Mediastreet
Author

editor

Browsing
In News

Overview on Using Search Intent for SEO Content Research

No Comments

By 

Search intent is one of the primary reasons we do SEO. After knowing what the people are searching for, focus on why they search for that particular content. Search engines detect the pages they want to rank according to the quality and relevance of the content, and this is where search intent comes in. Pages who rank the highest fit the search term well which is why it is essential for you to optimize your site’s content to cater to a specific search query.

Reviewing Search Intent

Using search intent for keywords alone would not be a wise decision on your part. Branching out to content using intent-based research can help you climb up the ranks simply because you are generating rich content based on specific queries. Search intent is the reason behind a query through a search engine. It is vital to optimize your site according to this because it is a way to know how customers can reach a particular business.

What good is an SEO provider if it does not deliver the right kind of answers to people, right? This can be answered simply with search intent. To know more about this, here are the types of search intent according to Yoast.

Informational Intent

Informational
Informational intent is from those who have a specific query that they want to learn from. For example, there are those who search for Virtual Office in Manila. In return, a Landing Page will supply them with the information on what it is and how it can help them in for their particular question. Content that is centered on informational intent would mostly consist of facts, significant benefits, history, overviews, summaries, etc.

Navigational Intent

navigational

Navigational content is the type of search intent wherein people use the search engine to go to a specific website. A navigational term would be great if you want clients to find your business instantly. If a broad keyword is from the navigational intent type, chances are that your competitors are also aiming to rank for it so you should generate content that can pull up your ranking and increase your organic traffic.

Transactional Intent

transactional

Transactional search intent is for people who are looking to find a site that can give them the best value for their money. Obviously, as the name suggests, this intent type is focused on the goal of the search query ending in a transaction with both the business and the buyer receiving a benefit from it.

Commercial Investigation

commercial

Similar to the transactional intent but with people looking into more options instead of focusing on one. They may not be ready to buy immediately, but they are investigating which are the best products or services they may purchase in the future. So keywords would be about finding the best plugin, an alternative to a current tool, or just a simple product comparison.

Importance of Audience Analysis for Search Intent

To go deeper into a viable content strategy centered on search intent, it would also be a big help if you look at the people who visit your site and how you can cater to their intent. By looking at users who are actively on your site and have a brief overview of your services, you can provide an analysis based on data from Google Analytics.

Audience Analysis Based on Age

GA Age

It would be impossible for you to know each one of your site visitors so looking into a simple demographic based on their age would tell you that these are the people who intend to be on your website. It may seem stereotypical but look at their age to determine how your content could be of interest to them. Additionally, trends can help you set up a content strategy since the trend that is popular for a particular age group will also attract them to your content so you should consider reading up on what they would be interested in.

Interest Overview

GA Audience Interests

Of course, your site has a particular niche in your industry but you should also consider that the site visitors have other interests aside from your own. Content should never be subjective, you will know that it passes a high standard of quality when you satisfy the needs of your audience. It pays to know a little more about them so why not use this data to make a solid audience analysis?

Intent-Based Research for Content Relevance

All in all, the main essence of focusing on search intent is for your content to stay relevant, not only for the SERPs but for users as well. Content relevance would go a long way in relating your site to a particular search term or topic. Churning out content would be a waste if you do not optimize it according to search intent.

A content strategy would be for nothing if it does not boost relevance and quality for SEO. Search intent keeps you relevant because it gives out the signal that you are well-optimized to provide answers and solutions to user query. Also, you should also keep in mind that content relevance is an important ranking factor and a way for you to establish authority. These are the reasons behind why you should consider doing intent-based research the next time you are planning around your blog or site content.

 

By 

is a motivational speaker and is the head honcho, and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker and God and You. Check out his SEO School and SEO Services site.

Sourced from SEO-HACKER

Read More
By
In News

Why Marketing Change Management Fails

No Comments

By

My daily “grind” is helping complex marketing organizations with change. This could be change in the way they work, who they work with, how they measure the output of their work, and so on.

