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Showing posts with label seo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seo. Show all posts

Monday, August 15, 2016

Why your competitors are beating you online

Photo credit: 
Are you lost because your website is not showing up on search engines as the Number 1 result?

There are lots of discussions and articles on how to fix websites. But let’s make it easy by narrowing it down to the few key measurements that search engines consider to be the most important this year.

Before looking at your site---- it is important to look at your competitor’s site that is now on top and ask yourself :

Does it load quickly?

Do you trust the company/website/person based on a landing page?

Can you find the competitor’s website link on another trusted site?

Are they running online ads?

Now go to your website:

Does it load as quickly?  
If not, you can test your site on Google’s speed test that provides suggestions on what needs to be fix: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

If you’re not sure what the Google test results mean, then your site probably has some backend technical issues that need to be address.

Now try to find something on your site that you customer might really need to know--- For example how to return an item?
Can you find it quickly or is it buried somewhere on the site?
If it is buried--- make plans with your web team to put it on the first page with a link to find more info.

Next-- Do you believe the text that describes your company, your mission, and products or are the words fluffy?
(An example of fluffy—“Our mission is to be the best and truly serve our customers.”)
This is lazy text that needs to be improved to build trust, because how much time did you really spend on that mission statement?

If your site is full of  fluffy content, find someone to help you rewrite the text and eliminate the fluff with real examples of what you can really do for your customer --- such as –-- “We will reply to your email request within an hour.”

Can you find your website link on other trusted sites?
If not, you really need to find ways to get them on other sites as quickly as possible. Any industry or association site that list companies that offer your services is a great place to start. Then move on to vendors/partners, other blogs or ecommerce sites.

Are you running ads?
If not, you should explore some options to help generate visits to your site.
If yes, re-evaluate the ads and revamp your efforts.


If you fix these few issues you should see improvement in your website search engine rankings fairly quickly. If you still experience trouble with your rankings, there are deeper issues and you should turn to a local search engine optimization expert to help fix them.

Monday, August 8, 2016

LinkedIn's Creative URL's Seem Designed for Organic SEO

This link for a LinkedIn download of a hiring .pdf is a great example of a very selective and creative URL that shows just how detailed LinkedIn is with their landing pages and how you get to it.

 "https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-solutions/global/en_us/c/pdfs/The-Ultimate-Hiring-Toolbox-v03.07.pdf


There are key words, title of content, and the word business TWICE! When have you ever had two key words in your URL? And they both mean something different as categorization is concerned. Having creativity in your team is a must, and LinkedIn has that covered well

Monday, July 11, 2016

Improving your internal linking strategy

Is an internal linking strategy paying off for Mail Online?

Combining hub pages for key topics with well-planned internal linking can be a very effective strategy to secure consistent search rankings for target keywords. 
It’s become an essential tactic for publishers and others, especially when you are regularlycreating content around a particular topic.
The risk of producing a lot of content around the same topic is that you can end up with multiple pages which have similar keywords which compete against each other in Google for the same search terms.
For example, USA Today has ten different articles ranking for the term ‘Kylie Jenner’ during a six month period last year. As each new one comes along, it battles with the existing article, with the end result being a very inconsistent search performance.
kylie-jenner-entertainthis
The answer to this problem is to decide on a page that you want your site to rank for a given keyword or phrase, and concentrate on that. This hub, category or landing page (however you want to describe it) can then be the page that ranks for the term.
Sites can then consistently link to that page from new articles on the topic, eventually creating a useful resource, and one that stands a better chance of gaining high rankings than lots of individual pages.
One such example is the BBC’s Euro 2016 category page. Here it is:
BBC hub page
It’s a repository for all of the site’s content around the tournament, and it ranks consistently.
It should also be noted that the groundwork for this was carried out well in advance of the start of Euro 2016 in early June so that, when the spike in interest around the term happened, the BBC was in position to attract plenty of traffic.
This is the BBC’s search rankings for the term ‘Euro 2016’ for the five months up to the start of the tournament. Nice and consistent.
BBC-UK-consistent
This well planned use of hub pages along with consistent internal linking can really pay off. In the BBC’s case, it has ensured that its Euro 2016 page is in a great position to capitalise in increased interest from searchers around the tournament.
Of course, other factors have to be in place too. The BBC is an authority site with some excellent content and a formidable number of backlinks. Effective linking and theming will help any site, but other factors have to be in place to achieve high rankings for competitive search terms.
That said, it should not be beyond major publishers to profit from this strategy, and the example I’m going to use here is Mail Online. It is, by some accounts, the most visited English-language newspaper site on the web. Make of that what you will.

