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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.

The post How to drive 10x more conversions with magnetic paid search offers appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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

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

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.

The post Google launches new Google Search status dashboard appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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

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

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.  

The post After the content audit: 7 steps for improving content appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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

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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Programmatic SEO: Your missing link to 1M+ sessions

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

It’s time to rethink SEO growth. 

Not every strategy needs to start with a blog post regurgitating the same information across the top Google results and end with an agency begging for links. 

In the era of Google Ads becoming more expensive and organic discoverability becoming less effective, companies need to differentiate themselves in SEO. 

We must push the envelope and create something that has yet to be seen online. 

With creativity, thoughtfulness, and CSV magic, programmatic SEO can do this, resulting in millions of new customers per year.

This sounds impossible, but it’s not. 

In this guide, I will walk you through exactly how to get started with programmatic SEO.

What is programmatic SEO?

Programmatic SEO is the strategy of publishing unique, high-quality pages at scale using a template and a database. 

The goal of programmatic SEO is to create content with the same depth and thoroughness as a traditionally published article but repeated thousands, if not millions, of times at scale. A programmatic site can be as small as 200 pages and as large as 4 million. The key is ensuring each page serves a unique purpose in the search journey.

An oversimplification of programmatic SEO is building a database, connecting it to a template, and publishing thousands of pages. 

But if this is all you do, congratulations, you just created thousands of pieces of spam. 

Programmatically building content is a powerful tool that can exponentially grow a site or completely spam it. To become a true player in SEO growth, we must start thinking bigger – or should I say, we need to think “deeper” about our content. 

A newly published programmatic site since June 2022.

The benefits of programmatic SEO

Programmatic SEO unlocks traffic in the nooks and crannies of the internet. You no longer need to pick a handful of keywords, pay for written content, publish the post and hope it ranks for a cluster of terms. Now we can target entire categories and win all available searches in one template.

With programmatic SEO, businesses can:

• Win keywords at scale.
• Produce in-depth content quickly.
• Gain low engineering lift.
• Get “quicker” results – I use this delicately. Quickly, meaning results and challenges escalate quickly.

The drawbacks to programmatic SEO

As with any strategy, programmatic SEO also has its disadvantages, such as the following:

• Indexing is difficult.
• High risk – poor execution can hurt site growth.
• Limited by data resources.

Remember, if you’re trying to use programmatic SEO to trick Google or create People Also Ask (PAA) scraper sites, you’ll lose. 

Great programmatic content enhances content production through data depth and production efficiency.

What follows is a four-step guide to implementing a programmatic SEO structure.

Step 1: Keyword research for programmatic SEO

Instead of picking out a handful of keywords and paying for expensive bespoke content hubs, programmatic SEO aims to target entire directories of keywords under the same entity. 

Here are the steps in identifying your keywords.

Define your goals and intent

This will start similarly to a traditional SEO keyword analysis. Identify what category or topical group will drive business value. Hard stop. 

Driving traffic to show a cool graph to your client or boss means nothing if the traffic doesn’t move the business forward. 

Remember, business value can be as obvious as full conversions through transactional keywords or as light as a session hit to introduce your brand and possibly trigger a returning visit later in the research process. 

Here are resources to help complete a thorough opportunity analysis:

• Keyword research: A key element of SEO and content marketing
• 13 uses for keyword research to help you win in the search engines

Identify main topics

Start broadly. Once you’ve identified the target intent and goals, we need to define the category in which we want to rank.

Think of this as one step below a head term. We call this the “niche” of your site, driven by your product.

For example, “trucks” is a main head term and a broad topic. However, it’s not very intuitive and doesn’t have strong intent for a business-driving keyword, so we want to take it a step further. 

“Ford F-150” is a bit more specific but broad enough for our target.

Note that this is a specific brand search; however, that’s perfectly OK. We’ll not try to outrank Ford, but enhance the search experience for the Ford F-150 audience.

Identify modifiers and related terms

Ford F-150 is not our keyword, it is the vessel by which we will morph into a traffic machine. 

We do this by identifying questions surrounding the main topic. This is the jumping point from traditional content assets and programmatic building. 

If your main topic cannot be modified through repeatable searches, your product may not be viable for programmatic SEO. But if you find common questions surrounding a product, you can win traffic at scale.

• Timely: Questions that are impactful in a specific timeframe. 
  • Examples: 2022 F-150, stock prices at November 18 2022, inflation rates last year, sporting event scores from last week. 
• Comparable: Questions that create value by comparing to others. 
  • Examples: F-150 vs Chevy Silverado, housing costs in 2008, book reviews vs book categories, political affiliation by state, hobbies and interests by zodiac signs. 
• Hyper-specific: Questions that are only valuable within certain parameters and not the broader audience. Also known as the hyper long-tail. 
  • Examples: F-150 for sale in Marietta, Georgia, 1997 crime rates in Philadelphia PA, David Eckstein’s World Series batting average in 2006, answering public questions (i.e., Reddit and UGC).

