Core Web Vitals: Finding Common Ground Between SEOs and Developers
Working with developers to align on technical and SEO priorities is a challenge faced by many in-house SEOs, and by SEO agencies offering recommendations. How do we start conversations and support initiatives that get developers and SEOs all working towards the same goal? Is Core Web Vitals the common ground we need?
In this conversation with Moz Developer, Lucas Rasmussen, we explore his recent project aimed at improving our A/B testing experience and how it overlapped with Core Web Vitals.
Question:What is your role at Moz?
Lucas: I’m a Web Developer at Moz. I manage the Moz website and content management system (CMS).
Question: What was the main objective of your recent Cloudflare project?
Lucas: I started a project based around making an A/B testing suite for the Moz website that focused on improving split test results and a better more consistent visitor experience. The problem we had to solve was to run client side A/B tests without a different customer/page experience. When someone loads the page as part of an A/B test, the page flashes white for a split second and it affects the experience, which affects the overall validity of the test. We wanted to do better for Moz.
We chose to create a system using Cloudflare, where Cloudflare automatically shows two different types of pages. This way we could build a system where the A/B test page loads just as fast as if it wasn’t an experiment.
I had an ambitious goal of getting average page load time across the whole site down to two seconds.
Question: How long did it take from ideation to completion?
Lucas: All-in-all it took around 2-3 weeks to complete with an additional two weeks of planning. This also involved changes with our CMS, and a few misplays along the way.
We needed some help from our engineers, learning how Cloudflare workers actually work. They are very powerful!
The core work took one week in its entirety, working out what needs to be done — getting feedback, responding to that, and actually doing the work.
Question: How are you tracking the results?
Lucas: I’m tracking my results in the Cloudflare dashboard specific to Web Analytics. We are currently limited to 30 days of tracking, I’d love to see more to see changes over time.
It might be worth noting that if you want more data, Moz Pro Performance Metrics section of Site Crawl displays historical data for up to 90 days for tracked URLs.
I’m keeping an eye on what’s going on with the page load time, especially the request time. When the timing goes up, that’s a flag that there is a problem somewhere. It indicates to me that something isn't cached.
Looking back at our ambitious goal of getting average page load time across the whole site down to 2 seconds. We have currently plateaued at 2.6 seconds. But we are tracking a large portion of users across the whole site.
Question: What was the most enjoyable part of the project for you?
Lucas: Turning it on and seeing the impact and change to page load time — l Ioved being able to see real-world results. And in this case IT WORKED. There are so many changes you can make and you think they are going to change something, and even if you know they are going to make a difference, you might not see the impact... When I changed users to cached the difference was significant, from around 1,500 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds.
Question: What do you know about the importance of Core Web Vitals?
Lucas: I do have visibility into Core Web Vitals as a concept. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) in particular is a metric I track in the Analytics dashboard.
Click on the GIF for a handy refresher on what LCP is from our learn center.
If SEO practitioners are looking to explore their Core Web Vitals and start conversations with their developers, they can do that through the Moz Pro interface.
The Performance Metrics feature in Moz Pro really enables SEOs to automate and streamline performance analysis so you can collect and track performance in one place. It also allows you to identify critical pages that need to be optimized. Get a holistic viewpoint on how your pages are performing for core web vitals and performance, alongside other additional SEO data like page authority, rankings, traffic and other crawl issues. We provide non-technical, non-jargony language that helps you understand how you can start fixing things to improve those scores.
via Blogger https://ift.tt/ZywqThD
April 05, 2022 at 02:57PM
Core Web Vitals: Finding Common Ground Between SEOs and Developers
Working with developers to align on technical and SEO priorities is a challenge faced by many in-house SEOs, and by SEO agencies offering recommendations. How do we start conversations and support initiatives that get developers and SEOs all working towards the same goal? Is Core Web Vitals the common ground we need?
In this conversation with Moz Developer, Lucas Rasmussen, we explore his recent project aimed at improving our A/B testing experience and how it overlapped with Core Web Vitals.
Question:What is your role at Moz?
Lucas: I’m a Web Developer at Moz. I manage the Moz website and content management system (CMS).
Question: What was the main objective of your recent Cloudflare project?
Lucas: I started a project based around making an A/B testing suite for the Moz website that focused on improving split test results and a better more consistent visitor experience. The problem we had to solve was to run client side A/B tests without a different customer/page experience. When someone loads the page as part of an A/B test, the page flashes white for a split second and it affects the experience, which affects the overall validity of the test. We wanted to do better for Moz.
We chose to create a system using Cloudflare, where Cloudflare automatically shows two different types of pages. This way we could build a system where the A/B test page loads just as fast as if it wasn’t an experiment.
I had an ambitious goal of getting average page load time across the whole site down to two seconds.
Question: How long did it take from ideation to completion?
Lucas: All-in-all it took around 2-3 weeks to complete with an additional two weeks of planning. This also involved changes with our CMS, and a few misplays along the way.
We needed some help from our engineers, learning how Cloudflare workers actually work. They are very powerful!
The core work took one week in its entirety, working out what needs to be done — getting feedback, responding to that, and actually doing the work.
Question: How are you tracking the results?
Lucas: I’m tracking my results in the Cloudflare dashboard specific to Web Analytics. We are currently limited to 30 days of tracking, I’d love to see more to see changes over time.
It might be worth noting that if you want more data, Moz Pro Performance Metrics section of Site Crawl displays historical data for up to 90 days for tracked URLs.
I’m keeping an eye on what’s going on with the page load time, especially the request time. When the timing goes up, that’s a flag that there is a problem somewhere. It indicates to me that something isn't cached.
Looking back at our ambitious goal of getting average page load time across the whole site down to 2 seconds. We have currently plateaued at 2.6 seconds. But we are tracking a large portion of users across the whole site.
Question: What was the most enjoyable part of the project for you?
Lucas: Turning it on and seeing the impact and change to page load time — l Ioved being able to see real-world results. And in this case IT WORKED. There are so many changes you can make and you think they are going to change something, and even if you know they are going to make a difference, you might not see the impact... When I changed users to cached the difference was significant, from around 1,500 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds.
Question: What do you know about the importance of Core Web Vitals?
Lucas: I do have visibility into Core Web Vitals as a concept. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) in particular is a metric I track in the Analytics dashboard.
Click on the GIF for a handy refresher on what LCP is from our learn center.
If SEO practitioners are looking to explore their Core Web Vitals and start conversations with their developers, they can do that through the Moz Pro interface.
The Performance Metrics feature in Moz Pro really enables SEOs to automate and streamline performance analysis so you can collect and track performance in one place. It also allows you to identify critical pages that need to be optimized. Get a holistic viewpoint on how your pages are performing for core web vitals and performance, alongside other additional SEO data like page authority, rankings, traffic and other crawl issues. We provide non-technical, non-jargony language that helps you understand how you can start fixing things to improve those scores.
via Blogger https://ift.tt/ZywqThD
April 05, 2022 at 02:57PM
8 Q1 Local Search Developments You Need to Know About
8 Q1 Local Search Developments You Need to Know About
A constant stream of developments and issues are the simple building blocks that shape our dynamic local search environment but the task of keeping up with the ongoing news can be complex when you’ve already got plenty to do. The first quarter of 2022 brought us some new opportunities (and a few problems) which you might have missed due to general busy-ness. Today’s column is a quick roundup of interesting happenings that merit your awareness for the sake of the local businesses you market.