It’s rarely just one thing that triggers the need for change. It is almost never “Our agency/agencies suck, can you help us find a new agency/agencies?” More often it is a combination of lack of results combined with a marketing structure and process that is no longer fit for a purpose (but rather has organically grown into whatever it is today), as well as a marketing ecosystem stuck in neutral. They often have questions about the effectiveness marketing dollars and how they are deployed.

Let’s start with a platitude: Change is hard. It is even harder when it is supposed to correct for poor performance. Patience is not exactly a marketing strength; results need to be delivered every month, every quarter and every 12 months, rolling.

Lack of patience is getting worse rather than better; short-term results trounce everything. Because other parts of the organization nowadays move fast, or give the illusion of moving fast with implementing changes (sales, CRM, online marketing, etc.), the expectations of implementing marketing change, especially by those without marketing experience but with results-driven performance metrics hanging over their heads, are often grossly unrealistic.

Having been “inside” many different companies of all shapes, sizes and industries, I have learned a thing or two about factors that impact the outcome of a change management process.

If you can address these issues before you set off on your change management journey, you’ll stand a much better chance of delivering results.

Align all parties before you start. Aligning does not mean telling them what is about to happen. Aligning means ensuring all parties understand what is going to happen, why, in what time frame, and what their role is in the process.

Use “their” language. Refrain from using marketing gobbledygook, and instead use either simple language or the language of the company. If it smells like a “marketing initiative,” other departments and parties might feel as if it’s your journey, not theirs, and they don’t need to be actively involved.

Similarly, explain what the benefits are for each party. Make it about “wins,” not just about “change.” If they understand what they stand to gain from you taking production in-house, or changing their way of working, they’ll be more likely to  actively participate.

Start small and build it out, rather than tackling the whole deal at once. I have seen “everything at once” succeed only very rarely, and that was when a company was going through a profound change like a merger or a significant downsizing. Under all other scenarios, it usually pays to go slower.

Build incentives into the process of delivery. If teams can win by playing ball, they will. Incentives for delivery, teamwork or implementation of new tools and processes will pay dividend in the long run. It also shows that senior leadership is serious about the change because they are measuring the organization against implementation success. The incentives should be levied across all departments involved, not just marketing.

Good luck. Change is hard, but not impossible.

 

By

Sourced from MediaPost

Read More
By
In News

3 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Email Marketing Software

No Comments

By Sean Peek

Email marketing is often cited as having a high ROI, but only if you use it right. Here’s how to make the most of your email marketing software.

Many companies use email marketing to engage consumers and increase sales. Having a list of contacts who want to receive your latest deals, announcements and other advertisements will help you better establish your brand and ultimately grow your business.

If you’ve invested in email marketing, it’s crucial you understand how to best leverage your software to help you manage and target your contacts. Here are some basic tips for using your email marketing software.

Build your opt-in email list

Every good email marketing campaign begins with a curated list of subscribers. Simply mass-emailing past customers and business contacts will not necessarily increase sales — and may, in fact, be against the law, depending on where you do business. If you have customers in Europe, for instance, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which mandates certain rules and policies about collecting and storing customer contact information for marketing purposes.

When launching your first campaign, you’ll want to obtain permission from customers before sending the emails. Your email marketing software should provide opt-in forms for prospects, so you’re only investing in consumers who are actually interested in your brand.

One particularly effective way to build an email list is to offer some kind of incentive — for example, a free, exclusive piece of content like a whitepaper or e-book — in exchange for a person’s contact information. Typically, visitors will need to check a box confirming their consent to receive marketing emails if they want to receive the incentive.

When launching your first campaign, you’ll want to obtain permission from customers before sending the emails.

How to use email list segmentation

Once you have your list of contacts, you should segment your email list to break them up into smaller groups based on specific demographics, like past relationships with your business, location or interests. This will help you target your customer groups specifically, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach. Subject lines and messages can be customized based on the group and their email or buying habits, and increase your conversions.

How to improve your email open rate

To ensure your contacts are actually opening your emails, you’ll first have to figure out how to avoid landing in spam (which is why opt-in and opt-out options are crucial). Email marketing software typically takes care of this for you, ensuring your IP address hasn’t been flagged as spam in the past. You’ll also want to personalize your metadata, like your To: field and domains.

