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Wednesday, 4 January 2017
Get your digital transformation efforts in full gear by attending the MarTech Conference!
Here’s to a great 2017 full of learning, growing and driving digital transformation! Register for MarTech San Francisco today and get the best deals on All Access Passes. Looking forward to seeing you May 9-11 at the world’s premier marketing technology conference! The post Get your...
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A comprehensive guide to SSL certificates
A full range of SSL products are available on the market today that cater to various domain and security needs. Though many webmasters are exploring the possibilities, hoping a move to SSL will boost their search rankings, it can be overwhelming to try to compare these options, let alone fully understand what you’re paying for.
Many SSL providers offer a wealth of add-ons, which makes comparing providers relatively difficult. This guide will help answer several common questions so that you can find the certificate that best suits your needs:
- What type of SSL certificate should I purchase?
- Should I use a free certificate or purchase one from a vendor?
- Which certificate is best for securing a sub-domain? Multiple domains?
- How much warranty coverage do I need?
- How do I troubleshoot common installation problems?
What is an SSL certificate?
Before we tackle those questions, let’s cover the basics. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a security method which allows for the encryption of data when being transferred over a server. SSL certificates help to protect the transfer of sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords and usernames, Social Security numbers and more.
How does it work?
SSL certificates utilize a public and a private key, which work together to establish an encrypted connection. Typically, data sent between a browser and a web server is sent as plain text, which can leave you vulnerable to hackers.
Why use SSL?
The benefit of using an SSL certificate is that it offers encrypted protection during the online transfer of sensitive information. (Indeed, you are required by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) to have an SSL certificate if you collect credit card information on your site.) SSL certificates can also help you gain your customers’ trust and protect against phishing schemes.
Additionally, Google now provides a slight ranking boost to websites using HTTPS. Technically, Google still only looks at the first five characters in the URL, meaning that your site could leverage the HTTPS protocol without a valid certificate in place and still receive a ranking boost. However, as Google’s Gary Illyes suggested, more stringent checks will eventually be put into place.
Certificate types
There are three common types of certificates. Choosing the right one will be based on the level of security your website needs.
A domain-validated SSL certificate, otherwise known as a low assurance certificate, is the standard type of certificate issued. Automated validation ensures that the domain name is registered and that an administrator approves the request. In order for the validation to be completed, the webmaster must either confirm via email or configure a DNS record for the site.
- Processing time: a few minutes to a few hours
- Recommended for: use on internal systems only
An organization-validated certificate, or high assurance certificate, requires real agents to validate the domain ownership, plus organization information such as name, city, state and country. Similar to a low assurance certificate, it requires additional documentation to verify the company identity.
- Processing time: a few hours to a few days
- Recommended for: all businesses and companies
Example of an organization-validated certificate
An EV certificate, or extended validation certificate, is a new type of certificate that requires the most rigorous validation process. This type of certificate checks to ensure that the business is a legal entity and requires business information be provided as proof of domain ownership. Standard SSL certificates do not represent that your website is being operated by a legitimate, verified business.
One exclusive feature of purchasing an EV certificate is that your website browser bar will display a green padlock. This can help to bolster consumer confidence and provide reassurance that the transaction is secure.
- Processing time: a few days to a few weeks
- Recommended for: all e-commerce businesses
Pricing & vendors
Who should I purchase from?
When it comes to SSL, some of the big names are GeoTrust, DigiCert, Symantec (formerly Verisign) and more. There are also third-party resellers, such as NameCheap and Comodo, which offer the same protection at discounted prices.
What about free certificates?
Why pay for something that’s free, you ask? When a user visits a website that is secured with a self-signed, or free SSL certificate, most web browsers will post an error message. While some people will click “I understand the risks” and proceed to your site, it’s likely that many people will click the “Get me out of here!” button and never return.
The real problem lies in the fact that self-signed certificates are virtually unregulated. If your site is compromised, it may still appear secure; however, certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority can be revoked and therefore alert users of any potential threats.
The only time a self-signed certificate should be used is when testing behind a firewall. You can get around purchasing a certificate altogether if you use a company like PayPal to handle your transactions, as the PayPal site will secure the transaction on your behalf.
What kind of warranty should I look for?
Like any type of insurance, SSL certificates vary significantly in price based on the amount of warranty coverage they offer. However, the warranty that you get when you purchase an SSL certificate can be misleading. It is not a warranty to the purchaser (you) but rather to the end users.
In a nutshell, if a consumer suffers a monetary loss after making a purchase on a fraudulent website, the certificate authority is technically at fault for not displaying a browser warning and failing to protect the consumer. In this situation, the warranty value would be paid out to the customer, given that the amount being disputed is less than the warranty itself.
Take note, this practically never happens! If a user were to get scammed by a website, the first course of action they would likely take is to contact their credit card company. However, in order to make good on the warranty, the end user would have to take note of which SSL provider the fraudulent website was using and contact them directly. While having a substantial amount of warranty coverage may give you peace of mind, it’s often used as a tactic to convince you to pay more for the same product.
Securing multiple properties
Single-name SSL certificates protect a single domain. For example, if you were to purchase a certificate for http://ift.tt/2j9pRaL, it would not secure baking.wonderfullywhisked.com.
Wildcard certificates allow you to secure an unlimited number of subdomains that live off a singular root domain. For example, say you want to secure the domain www.wonderfullywhisked.com and its subdomains. You would need to request a wildcard certificate with *.wonderfullywhisked.com as the common name. This certificate would secure http://ift.tt/2j9pRaL, baking.wonderfullywhisked.com, cooking.wonderfullywhisked.com, etc.
Wildcard certificates can easily pay for themselves over time, especially if you need to secure four-plus subdomains. As an added benefit, it’s much easier to manage one wildcard certificate than 12 single certificates.
Multi-domain certificates can protect upwards of 210 different domains with a single certificate (depending on the provider you choose).