1. Google really wants local businesses to discover Pointy
First time ever seeing this "Help customers find products they need" module inside the Google Business Profile dashboard. @rustybrickpic.twitter.com/2zWbpI0qvT
Colan Nielsen spotted Google advertising free access to Pointy, right in the Google Business Profile dashboard. The time is right to get clients thinking about multiple ways to vend, and the Pointy system couldn’t be easier for retailers to use. The bigger picture, though, is whether Google’s efforts to promote their shopping functions can compete with Amazon for control of online transactions and how that may impact local business owners. Here’s how the experts at Near Media explain Google’s bet that inventory + local can help them win:
“Local inventory (online) can help divert consumers away from Amazon. But it's not inventory alone; it's inventory + convenience.... stores able to offer real-time inventory and multiple convenience options can win."
2. Google emphasizes recency of business status to bolster consumer trust
Barry Schwartz came across this notification on GBPs stating that business hours were confirmed via phone call, and other labels we’ve discovered have included “Confirmed by this business” and the somewhat mysterious “Confirmed by others”. I take this as evidence that Google knows if searchers are getting inaccurate data from listings that then misdirects and inconveniences them, it will erode trust in the product. It’s an awareness local SEOs have long advocated for the search engine to bring to its review corpus. On that note, the end of 2021 saw the rollout of an updated Chrome extension called Transparency which purports to use AI to predict whether a profile contains fake reviews. If you’ve used it, please let me know what you think.
3. Speaking of reviews, there was a big pause in them posting
If your clients were calling in fretting about missing reviews in mid-March, it was likely due to a confirmed Google bug. Hopefully, you saw resolution of this widespread issue about a week after it occurred. If not, time to review your review strategy to diagnose why feedback you’re expecting from customers isn’t showing up as there’s indication that Google’s review filters are becoming stricter. This development can seem like a big hassle to business owners, but it’s a necessary one. I’m seeing signs that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the presence of fake local business reviews, and if Google doesn’t step up their efforts to limit review spam, customers will lose trust in their platform and your listing.
4. Review snippets can appear right on the map, and it’s pretty neat!
We already know reviews are hugely influential but just think of the impression they must make on customers when they appear right on the map, as captured by Allie Margeson. In her search for local second-hand spots, we see customers exclaiming, “Best thrift store in the area!” and “It’s the best thrift shop ever!” amid the rolling blue and green of Google’s maps. While I’m not aware of any process to prompt this special treatment, it’s just one more incentive to keep public feedback coming in with an organized reputation and reviews strategy.
5. Owner responses are finally showing on LSAs
Local Services Ads finally started showing business owner replies to reviews about a month or so ago (but only on mobile)https://t.co/7pSVJm8zAz
Tom Waddington came to Twitter with the good news that Google’s Local Service Ad reviews are, at long last, displaying owner responses, though only on mobile. With the FTC’s recent accusation that HomeAdvisor misrepresented lead stats and pricing to small business owners, it’s a moment of serious opportunity for Google to treat its service providers base better. Displaying the work business owners put into writing great responses to reviews is one small step in that direction, but there’s so much more Google could do to become local business-centric. Here’s hoping!
6. GBP Insights in-SERP
👀OOH look - Google Business Profile post metrics 📊(views and clicks) made it to the IN SERP experience pic.twitter.com/yc1bwoR10J
— Claire Carlile🕊️ 🌊 🥑 🦥 (@clairecarlile) March 4, 2022
Don’t be startled if you see your Google Business Profile metrics show up right in the SERPs when you’re logged in. I’d predict that what Claire Carlile captured here is one of many developments we’ll see in this direction, now that Google has determined that SMBs should manage more of their experience inside the search engine results. I find that messy, but others may like the interface. This is a good time to review what the labels in GBP insights actually represent.
7. Refine/Broaden SERP Feature Rolls Out
This feature, which allows users to access more nuanced results, was previewed at an event last fall and has now emerged in the US English-speaking market. Barry Schwartz points out that this new option could have the impact of either offering searchers more ways to discover your business or simply distracting them from it. This rollout is a perfect example of the type of test Google is always running in their quest for more relevant results, as we recently covered in-depth here at Moz in QRG Clues to How Google Evaluates Local Business Reputation. From time to time, it’s smart to ask ourselves how our own search behavior is evolving across the lengthy timeline of Google’s feature rollouts. How differently do you search in 2022 compared to your behavior a decade ago?
8. We’ve learned more about Vicinity
Consider this a topic-in-progress because local SEOs and businesses are continuing to discover and interpret the impacts of Google’s late-2021 Vicinity update. This is what we know so far:
Sterling Sky reported that the update appeared to hinge on proximity (like our old friend Possum) and noted that this rollout correlated with the significant changes to pack layouts that occurred in December. Sterling Sky observed that packs were more zoomed in and featured a greater overall diversity of businesses. Their team also shared that keywords in business titles appeared to have been subject to this update.
BrightLocal then published the largest study I’ve seen, to date. Their survey of nearly 400 Google Business Profiles across 5,000 keywords turned up a loss of roughly 5 - 8 places in the local SERPS for listings with stuffed titles. What is a bit stranger, however, is that brands with legitimate keywords in their titles suffered the same demotion. In other words, if a company you market is actually called Luxury Town Cars of Marin, the Vicinity update may have docked it while boosting a competitor called Jim’s Nice Rides. Meanwhile, long business titles also saw downward movement, which will be problematic for any company with a name of more than 31 characters. Such brands saw the greatest losses of an average of about a 9-spot trip down the rankings.
It’s important to know that experienced local SEOs are interpreting Vicinity in different ways, as evidenced in this valuable Twitter thread started by Darren Shaw. On the one hand, you could say that keywords in the business title have become a negative ranking factor. Or, you could see them as still being a positive factor, but one which Google has now simply dialed down, causing the losses. However you style the outcomes, I think there are two important questions involved:
Will Vicinity curtail the practice of keyword stuffing business titles because it’s no longer yielding the same rewards. We can hope so, as the local SEO community has long urged Google to stop favoring this silly practice.
Does Vicinity finally answer all those forum FAQs about rebranding local businesses to suit Google’s historic bias toward keywords in business titles? Companies have done so in the past, but does Vicinity make the practice not worthwhile?
Read the Twitter thread to see a variety of opinions. My own is that a) spammers will take awhile to realize what appears to have happened with Vicinity and so they will continue to stuff for some time to come and b) I’ve historically found that it’s better to do your own thing well than to worry too much about pleasing Google’s foibles. The latter take may seem antithetical to SEO, but having witnessed patterns like the rise and fall of EMDs, I tend to disfavor legitimate local businesses jumping through too many hoops in hopes of Google’s biases and weaknesses shining upon them until the next update. My advice is to keep studying emerging research on the impacts of Vicinity to arrive at your own thoughtful interpretation before changing any of your best practices.
