The #1 Reason Paid Ads (On Search, Social, and Display) Fail - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

Pouring money into a paid ad campaign that’s destined to fail isn’t a sound growth strategy. Time and again, companies breaking into online ads don’t see success due to the same issue: they aren’t known to their audiences. There’s no trust, no recognition, and so the cost per click remains high and rising.

In this edition of Whiteboard Friday, Rand identifies the cycle many brands get trapped in and outlines a solution to make those paid ad campaigns worth the dollars you put behind them.

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Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we’re chatting about the number one reason so many paid ad campaigns, especially from new companies and companies with new products or new ventures that they’re going into, new markets and audiences they’re addressing, fail. They just fall apart. I see this scenario play out so many times, especially in the startup and entrepreneurial world but, to be honest, across the marketing landscape.

Here’s how it usually goes. You’ve got your CEO or your CMO or your business owner and they’re like, “Hey, we have this great new product. Let’s spread the word.” So they talk to a marketer. It could be a contractor. It could be an agency. It could be someone in-house.

The marketer is like, “Okay, yeah, I’ll buy some ads online, help us get the word out there and get us some traffic and conversions.”

Then a few months later, you basically get this. “How’s that paid ad campaign going?” “Well, not so good. I have bad news.”

The cycle

Almost always, this is the result of a cycle that looks like this. You have a new company’s campaign. The campaign is to sell something or get exposure for something, to try and drive visits back to a web page or a website, several pages on the site and then get conversions out of it. So you buy Facebook ads, Instagram ads, maybe LinkedIn and Twitter. You probably use the Google Display Network. You’re probably using AdWords. All of these sources are trying to drive traffic to your web page and then get a conversion that turns into money.

Now, what happens is that these get a high cost per click. They start out with a high cost per click because it’s a new campaign. So none of these platforms have experience with your campaign or your company. So you’re naturally going to get a higher-than-normal cost per click until you prove to them that you get high engagement, at which point they bring the cost per click down. But instead of proving to them you get high engagement, you end up getting low engagement, low click-through rate, low conversion rate. People don’t make it here. They don’t make it there. Why is that?

Why does this happen?

Well, before we address that, let’s talk about what happens here. When these are low, when you have a low engagement rate on the platform itself, when no one engages with your Facebook ads, no one engages with your Instagram ads, when no one clicks on your AdWords ad, when no one clicks on your display ads, the cost to show to more people goes up, and, as a result, these campaigns are much harder to make profitable and they’re shown to far fewer people.

So your exposure to the audience you want to reach is smaller and the cost to reach each next person and to drive each next action goes up. This, fundamentally, is because…

• The audience that you’re trying to reach hasn’t heard of you before. They don’t know who you are.
• They don’t know, trust, or like you or your company product, they don’t click. They don’t click. They don’t buy. They don’t share. They don’t like.

They don’t do all the engagement things that would drive this high cost per click down, and, because of that, your campaigns suffer and struggle.

I see so many marketers who think like this, who say yes to new company campaigns that start with an advertising-first approach. I want to be clear, there are some exceptions to the rule. I have seen some brand new companies that fit a certain mold do very well with Instagram advertising for certain types of products that appeal to that audience and don’t need a previously existing brand association. I’ve seen some players in the Google AdWords market do okay with this, some local businesses, some folks in areas where people don’t expect to have knowledge and awareness of a brand already in the space where they’re trying to discover them.

So it’s not the case always that this fails, but very often, often enough that I’m calling this the number one reason I see paid ads fail.

The solution

There’s only one solution and it’s not pretty. The solution is…

You have to get known to your audience before you pour money into advertising.

Meaning you need to invest in organic channels — content or SEO or press and PR or sponsorships or events, what have you, anything that can get your brand name and the names of your product out there.

