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Shopify launches machine learning powered network for US merchants

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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.

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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

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AI Advertising: 9 Ways To Use Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

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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

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

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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

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How to Recover From Google’s Broad Core Algorithm Updates

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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.

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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

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Knowing Your Data: What Businesses Should Expect From Their Marketing Partners

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By Korena Keys

I am lucky to talk to key executives from hundreds of companies each year. Inevitably, the conversation typically rolls around to the effectiveness of digital marketing. The one common link in each of the conversations is understanding if their marketing is effective and interpreting what it means. In some cases, the organization has never received a report. In others, they get numbers but don’t know what they mean or how to decipher them.

If you are paying someone (an individual or an agency) to execute a digital marketing initiative, then you should expect to receive regular updates, reports on progress and interpretations of what the data is telling you and what should — or should not — be done about it. If you are missing this information, there are two possible solutions: Meet with your provider and ask for reporting data and recommendations to be delivered consistently, or find a new provider.

Understanding your campaign performance is critical in order to make decisions, allocate budgets and understand your customers and their needs. Let me explain in greater detail.

1. Search Engine Marketing: Paid and organic efforts relating to search marketing are able to provide key insights that can boost your page visibility within your specific sector, improving your page rankings while creating a better experience for your customers. As it relates to your paid search marketing (SEM or PPC), you will want to know what terms your customers are using, as well as which of your keywords has the strongest click-through and conversion metrics. Additionally, ask for reporting on ad group and ad copy performance, site links and call extensions. This will help you better understand your customers and what they want from you while providing insights that can be applied to other areas of your marketing. You should review this information monthly with your contracted provider.

2. Website Optimization: With an SEO contract, you can expect to see regular reports on your website performance in relation to your search engine rankings — how and where you are showing up on Google, Yahoo or Bing search results pages. The actual report may vary by contract, but at a minimum should include a review of your website speed on mobile devices, your current ranking and any change in your ranking for 5-8 keywords, identified technical errors and a summary of what work has been completed to improve in these areas.

3. Video (pre-roll, streaming, promoted): Video marketing has a little different report and KPI structure. With this type of advertising, the goal is typically to increase awareness or evoke some type of emotion. That is difficult to measure in clicks. When you are looking at performance metrics as it relates to video, ask for the video completion rate (VCR) and total time played in addition to any attributed clicks or conversions. This video data will let you know how effective your message is as well as if you are targeting the right audience within your ad buy.

4. Online Display Ads: While many professionals within our industry provide reporting on display ad impressions served and click-through rates (CTR), they really do not tell us the whole story. Request reporting data on ad performance by message and size, conversion metrics and website analytics data that will indicate the quality of the click. In today’s marketplace, it is easy to buy clicks and flood a website with cheap traffic. You will want to ensure that you are paying for quality web traffic, not just quantity.

5. Email Marketing: Reporting on this activity is more straightforward than other digital aspects, mostly because it is more of a standardized service. Ask for a summary for each email sent. It should include the date and time it was deployed, total sends, total opens and reads, number of clicks (and on what links), as well as any results from A/B testing of subject lines and content.

6. Social Media Marketing: Depending on the scope of services of your social media contract, your contractor should be providing a monthly summary of their activity and the results. If the intent is to boost your page engagement, the report should include posts made, activity for each post, change in page engagement over the previous month and data on paid activity. If you are trying to promote an event or sell a product, the report should also include hard numbers on the registrations, sales or leads attributed to the campaign efforts.

7. Website Insights/Usability: The goal of a paid online campaign is to grow your business. Looking beyond impressions and clicks will tell you how well your campaign is working for you. Look for key indicators, such as time on site, pages per visit and new visitors. These data points will let you know how good the quality of traffic is (how many pages they are looking at and for how long). They will also provide insights as to what pages of your website need attention through better/more content or flow.

The data collected from your marketing campaigns provides valuable knowledge. Accessing this information, understanding its meaning and applying the insights will propel your organization further, faster and with lower acquisition costs.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Korena Keys

Korena, the Founder & CEO of KeyMedia Solutions, applies 25+ years marketing experience to drive a strategy first approach.

