Bruce Clay's Blog, page 25

Optimizing for Pinterest at @SMX East

Optimizing for Pinterest at @SMX East was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Intel’s Director of SEO Laura Mitchell and Community Manager Scott Jaworski (@scott_jaworski) dug deep into Pinterest to see what search best practices they could apply to Pinterest. After all, Pinterest considers itself a search engine rather than a social platform, so it made sense to think that what would work on Google might hold value on Pinterest. They’re sharing their findings in the SMX East session “Why Intel Investments in SEO Paid Dividends on Pinterest.”

Intel wanted to be on Pinterest for a simple but powerful reason: “Our users are on Pinterest, so we had to be there,” said Mitchell. 

Fast Facts About Pinterest

Pinterest has 100 million active users, as of September 2015.
71% of users are women. However, 1/3 of signups are now male.
27% of users access Pinterest daily.
93% of pinners shopped online in the past 6 months, and are ten percent more likely to make purchases online (Nielsen)

What factors drive visibility on Pinterest?

Pinners
Pins
Amount and Types of Boards
Authority domains

Intel’s Pinterest Study

Intel looked at the top 25 pins per keyword for more than 45,000 keywords submitted to Pinterest. The study included:

110,000+ pins
19,000+ pinners
9,000+ domains
4 million+ repins
800,000 likes
15k+ comments

The Findings

Do pins from pinners with more pins or more followers perform better? YES. (Following back other pinners didn’t matter. Pinning content from many domains didn’t matter. Multiple boards didn’t matter.)

Intel found that 80% of pins ranking in the first row come from pinners with more than 1,400 total pins, and that pinners with first row ranking pins have an average of 229,000 followers (36% higher than pinners with pins in rows 2-4).

Pins in the first row, in fact, have “dramatically high repins, likes and comments than pins inn rows 2-4. They have 87% more repins, 93% more likes and 220% more comments. 50% of first row pins were rich pins.

Lastly, Intel found that the Pinterest algorithm appears to be heavily weighted for boards that include exact match keywords.

Recommendations for Pinterest Based on Intel Study

Use rich pins.
Optimize the source URL.
Avoid pinning duplicate content.
Align boards with Pinterest categories.
Create boards that align with specific events and holidays.
Create inspirational boards where that makes sense.

By taking their own advice, Intel has seen a 48% increase in average monthly engaged views and a 34% in average month views.

Intel’s Takeaways

Insights from search drive value well beyond the boundaries of the traditional SERP.
A market org structure that facilitates the sharing of insights across disciplines enables rapid innovation.
Focusing on the user reveals new ways to meet our audience where they are.

Branding and Problem Solving: Thinking Bigger than Ranking with Wil Reynolds @SMX

Branding and Problem Solving: Thinking Bigger than Ranking with Wil Reynolds @SMX was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

If someone took your content away from the web … would anybody miss it?

Wil Reynolds (@WilReynolds), founder of Seer Interactive, wants you to think about this.

Does your content solve a problem, or does it exist simply to exist? If you’re doing content for content’s sake, or focusing on ranking just for ranking’s sake, you’re playing the digital marketing game wrong. Because your chief concerns should be the user, their frustrations, and creating content they can trust.

Reynolds kicks off this SMX East 2015 session, entitled “Content, Your Brand and the Battle for Customers,” by stating: “All marketing boils down to this: understanding people’s frustrations, and creating content that addresses it.”

He uses Amazon’s buy-it-now dash buttons as an example. Have you seen them? They allow consumers to literally push a button and thereby order a new supply of … whatever. Those are a perfect example of something that has nothing to do with ranking, was inspired by frustration, and addresses a consumer’s needs.

Reynolds then throws out some statistics that underline Amazon’s power:

Amazon Prime has a 74% conversion rate.
Less than 1% of Prime members are likely to consider other mass-market retail sites (e.g., Walmart, Target) during the same online session. Amazon has trained users to buy from them.

Loyalty

Loyalty is mostly undisruptible. Loyalty isn’t about ranking, but about creating meaningful experiences and/or trust. There are certain brands who Reynolds will skip over higher results to get to. Reynolds gives the example of Moz. He’ll click on a result from the Moz blog even if it’s lower in the SERP because he trusts the content that he gets from Moz.

No amount of SEO solves an unmarketable products.

Think about the following as you move forward with your marketing:

Where are you putting the how before the who?

Where are you putting the algorithm before people?

Stay paranoid. Think about the kinds of things that Google doesn’t show answer boxes for that will be really helpful for users. Create content accordingly.

Branding vs. Ranking: AirBnB

Let’s say you’re a company focusing on vacation rentals. You focused on ranking, and you’ve achieved the No. 1 spot for the term.

Meanwhile, there was AirBnB. Instead of focusing on ranking, they focused on branding. They marketed the vacation experience: relaxation, adventure, etc. And their high quality content? When Airbnb produces content, people search for it.

AirBnB ranks No. 9 for vacation rentals … but they thought bigger than rankings. And now? Search for the term “Airbnb” dwarfs search for “vacation rentals.”

Brand matters.

AirBnb didn’t care about ranking for “vacation rentals.” AirBnB was busy building a brand.

Think Outside the Box

Think innovatively about content of all kinds. Reynolds talks about airplane safety videos and compares Virgin America’s dance/safety video to the average safety video. Virgin America actually considered what their fliers might want to see!

Search is critical – but the issue is really solving problems.

Trust is hard to disrupt. Is your content strategy building trust at every step?

And remember: if someone took your content away from the web … would anybody miss it?

SEO for Ecommerce: What You Need to Know from #SMX East

SEO for Ecommerce: What You Need to Know from #SMX East was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

SEOs working on ecommerce sites face particular challenges and require specialized know-how. At SMX East, speaker Adam Audette (@audette), the SVP of organic search at Merkle, reached out to these SEO-savvy ecommerce-minded marketers in this short but fact-packed session on SEO for ecommerce sites.

SEO Touches Everything

As SEO marketers today, we need to be familiar with everything. However, there are two major pillars of SEO: the technical side and the audience side. Here are some of the main issues.

Technical Considerations

Crawl space
Duplication
Dynamic content
Site migrations
Mobile serving
International sites

Audience Considerations

Search behavior
Work flow
Content topics
Keyword research
Engagement
Conversion paths

Content Considerations

In ecommerce environments, “native” content is limited to category pages, product pages, buyers’ guides, reviews and blog content. At the end of the day, though, the inventory is the content. The more you leverage that, the better. Levi’s is a best-in-class ecommerce site. Consider their faceted navigation — it’s very useful, and allows you to immediately drill down and even conduct Boolean searches within the navigation.

Amazon is great when it comes to review data — it’s very valuable and they surface it in useful ways. There are callouts, aggregated reviews, star ratings. It’s easy and designed to provide information quickly.

Content strategy begins on the SERP — what comes up when people search? There’s a race toward structured data for a reason. What happens when video thumbnails appear for a product? The click-through rate (CTR) for results with a video thumbnail was 2%. CTR without a video thumbnail was 17%. When looking for a product, people didn’t want videos. Think about what the user wants.

Out of Stock Products

You have three options for handling product pages for items that are out of stock:

301
404
Continue serving the page with messaging and good recommendations (winner!)

