Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Wednesday, December 7th, 2022
E-commerce is a highly competitive environment where giant online retailers like Walmart and Amazon make it difficult for other online merchants to grow and drive conversions.
The reason why conversion remains low for some is mainly that customers cannot find what they are looking for. More than ever before, customers are shopping online for the convenience. If they cannot find what they are looking for on your site, they will leave, abandon carts and go to your competitor to buy what they need quickly and easily.
The key to solving the conversion problem is personalization – deducing what your customers want and how to help them seamlessly find what they’re looking for. It is going beyond acknowledging what they have bought in the past and accounting for what they have viewed and interacted with.
Join Jonathan Meyer, senior solutions engineer, HawkSearch by Bridgeline, in his informative SMX Next session to learn how to drive conversions and increase average order value. The answer? Implementing machine learning and AI-powered search and recommendation functionalities into your e-commerce site.
After this session, you’ll be able to:
- Track trends and recognize patterns
- Auto-generate product recommendations
- Personalize the customer’s experience
Tune into the session and get ahead of your competition in 2023 by helping your customers stay engaged during their search on your e-commerce site.
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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, December 6th, 2022
Imagine walking into a grocery store, list in hand, and all of the store’s products were randomly strewn on tables displayed throughout.
Odds are good that you would U-turn and make the drive to a store where things were better organized. You wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life sorting through all the products to find the things on your list.
The same is true for your ecommerce website. Organization is critical for a good user experience and good SEO.
Also, imagine having “toilet paper” on your list, but the signs on the various rows say no such thing.
And according to this imaginary grocery store, “toilet paper” is called “tissue for your bottom.”
Does anyone have “tissue for your bottom” on your list?
No. We simply call it “toilet paper.”
Ecommerce mirrors in-store browsing and buying
From studying traffic patterns, grocery stores learned long ago that aligning “like” products makes the shopping experience easier.
As we all know, everyone seems to be there for milk so stores keep them in the back. (“Let’s make sure that folks have to walk past all the other items before getting to the milk!”)
What you call “Products” and where you have them on your ecommerce site (i.e., information architecture and taxonomy) matter quite a bit in SEO.
This hypothetical grocery store is akin to the ecommerce website with “Shop” in the navigation.
- Once you’ve clicked through, you get a list of every product available on the website.
- Things need to be organized (categorized). And again, the categories need to make sense.
For many years, my agency handled SEO for a leading HVAC manufacturer.
Back in 2005, when we first engaged, they called their air conditioners “cooling products.” Unsurprisingly, they did not rank in Google for “air conditioners.”
User experience needs to consider the customer journey
It’s often been said that SEO and UX are linked, and it’s never been truer than when we think about how you organize an ecommerce website.
That one product you have may have several categories that fit within. Easy enough – make sure that the product is associated with those other categories.
Just like you might find the hot sauce in the Mexican aisle, you’ll also find that there’s a display near the chips.
Make it good for the user, and you’re most likely also making it good for Google and the searcher.
So, where do you start?
The following tips for organizing your ecommerce site and promoting your products will help you get more traffic and sales.
1. Build a solid site taxonomy
Start by creating your main categories. If you’re unsure where to start, learn from your competitors.
Verify that they are successful in their SEO efforts through a Semrush audit and see the breadth and value of their organic keyword presence.
Your main navigation should present your main categories. A great example of solid architecture is Wayfair:
You can see here that although Wayfair offers products across a wide spectrum, they have intuitively broken these out into what they consider to be their main categories.
And, if you were to click into any one of these, you would then see their sub-categories:
2. Explore use cases for product searches
Once you have a foundation of main and sub-navigation (the basics), you can explore the various use cases that users might have for these products and how they search.
Do people search by price? Perhaps categories for pricing?
For example, “Beds under $1,000,” where you list your beds that fall into this range.
Perhaps people search by style?
Let’s say you offer adjustable beds. You’d be inclined to build a category page for this, as there are approximately 47,000 searches per month in the U.S. for these products.
Perhaps people search by brand?
If you offer Craftmatic, you’d be inclined to build a category page for Craftmatic adjustable beds, with an estimated 1,900 searches per month.
Here’s another way to look at this. Say, for instance, you only have one category page for “Furniture.”
In this case, you are targeting a keyword with a large monthly search volume (~588,000 searches per month).
But it is also a highly competitive keyword that is less likely to get you a top-ranking position.
Even if you went to the next level and built one sub-category page for “Beds” (with ~112,000 searches), you’d still be attempting to rank for something that would be very difficult to achieve.
However, if you keep drilling down, you’ll begin to uncover relevant opportunities.
Consider “targeted” keywords that may not have a sizable search volume but have a manageable competition level.
(People searching “Craftmatic adjustable beds” know what they’re looking for and are probably closer to conversion.)
The kicker is that by building this into your site structure and content plans, you reward your website visitors with a better user experience (matching content to the searcher’s intent).
And – almost by default – you will have improved your organic rankings.
That one product can now be represented in several categories/areas of your website (Furniture/Beds/Beds Under {Price Point}/Style/Brand).
You are merchandising your products much better than simply listing them on one page.
Now that you have this built out, consider how you might cross-promote (through internal linking) within your website.
These category and subcategory pages can also be used for paid search, like Google Ads or Shopping Ads, where landing page relevance determines the Quality Score, which in turn impacts the cost per click.
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3. Merchandise your products
Merchandising in brick-and-mortar typically refers to things like the endcaps, the small hanging display of pot holders next to the cookware display and signage.
In ecommerce, merchandising represents many more opportunities for product promotion.
