Google has rolled out the ability to schedule imports of offline conversion data. Advertisers can schedule AdWords to automatically upload offline conversions on a daily or weekly basis. Conversions can be uploaded into either individual or manager accounts. Google says this will help advertisers save time and reduce errors. Of course, that is after taking the time to set up scheduled imports for your AdWords accounts. Instructions for scheduled imports have been added to this AdWords help document, which also goes over how to prepare your data for import if this is your first time doing so. If you have not imported offline conversions into AdWords before, it’s best to refer to Google’s help document. If you have imported offline conversions before, then you can schedule uploads by following the steps below.
If you made an error setting up your scheduled upload, Google will alert you as well as send out an email. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post Google AdWords Introduces Scheduling for Conversion Imports by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/google-adwords-introduces-scheduling-for-conversion-imports-by-mattgsouthern/
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Recently, enterprise-focused Google representatives have been encouraging a metric called “Relevance,” which is believed to be one of the three main factors that make up Quality Score. Relevance is a metric which evaluates how pertinent your ad creative is to your account structure and keywords. At AdBasis, we have spent Q1 speaking with enterprise-level advertisers about changes being implemented to account structures and to ad units (creative) in order to improve their relevancy scores as recommended by Google. This often means that advertisers need to implement hyper-specific ads to every ad group in their accounts. As a result, we have seen the demand for scaled ad implementations, ad unit management and creative optimization grow dramatically. This article is designed to give you a standard for what your creative should look like within every ad group. I’m going to dissect the anatomy of ad structure, showcase some best practices and provide some additional commentary. Overall shift in the structure of enterprise accountsAdWords accounts are growing larger and larger. I am not talking about overall spend — I am talking about the number of campaigns and ad groups within a single AdWords account. Whether you’re using Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) or something close to it, chances are the number of ad groups in your account has grown significantly. SEMs everywhere are hit with a new set of challenges related to this shift. If your account has been evolving, chances are your existing creative is fragmented and unmeasurable; this is a major problem. One of the biggest challenges is the management, implementation, measurement and optimization of the associated ad units. And now, with Google’s new push for extremely granular ad copy relevance, your generic ad copy will no longer work. So, what does a high-quality search ad look like? The anatomy of a highly relevant search adJust as the human body can be dissected and understood, so can your search ads. Here we will evaluate the different “organs” that make up a search ad and how they can be altered to improve performance. Understanding how Google will evaluate your ad copy based on keyword + search term is vital to understanding how to structure your creative in bulk. The elements of a search ad that are most vital to determining relevance are as follows:
Ad copy standardization: creating dynamic ad templatesIn order to combat the problem of fragmented and differing creative at the ad group level, standardization through dynamic ad templates across similarly behaving ad groups is a great technique. What does that mean? It means designing ad copy templates such that the search term can be inserted based on the ad group, but the ad copy surrounding your search term is relevant, flexible and testable. This can be achieved using feed-based technologies to dynamically insert ad content based on ad group or campaign. (I’m not going to get into tech setup since that’s beyond the scope of this article, but you can learn more about generating feeds and feed-based technologies here.) Okay, so what should your dynamic ad templates look like? In the examples below, I will showcase how feeds can be used to dynamically insert unique creative based on the ad group or campaign (ad group and campaign are the two levels of hierarchy to which creative can be mapped). The highlighted text in the examples below represents ad copy that is not static; it is written in a way that can be swapped out or changed based on the needs of the advertiser and how the account is set up. Imagine the highlighted elements are changing based on your ad group. The goal of these templates is to map search terms to specific ad groups in ways that make sense in ad copy. For lead generation companiesThe company in the example below has ad groups for specific action verbs (Browse, Search, Find and so on) and Makes/Models of vehicles (e.g., Toyota, Honda, Mercedes). From this, they could create a feed of action verbs by ad group, a list of “Makes” by ad group, and a list of “Models” by ad group. These variables would change dynamically based on the content in their feeds. As you can see, this particular ad copy template would work across hundreds or thousands of ad groups which are geared toward different keywords and Makes/Models. You’d keep the quality of your ad copy relevance and be able to measure the performance of this creative template. For e-commerce brandsThrough the use of dynamic templates, e-commerce brands can implement, manage and measure ad copy in bulk. Knowing if “BOGO” vs. “50% Off” works best for particular audiences or product categories is vital information. But often, this is very difficult to execute at scale without sacrificing ad relevance. Here is an example of a scaled ad template that can be used by e-commerce brands. The makeup of this ad template includes an audience variable (Men or Women), product category variable (Shoes, Shirts, Pants) and discount percentage (mapped to the product category). These elements can be shifted throughout the ad and tested across ad groups/campaigns dynamically. Generating a feed of your dynamic elements and mapping them to campaigns or ad groups is crucial to standardization and measurement of ad creative at scale. For SaaS (software as a service) companiesSaaS companies are unique because often, they only offer a single product. In many instances, SaaS companies will position the same product in different ways and will segment campaigns by the value proposition someone is searching for. This provides a unique set of challenges. Another approach to dynamic ad copy templates isn’t inserting a search term, but rather entire Headlines, Pathways, Descriptions and so on. Below, this SaaS company is dynamically inserting the Headline 1 and Description based on the ad group. This gives them the opportunity to test Pathways and Headline 2 without sacrificing the customized Headline 1 and Description they’ve written. How to test ad copy using dynamic templatesThe use of dynamic ad templates across ad groups and campaigns affords you the opportunity to test your ads in two main ways:
This approach is designed to provide SEMs with an approach that is flexible enough to test across ad groups/campaigns (implement at scale) but specific enough to deliver extremely relevant ads to all searchers. It’s not an easy task, but hopefully, this article will get the creative juices flowing on what technology options are out there to help improve your ad copy relevance. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorJason Puckett is the CEO & Founder of AdBasis. Ad creative optimization is the name of Jason’s game. AdBasis is a creative optimization technology company built for today’s most advanced advertisers. AdBasis is designed for dynamic & scaled ad implementations, creative measurement and scaled optimization. Jason is a digital marketing strategist, ad optimization expert and conversion rate enthusiast. AdBasis has helped over 1,000 companies improve their paid media through creative testing. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post The anatomy of ad copy relevance: The new Google standard appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/the-anatomy-of-ad-copy-relevance-the-new-google-standard/ “First-person marketing,” as my colleague, Matt McGowan, explained in an earlier Marketing Land piece, sees customers as individuals to whom brands must shape their messaging to ensure they’re meeting the person’s needs, interests and goals. Central to first-person marketing is this credo: “Know thy customer.” If you don’t know much about your customers, progressive profiling is an excellent way to gather it directly from the source — your customers themselves — without driving them away with endless questions about their interests, likes and dislikes. Why progressive profiling is a win for everyoneProgressive profiling is rolling out a series of questions at strategically timed intervals across the relationship. This way, you can build up a reservoir of data about your customers over time. And you don’t scare away newcomers by asking for too much information up front. What’s in it for you? The answers your customers give you make you — and your marketing — smarter, and your customers’ experience with you more valuable. That’s why it’s a win for everybody. To be successful with progressive profiling, think about the relationship you have with your customers, the questions you want to ask them and the value you offer them in exchange for answering your questions. This value exchange is at the core of your relationship with your customers. They will give you the information you need to drive more relevant conversations if they perceive the value of what you’re offering. If you ask for a birth date, for example, but you don’t send your customer a birthday email, you negate the value exchange. They get no value for giving you that data. When implementing a progressive profiling program, I recommend you go through the following steps: Step 1: Build your profiling programBefore you start thinking up questions to ask your customers, you must answer these three questions yourself:
Then, create a visualization, digitally or on paper — whatever helps you see the entire plan most clearly. Set up a chart with the three elements you need:
Step 2: Automate your profiling programFigure out the optimal time to send your information requests. Automation means your information-gathering process runs continually in the background. Since you’re always gathering information, you can decide at what point in the customer relationship it makes sense to ask a specific question in order to get a higher rate of response. Define your KPIs. You’re not just looking at when you send the message, but also how you’ll measure your success. How will you track and report it? Your KPI (Key Performance Indicator) could be how many people clicked on a birthday email, redeemed a promotion or answered questions, such as the kind of car they drive. However, your KPI doesn’t have to be oriented toward a conversion. Progressive profiling is a series of micro-conversions, with each person supplying you with the information you need. To find the best times, you’ll have to do some testing. Look at the type of question and information request. Should it be part of your onboarding program? After a purchase or browse session? Step 3: Assess the performance of your profiling programAfter you test and launch your program, it’s time to measure your responses. Did you meet your KPIs? Did your questions help you accomplish your goals? Did you use the information effectively? Progressive profiling is a series of micro-conversions. Assess whether your program helped your performance. Did it move the needle or allow you to have better engagement and conversations with your customers? Takeaways for smarter messagingThe real power of progressive profiling is the information you get from your customers because they want to give it to you in exchange for a benefit they will value. The mere act of asking a question isn’t enough. You must convey to your customers why the information is important, and then do something constructive with the information you get. Strategic progressive profiling, and the information that comes out of it, makes your messaging smarter, builds better relationships with your customers and yields results. What’s your first question? Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorRyan Phelan brings over 15 years of worldwide online marketing experience to Adestra as the Vice President, Marketing Insights. In this position, Ryan is responsible for the marketing efforts of Adestra in the US. Ryan is a respected thought leader and nationally distinguished speaker with a history of experience from Acxiom, BlueHornet, Sears Holdings, Responsys and infoUSA. In 2013 he was named one of the top 30 strategists in online marketing and is the Chairman Emeritus of the EEC Advisory Board and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Email Sender and Provider Collation (ESPC). Ryan is also involved many companies in the start-up space as an advisor, board member and investor. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post Progressive profiling: Why it’s a win for you and your customers appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/progressive-profiling-why-its-a-win-for-you-and-your-customers/ Facebook is getting more precise in its fight against clickbait. After training its news feed algorithm to recognize clickbait headlines last year and penalize the sites and Pages associated with these posts, Facebook will now target individual posts that link to articles that overpromise and underdeliver in order to better isolate and eliminate the clickbait trying to invade people’s news feeds. Previously, Facebook considered website domains or Facebook Pages at large when hunting for clickbait. That helped its system to broadly identify bad actors that push out a lot of clickbait, but it also made it harder to quarantine the occasional clickbait from an otherwise reputable publisher. Now, by taking into account individual posts, Facebook can strike down these one-off offenses without leveling an entire publication or needing to wait for a publication’s clickbait volume to mount. Facebook expects that most Pages “won’t see any significant changes” to their reach and that publishers who are affected won’t be impacted after they stop posting clickbait, according to the company. Clickbait types: exaggerations and withheld informationFacebook’s algorithm will also now distinguish between headlines that withhold information and headlines that exaggerate the story. The divide-and-conquer tactic is supposed to make Facebook’s system more effective when evaluating whether a post links to a clickbait, per a company blog post published on Wednesday. That post isn’t clear on exactly how the change helps. But since Facebook is running a bunch of headlines through its computers so those computers can learn what a clickbait headline looks like, it’s possible that the computers had a hard time finding those patterns when considering a headline like “When He Opened the Door, He Didn’t Know He’d Be Met by This…” and one like “This Article Will Change Your Life.” The first headline uses a lot of plain language, whereas the second has common clickbait keywords like “change” and “your life.” So most likely Facebook’s computers needed to separately learn the