Technical SEO for Ecommerce Websites

“A technical SEO is the plumber of the internet.”

As unsexy as technical SEO may be, it’s very dependable. There’s often low-hanging fruit that is low-cost, as compared to a television commercial, for example. Technical SEO moves the needle on an e-commerce site and can be easily justified as an expense.

When you get all your signals lined up (navigational and internal links, external back links, canonical tags, XML files all pointing to the same definitive URLs), it’s incredibly powerful.

Duplication

Ecommerce sites commonly have duplicate content issues at the product level. Use forensics to delve into the issue (just a few tools, keep it simple). Normally, what’s indexed is what matters (if it’s a dupe but isn’t crawled, deprioritize). Always crawl the site yourself. Keep it actionable! Don’t get caught in a maze.

Audette’s favorite site searches to find dupe content:

Site:mydomain.com and variations

Exclude subdomains with: -site:blog.mydomain.com
Find duplicate domains with –site:mydomain.com intitle:exact title tag


Inurl:prodID=121212

Use with site:mydomain.com
Experiment with using categories or folders, too, like: site:mydomain.com inurl:/category/
Knock off successive folders
Use with intitle, such as: site:mydomaincom inurl:prodID=121212 title:”we’ve got all the stuff here : brand”

Fresh Inspiration and New Ideas (You Haven’t Heard!) for Content Creation @SMX East

Fresh Inspiration and New Ideas (You Haven’t Heard!) for Content Creation @SMX East was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Looking for fresh ideas for content creation? Casie Gillette, Bill Hunt and Grant Simmons shared innovative ideas and examples of how to maximize engagement by creating content that really grabs your users. Read on to discover new content insights (that you haven’t heard before!) from SMX East’s “Content, Keyword Research & The Art of Audience Engagement.”

Speakers Bill Hunt, Casie Gillette and Grant Simmons (click to enlarge)

What the Content Data Show: Casie Gillette

Casie Gillette (@CasieG) Director of Online Marketing at KoMarketing

Gillette, the director of online marketing at KoMarketing, shares some compelling data from Blue Nile:

• 20% of search queries are four words or longer (BlueNile) – long gone are the days of trying to have a keyword strategy with a one or two word phrase.

• 27 percent of search queries are questions.

• 70 percent growth in YouTube how-to searches.

• The average voice search query is 5–6 keywords.

How do we make sure we give people the answers to the questions they’re searching for? They’re not just on search engines. Where should digital marketers be looking to pinpoint their users’ search queries?

• Social media. Social may seem obvious, but it’s an important part of keyword research. Look at the hashtags, the terms, and what your competitors and the industry at large are using when it comes to terms.

• Quora is good.

• Check your referral data and see what people are saying about you.

• Review sites – research how people are talking about you.

• What questions are people asking in forums?

• Talk to your customer support. They’re the direct line to your customers and they are a treasure trove of information.

• Look at the logs from live chats with customer support.

Gillette mentions three free and useful tools: FAQ Fox and SerpStat give a look at what questions people are asking. Keyhole lets you input a keyword and get a host of hashtag information. (Gillette points out that you should never make up hashtags!)

Case Study: Industry Cabinet Client

KoMarketing had a cabinetry client that was using the term “cabinets.” KoMarketing had been working on the site for a year, and they started to dig into more data. They looked at a competitor’s forum and found the forum was using the term “industrial cabinets.” KoMarketing updated their client’s content to use “industrial cabinets” and derived a 50 percent increase in organic traffic and conversions after changing “cabinets” to “industrial cabinets.”

Case Study: Technology Product Client

KoMarketing went into forums and examined the questions people were asking. They scraped the questions and looked at the AdWords Search Queries Report, and then built a how-to section around the questions. Within three months, they saw a 53% increase in organic traffic.

Conclusion

You have to give your customers what they want. Target actual phrases. Know your customer. Give them the answers.

Understanding the Voice of the Consumer: Bill Hunt

Bill Hunt (@billhunt), president of Back Azimuth Consulting, gets right to the point, stating “the best tool out there is your brain.”

He shares an example of his brain in action. The Bellagio hotel was No. 3 for “Las Vegas Hotels” but the click-through rate was low — looking at the data, Hunt realized that 81% of these particular searchers were looking for discount hotels. Using his brain, Hunt put together that the phrases in the meta description (“ultimate Las Vegas hotel experience” and “luxury hotel”) were alienating searchers.

Further Insights

• When someone does brand name + price on a mobile device, you better believe they’re in a store. Can you insert a coupon to keep them in your store?

• People don’t search with solutions — they search with problems. And many websites make the mistake of basing their content on solutions rather than problems.

• You must have how-to information to rank.

Here’s an example of a brain #fail: 85% of queries for cloud computing are “What is cloud computing?” 9/10 of first page listings are answering that question, and there’s only one major brand in the top ten, and that’s because they answered this question. Why are all the other brands forgetting to address this?

Here’s an example of a brain #win: Hunt figured out that one of his alcohol clients was interested in whisky stones (nonporous cubes of soapstone used for chilling drinks). After adding whisky stones to a giveaway, there was a 124-percent increase in signups — because Azimuth took the time to figure out what people actually wanted in a giveaway, and it worked!

Tapping into Triggers: Grant Simmons

Grant Simmons (@Simmonet), Homes.com VP, defines triggers as needs that need to be addressed.

“At Jomes.com, we look at triggers for home buying – pay raises, kids leave home, having a baby, getting married – all these things lead users into buying new homes,” he said.

So, they research triggers. And guess intelligently. They use tools like Google Keyword Ad Planner and KeywordTool.io, and understand their consumers better using free data like:

• Census.gov

• Fedstats.gov

• Bls.gov (Bureau of Labor)

• University of Michigan research (icpsr.umich.edu)

Triggering Content Ideas

• What would someone going through a foreclosure or eviction search for? Create content around “What happens to my stuff when I get foreclosed?

• Homes.com minds their Q & A data every month.

• Understand user/trigger context: who, what, where, when, why, how

• 3-4 different pieces of content might answer a specific question differently depending on context.

• Translate your content to Spanish or other languages.

• Create videos.

• Inspire people with pictures. This is what Simmons calls tickles — create a desire or need in people by appealing to them with stimuli (like images). We’re all driven by emotions.

• Ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions to better understand your consumers.

SMX Liveblog: Local Search Q&A with Top Local Experts

SMX Liveblog: Local Search Q&A with Top Local Experts was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

All local SEO questions answered in this round table of top experts. The assembled experts will field these questions, submitted by the audience and also topics the panelists submitted to talk about.

Why did Google switch to the 3 pack from the 7 pack?
Are you guys also seeing a drop-off in clicks?
What advice are you giving to businesses now? Especially for those who had visibility at spots 4 or 5 or 6?
Are virtual offices allowed?
Does anyone have statistics regarding how clicks are distributed between Google Maps and Google organic?
Links vs. citations?
What other things like scholarships and sponsorship of community organizations can businesses do?
For multiple business locations, do you create separate directory listings?
How do we avoid the difficulties of every time you make a change to a locksmith listing it gets marked as spam?
How accurate is the data in the GMB dashboard?
What’s the optimal time frame for posting new content to a GMB page?
How are apps affecting local?
How are you getting reviews?