For our F-150 example:

• F-150 vs Chevy Silverado
• F-150 under $50k
• F-150 in Marietta, Georgia

If you were using a traditional SEO system, you’d see three pages, potentially 100 if you’re doing the math in your head for states and other car comparisons and weeks to scale handwriting all of these pages. 

But for a programmatic approach, we have at least three templates and potentially thousands of pages to publish as soon as our template is ready. 

Look for signs that the keyword can be modified. In the example, we have three modifiers – “vs,” “under,” and “in.”

A quick way to find the keyword gold within your topic is to go back into your keyword aggregator and type in the [topic + modifier] (i.e., “F-150 vs” / “F-150 under” / “F-150 in”).

This gives you a better look at the opportunity size of each directory.

Take it one step further: identify other topics that can be modified by the same keywords. In our example: F-150 can be swapped out for Chevy Silverado, Ram 1500, and even targeting “Trucks” with additional modifiers could be viable for a strong site.  

Our keyword research should look like this:

The additional “parameters” column will define the level of detail you need. You can build this out for as deep or as wide as your product calls for. The more modifiers and entities you find, the more pages you’ll have. 

Target long-tail search

The sweet spot is a repeatable, mid- to long-tail keyword. 

In the example above, we very obviously made an ecommerce website, which is a great visual, but programmatic SEO as a growth strategy is most effective in targeting long-tail searches for informational intent keywords.

• Example: Weather in Philadelphia, PA today
• pSEO approach: Weather in {location} {date}

You might think this is impossible to drive meaningful traffic, but again, think deeper. 

By targeting specific ZIP codes and low-search volume towns, a relatively unknown site with a decent backlink profile wins an estimated 3,000,000 sessions* per month from these searches. *Estimated with traditional keyword research tools.

There’s no denying that Google is absorbing more of their own traffic. Keywords with multi-intents or hyper-specific keywords are usually pulled directly onto the SERP without needing a click.

As a business owner and growth strategist, you must define the value of each keyword group. 

Is showing within a featured snippet helpful for a brand introduction, even if it doesn’t result in a click?

If yes, go after it. If not, look for keywords that focus more on research and action.

The weather example may not be a viable strategy for a casual environmental blogger.

But if your product is a weather app, programmatically winning thousands, if not millions, of keyword variations that are extremely relevant to your targeted audience could exponentially increase app downloads. 

Step 2: Building the content template

A programmatic template is the most important aspect of the build. 

This is where the art and science of SEO collide by stacking data points to create one cohesive, impactful piece of content that satisfies the user’s intent programmatically. 

The biggest difference between traditional SEO and programmatic strategies is that you’re building templates, not final pages. 

For SEOs, this means all of your traditionally bespoke updates must be done at scale and, yes, through engineering tickets. 

A page template should accomplish three goals:

Goal 1: Create value where the traditional content pipeline cannot

Sometimes, content is better when we stop trying to fit it into a blog post. 

Being able to programmatically compare pain points is a great use case to use a programmatic approach. 

G2 does this seamlessly by comparing prices, reviews, and related products directly on a category page, bringing additional value to the page that handwritten content cannot.

Goal 2: Go a mile deep into the query, but set boundaries

Consider your audience and Google search results (SERPs) when building your template.

Start by setting limits. If you’re building geo-based content, ask yourself when your content stops changing.

Does your offering change state? By county? By zip code? 

Building thousands of pages based on the same content are called gateway pages. They’re easy for Google to eliminate and extremely unhelpful to the visitor. 

The goal of a template is to dive extremely deep into a topic, and the result is scale. Not the other way around. 

Goal 3: Give access to information previously unavailable

Programmatic content can give access to data that was previously unobtainable because your template is built for a human, powered by a database. It becomes a storytelling medium. 

Election data today is so refined that we can visualize results down to the individual county. Is this new data? 

Of course not, but through visualizing an extremely large, overwhelming database into an easily consumed medium, we’ve created new value to the conversation. 

A great template will check most, if not all boxes. 

Be warned – low-quality templates checking only one box are spam, and Google will quickly drop them from the index.

Step 3: Connect to a database

Your database can be any source of information used to build content. 

It can be as simple as a CSV export from a government data source or as complex as a proprietary data warehouse updated by the second. 

The key is building a database that meets the goals set by your template. 

And don’t let the term database scare you. You don’t need to be a data scientist to find the right data. 

Being in tune with your audience’s needs and potentially a few skills in Excel are what’s important. (You can always outsource if you don’t have Excel or Python skills).

Ian Nuttall, creator of Niche Site Metrics, built a depository of where to find all publicly available data.