Mail Online and internal linking

Mail Online, until late last year, hadn’t been implementing a hub page / internal linking strategy at all.
We know this thanks to Dan Barker (@danbarker on Twitter) who pointed this out. He estimates that Mail started this strategy around October 25 last year.
Mail Online creates and publishes huge quantities of articles about celebrities and news. While each new article performs relatively well in search, they do so for a limited time only. So the article becomes old and search positions drop until the original article is usurped by a new article, and so on. This is where the proper strategy can help.
As we can see from the example below for the term ‘chelsea news’, ranking was inconsistent until early November 2015.
The chart shows search results for this term across the entire Daily Mail domain.

Chelsea news search performance

The consistent results post-November are for this hub page, which collates all the articles around that term.
Essentially, Mail Online has sent clear signals to Google, through (relatively) consistent internal linking, that this is the page it wants to rank for the term in question.
The hub page had existed before, but without the right linking strategy to promote it. Here we can seethe difference in performance before and after the Mail improved its linking strategy. 
Chelsea landing page Mail Online
The charts above (all charts are from PI Datametrics btw) shows performance up to January 2016, but we can also see how it performed in the last six months.
The chart below shows the Daily Mail’s Chelsea landing page performance for the term ‘Chelsea news’.
mail 2016 1
Since January, there have only been 26 URL changes, and a lot steadier performance. The visibility for this page has improved as a result by 33.28% and this URL is visible for 98.1% of the time.
The chart below shows the hub / landing page’s performance. It’s mainly consistent, but shows that for the odd day or two, the page wasn’t visible.
mail 2016 2
This landing page hasn’t beaten its previous ranking of number five on Google.
The reason? Inconsistent linking. For maximum effectiveness, all mentions of the term on new articles should be linked back to the hub page. If this is not implemented, then newer pages can end up competing with the hub page for rankings. This is why it was visible for 98.1%, not 100% of the period shown.
Here’s another example, for the search term ‘David Cameron’. As the British PM (though not for much longer) he obviously attracts a lot of searches and mentions in the news.
This is the Daily Mail domain view for ‘David Cameron’. As with ‘chelsea news’, performance is inconsistent until November 2015.
1. Entire Daily Mail view for the search term David Cameron
After November, the Mail is linking to a landing /hub page more consistently (maybe the result of a staff training day on SEO?) and it has led to steadier rankings.
Here’s one example. It’s easy enough to implement.
4. New David Cameron article internal linking
However, as was the case with the previous example term, inconsistent linking means that Mail Online isn’t getting the full benefit.
Here’s a recent article mentioning David Cameron. No internal links.
mail 2016 3
Here’s the view of the David Cameron landing page for the past (almost) 12 months.
There’s been an increased number of URL changes, as newer pages compete with the hub page,but the overall visibility of this URL has improved and the ranking has increased by two positions.
Thanks to the EU referendum, there has obviously been a lot more content produced about David Cameron recently. Had the Mail  linked consistently back to the landing page, this content would have been a lot more visible.
mail 2016 4

In summary: could do better

These examples show how effective the use of linking and hub pages can be, and demonstrate its value, especially for sites that produce a lot of content around the same themes.
They also demonstrate how quickly sites can achieve results with this strategy. However, consistent implementation is key for maximum effect.
That said, we can see how effective this strategy can be. When applied consistently across a range of popular terms, the result is higher and steadier rankings, putting the site in a position to attract more search traffic.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Google kills Right Hand Side Ads: what does this mean for marketers and users?

