Google Ads today introduced six new AI features for Performance Max campaigns. Why we care. You’ll want to explore these new PMax features to see whether they help you uncover new insights or improve campaign performance and ROI. Customer Value mode. This new PMax feature, in beta, is meant to help PMax advertisers who use purchase conversion goals to acquire high-value customers.
Customer retention goal. This PMax feature, also in beta, is designed to help you win back lost customers.
Detailed demographics. Data on age and gender groups is rolling out now. You will be able to find it in audience insights. As Google explained it:
Budget pacing insights. You will be able to see real-time spend tracking, current and projected spend and forecast conversion performance. Google said:
Account-level IP address exclusions. PMax advertisers can now exclude specific IP addresses (e.g., your company), reducing wasted budget on unwanted ad interactions. Final URL expansion. This new PMax feature, in beta, lets you test whether “replacing your final URL with a more relevant landing page from your website drives stronger results. … Opting into the Final URL expansion experiment will split your traffic, dedicating a portion of your budget to testing this feature while tracking results alongside your original setup.”
via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/GSXKf3Y
0 Comments
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) now has 111 potential concerns over Google’s Privacy Sandbox, according to its April Q1 2024 report. That’s up from 72 in the CMA’s Q4 2023 report, released January. Why we care. The CMA’s January report made it clear that Google couldn’t proceed with third-party cookie deprecation. Sure enough, Google announced a third delay in the phase-out of cookies, with hopes to complete the process in 2025. But again, this is just a delay. Third-party cookies will go away. Why the concerns? The CMO and the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) are concerned the Privacy Sandbox could make Google even more dominant, giving them an unfair advantage that could hurt advertisers, competing ad platforms, publishers and users. Multi-touch concerns. One addition to the report is around concerns over Google’s approach to attribution:
What is Google’s Privacy Sandbox? Google is introducing the Privacy Sandbox program as an alternative to third-party cookies to enable advertisers to deliver targeted ads in Chrome while minimizing improper cross-site and cross-app tracking.
Maybe 2025. Google started phasing out third-party cookies to 1% of Chrome users in January. However, Google announced yet another delay to third-party cookie deprecation on April 24:
The report. You can read the CMA Q1 2024 report here (PDF). via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/r4WEbp3 Microsoft’s AI assistant Copilot is now available for all advertisers across the Microsoft Advertising Platform, a month after they increased the testing pool, the company announced today. Why we care: Microsoft touts CopIlot as a way for advertisers to save time on routine tasks, focus on strategic decision-making and improve overall performance. We’ll be watching closely to see whether these claims are actually true for advertisers. What’s new. Copilot offers several AI-powered capabilities within the ad platform, including:
What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like in the Microsoft platform: And what Copilot looks like answering a question about campaign performance: What’s next: An upcoming pilot will allow advertisers to use Copilot to summarize the performance of specific ad campaigns via chat automatically. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1Y26kCz B2B lead generation through paid search is constantly evolving. Today’s effective PPC strategies differ from previous years. B2B marketers must adapt and zero in on:
1. Hyper-personalization using first-party dataFocusing on hyper-personalization to engage our target audience is necessary, but it has become even more difficult as Google cracks down on personalization policies in Google Ads. This strategy involves leveraging your company’s data analytics and advanced segmentation techniques to deliver tailored content and offers to individual prospects based on your preferences, behaviors and demographics. Break out your campaigns in Google Ads by industry, job title or other ways to best segment your audiences. Analyze vast datasets to gain deeper insights into your audience’s needs and pain points. With this knowledge, you can create highly targeted campaigns that resonate with prospects personally, driving higher engagement and conversion rates. Successful B2B lead generation campaigns will prioritize hyper-personalization, delivering customized content across various channels, including email, social media and PPC. By addressing each category’s unique challenges, you can establish stronger connections and foster trust, ultimately paving the way for long-term relationships with prospects. Dig deeper: The search marketer’s new imperative: Capturing first-party data 2. Leveraging account-based marketing to target high-intent audiencesTo find these prospects, account-based marketing (ABM) continues to gain momentum as a powerful strategy for B2B lead gen, especially in complex, high-value sales environments. Unlike traditional lead gen approaches that cast a wide net, ABM