Bing’s Purna Virji on the Evolution of Voice Search

Purna Virji, the senior training manager at Microsoft, talked about how voice search is shaping our world. Everything from television remotes to hotel rooms can be powered by voice. By 2017, all Ford vehicles will come with Apple CarPlay.

Reasons People Use Voice Search

• It’s faster than typing. You can speak 110–150 words per minute, as opposed to the average person’s typing rate of 38–40 words per minute.
  

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  You can speak 110–150 words per min, as opposed to avg person’s typing 38–40 wpm. -@purnavirji #smx
  Click To Tweet

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• People want quick answers.
• People are often second screening or otherwise occupied

Jennifer Slegg on Content for the Voice Search Generation

Like Virji, the founder and editor of The SEM Post, Jennifer Slegg, believes the time to optimize for voice search is now.

Consider the fact that more than half of U.S. teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, or that there are 30 times more action queries on voice search.

How Feature Snippets Work with Voice Search

Voice search has a higher percentage of featured snippets. Slegg says 43.3% for voice queries have featured snippets, compared to 40.6% for text queries.

Moreover, Google reads the featured snippets aloud to users beginning with “According to (site)” or “We found this information on (site).” Google reinforces your brand in voice search. (Learn how to earn featured snippets in 2016.)

Use Moz and SEMRush to track your own and your competitors’ featured snippets.

RankBrain and Voice Search

• Stronger influence on 15% of search queries Google has never seen before, and they tend to be voice searches.
• You’re able to better rank conversational search queries with keywords.
• It’s the third most important ranking signal, behind content and links.

How do you optimize for RankBrain? By optimizing for conversational search.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search queries are longer than text search queries. The average query length for voice is 4.2 words, and the average query length for text is 3.2 words.

Long-tail queries are less competitive and have higher intent. While they’re searched for less, they’re more likely to convert.

Use your content to answer questions. There is a 61% growth in queries starting with who, what, where and how. Furthermore, almost 10% of voice search queries start with who, what, when, where, why, how – as opposed to only 3.7% of text queries. “How” begins 3.6% of all voice search queries and “What” begins 3.5% of all voice search queries.

Tony Edward on How Humans Speak

Tony Edward, the senior SEO manager at Elite SEM, reminded digital marketers that optimizing for voice search begins with standard SEO best practices.

• Build in-depth content that answers commonly asked questions around your brand, services, products, etc., including content that answers who, what, when, where, why, and how.
• Leverage Structured Data Markup depending on the content type.
• Work to get your brand in the Knowledge Graph.
• Ensure content is structured well using headers and bulleted or numbered lists.

Edward shared his tips on coming up with content strategy:

• Mine call center, live chat and email data to find commonly asked questions surrounding your product, service or brand.
• Use third-party tools to get auto search suggestion topics, such as AnswerThePublic.com or UberSuggest.io.

By implementing the above best practices and creating useful content, Edward has been able to earn branded Knowledge Graphs and Featured Snippets. As noted earlier, getting a branded Knowledge Graph entry or Featured Snippet makes your result more voice search ready.

Want to learn more about Voice Search Optimization?
See our How to Optimize for Voice Search post for powerful tips!

Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.

The post Learn How to Optimize for Voice Search NOW: More than Half of Queries will be Voice Search Queries by 2020 appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Meet the SEOs is a key SMX session where digital marketers are able to ask four leading digital marketers any question they have. The panel, moderated by Search Engine Land Founder and Editor Danny Sullivan, features:

• Duane Forrester: Vice President of Search Operations at Bruce Clay, Inc.
• Mike King: President and Founder of iPullRank
• Hillary Glaser: SEO Manager at Campbell Ewald
• Alyeda Solis: SEO Consultant at Orainti

What do you think about AMP, progressive loading web apps (PWAs), and web apps?

Forrester: I welcome our new PWA overlords. If Google wants it, Google will get it if it waits long enough for it. Google is doing this for a very good reason, because the average person will fail.

Glazer: If you are a newspaper or magazine or a site with a lot of content where the amount of content that is on your site is weighing down your site’s load time, AMP might be a quick fix. But if you rely on ads to produce revenue, AMP is not a good route for you. There are other ways you can go about decreasing your load time.

King:

What @iPullRank thinks about #AMP & progressive web apps, live from @smx. #smx #seo #apps #AMP pic.twitter.com/asx53FfSpx

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) September 29, 2016

Do people need to have apps?

Glaser: It’s situational. We have a healthcare client who it really makes sense for. Their clients can book appointments through the app, for example, without even having to log in. That makes the app valuable.

Forrester: I don’t know that AMP is going to have a long life span. If you don’t have an app already up and running and your app is two years away, I would reconsider building the app. PWA is blindingly fast and looks like a regular website … it just might crush AMP and apps.

Do we need URL parameters?

Forrester:

Do you need URL parameters? Here are @DuaneForrester‘s thoughts. @smx #smx #seo pic.twitter.com/p4GFAoPWcl

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) September 29, 2016

King: I don’t think inherently they’re bad, but they can create bad situations.

When creating tables does the formatting style influence whether you get a Featured Snippet?

Forrester: It’s not about how you formatted it, but how much the search engine trusts you. To get a featured snippet, you must be highly trusted and serve up highly relevant content.

Will Google make featured snippets sponsored eventually?

Solis: I don’t think that’s realistic.

Glaser: I don’t think that’s going to happen.

(Read our coverage of the SMX East session How to Earn Featured Snippets.)

301s vs. 302s?

Unanimous: 301s.

