Atomic Media

Google says don’t expect a new core update by year-end

Friday, December 16th, 2022

With the Google December 2022 link spam update and helpful content update both still rolling out, SEOs are worried that Google may have one more Google algorithm update up its sleeve before the year’s end. Well, it will not happen, said John Mueller from the Google Search team.

No more core updates this year. John Mueller said on Twitter, “FWIW, just to be clear, there’s no core update lined up for the rest of the year.”

Rankings might not be stable. But like I said before, the link spam update and helpful content update both still rolling out, so ranking volatility may still occur until those are done rolling out. And of course, rankings are never static, new content is being added daily, and Google is crawling and indexing those new web pages and the signals that come from those pages.

John added on Twitter, “that doesn’t mean there won’t be visible changes; the linkspam & HCS updates are still rolling out, and, Search continues to reflect changes across the web.”

So SEOs still may have their work out for them throughout the next couple of weeks leading up to the holidays.

The tweet. Here is John’s tweet:

FWIW, just to be clear, there's no core update lined up for the rest of the year. That doesn't mean there won't be visible changes; the linkspam & HCS updates are still rolling out ( https://t.co/wgdE0g7SDr ), and, Search continues to reflect changes across the web.

— John Mueller is mostly not here (@JohnMu) December 16, 2022

Why we care. With many SEOs and marketers already starting to take off for the holidays, some may be doing so with a little anxiety as these updates finish to roll out. That being said, core updates tend to be the most volatile updates and so far, the helpful content updates and even this link spam update, seem relatively minor in terms of the footprint it had across the web.

Sure, if your site was hit by an update, you will feel the ranking declines and traffic, but it seems like most sites were not yet impacted by these updates. And with no core updates scheduled for the next couple weeks, hopefully some of you can enjoy the holidays and new year.

The post Google says don’t expect a new core update by year-end appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

The enterprise business of SEO: Communicating to the C-suite

Friday, December 16th, 2022

Change is the only constant in SEO. At the moment, change is the only constant in the economy. 

Adapting to SEO shifts, reduced paid spending, and the general consensus of having to do more with less have hit marketers hard. 

As C-suite members look to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, SEO has risen to become an essential boardroom agenda item.

SEO is impacting website performance across every type of industry. It provides vital business insights into consumer behavior and intent while helping content get discovered and measured.  

With this in mind, and as we look toward 2023, how SEOs communicate to key stakeholders across their organization will be of the most critical importance. 

Additionally, as competition for digital marketing budgets intensifies, the importance of SEO success and performance must be recognized and rewarded.

As SEO becomes engrained in many parts of a business – from providing insights for sales and product and optimizing content to partnering with digital media teams – it is critical to address the following.

• “What key metrics matter to the CEO?”
• “How best do I talk to my CMO and the CFO on budgets?”
• “When and how should I communicate SEO performance across the organization?”
• “How do I handle multiple requests for insights from other departments?”

Here are some insights and tips to help you communicate to the C-suite.

SEO in the boardroom: Challenges and opportunities

Conversations at the C-level are constantly pivoting due to changes in the economy, fluctuations in demand and supply, and organizational changes. 

Companies of every size across every industry face the constant challenges of innovating for the future and meeting the demands of tomorrow’s customers. 

Understanding the needs of the customer and their experiences has become the number one focus for every business.

The organic channel is perfect for helping key members of the C-suite to:

• Stay ahead of market trends with vital business insights.
• Determine competitive pressures.
• Identify new opportunities.
• Glean an overall better understanding of the customer across the whole business.

C-suite conversations are also highly focused on performance. However, it is not about driving performance at all costs. 

Instead, it is about driving performance in the most efficient way possible with the best gross margin possible.

When it comes to the organic channel and SEO, C-level executives appreciate the ROI of the organic channel. 

Organic search drives over 51% of website traffic – a percentage that has held constant for nearly eight years. This is a great starting point when building conversations with C-level executives.

However, the challenge that many SEOs have is twofold:

• Getting visibility.
• Getting buy-in through clear reporting and communication. 

And you cannot get one without having the other.

Understanding the C-suite and key business metrics that matter

The C-suite drives the company’s business strategy and manages employees. However, not everyone in this position has an equal amount of knowledge about digital marketing techniques.

Some may be more skilled than others in technical skills like coding or designing websites. 

At the same time, another person could specialize in product strategies instead. 

Regardless of their SEO knowledge levels, all members work toward common goals:

• Results (revenue).
• Performance metrics (how well we’re doing relative to our competitors).
• Organizational impact.

Regarding organic search, measures of one campaign’s success do not always translate directly into what members in your organization view as a victory. 

To bridge this gap between communication and understanding for everyone involved, you should begin by establishing how vital SEO is on an individual level with those who can make decisions based on these numbers. 

You can also show them how your efforts are helping promote other digital marketing channels while boosting customer retention rates through more personalized offerings based on understanding the customer experience.

As media budgets are reduced, organizations are being asked to do more with less with more. There has never been a better time to communicate the importance and value of SEO.

Your goal here is to establish that:

• Search plays a role in our lives, regardless of economic conditions.
• Unlike other channels, search doesn’t fluctuate with consumer behavior.
• Good SEO drives the most cost-effective type of revenue.
• SEO is good for brand awareness, equity, and visibility.
• SEO provides vital business intelligence at a macro (market) and micro (intent) level.
• SEO drives the content that fuels other marketing channels and does so more efficiently.
• SEO insights help the broader business, such as product development and sales.

SEO is an investment that provides compounded interest from short-term wins to long-term incremental gains. 

The time and effort that goes into it are sticky. 

It does not go away and builds over time. It is durable and provides exponential growth.

These are things a C-suite member loves to hear!

Every organization has different hierarchical structures and titles. However, for illustrative purposes, below are a few examples based on a generic enterprise C-level structure.

CEO

The chief executive officer (CEO) is always interested in overall performance. CEOs:

• Want to understand the contribution SEO makes to the top line of the business and whether the contributions are completed efficiently. 
• Can make only a limited number of investments to grow the company and need to know that their investment in SEO will pay off. 
• Want to see the sales numbers and how the company stacks up against its competition.

Metrics that matter: 

• ROI.
• Sales.
• Market share.
• Share of voice.

CMO

The chief marketing officer (CMO) is interested in the overall demand generation portfolio. Organic search is exciting because of its sheer size. 

Every CMO:

• Wants to grow traffic and revenue from organic search.
• Wants to know how well it converts and the role it plays (assists) alongside other marketing channels such as demand generation, event strategy, industry influencers, social, and PR.

Metrics that matter: 

• Conversion rates.
• Acquisition costs.
• ROI compared to other channels.

CFO

The chief financial officer (CFO), like the CEO, is interested in overall performance. 

However, the CFO will also be interested in budgeting and forecasting.

They will want to determine:

• Where new investments can be made.
• Where best to allocate SEO budgets and technology spending for the coming year. 

With so many fluctuations in the economy and pressure on budgets, ensuring the CFO understands the why of what you are doing related to the end result is essential. 

Metrics that matter: 

• Operational costs.
• Budget efficiency.
• Forecasts and ROI compared to other channels. 

CTO

A chief technology officer (CTO) is pivotal in modern-day SEO. 

