Google has postponed the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome this year due to multiple challenges and increased scrutiny from the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Why we care. Brands now have extra time to prepare and explore alternatives to third-party cookies. However, this is just another delay. Third-party cookies will eventually go away – just not this year. What Google is saying: Google acknowledged concerns about the feedback and requests they have received from the industry, regulators, developers, and the CMA in a statement they released via Privacy Sandbox News:
New deadline: Despite the delay, Google did not provide a specific timetable. Google expressed hope for completion by 2025. As a reminder, Google first announced plans to phase out cookies in January 2020. Hurdles: Since the first announcement of the shift to eliminate cookies by the end of 2024, there have been three main hurdles that have made this deadline unlikely:
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Looking to improve your PPC lead generation efforts? Consider laser-focusing on the customers ready to buy from you right now – your competitor’s unhappiest clients. This article reveals actionable strategies to identify and target three key groups through search campaigns:
By understanding these prospects’ search intent signals, you can precisely reach the hottest leads primed to convert to your product or service at key “action” moments. PPC audience targeting for lead generationImproving lead generation involves targeting specific groups:
To reach these profiles, you can employ a search strategy focusing on transactional keywords relevant to your products or services. However, this method can be competitive and require long-term effort. Alternatively, you can target your competitors’ audience. Most marketers are familiar with brand bidding, which can be a great tool for gaining visibility but also comes with many caveats. Dig deeper: How to benchmark PPC competitors: The definitive guide What is brand bidding (and why I don’t recommend it)Brand bidding in PPC is like putting up a sign right next to your competitor’s store, hoping to attract their customers. You bid on the names of your competitors so that when someone searches for them online, your ad shows up, too. It’s a way to grab attention from people already interested in your competitors and possibly win them over to your brand instead. A simple campaign could look like this: You have your competitor campaign. The competitors are separated into different ad groups and each ad group holds a specific competitor with different keyword options. With this setup, you can target people now looking for your competitor or, depending on the keyword option, your competitor, along with a service or product. It’s an easy way to gain impressions and visibility, but there is no performance guarantee. Additionally, it’s crucial to consider legal obligations. Laws vary by country and advertising jurisdiction, especially concerning the use of competitor names or bidding on their keywords. Avoiding a competitor’s brand in ads is advisable to prevent potential confusion. Consulting a specialized lawyer is wise for clarity on legal matters. Beyond legal considerations, your brand image is another important factor to take into account. Bidding on a competitor’s terms may attract clicks to your ad, leading users to land on your site. While some may genuinely be interested in your company, others may feel misled. This could harm your brand reputation, especially if users become frustrated or annoyed by the perceived deception. Brand bidding can be useful, but its drawbacks should not be underestimated. In most industries, brand bidding can be ineffective. Dig deeper: When to use branded and competitor keywords in PPC Action-based approach to targeting your competitors’ audienceSo, how do you target your competition’s audience without blatant brand bidding? The solution is action-based competitor targeting. Instead of simply going after a brand, you must couple your competitor’s brand with an action. When you target an action or idea, you’re reaching people ready to make a decision. They’re not just browsing; they’re actively seeking something and are more likely to be open to your offer. Having used this strategy successfully for several years, I can distinguish between three categories.
Good SEOs are often familiar with this approach. The SaaS industry has used the comparison path with competitor comparison landing pages for a while. The idea is pretty much the same and synchronizes perfectly between SEO and PPC. Let’s look deeper into the three categories and visualize them with examples. Let’s imagine you are in a contract-based industry, such as phone, cable or insurance. These types of lead gen businesses are a good example because there is always a movement in the market. Consumers are pretty much always in need of those services, but due to a lot of competition, they are also often open to comparing offers. 1. Targeting people looking for competitor alternatives and comparisonYou can target people searching for competitor alternatives or comparing your brand with various competitors. A possible campaign structure could look like this: An easy structure allows us to target people looking for an alternative to Competitors 1 and 2. Those people have probably searched through the market. They are actively looking for different services or providers or currently in a contract with a competitor and are looking to prepare their exit and switch contracts. Those campaigns can work well if you can supply a competitive offer and your products are similar to compare. Suppose your product is not a substitution for a competitor’s product but rather a similar product. In that case, it might be a little more tricky since those people usually need to be convinced of the changed features or details your service or product offers. To keep it simple: It should work out if your product is close to a 1:1 replacement. Let’s look at a second example. Imagine the streaming industry. Let’s say someone is currently with Netflix and they want to switch because of pricing, or they are not satisfied with the series collection anymore. If they are looking for a competitor, other streaming services like Disney+, Amazon Prime or maybe Apple TV+ could have a decent chance of winning that customer. If that customer were looking specifically for an exclusive series, that wouldn’t work since the customer wouldn’t be searching for an alternative. The comparison approach is quite similar to the “alternative” approach. Usually, consumers compare when they are close to signing up for a service and are highly advanced in the conversion funnel. They are most likely trying to determine major differences and get pricing information. Those consumers can easily be targeted with a comparison approach or by “why” searches. For a direct “competitor 1 vs. your brand” or “competitor 1 vs. competitor 2” setup, the landing page should offer comparison tables and explain why your offer is better. To stick with the streaming example, you could highlight the number of movies and series you offer by showing that you bring in the highest streaming quality for an amazing price, so consumers understand that you are the best provider on the market. The second approach for using “why” questions is also interesting, but it only works when dealing with more well-known brands since the search volume might be too low for newer companies. 