Day: November 26, 2017

Search engine optimization also called SEO is a subject covered by many individuals and also blogs, its the process of making your website appearance appealing to the search engines in the hope of obtaining a special position for your targeted keyword. Throughout my research study I find lots of articles that offer some excellent understandings to seo.

Listed below you could discover an post from Kiss Metrics which I located to be valuable and very interesting .

In last week’s #SEMrushchat, we talked about an exceptionally important topic: how brand authority interacts with SEO as a ranking factor, since we just released our newest study: the 17 most prominent Google ranking factors. We invited expert, Jennifer Slegg – founder & editor of The SEM Post, speaker, and author of Understanding Google Panda Algo Guide. Along with her and our other guests, we focused on questions like how to identify a good brand authority, how authority influences rankings, and how PR and SEO can, and should, interact. Here is what they had to say: 

Q1. How do you identify a good brand authority? What are the main metrics you would use?

There are three factors that come into play: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Expertise is your knowledge level and the value you can provide on any given subject. Expertise is your knowledge level and the value you can provide on any given subject. Your authority is how established your brand is, both in your industry and online. Trustworthiness is how much customers and industry peers trust that you, your content, and your products and services are all top-notch.

When it comes to measuring these factors, there are a number of metrics to look at in order to get the full picture, all of which can individually strengthen your search rank.

There are several ways to measure this. The first is branded search volume, or how many people are searching for you by name. Instead of searching for “sneakers,” for example, someone might search for “Nike sneakers” due to the brand being well established. This includes branded products, content, and even social media.

Site links, including the number of backlinks a site has, are essential. In fact, our Ranking Factors study found that there was a direct correlation between the total number of backlinks a site had and its position in the SERPs, with every domain ranking for high-volume keywords having about 3x more backlinks than from lower-volume groups on the same position.

That being said, you don’t want to spam your links or use unethical practices to build links; Google penalized Rap Genius for doing just that recently, knocking them from the top page of the results even for their own name. This lasted ten days.

Social mentions are also a key factor. This can significantly improve your brand authority, and the transparency and user-generated content that comes with social media and social mentions can improve trust from other users and help you to be favored by Google.

Other key metrics to keep an eye on include knowledge graph integration, competitors bidding on a brand, and co-citations with competitors in lists.  All of these indicate that people are talking about you and interacting with your content and brand organically, helping to establish your brand and raising your authority in Google.

Q2. Should marketers work to increase the branded search volume, or is it something that comes naturally as a result of good PR? Why?

While good PR can naturally increase branded search volume, marketers should also be working diligently to increase their branded search volume simultaneously. Though this may come naturally on its own, deliberately helping this metric increase is always a good idea and producing content that will increase the branded search volume is a good plan.

Ideally, you want customers to search for “Lush bath bombs” instead of just “bath bombs,” or “pepsi.com” instead of “soda.” While it’s relatively easy to rank for branded keywords, it’s more difficult to get customers to search for them.

To do this, you’ll need to spark interest using strategies such as guest posting, word-of-mouth marketing, referrals, and creative campaigns that keep users coming back. It’s about building up your brand and making people interested in that. Having strong content can, over time, also help with this; it is why people search for things like “Jon Loomer Facebook Ads blog post.”

While you can easily rank for brand keywords (unless there is competition for a said keyword), it is better to optimize the brand for all keyword buckets equally. According to Ryan Glass – @RyanGPhx, “Marketers like to drive up branded search volume, and SEO experts want to drive it down and diversify the terms we are visible for.”

It is essential that you are always focused on increasing your brand awareness because it doesn’t just “come naturally” today, where there is an overabundance of content and a near crisis of attention scarcity. You could search for almost any given topic and be shown thousands of blog posts and hundreds of free ebooks. While some will definitely be others, it is the brand authority that will often carry the most weight in determining where users click. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how great the content is if you haven’t been able to build a name around it.

In addition to producing more content, you should also be focusing on presenting your products and services in a clear, concise language that includes search phrases that will likely be used by consumers. This is where smart copywriting and keyword research comes into play. If you have optimized your product for “ballet slippers” but most of your target audience is searching for “pointe shoes,” you will miss out on a lot of searches – and a lot of sales.

You shouldn’t neglect the organic power of social mentions and PR placements. They provide a well-rounded, holistic brand authority that is difficult to match without them. Encourage customers to leave reviews, which have a strong word-of-mouth advertising feel and the benefit of immense visibility and immortality on your site. Some reviews will be SERP-friendly, which will automatically help you in rankings and brand authority. Even if they aren’t, however, Google takes customer reviews and mentions of your brand into their ranking consideration.

And, as Andrew Martin – @AndrewDoesSEO pointed out, organic content has the capability to alleviate some of the need for PPC campaigns. When you are building relationships on social media or through content organically, you are staying relevant and on their mind. They will trust you more, and if they need something your business can offer, they will actively search you out instead of you needing to pay for PPC campaigns to win over these customers. You can then allocate that budget to other, more difficult targets like connecting with cold audiences.

Q3. How should SEO and PR work together? What are the main touch points?

It is very clear that SEO and PR go hand-in-hand. Whether it’s a press release or outreach for a guest posting opportunity, you have to think of both disciplines both separately and together in order to get the most out of your marketing. If you want your press release to do well, for example, you want to make sure it is optimized for SEO. At the same time, that very press release could benefit your SEO strategy. The two disciplines are separate, but they are entwined.

In many cases, after all, the best place for some of your content to live isn’t necessarily on your site, but on another site. This has enormous SEO benefits of a good backlink and a strong, relevant built-in audience. Plus, SEO can directly affect the outcomes of our PR goals; an SEO-optimized press release, after all, can ensure that as many people as possible see it. They increase visibility in different ways, and together they can increase brand authority for optimal SERPs.

It is clear that good content writers or PR individuals and strong SEO marketers aren’t always the same people, even if everyone has a general understanding of the other disciplines. PR workers are typically focused specifically on content and sharing certain messages, whereas SEO experts are focused on the array of technical factors that will affect search results.

Because of this, both the PR and content teams and the SEO marketers should be checking in with each other regularly about the goals they have and how to meet them.

PR and SEO are stronger together, and weaker apart. This is a consistent theme that our experts noticed and made sure to point out when weighing in. If you want your big announcement to get as much visibility as possible, after all, you need strong SEO behind it. This can happen when all press releases and content are run by the SEO team, and feedback from the SEO team is observed regarding link opportunities.

Some important examples of how PR and SEO teams should be working together include:

• Educating each other and creating goals – and the strategies to accomplish them – together.

• Discussing media outreach. The PR team might know that the audience on one site is a better fit for your business, but your SEO specialists might be aware that a different site would provide more valuable backlinks (or that certain links on the same page might be more valuable than others). Together, they will make sure all the bases are covered.

• Developing strategies to distribute and amplify content. When consulting each other, these teams can make sure that all of your content is highly readable by both Google and your target audience.

Q4. How, if at all, could authority influence positions in search?  

Authority can, and does, influence search a great deal. Brands with higher authority are often more desired, and therefore searched out more frequently by customers because it’s a brand that they trust. This, in turn, results in even better search visibility because it’s getting more traffic. Authority means trust, after all, and trust means better CTR, which means more authority. All of this is an upward spiral that means better SERPs across the board, giving you the ability to rank for more difficult and valuable keywords and show up higher in the results.

This doesn’t just go for consumers; bloggers and publications prefer trusted brands, too. They will trust you and your content more as reliable and accurate, so it’s much easier for a trusted brand to get links than it is for an unknown company to do the same.

This means that known brands have an enormous natural advantage when it comes to generating significantly more backlinks. And, the more backlinks you get, the better your SERPs become. On top of that, if you are able to optimize for keywords correctly, you will dominate the organic traffic, too. Again, it is all about that upwards spiral and building momentum.

In the meantime, there are strategies you can use to make your content more linkable and trustworthy to new visitors. These strategies include:

• Sourcing statistics and facts that you can back up and verify from other credible sites and publications.

• Adding social share buttons, or quotable “Click to Retweet” CTAs in the text to increase social shares and drive up social proof.

• Mentioning influencers, brands, and publications in your own articles, which can help put you on their radar.

• Providing value with your contest instead of just trying to sell your products or services aggressively.

It is also worth noting that domain names and queries are seen as search entities instead of brand entities; it is why Google favors big brands. This is why big brands sell a small portion of what companies only sell but consistently rank better for broad search terms because of their site and brand authority in the space. If you search for organic soap, for example, you might be sent to Whole Foods or Target which has two or three choices, instead of a small local business with twenty-five options.

