Monday, 30 December 2019

Post BERT On-Page SEO: Get Your Webpages to Rank Well in 2020

[block]7[/block]

It’s the dawn of a new decade, and you want to boost your site traffic to the next level. But first—you’ll need to start thinking in new ways. Note that there’s a new algorithm in town: the BERT algorithm. The BERT algorithm changes the type of content that ranks. The BERT update might require you to make significant adjustments to your on-page SEO strategy. Understand this latest update, and you’ll be better equipped to plan out your content for the months ahead.

What’s the BERT algorithm?

No, this update has nothing to do with the “Bert” character of Sesame Street. This mouthful of an algorithm has everything to do with NLP – or natural language processing.

A little over a year ago, Google publicly unveiled the open-source technology of BERT, which allows anyone to deploy the “Bidirectional Encoder Representations for Transformers.”

The natural language processing of BERT allows it to recognize the context of a word, analyzing the surrounding words for meaning. (This is where the “bidirectional” sense of BERT comes in.)

tablet-displaying-google-with-hand-touching-screen

What difference does BERT make for users?

Neil Patel profiles the difference in a simple search query – before and after the BERT update.

Before the update, a search for Neil’s example (“2019 brazil traveler to USA need a visa”) – would have produced a top search result that was completely irrelevant: an article about U.S citizens traveling to Brazil. (Clearly, an internet “fail.”) Now, after the BERT update, the top search result for this same query is exactly where it needs to be, leading the searcher to the site for the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Brazil.

BERT, in essence, takes searchers exactly where they need to be. The update makes Google more effective for searchers, bringing them better results.

What does BERT mean for your site?

It’s no longer enough to “keyword stuff” your site to get results. In fact, too much keyword stuffing can backfire on you.

BERT is looking for on-page SEO content that is valuable and readable to users and the algorithm.

As you craft your content going forward, think more “niche.” Each page should be created to fulfill a user’s exact need and/or problem.

BERT will be analyzing the language of your page for its applicability. Your content needs to be designed to address the highly targeted needs of your intended audience.

Basically, the focus should be more and more conversational, intent-driven and nuanced and less and less exact keyword term matching.

What should you do about your pre-existing content?

If you want to maximize the “searchability” of your pre-existing content, you might want to complete your own internal audit.

Note: is your content going to address a specific need, or is it just a “keyword filler?” Consider how some quick page edits can make your pre-existing content more targeted, before moving forward.

Going forward, how can you make your content worthy of BERT?

The best on-page SEO will always start with an assessment of your audience. Who do you want to bring to your site? What kind of problems might these people be looking to solve?

Previously, Google algorithms weren’t able to make good use of the “little words” in users’ search queries. Words like “for” weren’t factored into the equation. But the natural-language processing of BERT means that your audience will be able to find their answers more effectively, with these “little words” taken into account.

How do you produce the right answers, on-page?

Your keywords will still be important on your page… you’ll just need to use them in different ways, including them in detailed responses to potential search queries.

Use the “siloing” technique

If you haven’t already been using the “siloing” technique, you’ll definitely need to start. Bruce Clay advises that you identify the major themes for your site, in conjunction with the appropriate keywords.

Your “silo” should stack similar pages and themes. You can approach the silo in different ways, such as:

  • linking internally to other pages on the same “theme”
  • linking every page to a landing page, which drills down from the theme.

An organized spreadsheet will help you to make a silo that keeps everybody on the same page. Such a spreadsheet will help all content creators, marketers, and designers to build from the relevant themes and keywords and keep your on-page SEO in top shape.

What about outgoing links?

Some of us have been taught to fear outgoing links on our pages… but that advice is outdated.

Outgoing links established to an “authority page” or a highly-ranked page will only bolster your own SEO.

Don’t fear the “traffic leech” – instead, know that you’re benefiting from the positions of those other sites.

What about content length?

Know that longer content is usually better for on-page SEO- but not necessarily for the reasons you think.

With the recent BERT update, the longer-form content is more likely to provide an extremely specific answer to a question, making it fulfill the natural-language processing requirements of the search.

So, again, you want to avoid “keyword stuffing” just to boost your word count. Instead, aim to create a piece of content that thoroughly answers the question, from every conceivable angle.

Instead of aiming for a specific word count, you’ll need to consider the quality and thoroughness of your content piece. Do you feel as though it aptly answers the targeted search query? Does it do so from a reliable (researched) standpoint?

What should I know about images?

Image optimization continues to be an important factor in 2020. You’ll need to pay attention to your images, for the sake of the performance of your site.

Developer Advocate Ilya Grigorik discusses the truth that optimizing images can produce some of the most significant performance improvements for your site. When your images are optimized, your browser can more quickly download the content of that site. Quicker download speeds equate to better user experience, along with more site traffic.

A well-positioned image can communicate with eye-catching visual impact. But if you drown your page in a sea of unnecessary images just to “decorate” the scene, then your site is going to take too long to load.

Consider what else you can do to make a good visual atmosphere for your site. What colors will stand out? What font styles can draw the eye to the desired word?

A great design can help make all the difference.

Get The Help You Need to Succeed With Your On-Page SEO

Keeping up with the latest algorithmic changes while running your business can get tedious and time-consuming.  That said, keeping current with these changes is critical for your business’ success online.

Luckily, the experts at LocalBizGuru do that for you, helping you stay focused on what you do best. Successfully running your business.

If you’re looking for help to improve your site for 2020, get in touch with LocalBizGuru.

Our expert marketing team will help your business achieve the best rankings possible on Google and elsewhere. We encourage you to leverage our expertise to help your business grow. Contact us today and improve your rankings!

The post Post BERT On-Page SEO: Get Your Webpages to Rank Well in 2020 appeared first on LocalBizGuru.com.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/30/post-bert-on-page-seo-get-your-webpages-to-rank-well-in-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=post-bert-on-page-seo-get-your-webpages-to-rank-well-in-2020

Monday, 23 December 2019

8 Things to Consider When Crafting Your Digital Marketing Plan For 2020

It’s the planning time of the year. With just a few weeks to spare before 2020 marketing efforts kick in, it’s time to take a close look at your digital marketing plan and maximize its potential as a key growth driver for your business.

Successful marketers don’t just repeat their previous year’s efforts. They treat each year as a new opportunity to build brand awareness and gain customers based on what’s worked in the past. As you try to do the same, make sure you take note of these 8 things to consider when crafting your digital marketing plan for 2020.

8 Digital Marketing Plan Considerations

1) Learn From Past Mistakes

When it comes to digital marketing, you have to be brutally honest. Simply repeating what you did last year, or operating based on hunches for what worked, won’t be enough. Instead, you can only succeed if you learn from and build on your past mistakes.