As we reported over the weekend, Google has removed all PPC ads from the right-hand side of the search engine results page with immediate global effect. 
There’s been a great deal of speculation on what this means for businesses, advertisers and users alike, with many postulating that the top-of-the-page paid search is going to become even more cutthroat (and expensive), organic listings will be pushed even further off the first SERP (Google will start to show four ads at the top instead of three for “highly commercial” search terms) and that Product Listing Ads will gradually take over the SERP (PLAs are still allowed on the right-hand side).
The change has already happened.
Here’s a search for ‘london hotel’ carried out two days ago…
london hotel Google Search with right hand side ads
And here is the same search today…
london hotel Google Search
There are now four paid search results at the top, with nothing on the right. It looks oddly blank now, and worryingly the entire above the fold space is entirely filled with ads.
However there is one slightly positive change. There are more organic results below the fold. In fact there are nine blue links and two news stories, which is an improvement. But this is still probably a case of ‘too little too low-down’.
Google’s decision appears to be entirely commercially driven, it would be naive to think otherwise, but has Google gone too far in sacrificing its own user experience for the searcher?
Or will we eventually get to the point where the entire first SERP is filled with ads and we instinctively click straight to the second page, in the same way we skip past YouTube pre-rolls?
We asked some experts from the search community what they thought of the matter.
Thank you to Julia Logan (SEO consultant at IrishWonder.com), Kevin Gibbons (Managing Director at BlueGlass), Sam Silverwood-Cope (CMO at Pi Datametrics) and Larry Kim (Founder ofWordstream) for answering the following questions…

Why has Google decided to drop ads on the right hand side of search results? Is this a way to extract more revenue from top ads?

[Julia Logan] I would suppose so, given the eye tracking studies, and with reports of typical non-technical users hardly distinguishing between ads and organic results, this step tends to blur the line for such users even more – after all, sidebar ads stood out clearly as ads.
However, I was trying to look into the history of sidebar ads and found this article proving this is not their first attempt to ditch sidebar ads, although the previous one did not involve increasing the number of ads above the organic results.
[Kevin Gibbons] The obvious answer is revenue and I’m sure that is a big factor of course. But I think it’s likely to be a balance between this, and a more modern, perhaps centered, search experience which reflects mobile vs. desktop and tablet results. Ultimately changes like this have to be beneficial to the search experience, otherwise Google ends up chasing short-term revenue instead of long-term market share.
[Sam Silverwood-Cope] My Dad asked me the other day, “How come Google is free?” Well Dad, this is how it makes money. If some people don’t realise the top advert spots are actually advertising (like my dad), I think most are aware that the right-hand side are paid positions. Most people do not click on PPC ads for general searches.
So not content with the existing two or three adverts, plus the Google shopping results, plus any other self-promoting comparison widget they put up, Google in its wisdom, has decided to expand the real estate of PPC in the main bulk of the SERPs at the cost of an organic spot.
new york flights Google Search

What does this do for organic search? What should site owners and SEOs do in response?