first headline type to more accurately understand its characteristics, which is exactly how Facebook has trained its computers to distinguish between these two types of headlines. “We categorized hundreds of thousands of headlines as clickbait or not clickbait by considering if the headline exaggerates the details of a story, and separately if the headline withholds information. A team at Facebook reviewed thousands of headlines using these criteria, validating each other’s work to identify large sets of clickbait headlines,” according to Facebook’s blog post. Facebook will also start to test fighting clickbait in other languages besides English. Sometime in the coming weeks, its algorithm will begin to evaluate posts that are written in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese. About The AuthorTim Peterson, Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat’s ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar’s attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon’s ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube’s programming strategy, Facebook’s ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking’s rise; and documented digital video’s biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed’s branded video production process and Snapchat Discover’s ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands’ early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo’s and Google’s search designs and examine the NFL’s YouTube and Facebook video strategies. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post Facebook now pinpoints individual posts to keep clickbait out of the News Feed appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/facebook-now-pinpoints-individual-posts-to-keep-clickbait-out-of-the-news-feed/ May 17, 2017 Every year, Hanapin manages extensive research into the State of PPC Report, which provides a statistical breakdown of the digital ad industry to date and guides expectations for the year to come. We conduct this research by surveying hundreds of search marketing professionals (like you PPC Heroes!) and draw conclusions on trends we are seeing and what new trends we can expect to emerge. This year, we’ve placed an extra emphasis on social advertising. And We Need Your Input!Some questions we’ll ask:
The survey should take you about 6 minutes to complete. And the BONUS? Anyone that participates will get the report early, before it’s released publicly! *This industry update is being conducted by Hanapin Marketing, the PPC agency of experts that produces PPC Hero and Hero Conf. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post The 2017/2018 State of PPC Survey is Now Open! appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/the-20172018-state-of-ppc-survey-is-now-open/ Hello from the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, where Google is holding its annual Google I/O 2017 developers conference, just across the street from the main Googleplex campus. We expect a variety of product announcements and other news, especially likely to be focused around the Google Assistant platform and Android. The keynote begins at 10am PT. You can watch live here or keep up through our live blog, below: About The AuthorGo to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post Live Blog: Google I/O 2017 Opening Keynote #io17 appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/live-blog-google-io-2017-opening-keynote-io17/ Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorJane Loring is Vice President of European Brand Partnerships at digital authoring platform Playbuzz. At Playbuzz she leads the brand partnership team across Europe, introducing brands to Playbuzz’s innovative content solutions and commercial content campaigns. Jane has over ten years of experience working with some of the biggest brands in the world on their content solutions, including a number of top global brands. Prior to this role, Jane was General Manager at lifestyle content company Mode Media. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post How to market your brand using interactive native content – part 2 appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/how-to-market-your-brand-using-interactive-native-content-part-2/ For B2B marketing, I’m a big believer in focusing on the one or two primary content vehicles for your brand. Some focus on a stellar email newsletter. Others work toward industry-leading blog content. Some create webinars. And others use podcasts. This doesn’t mean putting all of your eggs in one basket. A newsletter can be used to push out great content. Podcasts and webinars can be featured on a blog. But in a world where content about content is a dime a dozen, a focus on quality means cutting focus in other areas. And while it’s generally easier to produce than video, developing a good podcast can be a hefty time investment. What’s lost in visuals must be gained in depth. But for the right brand, a B2B podcast can be a great way to learn while branding. If you’re considering a podcast as a B2B content option, this post lays out reasons to pick up the mic, and reasons not to. The benefits of podcastingPodcast to learn As a podcast host, you don’t have to be an expert. You do