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Moz Blog (75 unread)

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September 17, 2021
9:00
Cannibalization
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In today's episode of Whiteboard Friday, Moz SEO expert Tom Capper walks you through cannibalization: what it is, how to identify it, and how to fix it.
September 16, 2021
9:00
Tackling 8,000 Title Tag Rewrites: A Case Study
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Let's take an in-depth look at Moz.com title tags that were re-written by Google, including three case studies where we managed to fix bad rewrites.
September 15, 2021
9:00
How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%
» ‎ Moz Blog

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See how, through several little tweaks to their conversion strategy, the team at Chromatix attracted a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities.
September 13, 2021
9:00
How to Add Products to Your Google My Business Listing, Illustrated
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Miriam helps you get started in Google My Business Products with this illustrated tutorial, walking you through how to add your most important products and services.
September 10, 2021
9:00
The Three Bosses of SEO
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In SEO, there are three main “bosses” with different needs: your business, your searchers, and your search engines. How do you answer to all of them?
September 08, 2021
9:00
Winning the Page Speed Race: How to Turn Your Clunker of a Website Into a Race Car
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Winning the page speed race requires the same things as winning a car race: making sure that your vehicle is as lightweight as possible, as powerful as possible, and that you navigate the racetrack as efficiently as possible.
September 07, 2021
9:00
Responsive Search Ads: 5 Best Practices for Google Ads PPC Search Campaigns
» ‎ Moz Blog

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These tips will help you optimize your responsive search ads in your Google Ads search campaigns, and increase clicks and conversions.
September 06, 2021
9:00
How to Calculate Your SEO ROI Using Google Analytics
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Measuring ROI for your SEO efforts involves two factors: KPIs and the cost of your current SEO campaigns. With GA, you can pinpoint where your audience is coming from, set goals to stay on track, and incorporate the most attractive keywords to rank better in search engines.
September 03, 2021
9:00
How to Use STAT to Find SEO Opportunities at Scale
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Today, Cyrus explains how powerful STAT can be when you’re trying to discover SEO opportunities on a massive scale.
September 01, 2021
9:00
The Guide to Targeted-Impact Link Building
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Links drive rankings — that’s one thing that SEOs and marketers can agree on. But which rankings, and for which pages on your website? Use this guide to build links that impact rankings for specific pages on your website.
August 27, 2021
9:00
Conversion Rate Optimization for B2B
» ‎ Moz Blog

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When compared to a typical B2C business, the sales cycle in B2B means that users will be visiting your site multiple times throughout their sales cycle before making a final purchase. To encourage conversion, you need to be reaching them at each different stage in their journey.
August 26, 2021
9:00
Building a Basic Adobe Analytics Dashboard for SEO
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Caitlin and Kristi cover the basics of Adobe Analytics for SEO, and guide you through creating a simple dashboard. To learn more, check out the full guide on Moz’s SEO Learning Center!
August 25, 2021
9:00
Internal Linking for Mobile-First & Mobile-Only Indexing
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Internal linking is a vital SEO tactic, and usually the easiest way to build a page’s authority. But is Google still valuing your links in its mobile-first index?
August 24, 2021
9:00
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Hiring the wrong person for your business’s critical SEO work can waste time, energy, and resources. While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
August 20, 2021
9:00
SEO and Google Discover
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In today’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, Moz’s own SEO expert, Tom Capper, talks about the untapped organic traffic opportunity that is Google Discover.
August 18, 2021
9:00
Data Visualization: Win Friends and Influence People with Accurate Data
» ‎ Moz Blog

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The key to good reporting is making sure your data elicits the thought, implication, or decision that you want to leave the reader with. To do that, you'll need to make smart choices in how you choose and display your data. Here's how.
August 17, 2021
9:00
Magento SEO: The Guide to Optimizing Magento Websites
» ‎ Moz Blog

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If you’re an SEO in the e-commerce space, it’s important to learn how to work with Magento. Today, Chris walks you through seven areas for SEO adjustments that are unique to the Magento platform.
August 16, 2021
9:00
The New Moz SEO Q&A: 100K URL Migration Case Study
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Over time, the Moz Q&A saw serious neglect, resulting in loss of user satisfaction and traffic. So Moz had a choice: improve the Q&A immediately, or kill it. Thankfully, we chose to improve it. Here’s how we did it.
August 13, 2021
9:00
The Roadmap to B2B SEO Success
» ‎ Moz Blog

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It can be hard to navigate the B2B marketing landscape, so today, guest host Austin Peachey walks you through the stops on Obility’s SEO roadmap.
August 11, 2021
9:00
How to Choose Pillar Page Topics
» ‎ Moz Blog

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With the growth of conversational search intent, pillar page strategies have entered the scene to fulfill those queries. Like anything in the SEO space, pillar page strategies take time and a great deal of planning to do correctly. Let’s break down this process.
August 09, 2021
9:00
5 Local Business Marketing Takeaways from MozCon Virtual 2021
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Miriam shares her insights from some of the most relevant and exciting presentations at MozCon Virtual 2021 — learnings you can put to work for the local businesses you’re promoting.
August 06, 2021
9:00
UTM Tagging for Google My Business
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Guest host and small business SEO expert Claire Carlile walks you through the what, why, where, which, and who of UTM tagging for your GMB profiles.
August 04, 2021
9:00
How to Carry Out Content Audits — Yes, Plural
» ‎ Moz Blog

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A content audit done once to highlight current website issues will have a short shelf-life of usefulness. However, a content audit that is continuously updated offers multiple uses for analyzing and reporting on strategies. Here’s how to conduct that ongoing audit.
August 03, 2021
9:00
Web Accessibility Myths: Debunking 7 Common Misconceptions
» ‎ Moz Blog

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All individuals of every ability deserve the right to access the internet barrier-free. But thanks to some commonly held misconceptions about website accessibility, barriers often remain. Today, we’ll debunk those myths, and show you why web accessibility isn’t just a moral obligation — it’s also a legal one.
August 02, 2021
9:00
How to Find & Support Entry-Level SEO Talent
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In this post, Abby shares unique places for hiring managers to source talented, entry-level candidates for SEO positions, and the steps they can take post-hiring to offer support.
June 10, 2021
9:00
7 Tips to Get the Most Out of Online Conferences
» ‎ Moz Blog

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As we anxiously await the return to in-person conferences, with a little ingenuity and virtual elbow grease, we can still forge new professional relationships over an internet connection rather than a cocktail. Read on for tips on how to bring your best self to digital events, and for networking while remote!
June 09, 2021
9:00
MozCon Virtual 2021 Interview Series: Joy Hawkins
» ‎ Moz Blog

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We're excited to welcome local SEO expert, Joy Hawkins, back to the MozCon Virtual stage! Ahead of the show, we talked with Joy about her research into Google Posts, what she loves most about her work in local SEO, and more.
June 08, 2021
9:00
The Most Challenging Parts of the Content-Led Link Building Process
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Aira’s recent State of Link Building Survey asked respondents about which parts of content-led link building processes they found most challenging. Paddy walks through those results, and looks at the ways in which you can ease those challenges to generate more successful results.
June 07, 2021
18:00
The 100% Free Tech SEO (+ Beyond) Site Audit Checklist
» ‎ Moz Blog

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User experience is everything. Learn the tools and tactics you'll need to pinpoint technical issues on your site and turn them into wins for your users and your rankings with this free checklist from Moz.
June 04, 2021
18:15
Moz Acquired by iContact Marketing Corp
» ‎ Moz Blog

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We're thrilled to announce our acquisition by iContact Marketing Corp! Check out Sarah and Michael's chat discussing the details, and please celebrate with us as we chart the future of Moz together.
9:00
Does Fixing Old Broken Links Still Matter to SEO?
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Fixing broken links has long stood as an SEO best practice. But if you've run into situations where you've fixed a broken link and nothing happened, you’re not alone. In today’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, SEO expert Cyrus Shepard discusses whether these fixes still matter, and takes you through steps to increase your chances of seeing the benefits.
June 02, 2021
21:30
The Maker SERP Squeeze: Why Should SEOs Care?
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Looking at 500 data points for each year from 2013 through 2021, Russ examines whether a long-standing theory in search engine optimization is true: do reviewers, aggregators, and non-manufacturing retailers push makers and manufacturers out of the SERPs over time?
May 31, 2021
9:00
8 Ways to Champion Animals in Your Local Business Marketing Strategy
» ‎ Moz Blog

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The majority of American households now include pets, and recent global quarantines have only brought us closer to them. In today’s blog, Miriam outlines eight ways you can honor the relationships your customers have with their animals, plus tips for weaving those efforts into your local business marketing strategy.
May 28, 2021
9:00
SEO and Accessibility: Technical SEO [Series Part 3]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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We hope you’ve enjoyed this series on SEO and accessibility. In the final installment, Cooper shows you how the technical SEO strategies you implement across your site can help make it more perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
May 26, 2021
21:00
The MozCon Virtual 2021 Final Agenda
» ‎ Moz Blog

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MozCon Virtual 2021 is right around the corner! Read on to see what this year has in store, and don't forget to purchase your ticket!
May 21, 2021
9:00
SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.
May 20, 2021
9:00
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: What They Are and Why SEOs Should Care
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and outline the steps you can take to meet its standards. We’ll also touch on the reasons why accessible websites typically rank higher in search engines — making accessibility the right choice all around!
May 19, 2021
9:00
MozCon Virtual 2021 Interview Series: Ross Simmonds
» ‎ Moz Blog

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We're absolutely thrilled to welcome Ross back to the MozCon stage, and we connected with him ahead of the show to discuss how he broke into the industry, his content philosophy, and what he’s looking forward to at MozCon 2021.
May 18, 2021
9:00
How Optimizing for Voice Search Will Impact Your SEO Plan in 2021 and Beyond
» ‎ Moz Blog

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A sizable chunk of web traffic and online purchases now come from voice searches. Because users ask for content differently when they use Siri or Alexa, optimizing content to capture more of that traffic will work a bit differently.
May 17, 2021
9:00
Are You Ready to Sell Like QVC?
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Signs are emerging that we’re on the verge of the next online sales phase: video. Let's deconstruct what’s happening on QVC, and how and why you may need to learn to apply it as an SEO, local SEO, or business owner — sooner than you think.
May 14, 2021
9:00
An Introduction to Accessibility and SEO [Series Part 1]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Welcome back to Whiteboard Friday! To start us up after our break, guest host Cooper Hollmaier has put together a three-part series that shows how SEO and accessibility go hand-in-hand. In part one, he introduces us to the idea of optimizing not just for some of our audience, but all of our audience.
May 13, 2021
9:00
Daily SEO Fix: Advanced Keyword Explorer Metrics and Reporting Tips
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In these Daily SEO Fix videos, we show you how you can use Moz’s keyword metrics to help you evaluate how much of an impact ranking for certain keywords will have.
May 12, 2021
9:00
MozCon Virtual 2021 Interview Series: Wil Reynolds
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Get to know this year’s amazing MozCon speakers with our interview series! First up, Wil Reynolds talks about the impact of 2020 on Seer Interactive, what challenges marketers must overcome when analyzing data, and gives us a sneak peek into his MozCon presentation.
May 11, 2021
9:00
How to Calibrate Your Brand Voice to Your SEO Advantage
» ‎ Moz Blog

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One of the best ways to stand out from the herd of businesses in your niche is to develop a unique brand voice for your company – one that will appeal to customers and get noticed via SEO. This article will show you a few tricks to help develop a unique voice, structure your content, and turn Google’s algorithms to your advantage at the same time.
May 10, 2021
9:00
How to Use SEO Tools to Qualify Sites Before the Pitch (for Non-Link Builders)
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Learn how link building tools help you find quality sites and weed out low-quality ones, so that you can focus on outreach to help your site grow!
May 07, 2021
9:00
Google Advanced Search Operators for Competitive Content Research
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Without an organizing principle, a spreadsheet full of keywords is a bottomless to-do list. It’s not enough to know what your competitors are ranking for — you need to know what content is powering those rankings and how you’re currently competing with that content. Enter advanced search operators.
May 06, 2021
9:00
Convince Your Boss to Send You to MozCon Virtual 2021 [Plus Bonus Letter Template!]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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You're already well acquainted with the benefits of MozCon. Maybe you're a MozCon alumnus, or you may have lurked the hashtag once or twice for inside tips. You’ve likely followed the work of some of the speakers for a while. But how are you going to relay that to your boss in a way that sells? Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan.
May 04, 2021
9:00
Page Level Query Analysis at Scale with Google Colab, Python, & the GSC API [Video Instructions Included]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Given the apparent limitations with the Google Search Console traffic data available to the SEO community, the data engineering team at Inseev Interactive developed a simple script that allows you to get the data you need in a flexible format for many great analytical views. Better yet, it’s all available with only a few input variables.
May 03, 2021
9:00
Local Justifications Are a Big Deal and You Can Influence Them
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Today, we’ll demonstrate the prominence of the fascinating business listing feature known as "local justifications", and show how they can help you to stand out from local SERP competitors in exciting ways!
April 29, 2021
9:00
How to Use Surveys to Tap into Trending Conversations (and Build Links)
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Most brands aren’t operating full newsrooms and don’t have the capacity to cover breaking news, but there are still ways to participate in relevant, newsworthy conversations — and surveys are a great option. See how you can utilize surveys to add value to conversations, and earn the interest of writers at top publications.
April 28, 2021
21:00
When & How to Disavow Backlinks in 2021
» ‎ Moz Blog

