Link Building Mistakes and Penguin 4.0: Weekly Forum Update

The aftermath of Penguin 4.0 has been…surprisingly peaceful! In the days after Penguin was announced last Friday, many members of WebmasterWorld reported that instead of a hurricane, all they got was a stiff breeze.

But Penguin 4.0 also seems to be a slow beast – Gary Illyes only recently announced on Twitter that the penalty-lifting part of Penguin should be taking effect soon.

So I hope you're ready to follow the news for the next couple of weeks! It could be a bumpy ride, and our communities are a great place to get caught up.

Everything We Know About Google Penguin 4.0 So Far

If you were asleep or on vacation last week and missed the announcement, Penguin 4.0 is here. You can catch up with the above article by my colleague, Ann Smarty. She'll be updating it as new questions and answers arise. You can also get links to news and discussion in SEO Chat's Penguin 4.0 discussion thread.

If WebmasterWorld is more your style, the experts are watching their sites like hawks as Penguin continues to leave its impact.

September 23rd, when Penguin was announced, ryandiscord and ThomasHarvey of SEO Chat were looking at the SEO weather forecasts. As ryandiscord phrases it, “Nothing crazy,” was happening. But the theory of Penguin 4.0 was appreciated. Ryan also wrote,

“What I like about this update is that the results of a clean up can happen much sooner. I think it may even be easier to spot which links are being caught if it is page level.”

Users on WebmasterWorld had a similar reaction. SnowMan68 wrote,

“Well that was underwhelming. WTF!”

Ebuzz lent credence to the idea that Penguin is rolling out slowly. They wrote,

“I've not seen ANY change in my Penguin hit sites. It might as well not even be announced,”

on September 25th. Robert Charlton had exciting news to share on September 29th, though:

“Gary Illyes in ongoing discussion with Barry at SERoundtable, as clarified that the algo has been rolling out in phases, and that the phase in which demotions will be removed started late yesterday afternoon, ie Sept 28, 2016.”

Penguin 4.0: Some Things Change, Some Things Stay the Same

So webmasters haven't noticed many changes to the health of their sites yet. There are other things about Penguin which haven't changed with 4.0. You can take a look at all the things that have stayed the same in this Threadwatch update. Disavow files, for example, should still be used.

Everyone at Google is firm about the fact that Penguin will not do disavows for you. Google was also quick to add that manual link-based penalties will still be given out to sites that Penguin doesn't quite apply to.

Link Building Mistakes of the Pros and Newbs

With Penguin rolling out, now is the perfect time to talk about link building techniques!

This is an AWESOME thread from WebmasterWorld where users are talking about what techniques don't work and what tactics are mistakes in the modern era. I can't tell you how many newbie SEOs ask on SEO Chat,

“What are the best practices for link building in 2016?”

You can answer that, and more, with this thread. I dunno about you, but I'll be sharing this link far and wide – and probably for years. So what are some techniques that don't work? Martinibuster cites “publishing your actual outreach template in an SEO article” as one of them.

“Being transparent makes some people feel good about what they do… However, publishing search strategy specifics in public has been known to cause a response from Google.”

Graeme_p writes that

“One thing I did many years ago was to put footer links in free WordPress templates. People used them and I did get links that helped at the time. It worked for a while…but later on it probably looked spammy.”

Keyplyr agrees:

“I did that back then as well and many years later it has come back to bite me.”

Here's one of my pet peeves that engine and martinibuster discuss: chasing PR and DA! Martinibuster writes

“Nowadays I know there are many who are chasing DA, even though Rand Fishkin discourages the practice of using Domain Authority for judging a site's worth, describing it as the number one link building myth…”

Bing Academic and Movie Search Has an Intelligent Autocomplete

Bing has developed an intelligent autocomplete for its academic article and movie database searches. This intelligence

“…understands the intent [of a search], and generates suggestions based upon the user input. It won't give a response until it reaches a trigger point of understanding the intent,”

writes WebmasterWorld's admin, engine. It's a pretty neat paper! We take Google's autocomplete function for granted, and this paper will help you understand that as Bing details the specifics of its development.

What's really interesting is that this technology may be the first step in analyzing the web beyond links. Give it a read!

Is AI Getting in the Way of Google Understanding Your Site?

This is an interesting thread from WebmasterWorld, a spin-off of their Penguin discussion. As part of their announcement, Google said that they wouldn't be commenting on future Penguin refreshes. MrSavage writes that Google's behavior could be creating too wide of a disconnect between engineers and their product.

“…Perhaps it's as simple so the staff don't have to field…questions anymore…They are hardly concerned about whatever results are showing. The fact you can search something and get a number 1 or 2 result that are articles completely void of one or more of your typed in search terms tells me they don't give a S behind closed doors…”

We see webmasters, all the time, who use automated tools and are then unable to fix the mistakes they create. Is Google doing the same thing?

Perhaps integrating Penguin into the core algorithm and creating RankBrain are the first steps towards an automated (and ultimately inhuman or outdated) search engine. How important is the human element? Share your thoughts!

SEO: So, What DOES Work?

Several discussions on SEO Chat have been popping up in this same vein. SEO is changing – the things that used to work don't, and the things that do seem to create very small returns.

This is especially true in local SEO. Gazzahk writes,

“Manipulating Google SERPs is an increasingly difficult thing to do. My website used to dominate all my SERPs both locally and globally. Heaps of links to link bait made my money pages dominate…”

Today, though, he ranks better outside of his local area than he does inside of it. Besides content and links, what are the keys to great local rankings?

One thing that KernelPanic, an SEO Chat mod, brought up in an earlier discussion is reviews. Maybe, some day, local reviews will eclipse links in importance. What do you think?

Design Your Marketing Emails For Being Opened on a Smart Phone!

On Cre8asiteforums, user earlpearl tells the story of a recent email campaign they ran.

“On a recent large email blast our email provider gave us info I hadn't seen before: Percentage of Opens by Device. On that blast 92% were opened on a smart phone…KABOOOM!!”

It was a revelation – turns out that the recent emails were unreadable on a smart phone! The tiny screen shrunk the text down and scrambled it into gibberish.

“Next job: Change ALL the emails. ALL of them!”

earlpearl writes. User iamlost has a TON of great suggestions for how to optimize your responses, newsletters, promos, and more for smartphones. Check this thread out for a mobile UX wakeup call!