Troubleshooting common problems
There are a few common errors which can invalidate your SSL certificate:
- Serving mixed content
- Certificate name mismatch error
- Missing intermediate certificate
- Expired certificate
- Certificate viewed is not the one installed
Serving mixed content, or both HTTP and HTTPS content, can invalidate your certificate since all content must be loaded from a secure source. This usually occurs with plugins, images and JavaScript snippets. If you are having trouble identifying unsecure content on a page, try the free tool WhyNoPadLock.com.
A certificate mismatch error often results from requesting an SSL certificate for what you assume your domain name is, but it does not actually match the domain itself. For example, if your website is secured by a certificate that specifies “http://ift.tt/2j9pRaL” and your website is loading a non-www version, a mismatch error will occur.
For an HTTPS connection to be established, the domain in the browser bar must be an exact match with the domain you entered when you registered the certificate.
Many people overlook the fact that you must install an intermediate/chain certificate in order for your certificate to function properly. Depending on your server type, you may be required to use one or two intermediate certificates.
Always ensure your certificate is up to date. Many browsers will allow you to check this under their Advanced Settings, but you can also use SSL Shopper’s SSL Checker to get this information. Most certificates can be renewed as early as 90 days before they expire.
If a certificate appears that is not the one you just installed, that is because only one certificate can be installed on both the same IP and socket number. The one installed first will be recognized.
Choosing a certificate
Choosing an SSL certificate can be complicated, since not all providers offer all the same certificate types. To simplify the process, you can refer to the table below, which outlines the certificate offerings from six of the major SSL providers. If you plan to stick with the same SSL provider for more than one year, you can often receive a substantial discount if you pay for two or more years upfront.
Purchasing through a third-party reseller tends to be the cheapest option — the only caveat being the quality of customer assistance you may receive.
How to choose a certificate:
- Identify the property types you wish to protect (domain, sub-domain).
- Identify if you need protection for a single property or multiple properties (wildcard or multiple domain).
- Then, decide which level of protection you need.
- domain-validated — LOW
- organization-validated — MEDIUM
- extended validation — HIGH
Sources:
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
2016 in review: Insights for search marketers from Bing Ads
2016 marked another year of staggering growth in search as it continues to infuse our lives with more answers, more intelligence and more meaning. It was a year of voice searches, digitized consumer decision journeys, omnichannel shopping, chatbots and disruptive technologies that jolted us forward.
Below are some of the highlights from Bing Ads as we continue to incorporate user feedback into the platform for success into 2017 and beyond, along with some trends we’ve seen on the most competitive and expensive categories of keywords in 2016.
What was new and noteworthy in 2016
Each year, Bing Ads releases hundreds of feature enhancements and new features. It can be difficult to keep up with all the betas, updates and feature releases, so let me highlight a few releases that I was the most excited about in 2016 that you’ll want to make sure you didn’t miss.
Editor for Mac
We heard you! After much input and anticipation, Bing Ads Editor for Mac beta arrived in June to delight users with high speed and ease of use. Users raved about the impact on their work; it saves them hours each day. Just like Bing Ads Editor 11, it included bulk edits, managing multiple accounts at the same time and copy/pasting across multiple accounts.
Bing Shopping Campaigns in Editor
We also heard your feedback that managing Bing Shopping Campaigns directly from the UI is not super-easy. In September, we released Bing Shopping Campaigns integration into Bing Ads Editor, allowing you to efficiently and easily manage shopping campaigns.
Shared Budgets
Users expressed their pain with manually updating individual campaign budgets, which often resulted in underutilized budgets. In October, we delivered Shared Budgets, which automatically distributes a single daily budget across all campaigns or a subgroup of campaigns opted into the shared budget. Users can now enjoy smarter, streamlined budgeting without the hassle of constant juggling and recalculating.
Expanded Text Ads
In an effort to standardize ad formats to work seamlessly across mobile, tablet and desktop devices, we launched an Expanded Text Ads pilot in August. Titles jumped from 25 to 60 characters, while descriptions increased from 71 to 80. This extra space gives users a way to create more compelling calls to action and drive higher conversions.
Broad Match Modifier opportunities
We’ve heard our users express interest in expanding their reach and getting more volume. Broad Match Modifier (BMM) is our exclusive, innovative answer that delivers relevant, high-quality traffic with more precision than broad match alone. It leverages marketplace intelligence to suggest the most optimal BMM keywords for your campaign. Users can find three easy steps on the Opportunities page.
Moments in search
Looking back at 2016, there were moments that captured the spotlight of the world, including the US election, the summer Olympics and the viral sensation Pokémon Go. Discover some of the trends in search that are highlighted by Bing’s key moments in 2016 that you might have missed.
In paid search, one of the trends we saw in Bing Ads was a shift in the most competitive keyword auctions moving from the legal field to rehabilitation and treatment centers.
I know that keyword CPCs can vary a lot based on position and the different modifiers that advertisers place on the keyword. I analyzed our internal Bing Ads data on bidded keywords that received at least 100 clicks during 2016 to remove the one-off instances and outliers of both incredibly high and low CPCs. For instance, one of the most expensive clicks in 2016 was for “houston texas personal injury lawyer” at $167.78.
Then I categorized the keywords by vertical to see what the most competitive keyword auctions are within Bing Ads and what the average CPC was to get into the top spot.
Here is what I found: The most competitive and expensive CPCs are in lucrative industries like health care, education, insurance, legal and financial services.
These industries tend to evaluate customers by lifetime value, not just the value of the revenue from a single transaction or lead generated. The long-term customer value model makes the higher CPCs worthwhile — for example, an online masters degree can cost between $30,000 and $120,000, depending on the school and the program; a drug rehabilitation program can cost upwards of $10,000 per stay; and the legal profession can have billing rates that reach $250/hour. With this in mind, the average ~$40 CPC doesn’t seem as crazy as if you were a retailer whose average order value ranges between $50 and $100.
The most competitive 100 keywords were also spread across the verticals, with 29 percent being in the Education vertical, 27 percent in the Legal vertical, 17 percent in Financial Services and 16 percent in the Health and Medical verticals. What you can’t see reflected in the charts and the graph is the depth of the tail represented in the keywords across each of the verticals.