Moderator: Matt McGee, Editor In Chief, Search Engine Land & Marketing Land (@mattmcgee)

Speakers:

Mary Bowling, Local SEO and Search Engine News (@MaryBowling)
Joy Hawkins, Product Consultant at Imprezzio Marketing (@joyannehawkins)
Casey Meraz, Founder of Ethical SEO Consulting (@caseymeraz)
Andrew Shotland, President of Local SEO Guide, Inc. (@localseoguide)

Why did Google switch to the 3 pack from the 7 pack?

Mary: Google has said for a long time that they want the same mobile and desktop experience.

Casey: To monetize – and he’s expecting more of that down the road. We’ve seen tests where they’re testing no organic or local results above the fold, especially on mobile. So, it’s feasible that they keep only ads above the fold.

Andrew: Likely 3 local results for mobile usability, and it’s gravy if you can switch them to paid.

Joy: Many of her clients saw no drops in clicks when the switch happened, so maybe no one was clicking beyond result 3.

Mary: Maybe Google doesn’t as strongly feel the need to show multiple results because they’ve gotten good at serving local results over big brands like Yelp.

Are you guys also seeing no drop-off in clicks?

Andrew: Across big brands with lots of locations, organic clicks have gone down and they freak out until they point out that the clicks have just moved over to GMB results, for example.

Casey: They made it harder in some cases for the user to get to the website. For instance, a click to the title brings you to the business listing.

Mary: Google has always said they want to give answers from SERPs and this is the opposite, because it requires clicks into the local finder to find the info you want.

What advice are you giving to businesses now? Especially for those who had visibility at spots 4 or 5 or 6?

Mary: Keep calm and carry on. It takes a while for these things to settle down once Google makes changes. This has been the most chaotic testing in the history of local search. Since then I haven’t heard them come back and complain that traffic and phone calls are down.

Andrew: The biggest drops right now are in mobile organic. There are more ads at the top, the 3 pack, then organic results. Anyone relying on local organic results on mobile are in a pickle. The only solution right now is to expand the net of keywords you’re targeting.

Casey: Reviews are still super important. If you’re the only one that has reviews or with a substantial amount of reviews, you can get more clicks if you have more and better reviews.

Joy: Some clients were mad that review stars were removed from branded searches. That makes it just come down to location and that’s tricky for brands with multiple locations.

Are virtual offices allowed?

Joy: It’s in the guidelines that virtual offices aren’t allowed. The MapMaker team is probably your real enemy because they consider virtual offices to be spam. For home-based businesses, you have to stick with your main office.

Mary asks what to do if competitors are obviously faking locations?

Joy: Report it in MapMaker, leave a comment and include proof. Street View is a great resource. Reporting competitors is a highly underutilized tactic. The MapMaker team is good at getting things reviewed within 1 or 2 weeks.

Does anyone have statistics regarding how clicks are distributed between Google Maps and Google organic?

Casey: Anecdotally, we think Google organic gets more.

Andrew: Google Maps traffic in aggregate is going down over the last couple years. The last data we have is 61% of US iPhone users use Apple Maps as their default map app and he expects it to go up to 80-90% with the new iPhone purchases at the holidays. There’s an applebot web crawler now. Apple is skimming off traffic from local in a variety of ways, including

http://applemapsmarketing.com/

It’s the biggest local search system that most people ignore.

Mary: Optimize for traditional SEO signals first and get that in order. Local SEO factors, like NAP consistency, are more of a suppressing factor than one that boosts you up.

Andrew: When you get to #5, to get to #1 is fine tuning the small factors like adding a keyword to a title.

Links vs. citations?

Mary: In local SEO, nofollow links can have just as much of a signal as a follow link.

Joy: Links of citations. Links + citations are even better. Links are harder to get so that’s why they’re more valuable.

Casey: Citations can sometimes be link sources. He says to look at the hyperlocal directories and see what else you can add to there, maybe you can get a link there. Everyone may be able to be listed in a city directory but not everyone’s doing a scholarship or sponsoring a little league team.

What other things like scholarships and sponsorship of community organizations can businesses do?

Mary: A lot of people don’t think about local media attention. That has a huge effect on local rankings and Google is paying attention.

Andrew: A personal injury attorney said that he spends 6 figures on PR and media coverage and that gets him to #1 without any other local SEO. He believes that’s the case.

Casey: If you do a scholarship, make it go farther and pitch that story to local media. The links from media are more valuable than the .edu links for the scholarship.

Mary: Move your focus offline and ask what can I do to market my business if the Internet didn’t exist, Google has found a way to reward that.

Joy: If you own a coffee shop, most likely you had a real estate agent, insurance agent, lawyer, a list of common businesses that most people have a relationship with. Reach out to them and say that you’ll give them a testimonial that they can use in their website. The ask is a link to the site with the explanation that it’s for credibility. Some small portion does it. She sees it as natural and not a grey area.

Andrew: You’d start to get into trouble if the anchor text looks commercial or if the link is reciprocal.

With the recent 3-pack update, lots of other tests are going on (phone numbers on and off, 20 listings near the Knowledge Graph). What’s the latest?

Andrew: He suspects the click-through rate on mobile ads increase significantly.

Joy: Phone numbers are back as of right now.

For multiple business locations, do you create separate directory listings?

Andrew: Every location should have a unique page. Every time they post the GMB page and the location page, rankings go through the roof. The tension is a Panda problem.

Joy: The biggest problem she sees here is not unique enough title tags. It’s important for business pages to add unique content if they want to, so that’s a key reason to have separate listings and unique photos and titles, etc.

Mary: The more you can localize each location page, the more you’ll be rewarded for it.

Andrew: REI used to be the poster child for having the best local landing pages.

How do we avoid the difficulties of every time you make a change to a locksmith listing it gets marked as spam?

Joy: Make changes to locksmith listings as minimally as possible, Google moderates like crazy. If you want to make a change, you may want to try calling GMB.

How accurate is the data in the GMB dashboard? (Author’s note: I couldn’t really catch this but would love to get more info from Joy and Andrew to expand it.)

Joy: Pay attention to impressions and call data. Filter the data with big spikes.

Andrew: Don’t get thrown by Search Analytics.

What’s the optimal time frame for posting new content to a GMB page?

Mary: Unless you have a huge loyal following that you engage with on Google+, then you’re wasting your time there.

Joy: 99% of my clients’ customers aren’t on Google+ so that’s not worth it.

Matt: They’re dismantling Google+, right?

Joy: Yes, I think they’ll call it something different soon.

Andrew: I think it’s weird that normal people can’t find GMB pages.

Mary: It seems to be a container for holding your data.

How are apps affecting local?

Andrew: The concept of indexing app content is becoming more important.

Joy: The Yelp app is used a lot. It’s surprising how many businesses haven’t claimed their Yelp listing. Yelp gets a serious amount of traffic.

Casey: Every niche is different. See where your customers are hanging out and then be there.

Matt: The latest industry data is that the Google Search app is growing faster than the Facebook app. Google Search is not just in the browser.

Andrew: Google Search app is incredible. It has the OK Google voice query, and that and Siri are becoming more popular and they give contextual results based on your earlier query. You have to start thinking about the ways people are searching for the second or third clarifying/qualifying query.