On your product page, you might have:
- Other products from the same brand.
- Other products people also bought.
- Products commonly purchased together.
- Similar products from competing brands.
You might highlight “Top brands” on your home page so visitors can quickly associate your site with reputable brands.
Building brand pages is a natural way to optimize for many “brand + product name” keywords. Your manufacturing/vendor partners can also use these pages to link from their websites.
Many of these manufacturers have site sections devoted to “Distributors”, “Partners,” or “Where to buy” call-outs.
Perhaps the person who’s buying a bed would also be interested in a mattress pad? Do you sell these?
If so, let’s be sure that we have opportunities to cross-sell these things and make sure that it’s intuitive with the product they’re looking to buy.
Once again, Wayfair shows how this can add value to the user experience.
When you merchandise your products better to improve the user experience, you grow the number of ways searchers will find you.
It’s a win-win! Users find what they’re looking for, and you are gaining relevant visitors who are more likely to convert.
You are expanding your keyword breadth, which is always good for SEO as you’ll have several other opportunities to maintain your organic traffic. (You never know when you might lose that top 3 ranking for “Beds.”)
Take it from Wayfair, which has 1.7 million non-brand keywords ranking in Google’s top 10 results, according to Semrush.
This includes:
- #2 for “Furniture” and #1 for “Beds.”
- 253 keyword variations of “Adjustable beds” ranking in the top 10.
- Rank #8 for “Craftmatic adjustable beds.”
4. Leverage shopping deals and seasonal promotions
Merchandising also takes into account the way the product is promoted.
In brick-and-mortar retail, this would be the shelving, shelving signage, aisle signage, floor signage, packaging, price labels and promotional pricing labels.
In ecommerce, you can also take advantage of shopping deals and seasonal promotions.
Walmart has the yellow tag sales, which they use as a sub-brand.
Leading up to Thanksgiving, they promoted their Black Friday “Deals for Days,” which was included in the main navigation, a promo banner and main header elements above the fold.
Then further down the page, they had another content section to highlight more Black Friday offers.
All of these content sections must be planned out and coordinated, so you also need a flexible CMS to support these temporary content sections and dynamically pull in the right products with all the correct pricing.
You also need to have a Deals/Discounts section on the site to capture search demand for those types of search queries.
For price-sensitive shoppers, many different keywords signal that they may not need to spend full retail. These include:
- Discount.
- Sales.
- Deals.
- Clearance.
- Closeouts.
- Markdowns.
- Used.
- Coupons.
There are also sometimes seasonal variations of some of these:
I recommend setting these up with an evergreen URL since they are annual events that will consolidate page and link signals. Doing so also helps reduce internal linking errors.
Get more sales with better site organization and product merchandising
These are just a few of the items you need to consider when building an ecommerce site and figuring out how to merchandise or promote specific products.
Many of your decisions will depend on relationships with your vendors, seasonal promotions, and other factors.
An SEO team with ecommerce experience can help you navigate through these items – maximizing your organic exposure based on what customers are searching for and which information they need to help them buy from you.
The work that you put in here can contribute to:
- Many long-tail keyword rankings.
- Improved user experience.
- Higher conversion rates.
Additionally, a particular product category or a seasonal promotion can provide the type of content that could earn links.
Remember – the higher you rank in Google, the more likely someone searching for related content will find your website.
Happy merchandising!
The post Ecommerce SEO & UX: 4 simple tips to boost traffic and sales appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, December 6th, 2022
Within the last few months, service area business (SAB) websites started to see rank fluctuations aligned with the rollout of Google’s helpful content and spam updates around late August through October.
Chatter around those fluctuations picked up in the local SEO community during this period in various forums, including the Google SEO Mastermind Facebook group.
The common theme with sites that were impacted the most seemed to be related to duplicate content, specifically location pages – in other words, doorway pages.
However, sites weren’t getting directly penalized by rank. Instead, pages were being automatically deindexed, which in turn caused ranks to drop for queries related to the corresponding location pages.
Deindexing of location pages
Schieler Mew, admin of the Google SEO Mastermind group on Facebook, posted this video explaining what he saw with over 200 SAB sites.
In the video, he explains that sites with relatively low authority or a lack of helpful content throughout the site saw a deindexing of their “duplicate content” location pages en masse.
Scheiler and I jumped on a Google Meet, where he shared some data and screenshots below of what had happened in Search Console to these sites.
The first thing that was noticed was a large shift in the middle of September regarding indexed pages. This seems to line right up with the completion of the helpful content rollout.
Digging into it, the next screenshot is all the pages that were deindexed seemingly overnight.
Finally, the report on the timeline of the affected pages.
The mass deindexing of pages that heavily contributed to geographic ranking vanished, taking the rankings with it.
This seemed to be the case for numerous other pages, although there were a few outliers.
Websites with seemingly higher authority or location pages that used unique content weren’t deindexed.
This leads me to believe that the helpful content and spam update algorithm seem somewhat unfinished. In this case, it tackled the easiest target – duplicate content location pages on sites with low authority.
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How the helpful content and spam updates contributed
Most SEOs were under the assumption that these updates were targeting AI-generated content. (Recall that in an office-hours hangout in April, John Mueller referred to it as “spam” and made it clear it was against Google’s policies.)
On November 7, Danny Sullivan squashed this in a tweet, stating:
- “We haven’t said AI content is bad. We’ve said, pretty clearly, content written primarily for search engines rather than humans is the issue.”
We haven't said AI content is bad. We've said, pretty clearly, content written primarily for search engines rather than humans is the issue. That's what we're focused on. If someone fires up 100 humans to write content just to rank, or fires up a spinner, or a AI, same issue…
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) November 7, 2022
This is when I started putting two and two together.