In this way, authority heavily influences the search user, and those enterprise-level clicks will significantly boost your ranking position; even smart keyword research can only do so much against that kind of authority level. The only way to combat this factor is to build up more authority for your own brand.

Q5. How can negative sentiments in the SERPs affect authority, and how would that negativity also affect rankings?

Negative sentiments or reviews can cause an almost immediate drop in CTR and traffic, especially if those sentiments pop up towards the top of a search engine, like the United Airlines debacle that happened earlier this year; news reports about the scandal ranked above the business’s site. Negative sentiments can cause your brand reputation to suffer, losing trust or earning you less of it, sinking the amount of traffic you are getting. Simultaneously, fewer people trust your brand, which means that fewer people are looking for it, hurting you again. We talked about an upwards cycle in question 3; this is a downward spiral you don’t want to get sucked into.

To top it all off, Google has recently incorporated sentiment monitoring into the Quality Rater Guidelines. They want site raters to look for the reputation of the sites they rate, specifically telling them to look at off-site sources of reputation. If you have bad reviews on Yelp or several bloggers hot on your tail saying that you aren’t reliable, your SERPs are going to drop. There’s nowhere to hide, so you need to be ready.

Because of this, you want to do what you can to avoid negative reviews and comments online. Offer incredible customer service, produce great products, and make your customers happy, and all the E.A.T. goodness can follow. It is important that you don’t just wait for Google to start knocking you down, you should actively monitor both social and traditional media channels. SEMrush has brand monitoring tools that allow you to see what other people are saying about you (since they might not always say it to you) in real-time, allowing you to get ahead of any type of bad situation. 

Negative sentiment can erode your brand in the long-term as users slowly abandon you as a viable authority, source, and brand. It can also hurt you even quickly in the short-term if you are unlucky and don’t respond to it fast enough, and the situation escalates with stories across multiple mediums and a flurry of negative social mentions. Keep in mind that every single business will have unhappy customers and that this is almost unavoidable.

It is also true that negative sentiment can be more powerful than positive sentiment in some cases. After all, one unhappy customer will tell ten of their friends to never shop again, while one happy customer will tell only one of their friends about their great experience. In one scenario, you lose eleven customers; in the other, you gain two. Negative reviews that show up online can do even more damage.

Here is the good news: while no brand wants to have negative comments about them online, it isn’t an automatic death sentence. If the situation is handled well or if it’s an occasional or isolated incident, they can recoup. If not, of course, they’ll be purchasing a ton of reputation management and maybe getting a new PR team to boot.

Are there any other questions you have about brand authority coming into play as an SEO ranking factor? Do you have any additional insight?  For more information, check out our recent study about the 17 most prominent Google ranking factors.

If you would certainly such as to check out even more articles on search engine optimization then really feel complimentary to browse our other short articles. We have numerous even more curated write-ups from Kiss Metrics and I hope you enjoy reviewing them.

Read more……>click Here<

Seo likewise called SEO is a subject covered by several people and blog sites, its the procedure of making your internet site appearance appealing to the online search engine in the hope of getting a special position for your targeted keyword. Throughout my study I stumble upon many posts that provide some wonderful understandings to seo.

Listed below you could discover an article from Ahref which I located to be very fascinating and also valuable . The short article is titled Content Marketing Best Practices: Content Writing in 2018 and you could find it below

Note: This is the second article in a series of guides for content specialists on how to write successfully both for people and search engines in 2018. It was updated in November 2017 with two new chapters concerning topic research and mobile-specific keyword research.

I don’t like the concept of “optimizing content for search engines.” It kind of gives you the wrong idea about the process: as if you are supposed to write content for flesh-and-blood readers and then, constrainedly, optimize it for bots.

Many writers do so. But instead, these days you’d better keep the requirements of SEO in mind before and while you create your piece of content. This doesn’t mean you should make your content machinelike – it’s about understanding how your article’s vocabulary and structure can influence your rankings.

We’re going to talk about four aspects a writer should consider in 2018 in order to write a good piece of content that will also attract more organic traffic.

• Topic research

• TF-IDF

• Featured snippets

• Mobile-focused keyword research

Topic Research

At first sight, it may seem like a new trendy name for good old keyword research, but there are some really important differences.

First of all, topic research is a logical response to how Google is interpreting search queries these days. The Hummingbird algorithm, which is based on semantic approach, has changed the SERPs dramatically. Here’s an explanation provided by Danny Sullivan:

“Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.”

As an example, the word “fix” is highlighted even if it’s not present in the query. This means that semantically, it has been interpreted by Google as relevant, matching the meaning of the query and, thus, the searcher’s intent:

In topic research, keyword analysis is just one part of a bigger challenge you’ll need to face when putting together your content strategy. Let’s see what else is important to succeed.

Market Analysis
Define (or update) your buyer personas, focusing more on their background and the content they would potentially prefer. When it comes to your target audience, remember that the preferences of 18-25 and 35-45-year-olds will differ regarding the vocabulary and content formats they use, as well as the platforms they can be reached through. Dive into the communities your target audience is present in, adapt to the way they speak and analyze thoroughly the problems they face – this is the best way to make your content authentic and compelling.

Quick SEO tip: explore autocomplete suggestions. These are probably the most exhaustive source of real people’s questions, pains, and problems. You can use many of them as ready ideas for your articles:

Competitors’ Best Practices
Take a closer look at those who are successful in your niche. What makes them dominate the minds and the SERPs? Sometimes, these similarities can be identified at a glance, like with the query “best city bike”:

• Lists and guides rule the SERPs
• Adding a year to a title definitely helps

Also, we can quickly identify semantically related words that Google considers identical to your target keywords – “best city bike,” “best urban bike” and “best commuter bike”.

Collecting these data manually can take a lot of time. There are tools that scrape, organize and sort related words and Google suggestions: check them out in the “Tools to Use” section at the bottom.

Evergreen Core Content

Jayson DeMers from Audiencebloom recommends developing a set of regular frameworks that are repeatable as evergreen content after you’re armed with insights on your customers’ behavior, needs and pains and your competitors’ strategies.

“The key here is to find some frameworks that are repeatable as evergreen content. When your topics are semi-repeatable, you’ll be able to produce a greater volume of content to increase your relevance for those terms, and when they’re evergreen, you know they’ll stay relevant indefinitely, rising in rank as your overall domain authority grows.”

As soon as you have a set of your core articles, you can support them with newsjacking content, videos and other formats that drive engagement and virality – and, thus, traffic to your website.

TF-IDF

You’re probably asking yourself at this point: OK, I’m sure that words like “and”, “the” and “with” are certainly used by my target audience and can be found on every page in the Google top 10. Does that mean I should use them to get higher rankings?

Not at all. And this is where TF-IDF comes in.

The term TF-IDF is an abbreviation of “term frequency – inverse document frequency.” The two parts of this abbreviation are two separate metrics used to calculate how important a word is to a specific document.

TF (term frequency) defines how often a word is found inside a document; IDF (inverse document frequency) stands for how often the word is encountered in a larger set of documents, often called a “corpus.” IDF is meant to reduce the weight of words used frequently within the corpus that have little importance (articles, prepositions, etc.). This way, less weight is given to terms with a high TF and IDF, and more weight is given to terms with a high TF and a low IDF.

So why is this concept essential for a writer these days?

At first sight, TF-IDF may seem like a scientific explanation of why keyword stuffing is important. You identify a nice keyword (for example, “city bike”) with a clearly low IDF, you put it into every paragraph of your article and show Google that your content is super-relevant compared to your rivals’.  But it doesn’t work like this. Google’s algorithms are trained to identify pages stuffed thoughtlessly with keywords and penalize them.

There are several SEO tools that use TF-IDF for keyword analysis. For example, SEMrush’s On-Page SEO Checker and SEO Content Template tools rely on TF-IDF to provide you with a list of words to use in your content – your list will be sorted automatically according to the number of documents each word was encountered in.

Featured Snippets

So you gathered a beautiful set of semantically related words, made sure these words have a good TF-IDF, and you expect your content to make it to the first page of Google and boost your organic traffic.

But there’s a risk that almost no one will click on your properly optimized snippet with a catchy headline because there is someone who monopolized the first screen and captured all the searchers’ attention.

This “someone” is a featured snippet.