The post Link Building Mistakes and Penguin 4.0: Weekly Forum Update appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

SEJ LIVE: Anne Ahola Ward & Bridget Randolph on the Future of SEO, Mobile Search by @wonderwall7

This week #SEJLive was joined by Anne Ahola Ward and Bridget Randolph to discuss mobile SEO and the future of the search industry. Below are their live sessions and the topics they covered. Watch more SEJ Live Sessions by following our schedule or viewing past sessions on our Facebook page. Anne Ahola Ward, CircleClick Anne answered questions from the SEJ community on the future of SEO, including mobile optimization. She appeared LIVE on our Facebook page: Some of the Future of SEO questions Anne answered include: What's the current state of search now? Is mobile search a necessity? How is mobile search different? What is […]

The post SEJ LIVE: Anne Ahola Ward & Bridget Randolph on the Future of SEO, Mobile Search by @wonderwall7 appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

The natural evolution of digital for brands: becoming more human

It used to be that digital interactions portrayed in the Jetsons, on Star Trek and through KITT on Knight Rider were make-believe preserved for the television and big screen.

However, with the rise of digital personal assistants in recent years like Cortana and Siri, and intelligent bots, what was once science fiction is quickly becoming fact.

We are on the cusp of the next big shift in computing-a shift that is fueled by the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and built around the one act that comes most natural to us-conversation.

We are optimistic about what technology can do, and this is rooted in a belief that every person and organization should be empowered to achieve more. It's important though to set some context on how we've arrived at this new reality to help answer why you should care and what you should do as a marketer.

Every decade is marked with a shift driven by technological innovation. From the proliferation of PCs during the 80s to the emergence of the Web in the 90s to the rise of mobile and the cloud in the last decade – we have expanded our commerce, improved our communication and strengthened our connections.

But while these advances have helped the world become smaller, in many ways they've added layers of complexity, and more significantly, they've put the onus on us, the user, to adapt our behavior and expression so that we can be understood by the machines.

But what if we could just talk and interact with technology in exactly the same way we do with other people? Call upon it when we genuinely need support and not have to change the way we behave in order to reap the benefits?

We envision a world where digital experiences mirror the way people interact with one another today. A world where natural language will become the new user interface. A world where human conversation is the platform-the place to discover, access and interact with information and services, and get things done.

Computing is becoming more human

The mobile first, cloud-centric world of computing is driving this new platform of engagement. With the ability to understand tone of voice, interpret emotions and remember conversations, the nature of AI is no longer about man vs. machine, it's about machines complementing and empowering people to do more of what really matters to them.

One of the major trends that has set the stage for an era of people communicating with their devices is the growth in people communicating through their devices.

With more than 3 billion people using messaging apps every day, consumers are spending five times longer on average using messaging apps than they do on all other mobile apps.

And, what's more, we've reached a point where natural language is the new universal user interface with technology. Search intelligence is now embedded across platforms and services, harnessing intent understanding and using a vast base of semantic knowledge.

When coupled with machine learning that's infused throughout all of our digital interactions, technology is becoming more human. People and machines are able to sustain conversations with personal digital assistants and intelligent bots in such a way that the meaning, intent and even emotion behind the words are as comprehensible as the words themselves. And we're nearing a time when this will be scaleable to every individual and every business.

Conversations are the new platform

Imagine if brands had the opportunity to engage with consumers in ways that were not only relevant and personal but also in an environment where their added value is proactively sought out by the individual themselves. In the realm of conversations as a platform, this is the new reality.

Picture having a sudden craving for pizza. Just by telling the personal assistant on your phone “I would love a thick crusty four seasons pizza right now,” you've initiated a conversation to seek options or gone directly to your preferred pizzeria.

The bot you choose to talk to will place the order for you and arrange delivery and payment within seconds. In essense, you expressed a need, an emotion and took the initiative to engage with a particular company through their bot and you got what you wanted with more speed and ease than was previously possible.

This example illustrates how brands need to be ready for the engagement opportunities within this conversational exchange.

Marketers must think strategically about the best framework for building bots that cater to natural language and play into conversations across all platforms.

From there they must figure out how to connect these into their existing cloud, CRM and other elements of their digital marketing ecosystem. This is a business strategy that will require input across functions – starting with the CMO and throughout marketing, sales and IT – in order to offer a customer experience that is consistent with other more traditional digital engagements as well as being timely, relevant and serendipitous.

It's a time of fundemental change in the digital technology experience. Conversations as a platform, A.I. and emerging search technologies are advancing this next frontier in ways that will simplify and enhance our lives and will be critical to every future marketer's success.

To put a twist on these three timeless words from the Cluetrain Manifesto, it's not just “markets are conversations,” but the future of “marketing is conversations.”

Ryan Gavin is General Manager, Search and Cortana Marketing at Microsoft.

Helping prospective students make decisions about their future

Just in time for college application season, new in-depth search results now help surface relevant information about colleges and universities from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard.

Optimizing for RankBrain... Should We Do It? (Is It Even Possible?) - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

If you've been stressing over how to optimize your SEO for RankBrain, there's good news: you can't. Not in the traditional sense of the word, at least. Unlike the classic algorithms we're used to, RankBrain is a query interpretation model. It's a horse of a different color, and as such, it requires a different way of thinking than we've had to use in the past. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand tackles the question of what RankBrain actually is and whether SEOs should (or can) optimize for it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about RankBrain SEO and RankBrain in general. So Google released this algorithm or component of their algorithm a while ago, but there have been questions for a long time about: Can people actually do RankBrain SEO? Is that even a thing? Is it possible to optimize specifically for this RankBrain algorithm?

I'll talk today a little bit about how RankBrain works just so we have a broad overview and we're all on the same page about it. Google has continued to release more and more information through interviews and comments about what the system does. There are some things that potentially shift in our SEO strategies and tactics around it, but I'll show why optimizing for RankBrain is probably the wrong way to frame it.

What does RankBrain actually do?

So what is it that RankBrain actually does? A query comes in to Google. Historically, classically Google would use an algorithm, probably the same algorithm, at least they've said sort of the same algorithm across the board historically to figure out which pages and sites to show. There are a bunch of different ranking inputs, which we've talked about many times here on Whiteboard Friday.

But if you search for this query today, what Google is saying is with RankBrain, they're going to take any query that comes in and RankBrain is essentially going to be a query interpretation model. It's going to look at the words in that query. It's potentially going to look at things possibly like location or personalization or other things. We're not entirely sure whether RankBrain uses those, but it certainly could. It interprets these queries, and then it's going to try and determine the intent behind the query and make the ranking signals that are applied to the results appropriate to that actual query.

