For Writers Only: Secrets to Improving Engagement on Your Content Using Word Pictures (and I Don't Mean Wordle) - Moz Blog |
| Posted on: Tuesday 27 January 2015 — 01:16 Posted by Isla_McKetta "Picture it." If you're of a certain generation, those two words can only conjure images of tiny, white-haired Sophia from the Golden Girls about to tell one of her engaging (if somewhat long and irrelevant) stories as she holds her elderly roommates hostage in the kitchen or living room of their pastel-hued Miami home. Even if you have no idea what I'm talking about, those words should become your writing mantra, because what readers do with your words is take all those letters and turn them into mind pictures. And as the writer, you have control over what those pictures look like and how long your readers mull them over. According to Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene, reading involves a rich back and forth between the language areas and visual areas of our brains. Although the full extent of that connectivity is not yet known, it's easy to imagine that the more sensory (interesting) information we can include in our writing, the more fully we can engage our readers. So if you're a writer or content marketer you should be harnessing the illustrative power of words to occupy your readers' minds and keep them interested until they're ready to convert. Here's how to make your words work for you. Kill clichésI could have titled this piece "Painting a Picture with Words" but you've heard it. Over and over and over. And I'm going to propose that every time you use a cliché, a puppy dies.
While that's a bit extreme (at least I hope so because that's a lot of dead puppies and Rocky's having second thoughts about his choice of parents), I hope it will remind you to read over what you've written and see where your attention starts to wander (wandering attention=cliché=one more tragic, senseless death) you get bored. Chances are it's right in the middle of a tired bit of language that used to be a wonderful word picture but has been used and abused to the point that we readers can't even summon the image anymore. Make up metaphors (and similes)Did you know that most clichés used to be metaphors? And that we overused them because metaphors are possibly the most powerful tool we have at our disposal for creating word pictures (and, thus, engaging content)? You do now.
By making unexpected comparisons, metaphors and similes force words to perform like a stage mom on a reality show. These comparisons shake our brains awake and force us to pay attention. So apply a whip to your language. Make it dance like a ballerina in a little pink tutu. Give our brains something interesting to sink our teeth into (poor Rocky!), gnaw on, and share with out friends. Engage the senses
If the goal of all this attention to language is to turn reading into a full brain experience, why not make it a little easier by including sensory information in whatever you're writing? Here are a few examples:
See how those images and experiences continue to unfold and develop in your mind? You have the power to affect your readers the same way—to create an image so powerful it stays with them throughout their busy days. One note of caution, though, sensory information is so strong that you want to be careful when creating potentially negative associations (like that garbage strike stench in the final example). Leverage superlatives (wisely) and ditch hyperboleSUPERLATIVES ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVEST TOOL YOU CAN USE EVER (until you wear your reader out or lose their trust). Superlatives (think "best," "worst," "hairiest" – any form of the adjective or adverb that is the most exaggerated form of the word) are one of the main problems with clickbait headlines (the other being the failure to deliver on those huge promises).
Speaking of exaggeration, be careful with it in all of its forms. You don't actually have to stop using it, but think of your reader's credence in your copy as a grasshopper handed over by a child. They think it's super special and they want you to as well. If you mistreat that grasshopper by piling exaggerated fact after exaggerated fact on top of it, the grasshopper will be crushed and your reader will not easily forgive you. So how do you stand out in a crowded field of over-used superlatives and hyperbolic claims? Find the places your products honestly excel and tout those. At Moz we don't have the largest link index in the world. Instead, we have a really high quality link index. I could have obfuscated there and said we have "the best" link index, but by being specific about what we're actually awesome at, we end up attracting customers who want better results instead of more results (and they're happier for it). Unearth the mystery
One of the keys to piquing your audience's interest is to tap into (poor puppy!) create or find the mystery in what you're writing. I'm not saying your product description will suddenly feature PIs in fedoras (I can dream, though), but figure out what's intriguing or new about what you're talking about. Here are some examples:
Secrets, surprises, and inside information make readers hunger for more knowledge. Use that power to get your audience excited about the story you're about to tell them. Don't forget the words around your imagery
Notice how some of these suggestions aren't about the word picture itself, they're about the frame around the picture? I firmly believe that a reader comes to a post with a certain amount of energy. You can waste that energy by soothing them to sleep with boring imagery and clichés, while they try to find something to be interested in. Or you can give them energy by giving them word pictures they can get excited about. So picture it. You've captured your reader's attention with imagery so engaging they'll remember you after they put down their phone, read their social streams (again), and check their email. They'll come back to your site to read your content again or to share that story they just can't shake. Good writing isn't easy or fast, but it's worth the time and effort.
Let me help you make word picturesEditing writing to make it better is actually one of my great pleasures in life, so I'm going to make you an offer here. Leave a sentence or two in the comments that you're having trouble activating, and I'll see what I can do to offer you some suggestions. Pick a cliché you can't get out of your head or a metaphor that needs a little refresh. Give me a little context for the best possible results. I'll do my best to help the first 50 questions or so (I have to stop somewhere or I'll never write the next blog post in this series), so ask away. I promise no puppies will get hurt in the process. In fact, Rocky's quite happy to be the poster boy for this post—it's the first time we've let him have beach day, ferry day, and all the other spoilings all at once. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Get to Know the Moz Community Managers Posted on: Monday 26 January 2015 — 01:15 Posted by jennita At this very moment a spammy comment is being written on the Moz Blog, a tweet is being sent to @Moz, and someone is signing up for the next Mozinar. You'll probably never see any of these happen, and may not realize that just like Newton's third law states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." As each one of these actions occurs, a Moz Community Manager is jumping into a reaction: The spammer is banned, the tweet is answered, and the Mozinar is being prepared. Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day, or #CMAD as it's come to be known. It's a day to thank the amazing community managers out there who keep all things moving no matter what the day or time. At Moz, we're lucky to have an exceptional team of folks that manages everything from social media posts to handling spammers. It's not always a pretty job, but it's one they take to heart, and have come to live and breathe the role. Did you know the @Moz Twitter account is handled by 7 different people? I dare you to try to figure out who's tweeting when. It's my great honor to introduce and thank each of our community managers, as well as several folks who contribute greatly to the team. They make sure our site isn't overrun with spam, your questions get answered in Q&A, your tweets see replies, and that you have help writing a great post for YouMoz. Before I dive in, I'd like to give a shout out to all of our Associates, especially Gianluca and Miriam, who help the Community team in a myriad of ways every single day. In order to be fair, I'll introduce each person in terms of how long they've been working on community-related tasks here at Moz. Keri Morgret - Community Manager Keri started out as an Associate in early 2011, where she initially focused on YouMoz. She had been quite active in the greater SEO community, and her knowledge and experience was top-notch. Top that with a need for perfect grammar (she once refused to read a self-published book because of bad grammar), and she took YouMoz to great heights. Over time, she took over Q&A, and eventually came to manage just about everything happening on the site each day. Keri moved to Seattle, and became a full-time Mozzer in May 2012. Here's a high-level peek at all the areas Keri currently handles:
As someone we often call our "super sleuth," Keri likes to know everything that's happening on the site at all times. My appreciation for her goes well beyond her keeping tabs on the community for us. She cares for Moz and our entire community to her core. She lives and breathes TAGFEE, and holds all of us at Moz to the highest standards, constantly reminding us to focus on our community. This year in particular was a special one for Keri, as she welcomed her daughter Eloise to the world. I'll throw in a big thank you to Eloise as well, who has brought so much love and happiness to Keri and her husband. :) 2014 Stat: The team banned 1,235 accounts for comment spam. Erica McGillivray - Sr. Community Manager Between the time Erica accepted the role of "Community Attache" in October 2011, and the time she actually started just a few weeks later, her job had completely changed. Lucky for us, her background is diverse: Not only has she been an SEO in a previous life, but she's managed email campaigns, writes killer copy, and was once the President of GeekGirlCon. She accepted the changed role, and focused on marketing communications for a while. However, it didn't take too long for her to find her true calling back on the community team! Erica quickly proved her prowess at managing speakers and events, and took over our bi-weekly webinars (a.k.a. Mozinars), as well as speaker coordination for our annual conference, MozCon. Plus, with her knowledge of SEO and social, she took over the management of our social media channels, and helped Keri with on-site work as needed. Today, as our Senior Community Manager, she's in charge of the following areas:
This year, I'm extremely thankful for Erica stepping in and helping with bigger strategy items, and being my backup! Ok, that really just means she ends up going to a lot more meetings, but still, it's been great. :) 2014 Stat: 8,945 people watched our webinars live. Christy Correll - Q&A Associate Christy and I worked together many years ago in Denver (in what feels like a completely different life). When we realized that Q&A was getting more active in early 2012, and we needed an additional set of eyes in there, I knew just who to turn to. Christy was running her own online marketing agency, so I knew she had the background and ability, and I was pleased to find out she had the time as well! What began as a possible 10 hours/week job has grown into at least a half-time gig. We count on Christy's insights and smarts in Q&A every single day. She and Keri use a spreadsheet with all of our staff and Associates expertise to know who best to assign things to. She's also been helping out more and more with the editing of YouMoz blog posts. Christy, thank you for your continued excellence in making Q&A an amazing place to give and get answers to all kind of online marketing questions. 2014 Stat: 8,165 questions were asked in Q&A with 31,218 replies. Megan Singley - Social Community Manager Megan had been working on the Help team for almost two years, when we stole her over to the community team in January of 2013 (yes, that means she just hit her 4-year mark!). She was more knowledgeable about our tools and how to help our customers than any of the rest of us were. Her love has always been in social, and she initially worked with Erica on managing our social accounts. It didn't take long, though, for her to take over social management, and she is currently the go-to person for all things social media. At this very moment we have some fascinating social tests happening on Twitter thanks to her work. (Now, if only I could get her to write a blog post about the tests!) She's also the one who can always put a smile on someone's face if they're having a grumpy day. (She once sent a guy cookies because he tweeted @Moz saying the latest Whiteboard Friday had made him hungry for cookies.) And with this kind of work, you run into some grumpy folks now and then (usually me). ;) Megan is focused on these areas:
Right? That's a lot! Megan has stepped out of her comfort zone, and helped us to create some great internal processes, and keeps us all on track on social (a place where I usually get in trouble!). I'm grateful to her for taking on this new role and striving to make our social marketing the absolute best in the industry. 2014 Stat: The team sent a whopping 9.6k tweets from the @Moz account. Melissa Fach - Social Associate Melissa began as an Associate in 2013, to help us manage the growing YouMoz queue. As a well-known SEO and previous editor at Search Engine Journal, YouMoz made perfect sense for her. During MozCon that year, we asked her to help us manage social while we were busy with the conference, and we quickly realized that social was her true calling for Moz. With our growing international community, we had been looking for someone to manage all our social channels during our off-hours. Melissa to the rescue! Not only did she already know the industry, and had been a part of the Moz community for years, but lucky for us she lives in Florida, three hours ahead of the Mozplex. I'm not exactly sure what we'd do without Melissa these days. Her role of managing all the social things during the wee hours of the morning is essential to Moz. She alerts us if there are multiple tweets about a tool not working, or if a certain post is doing exceptionally well (or exceptionally poorly, for that matter). She's the eyes and ears of Moz while those of us here in Seattle are still fast asleep. (Unless we're talking about Keri being up with her newborn at 3 a.m.) Melissa has the difficult job of working from her home in Florida, yet staying on top of everything that's happening throughout the day at Moz. She does this well, so that each morning she knows how to respond to questions on Twitter, and knows when there's something going on. A huge thank you to her for always making us look so darn good! 2014 Stat: We saw a 43% YOY loss in Facebook traffic. Trevor Klein - Content Strategist Trevor is the lucky guy who gets to edit posts for the Moz Blog. Yep, he edited this one too, and when he gets to this part he's going to feel really weird for a few seconds. :) [Editor's note: It's true.] Trevor is a part of the Content Team here at Moz, but because content and community are so closely tied, his job often crosses roles. Trevor started managing the blog in May 2013. He's upped the ante on our blog content, and quickly realized that content doesn't end upon publishing a post. We get tons of comments and thumbs on posts, and he helps Keri and the rest of the team to moderate all the things. He'll email a member who's posted too many spammy links in their otherwise well written comments, or reply to a comment reminding a member to stay TAGFEE in their responses. Personally, I'm grateful to have someone on the team who cares so deeply about Moz and the community that he's willing to stand up for his beliefs, and for the community. (Even if he is standing up to or disagreeing with me. ;)) [Editor's sarcastic note: That never happens. Ever.] 2014 Stat: Moz staff edited 622 blog comments for spammy links, TAGFEE wording, etc. Charlene Inoncillo - Community Brand Manager Although Charlene started back in September 2011, and had been handling all our event details for a while, it wasn't until 2014 that she became an official part of the Community team. She initially started as the Marketing Admin, and swiftly worked herself into a full-time events manager. Over time this role has changed as she's increased her skillset, and has continued to break her own goals. Charlene works closely with Erica on all of our events, plus she's in charge of any sponsorships or speaking engagements we have throughout the year. Here's the high-level list of Charlene's roles:
With her addition, we've completely upped our game when it comes to branding. Charlene works with our design team to create beautiful swag, have a perfect brand experience at MozCon, and essentially make us look good, consistently. It also helps that she's the most organized person I know, and always considers even the tiniest of details. (Which is really great for someone like me who dislikes dealing with details.) What am I most thankful of Charlene for this year? It's the little things, actually. She ensured that every blog post, webinar, event, product launch, etc. has branded images that we share on social, and in blog posts. These things make a huge impact! 2014 Stat: We sent 573 "Happy" packages and ordered 37,364 swag items. Danie Launders - Marketing SpecialistWhile Danie isn't officially on the Community team, we pretend as if she is. We started stealing her time early in 2014, and just keep pulling her in farther (shh, don't tell Annette, our CMO). Danie's ability to jump into any project and willingness to learn all the things have had a great impact on the community team this past year. She's an absolute natural with the Moz "voice" and manages our social channels several times per week (in 4-hour shifts). She's crazy-organized, so it makes sense that she helps Charlene with all the events, sponsorship, and swag tasks. This year, I'm thankful for every single thing Danie does. Whether making sure our Associates get paid, sending swag to an active member, or just replying to a Facebook message, she does it with grace. 2014 Stat: 9k+ tweets were sent using the #MozCon hashtag. Ronell Smith - YouMoz Associate Ronell may be our newest member of the team, but his impact has been swift and grand. While Keri was on maternity leave, we needed someone to help manage YouMoz posts. It had to be someone who knows the online marketing industry well, plus has great editing skills, AND is a great writer. When Keri went on leave a bit sooner than expected, we had to throw Ronell into the YouMoz fire without a ton of training. If you've submitted a YouMoz post recently, and have worked with Ronell, you know what I mean when I say he's kicked royal butt for us. He cares deeply about ensuring that posts are of the highest quality, and he works with authors (I've seen email threads between him and an author that were 65+ emails deep!) to help improve their writing. This is why even after Keri returned from leave, we asked him to continue making YouMoz awesome. My thank-you to Ronell is for helping us to not only improve our process, but to up our YouMoz game. Heck, the entire community thanks you. 2014 Stat: Only 3.7% of all YouMoz posts submitted were published. Now it's your turn. Impressive group of folks, right? Please help me in thanking them for all their amazing work every day for Moz. Also, I bet after reading about them you may even have a few questions of your own. Well, lucky you! Each one of them is on stand-by today to answer any questions you have about their roles at Moz or how we manage all things community. Go ahead… ask us anything! (about our jobs) Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Know What Your Audience Wants Before Investing in Content Creation and Marketing - Whiteboard Friday Posted on: Friday 23 January 2015 — 01:16 Posted by randfish Content marketing is an iterative process: We learn and improve by analyzing the success of the things we produce. That doesn't mean, though, that we shouldn't set ourselves up for that success in the first place, and the best way to do that is by knowing what our audiences want before we actually go through the effort to create it. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand (along with his stick-figure friends Rainy Bill and Hailstorm Hal) explains how we can stack our own decks in our favor with that knowledge. For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard! Video transcriptionHowdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. It's 2015. It's going to be a year where, again, many, many marketers engage in a ton of content investments and content marketing for a wide variety of purposes from SEO to driving traffic to growing their email newsletters and lists to earning links and attention and growing their social channels. Unfortunately, there's a content marketing problem that we see over and over and over again, and that is that folks are making investments in content without knowing whether their audience is going to know and love and appreciate what they're doing beforehand. That kind of sucks because it adds a lot of risk to a process that is already risk intensive. You're going to put a lot of work into the content that you're creating. Well, hopefully you are. If you're not, I don't know how well it's going to do. All of that work can be for naught. Let me show you two examples. Over here I have Rainy Bill from WhatTheWeather.com, and here's Hailstorm Hal from KingOfClimate.com. We'll start with Rainy Bill's story. So Rainy Bill, he's thinking to himself, "You know, I want to invest in some content marketing for WhatTheWeather.com." He has an idea. He's like, "You know, maybe I could make a chart of the T-shirts that meteorologists wear by season. I'll look at all the TV meteorologists, all the Internet meteorologists, and I'll look at the T-shirts that they wear. They all wear T-shirts, and I'll make a big chart of them." You might think this is a ridiculous idea. I have seen worse. But Rainy Bill is thinking to himself, "Well, if I do this, it's kind of ego bait. I get all the meteorologists involved. I'll feature all their T-shirts, and, of course, all of them will see it and they'll all link to me, talk about me, share it on their social media channels, email their friends with it. Oh check it out. Put it on their Facebook." He makes it. He's got this beautiful chart showing different kinds of T-shirts that meteorologists are wearing over the seasons, and Bill's just as happy as a clam. He can't believe how beautiful that is until he tries to launch and promote it. Then it's just sadness. He's just crying tears. What happened here is that no one actually cared what Bill had to say. No one cared about T-shirt patterns that are worn by meteorologists, and Bill didn't actually realize this until he had already made the investment and started trying to do the promotion. This might be a slightly ridiculous example, but I can't tell you how many times I've seen exactly this story play out by marketer after marketer of content investments. They put something together that they hope will achieve their goal of reaching a new audience, of getting promoted, but it falls flat mostly because they had the idea before they talked to anyone else. Before they realized whether anyone else was interested, they went and built it. That's actually kind of a terrible idea. Unless you have your finger on the pulse of an industry, a field so incredibly well that you don't need that process, I'm going to say that is the 1% of the 1% who can do this without going out and first talking to their audience and understanding. Hailstorm Hal, from KingOfClimate, instead of having a great idea for a piece of content, Hailstorm Hal is going to start with the idea from which all content marketing springs, which is, "I want to make something people will really want and something they'll really love." Okay. They want it, and they're going to love it when they see it and when they get it. So Hailstorm Hal is going to go out and say, "Well, what are the weather watchers talking about? People who are active in this community, in this industry, the people who do the sharing and the amplification, who influence what the rest of us see, what are they talking about?" So he goes onto this weather forum and hears someone complaining, "The weather in Cincinnati is totally unpredictable." The reply, "Yeah, but it's way more predictable than Seattle is." "Nuh-uh, you liar." From this, eureka, Hailstorm Hal has a great idea. "Wait a minute. What if I were to actually go and take all of this online commentary and turn it into something useful where these two commenters could prove to each other who's correct and people would know for certain how much . . ." It's not just helpful to them. This is helpful to a huge, broad swath of society. How accurate are your meteorologists, on average, city by city? I don't actually know, but I would be fascinated to know whether when I go to San Diego -- I was there for the holidays to see my wife's family -- maybe the weather reports in San Diego are much more or much less accurate than what I'm used to here at home in Seattle. So Hal's going to put together this great map that's got an illustration of different regions of the United States, and you can see that in the Midwest actually weather is more predictable than it is on the coast or less predictable than it is on the coast. That's awesome. That's terrific. This is going to work far, far better than anything that Hal could have come up with on his own without first understanding the industry. Now the process and tips that I'm going to recommend here are not exhaustive. There are a lot more things in this. But if you follow these five, at least, I think you're going to do much better with your content investment. First off, even before you do this process, get to know the industry, the niche, or the community that you're operating in. If Hal didn't know where to find weather watchers, he might just search weather forum, click on the first link in Google, and be at some place that doesn't really have a very serious investment from the community of people he's trying to reach. Without understanding all of the sites and pages, without understanding who are the big influencers in the community on social media, without understanding what are the popular websites, what gets a lot of interaction and engagement and doesn't, that's going to be really tough for him to figure out. So that's why I would say you need to go out and learn about your industry before you make something for it. Incidentally, this is why it's really tough to do this as a consultant and why if you are paying consultants to go and do this, you're going to actually be paying quite a bit of money for this research time. This is going to be dozens of hours of research to understand the niche before you can effectively create content for it. That's something where it isn't just an on demand kind of thing. Then from there you want to use the discussion forums, Q&A sites, social media, and blog comments to find topics and discussions that inspire questions, curiosity, and need. Some of that is going to be very blatant. Some of it is going to be much more latent, and you're going to be drawing from both of those. Your job is to have insight and empathy, and that's what a great marketer should be able to do when they're researching these communities. Number three, you want to validate that if you created something, (a) it would be unique, no one else has made it before, and (b) others would actually share it. You can do this very directly by reaching out and talking to people. So Hal can go and say, "Hey, who's this commenter right here? Let's have a quick conversation. Would you like this?" If the answer is, "Yeah, not only would I like that, I would help share that. I would spread that. I would love to know the answer to this question." Or no reply, or "Sounds interesting, let me know when you get it up." There's going to be a different variation. You can go and use Twitter, Google+, and email to reach out directly to these people. Most of the time, if you're finding commentary on these forums and in these places, there will be a way to reach them. I also have two tools I'm going to recommend, both for email. One is Conspire and the other is VoilaNorbert. VoilaNorbert.com is an email finding tool. I think it's the best one out there right now, and Conspire is a great tool for seeing who you're connected to that's connected to people you might want to reach. When you're trying to reach someone, those can be very helpful. Number four, it tends to be the case that visual and/or interactive content is going to perform a lot better than text. So if Hal's list had simply been a list of data -- here are all the major U.S. regions and here's how predictable and unpredictable their weather is -- well, that might work okay. But this map, this visual is probably going to sail around the weather world much faster, much better, be picked up by news sources, be written about, be embedded in social media graphics, all that kind of stuff, far better than a mere chart would be. Number five, remember that as you're doing the creation, you need to align the audience goals with your business goals. So if KingOfClimate's goal is to get people signing up for a weather tracking service on an email list, well great, you should have this and then say, "We can send you variability reports. We can tell you if things are getting more or less accurate," and have an email call to action to get people to sign up to the newsletter. But you want to tie those business goals together. The one thing I'd be careful of and this is a mistake that many, many folks who invest in content marketing make is that a lot of those benefits are going to be indirect and long term, meaning if the goal is that KingOfClimate.com is trying to sell professional meteorologists on a software subscription service, well, you know what? You're probably not going to sell a whole lot with this. But you are going to get a lot more professional meteorologists who remember the name, KingOfClimate, and that brand memory is going to influence future purchase decisions, likely nudging conversation rates up a little bit. It's probably going to help with links. Links will lead to rankings. Rankings will lead to being higher up in search engines when professional meteorologists search for precisely, "I'm looking for weather tracking software or weather notification software." So these kings of things are long term and indirect. You have to make sure you're tying together all of the benefits of content marketing with your business goals that you might achieve. I hope to see some phenomenal content here in 2015. I'm sure you guys are already working on some great stuff. Applying this can mean that you don't have to be psychic. You just have to put in a little bit of elbow grease, and you can make things that will perform far better for your customers, for your community, and for your business. All right, everyone. Look forward to the discussion, and we will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care. Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| 5 Years of SEO Changes and Better Goal-Setting - Videos from MozTalk 2 Posted on: Thursday 22 January 2015 — 01:14 Posted by CharleneKate Have you ever noticed how Rand is often speaking at conferences all around the world? Well, we realized that those of us here in Seattle rarely get to see them. So we started MozTalks, a free event here at the MozPlex. The world of marketing and SEO continues to change, but are you changing with it? Staying on the cutting edge should always be a priority, especially since early adoption has proven more beneficial than ever. Sticking with what works isn't enough anymore, and marketing isn't just about analyzing our successes and failures or understanding our returns and losses. It's about what we do next. In the presentations below, Rand and Dr. Pete will dive deep into where metrics serve us best, as well as what really works to drive traffic and what's better left behind. Rand: What Changed? A Brief Look at How SEO has Evolved over the Last 5 YearsDr. Pete: From Lag to Lead: Actionable AnalyticsTop takeawaysWe asked both presenters for a few of their top takeaways from their talks, and they've got some gems. Here's what they had to say: From Rand
From Dr. Pete
Missed the previous talk?The first MozTalk featured Rand and his wife Geraldine, known in the blogosphere as The Everywhereist. Rand covered what bloggers need to know about SEO, and Geraldine talked about how to make your blog audience fall in love with you. Check them both out here: Need-to-Know SEO and Making Your Blog Audience Fall in Love - Videos from MozTalk 1 Join us for the next oneOur next free MozTalk is set for Thursday, April 2nd, and we're still finalizing plans. We'll be sure to post the videos on this blog for those of you who can't make it, but if you're in town, keep your eyes open for more details. We hope to see you there! Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Everything You Need To Know About Sponsored Content Posted on: Tuesday 20 January 2015 — 23:28 Posted by ChadPollitt 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 the traditional channels for online content discovery are thoroughly understood and their adoption rates are high. The readily accepted channels—from SEO and PPC, to email and social media broadcasting—can deliver the best content to the right people at the right time. Today, however, the Internet is experiencing a deluge of content, and many channels for content discovery are bloated. Estimates say that more than 2.73 million blog posts are written and published daily. Many industries are experiencing a content surplus, making it even more challenging for marketers to get their content seen. Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter are adjusting their algorithms to ensure the least amount of organic visibility for brands, too. Traditional paid media, such as banner advertising, is becoming less effective year-over-year because banner blindness runs rampant. According to Solve Media, you're more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a banner ad. That sounds farfetched until you look at the results from the Nielsen Norman Groups 2007 eyetracking study (shown below).  Red areas indicate where users looked the most; yellow areas indicate fewer views; areas colored blue depict the least-viewed portions of the page; gray areas didn't attract any views/actions; and the green boxes are used to highlight advertisements. As a result, new techniques, tactics and tools are cropping up and being used by marketers of all stripes to maximize the visibility of their content. There's now an entire content promotion ecosystem. From influencer marketing to native advertising, brands are experimenting in new ways. Many brands are sponsoring articles on blogs or other online publications with large preexisting audiences. An interesting stat we just included in our own " Content Promotion Manifesto" is that brands spent, on average, 6.7 percent of their content marketing budgets on sponsored content in 2013. It's trending upwards, too. From the The New York Times to Forbes' Brand Voice, there's no shortage of famous examples. While advertorials have been around for decades, this top-of-the-funnel sponsored article channel is relatively new for many content marketers. Over the last year, we have received many questions from clients about sponsored content—questions about pricing, scale, value and strategy. We struggled to answer most of them; there wasn't anywhere to get answers. Because of this, we decided to reach out to 550 online publications to gather as much information about their sponsored content programs as possible. We wanted to find out the following:
We quickly learned that sponsored content on blogs and other online publications, when viewed as a marketing channel, is very immature. Pricing doesn't have much rhyme or reason, either. However, after collecting and interpreting data on 550 online properties, and dissecting countless native advertising studies, we hope to shine a light on a little known content marketing channel. The results of the study are outlined below. Note: The complete Media Buyers Guide to Sponsored Content study is available for download here. Defining Sponsored ArticlesWith content marketing adoption rates so high, many brands are looking to native advertising to promote their content. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) defines native advertising as "paid ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong." According to the IAB, native advertising contains six different types of ad units: in-feed, promoted listings, in-ad with native element, paid search, recommendation widgets, and custom. Sponsored articles fall into the in-feed subgroup. However, so does promoted content on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Bcause they appear within the normal content feed of the publisher, it doesn't matter if the publisher is Facebook or BuzzFeed. In other words, sponsored articles amount to advertising on a media outlet in the form of editorial content that looks like it's supposed to be there. Brands value this because association with a publication and exposure to its audience can drive awareness, traffic, conversions, and leads. The Current State of Sponsored ArticlesWe uncovered lots of fascinating information about sponsored articles while conducting our research. They are actually an evolved version of what many marketers call advertorials, which have been around for decades. The biggest difference between the two is where the content resides in the customer buying journey. Advertorials are middle to bottom-of-the-funnel content. An example of a magazine advertorial On the other hand, sponsored articles strictly reside at the top of the funnel. Their purpose is to be helpful, entertaining, or both. Top-of-the-funnel content doesn't appear to be salesy and brand-centric to the reader. It's the rise of content marketing that helped move advertorials up the funnel. This helps brands become not just purveyors of goods and services, but a producer of ideas and a distributor of knowledge. ControversySponsored articles have received pushback from some publishers, brands, and consumers—and even government regulators who are concerned because the articles resemble editorial content. This can damage the editorial integrity of a publication, as well as a brand's image. Both publishers and marketers have a vested interest in not appearing to mislead consumers. Native advertising in general is misunderstood by many consumers and marketers. (That's partly why we conducted this study.) In the video below, John Oliver does a good job of articulating many consumers' concerns regarding sponsored articles. Copyblogger's 2014 State of Native Advertising Report surveyed over 2,000 marketers and discovered that 73 percent were either completely unfamiliar with or hardly familiar with native advertising. Thirty-eight percent of the marketers could identify forms of native advertising from a checklist, and only three percent claimed to be very knowledgeable. Earlier this year, Contently surveyed 542 U.S. Internet users to determine what they thought about sponsored articles. Only 48 percent of the respondents believed sponsored content that was labeled as such was paid for by an advertiser that had influenced the content produced. The rest thought the label meant something else. Just over 66 percent of the respondents reported they are not likely to click on an article sponsored by a brand and 33 percent said they're just as likely to click on a sponsored article as they are to click on (unsponsored) editorial content. There is also contradictory evidence surrounding the overall effectiveness of sponsored articles. Research from Chartbeat shows that only 24 percent of visitors scroll past the fold when visiting a sponsored article—compared with 71 percent for editorial content. However, The New York Times claims readers spend the same amount of time on sponsored articles as traditional news stories. This is backed up by a study from Sharethrough and IPG Media Labs. They found that consumers actually look at sponsored articles more than typical editorial articles (26 percent vs. 24 percent) and spend a similar amount of time on each (1 minute vs. 1.2 minutes). Not all publishers offer sponsored article opportunities to marketers. During our research, some respondents told us that protecting editorial integrity and preserving audience trust were a higher priorities. On the other hand, many big name publishers like Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, The Atlantic, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have all embraced sponsored articles as a revenue source. BuzzFeed's entire business model is built around what it calls sponsored "listicles," a.k.a. sponsored articles. While some publishers are averse to adopting this native form of advertising, it doesn't seem to be causing any damage to the publishers who are using native ads. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hasn't quite figured out how to regulate native advertising. The FTC has delayed handing down regulations around disclosure requirements, language and graphic separation. Until that happens, the display of native advertising will remain at the discretion of publishers. With that said, the IAB has set native advertising guidelines for its members. The IAB reports that clarity and prominence of paid native ad unit disclosure are vital, regardless of native advertising type. Their two criteria are straightforward:
In the case of sponsored articles, a reasonable consumer should be able to distinguish between editorial content from the publisher and paid advertising. GrowthA 2013 survey conducted by Hexagram and Spada revealed that 62 percent of publishers had embraced sponsored articles, with another 16 percent planning to go this route by the end of 2014. Comparable research from eMarketer showed that only 10 percent of digital publishers didn't have and weren't considering native advertising on their sites. The 2014 Native Advertising Roundup revealed that 73 percent of media buyers use native advertising, and 93 percent expect to spend the same or more in the future. Native advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to increase from $1.3 billion in 2013 to $9.4 billion in 2018. A full 40 percent of publishers expect native advertising to drive a quarter or more of their digital revenue this year. Native advertising, when compared to traditional display ads, have been found to be more effective. 25 percent more consumers looked at sponsored articles than display ad units. Native ads produced an 18 percent lift in purchase intent and a nine percent lift for brand affinity responses. BIA/Kelsey released a study which shows brands are planning on spending more on native advertising, and publishers stand to benefit as long as they can preserve the trust and interest of their audience. Examples of Sponsored ArticlesSince look, feel, design, language and requirements of sponsored content are left up to the discretion of publishers, the presentation of sponsored content on different sites varies widely. Some publications provide brands with what can be described as a virtual microsite within the site itself. Others are more streamlined, using an article that appears as a piece of featured content but is labeled as sponsored. Sponsored Article PricingThere are no real standards for pricing in the digital world with regard to sponsored content. This makes budgeting for the channel very tough to do. It also makes long-term strategic execution at scale and across multiple publications a near impossibility. While the value of sponsoring content is clearly understood by many brands, how to execute it and who to talk to in order to get it done is generally unclear. The study set out to add rhyme and reason to this burgeoning channel by exploring costs and comparing them across a broad spectrum of online publications and blogs. This is valuable information for marketers and media buyers wishing to negotiate with online publications. It can even be used by publications that have not yet offered sponsored content opportunities to establish fair pricing. Since publishers completely control their own pricing and standards, they maintain their own criteria for validating costs associated with sponsored articles. In today's analytics-driven marketing culture, where channels are often compared and returns are measured, sponsoring content across several different publications can't be so easily consolidated into a single "sponsored content" channel since each one has a unique value proposition. This study is the industry's first attempt to scientifically justify, quantify, and predict current going-rate prices of sponsored articles using explicit data points that can be measured for each online publication. Our goal was to create the first-ever quantitatively supported pricing standard for sponsored articles. We hope our research puts an end to these challenges and empowers marketers with the ability to budget, negotiate, and ultimately scale the deployment of sponsored articles within their channel mix. ResearchIn total, the research for this study was conducted over a five-month period of time earlier this year. It included manual outreach via email and phone to over 1,000 media outlets and blogs. The outreach resulted in responses from 550 publishers that sold sponsored article units. The study took an unbiased approach to data inclusion and included a representative sample set. It collected data on globally-recognized publications, one-person blogs, and everything in between. Publications were classified using the following criteria:
Everything that didn't meet the above criteria was classified as a blog. Each price collected in the study was the minimum charge for getting a sponsored article published, regardless of other pricing factors. A total of 17 factors were cited as justification for pricing schemes from the 550 publishers.
In order to do a quantitative analysis, explicit data was collected from all of the publications to calculate predictor variables. Those variables included:
AssumptionsIt is assumed that the data set in this study is a representative sample of the entire ecosystem of blogs and other online publications because the results closely mirror Moz's distribution of Page Authority that analyzed more than 10,000 SERPs and 200,000 unique pages. This regression model had a mean (average) Page Authority of 40.8 and standard deviation of 15.1. The distribution can be seen below. The regression model in this study had a mean of 47.1 and a standard deviation of 15.5. The sample set of blogs and publications had a slightly higher Page Authority than the Moz study. This was expected because the study only measured root domains and not long-tail pages within those domains. Aside from that slight disparity, the distribution curves are nearly identical. For those readers who are number junkies, the descriptive statistics of the Page Authority data in the study are below. LimitationsVariations in sponsored content offerings – The study established the pricing baseline based on the cost of one sponsored article. Since some publications only offered long-term commitments to marketers that could include other benefits (banners, email, social promotion, etc.), some publications' unit pricing could be inflated. As a result, the regression model may not be an accurate price predictor in all scenarios. Social account data – Not all online publications have accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. In these cases, the number zero was used to quantify followers. Also, for publications with multiple accounts on the same network, the study measured the account with the most followers. Alexa Rank Inaccuracies – Alexa admits publicly that there are limits to making judgments from its data. Sites with relatively low traffic may not be accurately measured by Alexa. AnalysisThe graph below seeks to show the exact methodology we used to conduct the sponsored content pricing study. It's purpose is to give readers confidence in our pricing models so they feel comfortable in adapting the formulas. When all prices are graphed, bloat appears on each end of the pricing spectrum. In order to reconcile the dense areas, the study broke down the pricing data and regression models for blogs and publications separately. Blog Pricing Analysis The graph below represents the distribution of prices for all 474 blogs in the study. Because of the wide range and low frequency of prices recorded in the "more" area, we decided to label these data points as outliers. By removing the outliers (approximately 3.8 percent of the sample) from the analysis, the variance decreased by 87 percent, making for a more accurate predictive model. All descriptive statistics for the blog data sample before and after removing the outliers were laid out in the study. With the remaining 456 cases, a multi-variable regression test for price against all of the predictor variables was run, after which the insignificant variables were removed to formulate the pricing regression model for blogs, as shown below. The end result confidently determined the fair market price formula for a sponsored article on a blog: Publication Pricing Analysis The graph below represents the distribution of pricing for all 76 publications recorded in the study. The outliers were kept in this regression model because of the range in quality and size of online publications is large. The descriptive statistics are available in the actual study. Following the same methods as the blog analysis, the study ran a multi-variable regression test to construct a predictive model for publication pricing. After removing the insignificant variables the output looks like this: The end result confidently determines the fair market price formula for a sponsored article on a publication: What All This Math Really Boils Down ToWith the formulas below, marketers now have a way to assign value when purchasing or negotiating for sponsored articles on blogs or publications. Prior to this study marketers had no way of knowing if they were getting a fair deal or not using this emerging channel.