need to do your research (more on that soon), but if you’re inviting a guest, they get to be the expert, and you get to be the layperson. In this way, podcasting is an excellent learning tool. This is especially the case for a newly launched B2B business, or a team that’s growing in a new direction. You may have spent weeks or months on market research, but you’re probably still behind on the “who’s who” and “what’s what” of your industry. A podcast can be a great way to learn from industry peers and leaders, giving your team a one-on-one Q&A session with some of the smartest folks in your industry. Podcast to meet people Podcasts are an extremely low-pressure marketing tactic. There are few better ways to ask for someone’s attention than to say, “Hey, you’re super smart — I’d like to feature you.” Podcast to better understand your customers Interview-style podcasts, especially those in the B2B space, usually include “industry influencer” type guests. I get the appeal — these are folks with large followings, with names that will draw eyeballs. But these are also the folks who have been on ~36,000 other industry podcasts. And if you really want your interview to stand out, you’ll want to listen to all ~36,000 before speaking to them. But B2B content creators have a great opportunity with podcasts that I don’t see embraced enough: inviting their own clients and customers onto the show. Industry influencers have produced so much content that it can be difficult to squeeze out new information. This isn’t their fault — they’re influential for a reason. But unless you’re approaching the conversation from an angle no one has taken before, it’ll be difficult to share a completely unique perspective. Your clients and customers, on the other hand, may not have spent as much time in front of the mic. This is an opportunity to get a new story, and to spend an hour a week conversing with your market. Plus, it’s these guests’ ideas, stories and concerns that are likely most appealing to your own potential customer base. Check out HubSpot’s podcast for a great example of this. The Growth Show’s guests may not all be HubSpot users, but they certainly fit the mold of an ideal customer. Podcast to share your brand’s personality Audio interviews have an intimacy to them that feels more personal than written content, or even social media posts. It can be a great way to get quirky, within the scope of your brand. You can have fun with your B2B content — it can be weird and still be professional (think MailChimp or Moz). It can take a few episodes to develop a style, but the best podcasts — no matter their target audience — are those in which there’s a rapport between the host and the audience, where it almost feels like the conversation isn’t so one-sided. The drawbacks of podcastingDon’t podcast if you’re a control freak A podcast can take quite a bit of time (see the “investment” section below), and it relies heavily on the performance of the interviewee. If a particular guest is nervous, off-topic, or maybe just not very engaging, you’ll have to decide whether to place the piece anyway or risk losing a few hours of work, and a relationship, by not posting the piece. Don’t podcast because you like hearing yourself talk This isn’t universal advice. Some people like hearing themselves talk and are incredibly captivating. But for others, knowing when to end a discussion is a learned skill. Make sure the person you choose as your podcast host can listen as well as they speak and knows when they’ve said enough about a given topic. Don’t podcast for immediate conversions Like building a blog or a newsletter list, podcasting is a long-term investment. It’s a branding effort; audience builds over time. Don’t podcast if you don’t like research The onus is on the interviewer to prepare questions, not on the interviewee to prepare content. Sending an interviewee a list of questions ahead of time is common, though not always necessary. I don’t do this, as I like my interviews to feel more spontaneous, but each podcaster has to choose what feels comfortable for them. In addition, to develop solid conversation starters, you’ll need to take a couple of hours to read content by your guest and look into their company and career history. If you’re unable to build a list of questions that connect ideas from their various writings, diving deeper into ideas and opinions they’ve shared — within the scope of your topic — then you’re not going to create a unique episode. The more established your guest is, and the more they’ve written, the longer this process will take. Plus, being a guest on a podcast where you’re asked to simply regurgitate information you’ve already written in a single blog post feels like a waste of time. And it’s much more fun to interview happy guests. The podcasting investmentTime In total, it takes about a full day to develop and post a decent-quality interview-style podcast. For more advanced edits, or additional content creation, more time may be needed. The breakdown below assumes one podcast episode per week.
Equipment Podcasts are pretty lean monetary investments. It’ll cost about $100 to get started, with an upkeep cost of about $30-$50 per episode, for ongoing hosting and transcription.