Can home-based businesses list on Apple Maps?

Andrew: Technically no. If you look at your Apple Maps dashboard you may see that your listing is not approved, but it may show up in the map. Claim your business at MapsConnect.apple.com. Some industries require a TripAdvisor and Local.com listing.

How are you getting reviews?

Joy: Focus on Android users. They already have all the apps on their phone that they need. They can ask them while they’re there at the office. An allergist gives allergy test shots and patients have to sit for an hour. During that time he asks them to leave a review and he has tons of reviews.

Mary: Businesses can’t hide any more. It used to be that if you were in a high traffic area you could have enough foot traffic to keep your mediocre business going. The key is to commit to listening to what their customers are saying about them and making a huge commitment to continually improve their business based on that feedback.

Casey: If you have a great business, the reviews come in. Get 5 Stars is a tool you can look at using.

Andrew: They use reviews as a content generator for local landing page content. That has a dramatic impact on those pages’ ability to rank organically.

Mary: Mike Blumenthal asked why people leave reviews. Great job or lousy jobs get reviews. In the middle, or an expected experience, didn’t get reviews.

Joy: A tip shared in the latest Moz Local Search Ranking Factors report: If you go to the local finder and hover over your competitors, there will be links under each competitor and you may get an insight into what you might be missing.

Andrew: This same resource can help you find the out-of-place thing that may be bringing you down.

Mary: Look for places where they can authenticate the reviews. Trip Advisor and Hotels.com are two authentic review sources and more consumers are figuring these things out, places where you can get more authentic reviews. Yelp tells businesses not to solicit reviews on Yelp, but because they have the check-in feature, Yelp will ask users if they want to review the business.

What kind of audit do you do to ID issues from the Knowledge Graph?

Andrew: Have a good inventory of different KG result types. SERP by SERP. There are certain data sets that Google acknowledges power the KG.

 

Sherlock Goes Local: How We Solved 3 Local Ranking Mysteries

Sherlock Goes Local: How We Solved 3 Local Ranking Mysteries was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

In a greasy burger joint in Seattle in June, the people on the stage were trading stories about solving crazy strange ranking mysteries that if you spend any time doing local search you’re going to be familiar with. That’s where this session was born.

Mary Bowling’s “The Case of the Hidden Merchants”

“It is my business to know what other people don’t know.” –Sherlock Holmes

One of the first steps: a very thorough, detailed audit of the site and organic ranking.

However, you may not always be able to do the Full Monty. In these cases, she’d focus in on these aspects:

Technical
SERPs
GMB listing
Location
Website
NAP + URL
Inbound links
Competitors

SERPs:

Are they ranking for their name?
Are they ranking well in organic and in Google Maps?

Technical:

Robots.txt
XML sitemap
Webmaster Tools/Search Console
Site:search to see how many pages of the site are in the index and important pages are showing up

GMB listing:

Are categories correct? Best primary, all applicable, no marginal
Guideline violations? Follow the guidelines for representing your business on Google
Duplicate listings? Search Google for [name(s) + location(s)/phone numbers]

Location:

Is the map pin exactly correct?
Check the street view to see if it maps
Is NAP + URL correct and does it match the website?
Are they faking it? Do they claim to have a location where they really don’t? Or do they claim they’re open 24 hours when it’s a virtual business service?
Is the address in the right city?
Does the business pin match the address pin? (Open 2 maps windows and search for the business in one and the address in the other to see if they are in the same place.)

Website:

On-page optimized for geo terms
More than one site?
NAP matches GMB?

NAP + URL:

Check Moz Local to see if anything stands out
Check Yext to see the breadth of the problem

Inbound links:

Where are links from?
What does anchor text say?
Manual penalties (Search Console)
Algorithmic penalties (Panguin Tool)

Competitors:

Do competitors have advantages you must work harder to overcome?
Address in city
Location within map area
More or better links
A superlink
More media attention
More targeted focus
Keywords in business name
Keywords in URL
More or better content
Better on-page optimization
Active and savvy on social

“Presume nothing. You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.” –Sherlock Holmes

Look at the little details and be obsessive about making sure they match up across the board.

Joy Hawkins: “Why Doesn’t My Business Rankin the Maps Section of Google?”

You’ve probably gotten this email before:

Dear Joy,

Why am I not ranking on the map/local? My website’s better. I have more Google reviews.

Sincerely,

Concerned Client

Problem: Closed Listing

He moved in the last year to an office down the street.

MapMaker and GMB handle moves differently.

You can only find closed listings in MapMaker. A lot of other methods to find duplicates don’t show closed listings. She always looks here first.

Why are they a problem?

Older listings are older and more authoritative.
Reviews can be on the old listing and not moved over to the new listing.

MapMaker is the way to edit non-verified listings.

MapMaker’s policy is to close the existing listing and create a brand new listing.
Pros: Prevents mapping issues.
Cons: Ranking power is lost (it’s like having a brand new business).

Google My Business

Tells you to edit the existing listing in the GMB Dashboard
Pros: You are way less likely to see a big drop in ranking. Reviews, photos, videos and posts stay in tact
Cons: Driving directions will be wrong for a bit, map marker will be in the wrong spot

Because of this, she prefers the GMB way because it’s better for rankings.

Solution: She contacted GMB support to merge the open and closed listing. After this the listing went from nowhere to page 3.

Problem: Two identical websites

The real website is on StateFarm.com which has a lot of authority and links. The vanity URL website is easier for users. She looked and both sites had links pointing to them.

Two websites competing against themselves.

Solution:

Step 1: Use a canonical tag to tell Google your preferred site.
Step 2: Google will ignore this and keep the site in the index if the non-canonical site has more links, however the link equity was combined.

What about the filter? There are other State Farm agents that are ranking higher and causing him to be filtered out of results.

Solution: More links from good local sources.

Problem: Address Free-Form

The address from GMB does not transfer into the right fields on MapMaker.

Some signs of mapping issues:

Driving directions are wrong
If your map marker won’t stay in the right spot
No Street View on your listing in Maps

Solution

Try changing the address in GMB to use the exact same formatting as MapMaker
Contact GMB phone support

NAP Diagnosis Process

Joy Hawkins’ NAP diagnosis process.

She also uses a directory tool called Yellowbot to find multiple databases and directories where a business is listed.

Bonus tip:

There are authority data providers that apply to only certain industries. Working with medical professionals? Make sure NPPES is up to date. This is a .gov data provider with huge authority and keeping it up to date is key.

Andrew Shotland, the Local SEO Guide, in The Case of the Mysterious Local Entities

The Knowledge Graph is brilliant. Google has created all the data together to try to get a 3D picture.

It’s brilliant – like a 2 year old. It throws hissy fits and wets its pants. :O

For example, Google takes data from DMOZ which is largely outdated.

When is a closed GMB listing not closed? http://www.localseoguide.com/why-is-t...

Check out this example of a cat showing up for a Hyundai dealer:

Kittens in the Knowledge Graph result for a Hyundai dealer?!

To solve this mystery, he chased many trails and couldn’t solve it. Eventually they had multiple people from different IP addresses report that the image was not relevant to the business.

Q: Why don’t we rank #1 for “local seo company Pleasanton, ca”?

No address on site
No LocalBusiness schema
Lots of NAP issues

Can we fix the ranking without addressing NAP issues?