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It’s been nearly nine years since Google rolled out its Disavow Tool. This guide covers how and when to use it, and the potential risks and benefits.
April 16, 2021
9:00
What are the Makings of a High-Quality Link?
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What links are considered “high quality”? Find out from link building expert, Paddy Moogan, who talks you through link relevancy, link diversity, link authority, and the sustainability of your link building efforts.
April 15, 2021
9:00
How to Use Low Search Volume Keywords to Optimize B2B Tech Content
» ‎ Moz Blog

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For competitive niches, small addressable markets, or both, turn to this proven approach when trying to grow targeted organic traffic and brand awareness: targeting low search volume keywords.
April 13, 2021
9:00
7 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Content Marketing Agency
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Deciding on an agency for content marketing is often tough thanks to the sheer volume of agencies out there, and because you want to ensure that the one you pick delivers ROI. To make things easier, here are seven key questions to ask when you’re trying to find the right agency for your content needs.
April 12, 2021
9:00
The Sky Garden Method: Discover Evergreen Link Building Opportunities Using Search Data
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Adding on to Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique, this is the “Sky Garden Method”. It’s a similar approach that requires no outreach time to build links, and can generate links well into the future.
April 09, 2021
9:00
Debunking Link Building Myths in 2021
» ‎ Moz Blog

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On this week’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, guest host and MozCon speaker Shannon McGuirk walks through five link building myths prevalent in 2021, and why you shouldn’t believe them.
April 08, 2021
9:00
Earn Press Coverage for Your Brand in 5 Steps [Case Study]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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In this post, Domenica shows you how her team at Fractl earned top-tier press coverage and backlinks for a client in five simple steps, and how you can apply these same steps to your own brand's content.
April 07, 2021
9:00
3 Vital Click-Based Signals for SEO: First, Long, & Last
» ‎ Moz Blog

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This post shows you how to optimize for click signals to improve your SEO, regardless of how Google might use them as a ranking signal.
April 06, 2021
9:00
6 Common Google SERP Feature Misconceptions in SEO
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Brodie Clark teamed up with Izzi Smith to create a new SEO quiz series, testing marketers' knowledge of Google SERP features. In this post, read through the six most common misconceptions found in quiz answers, dealing with structured data, Featured Snippets, and more!
April 05, 2021
9:00
Consolidating Locations and Google My Business Listings Due to COVID-19
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Local brands that had to make quick changes in 2020 to continue serving the public are now having to make longer-term decisions based on the COVID-19 recession, altered consumer behavior, and budget. How should you handle Google My Business listings when circumstances force consolidation?
April 02, 2021
9:00
How to Get Backlinks in 2021 [Series Part 3: Outreach]
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Join guest host Britney Muller in the third and final installment of her link building series, as she walks through the do's and don’ts of link building outreach in 2021.
April 01, 2021
0:00
Women in SEO: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Women in the Industry
» ‎ Moz Blog

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As Women’s History Month draws to a close, Moz CEO Sarah Bird reflects on the contributions women have made to the SEO industry, and highlights the work we still have to do.
March 30, 2021
11:00
New & Improved: Announcing The Beginner's Guide To Link Building
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Moz first published the Beginner's Guide to Link Building in 2014. While much has changed in link building since then, a lot has stayed the same. If you're new to link building, or simply want to improve your success rate and/or processes, we encourage you to give this new and updated guide a read.
March 29, 2021
2:00
6 Ways to Bring Empathy Into Your Marketing Strategy (in 2021 and Beyond)
» ‎ Moz Blog

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The world has changed and businesses need to adapt to the new needs of their customers if they're going to grow. The best way to do that is through empathy, but how do you take an empathetic approach to marketing?
March 26, 2021
1:00
7 Actually Smart Tips to Reduce Bounce Rate
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Is a high bounce rate bad? The answer is: it depends, but yes, sometimes it can be. Is a high bounce rate bad for SEO? That’s where it gets a little more complicated. In this week’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus gives you seven easy SEO tips to address your bounce rate, and increase engagement and satisfaction to make your users happier.
March 24, 2021
10:00
Announcing: The MozCon Virtual 2021 Initial Agenda
» ‎ Moz Blog

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Posted by cheryldraper

Come one, come all to the hottest ticket in virtual! We’re packing up the MozCon big top and bringing all the MozCon magic straight to your front door.

Last year we took MozCon to the virtual stage for the first time, and we loved it so much, we’re doing it again! Only this time, we’re taking it to the next level with exclusive performances by world-renowned local SEO jugglers, automation acrobats, link building magicians, and so much more!

We know SEO doesn't stop — searchers keep on searching, and marketers need to stay on their toes to meet their needs. (Cue the tightrope walkers!)

Join Ringmaster Roger and marketing experts from around the world for three days packed with presentations on SEO, search marketing, mobile, conversion optimization, local search, and more — all from the comfort of home.
Not your typical marketing conference Get connected
Meet fellow attendees and don't miss a minute of MozCon fun — follow #mozcon and join the MozCon Facebook Group!
Birds of a Feather networking groups
Who doesn’t love making new friends and engaging in lively discussion? After all, a big part of the conference experience is meeting new connections and reconnecting with older ones. Birds of a Feather at MozCon are purposeful yet unstructured peer discussion groups organized around topics that matter to today’s digital marketers. Grab yourself a snack or beverage and come network with some new friends! Topics vary each day at the conference and offer something for everyone.
Tickets start at $129 for Moz customers
Going virtual means affordability! You can snag your ticket for as low as $129 if you’re a Moz customer, and tickets include access to the virtual video bundle after MozCon wraps up.

Save my spot at MozCon Virtual!
Initial agenda
Time to pull back the curtain and reveal the exciting acts we've got planned. Let’s bring out our MozCon Virtual stars!
Amanda Milligan
Marketing Director | Fractl
A Live Guide to Finding & Filling the Gaps in Your Link Strategy

Is your link portfolio strong enough to withstand everything Google and your competitors throw at you? If you’re hyper-focused on acquisition and you ignore strategy, you can end up with a pile of weak backlinks that aren't relevant — and won't move the needle. Competitive analysis is your key to finding and filling the gaps in your link building strategy. I'll walk you through the process start-to-finish.
Areej AbuAli
SEO Consultant
Taking Charge of Your Indexability: How to Optimize and Prioritize Your Technical Work

Take charge over the indexability of your website! With a focus on aggregators and classifieds, Areej will share advice on how to best reduce index bloat for large websites. Diving into parameter handling, sitemap logic, robots directives, and more, we'll also assess how to analyze the most impactful changes, how to get sign-off from senior stakeholders, and how to prioritize work with product teams.
Brie E Anderson
Owner, Founder | BEAST Analytics
The Value of Perspective: A Use-Case for External Audits

Remember that phone call from your client? The one where they wanted to talk to you about a "free audit" another agency did for them? Let's talk about it. In this session, we'll uncover the value of audits and how they can (and should) be conducted with integrity. It's time to take back the value of perspective!
Britney Muller
Serial Entrepreneur + Data Science Student | Data Sci 101
The Cold Hard Truth about CTR

Reporting on website performance is an integral part of SEO, but not all metrics are created equal. If you think your CTR metrics are telling the full story, think again. Start building more insightful reporting methods with data science. In this session, Britney will show you how to quash your reporting woes and make easy work of identifying exactly why your website’s performance changed.
Casie Gillette
Senior Director, Digital Marketing | KoMarketing
Counterintuitive Content: How New Trends Have Disrupted Years of Bad Advice

Along with the always-shifting landscape, one of the biggest things we as marketers struggle with is the sheer volume of information. For years we were told we had to produce as much content as possible. Then we were told to focus on quality but we still had to have a consistent schedule. What about YouTube or voice search or TikTok? The fact of the matter is, there's no one way to do content marketing. In this session, we’ll look at content from an entirely different perspective and talk about how you can start creating content on your own terms.
Cyrus Shepard
SEO Consultant | Moz
Mastering 3 Click + Engagement Signals for Higher Rankings/Traffic

Successful websites are all different, yet nearly all Google-ranked websites succeed in the exact same fundamental ways. In our quest to optimize for Core Web Vitals, mobile-first indexing, and JavaScript rendering, have we lost sight of the content and user experiences that dominate the very top of Google search results? In this presentation, Cyrus explores the three Google click and engagement signals that top-ranking web pages master: clicks, long clicks, and last clicks. Using examples and experiment results, he demonstrates how any website — and SEOs of all skill levels — can leverage these signals for improved Google traffic.
Dana DiTomaso
President & Partner | Kick Point
Build for Search: Modern Web Dev That Puts SEO First

With the debut of Core Web Vitals, modern SEO is more relevant to website development than ever before. Sure, we’ve always been thinking about title tags and making sure our pages convert — but the actual underpinnings of a website might have been left to your web development team and maybe that one technical SEO. They're likely very skilled people, but the chances of them thinking about how development decisions impact SEO are typically slim to none. Let's modernize the relationship between the web development process and SEO.
Flavilla Fongang
Founder & Creative Brand Strategist | 3 Colours Rule
The Science of Purchasing Behavior: How to Use it Effectively to Attract & Convert More Prospects Into Customers

Some brands have achieved the dream: a large audience who believes in them, buying from them time and time again without questioning the value or authenticity of the products and services. And they've done it by developing an emotional connection with that audience. These days, it's more about building a community around your brand, rather than simply having clients. We'll explore the power of brand psychology that's been used by huge, successful brands such as Apple or Starbucks to earn customers that are loyal long-term.
Jackie Chu
SEO Lead, Intelligence | Uber
Internationalization Errors: How to Go Global Without Losing All Of Your Traffic

Internationalization is one of the leading causes of technical SEO debt for multinational companies. We’ll talk through common internationalization mistakes and how to avoid them so you can win visibility and grow anywhere.
Joy Hawkins
Owner | Sterling Sky Inc
To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts

What value do Google Posts have, and how should the average SMB prioritize them? Dive into the data from two studies conducted by Sterling Sky to answer these questions.

The first study analyzes over 1,000 Google Posts to see what types perform better based on clicks and conversions, and measures the impact of various features such as stock photos, emojis, titles, and more. The second looks at whether posting on Google has any influence on where your business ranks in the local pack. Findings from both will have you reevaluating your clients' Google posting strategy!
Joyce Collarde
SEO Supervisor | Obility
Maximize Your Conversions: Harnessing full-funnel optimization for B2B success

The long sales cycles presented in B2B pose a unique set of challenges for converting visitors into coveted users. Success requires a strategic approach that goes beyond the landing page to include your entire site. In this session, we'll look at three tried-and-true methods for increasing your conversion rate and winning more business.
Kameron Jenkins
Content Lead | Shopify
The Content Refresh: How to Do More With Less

No matter where you work, there's something we all seem to have a shortage of... time. Combine that with ambitious traffic KPIs and you'll quickly realize that a 100% new content strategy isn't sustainable. Enter the content refresh. Learn how to identify and execute the best refresh opportunities so you can rank faster and increase your existing content ROI.
Lily Ray
Senior Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research | Path Interactive
From the Medic Update to Now: How the E-A-T Ecosystem Has Transformed Organic Search

Learn why E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) has taken a front seat in SEO discussions in recent years, the numerous places where Google focuses on E-A-T, and how the growing emphasis on surfacing authoritative content has drastically changed the organic search landscape across search, News, Discover, YouTube, and more.
Luke Carthy
eCommerce Consultant
The Ultimate How-To for Faceted Navigation SEO in E-commerce

One of the biggest FAQs in e-commerce: "How do you handle faceted navigation when it comes to SEO?"

We’ll ask the tough questions and answer them head-on! Join Luke as he walks through case studies, real-world examples, and how to leverage faceted navigation to really capitalize on high-converting long-tail keywords. If you're in e-commerce, you won’t want to miss this!
Miracle Inameti-Archibong
Head of SEO | Erudite Agency
Let the API Do the Work: Harnessing Natural Language for More Productive SEO

Keyword research is a vital process in getting insights into your consumer behaviour. However, it is often a very manual and labor-intensive process. How can we speed up the process so we can get to working on our implementations and getting results? Miracle walks through practical ways marketers can use APIs to do the heavy lifting and save time.
Noah Learner
Product Director | Two Octobers
Game-Changing Ways to Use the Google Search Console API

Let’s face it, you aren’t getting what you want from your keyword data. Unlock your newest SEO secret weapon with this deep dive into the power of the Google Search Console API. This game-changing tool will help you crush the competition, sell SEO to your team, and win prospects with deep SEO insights you had no idea were available.
Dr. Pete Meyers
Marketing Scientist | Moz
Rule Your Rivals: From Data to Action

Most competitive analysis ends in an avalanche of potential keywords to target, leaving you buried in indecision. Real case studies will show you how to forge your data into an actionable plan that drives strategic, targeted content. Escape from under the keyword pile and conquer your content rivals.
Rob Ousbey
VP Strategy | Moz
Beyond the Basics: 5 SEO Tricks for Uncovering Advanced Insights from Your SEO Data

Modern SEOs have no shortage of data, but you could learn even MORE about your site, content, links, and competitors by working smarter, not harder. Rob will show you how to breathe new life into your standard SEO data, and walk away with more advanced insights that are sure to impress your team (and your boss!)
Ross Simmonds
Founder, CEO | Foundation Marketing
Why Marketers Should Think More Like Investors To Drive Content Results

Every single piece of content your brand creates is an asset. So why do we view them as an expense? In this session, Ross will talk about the parallels between content marketing/SEO and the world of investing. From the techniques that take blog posts and landing pages to the moon, to the fundamentals of content investing to create a competitive advantage, learn how an investment mindset can drive results.
Shannon McGuirk
Client Services and Delivery Director | Aira
Doing the Perfectly (Im)Possible: Debunking Digital PR & Link Building Myths in 2021

“You better be pitching that campaign into the press before 9am and definitely not on a Friday or Monday!”
“Link relevancy is important if you’re a link builder, but if you're a digital PR, it doesn't really matter.”
“You're asking the impossible to get links to category and product pages.”

