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joi, 11 iulie 2013

This Is Going to Make the Economy a Lot Better

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This Is Going to Make the Economy a Lot Better

Here's one of the best things about immigration reform: It's going to make the economy a lot better. We've put together a stop-motion video made up of over 4,000 photos that breaks down exactly how fixing our broken system will create jobs, boost wages, cut the deficit, and foster innovation.

Click here to watch the video, then share it with your friends to help spread the word.

How Does Google Count Local Results?

Posted: 10 Jul 2013 08:00 PM PDT

Posted by Dr-Pete

I've become a bit obsessed with how Google counts results. You may think it's easy (1, 2, 3â€¦ 10), but add in 7-result SERPs and blended local results, and counting to 10 is no longer a Kindergarten-level achievement. Pictures speak louder than words on this one, so let's look at an example. Here's a localized but de-personalized SERP for "orthodontist" â€" I've stripped out everything but titles, display URLs, and pins, to make it easier to parse:

The two sets of numbers on the left represent the two ways I think most rational people without local SEO expertise would count these results â€" it's either six "pure" organic results, or 13 total results. The problem is that almost all page-1 Google SERPs have either seven or 10 organic results. So, there's a third interpretation â€" this is a 10-result SERP, but some of the local 7-pack (in this case, some = four results) must be "blended" results. In other words, the local pack contains both truly local results and organic results that are being treated as local.

Hacking the start= parameter

So, how do we figure out which four are blended? You're probably familiar with Google's "start=" URL parameter. Even if you don't ever enter it manually, you use it all the time â€" it's what separates Google's search result pages. So, if a basic query looks like this:

  <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=orthodontist">https://www.google.com/search?q=orthodontist</a>

...then the query to reach page two of results looks like this:

  <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=orthodontist&start=10">https://www.google.com/search?q=orthodontist&start=10</a>

It turns out that "start=10" is a bit of a cheat â€" it always means "jump to page 2" even if page one is a 7-result SERP. Like most coders, Google also thinks in terms of starting at zero, so for a traditional SERP "10" actually means the 11th result (page one is results 0-9).

Here's where it gets interesting. What if you change the "start=" parameter to be something other than a multiple of ten? Turns out, it works just fine, and it gives you a stripped-down organic result page starting with the absolute position specified. In other words, setting "start=9" gives you a page with no local results that begins at the 10th organic ranking.

Counting backward to destiny

Ok, "destiny" may be a bit over the top. It turns out that you can effectively use this technique to count backward and determine the "true" organic results, as if the local pack had never appeared. You can skip straight to "start=1", which shows the 2nd ranking forward ("start=0" is Googlese for "start from the beginning", so you have to make some assumptions about the #1 spot).

Using this trick ("&start=1") for my "orthodontist" query at the beginning of the post, I ended up with these results:

Since we're starting with #2, this page actually represents organic results 2-11. It's a little odd, but hopefully that all makes sense. So, why am I torturing you with these mental gymnastics?

Putting it all together

If we match up the URLs in the second list with our original SERP, we can determine not only which results were blended, but also what order they would've appeared in without the influence of the local 7-pack. It looks something like this (organic results are in green, local are counted with "L" in the number):

In this case, the first four local results in the pack are the blended results, but the 4th result is actually #9 in the original organic results. Like the old indented results, the local pack pulls any organic result that gets promoted up (to keep the pack contiguous), so in this case #9 is actually outranking the original #7 and #8.

Finding hidden opportunities

This may seem like an academic exercise, but a conversation with local SEO expert Mike Blumenthal helped me see the strategic importance. Understanding how local and organic blend in the SERP above, for example, tells us a couple of things. Google back-filled the 7-pack with three purely local results, indicating an opportunity for sites that might be weak on organic ranking factors but are decently optimized for local.

There's also a potential opportunity for some of the lower-ranking organic results to get promoted above other organic results by improving their local ranking factors. For example, #10 could jump above #7 and #8 (using the organic counting method) with some solid local SEO efforts. In the overall SERP, #10 could jump just behind #9, effectively gaining five spots.

Effectively, there are two algorithms in play here, and they overlap. Local is no longer a purely independent consideration, and "blending" is a dynamic process that potentially opens up new opportunities. We're going to see this with more and more "verticals," including Knowledge Graph â€" these features will start to cross over into organic results and modify them with specialized sub-algorithms. Being visible in these SERPs will require an understanding of how all of the pieces fit together.