Start with a simple SWOT analysis that helps you identify your digital strengths and weaknesses. That should lead to a more in-depth look at items that worked and areas that still need improvement. Take the guesswork out of the equation and instead use your past work as a learning opportunity.

2) Treat Every Year as a Baseline

overhead-view-of-laptops-and-hands-on-table-with-data-analytics-graphs-overlaid-on-image

Every year starts with a growth goal. You want to increase your reach, maximize your audience awareness, and gain conversions. But not everything you do works out, and it’s important to adjust to the reality you’re in as of the time you build your plan.

Your digital marketing efforts, and business situation in general, might have progressed or regressed from last year. You might have added new product offerings to the equation or tried to enter a new market. Your 2020 marketing plan should be tailored towards the reality as it stand right now, treating the year in the rear-view mirror as a baseline for what lies ahead.

3) Take a Closer Look at Your Audience

Every marketing plan needs to include a comprehensive look at the audience you’re trying to capture. At the same time, you should not just roll over your audience definitions and insights from previous years into your new plan. Just as the strategy as a whole needs a closer look, so does your target audience.

An evaluation of what did and didn’t work should always be done with audiences in mind. Building a new plan is also an opportunity to dig deeper: create buyer personas that go beyond location and demographics by providing insights, motivations, and pain points.

4) Don’t Forget About Your Competitors

The competitive environment is never static. Over the past year, new firms may have entered your space, while others exited. The competition you already know may have shifted strategies or target audiences. As you build your digital marketing plan, be sure to include a section on your competition that reflects this new reality.

Competitive research can be multi-faceted, ranging from simple qualitative looks at other companies’ social media accounts to in-depth competitive keyword research for Google ads. The larger environment is already part of any SWOT analysis, but getting specific on your closest competitors helps you better understand it in detail.

5) Set Your Goals and Timeline

No digital marketing plan is complete without goals, which should guide everything you do in the current year. These goals should be based on all of the above factors, but they also need to be SMART:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Realistic
  • Timely

Goals that are structured in this way are far more than just a way to evaluate your digital marketing efforts at the end of the year. They also help you set benchmarks, allowing you to track your progress towards achieving them throughout the year and enabling you to make adjustments where needed.

6) Build Your Channels

Part of your digital marketing plan should be an exact outline of what digital channels you plan to focus most attention on in the coming year. No business can successfully build a presence on every social media network, search engine, and content platform. Instead, you need to prioritize.

Again, simply repeating last year’s initiatives is not good enough. Instead, perform an analysis of your efforts on each channel, and compare it with your audience’s needs and preferences. That helps you drop some channels that just didn’t work while adding new opportunities you may never even have considered.

7) Designate Evaluation Times

The potential of the right goals is magnified once you dig into the ways in which you can use them for tracking your progress. As part of your 2020 digital marketing plan, you should formalize the exact ways in which you intend to measure your efforts throughout the year to stay on track for achieving and surpassing your core goals.

These evaluation teams may be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or all of the above. Regular check-ins allow you to make corrections that range from minor to major, avoiding potentially costly mistakes or money sunk into advertising efforts that clearly don’t work.

8) Choose Your Team

digital-marketing-team-of-professionals-sitting-in-conference-room-while-man-writes-on-whiteboard

Do you know who will be working on executing your plan and achieving your goals? Write it down here. Distribute key responsibilities across anyone in your business who works on or is connected to your marketing efforts.

That might include a project manager, specialists for each area, and more. The key is setting both responsibility and accountability standards. A RACI chart could be a great tool to make sure that everyone involved in the larger marketing effort knows exactly what they’re doing, and what they should be aware of.

Ready to Build a Better Digital Marketing Plan in 2020?

Building a digital marketing plan is complex, but it doesn’t have to be impossible. The above steps help you break down the process into digestible steps, making sure that you optimize your efforts in building a better marketing plan.

You don’t have to do it alone, either. Especially when it comes to choosing your team, outsourcing the bulk of the work might actually make sense. Of course, you need the right partner, which is where we come in. Contact us for help in building and executing a great digital marketing strategy for 2020 and beyond.

The post 8 Things to Consider When Crafting Your Digital Marketing Plan For 2020 appeared first on LocalBizGuru.com.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/23/8-things-to-consider-when-crafting-your-digital-marketing-plan-for-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=8-things-to-consider-when-crafting-your-digital-marketing-plan-for-2020

What B2B Marketers Can Do to Leverage Geotargeting Tactics

The idea of being in “the right place at the right time” is an age-old saying that many have attributed to positive coincidence and lucky findings. But, what if we could credit ‘right place, right time’ to more than luck? Geotargeting is a tactic that takes personalized marketing to the next level by leveraging real-time data to deliver relevant content to a target audience at each stage of the sales funnel.

Marketers of today have begun to capitalize on web-based ‘hot spots’ or desirable locations as a way to target consumers and leverage that “right place, right time” experience for users.

Spotify is the latest brand to explore this tactic, as it applies geo-marketing to create a multi-touchpoint experience informed by online and offline behavior. While this strategy is commonly used among consumer brands, that doesn’t mean B2B organizations don’t realize its value. On the contrary, B2B marketers can take a page out of Spotify’s book and use valuable user data to implement a similar strategy.

B2B marketers who haven’t yet explored this approach are bypassing a huge opportunity. With the right tools in place, a company can leverage geotargeting tactics to gain valuable information about its target audience, such as location and data, and use that information to optimize its communication approach by delivering the right content at the right place and time.

Ultimately, geotargeting builds a digital footprint of where users are spending time while creating a greater picture of their personas and their journey maps, both of which are essential strategic tools for building a customer-centric business. The insights from this marketing method allow B2B organizations to have a better understanding of who their customers are, their needs, pain points, and how they might interact with a company across all touchpoints. Using this information, companies can personalize their outreach based on the products and services each customer might consider.

What are the benefits of geo-marketing?

There are three key reasons why B2B marketers should consider a geomarketing strategy.

Collecting customer information

Geomarketing tools collect customer data — allowing an organization to create insights and understand a consumer’s spending/buying habits. A more holistic view of the customer can enable organizations to boost personalization, which ultimately comes in handy for tactics such as trigger-based email marketing. Buyers want to build a trusted and sustainable relationship with their providers, and the B2B world is no different. In fact, the sector is known for having longer sales cycles than the consumer space — which leaves more opportunity for lead nurturing. Geomarketing tools can provide valuable insights for building buy-in and helping teams take a targeted approach to improving the customer experience.

Providing insight into competition

With geomarketing tools, businesses can build competitive analyses. This data can allow organizations to see who they are competing with for specific locations and how their performance stacks up in comparison.

Easy customization

Using collected customer data allows marketers to run multiple marketing campaigns in various locations while geotargeting their audience. Changing the location of the campaign is simple, pain-free and essential for optimizing the likelihood of success.

