Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Lifting A Manual Penalty Given By
Google (Personal Experience)'
Posted by Pinpoint Designs
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
On the 15th of August 2012, our agency's website (which was in the middle of a
complete redesign) was hit with a manual penalty by our friends over at Google.
This came completely out of the blue to us, as we're a fairly small agency that
has never taken part in any unorthodox link building techniques. We offer link
building services to our clients and pride ourselves on carrying out only high
quality and white hat work.
I should point out at this point that our clients have never received any
unnatural links warnings. Since we lifted our penalty, we've also helped many
new clients get manual actions revoked and back into Google.
We straight away knew that we had been hit by Google'sPanda 3.9.1 update (see
comments for updated algorithm information)
After looking at a lot of experts discussing this issue on the Internet, I
could see a mixed bag of suggestions on what people would recommend we do. I
first of all started by sending in a reconsideration request explaining that I
believed there was a mistake. As the majority of our work comes from word of
mouth, we've never taken part in any SEO, but this was something we were
planning on starting very shortly.
I later received a reconsideration request response that said the following:
"Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.pinpointdesigns.co.uk/, We received
a request from a site owner to reconsider http://www.pinpointdesigns.co.uk/ for
compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We've reviewed your site and we
still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically,
look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could
be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include
buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you
to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these
changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or
remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have
additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster
Help Forum for support.
Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team.'
Inhindsight, I should have realised that this was never going to work.
I read many articles on the Internet from top SEO experts and looked through
the SEOMoz guides on how to clear up link penalties, but the general opinion was
that if you had been hit by a manual penalty, that there was a very slim chance
of having this reversed.
I then decided to look at our backlinks using OSE(Open Site Explorer). By doing
this, we were able to see a list of all of the anchor text variants and types of
links coming back to our website. It became clear fairly quickly why we had been
hit.
Silly mistakes
When developing websites for clients, we always include links in the bottom
right footer of the client's website. Usually, this is something along the lines
of "Web Design Yorkshire | Pinpoint Designs". These two blocks of text include
links to the homepage of our agency's website. When looking at the webmaster
guidelines, it's pretty obvious that we should never have been doing this, and
most likely the cause of our penalty.
At this time, we had around 65 domains pointing at our site, with over 1500
links showing anchor text that was similar to "Web Design Yorkshire", "Website
Design In Yorkshire" and so on.
Luckily, we manage the majority of our clients' websites, so it has been very
easy for us to remove these. We updated the footer of each website to remove the
anchor text "Web Design Yorkshire" and saved the changes. We also created a
Google Docs file that included the URL of each website along with the changes we
had made so that we could include this in our next reconsideration request.
The second reconsideration request we sent had a lot more time spent on it.
Instead of telling Google what they had done wrong, we wrote a long request that
had the following structure:
Who we were and what we do
Why we believed we had been hit
What we had done to rectify the issue (a link to the Google Docs file was
attached)
How we knew it wouldn't happen again
An apology
My name / contact details
Note: If you are sending in a request because an SEO company has managed to get
you banned, it's wise to let Google know the company's name and the work they've
carried out. Any information you want to provide them should be added in a
Google Docs document and a link attached.
At this point, we had just launched our brand new website, so I explained to
Google that we had just relaunched and that we were pushing quality content out
to all of our users.
The second reconsideration request came back unsuccessful, and my hopes started
to fade as to how we were going to get back into the search engines. I then
decided that I would contact SEOMoz via a private question to ask for further
clarification and any more tips they could provide. I received a response from
Carson Ward, an SEO Consultant from Distilled, who helped by providing a little
more information.
Carson said that footer links were indeed the problem. There were a ton of
links that said "web design yorkshire" and similar, and this triggered the
Penguin penalty. He recommended using more branded and varied anchor text,
avoiding site-wide links, and, as a last resort, either removing or nofollowing
footer links on sites we had designed.
To minimize your risk, you can do a few things:
Use branded anchor text the majority of the time. It looks a lot more natural
to link back using your brand name. The safest example would be "Web design by
Pinpoint Designs". The slightly riskier "Web design by Pinpoint Designs" can be
a bit more beneficial.
Mix up the anchor text - use different variations so that no single anchor is
overwhelmingly common.
Avoid site-wide links, especially with exact-match non-branded anchor text.
Now that you've already been flagged, you could try doing the above and seeing
if that's good enough for Google. You could also just nofollow or remove the
links. These footer links are already devalued, but you'll lose a little bit of
ranking power by nofollowing/removing them.
He also indicated in a second email that Google has sometimes been stubborn on
reinclusion requests, and that it might be necessary to jump through some hoops
to get back in their good graces.
It became clear that I would have to up my game If I wanted to ease Google's
fearsof us spamming them, so I got to work in trying to clear everything up
properly. I decided to spend a month getting my head down and working on
removing everything. Before setting all the links to no follow,I wanted to give
it once more chance.
We wanted to avoid the Disavow tool at all costs, as the links pointing to our
website were not bad quality.
What worked
We logged into Google Webmaster Tools and looked at the links pointing to our
site, we then went through each of these sites to make sure that any anchor text
pointing to us was only brand based keywords. It occurred to me that during this
point, the only links we really had were from clients websites, so Google
wouldn't really see us as a website worth promoting.
I then started writing articles for our website's blog -these revolved around
social media, SEO and website launches for our clients. I wanted to build
quality content on our website and had a positive attitude of trying to write
engaging articles. We decided not to write articles every day, but longer length
articles that were posted out once per week or so.
Once this has been sorted, we started pushing our Twitter page. We followed
local design agencies and people that we personally found interesting. We always
try to engage with people and tweet about articles that we believe are
interesting. We even wrote an article on our blog about social engagement and
tried to provide useful information to people where possible. It was obvious
this was working, as our Twitter account started growing very quickly and we
were getting favourites, retweets and replies to our posts!
Finally, we decided that we should start doing some actual SEO work on our
website in the same way we do for our clients. We're a big fan of guest blogging
on sites that are related to your industry, so we started out by writing
articles about subjects we are interested in. This includes email marketing,
social media, SEO, user interface design and so on. We then used some great web
tools to find guest post opportunities and got in touch with the blog owners.
An important point here is that we only linked back to our website using
variations of our brand name. This was either 'Pinpoint Designs', 'Pin point
designs' or our domain name. We wrote around 15-20 very high quality blog posts
and submitted them to different guest blogs varying from PR2 - PR6 domains. We
only posted to higher quality blogs, and made sure that they were reputable (as
some blog owners only want your articles to boost their ranks for affiliate
purposes).
All sites were checked out by domain authority, PageRank and a visual check to
make sure they didn't look 'spammy'. We also made sure that the niche fitted our
website as best as possible.
Useful websites
Citation Labs - Garrett's tools are fantastic. I really cannot express how easy
It is to find quality blogs. We used the Link Prospector tool in order to find
high quality blogs that were related to our industry.
Blogger LinkUp -Again, this website is amazing for a site that is free of
charge. Enter in your email address and once a day (or once every couple of
days) you will receive an email with guest post opportunities. You can then
email the authors of the sites to write guest posts for them.
We then went for reconsideration request number three. I put together a fairly
short reconsideration request that was based around our previous request. I
explained that we had worked on building quality content up across the Internet
and that we were interacting with people on social media. I explained that we
realised that we'd made silly mistakes and also included a link to our previous
work. By this point, a lot of our links had updated in Webmaster Tools and the
percentage of non-branded anchor text to branded anchor text had decreased which
was positive.
Only three days later, we received the following email:
Summary
Starting out as a fairly small company, our website wasn't the site we wanted
it to be. In 2012, we decided that we would revamp our website and start
promoting ourselves across the UK. We've been growing quickly year on year, but
we very rarely acquire work via our website. Just as this had happened, we
received a penalty from Google.
After working with some companies who have received penalties from doing
blackhat work, I would recommend the following tactics:
Start by building up a list of all the links pointing to your website - This
is extremely easy. Login to Open Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools and use
other websites such as Ahrefs or Majestic SEO. Pull together a list of URLs and
Anchor text pointing to your website and try to make sure that you always have
more branded anchor text than non-branded. In the Google Panda updates, it
should become apparent fairly quickly why you've been struck with a penalty.
