Marketing teams often hear a mandate from their CMOs: “Be data-driven.”
That’s because the pressure is on for marketers to utilize the myriad data sets at their disposal to meet the ever-higher customer experience bar. But as a CMO, do you know exactly what you’re asking of your employees when you give this mandate? And does your team know what you mean?
I’ve seen countless instances of this rallying cry (usually given by CMOs prior to the start of a new fiscal year) turn into a whimper 12 months later, with plenty of potential opportunities lost in between. The truth is, if we’re not clear about what it means to take full advantage of modern analytics, technology, and data, we’re going to derail our own efforts to become truly data-driven organizations.
Merely having data does not mean you are a data-driven organization. Rather, it’s about what you do with the data.
Brands that hoard data but fail to act on it often end up delivering a one-size-fits-all experience to buyers. For example, they might serve the same Web content to all visitors without segmentation, or fail to A/B test their campaigns.
Being data-driven in marketing means making decisions about how to activate data on behalf of the buyer. How can you use the data you’re collecting to deliver a more relevant, tailored experience to a customer?
2. Operate with responsibility:
Collecting customers’ data puts the onus on you to be responsible with it. This doesn’t just mean protecting it from hackers, though that is critical. Being data-driven means your team has signed an invisible contract to do two things:
Create value in every interaction: If we collect a customer’s information, it’s our responsibility to use it to enhance that customer’s experience by adding value in every interaction. If not, why bother collecting data in the first place?
Challenge internal assumptions: Our assumptions about buyers are often what drive broad-based, one-size-fits-all marketing. But data tells the truth. To be data-driven, marketers must listen to what the data is telling them, even if it contradicts their long-held beliefs about buyers.
As a CMO in the age of data, your job is to make everyone on your team clear on these new responsibilities.
3. Maximize three core skills:
Before you issue a mandate to your team about harnessing your data, review your resources. Is your staff able to accomplish these three important capabilities to bring this vision to life?
Data collection and storage: Evaluate the best way to capture data and store it in a reporting tool or database. You may use campaign tracking, website tracking, tag management, Web analytics, data lakes, or a data warehouse.
Reporting and analysis: You should look to find anomalies and trends in data to inform marketing decision-making. This includes dashboards, visualization, analysis, data segmentation, data modeling, and data science.
Data activation: Your ultimate goal is to use this data to tailor content for customers through tactics such as ad targeting, A/B testing and optimization, personalization, recommendations, and lead nurturing.
Without staffing your marketing team to cover each of these functions, it’s nearly impossible to be data-driven.
The Road Ahead
The biggest skills gap facing CMOs today is within the activation skill set. Too many companies are failing to take full advantage of all the ways their data can be put to work.
If you’re embarking on the journey to be a more data-driven organization, starting with the right understanding will help you live up to the promise data offers. A focus on improving the customer experience will almost certainly lead to improved business outcomes. But to bring this goal to life, you as the CMO must make sure you’re sending your team in the right direction.
Those just setting out on their citation-building journeys would be forgiven for thinking that once you’ve paid for a citation, that listing is yours to do with as you wish.
Unfortunately, with business listing management services that rely on API partnerships like Yext and Moz Local, purchasing a listing is not just a one-off transaction.
Putting your money in the hands of most citation-building services simply means you’re a tenant. And as is the case with a tenancy agreement, if you stop paying your rent, you’ll be evicted.
But what does that mean in terms of citations?
When you stop paying your fee to Yext or the like, your citation will be depleted (according toa study by the Local Marketing Institute, only 5% of business’s listings that had canceled their Yext subscription remained fully intact) — something that comes as a nasty surprise to many of those new to the citations game.
With BrightLocal, we’re determined to give back control.Building citationswith our team means you own your listings, rather than rent them.
In this article, I’ll explain the benefits of owning your business listings — and the dangers of renting citations with Yext and Moz.
Read on to learn how you can claim back control of your business’s fate!
The two types of citation submissions
Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between the two main types of citation submissions: direct-to-site and API (or automated) solutions.
Direct-to-site
As the name suggests, ‘direct-to-site citation’ means thatcitation service providerscan go straight to the directories to update listings and submit business data to them.
With direct-to-site citations, service providers will craft a select database of directories based on things like industry, business history, budget, and the desired results.
Direct-to-site submissions are designed to create permanent listings. Once created, nothing will happen to these listings, unless someone accesses the listing and makes manual changes.
As you might have gathered from the initialism, APIs (application program interfaces) require a little more in-depth explanation.
If, like me, you find yourself wondering how APIs function, our very own Enterprise Solutions Manager Jon Rana advises to think of them like data feeds, or pipes — the API absorbs or pumps out information.
There are no humans involved in the process as the API is coded to function autonomously. Sites like Moz and Yext use APIs to submit to local directories.
In terms of citations, each API will have a set network that it provides information to. Some companies will even have exclusivity partnerships, such as Yext and Yahoo.
Within API solutions, there are two distinct versions:
The first version functions by providing data to directories as a kind of “data layer”. This means the API will give TripAdvisor, for example, your information (again, no humans involved here!)
The information is then layered over the existing website. So, put simply, you’re paying for your business’s information to be put on top of existing data on that page.
As a result, this is a temporary solution, meaning you have to continue paying for the listing for it to remain active.
The second version uses APIs to submit data directly into the database. In theory, this method should result in permanent listings, however that’s unfortunately not the case.
The problem is, the information provided by these APIs relies on constant data pushes — much like an RSS feed.
So, if you cancel, most listings are likely to revert because there’s nothing to confirm the information is correct.
While I wouldn’t recommend API solutions to the many, there are a select few instances where API solutions are not only worthwhile but actually preferable.