For example, in the Education vertical, the queries were spread across many different types of degrees and programs, from accounting to construction management. Many of the queries within the Legal vertical included keywords that included specific cities along with variations of lawyer, lawyers, attorney and attorneys. When we look at the spectrum of queries, we can see that the tail is diversifying and that every day there are new queries that we have never seen before.
So what does this mean if you are an advertiser in one of the higher-CPC verticals? If you want to acquire new customers, search is still a great tool for you to do so. Just make sure that you do your research before you get started so you can refine your search campaigns to reach your target market. In my mind, it also goes back to paid search basics and best practices.
So what are the trends in 2016 that surprised you?
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
9 Technologies E-Commerce Marketers Must Use in 2017 and Beyond
Mastering SEO is not easy; it’s slow and competition for the top organic rank is very high. And, it won’t get any easier in 2017. As an e-commerce player, all this is hardly news for you. However, now is the perfect time to analyze the past year’s progress and start things fresh. Below are some marketing tips that can rejuvenate your e-commerce marketing in 2017:
1. Engagement with Content
You can Google “how to create engaging content for e-commerce” and spend an entire year taking notes. Yet most of that is probably common sense. The main challenge for e-commerce players is to find enough resources to support their expanding product portfolio.
Writing product descriptions is a monotonous and laborious activity. Firms cannot afford to engage their marketing or creative teams in product descriptions. They also cannot ignore product descriptions as these are crucial for their customers. Perhaps technology has come up with the answer: Automated Insights’ Smart AI engine turns data into product descriptions.
“The standard way of creating content is, ‘I hope a million people read this.’ Our model is the inverse of that. We want to create a million pieces of content with one individual reading each copy.” – Robbie Allen, Automated Insights, CEO
Automated Insights is not alone. You can also check out Quill and Lingustat. While machines can create product descriptions, there’s nothing better than getting users involved in content generation.
Users love writing reviews and take star ratings seriously. Although every e-commerce website has comments and product review sections, few of these are able to leverage user-generated content for marketing. User-generated content needs proper moderation and promotion strategy.
Honest product reviews create trust while you should moderate spamming. You can take some inspiration from Starbucks – which is known for misspelling its customers’ names on coffee cups.
2. Engagement with Bots
Today, the world of online marketing relies on clicks and taps to gauge consumer journey and effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Needless to say, these metrics provide a hazy picture.
Often, the actual conversions are much lower than what these metrics reflect. Nonetheless, marketers devote their entire budgets in increasing CTRs and website visits. Chatbots take an entirely new approach to customer engagement.
Leading brands today are focusing on building brand engagement with newer technologies, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based chatbots perfectly suit the bill. With chatbots, conversations are more natural and significantly more effective than a traditional ad or video. These interactions leave users wanting more. Moreover, spreading the word is easier with chatbots as most of them are present on messengers, which are increasingly becoming a default media for communication.
Wondering where to start? Explore Operator, which is aimed at e-commerce businesses looking to transform the shopping experience for their customers. Operator allows online customers to browse virtual stores and get goods delivered from the closest, cheapest possible source. Further, users can chat with a bot for shopping assistance which eventually connects them with a human expert (operating on a commission basis).
It must not have skipped your notice that messengers are now bigger than social media. It makes sense to deploy bots on major messaging platforms. However, managing bots on multiple messengers can be tricky as there is little convergence between chat messengers.
To achieve some sanity, Message.io is offering bot developers private beta access to its bot management platform. This makes it possible to develop once and deploy across multiple messaging services.
3. Advertise with Programmatic
Businesses are increasing their spends on Programmatic Advertising. According to a report published by marketing and advertising agency Zenith, “Programmatic will become the principal method of trading digital display this year, accounting for 51% of expenditure, and will rise to 58% of expenditure in 2017.”
Programmatic Advertising offers increased cost efficiency and speed over traditional methods which involve human buyers, salespeople, and a lot of guesswork. With latest advancements, Programmatic now makes use of data analytics to decide apt audience and the right ad format to be displayed to that audience.
With all this automation, you can spend more time on your strategic tasks and other crucial marketing initiatives in 2017.
4. Engagement with AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality)
Pokemon Go must have caught your attention. Gartner predicts that “by 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality.” A large number of omnichannel retailers now accept AR and VR as a crucial part of their customer engagement strategy.
With AR and VR, retailers are building immersive experiences and hoping to increase footfall to their brick-and-mortar store. At the same time, these technologies can also transform shopping experience for their online customers.
With Google Tango finally arriving on the developers’ table, advanced AR apps can transform the way consumers make product selections online. For example, Wayfair is working on an app which will enable customers to place virtual 3D renderings of furniture from its online store into their home. This will allow customers to visualize products in their home environments and not just on their smartphones.
Such AR apps hold tremendous potential for increasing online engagement. Further, according to a Business Insider report, a significant number of online customers rate AR and VR as a favorable addition to their shopping experience. E-commerce players would have to act in time to meet their evolving expectations.
5. Customization
This isn’t exactly a new strategy, but it will align with your efforts towards improving customer experience and brand engagement. Online product customization has tremendous revenue potential and has its unique space in the online world.
With customization, you can charge more for the same products as customers are willing to pay more for self-designed products, compared to non-customized ones. It is also likely that customers would be willing to talk about these products; these are their own creations! You should promote such interactions by allowing customers to easily share their designs in the social space.
6. Think Beyond Apps
The world has been advocating “mobile first” and “mobile only” since the launch of the first smartphone by Apple.
Application development companies have overhauled their processes and offerings to cater to the demands of the expanding app economy. However, an increasing number of successful mobile-driven businesses are now building web apps for larger screens. Moreover, mobile disruptors (Uber, Instagram, Flipboard, etc.) now feel the need to serve their customers across all screen sizes and not just mobile.
This is crucial for e-commerce players, as apps are not going to be the only channel for engaging customers in the future.