Work to remove those links hard! -Removing links isn't easy, there are
numerous sites out there that will help remove links from you, but it's a fairly
slow process. One of our clients had been using SENuke to build links to forums.
We wrote a small script that logged into all of these forums using the username
and passwords which luckily they had, and updated the info box to remove the
links to their site. Unfortunately, if you don't have the luxury of having the
passwords to hand, you'll have to contact the owners one by one.
If you can't remove links -If you can't remove links, use the Google Disavow
tool. That being said, don't use it unless absolutely necessary. If you're
having to use the disavow tool on thousands of links, then you're in trouble!
Write good quality content -Show Google that you can write good content! Make
sure that all the content on your website is unique, up to date and interesting.
Spend some time working out anything you are not happy with and show them that
you are an authority site that they should promote. Get involved with the
community, grow your social media accounts organically and tidy up your image.
Spend time on your reconsideration request -Google must receive hundreds, if
not thousands, of reconsideration requests each and every week. Rather than
sending in a paragraph, spend some time telling them what you've done wrong and
most importantly, be honest. Tell them why you think you've been targeted, what
you've done to rectify it and how it won't happen again. Apologise for the
mistake(s) and hold your hands up if you're in the wrong. Add in information
from Google Docs to show what links you've cleared off and let them know why
you're worth it!
Don't get involved in the first place! -This is always easy to say in
hindsight, but don't get yourself into the position where you need to clean up
your websites rankings in the first place. We were initially targeted because of
a bad choice of anchor text. Once we were targeted, we had to make sure we were
squeaky clean before having the penalty revoked. Only stick to ethical link
building practices and stay on Google's good side!
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/F7Ws02OyLlA/lifting-a-manual-penalty-given-by-google-personal-experience
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] SEO from a Newb's Perspective
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'SEO from a Newb's Perspective'
Posted by HappyBrooke
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
Authors note: Im new to the SEOmoz community and super excited to be
contributing but frankly, Im a little intimidated by all the expertise on this
blog. Gulp. Read and critique with love and understanding for my beginner
status, please. Here we go!
For all of you search engine optimization gurus out there, I hope my
perspective is a fresh one for you. Sometimes its fun to temporarily place
yourself back in the mindset of an ignorant beginner. You probably cant remember
the day before you understood SEO backwards and forwards, can you?
Well, Im still there. (Yes, thank you for the supportive smiles and knowing
looks.) I still dont understand it all BUT Im on my way, and Im making
progress.
Stereotypes about SEO
In college, my understanding of search engine optimization was that it was for
techie people, a hybrid hobby of computer science and math. Where I gained this
impression, I dont remember, but I truly thought SEO could only be done by the
guys who knew JavaScript and wrote code. That person wasnt me. As an English
creative writing major, I spent my time writing sonnets, short stories, and
articles for the school newspaper.
I loved the blogosphere, but beyond blogging and typical Internet usage, I
never considered learning more about the inner workings of the web. To me, SEO
seemed like a highly complex field easily comprehended only if youd successfully
hacked into something in your lifetime which, as you can probably guess, I
hadnt.
When I graduated in 2012, I realized:
The journalism market was shutting like a Venus flytrap,
I would suffer daily psychotic breakdowns if I had to teach English to
adolescents, and
I didnt want to dish out money for grad school.
So I started applying for every kind of job that involved words techie or
otherwise.
I still thought careers in SEO were for people who solve Rubiks cubes for fun,
take computers apart and put them back together, and keep their scientific
calculators in their back pockets people who live in a programmed, digital
world of computer gibberish, glowing screens, and Internet forums.
Then, as luck would have it, I got hired to do SEO.
At first, I was bewildered. Why would anybody want me to do SEO?
However, my boss told me that my present skill set as a writer would actually
be a good fit for the role. Besides, he made SEO sound really exciting. As I
started to research and gain a more accurate impression of SEO, I was pleasantly
surprised to learn I could actually like this.
Yes, I was unaware of how fascinating the field of SEO is today. This new era
of content creation and ethical linking has my head spinning. Now that Im doing
SEO, Im so excited about all the possibilities SEO has to offer anyone who goes
about it!
Conversion from skeptic to supporter
The first thing I did after I interviewed for my online marketing job at Happy
Dog Web Productions was to download the SEOMoz Pros Free Beginners Guide to SEO
(THANK YOU, GUYS). I took copious notes. I looked things up. I read it slow.
Then I went hunting around the Internet for more information about this strange
new acronym.
As a frequent Googler myself, it was not news to me that people flock to the
Internet like children to the candy aisle. The idea that Google is a diamond
mine for marketing departments is completely logical. I already understood that
traditional advertising and marketing efforts are no longer how we do things
after reading books like Paul Ardens Its Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You
Want To Be, and Seth Godins Purple Cow, among others. The way we reach audiences
has changed. Everybody is on the Internet, looking for answers, information,
reviews, e-commerce, you name it. With the short patience of the average search
engine user, companies have to be easy to find and rank for the right search
queries otherwise, well, tough luck!
I began to understand the necessity of SEO in giving companies online
credibility. Visibility and respect is a hard thing to achieve when the Internet
is overstuffed with information, and even if you have an amazing, relevant
website, Google or Bing or Yahoo! may not see it that way, making it impossible
for people to find you. But optimizing your online presence for the search
engines and the user alike, both off-site and on-site, will eventually, over
time, convince the search engines to reward your quality website with a higher
ranking.
(Whew! See how much Ive learned?!)
The part of SEO Im still coming to terms with is how Google figures out
rankings with its rules and algorithms and valuing certain practices over
others. Thankfully, Im not the only one trying to understand even the most
seasoned professionals are constantly hopping trying to keep up with rapid-fire
change in the way search engines compile rankings.
News alert: You, too, can join the fun
Overall, I understand now that good, ethical SEO concepts are not too
complicated to grasp - and good, ethical SEO concepts are vital in helping
companies get noticed, marketing their brand, and encouraging conversions. If
your website content is online but nobody can find it, why even have it?
You dont have to be a brilliant computer hacker to grasp SEO and how to go
about it one of my most valuable takeaways to date. Yes, you have to be able to
follow Googles algorithmic updates and understand statistics, and having a solid
research and analysis process is crucial, but there's more to SEO than the
numbers.
SEO professionals should be fairly
Techie,
Internet savvy, and
Marketing-minded.
But the surprising job qualifications for the SEO person?
Have outstanding social skills. All this guest blogging and link earning
requires respect, a polite demeanor, and the ability to connect with people.
Be strategic. Strategy goes a long way with SEO like setting attainable goals
for keyword optimization, creating pages for SEO purposes, and brainstorming
what users will want to read and find.
Think creatively. SEO is about attracting people with great content. I never
realized before how user-geared current SEO practices are, which means the SEO
expert juggles marketing, public relations, and advertising hats, too!
Write well. You dont have to be at a Pulitzer level, but you do have to
express ideas logically and write effectively for your intended audience.
When I learned that todays great SEO has a lot to do with creating awesome
content for the user, I immediately realized that this field was a good fit for
me because I like words, and Im a writer. Yay! I know I have a ways to go with
the analytics and research, but I really enjoy my current role on the SEO team.
Itll be a slow trek to reach the level of some of you Mozzers! But Im excited
about SEO and hope you enjoyed hearing from my perspective as a newb.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/DfS1JuE_wmM/seo-from-a-newbs-perspective
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by HappyBrooke
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
Authors note: Im new to the SEOmoz community and super excited to be
contributing but frankly, Im a little intimidated by all the expertise on this
blog. Gulp. Read and critique with love and understanding for my beginner
status, please. Here we go!
For all of you search engine optimization gurus out there, I hope my
perspective is a fresh one for you. Sometimes its fun to temporarily place
yourself back in the mindset of an ignorant beginner. You probably cant remember
the day before you understood SEO backwards and forwards, can you?
Well, Im still there. (Yes, thank you for the supportive smiles and knowing
looks.) I still dont understand it all BUT Im on my way, and Im making
progress.