Say you’re McDonald’s — you’ve got thousands of locations around the world and you’re constantly making changes to menu items, offers, and more. API solutions could allow you to have an always-on approach while doing little heavy lifting yourself.
In the case of huge multi-location businesses that are more concerned with having an up-to-date shop window than sending trust signals to Google, API solutions might well work for you.
But for businesses who haven’t quite reached levels of world domination like McDonald’s, a direct-to-site solution is certainly recommended.
Given that BrightLocal submissions are designed to be permanent, if you’re hoping to make hundreds of changes to your business listings per month, we’re probably not the right fit for you *single tear*. That being said, our team is always on hand to assist with minor tweaks, updates, and additions.
The main problem created by API solutions is the temperance of the listings, combined with the permanence of the financial commitment they entail. With API solutions you’re drawn into continually paying for listings that you may never need to touch or change.
Did you know that with some API providers, even if you close a location you have to keep paying for it? Otherwise, the location will revert back to being “open”, sending conflicting trust signals to Google and potential customers.
In short, for most businesses, the risks presented by APIs are likely unworthy of the gains they might provide.
Data aggregator submissions
In addition to the two types of submissions, we also have data aggregators.
These are a bit of curve-ball, as they operate entirely differently to the aforementioned citation methods. As such, it’s best to think of these as their own entities.
Local data aggregatorscollect and curate data from local businesses. That data is then sold or distributed to third-party directories, mobile apps, GPS providers, and so on.
It’s important to note that most API solutions don’t submit to data aggregators.
Unlike with direct-to-site or API submissions, there’s no way of telling when a data aggregator will crawl and submit your information. As a result, it tends to be a much slower process, but can be a good way to fill gaps and cover a wide range of sites.
The best use cases for data aggregators are businesses who 1) are concerned about inaccurate, duplicate, or messy NAP, 2) are moving away from using an API provider like Yext and want to ensure they’re covering all bases throughout the transition, or 3) have just undergone a rebrand or change in ownership.
Most businesses will have a presence with at least one data aggregator, it may just be the case that you yourself have never managed this presence.
Speaking on the importance of distinguishing between the different types of citations, BrightLocal’s Jon Rana says:
It’s always surprising how many brands don’t know there’s more than one way to approach listings management.
The goals of each approach could be widely different, so you’ll be interacting with the same type of website on the surface, but the end result is targeted very differently and that’s not always made clear.
When it comes to submitting citations online, it’s good to know what your options are.
There are plenty of business listing management solutions out there — some of which use API solutions.
Choosing the right citation service for you is absolutely vital, and a key part of local search success.
Plus, as I’ll explain here, you might find yourself being held to ransom if you commit to a service that charges an annual fee for renting, rather than a one-off purchase for buying.
Why buying beats renting
Though committing to a service likeMoz Local, which charges between $129-$299 per location per year, may seem like a cost-effective option at the time, you’ll find yourself committing to that fee year-on-year, even if you don’t need to make any changes to the listings being managed.
If one day you decide you no longer want to hand over a hundred bucks to Moz (a service that uses those aforementioned API submissions), the citations you built with them will be removed, or — arguably a worse outcome — the citations will remain active but you won’t be able to amend them, which could result ininaccurate listings.
Alternatively, using a service like BrightLocal, where citations are offered as a one-time transaction (and completed direct-to-site), means you own your citations rather than having to rent them.
With BrightLocal, a citation can cost as little as $2, and after you’ve made that payment, the business listing belongs to you. If you stop working with us, you’ll still be able to freely edit and update the listing in question.
This means for the same, or less, money you’ll have full autonomy over your business’s online presence.
How to claim back your listings
Some of you may be reading this article thinking it’s too late — you’ve already submitted to Moz Local, Yext,Synup, or Uberall, and now you’re committed to spending hundreds of dollars each year just to maintain a handful of citations.
Luckily, there is a way to claim back your listings — and with them, regain control.
The reclamation process varies from service provider to service provider, but at BrightLocal we’re committed to making local marketing simple.
So, justget in touchwith our team today, and one of our account managers will guide you through the process.
I don’t know how we ever got by without BrightLocal’s citation service. Now, we’re not only saving time and money for our agency, but we’re offering a superior product to our clients.
What are your thoughts on buying versus renting? Share your experiences in the comments below!
Those just setting out on their citation-building journeys would be forgiven for thinking that once you’ve paid for a citation, that listing is yours to do with as you wish.
Unfortunately, with business listing management services that rely on API partnerships like Yext and Moz Local, purchasing a listing is not just a one-off transaction.
Putting your money in the hands of most citation-building services simply means you’re a tenant. And as is the case with a tenancy agreement, if you stop paying your rent, you’ll be evicted.
But what does that mean in terms of citations?
When you stop paying your fee to Yext or the like, your citation will be depleted (according toa study by the Local Marketing Institute, only 5% of business’s listings that had canceled their Yext subscription remained fully intact) — something that comes as a nasty surprise to many of those new to the citations game.
With BrightLocal, we’re determined to give back control.Building citationswith our team means you own your listings, rather than rent them.
In this article, I’ll explain the benefits of owning your business listings.
Read on to learn how you can claim back control of your business’s fate!
The two types of citation submissions
Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between the two main types of citation submissions: direct-to-site and API (or automated) solutions.
Direct-to-site
As the name suggests, ‘direct-to-site citation’ means thatcitation service providerscan go straight to the directories to update listings and submit business data to them.
With direct-to-site citations, service providers will craft a select database of directories based on things like industry, business history, budget, and the desired results.
Direct-to-site submissions are designed to create permanent listings. Once created, nothing will happen to these listings, unless someone accesses the listing and makes manual changes.
As you might have gathered from the initialism, APIs (application program interfaces) require a little more in-depth explanation.