There’s also no point in wasting time with inactive subscribers. If a consumer hasn’t been engaging in your content for over six months, it’s best to send a last-chance email that asks if they’re still interested in receiving emails. Anyone who does not respond can then be removed.

To encourage subscribers to stay active, though, SCORE recommends making emails short and mobile-friendly, and including a call to action (CTA). Taking that a step further, the SBA recommends testing as a great way to ensure you’re actually reaching your targeted inboxes, your subject lines are catchy enough and that you’re sending emails at the right times and on the right days.

CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images/skynesher 

By Sean Peek

Sourced from CO – by US Chamber of Commerce

 

Read More
By
In News

You Can’t Trust Google Maps To Find It All — Fake Businesses Are Everywhere

No Comments

By Alexis Reliford

In search of a plumber or tow company? Don’t call just any business listing you come across on Google Maps.
A Wall Street Journal report found that about 11 million businesses shown on Google Maps are fake, with new listings and phones numbers cropping up each month. So that florist who never called you back? Maybe not a thing! Many of the listings are created for and by other companies that want to boost their own business info ahead of competitors in the search results, while others are simply scams.
In a blog post, Google responded to the WSJ report and shared that in the last year they had removed more than 3 million fake listings, with more than 90% of those removed before a user even saw them. The company noted its internal systems flagged “more than 85% of these removals” and more than 250,000 fake profiles were reported by users. So if you run across something that seems fraudulent, don’t hesitate to turn it in.
Google typically verifies if a business is legit by calling, mailing a postcard, or emailing a numerical code that is then entered on the website. It’s a pretty easy process for savvy scammers who likely use fake addresses and businesses for their listings anyway. Knowing this, the company says that they are constantly developing new ways to weed out fake listings, but can’t elaborate on what they are due to the sensitive nature.
“Every month Maps is used by more than a billion people around the world, and every day we and our users work as a community to improve the map for each other,” Google Maps’ product director, Ethan Russell, wrote in the blog post. “We know that a small minority will continue trying to scam others, so there will always be work to do and we’re committed to keep doing better.”
In the meantime, the WSJ shared simple ways users could protect themselves from scams, including being wary of business names with keywords like “dependable” or “emergency,” screening phone numbers, and taking reviews with a grain of salt.

Feature Image Credit: Valentin Wolf/imagebroker/Shutterstock.

By Alexis Reliford

Sourced from Refinery29

Read More
By
In News

Salesforce makes email marketing smarter with new Einstein AI innovations

No Comments
By Roy Edwards

Salesforce has announced new Einstein AI innovations for Marketing Cloud. The enhancements will enable brands to increase customer engagement with relevant and timely email marketing messages. This potentially is an invaluable channel for marketers.

The Salesforce report ‘State of the Connected Customer’ shows that 64 percent of customers prefer email communications over other digital channels. These channels included mobile and social media. Furthermore, for every $1 a company invests in email marketing, the return is estimated at $42.

Analysts have forecasted that Salesforce is a leader in marketing automation and the preferred email service provider amongst companies worldwide. Salesforce sends more than 4 billion personalised emails per day for its customers. During Cyber Week 2018, the busiest time of year for retailers, Salesforce sent 20.6 billion emails on behalf of customers. The company also powered 22.8 billion Einstein engagements such as product recommendations within email and mobile messages.

Einstein AI engagement

Einstein Engagement Frequency enables marketers to know the right number of emails to send to customers based on their previous interactions.

(Image credit/Linkedin/Nick Antonelli)
Nick Antonelli, Chief Customer Officer, Naehas,

According to Nick Antonelli, Chief Customer Officer, Naehas: “We are focused on providing solutions that deliver personalised offers and communications. This is needed for our clients across financial services and other highly regulated industries. That’s why we turned to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We are excited to leverage Einstein content tagging on behalf of our customers.

“Einstein content tagging will help them minimise the use of assets within email marketing campaigns that aren’t resonating with customers. The platform assist with the identification of new images while enabling the re-use of those that are highly effective. It will improve personalisation and also enhance the image library based on actual customer engagement.”

