Roy Amara’s oft-cited law states, “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” This appears to especially applicable to voice and voice search. While there’s been steady growth in the use of voice and virtual assistants since Siri was introduced more than a decade ago, the market hasn’t been transformed. Smart speakers are even a better case-in-point: widely adopted, they’ve failed to become the revolutionary product many had expected. Now survey data from Perficient Digital suggests voice may have hit a plateau of sorts. This is the fourth year the agency has asked over 1,000 U.S. adults about their use of voice, voice search and virtual assistants. Last year, the survey found voice was second only to the mobile browser as the “first choice” entry point for mobile search (with all answers combined, it ranked fourth). The current survey didn’t replicate this “first choice” segmentation. And overall, voice search remained in fourth position. The question was: “how are you most likely to ask questions on your smart phone?” Manually entering text into a search app, browser or search bar on the phone all captured more total votes. Usage thus appears to be flat. Beyond this, voice usage appears to be down for people at all education levels, although it’s positively correlated with education. College graduates and those with more education use voice more than those with less education. The survey also asked respondents how often they use smart speakers to search for information. The responses “never” and “less than twice per week” constituted a majority (56%); 44% used them at least twice per week, while 20% of the 44% used them six to nine (or more) times per week. This argues smart speakers are not a search substitute for other devices, although overall “search” volume may be expanding as a result. The survey goes on to explore what factors might explain the results. It asserts that user frustration with virtual assistants not understanding commands or questions (or delivering wrong answers) may partly explain this flat-to-declining usage. By the same token, improved accuracy and better comprehension would potentially generate additional usage frequency. Why we care. As with so many compelling technologies, early hype has given way to slow, incremental growth. In one sense voice is just an alternative input mechanism for text. But in another it represents a fundamentally different user experience. And voice technology behind the scenes is becoming increasingly sophisticated, almost imperceptibly to the public. As the survey discussion points out, voice is central for the majority of non-traditional connected devices: “77% of all Internet-connected devices are something other than a tablet, PC or smartphone.” Indeed voice is the UI for the next generation of devices and virtual assistants are the logical successor to “search.” It’s just going to take longer than expected. The post Usage of voice has plateaued — for now appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3dMFyN1
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When you’re making a decision about a Digital Asset Management partner, consider the following eight areas. File formats and handlingOne area of differentiation involves the varying abilities to manage a variety of file formats. Though most players say they support the most popular video, image and audio formats, if your workflow requires the use of a specialized format you will want to ensure the vendors you’re considering can fully support that format. User permissions managementThe content production supply chain can be long and complicated, involving many departments, agencies, freelancers and more. The ability to provide flexible permissions so that the right people have access to the right assets –– and only the right assets –– can be very valuable. More about Digital Asset ManagementSearch and metadataA DAM provider’s capabilities with regard to metadata and search are key to one of the most important benefits of a digital asset management system –– the ability to find assets after they’ve been created and filed away. Most providers now use artificial intelligence, either proprietary or through a partnership, for image and video recognition and tagging. Workflow managementDAM systems differ in the extent of their workflow management capabilities. Some allow collaboration through @ tagging, while others have more full-fledged project management offerings. This functionality can help marketing teams, along with outside creative resources, communicate about changes while an asset is in the development phase or being updated. Later in the process, they can allow for approvals to be obtained from brand managers, execs and the legal team, while some systems also facilitate asset distribution. These capabilities may be built into the core platform or be offered as an add-on or integration. Reports and analyticsAnalytics capabilities are what allow marketing leaders to trace the return on the investment made in the development of digital media. PlatformsMost DAMs are offered as SaaS and can be accessed from modern browsers on a variety of platforms, but some have developed native apps for mobile or other platforms. Data storage and securityThe majority of DAM providers have partnered with Amazon Web Services or Google to host their software and their clients’ assets, and so depend on their partners’ geographical distribution, regular backups and adherence to security protocols. However, some players offer clients a variety of options for data hosting, something that’s likely to be appreciated by enterprises that operate in markets with strict data governance regulations. IntegrationsSince a DAM system is meant to be the central “single source of truth” repository for all of a brand’s assets, a key factor for a successful deployment will be whether or not it integrates well with the other tools in your martech stack. Vendors differ greatly in terms of the number and types of integrations they offer. Some are also beginning to specialize in serving