He optimized the on-page
He updated the GMB page
Got a quality inbound link
Added address to GMB landing page
Changed Google+ link to his company rather than his self

With all that he locked in #2 in the local listings!

What made the difference to get #1 was adding the keyword to the title tag. But it bounces around and he’s still looking to solve the mystery, which you can follow along on his blog at LocalSEOGuide.com.

Conclusions

Andrew Shotland’s local SEO mystery conclusions.

Q&A

Do you tell clients how long it might take? Joy says she usually gives a 3 month standard. Andrew says that they tell them they’ll have an idea of the problem in a couple weeks and then start executing. Mary explains the difficulty of NAP cleanup because no one ever has all their logins and new accounts have to be created and it requires incredible attention to detail. NAP problems can plague businesses for years.

What’s Trending in Social: Inside Scoop with PR Pro Lisa Buyer

What’s Trending in Social: Inside Scoop with PR Pro Lisa Buyer was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

PR pro Lisa Buyer always has the scoop when it comes what’s trending in social media, SEO and digital marketing. Buyer, the CEO and founder of The Buyer Group and author of “Social PR Secrets,” likes to stay ten steps ahead and get in front of the next big thing — whatever it is.

 

We caught up with her to get a sneak peak at what’s coming when she takes the stage at Pubcon Las Vegas next month. Listen in as she talks about:

The Mindful Business Movement
Her new book “Space”
Advice for businesses just starting out with social media
The importance of paid social
Social media for mobile

Kristi Kellogg: You just got back from Wisdom 2.0 conference in New York and you were doing research for you latest book, “Space.” What did you learn there?

Lisa Buyer: When I was writing my book “Social PR Secrets,” I hired a business coach and he advised me to block out space and time each day before I did any of my writing to go to yoga, and then take three hours right after and write my book and then go on with my day. I thought this would make it take forever, but it actually ended up being the most productive advice ever and I finished the book within 30 days.

That got me thinking about the brain and how to calm it down and how that really helps you get creative and improves your productivity and thought processes. That made me think there must be something more to this. We’re in a social media crazy world and there’s a movement going on called the Mindful Movement in Businesses. It’s prevalent in high tech and startups.

It used to be it’s great to be a multi-tasker but now that’s not great and it’s better to take time and recharge and restore to really be the best you can be as a company leader and lead by example, so that’s why I was inspired to go to Wisdom 2.0 to do research for the book that I’m working on now: “Space.” It’s going to be a general business book and will apply to any type of professional.

KK: One of the things you really focused on in “Social PR Secrets” and that you’ll be talking about at Pubcon is social media. How has the seismic shift to mobile impacted social media marketing?

LB: From a public relations standpoint and getting social media to get publicity, we have to just realize that everything is in the palm or your hand, whether it’s your tablet, iPhone or other mobile device, and you really have to be thinking about that – be short, quick, visual, and get to your point as quickly as possible. Optimize and hopefully lead them to longer form content on your website or blog with a signal to purchase right there. Make it as easy as possible.

“Social media for mobile should get to the point as quickly as possible.” – @LisaBuyer
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KK: What do need to focus on in the paid social media space right now?

LB: Traditionally in public relations, you want everything to be organic. But the reality is you need to use paid (social media) to really amplify and reach your targeted audience, and if you do it right, the beauty and synergy of using paid, organic and social can be very effective from a public relations standpoint.

But a lot of brands just try to do it by trial-and-error and get super frustrated and don’t get results. But in order to get the best return on your investment and not spend needless money, you need to stay educated and keep up with the best practices because things are moving so fast and changing so fast.

KK: Speaking of education, you teach a course on social media management at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism. What are some of the most common social media knowledge gaps among these tech-savvy millennials?

LB: Of course they’re super proficient when it comes to social media from a personal standpoint, but it’s a whole new world to them when it comes to social media for business. Even though they’re using social – it’s the old joke of hiring an intern to do your social media. It could be a good thing, but they need to have had background in using social media from a business standpoint so they’re not learning as they go.

Even though they’re familiar with all the channels and using Instagram every day and Snapchat, it’s a completely different mindset on using it for business vs. personal. Even though the millennials grew up on social for the most part, social from a business standpoint is something they still have a lot to learn about – and so do we!

KK: Let’s say you’re a business with no social media presence — how would you recommend getting started?

LB: I’m imagining a startup or personal brand or entrepreneur or a company that’s maybe just a little behind. The first thing I would do is see where your audience is – where are your prospects? Which social networks are they actually on? Focus there first. A common mistake that brand makes is spreading their efforts across evenly on every social network and really you should just focus on one. If Facebook is where your audience is, focus on just Facebook and really master that and then move on.

The next thing I would do is see where your competition is and look where the media and journalists that are covering your space – where are they? Start following them and interacting with them on social media.

KK: How do you gauge the value of a new platform, like Blab.im or something else that hasn’t really been tested?

LB: It’s worthwhile to definitely explore some of these new platforms that come out – I just did an interview right before ours on Blab and you know it’s in beta and it’s just starting out and it’s definitely worth testing. Should you put all your eggs in one basket? Should you stop what you’re doing and switch gears? I wouldn’t recommend that. It depends on your resources. If you can test things out right away and be an early adopter of something when it comes out, you won’t be playing catch up later if you realize it’s a good match for your audience.

KK: Other than Blab and mobile, what else would you say is trending in the world of social and digital?

LB: You can’t help but notice the huge explosion of Periscope and Meerkat, which fall in line with Blab. Livestreaming video and being able to interview someone from your mobile device is another huge example of mobile and social being used together. Personally, out of the two I like Periscope right now, but for brands to be able to have that ability to use livestreaming video whether it’s doing a behind-the-scenes interview and then uploading it to YouTube and have that video content which is the content that is working so well right now on social and mobile it’s huge. If you can find a way to integrate video into your social and PR strategy that makes sense, it could be a home run.

KK: What are you top tips for staying on top of reputation management?

LB: Reputation management is so important for so many different aspects. From a public relations aspect, if you’re a startup or new company, it’s so important to start early and be proactive when it comes to reputation management. Get those easy wins in the search results right away – get positive media coverage. Because then, when something negative happens, you’re at least a little bit secure and prepared and it’s not just this obvious negativity.

The other thing I would recommend goes back to mindfulness for business. We’re working 24/7 in social media – and the more you’re on it and the more you don’t take breaks, the more apt you are to making mistakes. A lot of these social media mishaps caused big huge reputation management PR problems because somebody posted something on behalf of the brand instead of a personal account. A lot of these situations start with mistakes, and mistakes are usually made when people are overworked or trying to do too many things at once.

Avoiding #SMM missteps: “The more you don’t take breaks, the more apt you are to make mistakes.”…
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KK: For someone who’s an employee or working in-house and can’t necessarily break away for yoga every morning, what tips would you give to them to manage their time better and be mindful?

LB: You don’t have to do yoga to be mindful! It could be as easy as stepping away for five minutes and actually taking a lunch and not sitting at your desk and eating while reading emails, etc. Get up and get out and take a pause – that was one of the biggest takeaways I got from the Wisdom 2.0 Conference. Refresh, restore and come back and be more productive and happier.