Stereotypes about SEO
In college, my understanding of search engine optimization was that it was for
techie people, a hybrid hobby of computer science and math. Where I gained this
impression, I dont remember, but I truly thought SEO could only be done by the
guys who knew JavaScript and wrote code. That person wasnt me. As an English
creative writing major, I spent my time writing sonnets, short stories, and
articles for the school newspaper.
I loved the blogosphere, but beyond blogging and typical Internet usage, I
never considered learning more about the inner workings of the web. To me, SEO
seemed like a highly complex field easily comprehended only if youd successfully
hacked into something in your lifetime which, as you can probably guess, I
hadnt.
When I graduated in 2012, I realized:
The journalism market was shutting like a Venus flytrap,
I would suffer daily psychotic breakdowns if I had to teach English to
adolescents, and
I didnt want to dish out money for grad school.
So I started applying for every kind of job that involved words techie or
otherwise.
I still thought careers in SEO were for people who solve Rubiks cubes for fun,
take computers apart and put them back together, and keep their scientific
calculators in their back pockets people who live in a programmed, digital
world of computer gibberish, glowing screens, and Internet forums.
Then, as luck would have it, I got hired to do SEO.
At first, I was bewildered. Why would anybody want me to do SEO?
However, my boss told me that my present skill set as a writer would actually
be a good fit for the role. Besides, he made SEO sound really exciting. As I
started to research and gain a more accurate impression of SEO, I was pleasantly
surprised to learn I could actually like this.
Yes, I was unaware of how fascinating the field of SEO is today. This new era
of content creation and ethical linking has my head spinning. Now that Im doing
SEO, Im so excited about all the possibilities SEO has to offer anyone who goes
about it!
Conversion from skeptic to supporter
The first thing I did after I interviewed for my online marketing job at Happy
Dog Web Productions was to download the SEOMoz Pros Free Beginners Guide to SEO
(THANK YOU, GUYS). I took copious notes. I looked things up. I read it slow.
Then I went hunting around the Internet for more information about this strange
new acronym.
As a frequent Googler myself, it was not news to me that people flock to the
Internet like children to the candy aisle. The idea that Google is a diamond
mine for marketing departments is completely logical. I already understood that
traditional advertising and marketing efforts are no longer how we do things
after reading books like Paul Ardens Its Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You
Want To Be, and Seth Godins Purple Cow, among others. The way we reach audiences
has changed. Everybody is on the Internet, looking for answers, information,
reviews, e-commerce, you name it. With the short patience of the average search
engine user, companies have to be easy to find and rank for the right search
queries otherwise, well, tough luck!
I began to understand the necessity of SEO in giving companies online
credibility. Visibility and respect is a hard thing to achieve when the Internet
is overstuffed with information, and even if you have an amazing, relevant
website, Google or Bing or Yahoo! may not see it that way, making it impossible
for people to find you. But optimizing your online presence for the search
engines and the user alike, both off-site and on-site, will eventually, over
time, convince the search engines to reward your quality website with a higher
ranking.
(Whew! See how much Ive learned?!)
The part of SEO Im still coming to terms with is how Google figures out
rankings with its rules and algorithms and valuing certain practices over
others. Thankfully, Im not the only one trying to understand even the most
seasoned professionals are constantly hopping trying to keep up with rapid-fire
change in the way search engines compile rankings.
News alert: You, too, can join the fun
Overall, I understand now that good, ethical SEO concepts are not too
complicated to grasp - and good, ethical SEO concepts are vital in helping
companies get noticed, marketing their brand, and encouraging conversions. If
your website content is online but nobody can find it, why even have it?
You dont have to be a brilliant computer hacker to grasp SEO and how to go
about it one of my most valuable takeaways to date. Yes, you have to be able to
follow Googles algorithmic updates and understand statistics, and having a solid
research and analysis process is crucial, but there's more to SEO than the
numbers.
SEO professionals should be fairly
Techie,
Internet savvy, and
Marketing-minded.
But the surprising job qualifications for the SEO person?
Have outstanding social skills. All this guest blogging and link earning
requires respect, a polite demeanor, and the ability to connect with people.
Be strategic. Strategy goes a long way with SEO like setting attainable goals
for keyword optimization, creating pages for SEO purposes, and brainstorming
what users will want to read and find.
Think creatively. SEO is about attracting people with great content. I never
realized before how user-geared current SEO practices are, which means the SEO
expert juggles marketing, public relations, and advertising hats, too!
Write well. You dont have to be at a Pulitzer level, but you do have to
express ideas logically and write effectively for your intended audience.
When I learned that todays great SEO has a lot to do with creating awesome
content for the user, I immediately realized that this field was a good fit for
me because I like words, and Im a writer. Yay! I know I have a ways to go with
the analytics and research, but I really enjoy my current role on the SEO team.
Itll be a slow trek to reach the level of some of you Mozzers! But Im excited
about SEO and hope you enjoyed hearing from my perspective as a newb.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/DfS1JuE_wmM/seo-from-a-newbs-perspective
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] Transform Your Blog To A Real Discussion Board Through Blog Commenting!
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Transform Your Blog To A Real
Discussion Board Through Blog Commenting!'
In this post, I want us to see how you can turn your blog to a real discussion
board thereby encouraging repeat visits and improving your SEO through a
positive increase in page impressions, return visits, page views and time on
site. I'm not going to dwell on how to get more comments or why you don't get
comments. Instead let's discuss what needs to be done to get your readers coming
back for more interaction and blog commenting.
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BasicBlogTips/~3/wniV0TLoOzA/real-discussion-board.html
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Discussion Board Through Blog Commenting!'
In this post, I want us to see how you can turn your blog to a real discussion
board thereby encouraging repeat visits and improving your SEO through a
positive increase in page impressions, return visits, page views and time on
site. I'm not going to dwell on how to get more comments or why you don't get
comments. Instead let's discuss what needs to be done to get your readers coming
back for more interaction and blog commenting.
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BasicBlogTips/~3/wniV0TLoOzA/real-discussion-board.html
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] How to Integrate Inbound Marketing Tactics Into Your PR Strategy
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How to Integrate Inbound
Marketing Tactics Into Your PR Strategy'
In the past, public relations has revolved around pushing a message out to a
targeted audience to build awareness and drive sales. As traditional public
relations continues to migrate to digital PR, content marketing, and inbound
marketing, many PR professionals are aggressively learning new skills and
adapting their processes to fit the changing environment. The [...]How to
Integrate Inbound Marketing Tactics Into Your PR Strategy is a post from:
Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/pr-20/how-to-integrate-inbound-marketing-tactics-into-your-pr-strategy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-integrate-inbound-marketing-tactics-into-your-pr-strategy
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Marketing Tactics Into Your PR Strategy'
In the past, public relations has revolved around pushing a message out to a
targeted audience to build awareness and drive sales. As traditional public
relations continues to migrate to digital PR, content marketing, and inbound
marketing, many PR professionals are aggressively learning new skills and
adapting their processes to fit the changing environment. The [...]How to
Integrate Inbound Marketing Tactics Into Your PR Strategy is a post from:
Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
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Monday, 1 April 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] The Marketing Value of YouTube
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The Marketing Value of YouTube'
Posted by PhilNottingham
One of the earliest questions considered by any business, large or small,
investing in video marketing will certainly be, Should I have a YouTube
channel?"
The answer: probably.
.....but it depends on the type of business you are, the kind of content youre
creating and the goals you have for your videos.
In this post, Im going to expand on that answer and outline the core values
most businesses can hope to gain from YouTube as a marketing channel - detailing
how those values can best be achieved, and by inference, when YouTube is an
appropriate platform to host your videos.
What can YouTube do for me?
YouTube is an interesting beast to varying degrees: a search engine, a hosting
service, an advertising platform, a social network, and a community site.
Yet, its identity from a user perspective is that its much less convoluted.The
main reason people go to YouTube:to find and watch videos on the internet.
YouTube is like "Inbound TV."
No matter how users get to YouTube - through Google universal search, via
social media or by navigating directly to youtube.com in their browser - the
intent is the same:watch a video.
By and large, people dont go to YouTube to find products or services to buy;
they dont go there to get news, restaurant recommendations, or travel
directions. They go there for one reason - to watch a video, with the goal of
finding something informative or entertaining.
