Why some brands are letting Amazon handle their e-commerce operations

With Amazon dominating online sales in the US, some brands and manufacturers are rethinking the role of the website.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Yes, I want to take care of your spam problem for you

In the fight against spam, CAPTCHA is here to help -- but what's the toll on your conversion rate? Columnist Brian Massey discusses the drawbacks of CAPTCHA and offers some user-friendly alternatives.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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How to Optimize Content for Both Search and Social (Plus, a Headline Hack that Strikes the Balance)

It’s as if they live in different countries: Searchlandia and Socialstan.

Search optimizers and social media marketers don’t get together a whole lot, at least not in the same piece of content. But there’s no reason they can’t peacefully coexist in one article, in one URL.

Imagine. One topic, one message, united in quality, but with two separate and equally powerful sources of traffic: search and social.

Is it possible? Can one post be optimized for both?

Yes. And when it happens, the traffic is greater than the sum of its channels.

Um. Actually, the traffic is equal to the sum of its channels. But we’re not here to do math. We’re here to create the right type of content that gets traction everywhere.

Optimizing for search

Let’s start with a rundown of search optimization.

Our goal here is to indicate relevance, not trick a robot.

After you’ve identified a target keyword phrase:

Use the phrase in highly visible places

Those places are the title, header, meta description, and body text (of course). Yes, the tiny, barely visible places are nice too — such as alt text and the file names of images — but they’re not as important as those primary spots.

If this isn’t obvious, just ask yourself:

If you were building a new search engine today, would an image file name be a major search-ranking factor?

Probably not.

Include words and phrases semantically connected to your phrase

You see words and phrases semantically connected to your phrase everywhere when you use search engines.

They’re suggested in the search box as you type. They’re in the “related phrases” at the bottom of the search results page. They’re in the other high-ranking pages.

Now work these words into your copy. This is the key to semantic SEO:

Target the topic, not just the phrase.

Go wide and cover related topics and phrases, so Google has more reasons to believe that your content is relevant.

Answer all the questions related to your topic

Find the questions that are related to your topic and answer them with your content.

You’ll find these questions in Quora, AskThePublic.com, LinkedIn Groups, and even your sent email folder.

Greater depth means a greater likelihood of ranking.

Optimizing for social

You’ve indicated your relevance, gone wide across semantically connected phrases, and gone deep into the answers that your reader is hoping to find.

Now that your content is rankworthy, let’s make sure it’s shareworthy.

We’ll focus on headlines first, since they’re such an important factor in social optimization. They’re critical.

Think of it this way:

Articles don’t get shared, only headlines do.

Our goal here is to trigger a social interaction. The advice below is more about psychology, so it’s a bit less prescriptive and a bit more fun.

Choose unexpected words

You always want to avoid creating boring content. That advice is especially true for social media.

After all, your potential reader is on social media looking to cure their boredom, right? We need to trigger their interest with some unexpected words.

• Short, simple words will pop off the page.
• Delightful words will squeak past the other headlines.
• Direct words will skewer them before they scroll past.
• Negative words kill it in social media
• But be careful with long words — the circuitous path through the frontal cortex is too slow

Readers scan quickly, so we need some stopping power. That one, extra word can disarm, charm, and twist their arm.

Pique curiosity

Take a look at the headline below. It was one of the top three most shared headlines on Copyblogger over the last year:

One Skill that Will Take Your Writing from Good to Great

Does it make you wonder what that skill is? Me too. It’s hard not to click on it. And what gets clicked often gets shared.

Headlines that trigger curiosity and fascination are great for social media.

Fascination is one of the two most important qualities of compelling content. What’s the other? You’ll have to click here to find out.

See what I did there?

Add numbers

Here’s another one of the top 10 most shared headlines on Copyblogger in the last year:

21 Juicy Prompts that Inspire Fascinating Content

Numbers in headlines have always correlated with clicks and shares. There are at least two reasons why:

1. Numbers are a clue that the content is scannable (low investment).
2. Numerals stand out among letters in a line of text (high prominence). This gives them a big advantage in fast-flowing social streams.

