Now, after reading the title, you can think, “What new can I read here? At least every month I see similar articles on different blogs”. I can say without a doubt you’ll definitely like this post. My article is developed on the basis of unique research. Every SEO specialist checks a site with the help of some SEO service. I work at one of the most popular all-in-one SEO platforms — Serpstat. Every year our team analyzes site audit results of our users to find out which SEO errors are really the most common. In this article, I’ll shed light on the results we’ve got for the last year. Serpstat research: Results we’ve gotDuring 2018, our users carried out 204K audits and checked 223M pages through Serpstat. Our team analyzed this data and collected the stat. All stat you can see on the infographics below the text. I just want to specify some facts in words here. After the research, we’ve discovered that most sites had problems with meta tags, markups, and links. The most common errors are concerned with headlines, HTTPS certificate, and redirects. Issues with hreflang, multimedia, content, indexing, HTTP status codes, AMP (accelerated mobile pages), and loading time were least likely. Also, we’ve analyzed country-specific domains to get more exact information. The stat we’ve got from it shows that 70% of “.com” domains have the most common problems with links, loading time, and indexing. The same situation is with “.uk” and “.ca” domains. The most common mistakes and how to fix them1. Meta tagsMeta tags are rather important despite the fact they aren’t visible to website users. They tell search engines what the page is about and take part in snippets creation. Meta tags affect your website ranking. Errors which can occur with them may spoil user signals. According to our research, you should first check the length of the title and description itself. 2. Links, markups, and headingsExternal links (their number and quality) affect your site’s position in SERP as search engines rate link profiles very carefully. Also, you should always remember about internal links factors (nofollow attributes and URL optimization). The Serpstat team also found out that bugs with markups and headings are rather popular ones despite the fact that they are very important for websites. Markups and headings contain attributes which mark and structure the data of the page. They also help search engines and networks crawl and display the site correctly. The most common errors in this chapter are with:
3. HTTPS certificateThis certificate is one of the important ranking factors as it ensures a secure connection to the website and the browser. If your website uses personal information, don’t forget to pay attention to it. The most common mistake here is the referral of HTTPS website to HTTP one. 4. Redirects, hreflang attribute, multimediaRedirects direct users from the requested URL to another one you need. According to our statistics, you should avoid the most common error with them — having a multilingual interface it’s necessary to apply the hreflang attribute for the same content in different languages. In such a way search engines can understand which version of your texts users prefer. Multimedia elements don’t affect SEO directly. Although, they can cause bad user signals and indexing errors. Also, pictures affect the website’s loading time. That’s why multimedia are rather important. And here is the same situation with the hreflang attribute — if you have the multilingual interface, you should apply it for the same content in multiple languages. More info about errors in this section you can find on the infographics. 5. IndexingSearch engines find out what sites are about while indexing. If the site is closed for indexing, users can’t find it in the SERP. Some weak spots of the site that often lead to errors are the following:
6. HTTP status codes, AMP, and contentAnswers that the server delivers on user request have the name HTTP status codes. Errors with them are rather serious problems and negatively affect the position of the site in SERPs. AMP is accelerated pages optimized for mobile devices. You should use such technologies to improve the loading time of the site. Also, poor content causes the deterioration of ranking positions. The most common problems here are:
7. Loading timeLong loading time can worsen the site’s usability and waste the crawling budget. Serpstat team found that the most common problems with this issue are associated with the use of browser cache, image, JavaScript, and CSS optimization. You can view the detailed infographic here. How to correct these errorsTo find all the above-mentioned errors for your own site, you can start a custom project at Serpstat Audit tool. Here you can check the whole site or even just a separate page. The module checks 20 pages per second and finds more than 50 errors that potentially harm your site. In its reports, Serpstat sorts errors by importance and categories and gives the list of pages on which these problems were found. In addition, it offers recommendations on how to resolve a specific problem. Some of them are not errors in the true sense (“Information”), they are only shown for you to be aware of such problems. SummaryThere are a lot of errors that can damage your site and its rankings. Despite this fact, you can find them all at once with the help of audit tools. At first, pay your attention to the most common weaknesses:
Inna Yatsyna is a Brand and Community Development Specialist at Serpstat. She can be found on Twitter @erin_yat. The post Research: The most common SEO errors appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/17/the-most-common-seo-errors-research-infographics/
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If you’re looking for a way to optimize your site for technical SEO and rank better, consider deleting your pages. I know, crazy, right? But hear me out. We all know Google can be slow to index content, especially on new websites. But occasionally, it can aggressively index anything and everything it can get its robot hands on whether you want it or not. This can cause terrible headaches, hours of clean up, and subsequent maintenance, especially on large sites and/or ecommerce sites. Our job as search engine optimization experts is to make sure Google and other search engines can first find our content so that they can then understand it, index it, and rank it appropriately. When we have an excess of indexed pages, we are not being clear with how we want search engines to treat our pages. As a result, they take whatever action they deem best which sometimes translates to indexing more pages than needed. Before you know it, you’re dealing with index bloat. What is the index bloat?Put simply, index bloat is when you have too many low-quality pages on your site indexed in search engines. Similar to bloating in the human digestive system (disclaimer: I’m not a doctor), the result of processing this excess content can be seen in search engines indices when their information retrieval process becomes less efficient. Index bloat can even make your life difficult without you knowing it. In this puffy and uncomfortable situation, Google has to go through much more content than necessary (most of the times low-quality and internal duplicate content) before they can get to the pages you want them to index. Think of it this way: Google visits your XML sitemap to find 5,000 pages, then crawls all your pages and finds even more of them via internal linking, and ultimately decides to index 30,000 URLs. This comes out to an indexation excess of approximately 500% or even more. But don’t worry, diagnosing your indexation rate to measure against index bloat can be a very simple and straight forward check. You simply need to cross-reference which pages you want to get indexed versus the ones that Google is indexing (more on this later). The objective is to find that disparity and take the most appropriate action. We have two options:
You will find that most of the time, index bloat results in removing a relatively large number of pages from the index by adding a “NOINDEX” meta tag. However, through this indexation analysis, it is also possible to find pages that were missed during the creation of your XML sitemap(s), and they can then be added to your sitemap(s) for better indexing. Why index bloat is detrimental for SEOIndex bloat can slow processing time, consume more resources, and open up avenues outside of your control in which search engines can get stuck. One of the objectives of SEO is to remove roadblocks that hinder great content from ranking in search engines, which are very often technical in nature. For example, slow load speeds, using noindex or nofollow meta tags where you shouldn’t, not having proper internal linking strategies in place, and other such implementations. Ideally, you would have a 100% indexation rate. Meaning every quality page on your site would be indexed – no pollution, no unwanted material, no bloating. But for the sake of this analysis, let’s consider anything above 100% bloat. Index bloat forces search engines to spend more resources (which are limited) than needed processing the pages they have in their database. At best, index bloat causes inefficient crawling and indexing, hindering your ranking capability. But index bloat at worst can lead to keyword cannibalization across many pages on your site, limiting your ability to rank in top positions, and potentially impacting the user experience by sending searchers to low-quality pages. To summarize, index bloat causes the following issues:
Sources of index bloat1. Internal duplicate contentUnintentional duplicate content is one of the most common sources of index bloat. This is because most sources of internal duplicate content revolve around technical errors that generate large numbers of URL combinations that end up indexed. For example, using URL parameters to control the content on your site without proper canonicalization. Faceted navigation has also been one of the “thorniest SEO challenges” for large ecommerce sites, as Portent describes, and has the potential of generating billions of duplicate content pages by overlooking a simple feature. 2. Thin contentIt’s important to mention an issue introduced by the Yoast SEO plugin version 7.0 around attachment pages. This WordPress plugin bug led to “Panda-like problems” in March of 2018 causing heavy ranking drops for affected sites as Google deemed these sites to be lower in the overall quality they provided to searchers. In summary, there is a setting within the Yoast plugin to remove attachment pages in WordPress – a page created to include each image in your library with minimal content – the epitome of thin content for most sites. For some users, updating to the newest version (7.0 then) caused the plugin to overwrite the previous selection to remove these pages and defaulted to index all attachment pages. This then meant that having five images per blog post would lead to 5x-ing the number of indexed pages with 16% of actual quality content per URL, causing a massive drop in domain value. 3. PaginationPagination refers to the concept of splitting up content into a series of pages to make content more accessible and improve user experience. This means that if you have 30 blog posts on your site, you may have ten blog posts per page that go three pages deep. Like so:
You’ll see this often on shopping pages, press releases, and news sites, among others. Within the purview of SEO, the pages beyond the first in the series will very often contain the same page title and meta description, along with very similar (near duplicate) body content, introducing keyword cannibalization to the mix. Additionally, the purpose of these pages is for a better browsing user experience for users already on your site, it doesn’t make sense to send search engine visitors to the third page of your blog. 4. Under-performing contentIf you have content on your site that is not generating traffic, has not resulted in any conversions, and does not have any backlinks, you may want to consider changing your strategy. Repurposing content is a great way to maximize any value that can be salvaged from under-performing pages to create stronger and more authoritative pages. Remember, as SEO experts our job is to help increase the overall quality and value that a domain provides, and improving content is one of the best ways to do so. For this, you will need a content audit to evaluate your own individual situation and what the best course of action would be. Even a 404 page that results in a 200 Live HTTP status code is a thin and low-quality page that should not be indexed. Common index bloat issuesOne of the first things I do when auditing a site is to pull up their XML sitemap. If they’re on a WordPress site using a plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO, you can very quickly find page types that do not need to be indexed. Check for the following:
To determine if the pages in your XML sitemap are low-quality and need to be removed from search really depends on the purpose they serve on your site. For instance, sites do not use author pages in their blog, but still, have the author pages live, and this is not necessary. “Thank you” pages should not be indexed at all as it can cause conversion tracking anomalies. Test pages usually mean there’s a duplicate somewhere else. Similarly, some plugins or developers build custom features on web builds and create lots of pages that do not need to be indexed. For example, if you find an XML sitemap like the one below, it probably doesn’t need to be indexed:
Different methods to diagnose index bloatRemember that our objective here is to find the greatest contributors of low-quality pages that are bloating the index with low-quality content. Most times it’s very easy to find these pages on a large scale since a lot of thin content pages follow a pattern. This is a quantitative analysis of your content, looking for volume discrepancies based on the number of pages you have, the number of pages you are linking to, and the number of pages Google is indexing. Any disparity between these numbers means there’s room for technical optimization, which often results in an increase in organic rankings once solved. You want to make these sets of numbers as similar as possible. As you go through the various methods to diagnose index bloat below, look out for patterns in URLs by reviewing the following:
Next, I will walk you through a few simple steps you can take on your own using some of the most basic tools available for SEO. Here are the tools you will need:
As you start finding anomalies, start adding them to a spreadsheet so they can be manually reviewed for quality. 1. Screaming Frog crawlUnder Configuration > Spider > Basics, configure Screaming Frog to crawl (check “crawl all subdomains”, and “crawl outside of start folder”, manually add your XML sitemap(s) if you have them) for your site in order to run a thorough scan of your site pages. Once the crawl has been completed, take note of all the indexable pages it has listed. You can find this in the “Self-Referencing” report under the Canonicals tab. Take a look at the number you see. Are you surprised? Do you have more or fewer pages than you thought? Make a note of the number. We’ll come back to this. 2. Google’s Search ConsoleOpen up your Google Search Console (GSC) property and go to the Index > Coverage report. Take a look at the valid pages. On this report, Google is telling you how many total URLs they have found on your site. Review the other reports as well, GSC can be a great tool to evaluate what the Googlebot is finding when it visits your site. How many pages does Google say it’s indexing? Make a note of the number. 3. Your XML sitemapsThis one is a simple check. Visit your XML sitemap and count the number of URLs included. Is the number off? Are there unnecessary pages? Are there not enough pages? Conduct a crawl with Screaming Frog, add your XML sitemap to the configuration and run a crawl analysis. Once it’s done, you can visit the Sitemaps tab to see which specific pages are included in your XML sitemap and which ones aren’t. Make a note of the number of indexable pages. 4. Your own Content Management System (CMS)This one is a simple check too, don’t overthink it. How many pages on your site do you have? How many blog posts do you have? Add them up. We’re looking for quality content that provides value, but more so in a quantitative fashion. It doesn’t have to be exact as the actual quality a piece of content has can be measured via a content audit. Make a note of the number you see. 5. GoogleAt last, we come to the final check of our series. Sometimes Google throws a number at you and you have no idea where it comes from, but try to be as objective as possible. Do a “site:domain.com” search on Google and check how many results Google serves you from its index. Remember, this is purely a numeric value and does not truly determine the quality of your pages. Make a note of the number you see and compare it to the other numbers you found. Any discrepancies you find indicates symptoms of an inefficient indexation. Completing a simple quantitative analysis will help direct you to areas that may not meet minimum qualitative criteria. In other words, comparing numeric values from multiple sources will help you find pages on your site that contain a low value. The quality criteria we evaluate against can be found in Google’s Webmaster guidelines. How to resolve index bloatResolving index bloat is a slow and tedious process, but you have to trust the optimizations you’re performing on the site and have patience during the process, as the results may be slow to become noticeable. 1. Deleting pages (Ideal)In an ideal scenario, low-quality pages would not exist on your site, and thus, not consume any limited resources from search engines. If you have a large number of outdated pages that you no longer use, cleaning them up (deleting) can often lead to other benefits like fewer redirects and 404s, fewer thin-content pages, less room for error and misinterpretation from search engines, to name a few. The less control you give search engines by limiting their options on what action to take, the more control you will have on your site and your SEO. Of course, this isn’t always realistic. So here are a few alternatives. 2. Using Noindex (Alternative)When you use this method at the page level please don’t add a site-wide noindex – happens more often than we’d like), or within a set of pages, is probably the most efficient as it can be completed very quickly on most platforms.