Search Term
Global Monthly Search Volume - Google
Global Monthly Search Volume - YouTube
Insurance
55,600,000
9,000
Funny Cats
368,000
349,400
In order to get benefit from having a presence YouTube as a marketer, your
strategy needs to harness the nature of user intent, rather than work against
it.
This means you either need to serve user intent by creating content that will
inform, instruct, or entertain; or support user intent by creating ads which can
be served as preroll content to users watching videos relevant to your business.
The primary value your business can gain from investing in such content:
With the right content, those watching informational/entertaining videos can
get to know your brand better and in a positive light; while ads, in precisely
the TV advertising vein, can improve brand recall, perceived legitimacy, and
overall reputation.
There are also some secondary, smaller benefits a presence on YouTube can
provide.
Social network integration
Google+, Facebook, and Twitter all integrate YouTube embeds into their platform
framework, allowing users to watch videos directly from their feeds without
having to leave the social networks themselves.
Video remarketing opportunities
If youre running a PPC campaign, having a YouTube channel allows you to
remarket to individuals who have watched your YouTube videos with ads on YouTube
and across the Google Display Network (GDN).
More effective PR campaigns
Video news releases (VNR's) can be a great way of getting coverage and links
from high authority news sites, as the added media element helps to ensure that
your press release makes it to the top of a journalists pile. YouTube is the
ideal platform with which to provide video news releases, since the majority of
journalists and editors are familiar with how YouTube works, know how to embed
YouTube videos, and are typically happy including YouTube videos on their site.
What kind of content should I be creatingfor YouTube?
As YouTube is as much a community site as a search engine, successful video
content needs to be created for the platform, not just simply uploaded there by
default.
If your company are creating videos and the default position is that all your
videos (irrespective of content type or target audience) automatically get
uploaded to YouTube,then youre doing it wrong and potentially cannibalizing the
benefit you should be getting from your videos.
As Greg Jarboe aptly indicated in this post about the channel-ization of
YouTube,"In order to be successful on YouTube in 2013, you need a coherent
channel strategy."
Really great YouTube campaigns are generally not comprised of one-hit wonders
and a lot of supporting content that hasnt done as well. Great channels (e.g.The
Slow Mo GuysandOld Spice)have successful release after successful release,
building upon quality video after quality video. Your channel strategy should
essentially mirror a blogging strategy. Successful blogs like SEOmoz are not
built off the back of a single quality post and then filled with mediocre
content the rest of the way; the readership compounds over time with continued
quality over time.
Google is also trending towards ranking more "channel results" in the YouTube
and Google universal search (e.g. this SERPfor downhill mountain biking), as
well as ranking individual video pages. This channel-focused ranking means that
If you have videos that arent performing, then they will be dragging down the
perceived algorithmic value of the rest of your channel and preventing it (and
the videos held within) from ranking as well as they should. Your YouTube
channel should, therefore, be lean and mean, containing only content relevant
and interesting for users who don't necessarily have prior knowledge of your
brand. If you integrate this principle into a wider video marketing strategy, it
should look something like:
Content that you want your site to rank for (conversion focused) is self
hosted/hosted with a paid online video platform.
Content that you want to share with those who arent yet part of the conversion
funnel (branding focused) is be placed on YouTube.
Your YouTube channel needs to have series of content that people will actively
seek out and want to watch. This could take any of the following forms:
1. Thought leadership
Display your company as thought leaders in a specific industry by offering free
information that demonstrates your skills/intelligence and provides genuine
value for users. This can be done either by presenting strategic, academic
thought leadership content (such as speeches/seminars), or by offering tips
about a given field of knowledge, as demonstrated in this example from
Sophosoffering quick 1 minute IT security tips.
Has someone in your company recently delivered a presentation at a conference?
Try running a Google+ hangout on air to run through your presentation again,
specifically for wider remote audience. All it takes is a laptop and a webcam.
2. Tutorials and how-to's
YouTube is a fantastic place to find how-to's and many people prefer to get
instruction from a video, rather than a text-heavy blog post. As with the
thought leadership example, if you have specific and uncommon knowledge within
your organization that others would likely benefit from learning about, simple
tutorials can be a fantastic asset.
This channelfrom PartSelect is a fantastic low-budget example. PartSelect sell
parts for appliances, and theyve given away tons of in-depth tutorials about how
to install said parts for consumer appliances, alongside some wider advice for
maintenance. While the content is closely related to what they sell, the videos
are relevant for anyone trying fix a consumer appliance, not only their
customers. This makes it appropriate and valuable for an audience on YouTube.
3. Ads
Paying for video views through YouTube advertising is a completely legitimate
way to generate traction on YouTube. Paid views will increase your overall view
count, and while this wont help your content to rank better, it can help to make
your channel appear more authoritative and well-trafficked than it would have
been without the ad spend. Bear in mind that, dependent on the type of ad
placement, users will be able to skip pre-roll ads at 5, 15, or 30 seconds, so
ensure your video captures the imagination and attention of your audience. If
you have a video that takes a couple of minutes to get going before the core
message is reached, then its not going to be suitable for this sort of
advertising placement.
4. Creative stories attached to your brand
This definition relates to what is perhaps more commonly referred to as viral
content within marketing circles, but i dislike this phrase because content that
goes viral but provides no positive reinforcement of a message around your
brand, and ultimately won't convert to sales or revenue.
As a business, you should not be trying to replicate the success of Rebecca
Blacks "Friday"or I want to hug every single cat since there would be no
commercial benefit from you doing so. Going viral is only beneficial if you can
attach your brand to the messaging, but to actually make the content sharable,
there will need to be a story integrated, too. Check out this example from Air
New Zealand:
So, how do I know if my business should have a YouTube channel?
If your customers, or the influencers of your customers are watching videos on
YouTube related to your industry, then you should have a YouTube channel.
Every company has something to be gained from building their brand, notoriety,
and reputation. YouTube can be a fantastic channel to help achieve that goal,
but only if you have a great idea for content that a specific brand-agnostic
user group will genuinely value.
If youre doing paid search, YouTube can be valuable addition to an integrated
campaign; if youre doing PR, YouTube can help you get to the top of the pile on
a journalists desk; and if youre engaging with users through social media,
YouTube can help to boost the engagements with your posts and campaigns.
When is YouTube not the appropriate platform for my videos?
When the content is heavily product focused and the videos only really make
sense in the context of users who are, at least, initially familiar with your
business and are therefore part of the way through a conversion funnel, it might
not make the best video content.
When you wish to get video rich snippets for any commercially focused page on
your site. YouTube videos will often outrank your site in universal search,
which cannibalises your potential traffic and splitting potential link equity
between YouTube and your site.
When your main goal is to build links or social shares directly back to pages
on your own site through video embeds. Embedded YouTube videos only link back to
YouTube.
In all such instances, youre better off hosting your videos yourself or with a
paid online video platform that will allow you to restrict where your videos can
be embedded, and thereby drive all traffic and links back to your own site.
How do I measure the success of my YouTube marketing campaigns?
The single, most important indicator of success for a YouTube campaign
is:branded search volume.
This is true whether you are running an ad campaign through YouTube
Advertising, whether youre seeding the content socially to generate traction
amongst your community, or whether youre doing YouTube SEO to try and optimize
the rankings of your video in YouTube and Google organic search results.
If individuals are getting to know your business and are specifically searching
for you in Google and Bing more frequently than before, youll know your videos
have had a positive effect. Unfortunately, (not provided) will skew your ability
to accurately measure the amount of traffic your site gets from branded
keywords. However, by tracking percentages increases in branded traffic,
movements on Google trends, and looking at search queries in Google webmaster
tools, you should be able to get a flavour for any positive trends.
Alternatively, if youre doing PPC for your brand name (which you probably should
be), then ensure youre buying unlimited exact match impressions for your brand
name and look for an increase in impressions over time.
Brand mentions should also be tracked. This can be done elegantly with the new
Fresh Web Explorer. Enterprise-level companies can even run brand recognition
surveys and aim to see an increase in unprompted recall.
