially changes that could impact what's displayed in search results (including your TITLE tags and META descriptions). In this case, though, it's reasonable to assume that we're looking at an overall drop in demand.</p>
<h2>(3) Has the world gone mad?</h2>
<p>Spoiler alert: yes, yes it has.</p>
<p>The Google Search Console data above has already suggested that we're seeing a shift in the wider world and searcher behavior, but if you want to get outside of your own data, you can explore the world a bit with Google Trends. For example, here's a Google Trends search for "movie tickets" for March 1-28 ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-11-6707.png" data-image="1jea7416ixhv"></figure>
<p>Not surprisingly, searcher interest in movie tickets declined sharply after the COVID-19 outbreak. People who aren't going to movies aren't going to be searching for showtimes and ticket prices. Google Trends data can be spotty in the long-tail, and we can't necessarily attribute a trend to an event, but non-brand trends are a good supporting data point for whether your traffic drop is isolated to your site or is impacting your broader industry.</p>
<p>One final tip — everything discussed in this post can also be used to explore a traffic increase. Even during COVID-19, traffic has gone up for many topics and sites. For example, here's the Google Trends data for "how to cut hair" from the same March 1-28 time period ...</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/diagnosing-traffic-drops-12-5400.png" data-image="p3g4k1xokw4j"></figure>
<p>Whether or not cutting your own hair is a good idea, people are definitely showing more interest in the topic (I admit I've watched a couple of YouTube videos myself). We don't typically dive deep into traffic increases — it's too easy to just sit back and take the credit. I think this is a big mistake. Understanding whether a traffic increase was driven by changes you made or broader market shifts can help you understand what you've done right so that you can replicate that success.</p>
<h2>The big picture is everything</h2>
<p>Over the last few years, I've heard more people say things like "I don't care about traffic, I care about conversions!" or "I don't care about Google rankings, as long as I'm getting traffic!" Our gradual move toward bottom-of-funnel metrics makes sense — we're all trying to make a living. Taken to extreme, though, we lose valuable information. Focusing on conversions is certainly better than focusing on "hits" a la 1998, but no single metric tells the whole story.</p>
<p>Let's say that the only thing you track is leads. Leads are where the money is. Sales are up, leads are up, times are good. Great. Inevitably, disaster strikes (even if it's a minor disaster), and your leads drop. What do you do? You've cut off your ability to read anything but the last chapter of the story. You know how it ends, but you don't know how you got there. Without understanding the path from leads back to visits back to rankings back to impressions, you're not going to see the whole story, and you're not going to know where things went wrong.</p>
<p>Even when times are good, this approach is short-sighted. Sales-focused culture creates a tendency to celebrate the wins and not ask too many questions. If traffic is going up, why is it going up? What content or keywords are driving that traffic? What industry trends are driving that traffic? If you can answer those questions, you can replicate success. If you can't, then you're going to have to start from scratch as soon as the celebration ends (and the celebration always ends).</p>
<p>It may be cold comfort to know that your entire industry or the whole world is suffering with you, but I hope that this process at least prevents you from fixing the wrong things and making costly mistakes. Ideally, this process can help you uncover areas that may be trending upward or at least help you focus your time and money on what's working.</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/KmqPuaJUPtQ/diagnosing-traffic-drops-during-a-crisis" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-23233759957305348052020-05-05T07:00:00.001-07:002020-05-05T07:00:23.950-07:00Welcome to SEO Unlocked: Your Free SEO Training Course<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/seocourse.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>I learned SEO by starting my own website and just testing a
lot of different tactics out.</p>
<p>Some of these tactics worked well and others didn’t. <em>But the way I’ve learned SEO isn’t right for everyone.</em></p>
<p>Some people prefer learning by practicing like me. Others
prefer learning by reading dozens of different strategies and tactics.</p>
<p>And if you don’t have the time, you can learn SEO by <a href="https://app.neilpatel.com/en/dashboard">creating a project on Ubersuggest</a>.</p>
<p>But what if there was another way to learn… one that was step by step and involved hand-holding to ensure that you are really learning SEO, so much so that your traffic starts going up?</p>
<span id="more-92301"></span>
<h2><strong>Introducing SEO Unlocked </strong></h2>
<p>Over the next 7 weeks, I’m going to be teaching you SEO.</p>
<p>I’ve released a free course called SEO Unlocked.</p>
<p>Eventually, it will live on the training section of this site. But for now, it is going to be published on YouTube every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday for the next 7 weeks.</p>
<p>Here’s the first video which is a welcome video the course.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe title="Welcome to the SEO Unlocked! Free SEO Course with Neil Patel | SEO Training" width="700" height="394" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q_lySNxCag0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>
<p>Make sure you watch it as I also give you 2 homework assignments. But don’t worry, they are easy. I even provide the <a href="https://neilpatel.com/training/">worksheets and PDF templates here</a> so you can get them done with ease.</p>
<p>I’ve also released the second video that goes over the fundamentals of SEO and why it is important.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe title="Introduction to SEO and Why It's Important - SEO Unlocked - Free SEO Course with Neil Patel" width="700" height="394" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pIbQfOcsEsE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<p>Again, this video also contains some homework assignments,
so make sure you watch it and follow everything step by step.</p>
<h2><strong>How can I follow along during the 7 weeks?</strong></h2>
<p>As I mentioned above, it’s a 7-week course. You’ll see videos released every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.</p>
<p>The videos are roughly 10 to 15 minutes in length on average so it will only take 30 to 45 minutes of your time each week to watch them.</p>
<p>The homework assignments are easy as well. The reason I will give you worksheets, PDF templates, and spreadsheets is so you can do the homework assignments faster.</p>
<p>The homework assigns should take you 30 to 45 minutes a week to complete.</p>
<p>In total, I’m asking you to commit an hour to an hour and a half each week, which really isn’t much.</p>
<p>Once you go through the whole course, you’ll know the formula for getting traffic to your website.</p>
<p>If you want to make sure you don’t miss a lesson because I won’t be blogging about each lesson, make sure you <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/neilpatel?sub_confirmation=1">subscribe to my YouTube channel</a> as I will be uploading the lessons there.</p>
<p>Once you click the link above, you’ll see a subscription box on YouTube… just click the “SUBSCRIBE” button.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/subscribeyoutube.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>And once you click “subscribe” on my channel, you’ll notice a bell image next to the subscribe button.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/bell.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>When you click on the bell, you’ll be given a few options.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/belloptions.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Click on the “all” option. Once you do that, you’ll notice that next to the “subscribe” button your bell icon should look something like this:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/rightbell.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This will make it where YouTube notifies you when I release a new SEO Unlocked lesson.</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion</strong></h2>
<p>If you really want more search traffic and you want to take SEO seriously, this is your chance.</p>
<p>There is no excuse for not having the financial resources because the course is free. If you put in the time, my team and I are here to teach and train you on everything you need to know.</p>
<p>And don’t worry, we aren’t going to bore you with every Google algorithm factor or anything like that. Instead, we are going to teach you the main concepts and strategies of SEO that drive the majority of the results as we know that you don’t have 40 hours a week to dedicate to SEO.</p>
<p>That’s why the videos are short and you should be able to watch all of them and get your homework assignments done in less than 90 minutes per week.</p>
<p>That’s all I am asking for you.</p>
<p><em>So, are you ready to learn SEO? </em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-training/">Welcome to SEO Unlocked: Your Free SEO Training Course</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com">Neil Patel</a>.</p>
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Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-56999007340893138522020-05-04T02:33:00.001-07:002020-05-04T02:33:35.976-07:00How We Ranked a Single Page for 2.6K Keywords Driving 30K Monthly Searches [Case Study]<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/734529\">KristinTynski</a></p><p>For the last decade, I’ve touted the enormous long-term value of a dualistic approach to content marketing for SEO.</p>
<p>By leveraging data-centered campaigns, paired with personalized outreach to top publishers, we regularly garner earned media placements for our clients. </p>
<p>In rare cases, we create content that generates results so far beyond what was anticipated that a single project can greatly move the needle. </p>
<p>I’m going to walk through one such instance to reveal how it all works together, what can be learned from this experience, and the type of result it can achieve.</p>
<p>While typically you need to invest in ongoing content generation and promotion, extraordinary examples like these demonstrate the impact this kind of work has over the long-term.</p>
<h2>Content marketing + digital PR case study: ADT</h2>
<p>ADT is a household name with good domain authority, providing a great base to start from.</p>
<p>We knew that the content we’d create would likely have a leg up in terms of ranking potential, especially if that content addressed many potential high-intent keywords. </p>
<h3>Content production</h3>
<p>After speaking with ADT, we determined our joint goal was to create a piece of content that could earn dozens to hundreds of links from top publishers, with another focus on earning links from local news publications.</p>
<p>The client had the idea to create a crime map tool for ADT.com, and it fit the bill for everything we typically look for in a piece of content. But for the purpose of this article, I’ll examine what makes it ideal.</p>
<p>Say you were starting from scratch. You can start with a simple Google search of “crime,” which would serve as a reminder of how localized the topic is.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-ranked-for-2600-keywords/5eab5907ee5d75.45604750.png" width="595" height="203" data-image="sfuirzvbk42a"></figure>
<p>Just from this search alone, you can identify the desire for crime maps specifically, and you can consider why someone would search for a crime map:</p>
<ul><li>To identify crime in their area</li><li>To investigate the crime in places they’re looking to visit</li><li>To investigate the crime in places they’re looking to move</li></ul>
<p>Because people might not want to know just about the areas right around where they live, it was a strong idea to create a comprehensive, interactive crime mapping tool that gives users the ability to search local areas and see detailed, local-level crime statistics. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-ranked-for-2600-keywords/5eab5908f30006.87337007.png" width="624" height="360" data-image="4txfrgygrw3e"></figure>
<p>This concept had a high chance of success for other reasons as well, including:</p>
<p>1. It has a practical use. Not all content necessarily needs to be practical — it depends on the industry you’re in and whether you can get by with entertainment value. If it’s not practical, it should reveal insights that speak to the human experience and inform a reader about their context in the world. We actually added this element in the crime map project by building in functionality where you can compare the crime rate in your area to national averages.</p>
<p>However, having a practical element (or actionable advice) means your content has built-in value. It communicates that you care about the person reading it, and they engage with the content more because they feel like they can do something with the information.</p>
<p>2. It's data-based, <a href="https://moz.com/blog/content-authority">making it authoritative and accurate</a>. It’s very difficult these days to pitch publishers anything that isn’t data-based. Not only does it add credibility to what you’re working on, but showing that you did your research also indicates that you’re an authority (or becoming an authority) on the subject. I’ll dive into more on this toward the end of the article.</p>
<p>3. The data can be tailored to countless local angles. If your goal is to build as many valuable links and as much general brand awareness as possible, you should always consider how to localize your content. </p><p>This has to happen at the beginning when you’re collecting your data. Ask yourself: Is the data set comprehensive enough that insights about different segments, like geographic locations, can be gathered? The more people who can connect with and “see” themselves in your content by having it be as personalized as possible, the better.</p>
<p>4. It invokes emotions like safety and concern for loved ones. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.frac.tl/the-role-of-emotions-in-viral-content/">Tapping into emotional concepts</a> is always a good strategy when creating content. Crime and security inherently come with some obvious emotions: fear, concern, pride in protecting your family, etc. If you’re in a niche that doesn’t seem to have straightforward ties to emotion, ask yourself these questions to reveal the emotions at work in the background: </p>
<ul><li>Why do people care about this?</li><li>What is our audience’s biggest struggle?</li><li>What might our audience worry most about?</li></ul>
<p>For example, while it doesn't seem so on the surface, personal finance can be extremely emotional. It involves the way people lead their lives and is tied to the guilt of not saving enough, the pride of being on top of their finances, the fear they won’t have enough money to retire, etc. No matter what vertical you’re in, there are emotions involved, and <a href="https://moz.com/blog/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content">tapping into them with empathy</a> can make your content exponentially more compelling and helpful.</p>
<p>5. As a security company, it makes perfect sense for ADT to be the brand that’s offering a resource where people can check the crime rates all over the country. When you have this sort of brand alignment with an idea, it's clear to publishers and readers alike why the brand created it, and it helps build trust.</p>
<p>Always consider these types of criteria when you move forward on a content concept.</p>
<h3>Digital PR</h3>
<p>Because of the local/regional aspect of the interactive, our outreach approach was to pitch regional news publishers with the exclusive coverage. </p>
<p>We customized pitches for publishers by state for our initial outreach. Here is a sample pitch similar to the one that successfully landed coverage:</p>
<p><em>Hi [Website Name] team,</em></p>
<p><em>In the wake of natural disasters like Hurricane Florence, fears of looting and other forms of crime are often heightened. The newly released ADT crime map wants residents to be aware of crime hot spots in their neighborhoods and use precautionary measures to prevent being victims of crime, especially during hurricane season.</em></p>
<p><em>The interactive map allows users to look up specific crime data and compare it to national averages to determine how much crime is happening in their area. For example, Florida’s overall crime rate is 1.21x higher than the national average. That said, the murder rate is relatively low when compared to the rest of the nation (0.03x less).</em></p>
<p><em>To explore your city using the ADT Crime Map, please visit<a target="_blank" href="https://www.adt.com/crime"> https://www.adt.com/crime</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Interested in covering this so that your readers can stay as safe as possible under any circumstance? If so, feel free to use this<a target="_blank" href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GgT_B2HAwe4jpCKcHvso8p0DIY9tfVrg/view?usp=sharing"> press release</a> or graphics from the map. We just ask that you attribute ADT by linking to the<a target="_blank" href="https://www.adt.com/crime"> Crime Map</a> somewhere in your coverage.</em></p>
<p><em>Best,</em></p>
<p><em>[Your Name]</em></p>
<p>Each pitch was personalized by adjusting the first and second paragraph to include locally relevant details for that area.</p>
<p>This regional outreach strategy had a high chance of success because:</p>
<ul><li>The content was highly relevant to local news publishers </li><li>Local news publications are often the best syndicators</li><li>We put together a new, exclusive resource that many consumers would find helpful </li><li>Offering content as an exclusive makes it especially newsworthy and appealing to writers</li></ul>
<p>In this case, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/adt-releases-interactive-crime-map-to-help-you-understand-the-potential-crime-in-your-neighborhood">the exclusive</a> was given to ABCActionNews.com, a Tampa Bay, Florida ABC affiliate.</p>
<p>Luckily, the publisher liked the story so much, they decided to include it in that day’s nightly news coverage. As one of the largest local news affiliates in that area, this coverage was likely seen on over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2018/07/State-of-the-News-Media_2017-Archive.pdf#page=30">25,000 local televisions</a>. </p>
<p>We continued pitching the story, attempting to exhaust our pitch list and support syndication of the exclusive picked up by ABCActionNews.com. </p>
<p>After roughly a month, we compiled a report on all coverage and syndications. We were happy to report to our client that the story was picked up by dozens of local news publishers, eventually generating links from 127 unique linking domains per Ahrefs. </p>
<h2>The impact on search</h2>
<p>A graph of acquired links shows a very organic progression — something we see often when a story syndicates well across many domains. <br></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-ranked-for-2600-keywords/5eab59099ab4f9.63483525.png" width="624" height="262" data-image="rcpk6gygjm2k"></figure>
<p>Almost immediately the page began ranking — likely a result of the ADT site’s awesome existing domain authority, topical relevance of the project related to the domain, and the massive injection of new unique links to the crime maps page. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-ranked-for-2600-keywords/5eab590a5d8a44.85701579.png" width="624.0000000000001" height="502" data-image="po74rkunbnfd"></figure>
<p></p>
<h2>Don’t have high domain authority?</h2>
<p>While having an authoritative brand can make this whole strategy a bit easier, that doesn’t mean it can’t work for you if you are newer or are trying to keep up with huge, household-name competitors.</p>
<p>It just means it’s even more important that you use data-focused content. We’ve always thought that using data as a foundation for content was the best way to build authority, but a recent study we did with BuzzStream about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.buzzstream.com/blog/creating-the-most-authoritative-content.html">authoritative content</a> confirmed that.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-we-ranked-for-2600-keywords/5eab590abf9609.36328592.png" width="624" height="471" data-image="emll18g7peqi"></figure>
<p>Having an authoritative methodology can increase the chances people trust your content — and thus your brand — by extension. And when you’re trying to get attention in competitive spaces, every authority signal matters.</p>
<p>Regarding promotions, all of the tips I’ve provided in this article should work for you. Perhaps when pitching, you can provide a sentence or two describing your brand. It’s also best practice to have someone at your company, either the person who knows the most about the topic or the person who did the research, ready to answer questions that writers may have about the content.</p>
<p>But in general, promotional success will be heavily based on the quality of the content you’re pitching, especially if the writer isn’t familiar with who you are.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Is this type of strategy easy? No. It’s much simpler to pay for links or churn out quick blog posts. </p>
<p>But if you’re looking for long-lasting, sustainable, never-to-be-penalized, link-and-authority-building content, this is your best route. </p>
<p>As we can see here, a combination of existing domain authority, an injection of a large number of new high-authority links, and a topically relevant/related piece of content for the brand can generate huge numbers of new ranking keywords extremely quickly. </p>
<p>If you don’t have that level of domain authority, don’t worry! This strategy can still work for you — just don’t expect it to happen overnight (as that’s so rarely the case for anyone).</p>
<p>It’s an investment, but as we’ve seen time and time again, it pays off exponentially.</p>
<hr>
<p>To learn more about keyword research, visit the Keyword Research Master Guide!</p>
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<p></p><center><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide" class="button-primary large-cta orange">THE KEYWORD RESEARCH MASTER GUIDE</a></center><p></p>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/6AWT0L7ptmw/adt-keyword-ranking-case-study" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-56613608489158840072020-05-02T01:06:00.001-07:002020-05-02T01:06:25.408-07:00Announcing: The Keyword Research Master Guide<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/155620\">Cyrus-Shepard</a></p><p>Why a new guide?</p>
<p>Often in SEO, we get so preoccupied with technical SEO (pagination, site speed, the latest Python course, etc.) that we forget the basis of winning SEO begins and ends with keywords.</p>
<ul><li><em>Not choosing keywords</em> before you start with SEO means shooting in the dark — a likely losing gamble if your content will succeed or not.</li><li>Choosing the <em>wrong keywords</em> means wasting your time and budget on content that will never gain visibility in search results.</li><li>Conversely, choosing <strong>smart, targeted keywords</strong> can help carve out and dominate a traffic niche that raises you above the competition.</li></ul>
<p>No doubt, the difference between good SEOs and mediocre SEOs is often their keyword research strategy.</p>
<p>Here at Moz, a question we often hear after people finish reading the famous <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo">Beginner's Guide to SEO</a> is: What do I read next?</p>
<p>To give people a practical place to start, we wanted to provide you with <strong>concrete keyword research workflows</strong>. It's as if you're looking over our shoulder as we do strategic keyword research. </p>
<p>We also included a few intermediate-to-advanced concepts, such as keyword grouping, understanding keyword priority, and on-page keyword optimization.</p>
<p>And finally, we wanted to make sure it was free.</p>
<p>If you want, feel free to jump to the guide now, or read below about what the guide covers and how it differs from any other guide on keyword research.</p>
<p></p>
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<p></p><center><a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta orange">THE KEYWORD RESEARCH MASTER GUIDE</a></center><p></p>
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<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f813267db90.29570225.png" width="624" height="327" data-image="d5l6z36seqt0"></figure>
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<h2>1. Understanding seed keywords</h2>
<p>We call them "seed" keywords because <em>all your other keywords grow out of them</em>. Finding the right seed keywords will absolutely make or break your entire keyword research strategy. </p>
<p>Finding the right seed keywords is about asking and answering three key questions:</p>
<ol><li>What do you <em>think</em> you want to rank for?</li><li>What do you already rank for?</li><li>What do your competitors rank for?</li></ol>
<p>After this, you validate your answers with data to find the absolute best seeds.</p>
<p>We also show you the exact process and tools we use to extract these seeds, such as Google Search Console (shown below).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f8132e5f865.92329624.jpg" width="624" height="355" data-image="lxnuzf47swyr"></figure>
<p>The cool thing about seed keywords is this: they grow more seeds! Once you find the right seeds, you can reiterate the process again and again to grow a complete keyword strategy for an entire site, even one that's thousands of pages.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/seed-keywords">Read Chapter 1: Seed Keywords</a></p>
<h2>2. Building perfect keyword lists</h2>
<p>This is where the rubber hits the road. Here you expand your seed keywords into complete lists. These lists support multiple pages and topics, and can even grow more seeds.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f813384bba1.95712594.jpg" width="624" height="369" data-image="0xtxviu83884"></figure>
<p>This is also the place you want to be as comprehensive as possible, in order to uncover the opportunities your competition probably missed.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/keyword-lists">Read Chapter 2: Keyword Lists</a></p>
<h2>3. Prioritizing keywords</h2>
<p>Nearly any old keyword tool can give you lists of hundreds or thousands of keywords. The secret to success is knowing which keywords to prioritize and pursue. </p>
<p>Which keywords will actually prove profitable? Which keywords can you actually rank for?</p>
<p>To answer these questions, we do a deep dive into the keyword metrics that help us to prioritize our keyword lists:<br></p>
<ul><li>Relevance</li><li>Monthly volume</li><li>Keyword difficulty</li><li>Organic click-through rate (CTR)</li><li>Priority</li></ul>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f813418f415.61148706.jpg" width="624" height="217" data-image="1ma7ztwr7ckd"></figure>
<p>Understanding how to use these metrics goes a long way in choosing the exact right keywords to invest in.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/prioritizing-keywords">Read Chapter 3: Prioritizing Keywords</a></p>
<h2>4. Grouping keywords</h2>
<p>Keywords never exist in a vacuum. Instead, they almost always appear with other keywords. </p>
<p>Adding related keywords to a page is a smart strategy for increasing topical relevance. At the same time, trying to target too many keywords on the same page may dilute their relevance and make it more difficult to rank.</p>
<p>Here, we show you techniques to address both of these problems:</p>
<ol><li>When to create separate pages for each keyword</li><li>How to group related keywords together</li></ol>
<p></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f8134e7c332.34773666.jpg" width="624" height="325" data-image="655c6i3u0tyn"></figure>
<p>We'll also show you some grouping tips to help set you up for your next task: on-page keyword optimization.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/grouping-keywords">Read Chapter 4: Grouping Keywords</a></p>
<h2>5. On-page keyword optimization</h2>
<p>Very few keyword research guides ever even mention on-page keyword optimization.</p>
<p>We wanted to do better.</p>
<p>Because keyword research uncovers <strong>intent</strong>, this is a great starting point for on-page optimization. If you understand not only what your users are searching for, but also what they expect to find, you can better create your content to satisfy their expectations.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f81358ef3e4.56302658.jpg" width="624" height="528" data-image="06u057v5kplx"></figure>
<p>We've also included a brief overview of where and how to incorporate keywords on the page. While this section is mostly beginner level, more immediate SEOs should find the refresher useful.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/on-page-keyword-optimization">Read Chapter 5: On-page Keyword Optimization</a></p>
<h2>6. Tracking keyword rankings</h2>
<p>If you’re a consultant, agency, in-house SEO, or simply work for yourself, you want to know how your keywords perform in search engines. </p>
<p>Traditionally, keyword tracking was synonymous with "ranking" — but times have changed. Today, with personalization, localization, and shifting competitive environments, keyword tracking has grown much more sophisticated.<br><br>In this chapter, we'll cover:</p>
<ol><li>Traditional keyword ranking</li><li>Local rank tracking</li><li>Rank indexes</li><li>Share of Voice (SOV) and visibility</li></ol>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f81362c9975.80898401.jpg" width="624" height="287" data-image="4jymddlh1chg"></figure>
<p>By the end of this chapter, you'll understand which type of keyword tracking is right for you, and how to report these numbers to the people who matter.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/tracking-keywords">Read Chapter 6: Tracking Keyword Rankings</a></p>
<h2>7. Keyword research tools and resources</h2>
<p>Bonus time!</p>
<p>We couldn't squeeze everything in the previous chapters, so we added all our extra resources here. The crème de la crème is the <strong>Keyword Research Cheat Sheet</strong>. You can download, print, share with your team, or pin to your wall.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f8136a73eb3.03579393.jpg" width="624" height="397" data-image="sk5gj23ukiue"></figure>
<p>We've also made a handy list of our favorite keyword research tools, along with a few other useful resources on keyword research.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p><center><a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta orange">THE KEYWORD RESEARCH MASTER GUIDE</a></center><p></p>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Ps4_ZINdQUg/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-62569379215218406122020-05-01T02:03:00.001-07:002020-05-01T02:03:01.544-07:00Building Better Customer Experiences - Best of Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/419\">DiTomaso</a></p><p>Are you mindful of your customer's experience after they become a lead? It's easy to fall in the same old rut of newsletters, invoices, and sales emails, but for a truly exceptional customer experience that improves their retention and love for your brand, you need to go above and beyond. In this popular episode of Whiteboard Friday, the ever-insightful Dana DiTomaso shares three big things you can start doing today that will immensely better your customer experience and make earning those leads worthwhile.