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Link Building Survey 2013 - The Results [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 10 Jul 2013 05:26 AM PDT

Posted by jamesagate

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

Many of us faced a challenging 2012 and 2013 has been no different. Rankings were won and lost, a lot of bad links were removed and quite frankly a lot of businesses and departments had to be re-designed. We all know itâ€™s a pretty â€œinterestingâ€ time to be in the link-building and SEO space.

Since we are now over half way through 2013 we decided it was time to gain a better understanding of how this year is going for those in the industry. The purpose of the survey was to really capture the current market sentiment and better understand how industry peers are faring.

We produced an infographic from the results (embedded in its full form at the end of this post) but I also wanted to write up an analysis here just for Moz readers simply because I feel there are quite a few interesting bits of data that are well worth discussing.

Before we get into it, a quick disclaimer:

This post is for information purposes only. These results are not intended to steer you towards specific linking tactics. Surveys have certain inherent flaws and in a market like ours where perception and reality can sometimes become disconnected the data certainly isnâ€™t going to be perfect.

You should make business decisions based on your own experiences and data or hire a professional who is able to assist in doing so.

Adding a disclaimer might seem a little officious, but I do see it as my responsibility to add some fair warnings in here. People coming back to me in 6 month's time saying â€œYour survey said paid links were widely usedâ€¦ why donâ€™t I rank anymore?!â€â€¦ canâ€™t say they were not warned.

This is not a black hat vs. grey hat vs. white hat thing by the way; weâ€™re all pretty much in the same boat floating on an ocean owned by someone else [Google]. My point is there are too many individuals in my opinion being given access to large audiences online who go on to author arguably flippant remarks and tenuous â€œfactsâ€ that get passed off as gospel. This kind of behavior likely sets many beginners or even intermediate SEOs down the wrong path or one they really donâ€™t understand.

Now thatâ€™s out of the way, letâ€™s get startedâ€¦

Who took the survey?

I found this information interesting, not just because it helps us better understand some of the answers given later on in the survey, but because we get the chance to see how people really â€œlabelâ€ themselves in the industry.

In our industry I guess we do spend quite a bit of time labeling ourselves or attempting to define our role within a business, but the real aim here was to see how many people called themselves a link builder with a view to observing any declines in future surveys of this kind.

As was noted in the infographic, it is great we got such a good spread of individuals answering questions as it helps to give perspective from across the organisation.

How much does your business or agency spend on link building on a monthly basis?

I was personally really looking forward to seeing the results of this particular question because I think it acts as a better barometer than most things, as to the effectiveness of link building.

By and large, people wonâ€™t continue to pour money into something that isnâ€™t working. Businesses often vote with their wallet so to speak.

Granted, money related questions in surveys arenâ€™t without bias because certain individuals will almost certainly inflate their figures almost instinctively.

You will note that nearly 39% of those who responded work within an organisation that spends between $5-50k+ a month on linking initiatives. Thatâ€™s a decent sized budget and while obviously there will be respondents who work at an agency where this is distributed across a number of client projects, it does mean there are a number of businesses out there spending big bucks in an attempt to proactively and passively acquire links. Which as I said, means not only does that demonstrate the continued effectiveness of links as part of SEO but that the budget is justified, i.e. they can see an ROI.

The expression goes that a fool and his money are easily parted and frankly any business that can afford say $30k to invest into link building programmes is unlikely to be a fool. They are going to be seeing a return. Say what you want about other things, but links are still the dominant signal to Google and that doesnâ€™t really look set to change.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you face in link building?

Based on the results of this question we found the five biggest challenges that anyone who does link building faces.

Here Iâ€™d like to offer up some actionable advice for each specific challenge, looking at some of the ways we internally overcome these challenges and linking out to some great resources that are out there.

Finding link prospects

I dive a bit deeper into this particular challenge in this post here.

What are the most common forms of link building?

I have to say that this one didnâ€™t really deliver too many surprises. 2012/2013 has seen a meteoric increase in guest blogging activities which tells you a few things really; they are effective when done well and you almost certainly need to be diversifying your stable of tactics, because if weâ€™ve all noticed an increase in guest posts I think it will be safe to say Google has as well.

5% of respondents admitted to participating in paid linking. I was quite surprised that even this many people admitted to it and I congratulate their honesty, because I guarantee that the number is higher than this :-) .

What are the 5 most effective link building tactics?

We asked respondents to rate a wide range of linking tactics on a scale of 1-5. 1 being potentially damaging all the way through to 5 being extremely effective. We then organised these into a top 5 of tactics based on the average rating that these received:

Author bio vs. in-content?