Several surveys show that people tend to use mobile for casual browsing, while they make most of their online purchases via desktop. Instead of trying to change this behavior, you should gauge customer journey across all screen sizes and make it seamless for them to switch devices. There is no point categorizing users in different groups; ‘mobile users’ and ‘desktop users’ are essentially the same.
7. Voice First Browsing
Thinking beyond apps, voice first browsing is the first thing that should get your attention. Voice search is a rising trend; according to a report, “mobile voice searches have tripled in the past two years (2014-15).” Moreover, there is a lot of innovation and the hardware around this technology is also evolving rapidly.
Millennials love voice search via Amazon Echo, Apple AirPods, and Google Home. The technology eliminates screens completely which might worry advertisers. However, such vocal interactions have the potential to transform web experience as it allows connectivity without hindering activities like driving, cooking, walking, exercising, etc.
8. Swift and Seamless Payments
Amazon made headlines with Amazon Go; checking out from its new stores now takes less time than checking out from an e-commerce store. Even though the average experience for buying online has evolved over the years, payments can still be painful for customers.
This explains high shopping cart abandonment rates. The experience from shopping cart to the checkout involves a lot of form filling.
Further, some of the customers simply drop out if they encounter a glitch in applying a coupon. It would be a good idea to automate coupons and other loyalty-based deductions for customers.
You should also prompt customers to use online wallets. Alternatively, you can explore social selling. Facebook messenger already allows payments in its 30,000 chat bots. By allowing users to seamlessly complete a purchase via FB messenger, you can capitalize on customers’ impulse buying behavior.
9. Delivery and Returns
Essentially a part of operations, the marketing department cannot ignore this customer touch point.
Deliveries and Returns play a crucial part in customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Customers generally expect hassle-free return policy and don’t want to bear any associated costs. The only way to justify the costs associated with reverse logistics is to link it with your marketing spends.
This is perhaps easier said than done.
However, you can balance these additional costs by attaching higher delivery charges to same-day delivery options. While it’s too early to comment on the viability of Amazon’s drone-based deliveries, you must try replicating Amazon Prime’s subscription-based delivery model.
Conclusion
Modern day e-commerce marketing is not only about wooing customers through promotional strategies. It is about making each and every arm of your business more customer-centric.
Let’s draw an analogy with a website. Remember those good old days when building a website was enough and you didn’t really have to worry about the various design and functional elements as long as it looked good? Well, resource-driven sites like Colorlib have made it even simpler to come up with a really good-looking online presence that balances functionality with visual appeal. But you need to tie in this presence with cutting edge marketing technology.
A cut to today, when a website’s target audience expects a far more immersive and exceptionally functional experience from websites. Each and every website element must be used to engage potential and existing customers. That’s the case with modern-day marketing as well. It’s imperative to use the various business processes to engage customers and tell them they matter. That’s how you win them over for the long-term.
Image Credits
Featured Image: TCdesign/DepositPhotos
In-post Photo: Pixabay (public domain)
Screenshots by Kunjal Panchal. Taken December 2016.
Ethics in Online Marketing: Does Brand Morality Matter? by @http://twitter.com/malleeblue
With the advent of digital marketing, especially search engine optimization, brands have felt increasing pressure to blur the lines between ethical and unethical marketing strategies.
At the same time, social media has given consumers a much bigger stage upon which to stand and voice their displeasure at brands they find wanting. The answer to the question, “What’s driving your business?” is relatively straightforward. What drives every business is the need to make a profit.
What’s not so straightforward is an answer to the question, “What is the ethical framework of your profit-driven marketing strategy?” This tension between morality and making a profit is as old as the proverbial snake oil salesman.
In traditional forms of advertising, we can usually make the distinction between ethical and unethical marketing. If the promotion lies, conceals vital information or deceives the unsophisticated buyer, the advertiser can be called to account.
On this definition, ethical marketing has been considered anything that does not result in a negative or unsatisfying customer experience.
A good recent example of this would be Samsung and their exploding Galaxy Note 7. Though the issue was not deception, the result was the same. Namely, an unsatisfying customer experience and the possibility of distrust in the brand.
Now, a brand like Samsung can market their way out of this, if they act ethically in the recall process. However, smaller brands, especially those whose livelihood is almost entirely dependent upon the online marketplace, cannot.
When we talk about online marketing, we are talking about more than making a misleading claim or offering a defective product. We are talking about process.We are asking about the methods employed to bring about our marketing goal. In the case of most online brands, the process might include some form of search engine optimization.
The short-term marketing goal being to increase exposure through organic search results in Google or Bing. Where should businesses draw the line when it comes to these processes in online marketing and what are the possible consequences of crossing that line for your brand?
When a brand attempts to work outside of the guidelines of those they want to work with (in this case, it might be Google), they risk flushing their marketing dollar straight down the drain.
Likewise, those who operate outside the ethical expectations of consumers risk an immediate and uncensored backlash from the online community. In other words, small business brands should not be tempted by the promise of a quick win marketing strategy.
Your website, just like your business, is a real asset with real monetary value. If your online marketing strategy is not framed by a very clear set of ethics, the entire business can come crashing down in a single day.
So what are some of the ethical issues that small businesses, especially those looking to take advantage of search engine exposure, need to be mindful of?
What Questions Should Small Businesses be Asking of a Digital Agency if They Want to Protect the Integrity of Their Brand?
1. Are the Claims Being Made Exaggerated?
It’s tempting to highlight a feature or benefit to the point of dishonesty. You want to stand out from the crowd. However, standing out from the crowd through exaggeration has some drawbacks.
Nobody wants to stand out in the crowd for their dishonesty. Be wary of agencies who make exaggerated claims about the benefits of their service. It is one thing to say that a certain marketing strategy will help you rank in Google. However, unless you own Google, it is quite another thing to promise a first-page ranking.
2. Are the Claims Substantiated?
Before you engage any digital marketing agency, you will want to know that they can provide some amount of reasonable evidence for their claims.