So here's what that means. If you search today - I did this search on my mobile device, I did it on my desktop device - for "best Netflix shows" or "best shows on Netflix" or "What are good Netflix shows," "good Netflix shows," "what to watch on Netflix," notice a pattern here? All five of these searches are essentially asking for the very same thing. We might quibble and say "what to watch on Netflix" could be more movie-centric than shows, which could be more TV or episodic series-centric. That's okay. But these five are essentially, " What should I watch on Netflix?"

Now, RankBrain is going to help Google understand that each of these queries, despite the fact that they use slightly different words and phrasing or completely different words, with the exception of Netflix, that they should all be answered by the same content or same kinds of content. That's the part where Google, where RankBrain is determining the searcher intent. Then, Google is going to use RankBrain to basically say, "Now, what signals are right for me, Google, to enhance or to push down for these particular queries?"

Signals

So we're going to be super simplistic, hyper-simplistic and imagine that Google has this realm of just a few signals, and for this particular query or set of queries, any of these, that...

• Keyword matching is not that important. So minus that, not super important here.


• Link diversity, neither here nor there.


• Anchor text, it doesn't matter too much, neither here nor there.


• Freshness, very, very important.

Why is freshness so important? Well, because Google has seen patterns before, and if you show shows from Netflix that were on the service a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, you are no longer relevant. It doesn't matter if you have lots of good links, lots of diversity, lots of anchor text, lots of great keyword matching. If you are not fresh, you are not showing searchers what they want, and therefore Google doesn't want to display you. In fact, the number one result for all of these was published, I think, six or seven days ago, as of the filming of this Whiteboard Friday. Not particularly surprising, right? Freshness is super important for this query.

• Domain authority, that is somewhat important. Google doesn't want to get too spammed by low-quality domains even if they are publishing fresh content.


• Engagement, very, very important signal here. That indicates to Google whether searchers are being satisfied by these particular results.

This is a high-engagement query too. So on low-engagement queries, where people are looking for a very simple, quick answer, you expect engagement not to be that big. But for something in-depth, like "What should I watch on Netflix," you expect people are going to go, they're going to engage with that content significantly. Maybe they're going to watch a trailer or some videos. Maybe they're going to browse through a list of 50 things. High engagement, hopefully.

• Related topics, Google is definitely looking for the right words and phrases.

If you, for example, are talking about the best shows on Netflix and everyone is talking about how hot - I haven't actually seen it - "Stranger Things" is, which is a TV program on Netflix that is very much in the public eye right now, well, if you don't have that on your best show list, Google probably does not want to display you. So that's an important related topic or a concept or a word vector, whatever it is.

• Content depth, that's also important here. Google expects a long list, a fairly substantive page of content, not just a short, "Here are 10 items," and no details about them.

As a result of interpreting the query, using these signals in these proportions, these five were basically the top five or six for every single one of those queries. So Google is essentially saying, "Hey, it doesn't matter if you have perfect keyword targeting and tons of link diversity and anchor text. The signals that are more important here are these ones, and we can interpret that all of these queries essentially have the same intent behind them. Therefore, this is who we're going to rank."

So, in essence, RankBrain is helping Google determine what signals to use in the algorithm or how to weight those signals, because there's a ton of signals that they can choose from. RankBrain is helping them weight them, and they're helping them interpret the query and the searcher intent.

How should SEOs respond?

Does that actually change how we do SEO? A little bit. A little bit. What it doesn't do, though, is it does not say there is a specific way to do SEO for RankBrain itself. Because RankBrain is, yes, helping Google select signals and prioritize them, you can't actually optimize for RankBrain itself. You can optimize for these signals, and you might say, "Hey, I know that, in my world, these signals are much more important than these signals," or the reverse. For a lot of commercial, old-school queries, keyword matching and link diversity and anchor text are still very, very important. I'm not discounting those. What I'm saying is you can't do SEO for RankBrain specifically or not in the classic way that we've been trained to do SEO for a particular algorithm. This is kind of different.

That said, there are some ways SEOs should respond.

1. If you have not already killed the concept, the idea of one keyword, one page, you should kill it now. In fact, you should have killed it a long time ago, because Hummingbird really put this to bed way back in the day. But if you're still doing that, RankBrain does that even more. It's even more saying, "Hey, you know what? Condense all of these. For all of these queries you should not have one URL and another URL and another URL and another URL. You should have one page targeting all of them, targeting all the intents that are like this." When you do your keyword research and your big matrix of keyword-to-content mapping, that's how you should be optimizing there.


2. It's no longer the case, as it was probably five, six years ago, that one set of fixed inputs no longer governs every single query. Because of this weighting system, some queries are going to demand signals in different proportion to other ones. Sometimes you're going to need fresh content. Sometimes you need very in-depth content. Sometimes you need high engagement. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you will need tons of links with anchor text. Sometimes you will not. Sometimes you need high authority to rank for something. Sometimes you don't. So that's a different model.
   


3. The reputation that you get as a website, a domain earns a reputation around particular types of signals. That could be because you're publishing lots of fresh content or because you get lots of diverse links or because you have very high engagement or you have very low engagement in terms of you answer things very quickly, but you have a lot of diverse information and topics on that, like a Dictionary.com or an Answers.com, somebody like that where it's quick, drive-by visits, you answer the searcher's query and then they're gone. That's a fine model. But you need to match your SEO focus, your brand of the type of SEO and the type of signals that you hit to the queries that you care about most. You should be establishing that over time and building that out.

So RankBrain, yes, it might shift a little bit of our strategic focus, but no, it's not a classic algorithm that we do SEO against, like a Panda or a Penguin. How do I optimize to avoid Panda hitting me? How do I optimize to avoid Penguin hitting me? How do I optimize for Hummingbird so that my keywords match the query intent? Those are very different from RankBrain, which has this interpretation model.

So, with that, I look forward to hearing about your experiences with RankBrain. I look forward to hearing about what you might be changing since RankBrain came out a couple of years ago, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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6 Critical Metrics to Add to Your SEO Campaigns

A few key metrics are all it takes to track the effectiveness of any SEO campaign. Incorporating these 6 critical metrics will give invaluable insight.

The post 6 Critical Metrics to Add to Your SEO Campaigns appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Just 36% of people entering the tech industry are women

The technology industry is lagging behind many other sectors when it comes to the proportion of women taking up entry level positions.

This is according to US research by McKinsey in their new report: Women in the Workplace

The study surveyed 132 companies which collectively employ more than 4.6m people. It shows that while 75% of CEOs in corporate America are saying gender equality is a top ten priority – and in the wake of the high-profile Gamergate controversy – tech is still woefully behind.