Sourced from Forbes

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How to Master YouTube Ads to Grow Your Startup

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By John Boitnott

You need to know your audience, formats, and competition to really get people to visit your site and buy your product.

As the second-largest search engine in the world, YouTube can be an effective way to generate interest in your startup as well as to drive traffic to your website. It doesn’t matter whether your company is B2B or B2C: YouTube Ads provide an engaging way to reach your target customers, and give you an opportunity to work with a channel that consumers trust.

Here’s how I and others got started and made the most out of YouTube ads, as well as how you can use the social media platform overall to help grow your company.

Familiarize yourself with various YouTube targeting options.

To maximize the return on your YouTube ads, you’ll need to know how to target your specific audience. You can understand your audience better as well as how to target potential customers by learning and using these options:

1. Remarketing

Remarketing, often called retargeting, offers a way to go after those non-converting visitors by sending an ad to other places they visit.

I used to work for a startup that used this strategy quite a lot. I and other members of the marketing team noticed that visitors would leave before buying our services. We worked with a company specializing in this form of marketing (top options include Outbrain, Adroll and ReTargeter) to incentivize people to return to our site, even months later–and it worked.

2. In-Market and Affinity Audiences

These are traditional audience targets. These audiences align with Google’s pre-defined segmentation model, based on previous knowledge Google has gathered. Affinity audiences are those that have a strong interest in a specific topic, while in-market audiences are those currently researching a certain product and are ready to buy.

3. Life Events

Google created this target specifically for YouTube. It focuses on reaching a target audience based on upcoming life events like graduation, moving, and marriage.

Get to Know YouTube ad formats.

Making the most out of YouTube ads also means developing a format that catches peoples’ attention. Here are the main types of ads.

TrueView In-Stream ads play before a video. They offer a way for audiences to reach your website. Audiences can choose whether or not to skip them. They’re often effective during remarketing campaigns and can help bring more subscribers to your YouTube channel.

TrueView Video Discovery ads appear on the right-hand side of the video view page, search results pages, and as thumbnails on an individual’s YouTube homepage. This format works well for traditional search campaign ads, as well as for prospecting and remarketing campaigns.

Finally, there are bumper ads. They’re under six seconds long and appear prior to a video. Impressions drive the cost of these ads, which also often work well for remarketing campaigns.

Know the competition and your other marketing efforts.

Before designing and producing your ad on YouTube, make sure you know what your competition is up to. You don’t want to end up looking just like them and blend in too much with the crowd.

Your YouTube ad campaign should align with your other marketing efforts. This promotes brand consistency, which in turn can build brand awareness. To get started on framing your campaign, make sure you first have a Google AdWords account. This is where you will start your YouTube ad campaign.

Create a visually compelling ad around one value-add point.

Keep the video ads simple by focusing on one way you can add value rather than trying to cram all your benefits into one ad. Select the most relevant value-add point to catch the audience’s attention and focus on explaining that benefit in a visually compelling manner.

Develop content and SEO opportunities.

Be sure to include relevant written content like the ad title and description by using keywords. This is where YouTube’s search engine capability can provide a significant advantage. Plug in your own search terms to see what appears, and use those results to help shape keyword usage and content to improve ranking for your video ad.

Don’t forget to include a “call to action” in that description. Be sure to include links to your site so potential customers can find your website, improving conversion rates.

Build out your YouTube channel.

Before visiting your website, those target audience members may want to see what other video content you have available on YouTube. To get the most out of your ads, make sure you have first developed a channel that offers relevant video content.

By engaging with your audience in multiple ways beyond a single YouTube ad, you can deliver more value, enhance your credibility and drive higher returns on your YouTube ad investments. This may also inspire your target audience to visit your site and make purchases.

Review and assess your YouTube ad results.

Continue refining your campaign efforts, leveraging Google AdWords. You can use this analytics tool to assess response rates to your YouTube ad, providing valuable information for your company. While these tips help you master YouTube ads, you’ll still be able to learn as you go, improving along the way.