Featured snippets — so-called “zero positions” — are the boxes shown right below the number of results found for your query. The goal of featured snippets is to provide you with content that fulfills your request without your having to click on any search result.

Most featured snippets actually monopolize the first screen. As a result, the click-through rate of the content within it increases drastically – some studies report a four-fold CTR growth– and the other pages in the top 10 don’t get as many clicks as before. This is why organizing your content to appear in the featured snippet is crucial.

How to Optimize your Content to Earn a Featured Snippet

There are actually no sure-fire recipes to get your content into this box. However, some tactics have worked for SEOs and are worth trying.

Identify Your Pages That Already Rank in the Top 10

If you start by figuring out which of your website’s pages are already ranking well and concentrating on those, it will save you dozens of hours. Sad but true, only a miracle can make you appear in a featured snippet if you are currently in the 98th position. Google tends to pick the pages from the top 10 for featured snippets. If you are in the top 5, even better.

Target Question-Based Keywords and Provide Structured Answers

It’s easier for Google to understand the searcher’s intent from the query “how to draw a dog” than from the query “dog drawing” (are you looking for beautiful drawings of dogs or do you want to draw a dog yourself?). Besides questions, there are words that narrow down a search intent quite a lot: “best”, “recipe” and “instructions” for example.

When it comes to answers, write the way you speak. The easier it is to understand, the better. “How to cook spaghetti? – Start with boiling water…”.

If a query starts with “how to” breaking your article down into steps is a must: use numbers or subtitles to divide your content logically.

Make Sure to Use Header Tags Properly

Search engine bots love clear markups and flawless code. If they can easily scan the structure, extract the most valuable information and index it properly without spending any additional crawl budget, it definitely helps you get higher rankings. A correct use of H1-H6 tags is crucial if you want your content to be included in the featured snippet. Some SEOs, including Barry Schwartz, recommend also using Schema.org Markup.

Keep Working to Take Snippets From Your Competitors (and defend your spot once you got one)

Nobody can guarantee that once a page gets into the featured snippet box, it will stay there forever. Google can remove your website (see this case study by Glenn Gabe) and replace it with another one, or just leave the page without a snippet (which is actually what happened with the “best city bike” SERP while we were working on this article):

Analyze what you could improve on your page and keep working. When it comes to highly competitive keywords, it is really worth the candle.

Mobile-Specific Keywords

Creating content that keeps up with mobile requirements isn’t just another trend. The truth is, there are more people accessing your content from mobile devices than from desktops.

Source: Forbes

With mobile-first index officially just around the corner, you can’t NOT pay attention to mobile users’ needs and pains. Otherwise, you risk losing valuable organic traffic.

A mobile-oriented approach is not only about specific technologies like AMP. It is also necessary to keep in mind the differences in how people search for information from desktop and mobile devices. Let’s see some examples of how you can rethink your content and keyword strategy with a particular focus on mobile:

Consider the Search Intent

The query “how to repair a tire” has a very different intent when googled from desktop and mobile. The latter one, most probably, implies that the person needs urgent help and isn’t just curious about tires.

If you have an article covering this topic in your blog, analyze the traffic coming to it using the ‘Audience > Mobile’ report in Google Analytics (filter by URL to see traffic coming to a specific page).

If you see that visitors come to your page mostly from mobile, you’ll probably want to change the article’s content. In case of tire repair, you’d probably want to stick to a down-to-earth, nuts and bolts explanation rather than heavy videos and reviews on how resistant different types of tires are.

Check Mobile Search Volumes

When you analyze how popular a certain keyword is, you most probably check only their desktop volume. It’s time to change it. For example, search volume for the keyword “how to tie a tie video” is 50% bigger on mobile rather than on desktop:

Source: SEMrush (US database)

I’m sure you’ll find several keywords in your niche that are searched more often on smartphones than on desktop. Identifying and using them as topics for your content can help you noticeably increase organic traffic from mobile devices.

Tools to Use: SEMrush Solutions

There are a number of SEMrush tools that can help automate the most time-consuming parts of your work. Let’s take a look at how they do it:

On-Page SEO Checker

On-Page SEO Checker helps you identify semantically related words. But there’s one important detail: it only gives you the words used by your successful rivals from Google’s top 10. There’s no point in analyzing hundreds of SERPs for a given keyword. Why look at those who are ranking lower than you?

You can find insights on semantically related words in the “Semantic Ideas” section:

They come with a detailed analysis of how many rivals use each of these words and how frequently each of them is encountered on their pages:

On-Page SEO Checker will also notify you if any of your website’s pages are ranking in the top 10 and have a good chance of appearing in featured snippets, with actionable recommendations on how to improve these pages:

SEO Content Template

If you just need to optimize the text on a single page without going too deep into detail, SEO Content Template is an extremely actionable yet simple tool. Simply enter one or more target keywords, and the tool will analyze the first 10 pages from Google that rank for these keywords, and give you recommendations on:

• Semantically related words to use on your page
• The readability score you’ll need to achieve
• Text length
• Relevant backlink sources
• Basic SEO recommendations, like length of page title and meta description

You can also get some insights on how to organize your content without leaving the tool – we’ll show you excerpts of your rivals’ texts with your target keywords highlighted:

Keyword Magic

It would be nice if you could type in a target keyword and see the semantically related words separated into groups, get quick estimations of search volume, keyword difficulty and competition level in one tool. Oh, and see the SERP features triggered by each keyword as well.

This tool does exist. Keyword Magic tool makes it easier by showing you all the information in one tab.

If you need more data, for example, the click potential or average difficulty for a keyword group, use the “Export to Keyword Analyzer” option.

Moreover, the new “Questions” filter allows you to collect hundreds of ideas on how to get a featured snippet in no time.
 

Topic Research [coming soon]

This tool is still in closed beta, but will soon be available for everyone. Here are a few words about its main functionalities:

It gives you examples of the headlines your SERP rivals once used. Take a look at them to find common patterns (for example, everyone is using lists or mention the word “video” in headlines).

It helps identify popular questions and related searches in your niche. This allows you to kill many birds with one stone: you’ll get a chance to earn a featured snippet; you’ll gain insights into real needs of your audience; you’ll get valuable keyword ideas in no time.

Finally, when you simply need new ideas on what to write about, mind maps will come in handy, allowing you to create multiple sought-after content pieces, using just one seed keyword:

How to Write Content That Succeeds in 2018: Key Takeaways

• Spend time on keyword research and defining an SEO-friendly structure before you actually start writing. Stuffing ready articles with keywords and adding subtitles just because you need to will seem unnatural, both for humans and search bots.

• Focus on adding valuable words associated with your topic instead of repeating the same keyword throughout your article.

• Use multiple sources to enrich your list of related keywords. Explore your and your competitors’ social media pages for keyword ideas and questions to answer. Conduct a TF-IDF analysis. Ask your technical support to observe and note the terms your customers really use.

• Make good use of tools to automate the research processes.

• Many actionable takeaways can be easily found by simply looking at SERPs. You can discover which content formats are used by your top 10 rivals or borrow some nice ideas for headlines.

• Use lists and “step-by-step” formats to increase your chances of earning a featured snippet. “Keyword-based question + direct and concise answer” is another proven format for getting into the featured snippet box.

• If you write an evergreen piece of content (a guide, for instance), don’t hesitate to mention the current year in the title. You’ll eventually get back to this article to update it, so a “2016 guide” can then be renamed a “2017 guide” when you add new valuable information to it.

• You can’t earn a featured snippet unless you’re already ranking high. To get results faster, start by optimizing the pages that are already ranking in the Google top 10 for your target keywords.

• Pay careful attention to your formatting, tags, and markups. Make sure these are used correctly and make your content clear, structured and easily crawlable for Google bots.

• If your competitor has already earned a featured snippet for your target keyword, it’s not written in stone. Any other website can replace theirs sooner or later, so why not yours?

Passing the Mic to You

Have you already incorporated these best practices into your everyday content routine? Or do you consider them newfangled or too far removed from the actual work of a content creator? Let us know in the comments!

I wish you have actually appreciated this short article on Content Marketing Best Practices: Content Writing in 2018 Then feel totally free to browse our various other posts, if you would certainly like to view even more short articles on search engine optimization. We have many more curated write-ups from Ahref and I wish you take pleasure in reading them.

Read more……>click Here<

Seo also known as Search Engine Optimization is a subject covered by many people and also blog sites, its the procedure of making your site appearance attractive to the search engines in the hope of acquiring a special position for your targeted keyword. Throughout my research study I find several short articles that give some wonderful insights to seo.