(Read our guide on How to Implement a 301 Redirect.)

Should we be delivering ranking reports or not?

Glaser: Yes, if you can tie back to something.

Solis: You want to monitor it and see how you are vs. your competition, because it does have an effect on the ultimate goals: traffic, conversion, ROI, etc.

What are the top three KPIs you need to report to management?

Forrester: That needs to be decided before you take on the work. Whatever that business wants or needs, those are your KPIs. Could be traffic, sign-ups, revenue, time on site — find out from them. Ranking is not a KPI, but a tool.

Solis: For a migration, however, I would say ranking is a KPI. It depends on the project.

Should I interlink related but not duplicated sites that my company owns?

Sullivan interjects and answers the question: No — you should only do it if there’s some value. Don’t do it for a boost.

Forrester: Maybe combine the content and make a single, stronger site. If you interlink them, you risk appearing like a link network and getting in hot water. Pull your content together, put it on a single strong domain, build a business and move forward.

If you had a brand new site and no budget, what would you do?

Glaser: Invest in really good content. Update your meta data seasonally and learn how to understand user intent and behavior. Learn why people come from both Google and Bing and dig into Search Console. Update your content with that knowledge.

Forrester: If you don’t have a lot of money, you better have a lot of personality. You need to have a reason for people to engage with you, and that can be writing style, tone and voice. These will get you a social presence. There’s no end to it and virtually no cost.

King: This is what guest posting is actually for. When you write something on a highly trafficked site, it’s one of the quickest ways to get eyes and links on your own site. It’s a good idea when you’re starting something from scratch. Realistically, if you’re going after a competitive term, search is not what you want to target at first with no budget.

What are some of your favorite tools?

Forrester: Bing Webmaster Tools.

King: Moz’s Keyword Explorer, KeywordTool.io and Keyword Studio.

Solis: Keyword Finder and SEMRush.

Glaser: SEMRush, BrightEdge, Raven Tools, Google Keyword Planner. 

Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC management, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.

The post Leading SEOs Discuss AMP, PWAs, URL Parameters, Featured Snippets, KPIs and More appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Link removal specialist Sha Menz has a word of warning for SEOs: Manipulating the link game is like everything else — it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

A superhero SEO can come along and save your site, but there are much more powerful things your superhero SEO could be doing rather than link cleanup.

Menz shared 17 areas where link building can go awry and 3 ways link earning/building can be done best!

17 Ways Link Building Can Go Wrong

1. Anchor Text

2. Paid Links
There’s nothing wrong with a sponsored link, by the way — but call it out. Note that it’s sponsored, like Search Engine Land Editor Barry Schwartz does in the below example.

3. Reciprocal Link Exchange

These seem to be having a resurgence, said Menz. If you’re shaking hands and agreeing to trade links with someone, it’s not necessarily a bad thing — if there’s some actual reason that both of your sites can link to the other in a natural and useful way. BUT if this is the case, don’t hesitate to use a nofollow tag. Getting traffic and being useful are the key things you’re doing here.

4. JavaScript and CSS Tricks

Don’t hide things here. Search engines will see it.

5. Irrelevant and Spun Content

6. Footer Links

People can get very sneaky. In the below example, the word “C-o-p-y-r-i-g-h-t” actually has a link on every letter.

7. Comment Spam

8. Wiki-loading

9. Bad Directories

10. Guest Posting

11. Kiss-of-Death Domains

Learn about suspect domains at DomainTools.com.

12. Link Networks

13. Redirect Madness

Watch out for third-party redirect passes through high-quality domains. This might appear in the form of intentionally misspelled domain names in the code. Use the SpamFlag Chrome extension in conjunction with Majestic SEO.

14. Coupon Capers

15. Link Builders You Forgot to Fire

This may sound ridiculous, but it can happen. Ensure previous link builders have been informed and are not building additional links.

16. Rogue Themes, Toolbars and Plugins

17. Black Hats Masquerading as White Hats

3 Ways Link Building Works

It’s all about doing the work. None of the tricks are worth it. Investing your time in actual work is much more profitable. Consider, then, doing the following:

1. Help Others to Help Yourself

Sometimes you’re just out there in a forum being really helpful, or you have written a blog post that’s really valuable. Those kinds of things can pay you back dividends with links.

2. Share Your Expertise

Loan a developer, teach a local class, etc.

3. Do the Unexpected

The Elephant in the Room: Penguin in the Wild

Menz would be remiss if she didn’t bring up the elephant in the room: Penguin. Is the newly hatched real-time Penguin the light at the end of the tunnel for your site, or are you clinging to a runaway train?

“Recognition of your cleanup work will be quicker by the search engines, but results will be harder to spot,” said Menz, adding that the only real results she’s seen (so far) have been people who are ill-affected.

One thing she wants to note is that disavows are still important, which we also confirmed with Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes earlier this week:

@BruceClayInc we haven’t changed our recommendations for the disavow tool with this launch

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 26, 2016

Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO penalty repair, SEO services, SEM PPC management, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.

The post 17 Ways Link Building Can Go Awry appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Want to earn Featured Snippets in Google Search? Glenn Gabe, the president of G-Squared Interactive, shares how to increase your chances of earning a Featured Snippet at SMX East.

Featured Snippets are incredibly powerful and can drive more traffic than a No. 1 result. According to Gabe, Featured Snippets build nearly instant credibility.

Gabe shares a client case study. A Featured Snippet yielded 41,444 clicks in 90 days, accounting for 73% of the client’s traffic from Google. The CTR? 13.2%.