Brand advertising, in fact, can work for this. So television brand advertising, folks have noticed that TV brand advertising often drives the cost per click down and drives engagement and click-through rates up, because people have heard of you and they know who you are. Magazine and offline advertising works like this. Sometimes even display advertising can work this way.

The second option is to…

Advertise primarily or exclusively to an audience that already has experience with you.

The way you can do this is through systems like Google’s retargeting and remarketing platforms. You can do the same thing with Facebook, through custom audiences of email addresses that you upload, same thing with Instagram, same thing with Twitter. You can target people who specifically only follow the accounts that you already own and control. Through these, you can get better engagement, better click-through rate, better conversion rate and drive down that cost per click and reach a broader audience.

But if you don’t do these things first, a lot of times these types of investments fall flat on their face, and a lot of marketers, to be honest, and agencies and consultants lose their jobs as a result. I don’t want that to happen to you. So invest in these first or find the niches where advertising can work for a first-time product. You’re going to be a lot happier.

All right, everyone. Look forward to your comments. We’ll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

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harryandmeghan

13 Quick Tricks to Drive Traffic to Your Blog in Minutes

It happens to the best of bloggers.

You produce stellar content that’s helpful and easy to read.

You even publish a blog post a week – or more – to prove you’re serious about blogging.

You genuinely care about your audience.

But sometimes, despite doing everything by the book, the traffic’s a dud.

That’s when the questions start – am I good enough to be doing this? Heck, does blogging even work as a legitimate business model? Am I wasting my time?

If that’s you, let me clear the air by quoting Jon Morrow, “Each and every one of us decides who we are. No, you may not be ready to be a popular blogger now, but you can become ready.”

Blogging works. We’ve seen a lot of proof around us for that. The problem is not blogging; it is doing things that don’t yield trust or traffic to your blog.

You see, a decade ago you could crank out a 300-word piece and get more content published, left, right and center. In those days, just having something published meant you could attract huge traffic. Because not many were doing it.

Gradually, the world caught up and more people started putting out better content. Longer, more in depth, more useful content. Bloggers started calling it “epic posts”.

Today, most of the world has caught up with “epic”. It’s no longer a differential point. It’s a given.

The secret to attracting more traffic is doing what others are not doing, or unwilling to do yet.

And what if I told you it could be done in under 30 minutes?

To make it easier for you, I have compiled a list of 13 quick tricks to drive traffic to your blog in minutes:

1. Add drama to your work

Spice things up by telling a story or starting out with a metaphor. Kevin Duncan of Be a Better Blogger uses this technique like no other. His posts open with engaging anecdotes that establish a connection with his readers right at the beginning.

The result? A hooked reader.

2. Pick a topic that attracts traffic

Needless to say, if your topic is dull, you are not going to attract much traffic any time soon. Start with Google Trends, BuzzSumo and Feedly to research what’s in demand. I suggest the “three-circle strategy” to pick a topic/niche when you’re starting out.

Here’s how it works:

Draw three circles on a piece of paper. In the first circle, write down all areas you’re knowledgeable about. In the second, write what interests you. And in the third circle, pick topics from the above two circles that are in demand.

Your sweet spot is where the three intersect.

3. Analyze your headlines before hitting “publish”

Use a headline analyzer like CoSchedule. Once you are done writing the post, copy and paste your draft headline into the free tool. It’s super-quick and effective.

Once you punch in a headline, the tool assigns it a “Headline Score”. It also gives your headline a grade based on the overall structure, grammar and readability. The report dissects your headline into “common words”, “uncommon words”, “emotional words” and “power words”. It tells you your headline “type” (this post is a “list type”) and does a length analysis. Lastly, you get some cool tips to improve your headline, all for free and in under a few minutes.

Here’s an example:

4. Go visual

Why? Because the human brain craves visuals. The last time I checked, humans had a shorter attention span (8 seconds) than that of a goldfish (9 seconds). The proof lies in the wildly popular visual platforms such as Facebook Timeline, Instagram and Pinterest.