SAB sites are dropping in rank right around the rollout of both the helpful content and spam updates, and we know it’s primarily targeting pages that have content written for search engines rather than humans.
What kind of pages would a local SAB have that almost every SEO in the industry creates?
Location pages.
Understanding doorway pages
A doorway page is essentially what Danny Sullivan was talking about in the above tweet. It’s a page written to rank for a specific keyword but provides little to no value to a user.
An example of doorway pages in the local SEO industry is location pages. In other words, a page that exists for the sole purpose of ranking [city #1] + [service A] multiplied by the number of cities and/or services the business is trying to rank for.
These can be created faster if the content is duplicated and only the keywords are swapped out. Additionally, you can write custom content for each page, but it’s still a doorway page.
SEOs in this sector hate to admit it, but location pages are doorway pages. Mueller confirmed this in February.
That's a common way to make doorway pages, but it's not the only way.
— John Mueller is mostly not here 
(@JohnMu) February 9, 2022
Doorway pages have always been against Google’s policies, but there had never seemed to be a way to suppress these algorithmically.
The only punishment seemed to be manual actions, and until this year, SABs seem to have been put on the Google backburner – so no one really ever saw any consequences for doing this.
Recent Google updates to local SEO
In the last few months, waves have been made within the local SEO community, not just with doorway pages, including:
For the most part, Google has addressed a few of these issues, such as the suspended business profiles and reviews hovering in purgatory – usually giving credit to “bugs.”
At some point, SEOs have to ask themselves why suddenly there are so many bugs in a specific sector.
Aside from the bugs with GBP profiles, Google has also made some obvious and strict changes to how profiles are now verified.
It started with the default verification method switching from postcard to video. Then, in some instances, video being the only way to verify.
This, mixed with business profiles suddenly being suspended over minor issues, started to raise flags that Google was finally tackling the SEO spam in the SAB community.
Fast forward to September this year, SEOs in communities and forums started to see declining rankings for location-dependant keywords and pages.
All of this being said, it looks like Google is seriously cracking down on local businesses that are violating their spam policies.
Can location pages still work?
The short answer is, “yes”, but it’s only a matter of time before location pages fade into archaic SEO practices like hidden text or meta keyword stuffing.
Google deindexing duplicate content location pages is just the first step in the conquest to punish sites for using doorway pages that don’t benefit humans.
It’s unclear whether or not Google will institute rank penalties for doorway pages in the future or continue to not index the pages.
My theory is that this is a temporary fix. Location pages are something local SEOs should be leaving in the past.
At the end of the day, Google wants content to exist to provide a positive user experience, not to influence rank.
As a consumer, I’ve never found a location page to benefit my user experience. This is how we should think when creating pages and content.
First, think about how it can help the user and then how it can be optimized to help your rank – in that order.
Alternative optimization options to rank in nearby cities
Suggesting that location pages may be coming to an end isn’t cause for local SEOs to throw their hands up on optimizing for neighboring cities and areas.
There are alternative things we can do that put the purpose of the content back in the direction of helping humans first.
Target your primary service area in your H1s and page titles
Chances are you or your client have a number one area they want to target.
Make sure this city is mentioned in your H1s and page titles. This will make it clear to Google from a content standpoint where your primary area of service is.
Make sure to have a general service area page
Make sure to have a general page that tells users where you or your client serves.
List out all counties, cities, or neighborhoods and include a map that visualizes that service area.
Create project pages
This is my favorite. If you or your client have project-oriented work like landscaping, roof repair, construction, etc; create pages for specific projects that were completed.
Treat it similarly to a blog or gallery. Add before and after pictures, explaining the job or project details.
Mention what city it was located in, how much it cost, some challenges, etc.
This method will not only show potential customers what your company is capable of and the type of work you do, but it’s also a great way to rank your service and the city where it was performed.
An example of a project page for a landscaper could be titled “Modern Highland Stone Retaining Wall in Minnetonka, MN.”
Local newspaper press releases
Reach out to local newspapers in the surrounding areas and issue a press release.
Brag about your company regarding a past or upcoming charitable contribution or discount you give. Newspaper and local publishing sites typically link back to your website.
Join multiple local Chambers of Commerce
These typically have an annual fee associated with each one you join, but each city you or your client is targeting has one.
If it’s in your budget, join them for the location-relevant links and geographic authority.
Where do we go from here?
Google’s enforcement of service area businesses is long overdue, but it seems like the action is now being taken.
Some location pages still work as long as the site has high authority and good overall content. It’s duplicate content location pages that are getting deindexed.
Overall, SABs are now under Google’s magnifying glass. If SEOs aren’t getting hit with penalties yet, I would put money on it being something that will be happening in the very near future.
It’s important to remember that Google is always evolving. Even though something like unique content may still work for location pages, I bet that Google will tackle this next.
Google’s SpamBrain AI is updated every now and then. This time, it may be evolving to target easily distinguishable doorway pages.
It’s only a matter of time before it understands a location page as a standalone doorway page with unique content.
As SEOs, we must review our local business sites, stick to the core principles of local search, and do some housekeeping per Google’s policies – before their algorithm team pays us a visit.
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Tuesday, December 6th, 2022
There once was a time when marketing was more art than science. Understanding whether or not your creative asset, display ad or even a TV spot was driving customers to your business took a lot of work. And there was little to no data to tell you what was working and what wasn’t working. That has since changed. It’s now as much science as it is art.