All of the above can be noindexed and removed from your XML sitemap(s) with a few clicks on WordPress if you use Yoast SEO or All in One SEO. 3. Using Robots.txt (Alternative)Using the robots.txt file to disallow sections or pages of your site is not recommended for most websites unless it has been explicitly recommended by an SEO Expert after auditing your website. It’s incredibly important to look at the specific environment your site is in and how a disallow of certain pages would affect the indexation of the rest of the site. Making a careless change here may result in unintended consequences. Now that we’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, disallowing certain areas of your site means that you’re blocking search engines from even reading those pages. This means that if you added a noindex, and also disallowed, Google won’t even get to read the noindex tag on your page or follow your directive because you’ve blocked them from access. Order of operations, in this case, is absolutely crucial in order for Google to follow your directives. 4. Using Google Search Console’s manual removal tool (Temporary)As a last resort, an action item that does not require developer resources is using the manual removal tool within the old Google Search Console. Using this method to remove pages, whole subdirectories, and entire subdomains from Google Search is only temporary. It can be done very quickly, all it takes is a few clicks. Just be careful of what you’re asking Google to deindex. A successful removal request lasts only about 90 days, but it can be revoked manually. This option can also be done in conjunction with a noindex meta tag to get URLs out of the index as soon as possible. ConclusionSearch engines despise thin content and try very hard to filter out all the spam on the web, hence the never-ending search quality updates that happen almost daily. In order to appease search engines and show them all the amazing content we spent so much time creating, webmasters must make sure their technical SEO is buttoned up as early in the site’s lifespan as possible before index bloat becomes a nightmare. Using the different methods described above can help you diagnose any index bloat affecting your site so you can figure out which pages need to be deleted. Doing this will help you optimize your site’s overall quality evaluation in search engines, rank better, and get a cleaner index, allowing Google to find the pages you’re trying to rank quickly and efficiently. Pablo Villalpando is a Bilingual SEO Strategist for Victorious. He can be found on Twitter @pablo_vi. The post Delete your pages and rank higher in search – Index bloat and technical optimization 2019 appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/16/delete-your-pages-and-rank-higher-in-search-index-bloat-and-technical-optimization-2019/ Featured snippets, also known as “position zero” placements on Google, have been receiving their fair share of glory and blame lately. While some big corporations like Forbes went ahead and questioned if Google is stealing traffic with the featured snippet, content creators like me have found it easy to get more traffic, thanks to being able to rank small sites on a featured snippet. This post will give you a brief idea on how you can rank a page on Google’s featured snippet — without building any links to that page. Understand the typesThere are three major types of featured snippets that you can go for. As most of our clients are bloggers, we tend to go for either the paragraph snippets or the list snippets. Table snippet is another popular one that you can target. Here’s a quick graph from Ahrefs about the snippet type and their percentages. Targeting the right keywordsOnce you finalize the type of snippet that you would want to go for, it is time to dig deep into your keyword research to find keywords that suit your blog and match the requirements for the type of snippet that you are going after. If you are going for a paragraph snippet, you will have to find keywords that are primarily related to these types:
If you are trying to rank for a numeric list (numbered list or bullet points), the idea would be to structure your content in a way so that it offers step by step guides to someone. As per our experience, Google only shows a numeric list on featured snippet when the keyword tells Google that the searcher is looking for a list. For table snippets, the idea is to have structured schema data on your website that compares at least two sets of data on the page. You don’t really have to have a properly formatted column-based table to be able to rank for table snippets as long as the comparison and the schema is there. Understanding the type and targeting the right keywords will do more than half of the job for you when it comes to ranking your website on the featured snippet with zero links. However, you are not going to win the battle by out-throwing an already existing featured snippet. This will only work for keywords that don’t already have a featured snippet ranking on Google. To grab featured snippets from the existing competition, you will need to go ahead and perform a few more steps. Copying your competitorSome will call it “being inspired”, but essentially, what you are doing is copying the structure of an existing featured snippet article and trying to make it better (both with content and if possible, with links). What do I mean when I say, copying the structure of an existing page and making it better? If you want to rank for the featured snippet for the keyword “best cat food brands” and if the one, ranking at this moment already has a list of 20, you will have to create a list of 25, in the exact same format that the current one is using. Once that’s done, the final step is simply to make sure you have proper schema on the page. Note: It is very unlikely that this method will help you outrank an existing featured snippet unless you also rank in the top ten for that keyword. How do we find keywords for featured snippets?As you can imagine, finding the right keyword to target is winning half of the battle when it comes to ranking on featured snippets. I use Semrush, but feel free to use your own tools. Here’s what our agency’s process looks like. Let’s assume, for the purpose of this article, that I run a pet blog and I am interested in ranking for multiple featured snippets. I would go to Semrush, and put one of my competitors on search. Source: semrush Now click on “Organic Research”, select positions and from advanced filters, select – Include > Search features > featured snippet. Source: semrush This will give you a huge list of keywords that are currently ranking as featured snippets. As you can see, we found about 231 opportunities to target here: Source: semrush It is time to add another condition to our advanced filters. Let’s select include > words count > greater than five. Here’s what the new result looks like: Source: SEMrush From here on, simply organize the keywords by volume and then select the ones that you think matches with your target market. Like any keyword research, you will have to find keywords that have low competition and moderate search volume. Personally, I would try to go for keywords that have less than 500 monthly searches. Make sure that you are following the initial three steps that we discussed. You will almost always have a higher chance of ranking on featured snippet following this strategy. Khalid Farhan blogs about internet marketing at KhalidFarhan.com. He can be found on Twitter @iamkhalidfarhan. The post How to grab featured snippet rankings with zero link building effort appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/12/how-to-get-featured-snippets-no-link-building/ Change is a natural part of a business, particularly when it comes to your digital presence. The need to rebrand, switch up the CMS (content management system), consolidate your resources or revamp the architecture and user journey of your website, is ultimately inevitable. And whatever the goal may be, it is not uncommon for all major initiatives to fall under the umbrella of a contemporary digital marketer. How does Google feel about changesOne thing to keep in mind, however, is Google’s tendency to be less than accommodating towards major website changes, especially URL changes. And who can blame them? Whilst Google’s algorithm may be able to detect semantic differences between websites, it’s somewhat unrealistic to expect it to also realize that the similarities between store.hmv.com and hmv.com mean they’re both the same brand. Therefore, without acknowledging this, many domain changes result in staggering losses of traffic and rankings, and suddenly the most well-known brand in an industry becomes non-existent within Google’s universe. It is therefore imperative to ensure the changes you’re making can be correctly comprehended by Google. How to understand GoogleExpecting a lonesome digital marketer to be a jack of all channels is quite unrealistic. But luckily you don’t need to be. There’s a whole industry of people who are dedicating their days to figuring out how to think exactly like Google, and they can help you avoid the risk of decimating your hard-earned keyword rankings (unless you’re doing black hat tactics, in which case, those rankings aren’t very hard-earned after all). This industry is SEO. Three pillars of SEOBefore we dive into the value SEO, here’s a quick summary of the three key pillars:
So with that crash course, we can now connect the dots between SEO expertise and high-level migration requirements. Why you need SEOWhilst a website’s appearance is important, first and foremost it’s crucial to understand how you’re going to explain the changes you’re making to Google. We suggest a handwritten note: “Dear Google, Don’t worry, some things are changing but we still love you, so here is a comprehensive, incredibly large map of URL redirects detailing the new versions of the exact same pages you know and ranked the first time around.” On a more serious note, however, here are five ways in which the expertise of an SEO professional can propel your website towards successful migration. 1. Taking the complexity out of URL mapping and redirectsSince a site’s internal linking and page equity is an essential part of SEO, we deal with redirect handling and URL mapping and all the complications that come along with it, all the time. Therefore, you have to make sure each redirect makes sense, and also that each page is able to take on the new status. Common issues at this stage can include:
Just in case you’re not convinced, here’s a scary graph of what happens when you don’t do this properly. Source: Croud The process of telling Google what’s what extends beyond redirect mapping, it also includes on-page work. Specifically, the canonical tag. Fun fact: 301 redirects don’t actually stop Google from indexing your pages, so if you left it at that, you would just end up with some poor rankings and some confused users. Luckily, your friendly neighborhood SEO knows all about the various ways to help encourage Google to drop your old page out of the index as it goes along your new site. 2. Understanding your website’s behaviorSo, you’ve done all the mapping and have set up just how to introduce Google to your new site. While that’s very exciting, we do have to remember the “understanding” part of these first several weeks. The primary reason for site migration is to provide a new and improved site that will (hopefully) gain more traffic and drive more business. However, without understanding how your original site performed, it’s very difficult to establish if your new site is actually superior. This, therefore, highlights the importance of benchmarking. Of course, you may know how much traffic your ad campaigns – and even your website in general – are pulling in, but you’ll need to know more than that to be successful. As SEOs, our aim is to understand your site as much as the search engines do, which as explained above, is much more than just content on your pages. To paint the best picture of your website before you migrate, use several tools that provide a variety of key SEO data points:
By aggregating the different metrics and views of each tool, you can create a beautiful, detailed portrait of how your website behaves, and how it’s interpreted by both search engines and users. Astute benchmarking will allow for in-depth, helpful post-migration analysis, particularly for those metrics that can only be recorded at a particular moment. There’s no way to tell how fast your pages loaded, or how many pages returned non-200 status codes last week. If you don’t gather this information beforehand, you won’t be able to fully report the impact of the migration. After you complete the migration, you can gather this data again to truly judge your results. Everyone will remember to check the new traffic statistics, and even the new rankings, but only an SEO will remember to check that those numbers make sense and you haven’t accidentally orphaned half of your product pages. SEOs will make sure users aren’t just on your site, but crawlers are too. With proper data at your disposal, you can set about making iterative improvements which will undoubtedly be necessary. 3. Migrating your tracking toolsAll this talk about performance and results is for naught if you can’t actually track any of it. Much like Google’s search engine, Google tools aren’t so keen on supporting your site migration either. Therefore, you have to make sure you’re ready to start tracking the new site, ideally without losing your old data. Dealing with various tracking tools and codes all the time, an SEO has to be a Google Analytics expert too (it’s commonly a requirement on most resumes). So how do you avoid a scenario in which either you have no historical data and can’t measure the success, or when you have two different accounts and have to do the calculations for performance comparisons by yourself? By making plans to migrate your tracking tools. Ideally, you’ll use the same analytics tracking code for the migrating site, so that the old metrics can be directly compared to the new numbers once it takes place. Need some more persuasion? Take a look at this graph detailing a successful site migration. Source: Croud 4. Testing and the importance of the human touchSo you’ve planned all your new pages, and your new site is built. What’s next? Hopefully, it’s built in a staging environment and not actually live. If it’s not, you run the risk of causing all sorts of issues with duplicate content and ranking cannibalization. However, your SEO can easily take charge of this with a robots.txt directive (which will haunt them until the site is live and they can change it). Despite its purpose, a staging environment doesn’t always reflect the search engine’s behavior since it lives in isolation. There’s no way to track backlinks or see exactly what it will look like in a SERP at this time. Often, Googlebot doesn’t even fully crawl staging environments, because it’s seen as time-wasting. Therefore, your SEO’s brain is your very best test. Everyone will check that the pages are set up as planned, but your SEO will be the one who can thoroughly re-test each individual redirect at 2 am. This will likely be the last time that any mistakes will be recognized before launch, so it’s critical to make sure that every redirect behaves as expected and that they are all 301 status codes. Lastly, you’ll need to make sure that a single XML file stays live on the legacy site, containing all the legacy URLs. This will be used to push Googlebot through the old URLs and onto the new site, expediting your meticulously-mapped redirects. 5. Launching and mitigating lossFinally, you’re ready to flip the switch and the champagne bottles are out. So you turn on the new site, and congratulations – you’ve just lost 20% of your traffic. No, really, congratulations. In case you forgot the daunting chart we shared earlier in this post, website migrations can cause damaging losses, and sites that don’t prepare accordingly, often never recover. However, if you’re smart and you hired an SEO expert to take charge of this project, they’ll have the task at hand. Your traffic loss is a product of search engines and users not recognizing your new site – temporarily. Your SEO will have made sure everything is set up properly, so Googlebot is quickly figuring out that your new site contains all the same high-ranking, trustworthy content as on your old site. It’s still a little miffed at you for changing on it, so you may only get back on the second pages of results. You’ll still have some further optimizations to do, but it’s much easier to go from page two to page one, rather than page ten to page one. Just remember, we’re guiding this migration from an SEO perspective. Googlebot is basically a person, so as long as it can read the site, we assume that users will enjoy their experience too. Kailin Ambwani is a Digital Associate at global digital agency Croud, based in their New York office. The post Why an SEO should lead your website migration appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/11/seo-lead-site-migration/ When consumers need to find the right product, service or storefront for their needs, they grab their phone, jump on their laptop, or just say, Hey Siri, Hey Alexa, and Hey Cortana. Search results immediately populate their screen and they skim, select, learn, and go. To win at the game of search, your small or medium-sized business needs to be present online, discoverable and well-matched to the specific needs of consumers. Easier said than done, right? If you want to quickly reach a targeted audience, drive the right kind of traffic towards your website, and develop a marketing strategy that works alongside your SEO efforts, pay per click (PPC) advertising is a great option. When consumers perform high commercial intent searches, meaning they’re online with the intent to buy a specific product, paid ads get 65% of all clicks. It’s a very effective way to get your products front and center on the search page. Both Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) and Google Ads offer pretty intuitive platforms when it comes to the account set-up and refinement, but if you’re not a marketing expert (and even if you are) you’re going to need a little help sometimes. As a small business, you may not have time to really dig into PPC advertising, but you still care about building a campaign that works for you and for your potential customers. Or, maybe you have a strong handle on PPC, but you’re wondering what you could be doing better. Both these scenarios, and many more, could be helped by reaching out to your Microsoft Advertising or Google Ads customer support center or setting up an appointment with a PPC coach. A coach? Yes, a coach. Really, try it. Working with PPC customer support at Microsoft Advertising, for example, can help your business get the right advice, employ the right tactics, and simply streamline the process, so you aren’t emerging from a PPC rabbit hole feeling frustrated and upset. That’s no fun and can be easily remedied. Here are five common concerns and how customer support can help small businesses like yours with their PPC campaigns. “I have no idea how to get started.”Sometimes when people jump into the world of PPC advertising, the process begins easily enough, but issues tend to pop up. Maybe you aren’t sure about how to establish a budget or conduct important keyword research. That’s ok, nobody expects you to be an expert right out of the gate. Onboarding specialists are part of customer support and work with small businesses to set up your PPC ad account from scratch, create your first set of ads, research keywords, set a budget, and assist you with competitive bids. They view the entire process as a team effort and are genuinely interested in understanding your business goals and objectives. Then they help you design a PPC campaign to meet them. “I can’t figure out why my campaigns aren’t performing.”Coaches and customer support specialists can provide visibility on what is and isn’t working by showing businesses how to generate and understand a variety of performance reports. With over 30 different types of reports available, selecting and analyzing them on your own can be a little overwhelming at first, simply due to the sheer volume of data at our fingertips. Working with a coach can help provide clarity, and together you can identify relevant strategies and innovations that have a positive impact on your campaigns. In other words, they can help you figure out what all the data means and how to use it to your advantage. If you’ve been using PPC advertising for quite a while, coaches can support your campaign by introducing you to the latest features and tools you may not know about. Sometimes we get into a routine and performance plateaus but talking to an expert for 15 minutes can totally refresh your PPC perspective and provide you with valuable insight and ideas. “I’m afraid I’ll look like an idiot if I can’t figure this out on my own.”Managing PPC campaigns is a learned skill, but it might not be something that comes naturally to you. A coach’s job isn’t to do everything for you, but to educate you on how to improve campaign performances on your own. Customer support can help business owners get familiar with PPC tools, processes and resources that help you successfully manage your ads without external support. The goal is to empower businesses with the know-how, competence, and confidence to handle their campaigns like a pro and troubleshoot any issues that come up. Learning, in and of itself, represents a measurement of success and makes the next PPC campaign easier to set up, more profitable, and effective. “I don’t think customer support will understand anything about my business and it’s too much of a hassle. I just have to figure this out on my own.”The whole point of customer support is to take the time to understand your industry and your business goals, that’s the only way to provide meaningful and targeted guidance. Coaches treat you like a partner and pro-actively offer strategic direction and the right tools to increase your PPC efficiency. They meet you at your level of expertise and build up from there, no matter your budget or your business. You need to be willing to share your story and reflectively consider what you want to get out of your various campaigns, but rest assured, if you’re willing to put in the time, it will most definitely not be wasted. “I’m not sure I’m managing my campaign correctly and spend too much time worrying about it.”This is a big one, especially for businesses that aren’t familiar with paid search. Your time is spent worrying that you’re doing it wrong instead of learning how to do it right. This is where working with a coach can really help because they provide you with peace of mind. Peace of mind in the information you’re using, your level of comfort and familiarity with the platform, and the belief that you are fully capable of making changes that improve your business’s visibility and lead conversions. The post Five ways PPC customer support can help SMBs appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/05/ppc-customer-support/ Beyond search Google controls the leading distributed ad network, the leading mobile OS, the leading web browser, the leading email client, the leading web analytics platform, the leading free video hosting site. They win a lot. And they take winnings from one market & leverage them into manipulating adjacent markets. Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.