Listed below you could discover an article from Ahref which I discovered to be helpful and very interesting . The article is entitled 7 Ways You’re Screwing Up Your Email A/B Tests as well as you can locate it listed below

FACT: Email is an amazing channel for attracting, winning and retaining customers. Not to mention generating repeat business.

But there is one problem; it is really hard to get emails right for the first time.

What you consider an engaging subject line, recipients see as a dud. A call to action you believe would compel them to click, spurred no action whatsoever.

That is why it is important to A/B test your emails to find new techniques or elements that improve conversions.

Unfortunately, many companies launch split tests hoping for the best. They disregard the rules of A/B testing and commit some major mistakes rendering their efforts useless.

So, if you have been split testing emails but see no viable results, keep on reading. I am going to show you the most common A/B testing mistakes sabotaging your efforts.

Before we begin though…

Why You Should Always Start by Testing Concepts Not Elements

As it turns out before you even begin testing various email elements, you should identify a general strategy your audience responds best to.

In other words, before you start fine-tuning the template, testing subject lines or modifying the call to action, you should first test two different marketing strategies against each other.

For instance, you could test two different ways to convert recipients – via email form or social media login. Or sending people to a landing page vs. allowing them to purchase the product directly via email.

And only when you have identified the winning strategy, should you start testing individual elements to improve conversions.

However, when you do, make sure you don’t commit any of the mistakes below:

Mistake #1. Testing More Than One Element at Once

By far and away, this is the most common mistake of them all.

You have so many ideas on how to improve email conversions. But the last thing you want is spending weeks to test every one of them in turn. And so, to speed things up a little, you decide to analyze them all at once.

You send different template variations under various sender names, using different subject lines, and including different copy in each test.

This results in so many email variations that, in the end, you can’t even tell if any of your ideas worked.

Time-consuming as it may be, you should always test only one element at a time.

Mistake #2. Checking Results Too Early

Since the majority of email platforms start delivering campaign results within 2 hours after sending, it is tempting to start analyzing a test’s performance right away, right?

However, by doing so, you miss out on some important data.

For one, users have different reading habits. Some open the email right away, flick it and either act on it or forget about it. Others put important messages aside to check out later. And as a result, might come back to your email a couple of days later.

And so, by analyzing results too early, you might miss important traffic and usage patterns, affecting the actual test results.

From personal experience, I can attest that the best time to start going through test results is about 2 weeks after launching the campaign.

Mistake #3. Ignoring Statistical Significance

80% of your test results are worthless. It is no different for almost anyone else split testing their emails.

And so, the challenge is to draw conclusions based only on the remaining 20%.

One way to achieve it is by identifying statistically significant results and weeding out those caused by pure chance.

One way to do it is to use a statistical significance calculator. Personally, I use the one developed by Visual Website Optimizer, but you could use just about any similar app out there.

Mistake #4. Focusing on Too Small Sample Size

The number of recipients you include in the test affects the outcome. The smaller change you want to test, the greater sample size you might need.

For instance, let’s assume that you developed a hypothesis stating that using emojis in the subject line should help increase the existing 15% open rate by 10%. To conduct such analysis, you need to test this hypothesis on 8,000 people.

Using a smaller sample size will deliver statistically insignificant results.

So, before you launch the test, you need to calculate what sample size you need to receive viable feedback from. To do so, use the Optimizely’s sample size calculator.

Mistake #5. Failing to Develop a Proper Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a proposed statement made on the basis of limited evidence that can be proved or disproved and is used as a starting point for further investigation. I am sure you have heard this definition already.

However, in email split testing, a hypothesis must have one other characteristic:

• It must be applicable to different campaigns.

So for instance, a statement such as “emails with animated pictures generate a higher CTR” would work as a hypothesis. Once proven right, it could be applied to many different campaigns.

On the other hand, assuming that a particular subject line will fare better than another would not work. It applies to a specific campaign only and cannot scale to your other email efforts.

The lack of understanding of this important email hypothesis characteristic leads to conducting tests de facto without a hypothesis at all. Or in the best case scenario, using a weak hypothesis to try and improve conversions.

To avoid making this mistake, use the industry’s approved hypotheses. Jordie van Rijn collected 150 of them in this post.  

Mistake #6. Not Testing Segments

We all know that different audience segments might respond to your message in their own unique way. And thus, a hypothesis improving conversions in one segment might deliver no results in another.

Just take cultural differences as an example. Spanish recipients might have no problem with a high frequency of emails. However, emailing a couple of times a week might prompt subscribers from other countries to abandon your list.

And so, segment your tests to analyze different user behaviors.

Mistake #7. Sending Each Variation at a Different Time

To receive viable results, you should analyze no more than one variable at a time.

And yet, I see many companies unknowingly adding another factor to the mix: time. How? By sending each variation at a different time.

With this method, half of the subscribers might receive one variation at a time they are not busy and thus, susceptible to opening marketing messages. The other half, however, might get it in the middle of a busy day, resulting in many ignoring or even overlooking it.

As a result, the data gets skewed by different recipient behavior, depending on the time at which they received the email.

So, to guarantee the validity of the test, always send both variations at the same time to ensure that no other factor interferes with the test.

What About You?

Are there any other email testing mistakes you made? Share them with us in the comments below.

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Seo additionally known as Search Engine Optimization is a subject covered by several individuals and also blog sites, its the procedure of making your website appearance attractive to the online search engine in the hope of obtaining a advantageous ranking for your targeted keyword. During my research study I encounter several articles that offer some fantastic insights to search engine optimization.

Listed below you can find an write-up from Ahref which I discovered to be beneficial and also extremely intriguing . The write-up is labelled 4 Counterintuitive Hacks To Court The Champions Of Your Industry and also you could discover it below

Imagine your just-released book makes it to Oprah Winfrey’s famous list of “favorite things.”

OMG! You gonna go completely crazy. Isn’t it? Why? Because, now, you could almost be sure that your book sales would skyrocket. You could be a world celebrity overnight. 

Well, that’s the power of industry champions. A simple word from their mouth, about how good or how great your product is good enough to draw eyeballs, financial windfalls, and more. That said, it is not that easy to court champions, commonly referred to as the “influencers” in the industry lexicon, to promote your product and services. Why?

Here is the problem: Influencers are very picky about what they promote these days. More so, with hundreds and thousands of such requests flooding their inboxes, day in and day out, making them more pickier than ever before. Yes, everyone wants a piece of these champions today. (Maybe, over a period of time, you may even feel that climbing Mount Everest would have been a better off experience than getting an influencer on board to evangelize your product.)

Regardless of the many difficulties involved in roping in the right influencer, be assured this is a superior marketing strategy over traditional strategies. Why?

Check out these stats and facts that suggest why Influencer marketing is the best go-to strategy for product promotion:

#1. As per the past 30-days stats from Google Trends, Influencer Marketing Towers Over Traditional Marketing Strategies such as Print Advertising and Video Advertising, significantly.

Influencer Marketing Towers Over Traditional Marketing Strategies

#2. As per a recent survey, 84% of marketers are looking to launch at least one influencer campaign in the next 12 months.

#3.According to E-consultancy, nearly 60% of the fashion and beauty industry is already pursuing influencer marketing strategies and about 21% are planning to jump onto the influencer marketing bandwagon.

Going by the growing importance of Influencer marketing, it has become all the more important for businesses to roll-up-their sleeves and dig into their social media networks to figure out the top macro or micro-influencers in their respective domains who could draw in the required traction for their brands.  

But then, as I mentioned earlier, the question is, why would an influencer promote your brand when he has enough and more on his plate? In fact, one should take it for granted that your request email will be trashed in no time.

But, here’s the kicker:  I have managed to catalog some counter-intuitive hacks that are sure to help you draw some pre-champions on board, if not the champions.

Counterintuitive Influencer Courting Hack #1: Shoot Compelling Cold Emails to Industry Champions

Let’s be honest. You don’t trust the effectiveness of emails, let alone cold emails.

Here’s the reality:

Twenty-five year old Adam Lyons, a college dropout, with an industry-disrupting idea up his sleeve – The Zebra an insurance rate comparison company – decided to roll up his sleeve and cold email his investor idol Mark Cuban.

Guess what? It worked.

Cuban got back within 20 minutes. And after a couple of prompt email exchanges, Cuban was on Zebra’s board. If you ask what actually worked in Lyon’s favor, then it was his email’s compelling subject-line “Wanna disrupt the insurance industry?” that happened to grab Cuban’s attention right away.