When using analytics to deploy targeted campaigns for specific marketing groups, your organization can increase your awareness of your products and services among the right individuals. And by understanding your consumer pain points, purchase preferences and shopping habits, your specific marketing campaigns can speak much more effectively and directly to that intended audience.
It’s almost impossible to work in marketing and not be concerned about marketing performance – the metrics and the outcomes that marketing departments look at to determine how well their marketing activities are doing to achieve their goals within their marketing plans. This is where that mention of science comes into play once again.
Learn more by joining Wrike’s Olivia Gartz, senior sales engineer, and Shannon Riley, industry principal – marketing, in their informative SMX Next session. They will teach you how their tool, Marketing Insights, can empower you to supercharge your marketing ROI, monitor success in real-time and make critical decisions to attribute revenue back to your best-performing campaigns.
After this session, you’ll be able to:
- Understand how measuring your marketing performance can improve your execution strategy
- Know which metrics are the most important to drive your campaign budgets
- Maximize your budget to allocate dollars to your best-performing campaigns
You’ll also learn how to define marketing performance measurement and the critical measurement metrics you should always include as part of your campaign performance data.
Watch the session now and arm yourself with the knowledge to sift through the data to identify which contributed directly to your bottom line.
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Tuesday, December 6th, 2022
Customers have grown to expect tailored, timely offerings and marketers are challenged with delivering these real-time, personalized experiences to respond to their needs.
As a result of this shift, enterprises are leveraging customer-centric strategies to drive smarter engagement across the full customer journey, capture revenue opportunities and foster long-term loyalty. Those that are truly succeeding are making access to data a movement across their organization, not just a marketing initiative.
Learn how The Washington Post is executing personalized customer experiences as a key engagement driver to power use cases from acquisition to win back.
Register today for “Drive Smarter Engagement with Hyper-Personalization Across the Customer Lifecycle,” presented by ActionIQ.
Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.
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Friday, December 2nd, 2022
Ever since Elon Musk took over as CEO of Twitter, there have been a lot of changes to the platform.
Some people love it. Others are not so sure. Many marketers have even said their goodbyes to Twitter.
As far as brands are concerned, many have left the platform or temporarily paused ads due to increased hate speech, safety concerns, and Musk’s overall lax approach to content moderation, account suspensions, and other issues.
Here’s a rundown of all the changes that have happened so far. Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s worth keeping up with what’s happening with Twitter 2.0.
The latest in the Twitstorm:
- Twitter Offers Advertisers Generous Incentives After Many Marketers Left Platform (Wall Street Journal). “Under the new Twitter plan, advertisers who book at least $500,000 in incremental spending will qualify to have their spending matched with a “100% value add,” up to a $1 million cap.”
- Twitter Says That its Moderation Policies Have Not Changed in Light of Musk Takeover (Social Media Today). Musk is quoted saying “None of our policies have changed. Our approach to policy enforcement will rely more heavily on de-amplification of violative content: freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”
- Twitter stops policing Covid misinformation (Wall Street Journal) Twitter is loosening moderation guidelines and has stopped enforcing policies aimed at stopping Covid misinformation.
- Apple has “mostly” stopped Twitter ads (Mac Rumors) “Apple has cut back on its Twitter advertising, according to Twitter CEO Elon Musk. In a tweet, Musk said that Apple has “mostly stopped” its Twitter ads, asking if Apple hates “free speech.”
- Are we officially saying goodbye to Twitter? It depends on who you ask The evolution of suspended accounts, fired executives, and Musk’s terrible jokes.
- Twitter adds Official badge, then Musk immediately kills it Exactly what it says.
- How brands and agencies are reacting to Elon Musk’s radical changes at Twitter Many, including GM, General Mills, and Apple have suspended their accounts.
- Elon Musk taking over Twitter, but most marketers not worried Did we speak too soon?
What happened:
- In January, Elon Musk started investing in Twitter, securing a 9.2% stake, making him the largest shareholder in the company.
- Musk reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April but raised concerns over spam accounts on the platform, claiming Twitter had not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number.
- Also, in April, Twitter announced that Musk would join the company’s board of directors. Shortly after, Musk said he would not be joining the board after all.
- By mid-April, Musk offers to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share, valuing the company at about $43 billion, according to a securities filing.
- Twitter adopts a poison pill provision to prevent the Musk acquisition but then accepts Musk’s offer to acquire the company and values the deal at $44 billion.
- In May, when Musk said the deal was on “temporary hold” over bot concerns. Musk posted a Reuters report about a public filing from Twitter earlier in May that said fake accounts made up less than 5% of users on the platform. Musk then says he wants “details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts represent less than 5% of users.” Two hours later, Musk says he’s “still committed” to the deal.
- Fast forward to July, Musk moves to terminate his acquisition of Twitter, pointing to the issue of fake accounts. Twitter sues Musk to force him to complete the deal.
- By October, after a months-long effort to terminate the deal, Musk proposes to complete the deal at the original offer price of $54.20 a share at a total cost of roughly $44 billion.
- At the end of October, Musk closed a deal to acquire Twitter on the final day before the trial would have moved forward. Additionally, many of Twitter’s top executives were fired, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sam Edgett, according to a source.
- Musk said that he would forgo any significant content moderation or account reinstatement decisions until after forming a new committee devoted to the issues. “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” Musk tweeted. “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”
- In November, Twitter began massive layoffs, cutting its staff of 7,500 to nearly half.
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Friday, December 2nd, 2022
If you’re still on the fence about whether or not video ads are a good idea for your brand, you shouldn’t be. Coming into 2023, it’s more important than ever to consider all platforms and ad types; and video advertising should be at the top of that list. Here are three reasons why you should be creating video ads for your brand.