But it doesn’t only need to be open-source data. 

• Listen to your customers. 
• Build a repository of reviews. 
• Group support ticket questions by topic. 
• Track industry prices over time and by geography. 

Build your database around transforming your product or brand into a uniquely useful resource. 

Step 4: Publish and get indexed

Your first challenge in successfully driving traffic with programmatic SEO is indexing because everything happens at scale. 

Don’t be alarmed when you do everything by programmatic SEO best practices and your indexing is less than 30%. 

Programmatic pages will be similar in nature, kicking most pages into Discovered - currently not indexed or Crawled - currently not indexed.

If you publish more content at once, more pages start in the abyss of discovered or crawled but not indexed. 

Don’t panic. Take a hard look at the published templates and ask yourself, are you bringing something new to the SERP? 

If yes, move forward with these three steps

Build a better internal link structure

Internal links for programmatic SEO are 10x more important than traditional editorial pages. 

You are building hundreds, thousands, or even millions of pages from one directory and will need to build context between each related page.  

Create link silos from Directory > Leaf pages. Hardcoding the same 20 links into every page will be disregarded by the visitor and Google, rendering it useless. 

Just as you would for traditional SEO, dedicate time to contextual linking and work with your engineer to set the correct logic for each individual page.

If you forget internal linking, you’ll create thousands of orphaned pages and increase the number of dead ends on your site. These will almost entirely be seen as non-influential pages and may never be crawled. 

Create a robust sitemap structure

Programmatic SEO sitemaps are as important as robust internal linking. The maximum list of URLs on a robots.txt sitemap is about 50k. For larger sites, you’ll need dozens of sitemaps and sitemap indexes. 

Structure your robots.txt file as you would your site structure. If possible, build a sitemap for each individual directory. This will categorize sitemaps by subject rather than publishing date and allows Google to index each category more easily.  

Once it’s set, make sure you force crawl each individual sitemap (yes, even if you have hundreds of sitemaps) two times or until Google has returned to the page multiple times.

Create HTML sitemaps

These are not your HTML sitemaps from 2009. Identify each directory page and use it as a linking guide for every “milestone” page. 

For a site with millions of leaf pages, you won’t be able to link to each individual, but you can target Category > Subcategory links. 

This allows your directories to function as link hubs and creates an easy flow from Homepage > Category > Subcategory that enhances your internal link structure. 

To recap, below is a repeatable process for implementing a programmatic SEO structure.

• Identify a repeatable search opportunity.
• Build a diverse content template.
• Build and connect a robust database.
• Implement internal links into templates.
• Create robots.txt sitemap structure.
• Publish.
• Optimize and repeat.

The post Programmatic SEO: Your missing link to 1M+ sessions appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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

Microsoft now requires verification for UK Financial Services advertisers

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

Starting early this year, Microsoft will allow only advertisers duly authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to present regulated financial promotions in the UK. Advertisers will be required to provide proof of authorization by the UK FCA to present Financial Promotion Ads or specify if they’re either 1) a non-financial services advertiser who may target consumers seeking financial services, such as e-commerce platforms or 2) government entities such as authorities or regulators under the “.gov.uk” domain.

Why we care. If you live in the UK or advertise for a UK financial services company, you’ll need to start the verification process here.

Keep in mind. Microsoft says to keep the following into consideration:

• These requirements are in addition to the Advertiser Identity Verification requirements laid out by Microsoft as part of its safety measures to protect consumers, advertisers, and publishers.
• Failure to complete this verification process will result in ads being blocked from serving in the UK—the account will continue to perform as before with respect to non-Financial Services Ads and in markets outside of the UK.

Dig deeper. Read the announcement on the Microsoft blog here.

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Search Engine Land celebrates its 16th birthday 

Monday, December 12th, 2022

Search Engine Land celebrates its Sweet 16 today.

While most of the original team from 2006 has moved on, the mission of Search Engine Land remains nearly the same as it has been since day 1.

As explained by founding editor Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land was created to be:

• A place where you can keep up with what’s happening in the search space.
• A community.
• An entire new world revolving around the important tools of search engines, a world that continues to grow and be shaped, with such a huge impact on society and our daily lives.

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2023.

But first, let’s take a look back on the past year of Search Engine Land, give some thanks to those who have helped make this year a success, and tease a few things you can expect from us over the next year.

Thank you for reading!

If you’re still reading this, thank you! Yes, you!

Every day, our mission is to bring you the latest news and information as it happens, as well as useful guides and insights to help you thrive and advance in your career, navigate the ever-changing search landscape and understand what’s coming next.

Hopefully, you found our news coverage and articles helpful over the past year. 

And just as a reminder: if you’d like all the latest search news, analysis and intelligence in your inbox, make sure to subscribe to Search Engine Land’s newsletter.

