It’s the goal of every business to grow and make money. Otherwise, what’s the point of going into business? But in the age of digital information, businesses find it becomes absolutely necessary to make online presence strategies part of an overall successful business plan. But an online presence doesn’t matter if no one can find that information when they type in a search on the web. That’s why Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is so important. And companies who realize they can offer SEO services to their clients have an advantage. You have many options to consider when wanting to add SEO to your product offering, even if you don’t have the bandwidth to fulfill on the SEO tasks in-house. This white paper explores why outsourcing to an SEO-specific vendor is a great option for many who want to offer SEO. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download“A Guide to Outsourcing SEO,” from Boostability. The post Why outsource SEO? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2UdVLEJ
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Meta descriptions and branding have the most influence on search clickthrough survey finds1/31/2020 Meta descriptions, followed by brand name and page title, have the largest influence over whether users click through on a search result, according to a study conducted by Ignite Visibility. Two-thirds of survey respondents also said that more ads would make them want to use Google less, and the majority agreed that Google is improving its search results by including featured snippets and other SERP features. The survey polled over 500 participants aged 25–60. The biggest influence on clickthrough. When asked which factor most influenced their decision to click on a result, 62.9% of respondents said it was the description, 24.2% said it was the brand name and 13% said it was the title. However, as a somewhat contradictory finding, 55.1% of participants said that they only click on a brand they know within the search results. Users said the search results have improved. The majority (58.5%) of participants said they prefer the present state (December 2019, when the survey was conducted) of Google search results over how they were in January 2019. A similar proportion (55.5%) also said that the inclusion of featured snippets and other SERP features improves Google’s search results. Will more ads turn users away? Two-thirds (66.7%) of participants said that Google inserting more ads into the search results would make them want to use Google less. This finding seems to contradict findings from a study published in December 2018 in which 75% of respondents said that ads make it easier to find the information they’re looking for. Nearly 67% of Ignite Visibility’s survey participants disagreed with companies being able to run ads based on other companies’ branded searches. This finding aligns well with the study’s other finding that the majority of users only click on results from brands they’re familiar with. Why we care. According to the survey, brand recognition was the second largest influence on clickthroughs, and it’s a make-or-break factor for some users. Building brand awareness should supplement your SEO efforts, and vice versa, to gain and capitalize on organic visibility. The survey also highlighted the importance of writing compelling descriptions. Site owners and SEOs should ensure that their descriptions align with search intent, as Google won’t use your description if it thinks a more accurate one can be taken directly from your page’s content. If consumers do prefer the modern search results page and its many features, brands will have to adapt. One way to regain visibility is by designing content with rich results in mind. Users may be opposed to more paid listings within the search results, but Google’s ecosystem is a pull factor and even the addition of more ads may not be enough of a push factor for users to alter their behavior. The post Meta descriptions and branding have the most influence on search clickthrough, survey finds appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2tg4IlR During my “Local presence management for multi-location brands” session at SMX East, attendees asked questions about review rankings, duplicate listings and pages and local franchise challenges so I wanted to take the time after the event. 1. I see a lot of companies with a small number of reviews ranking higher than other local companies with 100s of reviews. Both are local. If reviews are 75% why would a company with 5 reviews outrank a company with 100 reviews? Some multi-location businesses that have fewer reviews than another multi-location business may still rank higher for a few reasons. The first is proximity or location. There are certain categories where the proximity of the business to the searcher trumps reviews. In other categories this might come down to expertise and authoritativeness. Both are largely dependent on the content and source links found within the Google My Business profile itself. All in all – there is not a one size fits all answer to this question that applies to all categories. However, what is clear is that the trustworthiness of your brand – as seen through your ratings and reviews does matter both as a top ranking factor and as a key factor consumers use in determining what business to ultimately visit. 