Women entering the tech industry are far outnumbered by men and they lose ground on every step of the ladder

The McKinsey report separates out key industries in the US and shows the proportion of women working at each stage of the corporate ladder.

For the tech industry (including electronics, hardware, software and IT) just 36% of entry level positions are accounted for by women. This proportion goes down to 31% at manager level and an even lower 19% at the C-Suite level.

Tech is certainly lagging behind other sectors…

For instance, the asset management and institutional investors industry sees 50:50 parity for men and women at entry level (but just 14% women in the C-Suite). Professional and information services sees a majority of women at entry level (59%) but just 22% at C-Suite.

The report also allows for comparison of the issue with corporate America as a whole. On average, 46% of all people going into corporate jobs in the US are women but this shrinks down to just 19% at the C-Suite level. For women of colour, the percentage is 17% at entry level and 3% at the C-Suite.

Gender inequality research in tech and digital is growing

McKinsey's research builds on wider research into gender disparities across tech and digital.

In February, Econsultancy released UK-centric career and salary data for those working across the marketing, digital, design and advertising industries. The research highlighted the inequality in average pay between men and women across the digital sector – from specialists to general marketers.

In 2016, the average female digital specialist earns £38,176 – around £8,000 less than her male peers. For women in general digital marketing roles, the average salary is £37,477 – again around £8,000 less than the £45,750 earned by the average man doing the same work.

Gender inequality as contributor to the digital skills gap

The latest McKinsey report and that by Econsultancy earlier in the year will be cause for concern for those in government.

As I wrote in an article last month, a recent report by the Science and Technology Committee highlights that 90% of jobs in the country today require digital skills to some extent and suggests that we need 745,000 workers with these skills to fulfil industry demand by 2017.

The report also looks at methods for overcoming gender inequalities in its chapter headed Role models and diversity in STEM, stating:

“There is continuing concern over the lack of diversity among computer science/IT graduates and in wider Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) careers. Role models are an effective way of inspiring confidence to pursue a career path, but FDM Group highlighted that children and young people are more likely to identify with Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) as technology role models than Baroness Lane-Fox, Sheryl Sandberg (CEO of Facebook) or Marissa Mayer (president and CEO of Yahoo).”

And:

“Despite long standing campaigns from Government and industry, however, there remains a marked gender imbalance in those studying computing-only 16% of computer science students at school are female (compared with 42% who studied ICT) and this low level of representation persists through higher education and in the workplace. A survey of more than 4,000 girls, young women, parents and teachers in 2015 showed that 60% of 12-year-old girls in the UK and Ireland thought that STEM subjects were too difficult to learn and nearly half thought that they were a better match for boys.”

Gender inequality as contributor to lost GDP

McKinsey back in April also conducted research into the actual monetary gains all US states can make should women attain full gender equality in the labour force.

Their report The power of parity: Advancing women's equality in the United States posits that collectively more than $4 trillion could be added to the US economy by 2025 if gender parity is fully realised.

Referring back to the Women in the Workplace data which sees the worst gender inequality in job roles further up the corporate ladder, it's notable that The power of parity report singled out inequality in leadership and managerial positions as one of six priority 'impact zones' for action to improve business opportunities for women and the economic benefits this will lead to.

So are things improving?

Women in the Workplace does show that CEOs seem increasingly keen to make their workplaces more equal and that things are moving in the right direction. But progress is slow at just one or two percentage points closer towards gender parity from 2015 to 2016.

That said, it is positive to see another report highlighting the issues of inequality in tech, as well as for providing evidence for the social and economic gains from better gender parity in business. But this latest McKinsey data shows there is still a lot of ground to be covered in the industry before the gap is closed and the benefits are realised.

5 Tips for Improving the Quality and Impact of Webinars

Webinars are such big business that everybody does them. How do you make your webinar stand apart from the pack? Here are five tips.

The post 5 Tips for Improving the Quality and Impact of Webinars appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

How to Build Backlinks Using Your Competitors' Broken Pages

Posted by TomCaulton

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

We all know building backlinks is one of the most important aspects of any successful SEO and digital marketing campaign. However, I believe there is an untapped resource out there for link building: finding your competitors' broken pages that have been linked to by external sources.

Allow me to elaborate.

Finding the perfect backlink often takes hours, and it can can take days, weeks, or even longer to acquire. That's where the link building method I've outlined below comes in. I use it on a regular basis to build relevant backlinks from competitors' 404 pages.

Please note: In this post, I will be using Search Engine Land as an example to make my points.

Ready to dive in? Great, because I'm going to walk you through the entire link building process now.

First, you need to find your competitor(s). This is as easy as searching for the keyword you're targeting on Google and selecting websites that are above you in the SERPs. Once you have a list of competitors, create a spreadsheet to put all of your competitors on, including their position in the rankings and the date you listed them.

Next, download Screaming Frog SEO Spider [a freemium tool]. This software will allow you to crawl all of your competitors website, revealing all their 404 pages. To do this, simply enter your competitors' URLs in the search bar one at a time, like this:

Once the crawl is complete, click "Response Codes."

Then, click on the dropdown arrow next to "filter" and select "Client Error 4xx."

Now you'll be able to see the brand's 404 pages.

Once you've completed the step above, simply press the "Export" button to export all of their 404 pages into a file. Next, import this file into to a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Docs. On this part of the spreadsheet, create tabs called "Trust Flow," "Citation Flow," "Referring Domains," and "External Backlinks."

Now that you've imported all of their 404 pages, you need to dissect the images and external links if there are any. A quick way to do this is to highlight the cell block by pressing on the specific cell at the top, then press "Filter" under the "Data" tab.Look for the drop-down arrow on the first cell of that block. Click the drop-down arrow, and underneath "Filter by values," you will see two links: "Select all" and "Clear."

Press "Clear," like this:

This will clear all preset options. Now, type in the URL of the competitor's website in the search box and click "Select all."

This will filter out all external links and just leave you with their 404 pages. Go through the whole list, highlighting the pages you think you can rewrite.

Now that you have all of your relevant 404 pages in place, run them through Majestic [a paid tool] or Moz's Open Site Explorer (OSE) [a freemium tool] to see if their 404 pages actually have any external links (which is what we're ultimately looking for). Add the details from Majestic or Moz to the spreadsheet. No matter which tool you use (I use OSE), hit "Request a CSV" for the backlink data. (Import the data into a new tab on your spreadsheet, or create a new spreadsheet altogether if you wish.)

Find relevant backlinks linking to (X's) website. Once you've found all of the relevant websites, you can either highlight them or remove the ones that aren't from your spreadsheet.