Look for data that verifies the claims being made. Talking directly or face-to-face is a good place to start in weighing up their claims. If they restrict communication to email, you might want to rethink your choice of agency. Beyond that, asking to see some verifiable data or examples of their work is a good idea.
3. Who Else will Vouch For the Service?
Customer feedback, the mood of the crowd, and business reviews are powerful tools. For a new agency, this can be difficult. No business starts with 50 (legitimate) five-star reviews.
Reviews are one way an agency can back up its claims, but even here there are some hurdles. “Astro-turfing” – getting fake reviews – is tempting, but not so good for long-term brand reputation.
Nevertheless, customer testimony is a powerful and important instrument for gauging the agency, or the marketing tactic or process being employed in your business.
If you are hoping to utilize search engine marketing, then you will also want to establish that the agency’s processes fall in line with the guidelines of those who run the search engines. This might seem like a tedious task, but the cost to your brand for not doing at least some research makes it necessary.
Whether you are a marketing agency, or a small business in need of a marketing agency, you need to be able to identify the fine line between unethical and ethical marketing processes and practices.
An ethical marketing practice is one that makes honest claims. One that can satisfy the expectations of your clientele. An ethical marketing process is a process that abides by the guidelines of the system you are trying to work with.
Online marketing that lacks ethics sends the wrong signal about your brand and about your business. The consequences can be financially devastating to a small business and ruinous for digital agencies.
On the other hand, ethical business practices and processes are good for everyone. They are good for the digital agencies who seek a strong online reputation for excellence and quality. They are also good for small businesses who are hoping to build their brand online and not come undone by the unscrupulous practices of others.
All Images created by David Trounce using Pixabay CC0 License and Canva, December 2016.
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
SearchCap: Local SEO, link resolutions for 2017 & New Year’s Day Google doodle
Start your SEO and SEM campaigns off fresh with tactics that work
Here’s to a great 2017 full of learning and growing your SEO and SEM success! View ticket options and rates here. We look forward to seeing you at SMX West, March 21-23 in San Jose! The post Start your SEO and SEM campaigns off fresh with tactics that work appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. 
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Local SEO is about so much more than tools
Welcome to my first Local SEO column of the year on Search Engine Land! While most other sites are publishing roundups or predictions for 2017, there’s really only one way to kick off the beginning of a new year: a new installment of Greg’s Soapbox!
As you faithful readers know, my posts are almost always influenced by recent conversations with clients or near-clients, and this one’s no different. A few weeks ago, one of the auto dealers on our website platform called our support department with a question about inbound links. Our support team forwarded the call over to our SEO team.
The dealer wanted to know how to “get rid of some links.” Obviously, we asked for a bit more detail — and were blown away by the answer.
The dealer explained that they had about 75 to 80 links that they wanted to get rid of because they were bad links. He had run his link profile through Moz and had seen some high Spam Scores, so they turned to Majestic and saw low Trust Flow. He only had 100 inbound links, and he wanted to summarily execute 80 percent of his link profile.
The problem was, only one of the links was really a bad link. The other links were actually very valuable links — because they were links from small, hyper-local websites. The dealer was taking the tools at face value without really understanding how to use them.
You have to know how to use your SEO tools
Optimizing websites is an organic process that requires human insight. If you ask five SEO professionals to optimize the same page, they’d all do it differently. They’d all agree that title tags, H1s and content need to be optimized, but they’d optimize each element differently.
SEO tools are meant to make our jobs easier by simplifying tasks or gathering and visualizing data. But you still have to know how to interpret the data that’s presented. Trust Flow is Majestic’s estimation of a link quality score, based on the inferred quality of links from various sites. Moz’s Spam Score is calculated by looking at various factors that tend to belong to spammy sites.
Those of us in the local search sphere approach link building a bit differently from traditional SEO practitioners. We know that a link from a small, hyper-local site can carry a disproportionate amount of weight in the local algorithm — but the SEO tools don’t take “local” into account.
In fact, many of the elements that Moz correlates with spammy sites are also elements we see on most smaller local websites. Let’s look at a few of the “spammy” elements:
- Low link diversity. Many local sites don’t have lots of inbound links, or they’ll have a lot of links from just a few sites.
- Thin content. Many local businesses run their own sites, so they don’t have lots of content.
- Large site with few links. Because most local businesses run their own sites, they don’t do any link building, so they won’t have many inbound links.
- Low number of internal links. Again, since businesses run their own sites, they’re not optimizing internal link structure (and many times, have no internal links in page copy at all).
- External links in navigation. Because most business owners don’t know best practices, they’ll often include external links in their site navigation.
- Low number of pages found. Local businesses typically have smaller sites — which means fewer pages.
See what I mean? A small site for a local business that’s run by the business owner could trip a significant number of Moz’s Spam Score criteria.
If the client had simply looked a bit harder at the domains that were linking to him, it would have been clear that the links were valuable. The links came from local businesses, local clubs, local churches and local charities. They were exactly the kind of links his dealership needed — but because he was only looking at one element of the tool, he was ready to burn nearly every valuable link he had acquired.
Looking back at my recent posts here, I seem to rant fairly often about SEOs looking for silver bullets and shortcuts. Incredibly enough, many of the SEO tools out there help people fall into that very trap. Tools are meant to help us do our job — not do our job for us!
Your tools are a starting point. You need to understand the data the tools present so you know how to interpret what they’re telling you. SEO is a complex and nuanced discipline, so look beyond the tools and use your big brain to optimize your sites.
Let’s make it our New Year’s resolution to emphasize the human element in SEO. We’ll be better at our jobs, and we’ll get better results for our clients.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
The fake information epidemic and how it will hurt local search in 2017
Fake news and its influence on the election dominated headlines for weeks as fabricated news reports went viral and the election results shocked the nation. But fake news is just one tentacle of a troubling and growing trend of fake media content. The headlines simply brought to light what is a much wider problem: the ease and prevalence with which false online information is used to manipulate behavior.