CTOs:

• Are involved and interested in data, insights, integration, and product development.
• Must be able to keep up-to-date on all technical advancements to make informed decisions about future products or services for their company’s roadmap.

Metrics that matter: 

• Site performance.
• Product development.
• Adoption 

COO

The chief operating officer (COO) will be interested in:

• How SEO contributes to other aspects of the business, such as recruitment, branding, sales, retention, and upsells. 
• Associated costs across the business (such as design).
• How SEO structures, people, and processes are integrated across the organization.

Metrics that matter:

• Operational costs.
• Compliance.
• Business intelligence.
• Contribution to cross-functional goals and objectives.
• Cost savings with automation. 

Collectively, the C-suite wants to know the following:

• The size of the competition.
• The value of the market.
• Their share of voice in the market.
• The maximum possible return vs. the actual return.

Mastering communication

Remember that your time with the C-suite will be limited. Hence make sure you choose your words wisely and make them count.

To evangelize and elevate your SEO work, remember who you are talking to, and remember to speak their language. 

For example, a CMO would rather hear about revenue than rank because they are more concerned with how well an SEO campaign translates into tangible results for their company’s bottom line.

You should always strive to speak “their language” when communicating effectively – which means understanding how to translate. 

CEOs are less interested in seeing keyword ranking changes (outside of your crucial core terms) and more interested in seeing your share of voice, revenue from organic campaigns, and success within the competitive landscape. 

This offers you the chance to elevate SEO and the importance of your role. Again, language is key to communication.

Here’s how to frame what you say and what it means to the C-suite.

In addition, use reports and visuals that quickly and clearly communicate your progress and the direct benefit to the company.

Elevate SEO by being transparent 

SEOs have a history of making SEO esoteric and exotic, implying that there is a bit of dark magic involved. 

But, unfortunately, that serves neither the SEO nor the executive audience.

Take the opposite approach by:

• Increasing transparency on progress. SEO usually takes longer than paid channels or even sales to bring in results, but include SEO progress reporting at least monthly in the standard management report vehicles. Also, don’t forget that SEO investments bring compound (interest-like) returns that no other channel can.
• Being curious but also focused on critical wins. Sales would not share the tactical minutiae of every deal with management – and SEOs should not, either. Instead, they identify repeatable patterns and tell the executives how they will scale it out to other reps and deals.

Communicate SEO’s value to the C-suite

The role of SEO is continually rising. It has become an active participant in business planning and part of many companies’ business intelligence. As a result, alignment with multiple stakeholders is becoming critical. 

Ensure your strategies are sound while creating alignment across various stakeholders across the C-suite as your organization advances. 

Most of the time, SEO teams are expected to do more and provide more value with fewer resources than other areas of the business may have. 

While that speaks to the value and importance of SEO in an organization, it also means you have to be methodical in approaching your work if you’re an SEO in this scenario. 

Use your time to showcase success and manage expectations. Traction takes time, so balance strategies to make incremental gains while focusing on long-term success

Keep elevating your success by building appropriate dashboards and presentations that tie SEO strategy and tactics to business objectives. This will directly help you position and promote your success. 

Continually engage with C-level executives and help them understand the value of SEO and its role.

Use data, AI, and deep learning to share powerful insights, tell content-rich stories, and develop new skill sets that help you understand and adapt to the broader digital and marketing technology landscape.

The ability to communicate effectively in meetings is a crucial part of your success as an SEO. 

Invest some time developing valuable meeting room traits like confident speaking abilities or compelling storytelling so that you can engage with leaders. 

This will allow you to engage with your organization’s leaders and help them understand the value of what you and the organic search channel offer.

The post The enterprise business of SEO: Communicating to the C-suite appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

E-E-A-T and major updates to Google’s quality rater guidelines

Thursday, December 15th, 2022

Google has made significant changes to its Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) for search.

While Google updates this document several times per year, the latest version, updated today, came with notable changes to the structure of the document, with many new sections and tables added and a total of 11 new pages worth of content. 

While there are dozens of important details about what changed, arguably the most important change was the introduction of the letter E to the start of the popular acronym E-A-T. 

Introducing E-E-A-T

Google is now introducing the concept of E-E-A-T, which stands for

• Experience.
• Expertise.
• Authoritativeness.
• Trustworthiness. 

The addition of “experience” indicates that content quality can also be evaluated through the lens of understanding the extent to which the content creator has first-hand experience in the topic.

With this reframing of E-E-A-T, Google also states that “trust” is at the center of this concept and is the “most important member of the E-E-A-T family.” 

Google also provides many more clear examples of important concepts, such as:

• Evaluating the reputation of websites and content contributors.
• The extent to which E-E-A-T matters and how it should be evaluated.
• What it means for content to be harmful. 

More inclusive language and granularity

Google appears to be evolving its language to be more inclusive and keep up with the times. It added many new mentions of social media platforms, influencers, and how content can take different forms, such as video, UGC, and social media posts.

In this version, Google also takes a granular approach in answering many common questions about how E-E-A-T works and how much it matters for different topics. Google spells out what content should be considered harmful and whether everyday experience is sufficient to produce trustworthy content for the topic at hand. 

There are many more changes than what is outlined below.

All SEOs should take time to read through Google’s new guidelines, as they serve as a representation of where Google wants its algorithms to go. 

The most significant changes to the QRG

Below are some of the most significant changes to the Search Quality Guidelines in December 2022, broken down by section.

Understanding the Website - Section 2.5 

Google updated its guidelines around identifying who operates a website. In the new QRG, Google added the following new guidance:

“Start by finding out who is responsible for the website and who created the content on the page… Then, look for information about the website and/or content creators on the website itself.” (page 15)

This addition implies that it’s important to know who actually owns and operates the website, even if that relationship is not directly clear on the site. 

Google also began to refer to the reputation of the “website and/or content creators” instead of just the website, indicating that the reputation of the people contributing content to the website should also factor into consideration when evaluating that website. 

Finding Who is Responsible for the Website and Who Created the Content on the Page - Section 2.5.2

When identifying who is responsible for a website, Google states it should be clear who owns the website.

In the previous version of the QRG, Google asked raters to look for which “individual, company, business, foundation, etc.” is responsible for the site.

In this version, Google replaced “foundation” with “organization” and “government agency.” 

Google also added: 

“…for pages on websites such as forums and social media platforms, people may post content using an alias or username in order to avoid sharing personally identifiable information online. In these cases, the alias or username is an acceptable way to identify the content creator.”

Google also added a brand new table to help quality raters identify who created the main content on a webpage. 

Page 17

This table helps raters identify who is responsible for the content on various types of sites, given that some websites entirely control their own content, while others are comprised primarily of user-generated content or contributions from authors.

Google seems to be focused on distinguishing the website owner from the content contributor(s) on that site. 

Overall Page Quality Rating - Section 3.0

Google significantly shifted around the order of some of its advice related to rating page quality and analyzing reputation information. 

The updated QRG offers a new 3-step process for assessing Page Quality:

1. Assessing the true purpose of the page and how harmful/deceptive it is
2. Assessing the potential of the page to cause harm or otherwise be untrustworthy or spammy

(If the rater determines the pages are harmful, untrustworthy or spammy, they should rate them Lowest quality)

3. If the page is not harmful, the quality rating is based on how well the page achieves its purpose

Google also added a new table to consider when evaluating page quality: 

Page 19

Page 20

The third consideration asks the rater to consider the “extent to which the topic of the page is YMYL.” This refers to the spectrum of YMYL topics referenced in the previous version (based on their ability to cause harm to the user). 