</p>
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<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Hi, Moz fans. My name is Dana DiTomaso. I'm the President and partner of <a href="https://kickpoint.ca/" target="_blank">Kick Point</a>, and today I'm going to talk to you about building better customer experiences. I know that in marketing a lot of our jobs revolve around getting leads and more leads and why can't we have all of the leads. </p>
<h2>The typical customer experience:</h2>
<p>But in reality, the other half of our job should be making sure that those leads are taken care of when they become customers. This is especially important if you don't have, say, a customer care department. If you do have a customer care department, really you should be interlocking with what they do, because typically what happens, when you're working with a customer, is that after the sale, they usually get surveys.<br></p>
<h3>- Surveys</h3>
<p>"How did we do? Please rate us on a scale of 1 to 10," which is an enormous scale and kind of useless. You're a 4, or you're an 8, or you're a 6. Like what actually differentiates that, and how are people choosing that? </p>
<h3>- Invoices</h3>
<p>Then invoices, like obviously important because you have to bill people, particularly if you have a big, expensive product or you're a SaaS business. But those invoices are sometimes kind of impersonal, weird, and maybe not great. </p>
<h3>- Newsletters</h3>
<p>Maybe you have a newsletter. That's awesome. But is the newsletter focused on sales? One of the things that we see a lot is, for example, if somebody clicks a link in the newsletter to get to your website, maybe you've written a blog post, and then they see a great big popup to sign up for our product. Well, you're already a customer, so you shouldn't be seeing that popup anymore.</p>
<p>What we've seen on other sites, like Help Scout actually does a great job of this, is that they have a parameter of newsletter at the end of any URLs they put in their newsletter, and then the popups are suppressed because you're already in the newsletter so you shouldn't see a popup encouraging you to sign up or join the newsletter, which is kind of a crappy experience. </p>
<h3>- Sales emails</h3>
<p>Then the last thing are sales emails. This is my personal favorite, and this can really be avoided if you go into account-based marketing automation instead of personal-based marketing automation. </p>
<p>We had a situation where I was a customer of the hosting company. It was in my name that we've signed up for all of our clients, and then one of our developers created a new account because she needed to access something. Then immediately the sales emails started, not realizing we're at the same domain. We're already a customer. They probably shouldn't have been doing the hard sale on her. We've had this happen again and again. </p>
<p>So just really make sure that you're not sending your customers or people who work at the same company as your customers sales emails. That's a really cruddy customer experience. It makes it look like you don't know what's going on. It really can destroy trust. </p>
<h2>Tips for an improved customer experience</h2>
<p>So instead, here are some extra things that you can do. I mean fix some of these things if maybe they're not working well. But here are some other things you can do to really make sure your customers know that you love them and you would like them to keep paying you money forever. </p>
<h3>1. Follow them on social media</h3>
<p>So the first thing is following them on social. So what I really like to do is use a tool such as FullContact. You can take everyone's email addresses, run them through FullContact, and it will come back to you and say, "Here are the social accounts that this person has." Then you go on Twitter and you follow all of these people for example. Or if you don't want to follow them, you can make a list, a hidden list with all of their social accounts in there.<br></p>
<p>Then you can see what they share. A tool like Nuzzel, N-U-Z-Z for Americans, zed zed for Canadians, N-U-Z-Z-E-L is a great tool where you can say, "Tell me all the things that the people I follow on social or the things that this particular list of people on social what they share and what they're engaged in." Then you can see what your customers are really interested in, which can give you a good sense of what kinds things should we be talking about. </p>
<p>A company that does this really well is InVision, which is the app that allows you to share prototypes with clients, particularly design prototypes. So they have a blog, and a lot of that blog content is incredibly useful. They're clearly paying attention to their customers and the kinds of things they're sharing based on how they build their blog content. So then find out if you can help and really think about how I can help these customers through the things that they share, through the questions that they're asking. </p>
<p>Then make sure to watch unbranded mentions too. It's not particularly hard to monitor a specific list of people and see if they tweet things like, "I really hate my (insert what you are)right now," for example. Then you can head that off at the pass maybe because you know that this was this customer. "Oh, they just had a bad experience. Let's see what we can do to fix it,"without being like, "Hey, we were watching your every move on Twitter.Here's something we can do to fix it." </p>
<p>Maybe not quite that creepy, but the idea is trying to follow these people and watch for those unbranded mentions so you can head off a potential angry customer or a customer who is about to leave off at the pass. Way cheaper to keep an existing customer than get a new one. </p>
<h3>2. Post-sale monitoring</h3>
<p>So the next thing is post-sale monitoring. So what I would like you to do is create a fake customer. If you have lots of sales personas, create a fake customer that is each of those personas, and then that customer should get all the emails, invoices, everything else that a regular customer that fits that persona group should get. </p>
<p>Then take a look at those accounts. Are you awesome, or are you super annoying? Do you hear nothing for a year, except for invoices, and then, "Hey, do you want to renew?" How is that conversation going between you and that customer? So really try to pay attention to that. It depends on your organization if you want to tell people that this is what's happening, but you really want to make sure that that customer isn't receiving preferential treatment. </p>
<p>So you want to make sure that it's kind of not obvious to people that this is the fake customer so they're like, "Oh, well, we're going to be extra nice to the fake customer." They should be getting exactly the same stuff that any of your other customers get. This is extremely useful for you. </p>
<h3>3. Better content</h3>
<p>Then the third thing is better content. I think, in general, any organization should reward content differently than we do currently. </p>
<p>Right now, we have a huge focus on new content, new content, new content all the time, when in reality, some of your best-performing posts might be old content and maybe you should go back and update them. So what we like to tell people about is the Microsoft model of rewarding. They've used this to reward their employees, and part of it isn't just new stuff. It's old stuff too. So the way that it works is 33% is what they personally have produced. </p>
<p>So this would be new content, for example. Then 33% is what they've shared. So think about for example on Slack if somebody shares something really useful, that's great. They would be rewarded for that. But think about, for example, what you can share with your customers and how that can be rewarding, even if you didn't write it, or you can create a roundup, or you can put it in your newsletter. </p>
<p>Like what can you do to bring value to those customers? Then the last 33% is what they shared that others produced. So is there a way that you can amplify other voices in your organization and make sure that that content is getting out there? Certainly in marketing, and especially if you're in a large organization, maybe you're really siloed, maybe you're an SEO and you don't even talk to the paid people, there's cool stuff happening across the entire organization. </p>
<p>A lot of what you can bring is taking that stuff that others have produced, maybe you need to turn it into something that is easy to share on social media, or you need to turn it into a blog post or a video, like Whiteboard Friday, whatever is going to work for you, and think about how you can amplify that and get it out to your customers, because it isn't just marketing messages that customers should be seeing. </p>
<p>They should be seeing all kinds of messages across your organization, because when a customer gives you money, it isn't just because your marketing message was great. It's because they believe in the thing that you are giving them. So by reinforcing that belief through the types of content that you create, that you share, that you find that other people share, that you shared out to your customers, a lot of sharing, you can certainly improve that relationship with your customers and really turn just your average, run-of-the-mill customer into an actual raving fan, because not only will they stay longer, it's so much cheaper to keep an existing customer than get a new one, but they'll refer people to you, which is also a lot easier than buying a lot of ads or spending a ton of money and effort on SEO. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
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Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-66424808904794608752020-04-28T06:51:00.001-07:002020-04-28T06:51:30.827-07:003 Simple Steps to Get Your First 10,000 Visitors from Google<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/googlerank.jpg" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Today’s going to be fun.</p>
<p>I’m going to make a bet with you that if you follow the 3 steps below, and you really follow them, you can get 10,000 visitors from Google.</p>
<p>I promise it won’t be hard, but it will take time.</p>
<p>And if you follow my steps and don’t get the results, hit me up and I will personally help you with your marketing.</p>
<p>All I ask is you do it for 3 months straight. You may not get to 10,000 visitors from Google in 3 months as some niches are really tiny, but most of you should get there or be well on your way.</p>
<p>Again, if you prove to me that you followed everything below and you don’t achieve the results, you can get in touch and I will personally help you with your marketing for free.</p>
<p><em>Ready?</em></p>
<span id="more-92115"></span>
<h2><strong>Step #1: Finding the right keywords</strong></h2>
<p>If you pick the wrong keywords, you’ll find yourself with little to no traffic and, even worse, you’ll find yourself with little to no sales.</p>
<p>So, before we get you on your way to more search traffic,
let’s find you the right keywords.</p>
<p>I want you to head to <a href="https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/">Ubersuggest</a> and type in your
competitor’s domain name.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ubersuggesthome.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Now, I want you to click on the “Keywords” navigational
option in the sidebar.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/keywordsnav.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This report will show you all of the keywords that your competition is ranking for.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/domainkeywords.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>If you don’t see a list of thousands of keywords, that means you didn’t type in a big enough competitor. And if you don’t know who a big competitor is, just do a Google search for any major term related to your industry. The sites at the top are your major competitors.</p>
<p>I want you to go through the list of keywords and look for all of the keywords that are related to your business and have an SEO Difficulty (SD) score of 40 or less. The higher the number, the harder the keyword is to rank for. The lower the number, the easier it is to rank for.</p>
<p>In addition to an SD score of 40 or lower, I want you to look for keywords that have a volume of 500 or more.</p>
<p>Volume means the number of people that search for the keyword on a monthly basis. The higher the number, the more potential visitors that term will drive once you rank for it.</p>
<p>Next up, I want you to click on “Top Pages” in the
navigation.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/toppagesnav.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This will bring you to a report that looks like this:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/toppages-1.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This report shows you the most popular pages on your
competitor’s site.</p>
<p>Now, under the Est. Visits (Estimated Visits) column, I want you to click on “view all” for the first few results.</p>
<p>Every time you do that it shows you all of the keywords that
drive traffic to that page.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/toppagesviewall.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Just like you did with the keywords report, I want you to look at the keywords that have an SD of 40 or lower and a volume of 500 or more.</p>
<p>The one difference though, is that I want you to check out some of the URLs on the Top Pages report.</p>
<p>Click on over to the site so you can see the type of content they are writing. This is important because it will give you an idea of the types of content that Google likes to rank.</p>
<p>When you create similar pages (I will teach you how to do this shortly), it will allow you to get similar results to your competition over time.</p>
<p>Now that you have a handful of keywords, I want you to expand the list and find other related keywords.</p>
<p>In the navigation menu, click on “Keyword Ideas.”</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/keywordideasnav.png" alt="" width="250" height="209"/></figure>
<p>When you type in one of the keywords you are thinking of going after in this report, it will give you a big list of other similar keywords.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ideassuggestions.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This is important because it will show you all of the
closely related terms.</p>
<p>For example, let’s say you came up with a list of keywords of a handful of keywords, such as:</p>
<ol><li>Dog food</li><li>Cat food </li><li>Dog bed</li><li>How to clean your cat</li><li>What do birds eat</li></ol>
<p>You can’t just take all of those keywords and write one article and shove all the keywords in because they aren’t similar to each other. Someone looking for “dog beds” is probably not interested in reading about what birds eat.</p>
<p>So by typing in a keyword into the Keyword Ideas report, it will show you all of the other similar keywords that you can include in a single article.</p>
<p>When you are on the Keyword Ideas report you’ll notice some tabs: Suggestions, Related, Questions, Prepositions, and Comparisons.</p>
<p>I want you to go through each of those tabs. They will show you a different group of similar keywords that you may be able to include in your article (we will go over how to write the article in step 2).</p>
<p>Just take a look at the Questions tab:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ideasquestions.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>You can see the keywords are drastically different than the Related tab:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ideasrelated.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Again, you’ll want to look for all keywords that have an SD score of 40 or lower. But this report looks for keywords that have a volume above 200.</p>
<p>I know 200 may seem like a small number, but if you find 100
good keywords that all have a volume of 200 or more, that adds up to 20,000
potential visitors per month. Or better yet, 240,000 per year.</p>
<p>Now it’s rare that you are going to get all of those people
to come to your site, but you can get a portion of them. Even 10% would add up…
especially if you did this with a handful of articles.</p>
<p>Your goal should be to have a list of at least 100 keywords that are very similar. You’ll want to do this at least five times. For example, remember that list of five keywords I mentioned above wasn’t too similar to each other…</p>
<ol><li>Dog food</li><li>Cat food </li><li>Dog bed</li><li>How to clean your cat</li><li>What do birds eat</li></ol>
<p>You’ll want to make sure that for each main keyword you use the Keyword Ideas report to find another 100 that can accompany each keyword.</p>
<h2><strong>Step #2: Write content</strong></h2>
<p>At this point, you should have a list of keywords. If your list of keywords isn’t at least 100 keywords per group, go back to step 1 and keep at it.</p>
<p>It’s not that hard to get to 100 similar keywords that you can include in one article. It just takes some time to continually search and find them.</p>
<p>In general, as a rule of thumb, I can find 100 keywords in
less than 8 minutes. It may take you a bit longer than me at first, but once
you get the hang of it, it’ll be easy.</p>
<p>With your newly found keywords, I want you to write an article.</p>
<p>All you have to do is follow this <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-write-blog-post/">tutorial step-by-step</a> to write your first article.</p>
<p>Or, if you prefer a video tutorial, watch this:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe title="How to Write a Blog Post From Start to Finish | Neil Patel" width="700" height="394" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q8rN3JKqUc8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>
<p>As for your keywords, naturally place them into the article when it makes sense.</p>
<p>What you’ll quickly learn is that you probably won’t be able
to “naturally” include all 100 keywords within your article. And that’s fine.</p>
<p>The last thing you want to do is stuff in keywords because you aren’t writing this article for just search engines, you are writing it for people… and the secondary benefit is that search engines will rank it because it contains the right keywords.</p>
<p>Before you make your article live on your site, I want you
to keep a few things in mind:</p>
<ol><li><strong>Keep your URLs short</strong> – Google prefers shorter URLs.</li><li><strong>Include your main keyword in your headline</strong> – by having your main keyword in your headline, you’ll be more likely to rank higher.</li><li><strong>Include your three main keywords in your meta tags</strong> – whether it is your title tag or meta description, include at least three main keywords in them. You won’t fit as many in your title tag, and that’s fine, but you should be able to within your meta description tag.</li></ol>
<p>There are a lot of other things you can do to optimize your articles for SEO, but my goal is to keep this simple. Again, if you just follow these three steps, you’ll hit the 10,000-visitor mark.</p>
<p>So, for now, let’s just keep things simple and once you hit
your goal, then you can get into the advanced stuff.</p>
<h2><strong>Step #3: Promoting your content</strong></h2>
<p>Writing content is only half the battle. Even if you include the right keywords in your article, if you don’t promote, it’s unlikely that it would be read or rank on Google.</p>
<p>So how do you make sure your content is read and ranks well?</p>
<p>Well, first you need to get social shares, and second, you need to get <a href="https://neilpatel.com/backlinks/">backlinks</a>.</p>
<p>Yes, search engines don’t necessarily rank pages higher when
they get more Facebook shares or tweets, but the more eyeballs that see your
page the more likely you are to get backlinks.</p>
<p>And the more backlinks you get, generally, the higher you will rank.</p>
<p>So here’s how you get social shares…</p>
<p>First, I want you to go to <a href="https://twitter.com/search/">Twitter</a> and search for keywords related
to your article.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/twittersearch.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As you scroll down, you’ll see thousands of people tweeting about stuff related to your keywords. Some of them will just be general updates but look for the members sharing articles.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tweet1.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>And…</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tweet2.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Now what I want you to do is click on their profile and see if they mention their contact information or their website. If they mention their email you are good to go. If they mention their website, head to it, and try to find their contact information.</p>
<p>You won’t be able to find everyone’s contact information,
but for the people you do, I want you to send them this email:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Subject:</strong> [insert the keyword you searched for on Twitter]</p><p>Hey [insert their first name],</p><p>I saw that you tweeted out [insert the title of the article they tweeted]. I actually have an article that I recently released on that subject.</p><p>But mine covers [talk about what your article covers and how it is unique].</p><p>[insert link to your article]</p><p>If you like it, feel free to share it.</p><p>Cheers,</p><p>[insert your name]</p><p><em><strong>PS:</strong> Let me know if you want me to share anything for you on Twitter or any other social network.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>What you’ll find is a large percentage of the people will be willing to share your content because they already are sharing related content and, of course, you offered to share their content, which helps out too.</p>
<p>If you send out 30 to 40 emails like this, you’ll start
getting traction on the social web.</p>
<p>Now that you have social shares, it’s time to <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/9-link-building-resources-thatll-increase-your-search-rankings/">build backlinks</a>. Instead of giving you tons of link building methods as there are many that work, I am just going to start you off with one that works very well.</p>
<p>I want you to head back to the Keyword Ideas report on
Ubersuggest.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/keywordideasnav.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Once you get there, type in some of the keywords that you are trying to go after.</p>
<p>On the right side of the report, you’ll see a list of sites that rank and the number of backlinks that each of the ranking URLs has.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ideasrank.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Click on the “Links” number. For each result, it will take you to the Backlinks report, which looks something like this:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/linkscount.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This will give you a list of all the sites linking to your
competitor’s article.</p>
<p>I want you to go to each of those URLs, find the site owner’s contact information, and shoot them an email that looks like this:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Subject:</strong> [name of their website]</p><p>Hey [insert their name],</p><p>I noticed something off with your website.</p><p>You linked to [insert your competitor that they linked to] on this page [insert the page on their site that they are linking to them from].</p><p>Now you may not see anything wrong with that, but the article you linked to isn’t helping out your website readers that much because it doesn’t cover:</p><p>[insert a few bullet points on how your article is better and different]</p><p>You should check out [insert your article] because it will provide a better experience for your readers.</p><p>If you enjoyed it, feel free to link to it.</p><p>Cheers,</p><p>[insert your name]</p><p><em><strong>PS:</strong> If I can ever do anything to help you out, please let me know.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>I want you to send out 100 of those emails for each article
you write.</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion</strong></h2>
<p>Yes, it takes work to get 10,000 visitors but once you do it you’ll continually generate traffic and, more importantly, sales.</p>
<p>To achieve 10,000 visitors, I want you to do the steps above five times. In other words, you will be writing five pieces of new content following the steps above.</p>
<p>It’s actually not that bad because you can just do 1 a week.