Tired of hearing bold claims and questions like these? We are too.

Shannon is going to challenge many of the digital PR and link building myths you're seeing debated on Twitter. From the old classic myths that stand the test of time and are always asked, through to new beliefs that are hot topics, she's going to use data, insights and case studies to show you how to cover come some of these beliefs and improve your link building and digital PR efforts in 2021.
Tom Capper
Senior Search Scientist | Moz
The Fast & The Spurious: Core Web Vitals & SEO

Core Web Vitals are all the rage, but do they live up to the hype? Tom explores the real SEO impact of Google’s shiny new metrics, which ones you actually need to worry about, and how to prioritize fixes.
Wil Reynolds
Founder & Vice President of Innovation | Seer Interactive
The 3 Most Important Search Marketing Tools…Your Heart, Your Brain, & Your [Small] Ego

Search is a game of rankings. Only one can win the #1 spot and small tweaks can mean the difference between ranking #1 and #5. If you’re using the same tools as everyone else, what competitive advantage are you bringing to the table? Wil shows you how to transform your data into winning insights with 3 tools everyone has at their fingertips: your heart, your head, and a willingness to question everything you thought was true about SEO.
We hope to see your smiling faces online in July!
Yes, I'm going to MozCon!

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1:00
SEO Website Analytics: Going One Step Deeper Into GA
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]

Posted by Brie-E-Anderson

Website analytics can tell us a lot about our audience and how they interact with our site. Oftentimes, we rely heavily on these analytics for reporting. But what if I told you that Google Analytics provides data that can be used as a strategy tool?

In this post, we are going to quickly look at three very specific, very actionable Google Analytics views for uncovering SEO opportunities.
Track Core Web Vitals
Google has verified that Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) are now part of the Page Experience ranking factor. These metrics together make up Core Web Vitals. This topic has already been covered many times in the SEO industry, and Google itself has covered the topic along with how to measure the metrics, so we won’t dive too deep into the metrics themselves.

In the documentation provided by Google, they break down how you can pull LCP, FID, and CLS in data into Google Analytics. This can be done by setting up custom events using the code found on GitHub.

Upon setting up those events, you’ll be able to see all of the Core Web Vital metrics in Google Analytics. They will show up when you go to Google Analytics > Behavior > Events > Top Events and toggle over to Event Action. To get further insight into how each page is performing in each category, use a secondary dimension of Page.
Source: Noise to Signal
To find the underperforming pages, use advanced filters to look for pages that fall under the “good” benchmark according to Google.

Using this data, you can tackle Core Web Vitals head-on and keep a close eye on performance as you make changes.
Find and fix 404s
The last thing you want is for people to finally come to your site just to be sent to an “Oops” page. This can happen for a variety of reasons: a mis-shared link, a forgotten redirect, a misspelled word in the URL, etc. It’s important to find these pages early and set up a fix right away to create the best possible experience for users.

The easiest way I’ve found to identify these URLs is to navigate to a page I know doesn’t exist on my website. For example, you may type in example.com/roger-rocks, then, when the page loads a 404, grab the title tag. Now you can navigate to Google Analytics > Behavior > All Pages and toggle over to Page Title. Once here, do a search using the title tag of your 404 page.

You’ll be shown one row with all of the stats for your 404 page. If you click on the title name, you’ll be presented with a new screen with all of the URLs that resulted in a 404 page. These are the URLs you need to research, determine why people are going to them, and then decide what you need to fix.

Again, those fixes may require creating or fixing a redirect, fixing a link (internal or external), creating content for that URL, and so on.
Find and capitalize on easy traffic opportunities
Search Console is a great tool for SEOs, as it gives us insights into how we’re performing in the search engine result pages. The downfall of Search Console is that the filtering options make it tough to manipulate the data — this isn’t the case with Google Analytics.

In Google Analytics, under Acquisition, you’ll find Search Console. If you have correctly connected your Google Analytics account with Search Console, your position, CTR, query, and landing page data should all be there.

So, if you go to Google Analytics > Acquisition > Search Console > Query, you can use the advanced search bar to help you find the data you want. In this case, let’s include Average Position less than 10, include Average Position greater than 3, and include CTR of less than 5%.

After applying this search filter, you'll find a list of keywords you currently rank well enough for, but that could use just a little boost. Increasing the CTR may be as simple as testing new title tags and meta descriptions. A higher CTR may lead to an increase in rankings, but even if it doesn’t, it will lead to an increase in traffic.
Pro tip: track your changes
The only way to know what is affecting your traffic is to track your changes. If you update a page, fix a link, or add a new resource, it may be enough to change your rankings.

I find that tracking my changes in the annotations section in Google Analytics allows me to deduce potential effects at a glance. When a date has an annotation, there is a small icon on the timeline to let you know a change was made. If you see a bigger (or smaller) than usual peak after the icon, it could be a hint that your change had an impact.

But remember, correlation does not always equal causation! As Dr. Pete would say, run your own tests. This is just meant to be a quick reference check.
In conclusion
Google Analytics is often used for reporting and tracking. But, that same data should be used to put a strategy into action.

By taking your analytics just a step further, you can unlock serious opportunities.

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March 22, 2021
13:00
Featured Snippets: Not Gone, Just on Holiday (Apparently)
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]

Posted by Dr-Pete

On February 19, 2021, we measured a dramatic drop in Featured Snippets on Google SERPs in the US. Like any responsible data scientist, I waited to make sure it wasn't a fluke, did my homework, and published when I was sure I was onto something. Then, this happened (30-day view):

C'MON, GOOGLE! I did all these beautiful analyses, found a lovely connection between Featured Snippet losses, YMYL queries, and head terms, and then you go and make me look like a chump?!

Is there anything we can learn from this strange turn of events? Do I really need this stress? Should I just go pour myself a cocktail? Stay tuned for none of these answers and more!
You want more data? Okay, fine, I guess...
Could this recovery be a fluke of the 10,000-keyword MozCast data set? It's unlikely, but let's dot our i's and cross our t's. Here's the Featured Snippet data from the same time period across roughly 2.2M US/desktop keywords in the STAT data set:

So, this gets a lot messier. We saw a significant drop on February 19, followed by a partial recovery, followed by an even larger drop, finally landing (for now) on a total recovery.

Our original study of the drop showed dramatic differences by query length. Here's a breakdown by four word-count buckets for the before and after Featured Snippet prevalence (the data points are February 18, February 19, and March 12):

You can plainly see that the bulk of the losses were in one-word queries, with longer queries showing minor but far less dramatic drops. All query lengths recovered by March 12.
Who really came back from holiday?
If you take two kids on vacation and come back with two kids, it's all good, right? What if the kids who came back weren't the same? What if they were robots? Or clones? Or robot clones?

Is it possible that the pages that were awarded Featured Snippets after the recovery were different from the ones from before the drop? A simple count doesn't tell us the whole story, even if we slice-and-dice it. This turns out to be a complicated problem. First of all, we have to consider that — in addition to the URL of the Featured Snippet changing — a keyword could gain or lose a Featured Snippet entirely. Consider this comparison of pre-drop and post-recovery:

Looking at the keywords in MozCast that had Featured Snippets on February 18, 79% of those same keywords still had Featured Snippets on March 12. So, we're down 21% already. If we narrow the focus to keywords that retained their Featured Snippets and displayed the same page/URL in those Featured, we're down to 60% of the original set.

That seems like a big drop, but we also have to consider that three weeks (22 days, to be precise) passed between the drop and recovery. How much change is normal for three weeks? For comparison's sake, let's look at the Featured Snippet stability for the 22 days prior to the drop:

While these numbers are a bit better than the post-recovery numbers, we're still seeing about three out of 10 keywords either losing a Featured Snippet or changing the Featured Snippet URL. Keep in mind that Featured Snippets are pulled directly from page-one organic results, so they're constantly in flux as the algorithm and the content of the web evolve.
Are Featured Snippets staying home?
It's impossible to say whether the original drop was deliberate on Google's part, an unintentional consequence of another (deliberate) change, or entirely a bug. Honestly, given the focus of the drop on so-called "head" queries and YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) queries, I thought this was a deliberate change that was here to stay. Without knowing why so many Featured Snippets went away, I can't tell you why they came back, and I can't tell you how long to expect them to stay around.

What we can assume is that Google will continue to evaluate Featured Snippet quality, especially for queries where result quality is critical (including YMYL queries) or where Google displays Knowledge Panels and other curated information. Nothing is guaranteed, and no tactic is future-proof. We can only continue to measure and adapt.

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1:00
The Local Finder vs. Google Maps: How Different Are They?
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]
Posted by MiriamEllis

Google must be one of the most experimental enterprises the world has ever known. When it comes to the company’s local search interfaces, rather than rolling them all out as a single, cohesive whole, they have emerged in piecemeal fashion over two decades with different but related feature sets, unique URLs, and separate branding. Small wonder that confusion arises in dialog about aspects of local search. You, your agency coworkers, and your clients may find yourselves talking at cross-purposes about local rankings simply because you’re all looking at them on different interfaces!

Such is certainly the case with Google Maps vs. the object we call the Google Local Finder. Even highly skilled organic SEOs at your agency may not understand that these are two different entities which can feature substantially different local business rankings.

Today we’re going to clear this up, with a side-by-side comparison of the two user experiences, expert quotes, and a small, original case study that demonstrates and quantifies just how different rankings are between these important interfaces.
Methodology
I manually gathered both Google Maps and Local Finder rankings across ten different types of geo-modified, local intent search phrases and ten different towns and cities across the state of California. I looked at differences both across search phrase and across locale, observing those brands which ranked in the top 10 positions for each query. My queries were remote (not performed within the city nearest me) to remove the influence of proximity and establish a remote baseline of ranking order for each entry. I tabulated all data in a spreadsheet to discover the percentage of difference in the ranked results.
Results of my study of Google Maps vs. the Local Finder
Before I roll out the results, I want to be sure I’ve offered a good definition of these two similar but unique Google platforms. Any user performing a local search (like “best tacos san jose”) can take two paths for deep local results:
1. Path one starts with a local pack, typically made up of three results near the top of the organic search results. If clicked on, the local pack takes the user to the Local Finder, which expands on the local pack to feature multiple listings, accompanied by a map. These types of results exist on google.com/search.
2. Path two may start on any Android device that features Google Maps by default, or it can begin on a desktop device by clicking the “Maps” tab above the organic SERPs. These types of results look quite similar to the Local Finder, with their list of ranked businesses and associated map, but they exist on google.com/maps.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

At first glance, these two user experiences look fairly similar with some minor formatting and content differences, but the URLs are distinct, and what you might also notice in this screenshot is that the rankings, themselves, are different. In this example, the results are, in fact, startlingly different.

I’d long wanted to quantify for myself just how different Maps and Local Finder results are, and so I created a spreadsheet to track the following:
1. Ten search phrases of different types including some head terms and some longer-tail terms with more refined intent.
2. Ten towns and cities from all parts of the big state of California covering a wide population ratio. Angels Camp, for example, has a population of just 3,875 residents, while LA is home to nearly 4 million people.
I found that, taken altogether, the average difference in Local Finder vs. Maps results was 18.2% across all cities. The average difference was 18.5% across all search phrases. In other words, nearly one-fifth of the results on the two platforms didn’t match.

Here’s a further breakdown of the data:
Average percentage of difference by search phrase
- burgers (11%)
- grocery store (19%)
- Pediatrician (12%)
- personal injury attorney (18%)
- house cleaning service (10%)
- electric vehicle dealer (16%)
- best tacos (11%)
- cheapest tax accountant (41%)
- nearby attractions (8%)
- women’s clothing (39%)
Average percentage of difference by city
- Angels Camp (28%)
- San Jose (15%)
- San Rafael (24%)
- San Francisco (4%)
- Sacramento (16%)
- Los Angeles (25%)
- Monterey (14%)
- San Diego (16%)
- Eureka (25%)
- Grass Valley (15%)
While many keyword/location combos showed 0% difference between the two platforms, others featured degrees of difference of 20%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and even 100%.