targets specific accounts or companies with personalized messaging and experiences. Consider embracing ABM tools to collect audiences to target within Google and Microsoft Ads. The shift to first-party data demands better audience lists for targeting on Display, Demand Gen and Video Campaigns. These signals are also necessary for effective audience signals on Performance Max campaigns. Without strong audiences these tools can offer, you may be wasting money on campaigns that deliver to the wrong audiences. Using ABM tools is especially important, as many ads could land in front of consumers rather than businesses, wasting precious ad spend or driving low-quality leads. Tools, including 6sense, ZoomInfo and Hubspot, can create contact lists, integrate with Google and Microsoft Ads and personalize landing pages and email sequences. These advancements in marketing technology let you scale your ABM efforts effectively, leveraging automation and predictive analytics to identify and prioritize high-potential accounts. By investing resources in strategic account targeting and personalized engagement, your B2B organization can drive meaningful conversations and win new business in 2024. Dig deeper: Maximizing your B2B spend: Is account-based marketing worth it? 3. Engaging and educating prospects with interactive contentWith shorter attention spans nowadays, use interactive content to grab your audience’s attention. Instead of using static assets like whitepapers and ebooks, which have been the norm for lead generation landing pages for years, interactive content gets people actively involved, leading to better engagement and understanding. From interactive quizzes and assessments to calculators and configurators, there are myriad ways to create compelling interactive experiences that educate and entertain prospects while subtly guiding them through the buyer’s journey. Incorporating forms into interactive content keeps PPC campaigns effective for lead generation while offering value. Leverage interactive content formats to stand out and engage your audience while gaining data, finding qualified leads and boosting conversions efficiently. 4. Developing compelling video assets for Performance Max and beyondCreating effective video content is to level up your B2B lead gen efforts. Video is now a key component in Google and Microsoft Ads, incorporated into various campaign types like Demand Gen and Performance Max. If you’re not producing compelling video content, you risk lagging behind in your marketing efforts. This also includes short-form videos. Since Google now offers ads for YouTube Shorts, remember to create vertical video content that can be served on as many channels as possible. If you’re investing in expensive ABM tools to collect audience lists, put your best content forward to entice your audience to interact with your content. Video content is essential to a strong PPC B2B strategy today. Dig deeper: How advertisers can capitalize on vertical video 5. Streamlining processes and driving efficiency with AI-powered automationAmid data overload, you can rely on AI and automation to streamline lead generation and boost efficiency. AI simplifies tasks like data analysis, ad copywriting and emailing prospects, simplifying PPC processes. AI-powered automation is central to B2B lead gen campaigns, allowing you to deliver personalized experiences at scale while optimizing resource allocation and campaign performance. Google also enables AI within Google Ads through “AI Essentials,” so you can quickly launch campaigns or create deliverables to integrate into your interactive content or ebooks on landing pages. The keys to successful PPC lead gen today and beyondAs data privacy restrictions tighten and buyer expectations shift, B2B companies must adapt their paid search approaches accordingly. These strategies blend cutting-edge technologies with customer-centric experiences to capture attention and drive conversions. From personalized ads to interactive content and AI optimization, these tactics are crucial for staying ahead of the curve in 2024’s lead generation landscape. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/zF90AXx Getting international SEO right is hugely important for global brands. And one of the most fundamental optimizations is the domain and URL structure you choose to use. While Google offers guidelines for using locale-specific URLs, SEO information on the topic is limited and sometimes confusing. Many SEOs tend to advise using ccTLDs in each market if you have the resources. Others argue for subdirectories with a gTLD. Heaven help anyone who says subdomains are just as viable. Spoiler alert: our data suggests they might be. So, we recently released our study on domain structures for international SEO to add some data to this conversation. At the very least, we wanted to understand how popular different domain structures were. We also hoped our analysis might reveal some secrets about how Google’s algorithm responds to different domain structures internationally. Below are our key findings. 1. 