Google introduced a new consideration for understanding the type of website. Some of these considerations include whether the website:

• Is a hobbyist site or corporate.
• Involves financial transactions or requires payments
• Is supported by volunteers or by professionals. 

Different types of websites have different page quality expectations

Google also indicated that while ads are necessary for many sites to monetize, the “ways in which ads contribute to user experience” are a consideration for page quality.

As stated in previous sections, the reputation of the website and its content creators contributes to page quality.

And lastly, we have the most significant reveal of the updated Quality Rater Guidelines: E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness and Trust. 

Quality of the Main Content - 3.2

Google made some important changes to how raters should assess the quality of a page’s main content. 

In the previous version (page 24), Google stated: 

“For all types of webpages, creating high quality MC takes a significant amount of at least one of the following: time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill.”

In the new version (page 22), Google removed the word “time” and added the word “originality.” 

“For most pages, the quality of the MC can be determined by the amount of effort, originality, and talent or skill that went into the creation of the content.”

Given Google’s focus on original content this year, this addition is not surprising. 

Google also added a new table to this section, outlining how to assess page quality: 

Page 21

Google’s increased focus on effort with a clear explanation of what effort looks like (and doesn’t look like) is a big update to this version of the QRG.

Google seems to be asking raters to focus on how much actual work went into building the content, as opposed to tactics that use automation without oversight or manual curation. 

Google is also increasingly focused on the originality of the content and the presence of insights not found elsewhere. 

As with previous versions of the QRG, Google also states that accuracy and alignment with expert consensus are important for YMYL topics. 

Reputation of the Website and Content Creators - Section 3.3

Google enhanced its recommendations for understanding the reputation of both a website and its content creators. 

One important addition is that reputation research depends on the topic of the page content. Google asks raters to think about the reputation of the content creators “in the context of what the page is about.”

The below paragraph is important for understanding this concept:

Page 22

Google also added an important new detail about websites or content creators that create content across many different websites.

In these cases, the quality rater should consider the “underlying company or the content creator,” which means they can look across different websites to obtain reputation information. 

Reputation of the Content Creators - 3.3.4

Google expanded its guidelines around identifying the reputation of individual authors and content creators.

This entire section is new and shows how much Google is focused on the reputation of individual content creators (they even mention influencers!):

Page 25

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (E-E-A-T) - Section 3.4

Google’s E-A-T has been a hot topic in the SEO community for the past few years. This version of the Quality Rater Guidelines introduces a new, evolved version of E-A-T: 

E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust

Along with introducing an extra letter – E for experience – Google now also places “trust” at the center of this ‘family’ of important considerations for page quality. 

According to Google (page 27):

“Trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T no matter how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may seem.”

Trust is the mechanism by which raters determine if the page is “accurate, honest, safe, and reliable” (page 27). The amount of trust a page requires depends entirely on the nature of the page. 

Google provides the example of online stores, which require secure online payment systems and good customer service. It also mentions product review sites – a trustworthy review would help searchers make informed decisions rather than just try to sell the product. 

Google introduced a new table to help raters understand how to approach experience, expertise and authoritativeness:

Page 26

The introduction of “experience” to the concept of E-A-T is consistent with many of Google’s updates and communications throughout the past couple of years, particularly related to product review content. 

Google focuses on the extent to which content creators have “necessary first-hand of life experience for the topic.” Having significant experience lends itself to trust.

Google uses the example of a product review – someone who has personally used the product has more experience than someone who has not, therefore creating more trust. 

For evaluating Trust, the most important “member of the E-E-A-T family,” raters should consider: 

• What the website says about itself on its About Page or other profile pages.
• What others say about the website or its content creators (third-party reviews or references).
• What is visible on the page – actual evidence on the page that the content creator can be trusted (e.g., real evidence of them doing the thing they claim to be an expert in).

Google also adds a new important detail about conflicts of interest. A review by the product manufacturer is not trustworthy, nor is the review of an influencer paid to promote the product. 

YMYL Topics: Experience or Expertise? - 3.4.1 

Google introduced a new table to distinguish when Experience or Expertise is needed for YMYL content. This table aims to answer whether everyday experience or actual expertise is needed for various topics, such as medical conditions, voting, and saving for retirement:

Page 28

This new section indicates that just because a content contributor is not a bonafide expert on a YMYL topic, this does not make the content inherently untrustworthy.

People sharing their stories based on first-hand experience can be considered trustworthy content in certain situations. 

Harmful to Self or Other Individuals - Section 4.2

In the previous version of the QRG, Google introduced the notion that YMYL topics are determined based on their ability to cause harm to the user. 

In this new version, Google provided a detailed table with examples of what is considered harmful or not:

Page 32

And a similar table explaining what it means for content to be harmful to groups:

Page 33

These nuances are interesting, given much of the public discourse about freedom of speech across various social platforms in 2022.

Google appears to be drawing a clear line between free speech and violent/harassment speech in its definition of harmful content. 

Google also provides clear examples of “harmfully misleading information,” including several popular internet conspiracy theories that are either clearly inaccurate, contradict well-established expert consensus, or are unsubstantiated:

Page 34

Lacking E-E-A-T - Section 5.1 

Google provides examples of what it looks like to lack an appropriate level of E-E-A-T for the topic or purpose of the page. These are the examples provided (page 51):

• “The content creator lacks adequate experience, e.g. a restaurant review written by someone who has never eaten at the restaurant
•  The content creator lacks adequate expertise, e.g. an article about how to skydive written by someone with no expertise in the subject 
• The website or content creator is not an authoritative or trustworthy source for the topic of the page, e.g. tax form downloads provided on a cooking website.
•  The page or website is not trustworthy for its purpose, e.g. a shopping page with minimal customer service information” 

These examples help conceptualize the distinct roles that each letter in E-E-A-T play in evaluating the page quality. 

Language updates throughout the document

Throughout the document, Google appears to be editing its language to be more inclusive, such as changing “webmaster” to “website owners” and removing some gendered pronouns (”himself/herself” becomes “themself”). 

Pay attention to where Google is going with the QRG

The Quality Rater Guidelines are a crucial document for anyone who works in search marketing because they give us a guidebook for where Google wants its algorithms to go. 

Reading between the lines of the language in this document can help inform what Google is looking for in terms of content quality, user experience, and E-E-A-T of websites. 

Following these guidelines will help ensure your site and company can achieve visibility in Google search and, ideally, not be negatively impacted by any of their algorithm updates or other penalties. 

The post E-E-A-T and major updates to Google’s quality rater guidelines appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Google doubles up on E with updated search quality raters guidelines (E-E-A-T)

Thursday, December 15th, 2022

Google has updated its search quality raters guidelines for the second time in 2022, only four and a half months since its last update in July 2022. This revised document has some substantial changes to E-A-T, by adding an extra E to E-A-T for “experience.” The document is now about nine-pages longer, adding up to 176 pages up from 167 pages in the previous version.

Double-E-A-T. Yes, Google has added a letter to E-A-T, adding an extra E and going with E-E-A-T. This now stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

Experience. What does the new E for experience add? Google said it adds another level of, a new dimension of quality to assess its search results. What is Google looking for with experience? Google said when you write the content, does that “content also demonstrate that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with actual use of a product, having actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced?”