- Video ads are more engaging than traditional ads
- Video ads reach a larger audience than traditional ads
- Video is an effective way to communicate your brand message
But creating a good video ad is easier said than done. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out the top 10 most-watched YouTube ads from 2022. From funny commercials to moving stories, these campaigns definitely left an impression.
Why we care. Video ads are more relevant than ever. Bottom line- if you’re not creating videos, you’re missing out on more than just views.
Amazon Super Bowl LVI Ad with Scarlett Johansson, Colin Jost (U.S.)
69 million views
Telecom Egypt Ramadan 2022 Announcement (Egypt)
65 million views
Clash of Clans: Clan Capital (U.S.)
52 million views
Apple: MacBook Air (U.S.)
41 million views
Hyundai Worldwide: Goal of the Century x BTS (U.S.)
40 million views
Imagine Your Korea (Korea)
102 million views
HBO Max: “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” trailer (U.S.)
27 million views
Netflix: “All of Us Are Dead” trailer (U.S.)
22 million views
Chevrolet Brasil: Zé & Zê – Feita Pra Mim (Brazil)
21 million views
Squarespace: Sally’s Seashells Super Bowl ad (U.S.)
21 million views
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Friday, December 2nd, 2022
Video marketing is not a “nice-to-have” marketing strategy anymore. It has become a digital marketing necessity for almost every business – from financial planners to physicians.
If you haven’t jumped into the video-making pool yet, now is the time to take that plunge.
Why?
People love to watch videos. No matter what type of business you have, videos can help you sell more products or services. And if you think that video marketing doesn’t fit your industry, it’s time to put your creative mind to work.
For example, if you’re a plumber and you post videos on simple plumbing hacks that people can use to solve their minor plumbing issues, what plumbing company do you think they will call when they have a big plumbing problem? Yup. You! (See how that works?)
And you’ll find that many YouTubers are die-hard fans. They’re watching all sorts of videos about how to jimmy a locked door, make the perfect smash burger, and everything in between.
You can find a video about how to do almost anything on YouTube. And if you look, you’ll find that most of these videos are tied to some type of business – like a locksmith or a burger joint.
So if you want people to watch your videos and take action – whether it’s to look at more videos on your YouTube channel or to go to a link that’s in your video’s description – you need to get people to your video.
That means you need to attract YouTube’s algorithm to your video.
Like Google’s algorithm, YouTube’s algorithm comprises hundreds of factors that determine a video’s ranking position.
But just like a search on Google, everything starts with words – keywords and keyword phrases.
To get your video found on YouTube, you need to master finding the right keywords to target for your video and then put those keywords strategically where they need to go.
How to do your YouTube keyword research
Keywords are an important ranking factor for YouTube videos.
Similar to Google’s search engine, YouTube wants to show people the most relevant videos according to the keywords or keyword phrases people are searching for.
When doing keyword research for YouTube, you want to find keywords that will drive traffic to your video – phrases that people are searching for frequently.
One of the best (and free) places to look for keywords is YouTube itself.
When you’re on YouTube and start a search, YouTube will offer up “search predictions.” These are keyword phrases that people on YouTube are actually searching for.
If you’re on a tight budget, this is a great way to find some keywords as a starting point! (It’s also a good way to get video content ideas.)
But if you’re serious about ranking your videos on YouTube, you should use paid keyword research tools (like Semrush, SE Ranking, Moz or others.)
These types of tools will give you more robust information about the keywords so you can be more strategic about the keywords you’re targeting.
Let’s take a look at SE Ranking as an example. This is a traditional SEO software tool, but we can still glean some great insights on what types of keywords we should focus on for our YouTube videos.
For instance, when we enter “how to unclog a kitchen sink” as a keyword phrase, we will get keyword ideas and semantically related keyword phrases.
When you click on View detailed report, you’ll see a ton of information about each of the keyword phrases.
Even though this info is related to Google search, you can still extrapolate it and use it for YouTube.
One important thing to look for in this view is videos that appear in the SERP features.
You can see live results or copy to the clipboard and paste the SERP results in a new window to see what types of videos appear in Google search results.
If videos show up on the first page of Google, then those are great keywords to target. (If you check out the videos on the SERPs, more than likely they are YouTube videos.)
These are perfect keywords for optimizing your YouTube videos because you know that Google is already showing videos in search results.
Not only can you rank your videos on YouTube, but you also have a chance of getting your videos to show up on Google search results.
Now all you have to do is make your video better and more informative than your competitors and optimize your YouTube video options more strategically to (hopefully) take over their spots in the Google SERPs.
Using traditional SEO tools can make your keyword research for YouTube life a lot easier.
Use YouTube SEO tools to find the right keywords for your video optimization
If you want to find the right keywords for YouTube videos, try out some tools specifically created for YouTube marketing.
Keyword Search
You can discover keywords using Keyword Search’s “AI algorithm,” developed by a top YouTube marketing expert.
The tool:
- Bases all its data directly on YouTube search results from the user’s perspective.
- Scrapes and analyzes YouTube data to help you find the best keywords to use when optimizing your videos on YouTube.
And because your top-ranking rivals often know something you don’t, you can even conduct “Competitor Research” on their keywords, rankings, YouTube channels and videos.
This lets you better develop your video marketing content strategy and plan which keywords you’ll target.
You can also use the tool’s “Collections” feature to keep track of all your keywords, videos and the competitors you’re tracking.
At its most basic level, using Keyword Search is as easy as entering a keyword phrase in the search field:
You’ll then get a slew of keyword phrases to review and see the average monthly search volume on YouTube for each keyword.