56% of the top three positions are held by ccTLDsOur data reveals that ccTLDs are the most prevalent website structure in the top three ranking positions globally. This suggests those who favor ccTLDs are right to do so. However, ccTLDs can be expensive and inefficient to manage, so take this into consideration and choose them only if you are confident they are the right solution for you. 2. The prevalence of ccTLDs and gTLDs in SERP positions are inversely correlatedgTLDs with no market subdomains or subdirectories are inversely correlated with ccTLDs as you go from position 1 to 100. Perhaps this is just a coincidence, but it indicates that Google does not favor websites with no discernable geotargeting for that market. 3. Subdirectories are the second most prevalent website structure in the top three positionsSubdirectories appear in over 20% of Google’s top positions and account for around 20% of all SERP positions, reflecting that they are a popular choice. 4. Subdomains account for just 3% of domain structures in SERPs but are only prevalent in top positions in multilingual marketsSwitzerland represented the only multilingual market in our study, and it’s the only country where subdomains are prevalent in the top three positions. For French keywords in Swiss SERPs, subdomains outperformed subdirectories. For Italian keywords, the opposite was true. 5. Portugal is the only market where subdirectories are more common in the top three positions than ccTLDsPortugal bucked the global trend and was the only market where subdirectories more commonly ranked in the top three positions than ccTLDs. Filipa Silva, a Portuguese SEO specialist, said:
6. Czechia has the highest rate of ccTLDs in Google SERPsOf all the countries analyzed, ccTLD websites dominate Czechia’s SERPs. Almost 90% of the top three positions were taken by .cz ccTLDs. Even combining .us and .com together in the U.S. results in fewer ccTLDs (83%) than in Czechia (84%). Iryna Melnyk, a Czech SEO specialist, said:
7. In Austria, .AT ccTLDs inversely correlate with German ccTLDsGerman ccTLDs (.de) account for almost 20% of all top positions in Austria. By contrast, Austrian ccTLDs make up less than 1% of all domain structures in Germany. We only found three Austrian ccTLDs in the top three positions of German SERPs. Tatjana Batjaev, a German SEO specialist, said:
Dig deeper: International SEO: How to avoid common translation and localization pitfalls 8. The popularity of .com means the U.S. is a statistical anomaly for gTLD useThe overwhelming popularity of the .com domain in the U.S. market means it is very rare to see the official .us ccTLD in use. Melina Lyraki, an SEO specialist from the U.S., said:
What does this data mean for your international SEO strategy?This data supports those who think ccTLDs are the best for International SEO. If you choose that route, just remember that they require more resources to build, maintain and optimize than other options. Evidence from the Swiss market suggests that subdomains can be just as effective as any other domain structure. Perhaps we shouldn’t always be so quick to discount the long-maligned subdomain. That said, it’s clear that subdirectory structures are more commonly used and found in the top organic positions than subdomains. Whichever strategy you choose, remember that this is just your starting point for success. Study methodology
via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2OTPEY9 Google’s March 2024 core update is now done rolling out, it started on March 5, 2024 and completed 45 days later on April 19, 2024. This was a big core update, where Google said that this core update is more complex and involves changes to multiple core systems, while also ending the standalone helpful content update. Google did not tell us until April 26th, 52 days after the rollout began, that it finished on April 19th. A Google spokesperson told us, “As the web and spam tactics continue to evolve, we’ll continue to work to reduce low quality, unoriginal content in Search. As always, we appreciate and encourage feedback from users and site owners alike.” Google added:
45% reduction. Google originally told us there would be a 40% reduction in low quality and unhelpful content. Well, Now Google said it ended up being closer to 45%. A Google spokesperson said, “The updates led to larger quality improvements than we originally thought – you’ll now see 45% less low quality, unoriginal content in search results, versus the 40% improvement we expected across this work.” Other changes. Google also updated help center page outlining how site owners can debug drops in Google Search ranking. Feedback. Google also created a new feedback form for site ranking changes that you’d like the Google Search team to review more closely. Overlapping updates. Google also rolled out the March 2024 spam update that started on March 5 and was completed on March 20. Google also released a swarm of manual actions related to pure spam issues after these updates started rolling out. Finally, Google changed its core web vitals to use INP instead of FID during this time period. Because we had so many overlapping changes, it would be hard to pinpoint which Google change may have impacted your site’s performance in Google Search. More on the March 2024 core update. “The March 2024 core update is a more complex update than our usual core updates, involving changes to multiple core systems. It also marks an evolution in how we identify the helpfulness of content,” Google’s Chris Nelson wrote. Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product, Search at Google, told Search Engine Land that the update will help reduce unhelpful content in Google Search by 40%. But Google has updated that number to say 45%.