There are some secondary indicators of success, which should predate any
notable increase in branded traffic or branded search volume. These include:
Referring traffic from YouTube
Any referring traffic you do get from YouTube will almost certainly be a very
small number compared with the individuals who have watched your videos.
Nonetheless, it can be a small indicator of the traction and interest your
videos are providing, since users who actively leave YouTube to explore a
different site have clearly been intrigued by the offering in your video
content.
Theres three ways you can include links back to your site from YouTube videos:
Include a link in the description, just as a naked URL with no anchor text.
Set up the content for advertisingand get an Ad overlay link.
Get approved YouTube partner status (by allowing preroll ads form other
companies on your videos) and then include links back to your site within your
annotation.
Engagement on YouTube
YouTube Analytics has aRelative audience retention report, which gives you a
snap shot into how good Google thinks your video is, based on how many people
have started watching your video and then continued all the way to the end.
This graph is one of the major ranking factors which Google/YouTube use to
determine the placement of a video in the search engine results, and you should
continually be improving and optimising your content to try and minimise the
drops and thereby retain as many viewers as possible to the end of your video.
Your goal here is to see the "average view duration" percentage remaining high
across all your uploads.
If you have some videos which have dramatically lower average view duration
than others, it's a pretty clear indicator this content is not up to scratch,
and you should, therefore, think about removing that content to boost the
overall relative performance of your channel.
Don't measure views. No, really, don't measure views.
YouTube view counters are essentially the equivalent of hits on a website and
are triggered when someone loads up a video, whether or not they actually watch
the content through.
In judging the performance of our own sites, weve moved away from measuring
website hits to look at more meaningful metrics of success, such as unique
non-bouncing visits, time on site, and conversion rate. For some reason, the
majority of us seem to subconsciously assume that YouTube videos should be
judged based on the number of views in the counter. Raw views have not been a
significant ranking factor on YouTube for years and they dont indicate anything
other than a page load. As such, they are a vanity metric that we use to replace
audience numbers from the traditional TV model.
The YouTube estimated minutes watchedreport and "average view duration" figures
are aa much more useful indicator of overall success that counts for bouncing
visits.
FAQ about YouTube and video marketing
"Cant YouTube also drive a lot of traffic to my site, as well as help to build
my brand?"
An anonymous Distilled client, who had set up advertising annotations, put
links in the video descriptions and included annotations on the video linking
back to their site - all with the goal of driving traffic from YouTube. They
recently got 415,000 views across all their videos for the month of December
2012. From these views, they received a grand total of 19 referrals from
YouTube.com, which comes in at a click through rate of 0.005%. This is,
admittedly, a relatively extreme example, but I am yet to see an example of a
channel that gets greater than 1% click through rate.
So, yes, YouTube can drive some traffic, but its almost always going to be a
secondary value to the branding and reputation built through video views.
Hosting video on YouTube with the specific goal of driving traffic is,
therefore, likely a poor strategy and one where where securely hosting your
content with a paid provider and submitting a video sitemap to get your videos
indexed with rich snippets on your own site is likely a better option.
"Google owns YouTube. Therefore, is embedding YouTube videos on my site, rather
than self-hosting my videos better for SEO? Will having YouTube videos embedded
on my site help me to rank better?"
No, I dont think so, as there is no barrier to entry to embed YouTube videos.
If one person can embed a video, then anyone can embed said video - and the
methods currently in placeto determine ownership of YouTube videos with regards
to a specific site are fairly rudimentary.
YouTube videos are, by and large, embedded in iframes since this is a
lightweight, reliable, and mobile-friendly solution. When reading iframes,Google
attribute the content to the original sourceif this page is indexable (i.e. not
blocked via robots.txt).
Therefore, when You embed a YouTube video, you should essentially think of it
as like a vote, or a link to that video on YouTube.com. There are many reasons
why this is a good thing. Since embeds and links are definitely a ranking factor
on YouTube, meaning embedding your YouTube videos will help them to rank better
in YouTube and in Google universal search....but for the youtube.com URL, and
not your own site.
I dont see this trend changing any time soon. Google want marketers to use
YouTube to host all their videos, but so they can drive more traffic to (and
thereby serve more ads from) their own properties, rather than your website.
Conversely, when you use a secure third party video hosting provider (e.g.
Wistia)or choose to self host your videos, embedding restrictions will allow you
to ensure the video is only visible on your site and thereby show off unique
content to Googlebot, especially when a crawlable encapsulated version of your
video file is referenced in the content_loc tag of a video sitemap. Through such
a process, you can defacto "canonicalise" your own page with regards to a
specific video embed, which you are unable to do using free social video
platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
Thats not to say that either self hosting or hosting with YouTube is better for
SEO," but rather that Google has much more to gain from ranking their own
platform in the SERPs, rather than ranking a user's own website. However, that
doesn't mean YouTube is inherently "preferred" in the search results and
self-hosted videos can rank just as well as YouTube videos, provident that
they're embedded on a fairly strong page and a video sitemap is submitted. If
you want to drive traffic back to your site through rich snippets in the search
results, then self hosting or securely hosting is undoubtedly the way to go.
"YouTube is the worlds second biggest search engine. If I decide YouTube is not
a good platform for me, am I not cutting off a huge potential customer base?"
There is a common misconception rooted in the fact that YouTube has 1 billion
unique visitors per month.The myth is that if you dont have any content on
YouTube, youre missing out on marketing to a demographic three times the size of
the population of the entire United States.
The argument above is a complete misnomer. The YouTube community is not a
discrete bunch of individuals who only spend time on YouTube, but rather a wider
spread group of general web users watching videos on the website.
While lacking a YouTube presence may be prevent you from marketing through this
specific channel, it does not prevent you from marketing to a specific
demographic. Especially since the Google account integration with YouTube last
year, the overwhelming majority of YouTube users are also Google users, and
visa-versa. In laymans terms, not being on YouTube doesnt prevent you from
marketing to a certain group of people, but it does prevent you from marketing
to them in this specific way.
I hope you found this post useful. If you have any other questions I havent
covered about YouTube or the wider field of video SEO and video marketing,
please do feel free to ask in the comments and I'll do my best to help you out.
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posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by PhilNottingham
One of the earliest questions considered by any business, large or small,
investing in video marketing will certainly be, Should I have a YouTube
channel?"
The answer: probably.
.....but it depends on the type of business you are, the kind of content youre
creating and the goals you have for your videos.
In this post, Im going to expand on that answer and outline the core values
most businesses can hope to gain from YouTube as a marketing channel - detailing
how those values can best be achieved, and by inference, when YouTube is an
appropriate platform to host your videos.
What can YouTube do for me?
YouTube is an interesting beast to varying degrees: a search engine, a hosting
service, an advertising platform, a social network, and a community site.
Yet, its identity from a user perspective is that its much less convoluted.The
main reason people go to YouTube:to find and watch videos on the internet.
YouTube is like "Inbound TV."
No matter how users get to YouTube - through Google universal search, via
social media or by navigating directly to youtube.com in their browser - the
intent is the same:watch a video.
By and large, people dont go to YouTube to find products or services to buy;
they dont go there to get news, restaurant recommendations, or travel
directions. They go there for one reason - to watch a video, with the goal of
finding something informative or entertaining.
Search Term
Global Monthly Search Volume - Google
Global Monthly Search Volume - YouTube
Insurance
55,600,000
9,000
Funny Cats
368,000
349,400
In order to get benefit from having a presence YouTube as a marketer, your
strategy needs to harness the nature of user intent, rather than work against
it.
This means you either need to serve user intent by creating content that will
inform, instruct, or entertain; or support user intent by creating ads which can
be served as preroll content to users watching videos relevant to your business.
The primary value your business can gain from investing in such content:
With the right content, those watching informational/entertaining videos can
get to know your brand better and in a positive light; while ads, in precisely
the TV advertising vein, can improve brand recall, perceived legitimacy, and
overall reputation.
There are also some secondary, smaller benefits a presence on YouTube can
provide.
Social network integration
Google+, Facebook, and Twitter all integrate YouTube embeds into their platform
framework, allowing users to watch videos directly from their feeds without
having to leave the social networks themselves.
Video remarketing opportunities
If youre running a PPC campaign, having a YouTube channel allows you to
remarket to individuals who have watched your YouTube videos with ads on YouTube
and across the Google Display Network (GDN).