[Julia Logan] We could of course panic and bemoan the death of above-the-fold organic SERPs but this may not necessarily be the case. With the rise of adblockers, whatever anybody is doing with their ads can potentially become irrelevant.
Assuming the worst case scenario, site owners and SEOs should do what they have always been doing – compete against paid ads. If you rank for a commercially meaningful keyword, make sure you do everything in your power to make your organic listing stand out – metatag optimisation (yes I do realise this is 2016 now), Schema and other options suitable for your particular site. Ads will evolve, becoming more interactive and visually attractive – this means you should not be left behind.
[Kevin Gibbons] My advice is to aim high. We’ve definitely see a significant shift in first page clickthrough rates over the last couple of years especially in organic search. Ranking on page one is often not good enough anymore, every term is different – but I’d recommend that you really should be aiming top three now, otherwise there’s likely to a big drop-off in clickthrough rates.
Also, become the brand that people think of before they even get to typing a query into Google. Whether it’s paid listings, competitors, vertical search or anything else that may get in the way of potential customers visiting your site, try to make sure they get to you first and then remember who you are, so that they come straight back the next time.
[Sam Silverwood-Cope] Despite my moaning, and hankering for the good old times, I think it makes things quite interesting for SEO. The additional PPC spot is supposed to be for premium terms (for now). These terms are highly expensive per click, so it’s up to the vendor to decide whether the top spot is worth it, or whether it would be an interesting bidding war to lose and then to vie for the organic spot above the fold.
A good strategy would be to push organic and take a lower PPC position. With the right tracking tool, alerts can be used on organic positions to react accordingly for the bidding. This blended search approach will be won by the most competent, well equipped digital teams.

Does this improve or harm the user experience?

[Julia Logan] If the user’s goal is to find whatever they are looking for, the answer will largely depend on whether the AdWords algorithm is better than the organic algorithm, and also whether businesses spend money on ads thoughtlessly and run ads with poor targeting.
[Kevin Gibbons] The jury’s out on this one; the negative could be that searchers want to see the natural listings rather than too many ads at the top, and the positive could be a cleaner layout and improved experience. I have to try and look at this from a non-SEO perspective, and as much as I’d like to see the organic results as high as possible, if I’m honest I think the new layout might improve the experience.
I would add that this isn’t an overnight change and I don’t expect this to be the last experiment we see either.
[Sam Silverwood-Cope] Like a young rock band committed to making quality music and “never selling out” then chasing the mainstream buck with the third album, Google doesn’t seem to prioritise its legacy of organic quality any more.
“In Google we Trust” meant we used this superb search engine above the basic or advertised-burden competition. Too many adverts, and especially poor adverts, will eventually turn the user off. But this will only happen when there is a competent viable competitor.

And finally let’s hear from Larry Kim, who offers the following optimistic advice to Paid Search marketers…

I had a good chuckle reading some of the doomsday predictions this morning.
We did some actual analysis here and what I can tell you is that Side Ad and Bottom ads account for 14.6% of total click volume (this is looking across thousands of accounts). Keep in mind that ‘Bottom of Page Ads’ aren’t going away. So, for starters, we’re talking less than 14.6% of clicks impacted by the change.
top-vs-side-desktop-clicks-2
Now, those “lost” impressions and clicks can more than be made up by A) the addition of the new fourth ad spot B) 78% of SERPS have fewer than 4 ads above the organic results – there’s plenty of room for that to go down and C) the addition of up to four ads below the organic search results. It’s like we just re-organized the naming of ad positions.
As a result, I see no impact on AdWords auction dynamics (clicks, impressions, CPCs, etc.). The only ‘loser’ is organic search which is completely gone from above the fold space on desktop for any commercial query.
There are also incremental benefits to paid search from the change, for example, now all ads can use call-out extensions, sitelink extensions, location extensions, etc., which were previously only a benefit of top-of-page ads. And the ads appear ‘more native’ which may have additional benefits.
In quantifying the impact of this, I should also add that the change is for desktop only, which accounts for less than half of searches. So we’re talking 14.6%/2 = 7.3% of queries impacted.
Basically, keep calm. This is a net positive for paid desktop search.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

World Surfing League ad sends chills down your spine


If you know your audience and have the right tools you can put together ads like this one that send chills down your spine and makes your hair stand up on your arms.