More importantly, Lyon was aware of Cuban’s choice of emails over meetings. So it was up to him to grab Cuban’s attention, via a compelling email subject line and copy. It goes without saying, he did manage to do that.

Today, Zebra has managed to raise $21 million and has got over 70 employees working for them.  And, let me assure you, it all began with a cold email shot to a top industry influencer.

Harvard Business School students Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna applied this same persuasive strategy while building their startup Birchbox. Backed by a striking subject line “Reimagining beauty retail online,” and equally compelling copy, the duo shot cold emails to all the big shots in the beauty industry. The result? Birchbox was able to attract bigger brands on board for their online subscription-based beauty business. Investors followed. 

Just like The Zebra, Birchbox followed the old school formula of coming up with a compelling email subject line. The strategy worked for them as well. Aside from the subject line, what actually worked in the student’s favor was the email copy that said:

“Do you have five minutes to give me advice?”

As it turned out, this emotionally-rich line seeking mentorship worked its way to a good number of macro-influencers’ heart helping them green flag their project.

According to the Birchbox CEO Katia Beauchamp:

The students had requested five minutes of mentorship, which the brands weren’t comfortable refusing. Huh! No seeking big favors? Nor free products? Yes. They had simply requested for some free advice.

Sure enough, these Harvard students got more than they had actually bargained for.  Or, they simply happened to get what they were actually looking for?

Ready to leverage cold emailing as a critical strategy to attract influencers on board?

Here are a few tips which might help you do so:

#1. Grab the influencer’s attention on social media first.

#2. The first step, in a way, makes sure you know the influencer ‘just enough’ to personalize your emails.  

#3.  Work on your subject line. The CEO of The Zebra used an eye-grabbing subject line “Wanna disrupt the insurance industry,” which made sure Mark Cuban not only responded to his email but promptly got onto Zebra’s board as well.

#4.  Keep the copy short and to the point. Don’t make the reader scroll your email down on their smartphones.

#5.  Add a page with a lot more information; however, avoid attaching a complete business plan.

#6. “Ask for something that is pretty hard to say ‘no’ to,” says Birchbox CEO Katie Beauchamp.  Also, avoid asking big favors or free products. Seek advice. Beauchamp’s simple but emotional one line resonated so well with the recipients that it got eyes and things rolling for them.

#7. Send follow-up emails. It should increase your response rates and might as well get you that do-or-die ‘yes’ you are desperately looking for.

#8. Make sure you send your emails at an ideal time of the day.

Key takeaway: Writing cold emails is an art. Even a smart email subject line could open several doors for you.

Counterintuitive Influencer Courting Hack #2. Target Pre-Champions  

As the name implies, pre-champions are champions in the making, in other words, micro-influencers. They are easier to target than the macro influencers of the industry.

The only thing to bear in mind while reaching out to pre-champions is that they should hold considerable influence among your targeted group.

They may not have a big follower count to boast off but should be good enough to make your product famous among a particular segment of the audience. Yes, when you are starting out it is incredibly important to think small. Why? Because the smaller groups have hyper-engaged audiences than larger groups.

I sense your eyebrows raising? But, here’s the thing:

“Engagement is the new impressions. It matters as much, if not more than someone’s reach.”

 Kristy Sammis in a March 2016 episode of the podcast, Half Hour Intern

For instance, a beauty influencer may operate hundreds of cosmetic shops and beauty parlors and might as well have millions of followers. Contrarily, a beauty micro-influencer may have a thousand followers, but what actually makes her famous are her instructional videos on Instagram and YouTube that are attracting high user engagement. Decide, which is better? The one with million followers or the one with 1000+ highly engaged audience?

Think about it!

Pre- Champions have better engagement rates.

Markerly discovered a surprising trend while studying user engagement activities on Instagram. As per the study, the number of Instagram followers is inversely proportional to engagement activities. In other words, the more the number of followers the less likely they are to like or make comments on your posts.

In the study, Markerly analyzed more than 800,000 Instagram users with a majority of them having at least 1000 followers. And this is what they found out: 

• Instagram users with <1000 followers generated likes 8% of the time. 
• Users with 1,000-10,000 followers generated likes at a 4% rate.
• Users with 10,000 – 1, 00,000 followers earned a 2.4% like rate.
• Users with 1-10 million followers earned likes only 1.7% of the time.

Markerly’s graphical breakdown of how likes and comments decline as followers increase.

According to Markerly’s Report Likes and Comments on your Instagram posts decline when the follower count increases

Markerly suggests you go after micro-influencers with the Instagram following in the 10k-100k range. Even an Experticity study revealed that micro-influencers have 22.2X  more conversions than a regular Instagram user.  This is mainly because they are passionate and knowledgeable about their area of work.

Key takeaway: Think small. Go for pre-champions with higher user engagement ratio.

Counterintuitive Influencer Courting Hack #3. Drop “Swag Bombs”

 Marc Ecko, founder of Marc Ecko Enterprises, a global fashion and lifestyle company came up with this unique “swag bomb” approach to get influencer attention.

The strategy is simple: Give stuff away for free to people who would like it.  

Make no mistake. You aren’t mailing anything and everything to any random influencer. On the contrary, you need to put in the required effort, energy and creativity to nail down the right influencer for your industry and then, more importantly, you need to customize your package to suit the influencer taste. 

Ecko apparently built his billion dollar business based on this brilliant strategy. As Marc’s says in this guest blog Marc Ecko’s 10 Rules for Getting “Influencer” Attention, “Our collaboration with George Lucas and the iconic Star Wars brand was a direct result of Swag Bomb strategy. I’ll go to my grave proud of the fact that George Lucas actually said–and this is a quote–“No one has made STAR WARS cooler than ECKO.”

The first influencer he happened to carpet bomb with his Swag Bomb strategy was Kool DJ Red Alert.  Being a leading DJ of his time and with Rolling Stones going ga-ga about him, Ecko knew a shout-out from this DJ was just enough for his fashion company to get the required traction.

Regardless, instead of dialing up, Ecko spammed this DJ’s fax machine with “Echo Airbrushing” promos. It worked. On one fine day, Marc hears his name being shouted out on air. That is about it. Ecko was never the same again.

Sure, Marc had finally caught his dear DJ’s attention. But he didn’t stop there. He eventually becomes a perennial swag bomber as he started sending airbrushed hats, jackets and t-shirts to several offices of champs and pre-champs. He never asked for anything. He just made great stuff and sent them to the influencers he knew might appreciate it.

Marc Ecko’s shout out on a Radio Channel won the brand high traction during its initial days

Key takeaway: A Swag Bomb, when done right, can lead to colossal amounts of PR, connections, and access in the longer run.

Counterintuitive Influencer Courting Hack #4: Cash In On Conferences

Tim Ferris, the author of 4-Hour bestselling series such as 4-hour Work Week, Tools of Titans, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef, is known for his networking tours.

Ryan Holiday, the internationally bestselling author of Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts, mentions a little secret that Ferris employs for promoting his books. The latter doesn’t believe in spending on advertisement or publicity. Instead, he travels from conferences to conferences, shaking hands with as many influential people he could meet, learning, developing relationships, and most importantly, doing favors for them.

Not surprisingly, his books have made it to the New York Times Bestseller list, and have been translated into more than 40 languages. Boom! Boom! Isn’t that a big number?

Bonus Hack: Turn the Influencer Marketing Strategy Right On Its Head

Now, how do you do that? A fashion company called Pretty Little Thing has turned the influencer marketing strategy on its head just by becoming a little more observant. Instead of requesting influencers to make a particular piece of their clothing popular they simply observed what the influencers were doing and then created matching, economical products.

In short: Kim Kardashian wears a latex dress, and Pretty Little Thing will come up with a  similar looking product and promote it on social media sites saying if Kim Kardashian is wearing it, you too could try.

And it is working for the brand because the social fashion brand has over 1.2M followers on Instagram and is shipping over 20,000 orders world over each day. 

Parting Lines

It is not what you know; it is who you know. Your network is your net worth. You can’t deny that. A tweet or even a post by one of the champions or pre-champions is sure to send sales surging for you.

Regardless, you won’t get pre-champions right out of the gate. You gotta hustle it! It may take some solid swag bombing sometimes. Be ready. There is nothing like free lunches in the world, and there is always some give and take involved.

I know these are just handful of tips. If you have any influencer marketing idea that could be seen as a counterintuitive strategy, go ahead and share them below.