It would have been lovely if this small study surfaced any reliable patterns for us. For example, looking at the fact that the small, rural town of Angels Camp was the locale with the most diverse SERPs (28%), one might think that the smaller the community, the greater the variance in rankings. But such an idea founders when observing that the city with the second-most variability in LA (25%).

Similarly, looking at the fact that a longer-tail search like “cheapest tax accountant” featured the most differences (41%), it could be tempting to theorize that greater refinement in search intent yields more varied results. But then we see that “best tacos” results were only 11% different across Google Maps and the Local Finder. So, to my eyes, there is no discernible pattern from this limited data set. Perhaps narratives might emerge if we pulled thousands of SERPs.

For now, all we can say with confidence is that we’ve proven that there’s a good chance that the rankings a business enjoys in Google’s Local Finder frequently will not match their rankings in Google Maps. Individual results sets for keyword/locale combos may vary not at all, somewhat, substantially, or totally.
Maps vs. Finders: What’s the diff, and why?
The above findings from our study naturally lead to the question: why are the results for the same query different on the two Google platforms? For commentary on this, I asked three of my favorite local SEOs for theories on the source of the variance, and any other notable variables they’ve observed.

Near Media Co-Founder Mike Blumenthal says:

“I think that the differences are driven by the subtle differences of the 'view port' aspect ratio and size differences in the two environments. The viewport effectively defines the cohort of listings that are relevant enough to show. If it is larger, then there are likely more listings eligible, and if one of those happens to be strong, then the results will vary.”

Here’s an illustration of what Mike is describing. When we look at the results for the same search in the Local Finder and Google Maps, side by side, we often see that the area shown on the map is different at the automatic zoom level:

Uberall Solutions Engineer Krystal Taing confirms this understanding, with additional details:

“Typically when I begin searches in Maps, I am seeing a broader area of results being served as well as categories of businesses. The results in the Local Finder are usually more specific and display more detail about the businesses. The Maps-based results are delivered in a manner that show users desire discovery and browsing. This is different from the Local Finder in that these results tend to be more absolute and about Google pushing pre-determined businesses and information to be evaluated by the user.”

Krystal is a GMB Gold Product Expert, and her comment was the first time I’d ever heard an expert of her caliber define how Google might view the intent of Maps vs. Finder searchers differently. Fascinating insight!

Sterling Sky Founder Joy Hawkins highlights further differences in UX and reporting between the two platforms:

“What varies is mainly the features that Google shows. For example, products will show up on the listing in the Local Finder but not on Google Maps and attribute icons (women-led, Black-owned, etc.) show up on Google Maps but not in the Local Finder. Additionally, searches done in the Local Finder get lumped in with search in Google My Business (GMB) Insights whereas searches on Maps are reported on separately. Google is now segmenting it by platform and device as well.”

In sum, Google Maps vs. Local Finder searchers can have a unique UX, at least in part, because Google may surface a differently-mapped area of search and can highlight different listing elements. Meanwhile, local business owners and their marketers will discover variance in how Google reports activity surrounding these platforms.
What should you do about the Google Maps vs. Local Finder variables?
As always, there is nothing an individual can do to cause Google to change how it displays local search results. Local SEO best practices can help you move up in whatever Google displays, but you can’t cause Google to change the radius of search it is showing on a given platform.

That being said, there are three things I recommend for your consideration, based on what we’ve learned from this study.
1. See if Google Maps is casting a wider net than the Local Finder for any of your desired search phrases.
I want to show you the most extreme example of the difference between Maps and the Local Finder that I discovered during my research. First, the marker here locates the town of Angels Camp in the Sierra foothills in east California:

For the search “personal injury attorney angels camp”, note the area covered by map at the automatic zoom level accompanying the Local Finder results:

The greatest distance between any two points in this radius of results is about 100 miles.

Now, contrast this with the same search as it appears at the automatic zoom level on Google Maps:

Astonishingly, Google is returning a tri-state result for this search in Maps. The greatest distance between two pins on this map is nearly 1,000 miles!

As I mentioned, this was the most extreme case I saw. Like most local SEOs, I’ve spent considerable time explaining to clients who want to rank beyond their location that the further a user gets from the brand’s place of business, the less likely they are to see it come up in their local results. Typically, your best chance of local pack rankings begins with your own neighborhood, with a decent chance for some rankings within your city, and then a lesser chance beyond your city’s borders.

But the different behavior of Maps could yield unique opportunities. Even if what’s happening in your market is more moderate, in terms of the radius of results, my advice is to study the net Google is casting for your search terms in Maps. If it is even somewhat wider than what the Local Finder yields, and there is an aspect of the business that would make it valuable to bring in customers from further afield, this might indicate that some strategic marketing activities could potentially strengthen your position in these unusual results.

For example, one of the more distantly-located attorneys in our example might work harder to get clients from Angels Camp to mention this town name in their Google-based reviews, or might publish some Google posts about Angels Camp clients looking for the best possible lawyer regardless of distance, or publish some website content on the same topic, or look to build some new relationships and links within this more distant community. All of this is very experimental, but quite intriguing to my mind. We’re in somewhat unfamiliar territory here, so don’t be afraid to try and test things!

As always, bear in mind that all local search rankings are fluid. For verticals which primarily rely on the narrowest user-to-business proximity ratios for the bulk of transactions, more remote visibility may have no value. A convenience store, for example, is unlikely to garner much interest from faraway searchers. But for many industries, any one of these three criteria could make a larger local ranking radius extremely welcome:
- The business model is traditionally associated with traveling some distance to get to it, like hotels or attractions (thinking post-pandemic here).
- Rarity of the goods or services being offered makes the business worth driving to from a longer distance. This is extremely common in rural areas with few nearby options.
- The business has implemented digital shopping on its website due to the pandemic and would now like to sell to as many customers as possible in a wider region with either driver delivery or traditional shipping as the method of fulfillment.
If any of those scenarios fits a local brand you’re marketing, definitely look at Google Maps behavior for focus search phrases.
2. Flood Google with every possible detail about the local businesses you’re marketing
As Joy Hawkins mentioned, above, there can be many subtle differences between the elements Google displays within listings on their two platforms. Look at how hours are included in the Maps listing for this taco shop, but that they’re absent from the Finder. The truth is, Google changes the contents of the various local interfaces so often that even the experts are constantly asking themselves and one another if some element is new.

The good news is, you don’t need to spend a minute worrying about minutiae here if you make just 5 commitments:
- Fill out every field you possibly can in the Google My Business dashboard
- Add to this a modest investment in non-dashboard elements like Google Questions and Answers which exist on the Google Business Profile
- Be sure your website is optimized for the terms you want to rank for
- Earn publicity on the third-party websites Google uses as the “web results” references on your listings.
I realize this is a tall order, but it’s also basic, good local search marketing and if you put in the work, Google will have plenty to surface about your locations, regardless of platform variables.

3. Study Google Maps with an eye to the future
Google Maps, as an entity, launched in 2005, with mobile app development spanning the next few years. The Local Finder, by contrast, has only been with us since 2015. Because local packs default to the Local Finder, it’s my impression that local SEO industry study has given the lion’s share of research to these interfaces, rather than to Google Maps.

Yet, Maps is the golden oldie in Google’s timeline (albeit one Google has handled irreverently with the rise and fall of the Map Maker community), and Maps has been shown to have three times more impressions than search, in one recent study. Maps is the default app on Android devices, and other mobile brand users often prefer it, too. Most intriguingly, Google is appearing to toy with the idea of replacing the Local Finder with Maps, though nothing has come of this yet.

I would suggest that 2021 is a good year to spend more time looking at Google Maps, interacting with it, and going down its rabbit holes into the weird walled garden Google continues to build into this massive interface. I recommend this, because I feel it’s only a matter of time before Google tidies up its piecemeal, multi-decade rollout of disconnected local interfaces via consolidation, and Maps has the history at Google to become the dominant version.
Summing up Image credit: Ruparch
We’ve learned today that Google Maps rankings are, on average, nearly 20% different than Local Finder rankings, that this may stem, in part, from unique view port ratios, that it’s possible Google may view the intent of users on the two platforms differently, and that there are demonstrable variables in the listing content Google displays when we look at two listings side-by-side. We’ve also looked at some scenarios in which verticals that could benefit from a wider consumer radius would be smart to study Google Maps in the year ahead.

I want to close with some encouragement for everyone participating in the grand experiment of Google’s mapping project. The above photo is of the Bedolina Map, which was engraved on a rock in the Italian alps sometime around 500 BC. It is one of the oldest-known topographic maps, plotting out pathways, agricultural fields, villages, and the people who lived there. Consider it the Street View of the Iron Age.

I’m sharing this image because it’s such a good reminder that your work as a local SEO linked to digital cartography is just one leg of a very long journey which, by nature, requires a willingness to function in an experimental environment. If you can communicate this state of permanent change to clients, it can decrease stress on both sides of your next Zoom meeting. Rankings rise and fall, and as we’ve seen, they even differ across closely-related platforms, making patience essential and a big-picture view of overall growth very grounding. Keep studying, and help us all out on the mapped path ahead by sharing what you learn with our community.

Looking to increase your general knowledge of local search marketing? Read The Essential Local SEO Strategy Guide
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March 19, 2021
10:25
Stop Asian Hate
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]
Posted by SarahBird

We condemn the horrific acts of hate and violence targeting the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, which culminated in the tragic mass shooting in Georgia on March 17th. We mourn the loss of life and grieve with the families that have been broken by this latest racist, misogynistic hate crime.

This is not an isolated incident. We must acknowledge the widespread examples of violence and prejudice, bigotry, and intolerance that have been building for some time. We've seen attacks on elders in the Asian community. Children face bullying from peers. There has been workplace discrimination, street harassment, violence, and vandalism. Since the beginning of the pandemic, hate crimes against Asians have increased tremendously. Anti-Asian racism is not new, but it's been fueled by dangerous false rhetoric surrounding COVID-19. I challenge myself and my community to recognize the painful history of anti-Asian racism, to learn and understand the experience of AAPI individuals, and to use the power and privilege we have to stand up to bigotry.

Why are we discussing this now?

To do the work of combating hate in every corner of our society, we need to hold conversations about these issues, loudly and often. At Moz, we have a platform that allows us to shine a light on the darkness we're facing. We have privilege that allows us to confront the uncomfortable. Silence allows hatred to flourish; discussion and accountability weeds it from the root.

What can we all do to combat AAPI hate and support the AAPI community?

Hatred shrinks from bravery. If you witness someone experiencing anti-Asian sentiment or discrimination, use bystander intervention training to inform your response. Intervene and educate friends and family that perpetuate harmful stereotypes, letting them know hatred cannot be tolerated. Seek out resources to educate yourself and share with your circle of influence. Show compassion and empathy to your AAPI friends, family, and coworkers, offering space before it's asked. Listen to and amplify AAPI voices. Find and patronize local AAPI-owned small businesses — Intentionalist is a fantastic tool to use here. Support organizations fighting to make the world a fairer, safer place for all — we'll share a few in the Resources section below.

Perhaps most importantly, have courage. We cannot allow hate to go unchecked. Be brave. Be loud. Say no to hate.

Resources
Many thanks to Kim Saira and Annie Wu Henry for compiling resources and education on this topic.
- Free bystander intervention training
- Intentionalist: Discover and patronize your diverse local small businesses.
- Anti-Hate Safety Resources from the Asian American Federation
- Stop AAPI Hate
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1:00
Every Metric Is A Vanity Metric
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]

Posted by Dr-Pete

Marketers can get caught up in specific metrics, focusing on those data points that make you look good in reporting, but don’t help you understand your performance.

In this week’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, Dr. Pete discusses the vanity we bring to the metrics we track, and how to take a better, more realistic view of your results.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Dr. Pete, the Marketing Scientist for Moz, and I want to talk to you today about vanity metrics.

So I think we all have an intuition of what that means, but what I want to discuss today is I think we get caught up in this being about specific metrics. To me, the problem isn't the metrics themselves. The problem is the vanity. So I want to talk about us and what we bring to metrics, and how to do better no matter what the metric is.
SEO metric funnel
So I want to start with this kind of simplistic SEO funnel of metrics, starting with ranking.
Ranking
Ranking via click-through rate delivers traffic. Traffic via conversion rate delivers leads or sales or conversions or whatever you want to call them, the money. Then beyond that, we might have some more advanced metrics, like lifetime value, that kind of get into revenue over time or profit over time. Naturally, over time we've moved down this funnel and kind of put our attention more at the bottom, at the bottom line and the dollars.

That makes sense. I think it's good that we've gotten away from metrics like hits. In the early days, when a page counted more because it had 200 images and 73 JavaScript files, that's not so great, right? We know now that's probably bad in some cases. But it's possible to hold that mirror up to any of these metrics and get caught up in the vanity.

I know we're used to this with rankings and traffic. We've all had customers that wanted to go after certain very specific head terms or vanity terms as we call them, that really weren't delivering results or maybe cost a lot or were very competitive.
Traffic
Traffic, okay, traffic is good. But if you've ever had a piece of viral content that went really big but ended up not driving any conversions because it had nothing to do with your site, you know that's not so great.