Don’t break your promise

Your headline is a promise. Clickbait is a broken promise, a lie.

Everyone who sees your headline in their social stream does a split-second cost/benefit analysis. They think, “Is this worth the click? Is this worth two seconds of my attention?” The headline’s job is to tell them, “Yes, it’s worth it.”

Be specific. Let the reader know what they’ll get, what they’ll learn, and why it’s important. Give them a reason to stop scrolling. Look closer. Click.

Once they’ve clicked, you’d better keep your promise. Your job now is to meet or exceed their expectations. All the depth you added while optimizing for search will help.

Customize your images

If your content has no featured image, or a weak one, it has less stopping power in social streams.

Two main elements make images more likely to be clicked:

1. Faces. We are hardwired to look at faces. It’s no wonder you’ll see them on virtually every cover of every magazine in the checkout aisle.
2. Text. Since your image appears in a social snippet, it’s a chance to make that promise we talked about. It’s a chance to indicate the benefits of clicking. So put a benefit of reading the post (possibly the headline itself) on your image.

YouTubers learned these tactics years ago. Look at any popular YouTube channel and you’re likely to find both faces and text within the images in their custom thumbnails.

Collaborate (a social approach to writing)

If you want someone to share your piece of content, invite them to contribute to it.

An ally in creation is an ally in promotion.

Adding contributor quotes from experts both improve the quality of the piece and increase its social reach. If contributors are invested in an article, of course they’ll share it.

It’s also more fun to make things with collaborators. Content optimized for search includes keywords. Content optimized for social includes people.

The battleground for search and social tension: headlines

Images, answers, contributors, depth … most of the aspects of search and social optimization can easily coexist side-by-side, but there isn’t much interaction between them.

The exception is the headline.

So, how can a headline both indicate relevance for search and trigger emotion for social? Can you satisfy citizens of both countries? Yup.

Here are examples of headlines optimized for both channels:

• Collaborative Content Marketing: 5 Ways to Make Friends and Rank Like a Champ
• How to Launch a New Product … and Make Your Mom Proud
• 10 Competitive Analysis Tools (and Tips for Spying on your Competitors)

Notice that in each example the target keyword phrase is near the beginning. They often use numbers and trigger words. Colons and parentheses allow you to add more benefits and details.

Here’s a template for search-friendly and social-friendly headlines:

keyword + colon + number + specific benefit and/or trigger words

For example:

Website Navigation: 7 Best Practices, Tips, and Warnings

Does it work? Search for “website navigation” and take a look.

A powerful way to attract more readers

Wherever you’re from — the land of search or the land of social — you’ll attract more readers if you optimize for both.

And you’ll push yourself to write better in the process.

The best content doesn’t win. The best promoted content wins.

The post How to Optimize Content for Both Search and Social (Plus, a Headline Hack that Strikes the Balance) appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Still Struggling with Your SEO Strategy? Focus on These 4 Best Practices for Improved Results

The pressure of understanding the ins and outs of developing and implementing an integrated digital marketing strategy has many marketers searching for a better way. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just as integral to a successful marketing strategy as it was in previous years. That’s right, SEO is not dead but it has changed.

If you’re still struggling to develop a successful SEO strategy, you’re not alone. Search engine optimization experts are still faced with the constant struggle to provide the right results, but the all too often, expectations are focused on vanity metrics or outdated tactics.

Google is making hundreds of algorithm updates each year and they continue to alter the layout of the search engine results pages (SERP). There is constant change that marketers need to stay on top of, which then leads to new tactics that are required to continue to increase visibility online. These changes align directly with the SEO industry. In this post, we outline common SEO situations that brands struggle with including:

• Focusing on the wrong KPIs
• Not updating historic content
• Not implementing strategic linking plan
• Not maximizing potential search reach and visibility

As marketers, we need to adapt and focus on the right tactics to increase the search visibility for each website. Technology has allowed us to reach more people in our targeted audience than before and it is our job to take best advantage of this opportunity. It’s time to dive in.