If, like me, you find yourself wondering how APIs function, our very own Enterprise Solutions Manager Jon Rana advises to think of them like data feeds, or pipes — the API absorbs or pumps out information.
There are no humans involved in the process as the API is coded to function autonomously. Sites like Moz and Yext use APIs to submit to local directories.
In terms of citations, each API will have a set network that it provides information to. Some companies will even have exclusivity partnerships, such as Yext and Yahoo.
Within API solutions, there are two distinct versions:
The first version functions by providing data to directories as a kind of “data layer”. This means the API will give TripAdvisor, for example, your information (again, no humans involved here!)
The information is then layered over the existing website. So, put simply, you’re paying for your business’s information to be put on top of existing data on that page.
As a result, this is a temporary solution, meaning you have to continue paying for the listing for it to remain active.
The second version uses APIs to submit data directly into the database. In theory, this method should result in permanent listings, however that’s unfortunately not the case.
The problem is, the information provided by these APIs relies on constant data pushes — much like an RSS feed.
So, if you cancel, most listings are likely to revert because there’s nothing to confirm the information is correct.
While I wouldn’t recommend API solutions to the many, there are a select few instances where API solutions are not only worthwhile but actually preferable.
Say you’re McDonald’s — you’ve got thousands of locations around the world and you’re constantly making changes to menu items, offers, and more. API solutions could allow you to have an always-on approach while doing little heavy lifting yourself.
In the case of huge multi-location businesses that are more concerned with having an up-to-date shop window than sending trust signals to Google, API solutions might well work for you.
But for businesses who haven’t quite reached levels of world domination like McDonald’s, a direct-to-site solution is certainly recommended.
Given that BrightLocal submissions are designed to be permanent, if you’re hoping to make hundreds of changes to your business listings per month, we’re probably not the right fit for you *single tear*. That being said, our team is always on hand to assist with minor tweaks, updates, and additions.
The main problem created by API solutions is the temperance of the listings, combined with the permanence of the financial commitment they entail. With API solutions you’re drawn into continually paying for listings that you may never need to touch or change.
Did you know that with some API providers, even if you close a location you have to keep paying for it? Otherwise, the location will revert back to being “open”, sending conflicting trust signals to Google and potential customers.
In short, for most businesses, the risks presented by APIs are likely unworthy of the gains they might provide.
Data aggregator submissions
In addition to the two types of submissions, we also have data aggregators.
These are a bit of curve-ball, as they operate entirely differently to the aforementioned citation methods. As such, it’s best to think of these as their own entities.
Local data aggregatorscollect and curate data from local businesses. That data is then sold or distributed to third-party directories, mobile apps, GPS providers, and so on.
It’s important to note that most API solutions don’t submit to data aggregators.
Unlike with direct-to-site or API submissions, there’s no way of telling when a data aggregator will crawl and submit your information. As a result, it tends to be a much slower process, but can be a good way to fill gaps and cover a wide range of sites.
The best use cases for data aggregators are businesses who 1) are concerned about inaccurate, duplicate, or messy NAP, 2) are moving away from using an API provider like Yext and want to ensure they’re covering all bases throughout the transition, or 3) have just undergone a rebrand or change in ownership.
Most businesses will have a presence with at least one data aggregator, it may just be the case that you yourself have never managed this presence.
Speaking on the importance of distinguishing between the different types of citations, BrightLocal’s Jon Rana says:
It’s always surprising how many brands don’t know there’s more than one way to approach listings management.
The goals of each approach could be widely different, so you’ll be interacting with the same type of website on the surface, but the end result is targeted very differently and that’s not always made clear.
When it comes to submitting citations online, it’s good to know what your options are.
There are plenty of business listing management solutions out there — some of which use API solutions.
Choosing the right citation service for you is absolutely vital, and a key part of local search success.
Plus, as I’ll explain here, you might find yourself being held to ransom if you commit to a service that charges an annual fee for renting, rather than a one-off purchase for buying.
Why buying beats renting
Though committing to a service likeMoz Local, which charges between $129-$299 per location per year, may seem like a cost-effective option at the time, you’ll find yourself committing to that fee year-on-year, even if you don’t need to make any changes to the listings being managed.
If one day you decide you no longer want to hand over a hundred bucks to Moz (a service that uses those aforementioned API submissions), the citations you built with them will be removed, or — arguably a worse outcome — the citations will remain active but you won’t be able to amend them, which could result ininaccurate listings.
Alternatively, using a service like BrightLocal, where citations are offered as a one-time transaction (and completed direct-to-site), means you own your citations rather than having to rent them.
With BrightLocal, a citation can cost as little as $2, and after you’ve made that payment, the business listing belongs to you. If you stop working with us, you’ll still be able to freely edit and update the listing in question.
This means for the same, or less, money you’ll have full autonomy over your business’s online presence.
How to claim back your listings
Some of you may be reading this article thinking it’s too late — you’ve already submitted to Moz Local, Yext,Synup, or Uberall, and now you’re committed to spending hundreds of dollars each year just to maintain a handful of citations.
Luckily, there is a way to claim back your listings — and with them, regain control.
The reclamation process varies from service provider to service provider, but at BrightLocal we’re committed to making local marketing simple.
So, justget in touchwith our team today, and one of our account managers will guide you through the process.
I don’t know how we ever got by without BrightLocal’s citation service. Now, we’re not only saving time and money for our agency, but we’re offering a superior product to our clients.
What are your thoughts on buying versus renting? Share your experiences in the comments below!
When BrightLocal CEO Myles Anderson talked to Schema App‘s Martha van Berkel at BrightLocal HQ, they opened up a treasure trove of impactful information on the often mysterious schema markup (also known as structured data).