This update, unlike some previous core updates, includes enhancements to several components of the overall core system. This March core update will have multiple updates within it, since this update touched on several systems within the core update, Google decided to push out updates to those core systems over the past few weeks. Google said this update has refined how it understands which webpages are “unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people.” This “could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries,” Google added. With this March 2024 core update, Google will stop announcing new helpful content updates, since the helpful content system has been incorporated into the core update system. The last helpful content update, the September 2023 helpful content update was a large update that impacted several sites. Hopefully, some sites impacted will see relief from this March 2024 core update, but it is hard to say at this point. The classifier for the helpful content system was overhauled and is now baked into the March 2024 core update. Mordy Oberstein wrote about the wrath of this March core update, calling it not linear. What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. Google has not really given much new advice here.
In short, write helpful content for people and not to rank in search engines.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
Why we care. Google algorithm updates are critical for all brands, businesses, and organizations to be aware of because they can impact how your site performs in search results. Any change in rankings from a core update – positive or negative – can impact your organic traffic, conversions and revenue. Knowing when Google makes these updates enables site owners to know if traffic fluctuations resulted from a change to the site or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/0ZoXOcd Alphabet’s overall revenue increased by 15% to $80 billion, much higher than last year’s 3% year-on-year increase. By the numbers. Google Search revenue increased by 14% to $46 billion YoY in Q1 2024 compared to $40 billion in Q1 2023. This led to overall Google advertising revenue increasing by 13% to $61 billion YoY in Q1 2024 compared to $54.5 billion in Q1 2023. The highest jump in advertising revenue came from YouTube which was at $8 billion, a 20% increase in revenue from $6.6 billion in Q1 of 2023.