Please note: It's worth running each of the websites you're potentially going to be reaching out to through Majestic and Moz to find out their citation flow, trust flow, and domain authority (DA). You may only want to go for the highest DA; however, in my opinion, if it's relevant to your niche and will provide useful information, it's worth targeting.

With the 404s and link opportunities in hand, focus on creating content that's relevant for the brands you hope to earn a link from. Find the contact information for someone at the brand you want the link from. This will usually be clear on their website; but if not, you can use tools such as VoilaNorbert and Email Hunter to get the information you need. Once you have this information, you need to send them an email similar to this one:

---

Hi [THEIR NAME],

My name is [YOUR NAME], and I carry out the [INSERT JOB ROLE – i.e., MARKETING] at [YOUR COMPANY'S NAME or WEBSITE].

I have just come across your blog post regarding [INSERT THEIR POST TITLE] and when I clicked on one of the links on that post, it happened to go to a 404 page. As you're probably aware, this is bad for user experience, which is the reason I'm emailing you today.

We recently published an in-depth article regarding the same subject of the broken link you have on your website: [INSERT YOUR POST TITLE].

Here's the link to our article: [URL].

I was wondering if you wouldn't mind linking to our article instead of the 404 page you're currently linking to, as our article will provide your readers with a better user experience.

We will be updating this article so we can keep people provided with the very latest information as the industry evolves.

Thank you for reading this email and I look forward to hearing from you.

[YOUR NAME]

---

Disclaimer: The email example above is just an example and should be tailored to your own style of writing.

In closing, remember to keep detailed notes of the conversations you have with people during outreach, and always follow up with people you connect with.

I hope this tactic helps your SEO efforts in the future. It's certainly helped me find new places to earn links. Not only that, but it gives me new content ideas on a regular basis.

Do you use a similar process to build links? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Why E-Commerce Needs AMP by @MarcPurtell

Since e-commerce sites are different from news sites, a case must be made for the necessity of implementing AMP pages on an e-commerce site.

The post Why E-Commerce Needs AMP by @MarcPurtell appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Maps Maximizes Voice Search Capabilities in Latest Update by @SouthernSEJ

Google Maps has updated its mobile app with new voice search capabilities.

The post Google Maps Maximizes Voice Search Capabilities in Latest Update by @SouthernSEJ appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Has Started Removing Penalties From Previous Penguin Updates by @SouthernSEJ

Google's Gary Illyes has confirmed Penguin recoveries are happening now, and will be finished within the next few days.

The post Google Has Started Removing Penalties From Previous Penguin Updates by @SouthernSEJ appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google Continues to Rev Up Remarketing With Latest AdWords Innovations by @SouthernSEJ

Google continues to make remarketing an even more powerful tool for advertisers with the release new advertising innovations.

The post Google Continues to Rev Up Remarketing With Latest AdWords Innovations by @SouthernSEJ appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Penguin 4.0: what does it mean for SEO practitioners?

As you're no doubt aware, Google finally rolled out its Google 4.0 algorithm update at the end of last week.

Penguin is now part of Google's core algorithm, penalising websites that use various black-hat link schemes to manipulate search rankings.

Other important changes include:

• Penguin data is refreshed in real time, so any changes will be made as soon as the affected page has been recrawled and reindexed.


• Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking of the offending page, rather than affecting the whole site.

So how do these changes affect actual SEO practitioners? I asked a panel of experts and SEW contributors their views on Penguin 4.0, including:

• Gerald Murphy, Client Service Manager at EMEA at BrightEdge


• Kevin Gibbons, Managing Director at Blue Glass


• Nikolay Stoyanov, freelance SEO consultant at niksto.com

Do you think the new version of Penguin is fairer? Do you think it's an adequate deterrent when it comes to spammy link-building?

Kevin Gibbons: Yes, being realtime helps to set expectations as you won't have to wait weeks or months for the next algorithm refresh to assess your link removals.

Of course Google's algorithm is always a moving target – but it is becoming harder to be manipulated at scale. In some verticals it can even be a game of whoever doesn't have the worst backlinks might win. Perhaps having a new domain with no link reputation isn't a bad starting point any more!

Gerald Murphy: I think the algorithm is fairer. Think about it, you will be awarded for great content, instantly. I also think that, with the rise of AI, Google will soon be able to understand links more. A flower shop on Valentines Day, for example, will get away with more spam-like links but this won't be the case in September. As links will be linked with behaviours.

Nikolay Stoyanov: Yes, I think that the real-time version of the Penguin algorithm will be fairer and will play a very positive role for the whole SEO community.

Google Penguin is now a part of the core algorithm and every change (either a negative or positive one) will happen very quickly (maybe not instantly but on a daily or weekly basis). After more than 700 days of waiting we can finally rest assured that whatever SEO mistakes we make we will be able to quickly fix afterwards.

This works both ways though. If we use some gray or black hat techniques Google will be able to catch us very quickly and punish us for not following its rules. So this is a double-edged sword.

Another great change with Penguin 4.0 is the fact that it became more “granular”. This means that whatever penalties hit our sites from now on they will impact separate pages on the site and not the whole domain in general.

I believe that this will be a positive thing as it will give us a better chance to fix those penalized pages and to learn from our mistakes without losing a huge amount of our organic traffic (like before).

Ideally, the latest Penguin update will benefit white hat SEO experts like myself and will help us take our SEO to the next level. Same goes with end users who will get better results to answer their search intent properly.

Conversely, black hat techniques (especially PBNs) will slowly become obsolete and will eventually stop working which is the ultimate goal.

Have you experienced any affect from the Penguin update?

Kevin Gibbons: None of our clients have seen any negative shifts in organic traffic.

However, in the past we have noticed trends of referral traffic dropping as a knock-on effect from blogs/forums/publishers that have been penalised and as a result of them having less traffic, there are fewer outbound link clicks.

The data we have so far is too early to highlight a trend, but it's certainly one to keep a close eye on…

Nikolay Stoyanov: No, I haven't seen any change on my site or my clients' sites since Penguin 4.0 was launched. I guess it's because I'm playing by the rules but also because it's not been entirely rolled out yet. It's way too soon to jump to conclusions.

How can webmasters best avoid the risk of being affected by Penguin?

Kevin Gibbons: Focus on building a brand, not links.

If your activity is just for link building, it will leave an SEO footprint. No-one wants that.

Aim to tell your story via content, data-driven analysis and knowledge – and amplify to a targeted audience via multiple channels; social media, paid search, digital PR etc…

Also monitor the links you have and audit these on a frequent basis. If you're in a competitive industry, you may have to actively disavow negative links that have been built to your site that someone else has built!