We’re drowning in words and don’t have enough time to read every single blog post out there. If visuals, such as memes, videos, infographics, comics etc, can help you retain attention, why not give them a try?

Visme, Canva and Vine are just a few tools to get started in under minutes. For example, using templates in Visme, you can create stellar infographics for free within minutes.

5. Improve your blog’s loading time

As you probably know, Google considers loading time as an important factor in ranking websites. Research shows that 47% of readers now expect a page to load in 2 seconds.

Let’s start with the low lying fruit – the first thing you want to do is reduce the number of plugins you use. Plugins make your blog sluggish, so unless absolutely necessary, get rid of extra add-ons. Replace these with an all-in-one plugin, such as Jetpack for a more efficient loading time.

Compress images using Smush.it or use BJ Lazy Load for an image to load conditionally when the reader scrolls to the bottom of the page. An alternative is to use a CDN or a Content Delivery Network which is a network of webservers such as Incapsula.

6. Make social sharing easy

A recent study found that using social sharing buttons on posts leads to 7 times more mentions. Start with writing magnetic headlines that are short and brief (for platforms such as Twitter so there’s room for shortened URLs). Include hashtags and usernames when appropriate.

7. Join HARO and answer relevant queries

HARO or Help a Reporter is a “free publicity” service dedicated to bringing reporters and qualified sources together. As a blogger, you can be a story lead or an expert source for a reporter query. Signing up is free and it takes less than 10 minutes to briefly answer a HARO query, which can result in high-quality inbound links to your blog.

8. Convert a visitor into a lead

Add a solid call-to-action at the end of your posts that urges them to either read another of your posts, subscribe to your list, click a link to a landing page – do something.

Here’s an example:

Source: Forbes.com.

Use TrenDemon to add customizable calls-to-action based on visitors’ realtime engagement. It’s made up of several algorithms that analyze and identifies the pages that bring in most traffic and engagement, and helps optimize your marketing ROI.

A landing page is a dedicated page to convert a reader into a subscriber by offering a “freebie” or a “lead magnet”. A great alternative is GetResponse’s Landing Page Maker.

Short on budget? You can try LaunchEffect, a free launch theme, and start collecting leads even before you’ve launched a blog.

Of course, this post is about attracting traffic, so how does collecting leads help? It does — because once you have a thriving list you can always direct them to your blog through a series of well-written autoresponders and emails.

9. Come up with the optimum number of posts, then stick to it

What’s the optimum number? Research shows that the more a company blogged per month, the more traffic it attracted.

On the flip side, how much is too much? One of the easiest ways to figure it out is to watch your subscriber activity closely. Are you getting many unsubscribe requests because of “too much posting” like this blogger? His quick case study will help you to find your minimum viable posting.

10. Start a forum on your website

An active forum will not only serve as a useful community to your readers but also attract new traffic with the help of natural longtail keywords that go into it.

To do a quick search of active and popular forums in your niche, just search for your keyword + forum. Then, all you have to do is create a free account on the best forum(s) and use your brand name as a nickname. You can start contributing as well as studying these forums before you launch your own.

Starting your own forum is easy. For WordPress, you can install the free bbPress plugin. Here is a tutorial to set up bbPress in under minutes.

11. Connect with bloggers who send you traffic

Monitor Backlinks is a neat tool for SEO and web marketers. It notifies you every time you gain or lose a backlink; every time your competitor gains a high-value backlink and compares ranking with your competitors.

12. Respond to your blog comments thoughtfully

According to Neil Patel, responding to comments increases your traffic. The more you respond, the more number of words accumulate on the page. This is ideal from an SEO-perspective. Not only that, repeat traffic also builds over time because they look forward to new posts and even become subscribers to keep updated.

You can also control your traffic by adding a link in the comment URL box and directing them where you want. Neil increased visits to his “About” page by 5,137 visits a month by simply using this feature in the comment box.