The manipulation can be of consumer behavior, business behavior or even the behavior of software triggered by false information fed into its system. Scam artists are strongly motivated to take advantage — recent reports cite Russian hackers who stole up to $5 million a day in advertising revenue by posing as fake users in a scheme tagged by the name “Methbot.”
The impact on marketers is particularly hard. As consumers search for information to help make purchase decisions, uncertainty about the veracity of the information they receive impacts the effectiveness of local search marketing. Online advertising already faces challenges gaining consumer trust, and the proliferation of fake content will only hurt it more. Worse, you may be spending money on advertising that no one ever sees, be competing in an unfair market, suffer from hits to your reputation or pay more than you should for marketing products or services.
Being aware of how false information is being used will help marketers avoid problems and identify when they may be affected, saving them from both headaches and wasted dollars. Below are eight ways that false information is being used that you need to know about:
1. Fake news
Fake news got a lot of headlines, and while its impact on marketing is indirect, the effect can still be significant.
The problem is that fake news often outperforms real news in traffic and engagement. Consumers love sensationalized news. Top fake stories received more engagement than top news stories, and some even went viral. Analysis by BuzzFeed found that the 20 top-performing fake election stories generated over 8.7 million shares, reactions and comments, compared to approximately 7.4 million of the 20 best-performing election stories from major news websites.
It may be tempting to follow the mantra that “all publicity is good publicity” and take advantage of the attention fake news gets you. At best, that is short-sighted — at worst, it’s self-destructive. Unlike the sources of fake news, advertisers need more than a click to make money. Online ads need to drive purchase decisions, but a recent study by Marketing Sherpa (registration required) demonstrated that it is still traditional advertising that influences purchase decisions most. The top five most trusted media formats were traditional media, led by print, TV, direct mail, radio and out-of-home ads, and consumers clearly expressed that they are highly influenced by ads in these media compared to online or digital media.
Fake news in digital media certainly doesn’t help. Being viewed as associated with fake news undermines trust in any related content, and that can hurt direct sales, as well as branding or online reputation. And continuing to allow ads to be placed together with fake news only perpetuates the problem by funding it.
The problem with fake news is defining it. While large publishers like Facebook and Google have promised to block fake news sites from receiving their ad products and services, writing algorithms that identify fake news is a harder task than blocking porn sites, hate speech or sites that sell illegal drugs. News as a category is much less black-and-white. There are opinions and editorials. Political positions and contradicting data. Satire and commentary.
There’s also frequency and degree — is a story that has 25 percent false facts or a site that contains five click-bait stories enough to get categorized as “fake news?” Complicating it all is the seeming lack of truth coming from news subjects themselves. I don’t believe I saw a single “fact-check” this past campaign season where any candidate came close to being always truthful.
Regardless, recognize that losing trust hurts us all. Demand accountability, and insist that your marketing not be displayed in a manner that would support or be associated with fake news. Look for options in programmatic advertising choices that help filter out controversial inventory. While the options may be limited now, more are sure to become available in 2017.
2. Fake listings
Real brick-and-mortar locations are battling call centers that create fake listings across the local search ecosystem, including on Google. These fake listings even have fake locations on Google maps, created to boost SEO and pretend the listing has a real location and local presence.
These scams not only steal customers away from true local businesses, they often bait and switch with lowball quotes over the phone, send unqualified service technicians to do the job and demand higher payment once the job is complete.
These fake listings are common in home repair business categories such as plumbing, HVAC and carpet cleaning, as well as emergency services such as locksmiths. While industry groups and Google have tried to address the scam, it’s often akin to playing “Whack-a-mole.” As soon as one location or fake listing is taken down, another pops up and takes its place.
Local businesses can fight back by making sure to clearly and prominently communicate genuinely local markers in their communications. Consumers prefer local businesses for their personalized service, reliability and quality work. Show pictures of your storefront, staff and signs. Use language that is local in nature, such as referring to specific neighborhoods, cross-streets and other local landmarks. Engage in multi-media marketing for local brand recognition.
Also, regularly perform searches for local competition as a consumer might, and report any fake listings or businesses that you know aren’t real.
3. Fake ads
Two kinds of fake ads are being used, especially on social media sites. The first is an ad that poses as a headline story by a major publisher like ESPN. The stories may report the fake death of a famous athlete or some fake scandal involving a celebrity. The ad looks like the major publisher’s content and displays its logo, URL and other identifying marks, but when clicked on, the ad directs to a sales site.
The other type of ad offers fake deals or free giveaways to lure buyers. Photos of a local business’s products, boxes or storefronts may be used in the ad, and the business’s name or URL may also be displayed. But the ads are really run by scammers who take credit card and payment information to run false charges before the payments can be stopped.
Both of these have great potential to affect local businesses. Ads that display fake headlines but lead to other sales sites may appear on your business’s Facebook page, on auto-populated display or banner ads on your website or other business pages that permit third-party ads. Visitors who click on these fake links lose trust not just in advertising generally, but also in those who display them on their websites or social media pages.
Ads that steal your business’s identity and use it to commit fraud clearly damage your reputation and brand. So be on the lookout for these types of scams, and report them immediately.
4. Bogus billing and invoices
Another trick that has been around for some time is fake invoices, but again, technology and the use of fake information is making these types of scams easier to sell. At its most basic, invoices for services never provided show up with the hopes that they will be paid, often for amounts small enough to avoid red flags and under the guise of familiar names or images like a generic Yellow Pages walking fingers logo.
Those schemes are becoming more sophisticated. For example, real agreements are made for sales of useless listings or digital products that are made to look legitimate but have no real audience. Fake agreements are generated through fabricated emails or spliced phone calls to capture voice authorizations that never occurred.
Local businesses are also billed for misleading charges such as expiring annual URL subscriptions or fake URL address subscriptions that get paid when business owners are too busy to pay close attention.
Scammers are also posing as clients, vendors, or even the government asking for payment. Emails appear legitimate, yet links to bank accounts or online payment portals redirect payment to criminals.
These scams can target local businesses or marketers alike. Make sure you educate your staff to watch for these false charges and bills. Thousands of advertisers pay these fake bills every month, costing businesses billions. Don’t be one of them!