For example, it’s not uncommon to adjust bids on ads to prioritize the best-performing locations. Additionally, with geomarketing, teams have the ability to perform a/b testing to identify top-performing content platforms in a given region or the best messages for a set target audience.

Implementing geotargeting

Geotargeting relies on compiling and tabulating past location data with particular audience attributes. It also looks at behaviors and interests, but it is largely based on demographics and keywords.

By targeting destinations, such as conferences, a potential customer’s office building, or trade shows, B2B marketers can leverage location data to grab the attention of new prospects. For instance, in the case of trade shows or conventions, marketers could drive customers to visit their booth and initiate the first conversation in the sales cycle.

Potential barriers

The success of a geomarketing strategy largely depends on your target audience’s mobile use. That contingency could pose a challenge if a company’s intended buyers don’t spend much time on the phone. While 77% of B2B buyers bought more products online for their companies in the past year, these buyers won’t purchase in the moment via mobile. Commonly targeted locations for geomarketing campaigns are work-related, and yet customers are less likely to be on their phones at work.

B2B marketers are still working out a few kinks to achieve the caliber of results that consumer brands like Spotify have.

The solution? Developing strategies that rely heavily on research. To be successful, marketers must know their target audience’s habits, routines, and the services or products they’re likely seeking. Marketers could actually use the traditionally lengthy B2B sales cycle to their advantage by conducting awareness campaigns when they target mobile. The likelihood of success increases as marketers use a deep knowledge of buyer behaviors to inform their approach.

Geotargeting is just one example of how location data can contribute to more meaningful marketing outcomes. With careful planning, B2B marketers can leverage location data and the insights it affords to identify untapped opportunities. Ultimately, this artful approach to connecting with buyers at the right place and time stands to benefit a company’s bottom line in terms of considerable time and cost savings.

Keka Cobb is the director of Demand Generation.

 

This article was written by Keka Cobb from The Drum and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

The post What B2B Marketers Can Do to Leverage Geotargeting Tactics appeared first on Insights.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/23/what-b2b-marketers-can-do-to-leverage-geotargeting-tactics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-b2b-marketers-can-do-to-leverage-geotargeting-tactics

Saturday, 21 December 2019

How Brands Can Leverage Pinterest To Make Sales

Did you know:

Pinterest is such a key part of the buying journey for its users that over 90 percent of weekly active Pinners use Pinterest to make purchasing decisions.

Talk about buying power!

Not only are Pinterest users making purchase decisions on the platform, 83 percent say they are making purchases specifically based on the content they’ve seen from brands on Pinterest. 

Pinterest is no longer simply a place to save ideas and build dream boards. Instead, Pinterest has turned into the world’s largest visual discovery platform.

And there are a lot of opportunities for brands.

We had a chance to chat with the team over at Pinterest about some of their best practices for brands looking to increase sales. We’re excited to share those lessons with you!

Here’s what we learned…


How people are using Pinterest

According to one survey, “47 percent of social media users saw Pinterest as the platform for discovering and shopping for products—more than three times higher than those who cited Facebook or Instagram.” 

Seventy-seven percent of weekly Pinners have also discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest, and according to Pinterest, “people actually want to see content from brands while they’re on the platform–78 percent say it’s useful.”

Pinterest might not immediately come to mind as a platform to invest in for many brands, but it should.

Pinterest lives in a unique space on the internet where users are discovering content related to themselves and their aspirations rather than focusing on others, and this has turned it into a powerful platform for users to make purchasing decisions and discover new brands and products. 

Clearly, Pinterest is not one to be ignored when it comes to your marketing strategy. Here’s how you can use the platform to drive sales.

How to leverage Pinterest for sales: 5 tips from the Pinterest team

There are some really simple ways that you can start leveraging Pinterest to reach new audiences and optimize your pins and profile for sales. Some of these tips might be easy to implement immediately while others might play into later strategies, let’s dive in! 

1. Brand your pins 

A whopping 97 percent of top searches on Pinterest are unbranded, according to the Pinterest team. For brands, this presents an opportunity to stand out and gain brand recognition through the platform. 

Pinterest recommends adding a small logo in one of the four corners of your pin, this can be done really easily in a tool like Canva. You can play around with the design, of course, and add your logo wherever it feels best. In this example from Quip, they went with top centered to fit with the rest of the text on their image. 

2. Create mobile-first content 

As with most sites, mobile is extremely important on Pinterest. Eighty-five percent of Pinners are using the mobile app, so it’s important that your content appeals to them while they’re on their phones and appears properly in their feeds. If you’re linking back to your own content, it’s also important that the page that you’re sending users to is mobile friendly as well. 

A tip from Pinterest here is to tailor your font size to phone rendering to make sure your fonts are legible on small screens and to design for a vertical aspect ratio. The ideal dimensions are 600 pixels x 900 pixels. 

3. Create a similar look and feel 

Have you ever clicked on a beautiful image on Pinterest only to be taken to a website that looks nothing like the pin? I have, and it left me really confused.

According to Pinterest, the best practice is to make sure your pins and your website have a similar look and feel, and that doing this pays off. In an analysis from Pinterest, they found that “Pins that went to landing pages with similar imagery had a 13 percent higher online sales lift.”

This example from Ettitude is really great. The pin they are sharing fits seamlessly in a lot of home decor and design tags on Pinterest. 

And although their website uses different photos, it still has a similar feel to the pin.

4. Time your campaigns 

A big element to social media marketing and campaigns is timing. When are people online and when are people talking about the things you want to talk about? 

Luckily in the case of Pinterest, they release annual ‘Seasonal Insights,’ which helps take away some of the guesswork. A report that contains more than a dozen specific moments that take place throughout the year. 

For example, their 2019 report shared that users start sharing holiday content in June all the way through December and that content related to the Summer starts getting pinned at the beginning of February. 
They also have monthly trends reports. Here’s their latest for December 2019 trends on Pinterest, it shares specific trends like the search term ‘peach green tea’ is up 320 percent YoY! 

These are great free resources that you can leverage to start timing seasonal campaigns around when people are starting to make specific seasonal purchasing decisions. I would never have thought that people start looking at holiday content in June but that’s super-specific information that can go a long way to help with timely campaigns. 

5. Set up your shop 

One of the main ways for Pinterest to help generate sales is for the products you are selling to be easily available through Pinterest. Luckily, the platform makes this really easy for brands to set up and feature prominently on their profiles. 

Every Business profile on Pinterest has the ability for users to create a “shop” tab. 

The shop tab is just what it sounds like, a place where users can go to see all of the products your brand is selling. On the flip side, brands can leverage that tab to share pins that link directly to their sales pages for the specific product. 

Pinterest makes this whole process quite easy, they even have a method for importing new products through Pinterest Catalogs. All you have to do is have your data source approved and then as you add new products to your website, they get automagically added to Pinterest as well. 