If you would like to watch more posts on search engine optimization then really feel free to search our other posts. We have lots of even more curated write-ups from Kiss Metrics and also I wish you enjoy reviewing them.

Read more……>click Here<

Seo likewise known as Search Engine Optimization is a subject covered by lots of people and blogs, its the procedure of making your site look attractive to the internet search engine in the hope of obtaining a advantageous position for your targeted keyword. During my research study I find several write-ups that offer some great insights to search engine optimization.

Below you can discover an article from Ahref which I located to be useful and very intriguing . The post is titled Google News Digest: Curvier Mobile SERPs, a Strategic Deal with Salesforce and Virtual and Augmented Reality with Google as well as you could find it listed below

Google continues its preparations for the most anticipated update to come – Mobile First Index – including a softer and lighter look for its mobile interface. But it all doesn’t stop just at looks – the functionality for mobile search is expanding beyond even what desktop has to offer, as from now on all the busy Wall Street guys and those who simply like to follow the stock market can do so right from their smartphone.

But before the big update, there is something that is coming up just around the corner – the holiday season, the busiest time of the year for many SEOs and digital marketers. With the festive spirit in mind, Google rolled out updates to its AdWords and Merchant Center to make sure we all expand our reach, well…even beyond the reach.

Most of the updates concerned tweaks and tricks regarding Google tools. To learn more about each of them, scroll down, and definitely pay extra attention to the biggest deal with Google’s new strategic partner – Salesforce.

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GOOGLE SEARCH NEWS

A New Curved Interface for Mobile Search Results

Google is continually working on its mobile experience and has rolled out a brand new interface for mobile search results. And if curviness is the new black, the new design follows that trend by introducing a new curved look for all components of mobile SERPs – the search box, cards, Top Stories and so on – and also appears to have a lighter color scheme. It is unclear, though, on what scale and in which countries this update is so far available.

Source: Google Rolling Out New Curved Mobile Search Results Interface

Knowledge Panel for News Publishers

In its quest to provide users with the most credible and relevant news, Google rolled out a Knowledge Panel for news publishers. The knowledge panel displays all the basic info about the news publishers so that users can evaluate their trustworthiness and see more background information about publishers they are not yet familiar with. Depending on the amount and quality of accessible information, the panel will include the following details:

• Writes about – the topics and types of content typically covered by the publisher.

• Awards – the most notable awards received by the publisher.

• Reviewed claim – this tab appears when a large part of a publisher’s content has been reviewed by a trusted fact-checker.

According to Google, the knowledge panel will not influence pages’ ranking in SERPs, although it might affect click-through rates for some publishers that aren’t showcasing much credibility or authority. It is not clear which criteria determine whether a news publisher gets into the knowledge panel, but allegedly publishers that provide fresh and credible content will stand a higher chance of being featured in the panel.

Sources: Learn About a News Publisher; Learn More About Publishers on Google

Product Comparison Differences Highlight Available in SERPs

Can you always tell the difference between the brand new iPhone and its previous version? If you are as unobservant as many others, you will go to Google for answers. Google updated its product comparison function in the search results. The widget that included products’ characteristics has been upgraded with a “Highlight Differences” toggle that makes the differences stand out. The product comparison feature was introduced in 2016 and is only available for certain product types, such as smartphones, tablets, and game consoles.

Source: Google Product Comparison With Highlights Differences Toggle

Compare Stocks Right Within Mobile Search Results

Whether you are a suited-up Wall Street guy or simply a fan of the stock market, you can now compare stocks right from Google’s mobile SERPs. All you have to do is learn the stock symbol by heart, enter it into the search box and click on the newly introduced “Compare” tab. For instance, to check out Alphabet’s stock chart, you have to enter GOOG. Afterwards, the search results will display an entire section dedicated to information on Alphabet stock. The section includes a “Compare” tab that offers a set of related stocks that you can add by clicking on the “+” sign next to the suggested companies.

Source: Google Now Lets You Compare Stocks in Web Search

Google News Requires a Manual Update for Old RSS-Feed URLs  

Effective December 1, 2017, Google’s old RSS-feed URLs will become obsolete. This means that users will have to manually update their subscriptions as the old ones will cease to work. To update your RSS feeds, you will have to go to Google News, select the sections you need or create new ones and press the “RSS” button at the bottom of the page. As a result, you will see a feed URL in the address bar that should be copied to get the new URL for the RSS feed.

Source: Google News to Deprecate Old RSS Feed URLs on December 1, 2017

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GOOGLE ADS NEWS

Merchant Center and AdWords Updates for Reach Expansion

The holiday season is approaching, and with the consumer spirit on the rise, Google is adding a few new features for those whose sales rely on Merchant Center and AdWords. The novelties include:

• The ability to acquire a higher number of clicks thanks to campaign optimization via Opportunities.

• Expanded Feed Rules.

• Sharable access to your Merchant Center account.

• Settings for shipping deadlines (only for the US).

• The introduction of Absolute Top Impression Share (ATIS) – a metric that shows the frequency of your ads displayed in the most prominent Shopping position compared to those of your competitors.

• Remarketing and dynamic remarketing within Gmail to target potential customers right in their inbox.

Source: Reach More Shoppers This Holiday Season With New Innovations From Merchant Center and AdWords

AdWords Data Control, a New Tool in Google Data Studio

Data visualization, data integration, team KPI monitoring – many tools offer these functionalities as it is often hard to get a grasp on data that you already own and turn it into a flexible and comprehensive insight-generating machine. Google Data Studio  (a free data visualization service) was built precisely for that but lacked a certain flexibility. But, from now on, Google added a new tool – AdWords Data Control. It allows you to select various AdWords accounts that will provide data for Data Studio reports. There is no longer a need to create separate reports for each user and account, instead, you can use a unified template that will gather data from your selected account.

The new tool is especially helpful to bigger companies with various branches and business units since they will now have the opportunity to add cross-functionality to their use of data and have a unified reporting mechanism.

You can learn how to make use of AdWords Data Control in Google Data Studio’s Help Center.

Source:  AdWords Data Control Makes Data Studio Reports Even Easier

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GOOGLE TOOLS NEWS

Google and Salesforce Sign a Strategic Deal

It is a very rich time for Google’s partnership programs – from development collaborations with HTC to a strategic deal with the fact-checking giant IFCN. This time Google signed an unprecedented partnership with Salesforce to provide their users with the utmost marketing and sales cloud experience. As a part of the agreement, Salesforce will be using Google Cloud Platform’s infrastructure, while in turn, Google will favor Salesforce as its core CRM provider that supports its cloud services. Salesforce is already working on integrating with the G Suite so that their mutual clients can access Salesforce data right from Gmail, Google Docs and other Google products.

Source: A Strategic Partnership with Salesforce to Bring the Power of Cloud to Businesses Globally

Exploring the World of 3D with Google’s Poly

Following the growing trend towards virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), Google is making it easier for app builders to implement elements of 3D with its new service – Poly. Poly is a large source of ready-made yet flexible 3D objects and scenes that can be freely downloaded and adjusted according to your needs. It’s something like Unsplash for 3D. Developers can find any object they need via search and use it in their apps that support AR/VR. Poly is integrated with such familiar 3D instruments as Tilt Brush and Blocks and supports direct OBJ-format files download.

Poly contains thousands of free models, from zebras to a rocket ship. Developers can either use the objects as they are, or alter them. You can even make animated GIFs. To view the objects in VR, you can do so via Cardboard or Daydream View.

Source: Poly: Browse, Discover and Download 3D Objects and Scenes

Google Chrome is Blocking Unwanted Tabs and Windows

Chrome continues to insist that web security is its biggest priority. Thus, starting in January 2018, Chrome will begin blocking new surprise tabs and windows to protect its users from malicious content. Chrome 64 will be disabling all redirects, coming from third-party iframes. Instead of immediately redirecting users to another unintended page, Chrome will display an info bar. This will allow users to remain on their selected page and avoid surprise redirects.

To help website owners come to terms with this update, Google launched a new “Abusive Experiences” report in Search Console. You can run your website through the report to see whether there are any signs of abusive experiences. And if the issues don’t get addressed within 30 days, Chrome will automatically block the new windows and tabs.

Source: Expanding User Protections on the Web

New Selection Attributes in Google My Business

Google My Business offers a new feature – selection attributes. You can now select attributes from predefined choices. For instance, the “Kosher food” selection attribute has such choices as “No Kosher food,” “Some Kosher food,” and “Strictly Kosher food.”

