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Search News From Around The Web:Local & Maps
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As a marketer, you spend a lot of your time coming up with new ways to reach the right prospect, at the right time, with the right message. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a tried-and-true strategy to help you do all three. By treating each account as a market of one, you can deepen your relationships with individuals at key accounts and ultimately increase revenue. For more ways ABM can help you up your marketing game, read this white paper from Oracle. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “The Account-Based Marketing Guide for Modern Marketers.” The post The Account-Based Marketing Guide for Modern Marketers appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2silOto One of the biggest announcements to come out of Google Marketing Next, held in San Francisco last week, was the release of Google Attribution. The new, free solution can pull in data from Google Analytics, AdWords or DoubleClick Search to provide a more holistic view of conversion actions across channels and devices for attribution modeling and bidding information. Here’s a look at what this new solution means for search marketers. What is Google Attribution?Google Attribution is the simplified version of Attribution 360, the enterprise-level offering that came out of Google’s 2014 acquisition of multichannel attribution solution Adometry. It integrates with Google Analytics, Google AdWords and DoubleClick Search and doesn’t require any additional site tagging. Marketers link a Google Analytics view that’s already associated with a Google AdWords or DoubleClick Search account. Once the account is set up, Attribution is populated with the channel performance data from the connected Analytics view. Marketers can then assign an attribution model to their conversion events. And as in Analytics, it’s possible to compare models side by side. With the native integrations, the modeled conversion data can feed back into AdWords or DoubleClick Search to inform bidding decisions. What problems does Google Attribution aim to solve?There are two key problems Google is aiming to address with this product 1. How to see and credit upper- and mid-funnel interactions: Bill Kee, group product manager at Google, who introduced Attribution onstage last week, said in a phone interview that Google Attribution is focused on understanding the full customer journey versus only last-click impact. The limitation with last-click is that gives all the credit to the user’s very last touch point before converting. For example, if a user searches and clicks on an ad on a non-brand search term, then converts later from a brand ad click, only the brand ad will get credit in a last-click attribution model. And if a marketer can’t see that a generic keyword actually got the ball rolling, she might lower the bid or pause the keyword altogether. There are obvious benefits for Google in showing advertisers that more of their search and display ads played a role in the conversion path, which brings us to second problem Attribution aims to solve. 2. How to easily inform bidding decisions based on full-funnel attribution data: By automatically sending modeled conversion data into AdWords, advertisers can see the conversion impact of keywords and ads based on multichannel and multidevice conversion path data. Automated bidding can take upper- and mid-funnel contributions into consideration. Again, this obviously has a benefit to Google as well. How is this different from attribution already in AdWords?Google has been taking steps over the past several years to take AdWords from an exclusively last-click platform to one that is more flexible. Google completed the migration from Converted Clicks to Conversions last September, in large part because Conversions supports attribution modeling other than last click. Google started showing click and conversion assist data from Analytics before that, but there was no way to set a conversion action to a model other than last-click for conversion reporting and bidding until last year. The attribution tool introduced in AdWords in 2014 is for search funnels only, which means it only reports on whether users interact with multiple ads from an advertiser. It doesn’t provide any insight into the interplay of ads with marketing efforts on other channels, unless advertisers are using data-driven attribution (more on that below). Google Attribution provides the cross-channel context that is missing in AdWords attribution. How is this different from what’s available in Analytics?Through the existing integration with Google Analytics, AdWords advertisers have been able to see paid search and Display Network data in Analytics’ multichannel funnel reporting and in the attribution model comparison tool in Analytics. Attribution offers more depth than Analytics, however. All of the attribution models in Google Attribution include more touch points than they do in Google Analytics. It also includes Google’s data-driven attribution. What is the data-driven attribution model?Attribution is by nature an imperfect science. Capturing all the touch points involved in a conversion event in one system, then assigning credit to one, some or all of those steps in a way that accurately reflects the impact on a consumer’s purchase decision is what Google is trying to get closer to with data-driven attribution. Google’s own data-driven attribution model uses machine learning to understand how marketing touch points increase the likelihood of conversion given a particular sequence of exposures. Based on the custom probability modeling, the data-driven model assigns fractional conversion credit to each touch point. Google first introduced data-driven attribution modeling in 2013. It’s been available in Google Analytics 360 and Google Attribution 360, and Google brought the model into AdWords last year. Requirements: Because it doesn’t simply assign credit to an channel based on where it occurred on a conversion path, data-driven attribution needs sufficient data for the modeling to work. The modeling is done at the conversion action level. A conversion action must have at least 15,000 clicks and at least 600 conversions within 30 days to be eligible for data-driven modeling. The model then captures 30 consecutive days of data before reporting. (In a sign of advancement, when it first became available in AdWords, the data-driven model requirements were 20,000 clicks and at least 800 conversions.) If none of your conversion actions meet the criteria, it might make sense to set up a micro-conversion event that still has some business meaning and can be used to evaluate this model against the others. Data-driven attribution in Google Analytics 360 only includes the last four touch points, whereas, in Google Attribution & Attribution 360, the model includes all touch points, whether a user visits the website or not. That means it also factors in ad impressions. Google says that where measurable, viewability can also be counted for display impressions. In the screen shot example above, last-click/interaction attribution is compared against the data-driven model. My experience with using data-driven attribution in Adwords reflects the paid search results above, though less dramatically. Brand campaigns convert somewhat lower and non-brand campaigns convert somewhat higher when compared to last-click, which intuitively makes sense. Google is encouraging adoption of data-driven attribution, but advertisers can still use the other models in Attribution. It’s possible to monitor and evaluate how the various models perform for each conversion action within Attribution before opting to push new models into AdWords. Once pushed, the models will override whatever models were set in AdWords, and conversion columns will reflect the new modeling. Automated bidding strategies will then use that data in decisioning. Google Attribution is now in beta and will roll out to more advertisers over the coming months. In the meantime, advertisers can look at data-driven attribution modeling in AdWords if available. The post Google Attribution: What search marketers need to know appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qxIyFk Video marketing is becoming a digital marketing necessity. (It’s not a “nice-to-have” marketing strategy anymore.) People love to watch videos, and videos can help you sell more products or services. In fact, a study done by Cisco last year predicted that by 2020, video will account for over 80 percent of all consumer internet traffic. As video consumption increases, consequently so does video’s influence on consumer purchases. According to recent research by Brightcove:
YouTube is the second most popular social media platform, based on market share. And you’ll find that most YouTubers are die-hard YouTube viewers. They’re constantly watching videos, searching for videos about everything from how to jimmy your locked door to how to create a Facebook ad — and everything in between. How to optimize for YouTube’s algorithmYouTube is essentially a search engine for videos. Not surprisingly, it uses a sophisticated ranking algorithm to surface content to viewers. If you want to gain a following and rank your videos higher in YouTube search, uploading fresh content is extremely important. Users love new videos! And that fresh, newly uploaded content (as well as the latest actions taken by the users) is taken into consideration by YouTube when ranking videos. “Watch time” is a very important ranking factor as well. YouTube wants to surface videos that viewers will find enjoyable, so high user engagement is a great signal for the algorithm in identifying such videos. In addition to user signals, YouTube also relies on input from the video owner to feed their algorithm. That means YouTube is counting on you to tell it what your video is about. What you do to optimize your video in the first 48 to 72 hours is critical to the success of your video and how it ranks. If you get it right, your video could shoot to the top when people search for your video topic. Get it wrong, and you’ll sink like a rock. Metadata is importantAccording to YouTube, metadata includes information about a video such as the title, description, tags and annotations. Metadata can help your video stand out and get found by the algorithm, so content creators should make an effort to optimize metadata to maximize visibility. Here are some tips for creating effective metadata that can help your videos get found. Now, this first tip may sound counterintuitive, but you want to research what types of videos your competitors are doing before you create your video. That’s right — the best time to optimize your video for SEO and get more views is before you even record it. Once you have a feel for what your competitors are doing — the type of videos they’re producing, how engaging they are, how many views they have, what metadata they’re using and so on — it’ll make it easier for you to create a video that “one-ups” them, both in terms of having better content and being better optimized for YouTube’s algorithm. After you’ve created your video, it’s time to think about uploading and optimizing. Again, the best time to optimize your metadata is before you upload your video — have your keywords, tags, title, description and custom thumbnail ready to go before you press the upload button. YouTube tags: Doing the keyword researchWhen doing keyword research on YouTube, you want to try to find keywords that will drive traffic to your video. The best place to look for keywords is on YouTube, but you should also use more traditional keyword research tools (like Google Search Console, SEMrush, SEOProfiler, Moz or others.) YouTube allows you to include “tags” to help categorize your video by keyword, but it limits the number of tags you can include. You’ll want to look for multiword tags (i.e., long-tail keywords) that specifically relate to your video’s topic. You should also use single-word tags and broad-term tags that relate to your video’s broader topic. (Note: Do not use trademarks or copyrighted material in your metadata unless you have explicit permission from the owner to use it.) YouTube is effective at semantically understanding your tags. So here’s an example of some tags for a video about “how to ask a boy out on a date”: Multiple-word tags