A pattern of significant developments in Q1 reveal a Google which is highly focused on the many aspects of reviews. Take this as a sign that local SEOs and business owners should be, as well. Meanwhile, Google’s emphasis on transactions and search quality tracks their progress in convincing consumers to shop with them, not Amazon.
While the titans fight it out, my Q2 suggestion is to help independent local businesses plan and publicize their summer strategy to keep serving the community amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Don’t buy into the market-driven hype that everything is “back to normal”. Instead, keep ideating on bringing necessities and cheer to the whole community, including the households of your many neighbors with vulnerable loved ones. This is important work, and your success will be reflected in your reviews, results, and revenue in the quarter ahead.
Need help keeping up with SEO news? Please, sign up for the Moz Top 10, effortlessly delivered to your inbox twice monthly!
via Blogger https://ift.tt/BwjxIyY
April 04, 2022 at 05:57PM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/4zkPgqf
April 04, 2022 at 06:14PM
8 Q1 Local Search Developments You Need to Know About
A constant stream of developments and issues are the simple building blocks that shape our dynamic local search environment but the task of keeping up with the ongoing news can be complex when you’ve already got plenty to do. The first quarter of 2022 brought us some new opportunities (and a few problems) which you might have missed due to general busy-ness. Today’s column is a quick roundup of interesting happenings that merit your awareness for the sake of the local businesses you market.
1. Google really wants local businesses to discover Pointy
First time ever seeing this "Help customers find products they need" module inside the Google Business Profile dashboard. @rustybrickpic.twitter.com/2zWbpI0qvT
Colan Nielsen spotted Google advertising free access to Pointy, right in the Google Business Profile dashboard. The time is right to get clients thinking about multiple ways to vend, and the Pointy system couldn’t be easier for retailers to use. The bigger picture, though, is whether Google’s efforts to promote their shopping functions can compete with Amazon for control of online transactions and how that may impact local business owners. Here’s how the experts at Near Media explain Google’s bet that inventory + local can help them win:
“Local inventory (online) can help divert consumers away from Amazon. But it's not inventory alone; it's inventory + convenience.... stores able to offer real-time inventory and multiple convenience options can win."
2. Google emphasizes recency of business status to bolster consumer trust
Barry Schwartz came across this notification on GBPs stating that business hours were confirmed via phone call, and other labels we’ve discovered have included “Confirmed by this business” and the somewhat mysterious “Confirmed by others”. I take this as evidence that Google knows if searchers are getting inaccurate data from listings that then misdirects and inconveniences them, it will erode trust in the product. It’s an awareness local SEOs have long advocated for the search engine to bring to its review corpus. On that note, the end of 2021 saw the rollout of an updated Chrome extension called Transparency which purports to use AI to predict whether a profile contains fake reviews. If you’ve used it, please let me know what you think.
3. Speaking of reviews, there was a big pause in them posting
If your clients were calling in fretting about missing reviews in mid-March, it was likely due to a confirmed Google bug. Hopefully, you saw resolution of this widespread issue about a week after it occurred. If not, time to review your review strategy to diagnose why feedback you’re expecting from customers isn’t showing up as there’s indication that Google’s review filters are becoming stricter. This development can seem like a big hassle to business owners, but it’s a necessary one. I’m seeing signs that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the presence of fake local business reviews, and if Google doesn’t step up their efforts to limit review spam, customers will lose trust in their platform and your listing.
4. Review snippets can appear right on the map, and it’s pretty neat!
We already know reviews are hugely influential but just think of the impression they must make on customers when they appear right on the map, as captured by Allie Margeson. In her search for local second-hand spots, we see customers exclaiming, “Best thrift store in the area!” and “It’s the best thrift shop ever!” amid the rolling blue and green of Google’s maps. While I’m not aware of any process to prompt this special treatment, it’s just one more incentive to keep public feedback coming in with an organized reputation and reviews strategy.
5. Owner responses are finally showing on LSAs
Local Services Ads finally started showing business owner replies to reviews about a month or so ago (but only on mobile)https://t.co/7pSVJm8zAz
Tom Waddington came to Twitter with the good news that Google’s Local Service Ad reviews are, at long last, displaying owner responses, though only on mobile. With the FTC’s recent accusation that HomeAdvisor misrepresented lead stats and pricing to small business owners, it’s a moment of serious opportunity for Google to treat its service providers base better. Displaying the work business owners put into writing great responses to reviews is one small step in that direction, but there’s so much more Google could do to become local business-centric. Here’s hoping!
6. GBP Insights in-SERP
👀OOH look - Google Business Profile post metrics 📊(views and clicks) made it to the IN SERP experience pic.twitter.com/yc1bwoR10J
— Claire Carlile🕊️ 🌊 🥑 🦥 (@clairecarlile) March 4, 2022
Don’t be startled if you see your Google Business Profile metrics show up right in the SERPs when you’re logged in. I’d predict that what Claire Carlile captured here is one of many developments we’ll see in this direction, now that Google has determined that SMBs should manage more of their experience inside the search engine results. I find that messy, but others may like the interface. This is a good time to review what the labels in GBP insights actually represent.
7. Refine/Broaden SERP Feature Rolls Out
This feature, which allows users to access more nuanced results, was previewed at an event last fall and has now emerged in the US English-speaking market. Barry Schwartz points out that this new option could have the impact of either offering searchers more ways to discover your business or simply distracting them from it. This rollout is a perfect example of the type of test Google is always running in their quest for more relevant results, as we recently covered in-depth here at Moz in QRG Clues to How Google Evaluates Local Business Reputation. From time to time, it’s smart to ask ourselves how our own search behavior is evolving across the lengthy timeline of Google’s feature rollouts. How differently do you search in 2022 compared to your behavior a decade ago?
8. We’ve learned more about Vicinity
Consider this a topic-in-progress because local SEOs and businesses are continuing to discover and interpret the impacts of Google’s late-2021 Vicinity update. This is what we know so far:
Sterling Sky reported that the update appeared to hinge on proximity (like our old friend Possum) and noted that this rollout correlated with the significant changes to pack layouts that occurred in December. Sterling Sky observed that packs were more zoomed in and featured a greater overall diversity of businesses. Their team also shared that keywords in business titles appeared to have been subject to this update.
BrightLocal then published the largest study I’ve seen, to date. Their survey of nearly 400 Google Business Profiles across 5,000 keywords turned up a loss of roughly 5 - 8 places in the local SERPS for listings with stuffed titles. What is a bit stranger, however, is that brands with legitimate keywords in their titles suffered the same demotion. In other words, if a company you market is actually called Luxury Town Cars of Marin, the Vicinity update may have docked it while boosting a competitor called Jim’s Nice Rides. Meanwhile, long business titles also saw downward movement, which will be problematic for any company with a name of more than 31 characters. Such brands saw the greatest losses of an average of about a 9-spot trip down the rankings.
It’s important to know that experienced local SEOs are interpreting Vicinity in different ways, as evidenced in this valuable Twitter thread started by Darren Shaw. On the one hand, you could say that keywords in the business title have become a negative ranking factor. Or, you could see them as still being a positive factor, but one which Google has now simply dialed down, causing the losses. However you style the outcomes, I think there are two important questions involved:
Will Vicinity curtail the practice of keyword stuffing business titles because it’s no longer yielding the same rewards. We can hope so, as the local SEO community has long urged Google to stop favoring this silly practice.