Feature  Image Credit: Getty Images

By John Boitnott

Sourced from Inc.

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How to Assess Your Content Performance: 5 Tools You Haven’t Tried

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Content analysis is a marketing task that’s never really complete.

You need to come back to your old content again and again to see what should be updated, which new visibility opportunities can be pursued and how to better optimize it for more conversions.

With that in mind, there’s no set list of tools you should be using again and again. New tools bring new analysis methods and, hence, new ideas. Here are 5 tools to use for content assessment:

1. Which Keywords Have I Missed?

Any time I am assessing my existing content performance, I start with identifying which keywords I have missed.

Content gap analysis answers one of the most important content marketing questions: which topics have I failed to cover, and which questions have I failed to answer when creating that content?

Powered by

It’s usually a multi-step process where you need to:

  • Identify competing URLs
  • Run organic analysis of current positions
  • Compare rankings with yours and identify which keywords your URL fails to rank in top 50

Serpstat is the SERP analysis platform that minimizes the whole process to only one step: simply enter your URL into their Missing Keywords tool, and it will generate a handy content analysis report including:

  • Search queries competing pages generate traffic from while your URL fails to rank in top 50
  • Search volume and “Competition Strength” for each query (“Competition Strength” is Serpstat’s own metric they calculate based on average authority of pages ranking in top 10 for the given query)
  • Other URLs from your domain that rank for any of those queries (For you to avoid internal organic competition, i.e. keyword cannibalization (the term I am not a big fan of by the way). This latter report section is pretty awesome: I’ve never seen this done by anyone else and for established blogs (that tend to have a lot of content on similar topics) it’s a time saver!

Missing Keywords You can also filter the report by search volume, competition strength, any keyword in the query.

This is one of those reports that have too much going on: I always end up working on all “Other URLs”, as well to try and push them higher in SERPs.

2. Who Will Find My Page Content Satisfying?

Another fundamental question to answer is: is my page meeting the users’ expectations? In other words, have I done enough to optimize for search intent?

Not only is search intent playing a decisive role in engaging your visitors, but search intent optimization also is able to boost your rankings. That’s because Google has learned how to identify whether your page is meeting users’ needs when deciding how high it should rank.

Text Optimizer is a semantic analysis tool that identifies the type of audience your page caters to.

Textoptimizer

If you see that your text seems to be targeting the wrong type of audience, use Text Optimizer to better optimize your content for search intent for any given query.

Simply enter your query and provide your page URL: the tool will run Google search for your query and identify which related concepts should be covered in your content for it to better meet Google’s (and its users’) expectations. Include 20-25 of these concepts in your copy to better optimize it for search intent.

 

3. Does My Page Pass the 5-Second Test?

What’s the very first impression your page makes when users land on it? Is it instantly clear what the page is about? Are CTAs clearly visible on the page? Is the goal clear?

Studies have shown that most people need just a couple of seconds to decide whether they want to stay or leave a web page. In today’s fast-paced digital environment where most people browse the web on the go, from their mobile or smart assistant devices, this time frame is likely to become even shorter.

It takes most people about 5 seconds to decide whether they want to stay or leave a web page. #UX Click To Tweet

This makes your actual content quality almost secondary: most people won’t even see it unless they are instantly compelled to stay. This is where the 5-second test comes along: let strangers look at your page for five seconds, and then ask one simple question: “Was is this page about” or “What are you supposed to do on the page?”

If you recruit your own testers, this test is free to run. I usually use Usability Hub to quickly set up the tests. You can also recruit testers through the site which costs $30 (free for the first-time users).

Usability Hub

4. What Distracts Users from Following the Conversion Funnel?

Besides understanding the instant impression your users get when landing on your page, it is helpful to know what exactly distracts them. The easiest way to collect this data is through running a one-day heatmap test.

A heatmap is the visual representation of user behavior on the page, including scrolling, clicking, mouse movements, etc.