Gerald Murphy: Data analysis is even more important to SEO. This most effecient way to analyse this update is to breakdown links by category, sub category, and page level, and then compare this with data, such as, visits, average blended rank, and revenue, for example.

Nikolay Stoyanov: Forget about shortcuts in SEO! There aren't any. The only way to stay on the safe side and secure your brand, visitors and sales is if you do white hat SEO.

Write well researched and useful content and build quality links to it. That's it! Nothing's changed. Hopefully with the real-time Penguin that's exactly what's going to happen. Maybe not at once but eventually.

With Hummingbird and RankBrain we're already seeing lots of positive changes in the SERPs from content perspective. Now's the time to see the same when it comes to link building.

How, if at all, will this update change the way you work?

Kevin Gibbons: The update doesn't change our process, the only thing it might do is re-affirm the message we have been on the right track by focusing on quality. We're just hoping it catches some of our clients competitors out!

Nikolay Stoyanov: I wouldn't say that Penguin 4.0 will change my work routine in any way. But I am pretty sure that there will be a much higher demand for quality link building services in the upcoming years due to this huge change in the SEO world.

Hopefully, more and more webmasters will start playing by the rules as they should be same for everyone. That's fair!

Gerald Murphy: It won't.

What future algorithm changes do you wish to see? Is there anything Google is ignoring?

Kevin Gibbons: There's always been a gap between what Google says it's algorithm does and what it actually does. Over recent years they've done a much better job at closing these, and most of the tactics that do work are often very short-term, which is enough to keep most brands away from them.

I would expect them to be looking at things such as:

• Spammy link building at high velocity, which can still rewarded by Google.


• Ecommerce site cloning can be a pain point, where Google starts to rank the phishing/fake site organically with the clients own content.


• Redirected domains into sites/pages/new domains – some can be for legitimate reasons (re-brands/acquisitions) – but others are purely for short-term SEO boosts.


• Mass content production, with many companies pumping out X amount of articles a day/week trying to show 'freshness' of content but not putting enough effort/resource into the quality of content. Long-term you'd expect panda to go against them, but short term it can work better than expected.

Gerald Murphy: AI integration with links to get a deeper analysis of behaviour, such as, seasonality and maybe even social media signals. Remember mobile is going to kill links because of our behaviour. Name me a user, sitting in the front room on their tablet or smartphone, reading another great blog who creates a HTML link. This is not in our behaviour.

Nikolay Stoyanov: I want to see all the black hat and grey hat methods dead. Starting with PBNs. I still see multiple sites ranking in top 5 or higher with low quality or PBN links that I can smell from a mile away. It's high time that Google Penguin starts penalizing these websites like they deserve.

The 10 Best Ways to Use UTM Codes For Conversion Tracking by @amelioratethis

UTM codes are great for determining which of your channels drive the most traffic, but did you know you can also use them to track conversions?

The post The 10 Best Ways to Use UTM Codes For Conversion Tracking by @amelioratethis appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

A Short Guide to Google Allo Search Optimization by @wonderwall7

With over 150K downloads so far on Android devices, a 4-star rating, and 48% in a recent poll saying that they use and love Allo, it's time to contemplate how it could affect organic and local SEO.

The post A Short Guide to Google Allo Search Optimization by @wonderwall7 appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

5 Ways to Make Your App Sell Itself

A great app idea is only as good as it's execution and marketing. The best way to success? Have it sell itself with these simple, but important, attributes.

The post 5 Ways to Make Your App Sell Itself appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

How a Single Piece of Content Increased Our DA by +7 Points [Case Study]

Posted by sergeystefoglo

Content marketing has been discussed and researched more in the last 5 years than ever before.

Source: Google Trends

There are various kinds of content marketing strategies out there. Blog promotion, infographics, video strategies, and creative content are some. Depending on your goals, some are more effective than others.

At Distilled, we've been fortunate enough to work on many creative content pieces with some incredible clients. This article is going to focus on a piece of content that my team and I created for a client. We'll take a look at both the creation process and the tangible results of the piece we made.

Note: In general, you don't want to rely on one piece of content for link acquisition. It's recommended to focus on multiple pieces throughout the year to add link diversity and give your content pieces a good chance to succeed. The following is simply a case study of one piece of content that worked well for my client.

---

Client backstory: We need links!

Our client is Ginny's (shoutout to Matt and Cailey). Ginny's is an ecommerce business based in the beautiful state of Wisconsin.

We knew that regardless of how much optimization was done on the site, their lack of incoming links would be a huge barrier to success. This quickly became a topic of discussion for us.

The general rule of thumb: the more linking root domains (LRDs) your site has, the stronger the domain authority should be. And the stronger the linking root domains are, the better it is for your DA. In other words, it's better to get 1 strong link (DA 80+) than 10 weak links (DA 20-). Kudos if the links are topically relevant to your website/brand.

So, my team and I sat down and started thinking of different ways we could accomplish the task of increasing LRDs and (hopefully) DA for my client.

---

The process of creating a link-worthy story

Here are the steps my team and I went through for this particular client.

Note: For an extensive look at creating creative content, please see the following articles:

• How to Make Award-Winning Creative Content - Part 1


• How to Make Award-Winning Creative Content - Part 2

Ideation

The first step in the creative process is ideation, because without great ideas you can't a have a great piece of content. It's important to give yourself enough time for ideation. Don't rush it, and be sure to include various team members with different backgrounds to get as many ideas as possible. Note: stock up on coffee/Red Bull and snacks for this.

Validation

Typically after an ideation session you'll have many potential ideas. It's important to go through and validate them. When I say "validate," I mean making sure others haven't already done something similar, or that creating the piece is actually possible (you have access to the right data, etc.)

Note: For more information on researching and validating your creative ideas, read this post titled “Researching Creative Ideas: 10 Dos and Don'ts.”

Pitching

At this point you'll have a handful of ideas that are not only on-brand and interesting, but have great potential in being picked up by various sources. Put together a nice deck and pitch your ideas to the client. The goal is to get your client to pick one (or a few, depending on the budget).

Note: Here's an awesome write-up on a framework for pitching creative ideas to your clients.

Gathering the data

Once your client signs off on a piece, it's time to dive into the data! Depending on the piece you're creating, this might look like scraping websites and doing a ton of research to get the right data you need. Take your time on this, as you want to make sure your data is accurate and relevant.

Design

During this part of the process, it's a great idea to start mocking up some potential designs. If your piece is smaller, this might be a quick and simple task. If you have a data visualization, this will be longer. Typically, it's a good idea to create 2–3 mockups and give your client some options.