#1 – Focusing on the Wrong KPIs

One the first blunders that we see brands make is focusing on the wrong KPIs and search metrics. Often times, companies are only focusing on sessions, pageviews, bounce rate, and other vanity metrics. Those metrics are great to monitor each month to track overall website health, but smart marketers should push to analyze more valuable metrics. Valuable metrics are metrics that prove value and show both internal or external clients what return of investment the SEO campaign is bringing back in.

Optimizing a page is a great search tactic but what we need to question what the outcome of that effort is. We need to try to quantify the amount of effort that goes into each tactic for the potential outcome. For example, if we optimize one webpage and drive more traffic to it, but the converting traffic doesn’t increase, was it worth it? In short, probably not. We want to optimize pages that will bring in more converting traffic to the site so we can make money. Showing an internal or external client an increase in traffic is great, but at the end of the campaign the most important metric is how much return on investment the campaign brought back to the company.

TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: Use vanity metrics as a gage of how well the website or SEO campaign is doing, but show key stakeholders how much revenue the campaign brings back.

#2 – Not Updating Historic Content

Another common SEO opportunity is showing some love to high-performing historic content and saying goodbye to the clutter. Years ago, marketers created a mass amount of content for search purposes. That method of content creation worked too, until search engine algorithms got more sostificated. Now, companies need to complete content audits of the historic content to identify what content is worth keeping and/or editing. Most companies that have been writing content for a while have quality content that needs to be refreshed to stay current.

Historic content should be either updated or removed from the search index (deleted or noindexed). By removing the content that is no longer relevant, you can turn focus to the pages that you want to get traffic too. Most websites get the majority of their traffic from only a select amount of pages instead of traffic being evenly spread out. Focus on those pages that bring in  qualified traffic and either refresh the content or implement some new SEO recommendations.

TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: Refresh historic content that contains priority keyword rankings that are on the second or third page of Google. To identify those pages, use tools like SEMrush or Google Search Console to see how individual pages are performing with keyword rankings and impressions. Those pages of content contain a high amount of potential to increase search visibility quickly.

#3 – Not Implementing Strategic Linking Plan

Believe it or not, strategic linking is still incredibly important for SEO. Too often, companies are forgetting to add internal links to other related content within their site. Internal links help search engines crawl and index pages, as well as pass authority throughout your site. Internal links are an essential part of your website ecosystem and there needs to be a strategic plan on how to link to related pages with the correct type of anchor text.

Additionally, make a habit of linking to related sites that can be used as references. External links to sites help provide credibility for your content and can help search engines understand more context of the content.

TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: After conducting a content audit on a website and identifying what historic content needs to be updated, develop a strategic internal linking plan to link to and from historic content to new content.

#4 – Are you missing out on your SEO potential?

Marketers often forget that there are additional optimization opportunities outside of Google. YouTube, Amazon, and other third-party sites are great places to optimize for in addition to Google. SEO team members should conduct a thorough analysis of where the brand’s audience is spending time online. Google stated in a recent report that “how to” searches have increased by 70% year-over-year. That growth is a great opportunity for marketers to create videos for your audience in another location to maximize visibility.

Besides YouTube, Amazon is another great channel to optimize for ecommerce sites. Adding products to Amazon and optimizing each listing helps put your product in front of your audience besides your website. Focus on getting positive reviews for your listings to help with search visibility. Speaking of reviews, don’t forget about your local listings as another mean of search reach. Optimizing your search listings with positive reviews and local citations to increase local search traffic.

TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: Optimize your current YouTube videos by adding a description, transcript, correct tags, optimizing the title of the video. Also, embed videos to your pages with a transcript to the video right under it and add video schema to the page.