2. How do you identify the rogue or duplicate listings or pages? What platform can programmatically do this? The first step multi-location businesses can do to prevent rogue listings or pages is to claim all local pages. By claiming all local pages, multi-location businesses will be able to manage the content that is being shared on its pages and monitor ratings and reviews. With some listing management solutions, there are “duplicate suppression and deletion” programmatic functions that find potential duplicate listings or unclaimed pages and gives you a chance to merge these into the official listing/pages or delete them. 3. How do you attribute inbound calls to local pages without using a trackable phone number? We’ve been told that Google frowns upon multiple phone numbers for one location, but then we lose tracking and location management software is not free. Multi-location businesses can attribute inbound calls to local pages through the help of a local listing management solution. Most solutions are able to give you reporting on “clicks” to the number or “click to call.” In today’s digital world, most consumers search for businesses on their mobile devices and simply click on the number or an icon to initiate the call. These actions can be tracked with no tracking phone number needed with different solution tools. 4. Do you encourage your franchisees to reply to reviews/get more reviews on Google or Facebook? It is ideal for your local franchisees to reply to all reviews on Google and Facebook. The local franchisees are aware of what’s going on at the local level, so they would be the best people to reply. If corporate wants to have oversight on these responses, there are tools that can help so a reply to reviews don’t publish until approved by corporate or another designated party. As far as encouraging more reviews on Google and Facebook, it’s okay as long as the local franchisees aren’t incentivizing or gating the reviews. An example of gating reviews would be to ask consumers to leave a review if they had a good experience but respond via email to management if there was something they were unhappy with. This is frowned upon by both Google and Facebook. The same goes for incentivizing. Multi-location businesses are not able to do anything to incentivize consumers to leave a review. Providing a five dollar gift card to consumers who leave a review is an example of this. With that being said, it’s still encouraged to increase awareness for reviews. 5. What are your recommendations on making multiple GMBs for the same location? With proximity limitations and a service area business, do you create multiple pages for multiple towns? It is not recommended to make multiple GMB accounts for the same location. Google actually advises against this. One of the biggest reasons GMB accounts are shut down is because the addresses for the locations are not correct. Unless you have different business locations that serve different areas, you should stick to one GMB profile. The best thing to do is to create one GMB account and optimize that page. Your multi-location business can then aggregate more reviews on that page as well. Breaking up your business with different GMB accounts could be confusing to consumers. In addition, with multiple GMB accounts, you are diluting other ranking factors, like ratings and reviews. 6. When you talk about responding to reviews on GMB and FB, are you also saying it’s imperative to respond to positive reviews? If so, is it important to respond with more than a simple “Thank you!”? When speaking about responding to reviews on Google My Business and Facebook, it is important to respond to as many reviews as possible. The percentage of reviews a multi-location business responds to has become a ranking factor on Google. We understand that it can be difficult to find time to respond to all reviews, so if that isn’t realistic, make sure to focus on critical reviews first. After critical reviews are answered, replies to positive reviews can come next. It’s always good to respond to positive reviews if possible. While “thank you” is an okay response, adding in personalization goes a long way. Even if you just use the person’s name, that can add value without being too time-consuming. In a perfect world, responding to all reviews, both negative and positive, would be a priority. 7. How do you deal with managing Google Posts at scale for a multi-location brand? Although Google has a great dashboard for single location businesses, it can be more difficult for multi-location businesses. There are other technologies out there that can help manage Google Posts across 100s or 1,000s of locations. SOCi (my employer) is one of them. There is an exception, though – Google does not allow this feature for chain businesses. If your multi-location business is indicated as a chain, you will likely not be able to use posting technologies for mass posting within Google. The reason for this is Google wants posts to be localized. In the past, Google found that it lost authenticity when it allowed mass-posting for chains. This again emphasizes the importance of localization when creating content. More about SMXThe post SMX Overtime: Here’s how multi-location brands can manage their local listings appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2RMbmdd Microsoft reported revenues of $36.9 billion for the second quarter of the 2020 fiscal year, which ended December 31, an increase