In fact, traffic by itself could be bad. You could be overloading your server. You could be stopping legitimate customers from buying. So bringing people to your site for no reason or the wrong people isn't that great.
Sales and lifetime value
So I know it's easy to look at this and say, "Okay, but come on, sales. The bottom line is the bottom line." Well, I'll give you an example.

Let's say you have a big sale and you set everything to 50% off, and you bring in a ton of new sales and a ton of revenue. But let's say I tell you that your profit margins were 20%. Is that a good thing? You just cost yourself a lot of money. Now maybe you had another agenda and you're hoping to bring them back, or there's a branding aspect. But by itself we don't know necessarily if that's a great thing.

Just making more revenue isn't so great. Even profit or something like lifetime value, this is an example based in real life, but I'm going to change it a little bit to protect the innocent. Let's say you were a small company and you owned some kind of an asset. You owned some intellectual property, or you owned a piece of physical property and you sold that one year at significant profit, big margins.

Then you look and you say, "Wow, this year we made 50% profits, and next year we're going to try to make 70% based on that number." That would be a really terrible idea because that was a one-time thing, and you're not taking that into account. This is a bit of a stretch. But it's possible even to take profit or something like lifetime value or EBITDA even out of context, and even though it's a more complex metric or it's farther down the funnel, you could miss something important about what that number really means.
The three Rs
So that's the first thing. Is this a real result? Is that number going up necessarily good by itself? Without the context, you can't know that. The second thing where I think we really need to look at the entire funnel and not get focused too far down is repairs, fixing what's broken.

So let's say you track sales. Sales are going great. Everything is going well. Everybody is happy. The dollar bills are coming in. Then it stops, or it starts to drop significantly. If you don't know what happened above this, you can't do anything to fix it.

So if you don't know that your traffic dropped, if you don't know that your click-through rate dropped, and let's say your traffic dropped, you don't know why it dropped, which pages, which keywords, what rankings were affected, did you have lower rankings, or did you have rankings on less keywords, you can't go back and fix this and figure out what happened. So tracking that bottom line number isn't enough.

At that point, that has become a vanity metric. That's become something that you're celebrating, but you're not really understanding how you got there. I think we're all aware of that to a point. Maybe we don't do it, but we know we should. But the other thing I miss I think sometimes and that we miss is something I'm going to refer to as replication.

Yes, I tried a little too hard to get three R's in here. But this is repeating success. If something works and you get a bunch of sales, even if it's high margin, you get profitable sales, but you don't know what you did, you don't know what really drove that, where did the traffic come from, what was the source of that, was it specific pieces of content, was it specific keywords, what campaign was that tied to, you can't replicate that success.

So it's not just about fixing something when it's broken and when the dollars start to dry up, but when things go well, not just celebrating, but going back and trying to work up the funnel and figuring out what you did right, because if you don't know what you did right, you can't do it again.

So three R's. Results, consider the context of the metric. Repairs, be able to work up the funnel and know what's broken. If things go well, replication. Be able to repeat your successes and hopefully do it again.

So again, vanity, it's not in the metric. It's in us. You can have vanity with any of these things. So don't get caught up in any one thing. Consider the whole funnel.

I hope you can avoid the mistakes, and I hope you can repeat your successes. Thanks a lot, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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March 16, 2021
1:00
LiveBlogPosting Schema: A Powerful Tool for Top Stories Success
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]
Posted by cml63

One of the great things about doing SEO at an agency is that you're constantly working on different projects you might not have had the opportunity to explore before. Being an SEO agency-side allows you to see such a large variety of sites that it gives you a more holistic perspective on the algorithm, and to work with all kinds of unique problems and implementations.

This year, one of the most interesting projects that we worked on at Go Fish Digital revolved around helping a large media company break into Google’s Top Stories for major single-day events.

When doing competitor research for the project, we discovered that one way many sites appear to be doing this is through use of a schema type called LiveBlogPosting. This sent us down a pathway of fairly deep research into what this structured data type is, how sites are using it, and what impact it might have on Top Stories visibility.

Today, I’d like to share all of the findings we’ve made around this schema type, and draw conclusions about what this means for search moving forward.
Who does this apply to?
With regards to LiveBlogPosting schema, the most relevant types of sites will be sites where getting into Google’s Top Stories is a priority. These sites will generally be publishers that regularly post news coverage. Ideally AMP will already be implemented, as the vast majority of Top Stories URLs are AMP compatible (this is not required, however).
Why non-publisher sites should still care
Even if your site isn’t a publisher eligible for Top Stories results, the content of this article may still provide you with interesting takeaways. While you might not be able to directly implement the structured data at this point, I believe we can use the findings of this article to draw conclusions about where the search engines are potentially headed.

If Google is ranking articles that are updated with regular frequency and even providing rich-features for this content, this might be an indication that Google is trying to incentivize the indexation of more real-time content. This structured data may be an attempt to help Google “fill a gap” that it has in terms of providing real-time results to its users.

While it makes sense that “freshness” ranking factors would apply most to publishers, there could be interesting tests that other non-publishers can perform in order to measure whether there is a positive impact to your site’s content.
What is LiveBlogPosting schema?
The LiveBlogPosting schema type is structured data that allows you to signal to search engines that your content is being updated in real-time. This provides search engines with contextual signals that the page is receiving frequent updates for a certain period of time.

The LiveBlogPosting structured data can be found on schema.org as a subtype of “Article” structured data. The official definition from the site says it is: “A blog post intended to provide a rolling textual coverage of an ongoing event through continuous updates.”

Imagine a columnist watching a football game and creating a blog post about it. With every single play, the columnist updates the blog with what happened and the result of that play. Each time the columnist makes an update, the structured data also updates indicating that a recent addition has been made to the article.

Articles with LiveBlogPosting structured data will often appear in Google’s Top Stories feature. In the top left-hand corner of the thumbnail image, there will be a “Live” indicator to signal to users that live updates are getting made to the page.

Two Top Stories Results With The “Live” Tag

In the image above, you can see an example of two publishers (The Washington Post and CNN) that are implementing LiveBlogPosting schema on their pages for the term “coronavirus”. It’s likely that they’re utilizing this structured data type in order to significantly improve their Top Stories visibility.
Why is this Structured Data important?
So now you might be asking yourself, why is this schema even important? I certainly don’t have the resources available to have an editor continually publish updates to a piece of content throughout the day.

We’ve been monitoring Google’s usage of this structured data specifically for publishers. Stories with this structured data type appear to have significantly improved visibility in the SERPs, and we can see publishers aggressively utilizing it for large events.

For instance, the below screenshot shows you the mobile SERP for the query “us election” on November 3, 2020. Notice how four of the seven results in the carousel are utilizing LiveBlogPosting schema. Also, beneath this carousel, you can see the same CNN page is getting pulled into the organic results with the “Live” tag next to it:

Now let’s look at the same query for the day after the election, November 4, 2020. We still see that publishers heavily utilize this structured data type. In this result, five of the seven first Top Stories results use this structured data type.

In addition, CNN gets to double dip and claim an additional organic result with the same URL that’s already shown in Top Stories. This is another common result of LiveBlogPosting implementation.

In fact, this type of live blog post was one of CNN’s core strategies for ranking well for the US Election.

Here is how they implemented this strategy:
1. Create a new URL every day (to signal freshness)
2. Apply LiveBlogPosting schema and continually make updates to that URL
3. Ensure each update has its own dedicated timestamp
Below you can see some examples of URLs CNN posted during this event. Each day a new URL was posted with LiveBlogPosting schema attached:

[https:]]
[https:]]
[https:]]

Here’s another telling result for “us election” on November 4, 2020. We can see that The New York Times is ranking in the #2 position on mobile for the term. While the ranking page isn’t a live blog post, we can see underneath the result is an AMP carousel. Their strategy was to live blog each individual state’s results:

It’s clear that publishers are heavily utilizing this schema type for extremely competitive news articles that are based around big events. Oftentimes, we’re seeing this strategy result in prominent visibility in Top Stories and even the organic results.
How do you implement LiveBlogPosting schema?
So you have a big event that you want to optimize around and are interested in implementing LiveBlogPosting schema. What should you do?
1. Get whitelisted
The first thing you’ll need to do is get whitelisted by Google. If you have a Google representative that’s in contact with your organization, I recommend reaching out to them. There isn’t a lot of information out there on this and we can even see that Google has previously removed help documentation for it. However, the form to request access to the Live Coverage Pilot is still available.

This makes sense, as Google might not want news sites with questionable credibility to access this feature. This is another indication that this feature is potentially very powerful if Google wants to limit how many sites can utilize it.
2. Technical implementation
Next, with the help of a developer, you’ll need to implement LiveBlogPosting structured data on your site. There are several key properties you’ll need to include such as:
1. coverageStartTime: When the live blog post begins
2. coverageEndTime: When the live blog post ends
3. liveBlogUpdate: A property that indicates an update to the live blog. This is perhaps the most important property:
  1. headline: The headline of the blog update
  2. articleBody: The full description of the blog update
  3. datePublished: The time when the update was originally posted
  4. dateModified: The time when the update was adjusted
To make this a little easier to conceptualize, below you can find an example of how CNN has implemented this on one of their live blogs. The example below features two “liveBlogUpdate” properties on their November 3, 2020 coverage of the election.
Case study
As I previously mentioned, many of these findings were discovered during research for a particular client who was interested in improving visibility for several large single-day events. Because of how agile the client is, they were actually able to get LiveBlogPosting structured data up and running on their site in a fairly short period of time. We then tested to see if this structured data would help improve visibility for very competitive “head” keywords during the day.

While we can’t share too much information about the particular wins we saw, we did see significant improvements in visibility for the competitive terms the live blog post was mapped to. When looking in Search Console, we can see lifts of between +200% and +600%+ improvements in YoY clicks and visibility for many of these terms. During our spot checks during the day, we often found the live blog post ranking in the 1-3 results (first carousel) in Top Stories. The implementation appeared to be a major success in improving visibility for this section of the SERPs.
Google vs. Twitter and the need for real-time updates
So the question then becomes, why would Google place so much emphasis on the LiveBlogPosting structured data type? Is it the fact that the page is likely going to have really in-depth content? Does it improve E-A-T in any way?

I would interpret that the success of this feature demonstrates one of the weaknesses of a search engine and how Google is trying to adjust accordingly. One of the primary issues with a search engine is that it’s much harder for it to be real-time. If “something” happens in the world, it’s going to take search engines a bit of time to deliver that information to users. The information not only needs to be published, but Google must then crawl, index, and rank that information.

However, by the time this happens, the news might already be readily available on platforms such as Twitter. One of the primary reasons that users might navigate away from Google to the Twitterverse is because users are seeking information that they want to know right now, and don’t feel like waiting 30 minutes to an hour for it to populate in Google News.

For instance, when I’m watching the Steelers and see one of our players have the misfortune of sustaining an injury, I don’t start to search Google hoping the answer will appear. Instead, I immediately jump to Twitter and start refreshing like crazy to see if a sports beat writer has posted any news about it.

What I believe Google is creating is a schema type that signals a page is in real-time. This gives Google the confidence to know that a trusted publisher has created a piece of content that should be crawled much more frequently and served to users, since the information is more likely to be up to date and accurate. By giving rich features and increased visibility to articles using this structured data, Google is further incentivizing the creation of real-time content that will retain searches on their platform.

This evidence also signals that sites indicating to search engines that content is fresh and regularly updated may be an increasingly important factor for the algorithm. When talking to Dan Hinckley, CTO of Go Fish Digital, he proposed that search engines might need to give preference to articles that have been updated more recently. Google might not be able to “trust” that older articles still have accurate information. Thus, ensuring content is updated may be important to a search engine’s confidence about the accuracy of the results.
Conclusion
You really never know what types of paths you’re going to go down as an SEO, and this was by far one of the most interesting ones during my time in the industry. Through researching just this one example, we not only figured out a piece of the Top Stories algorithm, but also gained insights into the future of the algorithm.

It’s entirely possible that Google will continue to incentivize and reward “real-time” content in an effort to better compete with platforms such as Twitter. I’ll be very interested to see any new research that’s done on LiveBlogPosting schema, or Google’s continual preference towards updated content.

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March 15, 2021
1:00
Google My Business: What It Is, How To Use It, and Why
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]
Posted by MiriamEllis

Google My Business is both a free tool and a suite of interfaces that encompasses a dashboard, local business profiles, and a volunteer-driven support forum with this branding. Google My Business and the associated Google Maps make up the core of Google’s free local search marketing options for eligible local businesses.

Today, we’re doing foundational learning! Share this simple, comprehensive article with incoming clients and team members to get off on the right foot with this important local business digital asset.
An introduction to the basics of Google My Business
First, let’s get on the same page regarding what Google My Business is and how to be part of it.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business (GMB) is a multi-layered platform that enables you to submit information about local businesses, to manage interactive features like reviews and questions, and to publish a variety of media like photos, posts, and videos.
What is GMB eligibility?
Eligibility to be listed within the Google My Business setting is governed by the Guidelines for representing your business on Google, which is a living document that undergoes frequent changes. Before listing any business, you should consult the guidelines to avoid violations that can result in penalties or the removal of your listings.
You need a Google account to get started
You will need a Google account to use Google’s products and can create one here, if you don’t already have one. It’s best for each local business to have its own company account, instead of marketing agencies using their accounts to manage clients’ local business profiles.