Does Vicinity finally answer all those forum FAQs about rebranding local businesses to suit Google’s historic bias toward keywords in business titles? Companies have done so in the past, but does Vicinity make the practice not worthwhile?
Read the Twitter thread to see a variety of opinions. My own is that a) spammers will take awhile to realize what appears to have happened with Vicinity and so they will continue to stuff for some time to come and b) I’ve historically found that it’s better to do your own thing well than to worry too much about pleasing Google’s foibles. The latter take may seem antithetical to SEO, but having witnessed patterns like the rise and fall of EMDs, I tend to disfavor legitimate local businesses jumping through too many hoops in hopes of Google’s biases and weaknesses shining upon them until the next update. My advice is to keep studying emerging research on the impacts of Vicinity to arrive at your own thoughtful interpretation before changing any of your best practices.
A pattern of significant developments in Q1 reveal a Google which is highly focused on the many aspects of reviews. Take this as a sign that local SEOs and business owners should be, as well. Meanwhile, Google’s emphasis on transactions and search quality tracks their progress in convincing consumers to shop with them, not Amazon.
While the titans fight it out, my Q2 suggestion is to help independent local businesses plan and publicize their summer strategy to keep serving the community amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Don’t buy into the market-driven hype that everything is “back to normal”. Instead, keep ideating on bringing necessities and cheer to the whole community, including the households of your many neighbors with vulnerable loved ones. This is important work, and your success will be reflected in your reviews, results, and revenue in the quarter ahead.
Need help keeping up with SEO news? Please, sign up for the Moz Top 10, effortlessly delivered to your inbox twice monthly!
via Blogger https://ift.tt/BwjxIyY
April 04, 2022 at 05:57PM
8 Q1 Local Search Developments You Need to Know About
A constant stream of developments and issues are the simple building blocks that shape our dynamic local search environment but the task of keeping up with the ongoing news can be complex when you’ve already got plenty to do. The first quarter of 2022 brought us some new opportunities (and a few problems) which you might have missed due to general busy-ness. Today’s column is a quick roundup of interesting happenings that merit your awareness for the sake of the local businesses you market.
1. Google really wants local businesses to discover Pointy
First time ever seeing this "Help customers find products they need" module inside the Google Business Profile dashboard. @rustybrickpic.twitter.com/2zWbpI0qvT
Colan Nielsen spotted Google advertising free access to Pointy, right in the Google Business Profile dashboard. The time is right to get clients thinking about multiple ways to vend, and the Pointy system couldn’t be easier for retailers to use. The bigger picture, though, is whether Google’s efforts to promote their shopping functions can compete with Amazon for control of online transactions and how that may impact local business owners. Here’s how the experts at Near Media explain Google’s bet that inventory + local can help them win:
“Local inventory (online) can help divert consumers away from Amazon. But it's not inventory alone; it's inventory + convenience.... stores able to offer real-time inventory and multiple convenience options can win."
2. Google emphasizes recency of business status to bolster consumer trust
Barry Schwartz came across this notification on GBPs stating that business hours were confirmed via phone call, and other labels we’ve discovered have included “Confirmed by this business” and the somewhat mysterious “Confirmed by others”. I take this as evidence that Google knows if searchers are getting inaccurate data from listings that then misdirects and inconveniences them, it will erode trust in the product. It’s an awareness local SEOs have long advocated for the search engine to bring to its review corpus. On that note, the end of 2021 saw the rollout of an updated Chrome extension called Transparency which purports to use AI to predict whether a profile contains fake reviews. If you’ve used it, please let me know what you think.
3. Speaking of reviews, there was a big pause in them posting
If your clients were calling in fretting about missing reviews in mid-March, it was likely due to a confirmed Google bug. Hopefully, you saw resolution of this widespread issue about a week after it occurred. If not, time to review your review strategy to diagnose why feedback you’re expecting from customers isn’t showing up as there’s indication that Google’s review filters are becoming stricter. This development can seem like a big hassle to business owners, but it’s a necessary one. I’m seeing signs that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the presence of fake local business reviews, and if Google doesn’t step up their efforts to limit review spam, customers will lose trust in their platform and your listing.
4. Review snippets can appear right on the map, and it’s pretty neat!
We already know reviews are hugely influential but just think of the impression they must make on customers when they appear right on the map, as captured by Allie Margeson. In her search for local second-hand spots, we see customers exclaiming, “Best thrift store in the area!” and “It’s the best thrift shop ever!” amid the rolling blue and green of Google’s maps. While I’m not aware of any process to prompt this special treatment, it’s just one more incentive to keep public feedback coming in with an organized reputation and reviews strategy.
5. Owner responses are finally showing on LSAs
Local Services Ads finally started showing business owner replies to reviews about a month or so ago (but only on mobile)https://t.co/7pSVJm8zAz
Tom Waddington came to Twitter with the good news that Google’s Local Service Ad reviews are, at long last, displaying owner responses, though only on mobile. With the FTC’s recent accusation that HomeAdvisor misrepresented lead stats and pricing to small business owners, it’s a moment of serious opportunity for Google to treat its service providers base better. Displaying the work business owners put into writing great responses to reviews is one small step in that direction, but there’s so much more Google could do to become local business-centric. Here’s hoping!
6. GBP Insights in-SERP
👀OOH look - Google Business Profile post metrics 📊(views and clicks) made it to the IN SERP experience pic.twitter.com/yc1bwoR10J
— Claire Carlile🕊️ 🌊 🥑 🦥 (@clairecarlile) March 4, 2022
Don’t be startled if you see your Google Business Profile metrics show up right in the SERPs when you’re logged in. I’d predict that what Claire Carlile captured here is one of many developments we’ll see in this direction, now that Google has determined that SMBs should manage more of their experience inside the search engine results. I find that messy, but others may like the interface. This is a good time to review what the labels in GBP insights actually represent.
7. Refine/Broaden SERP Feature Rolls Out
This feature, which allows users to access more nuanced results, was previewed at an event last fall and has now emerged in the US English-speaking market. Barry Schwartz points out that this new option could have the impact of either offering searchers more ways to discover your business or simply distracting them from it. This rollout is a perfect example of the type of test Google is always running in their quest for more relevant results, as we recently covered in-depth here at Moz in QRG Clues to How Google Evaluates Local Business Reputation. From time to time, it’s smart to ask ourselves how our own search behavior is evolving across the lengthy timeline of Google’s feature rollouts. How differently do you search in 2022 compared to your behavior a decade ago?
8. We’ve learned more about Vicinity
Consider this a topic-in-progress because local SEOs and businesses are continuing to discover and interpret the impacts of Google’s late-2021 Vicinity update. This is what we know so far:
Sterling Sky reported that the update appeared to hinge on proximity (like our old friend Possum) and noted that this rollout correlated with the significant changes to pack layouts that occurred in December. Sterling Sky observed that packs were more zoomed in and featured a greater overall diversity of businesses. Their team also shared that keywords in business titles appeared to have been subject to this update.