Thanks to the Search Engine Land team

Search Engine Land has a small team. But as the late Steve Jobs once said, “A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.”

And I truly we believe we have those A+ players here. 

• Barry Schwartz. Barry is a legend – he’s been writing on Search Engine Land since the beginning and covering search for an astounding 19 years. He’s written a ridiculous number of news articles (somewhere around 40,000), documenting all the latest updates and developments in our space. His work ethic is beyond impressive and it’s been an honor to work with him this year. 
• Nicole Farley: Nicole has been a great addition to the team. I was impressed by her when we first met a couple of years ago. Since joining the team, Nicole has well far exceeded my expectations and does a fantastic job staying on top of all the latest developments in the world of PPC.
• Angel Niñofranco: I was beyond excited to have Angel join the team and to work with her for a second time. Fun fact: Angel now has been my first hire at two different companies. Angel is a truly excellent editor and helps make sure our SME content is worthy of your time and attention. 
• Kathy Bushman: It’s been great working with Kathy on the SMX events. Her focus never wavers from what’s most important: making sure we deliver top-level content (and experience to match) to everyone who attends our events. I’m already looking forward to thinking about the agendas for SMX Advanced and Next in 2023 – both will be here much sooner than we think!
• Sarah Slifko-Camarra & Karen DeWeese: I can’t thank them enough for all their help in getting our SME program established and organized. Plus, Sarah and Karen do some great work behind the scenes with SMX.
• Marc Sirkin: Marc has been a huge ally and sounding board for starting to make some big and much-needed changes to our website and SEO strategy. 
• Chris Elwell: I truly appreciate Chris for his leadership, for always challenging us to be better, and for the thoughtfulness in how he approaches business decisions and processes. He has truly created a great team and company. (And, in case you didn’t know, he has been a key figure in the development of our entire industry. Watch this video interview he did with Barry in 2020 to learn more.)

There are so many other fantastic humans who are part of the Third Door Media team who I haven’t mentioned. Just know, even if I didn’t mention you, I appreciate you and all you do to help make our company successful.  

Gone, but not forgotten

It has undoubtedly been a year of change for Search Engine Land. I joined Search Engine Land in January. And Nicole and Angel joined around halfway through 2022.

We also bid farewell to some team members. So cue the “In Memoriam” theme for:

• Henry Powderly, former vice president of content for Third Door Media, the publisher of Search Engine Land and MarTech (August 2018 – June 2022)
• George Nguyen, former editor (June 2020 – March 2022)
• Corey Patterson, former editor (November 2021 – June 2022)

Top 3 highlights of 2022

Despite some challenges, I’d say it’s safe to call 2022 an overall success for Search Engine Land.  

SMX Advanced and SMX Next

Both shows had the highest audience ratings in the history of Third Door Media. More than 8,500 search marketers signed up for both events. 

While those numbers are great, what really mattered to me was the feedback we received from people who invested their time in our events. It was overwhelmingly positive for the speakers, content and experience.

It was also great to have Google back at SMX, with keynotes featuring Hyung-Jin Kim and Ginny Marvin.

Plus, the 2022 Search Engine Land Awards revealed some of the truly great work going on in our industry. I can’t wait to see what successes y’all have over the next several months – so make sure to enter next year.

SME program relaunch

One of my top priorities was launching our Subject Matter Expert (SME) program. 

A huge thank you to all of our excellent SMEs for all the great content and insights you shared in 2022. We’ll be highlighting the top 10 most popular SEO and PPC columns of the year – so check back Dec. 29-30, when those will be revealed. I look forward to reading even more great advice and insights from you in 2023! 

Speaking of 2023 – I’ll be looking for new contributors very soon. More details to come. But if you’re interested in becoming a contributor on Search Engine Land, 2023 may just be your year.

Traffic and audience growth

I won’t lie – not that it’s any secret – Search Engine Land has its share of SEO messes to clean up, including a fairly disastrous “consolidation” of categories that was handled with a blowtorch instead of a scalpel. Most of that SEO damage has, thankfully, been dealt with.

Despite our long SEO to-do list, traffic and audience growth are trending in the right direction:

• Sessions – up 30%
• Pageviews – up 25%
• Users – up 16%
• Organic search traffic – up 22%
• Direct traffic – up 34%

What’s next for Search Engine Land? 

We’re already looking ahead to 2023. You can expect us to continue providing breaking news coverage and insights on all things search. 

Plus, we’ll be debuting a couple of new regular features we hope you’ll like. 

Also on our to-do list: some long overdue updates to our popular SEO and PPC periodic tables, and accompanying guides.

And save the dates for our SMX events:

• SMX Advanced: June 13-14.
• SMX Next: Nov. 15-16.

And there’s plenty more to come.

On behalf of everyone at Search Engine Land and Third Door Media, I wish you a great rest of 2022 and a successful and healthy 2023.

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