5. Fake reviews
Most of the concern to date with fake reviews have been with negative reviews. Local businesses usually complain of losing customers and sales over one- and two-star ratings. Yet the power of reviews to affect purchase decisions is driving another trend: fabricating positive reviews.
With reviews impacting decisions for 92 percent of consumers, positive reviews boost sales dramatically. Yet an honest, hardworking 3.5-star rated company is going to find it hard to compete against a 4.5-star company that offers a similar product or service. False reviews artificially skew expectations and create an unlevel playing field. Sometimes, the false positive reviews even “compare” competitors’ products and state why the product being reviewed is superior — a double whammy for the competitor.
Amazon is aware of these problems in its marketplace and sued 1,000 people about a year ago for selling fake positive reviews of products. Yet the problem continues, often through promotional programs, including product giveaways. Product giveaways are usually accompanied by a voluntary request that the recipient honestly review the product. While not a fake review, the potential for misleading a customer exists when a review is indirectly paid for.
The FTC requires that reviewers who are compensated disclose that fact, but based on the complaints on Amazon, reviews that don’t comply abound on the site. And because many customers get the free products through coupon codes that discount the product substantially or completely, even filtering reviews from “verified purchasers” doesn’t solve the problem.
Combat the problem by getting legitimate reviews from real buyers of your product or service. Almost 90 percent of consumers would leave a review if asked, so you can increase the number of reviews simply by reaching out. Genuine reviews will stand out more, too, as reviews themselves are now getting reviewed: many sites direct users to the highest rated or most helpful reviews.
6. Phantom bids
Four of the largest ad agency holding companies are facing Department of Justice investigations into price fixing. Reports describe the alleged misconduct as soliciting bids for services such as video production that are rigged so that agency prices for similar services would appear to be comparatively competitive.
Stories like these are absolute killers to the reputation of the marketing industry at a time when local businesses already distrust marketing companies and question the return on investment of hiring a marketing provider.
In this culture, transparency with your client is critical, and pricing must be clear and in writing. Cost of the service, knowing what they are getting and realistic expectations of results are the most important decision factors for advertisers who are shopping for marketing services. Make sure that there is no question about the reliability of that information provided to prospective clients.
7. Fake websites and audiences
The Russian Methbot scam epitomizes why so many local businesses express concern over digital advertising. Methbot created fake web pages that attracted ad algorithms into placing video ads on these sites. They then used manufactured consumer profiles to “watch” the ads that paid the sites for the fake human traffic and views. The scam was unprecedented in its ability to create fake consumers that mimicked real ones in the way they surfed the web, clicked on content, moved the mouse and possessed unique IP addresses, all of which increased the value of ads placed on those sites and made detection of the fraud difficult.
Yet even less sophisticated campaigns that generate false impressions in response to search ads or that hire real people to click on ads can be costly.
Local businesses can ill afford to absorb the cost of advertising that isn’t viewed by real customers. Concerns about paying for fake impressions, views or even clicks are real. Yet avoiding digital advertising doesn’t seem to be the answer.
Be alert to the issue and look over your bills carefully. Watch out for unusual spikes in traffic and clicks that are clustered together in short time spans. Identifying problems early will help avoid costs from running up and result in faster resolution with media sellers.
8. False URLs
The Methbot scheme duped programmatic advertising platforms into placing ads on false websites. False URLs are intended to capture real consumers who mistype URLs of websites that they are in fact trying to visit. Also referred to as typo-squatting or URL hijacking, some examples of addresses that have used this ploy include usatodaycom.com and abcnews.com.co.
While not a new tactic, “fat finger” mistakes are more prevalent today with touch screens and small keyboards on mobile devices. The expansion of gTLDs also provides more opportunities for capturing typos with domains such as .om, .cm and mimicking popular web addresses with different domains.
USA Today cites Intel Security’s chief technology officer explaining,
“They create a site that looks essentially like the real one, at least on the surface. It’s fairly straightforward to do, and then you’re simply relying on human nature to not notice.”
Most of the time, these sites serve advertising that generates revenue for the URL owner and are relatively harmless. Other times, though, malware infections or phishing attempts to collect personal information are the goals.
While high-traffic sites tend to be the targets of typo-squatting, small business is not immune. A marketer for a local wine bar found that another local business used a variation on his client’s URL to direct online traffic its way.
You also want to be cautious of having your ads appear on typo-squatting pages, sites that are unlikely to provide any positive return for those ads. And beware of your own typos when providing links from your site to social media or other high-profile domains. Studies showed that up to 80 percent or more of single character typos for names like Twitter, Facebook and Google landed on typo-squatting sites. Sending customers to one of these fake URLs is one sure way to lose them.
Closing thoughts
While many of the scams themselves are not new, the way that false content and information are being used to disguise the scam or improve the success rate are. It is critical to be aware of and guard against these attempts both for yourself and on behalf of your clients. Demand accountability, and refuse to support fake news or other false information by funding it through advertising. Our future depends on it.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
17 link resolutions for 2017
Back in 2014, I had 14 link resolutions. For 2017, I have 17 for you.
Maybe you’re doing some or all of the following already; congratulations if that’s true, as you’re much more proactive than most. If you aren’t doing any, start with just a couple — but please, please, please make sure you do the first one. That’s the biggest first step you can take if you’re not clued in to what’s involved with your link development.
1. Check out your backlink profile
This one is really never going to change, as far as I’m concerned. It’s definitely not earth-shatteringly new advice, but you would be utterly amazed at the number of people who have no clue about their link profile. I’ve dealt with people who don’t even know where they’d go to look for their backlinks. I’ve dealt with people who are confused about how to analyze what’s there and have never bothered, and people who are too terrified to even dig in.
Whether you want to pay for a tool or just rely on what Google shows you in their Search Console, just make sure you’re looking. Be aware that different tools show you different data, though, so if you’re going to keep track (and of course you are) then pick one and use it for trending purposes, too.