Google Network revenue decreased slightly by 1% to $7.4 billion holding back a higher increase in advertising revenue. More AI coming. The adoption of Google’s AI solutions has been increasing, as discussed in Tinuiti’s Digital Ads Benchmark report. Philipp Schindler, Alphabet’s senior vice president and chief business officer, highlighted some of Google’s AI innovation in Performance Max and automatically created assets during Alphabet’s Q1 2024 earnings call:
Why we care. A higher jump in revenue this year indicates a healthy adoption of Google’s automation and a better understanding of how to make the most of it. This puts advertisers in a better position to adapt to Google’s next introductions of AI functionality Earnings report. You can read Alphabet’s complete first-quarter 2024 results report. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/suO8R0K Google has served “billions of queries” with its generative AI features and plans to “expand the type of queries we can serve our users” even further. That’s according Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking during the Q1 2024 Alphabet earnings call. AI overviews, which Google introduced in the U.S. in late March and the UK earlier this month for a small slice of queries, are also increasing Search usage, according to Pichai:
Later during the Q&A portion, Pichai was asked multiple times about search behavior and user engagement within SGE. Here is what Pichai said:
Why we care. All signs continue to indicate that Google is continuing its slow evolution toward a Search Generative Experience. I’m skeptical about user satisfaction increasing, considering what an unimpressive product AI overviews and SGE continues to be. But I’m not the average Google user – and this was an earnings call, where Pichai has mastered the art of using a lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing. SGE will continue to evolve in 2024. During the Q&A portion, Pichai was asked to elaborate on what types of queries or scenarios generative AI is working best so far. Pichai kept it vague:
This was followed later by a question seeking more color around AI changing Search volume or Google use cases. Pichai answered with a non-answer about Google’s positive and profound path:
via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/VlNGLnr The March 2024 core update has been a volatile, mammoth update. It’s been a long and turbulent road for some. It can be overwhelming when you hear that an update has finished rolling out. With so many moving parts, pinpointing results and actions for your website can seem like an impossible task after a Google algorithm update finishes rolling out. Follow the following steps for a methodical and strategic way forward. 1. Assess the impact on your siteThe first step is determining how the latest update has affected your site. This isn’t always clear-cut, and it’s important to carry out in-depth analysis and review things critically. Here are some of the best places to start your investigation. Get a visibility overviewThe best starting point is to look at search visibility often using tools like Semrush, Ahrefs or Sistrix. You’ll quickly see if there has been an obvious change in visibility around the time of an algorithm update. This will give you an overview, but it’s only part of the picture. You might see a huge surge or drop, but it’s more likely that you’ll see a smaller fluctuation. While this is a good indication of how a core update has impacted your site’s visibility in the SERPs, you’ll need to dig deeper to really understand the update’s effects. Your site could have lost or gained in areas that aren’t crucial to your strategy or been picked up for broad terms that don’t convert well. So, while this is a great place to start to get a feel for what’s been going on, it’s important to go further. Monitor traffic and rankingsOnce you’ve assessed visibility changes, take a more in-depth view of rankings and traffic. This will give you a better view of how any changes are actually affecting your results. You can monitor any changes using Google Analytics, Search Console and other third-party tools. Look for marked changes in traffic, clicks, impressions, conversions and rankings. Analyze Google Search Console dataGoogle Search Console is where you’ll be notified if your site has been issued with a manual action. If you’ve seen a large drop, check for messages. Examine your performance reports, looking for changes in impressions, clicks or average position compared to the previous period. Use the filter functionality to isolate positive or negative changes. 2. Evaluate the market and gain industry insightOnce you’ve analyzed your site, assess the bigger picture. What else has happened around you and what has been prioritized in the SERPs? Review changes in SERPsIf you want to improve your understanding, manually check the SERPs for your key terms. Look out for new competitors entering the SERPs, changes in featured snippets or other SERP features. It’s important to gain this awareness and use it alongside your data. It’s always possible that changes in the wider search landscape have caused the impact you’re seeing. When one site goes up, another is always displaced. If fluctuations aren’t very pronounced, you may be seeing changes due to these factors more than what you have or haven’t done on your own site. New or different SERP features could impact user interactions. Even if your rankings haven’t dropped or risen, you could still feel an impact in your results. Monitor competitorsAssessing what you can about the competition can help you spot what’s working for them that you might not have considered. While there’s only so much you can dig into, taking stock of how your closest competition has lost or gained after an update can help you to understand the movements in your industry. Remember, they may not have changed anything drastic. Perhaps something they’ve already been doing now holds more value. So try not to focus only on recent changes, but review any plus points that could be missing from your strategy. Stay informedFollow reputable SEO blogs, forums and industry news sources to stay updated on Google algorithm update findings and best practices. Agencies and experts who work across a whole host of sites can have a better view of common patterns and trends that have emerged after a core update, so keep an eye on their blogs and social media or attend local events to discuss with peers. Sistrix releases blog posts on winners and losers that can help shed some light on what is working and what’s causing issues for other websites. These are well worth a read to improve your understanding of what’s changed.