So, within 5 weeks you would have done your job.</p>
<p><em>So, are you going to accept the challenge? If you do everything and don’t see the results over time, you can hit me up and I’ll help.</em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/10000-visitors/">3 Simple Steps to Get Your First 10,000 Visitors from Google</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com">Neil Patel</a>.</p>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/KISSmetrics/~4/jjDfgHpfxeQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><br /><br />
<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KISSmetrics/~3/jjDfgHpfxeQ/" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-48975037365224587662020-04-27T04:51:00.001-07:002020-04-27T04:51:17.567-07:00What Readers Want During COVID-19: B2B Edition<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/4744502\">amandamilligan</a></p><p>I couldn’t believe the response to <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/what-readers-want-during-covid19">my last post</a> about coming up with content ideas in the B2C space during COVID-19. Thank you to all who read and commented — I truly hope it was helpful.</p>
<p>One piece of feedback we received was an ask to see some <a target="_blank" href="https://www.frac.tl/b2b-marketing-goals/">B2B content ideas</a>, which, frankly, is an excellent subject. At first I was stumped about how to determine this, but then I decided that a different tool could do the trick. </p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://explodingtopics.com/software-topics">Exploding Topics</a>, the new tool by Brian Dean (Backlinko) and Josh Howarth, explores topics that are surging in popularity but haven’t hit their peak. </p>
<p>This time around, rather than focusing on specific keywords, I focused on overall trends so we can identify which categories might be of interest to your target businesses and their audiences. Then, you can examine whether these trends make sense for your niche and draw inspiration from them for your content.</p>
<h2>All things remote</h2>
<p>This trend obviously applies to B2C as well, but it’s an important consideration for B2B. Nearly everything has been either canceled, paused, or moved into the world of the virtual. For many companies and industries, this is uncharted territory, and they need guidance.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/amanda1-367587.jpg" data-image="58ibhdjske90"></figure>
<p>There is another category I could have included here that focuses on website and app development, programming, and the open source tools that help people build those types of assets as they lean more into digital. </p>
<p>If you’re not one of these B2B providers, there are still ways to gain inspiration from this data. Consider if your brand can provide:</p>
<ul><li>The logistics of how to set up remote platforms</li><li>Best practices on how to make anything remote more successful and engaging</li><li>Comparison guides for different tools and solutions</li><li>The platform for people to lend the help and support they’re hoping to (like in the case of virtual tip jars)</li><li>Communication tips and solutions to help people stay productively connected</li></ul>
<h2>Shipping and delivery</h2>
<p>Consumers are interested in having things shipped directly to them, but not everyone has the infrastructure to deal with shipping to begin with, let alone an increased order volume with the (understandable) safety limitations now in place.<br><br></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/amanda2-167683.jpg" data-image="mzumhut336ek"></figure>
<p>Consumers and businesses alike are curious about how to make the shipping and delivery process more effective.</p>
<p>Consider if your brand can provide:</p>
<ul><li>Guides for small businesses who’ve never had to ship product before</li><li>Tips on how companies can message shipping updates and delays to consumers</li><li>Advice on how to improve the delivery component of a business</li><li>UX or language tips for updating delivery messaging in apps or on websites</li></ul>
<h2>Transactions and payment</h2>
<p>As we’re all staying six feet away from each other, we’re also trying not to hand off credit cards (let alone cash). Companies used to brick-and-mortar business models are also needing to adapt to fully digital payment systems.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/amanda3-338435.jpg" data-image="gvdbbuytyugr"></figure>
<p>Not all of these searches apply to business (like Venmo), but they do point to a concern everyone’s having: How do we pay for things now?</p>
<p>Consider if your brand can provide:</p>
<ul><li>Answers about privacy or security questions people have regarding digital payments</li><li>A detailed list of all the payment options available</li><li>Advice on how to optimize storefronts and purchasing processes</li><li>Explanations of how payment processes can impact sales, and how to optimize them</li></ul>
<h2>Design tools</h2>
<p>This section speaks to an overall trend I touched on before: Professionals now build their own assets if they can’t afford to hire web developers, designers, etc. More and more people are trying to figure out how to keep their businesses going when they can’t keep on as much staff or hire as many contractors.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/amanda4-371918.jpg" data-image="dihd92ehpflt"></figure>
<p>Perhaps you can identify what your target audience might be struggling with and suggest free or inexpensive online tools to help.</p>
<p>Consider if your brand can provide:</p>
<ul><li>A list of tools that can assist your target audience in communicating, organizing, creating, etc.</li><li>Design advice to help them get up to speed as quickly as possible</li><li>Resources in how to complete tasks on a smaller team</li><li>Recommendations for what should be prioritized when money is tight</li></ul>
<h2>Ethical trends</h2>
<p>This is perhaps the most fascinating trend I saw arise. The four brands below have something in common: they all have to do with either sustainability or a transparent, mission-driven approach.<br><br></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/amanda5-342505.jpg" data-image="olxwufoi7ofm"></figure>
<p>My theory is now that people don’t have as much disposable income, they’re becoming more mindful in their shopping choices, selecting items they believe match their own values.</p>
<p>Consider if your brand can provide:</p>
<ul><li>A greater level of analysis on this potential trend</li><li>Research into how the consumer perspective has shifted during COVID-19</li><li>Advice on how to potentially shift marketing, branding, and advertising messaging</li><li>Tips on how your target audience can better understand their marketing during this tumultuous time</li></ul>
<h2>And finally (*sigh of relief*), marketing</h2>
<p>Yes, as I was doing my research, my instinct that marketing would remain crucial during this time was confirmed.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean you won’t lose business. We’ve had clients pull back because even though they’d like to keep marketing, keeping the company afloat by fulfilling their product orders and services and paying their employees will always (and very understandably) come first by a long shot.<br></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/amanda7-391333.jpg" data-image="zv6hjz0osdy1"></figure>
<p>But for businesses that can still afford marketing, they’ll likely need it, and they’re looking for the tools and insight they need to thrive.</p>
<p>Consider if your brand can provide:</p>
<ul><li>Marketing 101 tips for smaller businesses</li><li>Specific how-to guides for different aspects of inbound or outbound marketing</li><li>Tool recommendations to help people get marketing tasks done quickly and cheaply</li><li>Advice on the kind of marketing that’s most successful during an economic downturn</li></ul>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Remember: This is only for inspiration. What matters most is what your target audience needs and wants. Put yourself in their shoes to be able to best address their challenges and concerns.</p>
<p>But hopefully some of these concepts spark some ideas for how your B2B brand can provide value to your target audiences. Companies around the world are looking for guidance and support now more than ever, and if you’re in a position to provide it to them, your content can go a long way in building trust.</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/vKsoidsZMng/what-readers-want-during-covid19-b2b" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-11019998030062224412020-04-25T07:15:00.001-07:002020-04-25T07:15:07.700-07:00Announcing: The Keyword Research Master Guide [New for 2020]<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/155620\">Cyrus-Shepard</a></p><p>Why a new guide?</p>
<p>Often in SEO, we get so preoccupied with technical SEO (pagination, site speed, the latest Python course, etc.) that we forget the basis of winning SEO begins and ends with keywords.</p>
<ul><li><em>Not choosing keywords</em> before you start with SEO means shooting in the dark — a likely losing gamble if your content will succeed or not.</li><li>Choosing the <em>wrong keywords</em> means wasting your time and budget on content that will never gain visibility in search results.</li><li>Conversely, choosing <strong>smart, targeted keywords</strong> can help carve out and dominate a traffic niche that raises you above the competition.</li></ul>
<p>No doubt, the difference between good SEOs and mediocre SEOs is often their keyword research strategy.</p>
<p>Here at Moz, a question we often hear after people finish reading the famous <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo">Beginner's Guide to SEO</a> is: What do I read next?</p>
<p>To give people a practical place to start, we wanted to provide you with <strong>concrete keyword research workflows</strong>. It's as if you're looking over our shoulder as we do strategic keyword research. </p>
<p>We also included a few intermediate-to-advanced concepts, such as keyword grouping, understanding keyword priority, and on-page keyword optimization.</p>
<p>And finally, we wanted to make sure it was free.</p>
<p>If you want, feel free to jump to the guide now, or read below about what the guide covers and how it differs from any other guide on keyword research.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p><center><a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta orange">THE KEYWORD RESEARCH MASTER GUIDE</a></center><p></p>
<p></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f813267db90.29570225.png" width="624" height="327" data-image="d5l6z36seqt0"></figure>
<p></p>
<h2>1. Understanding seed keywords</h2>
<p>We call them "seed" keywords because <em>all your other keywords grow out of them</em>. Finding the right seed keywords will absolutely make or break your entire keyword research strategy. </p>
<p>Finding the right seed keywords is about asking and answering three key questions:</p>
<ol><li>What do you <em>think</em> you want to rank for?</li><li>What do you already rank for?</li><li>What do your competitors rank for?</li></ol>
<p>After this, you validate your answers with data to find the absolute best seeds.</p>
<p>We also show you the exact process and tools we use to extract these seeds, such as Google Search Console (shown below).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f8132e5f865.92329624.jpg" width="624" height="355" data-image="lxnuzf47swyr"></figure>
<p>The cool thing about seed keywords is this: they grow more seeds! Once you find the right seeds, you can reiterate the process again and again to grow a complete keyword strategy for an entire site, even one that's thousands of pages.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/seed-keywords">Read Chapter 1: Seed Keywords</a></p>
<h2>2. Building perfect keyword lists</h2>
<p>This is where the rubber hits the road. Here you expand your seed keywords into complete lists. These lists support multiple pages and topics, and can even grow more seeds.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f813384bba1.95712594.jpg" width="624" height="369" data-image="0xtxviu83884"></figure>
<p>This is also the place you want to be as comprehensive as possible, in order to uncover the opportunities your competition probably missed.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/keyword-lists">Read Chapter 2: Keyword Lists</a></p>
<h2>3. Prioritizing keywords</h2>
<p>Nearly any old keyword tool can give you lists of hundreds or thousands of keywords. The secret to success is knowing which keywords to prioritize and pursue. </p>
<p>Which keywords will actually prove profitable? Which keywords can you actually rank for?</p>
<p>To answer these questions, we do a deep dive into the keyword metrics that help us to prioritize our keyword lists:<br></p>
<ul><li>Relevance</li><li>Monthly volume</li><li>Keyword difficulty</li><li>Organic click-through rate (CTR)</li><li>Priority</li></ul>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f813418f415.61148706.jpg" width="624" height="217" data-image="1ma7ztwr7ckd"></figure>
<p>Understanding how to use these metrics goes a long way in choosing the exact right keywords to invest in.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/prioritizing-keywords">Read Chapter 3: Prioritizing Keywords</a></p>
<h2>4. Grouping keywords</h2>
<p>Keywords never exist in a vacuum. Instead, they almost always appear with other keywords. </p>
<p>Adding related keywords to a page is a smart strategy for increasing topical relevance. At the same time, trying to target too many keywords on the same page may dilute their relevance and make it more difficult to rank.</p>
<p>Here, we show you techniques to address both of these problems:</p>
<ol><li>When to create separate pages for each keyword</li><li>How to group related keywords together</li></ol>
<p></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f8134e7c332.34773666.jpg" width="624" height="325" data-image="655c6i3u0tyn"></figure>
<p>We'll also show you some grouping tips to help set you up for your next task: on-page keyword optimization.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/grouping-keywords">Read Chapter 4: Grouping Keywords</a></p>
<h2>5. On-page keyword optimization</h2>
<p>Very few keyword research guides ever even mention on-page keyword optimization.</p>
<p>We wanted to do better.</p>
<p>Because keyword research uncovers <strong>intent</strong>, this is a great starting point for on-page optimization. If you understand not only what your users are searching for, but also what they expect to find, you can better create your content to satisfy their expectations.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f81358ef3e4.56302658.jpg" width="624" height="528" data-image="06u057v5kplx"></figure>
<p>We've also included a brief overview of where and how to incorporate keywords on the page. While this section is mostly beginner level, more immediate SEOs should find the refresher useful.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/on-page-keyword-optimization">Read Chapter 5: On-page Keyword Optimization</a></p>
<h2>6. Tracking keyword rankings</h2>
<p>If you’re a consultant, agency, in-house SEO, or simply work for yourself, you want to know how your keywords perform in search engines. </p>
<p>Traditionally, keyword tracking was synonymous with "ranking" — but times have changed. Today, with personalization, localization, and shifting competitive environments, keyword tracking has grown much more sophisticated.<br><br>In this chapter, we'll cover:</p>
<ol><li>Traditional keyword ranking</li><li>Local rank tracking</li><li>Rank indexes</li><li>Share of Voice (SOV) and visibility</li></ol>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f81362c9975.80898401.jpg" width="624" height="287" data-image="4jymddlh1chg"></figure>
<p>By the end of this chapter, you'll understand which type of keyword tracking is right for you, and how to report these numbers to the people who matter.</p>
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide/tracking-keywords">Read Chapter 6: Tracking Keyword Rankings</a></p>
<h2>7. Keyword research tools and resources</h2>
<p>Bonus time!</p>
<p>We couldn't squeeze everything in the previous chapters, so we added all our extra resources here. The crème de la crème is the <strong>Keyword Research Cheat Sheet</strong>. You can download, print, share with your team, or pin to your wall.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide/5e9f8136a73eb3.03579393.jpg" width="624" height="397" data-image="sk5gj23ukiue"></figure>
<p>We've also made a handy list of our favorite keyword research tools, along with a few other useful resources on keyword research.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p><center><a href="https://moz.com/keyword-research-guide" target="_blank" class="button-primary large-cta orange">THE KEYWORD RESEARCH MASTER GUIDE</a></center><p></p>
<p></p>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Ps4_ZINdQUg/announcing-keyword-research-master-guide" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-66929472585708069952020-04-24T01:39:00.001-07:002020-04-24T01:39:35.754-07:00Content Authority: Potential Measures of Authoritative Content - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/4260765\">rjonesx.</a></p><p>When it boils down to it, every idea in SEO can be understood as a set of measurements we use to rank one page over another. And that means that when it comes to measuring a concept like the <em>authoritativeness</em> of your content, there are almost certainly factors that you can analyze and tweak to improve it. </p>
<p>But if Google were to use a measure of content authority, what might go into it? Against what yardstick should SEOs be measuring their content's E-A-T? In this episode of Whiteboard Friday, Russ Jones walks us through a thought experiment as to what exactly might constitute a "content authority" score and how you can begin to understand your content's expertise like Google.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br>
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<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Hey, folks, this is Russ Jones here with another Whiteboard Friday, and today we're going to have fun. Well, at least fun for me, because this is completely speculative. We're going to be talking about this concept of <strong>content authority</strong> and just some ideas around ways in which we might be able to measure it. </p>
<p>Maybe Google uses these ways to measure it, maybe not. But at the same time, hopefully what we'll be able to do is come up with a better concept of metrics we can use to get at content authority. </p>
<p>Now, we know there's a lot of controversy around this. Google has said quite clearly that expertise, authority, and trustworthiness are very important parts of their Quality Rater Guidelines, but the information has been pretty flimsy on exactly what part of the algorithm helps determine exactly this type of content. </p>
<p>We do know that they aren't using the quality rater data to train the algorithm, but they are using it to reject algorithm changes that don't actually meet these standards. </p>
<h2>How do we measure the authoritativeness of content?</h2>
<p>So how can we go about measuring content authority? Ultimately, any kind of idea that we talk about in search engine optimization has to boil down in some way, shape, or form to <strong>a set of measurements </strong>that are being made and in somehow shape or form being used to rank one page over another. </p>
<p>Now sometimes it makes sense just to kind of feel it, like if you're writing for humans, be a human. But authoritative content is a little bit more difficult than that. It's a little harder to just off the top of your head know that this content is authoritative and this isn't. In fact, the Quality Rater Guidelines are really clear in some of the examples of what would be considered really highly authoritative content, like, for example, in the News section they mention that it's written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author. </p>
<p>Well, I don't know how many of you have Pulitzer Prize winning authors on your staff or whose clients have Pulitzer Prize winning authors. So I don't exactly see how that's particularly helpful to individuals like ourselves who are trying to produce authoritative content from a position of not being an award-winning writer. </p>
<p>So today I want to just go through a whole bunch of ideas, that have been running through my head with the help of people from the community who've given me some ideas and bounced things off, that we might be able to use to do a better job of understanding authoritative content. All right. </p>
<h2>1. ALBERT</h2>
<p>So these are what I would consider some of the potential measures of authoritative content. The first one, and this is just going to open up a whole rat's nest I'm sure, but okay, ALBERT. We've talked about the use of BERT for understanding language by Google. Well, ALBERT, <strong>which stands for "a lighter BERT</strong>," is a similar model used by Google, and it's actually been trained in specific circumstances for the goal of answering questions. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-23-at-5-97453.jpg" data-image="ebds97hqu2gb" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>Now that might not seem like a particularly big deal. We've been doing question answering for a whole long time. Featured snippets are exactly that. But ALBERT has jumped on the scene in such a dominant fashion as to have eclipsed anything we've really seen in this kind of NLP problem. </p>
<p>So if you were to go to the SQuAD dataset competition, which is Stanford's Question Answering competition, where they've got these giant set of questions and giant set of documents and then they had humans go in and find the answers in the documents and say which documents don't have answers and which do, and then all sorts of different organizations have produced models to try and automatically find the answers. </p>
<p>Well, this competition has just been going back and forth and back and forth for a really long time between a bunch of heavy hitters, like Google, Baidu, multiple Microsoft teams. We're talking the smartest people in the world, the Allen Institute, all fighting back and forth. </p>
<p>Well, right now, ALBERT or variations thereof have the top 5 positions and 9 of the top 10 positions, and all of them perform better than humans. That is dominance. So we've got right here this incredible technology for answering questions. </p>
<p>Well, <strong>what does this have to do with content authority?</strong> Why in the world would this matter? Well, if you think about a document, any kind of piece of content that we produce, the intention is that we're going to be answering the questions that our customers want answered. So any topic we start with, let's say the topic we started with was data science, well, there are probably a lot of questions people want to know about that topic. </p>
<p>They might want to know: What is a data scientist? How much money do they make? What kind of things do you need to know to be a data scientist? Well, this is where something like ALBERT could come in and be extremely valuable for measuring the authoritativeness of the content. You see, what if one of the measures of the authoritative content is how well that content answers all of the related questions to the topic? </p>
<p>So you could imagine Google looking at all of the pages that rank for data science, and they know the top 10 questions that are asked about it, and then seeing which piece of content answers those 10 questions best. If they were able to do that, that would be a pretty awesome metric for determining how thorough and how significant and valuable and useful and authoritative that content is. </p>
<p>So I think this one, the ALBERT algorithm really has a lot of potential. But let's move on from that. There are all sorts of other things that might have to do with content authority. </p>
<h2>2. Information density</h2>
<p>One that I really like is this idea of information density. So a lot of times when we're writing content, especially when we're not familiar with the topic, we end up writing a lot of fluff. </p>
<p>We kind of are just putting words in there to meet the word length that is expected by the contract, even though we know deep down that the number of words on the page really doesn't determine whether or not it's going to rank. So one of the ways that you can get at whether a piece of content is actually valuable or not or at least is providing important information is using natural language programs to extract information. </p>
<h3>ReVerb + OpenIE</h3>
<p>Well, the probably most popular NLP open source or at least openly available technology started as a project called ReVerb and now has merged into the Open IE project. But essentially, you can give it a piece of content, and it will extract out all of the factual claims made by that content. </p>
<p>So if I gave it a paragraph that said tennis is a sport that's played with a racket and a ball and today I'm having a lot of fun, something of that sort, it would be able to identify the factual claim, what tennis is, that it's a sport played with a racket and a ball. </p>
<p>But it would ignore the claim that I'm having a lot of fun today, because that's not really a piece of information, a factual claim that we're making. So the concept of information density would be <strong>the number of facts that can be extracted from a document versus the total number of words</strong>. All right. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-23-at-6-37554.png" data-image="5cznt4moapl8" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>If we had that measurement, then we could pretty easily sift through content that is just written for length versus content that is really information rich. Just imagine a Wikipedia article, how dense the information is in there relative to the type of content that most of us produce. So what are some other things? </p>
<h2>3. Content style</h2>
<p>Let's talk about content style. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-23-at-5-99252.jpg" data-image="b0ol13xxmy8y" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>This would be a really easy metric. We could talk about the use of<strong> in-line citations</strong>, which Wikipedia does, in which after stating a fact they then link to the bottom of the page where it shows you the citation, just like you would do if you were writing a paper in college or a thesis, something that would be authoritative. Or the use of<strong> fact lists</strong> or <strong>tables of contents</strong>, like Wikipedia does, or using <strong>datelines</strong> accurately or AP style formatting. </p>
<p>These are all really simple metrics that, if you think about it, the types of sites that are more trustworthy more often use. If that's the case, then they might be hints to Google that the content that you're producing is authoritative. So those aren't the only easy ones that we could look at. </p>
<h2>4. Writing quality</h2>
<p>There are a lot of other ones that are pretty straightforward, like dealing with writing quality. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-23-at-5-135793.jpg" data-image="arpl30of473x" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>How easy is it to make sure you are using <strong>correct spelling</strong> and <strong>correct grammar</strong>? But have you ever looked at the <strong>reading level</strong>? Has it ever occurred to you to make sure that the content that you're writing isn't written at a level so difficult that no one can understand it, or is written at a level so low as to be certainly not thorough and not authoritative? If your content is written at a third-grade level and the page is about some health issue, I imagine Google could use that metric pretty quickly to exclude your site. </p>
<p>There are also things like <strong>sentence length</strong>, which deals with readability, the <strong>uniqueness of the content</strong>, and also the <strong>word usage</strong>. This is a pretty straightforward one. Imagine that once again we're looking at data science, and Google looks at the words you use on your page. Then maybe instead of looking at all sites that mention data science, Google only looks at edu sites or Google only looks at published papers and then compares the language usage there. </p>
<p>That would be a pretty easy way for Google to identify a piece of content that's meant for consumers that is authoritative versus one that's meant for consumers and isn't. </p>