A word of warning, though: the Google algorithm can be fickle when it comes to Featured Snippets. A different client Gabe had earned a Featured Snippet, but then lost it … along with 39,000 clicks within a two week period. The client then won the Featured Snippet, and then lost it again, proving Gabe’s point about Google’s fickleness.

Ways Featured Snippets Appear

• Text
• Bullets
• Images
• Bullets with images
• Tables
• Knowledge Graph
• Text with a link to another Featured Snippet

Common Questions about Featured Snippets

Do you need to rank No. 1 to receive a Featured Snippet?

No! But always Page No. 1.

Are they displayed just for “question” queries?

No. They appear for head terms and topics, as well.

Is Structured Data a requirement?

No. Though John Mueller’s team once considered making this a requirement, they decided against it. They didn’t want to bog down webmasters with even more code.

Can Featured Snippets be personalized?

Yes, depending on whether or not you’re logged in, your location, and your search history.

What are some tools to find and/or research Featured Snippets?

Google Search Console, SEMRush and Moz.

Is there something even better than Featured Snippets?

Yes: the huge SERP real estate winner that is a Featured Video.

Can you refine Featured Snippets?

Yes. And it works fast. Gabe did this and saw his result change in seven minutes. He reminds digital marketers to be careful, though – you could lose your Featured Snippet in the process.

How to Earn a Featured Snippet

• Cover a topic as thoroughly and clearly as you can.
• Answer the question concisely and provide both the question and answer on the page.
• Provide a concise section that answers the core query.
• Use bullets or numbered lists for processes.
• Provide a strong image near the answer for possible inclusion in the Featured Snippet.
• Use HTML tables where appropriate.

The post Featured Snippets in Search ‘Build Near-Instant Credibility’: Glenn Gabe on How to Earn Them in 2016 appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Representing Bruce Clay, Inc., Bruce Clay and Duane Forrester hosted an AMA (ask me anything) session at SMX East 2016. The audience is packed and ready to dive into hot SEO topics including:

• Starting an SEO business
• Reviews as ranking factors
• Inorganic link clean-up
• Redirects in light of link penalties
• Communicating SEO priorities to developers
• Moving to HTTPS

Where do we start with SEO and how do we get the most out of our site as a garage-based business? What’s a good blueprint for the next six months?

Bruce: If you haven’t taken a formal course, I’d recommend it. Read books, pay attention, go to conferences – invest your time and money in understanding SEO. Don’t violate any rules, write content that is worthy of being linked to and then let people know you created it.

Are reviews ranking factors?

Duane: Reviews are about a trust-level factor. Mentions indicate sentiment at a consumer level. Google and Bing will not look past that.

Reviews are good and extraordinarily powerful. Millennials and Generation Z have a huge impact on consumer spending and on businesses, so it’s very important to understand what matters to them.

You want to hear from them and know what they think is good and bad. Millennials and Generation Z trust anonymous grouped results more than friends and family.

Generation Z is still figuring out what matters to them. They have no brand loyalty.

Do not auto-generate reviews. Absolutely not. If you were our client and you did that, we would fire you. That will destroy your domain and your SEO career.

Bruce: It’s all about trust. The Google Quality Rating Guidelines talks about expertness, authority and trust. These are the three most important things they look at when determining how a site should rank. (Learn more about the Google Quality Rating Guidelines.) There’s actually a fourth factor, too: maintenance.

How do you deal with spammy links. Getting spammy links every month. What is the best practice to clean up?

Bruce: We have a free guide to link pruning that gives you the complete how-to procedure.

TL;DR: Identify the bad links with Majestic, sort by lowest trust, add them to a disavow file. (Do a free check of your backlinks against backlinks others have disavowed at DisavowFiles.com.)

There are four terms worth understanding: organic, inorganic, transactional and navigational.

Organic links should be experts in my field and the link should support my business. Suppose I’m an SEO company and you link to me but you have a site about cowboy boots, Google won’t count that. Organic is subject-related.

Inorganic is when they’re not related and those will not be counted by Google. Google gives them no weight.

Then there’s transactional and navigational. Transactional is when you’re linked to with a keyword. If 80 percent of your inbound links are transactional, Google will see you as a spammer. Navigational is anchor text like “click here.”

Duane: We like to think of this in terms of bad actors. If a dentist links to me, that is irrelevant to me – I’m not associated with the world of dentistry. It’s not just about spam – it’s about cleaning up irrelevant links.

We have multiple sites, two of which sell similar offerings. Do you have any ideas on how to market one of them that’s newer without cannibalizing the established brand?

Duane: You need to take one of those horses into the backyard and let it go. The best way forward is to determine which one should live and migrate (301 redirect) the other. Focus on the stronger site and move forward.

Bruce: If your content is replicated, use canonical tags. I would at least consolidate links and PageRank. If you have multiple instances on multiple domains of the same source, Google will consider it spun content and it won’t benefit you on either site.

We changed domain names and 301 redirected our old site to our new site. Where do I check for bad links?

Bruce: Both sites. If a domain had a penalty and it was totally trashed, what you redirected it to will inherit the penalty. Analyze and purge both.

How important are things like heading tags, image names and alt tags in terms of ranking factors? If they are important, how do I convince my designers and developers to use those things correctly?

Duane: All these things are a fundamental piece of the work you need to do. If you don’t do it and your competitor does, your competitor will be shown ahead of you. If everything else is equal, they’re just a little more useful than you.

Bruce: According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, you must have an alt attribute. (Learn more about image optimization and alt attributes in Point 11 of our SEO Checklist). Also, a designer who uses a heading tag to format something is lazy.