AMP is an utterly unnecessary invention designed to further shift power to Google while disenfranchising publishers. From the very start it had many issues with basic things like supporting JavaScript, double counting unique users (no reason to fix broken stats if they drive adoption!), not supporting third party ad networks, not showing publisher domain names, and just generally being a useless layer of sunk cost technical overhead that provides literally no real value. Over time they have corrected some of these catastrophic deficiencies, but if it provided real value, they wouldn't have needed to force adoption with preferential placement in their search results. They force the bundling because AMP sucks. Absurdity knows no bounds. Googlers suggest: "AMP isn’t another “channel” or “format” that’s somehow not the web. It’s not a SEO thing. It’s not a replacement for HTML. It’s a web component framework that can power your whole site. ... We, the AMP team, want AMP to become a natural choice for modern web development of content websites, and for you to choose AMP as framework because it genuinely makes you more productive." Meanwhile some newspapers have about a dozen employees who work on re-formatting content for AMP:
Feeeeeel the productivity! Some content types (particularly user generated content) can be unpredictable & circuitous. For many years forums websites would use keywords embedded in the search referral to highlight relevant parts of the page. Keyword (not provided) largely destroyed that & then it became a competitive feature for AMP: "If the Featured Snippet links to an AMP article, Google will sometimes automatically scroll users to that section and highlight the answer in orange." That would perhaps be a single area where AMP was more efficient than the alternative. But it is only so because Google destroyed the alternative by stripping keyword referrers from search queries. The power dynamics of AMP are ugly:
After enough publishers adopted AMP Google was able to turn their mobile app's homepage into an interactive news feed below the search box. And inside that news feed Google gets to distribute MOAR ads while 0% of the revenue from those ads find its way to the publishers whose content is used to make up the feed. Appropriate appropriation. :D Each additional layer of technical cruft is another cost center. Things that sound appealing at first blush may not be:
Anything that is easy to implement & widely marketed often has costs added to it in the future as the entity moves to monetize the service. This is a private equity firm buying up multiple hosting control panels & then adjusting prices. This is Google Maps drastically changing their API terms. This is Facebook charging you for likes to build an audience, giving your competitors access to those likes as an addressable audience to advertise against, and then charging you once more to boost the reach of your posts. This is Grubhub creating shadow websites on your behalf and charging you for every transaction created by the gravity of your brand.
Settling for the easiest option drives a lack of differentiation, embeds additional risk & once the dominant player has enough marketshare they'll change the terms on you. Small gains in short term margins for massive increases in fragility.
The other big issue is platforms that run out of growth space in their core market may break integrations with adjacent service providers as each want to grow by eating the other's market. Those who look at SaaS business models through the eyes of a seasoned investor will better understand how markets are likely to change:
Most platform companies are initially required to operate at low margins in order to buy growth of their category & own their category. Then when they are valued on that, they quickly need to jump across to adjacent markets to grow into the valuation:
Large platforms offering temporary subsidies to ensure they dominate their categories & companies like SoftBank spraying capital across the markets is causing massive shifts in valuations:
Circling back to Google's AMP, it has a cousin called Recaptcha. Recaptcha is another AMP-like trojan horse:
About a month ago when logging into Bing Ads I saw recaptcha on the login page & couldn't believe they'd give Google control at that access point. I think they got rid of that, but lots of companies are perhaps shooting themselves in the foot through a combination of over-reliance on Google infrastructure AND sloppy implementation Today when making a purchase on Fiverr, after converting, I got some of this action Hmm. Maybe I will enable JavaScript and try again. Oooops. That is called snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. My account is many years old. My payment type on record has been used for years. I have ordered from the particular seller about a dozen times over the years. And suddenly because my web browser had JavaScript turned off I was deemed a security risk of some sort for making an utterly ordinary transaction I have already completed about a dozen times. On AMP JavaScript was the devil. And on desktop not JavaScript was the devil. Pro tip: Ecommerce websites that see substandard conversion rates from using Recaptcha can boost their overall ecommerce revenue by buying more Google AdWords ads. --- As more of the infrastructure stack is driven by AI software there is going to be a very real opportunity for many people to become deplatformed across the web on an utterly arbitrary basis. That tech companies like Facebook also want to create digital currencies on top of the leverage they already have only makes the proposition that much scarier. If the tech platforms host copies of our sites, process the transactions & even create their own currencies, how will we know what level of value they are adding versus what they are extracting? Who measures the measurer? And when the economics turn negative, what will we do if we are hooked into an ecosystem we can't spend additional capital to get out of when things head south?
Categories:
from http://www.seobook.com/amped-recaptcha A vast majority of customers find Google reviews posted by strangers just as trustworthy as personal recommendations. So how can businesses encourage customers to leave a review for them on Google? A staggering 97 percent of customers depend on online reviews to make a purchase decision. Google reviews build and insulate brand reputation, thereby helping customers to make a decision in your favor. In fact, a new research study reveals that Google review stars form social proof for your brand, boosting your site’s CTR by over 35 percent. No wonder, reviews are among the top in Google’s ranking factors 2019 list. Google’s algorithm gives a thumbs-up to sites having maximum reviews. In Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors review signals (review quantity, review velocity, and review diversity) make up 13 percent of Google’s local 3 pack or finder ranking factors. Google is the fastest-growing review site gaining the highest number of reviews compared to other platforms. Hence, businesses cannot afford to ignore the role of genuine and regular Google reviews in building a strong online reputation. Further, reviews offer valuable insights and measurable information about the target audience. Read on to learn a few tested Google review-generating more tips to improve your search engine rankings and positively influence customer purchase decisions. 1. First things first: Provide kick-ass serviceThe importance of customer service in the business world cannot be understated. A McKinsey study reveals that 70 percent of buying experiences are dictated by how customers feel they are being treated. Delivering excellent customer service will not only make you stand out from the crowd but also encourage people to be your online brand advocates, writing reviews and recommendations for you. Do your job right! Make sure your staff has a good understanding of the product and is adept at treating customers well. Amazon is leading the way in delivering awesome customer service. The ecommerce giant is known to have the most customer-friendly return policies in the industry. Amazon protects its customers with its A-to-Z guarantee and takes full responsibility for damaged products or delayed delivery, even for third-party sellers. 2. Simply ask for itOne of the easiest ways to procure Google reviews is to ask for it. Train your staff, especially the client-facing roles to request customers for their views and feedback. Further, simplify the process by giving clear bullet-point instructions with links, encouraging customers to leave a review. Notice how Anker, the global leader in electronic goods uses these Happy/Not Happy cards to encourage its customers to review its products. The card addresses both satisfied and unhappy customers, telling them what to do next. Here are a few ways you can encourage your customers to review your business on Google.
Conversing with a satisfied customer in your store? Just addressed a customer’s concern on a support call? Use these pleasant interactions with clients as an opportunity to request for Google reviews.
A personalized email campaign is an effective way to get more Google reviews. Keep the language in the email simple and specific. You can also use review-management tools like TrustPilot and ReviewTrackers that help automate product review invitations. These automated services send timely email reminders to your customers, urging them to write a review.
Leave-behind cards attached to products can remind customers to give a written review on Google. Better still, add a QR code to simplify the process of posting a review. Consider using business cards, leave-us-a-review cards, counter cards, window clings, and door hangers to generate reviews for your business.
Customers often tend to procrastinate or miss out on posting reviews. Nudge such customers by including CTAs and pop-ups on your business page and mobile app. Typically, a pop-up like, “Hey, looks like you’re enjoying the read. Leave us a review!” can remind them to contribute a positive word. You can also add a CTA to your email signature in the form of a shortened link, taking them directly to the Google reviews page. For optimal results, make sure you solicit reviews at the right time of the customer journey. Ask for reviews when your customers have –
3. Encourage your customer service team to collect reviewsYour customer service team is the face of your business. They interact with customers on a daily basis, addressing queries and solving product or service-related issues. Hence, it’s critical to motivate them to get reviews for your business.