That said, media buyers should also note that many top-tier publications package their sponsored content offering in different ways. Keep this in mind when using the formulas above. Below are examples of some variation in sponsored article packages. Networks and Tools for Sponsored ArticlesWhile conducting research, several tools and networks kept coming up. Some networks set up for the sole purpose of connecting marketers with publishers for sponsored content. Even HubSpot has built an informal ad hoc network for its partner agencies to connect with its publishing customers. Content measurement tools, including Nudge, which was built to measure sponsored content, are starting to crop up, too. A few other networks and tools worth noting:
With the growth of online content showing no signs of slowing, the use of sponsored content as a marketing channel will undoubtedly continue to grow as well. Besides, it's a proven revenue stream for publishers who have often struggled to make money on the Internet. However, as the popularity of sponsored content grows, so does the likelihood of it being regulated by governments. Until then, consider this post your definitive guide to sponsored content. The study can be downloaded here. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Why SEOs Need to Care About Correlation as Much (or More) than Causation Posted on: Tuesday 20 January 2015 — 01:18 Posted by randfish Today I'm going to make a crazy claim—that in modern SEO, there are times, situations, and types of analyses where correlation is actually MORE interesting and useful than causality. I know that sounds insane, but stick with me until the end and at least give the argument a chance. And for those of you who like visuals, our friend AJ Ghergich and his intrepid team of designers created some nifty graphics to accompany the piece. Once upon a time, SEO professionals had a reasonable sense of many (or perhaps even most) of the inputs into the search engine's ranking systems. We leveraged our knowledge of how Google interpreted various modifications to keywords, links, content, and technical aspects to hammer on the signals that produced results. But today, there can be little argument—Google's ranking algorithm has become so incredibly complex, nuanced, powerful, and full-featured, that modern SEOs have all but given up on hammering away at individual signals. Instead, we're becoming more complete marketers, with greater influence on all of the elements of our organizations' online presence. Web marketers operate in a world where Google:
Given this frenetic ecosystem, the best path forward isn't to exclusively build to the signals that are recognized and accepted as having a direct impact on rankings (keyword-matching, links, etc). Those who've previously pursued such a strategy have mostly failed to deliver on long-term results. Many have found their sites in serious trouble due to penalization, more future-focused competitors, and/or a devaluing of their tactics. Instead, successful marketers have been engaging in the tactics that Google's own algorithms are chasing—popularity, relevance, trust, and a great overall experience for visitors. Very frequently, that means looking at correlation rather than causation.
[Via Moz's 2013 Ranking Factors - the new 2015 version is coming this summer!] We'll engage in a thought experiment to help highlight the issue: Let's say you discover, as a signal of quality, Google directly measures the time a given searcher spends on a page visited from the SERPs. Sites with pages searchers spend more time on get a rankings boost, while those with quick abandonment find their pages falling in the rankings. You decide to press your advantage with this knowledge by using some clever hacks to keep visitors on your page longer and to make clicking the back button more difficult. Sure, it may suck for some visitors, but those are the ones you would have lost anyway (and they would have hurt your rankings!), so you figure they're not worth worrying about. You've identified a metric that directly impacts Google's algorithm, and you're going to make the most of it. Meanwhile, your competitor (who has no idea about the algorithmic impact of this factor) has been working on a new design that makes their website content easier, faster, and more pleasurable to consume. When the new design launches, they initially see a fall in rankings, and don't understand why. But you're pretty sure you know what's happened. Google's use of the time-on-site metric is hurting them because visitors are now getting the information they want from your competitor's new design faster than before, and thus, they're leaving more quickly, hurting the site's rankings. You cackle with delight as your fortune swells. But what happens long term? Google's quality testers see diminished happiness among searchers. They rework their algorithms to reward sites that successfully deliver great experiences more quickly. At the same time, competitors gain more links, amplification, social sharing, and word of mouth because real users are deriving more positive experiences from their site than yours. You found an algorithmic loophole and exploited it briefly, but by playing the "where's Google weak?" game rather than the "where's Google going?" game, you've ultimately lost. Over the last decade, in case after case of marketers optimizing for the causal elements of Google's algorithm, this pattern of short-term gain leading to long-term loss continually occurs. That's why, today, I suggest marketers think about what correlates with rankings as much as what actually causes them. If many high-ranking sites in your field are offering mobile apps for Android and iOS, you may be tempted to think there's no point to considering an app-strategy just for SEO because, obviously, having an app doesn't make Google rank your site any higher. But what if those mobile apps are leading to more press coverage for those competitors, and more links to their site, and more direct visits to their webpages from those apps, and more search queries that include their brand names, and a hundred other things that Google maybe IS counting directly in their algorithm? And, if many high ranking sites in your field engage in TV ads, you may be tempted to think that it's useless to investigate TV as a channel because there's no way Google would reward advertising as a signal for SEO. But what if those TV ads drive searches and clicks, which could lead directly to rankings? What if those TV ads create brand-biasing behaviors through psychological nudges that lead to greater recognition and a higher likelihood of searchers click on, link to, share, talk about, write about, buy from, etc. your TV-advertising competitor? Thousands of hard-to-identify, individual signals, mashed together through machine learning, are most likely directly responsible for your competitor's website outranking yours on a particular search query. But even if you had a list of the potential inputs and the mathematical formulas Google's process considers most valuable for that query's ranking evaluation, you'd be little closer to competently beating them. You may feel smugly satisfied that your own SEO knowledge exceeded that of your competitor, or of their SEO consultants, but smug satisfaction does not raise rankings. In fact, I think some of the SEO field's historic obsession with knowing precisely how Google works and which signals matter is, at times, costing us a broader, deeper understanding of big-picture marketing*. Time and again, I've seen SEO professionals whom I admire, respect, and find to be brilliant analysts of Google's algorithms lose out to less-hyper-SEO-aware marketers who combine that big picture knowledge with more-basic/fundamental SEO tactics. While I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to learn less about their field nor give up their investigation of Google's inner workings, I am and will continue to strongly advise marketers of all specialties to think about all the elements that might have a second-order or purely correlated effect on Google's rankings, rather than just concentrate on what we know to be directly causal. ----------------- * No one's guiltier than I am of obsessing over discovering and sharing Google's operations. And I'll probably keep being that way because that's how obsession works. But, I'm trying to recognize that this obsession isn't necessarily connected to being the most successful marketer or SEO I can be. 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| Technical Site Audit Checklist: 2015 Edition Posted on: Monday 19 January 2015 — 01:13 Posted by GeoffKenyon Back in 2011, I wrote a technical site audit checklist, and while it was thorough, there have been a lot of additions to what is encompassed in a site audit. I have gone through and updated that old checklist for 2015. Some of the biggest changes were the addition of sections for mobile, international, and site speed. This checklist should help you put together a thorough site audit and determine what is holding back the organic performance of your site. At the end of your audit, don't write a document that says what's wrong with the website. Instead, create a document that says what needs to be done. Then explain why these actions need to be taken and why they are important. What I've found to really helpful is to provide a prioritized list along with your document of all the actions that you would like them to implement. This list can be handed off to a dev or content team to be implemented easily. These teams can refer to your more thorough document as needed. Quick overview.gif) Check indexed pages
Check Google's cache for key pages
PRO Tip: Don't forget to check the text-only version of the cached page. Here is a bookmarklet to help you do that.