Stop Making the Same SEO Mistakes

These tips only scratch the surface as there are even more common SEO mistakes that brands should for a healthy SEO program. However, if you’re ready to get started start by incorporating these four strategies to achieve the best results for your website. If you need help developing or implementing a Search Engine Optimization program, contact us for a free consultation.

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Voice AI and More: Weekly Forum Update

If you thought this was a slow news week, think again! The whirlwind of great threads and discussion coming out of WebmasterWorld this week will change your mind.

Probably the biggest news is the U.S. Senate’s decision about net neutrality. You’ve probably heard about that one on cable news – now you can read about it from the experts who make their living on the web every day.

Among other news updates, we’ve also got a neat discussion from Cre8asiteforums about the future of voice AI. Are products like Alexa and friends the future of search?

Google to Deprecate and Remove Trust From 30,000 Symantec-issued Extended Validation Certificates

Google and Symantec have been in something of an extended slap-fight for a few years now. The issues stem from the fact that Google doesn’t always have the greatest faith in Symantec’s system for issuing SSL certificates.

This latest batch of 30,000 smells especially fishy to Google – so much so that they’ll be deprecating and removing trust from them. There is a process to regain that trust, it seems. Symantec isn’t taking Google’s comments lightly, and called them “irresponsible.”

But, as Robert Charlton points out in this thread, that’s kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. An Ars Technica piece reminds us that back in 2015, Symantec fired an unknown number of employees

“…for issuing test certificates for third-party domains without the permission of the domain holders. One of the extended-validation certificates covered google.com and www.google.com and would have given the person possessing it the ability to cryptographically impersonate those two addresses.”

Yikes. AussieWebmaster points out that

“Namecheap is offering free Comodo SSL certificates as replacement of Symantec ones for full term left on certs.”

U.S. Senate Says ISPs Can Share Your Browsing History Without Permission

I’m sure that there are some advertising big-wigs out there who are jumping for joy at the prospect of getting to know their potential customers more intimately (and without the pesky need to ask for permission first), but the users of WebmasterWorld are largely appalled at this development. Keyplyr writes that

“‘Share’ makes it sound almost innocuous. This new vote allows ISPs to package your usage data into various products to be sold to undivulged 3rd parties, for undivulged reasons…all without your consent or notification.”

RhinoFish writes that

“Trying to hide our data, or rely on politicians to protect it, isn’t working. We need ways to randomly poison our data, so it’s utterly useless.”

Give this thread a read for a new perspective on this widely reported story.

Voice AI – What Do We Do With It?

The future of search could be in vocal AI programs. In an abstract sort of way, it seems to just be a matter of transforming currently existing search and web-interaction technology (dialogue boxes, forms, etc) and make them work for voice-to-text. Different languages raise some concerns though, as iamlost points out.

“Being a unilingual English comprehender with sites available in 3 other languages, text input and response is fairly straight forward (hire translators!). Voice is not. Almost all the research being done, and certainly all the work I can attempt to play with/from, is in English. So, while I have got an almost viable audio search input with either/both text/audio for my English sites, that may never happen for the others.”

EGOL points out that voice seems more accessible than the normal computer:

“I am surprised that some of my old fart friends and relatives are using voice input. If you watch them on desktop machines, which they have been using for years, they seem like noobs. But, they are using voice input to search and text.”

What are your thoughts?

Advertisers are Suspending Ads on YouTube

Remember when last week, it was discovered that Google was showing ads for the UK government and some big companies on ISIS videos, among other unsavory things? It hasn’t gotten much better for Google since then. In fact, some advertisers are

“demanding prime space at discounted prices from Google,”

says WebmasterWorld member nonstop. Engine balks at this.

“Programmatic advertising will tend to cause issues. If, as an advertiser, I don’t know where my ads are going, that’s my fault. I’d want to control the ads to know which ones are in my market. Some just want to get to as many people as possible.”