Single-word tags:
Broad-term tags:
One great way to get tag ideas is to look at the top-ranking YouTube videos that directly compete with your video. However, YouTube hides the video tags, which makes it more difficult to “spy” on your competitors and see their keyword/tag secret sauce. Luckily, there are tools that allow you to get lots of insights into what your competitors are doing — including letting you see the tags competitors are using to get their videos to rank high. Two of these video software tools are vidIQ and TubeBuddy. Both programs have a free version and several paid versions, depending on your company’s needs. There are pros and cons to each — so if you can afford it, I’d recommend you use them both. How YouTube tools like vidIQ and TubeBuddy can help you get more eyeballsBoth vidIQ and TubeBuddy give you information on competitors’ YouTube videos. One of the cool things they show is the tags. So in our “how to ask a boy out” example, you can see the tags being used by the highest-ranking videos for your chosen search terms. With TubeBuddy, you can even zero in on the most used tags the channel used when setting up the SEO for their YouTube channel: You can also find out a whole lot of other valuable information from these tools: the number of Facebook likes, their SEO score, how many words are in the description, average view time duration, number of views and so much more. You can consider these two handy tools to be your YouTube competitor spies! TubeBuddy also has a Tag Explorer feature, which is almost like a traditional SEO keyword finder. Enter the keyword that you’d like to rank your video for, and you’ll get some suggested keywords. As part of the Tag Explorer, TubeBuddy includes a “Summary” section that shows the search volume, competition and the overall competitiveness of a keyword on a scale from 0 to 100 (where 100 is the easiest to rank for). If you have a newer YouTube channel, you’ll want to look for keywords that are easier to rank for. Already have a YouTube channel that’s rockin’ it? You can afford to try to get your video ranked for the more competitive keywords. When planning your YouTube keywords strategy, you want to come up with 10 to 20 single keyword tags that you want to try to rank for. Remember, since YouTube limits the number of tags you can include, add your most important keyword phrases first and then use specific multi-word tags that are easier to rank for. If you have room, also include the single-word tags and broader-term tags. You want to try to get as many views from as many different (relevant) search results as possible — which is an easier strategy than trying to rank #1 for a single keyword phrase. By having a metadata strategy in place, you can increase the chances of your videos showing up in YouTube’s search results. And since video marketing will continue to grow and grow, mastering YouTube’s ranking algorithm starting today is a great way to kick your video marketing efforts into high gear. The post YouTube SEO: How to find the best traffic-generating keywords appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qvPdUt Another study shows how featured snippets steal significant traffic from the top organic result5/30/2017 A new study released today by Ahrefs shows how featured snippets have a negative impact on clicks to the first organic search result. Ahrefs analyzed two million featured snippets and found that the first organic result shows a significant drop in click-through rate when a featured snippet is present. Without a featured snippet, the first result gets a 26 percent click-through rate. With it, it only gets a 19.6 percent click-through rate, and the featured snippet gets an 8.6 percent click-through rate. Here is the chart from Ahrefs: The study also shows that the presence of a featured snippet means fewer clicks overall for the organic search results: Out of the 112 million keywords that Ahrefs analyzed:
This follows another featured snippets study we posted last week that looked at 1.4 million queries and hundreds of thousands of featured snippets. I have only summarized some of the findings from the Ahrefs study, so check out the full results over here. The post Another study shows how featured snippets steal significant traffic from the top organic result appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2rACzDU This past Friday, Google was displaying a new filter in the main Google search tools for showing personal results only. This feature was live for anyone with a personal Google account who was signed in while doing searches. Here is a screen shot of the feature: When you selected the “Personal” drop-down option under the search tools, Google would then filter to show you your emails, photos, flights and other personal data related to your query in the Google search results. Here is a screen shot of Google showing me my personal emails for my Gmail account that I rarely use: This reminds me of how Google had Search Plus Your World, where Google would surface personal Gmails and other items directly in your search results. This feature was launched in January 2012 and has come out from time to time since then. Again, this would have worked on Friday if you were signed into a personal Google account. If you searched while signed out or with a Google Apps account, it would not have worked. As of this morning, the personal search tool filter seems to have been removed. We did email Google for a statement about this late Thursday night and have yet to hear back. The post Google