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
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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.
via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/GDbYtof Airbnb is the leading advertiser in search sentiment, closely trailed by Viacom and Netflix, according to a new analysis of 100 top advertisers. Why we care. Looking at search sentiment can help marketers better understand how consumers feel about them in real-time and what contributes to brand loyalty and sustainability. AirBnB made a significant shift from search marketing to brand marketing. As they have taken the lead in this search sentiment report, it will pique the curiosity of other advertisers to go down the same path to improve their customer sentiment ranking. The big picture. The findings illustrate what it takes to have strong customer sentiment for an extended period.
Volume and sentiment. There is no direct correlation between search volume and sentiment. However, search volume can enhance sentiment, serving as an amplifier, which advertisers should consider in their strategies.
Top 10 advertisers by search activity. Airbnb, ViacomCBS and Netflix were the top three ranked brands. The others were:
Top advertisers by industry. These were the top advertisers across 10 categories analyzed in the report:
About the data. The analysis was conducted by Captify (registration required), which collects data from over 1 billion searches on 3 million websites across 2 billion devices daily. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/n6e9EQ7 Over the years, Google has seemingly established a pattern in how it interacts with the web. The search engine provides structured data formats and tools that allow us to supply information to Google. Think: meta tags, schema markup, the disavow tool and more. Google then consumes and learns from this structured data deployed across the web. Once sufficient learnings are extracted, Google then retires or de-emphasizes these structured data formats, making them less impactful or obsolete. This cyclical process of giving structured data capabilities, consuming the information, learning from it and then removing or diminishing those capabilities seems to be a core part of Google’s strategy. It allows the search engine to temporarily empower SEOs and brands as a means to an end – extracting data to improve its algorithms and continually improve its understanding of the web. This article explores this “give and take” pattern through several examples. Google’s pattern of ‘give and take’The pattern can be divided into four stages:
The race is for the search engine to learn from webmasters’ interactions with Google’s suggested structure before they can learn to manipulate it. Google usually wins this race. It doesn’t mean no one can leverage new structural items before Google discards them. It simply means that Google usually discards such items before illegitimate manipulations become widespread. Give and take examples1. MetadataIn the past, meta keywords and meta descriptions played crucial roles within Google’s ranking algorithms. The initial support for meta keywords within search engines actually predates Google’s founding in 1998. Deploying meta keywords was a way for a webpage to tell a search engine the terms for which the page should be findable. However, such a direct and useful bit of code was quickly abused. Many webmasters injected thousands of keywords per page in the interest of getting more search traffic than was fair. It quickly led to the rise of low-quality websites filled with ads that unfairly converted acquired traffic into advertising income. In 2009, Google confirmed what many had suspected for years. Google stated:
Another example is the meta description, a snippet of code that Google supported since its early days. Meta descriptions were used as the snippet text under a link in Google search results. As Google improved, it started ignoring meta descriptions in certain situations. This is because users might discover a webpage through various Google keywords. If a webpage discusses multiple topics and a user searches for a term related to topic 3, showing a snippet with a description of topics 1 or 2 would not be helpful. Therefore, Google began rewriting search snippets based on user search intent, sometimes ignoring a page’s static meta description. In recent times, Google has shortened search snippets and even confirmed that they mostly examine a page’s primary content when generating descriptive snippets. 2. Schema and structured dataGoogle introduced support schema (a form of structured data) in 2009. Initially, it pushed the “microformats” style of schema, where individual elements had to be marked up within the HTML to feed structured or contextual information to Google. In terms of concept, this actually isn’t too far removed from the thinking behind HTML meta tags. Surprisingly, a new coding syntax was adopted instead of just using meta tags more extensively. For example, the idea of schema markup was initially (and largely remains) to supply additional contextual information concerning data or code that is already deployed – which is similar to the definition of metadata:
Both schema and metadata attempt to achieve this same goal. Information that describes other existing information to help the user leverage such information. However, the detail and structural hierarchy of schema (in the end) made it far more scalable and effective. Today, Google still uses schema for contextual awareness and detail concerning various web entities (e.g., webpages, organizations, reviews, videos, products – the list goes on). That said, Google initially allowed schema to alter the visuals of a page’s search listings with a great degree of control. You could easily add star ratings to your pages for Google’s search results, making them stand out (visually) against competing web results. As usual, some began abusing these powers to outperform less SEO-aware competitors. In February 2014, Google started talking about penalties for rich snippet spam. This was when people misused schema to make their search results look better than others, even though the information behind them was wrong. For example, a site without reviews purports a 5-star aggregate review rating (clearly false). Fast-forward to 2024, and while still situationally useful, schema is not as powerful as it once was. Delivery is easier, thanks to Google’s JSON-LD preference. However, schema no longer has the absolute power to control the visuals of a search listing. 