Here is a useful guide to help you deal with different types of comments you get on the blog.

13. Build up your professional brand on Quora

It’s a great place to answer questions and build a legitimate following. You get immediate exposure to 1.5 million monthly visitors, and add links to your blog posts and articles as resources in your answers.

If you know everything about your topic, answering a question shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes. You want to follow all related topics too, just in case. You can also join in relevant conversations and educate your prospects better about your service/product (of course, no spamming).

Here’s a teaser for the topic Content Marketing (Fair warning: It can be addictive!):

The bottom line

I want to challenge you to try these techniques. Of course, not all of them will work for you so pick and choose a handful and run with it.

Gaining new traffic sounds like a lot of work, but it’s worth every minute. And with the above tips, you can boost traffic in 30 minutes or less. You may not feel it happen immediately, but stay consistent. You’ll see the results.

Eventually, the more you do these techniques, the more trust you will build. Writing epic posts is no longer enough – you want the right audience to read them too.

Guest Author: Pooja Lohana is an Online Business Coach + Writer & Editor. She helps entrepreneurs shine their blog and copy, and simplifies online marketing so they can make more sales and live the Un-9-5 life. Check out her step-by-step course on breaking into freelance writing.

The post 13 Quick Tricks to Drive Traffic to Your Blog in Minutes appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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6 Reasons Why You Should Consider Podcasting as a Content Marketing Channel in 2018

Podcasting has numerous benefits, however, producing an ongoing podcast is a hard nut to crack. It takes more effort than simply clicking ‘Record’ on your smartphone and then uploading it online.

According to a recent Edison Research report, around 98 million US citizens are listening to podcasts annually, with more than 50 million individuals listening to them on a monthly basis. Indeed, the present podcasting explosion has been presaged as the ideal age of podcasts.

Podcasting involves a tremendous amount of research, planning, acquiring technical skills, managing social media networks and engaging your target audience. Once a podcast is started, the only thing that is going to stay on top of your mind will be: what should the next episode be about?

For companies, podcasting can be a compelling opportunity to interact with your clientele, become noticeable among your competitors, and turn into an industry frontrunner and professional. However, you need to be very accurate about time management.

While only 3% of marketers are currently using podcasting for marketing purposes, around 32% actively wish to learn how to use it, and 23% intend to escalate their podcasting efforts.

Image Source: WebpageFX

Podcasting: Your shortcut to success

Did you know, MailChimp became a popular brand name overnight by simply running a 20-second ad at the start of every episode of the famous podcast, Serial?

This is just one illustration of a business taking advantage of podcasting, and it inspired several other companies to start producing their own podcasts.

Here’s why you should consider podcasting as a content marketing channel in 2018:

1. Practicing the art of subtle branding

Let’s face it: over-branding can actually kill your brand.

Around 57% of customers report that they avoid brands that bombard them with advertisements and other marketing messages. Podcasts can help you master the art of subtle branding!

As digital marketers, we are continuously reminded that storytelling is a vital instrument for consumer engagement. Through appropriate, enlightening, and valuable stories conveyed by evocative means, companies can connect with customers and develop a devoted audience.

One way to interact with your audience is a corporate blog. However, maintaining an attention-grabbing blog involves several SEO challenges and there is a high probability that your potential customers become more aware of brand involvement.

Therefore, podcasts such as audio content can help you implement a more subtle approach. This way, you can become an intrinsic element of the content itself. For example; eBay recently joined hands with Gimlet Creative to come up with its own podcast series titled ‘Open for Business’ that uses audio content for advertising purposes.

2. Easy to consume and mobile-friendly

Unlike blogs and videos, the beauty of podcasts lies in the fact that audio content can be more conveniently accessed on the go. It does not force users to abandon whatever they are doing just to concentrate wholly on your content. Whether they are working out or cooking, they can easily listen to your podcast.