On-page optimizationTitle tags are optimized
Important pages have click-through rate optimized titles and meta descriptions
Check for pages missing page titles and meta descriptions The on-page content includes the primary keyword phrase multiple times as well as variations and alternate keyword phrases There is a significant amount of optimized, unique content on key pages The primary keyword phrase is contained in the H1 tag Images' file names and alt text are optimized to include the primary keyword phrase associated with the page. URLs are descriptive and optimized
Clean URLs
Short URLs
ContentHomepage content is optimized
Landing pages are optimized
Site contains real and substantial content
Proper keyword targeting
Keyword cannibalization
Content to help users convert exists and is easily accessible to users
Content formatting
Good headlines on blog posts
Amount of content versus ads
Additional reading: How to Write Magnetic Headlines SEO Copywriting Tips for Improved Link Building The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide Tips to Earn Links and Tweets to Your Blog Post Duplicate contentThere should be one URL for each piece of content
Pro Tip: Exclude common parameters, such as those used to designate tracking code, in Google Webmaster Tools. Read more at Search Engine Land. Do a search to check for duplicate content
Sub-domain duplicate content
Check for a secure version of the site
Check other sites owned by the company
Check for "print" pages
Accessibility & IndexationCheck the robots.txt
Turn off JavaScript, cookies, and CSS
Now change your user agent to Googlebot
PRO Tip: Use SEO Browser to do a quick spot check.
Site architecture and internal linkingNumber of links on a page
Vertical linking structures are in place
Horizontal linking structures are in place
Links are in content
Footer links
Good internal anchor text Check for broken links
Additional reading: Importance of Internal Linking Internal Linking Tactics Using Anchor Links to Make Google Ignore The First Link Successful Site Architecture for SEO The SEO Guide to Site Architecture Information Architecture and Faceted Navigation Technical issuesProper use of 301s
"Bad" redirects are avoided
Redirects point directly to the final URL and do not leverage redirect chains
Use of JavaScript
Use of iFrames
Use of Flash
Check for errors in Google Webmaster Tools
XML Sitemaps
Canonical version of the site established through 301s Canonical version of site is specified in Google Webmaster Tools Rel canonical link tag is properly implemented across the site
Uses absolute URLs instead of relative URLs
Site speedMake sure compression is enabled Enable caching Optimize your images for the web Minify your CSS/JS/HTML Use a good, fast host
Optimize your images for the web MobileReview the mobile experience
Make sure analytics are set up if separate mobile content exists If dynamic serving is being used, make sure the Vary HTTP header is being used
Review how the mobile experience matches up with the intent of mobile visitors
Ensure faulty mobile redirects do not exist
Ensure that the relationship between the mobile site and desktop site is established with proper markup
InternationalReview international versions indicated in the URL
Enable country based targeting in webmaster tools
Implement hreflang / rel alternate if relevant If there are multiple versions of a site in the same language (such as /us/ and /uk/, both in English), update the copy been updated so that they are both unique Make sure the currency reflects the country targeted Ensure the URL structure is in the native language
AnalyticsAnalytics tracking code is on every page
There is only one instance of a GA property on a page
Analytics is properly tracking and capturing internal searches Demographics tracking is set up Adwords and Adsense are properly linked if you are using these platforms Internal IP addresses are excluded UTM Campaign Parameters are used for other marketing efforts Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects are avoided
Event tracking is set up for key user interactions This audit covers the main technical elements of a site and should help you uncover any issues that are holding a site back. As with any project, the deliverable is critical. I've found focusing on the solution and impact (business case) is the best approach for site audit reports. While it is important to outline the problems, too much detail here can take away from the recommendations. If you're looking for more resources on site audits, I recommend the following: Helpful tools for doing a site audit: Annie Cushing's Site Audit Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Hacking Keyword Targeting by Serving Interest-Based Searches - Whiteboard Friday Posted on: Friday 16 January 2015 — 01:17 Posted by randfish Depending on your industry, the more obvious and conversion-focused keywords you might target could be few and far between. With Google continuing to evolve, though, there's a whole host of other areas you might look: interest-based keywords. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows you how to find them. For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard! Video transcriptionHowdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're chatting about keyword targeting and specifically some of the challenges that happen when your keyword targeting list is rather small or hyper competitive and you need to broaden out. One of the great ways you can do that is actually by hacking the interests of the people who are performing those searches, or might perform those searches in the future, or might never perform those searches, but are actually interested in the product or service that you have to offer. Classic, traditional keyword research is all about focusing on the product or service's purchase intent. Meaning, here's let's say Charles over here. Charles needs to better track his fitness. He knows that what he'd like to able to do is get some tools to track his fitness. Maybe he's looking at a Fitbit or something like that. When we, doing marketing to Charles, have a fitness tracking product or a piece of software or a piece of hardware to offer him, we're thinking about terms like fitness tracking software, track weight loss, workout measurement, and monitor workout progress, very direct, very obvious kinds of search terms that are clearly going to lead Charles from his intent right over to our website. This is perfect keyword targeting keyword research if you're doing paid search, because with paid search you need a return on that investment right away. You don't want to be bidding on keywords, generally speaking, that are not going to directly bring you sign-ups, conversions, potential costumers. This is not so true, however, when it comes to SEO. A lot of times when folks look at their SEO campaigns, they go, "Man, the list of keywords that I could target that really say expressly I want a fitness tracking piece of software or a fitness tracking piece of hardware is not that long. Therefore, what else should I create? What other terms could I potentially go after?" That's where you want to do a little bit more of what social display and retargeting does, which is to think about reaching people based on their interests, their attributes, and the actions that they've taken. If you go to Facebook and you do some ad targeting there, it's not based on, hey, Charles expressly did a search for fitness tracking software. But you can go and find all the people who've labeled fitness as an interest of theirs. You can then further refine by demographics and psychographics, job, location, income, and all these other attributes. This is what you can do in, for example, Google's Display Planner as well. You can look at I want all the people who've read articles on MensHealth.com. Or you can get even more specific with some kinds of advertising and say, "I only want to advertise in front of people who looked at articles specifically on cross training, because we happen to know that maybe that's that best target group for us." This is a very cool process too. But in SEO we can actually merge these two things. We can put them together, and a lot of smart SEOs do this. They combine these two practices in their keyword research and targeting. They find people who like fitness, and then they talk to them. They ask them questions. This can be implicit, explicit. This can be through surveys. This can be through interviews. You kind of sit down, and you're like, "Okay, that's really awesome. Can you tell me more about what inspired your love for fitness? Tell me about the content that you looked at prior to this. Tell me about books that you read, people that influenced you, all those kinds of things." You're trying to gather that information, those subjects of interest. Not just fitness, but other things that they touch on. Content that they may have found or liked before learning that they wanted to track their fitness progress. Websites that they frequently visit. People and brands or accounts that they follow on social media. Who are their influencers? We learn all this, and now we have kind of this topic set for pre-interest keyword research. Pre-interest, meaning, before the party is actually interested in the product or service or solution that we provide, what are they interested in? We can do keyword research and targeting based on those things. What's awesome about this is it's like potentially much lower competition, earlier brand exposure, which means that all of our others efforts that are targeting them further down the funnel are likely to be more effective because they've already been