We hope this guide helps you get started with or double down on your efforts with Pinterest. Let us know about your experience with Pinterest in the comments! 

If you want even more Pinterest resources, the Pinterest team has created a free Pinterest Academy with tons of lessons in there. 



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/21/how-brands-can-leverage-pinterest-to-make-sales/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-brands-can-leverage-pinterest-to-make-sales

Friday, 20 December 2019

Boost Your SEO Before the Year Ends

We have one month left in 2019, and it’s time to make sure you’re ready to succeed in 2020. That means refining everything about your marketing so that you’re positioned well in every area.

Did you know that you don’t have to be at the mercy of Google when it comes to your search engine rankings? You can take steps to improve your optimization, even in December. Don’t just count 2019 as over. Instead, use this time to make things better!

Here are some ways to give your SEO a boost before the new year.

Highlight Your Expertise on Your Website

In 2019, improving your “EAT” has been a big topic in SEO. EAT stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. These three elements are used by Google to determine if a piece of content should rank well or not.

Essentially, Google is concerned about high-ranking content that is inaccurate and may hurt users if implemented. The response has been to evaluate the expertise of content creators and drop those who are not experts in the field. So far this has focused particularly on the medical and financial niches, but in 2020 it’s expected to expand further.

As a business owner, what can you do to avoid having your content lowered in search results? The best way to increase your search engine ranking is to document your authors’ expertise and make sure authorship on each piece of content is clear.

Some ideas to make Google aware of your authoritativeness include:

  • A detailed About page that shares your founders’ story and expertise
  • Clear bylines on each piece of content
  • A bio on each piece of content that shares the experience the writer has to boost trustworthiness

Like a lot of elements of SEO, it’s not just on-site EAT that matters. Having someone else recognize you as an expert goes a long way. Find ways to get mentioned, interviewed, cited, and profiled on other websites.

They say you are what you eat – that’s especially true for websites today!

Improve Your Website Security

Improve Your Website Security

Hopefully you already have HTTPS installed on your website, but if you don’t it’s a must before the new year. HTTPS gives your users a secure connection that is authenticated and encrypted. This helps prevent your users’ data from being stolen as they browse your website.

Having a website that gives users confidence in high security is a great way to increase traffic on a website. You’ll also be rewarded by better search engine rankings.

You should also have a privacy policy that clearly states what you do with user information you collect. You want to assure visitors that their data is secure.

Any other steps you can take to secure your website can help as well. The more secure your website is, the more confident Google will be about ranking your website highly. It will also help visitors trust you enough to make purchases, which boosts your bottom line.

Mobile Optimize Your Website

Mobile Optimize Your Website

This is another no-brainer that you definitely should complete before 2019 ends. Google has implemented mobile-first indexing, and the use of mobile devices has only increased. At this point, more people are doing searches from mobile than from computers and tablets combined.

That means that if your website doesn’t look good on mobile, not only will it be lower in search results but people who visit won’t be able to use your website fully and will click away to a competitor.

What does it mean to optimize your website for mobile? You should have a responsive design, which resizes automatically based on the device being used. On top of that, you should visit your website from a mobile device to see how it looks.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Can you see all page elements easily?
  • Are the menus visible and accessible on the screen?
  • Can the website be easily navigated on a touchscreen?
  • Do elements overlap and obscure each other?

If your website is easy to read and use even on a smaller screen, congratulations! You are not only more user-friendly, you’ll do far better on search results in 2020.

Use Video to Increase Clicks and On-Site Time

Use Video to Increase Clicks and On-Site Time

If you have the basics in place, you’re looking for how to increase your ranking in Google search in other ways. One great tactic is to use videos – on your website, on social media, and throughout the web.

Several years ago it was already the case that people preferred watching video to watching TV. That means that engaging, creative videos are a great way to engage people on your website and on social media.

Using YouTube is a key tactic to give your business SEO a boost. Google owns YouTube, so it’s common to see YouTube videos ranking highly in search results. People also spend a lot of time on YouTube, so great visibility there gives your brand a big push upward.

Beyond that, you can use video to bring people onto your website and keep them there. Dwell time – a phrase that refers to how long people spend on your website – is a major ranking factor on Google. Search engines see dwell time as a sign that users are satisfied with information on your site and are enjoying the experience.

How do you optimize videos to attract viewers? You’ll need to use the right keywords in the headline and description of your video. That will help it reach the largest number of users that are interested in the content.

Leverage Your Other Marketing Channels for SEO

Leverage Your Other Marketing Channels for SEO

One thing everyone knows is that Google rewards companies for having high-quality incoming links. Those can be hard to get, but sometimes you just aren’t looking in the right place.

Think about what other marketing channels you use and how you can get links coming into your website from them. For instance, do you work with influencers? If so, there’s no reason that the influencers can’t provide mentions and links for your website in a variety of media.

Influencers can also share and amplify your content so that you get more visits to your website. Be strategic with who you choose to partner with, and make sure you plan not only for them to raise your brand visibility but also boost your SEO.

Expert Help Can Make 2020 Your Best Year Yet

Expert Help Can Make 2020 Your Best Year Yet

Maybe one of the reasons that your company isn’t doing as well as you’d hoped with SEO is that you just don’t have the time to increase search engine rankings every day. You have to run a company, after all, and it’s possible that focusing on all the changes in digital marketing is not the first thing on your mind.

There’s nothing wrong with that! In fact, it’s a great opportunity to find someone to partner with. At Local SEO Search, we specialize in helping small businesses transform their results. We want to help you succeed, not just in search, but in bringing in more of the right customers.

Our work with over 10,000 local businesses has helped them connect with those who are ready to buy now. As a result, revenue has gone up and business owners have been able to reach new levels of success.

We’d love to help you do the same. Contact us today for a free 30-minute consultation with owner and SEO expert John Vuong. We can’t wait to hear from you!

The post Boost Your SEO Before the Year Ends appeared first on Local SEO Search Inc..



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/20/boost-your-seo-before-the-year-ends/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boost-your-seo-before-the-year-ends

Thursday, 19 December 2019

Marketing Resource Management Software: An Extensive Guide

Nine.

That’s the number of noticeable inefficiencies within your own marketing operations. At least, that’s what you can count off the top of your head. Ask any team member where they see wasted resources, system redundancies, or process bottlenecks, and you’ll realize incidental gaps quickly coalesce and necessitate a solution. That’s where Marketing Resource Management software comes in.

Many marketing leaders are familiar with Marketing Resource Management software (MRM). Some current CMOs even cut their marketing teeth as practitioners at organizations that employed MRM years ago. But today’s Marketing Resource Management systems have evolved, and in light of mounting inefficiencies, experienced marketing pros are finding that the new breed of vendors is worth reappraising.

Other marketers are not yet familiar with Marketing Resource Management software, but they do know they’re already drowning in point “solutions,” each one partially negated by its own inherent deficits.

