Month: September 2018

Categories
Content Marketing SEO

6 Major Content SEO Trends to Watch in Q3 and Q4 2018

It’s hard to believe we’re already part of the way through summer, and really, the year. In just six months, I’ve witnessed one of the biggest shifts in SEO and digital marketing in years – all because technology is finally catching up with the human desire for more information.

But don’t expect those changes to stop anytime soon; there are more changes coming in Q3 and Q4 2018. In this post, I’ll give you a few predictions and tell you why I believe they’ll change SEO over the next few months.

Less Guest Posting for Links

For nearly a decade, guest posting has been a time-honored and well-tested method for bringing in traffic and improving rank. That isn’t necessarily going to change, but there is a shift in how Google ranks guest posts in certain scenarios.

Essentially, if Google can detect that you wrote the content solely to get links, it may accuse you of link manipulation – and the person who publishes your content, too. On the other hand, if it informs, teaches, entertains, or is generally written with the intent of helping your target audience, it’s still okay.

To adapt, marketers (and SEOs) should stop looking at guest posting as a link-growing campaign. Instead, focus on quality and expertise and see it as an opportunity for outreach – that was always its main intent.

The Rise of Unlinked Mentions on Bing

Right now, brand mentions on social media are a pretty powerful way to get ranked. We know that Google and Bing both consider them into your overall ranking, especially if you’re a well-established business or online entity. But in order to work correctly, the user has to actually tag you, using either hashtags or the @-sign.

There is evidence to show that Google may change this restrictive rule, instead giving more importance to mentions when you’re mentioned, full stop. No tag needed.

Linkless mentions are here, and they’re going to become more important in the coming months, so be sure you’re monitoring all of your mentions – not just those with links. Many of the best analytics tools are now making these available as plugins or features, so you won’t miss out.

Expanded (Interactive) Video Marketing

We know about the fast rise of video marketing; as a content format, it’s one of the biggest trends for 2018. But in the next six months, you may see video content evolve beyond simplicity into interactive video content that tells a story guided by the user themselves. Users must click or provide input in order to discover the next piece of information, which either personalizes their experience or plays on Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

To illustrate the interactive video concept in all its full, engaging glory, I want you to play this game created by Warner Bros. and Rapt Media. “’Focus on the Con” is a gamified video experience that lets you play the role of the con, asking you to make decisions to determine whether you have what it takes. It’s a promo for their new movie, “Focus.”

Spending a few minutes with the video will show you several interactive video marketing concepts in full play: a set up, frequent stops for input, and the need to re-click the video at points to continue playing. While this would ordinarily be annoying, in this gamified approach it’s remarkably engaging instead.

More Click Data Ranking from Google

There’s evidence to show that Google may be using A/B testing to determine user behavior and how it factors into ranking. Link Assistant talks about it here, and they’re quick to remind people that we still don’t have solid proof of exactly how serious an influence click data ranking really is (as am I).

What we know for sure is that Google does look at how likely a user is to click the results they see when presented with search. If Google ranks a page, yet no one clicks on it even though it’s on the first page, it will eventually fall off. What we don’t know is exactly what Google calls a “flag” in such a scenario.

This is where optimizing your Google snippets and monitoring even high-ranking search results with consistent performance comes in. If you notice a dive in click-through rates, something is up – it’s time to review.

Voice-First, AI-Driven Indexing

Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant have something to celebrate: they’ll enjoy a healthy increase in use throughout the year, especially where search is concerned. The reality is that more users are relying on devices like these to find answers or information. And those voice-first searchers are driving the current trend of prioritizing voice search over other manual methods.

As an SEO or marketer, you must begin to adjust your strategy to accommodate long-tail, question-style search terms now. Doing so will give you time to become established by the end of the year, when voice search is likely to become a must instead of just an option.

Deeper Personalization of Search Results

It’s about to get way more personal in SEO – and that’s mostly because SERPs are getting better at figuring out who people are and how it factors into to what they want to see. User interests, habits, behaviors, hobbies, gender, and lifestyle may all play a role in how and what search engine giants like Google and Bing show people, especially if they searching often and on the same machine.

In the past, behaviors and tracking allowed for some personalization, but this isn’t quite the same thing. Deeper personalization is more like Instagram’s interests-driven feed than a categorization of behavior, and that means it’s far less tangible. SEOs should begin structuring campaigns around deep demographics instead of just basics alone.

I’m also noticing a shift towards preferred content types in niche users, including what format a niche or industry is most likely to consume – short, long, image-heavy, text-only, video, infographic, or something else entirely. Format, length, and even quality will become a more important part of your strategy in coming months.

As an SEO expert, I always have my finger on the industry’s pulse. Understanding what’s coming, and how to adapt to changes, is the best way to be proactive and stay ahead of the game in marketing. You don’t need to be an SEO expert to get started, but if you’re having trouble, there’s no shame in reaching out to one for answers. You can get in touch with me at this link!