a specific sector with unique integration needs, such as online retailers. Learn more about Digital Asset Management platforms and get guidance on how to make a decision. Download our Martech Intelligence Report now! The post What to look at when considering a Digital Asset Management platform appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/38cpfbc In November, Google quietly changed the way it labels Shopping ads across mobile search results. Now it’s bringing that change to desktop. You can see in the mobile screenshots above, Google displays a black “Ads” label in the upper left corner above Shopping ads on the main search results page as well as the Shopping and Images tabs. That matches the black “Ad” label on that displays on text ads. What’s changing. Soon, the “Sponsored” label that still appears in the upper right above Shopping ads on desktop will be replaced with the black “Ad” label as well. This “Ad” label also appears above Hotel ads on travel results pages. You’ll see if first on the main search results page in early July. The new labeling will then roll out on the Shopping tab and in Image Search results in the near future. Why we care. We’ve charted Google’s history of ad labeling changes, which have arguably grown more subtle over the years. However, this update will bring uniformity to Shopping, Search and Hotel ads labeling and offer a clearer treatment for users. This is particularly true for Shopping tab results which now feature free listings. The post Google is streamlining ‘Ad’ labeling for Shopping ads appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/31wgNST A new tidbit found in the updated Bing Webmaster Guidelines is that Bing now supports rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc” attributes on your links. This is in addition to Bing supporting the rel=”nofollow” link attribute, which we know it has supported since its introduction over ten years ago. New link attributes. These two new link attributes were introduced by Google last September. These are how these attributes are handled. Bing wrote in the guidelines “make a reasonable effort to ensure that any paid or advertisement links on your site use rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” or rel=”ugc” attribute to prevent the links from being followed by a crawler and from potentially impacting search rankings.”
A Bing spokesperson confirmed with Search Engine Land that these link attributes are treated as hints, not necessarily directives. So technically Bing can decide to still follow these links if it deemed necessary. The rel sponsored and rel ugc attributes are being monitored by Bing and are “not as strong of a signal for Bing,” we were told. This may change based on adoption rates over time. Why we care. This means that if you do decide to add these attributes to your site, Bing will also take these into account. Bing’s guidelines says you can use all three, the rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” or rel=”ugc” attributes, to “prevent the links from being followed by a crawler and from potentially impacting search rankings.” The post Bing supports rel=sponsored & rel=ugc appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3giS3Sh Bing has vastly updated its Bing Webmaster Guidelines. The new updated guidelines is broken down into multiple sections including:
Previous guidelines. It has been a while since Bing updated their guidelines. Bing first published its webmaster guidelines in 2012. We have those guidelines archived in this screen capture over here. Why update it. Bing updated the Bing Webmaster Guidelines to include the various updates it has made to search over the years. This includes updates to how Bing crawls, indexes, ranks web pages, in addition to how Bing handles search spam. Updated information around the URL submission API, support of rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”, how Bing indexes JavaScript, the evergreen BingBot, and much more is all discussed in this document. “It was time to modernize and refresh the global Bing Webmaster Guidelines, providing insights on how Bing discovers, crawls, indexes and ranks content.” Fabrice Canel, Principal PM Bing Webmaster Tools. “When Fabrice and I speak at industry events, we receive a lot of in-depth questions around the specifics of Bing’s Webmaster Guidelines and how elements from discovery to ranking have changed since we’ve refreshed Bing’s Webmaster Tools. We decided to refresh the entire guidelines to make them easier to understand while including the most recent updates on crawling, indexing, ranking and quality.” Christi Olson, Head of Evangelism Search at Microsoft. Why we care. Often, the search engine guidelines act as the fundamental principles behind how the search engine crawls, indexes and ranks content. You want to make sure to read those guidelines to understand how the search engine works, and ensure you do not take steps to lead your site to be penalized by the search engine. You can check out the new Bing Webmaster Guidelines over here. The post Bing updates its Webmaster Guidelines appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2NK5VZe Bing’s newly updated Webmaster Guidelines documents how the search engines generally decides how to rank web pages in its search results. Bing breaks down how it ranks web pages based on relevance, quality & credibility, user engagement, freshness, location and page load time. The guidelines explains that the search results are algorithmic and not done by hand. “Bing search results are generated by using an algorithm to match the search query a user enters into the search engine with content in our index,” Bing wrote. Bing is continually improving its algorithms, Bing wrote it “designs – and continually improves – its algorithms to provide the most comprehensive, relevant and useful collection of search results available.” Caveat on these ranking factors. Before Bing lists out its ranking factors, Bing explained that ranking is complex and it uses many criteria to deliver search