of 14% over the prior year. Revenue from search advertising ticked up just 6% year-over-year in the quarter that encompassed the holiday shopping season. Search advertising growth was lower than the company had expected, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said on the earnings call Wednesday. The company had expected search advertising growth would be in line with the 11% seen in the previous quarter. LinkedIn revenue growth has been decelerating. Revenue increased by 24% year-over-year last quarter, down from the 25% growth of the previous two quarters. The LinkedIn audience does continue to grow and the company touted another quarter of growing engagement. Sessions increased by 25% year over year. “We saw record levels of member engagement again this quarter,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Marketing Solutions remains our fastest growing business as marketers leverage enhanced tools and LinkedIn Pages to connect with our nearly 675 million members.” That’s up from the 660 million the company announced last quarter. Why we care. Search volume has long been a challenge for the search engine that sits squarely in Google’s shadow. Hood said the lower than expected search ad growth was “primarily driven by lower Bing volume.” The company expects to see similar growth next quarter. Performance agency Merkle reported (registration required) client spend on Microsoft search ads grew 17% year over year last quarter, but that click volume fell 10%. Microsoft Advertising launched several new updates last quarter to help advertisers run campaigns more easily. Microsoft Advertising showed off an updated web interface and rolled out a redesigned desktop Editor. Shopify users can run search campaigns through Microsoft Advertising directly from the Shopify Marketing platform thanks to an integration announced in October. The post Microsoft: Search advertising revenue grew slower than expected last quarter appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/36MzosP Leadership in network marketingIf you missed the last 3 categories for becoming a network marketing pro:
This final category for you to become an expert in network marketing should come as no surprise. No truer statement could ever be said with, “Everything rises and falls based on leadership.” Government organizations, military units, sports teams, corporations, and yes, YOUR downline rise to success or plummet to failure based on leadership. There are so many aspects of leadership as it relates to network marketing I could write an entire book about it. (In fact, later this year I will.) One of the biggest reasons I struggled for 5 years was because I refused to step up as a powerful leader. When I did, it changed the game for me. In a future blog post, I’ll tell you a story about when I finally decided to man up. My top book recommendations for cultivating leadership in network marketing#1.) Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward This is not a network marketing leadership book specifically but the authors, Chris and Orrin, were diamonds in Amway and have built huge organizations. The principles outlined here are perfect for network marketing. I have to say this is my favorite leadership book for our profession. #2.) 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell My mentor recommended this book when I first started working with him. Because I was coachable, I devoured it along with every other recommendation he had. (There’s a big lesson there) The laws outlined in this book are solid gold. I took pages and pages of notes and have been able to use them as a teaching reference for many many years. #3.) Developing the Leader Within You by John Maxwell As you can tell, John Maxwell is one of my favorite authors. His background is in building churches which is all about leading your members to refer to other members so it’s a very similar type of leadership to network marketing. #4.) Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman One of the most effective traits of powerful leaders is emotional intelligence and the ability to transfer emotion and energy to others. Goleman is the premiere author for emotional intelligence and this book is the best I’ve seen relating it to leadership. I have to admit, after the first 1/3 of the book, it gets pretty analytical and is a tough read. If you have a super analytical personality, you will LOVE it… …and if you just can’t get through the last half of the book, the first half itself is worth the read! I have to admit, it was REALLY hard to choose just 4… If you’d like some additional recommendations, hop over to https://www.mattmorris.com/top-10-leadership-books-time/ and you’ll see some of the best selling leadership books of all time. Mastering these 4 areas has been one of the biggest keys to my success and those I’ve been blessed to lead. If you want to discover the 7 specific strategies I’ve used to go from being a broke swimming pool salesman to creating 7-figure results in my network marketing organization…Head over to 7strategiesbook.com. I just released my new book that acts as the starting ground… The FOUNDATION necessary for achieving a high level of success. If you want some advanced training on leadershipFeel free to hop over to LeadwithMatt.com. I’ve got some strategies there on becoming a powerful leader and recruiting powerful leaders. I’d love to hear what your biggest