Key to productivity? “Get up and get out and take a pause – and come back more productive.”…
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KK: Pubcon is one of the most anticipated digital marketing conferences of the year, with more than 180 industry leaders sharing their insights. What are you most looking forward to at Pubcon?

LB: As an attendee, I think it’s great networking. I always meet the most interesting professionals from the tech and digital world. I also continue my own education. I go to sessions on search marketing and other sessions that complement what I do from a social media and PR standpoint. I think it’s a combination of the people, the content and the network we can do – and, of course, it’s Las Vegas.

KK: Who are some of your favorite people to follow on Twitter?

For mindful business:  

Wisdom 2.0
Melissa Daimler
Daily Zen
Elizabeth Gilbert
Jonathan Fields

For social PR and marketing:

Gary Vaynerchuck
Guy Kawasaki
Peg Fitzpatrick
Ekaterina Walter
Canva

Great insights from Lisa Buyer! Catch Lisa speaking at Pubcon on Oct. 7 at 11:45 alongside Marty Weintraub and Murray Newlands in “Mobile and Social PR Secrets.” A 10% off ticket is yours with discount code ex-6104410.

Shining a Light on iBeacon & Google Eddystone: Location-Aware Marketing Made Possible with BLE Technology

Shining a Light on iBeacon & Google Eddystone: Location-Aware Marketing Made Possible with BLE Technology was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

BLE technology, including Apple’s iBeacon and Google’s Eddystone — while most digital marketers have heard of it, have they harnessed it? Media Wyse CEO Casey Markee is speaking about the technology powering location-aware marketing next month at Pubcon Las Vegas.

Markee joined me for an interview on all things BLE this morning, starting off with the most important question: just what is this technology? From there, we looked at how BLE technology that makes location-aware alerts and offers possible, fits into the big picture of digital marketing, plus took a look at specific examples and case studies, and where the line between helpful and intrusive may be when it comes to beacons.

Check out the entire interview and/or read along below.

Kristi Kellogg: What are some of the key differences between Apple iBeacon and Google Eddystone?

Casey Markee: BLE is Bluetooth low energy technology. Beacons use Bluetooth extremely effectively to do customized, hyperlocal marketing. Beacon technology is location-aware, low-cost transmitter that use Bluetooth and geofencing to serve hyperlocalized offers and experiences. I don’t know if any of you watch “Minority Report,” but you might remember that scene from where Tom Cruise is hypertargeted with all these localized offers.

That stuff is very close to being a reality and that’s where beacons come into play. Bluetooth doesn’t have the limitations that wifi does – it can go through walls and around corners. So using beacons in conjunction with Bluetooth power allows you to serve a level of customized offering that most retailers haven’t experienced before.

KK: How does this fit into the big picture for digital marketers?

CM: We’re always talking about fulfilling a need or focusing on the customer base. And beacons allow you to serve hyperlocally. They’re customized personalization. It’s funny that Apple really started this trend with iBeacon when it’s really Google’s purview with regards to this hypertargeting. [Google] wants to be able to be everything to everybody and Beacons allow retailers to push out a customized experience.

“#Beacons allow you to serve hyperlocally” – @MediaWyse #DigitalMarketing
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KK: Since you mentioned Google, let’s talk about Eddystone. There’s a difference between Apple’s technology and Google’s when it comes to beacons. Apple created iBeacon in 2013 and Google launched Eddystone in July 2015. What are the differences between the two platforms?

CM: When the iBeacon came on the scene it was predominantly app based. Basically it’s proprietary – Apple’s put very slow, very finite controls on who can use it. It’s not open source unless you make some specific adjustments which are pretty technical. It’s predominantly iOS driven. You can use it to send messages through a universal unique identifier (UUID) and that’s their main API. It can do a lot of great things, but overall, if you’re a developer, you’re very limited.

Google realized how big beacons will be and realized they really needed to get involved. The first thing they did was go out and find everyone using iBeacons and asked them, “Hey, what do you hate about iBeacon? We are going to make a product that is going to address these deficiencies.” And they’ve done that through Eddystone. Eddystone, in contrast to iBeacon, is entirely open source and available through GitHub and it’s also cross-compatible, so it works with iOS and Android.

Eddystone offers multiple ways for retailers and developers to make use of it. They have multiple APIs that allow the beacons to communicate, not just through UUIDs, but through URL telemetry, so as a retailer you can just serve a URL to someone as they’re passing your business and they don’t even have to have an app. That customized URL can facilitate a sale or get them to think twice about the retailer.

KK: What are some innovative examples of how iBeacon or Google Eddystone can be used?

CM: The most common way is targeting your customer base with qualified offers. If someone is walking by your store, you can let them know you’re offering a 10 percent off lunch special. Or if you’re walking through a museum, beacons eliminate the need for docents completely. As you’re coming by a specific exhibit, you might be served a virtual map.

KK: I heard there was a case study on beacons from the Marsh supermarket chain in Indiana — can you tell us more about that?

CM: Marsh has a chain of about 70 supermarkets. They were the first ones to come out with an app for the Apple watch. When shoppers would enter the supermarkets, they would be served their shopping lists on the Apple watch and the beacon would navigate them through the store to find the items on their list and also provided them special offers and sent push notifications for things they might have missed. It’s only been live since April but they’ve already noticed an increase to their bottom line by a couple percent. And, remember, Apple Watch doesn’t even have high market penetration as of yet, though I think it will change in the last quarter of the year when it becomes the must-have Christmas present.

KK: That seems like a really helpful example of how this technology can be used. It also seems like this technology has the potential to be a little intrusive. How can digital marketers walk the line between these two extremes?

Imagine you’re in a clothing store and you experience beacon-based smart mirrors — and the smart mirror is equipped with beacons that let you know yay or nay on your outfit. I’m not sure a lot of people are going to be impressed with, but that’s really something that people are actively developing right now … There is a fine line between being helpful and being intrusive. I think a lot of A/B testing goes on to see which offers resonate positively with the consumers and which don’t. A/B testing is mandatory.

KK: I heard that a lot of small business owners get into beacons through Facebook Beacons.

CM: Facebook Beacons were a smart move by Facebook. They’re currently extremely limited and are a good introduction for retailers and SMBs on beacon technology. They allow businesses to serve place tips. They’re triggered by someone who walks by your business or is visiting, and it serves place tips to anyone who has the Facebook app installed. Most of us have the Facebook app running on our phones at all time and that’s going to subject you to these Facebook triggered beacon notifications. It allows you to serve things like welcome notes and some pictures. Facebook Beacons are more of a general awareness type of beacon. They’re not very exhaustive. They’re not something that you can use to target custom offers but they’re free for businesses to obtain, they cover most locations and they’re a great introduction. If you have a walk-up business, whether it’s a CrossFit gym or a bagel shop, you’re going to get a beacon for free and they’re very easy to install. One beacon will cover the entire location and they provide another contact point for your customer, which is never a bad thing.

KK: I’ve also read that beacons are an area of explosive growth but I don’t see beacon technology in my everyday life. How are these observations reconciled?

CM: According to Business Insider Journal, there are estimated to be less than 500,000 beacons installed in the U.S., and that number is expected to explode to 4.5 million by 2018. Then you ask, “Where are all these beacons?” They’re there, you’re just not noticing them.