Categories
SEO

E-A-T in SEO: What Does It Mean to You?

Expertise. Authoritativeness. Trustworthiness. These three components make up the E-A-T acronym, one of the most important acronyms you need to keep in mind when you are developing your website’s SEO campaign.

The concept of E-A-T was first introduced back in 2014. Quite by accident, actually. Someone accidentally leaked some of Google’s Search Quality Guidelines and the SEO world went a little nutty over it. Time has shown us just how important the theory is when it comes to overall page quality.

Is this theory completely new to you? It’s time to start paying attention.

E is for Expertise

Let’s say you are running a website dedicated to helping people better understand their finances. You’ve identified this as a strong niche and have a great marketing plan. You have a team of writers and you are working to create quality content.

The finance niche is pretty specialized. So when a reader lands on your page and starts reading your articles or blogs, how will they know you have the expertise to actually give financial advice? Do you have an industry expert contributing content? Do you you have an industry expert offering critiques? Are you citing industry experts as sources within your page content?

What are you showing on the page that tells your readers (and Google) that someone with actual financial experience is behind the content being shared?

This isn’t to say your writers have to be financial experts. They do have to be professional enough to find real expert sources to quote within your articles. They have to be expert fact-checkers. Pair your quality writers with a top-notch editor and you’ll have content that oozes with expertise.

A lot of websites mess up in the expertise category because they publish vague content. A true expert can provide specific details and flesh out ideas, not just gloss over the topic with hasty generalizations. You honestly can’t be an authority in any area of expertise without experience.

A is for Authoritativeness

It’s not enough to simply have expert writers on staff. You need to make sure you are giving them credit in order to add an air of authority to your site.

If your writer is a financial expert, you should add a byline with his name and job title. A short two to three line biography outlining their financial experience and credentials is perfect. Include a link to your expert’s professional website or include a link to a full bio within your website if the writer is a regular, full time-contributor to your website.

Your writer doesn’t necessarily have to be an expert on the subject. They can still contribute authority to your pages as long as they are citing their sources. Google actually loves it when you link back to relevant content. Include the author’s name and very brief biography that highlights their experiences writing on the topic.

In both cases, including a photo of your writer as part of the formal built-in bio section creates a sense of transparency your readers will appreciate.

Another way to establish authority is by finding influencers who are willing to share your message. When Google sees those who are already considered authorities linking back to your content, the search engine will see it as valuable. Why would someone already ranked ahead of you link back to you if your content were not?

T is for Trustworthiness

Why should your reader trust you? Why should your reader choose your content over the content shared on another website? And – ultimately – why should your reader choose to do business with you, buy a product from you, or click on your affiliate links instead of partnering with a competing website? Why is your site more trustworthy than the rest?

The most important thing to remember is that your content is being developed for the reader, not purely for “SEO” value. That’s a hard pill for some to swallow. Your content needs to share quality information, share a specific point of view, entertain, or provide some other form of value.

Yes, keywords are important. No, you can’t keyword stuff in the hopes that Google will prioritize your page in the search engines. Naturally weaving a few good keywords into your content ( at least where it makes sense) is far more beneficial than adding the same keywords over and over again throughout your content.

When your reader lands on your page, will he feel as though he’s found something of value, or will he feel like he found a keyword stuffed landing page that was merely designed to guide him towards a sale? The answer really needs to be the former. The latter will come naturally.

E-A-T and YMYL Websites

E-A-T is an important concept to keep in mind when developing any website, but it is most important on YMYL sites (Your Money or Your Life). YMYL sites are websites that Google views as having the potential to actually influence a person’s “life, income, or happiness.” In other words, if your advice could make or break a person’s finances, you’d better have expertise and authority on your side.

Your Money or Your Life site examples:

  • Any site that talks about finances, especially when it comes to investment advice, taxes or retirement savings
  • Any website that talks about personal issues like estate planning, family law, divorce, child support, or immigration
  • Websites that could be dangerous if the information contained within them is inaccurate. For example, sites teaching someone how to change the brakes on their car or how to install a ceiling fan in their home

E-A-T Should Be Your Best Practice

When it comes to establishing your website’s best practices, E-A-T needs to be a part of the equation. It’s going to play a huge role in how Google determines your site’s overall value. Meeting a need or solving a problem are excellent goals – but only if your site’s practices are transparent, not spammy, and specific.

Expertise. Authority. Trustworthiness. Make sure every piece of content you put on your website meets this standard and you’ll find your organic rankings and traffic improving at a notable rate. But there is another side to the story – and that’s how to strategize your SEO to best fit your content. Reach out to me here to talk about how I can help you achieve your goals.

Categories
SEO

Google’s Broad Core Update: What You Need to Know

Google confirmed back in early August, via a tweet by Danny Sullivan, that the brand new Google broad core update had officially rolled out. While broad core updates come out several times per year, this most recent change is almost as major as Panda and Penguin were when they first rolled out.