Can you disavow an entire domain?

Bruce: Yes, but not a TLD.

Do you consider m-dot site for ecommerce?

Duane: No.

At what point do you make the jump to HTTPS?

Bruce: Now. Make it your initial 301. Spammers with 50,000 websites are not going to pay for those certificates. This is the cost of organic ranking.

I believe Google’s plan is to give a boost to HTTPS in the future. Officially, it’s just a tie breaker. But understand that Google is going to evolve to where HTTPS is going to be a requirement for top rankings.

Why do some exact match domains still rank well?

Bruce: I would assume they’re also legacy domains that have been around for quite a few years.

The post SEO Godfather Bruce Clay & Search Insider Duane Forrester Field Digital Marketers’ Questions at #SMX appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

With a keynote delivered by Googlers (complete with product announcements!), it’s a full house at SMX East 2016.

Jerry Dischler, Vice President of Product Management for AdWords, and Babak Pahlavan, Senior Director of Measurement & Analytics, field questions from Search Engine Land editors Ginny Marvin, Greg Sterling and the SMX audience.

Read on to learn about:

• Expanded text ads
• Device bidding
• Store visits
• Audience Suite
• Data Studio
• Analytics Insights Cards
• And announcements of new tools and features!

Expanded Text Ads

Who’s succeeding with expanded text ads?

Editor’s note: Expanded text ads are the next generation of standard text ads on the Google Search Network and Google Display Network optimized for the mobile user experience. The format was rolled out to advertisers this past July.

Dischler: Advertisers who are using a dynamic, creative elements. Those who aren’t getting good results are only dipping their toe in the water. They’re only using one creative element, not going dynamic, aren’t optimizing as strongly.

What we’re hoping is that folks will jump in with both feet and start devoting the effort they devoted to standard text ads to expanded text ads.

Another observation: with branded terms, we’re seeing shorter headlines perform better.

Device Bidding for Ads

Earlier this year, device-level bidding was reintroduced. Talk a little bit about that decision to bring back separate device bidding and you expect to see advertisers take advantage of that?

Editor’s note: Here’s the quick and dirty background on device bidding. In 2013, Google took away its advertisers ability to bid differently based on the consumer’s device (mobile, tablet, desktop) in an initiative called Enhanced Campaigns. This year, device-level bidding was reintroduced to the Google advertising networks. Read Marvin’s write up on Search Engine Land for more on how advertisers are organizing campaigns by device.

Dischler: What we were seeing was a number of advertisers come to us with use cases for tablets that were really different. Let’s say you’re looking for NY hotels on your mobile phone vs. looking for NY hotels on your tablet. On the mobile phone, you’re going to have much higher conversion rate and would want to bid aggressively accordingly. Folks are thinking in a very mobile-first way, and this was happening more and more.

In the time before Enhanced Campaigns, we were seeing mobile avoidance. But here is the opposite. Advertisers have fully embraced mobile but the controls we had weren’t robust enough.

Take a look at your current bids – they represent a blended ROI. If you are able to get better performance on desktop and worse performance on tablet, adjust them in a way that is symmetric. In general what you should be doing is looking at your blended target across platforms in order to set your bid. This will achieve the right ROI mix. You have to figure out what’s right for you.

Store Visits Metric in AdWords

Google announced that they were expanding the store visits metric and that more than one billion store visits have been measured. Where is this going? What are the metrics today? Why is this important?

Dischler: In this multi-device, mobile-focused world, you should be measuring entire ROI whether they’re online or offline or calls, etc.

We want to help you work in an omni-channel way and measure the total value of your ad spend.

In retail, where 90+ percent of sales are offline, or in auto where 99.9% of sales are offline, it’s very important that you be able to measure online ROI.

For many advertisers, we’re seeing that the offline benefit is greater than the online benefit and we want advertisers to be able to measure that as easily as possible.

Earlier this week, Brad Bender announced that we’re adding the store visits metric to display, as well.

We have hundreds of millions of people who’ve opted into location history. We take that anonymized data and aggregate it, combine it with tradition signals including Google Maps and 3D modeling of building, Wi-Fi data and more to increase precision. We also have more than 5 million human reviewers working with us. Google has more than 99% accuracy with its store visits.

Google Analytics 360 Suite

Regarding the enterprise Audience Suite, how does audience targeting work and what does it mean for marketers?

Dischler: Advertisers who are using our RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) say that this is the biggest change we’ve made that allows them to target their customers. Some largely sophisticated advertisers are still hesitant to experiment with RLSA, and I’d really encourage them to try it out.

Announcements

What’s going with Google Analytics Data Studio?

Pahlavan: Data Studio is our dashboard and reporting tool. There are two fundamental things about it that people love.

First, you can be up and running to do reporting by just connecting to the data sources.

And there’s collaborative sharing. The notion of collaboration is something we really focused on – you can very easily share a report across organizations and make the data available to everyone. The free version and enterprise version are available in 21 countries as of today; it was only available to U.S. advertisers before.

What new tools are coming?

Pahlavan: Our objective is to enable measurement for all businesses, no matter the size. Today we are announcing the free version of Optimize; sign up here: g.co/optimize.

Smart Goals were created for AdWords advertisers to be able to take advantage of crowd-sourced machine learning analytics that will help inform marketers of sessions that likely would have converted. How does this work? 

Pahlavan: We have a set of investments around how to leverage Google machine learning capabilities to make business a lot more efficient when leveraging the data they have. It’s being used by tens of thousands of advertisers. You can get a preview of what the performance could look like even if you’re not yet using it.