Google explained that there are “some situations where really what you value most is content produced by someone who has first-hand, life experience on the topic at hand.”

Google shared this example, “if you’re looking for information on how to correctly fill out your tax returns, that’s probably a situation where you want to see content produced by an expert in the field of accounting. But if you’re looking for reviews of a tax preparation software, you might be looking for a different kind of information—maybe it’s a forum discussion from people who have experience with different services.”

Google said in the updated guidelines that Experience, Expertise and Authoritativeness are important concepts that can support your assessment of trust, with trust being the most important member of E-E-A-T. Here is the diagram Google created to illustrate this on page 26 of the PDF:

Google said, “trust is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T no matter how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may seem.” How does experience differ from expertise? Google said, “pages that share first-hand life experience on clear YMYL topics may be considered to have high E-E-A-T as long as the content is trustworthy, safe, and consistent with well-established expert consensus. In contrast, some types of YMYL information and advice must come from experts.”

One last example and there are many more, of experience mentioned in the guidelines is where Google said on page 51 where Google described when a page has low E-E-A-T when “the content creator lacks adequate experience, e.g. a restaurant review written by someone who has never eaten at the restaurant.”

What else was updated. Google notated on the final page of the revised PDF (download it here), these changes:

• Broadly refreshed concepts and rating criteria in ‘Part 1: Page Quality Guideline’ to be more explicitly applicable to all types of websites and content creation models
• Clarified guidance on ‘Finding Who is Responsible for the Website and Who Created the Content on the Page’ for different webpage types
• Added summary table with the top ‘Page Quality Considerations’ involved in PQ rating, which carry through to each PQ rating section (Lowest to Highest)
• Refined/expanded guidance on the following core pillars of Page Quality Rating:
  • ‘Main Content Quality’
  • ‘Reputation for Websites and Content Creators’
  • ‘Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (E-E-A-T)’
• Reordered PQ rating sections from Lowest to Highest; streamlined transitions
  between these sections; de-duped existing guidance and examples as appropriate
• Added more guidance and clarifications to sections: ‘Pages with Error Messages
  or No MC’, ‘Forums and Q&A Pages’, and ‘Page Quality Rating FAQs’
• Reformatted lists of concepts and examples into tables (throughout/as appropriate)
• Minor changes throughout (updated language, examples, and explanations for
  consistency across sections; removed outdated examples; fixed typos; etc.)

This is not an exhausted list of what changed, but Lily Ray has posted a more in-depth review of the changes.

Why we care. Although search quality evaluators’ ratings do not directly impact rankings (as Google clarified in the document), they do provide feedback that helps Google improve its algorithms. It is important to spend some time looking at what Google changed in this updated version of the document and compare that to the previous version of the document to see if we can learn more about Google’s intent on what websites and web pages Google prefers to rank. Google made those additions, edits, and deletions for a reason.

The additional dimension of “experience” is an important one that Google has been hinting at for a long time. It is nice to see them document it and pull it out as one of the four core aspects of defining quality.

The post Google doubles up on E with updated search quality raters guidelines (E-E-A-T) appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

How to drive 10x more conversions with magnetic paid search offers

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

You’ve got a lot of levers to pull in your paid search account that might improve performance.

But the absolute best optimization you can make is one you won’t find in the Google Ads interface.

The open secret of successful paid search managers is to start with a magnetic offer.

Magnetic offers attract your target market and repel everyone else, saving on ad spend and driving up conversion rates.

In this article, you’ll learn how to make your offer magnetic and 10x your conversions.

The number 1 offer problem

When I’m helping marketers struggling with conversion volume and rates, I’ll ask them what their offer is. 

No matter the company’s size or industry, they all have almost the exact same problem with their offer:

• “We don’t have an offer.”

If you’re running campaigns that track conversions, you have an offer. 

“Offer” doesn’t mean discount or promotional pricing. Instead, it refers to specific elements that help your audience decide whether to take action.

The ‘3 Ps’ of an offer

You may have heard of the “3 Ps” an offer is built on:

• Product: What it is that you’re selling or promoting.
• Price: How much it will cost them (in money, time, effort).
• Positioning: Why or so what? How desirable it is to own or use the service.

A high-value offer has a high perceived worth with a small perceived cost, while a low-value offer isn’t worth much in the mind of a buyer but is charging a lot for it.

The overlooked fourth ‘P’ of an offer

Notice that we’re using pretty subjective language here (“perception” of value, “in the mind” of our audience). 

One person’s treasure is another person’s trash, so it’s important to understand the point of view of our prospective buyer. What do they need in order to buy?

In the illustration above, we have a great skin care product, at a great price, with great positioning. 

But if we’re marketing to Doug, who hates skin care, we won’t get the sale. 

When considering the three core “Ps” of an offer (again, that’s product, price and positioning), don’t forget about a fourth P – people. 

Who you’re speaking to makes all the difference in how they’ll respond to your offer.

Now that you understand what goes into a great offer, here’s how to magnetize your offer and get more people to say “yes.”

Increase your product’s perceived value

Increasing the perceived value of the product doesn’t mean changing the product itself (though it can include that). It means changing what your audience understands about your product.

Products aren’t limited to ecommerce

You don’t need a shopping cart to have a product. The “product” in your offer can essentially be any conversion action:

• Sale: A purchase (physical products, digital products, SaaS).
• Lead: Collected contact info (lead magnets / gated content, demo, consultation).
• Engagement: Tracked activity (interaction, link clicks, views, downloads).

Each conversion action has its own challenges when it comes to increasing the likelihood of conversion. 

What it takes to get someone to use your online calculator is different than getting them to buy a high-ticket item, as is each one’s value to your business. 

That said, any conversion action needs to be perceived as valuable for visitors to complete it.

A confused mind says ‘no’

If you’re not seeing the conversion rates you want, chances are your visitors aren’t seeing the information they need about your product or service on your landing page.

Up to 45% of U.S. adults will abandon their online purchase if they can’t find a quick answer to their question, according to Forrester.

What does your prospect need to know about your product or service that your landing page isn’t telling them? 

Consider:

• Features, specifications, dimensions, quantities, appearance 
  • “Will this fit in the hallway?” / “How long is this video?” 
• Process or support
  • “What does it look like to work with you?” / “What if something goes wrong?”
• Shipping/delivery process, rates, speed
  • “Will this arrive before our anniversary?”
• Locations, amenities, hours of operation
  • “Is this on my way to work?”
• Options, customizations, alternatives
  • “Does it work for left-handers?”
• Materials, ingredients, designations
  • “Is it steel, vegan, Kosher, locally sourced?”
• Benefits and outcomes
  • “What do I get for clicking the ‘next’ button?”

Marketers go astray here when they feature only flattering details about themselves that mean nothing to their audience. 

This isn’t a magic trick – you can’t use misdirection to make a conversion appear. 

Increase perceived value by meeting your visitors on their own terms, with as much clarity as possible.

Improve your offer’s positioning

You’ve probably had a marketer tell you, “people don’t buy mattresses, they buy a good night’s sleep.”

If you’ve ever sold mattresses, you know that people absolutely buy mattresses. 

But how you frame what you’re selling can make a big difference in how well it sells.