takeaway was out of this in the comments below. If you feel like this can add some value to some others, feel free to share it. Take care. If you’d like to learn how to impact others, check out this blog post. Go Make Life An AdventureBe sure to check out my Facebook and Instagram accounts for daily motivational and inspirational content. Matt Morris The post Cultivating Leadership in Network marketing appeared first on Matt Morris. via Matt Morris https://ift.tt/38VjDB5 The post SEL 20200131 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2OfgFzM There’s an old advertising slogan that goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” The same might be said of Apple Maps, which had a botched launch in 2012 and has spent “billions” trying to play catch up with Google Maps, which celebrates its 15 year anniversary next week. Feature and usability improvements. Earlier today, Apple announced that its rebuilt Maps application is now in general availability across the U.S. and will be coming soon to Europe. The newish Apple Maps has a range of improved features and content:
Apple Maps: before and after refresh Google Maps the undisputed market leader. Make no mistake, all this is the result of a massive, global effort by Apple — again worth “billions,” according to the company’s 2019 Congressional testimony. Not even Microsoft has maintained the same commitment to its mapping product. And the Apple Maps user experience is in fact much improved. However, all of the above improvements are likely to be perceived as “me-too” features compared with Google Maps. In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Maps were being used 3.5x more than “the next leading mapping app” (read: Google Maps) on the iPhone. Yet later consumer survey data (Fluent, Brandify) appear to contradict that claim — or perhaps it was once true but no longer is. Is privacy a breakout feature? In order to truly differentiate from Google Maps, Apple Maps needs a “breakout feature” that offers either great convenience and utility or surprises and delights. (Apple should also build a version of Maps for Android.) In the absence of that, privacy could be a winning argument for a subset of users — notwithstanding Google’s recent introduction of Incognito Mode for Google Maps. Apple said in its press release that it “has built privacy into the core of Maps. With Maps, no sign-in is required and it is not connected to an Apple ID in any way. . . Any data collected by Maps while using the app, like search terms, navigation routing and traffic information, is associated with random identifiers that continually reset to ensure the best possible experience and to improve Maps.” Why we care. Regardless of who’s number one or number two, Apple Maps is a critical local search platform that sees more than five billion searches or lookups each week according to the company. Brands, local SEOs and retailers cannot afford to neglect or discount Apple Maps. People should also remember that Yelp is a key local content provider to Apple Maps, which makes claiming and optimizing Yelp profiles critical as well. The post Apple’s big maps makeover now available across U.S., Europe coming soon appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/31dlXAP In digital marketing, 2019 was the year that the big players evolved from their core branding identities, showing advertisers that they could reach customers in more ways than ever before. Google and Amazon in particular were on a mission to capture more advertising dollars and greater customer engagement, implementing various changes. What is driving these changes, and how should retailers approach the two platforms in 2020? Google’s role is not limited to the middle of shopping journeys; they can be at the beginning and end, too. Google’s been working on shedding its image as “just a search engine” for a few years now, but in 2019 it took its greatest strides yet with advertising options that span the entire shopping journey. At its Google Marketing Live event in May, Gallery Ads and Discovery Ads were two major areas of focus, both of which sit on the upper end of the purchasing funnel. These highly visual ad formats go a step further than earlier upper-funnel tactics like Showcase, enabling brands to serve lifestyle, brand, or product images to customers that aren’t necessarily showing direct purchase intent via search. That’s not to discount Showcase; it’s still playing a significant role in advertising too. Originally touted as a solution for generic shopping queries (think “furniture” or “running shoes”), Showcase has expanded to make up as much as 30 percent of retailers’ shopping programs, with no signs of slowing down. At the bottom of the funnel, Google continued to iterate on its marketplace offering. Shopping Actions placements now show across more Google surfaces, including Google Search, Google Shopping, Google Assistant, Google Images, and YouTube. There are still large strides to make before shoppers think about Google as a purchasing destination, but Google has made its intentions clear that it will continue to pursue growth at this end of the funnel. Amazon continued to shed its reputation as a strictly-transactional shopping platform, where retailers sell items but don’t build loyal customers. Amazon’s bread and butter for the past five years has been building a massive following of shoppers who are loyal to