Podcast planningPlan to be consistent. If your primary podcaster has many other work responsibilities, there will be an ebb and flow to the podcast. On some weeks they’ll have two or three recordings, whereas on others, they are busy with different projects. Consistent publishing creates a sense of stability and sets audience expectations as well. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorMegan is the CoFounder of ZipSprout, a startup agency and tool service that helps brands find grassroots local marketing opportunities. Megan also works on product management for Citation Labs, ZipSprout’s parent and founding company. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post The podcast option: How audio content can help build a B2B business appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/the-podcast-option-how-audio-content-can-help-build-a-b2b-business/ Welcome to the third and final installment of my series on relevance versus authority, exploring which link has more value. To really tease out the argument of relevance versus authority, I asked industry experts the following question: “All other metrics being equal, would you rather have a high-authority link with lower relevance or a highly relevant link with low authority?” In Part 1, I shared responses that valued relevance; in Part 2, I highlighted responses from those who chose authority. In this last part, I’ll present responses that discussed how it varies depending on the unique situation. Expert opinions: Varies depending on situationSo, here are the respondents who cheated. Just kidding! As I mentioned before, this is a complicated question with no real right or wrong answer. These experts spoke to the merits of both relevance and authority as metrics, explaining how choosing one over the other can depend on the specific situation or context. Generally authority, but depends on situationThese experts explained that they lean toward authority in general but noted situations where they would pursue a more relevant low-authority link. “Relevance is a pretty subjective term. For example, a link from The New York Times may not be seen as highly relevant (as the site covers many topics), yet I’d love to get that link. So in that situation, I’d lean towards authority. But, if the relevance gap is large — such as getting a link from a high-authority site where neither the page nor the site are relevant to my site — I would probably lean towards the higher relevance. Not a single answer to your question, because there are a lot of nuances to it!”– Eric Enge, Stone Temple Consulting “At the end of the day I would value (as a blanket statement) authority over relevancy. “Why? A high-authority site tends to have a much broader ‘relevancy umbrella’ anyways, but the value is (or should be) obvious and immediate to anyone with an SEO background regardless of the number of themes being covered through the various categories of a site. Relevancy takes care of itself a bit as well because as a best practice you shouldn’t approach a site like this — high-authority site, with broad categories — without specific intent. This means you know what kinds of topics and tone are appropriate and the editor or webmaster will clearly be able to see that and appropriately place your link (for example, guest articles or a resource) in the relevant section, or your ask will be rejected for missing the mark and audience. “However, let’s come back down to reality, where many clients are likely never going to be an appropriate fit for the kinds of sites I am talking about when referencing high authority (major media, news, entertainment, government and city sites, etc.). In these cases, do I still value authority over relevancy, even when I know the authority bar is much lower? No. In cases like this, target site relevance and topical relevance are going to trump authority, specifically because the authority metric will likely not be anything to write home about. “Although I would love, just for the sake of conversation, to draw a hard line in the sand and radically shout a decisive winner between relevance and authority, it is and always will be a sliding scale filled with exceptions and nuance — just like SEO and link building should be. That’s ultimately why a human element is so essential, because truly great SEO work takes human thought and critical thinking.” — Amy Merrill, Page One Power “Right now, I’d generally want the higher-authority link as it will likely have more impact and be seen by more people. Traffic and exposure are important, too, and have secondary impacts. There’s a case to be made for more relevant links driving more business impact, however, so it just depends. Over time, I think Google will get better at understanding content and determining relevancy, possibly by tagging and weighing different topics within content or for a whole website, then it will just depend on how they decide to weight the different factors and it could go either way.” — Patrick Stox, StoxSEO.com “It’s more hypothetical, and all else is never equal, but I’ve seen a discrepancy between what we hope is rewarded more, and what actually is. In isolation, I’ve seen the high-authority/low-relevance link have more of an impact than a high-relevance/low-authority one. The best place to see this, and where the trade-offs of authority/relevance are most made on a link-by-link basis, is on the local level. “But with that said, my approach is to not be going after high-authority/low-relevance links in any serious volume for a long-term campaign — higher relevance links are more “defensible” and are the ones that build more foundational link profiles. But in the end, it’s never this clear-cut, and any theoretical debate here may be counterproductive.” — Jon Cooper, Point Blank SEO Depends on the contentMuch of what you do in link building depends on the content or assets you are promoting. This can determine which links some of our experts would pursue. “This is not a simple question because high authority is a straightforward quality, but relevance isn’t. Whether you use a tool such as Ahrefs or a metric such as unique visitors, a high-authority link equals a number. Relevancy is not as mathematical; it will