3. Isolate the bad and the goodIf you’ve seen an overall uplift or a downturn, the next step is to determine which areas of your website it has affected. Segment dataTry to determine any trends in the increases or decreases you’re seeing. You could segment your data by device, location, user behavior, content type and content quality. This will give you a more in-depth understanding of the factors that may or may not be helping your performance. You can also compare similar content pieces or groups with competitors to assess your performance relative to theirs. Check URL directoriesAssessing visibility trends by URL directory structure can show whether certain areas are gaining, maintaining or losing ground. This provides a useful overview to help you narrow down what’s working for you and what isn’t. Often, pages in a specific directory (e.g., /blog vs. /product) are structured in a certain way or share many factors in common. This quick analysis might give you immediate insight into what’s working well on your site and what needs work. Compare and contrastPerhaps you can’t see a clear trend in specific URL paths on your site. In this case, you can compile a spreadsheet of your biggest winning and losing pages. Review the similarities and differences between these pages to see if you can determine any common factors. The worst-case scenario is an overall downturn with very few positives in any area of your site. This is likely to indicate a widespread problem with your website or SEO strategy as a whole. The chances are, you’ll already know if you’ve been taking risks or trying to push the boundaries for quick wins. But if a downturn like this blindsides you, you’ll need to conduct a thorough review. 4. Review areas for improvementMost SEO professionals are very close to the websites they work with, so the above analysis will indicate what’s working on your site and in your industry after the algorithm update has finished rolling out. However, it’s important not to jump to conclusions or make assumptions. The next step is to do a thorough review of the areas that need improvement. If you work from the agency side, you might have landed new clients who have suffered during an update and need help. You may not be familiar with their websites, content and performance. This makes it easier to review unbiasedly and let your analysis lead. Evaluate content qualityReview Google’s guidelines for content and quality and use them to assess the quality of your content. You might want to do this specifically on the pages that have lost traffic or rankings. However, you could also take a more holistic view and conduct a content audit. After all, you may have content that wasn’t performing well before or after a core update that could get missed with the former approach. You’ll easily spot thin or duplicate content, but keep an eye out for outdated information, too. Focus on factors like E-E-A-T, satisfying user intent and filling any content gaps that can improve your page. Dig deeper: Writing people-first content: A process and template Check technical SEO elementsIf you’ve experienced a downturn across your site, a technical SEO issue could hold you back. Audit your site, considering site speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability and indexability.
Assess user experience (UX)Check metrics such as engagement rate, average session duration and pages per session in Google Analytics to gauge user engagement. Usability issues could also be prevalent across many pages on your site, so if you’ve seen a widespread downturn, it’s worth assessing. If you suspect you have usability issues, you could conduct user testing or track visits with a tool like Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity to gain insight into user behavior. Use this information to plan any changes you’ll make to improve usability. 5. Review your strategy and planOnce you have a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t, it’s sensible to look at this alongside your strategy and determine whether you need to shift your focus. After all, we can’t plan ahead for core updates so it’s important to be flexible and work with the changes rather than remaining blinkered. Target problem areasIf you’ve seen certain key pages or sections of your site suffer after an update, make sure you have a plan in place to improve them. You might schedule a more thorough review, assess user intent, carry out a content gap analysis and detail the work needed to give them a boost. Perhaps you were already aware that these areas needed work, but this dip in performance is your reminder to prioritize them. Adjust your strategy to reflect the importance of making improvements in these areas. You might need to allocate extra resources or simply re-prioritize. Embrace the winsIf you’ve noticed one area of your site is gaining while others aren’t, assess what you might be doing differently. Can you apply it to the other sections that have stayed fairly static or declined? It’s easy to feel that glow when your hard work has paid off and you’ve made some positive gains after a core update. But there’s likely to be even more you can do. Consider how you can work with this to keep momentum going, setting your website up for future success rather than just sitting back and reveling in your win! Plan for recoveryIf you suffer negative effects from a core update, you can feel overwhelmed, paralyzed and panicked. The best thing to do is to try to stay calm and methodical. Create an achievable action plan you can start on as soon as possible. Plenty of useful resources exist, so if you’re at a loss, do some reading to help you on your path. You’re already reading this, so you’re halfway there. Check the Google algorithm updates list with recovery tips from Marie Haynes to set your plan off in the right direction. Stick with itIf you’ve suffered after a core update, seeing improvements can take some time. But if you’ve done all the above analysis and are genuinely working toward improving your website, content and user experience, don’t get disheartened. It takes consistent, long-term work to get results. The site below suffered at marker A, the June 2021 core update. While other issues were present following this time, with consistent work since the beginning of 2023, progress is clearly being made as more recent updates take effect. 6. Communicate with stakeholdersThe final piece of the puzzle is communication. Ensuring that key stakeholders know about the algorithm update and are well informed about its impact and your actions will help keep everyone working towards the same goals.