More effective PR campaigns
Video news releases (VNR's) can be a great way of getting coverage and links
from high authority news sites, as the added media element helps to ensure that
your press release makes it to the top of a journalists pile. YouTube is the
ideal platform with which to provide video news releases, since the majority of
journalists and editors are familiar with how YouTube works, know how to embed
YouTube videos, and are typically happy including YouTube videos on their site.
What kind of content should I be creatingfor YouTube?
As YouTube is as much a community site as a search engine, successful video
content needs to be created for the platform, not just simply uploaded there by
default.
If your company are creating videos and the default position is that all your
videos (irrespective of content type or target audience) automatically get
uploaded to YouTube,then youre doing it wrong and potentially cannibalizing the
benefit you should be getting from your videos.
As Greg Jarboe aptly indicated in this post about the channel-ization of
YouTube,"In order to be successful on YouTube in 2013, you need a coherent
channel strategy."
Really great YouTube campaigns are generally not comprised of one-hit wonders
and a lot of supporting content that hasnt done as well. Great channels (e.g.The
Slow Mo GuysandOld Spice)have successful release after successful release,
building upon quality video after quality video. Your channel strategy should
essentially mirror a blogging strategy. Successful blogs like SEOmoz are not
built off the back of a single quality post and then filled with mediocre
content the rest of the way; the readership compounds over time with continued
quality over time.
Google is also trending towards ranking more "channel results" in the YouTube
and Google universal search (e.g. this SERPfor downhill mountain biking), as
well as ranking individual video pages. This channel-focused ranking means that
If you have videos that arent performing, then they will be dragging down the
perceived algorithmic value of the rest of your channel and preventing it (and
the videos held within) from ranking as well as they should. Your YouTube
channel should, therefore, be lean and mean, containing only content relevant
and interesting for users who don't necessarily have prior knowledge of your
brand. If you integrate this principle into a wider video marketing strategy, it
should look something like:
Content that you want your site to rank for (conversion focused) is self
hosted/hosted with a paid online video platform.
Content that you want to share with those who arent yet part of the conversion
funnel (branding focused) is be placed on YouTube.
Your YouTube channel needs to have series of content that people will actively
seek out and want to watch. This could take any of the following forms:
1. Thought leadership
Display your company as thought leaders in a specific industry by offering free
information that demonstrates your skills/intelligence and provides genuine
value for users. This can be done either by presenting strategic, academic
thought leadership content (such as speeches/seminars), or by offering tips
about a given field of knowledge, as demonstrated in this example from
Sophosoffering quick 1 minute IT security tips.
Has someone in your company recently delivered a presentation at a conference?
Try running a Google+ hangout on air to run through your presentation again,
specifically for wider remote audience. All it takes is a laptop and a webcam.
2. Tutorials and how-to's
YouTube is a fantastic place to find how-to's and many people prefer to get
instruction from a video, rather than a text-heavy blog post. As with the
thought leadership example, if you have specific and uncommon knowledge within
your organization that others would likely benefit from learning about, simple
tutorials can be a fantastic asset.
This channelfrom PartSelect is a fantastic low-budget example. PartSelect sell
parts for appliances, and theyve given away tons of in-depth tutorials about how
to install said parts for consumer appliances, alongside some wider advice for
maintenance. While the content is closely related to what they sell, the videos
are relevant for anyone trying fix a consumer appliance, not only their
customers. This makes it appropriate and valuable for an audience on YouTube.
3. Ads
Paying for video views through YouTube advertising is a completely legitimate
way to generate traction on YouTube. Paid views will increase your overall view
count, and while this wont help your content to rank better, it can help to make
your channel appear more authoritative and well-trafficked than it would have
been without the ad spend. Bear in mind that, dependent on the type of ad
placement, users will be able to skip pre-roll ads at 5, 15, or 30 seconds, so
ensure your video captures the imagination and attention of your audience. If
you have a video that takes a couple of minutes to get going before the core
message is reached, then its not going to be suitable for this sort of
advertising placement.
4. Creative stories attached to your brand
This definition relates to what is perhaps more commonly referred to as viral
content within marketing circles, but i dislike this phrase because content that
goes viral but provides no positive reinforcement of a message around your
brand, and ultimately won't convert to sales or revenue.
As a business, you should not be trying to replicate the success of Rebecca
Blacks "Friday"or I want to hug every single cat since there would be no
commercial benefit from you doing so. Going viral is only beneficial if you can
attach your brand to the messaging, but to actually make the content sharable,
there will need to be a story integrated, too. Check out this example from Air
New Zealand:
So, how do I know if my business should have a YouTube channel?
If your customers, or the influencers of your customers are watching videos on
YouTube related to your industry, then you should have a YouTube channel.
Every company has something to be gained from building their brand, notoriety,
and reputation. YouTube can be a fantastic channel to help achieve that goal,
but only if you have a great idea for content that a specific brand-agnostic
user group will genuinely value.
If youre doing paid search, YouTube can be valuable addition to an integrated
campaign; if youre doing PR, YouTube can help you get to the top of the pile on
a journalists desk; and if youre engaging with users through social media,
YouTube can help to boost the engagements with your posts and campaigns.
When is YouTube not the appropriate platform for my videos?
When the content is heavily product focused and the videos only really make
sense in the context of users who are, at least, initially familiar with your
business and are therefore part of the way through a conversion funnel, it might
not make the best video content.
When you wish to get video rich snippets for any commercially focused page on
your site. YouTube videos will often outrank your site in universal search,
which cannibalises your potential traffic and splitting potential link equity
between YouTube and your site.
When your main goal is to build links or social shares directly back to pages
on your own site through video embeds. Embedded YouTube videos only link back to
YouTube.
In all such instances, youre better off hosting your videos yourself or with a
paid online video platform that will allow you to restrict where your videos can
be embedded, and thereby drive all traffic and links back to your own site.
How do I measure the success of my YouTube marketing campaigns?
The single, most important indicator of success for a YouTube campaign
is:branded search volume.
This is true whether you are running an ad campaign through YouTube
Advertising, whether youre seeding the content socially to generate traction
amongst your community, or whether youre doing YouTube SEO to try and optimize
the rankings of your video in YouTube and Google organic search results.
If individuals are getting to know your business and are specifically searching
for you in Google and Bing more frequently than before, youll know your videos
have had a positive effect. Unfortunately, (not provided) will skew your ability
to accurately measure the amount of traffic your site gets from branded
keywords. However, by tracking percentages increases in branded traffic,
movements on Google trends, and looking at search queries in Google webmaster
tools, you should be able to get a flavour for any positive trends.
Alternatively, if youre doing PPC for your brand name (which you probably should
be), then ensure youre buying unlimited exact match impressions for your brand
name and look for an increase in impressions over time.
Brand mentions should also be tracked. This can be done elegantly with the new
Fresh Web Explorer. Enterprise-level companies can even run brand recognition
surveys and aim to see an increase in unprompted recall.
There are some secondary indicators of success, which should predate any
notable increase in branded traffic or branded search volume. These include:
Referring traffic from YouTube
Any referring traffic you do get from YouTube will almost certainly be a very
small number compared with the individuals who have watched your videos.
Nonetheless, it can be a small indicator of the traction and interest your
videos are providing, since users who actively leave YouTube to explore a
different site have clearly been intrigued by the offering in your video
content.
Theres three ways you can include links back to your site from YouTube videos:
Include a link in the description, just as a naked URL with no anchor text.
Set up the content for advertisingand get an Ad overlay link.
Get approved YouTube partner status (by allowing preroll ads form other
companies on your videos) and then include links back to your site within your
annotation.
Engagement on YouTube
YouTube Analytics has aRelative audience retention report, which gives you a
snap shot into how good Google thinks your video is, based on how many people
have started watching your video and then continued all the way to the end.
This graph is one of the major ranking factors which Google/YouTube use to
determine the placement of a video in the search engine results, and you should
continually be improving and optimising your content to try and minimise the
drops and thereby retain as many viewers as possible to the end of your video.
Your goal here is to see the "average view duration" percentage remaining high
across all your uploads.