According to HandMadeWritings, it is imperative for marketers to identify consumer behavior across multiple generations and to renovate their marketing approach accordingly. Therefore, with more and more consumers using smartphones today, it is also important to make your podcast mobile-friendly.

An interesting example of a company producing convenient-to-consume and enjoyable content is General Electric that started a science-fiction podcast titled ‘The Message’. Contrary to the eBay podcast, General Electric focused on the audience to succeed.

Image Source: e-Strategy Trends

3. Swift turnaround time

One of the reasons you should give podcasting a try is the quick turnaround time. Regardless of what audio software is used, the whole process of editing a podcast is very swift.

So, how do you come up with a quick podcast? Here are a few simple steps:

• Record your discussion
• Add a brief introduction to your company or product
• Add theme music (it’s advisable to purchase it to prevent copyright infringement)
• Listen to the recording to ensure that the sound is clear and your message is conveyed effectively
• Edit to make it picture-perfect
• Save it as an MP3 file
• Voila! You’re ready to upload it to your site.

4. Reflection of true brand personality

Along with offering value for customers, podcasts can also reflect a company’s individuality and fundamental values. Rather than using written content for conveying what a brand stands for, it is often more convenient to do so by expressing it vocally.

For instance, Slack, a popular corporate messaging tool, has initiated its podcast series called, ‘The Slack Variety Pack’ that depicts a true picture of the company. This amusing, buoyant and somewhat geeky content engages its main audience impeccably. Consequently, it helps in further strengthening the connection with its customers.

5. Higher reach, wider audience

Once a podcast is published on iTunes, Stitcher or similar platforms, a company exposes its content to a broader audience at no cost. These platforms act as search engines that are used by individuals to look for podcasts along with popular songs. In this way, a brand receives the organic publicity that helps in snowballing its reach and growing its audience.

Moreover, podcasts facilitate companies in developing a loyalty of an extensive range of consumers. Audiences generally subscribe to a podcast series and frequently listen to them. Furthermore, there is a high possibility that the listeners may endorse your podcasts to their fellows, thereby, growing your reach significantly. It can ultimately yield enhanced traffic generation.

6. Fostering improved relationships with your customers

Although a podcast is a unidirectional platform, it can facilitate companies in developing better relationships with the customers. It makes your audience feel as if they recognize the individual talking on the podcast.

The primary reason why individuals listen to podcasts is that they feel something mutual between the speaker and the company being represented by the speaker.

In this way, fostering a good relationship aids in developing conviction, which emboldens the audience to stay connected with the company. All this results in enhanced conversion as individuals are more probable to do business with an acquaintance than an outsider.

Final word

Companies these days are progressively implementing podcasting to increase their projections. It’s an influential marketing tool that has gradually become the novel talk-radio on portable devices such as smartphones and tablets. In fact, the augmented usage of smartphones has resulted in the massive development of podcasting.

However, just as any other method of content marketing, the accomplishment of corporate podcasts depends on genuineness, value, and significance for customers. There is no single formula for success. Nonetheless, it seems more and more companies are enthusiastic to experiment with podcasting.

Guest Author: Donna Moores is a savvy content marketer and a contributing writer at Convince & Convert, SocialMediaToday, and Spin Sucks. She has gained an outstanding marketing experience within the biggest industries and businesses, which she pleasantly shares with the readers. You may reach out to Donna on Twitter or via LinkedIn.