Give your team a few examples of how they can invite reviews from customers. In an interview with Forbes, Daniel Vivarelli, the founder of Starloop, shares that it’s important to use the right phrases to remove the ‘sleaze’ factor and elevate your review request to a classy and sincere level. Simply saying, “Will you please leave us a review on Google?” sounds obvious and awkward. Instead, train your employees to say something like, “Thanks so much, Mr. Dorris! I am happy to learn that you are pleased with our services. I want to invite you to give an online feedback on Google. This will help us serve you even better.” Sharing a few examples of such opening dialogues will help your staff speak the right language, making the process easier for them.
Use an incentive system to reward employees based on the number of Google reviews they have secured. This can be a big motivator for them to make asking for reviews a part of their routine. Offer extra incentives if their name is mentioned in the Google review. Not all customer service personnel get mentioned in reviews. But those who do, have definitely lived up to the customer expectations. It is important to reward such employees. 4. Create a custom Google review link on your site or appMerely pasting Google reviews on your website can hamper the authenticity and legitimacy of your site. In other words, if you control the review content customers are bound to doubt its genuineness. Adding a link to your Google reviews form on your business page can help potential customers quickly access what others have to say about your brand. Add a graphic or button on your page like “Read our Google reviews” and link it using your Places ID. Here’s how you can find your Place ID. The complete link can then be used to direct your customers to the existing reviews page, encouraging them to add their own reviews. 5. Negative or positive: Remember to respond to reviewsOnline reviews are social proof of your credibility and online reputation. Whether positive or negative, it’s important to respond to reviews to let your customers know that you are all ears and willing to assist them. In fact, a study published by Harvard Business Review found that responding to customer reviews yields better ratings. Find time to respond to reviews, making your potential reviewers feel that it’s worth their time to write a review for you.
Positive reviews are great for your online reputation. Be specific and thankful when responding to such reviews. Notice how Hard Rock Cafe, New York uses this positive review as an opportunity to reinforce the brand’s strengths and convert its customers into a repeat customer.
Reviews that are three-star ones lack details as the reviewer doesn’t strongly like or dislike your product or service. These reviews often carry negative and positive comments. Hence, you need to reinforce the positive and address the concern, to show your prospective reviewer that you care. Check out how the owner of Flowers of Dreams responds to a neutral comment posted by one of their customers. The response clearly shows that the business takes responsibility for an uncommon instance and desires to make things right for their customers.
Here’s the good news: Negative reviews can boost conversions and brand loyalty. This is because too many positive reviews seem fake to customers. Negative reviews make your brand seem authentic and offer customers the worst-case scenario. Remember: Writers of negative reviews want you to fix their issue and convert them into happy customers. Follow these basic rules when responding to a negative query.
Notice how California Cuts responds to an unhappy customer by apologizing for the poor experience and taking the necessary steps to repair the damage. When prospective reviewers see that you care to monitor and respond to customer reviews (even bad ones!), they will be encouraged to leave a Google review for you. 6. Address the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)Sadly, most businesses only focus on managing immediate product-related queries or following up with customers for reviews, laying little emphasis on building long-term relationships. Customers are more likely to take the time to write a word for you when you tell them how their review will be used or add value to them. It is critical to use the right words when asking your customers to review your product. For instance, in this customer review invitation Nest uses less compelling words like ‘make our ideas better,’ offering little motivation for its customers to leave a review. Source: Thumbtack On the other hand, Thumbtack uses powerful phrases like, “create a better experience for you”, putting customers in the position of a beneficiary and making them feel rewarded. Source: Thumbtack Secondly, offer incentives to customers for writing a review. That way, you are encouraging them to leave a review (good, bad, or neutral) and that doesn’t amount to bribing. Notice how this Kentucky-based chiropractic and wellness center doesn’t ask its patients to necessarily leave a positive review. They are offering a free adjustment for customers who leave “a review” not “a positive review”. Addressing the “What’s in it for me?” will help your users see the direct benefit of spreading a positive word about you, motivating them to take the time to do so. 7. Host experiential eventsHosting a user conference or an industry event can help create a strong bond between your customers and the brand, creating conditions where they are likely to leave a review. That’s what experiential marketing is all about. Experiences don’t just sell products, they help your target audience connect with your brand’s core values. When customers are emotionally engaged, they will go out of their way to leave a review for you.
Source: YouTube Check out how Oreo, one of the most popular cookies in the world, has used the 3D printing technology to allow customers to enjoy the cookie-making experience and receive uniquely flavored Oreo cookies. Such brand experiences coupled with a strong post-event feedback process can encourage people to leave reviews about the product. ConclusionMost customers read Google reviews to make a purchase decision. Reviews are a powerful marketing tool that should be used by marketers to improve online credibility, boost SEO, and drive conversions. The time-tested tips shared in this post will help you generate more Google reviews for your business, thereby strengthening your authority and online reputation. George Konidis is the co-founder of Growing Search, a Canadian based digital marketing agency providing optimal SEO and link building services worldwide. He can be found on Twitter @georgekonidis. The post Seven time-tested tactics to generate – Google reviews appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/04/get-more-google-reviews/ A vast majority of customers find Google reviews posted by strangers just as trustworthy as personal recommendations. So how can businesses encourage customers to leave a review for them on Google? A staggering 97 percent of customers depend on online reviews to make a purchase decision. Google reviews build and insulate brand reputation, thereby helping customers to make a decision in your favor. In fact, a new research study reveals that Google review stars form social proof for your brand, boosting your site’s CTR by over 35 percent. No wonder, reviews are among the top in Google’s ranking factors 2019 list. Google’s algorithm gives a thumbs-up to sites having maximum reviews. In Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors review signals (review quantity, review velocity, and review diversity) make up 13 percent of Google’s local 3 pack or finder ranking factors. Google is the fastest-growing review site gaining the highest number of reviews compared to other platforms. Hence, businesses cannot afford to ignore the role of genuine and regular Google reviews in building a strong online reputation. Further, reviews offer valuable insights and measurable information about the target audience. Read on to learn a few tested Google review-generating more tips to improve your search engine rankings and positively influence customer purchase decisions. 1. First things first: Provide kick-ass serviceThe importance of customer service in the business world cannot be understated. A McKinsey study reveals that 70 percent of buying experiences are dictated by how customers feel they are being treated. Delivering excellent customer service will not only make you stand out from the crowd but also encourage people to be your online brand advocates, writing reviews and recommendations for you. Do your job right! Make sure your staff has a good understanding of the product and is adept at treating customers well. Amazon is leading the way in delivering awesome customer service. The ecommerce giant is known to have the most customer-friendly return policies in the industry. Amazon protects its customers with its A-to-Z guarantee and takes full responsibility for damaged products or delayed delivery, even for third-party sellers. 2. Simply ask for itOne of the easiest ways to procure Google reviews is to ask for it. Train your staff, especially the client-facing roles to request customers for their views and feedback. Further, simplify the process by giving clear bullet-point instructions with links, encouraging customers to leave a review. Notice how Anker, the global leader in electronic goods uses these Happy/Not Happy cards to encourage its customers to review its products. The card addresses both satisfied and unhappy customers, telling them what to do next. Here are a few ways you can encourage your customers to review your business on Google.
Conversing with a satisfied customer in your store? Just addressed a customer’s concern on a support call? Use these pleasant interactions with clients as an opportunity to request for Google reviews.
A personalized email campaign is an effective way to get more Google reviews. Keep the language in the email simple and specific. You can also use review-management tools like TrustPilot and ReviewTrackers that help automate product review invitations. These automated services send timely email reminders to your customers, urging them to write a review.