In this interview, Martha demystifies this important part of on-site optimization and clearly explains how local businesses should be using it to improve visibility, click-throughs and even conversions!
N.b. When this conversation was recorded in late 2019, Martha was about to speak at the Brighton SEO conference, so the talk discussed in this video is this one (rather than a talk at the next Brighton SEO in April 2020).
Myles Anderson, BrightLocal: Hello everyone, and welcome to this little video. I’m very lucky to be joined by Martha van Berkel from Schema App today. She happens to be in Brighton where she is talking at Brighton SEO, so, Martha, have you been to Brighton before?
Martha van Berkel, Schema App: I have not.
MA: This is your first time, but you did study in the UK? Is that right?
MvB: I did I spent a year at Strathclyde in Glasgow and I have done, like, a true Canadian tour with, like, my backpack with the flag and I did stop in Lyme Regis which isn’t too far away, so I’ve done lots of lots of train tours around the UK.
MA: Okay, so you’re not feeling completely at sea, then?
MvB: Absolutely not, no.
MA: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about Schema App?
MvB: Sure, so Schema App’s really to help digital marketers do their schema markup, or as people know it, structured data, either page by page or at scale, but without having to write code and without having to depend on developers and IT.
This is really key because those are usually the things that get digital marketers stuck, right? It’s the complexity of having to get into the code and figure out where commas and quotes go, or actually find a developer who can do that in the way that they want it done.
So our tools allow them to do that at speed, with ease, and with the support of our expert team.
MA: So let’s roll back a little bit: schema’s obviously, or can be quite technical, so, to a layman… let’s say you’re describing it to my mother. What would you describe schema as to her?
MvB: So I usually start by saying, you know, when you go to Google and you search for a new pair of shoes, you’ll sometimes see stars and prices in the results, and then I say, you know, those stars and prices are there because Google has a lot of confidence about what content is on that page, and the reason they have that confidence is because there’s this, like, awesome code that you can’t see, and that code is given markup, right?
So, really, it’s, you know, when I try to describe it, it’s, you know, through that experience that they’re gonna see, they’re gonna see something different in the search results. But really it comes down to, like, a code that’s there specifically for the search engines and other machines.
And that doesn’t happen by chance, does it? In terms of Google and that information, absolutely not, no. So schema markup and structured data: same thing.
We like the words ‘schema markup’ because the whole point of it is to disambiguate or make something absolutely clear, and in the IT world ‘structured data’ can mean lots of things, so it seems like the wrong word to use to be evaluating.
It’s based on this language called schema.org and schema network was written, like, back in 2011. Google, Yahoo, Bing and Yandex got together and said, like, “let’s come up with a common open standard vocabulary.”
So think of the book cover as a language like English or French or German, but it’s really, like, so the search engines can understand the definitions of things. Now, it’s kind of brilliant, like, the search engines have now put the burden on all of us to do all the hard work of translating stuff so their machines can do it, so it’s easier for them to crawl our sites and do this understanding. So schema.org’s that language and schema markup and structured data is, like, the strategy within SEO.
MA: So for marketeers out there, or even local business owners, why should they be interested, why should they care, about schema? What can it do to help them?
MvB: So I think the first thing to understand is that it helps their content be understood. So whether it be implications or details about their business, about the services that they offer, about the content that they’re investing so much time to write.
So it’s going to help, like, overall understanding within the search engines, and what’s most important with the search engines is when they understand if they can better match it to people who are searching for those specific things. So think of this as helping make sure that all those things that you’re investing in on your website are then actually understood the way that you want them to be understood.
Now, Google takes it a step further and says “if you do this we’re also going to give you these extra features in search” and those features are everything from star ratings to answers that appear in blogs or in search results, to making sure your knowledge graph, if you actually can get a knowledge graph on the right, that that has the appropriate information, images, mobile search, like an AMP, there’s a ton of results specifically on those.
MA: So for all of us who have websites, our objective is to get Google to really understand what we do and, for local businesses, where we do it, so that we get returned in the search results for the right queries.
So this is a great way of really specifically telling the search engines exactly what we want them to know about us but also what they want to know about us in a way that doesn’t rely them necessarily kind of crawling all our code and trying to work it out. We’re clearly telling them, in the code, what they want to know, which is fantastic for us who are trying to communicate with Google so that they will rank us high for the right search terms. But then also the benefit is that they’ll start to show additional information in the search results, such as star rating, price points, FAQs.
MvB: Yeah so I call like it ‘search real estate’ it’s like one of the things, and how you, like, visually pop in the search results so that you can get those customers to engage with you.
MA: So potentially, if used correctly, it’s a really effective way of driving more visibility within search, and getting more information to the SERP so that click-through rate from search results can go up.
MvB: On click-through rate, we’re seeing the value come across that customer lifecycle, so where you’re getting more impressions therefore you’re getting more clicks. But then we also find that people are spending longer and engaging more with the content on your site, and I think this comes from if Google really understands it and they know who the searcher is, and their goal is to match that searcher’s intent, then the person who’s actually getting to your site is the right person. Therefore they engage more.
MA: So I can really understand how it affects visibility and therefore, if you’ve got information like price points, people are going to click, but you’ve got evidence that shows that if you’ve inputted schema correctly, once you get to the site, their desire is more closely matched with the offering, and therefore you’ve got more time on site, a higher propensity to purchase. Lower bounce rate, those kinds of things.
So it’s not just about getting more visibility and just getting volume, it’s actually about getting really high-quality, high-intent users coming to your website.
MvB: Correct, yeah, and we’ve really seen that evolve over the years. In 2015, 2016, even early 2017, it was really about that: impressions and click-through rate. But over the last two years we’ve seen it sort of go throughout that process, and even Google’s case studies on their structured data guide starts calling out these, even to the point of increased revenue, increased engagement etc.