The post 6 Reasons Why You Should Consider Podcasting as a Content Marketing Channel in 2018 appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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Polish bookie launches Income Access powered affiliate strategy

In addition, Income Access’ technology will allow a maximisation of online traffic and raised conversion rates via the affiliate marketing channel. Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Income Access and Digital Wallets at Paysafe, said: “With the largest economy in Eastern Europe and enjoying one of the strongest …

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New CEO to take the reigns at Catena Media

Citing extensive international commercial experience from a variety of industries, including iGaming, publishing, consumer electronics and mobile telecommunication, the Stockholm-listed industry affiliate marketing firm also states “a proven track record in M&A, organisational efficiency and creating …

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Fuse Advocates for More Latino Representation in Hollywood

“We want to help them get the conversation going – they are the watchdog of Latinos in media, and they are there to elevate Latino voices on air and online, and that’s what we are here to do,” said Judi Lopez, Fuse senior vice president of distribution and affiliate marketing. “It’s important that we're …

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UK online gambling operators probed for withdrawal roadblocks

Meanwhile, this week saw the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announce the results of a “global intelligence-gathering operation” that found “significant issues” with affiliate marketing. The probe flagged 221 of the 902 websites studied for “further action.” The ICO says the probe’s main …

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Making Claims to AI? You're Probably Using Machine Learning

At first glance, the real win behind machine learning for performance marketers appears to be the processing and analysing of data in larger quantities in real-time. Webgains is just one of several global affiliate networks working on a number of machine learning products; According to CEO Richard …

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Soleo Wins Big at Affiliate Summit West with Ringba Giveaway

The teams from Ringba and Soleo both thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the Affiliate Summit West; they were among 6,000 digital marketers who gathered in Las Vegas. The large group of attendees was made up of online publishers, bloggers, media owners, traffic sources, advertisers, global brands, …

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Suning.com Sees 500% Rise in Net Profits for 2017

Suning.com, the retail subsidiary of Suning Holdings Group, who focuses on traffic management, merchandising and affiliate marketing, optimising customer experience and improving Omni-channel operation capabilities, has taken the advantages to meet new opportunities in 2017. During the reporting …

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How to Diagnose SEO Traffic Drops: 11 Questions to Answer

Posted by Daniel_Marks

Almost every consultant or in-house SEO will be asked at some point to investigate an organic traffic drop. I’ve investigated quite a few, so I thought I’d share some steps I’ve found helpful when doing so.

Is it just normal noise?

Before you sound the alarm and get lost down a rabbit hole, you should make sure that the drop you’re seeing is actually real. This involves answering two questions:

A.) Do you trust the data?

This might seem trivial, but at least a quarter of the traffic drops I’ve seen were simply due to data problems.

The best way to check on this is to sense-check other metrics that might be impacted by data problems. Does anything else look funky? If you have a data engineering team, are they aware of any data issues? Are you flat-out missing data for certain days or page types or devices, etc.? Thankfully, data problems will usually make themselves pretty obvious once you start turning over a few rocks.

One of the more common sources of data issues is simply missing data for a day.

B.) Is this just normal variance?

Metrics go up and down all the time for no discernible reason. One way to quantify this is to use your historical standard deviation for SEO traffic.

For example, you could plot your weekly SEO traffic for the past 12 months and calculate the standard deviation (using the STDEV function on Google Sheets or Excel makes this very easy) to figure out if a drop in weekly traffic is abnormal. You’d expect about 16% of weeks to be one standard deviation below your weekly average just by sheer luck. You could therefore set a one-standard-deviation threshold before investigating traffic drops, for example (but you should adjust this threshold to whatever is appropriate for your business). You can also look at the standard deviation for your year-over-year or week-over-week SEO traffic if that’s where you’re seeing the drop (i.e. plot your % change in YoY SEO traffic by week for the past 12 months and calculate the standard deviation).

SEO traffic is usually pretty noisy, especially on a short time frame like a week.

Let’s assume you’ve decided this is indeed a real traffic drop. Now what? I’d recommend trying to answer the eleven questions below, at least one of them will usually identify the culprit.

Questions to ask yourself when facing an organic traffic drop

1. Was there a recent Google algorithm update?

MozCast, Search Engine Land, and Moz’s algorithm history are all good resources here.

Expedia seems to have been penalized by a Penguin-related update.

If there was an algorithm update, do you have any reason to suspect you’d be impacted? It can sometimes be difficult to understand the exact nature of a Google update, but it’s worth tracking down any information you can to make sure your site isn’t at risk of being hit.