Strengthen your value proposition

In the context of paid search, your value proposition is usually found in your landing page headline. It tells your audience the key desirable outcome of your offer they won’t get from your competitors.

In a case study, Widerfunnel achieved a 128% conversion rate increase for The Sims 3 by changing the value proposition in the headline.

• Control: Join the Fun!
• Winning variation: Register Your Game and Get a FREE New Town Now!

Source: Strategic Conversion Optimization, Chris Goward (SlideShare)

This is no lazy headline hack. 

The promise of value in the second version (including additional bulleted benefits) is completely different – and something that speaks to the desires of their target market.

Use proven persuasion principles

Whether someone says “yes” to the invitation to convert depends not just on what is being offered but how it is offered.

Psychologist Dr. Robert Cialdini is well known for developing the seven principles of persuasion, which include:

• Reciprocity
• Scarcity
• Authority
• Consistency
• Liking
• Social Proof
• Unity

How can you use these principles to increase the likelihood that your visitor will say “yes” to your offer?

Let’s look at “social proof.” Testimonials are table stakes for most websites, but slapping an endorsement of “I love working with Jessica!” won’t do much to convert your audience.

Instead, showcase testimonials that describe what it’s like to work with you, why your customers or clients chose you, or how you solved their problems. 

Use reviews strategically to make it safe for your prospects to believe your claims. 

Add a call to value

When Copyhackers drove a 108% increase in revenue for SweatBlock, they dropped the standard call-to-action (CTA) button and replaced it with a “call to value.”

• Call to action: Order Now
• Call to value: Sweat Less. Live More.

With CTA buttons, we’re telling our visitors what action we want them to take. 

By using a call-to-value button instead, we’re emphasizing the value of taking that action.

Poor-performing offers expect that people who clicked the ad are ready to convert. 

Magnetic offers help visitors see how converting will benefit them.

Decrease the perceived cost of converting

Are you missing out on conversions because it costs too much to convert?

Cost doesn’t just mean price tags

We tend to associate “cost” with “money,” but that’s just one price we pay when we convert.

Have you ever passed on a free offer? Even at $0, sometimes the price of conversion is too high.

The cost of an offer could be:

• Effort or difficulty
• Time
• Risk, loss of privacy, obligation
• Compromise
• Financial

Reduce anxiety and friction

Jared Spool tells the story of driving $300 million in new revenue with a single change to a form.

The original form was pretty simple:

• Fields (2): Email and password
• Buttons (2): Log-in and register

What did they change to get such an amazing lift?

The team dropped the “register” button and replaced it with a “continue” button so visitors could complete their orders without creating an account.

They found that registration was a huge barrier for new customers. 

Existing customers also hated it and often couldn’t remember which email they used for their accounts. 

The “cost” of registration seemed low to the company (it was free!) but was too high for prospects who wanted to spend their money on the site. 

Purchasing customers increased by 45% when the button was removed.

If you’re not seeing the conversion rates you want, find ways to make converting less painful for your audience.

Make your offer magnetic and 10x your paid search conversions

A strong magnetic offer is within reach for your business right now. 

Improve the perceived worth of your product while decreasing the perceived cost, and watch your conversions multiply.

Watch: Drive 10x more conversions with magnetic paid search offers

Below is the complete video of my SMX Next presentation.

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Google releases December 2022 link spam update

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

Just when you thought the Google Search updates were done for the year, Google has rolled out a December 2022 link spam update. This update will take about two weeks to roll out and is a global update.

What Google said. Google wrote, “Our launch today, which we refer to as the December 2022 link spam update, will take about two weeks to fully roll out. Ranking may change as spammy links are neutralized and any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost. This launch will affect all languages.”

SpamBrain for links. This is leveraging what Google calls SpamBrain, Google referenced it in the 2018 Google spam report, specifically the spam trends section where Google talks about its “machine learning systems” to improve search spam detection.

Google added that SpamBrain can not only “detect spam directly, it can now detect both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.”

Helpful content system still rolling out. Google is still in the process of rolling out the December 2022 helpful content system, while this spam update is rolling out.

Why we care. Again, if you see ranking declines in Google over the next two weeks, it might be related to this new link spam update. Ensure your links are natural and follow Google’s webmaster guidelines. Work on improving your site to naturally attract new links over time.

As Google wrote with previous link spam updates, “Site owners should ensure that they follow the best practices on links, both incoming and outgoing. Focusing on producing high quality content and improving user experience always wins out compared to manipulating links. Promote awareness of your site using appropriately tagged links, and monetize it with properly tagged affiliate links.”

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Google launches new Google Search status dashboard

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

Google has launched a new status dashboard, this dashboard is for Google Search at status.search.google.com.

Google Search status dashboard. The Google Search status dashboard will show you if there is an outage or issue with Google Search. Specifically, Google will confirm if there is an issue with crawling, indexing, or serving in Google Search.

Google wrote, “as we head into 2023, we want to introduce another tool for the public to understand the most current status of systems which impact Search—crawling, indexing, and serving.”

Issues are rare. Google said, “while system disruptions are extremely rare, we want to be transparent when they do happen.” And yes, we have reported many issues over the years with Google Search around indexing, crawling, and serving. But now Google has a way to report it within its Google Status Dashboard system as it does for Google Ads and many other products.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of this dashboard:

How it works. Google explained, “This dashboard reports widespread issues occurring in the last 7 days, with some details and the current status of the incident. A widespread issue means there’s a systemic problem with a Search system affecting a large number of sites or Search users. Typically these kinds of issues are very visible externally, and internally the SREs’ monitoring and alerting mechanisms are working behind the scenes to flag the issues.”

“Once we confirm with SREs that there’s an ongoing, widespread issue in Search, we aim to post an incident on the dashboard within an hour, and consecutive updates to the incident within 12 hours. Unlike with a traditional automated dashboard, our global staff reports these updates. The start time of the incident is generally when we managed to confirm the issue,” Google added.

Why we care. We sometimes, rarely, see issues with Google Search around indexing, crawling, and serving but we have to reach out to Google to confirm the issue. Now, Google will post those confirmations on the dashboard, as it does for many of its other products and services.

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4 main types of local links and how to earn them

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

Getting backlinks is like getting regular exercise. It’s time-consuming, and the results aren’t immediate, but a daily workout contributes to your long-term health. 

Similarly, regularly working on a solid backlink profile builds authority for your website and contributes to organic ranking growth.

In local SEO, getting backlinks is particularly challenging. Small businesses often don’t have the same resources as an enterprise organization for links. There’s not enough time, money, and energy to build a local backlink profile. 

However, limited resources don’t have to limit local link building opportunities.

Often, local businesses do more to support local link growth than they realize. By defining the types of local links, we can reflect on an organization’s values. 

Typically, local links are less about developing stellar PageRank and more about building relationships in the community.

4 common types of local links

These are the most common types of local links:

• Citations and data aggregators.
• Community engagement.
• National and local awards.
• Relevant local content, campaigns, tools, reports, and studies.

Each type of local link requires a slightly different approach, but they all contribute value to the local community. 

Citations and aggregators help customers find phone numbers and addresses, while local awards help customers trust the business. 

Achieving local links that will truly impact growth requires a shift in mindset. 

Instead of thinking about links as an SEO “to-do” item, think about them as an opportunity to connect with your neighbors. 