Recently, the Google Analytics mobile app launched with Insights cards. Can you talk about what’s going on with that? 

Pahlavan: Insights cards is in the bucket of our efforts around leveraging Google’s machine learn capability. Inside our Google Analytics app, it looks at a series of signals and tells you things like products that are performing much better. It looks at all permutations automatically. What channels are under or over performing? What are the areas you should pay attention to more? These are the kind of things it looks at. Insights cards will also be available on desktop in the future.

Will expanded texts ads be available for call-only ads?

Dischler: We’re in the process of testing out some things.

Do you want to talk about the thoughts behind the changes to Keyword Planner as far as data available to non-paying customers?

Dischler: We had this situation where what we wanted to do is have good actors be able to use our Keyword Planner and keep some bad actors out.

Our limits are really low so the vast majority of advertisers who have any spend should be able to use our tool. We can now accommodate most use cases while keeping the bad actors out.

Does Google Analytics have a plan to better address referrer spam?

Pahlavan: We have an active project internally. It’s been going on for sometimes to combat spam traffic. I can’t share the stats externally but this is something we take very seriously. We are constantly monitoring.

Some people just rely on Google Analytics for tracking and goals rather than implementing the AdWords pixel. What do you recommend?

Dischler: We recommend implementation for both.

Pahlavan: The have complementary use cases.

Are you going to add more and more ads to the search results page? Will organic disappear?

Q & A with @google‘s @jdischler & @babakph at @smx. “Are you going to add more and more ads? Will organic disappear? #SMX #SEO #PPC pic.twitter.com/xJnVCtWbFm

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) September 28, 2016

The post What’s New & Cool with Google AdWords & Analytics: Keynote by Jerry Dischler & Babak Pahlavan appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

When it comes to driving retail sales online, Google is the biggest game in town but it isn’t the only game in town.

Revenue is revenue and you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t explore possibilities beyond Google — we’re talking major opportunities on Amazon, Polyvore and eBay.

SEM pros Chris Humber and Elizabeth Marsten leverage Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook and more to drive traffic and sales. Read on for their ecommerce expertise.

Strengthening Your Retail Presence on Amazon with Chris Humber

Chris Humber, the head of search at GroupM, starts with a fast tip: within seven to 10 days of optimizing your product database, you will see an increase in visibility.

Where do consumers go when they’re ready to purchase products? Many turn to their local stores. They walk in and get it … it’s immediate gratification. This is traditional shelf space.

But what about digital shelf space?

Amazon plays a key role in the shopping journey. Consumers use Amazon as a top destination for product searches.

• 44% of consumers start their product search with Amazon.
• 39% of consumers say Amazon has better product search capability while 8% say Google does.
• 43% of U.S. shoppers say the main reason they choose Amazon is the ability to intuitively find or predict exactly what they want more quickly.
• 73% of shoppers say they will make a purchase on Amazon at least once during the holiday season.
• 87% of shoppers say they will check Amazon at least once during their shopping process this holiday season.

Here are the leading e-retailers beyond Google:

• Amazon
• Wal-Mart
• Target
• Best Buy
• The Home Depot
• Kohl’s
• Macy’s
• Walgreens
• Sears

What about social shopping? Sites like Pinterest, Polyvore, ModCloth, Wanelo, OpenSky and Fancy are frequented more and more.

Pinterest is where the world’s ideas are catalogued and stored, and it’s also one of the most advanced visual-based search engines that exists today.

On Pinterest, 55% of users shop for products, not to talk with friends or brands. Compare this to 12% on Facebook and 12% on Instagram, according to Forrester research.

Optimizing Your E-Retail Presence

Traditional optimization tactics can help your e-retail efforts in numerous ways:

• Rankings
• Relevancy
• Traffic and conversions
• Version control and syndication
• Organic, traditional search results

To identify keywords, leverage multiple tools. Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA) Premium provides your top 100 search terms each month.

Understand the search landscape beyond Google. Look at organic search results with tools like STAT, BrightEdge, SEMRush, SpyFu, AdGooRoo, Mozenda and Deep Crawl. Determine what has the top share of voice on search (paid and organic) and Amazon (paid and organic) to pinpoint market trends.

Don’t forget to optimize your product pages!

4 Best Practices for Increasing Conversion Rate

1. 21 reviews is the sweet spot. At this point, there is a 3% to 5% increase in conversion rate (depending on the presence of negative reviews); after that the increase drops off.
2. Use 3 or more images.
3. Availability – always have your product in stock.
4. Have at least one piece of supplemental content.

Top 5 Factors that Correlate with a Better Ranking

• Amazon Best Sellers Rank
• Items Sold (fulfilled by Amazon)
• Keywords in product title
• Prime-eligible products
• Discounts

Get Found More, Sell More on Pinterest, Facebook & More with Elizabeth Marsten

Elizabeth Marsten, the director of paid search at CommerceHub, is going to dive into some other platforms. Some of them, like Polyvore, you may have never heard of.

Pinterest

• 100 million active users
• 80% of Pinterest users access the platform via mobile
• Promoted Pins drive 5X more incremental in-store sales per impression
• Retargeted Ads target at act-alike audiences increased CTRs by up to 63% and reach by 30X in early testing
• Pinterest referrals have an average order value of $50
• Rich Pins are free but you need metadata on that page of your site.
• Product Feed needed for Promoted and Buyable pins. You maintain ability to edit or designate which products are promoted. Buyable requires a partner to handle the transaction.
• Retargeting (you need a Marketing Developer Partner)
• Video (you need a Pinterest Account Team and this is not yet available to everyone)

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads

CommerceHub has seen an average return on ad spend (ROAS) among clients at 900-1200%. These clients have product catalogs ranging from 350 to 1,000.