depend on the page the link is pointing out to and the context that surrounds the link. “If my client is a real estate agent and I’m building links with a piece of content about TV homes, then real estate sites will be relevant to the client while entertainment sites will be relevant to the content. “Now, I know that your question is about authoritative vs. niche links. Having that in mind, I will prefer highly relevant yet lower authority links when working with content that is niche and close to the client because those are the people who will actually care enough to take action. However, high-authority links will be a priority when working with editorial content that has potential to be featured on big online media outlets. “In short, it shouldn’t be an either/or question. Who doesn’t want to get both?” — Gisele Navarro, NeoMam Depends on clicksIf everything is truly equal, some experts would lean towards whichever link would actually get clicks. “If those are the only metrics I can take, I’d take the high-authority, low-relevance link. If, however, the relevant link were lower authority, but sent more direct traffic, I’d take that one!” — Rand Fishkin, Moz “This is a tough question to answer. I have seen small sites get a a few links from non-relevant sites that actually seem to help with rankings significantly. I would like to answer with a third option. I would like to get the link that is most likely to send me referral traffic. “There are two reasons for this. The first is that I may drive some business from people who click on that link. But, the second reason is because of a theory of mine. I really do think that one of the ways in which Google can feel confident about devaluing links with Penguin is that they have algorithms that value links based on how likely they are to be clicked. Now, I don’t think it’s as black and white as saying that a link that never gets clicked on will have zero value. Rather, I think that people clicking on links is just one of the ways in which Google can determine whether the link is valuable. “If all things were equal, and both of these links were likely to get clicks, then I’d choose the link on the authoritative site even if it weren’t relevant. But, if the link on the less authoritative site was much more likely to drive traffic, then I’d take that one.” — Marie Haynes, Marie Haynes Consulting Pursue relevant links first, then target high-authority linksSome experts indicated that they would of course want both links but would prioritize highly relevant links first. “Which link to take, an authority link or a relevant link? Of course I’d take both! What I wouldn’t do is pursue the authority link first though. A high-authority link coming from nowhere to a new site raises a red flag to Google. It looks unnatural. “A highly relevant link with low authority is much more likely to be organic and not built artificially. Thus, I’d favor the relevant links and seek an occasional authority link while at it. “When doing outreach I always go after similar sites and don’t try to convince huge influencers to link. It takes much longer and is very often unsuccessful. I can get 10 highly relevant links while still striving after one authority link.” — Tadeusz Szewczyk, Onreact.com Respondent totalsSo, who wins the battle of relevance versus authority? Here’s the breakdown of responses I received:
ConclusionI didn’t expect to come away with a singular answer, and the experts I contacted made compelling points for both relevance and authority. Relevance got the slight nod, with 13 respondents leaning toward relevance versus eight who chose authority and eight who essentially said their answer changes based on the situation. This is truly a complex question that can be answered in a variety of ways. Reading through the great responses, I had some takeaways:
Thank youFinally, I want to thank all the folks who responded to my question. I know it’s a complex issue, and I appreciate how candid people were with their thoughts and opinions. The topic of relevance versus authority remains an integral part of link building, and I hope this post will continue to push the debate forward. I’d love to continue the discussion on Twitter, and you can tweet me here. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorAndrew Dennis is a Content Marketing Specialist at Page One Power and a Staff Writer for Linkarati. As a Staff Writer at Linkarati Andrew gets to explore the ever-changing and exciting world of SEO on a daily basis. When he’s not writing about link building and SEO, you’ll find him attending and/or watching live sporting events. Andrew remains confident that he will see a Detroit Lions Super Bowl victory before he dies. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post Relevance vs. authority: Which link has more value? (Part 3) appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/relevance-vs-authority-which-link-has-more-value-part-3/ Currently, the way Google Analytics separates users on AMP and non-AMP pages can make it difficult to get a full picture of user behavior across the two page formats. To help make this analysis easier, Google is updating the way it counts and reports site visitors to AMP and non-AMP pages in Google Analytics by unifying user IDs when someone visits a domain via AMP and non-AMP pages. Because the change unifies users across both page types, it will mean some reporting fluctuations. Here are the implications to note as this change takes effect over the next few weeks:
The update does not affect AMP pages served from the Google AMP Cache or any other AMP cache or platform experience at this point. Google is focusing first on fixing the issue for user visits to publisher domains first. About The AuthorAs Third Door Media’s paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin. Go to Source For more SEO, PPC & online marketing news visit https://news.scott.services The post Google Analytics is making it easier to see users across AMP and non-Amp pages appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News. from https://news.scott.services/google-analytics-is-making-it-easier-to-see-users-across-amp-and-non-amp-pages/ |
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