<h2>5. Media styles</h2>
<p>Another thing we can look at is media styles. This is something that is a little bit more difficult to understand how Google might actually be able to take advantage of. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-23-at-5-85398.jpg" data-image="kg0m9xiyz7ma" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>But at the same time, I think that these are measurable and easy for search engine optimizers, like ourselves, to use. </p>
<h3>Annotated graphs</h3>
<p>One would be annotated graphs. I think we should move away from graph images and move more towards using open source graphing libraries. That way the actual factual information, the numbers can be provided to Google in the source code. </p>
<h3>Unique imagery</h3>
<p>Unique imagery is obviously something that we would care about. In fact, it's actually listed in the Quality Rater Guidelines. </p>
<h3>Accessibility</h3>
<p>Then finally, accessibility matters. I know that accessibility doesn't make content authoritative, but it does say something about the degree to which a person has cared about the details of the site and of the page. There's a really famous story about, and I can't remember what the band's name was, but they wrote into their contracts that for every concert they needed to have a bowl of M&Ms, with all of the brown M&Ms removed, waiting for them in the room. </p>
<p>Now it wasn't because they had a problem with the brown M&Ms or they really liked M&Ms or anything of that sort. It was just to make sure that they read the contract. Accessibility is kind of one of those things of where they can tell if you sweat the details or not. </p>
<h2>6. Clickbait titles, author quality, and Google Scholar</h2>
<p>Now finally, there are a couple of others that I think are interesting and really have to be talked about. The first is clickbait titles. </p>
<h3>Clickbait titles</h3>
<p>This is explicitly identified as something that Google looks at or at least the quality raters look at in order to determine that content is not authoritative. Make your titles say what they mean, not try to exaggerate to get a click. </p>
<h3>Author quality</h3>
<p>Another thing they say specifically is do you mention your author qualifications. Sure, you don't have a Pulitzer Prize writer, but your writer has some sort of qualifications, at least hopefully, and those qualifications are going to be important for Google in assessing whether or not the author actually knows what they're talking about. </p>
<h3>Google Scholar</h3>
<p>Another thing that I think we really ought to start looking at is Google Scholar. How much money do you think Google makes off of Google Scholar? Probably not very much. What's the point of having a giant database of academic information when you don't run ads on any of the pages? Well, maybe that academic information can be mined in a way so that they can judge the content that is made for consumers as to whether or not it is in line with, whether we're talking about facts or language or authoritativeness, with what academia is saying about that same topic. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-23-at-5-42538.jpg" data-image="cjmact5cqzyu" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"><span id="selection-marker-start" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span><span id="selection-marker-end" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span></figure>
<p>Now, course, all of these ideas are just ideas. We've got a giant question mark sitting out there about exactly how Google gets at content authority. That doesn't mean we should ignore it. So hopefully these ideas will help you come up with some ideas to improve your own content, and maybe you could give me some more ideas in the comment section. </p>
<p>That would be great and we could talk more about how those might be measured. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks again.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/">Speechpad.com</a></p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-42858262224962551382020-04-23T01:39:00.001-07:002020-04-23T01:39:28.924-07:00The Biggest SEO Trend You’re Ignoring<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/traffic.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>The screenshot above is my Google traffic over the last 12
months.</p>
<p>As you can see, my traffic is growing. And there are many reasons for that, but there is one trend that’s really caused the majority of my SEO growth.</p>
<p>You might be thinking it is <a href="https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/">Ubersuggest</a> because it makes up 22.4% of my traffic now. <em>But Ubersuggest has been integrated into NeilPatel.com for years, so that’s not it.</em></p>
<p>Sure, that is responsible for some of my growth, but it’s not responsible for it skyrocketing like it has been.</p>
<p>So, what do you think it is?</p>
<p>Well, I’ll give you a hint…</p>
<span id="more-92040"></span>
<h2><strong>My traffic per region</strong></h2>
<p>Let’s look at my SEO traffic in a few different regions.</p>
<p>Here’s my traffic in the United States over the last 12
months:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/usseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Now here’s my traffic in the United Kingdom:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ukseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>And here are the stats for Canada:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/caseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>And Australia:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/auseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>You can see that they have all increased, but not enough to
cause the big spikes.</p>
<p>Now let’s look at some of the international markets we have been focusing on over the last few years.</p>
<p>Here’s Spain:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/spseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Here’s India:</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/inseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>And here is the first international market we expanded to,
Brazil.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/brseo.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As you can see, the international markets are growing at a much faster pace, especially Brazil. But that is because we have been focusing on our SEO in Brazil more than any other country (outside of our main English markets).</p>
<p><em>Why you may ask?</em></p>
<h2><strong>Because a Google employee told me to</strong></h2>
<p>The <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-strategy-google/">most vital SEO lesson I learned came from a friend at Google</a>, but they didn’t tell me anything that was really a secret…</p>
<p>They told me that the majority of the searches on the web aren’t done in English, they are done in other languages.</p>
<p>And in the English markets, everyone is competing, which
means tons of sites and content from Google to choose from when it comes to determining
which site should rank number 1 for any given keyword.</p>
<p>But the international markets are the opposite. There is a lot of demand but not enough sites for Google to choose from when it comes to rankings.</p>
<p>So even though there are tons of <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-ultimate-google-algorithm-cheat-sheet/">algorithm
updates</a> and SEO is becoming more difficult, it isn’t always the case with
many international markets.</p>
<p>And the graphs above show it. As you can see, I’m getting huge traffic growth in those regions.</p>
<p><em>So, what should you do? Especially if you are starting
off and don’t have a big budget or any budget for that matter…</em></p>
<h2><strong>Follow Amazon</strong></h2>
<p>Wherever you see big corporations like Amazon investing, it
means there is money to be made in those regions.</p>
<p>Amazon has invested billions into regions like India:</p>
<ul><li>Amazon originally decided to take a long view on India and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-takes-a-long-view-with-2-billion-india-investment-1407474521">invest 2 billion dollars</a>.</li><li>Then they decided 2 billion wasn’t enough so they <a href="https://de.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-india/bezos-says-amazon-to-up-india-investment-to-5-billion-idUSKCN0YU01M">increased it to 5 billion</a>.</li><li>And then they decided to add in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/amazon-upping-india-investment-by-2-billion-report-says.html">another 2 billion dollars</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-said-amazon-is-investing-1-billion-in-india-2020-1">Amazon is investing a billion dollars to digitize small and medium businesses</a>.</li></ul>
<p>It’s safe to say over the years Amazon will pour in well over $10 billion into India.</p>
<p>That’s a big bet for someone to make. And you can assume it’s a calculated bet because they think there is much more money to be made.</p>
<p>And it’s not just India…</p>
<p>Amazon is investing <a href="https://labs.ebanx.com/en/news/technology/was-investment-brazil/">$236 million into Brazil</a> to boost up their cloud infrastructure. And they’ve invested over <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-add-jobs-france-part-120912829.html">$2.26 billion dollars in France</a>. They are pretty much going after the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/672782/net-sales-of-amazon-leading-markets/">whole world</a>.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/saleschart.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As you can see from the graph, Germany is its second-biggest market and Japan is also up there. But what’s interesting is the green bar as that represents the “rest of the world” and that green bar has been growing at a fast pace.</p>
<p>Now, I get that none of us are Amazon and we don’t have huge
budgets, so I wanted to take a minute and break down how you can do this on a
global scale without breaking the bank.</p>
<h2><strong>International SEO on a budget</strong></h2>
<p>When I first started to expand internationally, my business
was much smaller and we didn’t have much money, if any, to spend on
international SEO.</p>
<p>Yes, I am an SEO, so you would think that it makes it easier, but not really because the only language I am fluent in is English.</p>
<p>And if you fast forward to today, I’m still only fluent in
English, but we have 7 offices around the world.</p>
<p>And we did it without laying out any of our own money. Yes, it did take time and it will for you too, but that’s the only way to do it when you are starting off and are small.</p>
<p><em>So how did we expand internationally without spending upfront?</em></p>
<p>We partnered with locals.</p>
<p>Why not find people in these regions who speak English as well as the local language of the country you are trying to expand to?</p>
<p>There are so many people without jobs, you’ll be shocked by how many people will be open to a partnership. All you have to do is look at Facebook groups and forums to find people in your space who live overseas.</p>
<p>Here’s how I structure each partnership:</p>
<ul><li>I have the person, or a group of people, translate my content to that region’s language.</li><li>I have them read my English blog posts so they can learn SEO (if they don’t already know it… nowadays I look for people who already know SEO as I have been doing this long enough and can spend some money).</li><li>In exchange for them growing my traffic in that region, I give them a portion of the profits I make within that region. You can structure where you give them anywhere from 10% to 30%. You don’t want to go too low on the profit-sharing as you want them to work hard, but you also don’t want to go too high where you are giving away everything.</li><li>They put in the work each day, and they have 3 months to show some traction, and within 6 months they should have significant growth. Keep in mind it is less competitive, so it is easier to get results. You can also work with them on creating goals and milestones.</li><li>If they don’t show results, the partnership ends, and I don’t have to give them anything. If they show results, we keep pushing forward.</li></ul>
<p>Now that we’ve covered structuring your international SEO expansion, let’s go over how you do it.</p>
<h2><strong>International SEO</strong></h2>
<p>I’ve written a handful of blog posts that break down the
steps on growing your traffic in new languages and countries, but before I
share them, I wanted to break down the 2 biggest lessons I learned:</p>
<ol><li><strong>Transcribe the content, not translate</strong> – when you work with a partner overseas, they may think you want your content translated or that you want content written in their language just like how people would write the content in the US. That won’t work because cultures are different and keywords are different, so transcribe the content and adjust it to each country.</li><li><strong>You want a partner that lives in that country </strong>– if you expand into a country where you don’t have a partner on the ground you won’t see great results. By having people on the ground, you can more easily build up your brand, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-future-of-seo/">which has a big impact on rankings</a>.</li></ol>
<p>Here are some resources that will show you how to do
international SEO:</p>
<ul><li><a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/global-seo/">This post</a> will break down how to create a global SEO strategy.</li><li>And <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/international-seo/">follow this</a> to setup SEO correctly for different languages and countries. Keep in mind that Google doesn’t penalize for duplicate content, so don’t worry about having similar content or the same content for different regions.</li><li>Here’s how to <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/expand-seo-internationally/">expand internationally profitably</a>.</li><li>This will teach you the fundamentals of<a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-international-seo/"> reaching a global audience</a>.</li></ul>
<p>Funny enough, one of the reasons I created Ubersuggest was
to build a tool that would help my team and I expand internationally.</p>
<p>Here’s a feature in Ubersuggest that will help you, that
most people don’t know about.</p>
<p>So head over to <a href="https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/">Ubersuggest</a>
and type in a competitor that you know is big and has a global presence.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ubersuggesthp.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>I want you to click on the “Top Pages” navigational option
in the sidebar.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/toppages.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This shows you all of the top pages that your competitors
have.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tpresults.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>But don’t focus on those results. I want you to look at the regions that make up some of your competitions’ traffic… you’ll see that number next to each flag.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tpflag.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Click on one of the regions that you are considering
expanding into. You’ll now see the results adjusted.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/brtoppages.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As you can see from the screenshot above, those are all of the pages on my site that are really popular in Brazil.</p>
<p>Now, I want you to click on “view all” under “Est. Visits”
as that will show you all of the keywords that drive traffic to that page.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/brkeywords.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This will provide you with a laundry list of international keywords that you can give to your team so they can start creating content to go after them.</p>
<p>I also want you to click on “view all” under “Backlinks” as
this will show you who links to your competition. You can then create a list of
sites to reach out to so you can get them to link to you.</p>
<p>That’s the simple strategy we used to hit it hard in regions like Brazil and what we are also doing in countries like India, Spain, Mexico, France, Germany, and countless other countries.</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion</strong></h2>
<p>English is a great language. And I love the United States as
well as other English-speaking countries.</p>
<p>But that’s not where the opportunity is. There is more opportunity in global markets, which is why you need to follow the trend of international SEO.</p>
<p>Even if some of these countries don’t have as high of a GDP compared to the United States, it’s fine. Remember there aren’t as many competitors, which means you will have a lot of opportunities to still do really well.</p>
<p><em>So what region are you going to expand to first?</em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-trend/">The Biggest SEO Trend You’re Ignoring</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com">Neil Patel</a>.</p>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KISSmetrics/~3/UfnO03jXQWU/" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-47500513144035652562020-04-22T08:18:00.001-07:002020-04-22T08:18:10.233-07:00How Google SERP Layouts Affect Searching Behavior<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/4285793\">Stephen_Job</a></p><p>There are several studies (and lots of data) out there about how people use Google SERPs, what they ignore, and what they focus on. An example is <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets-experiment">Moz’s recent experiment</a> testing whether SEOs should continue optimizing for featured snippets or not (especially now that Google has announced that if you have a featured snippet, you no longer appear elsewhere in the search results).</p>
<p>Two things I have never seen tested are the actual user reactions to and behavior with SERPs. My team and I set out to test these ourselves, and this is where biometric technology comes into play. </p>
<h2>What is biometric technology and how can marketers use it?</h2>
<p>Biometric technology measures physical and behavioral characteristics. By combining the data from eye tracking devices, galvanic skin response monitors (which measure your sweat levels, allowing us to measure subconscious reactions), and facial recognition software, we can gain useful insight into behavioral patterns.</p>
<p>We’re learning that biometrics can be used in a broad range of settings, from UX testing for websites, to evaluating consumer engagement with brand collateral, and even to measuring emotional responses to TV advertisements. In this test, we also wanted to see if it could be used to help give us an understanding of how people actually interact with Google SERPs, and provide insight into searching behavior more generally.</p>
<h2>The plan</h2>
<p>The goal of the research was to assess the impact that SERP layouts and design have on user searching behavior and information retrieval in Google. </p>
<p>To simulate natural searching behavior, our UX and biometrics expert Tom Pretty carried out a small user testing experiment. Users were asked to perform a number of Google searches with the purpose of researching and buying a new mobile phone. One of the goals was to capture data from every point of a customer journey. </p>
<p>Participants were given tasks with specific search terms at various stages of purchasing intent. While prescribing search terms limited natural searching behavior, it was a sacrifice made to ensure the study had the best chance of achieving consistency in the SERPs presented, and so aggregated results could be gained. </p>
<p>The tests were run on desktop, although in the future we have plans to expand the study on mobile. </p>
<p>Users began each task on the Google homepage. From there, they informed the moderator when they found the information they were looking for. At that point they proceeded to the next task. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img alt="How the test was split up and the layouts we wanted to test for" src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/google-serp-layouts-searching-behavior/5e9f3070048452.17388360.png" width="624" height="207" data-image="zcpsg7k76x3h"></figure>
<h3>Data inputs</h3>
<ul><li>Eye tracking</li><li>Facial expression analysis</li><li>Galvanic skin response (GSR)</li></ul>
<h3>Data sample</h3>
<ul><li>20 participants</li></ul>
<h3>Key objectives</h3>
<ul><li>Understand gaze behavior on SERPs (where people look when searching)</li><li>Understand engagement behavior on SERPs (where people click when searching)</li><li>Identify any emotional responses to SERPs (what happens when users are presented with ads?)</li><li>Interaction analysis with different types of results (e.g. ads, shopping results, map packs, Knowledge Graph, rich snippets, PAAs, etc.). </li></ul>
<h2>Research scenario and tasks</h2>
<p>We told participants they were looking to buy a new phone and were particularly interested in an iPhone XS. They were then provided with a list of tasks to complete, each focused on searches someone might make when buying a new phone. Using the suggested search terms for each task was a stipulation of participation. </p>
<h3>Tasks</h3>
<ol><li>Find out the screen size and resolution of the iPhone XS<br>Search term: iPhone XS size and resolution</li><li>Find out the talk time battery life of the iPhone XS<br>Search term: iPhone XS talk time</li><li>Find reviews for the iPhone XS that give a quick list of pros and cons<br>Search term: iPhone XS reviews</li><li>Find the address and phone number of a phone shop in the town center that may be able to sell you an iPhone XS<br>Search term: Phone shops near me</li><li>Find what you feel is the cheapest price for a new iPhone XS (handset only)<br>Search term: Cheapest iPhone XS deals</li><li>Find and go on to buy a used iPhone XS online (stop at point of data entry)<br>Search term: Buy used iPhone XS</li></ol>
<p>We chose all of the search terms first for ease of correlating data. (If everyone had searched for whatever they wanted, we may not have gotten certain SERP designs displayed.) And second, so we could make sure that everyone who took part got exactly the same results within Google. We needed the searches to return a featured snippet, the Google Knowledge Graph, Google's “People also ask” feature, as well as shopping feeds and PPC ads. </p>
<p>On the whole, this was successful, although in a few cases there were small variations in the SERP presented (even when the same search term had been used from the same location with a clear cache). </p>
<p><em>“When designing a study, a key concern is balancing natural behaviors and giving participants freedom to interact naturally, with ensuring we have assets at the end that can be effectively reported on and give us the insights we require.” — Tom Pretty, UX Consultant, Coast Digital</em></p>
<h2>The results</h2>
<h3>Featured Snippets</h3>
<p>This was the finding that our in-house SEOs were most interested in. According to a study by Ahrefs, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/">featured snippets get 8.6% of clicks while 19.6% go to the first natural search below it</a>, but when no featured snippet is present, 26% of clicks go to the first result. At the time, this meant that having a featured snippet wasn’t terrible, especially if you could gain a featured snippet but weren't ranking first for a term. who doesn't want to have real estate above a competitor? </p>
<p>However, with <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1220096026981175296">Danny Sullivan of Google announcing</a> that if you appear in a featured snippet, you will no longer appear anywhere else in the search engine results page, we started to wonder how this would change what SEOs thought about them. Maybe we would see a mass exodus of SEOs de-optimising pages for featured snippets so they could keep their organic ranking instead. Moz’s recent experiment <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets-experiment">estimated a 12% drop in traffic to pages that lose their featured snippet</a>, but what does this mean about user behavior? </p>
<h4>What did we find out?</h4>
<p>In the information-based searches, we found that featured snippets actually attracted the most fixations. They were consistently the first element viewed by users and were where users spent the most time gazing. These tasks were also some of the fastest to be completed, indicating that featured snippets are successful in giving users their desired answer quickly and effectively.</p>
<p>All of this indicates that featured snippets are hugely important real estate within a SERP (especially if you are targeting question-based keywords and more informational search intent).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-1-talk-time-1581570.jpg" data-image="mwuash006cvf"></figure>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-2-size-and-resolution-1268502.jpg" data-image="3l2xp0blmkcy"></figure>
<p></p>
<p>In both information-based tasks, the featured snippet was the first element to be viewed (within two seconds). It was viewed by the highest number of respondents (96% fixated in the area on average), and was also clicked most (66% of users clicked on average). </p>
<h3>People also ask</h3>
<p>The “People also ask” (PAA) element is an ideal place to find answers to question-based search terms that people are actively looking for, but do users interact with them? </p>
<h4>What did we find out?</h4>
<p>From the results, after looking at a featured snippet, searchers skipped over the PAA element to the standard organic results. Participants did gaze back at them, but clicks in those areas were extremely low, thus showing limited engagement. This behavior indicates that they are not distracting users or impacting how they journey through the SERP in any significant way.</p>
<h3>Knowledge Graph</h3>
<p>One task involved participants searching using a keyword that would return the Google Knowledge Graph. The goal was to find out the interaction rate, as well as where the main interaction happened and where the gaze went.</p>
<h4>What did we find out?</h4>
<p>Our findings indicate that when a search with purchase intent is made (e.g. “deals”), then the Knowledge Graph attracts attention sooner, potentially because it includes visible prices. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-3-cheapest-iphone-2096060.jpg" data-image="y73s6bwzthau"></figure>
<p>By also introducing heat map data, we can see that the pricing area on the Knowledge Graph picked up significant engagement, but there was still a lot of attention focused on the organic results. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-4-cheapest-iphone-heatmap-1818251.jpg" data-image="icmathjib0jx"></figure>
<p>Essentially, this shows that while the knowledge graph is useful space, it does not wholly detract from the main SERP column. Users still resort to paid ads and organic listings to find what they are looking for. </p>
<h3>Location searches</h3>
<p>We have all seen data in Google Search Console with “near me” under certain keywords, and there is an ongoing discussion of why, or how, to optimise for them. From a pay-per-click (PPC) point of view, should you even bother trying to appear in them? By introducing such a search term in the study, we were hoping to answer some of these questions. </p>
<h4>What did we find out?</h4>
<p>From the fixation data, we found that most attention was dedicated to the local listings rather than the map or organic listings. This would indicate that the greater amount of detail in the local listings was more engaging. <br></p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-5-local-search-1303243.jpg" data-image="4c4dy6s8opqy"></figure>
<p>However, in a different SERP variant, the addition of the product row led to users spending a longer time reviewing the SERP and expressing more negative emotions. This product row addition also changed gaze patterns, causing users to progress through each element in turn, rather than skipping straight to the local results (which appeared to be more useful in the previous search).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-6-local-search-a-1469960.jpg" data-image="jzerj263iasr"></figure>