Upon weighing the inefficiencies you’re aware of — and especially considering the ones of which you’re not — modern Marketing Resource Management may be more relevant to your team now than ever before.

Let’s take a look.

What is Marketing Resource Management?

Senior marketers might recall the costly, cumbersome, on-premise MRM successors developed and imposed in the early 2000’s. The best Marketing Resource Management tools today offer a new, updated experience, most with intuitive usability, flexible functionality, and modular capabilities. 

In fact, the thriving category is worth an updated definition:

Modern Marketing Resource Management software is a strategy and execution workflow optimization application that supplies teams with an integrated environment for strategic planning, real-time resource tracking and approval, content production governance, creative media execution, two-way visibility, and data-directed collaboration.

Marketing Resource Management software is an operating system for marketers

In 2017, Gartner analysts put each of the above critical competencies into one of three management buckets: Work, Asset, and Performance. Previously, marketers relied on project management tools and tactics to manage work, digital asset management (DAM) technologies to maintain content assets, and the combination of content’s traction measurements with production data to manage performance. New and revamped MRM vendors (Gartner called them 2.0) were developing comprehensive (yet modular) systems to combine all those processes and tools into one enlightening dashboard for all decision makers, team members, and agency partners.

Marketers, it seemed, had begun taking seriously the role of content as a strategic business function. Demand for these customizable, scalable, agile tools pointed to a foundational shift in the marketing community.

Around the same time, Forrester’s own experts said the emerging second generation of MRM providers enabled the management of four key workstreams: money, people, content, and brand.

  • The financial functionalities involved budget planning, performance monitoring and management, as well as a refreshing visibility.
  • Inside the people component, users leveraged powerful project management tools, collaboration features, data taxonomies, and dynamic calendaring capabilities.
  • The content asset management portion also housed creative production workflows, multiple approval processes, and naturally, a digital asset management (DAM) application.
  • Brand management featured marketing fulfillment, through-channel marketing automation (TCMA), and simplified distribution.

The 2017, analyses from Gartner and Forrester made sense, but in hindsight, they seem to have been especially precursory. For marketing decision makers flying blind in the middle of multiple transformations, the continual providing of point-patches could only stem the tide until it became clear: serious integrated marketing operations need serious integrated marketing systems.

In the two years since, the pressure has only mounted. First, the researchers’ predictions came true. Organizations that adopted, configured, and deployed the right Marketing Resource Management software for their particular needs are achieving competitive advantages, while neutralizing risk and realizing regulatory compliance. And the visionary analysts are predicting the trend to continue. “Cost-conscious marketers will re-embrace evolved Marketing Resource Management (MRM) systems to more efficiently manage workflow, budgets, and processes,” writes senior Forrester analyst, Tina Moffett, in Predictions 2020: Marketers Will Balance Cost Concerns With Customer Expectations.

How does Marketing Resource Management software work?

Marketing Resource Management software works by giving a new visibility to critical, back-end transactions through approval workstreams and business logic. Most legacy marketing resource management providers did the same, but neglected to address requisite agility and usability. The customization options of point products temporarily won the battle for software consumers’ budgets. That is, until now, when strategic marketing stakeholders acknowledge yet again their need for the depth and breadth of MRM’s integrated functionalities. And this time, the vendor landscape is ready to solve for both.

Many of the same solutions providers have seen the trend and chosen to adapt. DAM technologies and content marketing platforms are integrating planning and project management capabilities. Meanwhile, vendors heavy on financial planning and performance analytics are expanding their scope by acquiring or developing content marketing platforms.

In other words, each MRM system works based on its original and evolving purpose. In practice, though, Marketing Resource Management software should integrate every aspect of marketing operations across the diverse spectrum of planning and execution activities.

The growing importance of Marketing Resource Management

What’s prompting leaders to revisit MRM as an answer to their needs? The most conspicuous reason for reconsidering Marketing Resource Management software is the combination of increasing costs and decreasing efficiency across marketing operations. The promise of an end to the complexity (or worse, all-out chaos) of today’s marketing operations has leaders inclined to know more.

Marketing waste can stem from a number of planning, operational, technical, and collegial glitches. Here’s what that may mean in daily practice.

  • A marketing director and her team deploys a pair of experimental channel campaigns, eager to assess KPI’s. When she realizes one medium isn’t performing, she tries to kill the execution tool but learns her brand is locked into a long-term or otherwise complicated agreement.
  • A CMO’s vision is clearly communicated. But over time, the incentivization structures that stem from poor business intelligence, random measurements, and biased analytics distract team players. People learn to exercise their creativity within the confines of those feedback channels instead of the original vision. This results in talent fatigue, confusion, overproduction of valueless and misguided content, indifference toward future planning sessions, or all the above.
  • A midsize brand’s data isn’t flowing between a few point programs. That’s been a mere inconvenience until now. New privacy laws have leaders treating data protection and risk management with the gravity they deserve, and an increasingly disparate, complex, stitched-together approach is no longer acceptable.
  • An agency submits half-baked assets because they’ve learned they’ll be asked to redo the work a half-dozen times as their brand client hashes out and decides upon their ideal result mid-production cycle. Previous campaigns with this client have taught them to expect copious back-and-forth anyway, so why apply their own resources to that first pass?
  • A brand’s SEO team needs an exploration tool and authorizes their own software buy with the functionality they need. The only problem? Their new solution comes with a handful of features that overlap the larger marketing department’s. The wastage is justified because of the new technology tool’s benefit.
  • Features of point solutions go unused because the vendor’s customer service team is disappointingly ill equipped to assist in onboarding and updating the client.
  • Sales managers notice their team consistently creates more content than the marketing department, but the futility of bringing it up again discourages the group’s self-advocacy.
  • A customer success manager quietly tells his representatives to avoid sending clients to their site’s resource library, since it’s outdated, unclear, and unnavigable. What’s a repetitious minute (or five) on the phone to ensure customers are happy? At least his department will be covered, even if the customer experience suffers a bit.
  • A new CMO arrives with an exciting vision. Instead of a comprehensive corporate catalog of things like which content plays have already been attempted, what monies the department owes service providers, the content management tools presently and previously in play, or collaborative workflows currently in place, the new leader must piece together the brand’s internal back story and spend precious weeks analyzing and stabilizing its foundation.

Sadly, these hypotheticals can be overlayed with a comparable version of reality. Instead of your search team subscribing to their own new technology, for example, it may be your social team that grabs a mention-monitoring, social listening tool. Or a product marketer who can’t find a relevant asset and doesn’t want to wait on the content team to generate a new one… eventually creating his own that’s inconsistent with brand standards. The list of snags goes on and on, at best slowing down marketing operations and at worst putting the whole at massive risk.