Cleveland Cavaliers have had iBeacons installed for about a year and a half. They’re one of the first big NBA teams to have these installed and now you can see them at most venues around the United States. The beacons are there, and if you have the app installed, and most do when they’re attending a game or attending a venue regularly, these beacons are serving you notifications of where the closest bathroom is or how you can navigate to the next concession stand. Why did my app know to send me a qualified offer when I was walking past the concession stand or to advertise “buy me tickets” to the next venue. If you’re at the Coors Ampitheater, you’ll get customized offers based on beacon. When I entered the venue, I was offered tickets for their next event at a discounted rate. Other ones will provide you a virtual map that you can navigate the venue with, and that will be the new normal.

With the Eddystone, you won’t need to have an app; it will use the alert or notifications tray to serve you notifications. A good example will be the TriMet Light Rail system in Portland. They’re one of the first big venues, and certainly one of the first transit organizations, to use Eddystone beacons. They have them installed at all 78 of their stations, so when someone walks up to one of these light rail stations, they’re served a notification through their notification tray letting them know, “Hey, we recognize you’re here. By the way, here’s a departure and arrival schedule based on your closest location to that light rail train.” That’s pretty good. Is that intrusive? Probably not if you’re standing there. So that’s an example of a customized offer, the right time, the right offer at the right place, and I think beacons can really improve your bottom line in many aspects if used effectively.

We greatly appreciate Casey Markee sharing his insights into iBeacon and Eddystone. Catch him speaking at Pubcon Las Vegas 2015 on Oct. 6 at 10:15 a.m. in Salon G. And if you’re not headed to Pubcon, not to worry: since we’re liveblogging Casey’s session, you’ll be able to catch a full recap right here on the Bruce Clay, Inc. Blog! See the entire liveblogging schedule here.

iPullRank’s Mike King Talks Persona Research, Lead Gen & High-Stakes SEO

iPullRank’s Mike King Talks Persona Research, Lead Gen & High-Stakes SEO was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

iPullRank founder Mike King joined me for a lively interview this morning, sharing key insights into digital marketing including:

why thinking about keywords is “a distraction”
the value of persona research
his favorite lead generation tactic
challenges in working with high-stakes brands

This morning’s 13-minute interview is jam-packed with SEO goodness — and it’s just a taste of what’s to come when King delivers talks at Pubcon Las Vegas and SMX East later this month. Watch the interview and/or read the transcript below!

Kristi Kellogg: At SMX East, you’re delivering a talk on “Perfect Starts: How to Get More of the Right Traffic” — that’s an important distinction — more of the right traffic. What does that start with?

Mike King: One of the first things that we always do in any campaign is market segmentation, so we create personas for our clients, but what we want to do is apply those personas to their existing content — so we do a content audit. Part of that qualitative review is looking at what stages of the user journey the existing content falls into — and who are the personas that are most likely to want that content. Also, we pull the quantitative metrics to see how content is performing as far as conversions and traffic, etc. and based on that, we’ll make a lot of determination about what types of content should be made more of and what can be repurposed.

KK: I have a great quote from you here. “You can’t even start thinking about keywords until you think about the people that will use them.” That seems to be an important part of finding the right traffic. Let’s talk more about that. 

MK: When we think about keywords, it’s a distraction. There are 400,000 searches for the word ‘TV,’ but really those are 400,000 people trying to figure something out through search. So really you have to figure out who are the people behind this search so that you can match them up with the right page and do things that will resonate with them.

And another key distinction is the fact that keywords are very ambiguous. Take ‘Asian Holiday’ for instance; does that mean going on a trip to China or does that mean Chinese New Year? Understanding the people behind these searches helps you put the ambiguous keywords into perspective.

KK: At Pubcon, you’re talking about lead generation alongside Alex Harris. What is your No. 1 preferred way to generate leads?

MK: I like doing everything organically – I love creating a cool piece of content and then having a landing page for that content where we grab the user’s email address or pay with a tweet so they effectively have to promote your content to get your content. Or we’ll do a guest post on a high-end website like Forbes, Business Insider or Moz and then link back to that landing page – that way we capture a lot of leads from the audience we’re trying to get to without having to pay for it. Then we just nurture those leads over time and eventually they become sales-qualified leads rather than just marketing-qualified leads.

KK: You’ve provided digital marketing services to some very important clients, including ABC, Johnson and Johnson, General Mills, and Citi Bank. What are some of the rewards and challenges that come with working with such high-stakes brands?

MK: The struggle and the reward are two sides of the same coin. The struggle is that it’s very difficult to get these types of brands to do something. You come up with these ideas that you’re very passionate about, but the companies can have structures that make it difficult because everything is so siloed – people don’t know each other on different teams because they’re so big. It’s really difficult to push things through for those types of brands.

KK: iPullRank seeks to do work that is: Proactive, Reliable, Outstanding, Useful and Dedicated, which forms the acronym PROUD. How do you live that out on a daily basis?

MK: When I came up with that value set, I thought about what I really wanted this company to exemplify – what do I want to do better than other agencies?

Proactive: every day we actively try to bring new opportunities to our clients before they ask for it. We’re not waiting for algorithm updates. Internally I try to make sure I’m always letting my team know new things that they can be doing better or we try to proactively provide feedback to each other.
Reliable: we want to be on time with the work that we do. It’s very difficult as an agency with a number of clients to always be on time, but that’s something we really strive for. Internally it’s all about helping out your team. No matter your job description, if there’s something you can do to help your team so they’re not overloaded, you can step up and help, and that’s being reliable and proactive.
Outstanding: we always look to do things that are awesome. We don’t take projects that we don’t think we can do a great job. Internally, everyone here tries to bring something new to the table, no matter what level you’re at as far as experience.
Useful: In marketing and ad it’s really easy to just keep thinking about what we should be doing in marketing to meet business goals. I like to say that we fight for the users – we want to make things that users will actually want that will also help these brands with their business objectives.
Dedicated: We just get things done, no questions asked. We’re often all in the office until sometimes seven, eight, nine at night because we want to be able to deliver on everything we say we’ll deliver on.

KK: You have a background as an independent hip hop musician — which is not surprising, given your intense stage presence and clear creativity. How did you go from hip hop artist to SEO mastermind?

MK: There are a lot of parallels as far as what it takes to stand out. I look at things and try to figure out how can I put this together creatively so that it stands out above what other people are doing. In some of my first blog posts for Moz used a lot of extended metaphors, which is something I do a lot in my lyrics —explaining search robots using Pacman or explaining personas using Smurfs.

You have to understand how to make a message stand out. As a rapper, convincing someone to buy your CD is one of the most difficult things in the world but it teaches you a lot about marketing. And when you have an actual budget, everything is a lot easier.

To your point about stage presence, that definitely makes the jump. It’s not difficult for me to connect with people in a crowd. And it’s a lot easier because I don’t have to make it rhyme anymore — I just talk.

Many thanks to Mike King for joining Bruce Clay, Inc. for this awesome interview. We’re looking forward to liveblogging your sessions at SMX East and Pubcon.