<p>This presentation of results being deemed irrelevant or less important by the searcher could be the main cause of the negative emotion and, more broadly, could indicate general frustration at having obstacles put in the way of finding the answer directly. </p>
<h3>Purchase intent searching</h3>
<p>For this element of the study, participants were given queries that indicate someone is actively looking to buy. At this point, they have carried out the educational search, maybe even the review search, and now they are intent on purchasing. </p>
<h4>What did we find out?</h4>
<p>For “buy” based searches, the horizontal product bar operates effectively, picking up good engagement and clicks. Users still focused on organic listings first, however, before returning to the shopping bar. </p>
<p>The addition of Knowledge Graph results for this type of search wasn't very effective, picking up little engagement in the overall picture. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-7-buy-used-1789744.jpg" data-image="jbgf2n15lpoo"></figure>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/image-8-buy-used-1630913.jpg" data-image="othrgqn3zqtv"></figure>
<p></p>
<p>These results indicate that the shopping results presented at the top of the page play a useful role when searching with purchasing intent. However, in both variations, the first result was the most-clicked element in the SERP, showing that a traditional PPC or organic listing remains highly effective at this point in the customer journey. </p>
<h2>Galvanic skin response</h2>
<p>Looking at GSR when participants were on the various SERPs, there is some correlation between the self-reported “most difficult” tasks and a higher than normal GSR.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/google-serp-layouts-searching-behavior/5e9f307075f845.95227094.png" width="625" height="390" data-image="2myxk7256m0i"></figure>
<p>For the “talk time” task in particular, the featured snippet presented information for the iPhone XS Max, not the iPhone XS model, which was likely the cause of the negative reaction as participants had to spend longer digging into multiple information sources.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/google-serp-layouts-searching-behavior/5e9f3071032503.72926262.png" width="480" height="288" data-image="om4ke2ijjgx5"></figure>
<p>For the “talk time” SERP, the challenges encountered when incorrect data was presented within a featured snippet likely caused the high difficulty rating. </p>
<h2>What does it all mean?</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, this wasn't the largest study in the world, but it was a start. Obviously, running this study again with greater numbers would be the ideal and would help firm up some of the findings (and I for one, would love to see a huge chunk of people take part). </p>
<p>That being said, there are some solid conclusions that we can take away: </p>
<ol><li>The nature of the search greatly changes the engagement behavior, even when similar SERP layouts are displayed. (Which is probably why they are so heavily split tested). </li><li>Featured snippets are highly effective for information-based searching, and while they led to some 33% of users choosing not to follow through to the site after finding the answer, two-thirds still clicked through to the website (which is very different from the data we have seen in previous studies). </li><li>Local listings (especially when served without a shopping bar) are engaging and give users essential information in an effective format. </li><li>Even with the addition of Knowledge Graph, “People also ask”, and featured snippets, more traditional PPC ads and SEO listings still play a big role in searching behavior.</li></ol>
<p>Featured snippets are not the worst thing in the world (contrary to the popular knee-jerk reaction from the SEO industry after Google's announcement). All that has changed is that now you have to work out what featured snippets are worth it for your business (instead of trying to just claim all of them). On purely informational or educational searches, they actually performed really well. People stayed fixated on them for a fairly lengthy period of time, and 66% clicked through. However, we also have an example of people reacting badly to the featured snippet when it contained irrelevant or incorrect information.</p>
<p>The findings also give some weight to the fact that a lot of SEO is now about context. What do users expect to see when they search a certain way? Are they expecting to see lots of shopping feeds (they generally are if it’s a purchasing intent keyword), but at the same time, they wouldn't expect to see them in an educational search. </p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>Hopefully, you found this study useful and learned something new about search behavior . Our next goal is to increase the amount of people in the study to see if a bigger data pool confirms our findings, or shows us something completely unexpected.</p>
<p></p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/BVi3Z3XmibI/google-serp-layouts-searching-behavior" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-39501859314057073152020-04-20T00:48:00.001-07:002020-04-20T00:48:03.594-07:00Why Site Speed Still Matters (Revisited)<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/80353\">mwiegand</a></p><h2>The marketing stack dictates infrastructure before content</h2>
<p>Success in an earned media channel like organic search hinges on content. Specifically, on producing helpful content that has the ability to rank. Google has focused its recent algorithmic updates largely on promoting great content and natural links, and penalizing weak content with unscrupulous links (see also: Medic, BERT, and its legacy predecessors like Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird). </p>
<p>But as SEO professionals prioritize content recommendations, keyword research, and link acquisition strategies (the more immediate factors in obtaining rankings), they risk devaluing technical changes — including site speed — that absolutely make clients more money on their existing organic audiences.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/why-site-speed-still-matters/5e9a1302ed11b2.08057444.png" width="455" height="263" data-image="hn0si4eebnng"></figure>
<p><br>No content or channel initiative works without infrastructure (i.e. fast websites) and analytics. They are foundational to digital marketing success.</p>
<p>Content marketing is undeniably effective at getting sites to rank in search engines, which might satiate a client’s curiosity about what SEO can do for their visibility. And you might even be able to get slow sites to rank consistently, but the lack of attention to infrastructure will eventually come back to haunt you in conversion rates. </p>
<h2>Site speed study</h2>
<p>Sending prospective customers generated by good content to websites with slow experiences erodes trust literally by the second.</p>
<p>Our latest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.portent.com/blog/analytics/research-site-speed-hurting-everyones-revenue.htm">site speed study</a> refresh looked at 10 websites spanning a number of industries and 26,000 different landing pages, ranging in performance from extremely slow pages (upwards of 9 seconds) to extremely fast (under one second).</p>
<p>The results showed that every second you can shave off your page load speed has intense conversion rate benefits that defy differences in verticals or selling approaches.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/goal-conversion-rates-15942.gif" data-image="691e5198f9cb"></figure>
<p>Pages that loaded in under one second converted at a rate around 2.5 times higher than pages that loaded slower than five seconds or more.</p>
<p>But the gains weren’t limited to fast vs. slow pages. The difference in conversion rates between “fast” pages (two-second load times) and “really fast” pages (under one second) was also more than double. This brings me to my next point.</p>
<h2>Users will demand even faster sites</h2>
<p>We first ran this survey in 2014 and, compared to today, the difference between “really fast” sites and “fast” sites wasn’t as stark as it is now. When we run it again in five years, expect the difference to be even more dramatic. Why? 5G adoption.</p>
<p>Ericsson’s mobility report, run back in November of last year, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/reports/november-2019">predicted 5G coverage would cover 65% of the world’s population in 2025</a>.</p>
<p>Another study run by Parks Associates last April shows that, while gigabit internet adoption has slowed in the US, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.broadbandtechreport.com/home/article/16446626/is-the-bloom-off-the-gigabit-rose">worldwide broadband adoption is expected to reach one billion households worldwide by 2023</a>.</p>
<p>When you factor in both those trends, the only thing throttling a mobile or desktop user’s experience will be poor web infrastructure.</p>
<h2>Prioritizing site speed</h2>
<p>If you’ve read this far, then you’ll agree the conversion rate benefits of a fast site are significant and the marketplace demand for fast user experiences is widening quickly. But what practical steps should you take toward a faster page speed and which of those steps should you prioritize?</p>
<p>Moz, of course, has a great guide on <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/learn/seo/page-speed">page speed best practices</a>. From that list, you have the following recommendations:</p>
<ul><li>Enable compression</li><li>Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML</li><li>Rede redirects</li><li>Remove render-blocking JavaScript</li><li>Leverage browser caching</li><li>Improve server response time</li><li>Use a content distribution network (CDN)</li><li>Optimize images and video</li></ul>
<p>If you were to reorder those recommendations in terms of difficulty to implement for the average search marketer and impact on site speed, it would probably go something like this:</p>
<h3>Low difficulty, low impact</h3>
<h4>Optimize images and video</h4>
<p>Marketers at any skill level can install a WordPress plugin like <a target="_blank" href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/">Smush</a> and automatically reduce the size of any image uploaded in a piece of new or existing content. It saves a surprising amount of time when every image on a page is appropriately sized and compressed.</p>
<h4>Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML</h4>
<p>Minifying code is another quick win. There are plenty of tools out there that minify code, like <a target="_blank" href="http://minifycode.com/">minifycode.com</a>. These tools essentially strip out all the spaces in the code, which can save a few kilobytes of size here and there. Those add up across an entire experience. It may take a developer to put these changes into place, but anybody can copy and paste code into the tools and send the minified version to the team doing the work.</p>
<h4>Remove render-blocking JavaScript</h4>
<p>Migrating to a tag management platform like <a target="_blank" href="https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/tag-manager/">Google Tag Manager</a> can take the JavaScript weight off of your pages and put them in a container where they can load as fast or as slow as they need to without impairing the rest of the content or functionality on the page. Tag Managers are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.portent.com/blog/analytics/do-i-need-to-be-using-a-tag-management-solution.htm">really easy to use</a> for non-technical folks, too!<br><br></p>
<h3>Medium difficulty, medium impact</h3>
<p>The three recommendations below can be a little harder depending on who manages your CMS or existing web server. It could be as easy as clicking a checkbox, or as difficult as writing custom redirect rules on your setup. You’ll probably need to consult with either an IT and/or web developer to get these done.</p>
<h4>Reduce redirects</h4>
<p>Most SEOs can relay a URL redirect map to a client or internal stakeholder to determine server-side redirects with ease. But some sites include more complicated client-side redirect schemes using JavaScript. Working with a front end developer to tackle changes to script-based redirects can be tricky if those JS files impact the site functionality in other material ways.</p>
<h4>Enable compression</h4>
<p>Enabling compression in Apache or IIS is a pretty straightforward process, but requires access to servers and htaccess files that IT organizations are reluctant to hand marketers control over.</p>
<h4>Leverage browser caching</h4>
<p>Similarly, browser caching of website resources that don’t change very often is easy to do if you have control of the htaccess file. If you don’t, there are caching plugins or extensions for various CMS platforms that marketers can install to manage these settings.<br><br></p>
<h3>High difficulty, high impact</h3>
<h4>Improve server response time</h4>
<p>Common ways to improve response times include finding a more reliable web hosting service, optimizing databases that deliver functionality to the site, and monitoring PHP usages. Again, all these things fall under IT purview and require additional decision-makers and costs to execute.</p>
<h4>Use a content distribution network (CDN)</h4>
<p>Adopting a CDN can be time-consuming, expensive (hundreds or thousands of dollars per month per domain depending on site traffic), and require expertise that the average marketer or consultant doesn’t have to enable. But if you can do it, studies suggest Google is measuring <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/improving-search-rank-by-optimizing-your-time-to-first-byte">time to first byte</a> as a ranking factor and the payoffs can be huge.</p>
<h2>Godspeed, everyone!</h2>
<p>Hopefully, this inspires you to go out and make progress on site speed initiatives in your organization or for your clients. Not only is it worth the undertaking from a business perspective, but it’s actively making the internet a better place to be for the average person. Those are both things every search marketer can be proud of.</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/AkLRQrr-s4E/why-site-speed-still-matters" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-19103518556188850382020-04-18T03:36:00.001-07:002020-04-18T03:36:15.696-07:00Opting Out of Google Featured Snippets Led to 12% Traffic Loss [SEO Experiment]<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/155620\">Cyrus-Shepard</a></p><p>Everyone wants to win Google featured snippets. Right?</p>
<p>At least, it used to be that way. <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets">Winning the featured snippet</a> typically meant extra traffic, in part because Google showed your URL twice: once in the featured snippet and again in regular search results. For publishers, this was known as "<strong>double-dipping</strong>."</p>
<p>All that changed in January when Google <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1220094125480919040">announced</a> they would de-duplicate search results to show the featured snippet URL only once on the first page of results. No more double-dips.</p>
<p>Publishers worried because <a target="_blank" href="https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/">older studies</a> suggested winning featured snippets drove less actual traffic than the "natural" top ranking result. With the new change, winning the featured snippet might actually now lead to less traffic, not more.</p>
<p>This led <a target="_blank" href="https://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/featured-snippets-will-no-longer-be-repeated-in-search-results/">many SEOs</a> to speculate: should you opt out of featured snippets altogether? Are featured snippets causing publishers to lose more traffic than they potentially gain? </p>
<p>Here's how we found the answer.</p>
<h2>The experiment</h2>
<p>Working with the team at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.searchpilot.com/">SearchPilot</a>, we devised an A/B split test experiment to remove Moz Blog posts from Google featured snippets, and measure the impact on traffic.</p>
<p>Using Google's <a target="_blank" href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en">data-nosnippet tag</a>, we identified blog pages with winning featured snippets and applied the tag to the main content of the page. </p>
<p>Our working hypothesis was that these pages would lose their featured snippets and return to the "regular" search results below. A majority of us also expected to see a negative impact on traffic, but wanted to measure exactly how much, and identify whether the featured snippets would return after we removed the tag. <br></p>
<p>In this example, Moz lost the featured snippet almost immediately. The snippet was instead awarded to <a href="https://www.contentkingapp.com/">ContentKing</a> and Moz returned to the top "natural" position.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/featured-snippets-607390.jpg" data-image="cv5d2h5b9oh4" alt="Featured Snippets Experiment" title="Featured Snippets Experiment"></figure>
<p>Here is another example of what happened in search results. After launching the test, the featured snippet was awarded to Backlinko and we returned to the top of the natural results.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/featured-snippets-2-618793.jpg" data-image="5euogekl566t" alt="Featured Snippets Experiment Examples" title="Featured Snippets Experiment Examples"></figure>
<p>One important thing to keep in mind is that, while these keywords triggered a featured snippet, pages can rank for hundreds or thousands of different keywords in different positions. So the impact of losing a single featured snippet can be somewhat softened when your URL ranks for many different keywords — some which earn featured snippets and some which don't. </p>
<h2>The results</h2>
<p>After adding the data-nosnippet tag, our variant URLs <em>quickly lost their featured snippets</em>.<br><br>How did this impact traffic? Instead of gaining traffic by opting-out of featured snippets, we found we actually <em>lost a significant amount of traffic</em> quite quickly.</p>
<p>Overall, we measured an estimated <strong>12% drop</strong> in traffic for all affected pages after losing featured snippets (95% confidence level).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/experiment-results-92126.jpg" data-image="lhhfpkksf1ug" alt="Featured Snippets Experiment Results" title="Featured Snippets Experiment Results"><figcaption>This chart represents the cumulative impact of the test on organic traffic. The central blue line is the best estimate of how the variant pages, with the change applied, performed compared to how we would have expected without any changes applied. The blue shaded region represents our 95% confidence interval: there is a 95% probability that the actual outcome is somewhere in this region. If this region is wholly above or below the horizontal axis, that represents a statistically significant test.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>What did we learn?</h2>
<p>With the addition of the “data-nosnippet” attribute, the test had a significantly negative impact on organic traffic. In this experiment, owning the featured snippet and not ranking in the top results provides more value to these pages in terms of clicks than not owning the featured snippet and ranking in the top results. </p>
<p>Adding in the “data-nosnippet” attribute, not only were we able to stop Google from pulling data in that section of the HTML page to use as a snippet, but we were also able to confirm that we would rank again in the SERP, whether that is ranking in position one or lower. </p>
<p>As an additional tool, we were also tracking keywords using <a target="_blank" href="https://getstat.com/">STAT Search Analytics</a>. We were able to monitor changes in ranking for pages that had featured snippets, and noticed that it took about seven days or more from the time of launching the test for Google to cache the changes we made and for the featured snippets to be overtaken by another ranking page, if another page was awarded a featured snippet spot at all. The turnaround was quicker after we ended the test, though, as some of these featured snippets returned as quickly as the next day.</p>
<p>However, a <strong>negative aspect </strong>of running this test was that, although some pages were crawled and indexed with the most recent changes, <em>the featured snippet did not return</em> and has now either been officially given to competing pages or never returned at all.</p>
<p>To summarize the significant findings of this test:</p>
<ol><li>Google's nosnippet tags can effectively <em>opt out publishers from featured snippets</em>.</li><li>In this test, we measured an estimated <strong>12% drop in traffic</strong> after losing featured snippets.</li><li>After ending the test, we <em>failed to win back a portion of the featured snippets</em> we previously ranked for.</li></ol>
<p>For the vast majority of publishers <strong>winning the featured snippet likely remains the smart strategy</strong>. There are undoubtedly exceptions but as a general "best practice" if a keyword triggers a featured snippet, it's typically in your best interest to rank for it.</p>
<p>What are your experiences with winning featured snippets? Let us know in the comments below.</p>
<div class="alert-page info">
<div class="alert-content">Note: This post was co-authored by Cyrus Shepard and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rida-abidi/">Rida Abidi</a>.</div>
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<p>Join Moz SEO Scientist, <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/about/team/drpete">Dr. Pete Meyers</a>, Wednesdays in April at 1:30 p.m. PT on Twitter and ask <strong>your most pressing questions</strong> about how to navigate SEO changes and challenges in a COVID-19 world. Tweet your questions all week long to <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/moz">@Moz</a> using the hashtag #AskMoz. </p>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/ylDWg9e5bPk/featured-snippets-experiment" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-5271804831757453502020-04-17T00:39:00.001-07:002020-04-17T00:39:09.966-07:00Matter. How SEOs Can Help... Now - Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/4260765\">rjonesx.</a></p><p>As SEOs, we hold a surprising amount of influence over how the world gets its information. In times like these, when businesses of all stripes are facing uncertainty and we may be looking for ways to help, the skills you use in your day job can be your superpower. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Russ Jones outlines five ways SEOs can make a difference amid the chaos of COVID-19 — just by doing your job and doing it well.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;" class="caption">Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br>
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<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Hey, folks. This is Russ Jones here, Adjunct Search Scientist at Moz and Principal Search Scientist at System1. Today is my first day giving a Whiteboard Friday from my home here in Cary, North Carolina. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it's with a somber attitude as many of you are at home right now realizing what's going on in the world. Normally, at this time of night, I figured I'd be having a scotch, so maybe I'll start with that. You see, we all need to relax a bit because things are tough and difficult. </p>
<p>But at the same time one of the things that's been troubling me a lot lately through this whole crisis has been how much do I matter? How do I make myself matter? Now, sure, I've got kids and a wife, so I work and I do things that help them to thrive. </p>
<p>But in my day-to-day job, most of what I do is work on search engine optimization and trying to get sites to rank, which can sometimes be really good and sometimes be really bad, and most of the time it's just somewhere in the middle. You're helping businesses do better. </p>
<h2>How can SEOs help now?</h2>
<p>But in a time like this, it almost feels like there's a calling for us to do something more. Today I want to talk a little bit about some of the ideas I've had on how as search engine optimizers and web professionals in general we might be able to matter just a little bit more and make just a little bit more of a difference during this pressing time. </p>
<p>So let's start off. How can SEOs help now? </p>
<h2>1. Combat misinformation</h2>
<p>Well, I think one of the first things that search engine optimizers have the ability to do obviously is to influence the search results. But we know right now that a serious problem that's plaguing social media and search engines and really just to all information in general is misinformation, information getting out there about what works and what doesn't to try and help stop the coronavirus. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-16-at-3-496940.jpg" data-image="x9mvr8hsb9d2" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>Whether this information is well-intentioned or not is of no impact if it actually does cause harm. So as a search engine optimizer, one of the things that you have the ability to do is actually try and help out the sites that deserve to rank, the sites that are providing information. </p>
<p>I noticed if you were to search in Google for alternate cures for COVID, the first two things that would come up were colloidal silver and garlic. It seems like for some reason everything can be cured with the same stuff that kills vampires and werewolves. I'm not sure where this came from, but regardless it's there. </p>
<p>It's in the SERPs. In fact, you can search right now for how to cure COVID-19 with silver, and you'll find sites that rank that try and tell you this works, and we know it doesn't. So I'm not telling you that we should Google-bomb everybody out there who has a good website that's doing the right thing and providing good information. </p>
<p>But perhaps when you're writing your blog posts or presenting information online to your customers about COVID-19, you should take the time to think about: <strong>Who can I link to, what sites can I link to that are going to give information that will help my customers, and not just think of them as customers, but help their families? </strong></p>
<p>So when you write an article about the discount that your business is offering, perhaps you might want to link to maybe the CDC's website, which will list off the different treatments available. Or if you run a local business, perhaps you can list off the various sites which are available for COVID testing. Now there are lots of different ways that we can go about this, and I'm not going to give you a list of sites that you should link to. </p>
<p>But there are probably sites that you visit almost every day, checking on the stats, seeing how things are going, and perhaps you should share those with the world and share them in a way that can make Google better. </p>
<h2>2. Hire the best writers</h2>
<p>Now the second thing that I want to bring up right now is actually an interesting opportunity. You see, right now, a lot of professionals, a lot of experts are simply out of work. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-16-at-3-825219.jpg" data-image="w8m1nc7gl650" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>You see, as much as it's nice to be a search engine optimizer and work on a computer where you could be on the beach or in the basement or in a cubicle if you have to, but where you can work from anywhere, that's just not the case for most people in America. In fact, a recent study came out and said that only 40% of jobs could possibly be completed remotely, and that's <em>possibly</em>. </p>
<p>That's not meaning that they will be or that it's easy to or efficient to or effective to, just possible. That number is staggering. But there is one thing that we can tap into in these times, and that thing we can tap into is <strong>expertise</strong>. </p>
<p>You see, we always talk about producing evergreen content for our clients. I just gave a Whiteboard Friday a couple of days back about <a href="https://moz.com/blog/content-expansion">how it's difficult, as an SEO, to write content about things you are not an expert in</a>. Well, for once, it turns out that there are lots of experts who need work and who would be let's just say the best opportunity you will ever have to produce truly evergreen content. </p>