Keep in mind that this is still a remarketing method. You first need engagement channels to create audiences. It cannibalizes other channels with a last-click attribution. Use your revenue numbers, not just Facebook’s.

Yahoo

Some useful things to leverage on Yahoo:

• Custom Audiences for Search Retailer for an unnamed big box store saw:
  • 225% increase in CTR
  • 230% increase in CR
  • 51% reduction in CPA
• Search Retargeting on Native for an unnamed big box store saw:
  • 23% conversions from native
  • 14% lower CPA on native than search (text) ads

Polyvore

This Yahoo-owned social commerce site’s users are 84% female and 50% of those females are millennials under the age of 34. On the site, you make “sets,” which are outfits. More than 3 million sets are created each month.

Marsten said ladies shopping on these sites have money to burn. The average order on Polyvore is $270. Comparatively, the average order value on Instagram is $228, Twitter is $155 and Facebook is $130.

Fast facts about Polyvore:

• 41% increase in clicks YoY
• 27% increase in sales Yoy
• 11% Decrease in cost

Connexity

This marketplace connects retailers and influencers. Note: influencers lift purchase intent by 2X. 49% of users rely on recommendations from influencers.

eBay

They have partnered with Facebook to monetize message apps (i.e. sending auctions through Messenger) and create collections for sharing. They’ve adopted AMP. They’ve adopted ASIN pages, which improve SERPs to be static pages, not auctions that have ended.

The post How to Strengthen Your Retail Presence on Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook & Polyvore appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

There are more than 1.2 million advertisers in the Google Search Network. With so many business and brands competing to show up in paid search ads, how can you stand out?

Standing out is something search engine marketing leaders Pauline Jakober, Virginia Tonning, and Marty Weintraub spend a lot of time thinking about.

From tips to crafting headlines to the results of testing ad copy to the effect of ad extensions, these three shared their insights and tips at SMX East 2016 through case studies and experience. Here’s what they had to say.

Testing B2C Ads with Pauline Jakober

Are you tired of seeing the same ads? So is Pauline Jakober, the CEO of Group Twenty Seven. She asks the audience, how can we be different? Will being different increase our bottom line?

Here are the things that Jakober starts with when creating ads. First, there’s an initial client interview and questionnaire. She talks to many people, including customer service reps, the sales teams and the product team. She looks at customer testimonials and customer complaints, and looks at competitor ads. She also learns the customer pain points and works to understand her audience

One of her clients is a B2C business that sells all types of dance shoes. Jakober learned the following things about her audience of dancers:

• They replace shoes often.
• They break in a few pairs at a time.
• They want shoes that mold to their feet, are lightweight and flexible.
• Their feet hurt.
• They are brand conscious, and once they trust a brand, they stick with it.

In an effort to see the difference being different can make, Jakober set about testing whether or not a message really matters and what exactly can be achieved in the 80 characters available in a search ad.

For the dance shoe retailer, Jakober came up with this industry standard ad:

From Hip Hop to Jazz, Shop Our Shoe Brands For Your Favorite Style of Dance.

As well as ads that addressed the pain points she discovered during her research.

• Always Replacing Your Dance Shoes? Buy a Few Pairs Instead. Buy More, Save More.
• Sore Feet and Toes? Protect Them By Wearing Top Quality Dance Shoes. Shop Now.
• Buy Shoes Or Slippers That Are Lightweight And Will Mold To Your Foot’s Shape.

Update 7/19: Presentation has now been marked private by the author.

B2B Ads: Leverage Everything and Think Smarter with Virginia Tonning

Virginia Tonning, the global manager of paid search at Schneider Electric, is interested in finding out how to take advantage of the precious space of characters in an ad – space is especially critical to her as the name Schneider Electric takes up so much space.

• Use Ad Extensions: a callout, a structured snippet, a review, sitelinks, link to an app, call, location, etc.
• When Tonning added more ad extensions to her clients’ ads, she saw a 23% higher CTR.
• Sitelinks give you an opportunity to highlight other services people might not know you offer. Think of the space as a digital bill board.
• We all think we know who our customer is. But that’s not enough. Test to find out what they’re interested in. When using the buzz word “Arc Flash,” there was a 43% higher CTR.
• Consolidate similar messages/offerings. Don’t confuse your customer by having three competing ads come up from your company.
• Help your national or international brand compete locally where it makes sense. Target by zip code and offer free shipping or same-day shipping; local rebate offers; and messages based on local events.
• When we look so closely at our brand, we can forget what the customer is looking for. Do your research. Search for terms you are bidding on as well as known competitors.
• Test your headlines. Tonning saw non-branded ads (i.e. brand name removed) perform significantly higher than branded ads for Schneider Electric, to the tune of a 96% higher CTR. The takeaway? Test.

Update 7/19: Presentation has now been marked private by the author.

Marty Weintraub: Building Fantastic Ads in a Variable-based & Human Driven Creative Framework

The founder of aimClear Marty Weintraub asserts that there is a waning need for marketers when it comes to ad copy and targeting. Analysts are taking over tasks that were once the marketers’. Furthermore, in five to eight years, artificial intelligence will be at the point where AI will be able to write the most high-performance ad creative.

Ad creative is still a mostly human endeavor, so he’ll take a look at the tools available to you. With expanded ads, you can take advantage of so much more SERP real estate and have more opportunity to be creative. He’s particularly excited about mobile ads because they take up so much space.