If you have some videos which have dramatically lower average view duration
than others, it's a pretty clear indicator this content is not up to scratch,
and you should, therefore, think about removing that content to boost the
overall relative performance of your channel.
Don't measure views. No, really, don't measure views.
YouTube view counters are essentially the equivalent of hits on a website and
are triggered when someone loads up a video, whether or not they actually watch
the content through.
In judging the performance of our own sites, weve moved away from measuring
website hits to look at more meaningful metrics of success, such as unique
non-bouncing visits, time on site, and conversion rate. For some reason, the
majority of us seem to subconsciously assume that YouTube videos should be
judged based on the number of views in the counter. Raw views have not been a
significant ranking factor on YouTube for years and they dont indicate anything
other than a page load. As such, they are a vanity metric that we use to replace
audience numbers from the traditional TV model.
The YouTube estimated minutes watchedreport and "average view duration" figures
are aa much more useful indicator of overall success that counts for bouncing
visits.
FAQ about YouTube and video marketing
"Cant YouTube also drive a lot of traffic to my site, as well as help to build
my brand?"
An anonymous Distilled client, who had set up advertising annotations, put
links in the video descriptions and included annotations on the video linking
back to their site - all with the goal of driving traffic from YouTube. They
recently got 415,000 views across all their videos for the month of December
2012. From these views, they received a grand total of 19 referrals from
YouTube.com, which comes in at a click through rate of 0.005%. This is,
admittedly, a relatively extreme example, but I am yet to see an example of a
channel that gets greater than 1% click through rate.
So, yes, YouTube can drive some traffic, but its almost always going to be a
secondary value to the branding and reputation built through video views.
Hosting video on YouTube with the specific goal of driving traffic is,
therefore, likely a poor strategy and one where where securely hosting your
content with a paid provider and submitting a video sitemap to get your videos
indexed with rich snippets on your own site is likely a better option.
"Google owns YouTube. Therefore, is embedding YouTube videos on my site, rather
than self-hosting my videos better for SEO? Will having YouTube videos embedded
on my site help me to rank better?"
No, I dont think so, as there is no barrier to entry to embed YouTube videos.
If one person can embed a video, then anyone can embed said video - and the
methods currently in placeto determine ownership of YouTube videos with regards
to a specific site are fairly rudimentary.
YouTube videos are, by and large, embedded in iframes since this is a
lightweight, reliable, and mobile-friendly solution. When reading iframes,Google
attribute the content to the original sourceif this page is indexable (i.e. not
blocked via robots.txt).
Therefore, when You embed a YouTube video, you should essentially think of it
as like a vote, or a link to that video on YouTube.com. There are many reasons
why this is a good thing. Since embeds and links are definitely a ranking factor
on YouTube, meaning embedding your YouTube videos will help them to rank better
in YouTube and in Google universal search....but for the youtube.com URL, and
not your own site.
I dont see this trend changing any time soon. Google want marketers to use
YouTube to host all their videos, but so they can drive more traffic to (and
thereby serve more ads from) their own properties, rather than your website.
Conversely, when you use a secure third party video hosting provider (e.g.
Wistia)or choose to self host your videos, embedding restrictions will allow you
to ensure the video is only visible on your site and thereby show off unique
content to Googlebot, especially when a crawlable encapsulated version of your
video file is referenced in the content_loc tag of a video sitemap. Through such
a process, you can defacto "canonicalise" your own page with regards to a
specific video embed, which you are unable to do using free social video
platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
Thats not to say that either self hosting or hosting with YouTube is better for
SEO," but rather that Google has much more to gain from ranking their own
platform in the SERPs, rather than ranking a user's own website. However, that
doesn't mean YouTube is inherently "preferred" in the search results and
self-hosted videos can rank just as well as YouTube videos, provident that
they're embedded on a fairly strong page and a video sitemap is submitted. If
you want to drive traffic back to your site through rich snippets in the search
results, then self hosting or securely hosting is undoubtedly the way to go.
"YouTube is the worlds second biggest search engine. If I decide YouTube is not
a good platform for me, am I not cutting off a huge potential customer base?"
There is a common misconception rooted in the fact that YouTube has 1 billion
unique visitors per month.The myth is that if you dont have any content on
YouTube, youre missing out on marketing to a demographic three times the size of
the population of the entire United States.
The argument above is a complete misnomer. The YouTube community is not a
discrete bunch of individuals who only spend time on YouTube, but rather a wider
spread group of general web users watching videos on the website.
While lacking a YouTube presence may be prevent you from marketing through this
specific channel, it does not prevent you from marketing to a specific
demographic. Especially since the Google account integration with YouTube last
year, the overwhelming majority of YouTube users are also Google users, and
visa-versa. In laymans terms, not being on YouTube doesnt prevent you from
marketing to a certain group of people, but it does prevent you from marketing
to them in this specific way.
I hope you found this post useful. If you have any other questions I havent
covered about YouTube or the wider field of video SEO and video marketing,
please do feel free to ask in the comments and I'll do my best to help you out.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
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[Build Backlinks Online] Introducing Moz Reader!
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Introducing Moz Reader!'
Posted by Nick Sayers
After the demise of Google Reader, we decided rise to the challenge. Moz Reader
is our answer. We can honestly tell you that this is the best thing to happen
for Moz Reader, since Moz Reader. Just call us!
Moz never expected to get into the reader business. Ever. That is until one man
cornered Rand at the annual Executives Meet at the Top of a Tower conference.
Behind wafting cigar smoke and the thick stench of brandy, Jon White appeared.
Jon (seen in the announcement video) came from British-controlled Colonial Hong
Kong with news of an emerging fad: feeds and current events read to customers
over the phone. Bloody genius, he called it. Rand figured if Hong Kong was doing
it, we should, too. The rest is history.
Here we are 25 years later, and finally launching Moz Reader.
On a side note, Jon is only fluent in British and Cantonese, so he hasnt quite
learned how to write American yet. Thats why the Communications Team (Elijah and
I) decided to give the jolly ol chap a hand with the video and announcement.
Without further ado...check out the Moz Reader features!
Moz Readers
Are you ready for a crack team of professional voices to read you content until
your heart is content? Meet the Moz Reader team. After you experience our
voices, you wont be able to read a blog post on your own again.
Each and every one of the team may or may not have benefits enjoyed by most
first-world companies! As independent contractors, they have the freedom to
choose their own benefits and doctors without any corporate strings attached. No
HR suit is going to tell them how to obtain their own medical coverage!
Real Celebrity Voices
Thats right, folks! We have friends in lowerr, high places. Do you want your
blog read by Keanu Reeves, Oprah, Ahnuld, Whoopi Goldberg, or Nic Cage? Well,
youre in luck. Just request one of our celebrity contributors, and get your feed
read to you with class, grit, or drama.
Content Filtering
Like listening to your favorite blogs with the whole family? Well, with a new
uber-complex-algorithmic-math-formula our Big Data team engineered, you can keep
your mind at ease. The little ones will never hear any naughty words. Just tell
your reader that you dont want artistically-crafted content and would rather we
filter it!
Notifications
No more waiting for your computer to start or opening a battery-draining app on
your coveted RAZR! As soon as something pops up in your RSS feeds, were going to
call you on every number we can dig up to read you what you need to hear. Busy
the minute we call? We will call you two minutes later! Persistence is our
middle name. Thats right, Moz Persistence Reader.
Easy Sharing
Want to share something we read to you? Give us your closest friends phone
numbers and we will give em a call! Heck, we will even save their phone numbers
in a social database for other companies to access and offer them
once-in-a-lifetime deals.
If this doesnt have you doing back flips out of sheer excitement, then youre
probably in a coma! Well, thats enough from us. Happy reading!
If you have feedback for Moz Reader, please call your Moz Reader Specialist of
Director Relations Customer Liaison and talk over them as they read your feeds!
Dont worry, we will log your feedback and take it into account when we cycle
through our current Moz Reader contractors.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/VyvKL_b8Z8E/introducing-moz-reader
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by Nick Sayers
After the demise of Google Reader, we decided rise to the challenge. Moz Reader
is our answer. We can honestly tell you that this is the best thing to happen
for Moz Reader, since Moz Reader. Just call us!