The best local businesses are known less for their SEO and more for their community involvement. 

A company that raises funds for a local charity or sports team can receive more local recognition than a business with great title tags. 

A company that does both of these things can win at local SEO.

Let’s dive more into each type of local link below.

1. Citations and data aggregators

Local business citations, also known as online directories, are a well-known local link building tactic. Here, a business’s basic information is listed across websites that resemble a phone book.

The SEO theory behind citations: by submitting location information across a network of online profiles, a local business establishes online consistency for its name, address, and phone number (also known as “NAP consistency”). 

Google’s Knowledge Graph uses this directory information to confirm the business information and accurately share it with users.

Common examples of online directories include: 

• Online phone books (i.e., Whitepages)
• GPS submissions (i.e., Garmin)
• Voice search (i.e., Siri)
• Secondary search engines (i.e., Microsoft Bing, Yahoo)
• Travel websites (i.e., Airbnb, TripAdvisor)

As a search engine, Google attempts to provide accurate, credible information for every single search query. 

Listing your business information with local citations helps Google and other search engines achieve this goal.

Data aggregators

Rather than spending hours submitting to online directories and updating them, an organization can pay for data aggregators that automate most of the process. 

Three companies offer a “bulk submission” service, placing business citations across a specific network of online directories.

• Data Axle
• Neustar
• Foursquare

Each of these organizations submits to a different list of online directories, though there can be some overlap.

For example, Data Axle and Neustar might submit to Whitepages, while only Neustar might submit to Apple. 

The exact list of backlinks generated by each aggregator is unknown, but a business typically receives anywhere from 25-100+ backlinks from each one (some of them overlapping).

Aggregator resellers

Many SEO agencies and SEO tools include a service that will submit to all three data aggregators.

For example, BrightLocal submits to the three aggregators listed above and some smaller vendors (i.e., Yellow Pages Network). 

Some of these citation link building services are available for a yearly fee, while others have a one-time fee. 

SEO impact of local citations

Local SEO experts have noted a downward trend in focus around local citations. In the 2021 Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors survey, top industry contributors were surveyed on which local ranking factors make the most impact. 

The score for local citations was among the lowest impact ranking factors in 2020 and 2021. Survey participants stated they achieved limited growth from citation submissions, indicating high effort for minimal results.

Ultimately, the value of local citations is relative to other SEO efforts and the age of the business.

• A brand-new, first-time business needs to get the basics set up to expand its recognition on search.
• An older business might need an update to its citations to ensure they’re accurate.

While it might not be clear how many local citations help, they are a fundamental piece of the local link building process for years. 

Online directories are an attainable, straightforward way to gain local links or update existing directory information because all a business needs is a one-time fee, an address, and a phone number.

2. Community engagement

Getting local links can show your organization’s goodwill to both Google and the greater community. 

In “A Christmas Carol,” Ebenezer Scrooge runs a bookkeeping business that is seemingly cold, calculating, and heartless. He is known by the larger community as a miser. 

This bad attitude gives Scrooge’s business a negative reputation, leaving him counting profits in a dark, empty room. 

In today’s business ecosystem, similar community perceptions can play a role in local SEO. 

If a business gives to and participates within its community, that business is talked about, people engage with the brand, and the conversation continues online.

By investing in the local community, an organization can organically grow its backlink profile and achieve SEO growth.

Types of community engagement and backlinks include: 

• Local sponsorships.
• Local events.
• Scholarships.
• Charities.
• Volunteering.

All of these local link building activities speak to one central facet – community. By investing in its community, a business is investing in itself. 

To get started with community engagement, circle back to your organization’s values. What is most important to the company? 

Principles such as service, leadership, communication, and education could be applied to a local initiative with link building potential. 

For example, a local attorney’s office might value clear communication as its guiding principle. 

To channel this principle, the attorney could lead a local seminar on citizens’ researching their rights around an upcoming zoning proposal.

This seminar might result in a backlink to the attorney’s site from the local paper that announces upcoming local events.

SEO impact of community engagement links

It might seem time-consuming to spend additional time or resources on volunteering or a sponsorship, but the return on investment can be significant.

When a local newspaper publishes an article about a $500 scholarship or sports team sponsorship from an organization, that organization is receiving a backlink or mention from one of the most reputable websites in its community. 

This recognition builds expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) with search engines, contributing to the website’s organic ranking growth. 

Several businesses involved in the Latino Chamber of Commerce received backlinks from a local news organization in this article.

When competitors rank because of a strong local backlink profile, community engagement is a reliable path to outranking them because it attracts multiple stakeholders who might share links. 

A single contribution to charity might result in links from personal blogs, the organization that received the donation, and a local newspaper. 

Additionally, community involvement doesn’t necessarily need to result in a link.

Sometimes a mention of the brand name is enough to build the organization’s reputation and improve its online credibility. 

SEO practitioners have started to think beyond link building, including it in the larger practice of “off-page SEO,” which weighs brand mentions almost equally to links.  

It isn’t easy to measure the complete SEO impact of community participation, but everything we know about search engines indicates that it makes a difference. 

By investing in community engagement, an organization does more than improve rankings – it joins a conversation.

3. National and local awards

Receiving an award results in more than a plaque on the wall or feeling good about your business practices. An award is a trust signal. 

The website footer of a local HVAC business that has received several local awards and certifications.

When choosing a vendor, customers rely on awards and community recognition to decide on the right fit for their needs. 

Types of award opportunities for a small business include: 

• National accreditation (i.e., Better Business Bureau).
• Local trade organization awards/certifications.
• Local publication awards (i.e., “Best of Phoenix”).
• Local environmental awards.
• Local awards for community involvement.

The first step to getting locally recognized is researching local awards in an organization’s line of business and local area. 

A common starting point is the Better Business Bureau. Getting accredited by this large national organization allows customers to see an organization’s credibility. 

Another opportunity to check for awards is the local Chamber of Commerce, which serves as a resource for businesses hoping to connect with the greater community.

Once organizations find an award that aligns with their values, they can develop a plan around the best path to receiving that award. 

Sometimes the organization has already achieved many existing aspects of the award, and trying to win is as simple as applying or reaching out to the award company. 

When winning the award isn’t an immediate scenario, an organization can develop a company-wide initiative. 

Leadership can announce the goal, sharing how it aligns with the organization’s values. From there, a specific team can review why past award winners were recognized. 

By developing a plan around the core elements of the award, the organization’s existing successes, and new initiatives to meet award criteria, organizations take a proactive approach to winning the award and achieving backlinks.

SEO impact of national and local awards

It has been theorized that search engines consider awards as a measure of an organization’s expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 

In the Search Quality Rater Guidelines (the primary resource for studying E-A-T and relevance in SEO), Google tasks its raters with researching a business’s trustworthiness through the awards it has received:

“News articles and informational articles can help you learn about a company and may include information specific to reputation, such as awards and other forms of recognition, or also controversies and issues.”

Achieving local links through awards involves improving a business as a whole. 

Rather than being segmented in its own SEO channel, local link building can be incorporated into an organization’s broader goals. 

A small business can use community and organizational values to improve its products and services, build long-lasting relationships, and achieve local links. 

When small businesses pursue the improvement of their operations, SEO growth is a secondary benefit.