Dig deeper: How to communicate Google core updates to executives Prepare a summary reportSummarize the key points from the analysis you have carried out and create a concise report.
Circulate the report to all necessary parties. Explain plans and strategiesPerhaps you have put plans in place to mitigate negative results, or maybe you have a strategy to push great results even further. Either way, communicating these and why you plan to tackle them after an update is important for keeping invested parties in the loop. Perhaps other departments can add value or help with certain tasks to get things back on track. Encourage collaboration to improve your resources and strategies. Address concerns and set expectationsAfter thoroughly investigating the data described above, you will be well prepared for any questions about the update. Make sure you’re available, responsive and confident when responding to any concerns. It’s also wise to manage expectations around your planned actions. Make sure stakeholders understand the long-term nature of SEO work and set realistic timescales. Update on progressFinally, keep other stakeholders updated on your progress, any completed tasks and any changes in performance. Continue to monitor and analyze data to track improvements over time. Keep calm, stay methodical and communicate wellIt’s easy to let Google’s algorithm updates send you into a spin. They’re always shrouded in a certain amount of mystery and potential feelings of doom! The reality is that most professionals genuinely striving to create better websites are unlikely to drop off the face of Google at the hands of an update. Once the update has finished, keep your cool. Spend time digging into the data and learning about what has changed. When you’ve got a better picture of your performance, create an action plan and communicate with others. Keep working through your actions and monitoring the effects of your changes – until the next one! Dig deeper: How to survive a Google core update and come out on top via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/eWLrwqZ Today’s SEO landscape is fraught with uncertainty, marked by:
Keeping your website strategy tied to traditional notions like keyword research based on search volume is a recipe for a slow but certain death. But what are your options? One possible escape route is product-led SEO, which focuses your strategy on your customers’ needs, pains and desires. This article will help you transition from a keyword-focused to a customer-centric SEO strategy, offering practical tips for integrating both approaches effectively. 5 steps to kickstart your product-led SEO strategy1. Identify your customerOne fundamental mistake many SEO experts make is focusing on the website and forgetting about the customers. Remember, keywords don’t make purchases; people do (or at least for now). This is why focusing solely on keyword research or technical audit won’t do the job. You need to know who is your ideal customer persona. If you know a colleague from another department who would likely use your product, spend a day shadowing them or conducting an in-depth interview. Discover where they go online for information and learning, what factors they consider when making decisions and their biggest daily challenges. You can also visit the GA4 Demographics report for information about age, country and interests. Take the last with a grain of salt as your website might have attracted the wrong users. Lastly, create a profile of your ideal customer. You can easily start with HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool. Dig deeper: Do personas REALLY matter in content marketing? 2. Dive into your dataSEO often overlooks the valuable data gathered by customer-facing departments like sales and support. Platforms such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics offer rich insights into customer needs and behaviors, making them essential tools for SEO. Access to these platforms and their reports can significantly enhance SEO strategies. The challenge with these tools is that navigation through the data directly in them could be a real pain. So, the easiest way to start is to create a report with the important information within the tool and then export it in CSV format. Many organizations face restrictions on exporting CRM data due to privacy concerns. Always verify that your reports exclude personal identification information, such as emails, phone numbers, names and company details. Your goal is the information put in by your sales team, like a summary of the conversation or a description of the lead’s situation. After exporting, you have a few options depending on the size:
As you look for repeating patterns in how your customers speak, you can also use simple tools like TagCrowd and then search for the words that are repeated the most in your initial report. The end result of this exercise should be a document with three columns:
Or if we need to translate these three into a more SEO-friendly language:
Unfortunately, the data in your CRM platforms can often be insufficient. In these cases, you need to expand your research beyond your company. One way to do this is through review platforms. Dig deeper: An SEO guide to audience research and content analysis 3. Read customer reviewsIf someone spent 30 minutes of their lives writing a review of your product, they either love it or hate it a lot. In either case, these users have given you valuable information. While you can’t do much for those who hate some of the features and functionalities, you can analyze the rest for reasons to believe in your product and the pains you have resolved in their lives. Most platforms provide ways to export your reviews in CSV format. The analysis process afterward could be similar to the one for the data in your CRM. You can even ask ChatGPT to make a SWOT analysis for your product and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Review platforms offer more than just access to customer feedback. They provide valuable insights and real-life examples for content creation. Additionally, they grant access to competitor reviews, enhancing competitive analysis. Collecting initial data for your competitors might require more in-depth knowledge of Python, an extra budget for a third-party tool, a browser extension or a lot of manual work. Regardless of the method, the outcome will provide valuable insights into how customers perceive your competitors. Extract the use cases and real-life situations from these reviews, and if your product covers them, make sure that you show them in your content. Remember to uphold ethical standards and avoid making claims without verifiable evidence. 4. Expand your knowledge with forumsSEO professionals recently expressed frustration about Google’s preference for websites such as Reddit and Quora. These platforms thrive on content generated by real users, making them valuable for Google’s algorithms. Utilize this content to benefit your SEO strategy. One way to start analyzing them is to use traditional keyword research tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, etc. You just need to check the domain and all the keywords it ranks for, then look for keywords related to your content. With this approach, you will end up with a list of pages ranking for relevant keywords. Some might be concrete conversations, others communities. You can then easily expand them manually. Once you are ready with your list, you need to extract the information. You can do this with:
The analysis can be done again with the help of AI or Python, or you can go through it manually. This time, you will receive one extra level of information – potential titles for your future content. Merge insights from customer conversations, your own data and reviews to discover alignments with your ideal customer persona. This integration forms the backbone of your tailored SEO strategy, and the result will be your product-led content calendar and SEO plan. Dig deeper: Advanced tactics to maximize the SEO value of user-generated content 5. Create content that answers your customer’s questionsTo make this content work, you must answer your customers’ questions and give them solutions to their challenges while showing how your product/service fits into the picture. Your blog should not become a duplicated version of your documentation; rather, it should present the features and capabilities of your product in a more storytelling manner. Turn the customer examples you collected into compelling stories. Ideally, include quotes from real customers. If quotes are unavailable, use supporting statistics. Companies like PWC, EY, Deloitte, Accenture and McKinsey publish tons of research that you can use for inspiration. Dig deeper: What is helpful content, according to Google Aligning SEO with your product’s value propositionStarting your product-led SEO journey is not difficult, and it could be eye-opening to learn why customers choose your product. Your strategy shouldn’t be static. Once you establish the basics, it should evolve with your audience’s changing needs. Only by always learning and changing can you ensure that you build lasting engagement and drive growth. Your customers are leading the way, but you must be dedicated to following them. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1pFbSNU |
Archives
April 2024
Categories |