If you need to identify what gets your users’ attention, set up a move map that tracks cursor movements on your page. In most cases, it is safe to assume that people look where their cursor moves, so move maps can give you a good idea where people look when landing on your page.

Heat map

There are multiple platforms that you to run heatmap testing, as well as several WordPress plugins that integrate heatmaps into your A/B testing routine. In many cases, unless you have really heavy traffic, you can run simple move map testing for free.

5. What Is Interrupting Your Conversion Funnel Flow?

You probably have a few CTAs within your content, each leading your visitor down the conversion funnell, from clicking to opting-in to finally buying. Which of those steps is reducing your conversions?

Finteza is a free web analytics tool that allows you to monitor multiple events on a page and how they interact with one another.

Finteza

It’s pretty obvious that an extra click reduces conversions, so eliminating the extra step is likely to boost conversions.

Finteza is pretty easy to set up. Adding events for tracking is very straightforward too. If you are not technical enough, you can simply add a new link attribute data-fz-event=”Event+Name” (Put your event name instead of “Event+Name”), and the new event will be automatically populated and monitored.

Monitor all kinds of conversion-focused links on within your content including clicks to lead magnets,

Putting It All Together

There’s an overwhelming amount of both traffic acquisition and conversion optimization tactics. With so much testing and analyzing, how do you put everything together in a most actionable way? In other words, how do you move from analyzing onto implementing?

When working on old content, I treat it as a new marketing campaign. As soon as I come across an existing article or landing page that needs some work, I put it down as a new content project in my calendar inside ContentCal.

ContentCal is a collaboration editorial tool that is every content manager’s dream. I don’t have time for creating tickets or distributing tasks, so ContentCal is ideal. It takes two seconds to schedule a content campaign and put together a content brief, including all the numbers and test results I was able to collect.

My team will be notified of an approaching campaign through the shared calendar and will be able to quickly share the tasks and implement the suggestions.

Having a centralized dashboard that consolidates all my plans keeps me very organized and productive.

Hopefully these new tools will breathe fresh air into your content assessment process and inspire you to look for new tactics and trends to boost your content marketing performance.

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Sourced from CONVINCE&CONVERT

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Six Best Ways to Expand Your Business

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By Lui Tong

Here are the best ways to expand your business and ensure sustainable growth. It is thinking local but acting global!

Trust
While we actually try to learn about what is happening in the market, it helps to understand the consumers. What they’re looking for is not just the next best product or the price but also which website is trustworthy. Trust converts into sales and sustainability, especially in the online format.

Being in Tandem with Customers
The market needs outlook, we are the current generation and our children, the next generation. If we look at shoppers today, they are different, they’re looking for fun and a high quality lifestyle. Categorized and personalised products are definitely required. Promotion and better shopping experience are also very important.

A Steady Stream of Loyal Customers
If we talk about loyalty, you can gain a customer today, but the question is will the customer stay with you? What do you do to entice them to stay. With the opening of cross-border trade, you can get goods locally and the same goods across the border. What we see here is the power of social commerce.

Why Selling is Not Enough
Selling is not enough. After you sell what you do to make sure that you have delivered a fulfilling experience is critical. Customer journey is the key online solution provider and it is getting more and more sophisticated for you to optimise and personalise experience. Financial services is also allowing you to have hassle-free payments.

Think Big
While doing business, we must think big. We have gone through waves and waves of disruption and have reinvented ourselves, but it is starting to pay back these days.

Power of Social Commerce
If you have a network of 200 friends who can buy together with you, then the growth is exponential. So is the power of social commerce.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay 

By Lui Tong

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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Lego marketing chief says the challenge with online advertising is that so much content is ‘damaging’ to kids

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By Megan Graham

Lego faces a conundrum when it comes to online advertising, according to Chief Marketing Officer Julia Goldin. That’s because the toymaker’s target audience is children, and the big internet companies aren’t doing enough to protect them from unsafe content, she says.

“Platforms need to have more transparency and take more responsibility,” Goldin said on Thursday in an onstage interview at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “We also need to take more responsibility for how we work with platforms, both individually as brands but collectively as an industry.”