Amazon, but not to any particular seller. Advertisers viewed it as a means to generate direct revenue and not much more. However, this mindset is changing. Amazon focused on several areas in 2019 to continue helping advertisers build their brand stories. One area of focus was Sponsored Brands. While this format was not new in 2019, Amazon enhanced the product in a few ways over the past 18 months. They started by renaming the product from Headline Search to Sponsored Brands in the second half of 2018 and opening up more inventory for the format. Sponsored Brand ads are significant from a branding perspective for two reasons. First, they showcase the advertiser’s logo, chosen tagline, and multiple products, so they’re more brand-centric than other ad formats like Sponsored Products. Second, some of the ad elements drive to the advertiser’s Amazon Store page, which is one of the key ways that advertisers can tell their brand story on Amazon. Additionally, in mid-January 2019, Amazon released new-to-brand metrics for Sponsored Brands, allowing advertisers to understand which ads are most effective at capturing customers that haven’t purchased from them on Amazon in the past 12 months. While there are limitations, this was significant as the first option Amazon search advertisers ever had for understanding new vs. existing customer purchase behavior. Amazon also released a beta called Posts, a shoppable visual format that blends e-commerce with branding. Posts show up on participating brands’ detail pages, detail pages for related brands, feeds for related posts, and category-based feeds. Between this beta, Amazon Stores, and Enhanced Brand Content, advertisers now have more options than ever before to build a loyal base of customers on Amazon. What’s causing these identity shifts? Google’s evolution is likely in response to Amazon’s continued ascension on both its own platform and on Google. Amazon’s infiltration of Google’s Product Listing Ads reached new heights in 2019. By the end of the third quarter, Amazon’s Google Shopping impression share skyrocketed up to 70 percent for home goods retailers and 52 percent on apparel searches. Google is still significantly ahead of Amazon in terms of search ad revenue share, owning 73 percent compared to Amazon’s 13 percent in the US in 2019, but a slow, continuous decline is expected over the coming years. Additionally, data from Episerver shows that online shoppers are about as likely to start their purchasing journey on Amazon and Google when they have a specific product in mind for purchase, but are much more likely to visit Google versus Amazon when they’re looking for inspiration. Google has just about exhausted its opportunities for growing Product Listing Ads, so the top-of-funnel investments Google is making to capitalize on customers seeking inspiration was a natural next step for expansion. Amazon, as mentioned, is still far behind Google in ad revenue and has more room for upside to continue growing that portion of its business. There are still many established retailers holding out from selling on Amazon, though. In order to reach those retailers, especially those that see their brand story and identity as part of their value proposition, Amazon needed to offer an elevated brand and shopping experience, and these changes are doing just that. How should advertisers treat these platforms in 2020? In 2020 advertisers should take a cue from Google and Amazon, ditching old notions about what each platform is and expanding beyond their comfort zones. As with any new advertising program, concrete testing parameters, including separate budgets and potentially different performance goals, are an important foundation for gauging success. For some of Google’s upper-funnel formats, advertisers should consider shifting away from return-focused goals typical of Google search programs to instead look at customer engagement. Amazon holdouts should dive deeply into Stores, Enhanced Brand Content, and Posts to fully understand what level of brand-building is possible before continuing to rule Amazon out. Those already on Amazon should take a fresh look at their advertising campaigns to see if there’s opportunity with new-to-brand metrics to invest more heavily in areas that may be less efficient but capture a high percentage of new customers. It’s 2020, and, while we can’t all agree whether it’s a new decade, there’s one thing we can all get behind: As advertisers, it’s worth the time investment to consider how we can continue to evolve our digital programs along with our biggest platforms. The post The digital marketing transformation led by Google and Amazon appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3b5Qjdg There’s a lot of changes happening to featured snippets. Google still plans to remove them from the right side and into the main listings. But there have been some additional questions raised about how we look at ranking in the SERPs. Rank Ranger’s Mordy Oberstein explains what’s been happening since Jan. 22 and how things stand in the SERPs as of today. Below is a transcript of the video. Hi. My name is Mordy Oberstein and I’m the CMO of Rank Ranger. I want to talk to you today about featured snippet de-duplication. What has happened? What has not happened? What’s been a bit problematic along the way. So let’s start with Jan. 22. Google says – hey, we’re de-duplicating the organic URL that represents