Development

Once your client signs off on a particular design, it's time to dive into development.

Copy

The actual copy for the piece doesn't have to happen after the development, but it's usually a good idea to allow the copywriter to see how much space they have to work with. What you don't want is for your copywriter to write 500 words when the designer has made space for 100. Communication is key in this process.

Testing

Once the piece is built, it's important to test it out on various browsers and devices. Ask people to give it a run and try to fix as many errors/bugs as possible.

Promotion

Depending on your timeline, you might want to start promotion sooner than this. The important thing to note is to consider pre-pitching and reaching out to contacts to gauge their interest in the piece as soon as possible. Keep your contacts updated and be sure to give them everything they need for their stories.

Note: For further reference on pitching journalists, please see this post titled, “Beyond the Media List: Pro-Active Prospecting for Pitching Creative Content.”

Launch

It's time to launch!

Push

On the day the piece launches, be sure that you are reminding journalists, reaching out to contacts, sharing the piece on social media, and making your social campaigns live.

Celebrate

There are a lot of steps to building a creative piece, so don't underestimate the work that goes into it! After you launch the piece be sure to have a beer, give yourself a pat on the back, or do whatever it is you need to do to celebrate.

---

Post-ideation: What we came up with

After the process outlined above, our team came up with 50 States of Bacon.

The idea was simple: Everyone likes bacon, but who likes it the most? Ginny's caters to a lot of people who love deep frying, so this was on-brand. We decided to use Instagram's (now difficult to access) API to extract 33,742 photos that were tagged with #bacon and located within the USA. To normalize for population distribution and Instagram usage, we also collected 64,640 photos with the tags #food, #breakfast, #lunch, and #dinner.

To make this data more visual, we made it interactive and included some fun facts for each state.

---

What happened after we launched the piece?

So, what happened after we launched the piece? Let's dive in.

Here are some of the larger websites 50 States of Bacon got picked up on.

Website	Domain Authority	Other
US News	94	Tweeted from account (115K+)
Mashable	96	Tweeted from account (6.95M+)
AOL Lifestyle	98	Referred 1,200+ visitors
Eater	85	N/A
Daily Dot	85	Tweeted from account (274K+)

Here is what the LRDs and DA looked like before we launched the piece, and then after 4 months of it being live:

	Before Launch	4 Months Later
Linking Root Domains	450	600
Domain Authority	29	36

Let's break this down by metric. Here's a graph of the LRDs over time (we launched the piece at about the start of the uplift).

The domain authority didn't budge until about 4 months after we launched the piece. We weren't actively pursuing any other link-based campaigns during this time, so it's safe to say the creative piece had a lot to do with this boost in DA.

Note: Since DA is refreshed with new pools of data, this observation wouldn't have been as valid if the DA only moved one or two positions. But, since it moved 7 positions so close to the launch of this piece, I feel like it's safe to assume the piece contributed greatly.

Does this mean if you do a similar piece that your DA will also increase? No. Does it give us a good example on what can happen? Absolutely.

---

A note on LRDs, DA, and setting expectations

Setting expectations with clients is hard. That's even more true when you both know that links may be even more important than user engagement with your campaign. To make sure expectations are reasonable, you may want to encourage them to see this campaign as one of many over a long period of time. Then there's less pressure on any individual piece.

So, it's important to set expectations upfront. I would never tell a client that we can guarantee a certain number of links, or that we guarantee an increase in domain authority.

Instead, we can guarantee a piece of content that is well-built, well-researched, and interesting to their target audience. You can go one step further and guarantee reaching out to X amount of contacts, and you can estimate how many of those contacts will respond with a "yes" or "no."

In fact, you should set goals. How much traffic would you like the piece to bring? What about social shares? What seems like a reasonable amount of LRD's you could gain from a piece like this? Benchmark where you currently are, and make some reasonable goals.

The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't promise your client a certain amount of links because, frankly, you'd be lying to them. Be upfront about what this looks like and show examples of work you've done before, but make sure to set their expectations correctly up front to avoid any conflicts down the road.

---

Conclusion

There's a lot to be learned from the results of creative campaigns. The goal of this article is to share one piece that I've worked on with a client while highlighting some things that I learned/observed along the way. If you'd like to see more campaigns we've worked on at Distilled, take a look at our creative roundup for last year.

To wrap things up, here are the key takeaways:

• Creative pieces take a lot of thought, work, and time. Don't underestimate the task at hand.


• Don't frame the project as only focused on gaining links. Instead, aim for creating a compelling piece of content that is on-brand and has the potential to gain traction.


• Oftentimes it's best not to put all your eggs in one basket. Plan multiple pieces throughout the year.


• If your research is right and you pitch the piece to the correct people, this is a strategy that can gain your domain some very strong LRDs. In this particular case, 110 linking root domains (and counting).


• …But those links won't come easy. You need to pre-pitch, remind, and re-pitch your contacts. There are many great pieces of content being published daily; you need to be proactive about ensuring your spots online.


• There are other benefits to doing pieces like this aside from links. Social shares, brand awareness, and referral traffic are some other metrics to look at.


• It is possible to increase your DA by doing a piece like this, but it takes time. Be patient, and continue doing great work in the meantime.

---

Other thoughts

• There are some arguments to be made that a piece of content like this only has spikes and doesn't do any good for a brand. I don't believe this to be true. The way I see it, if a piece is too evergreen, it might not gain as many strong links. At the same time, if a piece is completely left-field and doesn't fit with the brand, the links might not be as impactful. I think there's a fine line here; it should be up to your best judgment on the pieces you should create.

• This piece could potentially be updated every year to gain more links or traction (although it would be a lot more difficult with Instagram drastically limiting their API).

• It's possible that this piece didn't have a direct impact on DA, but because there were no other link acquisition strategies during the 4 months, we can safely assume the two are correlated.

• There's an argument to be made that jumping from the 20s to the 30s is much easier than from 40s to 50s when you're speaking of DA. We know that it gets more difficult to increase DA as it gets higher, so do keep that in mind.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Next #SEJThinkTank: How Every Company Can Use Snapchat w/Kelsey Jones by @dantosz

Think Snapchat is only for kids? Think your brand is to 'boring' to use a hip, social channel? Join us for a free webinar to learn how to use Snapchat for your brand.

The post Next #SEJThinkTank: How Every Company Can Use Snapchat w/Kelsey Jones by @dantosz appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

The latest updates and improvements for the Google app for iOS

Earlier this year, we announced that your Google app for iOS got faster. Now buckle up, because today, we're adding three new features that will make your app more private, video-friendly and stable.