3. Rel=Prev / NextRel=”prev” and rel=”next” were two HTML attributes Google suggested in 2011. The idea was to help Google develop more contextual awareness of how certain types of paginated addresses were interrelated: Eight years later, Google announced they no longer supported it. They also said they hadn’t supported this kind of coding for a while, suggesting support ended around 2016, just five years after the suggestions were first made. Many were understandably annoyed because the tags were fiddly to implement, often requiring actual web developers to re-code aspects of website themes. Increasingly, it seemed as if Google would suggest complex code changes in one moment only to ditch them the next. In reality, it is likely that Google had simply learned all it needed from the rel=prev / next experiment. 4. Disavow toolIn October 2012, the web buzzed with news of Google’s new Disavow links tool. In April 2012, Google released the Penguin update, which caused the web to be in turmoil. The update targeted spammy off-site activity (link building) heavily, and many websites saw manual action notices appear within the Search Console (then named Webmaster Tools). Using the Disavow tool, you could upload lists of linking pages or domains they would like to exclude from Google’s ranking algorithms. If these uploaded links largely agreed with Google’s own internal assessment of the backlink profile, the active manual penalty may then have been lifted. This would give back a “fair” amount of Google traffic to their site, though obviously, with part of their backlink profile now “disavowed” – post-penalty traffic was usually lower than pre-penalty traffic. As such, the SEO community had a relatively low opinion of the tool. Usually, a complete backlink removal or disavow project was necessary. Having less traffic after the penalty was better than having no traffic at all. Disavow projects haven’t been necessary for years. Google now says that anyone still offering this service is using outdated practices. In recent years, Google’s John Mueller has been extremely critical of those selling “disavow” or “toxic links” work. It seems as if Google no longer wants us to use this tool; certainly, they do not advise us on its usage (and haven’t in many years). Dig deeper. Toxic links and disavows: A comprehensive SEO guide Unraveling Google’s give-and-take relationship with the webGoogle provides tools or code snippets for SEOs to manipulate its search results in minor ways. Once Google gains insights from these deployments, such features are frequently phased out. Google grants us a limited amount of temporary control to facilitate its long-term learning and adaptation. Does this make these small, temporary releases from Google useless? There are two ways of looking at this:
In truth, there is no right or wrong answer. It depends on your ability to adapt to web changes efficiently. If you’re comfortable with quick changes, implement what you can and react fast. If your organization lacks the expertise or resources for quick changes, it’s not worth following trends blindly. I think this ebb and flow of give and take doesn’t necessarily make Google evil or bad. Any business will leverage its unique assets to drive further learning and commercial activity. In this instance, we are one of Google’s assets. Whether you wish for this relationship (between yourself and Google) to continue is up to you. You could choose not to cooperate with Google’s temporary power, long-term learning trade deals. However, this may leave you at a competitive disadvantage. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/uJmg0WS Rebranding happens when companies grow or face big PR problems. As a marketer and SEO expert, you’ll deal with it due to acquisitions, executive decisions or investor demands. Regardless of the reason, traffic will drop when things go wrong. But don’t panic. Both branded and non-branded traffic can be recovered. It depends on the cause of the loss and what you do next. Below are common situations in which we’ve helped clients regain traffic post-rebranding, sorted by situation and traffic drop types. I’ve also included non-SEO things to look for so your company can save money, as revenue becomes tight when this happens. A quick warning before we jump inIf you are launching a new site design with the rebrand, you’re in for a longer time to recover, if you recover at all. Changing names only is easier because you can do press releases, have influencers talk about you or send email/SMS blasts to customers and make it known who you are now. When your customers start searching for the new site and visiting the new domain, along with the proper URL migration implementation, you’ll see the flip normally happen within two days to two weeks, depending on the size of the site and your external brand strength. Changing code bases with a new name and URL means search engines must discover the new brand, evaluate it and determine the new user experience. Now, they evaluate how it stacks up to other pages in their indexes. Chances are you’ll lose a bit, even if it is the best because you’re shocking the system too much. Avoid rebranding and launching a new website design simultaneously. Give it at least a few months in between. Where does the traffic drop come from?The first step to fixing a traffic drop is identifying where it’s coming from. Use analytics for this. Go into whatever system you use and check the following with a comparison from the time of the drop in traffic to the same time period before using to determine the actual traffic drops:
These three items help determine the loss of traffic while the other team members are building the new brand and will help give you quick wins to aid recovery. Dig deeper: 3 underutilized Google Search Console reports for diagnosing traffic drops URL migrations and domain changesWhen migrating a URL, you can do everything right and still see traffic drops while Google crawls and indexes your new pages. It is out of your control when Google crawls, indexes and displays your new URLs, but you can be proactive.:
You should be fine if you did your job before the migration, including setting canonical links from the old URL to the new one. Take deep breaths. I’ve been doing this for a long time and still feel the same anxiety you do when we flip the switch and wait. It’s normal. Combining storesUnlike a URL migration, combining stores comes with unique nuances. Three examples are when:
When each exists separately but is connected, follow best practices for interlinking your brands. If the products cross over, make sure you match the product descriptions and selling points to the new audience’s needs so you’re benefiting the customer. When you are customer-first focused, SEO normally comes as a reward. If everything is being combined into one domain, choose the best experience for the combined user base. This includes copy, images, upsells, PR bars, etc. Make sure canonicals from the previous sites point to the new site before you redirect and that the redirects are not conflicting. If some pages were thin and should have been pruned, this may be the right time not to redirect them and let them die. In situations where the domains remain the same, but the branding changes, and you’re interlinking new acquisitions, stay the course with a unique website. Interlinking the brands through the footer and in some of your content is likely safe. You made it clear there are associations between them, and a search engine would likely expect a company to push customers to their other brands. You’ll see this on Amazon, Overstock and Gap. Affiliate promotionsAffiliates are one of the best opportunities for you to speed up a URL migration and rebranding traffic recovery. But only if your affiliates are not intercepting your own traffic. Some affiliates intercept customers already shopping on your website by using browser extensions to offer cash back or coupons, and others show up in SEO and PPC for your brand name + coupons. There are also software partners that you install into your own shopping cart to give customers multiple payment options. These types rely on you to have traffic for them to intercept. They will not be helpful to your traffic recovery because they are not sending you traffic. It is the affiliates who have their own traffic who can help you with recovery. Have your affiliate manager create a promotional event and series that corresponds with the launch of the new brand. They can offer exclusive access and “leaks” with media outlets, influencers and content creators with blogs and YouTube channels. If you give them a budget, they can reserve media space on sites that get crawled frequently and have an active reader base or newsletter list. This generates buzz and helps search engines discover your new site and pages more easily. Earlier in this article, I mentioned not to build backlinks and I stand by that. Affiliate links are not backlinks and they can point to any page on your site. Affiliates see better conversion rates when they promote specific products and landing pages. If they link from their content to your key conversion pages, search engines are more likely to prioritize crawling and indexing those pages. But, for this to succeed, your affiliate program must have these value-adding partners. Social mediaIn October 2019, a representative from Pinterest spoke at the Plaid St. Conference in Arlington, Virginia and discussed using “domain reputation score” in their algorithm. This is:
If you changed domains and Pinterest doesn’t have enough data on this, that could impact your ability to have new and existing pins gain and maintain traction. (Note: The conference no longer exists, so I cannot source it.) This same concept of “brand trust” is believed to be used by other social media algorithms like LinkedIn. If your social media followers don’t know or forget that you switched brands, they might ignore your new posts. And when your new posts don’t get likes, shares, views or comments, reaching and engaging with your audience becomes harder. If the algorithm doesn’t recognize the domain as authoritative or trustworthy, your new content on the platform may not perform well. Some platforms will let you change names and don’t have links to your content, while others don’t. If social traffic is dropping from the new brand, it’s time to build trust and send social signals to social algorithms.
Bouncing back from traffic drops post-rebrandingExpect a dip in website traffic when you rebrand. SEO relies on various channels like PR, which attracts media attention and links to your new site. Affiliates also play a role by updating links and directing search engine bots deeper into your site. Social media is crucial, too, as it signals to search engines that your new domain is trustworthy. There’s only so much you can do from the search side, so follow best practices. Websites are just code; code can be fixed, modified and repaired, and traffic can be recovered. Dig deeper: Why traffic declines despite solid rankings and what to do via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/xdU1Jt7 Winning an industry award can greatly impact how customers, clients, and colleagues regard your brand. Showcase your achievements and celebrate your professional excellence by entering The Search Engine Land Awards — the highest honor in search marketing!
Don’t miss your opportunity to participate in the only awards program recognized by Search Engine Land, the industry publication of record. Begin your application today! via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/7Sk6xls Ever wondered how to structure an SEO team for unparalleled success? Join us on Tuesday, April 23rd for this webinar where our panel will guide you through the proven strategies to build a dynamic and scalable SEO program. You’ll discover how a well-structured team can overcome and outperform unpredictable algorithm updates and dive into the art of determining the ideal SEO team structure (and where SEO should sit) that aligns with your business goals and ensures optimal collaboration between departments. RSVP today for Beyond the Search Bar: Crafting an Impactful SEO Team Structure and Defining its Place in Your Organization and uncover the secrets to building your dream SEO team. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/XDsV8an |
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