2. Targeting people looking to churn from your competitorTargeting consumers ready to churn is my favorite group. They’ve made up their minds to switch. Some already have a new provider in mind, and others don’t. Often, they’re frustrated with their current service, so if you prioritize customer care, it’s easier to win them over. Your campaign structure could be built like this: Again, it really comes down to the specific industry or service, but you can experiment with different approaches. You can use straightforward keywords such as “cancel,” “termination,” and “cancellation,” or you can go more longtail with “how” and “why” questions. Service-based businesses, particularly online ones, often make canceling a hassle. Some even create obstacles, burying support and cancellation options. While it’s seen as churn prevention, it’s usually just frustrating for customers. Legal requirements vary by country, but potential customers can generally grant you power of attorney to handle cancellation and transition to your service. This shows a high level of trust and is often automatable, reducing manual work for you. Taking care of everything from the start leads to happy customers, positive reviews and increased patience in case issues arise early in the contract. 3. Targeting people looking for help or to contact your competitor supportThe last group I’d like to include is the support intent group. Now, I have to say, this is kind of a gamble because it can go in two directions. People are searching for your competitor using keywords like “support,” “hotline,” “service,” “contact” and similar. They might:
The second group is valuable because they’re open to switching providers, even if not right away. You can position your brand to them, letting them know you have an offer if they’re thinking of switching. This is kind of an upper funnel search approach on this competitor topic, but it can lead to much more volume. If you show this group that customer support is your top priority and that you care and are available, you can leave a positive impression on them, potentially gaining new customers. Many other factors also need to be checked like pricing and offer competitiveness, but support is often underestimated. Customer support is often viewed as a cost, but it can actually bring in profit indirectly. Happy clients tend to stay longer, are less likely to leave, and are more likely to refer others to you. It might be hard to measure it directly and short term, but mid- to long-term, customer satisfaction plays a huge role. A possible campaign structure is shown below: Attracting your PPC competition’s customersTargeting competitor audiences based on search intent and action outperforms traditional brand bidding tactics that are too broad and generic. Extending this approach to upper funnel formats enhances its effectiveness. The immediacy of search ads is particularly potent for addressing urgent needs like churn or customer support. Make sure to tailor your strategy to industry-specific behaviors. Embracing action-based targeting opens up possibilities for engaging with audiences at the right moment and driving meaningful outcomes. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/6EVoGtd Google search advertising spend in the U.S. rose by 17% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024. Click growth continued to slow, hitting 4% YoY (compared to 8% in Q4 2023). Cost-per-click continues to increase – up 13% YoY (compared to a 9% year-on-year increase in Q4 2023). CPC increase. This was most affected overall by an increase in Shopping ads CPC (both standard and PMax).
Google Search. CPCs are up 40-50% for retailers in the past five years.
PMax. Performance Max campaigns improve from quarter to quarter.
PMax continues to play a prominent role in advertising on Google:
Why we care: CPCs are increasing while clicks are decreasing. This is bad news all around for advertisers. Especially since Google reportedly had been increasing ad prices to meet targets. Report methodology. The Tinuiti Digital Ads Benchmark Report utilizes anonymized performance data from advertising programs managed by Tinuiti. The data is based on active programs with consistent strategies. All figures represent same-client growth and are not meant to officially reflect any specific advertising platform’s performance or the experiences of every advertiser. About Tinuiti. Tinuiti is a large independent performance marketing firm with over 1,000 employees that manages $4 billion in digital media. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/iW7094r Best of the SearchBot showcases Search Engine Land’s SearchBot’s responses to prompts submitted by readers. The language model is based on content from Search Engine Land layered on top of ChatGPT. The editors of Search Engine Land selected this response for its usefulness and have supplemented it with additional relevant content. I am the first generative AI chatbot for search marketers. I am trained with Search Engine Land content. Here’s something somebody asked me! After that, how you can improve prompts to get even better answers from me. Prompt:What suggestion do you give me if my website has been removed from google search after core update 2024 (March)? Answer:If your website has been removed from Google search after a core update, there are several steps you can take to improve your site’s visibility: 1. Assess the impact: Determine the extent of the decline in your website’s visibility and rankings. Identify the specific keywords and pages that have been affected. 