2. Look at what your competitors are doing
I don’t like the idea of mimicking anyone else’s efforts, but I know a lot of link builders who disagree with me there. What I do like to get out of competitor research is a better idea of what is NOT there. That way I have a good idea of what to do to fill a void with something useful and not just copy something else.
I love BuzzSumo for this task. Many clients ask questions like, “Why is competitor X doing so well with half the number of links that I have?” or “How is it that so-and-so just started to rank way above me and they’re brand-new?” I can’t think of any big downsides of seeing what your competitors are doing and figuring out how to use that to your advantage somehow.
3. Don’t assume that you need to churn out excessive content in order to do well
Putting out 10 pieces of content a week is not sustainable for many sites. I mean, if you’re one of those lucky brands that can make this happen, go for it. But if you’re like most brands, where this would be next to impossible to do well, accept it — don’t just vomit out watered-down, useless content. It’s hard to get links to great content sometimes. Poor content doesn’t stand much of a chance.
4. Don’t be surprised when you stop your marketing efforts and you stop doing so well
Everyone else is continuing to move forward, so when you halt your work, you’re likely going to get left behind by your competitors. We’ve had so many clients get to where they want to be in the rankings and then pause our link development work — and over half of them have come back within a couple of months.
5. Don’t discount the power of paid media
Paid media can be effectively utilized in conjunction with your link-building efforts. If you can’t rank organically for some key terms, I see nothing wrong with using paid ads to capture the traffic from those phrases.
Alternatively, if you need to watch your budget and you’re ranking number one for certain keywords that are costing you a fortune in PPC, consider slacking off on the paid stuff just a bit if you can (unless your conversions are much stronger in PPC).
6. Spend more time on research before you create content
You can write something amazing, but if it’s not the right fit for your audience, it’s not going to be as effective. About a year ago, I wrote about this exact issue, explaining how poor preparation caused me to do a really poor job on a content marketing workshop. I didn’t research my audience enough.
7. Build genuine relationships
Don’t only interact with someone in order to get a link or a mention on Twitter. If the only time you are reaching out to an “influencer” is when you want them to comment on a post of yours or upvote it somewhere, they’re going to stop caring about you. I speak from experience here.
8. Be more selective about promoting your own content.
Don’t badger people with your content. I do really love it when someone writes a piece that they feel might interest me and they let me know, because I miss a lot when I’m not focusing on what’s being published. I hate it when the same people direct message me on Twitter every single time they write an article when they write five a week.
9. Figure out how and where to promote your content
Don’t expect that you’re going to get eyes on your work without some form of promotion. Years ago, that might have been true; today, it’s not. There’s just too much to wade through, too much noise.
I want to mention BuzzSumo again here, as it’s fantastic for showing you where different content performs the best in terms of social media platforms.
10. Promote something other than only that which benefits you directly
You know those Twitter users who only tweet their own articles? And then retweet them in case you missed them the first 10 times? Don’t be like that.
I’ve made a lot of really good contacts from sharing other people’s work. It’s a great way to start building a relationship. Note the example below, where my fellow link builder Debra Mastaler is tweeting other people’s content, not her own. She’s not mentioned in these pieces either, so there’s no major benefit to her doing this. I like her style.
11. Take the time to carefully and thoroughly get an idea of your risk tolerance
I feel that this is such a big problem right now. Only you can make the decision about how much you’re willing to risk and which methods you’re okay with using. If you want to build some links, and you’re thinking of doing so in a way that violates Google’s webmaster guidelines, don’t pursue it without getting a full understanding of what’s involved.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that a tactic which violates the guidelines “won’t be an issue,” either. It may not be, but you can’t assume anything when it comes to marketing. Don’t engage in questionable link-building methods if you aren’t prepared to deal with the potential fallout.
12. Ask questions, always
Ask your link team why they recommend a certain method. Ask about the downsides of everything. Ask about the benefits of investing in content. Ask yourself what you expect to get out of this. Ask anything that pops into your head. Use Casie Gillette’s piece as a starting point if you need help with what questions you should be asking. I certainly would if someone were building links for my site.
13. Stop chasing algorithms
Remember when we used to do all that exact match anchor text? And then we did a lot of “click here” anchors? We figured out what worked and abused it until it messed us up, and then we went with the latest and greatest trend. I’ve stopped doing that and have had much more success with link building since we started to just build links that looked like good links. It’s very simple!
14. Stop changing direction every time you read something new
I’m sure most of you have a client who emails you the second they learn about a new trend or read an article that seemingly contradicts your current link-building strategy.
Many people write controversial pieces just for attention. Some have done testing and have valid points, but maybe what they’re talking about doesn’t apply to you. Nothing is worse than a client who constantly wants you to stop what you’re doing and do something different because they read some article on another industry site. If it’s working for you and you’re happy, keep it up.
15. Remember that rankings aren’t everything
Move your focus away from simply rising up in the rankings. I have a few clients who really, really hate a nofollowed link, even when it’s on a good site and has the potential to send them relevant traffic. I would never turn that down, personally. If I get a conversion out of it, I’m good to go.
16. Replicate your best links
Analyze the links that send you the most relevant traffic, and figure out how to get more like them. These are your key links. Maybe you have a great link in an older article on a particular site, and every month you get some conversions from it. Wouldn’t it be smart to try and get another link in a newer article on that same site and see if that brings you more conversions?
To give you an example, one of my best sources for new clients is this site. I write a monthly column, and every month I get some really great contacts from it. I take it seriously and keep writing. I don’t just hope that I’ll get continued referrals from my old work.
If you write a post for another site and it goes crazy and everything’s amazing, why not ask for a column? You have nothing to lose from trying.
17. Don’t take every single opportunity to get a link
I feel bad about saying no to people who ask me to contribute to a roundup post, for example, but I don’t have the time or the desire to contribute to 10 a week. In some cases, the sites are brand-new and make me a bit nervous — and if I don’t want my link there, I’m not going to bother. Be picky. Just because you can get a link somewhere does not mean that you should get a link there.
Here’s to a great 2017!
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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