results. Bing wrote “please note that Bing’s complex ranking systems use many criteria to deliver search results, and the relative importance of each of the parameters described below may vary from search to search and may evolve over time.” Bing did however say that the ranking factors listed below “are listed in general order of importance.” Relevance. Bing wrote “relevance refers to how closely the content on the landing page matches the intent behind the search query. This includes matching terms directly on the page as well as terms used in links referring to the page. Bing also considers semantic equivalents, including synonyms or abbreviations, which may not be exact matches of the query terms but are understood to have the same meaning.” This paragraph does not reveal too much but it is good for them to state, for obvious reasons. Quality & Credibility. Bing says in this section that Bing can use the author’s credibility or a site’s reputation. Bing specifically says it can determine “the quality and credibility of a website includes an evaluation of the page itself.” This includes “such factors as the author’s or site’s reputation.” The example given “an article with citations and references to data sources is considered higher quality than one that does not explain cite data sources.” In addition, this may have the opposite impact where “Bing may demote content that includes name-calling, offensive statements, or uses derogatory language to make a point), the completeness of the content, and transparency of authorship.” Here Bing is saying that it can demote sites that do name-calling, write offensive statements or use derogatory language. It also looks to see if the content is complete and the authorship is transparent. User engagement. While for years, Google says it does not look at user engagement factors, such as click throughs, time spent on site, and so on. Now Bing, Google’s competitor, says it does. Bing wrote “Bing also considers how users interact with search results.” How does Bing do this? Bing says “to determine user engagement, Bing asks questions like: Did users click through to search results for a given query, and if so, which results? Did users spend time on these search results they clicked through to or did they quickly return to Bing? Did the user adjust or reformulate their query?” In fact, Bing Webmaster tools provides these analytics and insights into how users interact with your webpages. Bing can use those insights for ranking purposes. Freshness. Bing says it “prefers” content that is more fresh and has up-to-date information. But it depends on the content and the category. Bing wrote “Generally Bing prefers content that is more “fresh” – meaning that the page consistently provides up-to-date information. In many cases, content produced today will still be relevant years from now. In some cases, however, content produced today will go out of date quickly.” Location. A searchers location can influence what content is ranked. Bing wrote “ranking results Bing considers where the user is located (country and city), where the page is hosted, the language of the document, or the location of other visitors to the page.” Page load time. Finally, Bing also said that “slow page load times can lead a visitor to leave your website, potentially before the content has even loaded, to seek information elsewhere.” It is because of this that “Bing may view this as a poor user experience and an unsatisfactory search result.” Bing, like Google, prefers “paster page loads”, but Bing added “webmasters should balance absolute page load speed with a positive, useful user experience.” Why we care. It goes without saying that every SEO and marketers cares about how they can improve their site’s rankings in Bing and Google. Here are some details on how Bing ranks web pages. The post Bing’s search ranking factors; relevance, quality & credibility, user engagement, freshness, location and page load time appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3dIHI0d The lack of diversity in the advertising and marketing industry is not a new issue. Despite loads of research on the business benefits of diverse teams, there’s been talk but little action for years to increase Black and minority representation in the industry. During this session of Live with Search Engine Land, which took place during SMX Next last week, I discussed how to accomplish change in your organization with:
We discussed why diversity is good business, what intentional commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives looks like, recruiting, hiring and retainment practices to achieve diversity goals and how employees can initiate change in their organizations. Watch the full session above. For more on this topic, see the accompanying article: Actionable ways to drive diversity, equity and inclusion in your marketing organizations. Live with Search Engine Land’s weekly meetups are about giving great marketers a platform to inform, support and convene our global community. If you have an idea for a session or would like to join a panel, email [email protected]. More from SMX NextThe post Replay: Addressing diversity recruitment and retainment in agencies and marketing teams appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3eN77al The post SEL 20200630 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2Vy0scr Website and page authority, as defined by the number and quality of backlinks, is one of the most important search ranking factors. It is also one of the search engine optimization areas where you can gain the most advantage over your competitors. Sure, there are also technical and on-page SEO, keyword research, and content optimization, but there is only so much you can improve in these areas. With link building — the sky’s the limit. This is why it is crucial that you are equipped with the best backlink tools. The best backlink checker will enable you to spot new link-building opportunities, discover the strategies of your competitors, and monitor the health of your backlink profile. In this post, we will focus on some of the best backlink checkers on the market, with one added condition — they have to be available for free, either completely or at least partially. 1. SEO SpyGlassOne of those backlink analysis tools that can truly do it all. SEO SpyGlass provides you with a fully specced-out dashboard for backlink analysis and management. Unlike other free checkers, SpyGlass allows you to sort and filter the discovered backlink data using any of the several dozen backlink parameters:
The number of backlinks you can view for free is limited to 1,100 per domain, but the number of domains you can check is unlimited, so you can research your own websites as well as your competitor websites. And if you want some additional data, there is an option to connect SEO SpyGlass to Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Once connected, you will be able to pull your backlink information from Google tools, pour it into SEO SpyGlass, and process the data using the SEO SpyGlass dashboard — free of charge. And when it comes to discovering new backlink opportunities, SEO SpyGlass is equipped with a feature called Domain Comparison. Add a few of your competitors and find the websites where their backlinks intersect. These websites are your immediate leads. Since these websites are linking to two or more of your competitors, it means that they do not have a particularly exclusive partnership and will probably agree to link to you website as well. Best for: with advanced analytics and the largest data allowance on this list, SEO SpyGlass is best used as your home base for backlink research and management. Free data allowance: up to 1,100 backlinks per domain, unlimited domain checks, unlimited backlink analytics. 2. Google Search ConsoleA completely free backlink tool with a large data allowance, but limited opportunities for backlink analysis. Search Console is a Google tool meant to help webmasters improve their websites. It is completely free, but can only be used to analyze the websites that you own. Once you get your ownership verified, you will be granted access to a variety of site quality dashboards, one of which is the list of backlinks drawn directly from Google’s index. However long the list, you can only view the top 1,000 results. No additional metrics and no analytics features are provided on-site, but you are free to export the data and analyze it using other tools. A peculiar thing about Search Console is that its backlink lists are usually much shorter than the ones from other backlink checkers. It’s because Search Console removes low-quality backlinks from the list and only counts the ones that matter. This type of vetting means you can’t use the tool to catch spammy backlinks and remove them from your profile. But, on the bright side, it also means you receive a set of backlinks very different from other tools. Best for: Google Search Console is best used as a source of raw backlink data, which can then be exported to SEO SpyGlass for analysis and additional insights. Free data allowance: up to 1,000 backlinks, but you can only check the sites that you own. 3. SeobilityA perfect tool for a quick review of your or your competitors’ backlink profiles. Seobility allows up to three backlink checks per day and limits the number of backlinks you can view to 400 per check. The list of backlinks is sorted from the highest link rating to the lowest, so, even though the number of links you can view is limited, you do get to see the best ones. The links are accompanied by a few additional parameters, like anchor texts, dofollow/nofollow attributes, link types, and linked pages. At the top of the page, you also get a quick summary of the overall backlink profile: total backlink count, domain rating, and the number of referring domains. Best for: Seobility can be used in two ways. One is to check your own website and perhaps find some of the links missed by Search Console and SEO SpyGlass. Two is to run a quick check of your competitor’s backlinks and gain an insight into their strategy. Free data allowance: 400 backlinks per check, three checks per day. 4. AhrefsA popular link checker tool that draws data from one of the largest backlink indexes. Ahrefs backlink checker allows an unlimited number of checks per day, but the number of backlinks you can view is limited to the top 100. Backlinks come with some additional metrics, like domain and page authority, traffic, and anchor text and type. There is also a quick review of the overall backlink profile: domain rating, the total number of backlinks, and the total number of referring domains. Best for: use this checker interchangeably with Seobility for a quick exploration of your own or your competitor’s websites. Use Ahrefs first because it doesn’t have a daily limit. If it looks like there might be something interesting beyond the first 100 backlinks, switch over to Seobility to retrieve another couple hundred backlinks available over there. Free data allowance: 100 backlinks per check, unlimited checks per day. 5. SEMrushThe best tool for generating high-level backlink reports and domain summaries. Most of the tools on this list try to attract users by allowing them to see partial backlink tables and then asking for a payment to check out the rest. SEMrush has gone in a completely different direction. It shares a ton of backlink analytics, but no backlink lists. So you are free to explore the high-level stuff, but, if you want to drill down, you’d have to buy a subscription. This is perfectly fine because high-level analytics is about the only thing missing from most of the other free backlink checkers. And SEMrush has got plenty to go around. They offer over a dozen of tables and graphs summarizing your backlink profile: backlinks by industry, by country, by top-level domain, attribute, type, anchor, and authority score, as well as backlink history going back over five years. Best for: SEMrush is a great tool for generating quick, attractive-looking reports and taking the bird’s-eye view of your or your