Many of today’s technology providers would look at examples like these and claim their product addresses the root. Oversimplified statements like, “That’s just poor planning,” or “Collaboration is the main problem,” or even “Reign in your approvals,” have (until now) convinced leaders to cave and adopt several quasi-compatible point products to stop the acute pain.

And to be fair, many of the patches deliver what they promise. 

But marketing won’t stop transforming. It takes bravery and tenacity to suspend the back-and-forth for the earnest consideration of an integrated solution. Because in the fight against marketing chaos, deciding to implement Marketing Resource Management software isn’t the final move. It’s only the first step.

Who would benefit most from MRM?

The practitioners in any of the above scenarios or similar situations would benefit greatly from a thoughtfully-chosen, tailored Marketing Resource Management software. They stand to realize both revenue growth and cost reduction benefits. Another group who would benefit from Marketing Resource Management software is the visionary leader who prefers to prevent the above costly conundrums before they arise. They, too, can use Marketing Resource Management to position their brand for economic gains and mitigated risk.

Remember, the right resource management software package helps practitioners devise, communicate and reinforce an overarching vision, develop campaigns to execute it, collaboratively manage content operations, realize budgetary and non-financial goals, identify and circumvent risk, achieve regulatory compliance, and much more.

Best practices for implementing Marketing Resource Management software

If today’s intelligent Marketing Resource Management solutions sound idyllic, remember no implementation isn’t without its potential pitfalls. And often, the very same marketing inefficiencies that prompt leaders to consider an incorporated change are the ones that derail implementation of modernizing management tools. That is, the evolving needs and complexities of marketing operations can easily distract teams from these 7 best practices for selection, adoption, and implementation.

#1. List your pain points and needs

The earlier mental exercise of counting inefficiencies wasn’t just for making a point — it’s the first step to determining the level and scope of your brand’s need. Ask your team members to clearly define the speed bumps, data protection hazards, resource waste, frustrations, misunderstandings, and procedural complexities they encounter daily. The catalog is more than just a Marketing Resource Management software shopping list, it’s a stockpile of reminders for internal and external stakeholders during the implementation learning curve. It’s also to prove successes once they’re achieved. And finally, these pain points are the building blocks for your budget. Every inefficiency can be financially quantified if you’re clear. Honestly document how some waste directly impacts revenue while other blockages affect corollary resources like morale and creativity. With a list like this, the investment will eventually prove its own returns.

#2. Map your pain points to vendors’ capabilities

By knowing exactly which capabilities would mitigate your pain points, you’re able to rule out any vendors that don’t meet your needs and more importantly, narrow down the ones that do. For example, let’s say one of your pains is that you have no way of tracking planned and actual costs of marketing activity. So when looking for the right Marketing Resource Management Software, one of your requirements might be the ability to centralize all financials directly alongside content production for bottom-up campaign budget management, with direct integrations to your ERP for finance approvals.

You should do this for each pain point as it will ease the process of evaluating solution providers and ensure your ultimate investment lives up to your team’s needs.

#3. Document your ideal marketing processes

In a perfect world, how would the budget be planned and performance visibility maintained or improved? How would your scheduling and taxonomy strategy be established and reinforced? At what point in each business process would team members ideally collaborate? Which insights would you want to gain from content marketing campaigns and current execution tools? How do typical workflows appear visually, and which role-based permissions can assign others work? Establish your multi-level approval matrix so no individual is bogged down in authorizations. Document how many dedicated people you have now, your average marketing spend, agencies involved in typical campaigns, and an estimate of your brand’s current content asset library.

#4. Talk with Marketing Resource Management providers

Yes, thinking through the ideal workflow systems precedes the step of looking at tools. That’s because knowing at least a portion of what you’ll need streamlines the nomination process dramatically. A selection committee helps here and in future implementation efforts as individuals from varying roles and groups bring perspectives that represent diverse future users and their needs. Together, determine both a budget and a time frame for realistic adoption, deployment, and training.

Request to speak with one of NewsCred’s experts to see how our marketing resource management features can help your marketing team.

#5. Test drive, compare, and decide

Blindly evaluating MRM systems against one another is not a good selection method. Instead, demo tools based on the needs of your brand strategy and marketing operations alone. Ask how each marketing resource management vendor integrates with your brand’s enterprise marketing technology stack and how your team would handle functionality convergences and overlaps.

#6. Plan and execute Marketing Resource Management software roll out

Once you’ve purchased an MRM solution, spend time testing it with the help of your vendor’s customer success team. Clean up data so it’s ready to import. Decide early if you’d like to implement the new system one department at a time or by product. Communicate your plan clearly and open up channels for ongoing questions from team members. Ask your Marketing Resource Management provider what, in their experience, makes for the most successful implementation. Now’s the time to conduct initial training sessions for every user.

#7. Develop and maintain a consistent training regimen

Generously incentivize your most vocal and enthusiastic MRM adopter to consider the responsibility of ongoing team member training. Invest in this individual to ensure they receive your Marketing Resource Management software vendor’s updates, know about feature releases, attend live instructional webinars, and keep user guides accessible. Include MRM training in new hire onboarding and ensure all team members know how to provide you, your designated expert, and the vendor with ongoing user feedback.

Remember again the operational inefficiencies you called to mind earlier. Could they be the first building blocks to developing a case for an MRM solution? If so, NewsCred’s CMP could be the Marketing Resource Management software to answer that call. Request a demo now to learn more.

The post Marketing Resource Management Software: An Extensive Guide appeared first on Insights.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/19/marketing-resource-management-software-an-extensive-guide/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=marketing-resource-management-software-an-extensive-guide

NEW: Foursquare Brings Faster, More Cost-effective Data Aggregator Submissions

Today we’re announcing a change to the data aggregators offered through our Citation Builder service.

As you might know, Acxiom, one of the ‘Big Four’ data aggregators, will be discontinuing its data layer from 31st December, 2019, leaving a large gap in the arsenal of citation builders.

The good news is that for the last few months we’ve been working closely with another provider making big waves in the aggregator space. We’re excited to announce that from today, we’ll be making location data powerhouse Foursquare available to customers as a data aggregator!

Why Foursquare?

You might mainly be familiar with Foursquare from their days as a mapping solution, but since then they’ve developed and enhanced their location data offering to make them a major player in data integrity and accuracy.

A Trusted Partner in the Location Data Industry

There are plenty of reasons we chose Foursquare to replace Acxiom. For a start, they’re a well-known and trusted business with a long history of focused work on location data. This good reputation can be seen in partnerships with titans like Amazon.

Speedier Turnaround

Another reason is speed of submission. Foursquare is so trusted that some directories and apps accept its data submissions instantly, meaning that you can get your business information onto some of the key sites much more quickly.