Fred is Confirmed as a “Quality Update,” But Not Everyone is Buying That

There is still enough evidence for some webmasters that off-site factors (such as links) were a part of what drew Fred’s ire.

Even the confirmation is had to call “concrete” – Gary Illyes officially called it an update and John Mueller advised that webmasters look at quality factors to make their websites better. Fred was not directly called a quality update.

Get up to date on the controversy with some helpful links on Threadwatch!

Facebook Releases Live 360 For All

Facebook has been testing Live 360 since last year, and it promises to bring some interesting new live-streaming features to the platform.

If you’ve been using it in a marketing context or are eager to try it out, share your experiences with us on WebmasterWorld!

Watch Your Store Locater Popups

It’s hard to tell if Google’s intrusive popups penalty has had a big impact on the web…but what we do know is that Google has some strict rules about what makes something “intrusive.”

Even helpful popups like store locaters can be considered intrusive if they’re too big!

Twitter to Start Selling Pre-Roll Video Ads in Front of Periscope Videos

Here’s some more live streaming news from the world’s other social media giant!

“Selected publishers and creators can earn from the ads and get around 70% of the revenue from ads,”

writes WebmasterWorld admin engine. That’s pretty generous, especially compared to offers that Facebook has made for video ads. Interestingly, Twitter describes this kind of advertising as “brand safe,” which is probably a dig at all the hot water that Google is in.

Google’s “State of Website Security 2016”

An astonishing 36% more websites were hacked in 2016, compared to 2015. What’s more, even though Google is able to detect these things they aren’t always able to warn webmasters. Your run of the mill site owner might not even know about Google Search Console – and if they don’t have it connected, Google has no way to warn them that their security has been breached.

“Since there is no reliable direct way to notify site owners their site is hacked, having it disappear from the SERPs would be the next best thing… provided there is a privision for the site owner to see an alert in that regard,”

writes tangor. Forum member iamlost writes that “Google is already blacklisting almost 100,000 sites a week for malware and phishing. Granted not all those are hacked, many are purpose-built, regardless the numbers are huge. And does not include sites hacked for ‘SEO’ reasons.”

So You Bought A Business…

Businesses buy and sell themselves all the time. Well, maybe not an individual business but in aggregate. When one business buys another, the big SEO question is

“What do we do with our two websites? How can we maintain as much power and authority as possible through this transition?”

The senior members of SEO Chat have lots of great suggestions. One of the dangers is losing some customers if you just redirect one site into another, writes Prof.stan:

“I know taking decisions costing wise is one of the important factors for the business. But we can’t deny the facts of our audience as they treat different sites as a different entity. So, it might be a possibility if you add 301 redirects then your user could be discarded from the site and that will be reflected negatively towards your brand image somehow.”

But there are other things you can do – and still do a redirect – to preserve your image.

Bing Ads Monthly Budgets to Migrate to Daily Budgets in April, 2017

This could be a big change for anyone who advertises with Bing Ads. The forced migration will be completed by April 30th, and Bing recommends that its advertisers switch to a daily budget manually in advance.

They have some instructions for how to do so and how to make sure that your records remain basically the same.

Windows 10 Creators Update to Roll Out April 11, 2017

Here’s something for our designers to get really excited about! The new update for Windows 10 Creators, including Surface Book and Surface Studio, will be free and rolling out mid-April.

If you use them, then dive into this discussion on WebmasterWorld and contribute your thoughts, hopes, and expectations for the future of these products!

The post Voice AI and More: Weekly Forum Update appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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Weekend Favs April 1

Weekend Favs April 1 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

• The Noun Project – Visually communicate anything to anyone. The Noun Project is building a global visual language that everyone can understand.
• LeadBot – Qualify leads in real-time without having to rely on forms.
• Fieldbook – Create a database, as easily as a spreadsheet. Fieldbook lets you create a custom tracking database that fits you like a glove.

These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

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Marketing Day: April Fools pranks, Snapchat story search & Reddit ads

Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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