Crafting Headline Theories: Nimble Brainstorming

The most natural thing to do is think of the finished product headline. But don’t do that. Instead, theorize and come up with every possible way to talk about something. Rather than think of the finished headline, Weintraub advises marketers to think terms of theories.

Get Approval for Creative Elements, NOT Finished Ads

Get approval for creative elements, not complete ads. It allows you more flexibility. Lock down the two keywords that are most important and key to the ad and go from there. It looks like this:

In addition to looking at synonyms, look at definitions. Use the Google Dictionary; at the bottom of every entry, there is a graph that shows a word’s use over time. This can be helpful in choosing the right word.

His final tip is to make every part of the purchase path cohesive. Every part of the funnel should work together. The person who designs the ad should design the landing page, and the pages that follow. They shouldn’t be disparate experiences.

Update 7/19: Presentation has now been marked private by the author.

The post Creating Better Ad Copy: PPC Problem-Solving for B2B & B2C appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

#SMXAdvanced keynote: #Google’s @methode talks #RankBrain, Penguin update & more https://t.co/Z8nCCW0Qr9 pic.twitter.com/7m2z1aCXQn

— Natasha Aidinyantz (@MyCreative_UK) June 23, 2016

Google says that RankBrain is the third most important ranking factor; is it really a ranking factor or a query alignment tool?

Gary: Basically, it’s a ranking factor. It’s a supervised machine learning platform. RankBrain is the same thing, it’s learning what worked well for queries and what results are good for a certain query. It works well for long-tail queries. He gave the example query of “can I beat Mario Bros. without using a walk through”

With RankBrain, the results are more reasonable than without it.

Is it more query refinement and less ranking?

Gary: It will understand what results will work better for queries. Stop words are dropped from queries but RankBrain understands the conversational manner of search and can give results accordingly. It’s less about understanding the query and more about understanding how best to score the results.

Do we have a RankBrain score?

Gary: We don’t have a RankBrain score. The root of your question is if you can optimize for RankBrain.

[witty banter]

RankBrain is a new, unique score. It’s enhancing our relevancy in the search results based on what you have on your pages. It makes sure the user gets the best page for the query. If you keyword stuff your content, it will almost certainly not be good for you.

How many queries is RankBrain processing?

Gary: Not sure; RankBrain will refine and learn from every query it gets.

Should we fear that it’s going to take over the world? Most of the AI movies show us that the machines will take over …

Gary: Not all of the world.

[insert audience laughter]

Is the number one ranking factor content or links? Which is the most important ranking factor?

Gary: It depends on the query, what you’re looking from and what the numbers say. I can’t give you a concrete answer because it depends on too many things.

What’s the deal with Google Assistant?

Gary: Frankly, I have no idea. I know we’re still wrapping our heads around how to experiment with this new cool idea. It’s based on machine learning. We need to know what you want, how you want it and where you want it.

How much of the algorithm is going to become AI based? 

Gary: Machine learning is extremely important for us. We’re focusing on machine learning and what it can do — not just in Google Search but in all of our products. At what stage are we? I can’t tell you because I only have a vague idea. We don’t want to get to a stage where someone sends us a bad query or a query that we have bad results and we don’t want to get to the point where we don’t understand why the machine gave that result.

Do terms in the URL help in any way with rankings?

Gary: TLDs do not play a role in how we calculate relevancy for a specific result. ccTLDs to play a role in ranking, you’ll perform better in the google local. There are certain cases where we will look at it but in most cases we won’t. I’m not advocating to buy keyword rich domains; it doesn’t have a super power. My recommendation is that it can definitely help you if you’re describing your product in the URL because it helps your user.

Google said it was going to give you more data (more than the current 90 day view) in Search Console almost three years ago; when is this going to happen?

Gary: We went through a very long transition with Search Console. We’ve figured out how to we can make a longer time of data happen and is something we’re working towards a little faster (and we have the buying from management).

Let’s move on to Penguin … are we going to get a new one anytime soon?

Gary: Penguin, I will not say a date because I’ve been wrong too many times. I will not say any time frame anymore.

What’s the deal with Panda? You said it was part of the core algorithm but is stuff running through it constantly?

Gary: It is not real time but it is continuously running. We collect the data and then roll it out, refresh that data and roll it out again.

What’s our time period on each roll-out?    

Gary: Months.

So it takes months to get through all the sites on the web?

Gary: Correct.

At this point, unfortunately, my computer died >.< There was one more key piece of information coming out of this Google AMA, though — the official end of Google Authorship.

from @methode “we are not using authorship at all anymore…we are smarter than that.” but thanks for giving them all that data, SEOs. #smx

— MichelleRobbins (@MichelleRobbins) June 23, 2016

The post Ask Google Anything: Gary Illyes Talks RankBrain, Panda, Penguin and More appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

In the session “SEO & Social: Let’s Dance!” at SMX Advanced, speakers Jason White, Maggic Malek and Travis Wright will share the latest ways marketers can leverage the social world to help advance SEO, build brand awareness, and engage with prospects. From employee advocacy to remarketing ads, there are many options in the overlap between search and social.

Establishing an Employee Advocacy Program: Jason White

Jason White (@sonray), VP SEO & SMM for DragonSearch, starts to talk about distribution networks. Social media is a fascinating distribution network. As an industry, a lot has been written about the declining reach of organic. If you’re a small brand building an audience, it can be a really frustrating, slow process to see that your social media posts don’t get seen by many people naturally.