As you’re analyzing the keyword results you get, if you see keywords with “trends,” click on the down arrow to see the trends in detail – the high and low points.
As you’re analyzing the keyword results you get, if you see keywords with “trends,” click on the down arrow to see the trends in detail – the high and low points.
If you spot a hot and trending topic over the past month (or now), get behind your camera, do a video, and optimize for those trending keyword phrases.
Creating and optimizing a video for a trending topic will boost the chances of your video getting searched for and found on YouTube!
To get some semantic keywords to target, Keyword Search also uses its algorithm to give you similar keywords.
These are additional words to consider optimizing your videos for. You can see:
- How similar the word is to your original search query.
- The average search volume.
- Trends, if any.
Another handy feature is the “Find Placement Videos” feature. When you click on this button under a keyword, a new window opens up showing the top-ranked videos for that keyword phrase.
This information is invaluable because you can see:
- The videos ranking for the keyword phrase.
- The number of views each video received.
- Their video titles and a partial description of the videos.
All this without having to go to YouTube.
As an extra special bonus, clicking on the title link opens a pop-up where you can watch the video.
Keyword Search is one of my favorite YouTube keyword research tools by far. But there are other YouTube-specific software tools you should also check out.
vidIQ and TubeBuddy
Both used in the YouTube platform, vidIQ and TubeBuddy have a free version and several paid options. Each tool has pros and cons, so if you can afford it, I recommend you use them both.
TubeBuddy and vidIQ are great for finding the keywords – and related keywords – you should use to optimize your YouTube videos.
When looking at your high-ranking competitors’ videos, both tools show you keyword information that will help you determine what keywords you should target for your video.
For example, in our “how to make the best smash burger” example, vidIQ shows us the “top related opportunities” keywords you should consider targeting.
And if you click “Show all 44 keywords” you will get even more details about:
- The keywords you might want to work into your title, description and tags.
- Which keywords might be too competitive to target.
(As you can see, trying to rank for the keyword “smash burger” by itself is just too competitive at a High Competition score of 77.)
TubeBuddy also shows you related keyword search phrases and tags for your video keyword optimization strategy.
In vidIQ’s Keyword Inspector, you can:
- Enter keyword phrases you want to evaluate and see related keywords, the score, search volume, competition, and the top ten trending videos.
- Search up to five keywords at a time.
When determining which keywords to target, look for the high-scoring keywords.
In the example below, “Edit My Google Business Profile” had the highest score of 70/100:
To test out this keyword strategy, I used that keyword phrase in the title of my recent Google Business Profile YouTube video:
Within three days, my Google Business Profile video ranked third for the keywords “how to edit my google business profile.” Boom!
TubeBuddy also has a Keyword Explorer feature. When you start typing your keyword, TubeBuddy shows possible keywords you may be targeting.
Just continue entering your keyword phrase or select the one you’re interested in from the dropdown.
In TubeBuddy’s Summary page, ignore the overall score and focus more on the Score Analysis, Interest Over Time and Related Searches sections.
Let’s delve into TubeBuddy a little deeper.
When you look at YouTube search results for “How to Find Keywords for YouTube Videos,” you can see that there’s only one exact match in the top search results – and that happens to be Brian Dean’s video.
Clicking on Dean’s video, you can see TubeBuddy’s analysis of the video – which is quite extensive.
From this, you can see what his video is doing from a YouTube optimization perspective and what he’s missing so you can try and improve yours.
VidIQ also provides an extremely comprehensive analysis of the video.
By using TubeBuddy or vidIQ (or both), you can:
- Find awesome keywords.
- Evaluate your competitors and their weaknesses.
- Capitalize on those flaws to make your video optimization stronger.
These tools go way beyond just keyword research, which will give your YouTube videos and channel a great advantage.
Where to put your keywords on YouTube for ultimate optimization
Once you find about 2-6 targeted keywords (and a few semantic keywords that complement those targeted keywords), it’s time to put those keywords to work in your video marketing.
Let’s talk about where you should strategically put your keyword phrases on YouTube.
Put keywords in your video’s title on YouTube
Your video’s YouTube title gives YouTube’s algorithm, users and search engines a “first impression” of your video and tells everyone what your video is about.
A well-optimized video title will make YouTube’s algorithm happy and attract more traffic, which can turn into more views.
When optimizing your title, include the most important keywords people are searching for as close to the front of your title as possible – this helps your video get ranked and suggested.
The keywords you most want to rank for should be included within the first 60 characters of your title. (Your title can be up to 100 characters, so the closer you put your keywords to the front of the title, the better.)
When writing your title, be as concise as possible. Five words or less is best.
If possible, use words in your title that connects the video to other videos in the same category.
Also, having a title that is catchy, compelling, and accurately represents the contents of your video can also help attract searchers. (No bait and switch, please.)
Strategically work keywords into your video’s description
With so many videos on the same topic, it’s often hard for your video to stand out.
Your video’s description is one way to make your video jump out among the crowd – and help your video rank.
Write a short – but detailed – description of what the video is about, what the watcher will learn and how your video is different or stands out from the other videos on the subject.
When it comes to keywords, putting the right keywords in your description will help your video get more views and visibility.
Remember that partial descriptions can also appear in search results, so be sure to put your keywords as close to the beginning of the description as possible.
That means:
- The main keywords you’re targeting should be within the first 200 characters of your description.
- The most important keywords should be in the first 25 words of the description because partial descriptions can appear in search results.
(Your video description can have 5,000 characters total. But if it is too long, it probably won’t be read in its entirety anyway.)