Leave-behind cards attached to products can remind customers to give a written review on Google. Better still, add a QR code to simplify the process of posting a review. Consider using business cards, leave-us-a-review cards, counter cards, window clings, and door hangers to generate reviews for your business.
Customers often tend to procrastinate or miss out on posting reviews. Nudge such customers by including CTAs and pop-ups on your business page and mobile app. Typically, a pop-up like, “Hey, looks like you’re enjoying the read. Leave us a review!” can remind them to contribute a positive word. You can also add a CTA to your email signature in the form of a shortened link, taking them directly to the Google reviews page. For optimal results, make sure you solicit reviews at the right time of the customer journey. Ask for reviews when your customers have –
3. Encourage your customer service team to collect reviewsYour customer service team is the face of your business. They interact with customers on a daily basis, addressing queries and solving product or service-related issues. Hence, it’s critical to motivate them to get reviews for your business.
Give your team a few examples of how they can invite reviews from customers. In an interview with Forbes, Daniel Vivarelli, the founder of Starloop, shares that it’s important to use the right phrases to remove the ‘sleaze’ factor and elevate your review request to a classy and sincere level. Simply saying, “Will you please leave us a review on Google?” sounds obvious and awkward. Instead, train your employees to say something like, “Thanks so much, Mr. Dorris! I am happy to learn that you are pleased with our services. I want to invite you to give an online feedback on Google. This will help us serve you even better.” Sharing a few examples of such opening dialogues will help your staff speak the right language, making the process easier for them.
Use an incentive system to reward employees based on the number of Google reviews they have secured. This can be a big motivator for them to make asking for reviews a part of their routine. Offer extra incentives if their name is mentioned in the Google review. Not all customer service personnel get mentioned in reviews. But those who do, have definitely lived up to the customer expectations. It is important to reward such employees. 4. Create a custom Google review link on your site or appMerely pasting Google reviews on your website can hamper the authenticity and legitimacy of your site. In other words, if you control the review content customers are bound to doubt its genuineness. Adding a link to your Google reviews form on your business page can help potential customers quickly access what others have to say about your brand. Add a graphic or button on your page like “Read our Google reviews” and link it using your Places ID. Here’s how you can find your Place ID. The complete link can then be used to direct your customers to the existing reviews page, encouraging them to add their own reviews. 5. Negative or positive: Remember to respond to reviewsOnline reviews are social proof of your credibility and online reputation. Whether positive or negative, it’s important to respond to reviews to let your customers know that you are all ears and willing to assist them. In fact, a study published by Harvard Business Review found that responding to customer reviews yields better ratings. Find time to respond to reviews, making your potential reviewers feel that it’s worth their time to write a review for you.
Positive reviews are great for your online reputation. Be specific and thankful when responding to such reviews. Notice how Hard Rock Cafe, New York uses this positive review as an opportunity to reinforce the brand’s strengths and convert its customers into a repeat customer.
Reviews that are three-star ones lack details as the reviewer doesn’t strongly like or dislike your product or service. These reviews often carry negative and positive comments. Hence, you need to reinforce the positive and address the concern, to show your prospective reviewer that you care. Check out how the owner of Flowers of Dreams responds to a neutral comment posted by one of their customers. The response clearly shows that the business takes responsibility for an uncommon instance and desires to make things right for their customers.
Here’s the good news: Negative reviews can boost conversions and brand loyalty. This is because too many positive reviews seem fake to customers. Negative reviews make your brand seem authentic and offer customers the worst-case scenario. Remember: Writers of negative reviews want you to fix their issue and convert them into happy customers. Follow these basic rules when responding to a negative query.
Notice how California Cuts responds to an unhappy customer by apologizing for the poor experience and taking the necessary steps to repair the damage. When prospective reviewers see that you care to monitor and respond to customer reviews (even bad ones!), they will be encouraged to leave a Google review for you. 6. Address the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)Sadly, most businesses only focus on managing immediate product-related queries or following up with customers for reviews, laying little emphasis on building long-term relationships. Customers are more likely to take the time to write a word for you when you tell them how their review will be used or add value to them. It is critical to use the right words when asking your customers to review your product. For instance, in this customer review invitation Nest uses less compelling words like ‘make our ideas better,’ offering little motivation for its customers to leave a review. Source: Thumbtack On the other hand, Thumbtack uses powerful phrases like, “create a better experience for you”, putting customers in the position of a beneficiary and making them feel rewarded. Source: Thumbtack Secondly, offer incentives to customers for writing a review. That way, you are encouraging them to leave a review (good, bad, or neutral) and that doesn’t amount to bribing. Notice how this Kentucky-based chiropractic and wellness center doesn’t ask its patients to necessarily leave a positive review. They are offering a free adjustment for customers who leave “a review” not “a positive review”. Addressing the “What’s in it for me?” will help your users see the direct benefit of spreading a positive word about you, motivating them to take the time to do so. 7. Host experiential eventsHosting a user conference or an industry event can help create a strong bond between your customers and the brand, creating conditions where they are likely to leave a review. That’s what experiential marketing is all about. Experiences don’t just sell products, they help your target audience connect with your brand’s core values. When customers are emotionally engaged, they will go out of their way to leave a review for you.
Source: YouTube Check out how Oreo, one of the most popular cookies in the world, has used the 3D printing technology to allow customers to enjoy the cookie-making experience and receive uniquely flavored Oreo cookies. Such brand experiences coupled with a strong post-event feedback process can encourage people to leave reviews about the product. ConclusionMost customers read Google reviews to make a purchase decision. Reviews are a powerful marketing tool that should be used by marketers to improve online credibility, boost SEO, and drive conversions. The time-tested tips shared in this post will help you generate more Google reviews for your business, thereby strengthening your authority and online reputation. George Konidis is the co-founder of Growing Search, a Canadian based digital marketing agency providing optimal SEO and link building services worldwide. He can be found on Twitter @georgekonidis. The post Seven time-tested tactics to generate more Google reviews appeared first on Search Engine Watch. from https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/07/04/get-more-google-reviews-2/ Beyond search Google controls the leading distributed ad network, the leading mobile OS, the leading web browser, the leading email client, the leading web analytics platform, the leading free video hosting site. They win a lot. And they take winnings from one market & leverage them into manipulating adjacent markets. Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.
AMP is an utterly unnecessary invention designed to further shift power to Google while disenfranchising publishers. From the very start it had many issues with basic things like supporting JavaScript, double counting unique users (no reason to fix broken stats if they drive adoption!), not supporting third party ad networks, not showing publisher domain names, and just generally being a useless layer of sunk cost technical overhead that provides literally no real value. Over time they have corrected some of these catastrophic deficiencies, but if it provided real value, they wouldn't have needed to force adoption with preferential placement in their search results. They force the bundling because AMP sucks. Absurdity knows no bounds. Googlers suggest: "AMP isn’t another “channel” or “format” that’s somehow not the web. It’s not a SEO thing. It’s not a replacement for HTML. It’s a web component framework that can power your whole site. ... We, the AMP team, want AMP to become a natural choice for modern web development of content websites, and for you to choose AMP as framework because it genuinely makes you more productive." Meanwhile some newspapers have about a dozen employees who work on re-formatting content for AMP:
Feeeeeel the productivity! Some content types (particularly user generated content) can be unpredictable & circuitous. For many years forums websites would use keywords embedded in the search referral to highlight relevant parts of the page. Keyword (not provided) largely destroyed that & then it became a competitive feature for AMP: "If the Featured Snippet links to an AMP article, Google will sometimes automatically scroll users to that section and highlight the answer in orange." That would perhaps be a single area where AMP was more efficient than the alternative. But it is only so because Google destroyed the alternative by stripping keyword referrers from search queries. The power dynamics of AMP are ugly:
After enough publishers adopted AMP Google was able to turn their mobile app's homepage into an interactive news feed below the search box. And inside that news feed Google gets to distribute MOAR ads while 0% of the revenue from those ads find its way to the publishers whose content is used to make up the feed. Appropriate appropriation. :D Each additional layer of technical cruft is another cost center. Things that sound appealing at first blush may not be:
Anything that is easy to implement & widely marketed often has costs added to it in the future as the entity moves to monetize the service. This is a private equity firm buying up multiple hosting control panels & then adjusting prices. This is Google Maps drastically changing their API terms. This is Facebook charging you for likes to build an audience, giving your competitors access to those likes as an addressable audience to advertise against, and then charging you once more to boost the reach of your posts. This is Grubhub creating shadow websites on your behalf and charging you for every transaction created by the gravity of your brand.