Google recommends adding attributes to company descriptions so that your potential customers have a clearer idea of what you have to offer, which will essentially lead to a more satisfying customer experience.

Sources: Create Your Bulk Upload Spreadsheet; New Google My Business Features

New Tools for a More Efficient Management of Google Analytics Users

Big companies often struggle with assigning permissions to each and every employee with access to the important parts of the company’s analytics. From now on, account admins will have the ability to centralize user management across their company’s various Google Analytics accounts. If one person needed access to 25 accounts, previously you had to set up the permission by visiting and changing the settings of each account. Now admins can give out permissions all from one place – the admin account. Moreover, to facilitate the management of large numbers of people, you can now create groups that include the appropriate employees, and give the entire group the access to the relevant Google Analytics accounts.

Source: New Tools for Managing Google Analytics Users

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FINAL WORDS

Google is changing every day, and it is essential that you follow all the relevant updates and tweaks and react in a timely manner. We do our best to inform you of all the changes that are taking place in Google’s space to make sure that you have all the information you need to stay on top of SERPs. So, stay tuned to our Google News Digest, which airs every two weeks.

Speaking of staying on top of SERPs, make sure to take a look at the second edition of our Ranking Factors Study, which is based on the biggest scope of keywords compared to all the existing research on Google’s ranking factors. Our unique findings include in-depth insights on ranking factors: direct traffic is the ultimate factor that affects your rankings, along with backlinks and user behavior. But no spoilers – simply click on the banner below to learn more.

If you would certainly such as to view more short articles on search engine optimization after that feel cost-free to search our other write-ups. We have many even more curated short articles from Kiss Metrics and I wish you enjoy reviewing them.

Read more……>click Here<

Seo also called Search Engine Optimization is a subject covered by many individuals and blog sites, its the process of making your web site appearance appealing to the search engines in the hope of gaining a advantageous position for your targeted keyword. Throughout my study I discover lots of posts that offer some great insights to seo.

Listed below you could discover an post from Ahref which I located to be extremely fascinating and also beneficial . The article is labelled SEMrush Ranking Factors Study 2017 — Methodology Demystified and you could locate it listed below

In the second edition of the SEMrush Ranking Factors Study 2017 we’ve added 5 more backlink-related factors and compared the strength of their influence on a particular URL vs. an entire domain. According to tradition, we offer you a deeper look at our methodology.  Back in June, when the first edition of the study was published, many brows were raised in disbelief — indeed, direct website visits are usually assumed to be the result of higher SERP positions, not vice versa. And yet site visits is exactly what our study confirmed to be the most important Google ranking factor among those we analyzed, both times. Moreover, the methodology we used was unique to the field of SEO studies — we traded correlation analysis for the Random Forest machine learning algorithm. As the ultimate goal of our study was to help SEOs prioritize tasks and do their jobs more effectively, we would like to reveal the behind-the-scenes details of our research and bust some popular misconceptions, so that you can safely rely on our takeaways.

Jokes aside, this post is for real nerds, so here is a short glossary:

Decision tree — a tree-like structure that represents a machine learning algorithm usually applied to classification tasks. It splits a training sample dataset into homogeneous groups/subsets based on the most significant of all the attributes.

Supervised machine learning — a type of machine learning algorithm that trains a model to find patterns in the relationship between input variables (features, A) and output variable (target value, B): B = f(A). The goal of SML is to train this model on a sample of the data so that, when offered, the out-of-sample data the algorithm could be able to predict the target value precisely, based on the features set offered. The training dataset represents the teacher looking after the learning process. The training is considered successful and terminates when the algorithm achieves an acceptable performance quality.

Feature (or attribute, or input variable) — a characteristic of a separate data entry used in analysis. For our study and this blog post, features are the alleged ranking factors.

Binary classification — a type of classification tasks, that falls into supervised learning category. The goal of this task is to predict a target value (=class) for each data entry, and for binary classification, it can be either 1 or 0 only.

Using the Random Forest Algorithm For the Ranking Factors Study

The Random Forest algorithm was developed by Leo Breiman and Adele Cutler in the mid-1990s. It hasn’t undergone any major changes since then, which proves its high quality and universality: it is used for classification, regression, clustering, feature selection and other tasks.

Although the Random Forest algorithm is not very well known to the general public, we picked it for a number of good reasons:

• It is one of the most popular machine learning algorithms, that features unexcelled accuracy. Its first and foremost application is ranking the importance of variables (and its nature is perfect for this task — we’ll cover this later in this post), so it seemed an obvious choice.

• The algorithm treats data in a certain way that minimizes errors:

  1. The random subspace method offers each learner random samples of features, not all of them. This guarantees that the learner won’t be overly focused on a pre-defined set of features and won’t make biased decisions about an out-of-sample dataset.

  2. The bagging or bootstrap aggregating method also improves precision. Its main point is offering learners not a whole dataset, but random samples of data.

Given that we do not have a single decision tree, but rather a whole forest of hundreds of trees, we can be sure that each feature and each pair of domains will be analyzed approximately the same number of times. Therefore, the Random Forest method is stable and operates with minimum errors.

The Pairwise Approach: Pre-Processing Input Data

We have decided to base our study on a set of 600,000 keywords from the worldwide database (US, Spain, France, Italy, Germany and others), the URL position data for top 20 search results, and a list of alleged ranking factors. As we were not going to use correlation analysis, we had to conduct binary classification prior to applying the machine learning algorithm to it. This task was implemented with the Pairwise approach — one of the most popular machine-learned ranking methods used, among others, by Microsoft in its research projects.

The Pairwise approach implies that instead of examining an entire dataset, each SERP is studied individually – we compare all possible pairs of URLs (the first result on the page with the fifth, the seventh result with the second, etc.) in regards to each feature. Each pair is assigned a set of absolute values, where each value is a quotient after dividing the feature value for the first URL by the feature value for the second URL. On top of that, each pair is also assigned a target value that indicates whether the first URL is positioned higher than the second one on the SERP (target value = 1) or lower (target value = 0).

Procedure outcomes:

1. Each URL pair receives a set of quotients for each feature and a target value of either 1 or 0. This variety of numbers will be used as a training dataset for the decision trees.
2. We are now able to make statistical observations that certain features values and their combinations tend to result in a higher SERP position for a URL. This allows us to build a hypothesis about the importance of certain features and make a forecast about whether a certain set of feature values will lead to higher rankings.

Growing the Decision Tree Ensemble: Supervised Learning

The dataset we received after the previous step is absolutely universal and can be used for any machine learning algorithm. Our preferred choice was Random Forest, an ensemble of decision trees.

Before the trees can make any reasonable decisions, they have to train — this is when the supervised machine learning takes place. To make sure the training is done correctly and unbiased decisions about the main data set are made, the bagging and random subspace methods are used.

Bagging is the process of creating a training dataset by sampling with replacement. Let’s say we have X lines of data. According to bagging principles, we are going to create a training dataset for each decision tree, and this set will have the same number of X lines. However, these sample sets will be populated randomly and with replacement — so it will include only approximately two-thirds of the original X lines, and there will be value duplicates. About one-third of the original values remain untouched and will be used once the learning is over.

We did the similar thing for the features using the random subspace method — the decision trees were trained on random samples of features instead of the entire feature set.

Not a single tree uses the whole dataset and the whole list of features. But having a forest of multiple trees allows us to say that every value and every feature are very likely to be used approximately the same amount of times.

Growing the Forest

Each decision tree repetitively partitions the training sample dataset based on the most important variable and does so until each subset consists of homogeneous data entries. The tree scans the whole training dataset and chooses the most important feature and its precise value, which becomes a kind of a pivot point (node) and splits the data into two groups. For the one group, the condition chosen above is true; for the other one — false (YES and NO branches). All final subgroups (node leaves) receive an average target value based on the target values of the URL pairs that were placed into a certain subgroup.

Since the trees use the sample dataset to grow, they learn while growing. Their learning is considered successful and high-quality when a target percentage of correctly guessed target values is achieved.

Once the whole ensemble of trees is grown and trained, the magic begins — the trees are now allowed to process the out-of-sample data (about one-third of the original dataset). A URL pair is offered to a tree only if it hasn’t encountered the same pair during training. This means that a URL pair is not offered to 100 percent of the trees in the forest. Then, voting takes place: for each pair of URLs, a tree gives its verdict, aka the probability of one URL taking a higher position in the SERP compared to the second one. The same action is taken by all other trees that meet the ‘haven’t seen this URL pair before’ requirement, and in the end, each URL pair gets a set of probability values. Then all the received probabilities are averaged. Now there is enough data for the next step.