New Einstein AI enhancements include:

Einstein Engagement Frequency: Marketers know that it takes more than one email to engage a customer. But how many emails is too much, and at what point does a marketer risk fatiguing their audience? With Einstein Engagement Frequency, marketers know exactly how many emails to send to customers in order to keep them engaged.

Einstein Send Time Optimisation: Just as important as knowing how many emails to send, is knowing when to send those emails to a customer. With Einstein Send Times, AI automatically predicts the best time to send marketing emails to optimise customer engagement and avoid creating unsubscribers.

Einstein Content Tagging: Marketers turn to their content libraries to find the best, most engaging images for their emails. In order to access and manage these assets, marketers historically had to manually create image tags–a cumbersome and imprecise process. Einstein Content Tagging uses image recognition to automatically and accurately tags thousands of images within a content library, helping marketers save time and locate the best images.

Transaction Messaging

Businesses send promotional and transaction emails, and mobile messages to customers. Promotional messages offer discounts, coupons and other incentives encouraging customers to view or buy products. Transaction messages include purchase confirmations, shipping notifications, password resets, financial alerts and appointment reminders.

With Transaction Messaging now part of Marketing Cloud, customers can integrate transaction and promotional messages into the same campaign. Companies can now understand the complete customer journey, ensure a single voice is being used for all messages. Furthermore, they can embed promotional content in transaction messages and vice versa.

“Brands seek the ability to predict customer wants and needs, and deliver personalisation at scale for email, mobile marketing and all other channels. AI-driven approaches empower marketers to take the guesswork out of knowing when to send and how frequently to send marketing messages, improve efficiencies with content tagging and complete the customer journey with transaction messages. The end result is higher engagement through contextual relevancy and improved conversion rate optimisation,” said R “Ray” Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research, Inc.

Salesforce to buy Tableau Software

Earlier this month, Salesforce announced its intention to acquire Tableau Software, an analytics platform operator. Tableau pioneered self-service analytics with an intuitive analytics platform that empowers people of any skill level to work with data. More than 86,000 organisations around the world, such as Charles Schwab, Verizon, Southwest and Netflix, use Tableau to understand data.

Salesforce believes Tableau will play an even greater role in driving digital transformation. The company believes businesses around the world can tap into data across their entire business. This could provide deeper insights to make smarter business decisions, drive intelligent, connected customer experiences and accelerate innovation. The acquisition is currently going through the required US financial regulatory processes.

Enterprise Times: What this means for business?

With the introduction of Marketing Cloud Einstein, companies will be able to engage with customers with personalised marketing campaigns. Salesforce is in an enviable position. It provides a complete view of customers across every touchpoint – sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. Salesforce pioneered AI for CRM.

With Salesforce Einstein, the company can now deliver AI-enabled analytics for sales and marketing. This means the company is in a good position to provide the legendary 360 degree intelligent view of their customers across every touchpoint.

Adding Tableau to the eco-system is another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Companies of every size and industry are transforming how they do business in the digital age. More importantly, customers and data are at the heart of those transformations. This creates an incredible opportunity for Salesforce and Tableau as IDC projects worldwide spending on technologies and services that will enable digital transformation to reach $1.8 trillion in 2022.

By Roy Edwards

Trained as a journalist and editor at Reuters, Roy is a qualified Prince 2 project/programme manager, consultant with more than 20 years experience of working for some iconic brands in digital, eCommerce and bespoke software. He has delivered both website and ecommerce strategy and projects and has a wide experience of different products and sectors. Roy has worked on projects including Jimmy Choo, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Savills, Tui, P&O Ferries and the NHS. During his career he has also lectured at London Metropolitan University and has an MA in journalism studies from the University of Westminster.

Sourced from enterprise times

Read More
By
In News

Shopify launches machine learning powered network for US merchants

No Comments

By 

Shopify Fulfilment Network is expected to lower shipping costs and improve delivery times for SMBs.