4. Relevant local content and studies

In addition to leading the community through stewardship and award recognition, an organization can become a thought leader by sharing resources about its practice area with local citizens. 

This article and video about hydro jetting on a local plumber’s website started getting backlinks on specialty websites because of its depth of information.

Types of local content will vary based on the type of business or the links desired. Some examples of local content for link building promotion include: 

• Gathering information about the average age of a home in the area and its energy consumption.
• Localizing a national article about a consumer’s average savings account to the local neighborhood’s average savings account.
• Interviews with the company’s top experts about their day-to-day challenges.
• A mental health initiative for all neighboring businesses.

These are examples of content that can be published directly on the website, which may receive attention and backlinks from third-party websites. 

Newspapers, local blogs, community forums, and other online resources always look for the latest information to share with their readers. 

An organization can drive the conversation by publishing content that is new, relevant, and helpful.

When brainstorming ideas for local content, an organization should encourage all and any ideas. Creativity is essential to local content promotion and the links it can achieve. 

SEO impact of local content and case studies

The results of a local content initiative vary widely based on subject matter and audience. However, the desired outcome is always the same: backlinks and brand mentions. 

The theory behind local content for backlinks posits that if the content is interesting enough, people will talk about it. 

When an organization publishes interesting content and shares it with local news outlets and consumers, it will receive backlinks and brand mentions. 

These backlinks and brand mentions will improve E-A-T and organic rankings. 

When the value of local content is apparent, the organic growth from that content will also be apparent. 

How to get local links

So, how do you get local links? 

The path to local links should look less like a hunting expedition and more like a garden. Plant some seeds and see which sprout:

• Establish a citation baseline.
• Reflect on company values.
• Channel company values into a multi-faceted link building strategy.
• Execute strategy and achieve links.
• Review what is working, what is not working, and repeat.

Targeting local links based on community needs is an opportunity to outrank local competitors ranking by default. 

By integrating your backlink strategy with existing values, the organization connects with the fundamental essence of local link building – caring.

Caring is the essence of local backlinks because it means that your organization doesn’t want links for the sake of links. 

• It cares about having the right information. 
• It cares about giving back to the community. 
• It cares about offering reliable services and has been recognized for that. 
• It cares about moving the industry forward and being the best at what it does.

Caring and local link building are one and the same.

So while it might seem daunting to pursue these types of local links, the process is less about developing an SEO checklist and more about reflection. 

If your organization has already spent some effort defining what matters, then it will be that much easier to make an impact within the community and receive local links.

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After the content audit: 7 steps for improving content

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

While we may all have goals when we start producing content, it can be easy to stray away from them or stop tracking them over time. 

As your website grows, it’s recommended you run a content audit periodically to allow yourself to reset your goals and expectations and align your content with your current business KPIs. 

You can greatly expand your content marketing campaign and boost your business outcomes by aligning these goals and acting on information in your content audit. 

Performing a content audit is only one step toward improving your marketing performance.

To truly see results from your efforts, you must actively fix any problems in your audit and align your strategy with your established goals. 

In this article, you’ll learn seven ongoing steps that can help you improve content after your audit is complete and optimize new content to reflect your business goals. 

1. Establish clear KPIs

Generally, the first step of any content audit will be a review of your business goals to help you benchmark content performance moving forward. 

After your audit, it’s essential to benchmark these KPIs and track various fields of progress in your analytics. 

There are several metrics to use for this, including:

• Traffic/pageviews
• Organic keyword position
• Backlinks
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate
• Time on page

Once you’ve established a list of KPIs for benchmarking and comparison to the content audit, you can discover strategies to improve existing content based on your intended outcomes.

For example, are you looking to rank for higher volume keywords that bring in more traffic? Are you looking for less competitive ones with higher click-through rates? 

Furthermore, KPIs can be used to model new content that reflects your underlying business strategy. 

2. Prioritize technical fixes

In your research, you may uncover a technical issue causing your content to rank below its potential, such as page speed, indexing or crawling issues. 

Resolving these problems on your backend is an essential first step to ensuring that all present and future content can rank higher in organic search. 

3. Identify opportunities for wins

Now it’s time to dive deeply into your audit and identify potential opportunities for easy wins. 

For example, in this content audit guide, the author divides her content into several categories, including underperforming, thin, and outdated content. 

These categories allow you to implement easy changes, such as updating body text to reflect new changes or to make content more engaging to improve your content’s relative performance. 

Of course, you can always get more granular, conduct a backlink audit on underperforming pieces of content, and build external and internal links. 

Look for content ranking for “striking distance” keywords and make changes, based on the data, that will help it move to the first page. 

I also recommend writing new topics for high-volume keywords you might be ranking for in Position 41 or lower. 

4. Redirect old and underperforming pages

Throughout your content audit, you might find several URLs with duplicate content and also some content that is just outdated or irrelevant. 

In that case, I recommend implementing a 301 redirect to a similar page to help give that page some link authority. 

However, consider being tentative about 301 redirects, as you might create more problems for your developer if you abuse them too much. 

5. Revamp old content to follow new guidelines

Updating content allows you to win any opportunities you found during your audit. Generally, I like to let the data inform me. 

For instance, if I find some content that is outperforming others and leading to better traffic, I might update my internal linking strategy to promote this page.

Ultimately, I recommend using content audits as a guide and a reset to develop a new content calendar and outline strategy. 

Create a healthy mix of new and revamped content to give you a boost in Google search.

And if it makes sense, I like reformatting or transferring content into a new medium. 

Conducting podcasts around existing content on your site or adding a video on underperforming pages could give them a much-needed boost. 

6. Promote new and revamped content

After updating your content, you’ll need to promote it to give it traction. I recommend the following promotional strategies for any piece of content:

• Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
• Building links.
• Tagging an influencer.
• Sharing in a newsletter.
• Advertising over search or Facebook.
• Syndicating content.

By getting more eyeballs and traffic to your pages, you can use your content to create better results for your website. 

7. Monitor your analytics

You must continuously track your analytics and ensure your content is performing to your preferred standards. 

Your analytics will give you an excellent benchmark to measure your content’s performance and give you ideas about where your content is underperforming or lacking. 

Similar to everything in life, there is no get-rich-quick scheme or something you can buy to make your content rank better. 

Instead, content marketing requires an ongoing commitment and a holistic approach, leveraging the best practices from technical SEO and link building to perform at its best. 

However, with a content audit, you are one step closer to achieving your business goals using content marketing. Now, you just need to start doing the heavy lifting.  

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6 SEO considerations for a successful international expansion

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

You might have detected a great opportunity based on a fair amount of traffic to your site from a specific country. Perhaps a PR campaign went viral, and now users worldwide look for your product, creating a constant demand for it. 

Whatever the reason, an expansion, a new product launch or a diversification will always have to be supported by a prompt, detailed analysis of every element not only in the wider strategy but in SEO, too.

Entering a new market or going global comes with potentially significant rewards and considerable risks.  

Search marketers usually agree on what factors contribute to market entrants’ success, including:

• Extensive keyword and competitor research.
• Target market persona analysis.
• Analysis of new entrants.
• Self-contained ecosystems to allow paid and digital PR campaign planning.

These studies will determine whether the brand can enter a new market, if the timing is right, or if there’s an opportunity to scale. Essentially, these are the main factors of success in any market entry or global launch.