2. Review Google’s guidelines: Familiarize yourself with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to ensure your website meets their quality standards. Pay particular attention to the sections on content quality, user experience, and technical aspects. 3. Evaluate your content: Review your website’s content to ensure it provides original, valuable, and comprehensive information. Make sure it is well-written, free from factual errors, and offers insights beyond what is readily available elsewhere. Consider updating and enhancing your content to make it more valuable to users. 4. Improve user experience: Enhance the overall user experience of your website. Ensure it is mobile-friendly, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate. Optimize your website’s design, layout, and functionality to provide a seamless and engaging user experience. 5. Build high-quality backlinks: Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites. Implement a strategic link-building campaign that emphasizes quality over quantity. Seek opportunities for guest posting, influencer collaborations, and partnerships with reputable websites in your industry. 6. Monitor and analyze: Continuously monitor your website’s performance using analytics tools. Track changes in rankings, organic traffic, and user engagement metrics. Analyze the data to identify patterns and make data-driven optimizations to your SEO strategy. 7. Be patient and persistent: Recovering from a decline in rankings may take time. Stay committed to improving your website’s quality, relevance, and user experience. Continue to create valuable content, build high-quality backlinks, and adhere to best SEO practices. Remember, core updates can impact websites differently, and there is no guaranteed fix. However, by following these suggestions and maintaining a strong focus on providing value to users, you can increase your chances of recovering and improving your website’s visibility in Google search. How this prompt could be improved:You are an experienced SEO consultant with a proven history of creating successful SEO strategies. You have helped many businesses boost their rankings within Google SERPs by following best practice guidelines and staying on top of the latest developments in Search. Following Google’s March 2024 core update, one of the websites you oversee the SEO for has disappeared from Google SERPs. The client who owns the website has no understanding of what has happened. They want you to investigate why Google has penalized their website, what rules have changed, whether their website recover, and if so, how. Create a plan to help your client’s website recover from the Google March 2024 core update. Explain what tools and resources you would use to investigate what has happened and what impact it has had on your client’s website performance. Explain to your client how much this could cost them in monetary value. After you identify the cause of the problem, put together a strategy to help your client’s website start to recover from this update, stating how soon you should start work on the recovery and prioritize each task in a list. Detail what resources you will need, what tools may help, how much budget is necessary and what access to staff will be required. Set expectations by explaining how long it could take to recover from this core update. Detail how you will monitor the website’s recovery progress, what metrics you will measure and what tools you will use to do this. Mention how many Google core updates are rolled out every year, when the next one is likely to happen and how you can avoid being penalized in the future. Your client does not have a strong understanding of SEO, so explain the plan in an easy-to-follow format using headers and bullet points where necessary. Explain any terms they may not be familiar with. Provide recommendations to links and additional resources that may help them better understand why their site was affected so significantly by the core update. (Context) You are an experienced SEO consultant with a proven history of creating successful SEO strategies. You have helped many businesses boost their rankings within Google SERPs by following best practice guidelines and staying on top of the latest developments in Search. Following Google’s March 2024 core update, one of the websites you oversee the SEO for has disappeared from Google SERPs. The client who owns the website has no understanding of what has happened. They want you to investigate why Google has penalized their website, what rules have changed, whether their website recover, and if so, how. (Task) Create a plan to help your client’s website recover from the Google March 2024 core update. Explain what tools and resources you would use to investigate what has happened and what impact it has had on your client’s website performance. Explain to your client how much this could cost them in monetary value. After you identify the cause of the problem, put together a strategy to help your client’s website start to recover from this update, stating how soon you should start work on the recovery and prioritize each task in a list. Detail what resources you will need, what tools may help, how much budget is necessary and what access to staff will be required. Set expectations by explaining how long it could take to recover from this core update. Detail how you will monitor the website’s recovery progress, what metrics you will measure and what tools you will use to do this. Mention how many Google core updates are rolled out every year, when the next one is likely to happen and how you can avoid being penalized in the future. (Format) Your client does not have a strong understanding of SEO, so explain the plan in an easy-to-follow format using headers and bullet points where necessary. (Tone) Explain any terms they may not be familiar with. Provide recommendations to links and additional resources that may help them better understand why their site was affected so significantly by the core update. Answer:Recovering from the Google March 2024 Core Update: 1. Investigating the Issue:
2. Identify the cause:
3. Developing a Recovery Strategy:
4. Timeline and Resource Allocation:
5. Recovery Timeframe:
6. Monitoring Progress:
7. Future Prevention:
8. Additional Resources:
via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/4KRY8FV Google allegedly prevented Yahoo Japan from accessing crucial technology required to generate targeted ad revenue from mobile searches from 2015 to 2022, according to Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC). Google only changed its behavior after the FTC flagged the issues. Google then committed to giving Yahoo Japan access to keyword-tied targeted advertising technology, Bloomberg reported. Why we care. Any practices that would impact an advertiser’s choice or limit access to targeting technologies can lead to increased advertising costs. Precedent. This is the FTC’s first-ever administrative action against Alphabet, albeit without imposing any penalty. What next? The Japanese watchdog will closely monitor the situation and retains the right to reopen its investigation into Google. They are also investigating Alphabet’s potential influence on local smartphone makers to prioritize its search services on their devices, further intensifying scrutiny of the tech behemoth’s practices. Similar accusations. Meanwhile, in the U.S., we’re still waiting to hear the verdict of the U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial. Part of the trial focused on whether Google used its search ad tools to put its competitors at an unfair advantage. Dig deeper in U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial: Everything you need to know. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/YqXliF9 TikTok is no longer just an entertainment platform – it has rapidly evolved into a powerful search engine, particularly for the younger generation. With a staggering 74% of Gen Z using TikTok as their go-to search platform in 2024, brands can no longer afford to ignore it. This comprehensive guide delves into the intricacies of optimizing for TikTok, exploring strategies, tools and best practices to help you enhance your visibility, engage your target audience and ultimately drive success on this rapidly growing platform. Why TikTok is threatening Google’s supremacyTikTok is changing the buyer journey. Instead of a linear consumer path, TikTok has created a loop of videos where consumers watch and purchase. And because it’s rooted in entertainment, brand discovery is easier and more fun. Users are looking for the things they’d search for on Google, but staying in the app much longer than they’d stay on Google because of that entertainment factor. On TikTok, brands fit seamlessly into the fun videos people watch, making it easier for them to discover. As SEO professionals, figuring out how to help brands stand out in this new landscape is key to effectively targeting the younger generation. Dig deeper: Is TikTok a search engine? Why meeting searchers’ needs matters more than semantics The anatomy of the TikTok ‘For You’ pageAlmost all video views come from the “For You” page (FYP) on TikTok. Understanding its functionality is vital to social SEO success. The search bar at the top lets users type in any query they’re looking for. Once you click into a profile or search for a video in the “For You” page search bar, it will display recommended searches based on what videos a user may be interested in. How to optimize for TikTok searchSEO strategies for Google and TikTok share some similarities but also have notable differences. Both emphasize the importance of creating informative and helpful content tailored to the target audience’s search intent, weaving relevant keywords into the content and consistently producing quality content following platform best practices. However, one significant difference is that previous brand success doesn’t heavily influence rankings on social platforms like Instagram and TikTok, unlike Google, where brand authority plays a significant role. The low barrier to entry in social media algorithms may lead to quicker success for brands in social SEO than traditional Google Search. While social algorithms vary and don’t adhere to a one-size-fits-all rule, there are still factors that marketers can control to optimize their content. These include: HashtagsHashtag optimization plays a crucial role, particularly for D2C brands seeking to enhance their online presence, as it provides an avenue to incorporate essential keywords indicative of purchase intent. Experimenting with different hashtag types and lengths is an effective strategy to discern which hashtags resonate best with each unique brand. Here are some examples of hashtags that signify purchase intent:
KeywordsSimilar to hashtags, keyword incorporation plays a crucial role in conveying the purpose of your content to the TikTok algorithm. You can incorporate keywords into your content, including video descriptions, verbal mentions, captions and voiceovers. Since video descriptions are much shorter than blog posts, keeping them clear and concise is important. Make sure to avoid keyword stuffing and instead keep the description succinct and to the point. The combination of keywords in the text overlay and description in the screenshots of the video below are great examples of strategically placing keywords: Talking about a keyword in a TikTok video is important because mentioning it verbally reinforces your video’s relevance, making it more likely to be shown to users interested in that topic. The same goes for adding keywords to video captions and voiceovers. ContentUsing popular sounds, filters and ideas can help your TikTok videos get on the For You page faster. TikTok shows you what’s trending so you can join in and boost your chances of getting noticed. But remember, TikTok videos can stay relevant for a long time and can rank for years, so it’s smart to balance trends out with plenty of evergreen content that will still be relevant when the trend is long gone. EngagementThe way a video is shot and edited plays a significant role in influencing engagement on TikTok. Additionally, incorporating effective calls to action, such as encouraging viewers to leave comments or share the video, can heavily impact engagement levels. However, it’s essential to balance fostering genuine engagement and solely aiming to accumulate comments since TikTok favors comments that add value to videos. Authentic interactions and creating opportunities for meaningful conversations are paramount for maximizing engagement success. Optimizing video length is another crucial factor for enhancing engagement on TikTok since the platform’s users have short attention spans. As a general guideline, users’ attention spans on TikTok tend to mirror their age. For instance, a 30-year-old user typically has a 30-second attention span, while an 18-year-old user may only engage for about 18 seconds. Therefore, creators should tailor their content to align with these attention spans to maintain viewer interest and maximize engagement. ThumbnailsThumbnail optimization on TikTok is vital because the thumbnail is the first thing users see when scrolling through search results. A compelling thumbnail can capture attention and attract clicks, increasing visibility and engagement. So, creating a thumbnail that effectively draws in a consumer is key. Andrew Halfman, the Director of Social Media at Stella Rising, also recommends “[bulking up the] thumbnail section is to ensure the thumbnail has strong text overlay on it – indicating a preview of what the video is about.” Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare’s TikTok account does a great job of optimizing thumbnails and effectively communicating the topics covered in each video to users. How to measure SEO performance on TikTokMeasuring SEO performance on TikTok involves tracking key metrics like personalized KPIs, keyword ranking, audience demographics and engagement rates. Monitoring these metrics helps assess visibility, audience interaction and content effectiveness, allowing for optimization and goal achievement. Defining your KPIsKPIs are individual to each brand, so pick which ones are most relevant to yours and begin tracking them. Some great KPIs to start with include conversion rates, engagement rates, website traffic and revenue growth. It’s important to note that the brand KPIs will vary based on business objectives, so this performance measure isn’t a one-size-fits-all. Use the TikTok search bar to determine keyword rankingUsing the TikTok search bar allows businesses to measure keyword ranking by observing where their content appears in search results relative to specific keywords or search terms. In the screenshot below, you can see a video about Merit Beauty ranking second for the search query “bronzer stick.” Analyze your audience to ensure you’re reaching your target consumersAccess the Viewers tab by clicking More insights at the bottom of your video and then clicking Viewers at the top right side of the screen. This tab provides information about your audience, such as whether they’re following you or are discovering your account for the first time. You can also see audience demographic information like gender, age range and location. By noting how this information matches up with information about your target audience, you can determine whether your strategy is reaching the right consumers. Analyze engagement rate with the ‘Performance’ tabAccess the Performance tab by clicking More insights at the bottom of your video and then clicking Performance at the top left side of the screen. This tab provides data on user interaction with a video, including metrics such as new followers, average watch time, likes, shares and retention rate. This tab is also very useful for helping you figure out what kinds of videos keep your audience’s attention. Metrics for average watch time and the percentage of viewers who made it through the full video are available. SEO tools for TikTokAlthough SEO for TikTok is a relatively new concept, there are tools available to simplify optimizations. Keyword researchMany tools, such as the predictive search feature and the Keyword Insights Tool, assist with keyword research on TikTok. The Predictive Search feature allows users to see which long-tail phrases containing their target phrase are most popular. Accessing this feature is simple: you only have to type in a few words and wait for the predictive search to generate. TikTok’s Keyword Insights tool, located in the TikTok Creative Center, also provides data on keyword popularity, trends and performance. By entering a keyword, you can access insights about engagement metrics, video content on the platform about a given topic, associated hashtags, trending related topics and demographic insights, which can help inform content strategy and audience targeting. Using the TikTok Creative Center to optimizeThe best optimization tool for TikTok is TikTok itself. The TikTok Creative Center is the number one place to go to find trends, conduct keyword research and learn about the most up-to-date creative best practices. The trends dropdown in the top navigation bar shows users what hashtags, songs, creators and videos are most popular at a given time. Once you’re in the trends section of the Creative Center, you can choose to browse by hashtags, songs, creators or videos. You can also filter by industry and time period. This tool is extremely useful for trend and hashtag optimization since it provides insight into the popularity of these video aspects. When you click on the See analytics tab in the Creative Center, you’ll be taken to a page that provides information similar to Google Trends. The TikTok Creative Center shows how many posts are being created for each hashtag, how many views the hashtag is getting and interest in the hashtag over time. The TikTok Creative Center also shows related videos, which can be extremely helpful for content ideation on the platform. In addition to trend popularity insights and related videos, the tool provides information about audience demographics and their related interests. TikTok doesn’t have as many optimization tools as traditional search engines. However, the Creative Center does a good job of providing information that can be critical to improving organic visibility on the platform. Measurement and reporting toolsAlthough TikTok doesn’t have nearly as many measurement and tracking tools as Google, creators and businesses can use TikTok Analytics through Business Suite to see how their content is performing and who’s watching it. Within the Business Suite dashboard, you can seamlessly navigate to the Analytics section, where a wealth of performance metrics awaits. From video views and likes to shares, comments and follower growth, every facet of account engagement is meticulously tracked and presented for analysis. The platform also provides in-depth demographic data, furnishing crucial insights into your audience’s age, gender, location and interests. Armed with these analytics, you can embark on a journalistic journey of understanding their TikTok audience dynamics, enabling them to fine-tune content strategies and foster heightened engagement on the platform. Gain an edge with TikTok SEOAs SEO for TikTok becomes more prominent, more information on how to optimize will become available. Even though limited resources are available at the moment, it’s important to optimize where everyone is searching – and that’s no longer just Google. You are left with a choice: adapt or get left behind. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/cL1ztBd More keyword data isn’t your problem. No, what’s holding you back has nothing to do with your advanced ability to slice and dice keyword data dumps. Data dumps on their own won’t help you; they’ll probably only hurt you. Here’s why, how this mindset routinely sabotages keyword research and how to fix it. Why keyword research is hard (and misunderstood)Anyone anywhere can fire up a keyword research tool and export a giant list of “relevant” keywords. That’s not the problem. The problem is that this haphazard, spray-and-pray approach doesn’t work. Not when your competitors (both direct but more importantly the indirect ones) actually know what they’re doing in competitive spaces. In other words, your problem isn’t sifting through a ton of random keyword ideas, using arbitrary (and misleading) filters like keyword difficulty (KD) to sort which ones are a “good” target vs. a “bad” one. My friend Ben Goodey helped illustrate the problem with keyword research in a recent LinkedIn post:
See, SEO is part art, part science. Yes, it can be technically complex at times. But for the most part, it’s more similar to weight loss: What’s hard is the consistent execution, and not the actual theory or strategy (eat less; workout more). So yes, pivot tables can be helpful, especially when you’re working with tons of data points. But they’re only helpful to a point. Because the best keyword research strategies actually blend multiple different types of subjective analysis at the same time, including:
In a world of sophisticated SEO, over-engineered pivot tables, fancy formulas and similar basically become more fake busy work. Let’s step through these six views or “lenses” so you can properly analyze keywords from different angles that are a better predictor for success. 1. The likelihood of actually rankingThis first one sounds trite but often isn’t in practice. Yes, you should be targeting the biggest and best commercial terms in your space. But that brings us back to the age-old SEO Catch-22:
If you’re ready and willing and able to stomach years of no results, then go for it! Otherwise, if bosses or peers or clients are going to be breathing down your neck six months from now (read: most, if not all, of them), you’re gonna need to re-adjust your sights. For instance, feast your eyes on this awesome “live streaming platform” keyword: Yikes. “Super hard” keyword difficulty (KD) isn’t great. (It’s not all bad per se; keep reading below to see why KD often lies). However, unless your domain rating already reads ~80-90+, you’re looking at 12+ months at the earliest for any top page (let alone top five) rankings. So. You adjust your sights – out and down! What’s a similarly relevant keyword that you can rank for in under 12 months to help “balance the books” while you’re waiting to rank for this more competitive target? You look for similar underlying intent and relevance but one that’s much more of a short-to-medium-term goal than a long-term one. Like this: No, you probably still won’t rank in the top 5 for this out of the gate. But the related long-tail variations are even more promising. So, with the right approach, you’re able to:
In other words, your keyword research + topic selection + content strategy should be more holistic. One cluster sets up another, which sets up another, which sets up another. No pivot tables required – only long-term thinking and strategizing. Dig deeper: The trifecta of keyword research strategy: Volume, difficulty, intent 2. Business-generating topicsRanking for all the top-of-the-funnel keywords in your space is a great start. It might be enough for B2C companies, depending on the rest of their customer acquisition channels and options. But, those terms alone often don’t move the needle for long, drawn-out, complex sales cycles. Translation: Using AI to pump out all the crappy content in the world isn’t actually going to drive you new business. If anything, the substandard quality will likely erode the trust and credibility you’ll need to drive five-plus-figure ARPUs. That’s why B2B brands especially need to balance both ends of the buyer’s journey:
You should also realize that sophisticated buyers are already comparing you to alternatives before ever reaching out in the first place. So piggybacking on competitors and alternatives of your product – even if they’re not direct competitors but simply better known (or funded) – can help you thread the needle. This way, you can double down on expanding the “vs” or “alternatives”-queries you’re targeting and actually pushing into the top five. Like so: If you’re just doing keyword research with a giant data dump, chances are you’re missing these critical “bridge”-type keywords to help transform searchers into leads. ‘Cause you’re setting artificial minimums around things like “volume,” even though “volume” across most keyword research tools are:
So keep in mind that keyword research data is all relative. Not absolute. You don’t need to care about “how much volume” there is for a “vs” or “alternative” keyword. ‘Cause in real life, you already know you’re being compared against alternatives. Learn to trust your gut, intuition and customer feedback more than any other artificial number in a spreadsheet. Dig deeper: B2B keyword research: A comprehensive guide 3. Ranking in a realistic time frame (given your goals and objectives)Here’s the thing: Everyone wants to rank for the “best” keywords, except not everyone deserves to rank for the best keywords. Check out this example below and look at the brand names dominating the top 10 for “what is CRM”: Now, ask yourself: If you’re not already a household name in the CRM space, what is the likelihood of you unseating one of these competitors? Seriously, what’s the likelihood that you’ll rank in the top 10 for this keyword in one year? And then, more importantly, what is it actually gonna take you – today – to get there tomorrow? No. You probably don’t deserve to rank in the top 10 for this query. Not today, and probably not over the next 12 months. But two or three or five years from now? Sure! Why not?! The Beachhead Principle can help, but only if you put in the hard work over the next few years to achieve it. 4. The competitive landscape’s relative strengthKeyword difficulty lies. Not some of the time, but all of the time, across pretty much every single keyword research tool. This means simply adding a filter for KD when doing keyword research isn’t good enough. At best, it sets you up for bad expectations. At worst, it manifests in “pretty good” future rankings that never will actually break the bank (in a good way). See, “keyword difficulty” usually relates specifically to the number (not even quality!) of backlinks to each individual piece of content currently ranking in the top ten or so. However, it does not only ignore the quality of said backlinks but also the overall domain strength of the site. Check out this “localization issues” example below to see what I mean: Nice! We SEOs like “Easy,” right? Except, this: Sure, the two green boxes (page-level strength) are kinda/sorta easy. However, the red box? Domain strength overall? With one exception, the rest are sitting at 70+ domain ratings. So no. This keyword isn’t “easy.” This is why filtering a spreadsheet for “low KD” is misleading and inaccurate. 5. Your site’s current strengthsTopical authority can work practically in two ways:
The simplest way to assess topical authority (or lack thereof) is to see if you have good rankings (top five or 10, at least) for lots of related content around these same queries. Wanna see what that looks like? Kinda like this: Tons of top five rankings for related keywords around “live streaming.” Great! But the inverse is true, too. No strong rankings for other related topics or concepts? This means you have a lot more work to do! Take a look at this pillar page below and specifically the sub-sections being called out: Now, let’s assess each area to see if this site already has good rankings for those sections. Example 1: A single 12th position, so not really. Example 2: Two 60+ positions – not at all! Example 3: Lots of 40-80+ positions. So clearly, no. The point? That first pillar page will always struggle to rank until you can also get these other supporting pages to help, you know, actually support it! In other words, there is no existing topical authority in this space. Creating and reinforcing this should be priority number one. And yet? No Excel sheet or formula is going to tell you this. At least, not without analyzing the problem of not ranking from different perspectives or angles like this. 6. Resources you’re able to allocate in a specific time frameLet’s recap and combine the first five ideas. Then, add a sixth consideration: how many resources (i.e., people, time, money) you can realistically allocate to each keyword you might want to target over the next year. Once again, back to “live streaming platform.” Take a peek at both the domain and page-level strengths below: Now, an important caveat:
Confused yet? Yes, this keyword is still pretty difficult. Don’t get it twisted. But it’s not nearly as difficult or unattainable as that KD would have originally alluded to. Once again, no Excel formulas would have helped you uncover this issue. Only your eyes, ears and experience can. This is one of the many reasons why brands routinely fail at link building. When you see “1,000+” backlinks needed, you build tons and tons of cheap, low-quality links. Yet, you’d probably be better off with better content, topical authority and fewer (dozens to hundreds) of really high-quality, editorial-based links instead. Yes, you still need relevance and scale either way. The type of campaigns and, therefore, the effective budget required for this one URL (compared to all the other URLs you might be juggling) should also be completely different. A smarter, more intentional keyword research approachLet’s face it: SEOs are kinda geeky. We love data and want to live in a world of logic. We believe everything we do is quantifiable and data-driven. But don’t take this way too far. You don’t need fancy formulas and pivot tables when doing keyword research. The more data sets you’re juggling often lead you astray. SEO is more art than pure science in this regard. What’s hard about SEO is reading the tea leaves and then consistently executing over the long haul (read: 24+ months, minimum). None of these can be answered by ChatGPT, Ahrefs, etc., with a simple prompt or export button. This is why people and companies fail at SEO. Not because “SEO is difficult/technical/doesn’t work in my space/enter other excuses here.” via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/ofWzXhE It’s no stretch to say the marketing data landscape has changed quite a bit over the past two years. For one, the ways companies collect user data have been under the microscope, and policies from Apple and Google are forcing marketing data analytics changes across the board. Also, customers are more thoughtful than ever about what information they’re willing to share and how it’s being used. Finally, scalability and personalization have become buzzwords, but you can’t accomplish either without strong analytics – and getting that has been an uphill climb for many businesses. How are companies succeeding in this new era of marketing? We spoke with marketers from Cox Automotive and Sobeys about charting their own paths forward and how they’re finding ways to connect with customers in this complex landscape. Here’s how those companies adapted their marketing data analytics to become more efficient and improve outcomes across the customer journey.
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Rethink your marketing data analytics strategiesThe movement toward consumer privacy protections is accelerating, and that’s a good thing. However, the downstream effects of increased data collection restrictions mean various metrics — like open rates and measurement methods used to benchmark success — are no longer reliable. Because of this, you’ll need to shift your strategies. As the previous metrics of success are deprecated and customers are increasingly experience-oriented, marketers are realizing how important it is to gain a more complete view of how campaigns are performing. Instead of evaluating marketing channels individually or in silos, they are assessing performance across all investments together as part of a unified strategy. Last year, 83% of marketers described their cross-channel coordination as dynamic as opposed to siloed or duplicated – up from just 68% in 2021. Marketers are also more focused on first-party data — information gained directly from the customer. Instead of relying on old systems like open-data exchanges to buy audience data, they are modernizing the way they build first-party data assets through the lens of user consent. Cox Automotive has spent the past two years building a more complete picture of prospects and clients, including combining role, engagement and product purchase data from across its brands into a centralized location. Now, their teams can target specific audiences with custom product or service messages. By unifying their data, Cox Automotive can better segment its audience and deliver more personalized messaging to its customers. It has defined value by segment and role so they have a clear idea of the problems they are solving and the messages they need to convey for each product.