MA: So one of the questions I’ve got, which I think probably lots of people who work with local businesses is around how you schema correctly on local landing pages. So a typical local landing page, and let’s say it’s a cosmetic dentist who serves the Brighton area: on a landing page, which is a very important page for conversion for them, because they’re not an ecommerce business, they haven’t got product pages, they want to talk about what service they offer, where they offer it, any kinds of details or specifics about the service, reviews, and then also all those location details as well.
So there’s quite a lot of opportunities to put schema onto that page. Should there be a hierarchy for what you should have on there? And if you have it, if you try and schema everything up, does that kind of create confusion for the search engines?
MvB: So let’s break it down: so I think the first thing to know is that you shouldn’t have schema markup for locations on, like, every page right?
So you would have your your main page that you talked about, the location where you offer lots of services, right? So that would be your Brighton office that you have where you actually offer that cosmetic dentistry, and then you have your landing pages for those different boroughs or counties or cities that surround Brighton that you want to try to pull into the cosmetic dentistry.
So those would be what I would call service landing pages. The question we ask in schema is like, “What is this thing,” right? So those landing pages are talking about a service that’s offered in that specific area, but that’s actually performed or provided by that local business, right?
Now, so one of things actually I’m speaking about at Brighton SEO, is around connected schema markup and so that main page would talk about the service, the service would be provided by the local business, right? So you actually connect those dots for Google. That service itself would have a specific rating.
Now, the thing with the rating is it has to be about a specific service or about a specific location, so they would have to have collected ratings specifically for that service or for that specific location, and then that would actually be a rating about the service. So it ends up becoming lots of different ‘properties’ and connecting to other entities or data items on the site, so in this case we’d be connecting back to the local business.
And the other key one is ‘area served’. So ‘area served’ is another property that you can use to describe the area in which you’re going to provide that service, and for area served you can use a URL from Wikipedia to define that location.
So if you were wanting to define, I don’t know, is there a town close to Brighton which is right next door but far enough away that you wouldn’t appear in local results?
MA: Hove.
MvB: So you want to have your Hove cosmetic dentistry service page, you would then say ‘area served’ and actually put in the Wikipedia entry for Hove, and the reason Wikipedia is interesting is because it’s like a well-known kind of dictionary of entities if I already use the schema markup of, like, ‘things’ that Google knows really, really well. And so instead of you then trying to define Hove it’s actually already defined for them.
MA: Would you use that to say cosmetic dentistry as a subject? Would you use a Wikipedia entry for that?
MvB: Absolutely, yeah. So in schema.org, there’s 840 classes, so these are like the types of things, of which dentist is one of them, and then you could use this other great property that’s called ‘additional type’. It says, like, you want to kind of add to the fact that my dentist is one type but it’s actually a cosmetic dentistry so then you could do ‘additional type’ and again put the URL for the Wikipedia.
MA: Okay, interesting. And Google likes that?
MvB: They do, yeah.
MA: Why, because they understand Wikipedia structure and they recognize its authority? That’s one piece of it, I think. It’s also, like, schema org again is about disambiguating things, making things absolutely clear, and so with that, you know, without structure and by using those you’re making it absolutely clear.
So before you talk about time spent on site, you need to actually think about, like, well, what are the types of things that they should be optimizing? I like to start there, because it’s about the strategy for the schema markup and then that’s going to determine how much time and how far down the rabbit hole I need to go.
So really it’s like: what are the important things on the website that customers need to find? And then, secondarily, look at all the Google features that you can actually get, and it’s really a combination of those two things that you should markup.
Now, schema markup is, you know, additive to other SEO things you do, so it’s not a silver bullet that if you just do schema markup, everything else will be great. Nothing is, these days. It’s part of your toolkit. Now, if you’re asking me also, like, you know, how much time would you spend on it and it was 2015-2016, I’d be like I think the innovators are doing it, like the lead users today, though like since 2017 and all through 2018, and now it’s like 2019 almost 2020, like Google is being very very clear that you should do structured data, so I would say it should be on your must-do list.
And then really it’s about prioritizing those things that are important for the business, and so often with sites that are a bit more static, that maybe don’t have as many changes, they’ll do a setup and then at least look at how that’s performing on a monthly basis, and Google Search Console now has, like, specific reports to show, like, how you’re doing with regards to rich results.
And then, at least on a quarterly basis, be checking in. Not just a bit, like, what’s maybe changed in your content, like any time content changes you should be updating your schema. However, there’s also an element of, like, new features coming out, so it’s been really interesting since about March/April time, we’ve seen releases of schema.org as well as new features coming out from Google.
So FAQ and How-to is the really hot one right now. So in May they announced that FAQ and how-to, not only if you do the structured data that you’ll qualify for more sort of real estate on the search result, but also you’ll be voice-ready, which makes total sense, right? Because FAQ is question-answer, people are primarily engaging through voice, so when those kinds of opportunities come up, you know we’re seeing those search results happen really quickly.
So if, again, you want to sort of try to capture that for your local business, it’s just a matter of being, like, “oh well, we have FAQ/how-to information” or “well, we’ve been meeting to put sort of the feedback we’re getting from our receptionist on there on one page, let’s go after it and make that update, so at least when content changes, when there’s new results, like new features come out, and then at very least on a quarterly basis.
MA: So it’s one of those things you should always be aware of, and probably thinking as you’re adding new content, “does this affect schema?” “Should I be thinking about schema with this?” And sometimes the answer will be, “yes, we absolutely must” and sometimes you’ll go “no, because we’ve already covered that off” because it’s a similar template that we had.
It’s one of those things you have a sort of checklist: “Does this affect schema?” If it’s a ‘yes’, you tackle it. If not, you don’t necessarily need to invest any kind of time or effort.