<p>I mean think about the various areas of experts that are available to you. <strong>Hospitality</strong>, think about calling your local hotel and asking whether or not they can put you in touch with any concierge staff, even just by email. They know more about your city and about what tourists or individuals want in that city than perhaps anybody else. </p>
<p>Or you could talk about <strong>travel agents</strong>, and the same sort of information could be available to your website. You can understand how that if you're an SEO that works with a lot of local businesses, works with say a couple of different <strong>restaurants</strong>, well, then this concierge can then help provide you with third-party, unbiased information about these types of restaurants. </p>
<p>Then you can assist in the process of helping these restaurants move to an online and delivery service during their time of need. The same thing is true with <strong>entertainment</strong>. Recently an old employee of mine offered to fix the jingle, to come up with a new intro for some video production that Moz had made in the past. He's an incredibly talented individual. Luckily, he's also an SEO, so he can work remotely. But at the same time, maybe there's an opportunity to work with a truly talented artist or a truly talented musician to make the kinds of changes to your brand that you've always wanted to but have never been able to get access to. </p>
<p>Maybe the same thing is true if you're an information website and you write about <strong>sports</strong>, for example. Just because games aren't going on doesn't mean that the history of the sport doesn't need to be reported on and that there isn't an opportunity to produce some of the best content, the most reflective content that's ever existed on the web. </p>
<h2>3. Adwords SMB credits</h2>
<p>Then third I think we can tap into almost any kind of sales representative out there. These people not only pride themselves on the knowledge, but the knowledge that they have of the products that they sell is what makes them able to sell it. These types of sales reps, whether they're in technology, whether they're selling who knows, audiovisual equipment, it doesn't really matter. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-16-at-3-338175.jpg" data-image="e2iatvswjinc" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>What matters is the fact that they are experts and they have the unique capability to write about content better than anybody else. For once, for this short period of time, they're looking for that opportunity. So that's one thing that I want you to really focus on is the opportunity here for you to serve yourself and your customers and those in need all at the same time. </p>
<p>It's possible if you only look in all of the right places. Now that's not all that we can do. Now one of the things that has been really interesting has been the response of a handful of the larger companies or organizations across the world. One of them — or two of them, for that matter — have been Google and Facebook. </p>
<p>Both of them have announced just enormous sums of money that they are going to pour into <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-offer-ad-credits-grants-for-small-businesses-2020-3">free credits for small and medium businesses</a> inside of their representative ad platforms. But here's the thing. They can't really distinguish between the small businesses that are going to suffer and the small businesses that are going to do well during these times. </p>
<p>They're not necessarily sure whether or not the local store that's advertising on their website is already set up for e-commerce or whether or not they're just trying to bring people to the front door. Well, here's a unique opportunity, and I normally give a lot of grief to people in the paid search space because I think search engine optimization is just so wonderful. </p>
<p>But this is really for you paid search folks out here. What kind of opportunities are there amongst your clientele where you can co-market, where you can work with your customers who are healthy in this time of need to co-market on behalf of the customers who are not? You see, people are going to wake up with credits in their account. </p>
<p>Some of them are going to need it, and some of them are not. <strong>You are in a unique position to put those people together. </strong>Right now, if you're thinking about how you can help, I bet most of your customers are wondering how they might be able to as well. By simply putting them together, maybe, just maybe you'll have an opportunity to do well by all of your customers and hopefully help some people out who really need it. </p>
<h2>4. Healthy business? Help out by making your offer free</h2>
<p>The fourth thing I want to bring up is something we've seen a lot, which is how healthy businesses of all sizes are responding. A lot of them are providing some sort of discounts or offers. I want to be really careful here because I don't want to say that providing discounts and offers in these times is in any way let's say taking advantage or not giving respect to what's going on. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-16-at-3-322225.jpg" data-image="luctsn3i5lg7" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"></figure>
<p>It's actually really important that we seek out opportunities to help those in times of need. But I think that you really ought to be careful and be thoughtful and respectful of those who you will be helping in this manner. So one of the first things that I want to say is that<strong> if you are going to offer something, do your best to make it free. </strong></p>
<p>You see, there aren't lots of businesses right now who are going through just a little bit of hurt. There aren't a lot of people out there who are just going through a little bit of hurt. We're talking about a lot of people going through really difficult times. The deeper you can dig, even if it's carved out specifically for the individuals or businesses that are in the most desperate of times, the better it's going to be for them in the long run. </p>
<h3><em>Don't</em> set time traps</h3>
<p>Now one of the first tips I want to say is don't set time traps. I don't know what the word is for this, but I call them time traps. They're popping up left and right, which is, "Hey, we're going to give you the first X number of days free. Put in your credit card." It's a subtle but pretty obvious attempt that, over time, these individuals will forget about the credit card and hope that they end up just rolling into some payments that they otherwise wouldn't make. </p>
<p>Don't do that. If at all possible inside of your payment system, make some free trials or some free tools available to people that just don't require a credit card. That credit card right now is often meaning food for some of these people. So let's just be thoughtful. </p>
<h3><em>Do</em> target those most affected</h3>
<p>Now what you can do is target those who are most affected. </p>
<p>For example, a lot of businesses are offering services and discounts specifically for the families of first responders, doctors, and any kind of individual who's been identified as an employee or a place of business that must be open, like your pharmacy. Now the reason why you want to target these people is they're having to put their lives on the line literally every day, even though that's not something they really signed up for when they got into the business. So the least we can do is offer them our biggest discounts. </p>
<h3><em>Do</em> target those most helpful</h3>
<p>Third, we've got to be able to target those who are most helpful as well. You see, it's not just about the people who are in need. It's about the people who are helping those in need. I'll give you an example. Right now there's a serious crisis with domestic abuse in America. </p>
<p>You see, the quarantine has meant that people have had to stay home. It's, in that time, meant that the abused have had to spend more and more time with their abusers. Now there's probably a dozen domestic shelters within your area if you live in a larger city and certainly those across the state. </p>
<p>But how easy is it for those resources to be found? How much can they actually handle at this point? What do they need donations of? Do they need money? Do they need food? These are things you can find out and take advantage of. </p>
<p>But most importantly, as an SEO,<strong> you can help these organizations be easily discoverable, </strong>which is incredibly important right now, because people are in dire situations and need information fast. So there are opportunities here for you to offer services yourself, for the businesses that you support to offer services, and <strong>for you as an individual to simply contribute to all sorts of different individuals who are doing their best to get us through this crisis. </strong></p>
<h2>5. Online transition army</h2>
<p>Now the fifth thing I'd like to think about is some sort of online transition army. Now most of us here are some sort of web professional or we own a business that has a website. But in all that we have done, there is some degree of experience that involves putting a business online or putting an organization online. </p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2020-04-16-at-3-673621.jpg" data-image="0pcx9mdi1ggj" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;"><span id="selection-marker-start" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span><span id="selection-marker-end" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span></figure>
<p>Whatever that skill is that you've developed — maybe it's e-commerce, maybe it's shipping, maybe it's paid search, who knows what it is — it's time to pick up the phone and start calling the organizations that don't have this kind of representation and help them make the transition. </p>
<p>We know that there are tens of thousands of talented SEOs across the country and even more search marketers and even more web designers and developers. We know that they've got free cycles. I know I do. I'm recording this right now at I think it's about 9:30 EST. It was either this or Netflix. </p>
<p>We have the opportunity to make a really big difference. So whether that's helping a local business create an e-commerce version or helping them with shipping or even more often than not helping nonprofits collect donations online, there are just tons of opportunities for you and your organization to get involved and help make a difference for the companies that aren't already online. </p>
<p>Now I know you could think about this from the other direction, which is to say my business and my clients are online, and now is our chance to win because our competitors just weren't prepared. This is one of those times where I think you've got to question whether or not you really want to bring that karma upon you. </p>
<p><strong>Now is the opportunity to matter. </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>The last thing I would recommend is to<strong> let your employees and your benefactors and your deeds speak for themselves.</strong> You don't need to go out touting left and right all of the things that you're doing. </p>
<p>Certainly you should<strong> advertise the offers </strong>that you're giving so that you actually extend the reach. Certainly you should <strong>advertise the fact that you're looking for nonprofit organizations to help out online.</strong> While you should do that, the question you should ask yourself before you put out any kind of information about what you've done, about how you've helped is whether or not the time you're spending putting together that information and the dollars that you're spending putting out that information is worth the cost of the good that you could have done with that time and money doing something else. </p>
<h2>Share your ideas in the comments</h2>
<p>Now I want to end on a positive note. These are difficult times. But if there's one thing that I've seen time and time again is that people in our industry care and they're trying to make a difference. Now these are just some of the ideas that I came up with, and I'm betting in the Moz audience and across the Twittersphere and Reddit and all of social media that there are people who have other excellent ideas. </p>
<p><strong>I want you to fill the comments with those types of ideas</strong>, and we'll do our best to promote them. Thank you again for spending another Whiteboard Friday with me. God bless. Be healthy and I'll see you soon again. Bye.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/">Speechpad.com</a>
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Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-36582391161430495822020-04-16T04:39:00.001-07:002020-04-16T04:39:03.398-07:00Do Headings Really Impact Rankings?<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/headingtag.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>They say in SEO you need to use headings.</p>
<p>Those can be H1, H2, or even H3 tags.</p>
<p>But do they really impact your rankings?</p>
<p>Sure, a lot of CMS systems put headings on each of your web pages by default. They do this with the title of the page (or blog post) and sometimes to sections within a page.</p>
<p>But again, the real question is, do they help with rankings?</p>
<p>I decided to run a fun experiment to find out if they really help.</p>
<span id="more-91974"></span>
<h2><strong>How the experiment worked</strong></h2>
<p>Similar to past experiments I ran, I reached out to a portion of my email list to ask if they would like to participate. Just like how I did with the one on <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/blog-comments-links/">blog comment links</a> and this one on <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/links-building-google/">link building</a>.</p>
<p>4,104 of you responded wanting to participate. But unlike previous experiments, we only ran this one on websites that generated at least 100,000 visitors a month from organic search.</p>
<p>We picked larger sites because you can easily tell if a change had an impact on traffic. With smaller sites, external factors can more easily skew results, especially if a site only gets 100 visitors a month. One simple thing like a PR push could cause double the visitors in that case.</p>
<p>We also removed sites with seasonality and sites that weren’t at least 3 years old. Again, we just wanted to decrease anything skewing the results.</p>
<p>For example, with young sites, they tend to grow faster in organic traffic versus established sites… even when they do less SEO work because they are starting from a smaller base.</p>
<p>In the end, 61 sites met our requirements. It wasn’t a big number, but each site on average has 426 pages.</p>
<p>Now with a traditional A/B test, you would show 50% of your visitors one version and the other half a different version. But when it comes to SEO, you have to make a change and once Google indexes the change you have to compare the results to the previous 30 days.</p>
<p>So, with each site, we ran numerous tests at the same time to see the impact of headings. With each site, we took their web pages and split them up in 4 groups:</p>
<ul><li><strong>Control group</strong> – we left these pages unmodified. Whether they used headings or not, we wanted to see what happened to their organic traffic over time as it would give us another baseline to compare the results.</li><li><strong>Headings</strong> – with this group, we used H1 tags for the title of the page, H2 tags for the subsections of the page, and even H3 and H4 tags if the subsections had subsections. </li><li><strong>Using normal <p> text</strong> – with all of the pages in this group, we made sure they were not using headings. In addition to that, we made sure all of the font sizes were the same size.</li><li><strong>Using normal <p> text and adjusting font sizes</strong> – with this group, we didn’t use headings. Instead, we made sure different parts of the text were in different font sizes. For example, the title of the page was the largest font size. </li></ul>
<p>Before we dive into the results, the last thing to note is the experiment ran for 90 days. Even though we were comparing results of the pages we made the changes to using data from 30 days prior and 30 days after, keep in mind <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-index/">Google has to index the change</a>, so you have to account for that as well.</p>
<h2><strong>Control group</strong></h2>
<p>The control group saw an increase in traffic of 2.89%.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/controlgroup.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As I mentioned above, no changes were made to the control group. But it shows that they naturally grew in their rankings and search traffic over time.</p>
<p>This wasn’t much of a shocker either as 2.89% isn’t a large
jump.</p>
<h2><strong>Headings</strong></h2>
<p>Now when I saw the results of the group that was using
headings, the results were pretty much what I expected…</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/headingsgroup.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>As you can see from the graph above, the before and after results weren’t much of a change when you compare it to the control group. Instead of a 2.89% gain, they had a 2.72% gain.</p>
<p>Keep in mind some of the pages in the control group were naturally using headings and some weren’t. Again, in that group, we made no changes.</p>
<p>But now as we dive into the next two experiments, you’ll see
that the data gets interesting.</p>
<h2><strong>Using normal <p> text</strong></h2>
<p>What was interesting about this group is that no headings were used. And on top of that, we made sure all of the font sizes on these pages were exactly the same size.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/normalpgroup.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p><em>What we saw was a decrease in traffic of 3.53%. </em></p>
<p>That doesn’t seem like a big swing, but when you compare it to the control group that’s a difference of 6.42%.</p>
<p>Now I wanted to see if the drop in traffic was due to the use of headings or usability. Because you have to keep in mind that when you make all of the text on the page the same size it impacts usability as well.</p>
<p>It makes the page less readable. And we saw that as the average time on page dropped by 12%. As for the bounce rate, we didn’t see much of a change.</p>
<h2><strong>Using normal <p> text and adjusting font sizes</strong></h2>
<p>This group didn’t use any headings but they did use different font sizes on the page to keep the pages usable (readable).</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pgroupfonts.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>The graph shows that this group saw an increase in traffic of 2.85%.</p>
<p>Although headings may not be the biggest SEO factor, it does seem usability is.</p>
<p>When font sizes on a page are larger, it helps tell users and potentially search engines what part of a page and even which keywords are more important.</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion</strong></h2>
<p>When you compare all 4 groups, the control had the largest gains. But it was insignificant, and you have to keep in mind that a lot of the pages in the control group also use headings. <em>That group just had no changes.</em></p>
<p>From what the data shows, it doesn’t look like headings have a big impact on rankings. </p>
<p>Maybe if I ran the experiment longer the data would have shown otherwise, but my hunch tells me the data would be similar.</p>
<p>One thing we didn’t try was removing headings from all pages of a site or adding headings to all pages of a site that didn’t have any in the first place. If I were to re-run the experiment I would add in these 2 tests.</p>
<p>From what the data shows, Google does care about usability. Having different font sizes on a page helps tell the reader which elements are more important than others. It also makes the page easier to read.</p>
<p>Whether you make certain elements or words on the page stand
out through large font sizes or headings, it’s clear that it is a good
practice.</p>
<p>Now if I were you, I would still use headings because it can be useful for accessibility software that helps users navigate a page. Plus, it can potentially help with other search engines like <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/a-simple-guide-to-bing-seo/">Bing</a>.</p>
<p>Plus with SEO, you aren’t going to see massive gains from one single tactic like you used to be able to. It’s about doing every little thing right. That’s why I recommend you run your site <a href="https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/">through this audit</a> and fix every error.</p>
<p><em>So, do you use headings on your site?</em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/headings-impact-seo/">Do Headings Really Impact Rankings?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com">Neil Patel</a>.</p>
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Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-37085809635136313182020-04-15T03:51:00.001-07:002020-04-15T03:51:29.156-07:00Opting-Out of Google Featured Snippets Led to 12% Traffic Loss [SEO Experiment]<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/155620\">Cyrus-Shepard</a></p><div class="alert-page info">
<div class="alert-content">Note: This post was co-authored by Cyrus Shepard and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rida-abidi/">Rida Abidi</a>.</div>
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<p>Everyone wants to win Google featured snippets. Right?</p>
<p>At least, it used to be that way. <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets">Winning the featured snippet</a> typically meant extra traffic, in part because Google showed your URL twice: once in the featured snippet and again in regular search results. For publishers, this was known as "<strong>double-dipping</strong>."</p>
<p>All that changed in January when Google <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1220094125480919040">announced</a> they would de-duplicate search results to show the featured snippet URL only once on the first page of results. No more double-dips.</p>
<p>Publishers worried because <a target="_blank" href="https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/">older studies</a> suggested winning featured snippets drove less actual traffic than the "natural" top ranking result. With the new change, winning the featured snippet might actually now lead to less traffic, not more.</p>
<p>This led <a target="_blank" href="https://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/featured-snippets-will-no-longer-be-repeated-in-search-results/">many SEOs</a> to speculate: should you opt-out of featured snippets altogether? Are featured snippets causing publishers to lose more traffic than they potentially gain? </p>
<p>Here's how we found the answer.</p>
<h2>The experiment</h2>
<p>Working with the team at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.searchpilot.com/">SearchPilot</a>, we devised an A/B split test experiment to remove Moz Blog posts from Google featured snippets, and measure the impact on traffic.</p>
<p>Using Google's <a target="_blank" href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en">data-nosnippet tag</a>, we identified blog pages with winning featured snippets and applied the tag to the main content of the page. </p>
<p>Our working hypothesis was that these pages would lose their featured snippets and return to the "regular" search results below. A majority of us also expected to see a negative impact on traffic, but wanted to measure exactly how much, and identify whether the featured snippets would return after we removed the tag. <br></p>
<p>In this example, Moz lost the featured snippet almost immediately. The snippet was instead awarded to Content King and Moz returned to the top "natural" position.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/featured-snippets-607390.jpg" data-image="cv5d2h5b9oh4" alt="Featured Snippets Experiment" title="Featured Snippets Experiment"></figure>
<p>Here is another example of what happened in search results. After launching the test, the featured snippet was awarded to Backlinko and we returned to the top of the natural results.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/featured-snippets-2-618793.jpg" data-image="5euogekl566t" alt="Featured Snippets Experiment Examples" title="Featured Snippets Experiment Examples"></figure>
<p>One important thing to keep in mind is that, while these keywords triggered a featured snippet, pages can rank for hundreds or thousands of different keywords in different positions. So the impact of losing a single featured snippet can be somewhat softened when your URL ranks for many different keywords — some which earn featured snippets and some which don't. </p>
<h2>The results</h2>
<p>After adding the data-nosnippet tag, our variant URLs <em>quickly lost their featured snippets</em>.<br><br>How did this impact traffic? Instead of gaining traffic by opting-out of featured snippets, we found we actually <em>lost a significant amount of traffic</em> quite quickly.</p>
<p>Overall, we measured an estimated <strong>12% drop</strong> in traffic for all affected pages after losing featured snippets (95% confidence level).</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/experiment-results-92126.jpg" data-image="lhhfpkksf1ug" alt="Featured Snippets Experiment Results" title="Featured Snippets Experiment Results"><figcaption>This chart represents the cumulative impact of the test on organic traffic. The central blue line is the best estimate of how the variant pages, with the change applied, performed compared to how we would have expected without any changes applied. The blue shaded region represents our 95% confidence interval: there is a 95% probability that the actual outcome is somewhere in this region. If this region is wholly above or below the horizontal axis, that represents a statistically significant test.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>What did we learn?</h2>
<p>With the addition of the “data-nosnippet” attribute, the test had a significantly negative impact on organic traffic. In this experiment, owning the featured snippet and not ranking in the top results provides more value to these pages in terms of clicks than not owning the featured snippet and ranking in the top results. </p>
<p>Adding in the “data-nosnippet” attribute, not only were we able to stop Google from pulling data in that section of the HTML page to use as a snippet, but we were also able to confirm that we would rank again in the SERP, whether that is ranking in position one or lower. </p>
<p>As an additional tool, we were also tracking keywords using <a target="_blank" href="https://getstat.com/">STAT Search Analytics</a>. We were able to monitor changes in ranking for pages that had featured snippets, and noticed that it took about seven days or more from the time of launching the test for Google to cache the changes we made and for the featured snippets to be overtaken by another ranking page, if another page was awarded a featured snippet spot at all. The turnaround was quicker after we ended the test, though, as some of these featured snippets returned as quickly as the next day.</p>
<p>However, a <strong>negative aspect </strong>of running this test was that, although some pages were crawled and indexed with the most recent changes, <em>the featured snippet did not return</em> and has now either been officially given to competing pages or never returned at all.</p>
<p>To summarize the significant findings of this test:</p>
<ol><li>Google's nosnippet tags can effectively <em>opt-out publishers from featured snippets</em>.</li><li>In this test, we measured an estimated <strong>12% drop in traffic</strong> for all affected pages after losing featured snippets.</li><li>After ending the test, we <em>failed to win back a portion of the featured snippets</em> we previously ranked for.</li></ol>
<p>For the vast majority of publishers <strong>winning the featured snippet likely remains the smart strategy</strong>. There are undoubtedly exceptions but as a general "best practice" if a keyword triggers a featured snippet, it's typically in your best interest to rank for it.</p>
<p>What are your experiences with winning featured snippets? Let us know in the comments below.</p>