This week, Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify launched its brand new Shopify Fulfilment Network for US-based merchants. The new network uses Shopify’s machine learning-driven smart inventory allocation technology to determine the closest and most efficient fulfilment centres for your business.

Why we should care

For SMBs being edged out by giants like Amazon, accessibility to an inventory fulfilment network — and the integrated technologies — could play a key role in helping small businesses stay competitive and allow them to grow.

According to Shopify, the new system does not require advanced technical skills. Thanks to this, the system can be used by busy digital marketers operating with limited resources to market products and drive e-commerce sales.

More on the news

  • Shopify is working with fulfilment partners in Nevada, California, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
  • Shopify also announced upgrades to its Shopify Plus experience.
  • Shopify is also launching a new Shopify point-of-sale system.

By 

Jennifer Videtta Cannon serves as Third Door Media’s Senior Editor, covering topics from email marketing and analytics to CRM and project management. With over a decade of organizational digital marketing experience, she has overseen digital marketing operations for NHL franchises and held roles at tech companies including Salesforce, advising enterprise marketers on maximizing their martech capabilities. Jennifer formerly organized the Inbound Marketing Summit and holds a certificate in Digital Marketing Analytics from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Sourced from Marketing Land

Read More
By
In News

AI Advertising: 9 Ways To Use Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

No Comments

Sourced from Droid Men

61% of marketers declare that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most critical element of their data strategy.

Marketing is a fast-paced discipline. If you want to succeed in it, you must stay at the bleeding edge of new breakthroughs.

By 2020, 85% of customer relations will be automated. You, therefore, need to position your brand to stay competitive.

AI is probably the biggest technology push of our time revolutionizing every aspect of marketing. To get the most out of automated customer service, marketers are turning to AI advertising for strategies that can deliver higher value.

Here are some ways in which you can incorporate AI into your marketing to keep up with the times.

1. Chatbots

A Chatbot is an AI software that is capable of simulating a conversation (chat) with a user in natural language.

Brands have taken to using chatbots to interact with their clients on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Slack, and Facebook Messenger.

Through these bots, brands can answer queries customers frequently ask in a speedy fashion.

Since they retain a customer’s data after the interaction, they can build on that information to deliver more personalized experience during the next interaction.

That reinforced learning pattern only makes the experience better for the customer.

2. User Experience (UX)

When you have a website, the user experience will significantly influence whether the customer will return to it or not.

You can use AI to collect information on customers and understand their likes, intent, and desire. Data points to gather here include location, the devices they use to visit the website, demographics among others.

As the user keeps browsing the site, you get to gain more insights about them and deliver appropriate offers and content that resonates with their needs.

AI marketing that helps shape your user experience for the better has the potential to increase your conversion rate.

3. Search Engines

People today take it for granted that they can search for anything on Google and find a relevant result.

Such a scenario is the result of decades of research and analysis on how to create and deliver a more intuitive search experience for customers.

After Google deployed RankBrain, its machine-learning based algorithm, many businesses saw the value of such an application.

Nowadays consumer companies like Amazon take advantage of artificial intelligence marketing tactics that can help them deliver relevant results to you.

Innovations like natural language processing and semantic search determine the relationships between products.

When you run a search, they help recommend similar items and auto-correct mistakes so that you can find the right products.

4. Predictive Analysis

Predictive analysis is the use of data, machine learning techniques, and statistical algorithms to draw conclusions on future actions based on the data.

Using predictive analysis you can determine the probability of a prospect becoming a client.

Thus, depending on the conclusion your draw you can determine how much resources you will dedicate to converting the prospect.

Another area predictive analysis is useful in is pricing. Using this tool, you can more accurately determine which price point will deliver more sales for you.

That information can then contribute towards your value proposition marketing.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a crucial part of any brand’s marketing mix as it is one of the few digital assets they fully control.

But with the rise in sources of data from 10 in 2017 to 15 in 2019, marketers may struggle to personalize these emails.

AI can help you unify the piles of information on a subscriber and learn how to reach more effectively.

For example, it can help you determine how many times to send the email per user and what time of the day is best to send it.

6. Digital Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a cornerstone for any digital campaign. Typically, PPC ad campaigns are usually managed by an in-house team or a large agency.