Great, Martha, thank you so much for coming to Brighton but also explaining the the kind of detailed ins and outs of schema.
Instead, they give feedback to the engineers who code up the algorithm so they can make it more relevant to searchers.
Now, the real question is, how do you know your site is
being reviewed?
First, I want you to log into your Google Analytics account and go to the audience overview report.
Then click on “Add Segment.”
Your screen should look something like this:
Then click on “+ New Segment.”
Your screen should look like the image above.
I want you to click “Conditions,” which is under the “Advanced” navigation label. Once you do that, fill out everything to match the screenshot below and click “save”.
Just make sure that when you are filling out the table you are clicking the “or” button and not the “and” button.
Now that you’ve created the new segment, it’s time to see if
any Quality Raters have viewed your site.
How to spot Quality Raters
When you are in Google Analytics, you’ll want to make sure
you select the segment you just created.
If you copied my screenshot, you would have labeled it “Search Engine Evaluators.” And when you select it, you’ll probably see a graph that looks something like the image below.
You’ll notice that no Quality Raters have been to my site
during the selected date period, which is common as they don’t visit your site
daily and, in many cases, they don’t come often at all.
The other thing you’ll notice is that next to the “Audience Overview” heading, there is a yellow shield symbol. If your symbol is green, then that’s good.
Yellow means your data is being sampled.
If you see the yellow symbol, reduce your date range and you’ll eventually see a green shield next to “Audience Overview” like the image below.
In general, it is rare that Quality Raters view your site each month. But as you expand your time window, you’ll be able to spot them.
And once you spot them, you can shorten the date range so the data isn’t sampled and then drill down to what they were looking at on your website.
The key to analyzing what Quality Raters are doing on your site is to look at the “Site Content” report in Google Analytics and that will help you produce results that look like the screenshot above.
To get to that report, click on “Behavior,” then “Site Content,” and then “All Pages.”
What do I do with this information?
The goal of a Quality Rater is to help improve Google’s
algorithm. And whether they have visited your site or not, your goal should
be to make your site the best site in the industry.
You can do so by doing the following 3 things:
Follow the quality guidelines that Google has released. It’s 168 pages long but, by skimming it, you can get a good understanding of what they are looking for.
Always put the user first. Yes, you want higher rankings, but don’t focus on Google, focus on the user. In the long run, this should help you rank higher as Google’s goal is to make their algorithm optimized for user preferences over things like on-page SEO or link building.
If you have Quality Raters browsing your site from time to time,
don’t freak out. It doesn’t mean your rankings are going to go down or up.
And if you can’t find any Quality Raters visiting your site,
don’t freak out either. Because that doesn’t mean that you won’t ever rank well
in Google.
As your site gets more popular, you’ll notice a higher chance of Quality Raters visiting your site over time. This just means that you need to focus more on delighting your website visitors. Create the best experience for them and you’ll win in the long run.
So, have you spotted any Quality Raters in your Google Analytics?
PS:Special shoutout toMatthew Woodwardwho originally brought the Google Quality Raters segmentation to light.
Every year, BrightLocal produces its flagship report on online reviews, theLocal Consumer Review Survey, and in last year’s results we noticed some alarming trends that we felt worth further analysis and discussion.
Of particular note are the stories the data tells us about the feelings and behaviors of those in the 18-34 age group (who, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll be referring to as ‘young people’ from here on in – especially as it makes a 37-year-old like me feel a little more youthful).
Not only did young people’s responses to the survey often differ wildly from the average responses of other age groups, but at times they contradicted their own responses to earlier questions.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the findings of the survey to see what insights we can glean, and what you can use to inspire your marketing strategies for young people.
How Often Do Young People Search for Local Businesses Online?
With web use steadily growing from year to year, and the prevalence of smartphones significantly contributing to it, one would expect that the frequency of searches for IRL businesses would trend higher as we become more reliant on it as a discovery tool in all parts of life.
Not so with young people! In 2019, the percentage of young people who said theyneverused the internet to find local businesses rose to an astonishing 15% (from just 3% the previous year).
As you can see above, decreases were seen across mid-range frequencies (e.g. at least once a week, once a month,6-10 times per year) but these responses didn’t move over to the left side of the chart, as you’d expect with an increasing reliance on the web.
Instead, there’s been a migration of responses from across the board to the far more apathetic response of ‘Never’. I should highlight that this question has been asked the same way, of the same representative group, year on year, and this is the first time we’ve seen a shift like this. (As a comparison, it’s worth noting that although the overall percentage of respondents (all age groups) who said they ‘never’ use the internet to find local businesses crept up from 8% in 2018 to 10% in 2019, the percentage that said they looked daily also leapt from 27% to 33%.)
This statistic alone has left us with a lot of questions…
Are young people finding other ways to seek out local businesses? Are recommendations from social media taking the place of original research and online reviews?
Are young people even actively ‘seeking out’ local businesses? Have the prevalence of influencer marketing and targeted advertising simply turned social media into a brand recommendation delivery machine, to the point that young people don’t, for example, choose to go to a restaurant and look for one, and instead have one in mind from the offset?
As they’re less likely to need infrequent services (like plumbing, lawyers, doctors), is the idea of a ‘local business’ reduced to shopping, entertainment and eating out? Having been raised on the internet, are they more likely to instinctively purchase from businesses online rather than shopping locally, as research from Invesp suggests?
Or is it simply a question of semantics? Have the meanings of ‘use the internet’ and ‘local businesses’ slightly changed for young people? Do they now perceive ‘use the internet’ to mean using a web browser (rather than an app like Yelp or Google Maps) and ‘local businesses’ to mean ‘businesses in the town where I live’? Has this change in meaning led to this change in results?