<hr>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/ylDWg9e5bPk/featured-snippets-experiment" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-4439697207455229292020-04-11T03:18:00.001-07:002020-04-11T03:18:01.849-07:00How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/13017\">MiriamEllis</a></p><figure class="full-width"><em><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/localbusinesshelp1-85462.jpg" data-image="qio8t9fqnaj0"></em></figure>
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<p><em>“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers</em></p>
<p>This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done. </p>
<p>When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come. </p>
<p>While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency. </p>
<h2>Inspirational local business pivots and plans</h2>
<p>Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.</p>
<h3>Food and hospitality</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper/5e8f6058125fb9.72758833.jpg" width="500" height="339" data-image="ewupdcsaxecy"></figure>
<p>1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant <a target="_blank" href="https://canlis.com/">Canlis</a> quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms. </p>
<p>2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cpk.com/Event/Index/CPKMarket">California Pizza Kitchen</a> is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market. </p>
<p>3. Caterers with big hearts like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kaycatering.com/">Kay Catering</a> asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.</p>
<p>4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of <a target="_blank" href="https://shop.savorseattletours.com/">Savor Seattle</a>, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.</p>
<p>5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sonomamag.com/amys-kitchen-ramps-up-production-as-other-businesses-close/">Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production</a> by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2020/04/04/franklin-county-distillery-makes-hand-sanitizer-to-fight-covid-19/">distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer</a>.</p>
<p>6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eater.com/2020/4/2/21200565/csa-trend-coronavirus-covid-19-stay-at-home-delivery-groceries">allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores</a>. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like <a target="_blank" href="http://seacoastharvest.org/safe/">Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire</a> are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers. </p>
<p>7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.raleys.com/senior-essentials-bag/">$20 “Senior Essential Bags”</a> filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fredmeyer.com/">donating $3 million to deploy groceries</a> to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched <a target="_blank" href="https://saveourfaves.org/">SaveOurFaves.com</a>, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan. </p>
<p>9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/2020/4/guy-fieri-restaurant-employee-relief-fund">relief fund</a>. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.</p>
<p>10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.hotelmanagement.net/operate/ah-la-6-500-hotels-willing-to-house-support-health-workers">Hotels for Hope</a> initiative nationwide. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/23/coronavirus-sf-has-8500-potential-hotel-rooms-for-the-homeless-front-line-workers/">Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans</a> in response to local and state government requests. </p>
<h3>Home services</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper/5e8f6058b2ff29.73672050.jpg" width="300" height="376" data-image="bd75gbadr5o8"></figure>
<p>1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rotorooter.com/blog/plumbing/roto-rooter-plumbing-resources-for-covid-19/">Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job</a> of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=RTbxnNRkqnA&feature=emb_logo">how-to videos for simple home plumbing</a> and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vaughanhvac.com/about-vaughan/covid-19/">this section of their website</a> to explain their enhanced safety measures.</p>
<p>2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mollymaid.com/our-services/">Molly Maid</a>, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pymnts.com/coronavirus/2020/two-maids-and-a-mop-covid-19/">diversifying into the commercial cleaning space</a>, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aftermath.com/services/coronavirus-cleaning/">Aftermath</a> are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties. </p>
<p>3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dreamnetcomputers.com/covid-19.html">created this page</a> to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.</p>
<p>4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.totallandscapecare.com/how-to-landscape/performing-essential-landscaping-services-covid-19/">state-by-state regulations are not clear enough</a> for their industry, while others are embracing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.totallandscapecare.com/green-industry-news/green-industry-finding-value-in-3d-renderings-and-other-digital-tools/">virtual meetings and 3D modeling</a> with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces. </p>
<h3>Professional and instructional services</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/localbusinesscovid3-108510.jpg" data-image="uxrf670lh6cd"></figure>
<p>1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202003/will-covid-19-make-teletherapy-the-rule-not-the-exception">navigate privacy regulations</a> can still provide vital patient support. <a target="_blank" href="http://bridgestherapyandwellness.com/">Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center</a> of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.patientpop.com/telehealth/">telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out</a> for medical clients. </p>
<p>2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVsDEhSuHig">Pope Francis celebrating Mass</a> at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s <a target="_blank" href="https://templebethemeth.org/">Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat</a> and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting <a target="_blank" href="http://www.icofa.com/">live, daily lectures</a> from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found <a target="_blank" href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/indigenous-voices-sing-out-for-healing-during-covid-19-pandemic-1.4864812">Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing</a> especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio <a target="_blank" href="https://go.dancechurch.com/">Dance Church</a> has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by <a target="_blank" href="https://yourya.org/">Your Yoga Alliance</a> to instructors needing to transition operations. </p>
<p>3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering <a target="_blank" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/advisor/2020/04/03/list-of-banks-offering-relief-to-customers-affected-by-coronavirus-covid-19/#6ec495a64efa">various forms of relief</a> including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cujournal.com/news/are-atms-making-the-coronavirus-crisis-worse">bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus</a> to transactions. </p>
<p>4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kleard.com/">Kleard</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.immoviewer.com/">Immoviewer</a>, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Real-Estate-businesses-shift-during-practices-during-COVID-19-569342431.html">even handle closings online</a>. However, it’s vital to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nar.realtor/open-house-guidance-during-covid-19">follow state and local regulations regarding home showings</a>. </p>
<p>5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nabenet.org/page/Pandemic_Preparedness"> pandemic preparedness resource</a>. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news. </p>
<p>6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee <a target="_blank" href="https://kaleidoscopesalon.com/">held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services</a> in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCn4XHyyJM">to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips</a>. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sallybeauty.com/important-updates/?icid=hp-alert_curbside-pickup">curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits</a>, as is being offered by Sally Beauty. </p>
<h3>Retail</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper/5e8f6059b197b1.39618859.jpg" width="402" height="189" data-image="p4wdjhvmz6og"></figure>
<p>1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/operating-during-covid19-tips-for-local-businesses">vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling</a> may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/2/21205800/ebay-up-and-running-waive-seller-fees-new-businesses-digital-sales-benefits">waiving seller fees</a> to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale. </p>
<p>2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-macys-will-furlough-most-employees-beginning-this-week.html">but continue to sell online</a>. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/our_practical_covid-19_approach">continuing to ship</a> with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds. </p>
<p>3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published <a target="_blank" href="https://www.t-mobile.com/brand/ongoing-updates-covid-19?icid=MGPO_TMO_P_20COVID19_8D84Z1GC15FV3ZQLI20228">a whole new section of service resources</a> during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bestbuy.com/">contactless curbside pickup and delivery</a>. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.batteriesplus.com/blog/professionals/medical-industry-support">supplying the medical field with essential technology</a>, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers. </p>
<p>4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sloatgardens.com/some-sloat-locations-have-re-opened/">Sloat Nursery chain</a> — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now. </p>
<p>5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.homedepot.com/">Home Depot</a>, and free curbside pickup, like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.acehardware.com/">Ace Hardware</a>, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients <a target="_blank" href="https://www.crateandbarrel.com/crate-and-barrel-covid-19-response">via phone and web chat</a>.</p>
<p>6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.toyota.com/dealers/">Toyota’s SmartPath tool</a> takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gm.com/coronavirus/communities.html?evar25=ch_covid-19_here-to-help">producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gm.com/coronavirus/communities.html?evar25=ch_covid-19_here-to-help">face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan</a>. <br></p>
<h2>Where to publicize what you’re doing</h2>
<p>Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/operating-during-covid19-tips-for-local-businesses">update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column</a>. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity: </p>
<h3>Blogs</h3>
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<p>About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the <a target="_blank" href="https://westseattleblog.com/">West Seattle Blog</a>. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.</p>
<h3>Hyperlocal business association sites</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper/5e8f605ae6c5b2.06011507.jpg" width="550" height="226" data-image="i8hsqc1h4kj9"></figure>
<p>If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the <a target="_blank" href="http://wsjunction.org/">West Seattle Junction</a> or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together. </p>
<h3>Facebook</h3>
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<p>If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/business/boost/resource">Facebook</a> may be your next best option. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/TheYurokTribe/">The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook</a> for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/business/boost/grants">Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits</a>. </p>
<h3>Nextdoor</h3>
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<p>Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to <a target="_blank" href="https://help.nextdoor.com/s/article/How-to-claim-your-business-page?language=en_US">join it as a business</a>. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to <a target="_blank" href="https://nextdoor.com/offers/140964950?init_source=email_share%3Finit_source%3Dfacebook_share">offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job</a>. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community. </p>
<h3>Twitter</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper/5e8f605cb33bb0.06298286.jpg" width="500" height="384" data-image="7fips9cl9xnx"></figure>
<p>Check out how the <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/DBAyeg">Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter</a> to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public. </p>
<h3>Instagram</h3>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper/5e8f605d4e9be9.59968049.jpg" width="275" height="464" data-image="mv73085znrqh"></figure>
<p>Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B-M9IxOjcf_/">Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel</a>, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer. </p>
<h3>Radio</h3>
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<p>This excellent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-03-25/la-local-radio-coronavirus">Los Angeles Times</a> article by <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/RandyLewis2">Randy Lewis</a> reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising. </p>
<h3>Newspapers</h3>
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<p>Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies <a target="_blank" href="https://www.marinij.com/2020/03/24/marin-restaurants-revamp-menus-for-takeout-delivery/">like this one in the Marin Independent Journal</a>. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.</p>
<h3>Local television and video media</h3>
<figure><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XkI_snkkTo0?start=9" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure>
<p>I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=XkI_snkkTo0&feature=emb_logo">local TV ad spot</a> regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2020/in-the-new-normal-of-covid-19-local-tv-news-proves-to-be-the-medium-of-choice-for-news-and-information/">Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice</a> for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website. </p>
<h3>Local, regional, or industry podcasts</h3>
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<p>If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tennesseefarmtable.com/new-blog/2020/3/27/food-triage-plus-farmer-and-chef-adam-cottrill-of-sugar-tree-and-chef-trevor-stockton-of-the-restaurant-at-rt-lodge">this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table</a> (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/podcast-how-to-start-best-equipment-804418/">launching one</a> to create a more connected community. </p>
<h2>Being the helpers</h2>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/localbusinesscovid6-232800.jpg" data-image="kp97r6o0rkq3"><figcaption>Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz. </figcaption></figure>
<p><br>I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment. </p>
<p>It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/about/team/drpete">Dr. Pete</a>, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s <a target="_blank" href="https://marketoonist.com/2020/03/communicate.html">provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing</a> earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered. </p>
<p>Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community. </p>
<p>There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become. </p>
<p>Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/orV9h1KT_u0/how-your-local-business-can-be-a-helper" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-20212987249406654342020-04-10T00:27:00.001-07:002020-04-10T00:27:01.557-07:00The SEO Elevator Pitch - Best of Whiteboard Friday<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/10805655\">KameronJenkins</a></p><p>This week, we're revisiting an important topic for SEOs everywhere: <strong>how to show your value</strong>. In the wake of everything that's happened recently with COVID-19, being able to describe your worth to potential clients or stakeholders is an integral skill. In this favorite episode of Whiteboard Friday, Kameron Jenkins shares how to effectively and succinctly build an SEO elevator pitch that highlights the value you bring to a business and three warnings on what not to do.<br><br></p>
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<p>Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!<br>
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<h2>Video Transcription</h2>
<p>Hey guys, welcome to this week's edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Kameron Jenkins. Today we're going to be talking about creating an SEO elevator pitch, what is it, why we need one, and what kind of prompted this whole idea for an SEO elevator pitch.
</p>
<p>So essentially, I was on Twitter and I saw John Mueller. He tweeted, "Hey, I meet with a lot of developers, and a lot of times they don't really know what SEOs do." He was genuinely asking. He was asking, "Hey, SEO community, how do you describe what you do?" I'm scrolling through, and I'm seeing a lot of different answers, and all of them I'm resonating with.
</p>
<p>They're all things that I would probably say myself. But it's just interesting how many different answers there were to the question, "What do SEOs do and what value do they provide?" So I kind of thought to myself, "Why is that? Why do we have so many different explanations for what SEO is and what we do?" So I thought about it, and I thought that it might be a good idea for myself and maybe other SEOs if you don't already have an elevator pitch ready.
</p>
<h2>What is an SEO elevator pitch?<br></h2>
<p></p>
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<p>Now, if you're not familiar with the concept of an elevator pitch, it's basically — I have a definition here — a succinct and persuasive speech that communicates your unique value as an SEO. It's called an elevator pitch essentially because it should take about the length of time it takes to ride the elevator with someone. So you want to be able to quickly and concisely answer someone's question when they ask you, "Oh, SEO, what is that?I think I've heard of that before. What do you do?"
</p>
<h2>Why is this so hard?</h2>
<p>So let's dive right in. So I mentioned, in the beginning, how there are so many different answers to this "what do you say you do here" type question. I think it's hard to kind of come up with a concise explanation for a few different reasons. So I wanted to dive into that a little bit first.
</p>
<h3>1. Lots of specialties within SEO</h3>
<p>So number one, there are lots of specialties within SEO.
</p>
<p>As the industry has advanced over the last two plus decades, it has become very diverse, and there are lots of different facets in SEO. I found myself on quite a rabbit trail. I was on LinkedIn and I was kind of browsing SEO job descriptions. I wanted to see basically: What is it that people are looking for in an SEO?
</p>
<p>How do they describe it? What are the characteristics? So basically, I found a lot of different things, but I found a few themes that emerged. So there are your content-focused SEOs, and those are people that are your keyword research aficionados. There are the people that write search engine optimized content to drive traffic to your website. You have your link builders, people that focus almost exclusively on that.
</p>
<p>You have your local SEOs, and you have your analysts. You have your tech SEOs, people that either work on a dev team or closely with a dev team. So I think that's okay though. There are lots of different facets within SEO, and I think that's awesome. That's, to me, a sign of maturity in our industry. So when there are a lot of different specialties within SEO, I think it's right and good for all of our elevator pitches to differ.
</p>
<p>So if you have a specialty within SEO, it can be different. It should kind of cater toward the unique brand of SEO that you do, and that's okay.
</p>
<h3>2. Different audiences</h3>
<p>Number two, there are different audiences. We're not always going to be talking to the same kind of person. So maybe you're talking to your boss or a client. To me, those are more revenue-focused conversations.
</p>
<p>They want to know: What's the value of what you do? How does it affect my bottom line? How does it help me run my business and stay afloat and stay profitable? If you're talking to a developer, that's going to be a slightly different conversation. So I think it's okay if we kind of tweak our elevator pitch to make it a little bit more palatable for the people that we're talking to.
</p>
<h3>3. Algorithm maturity</h3>
<p>Three, why this is hard is there's been, obviously, a lot of changes all the time in the algorithm, and as it matures, it's going to look like the SEO's job is completely different than last year just because the algorithm keeps maturing and it looks like our jobs are changing all the time. So I think that's a reality that we have to live with, but I still think it's important, even though things are changing all the time, to have a baseline kind of pitch that we give people when they ask us what it is we do.
</p>
<p>So that's why it's hard. That's what your elevator pitch is.
</p>
<h2>My elevator pitch: SEO is marketing, with search engines</h2>
<p>Then, by way of example, I thought I'd just give you my SEO elevator pitch. Maybe it will spark your creativity. Maybe it will give you some ideas. Maybe you already have one, and that's okay. But the point is not to use mine.
</p>
<p>The point is essentially to kind of take you through what mine looks like, hopefully get your creative juices flowing, and you can create your own. So let's dive right into my pitch.
</p>
<p>So my pitch is SEO is marketing, just with search engines. So we have the funnel here — awareness, consideration, and decision.
</p>
<h3>Awareness: Rank and attract clicks for informational queries.</h3>
<p>First of all, I think it's important to note that SEO can help you rank and attract clicks for informational queries.
</p>
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<h3>Consideration: Rank and attract clicks for evaluation queries.</h3>
<p>So when your audience is searching for information, they want to solve their pain points, they're not ready to buy, they're just searching, we're meeting them there with content that brings them to the site, informs them, and now they're familiar with our brand. Those are great assisted conversions. Rank and attract clicks for evaluation queries. When your audience is starting to compare their options, you want to be there. You want to meet them there, and we can do that with SEO.
</p>
<h3>Decision: Rank, attract clicks, and promote conversion for bottom-funnel queries</h3>
<p>At the decision phase, you can rank and attract clicks and kind of promote conversions for bottom of funnel queries. When people are in their "I want to buy" stage, SEO can meet them there. So I think it's important to realize that SEO isn't kind of like a cost center and not a profit center. It's not like a bottom of funnel thing. I've heard that in a lot of places, and I think it's just important to kind of draw attention to the fact that SEO is integrated throughout your marketing funnel. It's not relegated to one stage or another.
</p>
<h2>But how? </h2>
<p>We talked about rank and attract clicks and promote conversions. But how do we do that? That's the what it does.
</p>
<p>But how do we do it? So this is how I explain it. I think really, for me, there are two sides to the SEO's coin. We have driving, and we have supporting.
</p>
<h3>1. Driving</h3>
<p>So on the driving side, I would say something like this. When someone searches a phrase or a keyword in Google, I make sure the business' website shows up in the non-ad results. That's important because a lot of people are like, "Oh, do you bid on keywords?"
</p>
<p>We're like, "No, no, that's PPC." So I always just throw in "non-ad" because people understand that. So I do that through content that answers people's questions, links that help search engines find my content and show signs of authority and popularity of my content, and accessibility. So that's kind of your technical foundation.
</p>
<p>You're making sure that your website is crawlable and it that it's index the way that you want it to be indexed. When people get there, it works. It works on mobile and on desktop. It's fast. So I think these are really the three big pillars of driving SEO — content, links, and making sure your website is technically sound. So that's how I describe the driving, the proactive side of SEO.
</p>
<h3>2. Supporting</h3>
<p>Then two, we have supporting, and I think this is kind of an underrated or maybe it's often seen as kind of an interruption to our jobs.
</p>
<p>But I think it's important to actually call it what it is. It's a big part of what we do. So I think we should embrace it as SEOs.
</p>
<h4>A. Be the Google Magic 8-ball</h4>
<p>For one, we can serve as the Google Magic 8-Ball. When people come to us in our organization and they say, "Hey, I'm going to make this change, or I'm thinking about making this change.Is this going to be good or bad for SEO?"
</p>
<p>I think it's great that people are asking that question. Always be available and always make yourself ready to answer those types of questions for people. So I think on the reactionary side we can be that kind of person that helps guide people and understand what is going to affect your organic search presence.
</p>
<h4>B. Assist marketing</h4>
<p>Two, we can assist marketing. So on this side of the coin, we're driving.
</p>
<p>We can drive our own marketing strategies. As SEOs, we can see how SEO can drive all phases of the funnel. But I think it's important to note that we're not the only people in our organization. Often SEOs maybe they don't even live in the marketing department. Maybe they do and they report to a marketing lead. There are other initiatives that your marketing lead could be investigating.
</p>
<p>Maybe they say, "Hey, we've just done some market research, and here's this plan." It could be our job as SEOs to take that plan, take that strategy and translate it into something digital. I think that's a really important value that SEOs can add. We can actually assist marketing as well as drive our own efforts.
</p>
<h4>C. Fix mistakes</h4>
<p>Then number three here, I know this is another one that kind of makes people cringe, but we are here to fix mistakes when they happen and train people so that they don't happen again. So maybe we come in on a Monday morning and we're ready to face the week, and we see that traffic has taken a nosedive or something. We go, "Oh, no," and we dive in.
</p>
<p>We try to see what happened. But I think that's really important. It's our job or it's part of our job to kind of dive in, diagnose what happened, and not only that but support and be there to help fix it or guide the fixes, and then train and educate and make sure that people know what it is that happened and how it shouldn't happen again.
</p>
<p>You're there to help train them and guide them. I think that's another really important way that we can support as SEOs. So that's essentially how I describe it.
</p>
<h2>3 tips for coming up with your own pitch</h2>
<p>Before I go, I just wanted to mention some tips when you're coming up with your own SEO elevator pitch. I think it's really important to just kind of stay away from certain language when you're crafting your own "this is what I do" speech.