Throughout your description, it’s key to include partial matches of your targeted keywords in the description, too.
So write a description that is an overview of your video writing naturally using related and similar keywords to your targeted keywords.
That means breaking the words up, using semantic – or similar – keywords and using them individually in addition to the main target keywords you’re aiming for.
YouTube (and Google) use your text descriptions to determine the content of your video.
So if you don’t include a description, the search engines (and viewers) won’t know what your video is about. This will negatively impact your rankings.
In the description, you can also link to other related content you have (i.e., website, blog, social media channels, etc.). Remember to include your full URL (including the https:// or http://).
And if you’re at a loss for what to write, you can get a jumping-off point by using vidIQ’s AI Description Generator Feature.
Hashtag it!
Many people like to search with hashtags. So for those people, adding appropriate hashtags in your description helps them find your videos when searching for specific hashtags.
Add a few appropriate hashtags to your description.
When you start typing in the hashtags, YouTube will show you the number of videos and channels that use each hashtag. That way, you can scope out your hashtag competition.
Ironically, no matter where you put hashtags in your description, the hashtags you entered show up directly under your video.
Keywords in tags: Do tags matter?
Tags can help categorize your video by keywords or phrases, but they’re primarily meant to help correct common spelling mistakes or synonyms (i.e., Google Business Profile vs. GBP or U-Haul vs. UHaul.)
Other than that, tags play a negligible role in helping people find your videos, according to YouTube. (Still, you want to include tags when optimizing your YouTube videos!)
YouTube allows you to include Tags to help categorize your video by keywords, but it limits the number of tags you can include. (There is a character limit of 500 characters.)
When you’re using tags, you should include your most important exact target keyword (or keyword phrase) as the first tag. That lets YouTube know what keyword phrase is the most important one.
It’s also recommended that you include partial matches of your target keyword as tags.
You’ll also want to include multiword tags (i.e., long-tail keywords) that relate to your video’s topic.
You should also use single-word and broad-term tags that relate to your video’s broader topic.
(Note: Do not use trademarks or copyrighted material unless you have explicit permission from the owner to use it.)
YouTube is effective at semantically understanding your tags – so you don’t need to go overboard.
One great way to get tag ideas is to look at the top-ranking YouTube videos that directly compete with your video. However, YouTube hides the video tags, which makes it more difficult to “spy” on your competitors and see their keyword/tag secret sauce.
Luckily, vidIQ and TubeBuddy lets you see the tags competitors are using to get their videos to rank high.
Get your video keyword and optimization strategy in place
By having a YouTube keyword research and optimization strategy in place, you can increase the chances of your videos showing up in YouTube’s search results.
Play your cards right, and you might even reach the top of Google search results.
Video marketing will continue to grow. Mastering YouTube’s ranking algorithm is a great way to kick your efforts into high gear.
The post YouTube SEO: How to find the best traffic-generating keywords appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, December 2nd, 2022
Search marketing continues to be a rapidly evolving space.
There is a great demand for search marketing talent – specifically for people with subject matter expertise.
I always hear it from recruiters and colleagues: “There just aren’t enough people who truly know what they are doing.”
But is this true?
What does it take to be a subject matter expert?
What is a subject matter expert?
A subject matter expert, or SME, is a person who has a deep understanding and specialized knowledge of a particular topic.
SMEs develop and demonstrate competence through years of professional experience and continuing education.
So what does it mean for search marketing? I think there are three components to this:
- Years of experience.
- Certifications.
- Talent.
The combination of these three areas (not just one) can define a subject matter expert. Let’s break down each in more detail.
Years of experience
This is probably the easiest to identify from afar and the hardest to manipulate. Simply put, how long have you been doing this specific skill?
Regardless of the line of work you are in, the more time you spend on a field, the better you become at it. This is true of chefs, athletes, carpenters, software engineers, and search marketers.
You have the advantage of seeing more situations and knowing how to respond.
What do you do if your account’s CPC starts to spike or your rankings decline overnight?
With more on-the-job experience, you will have had the opportunity to go through these situations.
The longer you are in the game, the more opportunities you will have to go through that same situation multiple times and know how to ensure the optimal outcome.
Certifications
Many search marketing platforms offer a way to become certified in that skill, platform, or subject matter.
Earning and maintaining certifications is a great way to demonstrate that you have mastered the skill, at least academically.
While earning a certification doesn’t necessarily mean you understand how to apply those skills and knowledge to a real-world problem, I feel this is necessary to maintain for most search marketers.
The platforms and tools are evolving so quickly. Earning and maintaining certifications is one way to force yourself to validate that knowledge, so it doesn’t become stale.
You can provide these certifications to a potential employer or client to show you have done the hard work necessary to be certified in that field or tool.
Here are a few certification examples that are worth looking into:
Talent
This is the hardest to identify in an interview and yet the most important. Some people are just built to do a certain thing.
You could send LeBron James to the worst high school or college, training camp, and basketball strategy class, and he would still be LeBron James. He was built to play basketball at an elite level.
This is true for every other skill as well. You can’t teach talent.
In an interview, you can sometimes sense a person’s talent by the depth they answer your questions.
The details they provide give clues to how much a person has a grasp of that specific area.
Subject matter experts can see a problem before it happens and think through ways to tie business objectives to the strategies and tactics available in a specific platform.
Talent also has the widest amount of gray area to it. It’s not you are either talented or not talented. There is every permutation possible available.
You can also evolve and maximize your talent level with hard work and strong mentorship. I’ve seen people who aren’t as talented as some of their coworkers outwork and out-hustle their peers.