BrightLocal then published the largest study I’ve seen, to date. Their survey of nearly 400 Google Business Profiles across 5,000 keywords turned up a loss of roughly 5 - 8 places in the local SERPS for listings with stuffed titles. What is a bit stranger, however, is that brands with legitimate keywords in their titles suffered the same demotion. In other words, if a company you market is actually called Luxury Town Cars of Marin, the Vicinity update may have docked it while boosting a competitor called Jim’s Nice Rides. Meanwhile, long business titles also saw downward movement, which will be problematic for any company with a name of more than 31 characters. Such brands saw the greatest losses of an average of about a 9-spot trip down the rankings.
It’s important to know that experienced local SEOs are interpreting Vicinity in different ways, as evidenced in this valuable Twitter thread started by Darren Shaw. On the one hand, you could say that keywords in the business title have become a negative ranking factor. Or, you could see them as still being a positive factor, but one which Google has now simply dialed down, causing the losses. However you style the outcomes, I think there are two important questions involved:
Will Vicinity curtail the practice of keyword stuffing business titles because it’s no longer yielding the same rewards. We can hope so, as the local SEO community has long urged Google to stop favoring this silly practice.
Does Vicinity finally answer all those forum FAQs about rebranding local businesses to suit Google’s historic bias toward keywords in business titles? Companies have done so in the past, but does Vicinity make the practice not worthwhile?
Read the Twitter thread to see a variety of opinions. My own is that a) spammers will take awhile to realize what appears to have happened with Vicinity and so they will continue to stuff for some time to come and b) I’ve historically found that it’s better to do your own thing well than to worry too much about pleasing Google’s foibles. The latter take may seem antithetical to SEO, but having witnessed patterns like the rise and fall of EMDs, I tend to disfavor legitimate local businesses jumping through too many hoops in hopes of Google’s biases and weaknesses shining upon them until the next update. My advice is to keep studying emerging research on the impacts of Vicinity to arrive at your own thoughtful interpretation before changing any of your best practices.
A pattern of significant developments in Q1 reveal a Google which is highly focused on the many aspects of reviews. Take this as a sign that local SEOs and business owners should be, as well. Meanwhile, Google’s emphasis on transactions and search quality tracks their progress in convincing consumers to shop with them, not Amazon.
While the titans fight it out, my Q2 suggestion is to help independent local businesses plan and publicize their summer strategy to keep serving the community amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Don’t buy into the market-driven hype that everything is “back to normal”. Instead, keep ideating on bringing necessities and cheer to the whole community, including the households of your many neighbors with vulnerable loved ones. This is important work, and your success will be reflected in your reviews, results, and revenue in the quarter ahead.
Need help keeping up with SEO news? Please, sign up for the Moz Top 10, effortlessly delivered to your inbox twice monthly!
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April 04, 2022 at 05:57PM
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
SEO is unlike any other digital channel. It does not and cannot live in a silo, while something like a paid search program can be run by a single person with minimal help.
From our experience, the biggest deficiency in SEO campaigns is not a lack of understanding of the craft, rather, it’s the roadblocks that occur during implementation and cross-team collaboration. Great ideas can be presented and discussed, but taking an idea from a whiteboard or a slide to actually living on a site where it can impact performance can be difficult.
Whether in-house or on the agency side, blockers to success often come from internal site teams or long development queues. The key to making progress comes from two primary avenues:
Advocating for SEO through exceptional knowledge of the channel as a whole
Deep integration with internal teams to move projects along
The departments that SEO impacts (and how to work with each)
With a channel like SEO where progress is not solely achieved by one consultant or advocate for the channel, but from the implementation of recommendations, it’s critical to understand how to navigate through a business to make progress.
We break down the departments as follows:
Business / Marketing
Design / Creative
Development / Engineering
PR / Thought Leadership
Content
Business / Marketing
The business and marketing teams are the stakeholders whose resources will be used to execute your SEO strategies. These are the individuals at a company who you must win over to be successful. Ever had an amazing idea only to be squashed by leadership? Many of us have been in that situation at one point or another, so the key is to make the case for SEO.
Unlike other marketing channels where ROI can be predicted, it can be difficult to forecast growth for SEO. How do we provide statistical evidence that our strategies will be a driver for success? Although there’s no perfect science, we break down our methodology below:
Step 1: Start by quantifying potential traffic gains through ranking improvements by utilizing average click-through-rate at various positions.
Step 2: Utilize this data to build a forecast based on investment and potential growth using conversion rate and average order value to predict potential revenue.
Step 3: Agree on a reasonable forecast and set expectations with the client. Ensure both parties are on the same page about the opportunity in the vertical to avoid any potential pitfalls, and keep growth conservative.
Step 4: Start audit and planning exercises. Our audits serve as the roadmap for success and the forecasting exercise occurs during this phase as a compliment to the strategy.
Design / Creative / UX & UI
Once your strategy is approved and you’re ready to build out new pages, new sections of the site, or redesign pages, it’s time to consult with the design team. They’ll be the ones to help you move your recommendations from ideation into a design, but that process isn’t always as simple as it sounds.
The first issue is not a lack of resources, but the incessant battle between UX (site teams) and SEO. Ever heard any of these statements before?
We shouldn’t expand our main navigation because our users want a more simplified approach
This doesn’t meet our brand guidelines as we don’t want any text content on our pages
These site changes don’t seem to ladder up to our goal of getting people to convert
We can’t change that because our users are used to it that way
Although these are all valid statements, they do present an issue with being able to progress and grow organic traffic.
SEO and UX need a balance. Finding it can be hard, but necessary. As the advocate for the organic channel, you must always be willing to argue how and why your recommendations can help the business grow. You can do so by providing clear, concise, and effective instructions to design and site teams.
We utilize checklist templates to provide to design teams an idea of what needs to be included with examples (after marketing / business teams have approved our recommendations, of course).
We finalize these recommendations by signing off on designs prior to development, when the real site work begins.
Development / Engineering
Why are development and engineering resources the largest blocker to SEO success at the mid-market and enterprise level?
SEO is de-prioritized (YES! Even after executives are bought in). We see it again, and again, and again. As engineering and development teams have urgent things come up, it’s easy to move around other projects that are less time sensitive. On average, website migrations we've worked on are delayed one to two months at the mid-market level. For enterprises, this can be much more severe. So how do you get around your projects being moved to the back of a development queue?
It can be hard. I have personal horror stories of asking for the same on-site changes for over three years with no movement due to other internal pressure for other things to be done, or blockers from other teams.
There are two main tips we have for ensuring that SEO development projects move through the pipeline properly once they’re scheduled:
Tip #1: Create in-depth tickets to help alleviate potential development problems. Many times, projects stall out because development can be difficult. The first thing you can do is document in detail what needs to happen. What does the final state need to look like?
Many of our clients work in JIRA, and we are able to integrate directly in to create tickets, comment on them, and QA them upon completion.
Tip #2: Create an accountability tracker. Whether you’re a consultant, and in-house SEO, or an agency partner, a “next actions” or project tracker sometimes isn’t enough. We create an accountability tracker where we can discuss weekly where projects are when they fall on other teams, specifically on engineering teams that are pulled in many different directions.