The Chaos Theory concept was created by award-winning creative agency Mistress and was directed by Dan DiFelice.
Read more at http://business.transworld.net/news/the-world-surfing-league-unveils-their-global-brand-campaign-you-cant-script-this/#ZUMwy2SG6Ws4cRfh.99

Monday, November 2, 2015

Best Times to Publish Content for Social Media Engagement

best-times-publish-main-image
At AddThis, we’re constantly analyzing data from the 1.9B unique users we see per month across our network of over 15MM websites to learn how people are engaging with content. Last December, we published thebest times to post on social media during the winter holidays. That post, as well as a similar one we did earlier that year, proved so popular that we’re doing it again.
Knowing when your users are active on social networks is useful, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. We analyzed data in both the United States (US) and in the United Kingdom (UK) to search for peak social engagement times – when users were most likely to click and share content – on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. These findings are meant to help website owners get an idea of the best times to publish new content to maximize engagement on social media.

Social Media Engagement in the United States

In the US, most social networks see a spike in shares during the morning hours. Shares in this case don’t refer to shares on Facebook or retweets on Twitter – instead, these shares refer to content being shared to a specific social network from its original digital source through sharing tools (e.g. share to Facebook, share to Twitter). This trend is especially true for Twitter and LinkedIn, which are sites that tend to attract early birds. Shares to Facebook get started a bit later in the day, and shares to Pinterest happen mostly at night.
With shares occurring earlier in the day, clicks tend to happen a little later across all social networks, mostly in the late afternoon and into the evening. Twitter and LinkedIn get the most clicks in the afternoon, while Facebook and Pinterest drive traffic after 8:00pm.
Peak Times of Day for Shares and Clicks by Social Network
Use this information to get more of your content shared across social media and help drive clicks back to your website:
us-publish-times-final*All times listed above are in Eastern Standard Time (EST)
Peak Times of Week to Post for Maximum Social Engagement
While each social network has peak times of day for shares and clicks, they also have certain days of the week during which engagement spikes. When you put all that data together, you get specific timeframes for which you should aim to post content for maximum shares and clicks.
US-peak-times-to-publish*All times listed above are in Eastern Standard Time (EST)
Users rest on the weekend, and so can you. Since demand for content isn’t as high on Saturdays and Sundays, save your best content to be published during the 9-5 workday between Monday and Thursday. Sharing and clicking activity tends to die down on Saturday and Sunday across all platforms…except on Pinterest. In fact, some of the highest click activity on content shared to Pinterest occurs on Sunday night from 9:00-10:00! Note that users aren’t as willing to share content on Sundays, but there is definitely a demand to see new pins.

Social Media Engagement in the United Kingdom

Unlike in the US, where clicking tends to happen much later than sharing, in the UK, sharing and clicking tend to happen within the same time period. This could be due to the fact that “Britons are slightly less digitally obsessed” or that social networks are blocked at many U.K. companies, resulting in less time spent on social networks overall, and less time spent during work hours. Much of the social activity in the UK occurs between 8:00-10:00pm GMT.
Peak Times of Day for Shares and Clicks by Social Network
The UK data is similar to the US when it comes to Twitter and LinkedIn (shares to these networks occur in the morning), as well as Pinterest (shares happen at night). The wild card here is Facebook. While users in the US tend to share to Facebook in the late morning and early afternoon, in the UK, that activity happens at night, from 8:00-10:00pm.
uk-publish-times-final*All times listed above are in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Peak Times of Week to Post for Maximum Social Engagement
Like social media users in the US, those in the UK are spending less time engaging with social media during the weekends. However, the exception is Sunday nights for Pinterest users, when sharing content tends to spike on this platform.
UK-peak-times-to-publish*All times listed above are in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Use this data as a starting point to get to know your audience’s habits. You may find that – based on their gender, life stage or interests – they’re on a different schedule. With AddThis Social Sharing Tools, you can make it easy for visitors to share your content, as well as get in-depth analytics about how and when they’re engaging with your brand across different social networks. Get started!