When a local business you’re marketing has a large in-house marketing department or works with third party agencies, Google My Business permits you to add and remove listing owners and managers so that multiple people can be given a variety of permissions to contribute to listings management.
How to create and claim/verify a Google My Business profile
Once the business you’re marketing has a Google account and has determined that it’s eligible for Google My Business inclusion, you can create a single local business profile by starting here, using Google’s walkthrough wizard to get listed.

Fill out as many fields as possible in creating your profile. This guide will help you understand how best to fill out many of the fields and utilize many of the features. Once you’ve provided as much information as you can, you’ll be given options to verify your listing so that you can control and edit it going forward.

Alternatively, if you need to list 10+ locations of a business all at the same time, you can do a bulk upload via spreadsheet and then request bulk verification.
Where your Google My Business information can display
Once your data has been accepted into the GMB system, it will begin showing up in a variety of Google’s local search displays, including the mobile and desktop versions of:
Google Business Profiles
Your comprehensive Google Business Profile (GBP) will most typically appear when you search for a business by its brand name, often with a city name included in your search language (e.g. “Amy’s Drive Thru Corte Madera”). In some cases, GBPs will show for non-branded searches as well (e.g. “vegan burger near me”). This can happen if there is low competition for a search term, or if Google believes (rightly or wrongly) that a search phrase has the intent of finding a specific brand instead of a variety of results.

Google Business Profiles are extremely lengthy, but a truncated view looks something like this, located to the right of the organic search engine results:
Google Local Packs
Local packs are one of the chief displays Google uses to rank and present the local business information in their index. Local packs are shown any time Google believes a search phrase has a local intent (e.g. “best vegan burger near me”, “plant-based burger in corte madera”, “onion rings downtown”). The searcher does not have to include geographic terms in their phrase for Google to presume the intent is local

Most typically these days, a local pack is made up of three business listings, with the option to click on a map or a “view all” button to see further listings. On occasion, local packs may feature fewer than three listings, and the types of information Google presents in them varies .

Local pack results look something like this on desktop search, generally located above the organic search results:

Google Local Finders
When a searcher clicks through on the map or the “view all” link in a local pack, they will be taken to the display commonly known as the Local Finder. Here, many listings can be displayed, typically paginated in groups of ten, and the searcher can zoom in and out on the map to see their options change.

The URL of this type of result begins google.com/search. Some industries, like hospitality have unique displays, but most local business categories will have a local finder display that looks like this, with the ranked list of results to the left and the map to the right:
Google Maps
Google Maps is the default display on Android mobile phones, and desktop users can also choose to search via this interface instead of through Google’s general search. You’ll notice a “maps” link at the top of Google’s desktop display, like this:

Searches made via Google Maps yield results that look rather similar to the local finder results, though there are some differences. It’s a distinct possibility that Google could, at some point, consolidate the user experience and have local packs default to Google Maps instead of the local finder.

The URL of these results begins google.com/maps instead of google.com/search and on desktop, Google’s ranked Maps’ display looks like this:
The GMB dashboard is where you manage most of this
Once you’ve created and claimed your Google Business Profiles, you’ll have access to managing most (but not all) of the features they contain in your Google My Business dashboard, which looks like this:

The GMB dashboard has components for ongoing management of your basic contact info, reviews, posts, images, products and other features.
GMB Insights
The GMB dashboard also hosts the analytical features called GMB Insights. It’s a very useful interface, though the titles and functions of some of its components can be opaque. Some of the data you’ll see in GMB Insights includes:
- How many impressions happened surrounding searches for your business name or location (called Direct), general searches that don’t specify your company by name but relate to what you offer (called Discovery), and searches relating to brands your business carries (called Branded).
- Customer actions, like website visits, phone calls, messaging, and requests for driving directions.
- Search terms people used that resulted in an impression of your business.
There are multiple other GMB Insights features, and I highly recommend this tutorial by Joy Hawkins for a next-level understanding of why reporting from this interface can be conflicting and confusing. There’s really important data in GMB Insights, but interpreting it properly deserves a post of its own and a bit of patience with some imperfections.
When things go wrong with Google My Business
When engaging in GMB marketing, you’re bound to encounter problems and find that all kinds of questions arise from your day-to-day work. Google relies heavily on volunteer support in their Google My Business Help Community Forum and you can post most issues there in hopes of a reply from the general public or from volunteer contributors titled Gold Product Experts.

In some cases, however, problems with your listings will necessitate speaking directly with Google or filling out forms. Download the free Local SEO Cheat Sheet for robust documentation of your various GMB support options.
How to use Google My Business as a digital marketing tool
Let’s gain a quick, no-frills understanding of how GMB can be used as one of your most important local marketing tools.
How to drive local business growth with Google’s local features
While each local business will need to take a nuanced approach to using Google My Business and Google Maps to market itself, most brands will maximize their growth potential on these platforms by following these seven basic steps:

1) Determine the business model (brick-and-mortar, service area business, home-based business, or hybrid). Need help? Try this guide.

2) Based on the business model, determine Google My Business eligibility and follow the attendant rules laid out in the Guidelines for representing your business on Google.

3) Before you create GMB profiles, be certain you are working from a canonical source of data that has been vetted by all relevant parties at the business you’re marketing. This means that you’ve checked and double-checked that the name, address, phone number, hours of operation, business categories and other data you have about the company you are listing is 100% accurate.

4) Create and claim a profile for each of the locations you’re marketing. Depending on the business model, you may also be eligible for additional listings for practitioners at the business or multiple departments at a location. Some models, like car dealerships, are even allowed multiple listings for the car makes they sell. Consult the guidelines. Provide as much high quality, accurate, and complete information as possible in creating your profiles.

5) Once your listings are live, it’s time to begin managing them on an ongoing basis. Management tasks will include:
- Analyzing chosen categories on an ongoing basis to be sure you’ve selected the best and most influential ones, and know of any new categories that appear over time for your industry.
- Uploading high quality photos that reflect inventory, services, seasonality, premises, and other features.
- Acquiring and responding to all reviews as a core component of your customer service policy.
- Committing to a Google Posts schedule, publishing micro-blog-style content on an ongoing basis to increase awareness about products, services, events, and news surrounding the locations you’re marketing.
- Populating Google Questions & Answers with company FAQs, providing simple replies to queries your staff receives all the time. Then, answer any incoming questions from the public on an ongoing basis.
- Adding video to your listings. Check out how even a brand on a budget can create a cool, free video pulled from features of the GMB listing.
- Commiting to keeping your basic information up-to-date, including any changes in contact info and hours, and adding special hours for holidays or other events and circumstances.
- Investigating and utilizing additional features that could be relevant to the model you’re marketing, like menus for goods and services, product listings, booking functionality, and so much more!
- Analyzing listing performance by reviewing Google My Business Insights in your dashboard, and using tactics like UTM tagging to track how the public is interacting with your listings.
Need help? Moz Local is Moz’s software that helps with ongoing management of your listings not just on Google, but across multiple local business platforms.

6) Ongoing education is key to maintaining awareness of Google rolling out new features, altering platforms, and adjusting how they weight different local ranking factors. Follow local SEO experts on social media, subscribe to local SEO newsletters, and tune in to professional and street level industry surveys to continuously evaluate which factors appear to be facilitating maximum visibility and growth.

7) In addition to managing your own local business profiles, you’ll need to learn to view them in the dynamic context of competitive local markets. You’ll have competitors for each search phrase for which you want to increase your visibility and your customers will see different pack, finder, and maps results based on their locations at the time of search. Don’t get stuck on the goal of being #1, but do learn to do basic local competitive audits so that you can identify patterns of how dominant competitors are winning.

In sum, providing Google with great and appropriate data at the outset, following up with ongoing management of all relevant GMB features, and making a commitment to ongoing local SEO education is the right recipe for creating a growth engine that’s a top asset for the local brands you market.
How to optimize Google My Business listings
This SEO forum FAQ is actually a bit tricky, because so many resources talk about GMB optimization without enough context. Let’s get a handle on this topic together.

Google uses calculations known as “algorithms” to determine the order in which they list businesses for public viewing. Local SEOs and local business owners are always working to better understand the secret ranking factors in Google’s local algorithm so that the locations they’re marketing can achieve maximum visibility in packs, finders, and maps.

Many local SEO experts feel that there are very few fields you can fill out in a Google Business Profile that actually have any impact on ranking. While most experts agree that it’s pretty evident the business name field, the primary chosen category, the linked website URL, and some aspects of reviews may be ranking factors, the Internet is full of confusing advice about “optimizing” service radii, business descriptions, and other features with no evidence that these elements influence rank.

My personal take is that this conversation about GMB optimization matters, but I prefer to think more holistically about the features working in concert to drive visibility, conversions, and growth, rather than speculating too much about how an individual feature may or may not impact rank.

Whether answering a GMB Q&A query delivers a direct lead, or writing a post moves a searcher further along the buyer journey, or choosing a different primary category boosts visibility for certain searches, or responding to a review to demonstrate empathy wins back an unhappy customer, you want it all. If it contributes to business growth, it matters.
Why Google My Business plays a major role in local search marketing strategy
As of mid-2020, Google’s global search engine market share was at 92.16%. While other search engines like Bing or Yahoo still have a role to play, their share is simply tiny, compared to Google’s. We could see a shift of this dynamic with the rumored development of an Apple search engine, but for now, Google has a near-monopoly on search.

Within Google’s massive share of search, a company representative stated in 2018 that 46% of queries have a local intent. It’s been estimated that Google processes 5.8 billion global daily queries. By my calculation, this would mean that roughly 2.7 billion searches are being done every day by people seeking nearby goods, services, and resources. It’s also good to know that, according to Google, searches with the intent of supporting local business increased 20,000% in 2020.

Local businesses seeking to capture the share they need of these queries to become visible in their geographic markets must know how to incorporate Google My Business marketing into their local SEO campaigns.
A definition of local search engine optimization (local SEO)
Local SEO is the practice of optimizing a business’s web presence for increased visibility in local and localized organic search engine results. It’s core to providing modern customer service, ensuring today’s businesses can be found and chosen on the internet. Small and local businesses make up the largest business sector in the United States, making local SEO the most prevalent form of SEO.

Local SEO and Google My Business marketing are not the same thing, but learning to utilize GMB as a tool and asset is key to driving local business growth, because of Google’s near monopoly.

A complete local SEO campaign will include management of the many components of the Google My Business profile, as well as managing listings on other location data and review platforms, social media publication, image and video production and distribution, and a strong focus on the organic and local optimization of the company website. Comprehensive local search marketing campaigns also encompass all the offline efforts a business makes to be found and chosen.

When trying to prioritize, it can help to think of the website as the #1 digital asset of most brands you’ll market, but that GMB marketing will be #2. And within the local search marketing framework, it’s the customer and their satisfaction that must be centered at every stage of on-and-offline promotion.
Focus on GMB but diversify beyond Google
Every aspect of marketing a brand contains plusses, minuses and pitfalls. Google My Business is no exception. Let’s categorize this scenario into four parts for a realistic take on the terrain.
1) The positive
The most positive aspect of GMB is that it meets our criteria as owners and marketers of helping local businesses get found and chosen. At the end of the day, this is the goal of nearly all marketing tactics, and Google’s huge market share makes their platforms a peerless place to compete for the attention of and selection by customers.

What Google has developed is a wonder of technology. With modest effort on your part, GMB lets you digitize a business so that it can be ever-present to communities, facilitate conversations with the public which generate loyalty and underpin everything from inventory development to quality control, and build the kind of online reputation that makes brands local household names in the offline world.
2) The negative
The most obvious negative aspects of GMB are that its very dominance has cut Google too much slack in letting issues like listing and review spam undermine results quality. Without a real competitor, Google hasn’t demonstrated the internal will to solve problems like these that have real-world impacts on local brands and communities.

Meanwhile, a dry-eyed appraisal of Google’s local strategy observes that the company is increasingly monetizing their results. For now, GMB profiles are free, but expanding programs like Local Service Ads point the way to a more costly local SEO future for small businesses on tight budgets

Finally, local brands and marketers (as well as Google’s own employees) are finding themselves increasingly confronted with ethical concerns surrounding Google that have made them the subject of company walkouts, public protests, major lawsuits, and government investigations. If you’re devoting your professional life to building diverse, inclusive local communities that cherish human rights, you may sometimes encounter a fundamental disconnect between your goals and Google’s.
3) The pitfall
Managing your Google-based assets takes time, but don’t let it take all of your time. Because local businesses owners are so busy and Google is so omnipresent, a pitfall has developed where it can appear that GMB is the only game in town.

The old adage about eggs in baskets comes into play every time Google has a frustrating bug, monetizes a formerly-free business category, or lets competitors and lead generators park their advertising in what you felt was your space. Sometimes, Google’s vision of local simply doesn’t match real-world realities, and something like a missing category or an undeveloped feature you need is standing in the way of fully communicating what your business offers.