Ever engaged in some sort of authority building? Well, there’s undoubtedly some overlap with PR efforts, especially with how link building looks at this point in Google’s existence. There is no gaming or tricking the algorithm anymore- linking needs to be through concentrated content development and promotion.
Link building is outreach, and therefore, some of the efforts an SEO agency or SEO team might be working on may intersect. We have three main tips to ensure your outreach efforts are successful and well received.
Tip #1: Ensure that relationship boundaries are defined between PR and SEO. We start every engagement by first asking for a “Do Not Contact” list from any existing PR agencies. You do not want to be contacting a media outlet that a PR agency or an internal team has an existing relationship with. Start by understanding the types of relationships that already exist.
Tip #2: Don’t just email everyone. Similar to establishing boundaries between PR and SEO, consider other areas of the business that have relationships with website owners. For example, affiliates are another area that you want to think more in-depth about. There are strategies you can use to acquire links that are valuable from affiliates, but you’d want to ensure you’re touching base with whoever manages those affiliate teams first. Start by setting a meeting and strategizing with them.
In addition, you want to be careful about contacting websites that may not be a fan of your company or client. Be sensitive to the information in an article. When performing a service like link reclamation, be sure that the sites you’re reaching out to weren’t saying something negative or are not a fan of a company. Although this isn’t extremely common, it does happen and can cause internal issues.
Tip #3: There is always opportunity. Don’t get discouraged. Even if you’re working on outreach where there are a lot of blockers in place, there are still sites you can contact that will add SEO value. Focus on sites that are strong and receive organic traffic, but aren’t in the same tier of what a PR agency would be focusing on (think USA Today, or Seventeen Magazine). Although these are amazing sites to be featured on, you can still get value from mommy blogs that have strong rankings and some authority. These sites can still move the needle (as long as they are high-quality and don’t have high spam scores).
Content
Content creation is crucial to SEO progress, and sometimes it is the most critical piece. This varies by business type, but generally every business can benefit in some way from having SEO-focused content on a website (content built to rank for a specific query).
Most businesses have some sort of copywriting resources in-house. These individuals are not always focused on web content, but might be focused on many other types of content to support awareness initiatives or internal processes.
When looking at the content process, there are many areas that SEO teams need to support. No matter who is actually creating content, the SEO team needs to provide strategy and direction.
Our content process is as follows:
Just like all other departments that we’ve discussed so far, content teams also need to be aligned with SEO goals and understand how to produce content that ranks.
We recommend creating content maps to help guide content teams. These roadmaps should contain everything that a copywriter needs to understand how to write for SEO.
As the SEO strategist is working towards the goal of ranking for a keyword that drives business results, the strategy for the content should be coming from someone who knows the goals of the business on a deep level.
These are two key areas that impact rankings that can sometimes be harder to deliver on:
1. Content comprehensiveness: Although not always true, longer content does tend to rank better for informational / research queries. While a 2,500 word post may not always be the preference for the business, sometimes it is necessary to rank. It’s important as an SEO to advocate for comprehensive content (when we believe that the result should be an in-depth response).
2. Keyword targeting in content titles: There is no such thing as “writing for search engines” anymore. The truth is that content needs to be written for users. However, we still must use keywords in the title tag and in the title of the post. These are still the strongest on-page signals we have. Many times, the title of posts are written with brand or marketing language, without considering its ability to rank competitively. For example, a content team might title a post about workplace efficiency as “7 Ways to Improve Your Efficiency Throughout the Day'' without taking into consideration a keyword focus for SEO. Whereas, an SEO might recommend a title such as, “Workplace Efficiency: Tips to Improve Workflows”. As the title holds so much weight, the SEO team needs to advocate for ensuring that the title of the post has a balance between being optimized and engaging.
Conclusion
Making meaningful progress towards growth in SEO takes an entire company. It is our job as SEOs to serve as the project manager and guide projects through the pipeline. We’re also responsible for ensuring that stakeholders on different teams know and understand our initiatives, and that everyone is working towards the same goals.
When everything is working as it should, the results will follow.
via Blogger https://ift.tt/HTfB68F
March 30, 2022 at 08:57PM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/SkoAY3J
March 30, 2022 at 11:57PM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/Fux9Qns
March 31, 2022 at 02:55AM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/NBkgTjz
March 31, 2022 at 05:56AM
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March 31, 2022 at 08:57AM
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
SEO is unlike any other digital channel. It does not and cannot live in a silo, while something like a paid search program can be run by a single person with minimal help.
From our experience, the biggest deficiency in SEO campaigns is not a lack of understanding of the craft, rather, it’s the roadblocks that occur during implementation and cross-team collaboration. Great ideas can be presented and discussed, but taking an idea from a whiteboard or a slide to actually living on a site where it can impact performance can be difficult.
Whether in-house or on the agency side, blockers to success often come from internal site teams or long development queues. The key to making progress comes from two primary avenues:
Advocating for SEO through exceptional knowledge of the channel as a whole
Deep integration with internal teams to move projects along
The departments that SEO impacts (and how to work with each)
With a channel like SEO where progress is not solely achieved by one consultant or advocate for the channel, but from the implementation of recommendations, it’s critical to understand how to navigate through a business to make progress.
We break down the departments as follows:
Business / Marketing
Design / Creative
Development / Engineering
PR / Thought Leadership
Content
Business / Marketing
The business and marketing teams are the stakeholders whose resources will be used to execute your SEO strategies. These are the individuals at a company who you must win over to be successful. Ever had an amazing idea only to be squashed by leadership? Many of us have been in that situation at one point or another, so the key is to make the case for SEO.
Unlike other marketing channels where ROI can be predicted, it can be difficult to forecast growth for SEO. How do we provide statistical evidence that our strategies will be a driver for success? Although there’s no perfect science, we break down our methodology below:
Step 1: Start by quantifying potential traffic gains through ranking improvements by utilizing average click-through-rate at various positions.
Step 2: Utilize this data to build a forecast based on investment and potential growth using conversion rate and average order value to predict potential revenue.
Step 3: Agree on a reasonable forecast and set expectations with the client. Ensure both parties are on the same page about the opportunity in the vertical to avoid any potential pitfalls, and keep growth conservative.
Step 4: Start audit and planning exercises. Our audits serve as the roadmap for success and the forecasting exercise occurs during this phase as a compliment to the strategy.
Design / Creative / UX & UI
Once your strategy is approved and you’re ready to build out new pages, new sections of the site, or redesign pages, it’s time to consult with the design team. They’ll be the ones to help you move your recommendations from ideation into a design, but that process isn’t always as simple as it sounds.
The first issue is not a lack of resources, but the incessant battle between UX (site teams) and SEO. Ever heard any of these statements before?
We shouldn’t expand our main navigation because our users want a more simplified approach
This doesn’t meet our brand guidelines as we don’t want any text content on our pages
These site changes don’t seem to ladder up to our goal of getting people to convert
We can’t change that because our users are used to it that way
Although these are all valid statements, they do present an issue with being able to progress and grow organic traffic.
SEO and UX need a balance. Finding it can be hard, but necessary. As the advocate for the organic channel, you must always be willing to argue how and why your recommendations can help the business grow. You can do so by providing clear, concise, and effective instructions to design and site teams.