the featured snippet. In other words, featured snippets have a URL within the box itself and that same URL was showing up among the top-ranking results on Page One of the SERPs. So two URLs on the same page. What a win! Google said – hey, that’s not gonna be the case anymore. We’re de-duplicating that organic URL, which means the only time the URL is going to show up is in the featured snippet itself. Now, what was happening when Google started doing this was the URL that was ranking on Page One of the organic results were showing up on Page Two of the SERPs. It was showing up is as a very first result on Page Two of the SERP, and we looked at a deep data set on this and found that every single instance of featured snippets with the URL ranking on Page One, the URL now moved to the top of Page Two of the SERP. And of course, that looks sort of like, well, Google, are you manually placing that URL there? Which, of course, brings up questions manual manipulation. Oh, the horror. Which, of course, was not the case. Google said no, no, no, that’s not the case. There’s no guarantee where you’re going to rank with that URL now. It could be a Page Two, Page Three, Page Four, Page Five. I could keep counting or it may not rank it all. And lo and behold, a few days later, I was looking at some featured snippets and wonder what happened with that URL. Well, that was now ranking at the top of Page Two. And, it was gone. We ran a deep data set again and we found that it was totally gone. Google has completely de-duplicated the URL. The only instance at all of the URL ranking is in the featured snippet itself. Now, this brings up the question of the right-hand side showing featured snippets. So Google has this thing that looks sort of like a knowledge panel and featured snippet got married had a baby. It appears to the right of the organic results. It’s this big, old, you know a gozinta box, as my grandmother would say, and it has a URL in there. Now, with the de-duplication, the only time that URL was showing up was at the right side of the page, which meant that the only time the user would see is if they scan over the right side of the page, and CTR was becoming a factor and becoming an issue for some people. People start to complain, and Google said – hey, we hear you, which is really great. And Google said we’re going to move that right size showing featured snippet to the main column to address your CTR concerns. So moral of the story: If life hands you something that you don’t like, you should keep complaining and complaining and complaining until something happens. But really good job by Google’s saying we’re going to move that and so forth. So now fast forward. A few days after Google said that and people were noticing that the right-hand side featured snippet did not move over. But what was happening was that Google re-duplicated the URL. The URL represented by that right-hand side featured snippet was again showing in the organic results. So your CTR concerns had been addressed. Let me show you what this looks like. Pardon me a second while I switch my screen here. Okay, this is an explorer panel we call an explore panel because that’s what Google calls it in the HTML. It basically looks like a knowledge calendar featured snippets. But like I said and you see a URL here and Google has placed the URL for the BBC right here. So the URL is back in the main calm of the organic results. Really cool point, by the way, when I was running this last night to prepare for this video, I noticed that The New York Times was a URL in the explore panel in this right-hand side featured snippet. It had the organic result, of course, and it was also ranking in the top stories box. So three top showing URLs and that’s pretty cool. Now, since we’re talking about hybrid SERP features here is a combination of a direct answer and a featured snippet. You can see it’s all direct answer up top and all featured snippet on the bottom. It’s like the mullet of featured snippets. The URL here has always been showing on the SERP. It was never de-duplicated. I’ve been tracking us the whole way through. It has not been duplicated. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be or if Google hasn’t gotten to it yet. But for any of these queries that bring up the direct answer featured snippet it like BB King guitar famously named Lucille. You get the Wikipedia URL and you get the Wikipedia URL again in the organic results again. Not sure if that’s an aberration or not, But that’s the case so far. I’m out. I meant to add, by the way, with the explore panel of the right-hand side featured snippet. We ran 5,000 queries, keywords that bring up this right-hand side featured snippet and in every single case, the URL was back within the organic results. So no need to fret what Google will do here. But that’s a good question – will it amend its original announcement and say – hey, we’re going to keep the status quo URL in the organic results, URL in the right-hand side featured snippet or is more changing coming eventually? Like I said, it would originally move that featured snippet on the right-hand side to the main column. Now, this brings up another problem, and that’s what you consider the featured snippet. You can’t call the zero position box anymore because it’s organic one. Google’s pretty much said that Google has said rather than the featured snippet is now the top-ranking