The pitfall is that Google’s walls can be so high that the limits and limitations of their platforms can be mistaken as all there is to local search marketing.
4) The path to success
My article on how to feed, fight, and flip Google was one of the most-read here on the Moz blog in 2020. With nearly 14,000 unique page views, this message is one I am doubling down on in 2021:
- Feed Google everything they need to view the businesses you’re marketing as the most relevant answers to people in close proximity to brand locations so that the companies you promote become the prominent local resources in Google’s index.
- Fight spam in the communities you’re marketing to so that you’re weeding out fake and ineligible competitors and protecting neighbors from scams, and take principled stands on the issues that matter to you and your customers, building affinity with the public and a better future where you work and live.
- Flip the online scenario where Google controls so much local business fate into a one-on-one environment in which you have full control over creating customer experiences exceptional enough to win repeat business and WOM recommendations, outside the GMB loop. Turn every customer Google sends you into a keeper who comes directly to you — not Google — for multiple transactions.
GMB is vital, but there’s so much to see beyond it! Get listed on multiple platforms and deeply engage in your reviews across them. Add generous value to neighborhood sites Nextdoor, or on old school fora that nobody but locals use. Forge B2B alliances and join the Buy Local movement to become a local business advocate and community sponsor. Help a Reporter Out. Evaluate whether image, video, or podcasting media could boost your brand to local fame. Profoundly grow your email base. Be part of the home delivery revival, fill the hungry longing for bygone quality and expertise, or invest in your website like never before and make the leap into digital sales. The options and opportunities are enticing and there’s a right fit for every local brand.

Key takeaway: don’t get stuck in Google’s world — build your own with your customers from a place of openness to possibilities.
A glance at the future of Google My Business
By now, you’ve likely decided that investing time and resources into your GMB assets is a basic necessity to marketing a local business. But will your efforts pay off for a long time to come? Is GMB built to last, and where is Google heading with their vision of local?

Barring unforeseen circumstances, yes, Google My Business is here to stay, though it could be rebranded, as Google has often rebranded their local features in the past. Here are eight developments I believe we could see over the next half decade:
1. As mentioned above, Google could default local packs to Maps instead of the local finder, making their network a bit tidier. This is a good time to learn more about Google Maps, because some aspects of it are quite different.
2. Pay-to-play visibility will become increasingly prevalent in packs, organic, and Maps, including lead generation features and trust badges.
3. If Apple Maps manages to make Google feel anxious, they may determine to invest in better spam filters for both listings and reviews to defend the quality of their index.
4. Location-based image filters and search features will grow, so photograph your inventory.
5. Google will make further strides into local commerce by surfacing, and possibly even beginning to take commissions from, sales of real time inventory. The brands you market will need to decide whether to sell via Google, via their own company websites, or both.
6. Google could release a feature depicting the mapped delivery radii of brick-and-mortar brands. Home delivery is here to stay, and if it’s relevant to brands you market, now is the time to dive in.
7. Google has a limited time window to see if they can drive adoption of Google Messaging as a major brand-to-consumer communications platform. The next five years will be telling, in this regard, and brands you market should discuss whether they wish to invite Google into their conversations with customers.
8. Google could add public commenting on Google Posts to increase their interactivity and push brands into greater use of this feature. Nextdoor has this functionality on their posts and it’s a bit of a surprise that Google doesn’t yet.
What I’m not seeing on the near horizon is a real commitment to better one-on-one support for the local business owners whose data makes up Google’s vast and profitable local index. While the company has substantially increased the amount of automated communications it sends GMB listing owners, Google’s vision of local as an open-source, DIY free-for-all appears to continue to be where they’re at with this evolving venture.

Your job, then, is to be vigilant about both the best and worst aspects of the fascinating Google My Business platform, taking as much control as you can of how customers experience your brand in Google’s territory. This is no easy task, but with ongoing education, supporting tools, and a primary focus on serving the customer, your investment in Google My Business marketing can yield exceptional rewards!

Ready to continue your local SEO education? Read: The Essential Local SEO Strategy Guide.

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March 12, 2021
1:00
How to Select Meaningful B2B SEO Keywords
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]

Posted by Cody_McDaniel

It’s no secret that B2B marketing is different than B2C. The sales cycle is longer, there are multiple stakeholders involved, and it’s usually more expensive. To market effectively, you need to create content that helps, educates, and informs your clientele. The best way to do that is to identify the keywords that matter most to them, and build out content accordingly.

To find out how, watch this week's episode of Whiteboard Friday!

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription
Hi and welcome to another Whiteboard Friday. My name is Cody McDaniel, and I'm an SEO manager at Obility. We are a B2B digital marketing agency, and today I want to talk about selecting meaningful B2B SEO keyword targets and the process and steps you can take in your own keyword research.

So B2B is a little bit different than you would see in your normal B2C types of marketing, right? The sales cycle or the length of time it takes to actually make a purchasing decision is usually a lot longer than you would see just buying something off Amazon, right? It's going to take multiple stakeholders. Individuals are going to be involved in that process. It's going to be usually a lot more expensive.

So in order to do that, they're going to want to be informed about their decision. They're going to have to look up content and information across the web to help inform that decision and make sure that they're doing the right thing for their own business. So in order to do that, we have to create content that helps, educates, and informs these users, and the way to do that is finding keywords that matter and building content around them.
1. Gather seed list
So when we're developing keyword research for our own clientele, the first thing that we do is gather a seed list. So usually we'll talk with our client contact and speak to them about what they care about. But it also helps to get a few other stakeholders involved, right, so the product marketing team or the sales team, individuals that will eventually want to use that information for their clients, and talk with them about what they care about, what do they want to show up for, what's important to them.

That will sort of help frame the conversation you want to be having and give you an understanding or an idea of where eventually you want to take this keyword research. It shouldn't be very long. It's a seed list. It should eventually grow, right?
2. Review your content
So once you've done that and you have a baseline understanding of where you want to go, the next thing you can do is review the content that you have on your own website, and that can start with your homepage.

What's the way that you describe yourselves to the greater masses? What's the flagship page have to say about what you offer? You can go a little bit deeper into some of your other top-level pages and About Us. But try to generate an understanding of how you speak to your product, especially in relation to your clients in the industry that you're in. You can use that, and from there you can go a little bit further.

Go through your blog posts to see how you speak to the industry and to educate and inform individuals. Go to newsletters. Just try to get an understanding of what exists currently on the website, where your efficiencies may be, and of course where your deficiencies are or your lack of content. That will help you generate ideas on where you need to look for more keywords or modifications in the keywords you have.
3. Determine your rankings
Speaking of which, with the keywords that you currently have, it's important to know how you stand. So at this point, I try to look to see how we're ranking in the greater scheme of things, and there are a lot of different tools that you can use for that. Search Console is a great way to see how potential users across the web are going to your website currently. That can help you filter by page or by query.

You can get an understanding of what's getting clicks and generating interest. But you can also use other tools — SEMrush, SpyFu, Ahrefs, and Moz, of course. They'll all give you a keyword list that can help you determine what users are searching for in order to find your website and where they currently rank in the search engine results page. Now usually these lists are pretty extensive.

I mean, they can be anything from a few hundred to a few thousand terms. So it helps to parse it down a little bit. I like to filter it by things like if it has no search volume, nix it. If it's a branded term, I don't like to include it because you should be showing up for your branded terms already. Maybe if it's outside the top 50 in rankings, things like that, I don't want that information here right now.
4. Competitive research
I want to understand how we're showing up, where our competencies are, and how we can leverage that in our keyword research. So that should help the list to be a little bit more condensed. But one of the things you can also look at is not just internal but external, right? So you can look at your competition and see how we're ranking or comparing at least on the web.

What do they use? What sort of content do they have on their website? What are they promoting? How are they framing that conversation? Are they using blog posts? All that information is going to be useful for maybe developing your own strategies or maybe finding a niche where, if you have particularly stiff competition, you can find areas they're not discussing.

But use that competition as a framework for identifying areas and potential opportunities and how the general public or industry speaks to some of the content that you're interested in writing about. So once you have that list, it should be pretty big, good idea of the ecosystem you're working with, it's important to gather metrics.
5. Gather metrics
This is going to contextualize the information that you have, right? You want to make informed decisions on the keywords that you have, so this metric gathering will be important. There are a lot of different ways you can do it. Here at Obility, we might categorize them by different topic types so we can make sure that we're touching on all the different levels of keyword usage for the different topics that we discuss in our content.

You can look at things like search volume. There a lot of different tools that do that, the same ones I mentioned earlier — Moz, SpyFu, SEMrush. There's a great tool we use called Keyword Keg, that kind of sort of aggregates all of them. But that will give you an idea search volume on a monthly basis. But you can also use other metrics, things like difficulty, like how hard it is to rank compared to some of the other people on the web, or organic click-through rate, like what's the level of competition you're going to be going up against in terms of ads or videos or carousels or other sort of Google snippets.

Moz does a great job of that. So use these metrics, and what they should help you do is contextualize the information so that maybe if you're pretty close on two or three keywords, that metric gathering should help you identify which one is maybe the easiest, it has the most potential, so on and so forth. So once you have that, you should be getting a good understanding of where each of those keywords lives and you should be selecting your targets.
6. Select target keywords
Now I've run through a ton of clients who former agencies have sent them a list of 300 to 400 keywords that they're trying to rank for, and I cannot stand it. There's no value to be had, because how can you possibly try and optimize and rank for hundreds and hundreds of different variations of keywords. It would take too long, right? You could spend years in that rabbit hole.

What we try to do is focus on maybe 30 or 40 keywords and really narrow down what sort of content is going to be created for it, what you need to optimize. Does it exist on your website? If not, what do we need to make? Having that list makes a much more compartmentalized marketing strategy, and you can actually look at that and weigh it against how you're currently deploying content internally.

You can look at success metrics and KPIs. It just helps to have something a little bit more tangible to bite down on. Of course, you can grow from there, right? You start ranking well for those 20 or 30 terms, and you can add a few more on at the end of it. But again, I think it's really important to focus on a very select number, categorizing them by the importance of which ones you want to go first, and start there because this process in content creation takes a long time.
7. Consider intent
But once you've selected those, it's also important to consider intent. You can see I've outlined intent here a little bit more in depth. What do I mean by that? Well, the best way that I've seen intent described online is as an equation. So every query is made up of two parts, the implicit and the explicit. What are you saying, and what do you mean when you're saying it?

So when I think of that and trying to relate it to keywords, it's really important to use that framework to develop the strategy that you have. An example that I have here is "email marketing." So what's the implicit and explicit nature of that? Well, "email marketing" is a pretty broad term.

So implicitly they're probably looking to educate themselves on the topic, learn a little bit more about what it's about. You'll see, when you search for that, it's usually a lot more educational related content that helps the user understand it better. They're not ready to buy yet. They just want to know a little bit more. But what happens when I add a modifier on it? What if I add "software"? Well, now that you would have intent, it may mean the same thing as email marketing in some context, but software implies that they're looking for a solution.

We've now gone down the funnel and are starting to identify terms in which a user is more interested in purchasing. So that type of content is going to be significantly different, and it's going to be more heavily implied on features and benefits than just the email marketing. So that intent is important to frame your keywords, and it's important to make sure that you have them in every step of your purchasing funnel.

The way that I like to usually look at that, and you see it everywhere, it's an upside down triangle. You have your top, middle, and bottom level pieces of content. Usually the top is going to be things like blogs and other sorts of informational content that you're going to be having to use to inform users of the types of topics and things in the industry you care about.

That's probably where something like "email marketing" would exist. But "email marketing software" is probably going to be sitting right here in the middle, where somebody is going to want to make an informed decision, relate it to other pieces of content on competitor websites, check those features, and determine if it's a useful product for them, right? From there, you can go a little bit further and move them into different types of content, maybe email marketing software for small business.

That's far more nuanced and specific, and maybe you'll have a white paper or a demo that's specifically tailored to businesses that are looking for email marketing in the small business space. So having content in three separate spaces and three different modifications will help you identify where your content gaps are and make sure that users can move throughout your website and throughout the funnel and inform themselves on the decision they're trying to make.
Conclusion
So with that, this should give you some idea of how we develop keyword research here at our own agency, and I hope that you guys can utilize some of these strategies in your own keyword research wherever you are out in the world. So thanks again for listening. Happy New Year. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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March 10, 2021
1:00
What I Found After Experimenting with Google Discover for Two Months
» ‎ Moz Blog

Tags: [edit]
Posted by Moberstein

I’m completely fascinated by Google’s Discover Feed. Besides the fact that it serves highly-relevant content, it also seems beyond the reach of being gamed. In a way, it almost seems beyond the reach of pure SEO (which makes it downright tantalizing to me).

It all made me want to understand what makes the feed tick.

So I did what any sensible person would do. I spent the better part of two months running all sorts of queries in all sorts of different ways to see how it impacted my Discover Feed.

Here are my ramblings.
My approach to analyzing Google’s Discover Feed
Let me explain what I did and how I did it, to both give you a better understanding of this analysis and point out its gaping limitations.

For five days a week, and over the course of two months, I executed all sorts of user behavior aimed at influencing my Discover Feed.

I ran queries on specific topics on mobile, searched for other topics on desktop… clicked on results… didn’t click on results... went directly to sites and clicked… went directly to sites and didn’t click anything, etc.