We utilize checklist templates to provide to design teams an idea of what needs to be included with examples (after marketing / business teams have approved our recommendations, of course).
We finalize these recommendations by signing off on designs prior to development, when the real site work begins.
Development / Engineering
Why are development and engineering resources the largest blocker to SEO success at the mid-market and enterprise level?
SEO is de-prioritized (YES! Even after executives are bought in). We see it again, and again, and again. As engineering and development teams have urgent things come up, it’s easy to move around other projects that are less time sensitive. On average, website migrations we've worked on are delayed one to two months at the mid-market level. For enterprises, this can be much more severe. So how do you get around your projects being moved to the back of a development queue?
It can be hard. I have personal horror stories of asking for the same on-site changes for over three years with no movement due to other internal pressure for other things to be done, or blockers from other teams.
There are two main tips we have for ensuring that SEO development projects move through the pipeline properly once they’re scheduled:
Tip #1: Create in-depth tickets to help alleviate potential development problems. Many times, projects stall out because development can be difficult. The first thing you can do is document in detail what needs to happen. What does the final state need to look like?
Many of our clients work in JIRA, and we are able to integrate directly in to create tickets, comment on them, and QA them upon completion.
Tip #2: Create an accountability tracker. Whether you’re a consultant, and in-house SEO, or an agency partner, a “next actions” or project tracker sometimes isn’t enough. We create an accountability tracker where we can discuss weekly where projects are when they fall on other teams, specifically on engineering teams that are pulled in many different directions.
Ever engaged in some sort of authority building? Well, there’s undoubtedly some overlap with PR efforts, especially with how link building looks at this point in Google’s existence. There is no gaming or tricking the algorithm anymore- linking needs to be through concentrated content development and promotion.
Link building is outreach, and therefore, some of the efforts an SEO agency or SEO team might be working on may intersect. We have three main tips to ensure your outreach efforts are successful and well received.
Tip #1: Ensure that relationship boundaries are defined between PR and SEO. We start every engagement by first asking for a “Do Not Contact” list from any existing PR agencies. You do not want to be contacting a media outlet that a PR agency or an internal team has an existing relationship with. Start by understanding the types of relationships that already exist.
Tip #2: Don’t just email everyone. Similar to establishing boundaries between PR and SEO, consider other areas of the business that have relationships with website owners. For example, affiliates are another area that you want to think more in-depth about. There are strategies you can use to acquire links that are valuable from affiliates, but you’d want to ensure you’re touching base with whoever manages those affiliate teams first. Start by setting a meeting and strategizing with them.
In addition, you want to be careful about contacting websites that may not be a fan of your company or client. Be sensitive to the information in an article. When performing a service like link reclamation, be sure that the sites you’re reaching out to weren’t saying something negative or are not a fan of a company. Although this isn’t extremely common, it does happen and can cause internal issues.
Tip #3: There is always opportunity. Don’t get discouraged. Even if you’re working on outreach where there are a lot of blockers in place, there are still sites you can contact that will add SEO value. Focus on sites that are strong and receive organic traffic, but aren’t in the same tier of what a PR agency would be focusing on (think USA Today, or Seventeen Magazine). Although these are amazing sites to be featured on, you can still get value from mommy blogs that have strong rankings and some authority. These sites can still move the needle (as long as they are high-quality and don’t have high spam scores).
Content
Content creation is crucial to SEO progress, and sometimes it is the most critical piece. This varies by business type, but generally every business can benefit in some way from having SEO-focused content on a website (content built to rank for a specific query).
Most businesses have some sort of copywriting resources in-house. These individuals are not always focused on web content, but might be focused on many other types of content to support awareness initiatives or internal processes.
When looking at the content process, there are many areas that SEO teams need to support. No matter who is actually creating content, the SEO team needs to provide strategy and direction.
Our content process is as follows:
Just like all other departments that we’ve discussed so far, content teams also need to be aligned with SEO goals and understand how to produce content that ranks.
We recommend creating content maps to help guide content teams. These roadmaps should contain everything that a copywriter needs to understand how to write for SEO.
As the SEO strategist is working towards the goal of ranking for a keyword that drives business results, the strategy for the content should be coming from someone who knows the goals of the business on a deep level.
These are two key areas that impact rankings that can sometimes be harder to deliver on:
1. Content comprehensiveness: Although not always true, longer content does tend to rank better for informational / research queries. While a 2,500 word post may not always be the preference for the business, sometimes it is necessary to rank. It’s important as an SEO to advocate for comprehensive content (when we believe that the result should be an in-depth response).
2. Keyword targeting in content titles: There is no such thing as “writing for search engines” anymore. The truth is that content needs to be written for users. However, we still must use keywords in the title tag and in the title of the post. These are still the strongest on-page signals we have. Many times, the title of posts are written with brand or marketing language, without considering its ability to rank competitively. For example, a content team might title a post about workplace efficiency as “7 Ways to Improve Your Efficiency Throughout the Day'' without taking into consideration a keyword focus for SEO. Whereas, an SEO might recommend a title such as, “Workplace Efficiency: Tips to Improve Workflows”. As the title holds so much weight, the SEO team needs to advocate for ensuring that the title of the post has a balance between being optimized and engaging.
Conclusion
Making meaningful progress towards growth in SEO takes an entire company. It is our job as SEOs to serve as the project manager and guide projects through the pipeline. We’re also responsible for ensuring that stakeholders on different teams know and understand our initiatives, and that everyone is working towards the same goals.
When everything is working as it should, the results will follow.
via Blogger https://ift.tt/HTfB68F
March 30, 2022 at 08:57PM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/SkoAY3J
March 30, 2022 at 11:57PM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/Fux9Qns
March 31, 2022 at 02:55AM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/NBkgTjz
March 31, 2022 at 05:56AM
via Blogger https://ift.tt/TvYfO6W
March 31, 2022 at 08:57AM
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
Navigating through Departments: The Key to Making Impactful Changes in SEO
SEO is unlike any other digital channel. It does not and cannot live in a silo, while something like a paid search program can be run by a single person with minimal help.
From our experience, the biggest deficiency in SEO campaigns is not a lack of understanding of the craft, rather, it’s the roadblocks that occur during implementation and cross-team collaboration. Great ideas can be presented and discussed, but taking an idea from a whiteboard or a slide to actually living on a site where it can impact performance can be difficult.
Whether in-house or on the agency side, blockers to success often come from internal site teams or long development queues. The key to making progress comes from two primary avenues:
Advocating for SEO through exceptional knowledge of the channel as a whole
Deep integration with internal teams to move projects along
The departments that SEO impacts (and how to work with each)
With a channel like SEO where progress is not solely achieved by one consultant or advocate for the channel, but from the implementation of recommendations, it’s critical to understand how to navigate through a business to make progress.
We break down the departments as follows:
Business / Marketing
Design / Creative
Development / Engineering
PR / Thought Leadership
Content
Business / Marketing
The business and marketing teams are the stakeholders whose resources will be used to execute your SEO strategies. These are the individuals at a company who you must win over to be successful. Ever had an amazing idea only to be squashed by leadership? Many of us have been in that situation at one point or another, so the key is to make the case for SEO.