As you might have suspected,  August’s major broad core update contains some pretty significant changes. In this post, I’ll lay out what these changes are, how you might be affected, and what steps you can take to stay on the right side of the SEO tracks.

What are Broad Core Updates?

Google makes updates to the core algorithm on a daily basis. Sometimes updates come as often as twice a day. These updates are minor tweaks that help to improve the way the crawlers respond to search engine requests so that they can provide better results. The Broad Core Algorithm updates happen a few times per year and, as usual, Google remains very vague about what the updates included.

What we do know is that Google says the update’s primary focus was to improve search results (sure, that seems kind of overly obvious, but stay with me). They claim that sites that lost ranking did not do anything wrong, but that sites that deserved better rankings are also now receiving more ranking to compensate.

The consensus is that there is nothing that can be done to fix the sites that did lose rankings, and that while the changes focused on page content, they had nothing to do with quality.

Confusing, right?

Google is not usually very transparent when it comes to core algorithm updates, and it is generally assumed that the updates target low-quality content. In this case, though, it seems as though Google announced the update so quell some of the rumors and panic, especially among site owners that did lose some ranking.

The problem is that site owners who were affected may think they did something wrong.  Some people were spending hours trying to figure out which unspoken rule they broke.

At the end of the day, that’s just not exactly the case. Google has clearly stated that this particular update addressed better query results in the search engines. It isn’t about penalizing, it’s about improving the base algorithms to better target “quality content.”

Who Did the August Update Impact?

While Google still isn’t telling us much, there is some info we know. According to Jamie Pitman of BrightLocal, it appears as though the majority of sites impacted were in the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) niche. Most, albeit not all, focus on diet and nutrition. It also seems to have had an impact on random advice pages, especially those that have no EAT value (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).

The majority of SEO experts noted changes in both organic and local pack rankings. Especially affected are small local business clients and those who have had multiple locations.

Establishing Website Expertise and Authority

Despite what Google claims, sites that have lost ranking should attempt to regain it. That means that, while there may be no real “fixes” out there, the focus should remain on creating high-quality, authoritative content from trustworthy sources.

In other words, you should probably look to see if your site is affiliated with someone credible and trustworthy. But exactly what that means depends on your niche or industry. For the most part, you should be attempting to partner with at least one industry professional who can add expertise and accreditation’s to the mix.

For example, financial information pages should be somehow affiliated with content from bankers, brokers, and established industry experts. Medical websites and pages should be affiliated with credentialed healthcare professionals. Sites offering legal content should have some sort of affiliation with a licensed professional.

I’m not saying you have to depend on (or pay for) highly-trained professionals to create all of your content. I am saying you need to have them review it, fact-check it, and add their personal thoughts and opinions to it. This is an instance where knowing the right people pays off.

The real consideration, especially with YMYL sites, is that Google believes these sites have the ability to influence major consumer life decisions. The search engine is, in essence, attempting to protect the consumer by making sure the information presented within page content has been created in good faith and by people who have some expertise in the field.

Increasing Your Organic Ranking

A new broad core update is not a reason to stop striving for a better online ranking, no matter how harsh or unfair it might seem to those affected. Make sure you continue to monitor the web for mentions of your brand on other websites. When you see them pop up, send a brief thank-you message and ask the site owner if they’d be willing to add a link back to your website to the mention. This is surprisingly effective.

Review your site from time to time. Give under-performing content the boost it needs. Remember that a tiny portion of your site’s content usually drives most of your traffic, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing that some pages outperform others.

Use keyword research strategies to figure out which of your pages need a boost. Then, figure out which of your better-performing pages is the right place for internal linking. This technique is really the most beneficial if your higher-performing pages have a lot of external links pointing back to them already.

Continue to create high-quality content for your website. Remember, E-A-T. Bring in the experts, interview others who are authorities in your field, and create content that your readers (and Google) will find trustworthy, informative, and safe. Don’t forget to mix up your content formats to include text, images, infographics, and even video. It shouldn’t be all-text-all-the-time.

Have an older piece of evergreen content that doesn’t get as much traffic anymore because of its age? Give it a boost by making some timely updates, switching the references around, and then republishing it as a new article with a current date. You will improve your on-page SEO for targeted keywords and updating your website architecture at the same time.

I can’t say enough about how important I think it is to constantly improve your organic ranking, even when “times” get tough. The takeaway here is that no one will ever know exactly what Google has changed in any algorithm update, let alone a Broad Core update. The fact that they made any statement at all on this type of update speaks volumes and should give you a good reason to focus on quality content creation. With a consistent effort and dedication, you’ll continue to do well and grow over time – regardless of any shocking changes.

Have you been affected by the most recent broad core update? If you’re struggling, I’m available for consulting. Get in touch with me using this link.

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