Settling for the easiest option drives a lack of differentiation, embeds additional risk & once the dominant player has enough marketshare they'll change the terms on you. Small gains in short term margins for massive increases in fragility.
The other big issue is platforms that run out of growth space in their core market may break integrations with adjacent service providers as each want to grow by eating the other's market. Those who look at SaaS business models through the eyes of a seasoned investor will better understand how markets are likely to change:
Most platform companies are initially required to operate at low margins in order to buy growth of their category & own their category. Then when they are valued on that, they quickly need to jump across to adjacent markets to grow into the valuation:
Large platforms offering temporary subsidies to ensure they dominate their categories & companies like SoftBank spraying capital across the markets is causing massive shifts in valuations:
Circling back to Google's AMP, it has a cousin called Recaptcha. Recaptcha is another AMP-like trojan horse:
About a month ago when logging into Bing Ads I saw recaptcha on the login page & couldn't believe they'd give Google control at that access point. I think they got rid of that, but lots of companies are perhaps shooting themselves in the foot through a combination of over-reliance on Google infrastructure AND sloppy implementation Today when making a purchase on Fiverr, after converting, I got some of this action Hmm. Maybe I will enable JavaScript and try again. Oooops. That is called snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. My account is many years old. My payment type on record has been used for years. I have ordered from the particular seller about a dozen times over the years. And suddenly because my web browser had JavaScript turned off I was deemed a security risk of some sort for making an utterly ordinary transaction I have already completed about a dozen times. On AMP JavaScript was the devil. And on desktop not JavaScript was the devil. Pro tip: Ecommerce websites that see substandard conversion rates from using Recaptcha can boost their overall ecommerce revenue by buying more Google AdWords ads. --- As more of the infrastructure stack is driven by AI software there is going to be a very real opportunity for many people to become deplatformed across the web on an utterly arbitrary basis. That tech companies like Facebook also want to create digital currencies on top of the leverage they already have only makes the proposition that much scarier. If the tech platforms host copies of our sites, process the transactions & even create their own currencies, how will we know what level of value they are adding versus what they are extracting? Who measures the measurer? And when the economics turn negative, what will we do if we are hooked into an ecosystem we can't spend additional capital to get out of when things head south?
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from http://www.seobook.com/amped-recaptcha Beyond search Google controls the leading distributed ad network, the leading mobile OS, the leading web browser, the leading email client, the leading web analytics platform, the leading free video hosting site. They win a lot. And they take winnings from one market & leverage them into manipulating adjacent markets. Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.
AMP is an utterly unnecessary invention designed to further shift power to Google while disenfranchising publishers. From the very start it had many issues with basic things like supporting JavaScript, double counting unique users (no reason to fix broken stats if they drive adoption!), not supporting third party ad networks, not showing publisher domain names, and just generally being a useless layer of sunk cost technical overhead that provides literally no real value. Over time they have corrected some of these catastrophic deficiencies, but if it provided real value, they wouldn't have needed to force adoption with preferential placement in their search results. They force the bundling because AMP sucks. Absurdity knows no bounds. Googlers suggest: "AMP isn’t another “channel” or “format” that’s somehow not the web. It’s not a SEO thing. It’s not a replacement for HTML. It’s a web component framework that can power your whole site. ... We, the AMP team, want AMP to become a natural choice for modern web development of content websites, and for you to choose AMP as framework because it genuinely makes you more productive." Meanwhile some newspapers have about a dozen employees who work on re-formatting content for AMP. Feeeeeel the productivity! Some content types (particularly user generated content) can be unpredictable & circuitous. For many years forums websites would use keywords embedded in the search referral to highlight relevant parts of the page. Keyword (not provided) largely destroyed that & then it became a competitive feature for AMP: "If the Featured Snippet links to an AMP article, Google will sometimes automatically scroll users to that section and highlight the answer in orange." That would perhaps be a single area where AMP was more efficient than the alternative. But it is only so because Google destroyed the alternative by stripping keyword referrers from search queries. The power dynamics of AMP are ugly:
After enough publishers adopted AMP Google was able to turn their mobile app's homepage into an interactive news feed below the search box. And inside that news feed Google gets to distribute MOAR ads while 0% of the revenue from those ads find its way to the publishers whose content is used to make up the feed. Appropriate appropriation. :D Each additional layer of technical cruft is another cost center. Things that sound appealing at first blush may not be:
Anything that is easy to implement & widely marketed often has costs added to it in the future as the entity moves to monetize the service. This is a private equity firm buying up multiple hosting control panels & then adjusting prices. This is Google Maps drastically changing their API terms. This is Facebook charging you for likes to build an audience, giving your competitors access to those likes as an addressable audience to advertise against, and then charging you once more to boost the reach of your posts. This is Grubhub creating shadow websites on your behalf and charging you for every transaction created by the gravity of your brand.
Settling for the easiest option drives a lack of differentiation, embeds additional risk & once the dominant player has enough marketshare they'll change the terms on you. Small gains in short term margins for massive increases in fragility.
The other big issue is platforms that run out of growth space in their core market may break integrations with adjacent service providers as each want to grow by eating the other's market. Those who look at SaaS business models through the eyes of a seasoned investor will better understand how markets are likely to change:
Most platform companies are initially required to operate at low margins in order to buy growth of their category & own their category. Then when they are valued on that, they quickly need to jump across to adjacent markets to grow into the valuation:
Large platforms offering temporary subsidies to ensure they dominate their categories & companies like SoftBank spraying capital across the markets is causing massive shifts in valuations:
Circling back to Google's AMP, it has a cousin called Recaptcha. Recaptcha is another AMP-like trojan horse:
About a month ago when logging into Bing Ads I saw recaptcha on the login page & couldn't believe they'd give Google control at that access point. I think they got rid of that, but lots of companies are perhaps shooting themselves in the foot through a combination of over-reliance on Google infrastructure AND sloppy implementation Today when making a purchase on Fiverr, after converting, I got some of this action Hmm. Maybe I will enable JavaScript and try again. Oooops. That is called snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. My account is many years old. My payment type on record has been used for years. I have ordered from the particular seller about a dozen times over the years. And suddenly because my web browser had JavaScript turned off I was deemed a security risk of some sort for making an utterly ordinary transaction I have already completed about a dozen times. On AMP JavaScript was the devil. And on desktop not JavaScript was the devil. Pro tip: Ecommerce websites that see substandard conversion rates from using Recaptcha can boost their overall ecommerce revenue by buying more Google AdWords ads. --- As more of the infrastructure stack is driven by AI software there is going to be a very real opportunity for many people to become deplatformed across the web on an utterly arbitrary basis. That tech companies like Facebook also want to create digital currencies on top of the leverage they already have only makes the proposition that much scarier. If the tech platforms host copies of our sites, process the transactions & even create their own currencies, how will we know what level of value they are adding versus what they are extracting? Who measures the measurer? And when the economics turn negative, what will we do if we are hooked into an ecosystem we can't spend additional capital to get out of when things head south?
Categories:
from http://www.seobook.com/amped-recaptcha |
ABOUT MEPleasure to introduce myself I am Gillian 32 from Calgary, Canada. I am working as social media expert and have helped many clients with their social media marketing. Archives
July 2019
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