adds ‘Personal’ search filter, then drops it appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2sa2XkN How do you know if what you are doing is actually working? Sure, traffic may be going up, but what about after that? Are your new visitors taking actions that lead to real business results? The goal of SEO is not to just drive more traffic — it’s to drive better traffic. And the only way to know if we have hit our goal is to measure how our users are interacting with our site after they’ve arrived. Conversions are usually associated with e-commerce and business transactions. But in truth, there are a number of different types of conversions. Today’s websites have multiple conversion points, from subscribe widgets and phone numbers to pop-ups and chatbots. But the conversion elements are only powerful if you have the right audience interacting with them. Tracking conversions will give you a better understanding of your website’s traffic. By learning what your users are doing after they land on your site, you will be able to know whether you are driving the right type of traffic. The great news is that you don’t need fancy software to pull this off. You can use the Google Analytics goals to help you track conversions on your site. Below are three simple conversion goals you can track that will give you powerful insights into how your users are interacting with your website. 1. URL destinationIn this type of conversion, you are tracking when a user lands on a specific page URL, link http://ift.tt/2qvQaMi. This is usually used to track if a user has completed a form submission. To set this up, you’ll need to go to your admin section, and under “view,” click goals. From there, you can create a new goal. Setting up a URL destination goal is pretty simple. Just fill in the input boxes that Google gives you. On thing to note: In the goal URL you don’t need to add the full URL, just what comes after the domain. For match type, you can specify how strict you want Google Analytics to track. If you want just one specific URL, choose “Exact Match.” If you have a number of user-generated URLs that all start with a specific string, you can use the “starts with” option. This type of goal will let you know if users are converting on key pages of your website. The data you collect here is extremely valuable when you are trying to determine if you are driving the right type of user to your site. 2. Duration goalsDo you know how long your average user is staying on your site? Is there a correlation between a user’s time on your site and their becoming a customer? Instead of wondering, you can set up a duration goal inside Google Analytics to find out. Unlike a conversion that is tracking a destination, this type of conversion is focused on your users’ behavior. To create this goal, you’ll need to go back to the admin section of your website property in Google Analytics. Create a custom goal type and click “duration.” Instead of tracking a destination, you’ll be tracking time on the site. Give your goal a name to help you you keep track of the conversions you’re measuring. The condition is where you will decide how you want to track. For engagement, we’ll want to choose “greater than.” Next, you’ll add the goal time. As you can see, you can get pretty specific here. This will help you understand if your users are finding your site engaging. If you notice that they are leaving quickly, you know that either you are driving the wrong traffic or your site is not meeting users’ needs. 3. Pages per visitSimilar to the duration goal, pages per visit is about understanding user engagement. The hypothesis is that if you are driving the right type of traffic, they will engage at a higher rate. So let’s talk quickly about how to set this up. Once again, this will be done in the admin section of Google Analytics. You’ll choose a custom goal, and this time, select Pages/Screens per session. For the condition, you can choose “greater than,” “equal to” or “less than.” For the purpose of tracking user engagement, we’ll choose “greater than.” Then add the number of pages you want to see trigger a conversion. Final thoughtsKnowing whether your users are engaging with your site will help you better qualify your SEO efforts. Reporting is often one of the hardest parts of any SEO or digital marketer’s job. Since there is so much data, it’s often difficult to know what to track. While showing increased traffic and rankings can be nice, showing how your users are interacting will help you verify if you’re driving the right type of traffic to your site. The post How to track conversions like a pro appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2rg5ObY
Qualities, Skills, and Intrinsic Value Are Important Ingredients to Success Regardless of what you may think of president Donald Trump, you can’t deny his success. And for anyone that has read any of Mr. Trump's books, we all know that he got his start in the world of construction and real estate development. Speaking of … … Continue reading →
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My wife asked me this a few days ago. I had been going on and on at dinner, hands gesturing, spittle flying, talking about something work-related. She waited patiently until I was finished to ask. Her question jarred me. It had been a while since I’d thought about what “copy” is. And in that moment, my immediate reaction was to remember how I used to hate the word. It always felt … pretentious … to me. I used to hear phrases like “ad copy” and “website copy” and cringe. I’d think:
Then I started working for Copyblogger. I also binge-watched Mad Men right around that time. Needless to say, I quickly got what “copy” meant. And it’s made all the difference. It’s also easy to take for granted. Because it’s easy to get so focused on the latest content marketing technique that we overlook the most important element of any single piece of content marketing that actually works: the writing. The copy. So let’s refresh … What is copy?