Even Better Value Aggregator Submissions

Because submitting through Foursquare is slightly less costly than Acxiom, we’re able to bill you less for your submissions if you choose to only submit through Foursquare. While submitting solely through Acxiom previously cost our customers $25 per location, submitting solely through Foursquare will cost our customers just $15 per location.

Worldwide Coverage

Foursquare also works in a huge number of countries around the world, giving us the potential to broaden our citation building service internationally, something that we know many of you have been looking for.

Is This the End of the ‘Big Four’?

Quite possibly! There are more nimble data providers coming into the marketplace, many without the trappings that come with being part of a giant, worldwide data group. This means local businesses looking to build citations don’t have to rely quite so much on the monopoly presented by four large companies, leading to the potential of more competitive pricing, among other benefits.

However, in order to manually reach the same number of apps and online directories in this brave new world of more, and smaller, aggregators, you’ll need to submit to many more of them, leading to far more processes to learn and more time spent submitting data. We think this makes submitting to all key aggregators through a single platform like BrightLocal much more appealing.

Whichever way the wind blows, we’ll be keeping a close eye on up-and-coming data aggregators to ensure that BrightLocal always offers the most accurate and cost-effective data aggregator submissions in the market.

Any questions?

We appreciate that for long-term users of BrightLocal’s data aggregator submissions service, this change might raise a few questions, so we’ve attempted to answer as many as possible in a series of FAQs.

If you have any other questions, we’ll be happy to answer them via contact@brightlocal.com.

The post NEW: Foursquare Brings Faster, More Cost-effective Data Aggregator Submissions appeared first on BrightLocal.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/19/new-foursquare-brings-faster-more-cost-effective-data-aggregator-submissions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-foursquare-brings-faster-more-cost-effective-data-aggregator-submissions

Wednesday, 18 December 2019

How to Write a Project Scope in 3 Key Steps

Think about your last marketing project that went awry. Whether it was a quick-turn deliverable or part of a larger integrated campaign, you can likely point to the moment (or moments) where things got off track. And more than likely, those hiccups were caused by a lack of strategic alignment and definition of the project scope.

That’s because great project management and execution requires a lot more than moving pieces — and even the most straightforward marketing campaigns or tasks can get off-track without a detailed project scope. Knowing how to write a project scope will ensure stakeholders and marketing teams are on the same page before your team starts the creative process. 

What is a project scope?

Project teams and stakeholders should work together, not against each other. But too often, both sides fail to define the boundaries of a project and end up duplicating efforts or perhaps worse — missing an entire element. Developing a clear project scope helps everyone to stay aligned on the goals, deliverables, and constraints of a marketing project before it begins, and ensures that your org has enough time, resources and the right people to do the job. A project scope, otherwise known as a scope or statement of work (or SOW), allows stakeholders to understand what the project parameters are, informs team members on the expected amount of work for each phase of the project, and helps you and your team to identify any gaps in the plan.

How to write a project scope

Learning how to write a project scope can take time, but it doesn’t have to be arduous. Creating a reusable template can help you to easily walk through each new project that arises and come up with a big-picture plan for how to execute it efficiently, under budget, and on time.

1. Gather details

Before you can create or write a project scope, you should reach out to stakeholders and team members to collect information about the different steps of the project as well as what resources and workflows need to be in place. Make sure to include the following: 

Business goals

The first step in knowing how to write a project scope begins with establishing business goals. The business goals section is where you briefly articulate the overall vision of the project, including why your stakeholders and team are supporting it, and the big-picture objectives you expect to achieve. These objectives may include boosting awareness of a new product, increasing registrations for a webinar, or driving leads. Delineating the expectations will be vital for keeping the marketing project on pace and avoiding distractions and asks that fall outside of the project scope.

Project deliverables and criteria

Now that you’ve established the broad goals for the project scope, it’s time to sit down with your team and stakeholders and make a list of the specific deliverables you’ll produce by the end. This deliverable might be a big rock piece of content, digital ad, a website, a training, or an event. Whatever it is, make sure everyone on the team agrees on the expected outcome. You should also make the deliverables specific and measurable. That way, it will be clear when the project has met the stakeholders’ criteria and is finished. If you’re producing a product training, for example, make sure to say what topics the training will cover, how many people you’ll train, and how long you are committing to training them. 

Limitations

An important part of knowing how to write a project scope is to acknowledge that every team and project is bound by certain constraints, from budget to time limits to personnel. And as necessary as it is to articulate what you can do in a project, it’s equally important to acknowledge what you can’t. If, for example, you have a lean team and can’t provide last-minute overtime hours, say so upfront. Setting these guidelines early on will help everyone manage time and expectations— and will keep your team happy, productive, and less susceptible to burnout.

Assumptions

Just like with limitations, it’s vital to spell out unspoken assumptions that people are bringing into the project. A stakeholder might assume that a website project will include certain pages and features, or a team member might assume that she is writing the content while others assume she’s the editor. Sit down and list out the expectations everyone has about how big the project is, what it involves, and who’s doing what by when. When the rubber meets the road, you’ll thank a documented strategy.

Inclusions and exclusions

Everyone knows that even the most well-intentioned projects can fall prey to mission creep. To keep your project focused and on your team on task, make sure you clearly articulate what’s included in a project — and what’s not. If you’re planning a major event for current customers rather than for prospects, make sure your stakeholders know that. This will keep the project from becoming unwieldy or unrealistic and will allow your team to make each decision with one eye on what’s essential and what’s not.

Resources

Your team might be ready to get cracking on a new project, but they can’t do their best work if they don’t know what resources are available to them. Including this is essential in how to write a project scope. It will help leaders communicate with their team members what sorts of skills, technology, mentorship, and personnel they already have without having to reinvent the wheel. If you have existing templates or manuals for similar projects, you can save your team lots of time by listing it upfront. The same goes for if you have a specific budget allocated for training on a particular skillset or an ace computer program that will help speed up the work.

Cost

If you’re working on a project with billable hours, establish in the project scope exactly who you need to pay and how much time you expect the project to take. Also consider any costs associated with specific aspects and elements. Budgeting will help you get clear on project costs and what asks will require extra time and funding. 

Agreement

The last step in how to write a project scope is getting your team to sign on the dotted line. This agreement is not a contract, of course, but getting your chief stakeholder and project manager to approve it shows that people are clear on the expectations and will take their commitments seriously.

2. Make a project schedule

You’ve identified the scope of your project — now it’s time to put your plan into action. Make a list of all the deliverables you’ve committed to producing. Under each deliverable, list the tasks required to achieve each one, who is responsible for each task, and how long you expect the work to take. Be realistic — your schedule should keep your team on task but be flexible enough to allow for agility and accommodate changes.

3. Pull your project scope together

There’s no one right way to format a project scope document. It can be as simple as a text document — or, if your processes are more complicated, visualizations can help you clearly illustrate how each piece of a project fits together. 