organic result. Now, this makes rank tracking a little bit complicated. So word to the wise, when you see you rank number one, you have to be able to understand what that means, because ranking number one as your typical organic results. You know, title description, URL and ranking number one as a featured snippet are not the same thing, right? Big old box. Lots of words, very trying a picture in there. Perhaps it’s far more clickable than your typical standard organic results. So when you now show up number one, what does that mean? Are you number one as the featured snippet or are you number one as your typical standard traditional organic results? Make sure you know which type of number one ranking you have. So again will be interesting to see what happens with that right side showing organic, that right side showing featured snippet. Will it be placed into the main column, or will Google revert back and say – hey, we’re taking that back. We’re going to keep it on the side with this duplicate URL still in there. So fascinating. Very interesting. Perhaps a little bit stressful with what’s going on right now. But that’s what it is and we’ll see what happens because a lot of change going on. Anyway, thank you very much for listening. I hope this is really helpful. Hope this was enjoyable. And I hope to see you at SMX West coming up soon. I’ll be there. I hope you’ll be there and have a chat with you. Would be really great to meet with you at SMX West, which coming up really soon. All right, Take care. The post What’s happening with featured snippets? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/36HCTRh Did you and your team have a stellar year collaborating on win after win for your clients? Did you find ways to streamline processes, gain efficiencies with automation or get more creative than ever to drive your clients’ strategies forward? If so, we want to know about it, and we want to honor you with a 2020 Search Engine Land Award for Agency of the Year. First, however, check out the interview below I did with 5x Search Engine Land Awards Judge, SMX conference moderator and President of paid search agency FindMeFaster, the ultra-knowledgable and downright funny Matt VanWagner. Thank you for taking the time to do this interview, Matt! Let’s just start out with a quick question: What is your background in the search industry and how long have you judged the Search Engine Land awards? MVW: I’ve been in digital marketing for about 20 years now. As far as the Awards go, I was one of the first judges back when it started. The Agency of the Year is one of the only categories we have that’s judged by the entire judging team; both the SEOs and the paid search folks. In order to win, you have to impress quite a lot of people. For you personally though, what has impressed you the most in the past? Which aspects do you personally rank the highest? MVW: Well, we look for excellence. Overall excellence for paid search, for servicing clients, we look at everything that someone does. We’re not looking for an agency that did one interesting thing and had one good success. We’re looking for someone who showed a really exacting performance, in all the low-level detail work — and there are so many low-level details — as well as some really creative solutions to the strategic level of things. So we’re looking for people that can express great creativity, energy and really good execution in the campaign at the deepest level. Three trends to watch for 2020To build on that point just a little bit, is there anything you’re kind of hoping to see somebody talk about specifically that they did with their team when you go over the entries in 2020? MVW: Every year it’s a blank slate, because every year there’s sort of a big challenge of the year. I think some of the big challenges this year have been some of the tectonic changes to the way Google and Microsoft are doing targeting at the keyword level in particular; that’s required a lot of real manipulation inside campaigns. Those tectonic changes will be a big thing. The successful integration or just successful experimentation of automation is going to be huge. I think we’re going to see a lot of people showing where the automation really moved the needle for them. So that’d be a second big trend. And the third thing is, as we start to have problems with real attribution as cookie policies change and, as you know, the ability to actually measure specific things online gets more and more challenging, is how are agencies dealing with this, both from a measuring performance, overall performance and as well as communicating that to their clients. I think those might be three big issues this year. And well, that might be 100% wrong. The fascinating part about judging is that we’ll find out that the leaders in this industry may have been killing with some other types of really fascinating issues that will blow us away too. So, not to be a Debbie Downer here, but I have to assume you’ve seen a couple of rough submissions along the way. What makes Matt Van Wagner cringe when reading an entry for Agency of the Year? MVW: Oh, I see rainbows and lollipops and everything is great! But you know, when there’s nothing but sort of PR-type writing, that annoys me. We also like to see that — even though a lot of our entrants can’t give us the actual data — we want to have enough detail as to the nature of the change so that