AI can help you discover new channels your competition may be unaware of.

Machine learning techniques can help you optimize the layout, bids, targeting, and copy for your campaign.

You will be able to realize a higher return on advertising per campaign by using AI in marketing online.

7. Social Listening

Every brand needs to have a presence on social media to extend its customer service to where its customers are.

Consequently, it is essential that brands have their finger on the pulse of what users are saying about them.

Natural language processing innovation has made it possible for brands to hear what users and the public at large like or dislike about them.

Therefore, they can get ahead of any potential issues before they blow up.

You can also use AI in social listening to identify potential purchasers and nudge them towards a sale.

8. Audience Targeting

Customers today have come to expect a certain level of personalization, and as a marketer, you can’t fail on this expectation.

To help you create more accurately personalized campaigns, you will need to segment your customers as finely as possible.

AI can draw on the data you have on your customers and identify a common variable that can help shape your communication with a specific audience.

For example, if your data shows you that a significant number of your customers are into destiny power leveling, you can set up banner ads to effectively reach them.

9. Voice-Based Services

In the past few years, voice-based services have gained quite some traction.

Voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Cortana have made it infinitely easier for consumers to search and place an order by speaking at their devices.

Natural language processing technology helps improve speech recognition so that customers can successfully issue commands.

AI can help you deploy voice-based services to provide your customers with an avenue for easier sales and interaction.

Beef up Your AI Advertising Strategies or Get Left Behind

Artificial Intelligence is making a big impact on marketing. High automation levels in what once used to be human job roles call for precise AI advertising strategies by brands.

Are you concerned with the impact technology will have on your business? Thumb through our content to learn more about how you can use innovative breakthroughs to power your business forward.

Sourced from Droid Men

Read More
By
In News

Check your settings if you don’t want Google tracking every move

No Comments

By Jefferson Graham

MORRO BAY, Calif. – I stepped out of the car and took a visit to a local hotel here right off the main road. It was so easy to find, I didn’t have to use Google Maps to get there.

So imagine my surprise when I later looked up the hotel on Google and saw this message: “You visited here two days ago.”

That was Google’s Location History talking, the search giant’s controversial people-tracking feature that’s billed as a tool to help Google make better suggestions on places to eat and visit.

For me, Google had indeed made a detailed record of everywhere I went – from strolling along the waterfront, where I bought gas, and even when I pulled off the road on the way home and got out of the car to take a photo of a railroad bridge in Gaviota, California.

Google Location History tracks every move
Screenshot

Google says “Location History” is an opt-in feature that I don’t remember opting in for. I put the question to folks on social media and received similar responses. They couldn’t remember either.

“I knew I was being tracked but naively didn’t think they were saving everything in a timeline,” says Google user Leslie Morgan Nakajima, of Capitola, California. “But to see everything there was pretty chilling. They had every store, restaurant and bar I had visited, and the exact times I was there. I was so freaked out.”

There’s a good explanation why folks like Nakajima and others can’t recall opting in.

Yes, Location History is truly turned off when you sign up for a Google account. But if you want to use certain Google features, you will get a notification stopping you – until you turn the feature on.

For instance, Google Maps has a service called “Match,” which suggests restaurants based on your past dining experiences and tastes. If you click on it, Google sends you to Settings to allow Location History tracking.

Google also routes people to turn on Location History in exchange for “real-time traffic updates based on your current location” or with Google Photos to “help improve auto-organization and search.”

And the company is totally upfront about what it does, with fine print that most consumers probably don’t read.

Google’s detailed information about Jefferson Graham’s activity
Screenshot

Location History “saves where you go even when you aren’t using a specific Google service,” says the company. (We put in the itals for emphasis.)

Click here to see what data is on your Timeline, at https://www.google.com/maps/timeline

And while Google declined to address the popularity of this feature, it has made two significant changes to try to calm users’ fears of data mining.

Currently, if you’re uncomfortable with Google having all this information, you can go in and delete it. But later this summer, Google will introduce a new “auto-delete” tool that will get rid of your data, either every three or 18 months.