exposed to our brand. They know us. Hopefully, they like us already. This is huge for content marketing. Very rich content opportunities. Usually, content marketing opportunities and content creation opportunities that aren't just purely self-promotional either. You go and create content about this and you're a fitness tracking company, well, that's pretty typical. That's to be expected. It's going to be self-promotional whether it's explicitly promotional or not. But this type of content is very different. This type of content is all about promoting a movement or promoting information about a topic that you know potentially your subjects will have interest in, in the future, and because of that it's much easier to promote and share without being perceived as prideful and self-promotional, which tamps down a lot of the sharing that you could get. Instead of things like fitness tracking software, I'm going to get running trails, comparison of cross trainer sneakers, strength training exercises, healthy meals for muscle growth. Awesome. This is really cool. This process is what you want to use in that keyword research and brainstorming. Start before you get bogged down into, hey, these are the only terms and phrases that we can target because these are the only things that express intent. Sometimes this might cross over into PPC. Most of the time this is really useful for SEO and content creation. All right, everyone, I look forward to seeing some tools, tactics, and tips from all of you in the comments. We'll catch you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care. Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| E-Commerce KPI Study: There's (Finally) a Benchmark for That Posted on: Thursday 15 January 2015 — 01:16 Posted by ProfAlfonso Being a digital marketer, I spend my day knee-deep in data. The time I don't spend analysing it, I spend explaining its significance to a client or junior colleague or arguing its significance with a client or senior colleague. But after many debates over the importance of bounce rate, time on site, mobile conversion rate and the colour grey for buttons (our designer partook in that last one), we're never much closer to an agreement on significance. Our industry is swimming in data (thanks Google Analytics), but at times we're drowning in it. Numbers without context mean nothing. Data in the hands of even the savviest marketer is useless without a context to evaluate its performance against competitors or the industry at large. Which is why we need benchmarks. Through benchmarking, marketers can contextualise data to identify under-performing elements and amplify what is over-performing. They can focus on the KPIs that are important, and recognise whether they are achievable. Benchmarks also give context to those who aren't familiar with data. One pain point that digital marketers face globally is communicating their performance upwards. There are very few 'digital natives' sitting in company boardrooms these days but plenty of executives who know their numbers inside out. Industry benchmark data arms us with perspective and framework when we need to communicate upwards. It ensures we get pats on the back when deserved and additional budget released when required. Google Analytics Benchmarking ReportsGoogle, you might argue, have already solved these problems. The upgrade and roll-out of Google Analytics Benchmarking Reports has been met with plenty of excitement for these reasons. With its large data set and nifty options to chop up the data by geography and website size, for a minute it certainly seemed like the benchmarking of our dreams. And while we recognise its usefulness to benchmark against real-time data (comparing a surge of traffic from a particular location for example, or seasonal demands), it still left us short of the hard data insights we were looking for. We wanted reliable KPI data that went beyond user behaviour. We wanted average conversion rates and average transaction values as well as 'softer' engagement metrics such as bounce rate and time on site. Most importantly, we wanted to know which engagement metrics actually correlated with the conversion rate, so we could narrow our field of analysis and efforts in pursuit of a healthier bottom line. Which is why we went out and got our own and generated this e-commerce KPI report. Data and methodologyWe analysed the 56 million visits and approximately $252 million (€214 million) in revenue that flowed through 30 participating websites between August 1, 2013 and July 30, 2014. The websites were in the retail and travel sectors and included both online-only and those with a physical store as well as an e-commerce site. We averaged stats on a per-website basis, so that websites with high levels of traffic didn't skew the stats. We had more retail participants than travel participants so the average e-commerce figures are not the midpoint between travel and retail but the average figure across all study participants. Revenue is attributed on a last-click basis. ResultsHere is a highlight of some of our most relevant and interesting findings. For all the data and results, download the full report on WolfgangDigital.com. Average KPIs: Bounce rate, time on site, and conversion rateFirst, we calculated some averages across engagement KPIs and commercial KPIs. If you are an e-commerce website in the travel or retail business, you can use these numbers to evaluate how your website is performing when set against a broad swath of your industry peers. Well, remember the conversion measured here is a sale. If your conversion rate is lower than the study average don't fire your CMO straight away; check if your average transaction value (ATV) is higher. If they balance each other out you are all good – if they don't, it's time to start digging deeper. Does the 1.4% conversion rate give you a smug tingly feeling or a stab of panic? We often break down conversion rate into two parts: website-to-basket and basket-to-checkout. Industry norms tell us expect about 5% CR on website-to-basket and 30% on basket-to-checkout. Check which one of these conversion rates is most out of kilter on your site, then focus your attention there. This exercise will often give greater visibility on where the hole in your bucket is, Dear Liza. Another factor in this analysis is that online-only retailers tend to enjoy higher conversion rates as the consumer must transact via the website. If you have an offline presence, a lower conversion rate comes with the physical territory as your site visitors may convert in store. KPIs by device: Mobile under scrutinyNext, we segmented the data by device: desktop, tablet and mobile. We found that although mobile and tablet together accounted for nearly half of website traffic (43%), they contributed to just over a quarter of revenue (26%). Mobile alone accounted for 26% of traffic but only 10% of revenue. This suggests that while mobile is a favoured device for browsing and researching, it's the desktop where users are more likely to whip out the credit card. When we looked at conversion rates by device, this confirmed it. What data matters: The correlationsWe wanted to know which engagement figures had an influence (if any) on commercial ones. Then we'd know which behavioural metrics were worth trying to improve to lift conversion rate, and which metrics we could finally label insignificant. We did this by calculating correlations. A correlation ranges from 0 to 1, so 0 indicates on no correlation at all, while 1 signifies a clear correlation. A negative correlation indicates that as one variable increases the other decreases. Time on site (0.34) and pages viewed (0.35) both had positive correlations with conversion rate, so our advice is to look at how to improve these metrics for your site to benefit from a higher conversion rate. We delved into the device data and found mobile was the only device with positive traffic (0.29) and revenue (0.45) correlations to overall conversion rate. In fact, that 0.45 correlation rate between mobile revenue % and conversion rate was actually the strongest correlation rate across all factors we measured. We infer that while the mobile conversion rate is depressingly low, a mobile user is still somebody with purchase intent who is likely to convert later on another device. The lesson we took from this is to make sure your website is mobile-optimised, particularly for ease of research and browsing content. Finally, the time came to talk about bounce rate. Our Excel wizard had converted the data to an 'un-bounce rate' (1 minus the bounce rate) for consistency with positive time on site and pages viewed metrics. We gathered round the spreadsheet. He revealed there is actually a negative correlation (-0.12) between un-bounce rate and conversion rate. This correlation signals that it couldn't be less influential on conversion rate, so for those unable to sleep at night for bounce anxiety, we're delighted to let you sleep easy. Increasing your conversion rate may not be as complex a task as it seems. Our KPI study shows that if you can increase pages viewed and time on site it will push up your conversion rate (content marketing for conversion optimisation anybody?). We've also proved that mobile matters. Don't be discouraged if your mobile conversion rate pales against desktop's performance; keep driving mobile traffic and revenue (however minor) and you'll see the difference in your bottom line. Read the full results broken down by industry level by downloading from the Wolfgang Digital e-commerce KPI Study. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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