someone doesn’t take some low data point and say they increased it by 200%, which may be true — but the change went from, say, 10 to 20. We don’t want anyone that sort of cherry-picks the most spectacular data and shows it to us. What we want to see is people that are really showing authenticity in their data, so what really annoys us is when we see nothing but “50,000 percent increase in ROI!” Yeah, sure. Okay. Whatever that means. Marks of a winning entrySo nothing wrong with admitting challenges and struggles and how they overcame them? MVW: No, no sir. In fact, overcoming a preconceived idea or finding out that you were completely going the wrong way on something is a fascinating thing for an award. Because that’s typical for agencies to do that, to number one say “We thought we had this right.” An example of that is, we’ve been reading a lot about this in the news where some of our major brands are finding that they over-focused on the lowest cost stuff. They weren’t building their brand recognition, they weren’t really expanding their brand. They were just basically getting the cheapest orders they could for the lowest price. Their brand identity and their brand strength actually suffered in that. That’s a great point. Speaking of the creativity and the honesty in an entry, can you tell me about one that you’ve seen that really just knocked your socks off? MVW: I think some of the most impressive submissions we’ve seen have gone the extra yard to do incredibly detailed work. Stuff in your campaign that says, “…If I do this, it’s going to mean a lot more work, but I think we’re going to get this done.” Those things are really amazing. Some of the best ones I’ve seen pull together display, search, and show some good experimentation. The ones that I remember that talked about the business as a whole, not just their campaigns, but they talked about the impacts of what they were doing on other parts of that business. Some of the ones that really stood out were when it was clear that the search teams were fully integrated and contributing members of the entire marketing team of a company. Everyone was sharing, and even though they were all in their own areas of expertise, they weren’t being protective of silos, what they were doing, but were being open to making the top line for the company the best, not just their particular silo. Those ones we really, really like. That’s a great example. What, what advice would you give to the smaller boutique style agencies that might feel a little intimidated about against competing against the larger, multinational agencies? MVW: There’s no doubt that the largest players have access to generally more mature IT systems and technology databases. They have so many more options available to them. I would basically say what smaller agencies should do is use their size as an advantage and tell that David versus Goliath story. Tell how even though they are only X number of people, they were able to get the types of returns that someone would expect to spend a lot more money and have a lot more people on. So I would just tell the David and Goliath story in a way that’s authentic. I wouldn’t shy away from the fact that they’re a small agency. I would say they should show the efficiencies they gained without the advantage of an ultra-large budget. Think of this like karate or wrestling or boxing. The lightweights are never going to beat the heavyweights, but they’re going to be faster, quicker on their feet, and more nimble, and pound-for-pound a very good chance they’re the better fighter. As far as the in-person experience goes when we actually do the awards, what’s your favorite part? And you can’t say the open bar! MVW: I’d have to say that it is true and enjoyable to be there with the clear leaders in this industry. So one of the things is that although we don’t talk all the business, it’s great to meet the faces behind great campaigns. Oftentimes we’ll only read about things. It’s often very surprising to me when we see a team that comes up, and they’re clearly just over the moon about winning this award, and they look like every Tom, Dick and Harry you’ve ever seen don’t look like super-geniuses, they look like regular folks that are really just proud that that number one, they’ve done something cool, and number two, they’ve been recognized by industry leaders. Watching people get the awards actually really quite fun. Any last words of wisdom? MVW: I would say that if you think you’ve done something that’s really great this year, don’t worry about whether you think that it will measure up — tell your own story. We can only have one winner, but, the fact that you take the time to review and tell a really great story has all sorts of other dividends for your team. Your team will love to review a great success, and that can be a benefit in your local community; it could be a benefit to your team building, to your recruiting. So I think if there were a tip, while I’d say the winning is great and we hope everyone wins (even though that can’t happen) what we really think is that it’s important that you take the time and actually celebrate yourself for a really good job on something you did and that you’re proud enough to put out there. The post How to win Agency of the Year: Interview with a judge appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2GEyUue |
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