You can argue that this work ethic is a part of one’s talent, but even so, it’s a key element. You can use the tools available to you to improve your subject matter expertise. This means online resources and the network around you (or that you build).
Don’t forget that no one who is a subject matter expert did it by themselves. There are always support systems helping someone find the right resources, get the right opportunities, and push them to improve their craft.
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So, are you a subject matter expert?
You might ask yourself, “Am I a subject matter expert?” or “How can I identify a subject matter expert?”
I think you should consider the combination of the three areas – years of experience, certifications, and talent – in the context of what you are looking for and/or where you are in your career.
If you are just starting and looking to break into an area, you have to compensate for your lack of experience with certifications.
If you are more seasoned in your career and have let your certifications expire because of the experience you have, you can still call yourself a subject matter expert.
Not everyone needs someone who has a Google Ads certification, has been doing paid search for 10 years, and was dropped on this planet to optimize a keyword list.
Budgets and team structure don’t require all those areas in every circumstance. Sometimes just being certified is enough.
How to grow as an SME in search marketing
Subject matter experts evolve as they progress in their careers.
Ultimately, given the pace of change and innovation in search marketing, you must continue to stay a practicing professional, read the latest blogs, and test new platforms and betas.
Keeping those elements going and maintaining your subject matter expertise will be key to growing your search marketing career.
But before establishing a level of expertise and gaining technical proficiency in a domain, the challenge can be deciding which direction to take and what opportunities to pursue.
There’s also apprehension that if you are an SME in just one area, you can get typecast and stuck in that specific skill.
On the other hand, if you choose to grow broader, you will lose what got you to this point – subject matter expertise.
There is no right or answer to this decision. The image below is helpful as you think about these types of decisions.
While it may seem to close some opportunities, many more are ahead of you.
Here are a few tips to help you navigate your search marketing career as a subject matter expert.
- Define what subject matter expertise means based on the role.
- Think through what motivates you day in and day out.
- Identify what the business needs the most.
- Don’t feel any pressure to conform.
- Keep learning.
Define what subject matter expertise means based on the role
Subject matter expertise is relative to the role.
For example, explaining how PPC works can be considered subject matter expertise if you are talking to someone unfamiliar with paid search.
But, let’s say you are talking to someone who has been in paid search for even a few months. Then sharing such information is not subject matter expertise. This is important to grasp because you might lose perspective as your career evolves.
Since at one point, you could log into Google Ads and know exactly where all the levers and knobs are, but now the UI is different since you last logged in.
You suddenly don’t feel like an expert, but in exchange for losing touch with Google Ads base details, you have gained subject matter expertise into how paid search impacts total web traffic or merchandising.
This is important to wrap your head around when thinking about your career and your level of knowledge. There is too much to learn about any specific discipline to expect yourself to be a deep expert.
Think through what motivates you day in and day out
You probably already know the answer to this question.
You know if you love to get into spreadsheets or data visualization tools.
You know if you like to know a little about many topics, but go deep into one area.
You spend a lot of time at work. The more you like what you are doing, the better you will be at it. This is fairly cliche, but it is true.
Understanding your strengths and weaknesses and what motivates you is important on this subject matter expertise journey.
Identify what the business needs the most
Depending on the company that you are working in, the opportunities to grow will be a good indicator of the type of knowledge and skills needed.
For example, some companies will have a search department that includes SEO and PPC.
Others will separate PPC and any other type of paid media. Some will keep it all together as one “paid media department.”
The type of organizational structure gives good clues at the level of depth of skill in any one discipline that will be needed to advance your career.
Don’t feel any pressure to conform
I have had many conversations with team members who felt they needed to expand broader to grow their career.
However, once they did that, they felt unfulfilled in that role. They didn’t enjoy the subject matter expertise. They didn’t have an appreciation for what motivated them.
They were instead chasing something they think they wanted. This is not easy to avoid and, in some cases, might even be worth trying to better understand your interests.
Taking a risk and trying something new will teach you something. Even in failure, you will learn and grow.
Keep learning
The other thing to remember is subject matter expertise is fluid.
Things are changing rapidly. Search marketing overall is still in its infancy.
It’s hard to remember that text ads had a fixed number of characters for headlines or bids were set manually. Things are constantly evolving.
So even if you are in a broad job encompassing many areas, you must still learn and evolve.
This can be through keeping base certifications current, sitting in on a webinar on a new topic, or just reading the newsletter from a publication like Search Engine Land.
These are all ways to keep up with what is happening in the space and refresh your subject matter expertise.
You don’t need to be able to actually tweak the dials to know they exist. Keep learning, and you will be rewarded with new opportunities and knowledge that will inform your future plans.
Subject matter expertise: What comes next?
Being an expert in anything is hard. Most people are just trying to keep up and know just a little more than the person they are talking to.
To grow and develop your career, be open to new opportunities and continue your quest for new information.
We are lucky to work in such a dynamic space that is rapidly growing and evolving.
This forces us all to learn and push the entire industry forward, whatever your subject matter expertise path may be.
The post What it takes to be a subject matter expert in search marketing appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Thursday, December 1st, 2022
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) now has two new metrics available in Explorations and Reporting Customization.
Google Analytics Product Manager Carly Boddy tweeted about the two new updates yesterday.
Excited to share we have two new metrics available in both Explorations and Reporting Customization in #GA4; Views per Session, and Average Session Duration
— Carly Boddy (@carly_boddy) November 30, 2022
Why we care. Advertisers and brands should take notice of the new metrics available and utilize them however they see fit to measure performance for their own accounts.
The post Views per Session and Average Session Duration now available in GA4 appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