</p>
<figure><img src="http://d1avok0lzls2w.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/screen-shot-2018-12-27-at-3-59948.jpg" style="box-shadow: 0 0 10px 0 #999; border-radius: 20px;" data-image="3hi0j1w4j0ic"></figure>
<p>So the three tips I have are:
</p>
<h3>1. Stay away from jargon. </h3>
<p>If you're giving an SEO elevator pitch, it's to people that don't know what SEO is. So try to avoid jargon. I know it's really easy as SEOs. I find myself doing it all the time. There are things that I don't think are jargon.
</p>
<p>But then I take a couple steps back and I realize, oh yeah, that's not layman's terms. So stay away from jargon if at all possible. You're not going to benefit anyone by confusing them.
</p>
<h3>2. Avoid policing. </h3>
<p>It can be easy as SEOs I've found and I've found myself in this trap a couple of times where we kind of act as these traffic cops that are waiting around the corner, and when people make a mistake, we're there to wag our finger at them.
</p>
<p>So avoid any language that makes it sound like the SEOs are just the police waiting to kind of punish people for wrongdoing. We are there to help fix mistakes, but it's in a guiding and educating and supporting, kind of collaborative manner and not like a policing type of manner. Number three, I would say is kind of similar, but a little different.
</p>
<h3>3. Avoid Supermanning. </h3>
<p>I call this Supermanning because it's the type of language that makes it sound like SEOs are here to swoop in and save the day when something goes wrong. We do. We're superheroes a lot of times. There are things that happen and thank goodness there was an SEO there to help diagnose and fix that.
</p>
<p>But I would avoid any kind of pitch that makes it sound like your entire job is just to kind of save people. There are other people in your organization that are super smart and talented at what they do. They probably wouldn't like it if you made it sound like you were there to help them all the time. So I just think that's important to keep in mind. Don't make it seem like you're the police waiting to wag your finger at them or you're the superhero that needs to save everyone from their mistakes.
</p>
<p>So yeah, that's my SEO elevator pitch. That's why I think it's important to have one. If you've kind of crafted your own SEO elevator pitch, I would love to hear it, and I'm sure it would be great for other SEOs to hear it as well. It's great to information share. So drop that in the comments if you feel comfortable doing that. If you don't have one, hopefully this helps. So yeah, that's it for this week's Whiteboard Friday, and come back again next week for another one.
</p>
<p>Thanks, everybody.
</p>
<p><a href="http://www.speechpad.com/page/video-transcription/">Video transcription</a> by <a href="http://www.speechpad.com/">Speechpad.com</a>
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/PJBUP364kPY/seo-elevator-pitch" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-90798300912579630002020-04-08T22:42:00.001-07:002020-04-08T22:42:08.317-07:00Why and How to Bring Empathy Into Your Content<p>Posted by <a href=\"https://moz.com/community/users/13454081\">DaisyQ</a></p><p>Creating content can feel incredibly difficult right now. If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last few weeks oscillating between a can-do approach and hours of staring into space. Here’s how to tap into those very real emotions and channel them into more impactful content.</p>
<h2>What empathy is and isn’t</h2>
<p>We commonly confuse sympathy with empathy. Sympathy is understanding and perhaps feeling bad for the struggles that someone may be experiencing. Empathy means understanding the person’s feelings and thoughts from their point of view. Sympathy is when you feel compassion, sorrow, or pity for what the other person is going through. Empathy is about putting yourself in their shoes.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content/5e8ccef8e71cc4.44865195.png" width="433" height="325.404938271605" data-image="nprka0wog1aj"></figure>
<p>In this post, I focus on cognitive empathy, which is the ability to understand how another person may be thinking or feeling. Cognitive empathy helps communication by helping us convey information in a way that resonates with the other person.</p>
<h2>Feelings, who needs ’em?</h2>
<p>I’ve always struggled with how to deal with my emotions. For much of my life, I thought that I needed to keep how I felt under wraps, especially at work. I recall tough days when I Googled reasons to get out of bed, and when I reached my desk, I would try to leave my emotions at home and just focus on working. Sometimes, the office felt like an escape. But usually, pretending to be unfeeling was a difficult if not impossible task. When this strategy backfires, our feelings overrule us. I’ve come to embrace the fact that emotions are what make me whole and human. </p>
<h2>There’s a lot going on, and we’re all grappling with it</h2>
<p>Creating marketing content can be incredibly hard right now because there is just so much going on — not only in your mind but in your readers’ minds, too. Rather than shy away from the current emotional challenge, <a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/marketing-in-times-of-uncertainty">embrace it</a> to transform your work and get more joy out of the content creation process.</p>
<p>People are looking for information, and depending on your industry, there may be several content<a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/blog/what-readers-want-during-covid19"> opportunities</a> for you to dig into. Or maybe you are in an industry where it’s business as (un)usual, and you have to create email newsletters or blog content like you always have.</p>
<p>Whether you sell industrial components to obscure parts of machines or homemade broths, there’s room in your content for empathy. For example, are you creating a blog post on how to work from home? Think about the parent who’s never had to juggle homeschooling their kids while holding conference calls. Are you writing about cyber threats and the need to protect firmware? Think about how the risk of a cyberattack is the last thing a dispersed IT team wants to deal with right now. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content/5e8ccef9f06669.95338914.png" width="372" height="238.99999999999997" data-image="1x1obtdaysvc"></figure>
<p></p>
<p>Your readers are all grappling with different issues. The ability to convey empathy in your writing will make your work much more captivating, impactful, shareable, and just plain better — whether we’re dealing with a pandemic or not.</p>
<h2>Do I have to pretend to be a mom now?</h2>
<p>No, you don’t. In fact, pretending can come off as disingenuous. You are not required to have the same lived-in experiences or circumstances that your reader does. Instead, just try to understand their perspective.</p>
<p>See if you can tell the difference between these messages:</p>
<p> “Chin up! It’s hard, but I’m sure it will get better.”</p>
<p>“I know everything looks bleak right now, but you will get through this.”</p>
<p>While there is nothing wrong with the first sentence in the above example, the second sentence comes across as more caring and compassionate.</p>
<p>Done well, empathizing can make it easier to understand the challenges, frustrations, fears, anxieties, or worries your readers might be experiencing. </p>
<h2>How to infuse content marketing with empathy</h2>
<p>Empathy is a skill. Those who master it gain the ability to create content that not only addresses a surface problem or issue, but also hits a deeper level by accessing the perspectives and emotions involved.</p>
<h3>Picture the person reading</h3>
<p>Want your readers to take action? Try to understand them.</p>
<p>Take your health, for example. Pretty much any advice given by your doctor would be critical, right? Yet we often struggle to implement it. Why is that? One reason could be empathy. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513638/">Studies show</a> that better health outcomes result when a physician shows empathy towards their patient.</p>
<p>Are you trying to incite action with your post? Maybe you want your readers to do more than just read your blog and carry on with their lives, then seek to understand where they are coming from first. Whether you’re creating a blog post or a video, picture the person who will read or watch what you are sharing, and speak directly to them. Better yet, find an image of someone that represents your intended audience online and pull it up while creating. Make your audience real. In turn, your content will become more productive because a reader who feels understood is more likely to apply what they read.</p>
<p>This tactic works for me when I have to create a how-to video or break something down. I pick an image from the web and ask, “Would they get it?” </p>
<h3>Set a goal for your content</h3>
<p>Creating content can be a slog. Setting an intention is one of my favorite ways to give purpose to my process. It helps me push through the mornings when I don’t care about finishing that first draft. I like to think about where I want to take the audience, then revisit that goal again and again until the project is complete.</p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content/5e8ccefb1befb5.14535944.png" width="425" height="276" data-image="ej6552yep31w"></figure>
<p></p>
<p>For example, the goal of this blog post is: </p>
<p>To help business owners and marketers who need to send out emails or write blog posts while we’re dealing with a pandemic. It’s not business as usual, and empathy is what we need now more than ever. I will share why empathy works, and give practical tips on how writing in a more relatable, humane, and approachable way can help get the point across.</p>
<p>When I start a new post, I print a paragraph like this right at the top of my word doc. I revisit it multiple times while I’m writing and reviewing the draft. Then, I delete it right before I submit the post. Moment of truth: Does the post stand on its own? Does it express what I need to say? If so, I know it’s ready. </p>
<h3>Share personal stories or anecdotes</h3>
<p>I read a story by Leo Tolstoy recently that really stuck with me— in fact, the ending haunted me for a while. It was a story about greed titled, “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/">How Much Land Does a Man Need?</a>” </p>
<p>Tolstoy could have written an essay on how greed is wrong, but I probably wouldn’t have remembered it. Instead, I can vividly recall the farmer who dies during the struggle to get one more foot of land even though he has more than enough already. </p>
<p>Personal stories give meaning to your work, and you don’t need to travel to a Russian prairie to find examples. There is material in your everyday life that you can put onto paper. Think of childhood memories, past events, relationships — heck, your favorite passage from a book. How can you weave these into your narrative in a way that will connect with the reader? How can you share a tidbit from your personal life that will pull your readers in?</p>
<p>The ultimate question is: Who’s your audience? Once you know that, you’ll know what to share. </p>
<figure class="full-width"><img src="http://d2v4zi8pl64nxt.cloudfront.net/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content/5e8ccefc1f2e10.15736168.png" width="437" height="288" data-image="psuiec20kx0v"></figure>
<p>If you have to write about budgeting tips, put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Think back to a time when you had to watch where every dollar went. How did you cope? What resources did you use? Relate that to what your reader’s budget struggles may be today. How can your experiences help you empathize with a mom in a single-income household who now has to file for unemployment? Or the business owner who needs to re-shuffle a budget and maybe cut ancillary services? You don’t have to be in their position to appreciate what they are going through.</p>
<h3>Think less self-promotional and more educational</h3>
<p>Have you ever gotten to the end of a blog post and wondered why you bothered reading at all? That writer probably made an impression on you, and it wasn’t great.</p>
<p>Reward the reader by giving them something actionable. Help them achieve a goal they have, or include something worth retelling that’ll impress their boss, friends, or spouse. Look beyond what you’re immediately selling and appreciate how it relates to the bigger picture. Even an external hard drive or a peppercorn grinder can take on new meaning when you look at it from this perspective.</p>
<p>Perhaps that external hard drive is not just gigabytes but a way to digitize a family album to share with distant relatives. Or for the budding YouTuber, it may be a way to store all their outtakes without slowing down their computer. Show them how they can get more storage space or pick the best product for their needs. How can they use your advice to live their best life?</p>
<h3>Learn from the masters</h3>
<p>Put down the business book and try fiction.</p>
<p>As marketers, we can get stuck in a cycle of reading marketing content. I have at least 12 books that I could (and should) be reading instead of a Hemingway classic. But reading non-marketing materials will improve your empathetic skills by demonstrating how storytelling works.</p>
<p>I’m halfway through “A Farewell to Arms”, and I think the point of the story is that wars are long and pointless. I could be wrong, but I haven’t stopped reading it yet. That’s the key — the narrative is carrying me along. I’m invested in the characters and their endings. I want to find out what happens to Catherine Barkley because I empathize with her. </p>
<p>If you want to kick it up a notch, learn from works like Stephen King’s “<a target="_blank" href="https://smile.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816">On Writing</a>” or Joseph Campbell’s “<a target="_blank" href="https://smile.amazon.com/Brilliance-Audio-Hero-Thousand-Faces/dp/B01BFBXOM8/">The Hero with a Thousand Faces</a>”. These classics pinpoint principles of narrative that work consistently across time and space. They’re as relevant and essential as ever, and they can inform, strengthen, and enliven your content. Bonus: maybe they’ll inspire you to write that novel someday. </p>
<h2>Creating content with empathy helps you and your readers</h2>
<p>Really good content makes us feel something. It’s a feeling that sticks with us long, long after the words have escaped our minds. That’s the kind of impression you can leave in your readers’ minds, but not without getting to know where they are coming from. Simply stating numbers and stats and figures won’t cut it. We don’t operate in a vacuum. Our relationships with people, our shared experiences, and our connections are what drive us, and in times like this, that doesn’t change. Let it be the glue that helps you bond with your audience.</p><br /><p><a href="https://moz.com/moztop10">Sign up for The Moz Top 10</a>, 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!</p><div class="feedflare">
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<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/dQ7UevVsE_8/how-to-bring-empathy-into-your-content" target="_blank" style="font-style: italic">* This article was originally published here</a>
Jayan Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10839325430506794658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6705989566540271554.post-57426084655537453862020-04-07T22:10:00.001-07:002020-04-07T22:10:10.165-07:00How to Adapt Your Marketing During the Coronavirus (COVID-19)<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/corona.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>It’s been roughly a month now since the Coronavirus started to flip our lives upside down.</p>
<p>From having to practice social distancing and getting used to life without the outdoors to continually washing our hands and wearing masks and seeing loved ones and friends getting sick, the Coronavirus is something none of us expected.</p>
<p>Even our businesses are suffering. Just look at the <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/coronavirus/">Coronavirus marketing stats</a> I shared a few weeks ago. <em>The results are devastating.</em></p>
<p>It’s why I decided to <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/ubersuggest-more-free/">change Ubersuggest and make it more free</a> to help small businesses out.</p>
<p>Since then a lot has changed and there are new opportunities that have come around when it comes to your online business and marketing activities.</p>
<span id="more-91938"></span>
<h2><strong>Opportunity #1: Help others selflessly</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://npdigital.com/">My ad agency</a> has thousands of clients around the world. We lost a ton, but we still have enough to see trends in what’s happening.</p>
<p>When I saw businesses starting to lose a lot of money, I decided to give more of Ubersuggest’s premium features for free. That means it would take me much longer to break even, but that isn’t something I am worried about right now.</p>
<p>Take look at the image below… you’ll see something interesting.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/freetrials.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>The chart breaks down how many free-trial signups Ubersuggest has received throughout the past month.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, new customers means free trials… a large portion of free-trial users doesn’t convert into paying customers but still, the more trials you get in theory, the more paid customers you will eventually get.</p>
<p>As you can see, the chart is declining. That’s because I opened up more of Ubersuggest’s paid features and made them free.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/march24trials.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>What’s interesting is you (and other community members) helped support me.</p>
<p>The moment I blogged about more features being opened up for
free, many of you decided to purchase a paid subscription.</p>
<p>I received dozens of emails from the marketing community thanking me and letting me know that they appreciate everything that I was doing AND they purchased a paid plan to help me out.</p>
<p>Now granted, in general signups are down, but that’s what happens when you decide to give away more for free. I didn’t do it because I am trying to leverage Coronavirus or look good, instead, I am just trying to help people out just like I’ve been lucky enough to have had people help me out during my times of need.</p>
<p>But here is what’s interesting… my traffic started to go up
on <a href="https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/">Ubersuggest</a> the moment I
told everyone that I am giving more away for free.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ubersuggesttraffic.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>I’m not the only one who experienced this.</p>
<p><a href="https://instagram.com/ericosiu/">Eric Siu</a> decided to give away a course that teaches people how to start a marketing agency for free (he normally charges $1,497) and a bit more than 250 people have taken Eric up on his offer. </p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ericpost.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>This has led Eric to gain more social media fans and it’s
given him an opportunity to do a webinar about his product/services to a new
audience of 50,000 people.</p>
<p>Similar to me, Eric wasn’t trying to do this to gain
anything, he is just trying to help people out.</p>
<p>I also know someone in the health space who did something similar and one person in the employment space.</p>
<p>They all saw the indirect benefits of helping people out.</p>
<p>In all cases that I have seen, the result is more traffic.</p>
<p>With your website and business, consider what you can give away for free. Anything you can do to help people out is appreciated, especially during this difficult time. You’ll also find that it will drive you more visitors, which is a nice indirect benefit.</p>
<h2><strong>Opportunity #2: Paid ads are really, really cheap</strong></h2>
<p>The latest trend we are seeing is that paid ads are becoming cheaper.</p>
<p>It makes sense because the way these big ad networks make money is through an auction system. They need small businesses to drive up the cost per click (CPC) for ads so that way the big, billion-dollar corporations have to spend more money on ads.</p>
<p>If you don’t have as many small businesses advertising (like we are experiencing now) there isn’t as much competition for the inventory, so the cost per click decrease.</p>
<p>But the virus has been causing us to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/technology/coronavirus-how-to-live-online.html">spend more time online</a>, so much so that companies like <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51968302">Netflix have had to reduce their streaming quality to help</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, traffic on the web is up and there are fewer advertisers. This means ads are cheaper.</p>
<p>Now we are also seeing conversions rates dropping in certain
industries, but nowhere near at the same rate as the CPCs.</p>
<p>When we average things out per industry and globally, we are seeing paid ads producing a much higher ROI than before the Coronavirus hit. Just look at the chart below.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Covid-19.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Our clients, in general, have seen their ROI go from 31% to 53%. That’s a 71% increase in ROI.</p>
<p>If you haven’t tried paid ads yet, you should consider it. If you do, consider ramping up as there is more excess inventory than there has been in years.</p>
<h2><strong>Opportunity #3: Conversions are down, but there’s a
solution</strong></h2>
<p>For many industries, conversion rates are down. Here’s a
quick snapshot of what it looked like right after the first big week in the
United States.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/covid19conversion.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Since then, things have changed. For some industries, it has gotten better, but for others like travel, it’s still terrible and will be for a while. Delta Airlines is currently <a href="https://simpleflying.com/delta-60-million-per-day/">burning $60 million a day</a>. </p>
<p>But we found a solution that has boosted conversion rates by 12% on average.</p>
<p>If you are a store selling something online, consider offering payment plans through services like <a href="https://www.affirm.com/">Affirm</a>.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/affirm.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>Payment plans reduce the financial burden your customers
will face in the short run.</p>
<p>And you don’t have to be an e-commerce company to leverage payment plans. If you are selling consulting services, you can accept money over a period of a year.</p>
<p>If you are selling ebooks or digital courses, you can also
have a monthly installment plan.</p>
<p>When I sold digital products on NeilPatel.com, I found that roughly 19% of people opted in for my payment plan.</p>
<p>It’s an easy way to boost your conversion rates, especially in a time where many people are looking to reduce their cash spend in the short term.</p>
<h2><strong>Opportunity #4: Offer educational based training</strong></h2>
<p>If you are looking for a good opportunity, consider selling
your audience educational based courses.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/economy/unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html">unemployment
numbers reaching all-time highs</a>, more people than ever are looking for new
opportunities. </p>
<p>Many of these opportunities are in fields like high-tech
that not everyone has experience in.</p>
<p>And, of course, going back to school can be expensive and is time-consuming. Plus, let’s face it… you can probably learn more applicable knowledge on YouTube than sitting in a college class for 4 years (at least for most professions).</p>
<p>So, where do people go to learn? Any online education
website offering very specific, niche advice and courses.</p>
<p>Whether that is <a href="https://udemy.com/">Udemy</a> or you are selling your own courses, people are looking for help.</p>
<p>If you don’t know how to sell online courses in mass quantity, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/business-in-a-box/">follow this</a>. I break it down step by step and even give you the templates you need to be successful. It’s the same ones I used to reach over $381,722 a month in sales.</p>
<h2><strong>Opportunity #5: Geography diversification</strong></h2>
<p>COVID-19 is a global issue. But it is affecting some
countries worse than others.</p>
<p>For example, South Korea has had better luck controlling the spread of the virus compared to many other countries.</p>
<p>And countries like the United States and Italy have exploded
in daily cases.</p>
<p>With over <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/">84,000 new cases a day</a> and growing quickly, the spread of the virus or the slowdown of the virus can affect your traffic drastically.</p>
<p>For that reason, you should consider diversifying the
regions you get your traffic from.</p>
<p>Through <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-strategy-google/">international SEO</a>, you can quickly gain more traffic and be less reliant on one country’s economy.</p>
<p>For example, here is my traffic swing for my SEO traffic in
the United States over the last few months.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ustraffic.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>The US traffic is slowly starting to climb back. It’s still not back to where it was during my all-time highs, but it’s not as low as when the Coronavirus first hit the United States.</p>
<p>On the flip side, our traffic in Brazil has been going through the roof.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/braziltraffic.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>We haven’t changed our strategy, it’s not algorithm related… we haven’t produced more content than usual… we’ve just seen an increase.</p>
<p>We are also starting to see a nice increase in India.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/indiatraffic.png" alt=""/></figure>
<p>By translating your content for other regions and leveraging international SEO, you can quickly grow your traffic.</p>
<p><br>Sure, it may take 6 months to a year to start seeing results in the United States, but that isn’t the case with regions like Brazil where there isn’t as much competition.</p>
<p>If you want to achieve similar results to me, <a href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/global-seo/">follow my global SEO strategy</a>.
It works well… just look at the images above.</p>
<h2><strong>Conclusion</strong></h2>
<p>Sadly, the next few months are going to get worse. The daily
count of new Coronavirus victims is growing. </p>
<p>From a personal standpoint, all you can do is stay indoors and practice social distancing.</p>
<p>But from a marketing, business, and career perspective, you can make a change.</p>
<p>You should have more time now (sadly), so use it to your
advantage. Put in the effort so you can grow, that way you’ll come out of the
Coronavirus stronger.</p>
<p><em>So which one of the above opportunities are you going to implement first?</em></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com/blog/covid-19-marketing/">How to Adapt Your Marketing During the Coronavirus (COVID-19)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://neilpatel.com">Neil Patel</a>.</p>
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