Simple. Email copy includes words sent in an email that have a specific goal in mind (getting you to click on a link, for example). Website copy includes words published on a website that have a specific goal in mind (getting you to fill out a contact form, for example). Ad copy includes the words I read during a podcast ad spot that have a specific goal in mind (getting you to buy tickets from SeatGeek, for example). There is text — flaccid, lazy, directionless text.
Copy’s for closers. Who should write copy?Everyone. I mean it.
Take my aforementioned wife. She has an accounting background. She works as a consultant. Unless she someday branches off on her own, she’ll never have to write one word of marketing copy. Yet every day in her job she encounters situations in which she needs action to be taken. Thus, she needs to understand how to write words that will drive the specific actions she needs. In other words, she needs to be able to sell the person on the other end of her email on why they should take the requested action. It’s all copy. And the fundamentals of good copywriting — empathy, clarity, diction, focus on benefits, etc. — apply to any situation in which you want (or need) a person to take a specific action. When should you write copy?Any time you want (or need) someone to take a specific action. That’s easy. Where should you write copy?Any place words are used to drive a specific action.
The examples could go on for weeks, and they aren’t constrained to the types of online content you and I spend our days creating. But you didn’t come to Copyblogger to have me convince you to consider subtly slipping copywriting into your text messages and personal emails … although, if you’re hoping to drive a specific action, why wouldn’t you? You came to Copyblogger to learn how to write words that work, and how to communicate those words over time via a content marketing strategy that teaches people what they need to know to do business with you. Which leads to our next question … Why write copy?Because all good content marketing starts with good copy. Content marketing without good copywriting as its foundation is like a house built on a sink hole. Sonia said it best. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t trying to convince other people to pay attention to, and possibly invest in, something you know or something you’ve built. Those are specific actions. Smart copy is how you’ll drive them. How do you write good copy? What should you do next?If you’re a serious content marketer who knows the value of great copy — the kind that people will pay big bucks for — then our Content Marketer Certification training may be perfect for you. But don’t guess right now if it’s right for you. Find out for sure. Enter your email address below and we’ll send you some information before we reopen the program. Then you can make an informed decision before you make a commitment. We’re opening the doors again soon, but they’ll only be open for a short period of time. The post Your Content Marketing Won’t Work Without This appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger http://ift.tt/2rjlflz
That’s why it’s so important to understand when, where and how customers connect with your business. However, the always-on consumer is using over four devices and quickly jumping from site to site over a varied period of time. This adds fuel to the fire in trying to tackle visualizing an entire customer journey, rather than a single interaction. A multi-event, multichannel path is a complex puzzle that many businesses aren’t equipped to handle. Are your customers lost?A study from IBM and eConsultancy found that 81 percent of companies say they have (or are close to having) a holistic view of their customers. And yet, only 37 percent of customers agree that their favorite retailer understands them. That’s a significant disconnect which is having a direct impact on businesses. Additionally, IBM’s 2016 CMO study found that bad customer experiences result in $83 billion in lost sales each year. It’s not surprising that marketers are having such a tough time understanding their customers. After all, marketing isn’t the only team that influences the customer journey. Sales, commerce, customer service and support all have a stake in the journey, too. However, the analytical tools they use (if at all) often exist independently from one another — unable to connect email to mobile to social. That makes it difficult to accurately view what’s happening across channels and to answer questions such as: With the ability to assess the data driven from questions like those above, you begin to see a clear picture of your customers. Fortunately, there’s a powerful technology that can help you do just that: customer journey analytics. The right solution empowers you to understand the end-to-end journey, gain insights to design exceptional experiences and improve business outcomes by increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value. Understanding the customer journeyTo assist as you embark on your customer journey analysis quest, read this paper to learn five practices for understanding customer journeys. To find success, you need to: Defining a holistic customer journey is difficult, but the right technology can make it a lot easier. In today’s hypercompetitive landscape, understanding how customers expect to engage with your brand is what will set you high above the rest. The best part is the payoff: it’s not just about creating lifelong customers (although that’s important, too.) Organizations utilizing a robust journey analytics solution can increase loyalty and sales while allowing marketing professionals to be efficient in crafting superior customer experiences that will keep them coming back. The post Journey analytics: The GPS for understanding your customers appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qv8vtc |
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