Speaking at a session hosted by The Economist and featuring marketing leaders from Procter & Gamble and Taco Bell, Goldin addressed the increasing concern surrounding the safety of online content and the regulatory issues facing tech giants. Questions about how marketing executives are pressuring Facebook and Google to change their practices came up repeatedly at Cannes, the ad industry’s most important annual awards event.

Goldin is focused on the safety of kids.

“Right now, they are on platforms where they are exposed to content that is actually damaging to them and their privacy is not protected,” Goldin said. “I don’t think we should accept that.”

Goldin added that Lego doesn’t advertise on the major sites when the company doesn’t “feel that it’s safe.” When asked if the company promotes its products on YouTube, she said, Lego is “really focused on adults” on that site and is “very careful about where we actually will put advertising that’s targeted to children.”

YouTube did not provide CNBC with a response to Goldin’s comments.

YouTube says viewers have to be at least 13 to sign up. The company has a service called YouTube Kids, which filters videos for underage children and includes a limited number of ads, all indicating that the spots are family friendly and in compliance with YouTube’s policies.

However, there are plenty of ways for kids to watch regular YouTube videos, including by using the accounts of their parents. A Bloomberg report this week said that popular kids’ channel Cocomelon, which is part of the main service, has more than 50 million subscribers, double the weekly audience for all of YouTube Kids.

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is investigating YouTube for allegedly violating a law that forbids the tracking and targeting of users younger than age 13, according to The Washington Post.

Higher standards

Marisa Thalberg, Taco Bell’s global chief brand officer, said during the session that the restaurant company is so big it has to work with the major platforms but added that it has at times  “hit the pause button, literally and figuratively” to say “there has to be accountability.”

For Lego, there’s another path to reaching users in a safe way that doesn’t rely on Google and Facebook. In 2017, the company launched Lego Life as an online community for children to upload photos of their own Lego creations. As of April 2018, it had 6 million members.

Goldin describes Lego Life as a “super safe digital platform” and said the company monitors all content using machine learning and human review. Kids use avatars instead of personal pictures, everything is done with parental consent and the site doesn’t collect private data, she said.

“Those are the kinds of standards we need to continue abiding by,” she said.

“Right now, they are on platforms where they are exposed to content that is actually damaging to them and their privacy is not protected,” Goldin said. “I don’t think we should accept that.”

Goldin added that Lego doesn’t advertise on the major sites when the company doesn’t “feel that it’s safe.” When asked if the company promotes its products on YouTube, she said, Lego is “really focused on adults” on that site and is “very careful about where we actually will put advertising that’s targeted to children.”

YouTube did not provide CNBC with a response to Goldin’s comments.

YouTube says viewers have to be at least 13 to sign up. The company has a service called YouTube Kids, which filters videos for underage children and includes a limited number of ads, all indicating that the spots are family friendly and in compliance with YouTube’s policies.

However, there are plenty of ways for kids to watch regular YouTube videos, including by using the accounts of their parents. A Bloomberg report this week said that popular kids’ channel Cocomelon, which is part of the main service, has more than 50 million subscribers, double the weekly audience for all of YouTube Kids.

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is investigating YouTube for allegedly violating a law that forbids the tracking and targeting of users younger than age 13, according to The Washington Post.

Higher standards

Marisa Thalberg, Taco Bell’s global chief brand officer, said during the session that the restaurant company is so big it has to work with the major platforms but added that it has at times  “hit the pause button, literally and figuratively” to say “there has to be accountability.”

For Lego, there’s another path to reaching users in a safe way that doesn’t rely on Google and Facebook. In 2017, the company launched Lego Life as an online community for children to upload photos of their own Lego creations. As of April 2018, it had 6 million members.

Goldin describes Lego Life as a “super safe digital platform” and said the company monitors all content using machine learning and human review. Kids use avatars instead of personal pictures, everything is done with parental consent and the site doesn’t collect private data, she said.

“Those are the kinds of standards we need to continue abiding by,” she said.

By Megan Graham

Sourced from CNBC

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