A common question we come up against relates to the effectiveness of guest posts where the link is in the author bio vs. placed within the body of the content.

We have seen no evidence to suggest one is more effective than the other and we recommend a combination of the two simply because placing a strict restriction, like in-content, only can limit some strong publishers for example.

Here is how our respondents feel about this subject:

Infographic directory vs. targeted blog?

Similarly we wanted to get a feel for the general market consensus as to the effectiveness of gaining a placement of an infographic on a blog versus getting loads of placements on infographic galleries/directories.

We have found placements of infographics on targeted, top-tier publishers to be a highly effective method for enhancing search engine visibility I would also argue that some of the better quality infographic galleries are a worthwhile link to secure.

I am talking about the ones that maintain some kind of editorial review process. We have seen on numerous occasions, an infographic being picked up by other sites as a result of the seed placement on one of the higher end infographic galleries.

Hereâ€™s what our respondents thought...

What are the 5 least effective link building tactics?

As you might expect we then rounded up the data from the previous question to give us the â€œrelegation zoneâ€ in the league table of linking or the tactics that were considered least effective by our respondents based on their average rating.

I wonâ€™t comment on the effectiveness of any individual tactics personally here, but I will say that in certain markets and with certain types of sites these tactics are still working. While we should strive to do better forms of link building undoubtedly (if we want to mature as an industry and get a seat at the big table), we do have to be mindful of what is actively working and look at how we can learn from that.

Which tactics do link builders consider dangerous?

I have to say there are probably other linking tactics that I would consider dangerous and perhaps even more dangerous... but here is how our respondents answered this question:

My immediate reaction to these results was that there was likely a little bit of confirmation bias going on. You are likely to have seen the fairly recent events involving a UK florist and their insatiable appetite for advertorials (whether it was advertorials that caused the spanking or not, this was inferred as the cause everywhere) as well as Googleâ€™s relatively public smashing of some blog networks. It isnâ€™t beyond the realms of possibility to argue that some respondents will have taken on board these big industry events and even if just subconsciously they will be finding evidence in their day to day work that these tactics are indeed dangerous.

In reality, it really does come down to how you execute. Any kind of linking tactic comes with risk when not done well.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt are growing problems for link builders

11% said that they werenâ€™t sure which links were going to harm or help them which would corroborate the notion that this is one of the biggest challenges faced by link builders presently but the data from the survey would suggest that for some, the last 12 months has driven them to analysis-paralysis. So much uncertainty, fear and doubt that close to 5% arenâ€™t planning on doing any link building at all.

As Iâ€™ve said before, weâ€™re all trying to make our way in Googleâ€™s ocean and if youâ€™re not rowing, but your competitors are... standing still starts to look just as risky as being proactive.

What about the next 12 months?

It is clear that the outreach-dependent forms of link building are going to be taking priority for the next 12 months and beyond with respondents planning to focus investment in tactics including guest blogging, digital PR, infographics and building relationships with webmasters.

I find that last one particularly interesting because I think many of us are waking up to the idea that links (certainly some of your links anyway) can drive a good amount of traffic on an ongoing basis. If there is a website that already has an audience (and the trust of that audience) why wouldnâ€™t you explore ways of working with them and developing that relationship? Thatâ€™s a ready-made set of prospective customers...

And here it is in full format:

I welcome your thoughts and feedback on the data - I will try to respond to all comments promptly.
Please also feel free to suggest questions for inclusion in next yearâ€™s survey.

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 01:15 AM PDT

In yesterday’s post I talked about the different ways to find your mobile bid adjustments, and said that if you have keyword level adjustments you’ll need to change them into ad group level adjustments. Today I’ll show how to do this with weighted averages.

Calculating Weighted Averages

Firstly you’ll need to get your keywords into Excel, so go to AdWords and to the Keywords tab.

Be careful to set the date range: you don’t want to have a range that will include anything that’s out of date, but you need enough data to make decisions.

The next steps depend on whether you have separate mobile campaigns or not.

If do you have separate mobile campaigns, you just need to download a Keyword report. Then replace 'Campaign' with 'Campaign Root' and add a 'Device' column. The Campaign Root should be the same for all campaigns that are the same except for device. Device should be the device the campaign is targeted at: 'mobile' or 'computers'. If you've named your campaigns sensibly then you should be able to fill these by copying the Campaign column, then using find and replace.

Then add a filter so you can just look at the mobile campaigns' keywords.