Moz never expected to get into the reader business. Ever. That is until one man
cornered Rand at the annual Executives Meet at the Top of a Tower conference.
Behind wafting cigar smoke and the thick stench of brandy, Jon White appeared.
Jon (seen in the announcement video) came from British-controlled Colonial Hong
Kong with news of an emerging fad: feeds and current events read to customers
over the phone. Bloody genius, he called it. Rand figured if Hong Kong was doing
it, we should, too. The rest is history.
Here we are 25 years later, and finally launching Moz Reader.
On a side note, Jon is only fluent in British and Cantonese, so he hasnt quite
learned how to write American yet. Thats why the Communications Team (Elijah and
I) decided to give the jolly ol chap a hand with the video and announcement.
Without further ado...check out the Moz Reader features!
Moz Readers
Are you ready for a crack team of professional voices to read you content until
your heart is content? Meet the Moz Reader team. After you experience our
voices, you wont be able to read a blog post on your own again.
Each and every one of the team may or may not have benefits enjoyed by most
first-world companies! As independent contractors, they have the freedom to
choose their own benefits and doctors without any corporate strings attached. No
HR suit is going to tell them how to obtain their own medical coverage!
Real Celebrity Voices
Thats right, folks! We have friends in lowerr, high places. Do you want your
blog read by Keanu Reeves, Oprah, Ahnuld, Whoopi Goldberg, or Nic Cage? Well,
youre in luck. Just request one of our celebrity contributors, and get your feed
read to you with class, grit, or drama.
Content Filtering
Like listening to your favorite blogs with the whole family? Well, with a new
uber-complex-algorithmic-math-formula our Big Data team engineered, you can keep
your mind at ease. The little ones will never hear any naughty words. Just tell
your reader that you dont want artistically-crafted content and would rather we
filter it!
Notifications
No more waiting for your computer to start or opening a battery-draining app on
your coveted RAZR! As soon as something pops up in your RSS feeds, were going to
call you on every number we can dig up to read you what you need to hear. Busy
the minute we call? We will call you two minutes later! Persistence is our
middle name. Thats right, Moz Persistence Reader.
Easy Sharing
Want to share something we read to you? Give us your closest friends phone
numbers and we will give em a call! Heck, we will even save their phone numbers
in a social database for other companies to access and offer them
once-in-a-lifetime deals.
If this doesnt have you doing back flips out of sheer excitement, then youre
probably in a coma! Well, thats enough from us. Happy reading!
If you have feedback for Moz Reader, please call your Moz Reader Specialist of
Director Relations Customer Liaison and talk over them as they read your feeds!
Dont worry, we will log your feedback and take it into account when we cycle
through our current Moz Reader contractors.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/VyvKL_b8Z8E/introducing-moz-reader
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] TITLE
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Dynamic Remarketing Ads: The Future of Google Remarketing' 
You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/B682cFVzCaw/dynamic-remarketing You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Google's new dynamic remarketing feature – currently in beta – is hands down the best release from Google I've seen in a long time. As far as I'm concerned, this will be a MUST DO for all e-commerce websites that are advertising with Google.
I've recently had the opportunity to try out the new dynamic remarketing ads, and in this post, I'll explain how they work, why they're better than traditional remarketing, and why you should care.
Google Remarketing: The Old Way
For any e-commerce website, it is becoming more and more important to have a Google Merchant Account set up. Merchant accounts are becoming extremely valuable within AdWords, as they feed your PLAs (Product Listing Ads), Product Extensions, and now your remarketing efforts. As most of you know, remarketing is important because not all potential customers that come to your site purchase right away. You need to continue to influence them not only through Google search and from your website, but also across Google's display network, as people spend 95% of their time away from Google.
Most people I've worked with have remarketing set up, but it is generally too simplistic, in that it catches 'All Visitors' to their website, and serves them one generic message. Those that I've spoken with that are ahead of the curve, are segmenting visitors to their site, and remarketing to those that have 'Abandoned the Shopping Cart' or 'Visited A Product Page.' If you've gotten this far, bravo, you are doing a much better job than most of your competitors. However, this strategy has always been a HUGE undertaking. What if you have 50,000 products? Are you going to create 50,000 audience segments, and 50,000 unique image ads?
How Dynamic Remarketing Is Different
I know the biggest pain point in my remarketing efforts has always been getting image ads generated for all of the products for sale. With Google's new Dynamic Remarketing feature (still in beta), Google will dynamically create ads for you that include your price, image, and text of your choice, all based on the behavior of your website visitors. Pretty sick, huh? No more dealing with creative, and more importantly, you can reach your customers with laser-focused messaging based on the products or content they were interested in when they visited your site.
If you were ShoeMe.Ca, an e-commerce shoe site, and your potential customer looked at a specific pair of Converse sneakers, wouldn't it be best to serve an ad with the image and price of the Men's White Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars he was viewing, and throw in a free shipping offer to entice him to come back? Or maybe cross-sell him with a pair of High Tops in case they are going for the Lil Wayne look? It's all going to be possible through Google real soon, and you will see solid gains in performance for your e-commerce website.
How Dynamic Remarketing Works
Here's how it works:
You will be required to set up a customized Remarketing Tag on your site that will pull down Product Identification numbers from your merchant feed and pass them on to Google. Google will then match these Product IDs to your Google Merchant Center feed and use those characteristics to power your 'Dynamic Ads.'
To get you started, there is some remarketing tagging you'll place on your site. The implementation does take some coding knowledge, but if you are running an e-commerce website, you likely have a developer who is more than qualified to work with the JavaScript requirements.
Once the coding is implemented properly, you'll need to get things set up in AdWords. Just like any remarketing campaign, you'll need to set up some audiences to target. To do this, navigate to your Shared Library, Audiences, and then select 'Remarketing list' from the 'New audience' dropdown as seen below.
From there, create a 'List Definition,' meaning select who you want to contain in the audience. In the example below, I've selected 'pagetype equals product.' This means I'll be cookie-ing those that have visited any page on my site that contains 'product' in the URL string. I've then chosen a 'Membership duration' of 15 days. This basically means the number of days a visitor's cookie will stay on my remarketing list.
You can then assign the audiences to the ad groups you think will work best.
Within ShoeMe's account, you'll see four ad groups:
- Product Viewers: Matches dynamically generated ads based on specific product pages visited by the user.
- Shopping Cart Abandoners: Dynamically generates ads based on product pages visited by users who added items to their cart, but did not make a purchase.
- Buyers 3-60 Days: Targets users who made a purchase in the last 2 months for the purpose of strategically upselling related products.
- Non-Product Viewers: Targets users who have been to a page on the site other than a product page, and generates ads based on the content of the pages that the user has been to.
I would encourage you to bid more aggressively for Shopping Cart Abandoners and for Product Viewers (who are further down the buying cycle). I tiered the bidding below with highest bid for Shopping Cart Abandoners, and lowest bid for Non Product Viewers (visited homepage, blog, etc.)
Creating Your Dynamic Remarketing Ads
After assigning the appropriate audiences to each ad group, you'll need to set up your ads. This is the cool part. The 'Display ad builder' will soon have a dynamic ad option as seen below, with each banner size offering over 15 dynamic ads formats to choose from.
In the ad seen here, your potential customer would have likely viewed these products, and is now being served the same product again, or a different style. They can then click on that specific product within the ad and be will be directed to that specific product page. How's that for qualifying your clicks? The ads will also rotate products, and generally be much more dynamic than static image ads.
Why Dynamic Remarketing Is So Awesome
There are companies out there that offer similar remarketing options, but now you can do it all yourself within AdWords without any additional fee on top of your clicks. You'll have much better control on your remarketing efforts, and I'm suspecting huge returns. ShoeMe.ca knows that 50% of its business comes from returning visitors. Of these returning visitors, the average order value is $6 higher than new visitors, and the average conversion rate is 30% higher! Reengagement is a data-proven key to their business, and the dynamic remarketing is reengagement on steroids.
Dynamic remarketing will be a key factor to any e-commerce website's future success, and if you don't get in the game, you will fall behind.
This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.
You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/B682cFVzCaw/dynamic-remarketing You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
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