Employee Advocacy

#SMX exclusive –>@DragonSearch‘s @sonray on employee advocacy! Love it. #SEO @smx #socialmedia #smm pic.twitter.com/s8cblaeYOe

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) June 22, 2016

Employee brand advocacy (which White thinks is a silly name) describes the process in which brands get bigger reach through their employees’ social profiles. When the concept first was introduced to Jason, he found it creepy — but he can’t deny that it works. It works because it has greater reach than that of the brand in some cases. The influence that employees can gain for a brand can’t be ignored.

There are two main aspects to establishing an employee advocacy program. First, there’s the networks they’re on. Then there’s the mechanical aspect — what are you looking to deliver through their networks?

Optimize as much as you possibly can and find the wins. White says not to look just at social, but get these employee advocates to be blog authors. Their names matter. Build them up. A lot of people only look at employee amplification and leave it at that, but if you’re looking full funnel you see email, chat, forums, and other places where you can leverage that employee’s voice.

Available Tools for Employee Advocacy

• SocialChorus
• EveryoneSocial
• Hootsuite Amplify
• Dynamic Signal
• GaggleAMP
• Bambu Sociabble

Cultural Considerations

Some companies are collaborative, some are creative, some are competitive — and some are controlling. In a controlling environment, your employee advocacy strategy might be a little bit different. But it can still work.

Establish Goals (the first step of any program)

• Extend reach
• Build followers
• Drive traffic to the site
• Drive more leads
• Reach new or existing demographics
• Retain current clients vs. find new clients
• Testing
• Branding
• Improve brand sentiment

Important to Keep in Mind

Employees are brands in and of themselves. They should have the freedom to share and not share as they think fits their image/reputation. Not all messages should be shared by all participants, and that’s okay.

[Editor’s note: Companies also need to be sure that employees disclose their relationship when endorsing products/services. See the FTC’s endorsement guidelines for details.]

Timeline

Month 1: Get comfortable. Form a weak baseline.

Month 2: Require tweaks to the process and get deeper insights to form a stronger baseline.

Month 3: Hit your stride.

Gamify

People feed off competition. The prize doesn’t have to be crazy. People feed off competition. The reward could be a gift card or a half day off or anything. If the program is dying, a reward can get things going again.

Conversions that Change Hearts and Minds: Maggie Malek

Maggie Malek (@MagsMac), head of social media at The MMI Agency, says there’s a new consumer landscape — search and social can no longer be separate. Things have changed in the past four years:

• Written content is now graphic content.
• Social traffic is not guaranteed.
• Social engagement is a different ball game.
• Brands have to pay to play.

Identify moments that matter. “I believe that everything is better if you lead with the head and follow with the heart,” says Malek. The head is search and the heart is social. Both have to be constantly talking to each other and exchanging data.

• Start with data.
• Create conversations.
• Ignite data.

You must understand yourself as a brand and know exactly who you are conversing with. Define your spirit and stand for that spirit in every aspect of search and social.

Lead with the Head

What are people searching for in the privacy of their own Google search box?

What questions are they asking?

What trends are you seeing?

But Google isn’t the only place people are searching:

• Facebook open graphs
• YouTube organic search
• Amazon products and reviews
• Twitter search
• Instagram hashtags
• And on and on …

Let the Heart Provide Context

• What are people saying about your product to their friends?
• How are they interacting with your competitors?
• What customer service issues are they having?
• What content is getting the most engagement?

Metrics for Awareness vs. Conversion

Some metrics measure awareness: Reach/impressions, engagement, mentions, clicks/CTR, site traffic, brand awareness and sentiment.

Other metrics measure conversions, or reaching goals you’ve set, such as: leads, checkouts, conversion rate, average order value, cart abandonment rate, customer retention rate and customer LTV (lifetime value).

Pick Your Channels

Success looks different for every brand. What metrics will you be looking at?

Three Types of Content

Hero: Large-scale tent-pole events or “go big” moments designed to raise broad awareness.

Hub: Regularly scheduled “push” content designed for your prime prospect.

Hygiene: Always-on “pull” content designed for your core target.

Plan for Unbridled Success

1. Hire the most amazing writers as brand ambassadors. We as people don’t like to read crappy content.
2. Assign a dedicated team. There’s a lot going on in search and social, and it’s really, really hard to do both.
3. Identify collaborators on each team. Establish a cadence to data share.

Malek has a publication checklist you can check out here: mmiagency.com/smxadvanced (PDF)

Takeaways

• Know your brand voice.
• Chart your course with data, but let your heart lead the way.
• Rally around content that represents who you are.
• Develop a relationship on social media that allows you to glean even MORE data from your consumers to personalize their experience.
• Convert social sensations into content opportunities.

Enhance Your Marketing Strategy: Travis Wright

Travis Wright (@teedubya), chief marketing technologist for CCP Global, is up. He’s talking fast about the overlap of social with both organic search and paid search. He has a lot of slides to share!

Search and social is all about content. We have to create epic content. Content can be great, but it’s useless if no one hears it.

Diversify Your Content Types

Analyze your content via BuzzSumo.

Figure out who shared your content. Then make a Twitter ad campaign to target those people.

Use Remarketing Campaigns

After people visit your site, you want to track your prospect. When the prospect leaves, your ad will show up on another site. Use pixels.

Wright says organic reach is over. Marketers need to be prepared to use paid reinforcements.

If you do any type of email marketing, combine it with Facebook ads — email openers are now 22% more likely to purchase. When ads show up in multiple places, they think you’re huge. #Retargeting

Also watch my pre-SMX interview with Jason White and Maggie Malek for more insights on the opportunities between search and social.

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