Gary Illyes: Panda Will Update Slowly with Refreshes, Penguin Updates Will Be Real-Time ━ Eventually

Gary Illyes: Panda Will Update Slowly with Refreshes, Penguin Updates Will Be Real-Time ━ Eventually was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes joined Bruce Clay for a candid chat about topics vital to SEO, including content for mobile, Gary’s dream of a world where everyone employs HTTPS, and the reality of the Phantom updates — plus plenty of talk about penalties and algorithm updates.

Here are key highlights right off the bat:

Panda updates will come slow with refreshes and Penguin updates will happen in real time (eventually).
HTTPS can be seen as a tiebreaker between otherwise equal sites.
Phantom was a core algorithm change.
Google considers Panda part of the core algorithm now and does not think of it as a penalty.
We are “months away” from the next Panda update.

Watch the entire interview, and/or read the transcript!

Bruce Clay: There’s been a lot of discussion about mobile and HTTPS, local and performance and other things that are not specifically non-page edits. What are some of the most important factors out of these? How does it play?

Gary Illyes: I wouldn’t pick one as most important because each of them are important for their own reasons. For example, mobile is big. You can’t deny that. It’s really, really very big. In at least ten countries we have more mobile searches nowadays then desktop search. So everyone should focus on mobile, regardless of their business model and where their users are coming from. Users demand content they can consume on their mobile devices – this doesn’t mean it has to be a mobile-friendly site. For example, it can be app-indexing enabled. We have tons of documentation both for apps and for mobile websites.

“Users demand content they can consume on their mobile devices.” — @Methode
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You mentioned local. From Google’s point of view, I’m not too familiar with Local as they’re a separate branch. But as a Google user, I think Local is really important for specific businesses. If you have, for example, a restaurant you definitely want to be on local because people want to be able to find you easily when searching for restaurants.

As another example, I’m kind of a bookworm and a collector. For really old books that I want to add to my collection usually I do extensive research. In those cases I’m not looking for a local entry in the SERP. However, if I want to pass time and I have two hours in London and I want to go to a bookshop, then Local can give me relevant and useful information. And in those cases, Local becomes super important. Same for restaurants — if I search for Italian restaurant in Boston, then I expect a Local result because I want to get there fast.

HTTPS is important for me and also for Google. I do wish that everyone on the Internet would go HTTPS to protect their users but of course this is just wishful thinking. I hope that I see more and more websites on HTTPS because I think that privacy is important, but of course I can’t expect everyone to go HTTPS.

If you’re in a competitive niche it can give you an edge from Google’s point of view. The HTTPS ranking boost acts like a tie-breaker. For example, if all quality signals are equal for a given result, the one that has HTTPS may get the added boost.

“#HTTPS can give you an edge; it acts like a tiebreaker.” @Methode  #SEO
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BC: Google laid out a lot of penalties over the last few years – a lot of people came to us and other firms to remove penalties and we’ve been diligently editing the customers’ sites and pruning bad links and stabilizing the content. Because the algorithm isn’t updated as often as we’d hope, those companies are actually wondering if it will work. What will happen? When are we going to get updates? How often will they happen? Are they part of the algorithm? What do you recommend a company does after they’ve fully repaired a site?

GI: (I will assume you’re talking about Panda and Penguin and not random algorithm updates that you don’t know about.) With Panda, we don’t think of it as a penalty. We think of it as a general ranking update. Long term, I would like to change people’s perception about how they think about Panda, for example, because in our view that’s really not a penalty. Sites sometimes may become really prominent for queries they don’t have great value content for, for example. In those cases since we want to offer our own users the best possible experience on our search results, we want them to find the correct information for their query, we have to adjust those overly prominent sites in our results. Not just Panda but some of our algorithms try to do that. They try to value more content that answers the users query better. If you think about it, that’s pretty much in line with what our general algorithms do. It’s just that with Panda we can’t update as fast as we do with our general algorithms.

As for Penguin, I was on vacation for a few weeks and fell out of the information flow about these things — Penguin refreshes, on the long run, as far as I know, will happen almost or close to real time. As usual, I don’t have anything to announce, and I think I already said this, but an update is still really far away. I think we are still talking about months.

BC: If we are able to work with clients on quality issues and we make changes, we might, then, be able to see a ranking change within days or weeks but in the case of links it will be longer?

GI: I think with Penguin it would take real-time crawling or re-indexing would give results already. With Panda we are still talking about refreshes, and as far as I know these refreshes will be rolled out really slowly. This is an infrastructure change on our end and I think we are going to stick with it.

BC: It seems like if the issue is quality, then we just have to keep working on it and wait for the updates and refreshes. And if it’s linking, and we have removed a large number of the bad links, we may be able to see something almost real-time. In many cases, we’ve removed and disavowed many, many files and the client doesn’t recognize a change in ranking. That could be because there are multiple algorithmic factors dampening their rankings. Is there something in the algorithm that says ‘Your quality was low so we’re going to lower you?’ Is that a manual process or is it algorithmic?

GI: No, it’s algorithmic. It’s part of our core ranking algorithm. With quality, SEOs tend to overthink it. I work a lot with websites; it’s part of my job. And what I see is that in many cases SEOs ‘over-SEO’ a website. They are trying to rank for keywords or terms that the site doesn’t have great content for. If I search for an Italian restaurant in New York, I don’t actually want results in the tri-state area — I want results for New York City. And what I see often is people trying to rank for queries they don’t have high quality and great value content for. Sooner or later the algorithm will catch it. Don’t overthink it. It’s simple content analysis and they will adjust the rank for the site and that’s it.

BC: You also indicated that Panda is part of the standard algorithm and Penguin is part of it and it’s real-time — is that right?

GI: That’s our plan — to integrate Panda into our core ranking algorithm; I don’t know if we’ve managed to do that yet. With Penguin, we still have lots of work to do as far as I know.

BC: So we’re going to be waiting for various implementations. How will we find out when they’re implemented?

GI: In general we tend to not announce core ranking algorithms. We don’t think that people should focus too much on it. Most search engines publish guidelines about how to build quality websites and that’s what people should focus on. If you are doing more than probably you are overdoing it. If we are asked about them, maybe we will confirm that we rolled out something that is associated with Panda or Penguin, but in general for core ranking algorithm changes we don’t confirm anything.  But in general we just want people to focus on building guidelines for that.

BC: Does the Phantom update exist? Is it imaginary? What is Phantom?

As far as I know it was a core ranking algorithm change. I don’t know much about it – and, in fact, I don’t want to know much about it, even though I am sometimes involved in ranking changes. We can go back to the quality guidelines and the Webmaster Guidelines. I would really recommend focusing on those rather than things like the Phantom update. It’s not productive and I’m very sure there are way better things to focus on.

BC: Is there something else that we should chiefly be paying attention to other than the Webmaster Guidelines?

GI: There’s nothing more that you really want to focus on. If you follow the Webmaster Guidelines, you will do good. I see many, many websites that are not doing much SEO on their websites and they are doing remarkably well. If they can do it, than pretty much anyone can do it. It’s not just Google that has these guidelines. Other search engines have done the same thing. Just focus on creating quality and great value content for the user. Don’t try to rank for overly vague keywords. It won’t work out well it in the long run.

Thank you so much to Gary Illyes for joining us all the way from Switzerland! His insights and commitment to knowledge transfer are appreciated by the entire digital marketing community. Catch him speaking at SMX East and Pubcon Las Vegas!