Unlike other marketing channels where ROI can be predicted, it can be difficult to forecast growth for SEO. How do we provide statistical evidence that our strategies will be a driver for success? Although there’s no perfect science, we break down our methodology below:
Step 1: Start by quantifying potential traffic gains through ranking improvements by utilizing average click-through-rate at various positions.
Step 2: Utilize this data to build a forecast based on investment and potential growth using conversion rate and average order value to predict potential revenue.
Step 3: Agree on a reasonable forecast and set expectations with the client. Ensure both parties are on the same page about the opportunity in the vertical to avoid any potential pitfalls, and keep growth conservative.
Step 4: Start audit and planning exercises. Our audits serve as the roadmap for success and the forecasting exercise occurs during this phase as a compliment to the strategy.
Design / Creative / UX & UI
Once your strategy is approved and you’re ready to build out new pages, new sections of the site, or redesign pages, it’s time to consult with the design team. They’ll be the ones to help you move your recommendations from ideation into a design, but that process isn’t always as simple as it sounds.
The first issue is not a lack of resources, but the incessant battle between UX (site teams) and SEO. Ever heard any of these statements before?
We shouldn’t expand our main navigation because our users want a more simplified approach
This doesn’t meet our brand guidelines as we don’t want any text content on our pages
These site changes don’t seem to ladder up to our goal of getting people to convert
We can’t change that because our users are used to it that way
Although these are all valid statements, they do present an issue with being able to progress and grow organic traffic.
SEO and UX need a balance. Finding it can be hard, but necessary. As the advocate for the organic channel, you must always be willing to argue how and why your recommendations can help the business grow. You can do so by providing clear, concise, and effective instructions to design and site teams.
We utilize checklist templates to provide to design teams an idea of what needs to be included with examples (after marketing / business teams have approved our recommendations, of course).
We finalize these recommendations by signing off on designs prior to development, when the real site work begins.
Development / Engineering
Why are development and engineering resources the largest blocker to SEO success at the mid-market and enterprise level?
SEO is de-prioritized (YES! Even after executives are bought in). We see it again, and again, and again. As engineering and development teams have urgent things come up, it’s easy to move around other projects that are less time sensitive. On average, website migrations we've worked on are delayed one to two months at the mid-market level. For enterprises, this can be much more severe. So how do you get around your projects being moved to the back of a development queue?
It can be hard. I have personal horror stories of asking for the same on-site changes for over three years with no movement due to other internal pressure for other things to be done, or blockers from other teams.
There are two main tips we have for ensuring that SEO development projects move through the pipeline properly once they’re scheduled:
Tip #1: Create in-depth tickets to help alleviate potential development problems. Many times, projects stall out because development can be difficult. The first thing you can do is document in detail what needs to happen. What does the final state need to look like?
Many of our clients work in JIRA, and we are able to integrate directly in to create tickets, comment on them, and QA them upon completion.
Tip #2: Create an accountability tracker. Whether you’re a consultant, and in-house SEO, or an agency partner, a “next actions” or project tracker sometimes isn’t enough. We create an accountability tracker where we can discuss weekly where projects are when they fall on other teams, specifically on engineering teams that are pulled in many different directions.
Ever engaged in some sort of authority building? Well, there’s undoubtedly some overlap with PR efforts, especially with how link building looks at this point in Google’s existence. There is no gaming or tricking the algorithm anymore- linking needs to be through concentrated content development and promotion.
Link building is outreach, and therefore, some of the efforts an SEO agency or SEO team might be working on may intersect. We have three main tips to ensure your outreach efforts are successful and well received.
Tip #1: Ensure that relationship boundaries are defined between PR and SEO. We start every engagement by first asking for a “Do Not Contact” list from any existing PR agencies. You do not want to be contacting a media outlet that a PR agency or an internal team has an existing relationship with. Start by understanding the types of relationships that already exist.
Tip #2: Don’t just email everyone. Similar to establishing boundaries between PR and SEO, consider other areas of the business that have relationships with website owners. For example, affiliates are another area that you want to think more in-depth about. There are strategies you can use to acquire links that are valuable from affiliates, but you’d want to ensure you’re touching base with whoever manages those affiliate teams first. Start by setting a meeting and strategizing with them.
In addition, you want to be careful about contacting websites that may not be a fan of your company or client. Be sensitive to the information in an article. When performing a service like link reclamation, be sure that the sites you’re reaching out to weren’t saying something negative or are not a fan of a company. Although this isn’t extremely common, it does happen and can cause internal issues.
Tip #3: There is always opportunity. Don’t get discouraged. Even if you’re working on outreach where there are a lot of blockers in place, there are still sites you can contact that will add SEO value. Focus on sites that are strong and receive organic traffic, but aren’t in the same tier of what a PR agency would be focusing on (think USA Today, or Seventeen Magazine). Although these are amazing sites to be featured on, you can still get value from mommy blogs that have strong rankings and some authority. These sites can still move the needle (as long as they are high-quality and don’t have high spam scores).
Content
Content creation is crucial to SEO progress, and sometimes it is the most critical piece. This varies by business type, but generally every business can benefit in some way from having SEO-focused content on a website (content built to rank for a specific query).
Most businesses have some sort of copywriting resources in-house. These individuals are not always focused on web content, but might be focused on many other types of content to support awareness initiatives or internal processes.
When looking at the content process, there are many areas that SEO teams need to support. No matter who is actually creating content, the SEO team needs to provide strategy and direction.
Our content process is as follows:
Just like all other departments that we’ve discussed so far, content teams also need to be aligned with SEO goals and understand how to produce content that ranks.
We recommend creating content maps to help guide content teams. These roadmaps should contain everything that a copywriter needs to understand how to write for SEO.
As the SEO strategist is working towards the goal of ranking for a keyword that drives business results, the strategy for the content should be coming from someone who knows the goals of the business on a deep level.
These are two key areas that impact rankings that can sometimes be harder to deliver on:
1. Content comprehensiveness: Although not always true, longer content does tend to rank better for informational / research queries. While a 2,500 word post may not always be the preference for the business, sometimes it is necessary to rank. It’s important as an SEO to advocate for comprehensive content (when we believe that the result should be an in-depth response).
2. Keyword targeting in content titles: There is no such thing as “writing for search engines” anymore. The truth is that content needs to be written for users. However, we still must use keywords in the title tag and in the title of the post. These are still the strongest on-page signals we have. Many times, the title of posts are written with brand or marketing language, without considering its ability to rank competitively. For example, a content team might title a post about workplace efficiency as “7 Ways to Improve Your Efficiency Throughout the Day'' without taking into consideration a keyword focus for SEO. Whereas, an SEO might recommend a title such as, “Workplace Efficiency: Tips to Improve Workflows”. As the title holds so much weight, the SEO team needs to advocate for ensuring that the title of the post has a balance between being optimized and engaging.
Conclusion
Making meaningful progress towards growth in SEO takes an entire company. It is our job as SEOs to serve as the project manager and guide projects through the pipeline. We’re also responsible for ensuring that stakeholders on different teams know and understand our initiatives, and that everyone is working towards the same goals.
When everything is working as it should, the results will follow.
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