There’s a lot here to chew on, I’m sure you’ll agree. We’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts and theories in the comments below.
Do Young People Read and Trust Online Reviews?
Now that we’ve taken a look at young people’s use of the internet to discover local businesses (and come away somewhat shattered and disillusioned), let’s dive into the meat of the survey: their use of, and attitude towards, online reviews.
This time around, many of those who had previously read online reviews ‘regularly’ or ‘occasionally’ are instead ‘never’ reading online reviews.
In itself, this is a huge surprise (especially considering what you’ll learn a little later in this piece) but put in the context of the previous chart, it makes perfect sense: a big increase in young people not looking for local businesses online must naturally lead to a similar increase in those not reading reviews for local businesses.
Still, that’s a bit of an increase in young people who ‘always’ read online reviews for local businesses (50% up to 52%), so the cause isn’t by any means lost. We’re perhaps merely seeing the emergence of two separate groups in this demographic of digital natives: those who have grown up to trust the online world and those who have learnt to be far more wary and distrusting of it. The emergence of discourse around the negative effects of social media and wider online practices on younger generations certainly bears this theory out.
Taking this theory further, let’s see what happened when we asked those young people whodidsay they read online reviews to tell us how much they trusted them.
And it’s the same story… a few more young people becomingentirely trustingof online reviews (from 39% to 41%), but a huge jump of 13% saying they ‘don’t trust online reviews at all’.
Quite aside from making me scream, red-faced, into the void, “Then why are you reading them?!” this reaffirms my belief that we might be seeing the two diametric experiences that can come from a youth growing up with the web.
It’s a broad thing to hypothesize considering the limited data in front of me, but I can’t help but think that, for young people at least, the movement of responses in the above charts from the middle ground to the left and right is indicative of a society in which the gray area is disappearing and online experiences and discourse are trending towards black/white extremes.
Sadly, it looks like fake reviews aren’t helping the problem. Here we can see more young people than ever before being confident in spotting fake reviews online and seeing them regularly.
One could certainly make the argument that the lack of trust expressed in the previous chart strongly suggests that this is just a very distrusting generation, perhaps battle-hardened by scrapes on social media, and that the number of fake reviews online hasn’t grown significantly, butby pretty much all accounts, fake reviews are indeed a growing problem.
My hunch is, instead, that young people today are just more web-savvy and aware of the kinds of dodgy online tactics businesses are willing to employ to get your custom.
How Much Are Young People Engaging with Online Reviews?
As you’ve seen, there’s a consistent trend across many of our survey questions in which responses from young people are starting to skew towards the negative and distrusting. This might paint a picture of apathy, of a youth spent viewing the online world through an increasingly skeptical lens, but interestingly this hasn’t led to a disengagement with online reviews. Rather, the reverse is true.
As our survey shows, young people who read online reviews for local businesses read 30% more reviews than the average consumer before trusting a local business, and spend 35% more time reading them than the average consumer.
This fits in with the narrative of a digital native with a discerning eye, their bullcrap-detector permanently on. It seems that although some young people take their distrust of online reviews and choose never to engage with them, some go the opposite way and spend more time than any other age group combing through the reams of reviews left by other consumers.
How Can Local Businesses React?
Whichever way you look at the data above, you can’t deny we’re seeing some fascinating swings in the attitudes of young people. Whether 2019 was just a bad year for trust in, and use of, online reviews (or whether it’s a quirk in the data that will rectify itself next year) remains to be seen, but I for one will certainly be monitoring the perception of this key marketing tactic as the year goes on.
But if your local business primarily deals with young people, what can you do to ensure you’re still attracting them in 2020?
Try to get a presence on top lists in your local area, as these can dominate the organic results of local-intent searches. Get in the lists of top things to do, the top restaurants, etc. And if you can, make sure the lists are on websites where young people are a prime audience.
Get more active on social media, and consider social media advertising on Instagram in particular. Facebook’s trending towards older age groups these days, and Twitter has never been a great place for local businesses to advertise, but Instagram is your holy grail if you can easily sell your service or products on a good image or short video.
Use in-store tactics to get your audience to share their visit with you. Encourage the use of a hashtag, run a social media competition, or create an attractive and quirky ‘Instagram wall’ in your store or shop to make it a can’t-miss selfie opportunity.
It looks like 2020 might be a bumpy year for young people and reviews, but I hope some of the ideas and theories above help you to weather the storm!
Every year, BrightLocal produces its flagship report on online reviews, theLocal Consumer Review Survey, and in last year’s results we noticed some alarming trends that we felt worth further analysis and discussion.
Of particular note are the stories the data tells us about the feelings and behaviors of those in the 18-34 age group (who, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll be referring to as ‘young people’ from here on in – especially as it makes a 37-year-old like me feel a little more youthful).
Not only did young people’s responses to the survey often differ wildly from the average responses of other age groups, but at times they contradicted their own responses to earlier questions.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the findings of the survey to see what insights we can glean, and what you can use to inspire your marketing strategies for young people.
How Often Do Young People Search for Local Businesses Online?
With web use steadily growing from year to year, and the prevalence of smartphones significantly contributing to it, one would expect that the frequency of searches for IRL businesses would trend higher as we become more reliant on it as a discovery tool in all parts of life.
Not so with young people! In 2019, the percentage of young people who said theyneverused the internet to find local businesses rose to an astonishing 15% (from just 3% the previous year).
As you can see above, decreases were seen across mid-range frequencies (e.g. at least once a week, once a month,6-10 times per year) but these responses didn’t move over to the left side of the chart, as you’d expect with an increasing reliance on the web.