Also over the summer, “Incognito Mode” comes to Maps. Users can click on the feature, popular in the Google Chrome browser, to search, says Google, without being tracked.

Users could use Maps all the time without being tracked by simply changing the settings, at https://www.myaccount.google.com.

This is where Google offers different degrees of privacy controls that can be turned off.

Web and app activity: Google monitors your searches. It says doing so gets you faster results and better searches. Pro: We love when Google finds us local restaurants and gas stations. Con: It is the deal with the devil – leave this off and Google now is a spy in your pocket. So think about that before you turn it off.

Activity controls: This is where Google collects the data on your contacts and calendars in order to, say, create a personalized trip for your next vacation from getting the confirmations from your calendar. Pro: Better vacation info is good. Con: You’re using Google for search. Does it really need to know your mother’s address and phone number?

Voice and audio activity: This gives Google the right to record your voice asking queries of the Google Home speaker. Turn it off and “voice inputs won’t be saved to your Google Account, even if you’re signed in,” says Google. Or, in other words, as Nakajima found out, her Google Home is now inoperable, because she turned this feature off. “I may just give it to a friend,” she says. “It’s useless to me now.” Pro: Talking to home speakers is always fun and useful, for checking spellings, doing math and finding arcane trivia answers. Con: It’s always ready to listen.

Google Maps showing activity
Screenshot

Beyond turning off Location Services, the two other selections are for Google-owned YouTube. Turn off YouTube search and watch history, and the network says it won’t be able to make on-the-money recommendations based on your video tastes.

And for all the angst over Location History, some people do like it.

“I look at it this (paranoid) way: I don’t plan on committing any crimes,” says Mark Loundy, a San Francisco based photographer. “Should I ever be wrongly accused of one, my location history would likely be exculpatory.”

Denver-based web designer Bill Beebe poses a fascinating question. “Do you think it’s better that Google reminds the population subtly how much they know or just leave it off?” Most people, he adds, would be amazed at how much Google knows, “but I wonder how much they care until something bad happens with that data.”

Aleksandra Korolova, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, says companies just need to be more upfront about their tracking.

“Tracking without meaningful controls for individuals is not good for society and individual freedoms,” she says. “Going forward, if information is going to be tracked, then individuals should be given more meaningful controls to opt-out.”

Google declined to comment.

By Jefferson Graham

Sourced from USA TODAY

Read More
By
In News

How to Recover From Google’s Broad Core Algorithm Updates

No Comments

By 

A few weeks has passed since Google rolled out their latest broad core algorithm update. Articles have circulated that highlighted the ones that experienced massive wins and other sites that experienced the opposite. The prevailing factor that I see whenever Google rolls out broad core algorithm updates are questions such as “how do I fix it” or “what did I do wrong?” or “I didn’t do anything but my site traffic improved, why is that?”. There’s a variety of answers given to them, but they don’t seem to get the whole purpose of a broad core algorithm update. But before we delve into recovering if you were hit by the broad core update, what exactly is a broad core update?

What Is a Broad Core Update?

Simply put, it’s an algorithm rolled out by Google multiple times a year that doesn’t necessarily target specific issues. A broad core update is more of an update to their main search algorithm that deals with a more holistic view of a website and its expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness (E-A-T), and it’s quality.

Because of these many, varying factors, Google can’t really give us what needs to change in a website without them revealing the most important aspects of their algorithm. Think about it this way: There are 150 ranking factors that have varying importance in Google’s eyes. When they roll out broad core updates, 63 of those ranking factors’ importance changes and their order is rearranged. Of course, this is just an example and not a fact. But it’s a better way of imagining what really happens during a broad core update.

Here’s an example of how different broad core updates affected one of our clients:

Screenshot of Analytics Traffic and Google Updates

This shows us how different broad core algorithm updates affect websites in a varying manner every time. The blue dots above the graph show when the broad core updates happened. So, we can infer that regular broad core algorithm updates target different aspects every time they are rolled out – not the same thing over and over again.