In other words, I wanted to see how Google reacted to my various behaviors. I wanted to see if one behavior influenced what showed in my Discover Feed more than other behaviors.

To do this, I searched for things I would generally never search for, went to sites I would normally never visit, and limited my normal search behavior at times so as not to influence the feed.

For example, I hate celebrity news and gossip with a passion, so I went to people.com every day (outside of the weekends) and scrolled through the site without clicking a thing. I then recorded if related material (i.e. celebrity nonsense) ended up in my Discover Feed the next day.

I recorded all of my various “web behaviors” in the same way. I would execute a given behavior (e.g. search for things related to a specific topic on mobile, but without clicking any results) and record what happened in my Discover Feed as time went on.

Here’s a breakdown of the various behaviors I executed along with the topics associated with each behavior. (For the record, each behavior corresponds to a single topic or website so I could determine the impact of that behavior on my Discover Feed.)

Allow me to quickly elaborate on the behaviors above:
- These are all topics/sites that I am in no way interested or involved in (particularly self-help car repair).
- When I clicked a YouTube video, I watched the entire thing (I mean, I didn’t actually watch half the time, but Google doesn’t know that… or do they?)
- When I visited a site, I did scroll through the content and stay on the page for a bit.
- A search for a “segment of a topic already existing in Discover Feed” means that the overall topic was something that regularly appeared in my feed (in this case, NFL football and MLB baseball). However, the subtopics, in this case the Cowboys and Marlins, were topics I never specifically searched for and did not appear in my feed. Also, the data for these two categories only reflects one month of experimentation.
All of this points to various limitations.

Is it possible that Google sees a topic like entertainment news as more “Discover-worthy” than sewing? It is.

Is it possible that going to a site like Fandango during a pandemic (when many theaters were closed) influenced Google’s decision to include or exclude things related to the topic matter dealt with by the site? It is.

What if I didn’t skip the weekends and executed the above every single day. Would that have made a difference? I don’t know.

I’m not trying to portray any of the data I’ll present as being overly-conclusive. This is merely what I did, what I found, and what it all made me think.

Let’s have at it then.
How user behavior impacted my Discover Feed
Before I dive into the “data”, I want to point out that the heart of my observations isn’t found in the data itself, but in some of the things I noticed in my Discover Feed along the way.

More than that, this data is far from conclusive or concrete, and in most ways speaks to my unique user-profile. That said, let’s have a look at the data, because there just may be some general takeaways.

As I mentioned, I wanted to see the impact of the various online behaviors on my Discover Feed. That is, how frequently did Google insert content related to the topics associated with each specific behavior into my feed?

For all the times I went to japantimes.co.jp how often was there content in my feed related to Japanese news? For all the times I searched for and watched YouTube videos on lawn care, how often did Google show me such content in Discover?

Survey says:

Here are some of the most intruding highlights reflected in the graph above:
- Watching YouTube videos on mobile had no impact on my feed whatsoever (though it certainly did on what YouTube ads I was served).
- Watching YouTube videos on desktop has little impact (in fact, any insertion of “sewing” into my feed was only as a topic card which contained no URL).
- Searching on Google alone, without clicking a result, was ineffective.
- Visiting a desktop site and clicking around was very effective at filling my feed with “cooking” content, however the same was not true on mobile.
Watching YouTube videos (desktop) about sewing was only successful in getting Google to include the topic in its “Discover more” cards.

I want to emphasize that when I say things like “YouTube mobile watches had no impact”, I don’t mean that as a general statement. Rather, such a statement is only aligned with the way I engaged with YouTube (one video watch per day). Clearly, and as is obvious, if you watch a large number of YouTube videos around one topic in a short time, Discover will pick this up.

I did, in fact, test this.

I gave my kids free rein at various moments to take my phone and watch a large number of videos related to specific topics (surprisingly, they were happy to oblige and to watch vast amounts of YouTube).

I have twin 9-year-old boys. One watched an obscene number of YouTube videos and executed an insane number of searches related to airplanes and flight simulators. I am still awaiting the day where my feed stops showing cards related to this topic. Here’s my search history to prove it:

The other little fellow watched videos about the weather and animal behavior that results from it for a few hours straight (hey, it was during the height of quarantine). That same day, this is what I saw in my feed:

You don’t need me to tell you that if Google thinks you’re going gaga over a specific topic, it will throw said topic into your Discover Feed posthaste.

My goal in all of this was not to see what is the quickest way to get Google to update the topics it shows in your Discover Feed. The point in my methodology was to see if there was one type of behavior that Google seemed to take more seriously than another vis-a-vis inserting new topics into my Discover Feed.

To that, Google did react differently to my various behaviors.

That doesn’t mean I can make many conclusions based on the above data. For example, Google clearly saw my going to foodnetwork.com and clicking on an article each day as a strong signal that “cooking” deserves to be in my Discover Feed.

Google was apt to think of my behavior of visiting foodnetwork.com and clicking an article each day as an endorsement for wanting “cooking” content in my Discover Feed.

At the same time, Google completely ignored that behavior on mobile. Each day I went to japantimes.co.jp and scrolled through an article. Yet, not once did Google include anything even remotely related to Japanese news in my feed.

I suspect that the topic here was too far removed from overall search behavior. So while it was reasonable for Google to assume I wanted cooking-related material in my feed, the same did not hold true for topics related to Japan.

I think this is the same reason why the topic associated with my visiting a site on desktop without clicking anything made it into my feed. The topic here was celebrity news, and I imagine that Google has profiled this topic as being one that is highly-relevant to Discover. So much so that Google tested including it in my feed at various points.

Despite never clicking on an article when visiting people.com each day, Google still flirted with showing celebrity news content in my Discover Feed.

That said, there is some reason to believe that desktop behavior has more of an impact than mobile user behavior.
The case for desktop Discover Feed dominance
About a month into my little experiment I wondered what would happen if I started searching for and clicking on things that were segments of topics that already appeared in my feed.

Deciding on these segments was quite easy. My feed is constantly filled with material on baseball and American football. Thus, I decided to search for and click on two teams I have no interest in. This way, while the topic overall was already in my feed, I would be able to see the impact of my behavior.

Specifically, on desktop I searched for things related to the Dallas Cowboys, clicking on a search result each time. Similarly, I did the same for the Miami Marlins baseball team on mobile.

Again, in both cases, content specific to these teams had yet to appear in my feed.

Here are the results of this activity:

Over a 30-day period, I found 10 instances of content related to the Dallas Cowboys in my feed and 6 instances of content about the Miami Marlins.

Again, just as in the first set of data I presented, a disparity between mobile and desktop exists.

Is this a general rule? Is this based on my particular profile? I don’t know. It’s just an interesting point that should be investigated further.

I will say that I doubt the content itself played a role. If anything, there should have been more results on mobile about the Marlins, as I was very much caught up in the World Series that was taking place at the time of my activity.
What does this data actually mean?
There are so many factors at play, that using any of the data above is a bit “hard.” Yes, I think there are some trends or indicators within it. However, that’s not really what I want you to take away from all of this. (Also, is it such a crime to consume data solely because it’s interesting to see some of what’s going on?)

What do I want you to take away, then?

As part of my data analysis (if you’ll even call it that) I looked at how long it took for a behavior to result in Discover Feed inclusion. Surprisingly, the numbers were pretty consistent:

Discounting the 31 behavior instances around my “Search Desktop No Click” activity (e.g. searching for all things related to "fishing" but clicking on nothing) to impact my feed, Google picked up on what I was doing fairly quickly.

Generally speaking, it took less than 10 behaviors for Google to think it should update the topics shown in my feed.

That’s really the point. Despite the normal things I search for and engage with both regularly and heavily (things like SEO, for example) Google took this “lighter” yet consistent behavior as a signal to update my feed.

Google was very aware of what I was doing and acted on it pretty quickly all things considered. In the case of “food/cooking” content, as shown earlier, Google took my behavior very seriously and consistently showed such content in my feed.

Forget which behavior on which device produced more cards in my feed. The fact that it varied at all is telling. It shows Google is looking at the type of engagement and where it happens in the context of your overall profile.

Personally, I think if you (yes, you, the person reading this) did this experiment, you would get different results. Maybe some of the trends might align, but I would imagine that would be it.

And now for the really interesting part of all this.
Diving into what was and what wasn’t in my Discover Feed
As I’ve mentioned, the data is interesting in some of the possible trends it alludes to and in that it shows how closely Google is watching your behavior. However, the most interesting facets of this little project of mine came from seeing what Google was and was not showing day-in and day-out.
Is Google profiling users utilizing the same account?
The first month of this study coincided with a lockdown due to COVID-19. That meant my kids were home, all day, for a month. It also meant they watched a lot of YouTube. From Wild Kratts to Woody Woodpecker, my kids consumed a heap of cartoons and they did so using my Google account (so I could see what they were watching).

Wouldn’t you know, a funny thing happened. There was no “cartoon” content in my Discover Feed. I checked my feed religiously that month and not once did I notice a card about a cartoon.

Isn’t that odd?

Not if Google is profiling my account according to the devices being used or even according to the content being consumed. All signs point to Google being well aware that the content my kids were watching was not being consumed by the one using Discover (me).

This isn’t a stretch at all. The same happens in my YouTube feed all the time. While my desktop feed is filled to the brim with Fireman Sam, the YouTube app on my phone is a mixture of news and sports (I don’t “SEO” on YouTube) as my kids generally don’t watch their “programs” on my phone.
The URLs I visited were absent from Discover
There was one other thing missing from my Discover Feed and this one has enormous implications.

URLs.

Virtually none of the URLs I visited during my two-month experiment popped up in my Discover Feed!

I visited the Food Network’s website some 40 times, each time clicking and reading (pretending to read to be fair) an article or recipe. By the time I was nearing the end of my experiment Discover was showing me some sorts of food/cooking related content every day.

Through all of that, not once did Google show me a URL from the Food Network! Do you like apples? Well, how do you like them apples? (Cooked slowly with a hint of cinnamon.)

This was the general trend for each type of behavior that produced new topics in my feed. I visited a few websites about car repair, Google threw some cards about the topic in my Feed… none of which were sites I visited.

The only time I saw the same site I visited that appeared in my Discover Feed was ESPN for some of the sports queries I ran and people.com which I visited every day. However, I think that was entirely accidental as both sites are top sources of content in their spaces.

Yes, some sites I visit regularly do appear in my feed in general. For example, there were some local news sites that I visited multiple times a day for the better part of a month so as to track COVID-19 in my area. I freely admit it was a compulsion. One that Google picked up on.

In other words, it took a heck of a lot for Google to think I wanted that specific site or sites in my feed. Moreover, it would seem that Google doesn’t want to simply show content from the URLs you visit unless the signal otherwise is immense.

This leads me to my next question…
Is Discover really an SEO issue?
What can you do to optimize for Google Discover? It’s almost an absurd question. I visited the same site every day and Google still didn’t include its URL in my feed. (Again, I am aware that certain behaviors will trigger a specific URL, my point is that Google is not as apt to do so as you might think.) It all points to a certain lack of control. It all points to Google specifically not wanting to pigeon-hole the content it shows in Discover.

In other words, you can’t create content specifically for Discover. There’s no such concept. There’s no such control. There is no set of standardized “ranking signals” that you can try to optimize for.

Optimizing your images to make sure they’re high-quality or ensuring they’re at least 1,200 pixels wide and so forth isn’t really “optimizing” for Discover. It’s merely making yourself eligible to get into the ballpark. There is no standardized path to actually get on the field.

The entire idea of Discover is to offer content that’s specifically relevant to one user and all of their various idiosyncrasies. The notion of “optimizing” for something like that almost doesn't compute.

Like with optimizing your images for Discover, all you can really do is position yourself.

And how does one position themselves for inclusion into the Discover Feed?

One of the sites that kept popping up in my feed was dallascowboys.com. This makes sense as I was searching for things related to the Dallas Cowboys and clicking on all sorts of results as a consequence. However, in my “travels” I specifically did not visit dallascowboys.com. Yet, once Google saw I was interested in the Cowboys, it was one of the first sites I was served with.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see why. What other site is more relevant and more authoritative than the official site of the franchise?

If you want your site to be included in Discover, you need to be incredibly relevant and authoritative on whatever it is your site deals with.

That means investing time and resources into creating unique and substantial content. It means crafting an entire strategy around creating topical identity. After all, the idea is to get Google to understand that your site deals with a given topic, deals with it in-depth, and deals with it often (i.e., the topic is closely related to who you are as a site).

That sounds a heck of a lot more like “content marketing” than pure SEO, at least it does to me.
A cross-discipline marketing mind meld
Discover, to me, is the poster child for the merging of pure content creation and SEO. It speaks to the idea of needing a more abstract understanding of what a sound content strategy is, in order to be effective in the “Google-verse.”

It’s perhaps a different sort of motion than what you might typically find in the world of pure SEO. As opposed to diving into the minute details (be it a specific technical problem or a specific aspect of content optimization), Discover urges us to take a more holistic approach, to take a step back.

The way Discover is constructed advocates for a broader approach based on a meta-analysis of how a site is perceived by Google and what can be done to create a stronger profile. It’s almost the perfect blend of content, marketing, and an understanding of how Google works (SEO).

Fascinating.

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