Gantt charts, agile marketing scrum boards, flow diagrams, and kanban boards are all great ways to showcase to team members and stakeholders what work needs to be done, when it’s being done, and who’s doing it. Your project scope could also be included in as a comprehensive campaign brief.

Once you know how to write a project scope, the key is to make sure to share the it with everyone on your team and refer back to it whenever you’re making decisions, assigning tasks, or deliberating on how to achieve your objectives.

In addition to learning how to write a project scope, you should also consider a marketing project management software. Here are 6 reasons why you need one.

 

Jen Gustavson is a NewsCred Contributor.

The post How to Write a Project Scope in 3 Key Steps appeared first on Insights.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/18/how-to-write-a-project-scope-in-3-key-steps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-write-a-project-scope-in-3-key-steps

An Overview of Common Google SERP Features

In the ever-changing world of SERPs, it’s important for local businesses to be aware of what features they can make use of. Digital Content Editor at Pi Datametrics Emily Hogarth answers the question, “What are Google’s SERP features?” and explains how you can turn them into visibility opportunities.

Whether you’re a global or a local business, you’ll be wanting to get found online. Your priorities may be different, but with Google’s rich SERP features you can perform across a diverse range of results that suit your objectives and win you more engagement. 

What are SERP features?

SERP features are results on Google which offer richer content than the traditional blue links. These results often take up more space and are far more visual. At Pi, we’ve counted 18 featured snippets in Google, and we track all of these with our digital intelligence tool.

Google’s SERP features

What are Google's SERP features?

Why is it important to perform for SERP features?

In these now crowded search results, with a large portion of Google’s page 1 taken up with feature boxes, classic links are hardly going to make your site stand out. 

That’s not to say that they’re no longer important, but if you’re looking to take up as much SERP real estate as possible, you’ve got to go for the big boys.

More information

SERP features are bigger than classic blue links, meaning they show more copy and more information. Offering more content, in some cases, could result in an increased click-through rate as searchers get a taste of how relevant your content is. 

They’re usually much more visual as well, catching the searchers’ eye and interest. 

You’ll also be able to get more information on page 1, as in a lot of cases you are able to take up two spaces in the SERPs; position 0 and your original position. This may be changing as Google is testing the removal of the second link – but as of today, it is still an advantage.

Brand awareness

There are those rich snippets that can make a user’s click obsolete. For example, the answer card may pull your site’s content directly on to Google to answer the query outright. 

Google seems to be shifting towards clickless queries more and more, but this doesn’t mean these particular features aren’t worth performing for. 

Sitting at the top of the SERPs (‘position zero’), they’re perfect for boosting brand awareness. If your site is the first that a searcher sees, and you manage to answer their query right away, your authority on the subject is strengthened. 

Moreover, as voice search increases in popularity, owning ‘position zero’ could result in your content being read out in people’s homes – another amazing brand awareness opportunity. 

Featured snippets

Featured snippets are typically found at the very top of the SERPs in ‘position 0’. There are a range of possible queries that return a featured snippet box, but the main aim of them is to provide enough information within the results page that the user does not need to click into a site – providing quick and relevant answers to the searcher. 

Answer cards 

Google Answer Card

 

An answer card is a type of featured snippet that aims to answer the question of the user, picking out and displaying information from a site that Google think bests responds to the query. Find out how to win an answer card.

Sports results

Google sports results

This appears when a sports-related query is searched, i.e. searches for a particular football match. When big sporting events are happening, this result appears more often, with a search for a specific team returning sports results.

Finance box

Google finance box

When a query for conversion rates or information on stocks is searched, an interactive finance box appears. Information can be entered here and you can even toggle between graph views.  

Carousels

A Google carousel shows a number of search results, and an arrow allows you to scroll through the results returned.

Carousel

Google carousel results

Google’s carousel appears directly under the search box for entertainment queries such as ‘2019 films’. This can also return occasionally for local hotel or restaurant searches.

Top stories carousel

Google top stories

Typically a feature for publishers, this carousel collates the most relevant articles on the searches’ subject. If you perform here, you’ll want to make the top three in the carousel as they are likely to result in more engagement than if you’re on the second or third rotation of the carousel. 

Video carousel

Video carousel Google

Returns up to 10 results of the most relevant videos.

Twitter cards

Twitter cards in results

Google has full access to Twitter’s streams and this carousel returns the most popular tweets for your query.

Images and videos

Google is bringing more media types to the SERPs without a user having to go to Google Images or the Video tab.

Images

Google image results

This feature appears as a box showcasing a sample of Google images that return for the query.

Video links 

Video link SERPs

This feature resembles the classic blue links, but a video image sits to the right-hand side of the link.

Video box 

Video box

If a video is the main returning URL (for things such as movie trailers) a video box will appear. This feature looks like the video is embedded in the search results, however when clicking the video window to play you are taken to its site of origin.

Informative features

Features that offer information usually don’t require clicks, pulling a broad range of details directly to the results page. 

Knowledge panel 

Google knowledge panel

This is the panel that appears on the left-hand side of the screen offering a full outline of all available information on a query. For example, a company search may return a knowledge panel, complete with contact information, reviews, stock price, CEO name, social profiles and more! These panels are great for brand awareness.

People also ask

Google people also ask

These features provides the searcher with questions related to their query, in an accordion-style box. You can use these questions for some pretty clever marketing – scrape the questions and using them in your content in a bid to perform in this accordion feature.

Maps

Google Maps results

When a search has geographical intent, such as ‘near me’ queries for shops or restaurants, a map feature returns. Underneath the main map is information about the companies highlighted on the map, along with a link to their site.

Mobile features

App packs

App pack

This feature is currently the only ‘mobile-only’ SERP feature. If your mobile search is relevant to an app on Google’s app store then an app pack will return.

Blue link features

Blue links still make up a majority of the SERPs, maybe not in space, but definitely in returning sites. 

Classic links

Classic links Google

These are the classic blue links that we all know and love. 

Site links 

Site links

These links appear below your main site’s classic link, offering more links to certain areas of your site. This makes it easier for users to jump to relevant landing pages. 

Paid features

Differing from organic search results, which are based on SEO, paid results can be bought by businesses. Google has been clear that these paid results do not affect your organic performance in any way.

Product listed ads

Product listed ads

Appearing at the top of the SERPs, these ads are similar to a carousel, showcasing an image and price, and – once the arrow is clicked – more products.

Text ads 

Text ads

This feature is the classic PPC ad, appearing either at the top or bottom of the SERPs.

Performing for rich features

With so much new opportunity in the SERPs, and more developments every week, businesses need to have an understanding of these rich features and identify the most valuable places to perform. 

The post An Overview of Common Google SERP Features appeared first on BrightLocal.



source https://thebtrade.com/2019/12/18/an-overview-of-common-google-serp-features/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-overview-of-common-google-serp-features