Google’s Take on Recovering From Broad Core Updates

Getting hit by the algorithm update is a normal occurrence especially if your website still has a lot of room for improvement. In a recent Google Webmaster Hangouts, a webmaster asked a question to Google’s own John Mueller regarding the drop in traffic for their news site. Here’s the full question:

“ We’re a news publisher website that’s primarily focusing on the business finance vertical. We probably have been impacted by the June Core Update as we’ve seen a traffic drop from the 1st week of June.

Agreed that the update specifies that there are no fixes, no major changes that need to be made to lower the impact. But for a publisher whose core area is content news, doesn’t it signal that it’s probably the content, the quality or the quantity, which triggered Google’s algorithm to lower down the quality signal of the content being put up on the website which could’ve lead to a drop of traffic?

We’re aware that many publisher sites have been impacted. In such a scenario, it would really help if Google could come out and share some advice to webmasters and websites. Not site specific, but category or vertical specific at least on how to take corrective measures and actions to mitigate the impact of core updates. It would go a long way in helping websites who are now clueless as to what impacted them.”

Screenshot of Google Webmaster Hangouts

John Mueller went on to give the best answer he could possibly give, and here’s a summary of his answer (not verbatim):

“ There’s nothing to fix since there’s no specific thing that the algorithm targets. A variety of factors that relate to a website sometimes evolves, and that affects your traffic and rankings. There are no explicit changes you can do, but there is an old blog post (published 2011) on the Webmaster Central Blog that’s basically a guide on building high-quality sites and he highly recommends that webmasters read this post.”

Watch the Webmaster Hangout

There you have it. There’s nothing to fix, but there is a lot of room to improve on. The blog post that John Mueller recommended contains a list of questions (not necessarily actual ranking signals) that would help you understand what Google thinks about when it ranks your site:

  • Would you trust the information presented in this article?
  • Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
  • Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
  • Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
  • Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
  • Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

Those are just some of the questions that are listed in the blog post. Aside from originality and usefulness, another thing that came to mind while I was reading the blog post is that even before the term E-A-T was coined, Google was already treating it as an important factor for rankings. Successfully proving that whoever your site’s author is an expert that proves that the body of content is of value and that the facts in the content (and your site) are trustworthy – all of this equates to E-A-T.

How to Recover from Google’s Broad Core Updates

  • Use the Guidelines Provided by Google to Look for Inadequacies in Your Website

    • Use the guidelines (2011 blog post) to your site’s best interest. It already gives you a vision on the things that your site can do better on. Capitalize on that. It could take a lot of time and effort, but if you want to be successful in your SEO, then it’ll be worth it. Additionally, you can also read the updated Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines as well to deepen your understanding on Google’s standards for a high quality, useful website.

  • Improve your Site’s Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T)

    • There’s a lot of things to do here, but the first would always be to improve your author E-A-T. It’s a simple thing to talk about but difficult to do. You have to prove that you’re an expert in the area you’re writing about, and in recent times, medical and pharmaceutical websites have been the target of algorithm updates since not all of the content they have come from reputable or expert authors. Here’s a simple tip: If you start configuring your site to the guidelines highlighted in the webmaster central blog post, your E-A-T will improve as well.

  • Ask for Help

    • As the owner of a website, it is hard for you to see the faults contained in your website since you only have your own perspective to work on. But if you ask help from a community that shares the same interests or knows the same things that you do, then you can ask them to give their thoughts about your site, and you’ll be able to see the faults that you were never able to see before. The SEO community is a particularly large one and we have our fair share of intelligent and helpful people that are willing to give you their two cents. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from the community or anyone you know since it’ll help you grow as well.

  • Think Holistically

    • As I’ve mentioned, it’s a mistake to focus on a specific thing or factor when it comes to Google’s broad core updates. Sometimes, not focusing on a specific thing allows you to discover the reason why your site was impacted by the broad core update. Additionally, not focusing too much on the nitty gritty keeps you open-minded and allows you to consider many possibilities that help you diagnose your site’s traffic or ranking drop.

By 

is a motivational speaker and is the head honcho, and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker and God and You. Check out his SEO School and SEO Services site.

Sourced from SEO Hacker

Read More
By
Load More