competitors’ link-building effort. Free data allowance: unlimited reports, but only 5-10 actual backlinks per domain. Final thoughtsOne of the trade-offs of using free SEO tools is that you might have to sacrifice some of the convenience. In the case of backlink checkers, it could mean using a combination of different tools in order to satisfy all of your backlink research needs. Of the link checker tools discussed in this article, the majority of your needs will be satisfied with a combination of SEO SpyGlass and Google Search Console. The analytics in SEO SpyGlass can be used to compensate for the lack of metrics in Search Console, while Search Console data can be used to combat the backlink limit in SEO SpyGlass. Together, these two make a solid home base for monitoring and managing your own backlink profile and some spying on your competitors. Other than that, the free versions of Seobility and Ahrefs can be used for quick but limited backlink extraction, while the free version of SEMrush can supply much-needed analytics and reporting. Together, these three make a perfect combo for spying on your competitors and uncovering their backlink strategies. The post Top 5 free backlink checkers you should be using appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2CLWwhB SEO teams are often tasked with improving the organic visibility of an entire organization, yet any given member of that organization can make changes to the site that undo the work of their SEO colleagues. Conversely, when silos are broken down and SEO data and education are provided to every team, businesses stand to increase efficiency across the board. Stephan Bajaio, chief evangelist and co-founder of enterprise SEO platform Conductor, discussed ways to tear down organizational silos and integrate SEO into a company’s culture in a talk during SMX Next last week. “SEO done alone gets lonely results”“You need to actually be engaging other stakeholders within the company who don’t necessarily always have the same KPIs as you,” Bajaio said, explaining that the most common reason organizations don’t succeed with SEO is because of these siloed systems in which each team is focused only on their own performance metrics. Bajaio said there are benefits to having SEO managed in-house. “The value of having an in-house SEO team is that they can react faster and [take] action much quicker because they know who to go to very quickly,” he said, adding that, while third-parties can still be useful partners, they can slow down the process in this regard. Members of other teams may make changes that inadvertently affect your site’s visibility. In-house SEO teams are positioned to prevent this by educating their colleagues on how a little awareness and effort may substantially improve your organization’s overall optimization, says SMX speaker and in-house SEO advisor for Search Engine Land Jessica Bowman. “SEO done alone gets lonely results,” Bajaio said. Brands should approach SEO with a collaborative mindset that bridges all their teams. Doing so will not only increase the efficiency of your SEO efforts, but also provide other teams with more insights that can help them reach their own KPIs. Build a culture of SEO by contextualizing it for other teamsAttempts to teach other team members about SEO don’t always stick because they may come off as a one-sided proposition. “If it looks like it’s self-serving . . . [then] you might be wasting time,” Bajaio said, adding, “What you really need to be doing is showing them, in their own context, how the things you’re providing the content team [for example] are going to make their content show up more, which is a KPI for them.” This approach, which Bajaio referred to as “the internal marketing of SEO,” is more likely to resonate with other colleagues because it empowers them with data and appeals to their respective priorities. Teaching the product team, for example, to use naming conventions based on keyword data can increase the number of units sold. Similarly, sharing the search terms that lead customers to your site can enable customer service teams to work with you on adding FAQ schema, which may decrease the number of calls they’re fielding. Evangelizing what SEO can do for other teams, using language and outcomes that they can understand, is how organizations can move towards internalizing SEO as part of their company’s culture rather than a tactic employed by a single team. “When we only contextualize it by SEO and SEO alone, we make it about us and not about them,” Bajaio said. Use a platform that benefits all your teamsWhile an SEO-specific tool may aid an individual team’s work, an enterprise platform that can connect the dots between technology, data and teams can increase your organization’s efficiency across the board, Bajaio said. Giving all your teams access to the insights SEO can yield enables them to incorporate that data into their own projects and may help foster understanding between teams. “Great SEO technology should be able to break down those silos for you and be a common place by which you can have a discussion using data and actually come together as opposed to siloing information,” he said. Additionally, an efficient enterprise platform can help merge data sets, reducing time spent cobbling together point solutions so that team members can accomplish more of the real work. To increase adoption, Bajaio also recommends that your enterprise platform integrate with the project management tools that your teams are already using; this will bring more of your staff into the fold by supporting their existing workflow instead of introducing a new one. Register for SMX Next for free to watch Bajaio’s full session on-demand. Here are some additional resources that can help you break down silos and make SEO a cornerstone of your company’s culture:
More from SMX NextThe post How in-house SEO teams and enterprise tech can boost organizational efficiency appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2NIr1HK |
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