Estimating Attribute Importance with Random Forest

Random Forest produces extremely credible results when it comes to attributing importance estimation. The assessment is conducted as follows:

1. The attribute values are mixed up across all URL pairs, and these updated sets of values are offered to the algorithm.

2. Any changes in the algorithm’s quality or stability are measured (whether the percentage of correctly guessed target values remains the same or not).

3. Then, based on the values received, conclusions can be made:

• If the algorithm’s quality drops significantly, the attribute is important. Wherein the heavier is the slump in quality, the more important the attribute is.  

• If the algorithm’s quality remains the same, then the attribute is of minor importance.

The procedure is repeated for all the attributes. As a result, a rating of the most important ranking factors is obtained.

Why We Think Correlation Analysis is Bad for Ranking Factors Studies

We intentionally abandoned the general practice of using correlation analysis, and we have still received quite a few comments like “Correlation doesn’t mean causation,” “Those don’t look like ranking factors, but more like correlations.” Therefore we feel this point deserves a separate paragraph.

First and foremost, we would like to stress again that the initial dataset used for the study is a set of highly changeable values. Just to remind you that we examined not one, but 600,000 SERPs. Each SERP is characterized by its own average attribute value, and this uniqueness is completely disregarded in the process of correlation analysis. That being said, we believe that each SERP should be treated separately and with respect to its originality.

Correlation analysis gives reliable results only when examining the relationship between two variables (for example, the impact of the number of backlinks on a SERP position). “Does this particular factor influence position?” —  this question can be answered quite precisely since the only impacting variable is involved. But are we in a position to study each factor in isolation? Probably not, as we all know that there is a whole bunch of factors that influence a URL position in a SERP.

Another quality criterion for correlation analysis is the variety of the received correlation ratios. For example, if there is a lineup of correlation ratios like (-1, 0.3 and 0.8), then it is pretty fair to say that there is one parameter that is more important than others. The closer the ratio’s absolute value, or modulus, is to one, the stronger the correlation. If the ratio’s modulus is under 0.3, such a correlation can be disregarded — the dependency between the two variables, in this case, is too weak to make any trustworthy conclusions. For all the factors we analyzed, the correlation ratio was under 0.3, so we had to shed this method.

One more reason to dismiss this analysis method was the high sensitivity of the correlation value to outliers and noises, and the data for various keywords suggests a lot of them. If one extra data entry is added to the dataset, the correlation ratio changes immediately. Hence this metric can’t be viable in the case of multiple variables, e.g. in a ranking factors study, and can even lead to incorrect deductions.

Coming down to the final curtain, it is hard to believe that one or two factors with a correlation ratio modulus so close to one exist — if this were true, anyone could easily hack Google’s algorithms, and we would all be in position 1!

Frequently Asked Questions

Although we tried to answer most of the frequently raised questions above, here are some more for the more curious readers.

Where the study dataset comes from? Is it SEMrush data?

The traffic and user behavior data within our dataset is the anonymized clickstream data that comes from third party data providers. The data is accumulated from the behavior of over 100 million real internet users, and over a hundred different apps and browser extensions are used to collect it.

Why didn’t we use artificial neural networks (ANNs)?

Although artificial neural networks are perfect for tasks with a large number of variables, e.g. image recognition (where each pixel is a variable), they produce results that are difficult to interpret and don’t allow you to compare the weight of each factor. Besides, ANNs require a massive dataset and a huge number of features to produce reliable results, and the input data we had collected didn’t match this description.

Unlike Random Forest, where each decision tree votes independently and thus a high level of reliability is guaranteed, neural networks process data in one pot. There is nothing to indicate that using ANNs for this study would result in more accurate results.

Our main requirements for a research method were stability and the ability to identify the importance of the factors. That being said, Random Forest was a perfect fit for our task, which is proven by numerous ranking tasks of a similar nature, also implemented with the help of this algorithm.

Why are website visits the most important Google ranking factor?

Hands down, this was probably the most controversial takeaway of our study. When we saw the results of our analysis, we were equally surprised. At the same time, our algorithm was trained on a solid scope of data, so we decided to double-check the facts. We excluded the organic and paid search data, as well as social and referral traffic, and taken into account only the direct traffic, and the results were pretty much the same — the position distribution remained unchanged (the graphs on pp. 40-41 of the study illustrate this point).

To us, this finding makes perfect sense and confirms that Google prioritizes domains with more authority, as described in its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Although it may seem that domain authority is just a lame excuse and a very vague and ephemeral concept, these guidelines dispel this myth completely. So, back in 2015 Google introduced this handbook to help estimate website quality and “reflect what Google thinks search users want.”

The handbook lists E-A-T, which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, as an important webpage-quality indicator. Main content quality and amount, website information (i.e. who is responsible for the website), and website reputation all influence the E-A-T of a website. We suggest thinking of it in the following way: if a URL ranks in the top 10, by default, it contains content that is relevant to a user search query.

But to distribute the places between these ten leaders, Google starts to count the additional parameters. We all know that there is a whole team of search quality raters behind the scenes, which is responsible for training the Google’s search algorithms and improving search results’ relevance. As advised by Google Quality Evaluator Guidelines, raters should give priority to the high-quality pages and teach the algos to do so as well. So, the ranking algorithm is trained to assign a higher position to pages that belong to trusted and highly authoritative domains, and we think this may be the reason behind the data we received for direct traffic and for its importance as a signal. For more information, check out our EAT and YMYL: New Google Search Guidelines Acronyms of Quality Content blog post.

Here’s more: at the recent SMX East conference, Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that ‘how people perceive your site will affect your business.’ And although this, according to Illyes, does not necessarily affect how Google ranks your site, it still seems important to invest in earning users’ loyalty: happy users = happy Google.

What does this mean to you again? Well, brand awareness (estimated, among other things, by your number of direct website visits) strongly affects your rankings and deserves your putting effort into it on par with SEO.

Difference in Ranking Factors Impact on a URL vs a Domain

As you may have spotted, every graph from our study shows a noticeable spike for the second position. We promised to have a closer look at this deviation and thus added a new dimension to our study. The second edition covers the impact of the three most important factors (direct website visits, time on site and the number of referring domains) on the rankings of a particular URL, rather than just the domain that it resides on.

One would assume that the websites on the first position are the most optimized, and yet we saw that every trend line showed a drop on the first position.

We connected this deviation with branded keyword search queries. A domain will probably take the first position in the SERP for any search query that contains its branded keywords. And despite how well a website is optimized, it will rank number one anyway, so it has nothing to do with SEO efforts. This explains why ranking factors affect a SERP’s second position more than the first one.

To prove this, we decided to look at our data from a new angle: we investigated how the ranking factors impact single URLs that appear on the SERP.  For each factor, we built separate graphs showing the distribution of URLs and domains across the first 10 SERP positions (please see pp. 50-54). Although the study includes graphs only for the top three most influential factors, the tendency that we discovered persists for other factors as well.  

What does this mean to you as a marketer? When a domain is ranking for a branded keyword, many factors lose their influence. However when optimizing for non-branded keywords, keep in mind that the analyzed ranking factors have more influence on the positions of the particular URL than on the domain on which it resides. That means that the rankings of a specific page are more sensitive to on-page optimization, link-building efforts and other optimization techniques.

Conclusion: How to Use the SEMrush Ranking Factors Study

There is no guarantee that, if you improve your website’s metrics for any of the above factors, your pages will start to rank higher. We conducted a very thorough study that allowed us to draw reliable conclusions about the importance of these 17 factors to ranking higher on Google SERPs. Yet, this is just a reverse-engineering job well done, not a universal action plan — and this is what each and every ranking factors study is about. No one but Google knows all the secrets. However, here is a workflow that we suggest for dealing with our research:

• Step 1. Understand which keywords you rank for — do they belong to low, medium or high search volume groups?

• Step 2. Benchmark yourself against the competition: take a closer look at the methods they use to hit top 10 and at their metrics — Do they have a large scope of backlinks? Are their domains secured with HTTPS?

• Step 3. Using this study, pick and start implementing the optimization techniques that will yield the best results based on your keywords and the competition level on SERPs.

Once again, we encourage you to take a closer look at our study, reconsider the E-A-T concept and get yourself a good, fact-based SEO strategy!

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