More control with incognito mode
Your searches are your business. That's why we've added the ability to search privately with incognito mode in the Google app for iOS. When you have incognito mode turned on in your settings, your search and browsing history will not be saved. And for added security, you can enable Touch ID for incognito mode, ensuring that only you can re-enter your existing incognito session if you exit the app.

Watch YouTube videos in Search
Watching YouTube videos right from Search has never been so simple. Skip the extra step before you break into dance to your favorite music video or before you learn a thing or two in the latest how-to. No new web pages + less load time = more fun.

Keep your searching stable
Finally, we have made some improvements under the hood of your app. These updates will make the app twice as reliable and less likely to crash, which means more searches and fewer sighs.

We hope you enjoy these latest updates to your Google app for iOS. As always, we welcome feedback to help make your app even better.

Posted by Unni Narayanan, Director, Product Management

Why Website SEO Trumps Design Every Time by @ducttape

Approaching your website's entire build with care will not only give you a good looking site, but one that can go head to head with your competitors.

The post Why Website SEO Trumps Design Every Time by @ducttape appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Low Email CTR? Here's Why You Should Delete Subscribers by @FixCourse

Saying goodbye to your unengaged subscribers is the hardest part. The second hardest is getting the greasy handprints off your window.

The post Low Email CTR? Here's Why You Should Delete Subscribers by @FixCourse appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

How Content Marketing and SEO Work Together #SEJSummit by @wonderwall7

Brand content tends to be created with either SEO or reputation/brand-enhancement in mind, but rarely with both, as if they were mutually exclusive.

The post How Content Marketing and SEO Work Together #SEJSummit by @wonderwall7 appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

3 Surprising Lessons From Building 26,000 Links

Posted by KelseyLibert

The Fractl team has worked on hundreds of content marketing projects. Along the way, we've kept track of a lot of data, including everywhere our client campaigns have been featured, what types of links each campaign attracted, and how many times each placement was shared.

While we regularly look back on our data to evaluate performance per campaign and client, until now we'd never analyzed all of these data in aggregate. After combing through 31,000 media mentions and 26,000 links, here's what we found.

Most high-authority links don't receive a lot of social shares.

Most marketers assume that if they build links on high-authority sites, the shares will come. In a Whiteboard Friday from last year, Rand talks about this trend. BuzzSumo and Moz analyzed 1 million articles and found that over 75 percent received no social shares at all. When they looked at all links – not just articles – this number rose to around 90 percent.

We (wrongfully) assumed this wouldn't be the case with high-quality links we've earned. It turns out, even the majority of our links on sites with a high Domain Authority (DA) didn't get any social shares:

• 52 percent of links with a DA over 89 received zero shares.


• 50 percent of links with a DA over 79 received zero shares.


• 54 percent of links with a DA over 59 received zero shares.

On average, our campaigns get 110 placements and 11,000 social shares, yet a single link accounts for about 63 percent of total shares. This means that if you exclude the top-performing link from every campaign, our average project would only get 4,100 social shares.

Since most links don't yield social shares, marketers with goals of both link building and social engagement should consider a strategy for gaining social traction in addition to a strategy for building a diverse link portfolio.

The social strategy can be as simple as targeting a few key websites that routinely yield high social shares. It's also helpful to look at target sites' social media accounts. When they post their own articles, what kind of engagement do they get?

Of all the sites that covered our campaigns, the following five sites had the highest average social shares for our content. We know we could depend on these sites in the future for high social engagement.

Exceptions to the rule

Some content can definitely accomplish both high engagement and social shares. The BuzzSumo and Moz study found that the best types of content for attracting links and social shares are research-backed content or opinion pieces. Long-form content (more than 1,000 words) also tends to attract more links and shares than shorter content. At Fractl, we've found the same factors – an emotional hook, a ranking or comparison, and a pop culture reference – tend to encourage both social sharing and linking.

Few sites will always link to you the same way.

To ensure you're building a natural link portfolio, it's important to keep track of how sites link to your content. You'll learn if you're earning a mix of dofollow links, nofollow links, cocitation links, and brand mentions for each campaign. We pay close attention to which types of links our campaigns earn. Looking back at these data, we noticed that publishers don't consistently link the same way.

The chart below shows a sample of how 15 high-authority news sites have linked to our campaigns. As you can see, few sites have given dofollow links 100 percent of the time. Based on this, we can assume that a lot of top sites don't have a set editorial standard for link types (although plenty of sites will only give nofollow links).

While getting a site to cover your content is something to be celebrated, not every placement will result in a dofollow link. And just because you get a dofollow link from a site once doesn't mean you should always expect that type of link from that publisher.

Creating a lot of visual assets is a waste of time in certain verticals.

There's an ongoing debate within Fractl's walls over whether or not creating a lot of visual assets positively impacts a campaign's reach enough to justify the additional production time. To settle this debate, we looked at our 1,300 top placements to better understand how publishers covered our campaigns' visual assets (including both static image and video). This sample was limited to articles on websites with a DA of 70 or higher that covered our work at least four times.

We found that publishers in different verticals had divergent tendencies regarding visual asset coverage. The most image-heavy vertical was entertainment, and the least was education.

Some of the variation in asset counts is based on how many assets were included in the campaign. Although this does skew our data, we do receive useful information from this analysis. The fact that top entertainment publishers used an average of nine assets when they cover our campaigns indicates a high tolerance for visual content from outside sources. Verticals with lower asset averages may be wary of external content or simply prefer to use a few key visuals to flesh out an article.

Keeping these publisher vertical preferences in mind when developing content can help your team better allocate resources. Rather than spending a lot of effort designing a large set of visual assets for a campaign you want to be placed on a finance site, your time may be better spent creating one or two awesome visualizations. Similarly, it's worthwhile to invest in creating a variety of visual assets if you're pitching entertainment and health sites.

Analyzing our entire link portfolio taught us a few new things that challenged our previous assumptions:

• High DA sites don't necessarily attract a lot of social engagement. Just because a site that linked to you has a huge audience doesn't mean that audience will share your content.


• Most sites don't consistently use the same types of links. Got a dofollow link from a site one time? Don't expect it to be the norm.


• Certain publisher verticals are more likely to feature a lot of visual assets. Depending on which verticals you're targeting, you might be wasting time on designing lots of visuals.

While I hope you've learned something from Fractl's internal study, I want you to see the broader lesson: the value of measuring and analyzing your own content campaign data as a means to improve your process. If you've done a similar analysis of links earned from content marketing, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!