Use automation to free up time for smarter insightsHaving a clear vision for your marketing data analytics is critical for a successful marketing strategy. And building a trusted data foundation is the first step in executing on that vision. Automation can handle menial tasks like gathering and segmenting data, giving you a clear view of the information you need to make decisions. Marketers are using a growing number of different platforms in their tech stack to advertise, engage customers, deliver better experiences and ultimately get people to convert. This complexity often leads to teams spending too much time on connecting and harmonizing data to create reliable insights instead of optimizing their efforts. Instead of relying on a jumble of platforms, you can invest in automated data governance to relieve your teams of manual data aggregation. This includes managing campaign naming and taxonomy, tracking requirements, data delivery, and quality assurance. A proper marketing intelligence platform facilitates data connections, with all clicks and no coding. With a platform that uses technology like automation and AI, you’ll spend less time on data prep and more time on connecting with customers. But it’s not only about connecting the data. Marketing intelligence helps harmonize it to create a consistent framework that enriches raw data: helping you find actionable insights, rather than get lost in a sea of data points. You can take this even further with automated taxonomy management, flexible harmonization logic, and holistic data governance tools. With an accurate data foundation that evolves with the changing data ecosystem, you’ll move more efficiently and gain time back to do more testing and learning. The end result? Less wasted time trying to decipher inaccurate marketing data analytics, a better return on your investment, and happier customers. Turn insights into outcomes with marketing data analyticsWith access to cross-channel and first-party data, you can measure customer-based outcomes across an entire marketing journey. Then, you can use those insights to achieve your marketing initiatives. For example, instead of focusing on upper-funnel metrics like clicks and opens, marketers can optimize for downstream outcomes such as signups and purchases. Grocery chain Sobeys is using qualitative and quantitative data to improve how it measures success across the customer lifecycle. “What gets measured, gets done,” said Erika De Haas, vice president of marketing communications at Sobeys. “As we continue to build our connected full-funnel experiences, establishing clear baseline benchmarks based on all of the first-party data we have will be critical to not only connecting our experiences but driving their impact and growing our loyal customer base.” Sobeys’ strategy is to approach the sales funnel as one connected experience, with every interaction helping build customer loyalty. “At the top of the funnel we focus on which emotional benefits drive Canadian families to choose Sobeys. We research brand preference, and what matters most is brand ownership and equity,” said De Haas. “As that same customer moves through our funnel, we develop communications and experiences that provide more functional benefits, and success is more measured on transactions.” De Haas said Sobeys’ success will always be measured by the same metric: Is it providing families with what they need so they continue choosing Sobeys as their place to shop? Now, the team has new tools to achieve that metric across the customer journey. “Knowing if our customers engage with our brand at the top of the funnel but drop off in the middle will require a different strategy than if they’re engaged at the middle but drop at the store,” she says. “Monitoring our data in a holistic way will be the difference-maker that ensures we are connecting our customers with our brand throughout the entirety of their journey with us.” Connect with customers across your channelsOnce you have your strategy, automation, and insights all in order, the next step is putting them all together to start generating engagement across all your channels. That engagement generates more high-quality first-party data, which in turn leads to more data analysis, better insights, and even better engagements on the next go round, as your data analysis operation grows into self-perpetuating and self-improving marketing powerhouse. The first step to getting there is building connected customer journeys that guide every customer through relevant interactions across their favorite channels. That will mean different things for different businesses – maybe for you it’s about increasing engagement in your customers’ inboxes, or reaching them at the right time via SMS. But no matter what the individual steps along the way might be, you can build the perfect journey from good strategy and clean data, with AI helping your customers along the way as sort of an invisible tour guide. You can find more success on that journey by being smart about automating elsewhere. Using first-party data instead of cookies gets you lower cost conversions. Automating more basic customer communications saves time and frees up your marketers to do more big-picture work. That all may sound like a lot to manage, but with the right intelligent reporting and a connected dashboard, you can easily keep track of all of it in one place. You can get the most from your marketing data analytics when you let AI and automation eliminate the guesswork, letting you focus on your customers.
Originally published on Salesforce.com on September 27, 2023. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/JMFWBpR Meta AI answers now may include Google Search results, making this the first AI assistant to include search results from both Google and Microsoft. That said, I’ve yet to find a query that triggered Google Search results. Meta AI launched with Microsoft Bing integrated in September. Why we care. Gartner predicted search traffic will fall due to the rise of AI chatbots, virtual agents and AI answer engines providing direct answers, as opposed to having to click on a website to find an answer. However, the models (like Meta’s Llama 3) don’t have access to real-time data – so it makes sense for Meta to incorporate information from search engines. How Meta AI works. You can now enter searches in the search bar in the Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger apps. When Meta AI includes search results, those will appear as a tappable link beneath the answer, as Sources. Tapping on that link will bring you to the web, but keep you within the Meta app. Meta AI will also appear in the main Facebook feed. What it looks like. Here’s an image Meta shared of the search experience: The deal. “There’s not a “ton of money” flowing either way, Zuckerberg told tech rag the Verge. He was also asked about Google outsourcing search to another AI assistant, despite having Gemini:
Meta.ai website. Meta also announced the launch of meta.ai, which makes Meta AI available on computers for the first time. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/Ljq6hWZ Google is developing atwo-hop proxy to enhance privacy for Chrome users, which has three big implications for advertisers:
Why we care. The two-hop proxy is only implemented on Chrome, meaning Google will have a monopoly on this data. No other search engines will have any data for advertisers to use for location targeting. This could effectively eliminate competition in the search ads space. What is IP-based geolocation. According to Google’s documentation:
The details. User IP addresses will be batched and masked by region, and Google will allocate an IP address to each batch. Here’s what that looks like: Any user assigned an IP address for a region will have been verified to be in that region. The Google geofeed will be plugged into the proxy and have city-level accuracy. Will consumer data be truly private? While a consumer’s data will be shielded from advertisers, it won’t be safeguarded from Google, posing a threat to data privacy. More Google privacy and self-preferencing concerns. In February, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority said:
Dig deeper. Google ‘cannot proceed with third-party cookie deprecation Meanwhile, the Information Commissioner’s Office, a UK privacy regulator, also shared significant concerns about Privacy Sandbox, ina WSJ article (subscription required), published last week. Once released, nothing will stop Google and other companies from using data to track users from different sites, the ICO said.
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