In this article, you will discover six elements that worked for me when entering new markets while working for previous clients. 

Before we dive in, it is important to note that every brand, agency and market is different. There is no single checklist that should be applied to your work.

Adapt this and other advice to your strategy and ensure it is aligned with wider business goals. Most importantly, finalizing a strategy involves working closely with other departments in your organization. 

1. Market profitability assessment

International keyword research

In-depth analysis and keyword research in your target market is crucial to your international expansion strategy, as they will:

• Enable you to gather information on the search volume and traffic from words and phrases related to your product or service in the original languages of new markets. 
• Show you potential variations in the language used (remember that translation and localization are not enough now). 

Aside from search traffic, keyword difficulty is an important indicator since it specifies how competitive your keywords can be in various languages, regions and language fusions.

This article on international keyword research and intent is a great start.

Important tip: If you plan to translate your current set of keywords, make sure they are not only translated and localized but also they are aligned to how people search in your target country.

For example, in the north of Mexico and some parts of the Southern U.S., “Spanglish” is common. This means that in this part of the world, you will find many queries are done by mixing English and Spanish.

Take the fashion term “maxi dress” as an example. In Spain, people would search for “vestido largo,” whereas in some parts of Mexico, people might search for “maxi vestido.” 

The example below is from Zara Mexico, where the way people search has influenced how products and categories are presented. As mentioned, the products are called “vestido maxi.”

Whereas in Zara Spain, similar products are called “vestido largo.”

In-depth international keyword research will:

• Give you an idea of the resources and capabilities you must have to enter the new market.
• Help you decide whether you are ready to expand or if it is better to wait. 

Google Analytics data

Analyze your top converting traffic sources using Google Analytics (or other tracking software). Pay attention to the areas around the world where your brand is getting constant traffic. 

While traffic is important, make sure to analyze conversions and revenue before deciding to expand to a new market.

Conduct an in-depth report, as this will help determine whether you can satisfy the demand emerging from these new countries.

Will you need a new warehouse? If you can’t have a new warehouse, you may need a communication strategy to emphasize delivery times. 

Along with this, you might consider an incentive campaign to increase conversions if your delivery times might affect them.

2. Social networks in the target market

This is one of the most important steps when entering a new market.

You might be thinking that this is not related to SEO. It might not be at first glance.

However, it will determine the strategy for paid media and the type of content you should produce to increase brand awareness and gain links. 

Why are social networks important?

Because a large percentage of online consumers start their purchase journey with brand research on social networks.

However, is important to note that:

• Not all consumers will always start their brand research on social networks.
• If they start on social networks, it is not always TikTok.

The chart below shows several age brackets and where they typically start their brand research, especially when making a high-value purchase. 

Source: GWI - Global Survey conducted in Q3 2021.

This information is useful when planning:

• The types of content to create for digital PR.
• The types of influencers to work with.
• The correct paid media channels for launching in a new market.

In some instances, the paid campaign will be on social networks, and in others, it will be more effective via Google Ads.

It is crucial to identify the main social networks used in the target country you are looking to expand in, especially for the age brackets that start their brand research on social. In some countries, it could be TikTok, while in others, it could be Instagram. 

3. Hreflang

The hreflang is a little snippet of code that looks like this: rel="alternate" hreflang="X“.

An hreflang tag should be added if your site has the same content in various languages.

In a global context, the hreflang element assists search engines in determining which URL version of your site should be provided to visitors from a given region or who speak a specific language.

Hreflang contributes toward a good user experience as it:

• Helps deliver a search result in the location and language the user made the query. 
• Prevents duplicate content issues.

Below, I have included some ideas to consider when implementing hreflang. 

• Valid hreflang attributes.
• Return links.
• Hreflang link to self.
• Hreflang elements in your <head>.
• Hreflang HTTP headers.
• An XML sitemap hreflang implementation.
• Tools: hreflang generator, hreflang sitemap generator.

4. URL structure

Similar to the hreflang principle of serving your users with results relevant to their language and location, the choice of the URL structure is crucial as it will be an indication for both search engines and users.

Here are the differences and uses of common URL structures: ccTLD, gTLD, subdomain and parameter.

There’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to URL structure. The choice should depend on your objectives and goals. 

However, you should consider the limitations of your CMS. This is one reason why you might see some brands still using parameters. While using them is acceptable, parameters are not the best option. 

5. Shopping cart localization

Translating and localizing content is not enough. More than that, content should be aligned with common uses and language phenomena in your target country (i.e., Spanglish).

This principle also applies to your website’s shopping cart. When a customer is about to finish a purchase, it’s vital to consider the following:

• Currency: The currency must be the same as the user’s country.
• Language: It must be the same as your user’s country.
• Payment methods: Make sure you include Apple Pay (crucial), Google Pay, various credit cards and payment methods such as Klarna and Paypal.
• Information on delivery and choices for faster and cost-effective delivery methods.
• Discount code section.

If your target customers are between the ages of 16 to 34, consider that they are 80% more likely to pay with Apple Pay than with other methods. 

Not having the preferred payment method, incorrect language, and unclear information will lead to cart abandonment. 

6. International digital PR

Establishing a country-specific link strategy for each market is a must. Depending on your brand’s niche, you might be limited to a few tactics. 

If you are in the food, fashion, sports or gifts sectors, the best course of action will be to identify the most used social network by your target audience and work with influencers in those appropriate channels. 

Working with a relevant influencer in an appropriate social network and running paid campaigns are the best ways to enter a new market while you lay the groundwork for your organic efforts.

The beauty of digital PR is that there are plenty of opportunities to increase brand awareness and earn links. 

If there isn’t a traditional PR team in your brand, you can focus on these tactics:

• Brand monitoring.
• Events.
• Content for promotion.
• Influencers.

To build valuable partnerships, it’s crucial always to adjust your approach to the customs of the individual market.

A sample approach can go like this:

• Identify influencers on TikTok. 
• Establish collaborations.
• Create assets to promote on media outlets.
• Work with paid Media.
• Earn local links to add relevance and boost trust.

Read “Using digital PR to earn links and rank for your target keywords” to get started.

You can also refer to Newspaper Map, an interactive map that shows you online outlets available in every region you could imagine in the world. 

When you click the pink bubbles, it will display a link to a specific online newspaper. 

The following is an example when zooming into central London, where you’ll see the Financial Times’ office location.

Once you have identified your media outlet of choice and wish to connect to a journalist to request a link or a collaboration, you can use RocketReach (a tool where you can manually get the contact details of journalists). 

Go global with the right SEO approach

The most common causes of failure when expanding include:

• Impulsivity. Making expensive decisions based on temporarily high product demand from a specific location.
• Common biases. 
• Insufficient analysis.
• Poor strategy.

Your SEO team can have the best strategy. However, not working with other teams and having poor negotiation skills may lead to friction, poor implementation, and failure within the first two years of the expansion.

To avoid costly mistakes, it is important to do an in-depth study per element mentioned in this article – plus more. 

Don’t base your expansion strategy on a checklist. Adapt resources to the knowledge of your business and the organization’s overall plan.

The following table shows the common biases in a market entry and ideas on how to tackle them. 

Remember that the success factors in an expansion are:

• Timing.
• Ability to leverage assets.
• Scalability. 
• And, more than anything, work as a team!

The post 6 SEO considerations for a successful international expansion appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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