Add columns "Desktop bid" and "Mobile bid". To find the Desktop Bid for the keyword, use:

=SUMIFS(G:G,B:B,B3,C:C,C3,E:E,E3,D:D,"Computers")

This will find the Max CPC of the row with the same keyword, campaign root and ad group, where the device is ‘computers’.

To find the Mobile Bid, just copy column G, as you’re already only looking at mobile keywords.

If you don’t have campaigns split by device, but you have worked out what your mobile bids should be at keyword level, you’ll want to download the Keyword report segmented by Device. This means you already have a Device column, and can use the Campaign column without needing to add a Campaign Root column. Filter by Device so that you’re only looking at Mobile traffic. Then instead of messing with sumifs you can just copy the Max. CPC column to make the “Desktop Bid” column, and copy your mobile bids into the “Mobile Bid” column.

Whichever method you're using, your spreadsheet should end up looking something like this:

Add a column for ‘Mobile/Desktop’, for the keyword level percentage. Fill it with:

=IFERROR(O3/N3,0)

(The IFERROR is in case there is no desktop bid, which would otherwise lead to dividing by zero. If you need to find keywords that are in your mobile campaigns but not your desktop ones, you can filter for where Desktop Bid is 0.)

Then add a column for ‘Weight’. This is the keyword level percentage multiplied by the cost of the keyword:

=P3*L3

Then comes the bit you’re actually after. Put in a column for ‘Bid Adjustment’ and fill it with:

=SUMIFS(Q:Q,C:C,C3,D:D,D3,E:E,E3)/SUMIFS(L:L,C:C,C3,D:D,D3,E:E,E3,Q:Q,">0")-1

This sums up the weights (where the campaign, ad group and device are the same) and divides by the cost of mobile traffic to the ad group (ignoring where the weight is 0, as that would mean the keyword isn’t in the desktop campaign). The -1 is because mobile bid adjustments are the difference between the percentage multiplier and 100%.

If you’d like to see this in Excel, download the example spreadsheet here.

Review

You should then review your adjustments, to make sure they look sensible.

You may have the problem that a mobile ad group hasn’t had any clicks: its cost is 0, all its weights are 0 and the suggested bid adjustment is #DIV/0!. As you haven’t had any costs to show how you should weight the average, you could use an unweighted average:

=AVERAGEIFS(P:P,C:C,C3,D:D,D9,E:E,E3,P:P,">0")-1

Also, your final adjustments need to be between -90% and +300%. Rather than just use Excel to force those adjustments, I’d review the ad groups that are outside the limits. If the best modifier is over 300%, is the traffic valuable enough that it’s worth increasing desktop bids? If the bid modifier is under 90%, is it worth having mobile traffic at all?

Another thing you can do is add a column with the difference between the bid adjustment and the keyword’s preferred adjustment:

=IF(P3>0,P3-1-R3,"-")

Then filter to see the biggest differences, or filter by this and by cost to see where there would be the biggest difference in spend. Judge whether there are any keywords that would be better off in a separate ad group with its own adjustment.

joi, 11 iulie 2013

This Is Going to Make the Economy a Lot Better

How Does Google Count Local Results?

How Does Google Count Local Results?

Hacking the start= parameter

Counting backward to destiny

Putting it all together

Finding hidden opportunities

Who took the survey?

How much does your business or agency spend on link building on a monthly basis?

What are some of the biggest challenges that you face in link building?

What are the most common forms of link building?

What are the 5 most effective link building tactics?

Author bio vs. in-content?

Infographic directory vs. targeted blog?

What are the 5 least effective link building tactics?

Which tactics do link builders consider dangerous?

Fear, uncertainty and doubt are growing problems for link builders

What about the next 12 months?

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments

Calculating Weighted Averages

Review

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

joi, 11 iulie 2013

This Is Going to Make the Economy a Lot Better

How Does Google Count Local Results?

How Does Google Count Local Results?

Hacking the start= parameter

Counting backward to destiny

Putting it all together

Finding hidden opportunities

Who took the survey?

How much does your business or agency spend on link building on a monthly basis?

What are some of the biggest challenges that you face in link building?

What are the most common forms of link building?

What are the 5 most effective link building tactics?

Author bio vs. in-content?

Infographic directory vs. targeted blog?

What are the 5 least effective link building tactics?

Which tactics do link builders consider dangerous?

Fear, uncertainty and doubt are growing problems for link builders

What about the next 12 months?

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments

Calculating Weighted Averages

Review

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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