Instead, there’s been a migration of responses from across the board to the far more apathetic response of ‘Never’. I should highlight that this question has been asked the same way, of the same representative group, year on year, and this is the first time we’ve seen a shift like this. (As a comparison, it’s worth noting that although the overall percentage of respondents (all age groups) who said they ‘never’ use the internet to find local businesses crept up from 8% in 2018 to 10% in 2019, the percentage that said they looked daily also leapt from 27% to 33%.)
This statistic alone has left us with a lot of questions…
Are young people finding other ways to seek out local businesses? Are recommendations from social media taking the place of original research and online reviews?
Are young people even actively ‘seeking out’ local businesses? Have the prevalence of influencer marketing and targeted advertising simply turned social media into a brand recommendation delivery machine, to the point that young people don’t, for example, choose to go to a restaurant and look for one, and instead have one in mind from the offset?
As they’re less likely to need infrequent services (like plumbing, lawyers, doctors), is the idea of a ‘local business’ reduced to shopping, entertainment and eating out? Having been raised on the internet, are they more likely to instinctively purchase from businesses online rather than shopping locally, as research from Invesp suggests?
Or is it simply a question of semantics? Have the meanings of ‘use the internet’ and ‘local businesses’ slightly changed for young people? Do they now perceive ‘use the internet’ to mean using a web browser (rather than an app like Yelp or Google Maps) and ‘local businesses’ to mean ‘businesses in the town where I live’? Has this change in meaning led to this change in results?
There’s a lot here to chew on, I’m sure you’ll agree. We’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts and theories in the comments below.
Do Young People Read and Trust Online Reviews?
Now that we’ve taken a look at young people’s use of the internet to discover local businesses (and come away somewhat shattered and disillusioned), let’s dive into the meat of the survey: their use of, and attitude towards, online reviews.
This time around, many of those who had previously read online reviews ‘regularly’ or ‘occasionally’ are instead ‘never’ reading online reviews.
In itself, this is a huge surprise (especially considering what you’ll learn a little later in this piece) but put in the context of the previous chart, it makes perfect sense: a big increase in young people not looking for local businesses online must naturally lead to a similar increase in those not reading reviews for local businesses.
Still, that’s a bit of an increase in young people who ‘always’ read online reviews for local businesses (50% up to 52%), so the cause isn’t by any means lost. We’re perhaps merely seeing the emergence of two separate groups in this demographic of digital natives: those who have grown up to trust the online world and those who have learnt to be far more wary and distrusting of it. The emergence of discourse around the negative effects of social media and wider online practices on younger generations certainly bears this theory out.
Taking this theory further, let’s see what happened when we asked those young people whodidsay they read online reviews to tell us how much they trusted them.
And it’s the same story… a few more young people becomingentirely trustingof online reviews (from 39% to 41%), but a huge jump of 13% saying they ‘don’t trust online reviews at all’.
Quite aside from making me scream, red-faced, into the void, “Then why are you reading them?!” this reaffirms my belief that we might be seeing the two diametric experiences that can come from a youth growing up with the web.
It’s a broad thing to hypothesize considering the limited data in front of me, but I can’t help but think that, for young people at least, the movement of responses in the above charts from the middle ground to the left and right is indicative of a society in which the gray area is disappearing and online experiences and discourse are trending towards black/white extremes.
Sadly, it looks like fake reviews aren’t helping the problem. Here we can see more young people than ever before being confident in spotting fake reviews online and seeing them regularly.
One could certainly make the argument that the lack of trust expressed in the previous chart strongly suggests that this is just a very distrusting generation, perhaps battle-hardened by scrapes on social media, and that the number of fake reviews online hasn’t grown significantly, butby pretty much all accounts, fake reviews are indeed growing problem.
My hunch is, instead, that young people today are just more web-savvy and aware of the kinds of dodgy online tactics businesses are willing to employ to get your customer.
How Much Are Young People Engaging with Online Reviews?
As you’ve seen, there’s a consistent trend across many of our survey questions in which responses from young people are starting to skew towards the negative and distrusting. This might paint a picture of apathy, of a youth spent viewing the online world through an increasingly skeptical lens, but interestingly this hasn’t led to a disengagement with online reviews. Rather, the reverse is true.
As our survey shows, young people who read online reviews for local businesses read 30% more reviews than the average consumer before trusting a local business, and spend 35% more time reading them than the average consumer.
This fits in with the narrative of a digital native with a discerning eye, their bullcrap-detector permanently on. It seems that although some young people take their distrust of online reviews and choose never to engage with them, some go the opposite way and spend more time than any other age group combing through the reams of reviews left by other consumers.
How Can Local Businesses React?
Whichever way you look at the data above, you can’t deny we’re seeing some fascinating swings in the attitudes of young people. Whether 2019 was just a bad year for trust in, and use of, online reviews (or whether it’s a quirk in the data that will rectify itself next year) remains to be seen, but I for one will certainly be monitoring the perception of this key marketing tactic as the year goes on.
But if your local business primarily deals with young people, what can you do to ensure you’re still attracting them in 2020?
Try to get a presence on top lists in your local area, as these can dominate the organic results of local-intent searches. Get in the lists of top things to do, the top restaurants, etc. And if you can, make sure the lists are on websites where young people are a prime audience.
Get more active on social media, and consider social media advertising on Instagram in particular. Facebook’s trending towards older age groups these days, and Twitter has never been a great place for local businesses to advertise, but Instagram is your holy grail if you can easily sell your service or products on a good image or short video.
Use in-store tactics to get your audience to share their visit with you. Encourage the use of a hashtag, run a social media competition, or create an attractive and quirky ‘Instagram wall’ in your store or shop to make it a can’t-miss selfie opportunity.
It looks like 2020 might be a bumpy year for young people and reviews, but I hope some of the ideas and theories above help you to weather the storm!