2. Is the drop specific to any segment?

One of the more useful practices whenever you’re looking at aggregated data (such as a site’s overall search traffic) is to segment the data until you find something interesting. In this case, we’d be looking for a segment that has dropped in traffic much more than any other. This is often the first step in tracking down the root cause of the issue. The two segments I’ve found most useful in diagnosing SEO traffic drops specifically:

• Device type (mobile vs. desktop vs. tablet)
• Page type (product pages vs. category pages vs. blog posts vs. homepage etc.)

But there will likely be plenty of other segments that might make sense to look at for your business (for example, product category).

3. Are you being penalized?

This is unlikely, but it’s also usually pretty quick to disprove. Look at Search Console for any messages related to penalties and search for your brand name on Google. If you’re not showing up, then you might be penalized.

Rap Genius (now Genius) was penalized for their link building tactics and didn’t show up for their own brand name on Google.

4. Did the drop coincide with a major site change?

This can take a thousand different forms (did you migrate a bunch of URLs, move to a different JavaScript framework, update all your title tags, remove your navigation menu, etc?). If this is the case, and you have a reasonable hypothesis for how this could impact SEO traffic, you might have found your culprit.

Hulu.com saw a pretty big drop in SEO traffic after changing their JavaScript framework.

5. Did you lose ranking share to a competitor?

There are a bunch of tools that can tell you if you’ve lost rankings to a competitor:

• BrightEdge’s Share of Voice
• GetStat’s Share of Voice
• SEMrush’s Rankings Distribution Report

If you’ve lost rankings, it’s worth investigating the specific keywords that you’ve lost and figuring out if there’s a trend. Did your competitors launch a new page type? Did they add content to their pages? Do they have more internal links pointing to these pages than you do?

GetStat’s Share of Voice report lets you quickly see whether a competitor is usurping your rankings

It could also just be a new competitor that’s entered the scene.

6. Did it coincide with a rise in direct or dark traffic?

If so, make sure you haven’t changed how you’re classifying this traffic on your end. Otherwise, you might simply be re-classifying organic traffic as direct or dark traffic.

7. Has there been a change to the search engine results pages you care about?

You can either use Moz’s SERP features report, or manually look at the SERPs you care about to figure out if their design has materially changed. It’s possible that Google is now answering many of your relevant queries directly in search results, put an image carousel on them, added a local pack, etc. — all of which would likely decrease your organic search traffic.

Celebritynetworth.com lost most of its SEO traffic because of rich snippets like the one above.

8. Is the drop specific to branded or unbranded traffic?

If you have historical Search Console data, you can look at number of branded clicks vs. unbranded clicks over time. You could also look at this data through AdWords if you spend on paid search. Another simple proxy to branded traffic is homepage traffic (for most sites, the majority of homepage traffic will be branded). If the drop is specific to branded search then it’s probably a brand problem, not an SEO problem.

9. Did a bunch of pages drop out of the index?

Search Console’s Index Status Report will make it clear if you suddenly have way fewer URLs being indexed. If this is the case, you might be accidentally disallowing or noindexing URLs (through robots.txt, meta tags on the page, or HTTP headers).

Search Console’s Index Status Report is a quick way to make sure you’re not accidentally noindexing or disallowing large portions of your site.

10. Did your number of referring domains and/or links drop?

It’s possible that a large number of your backlinks have been removed or are no longer accessible for whatever reason.

Ahrefs can be a quick way to determine if you’ve lost backlinks and also offers very handy reports for your lost backlinks or referring domains that will allow you to identify why you might have lost these links.

A sudden drop in backlinks could be the reason you’re seeing a traffic drop.

11. Is SEM cannibalizing SEO traffic?

It’s possible that your paid search team has recently ramped up their spend and that this is eating into your SEO traffic. You should be able to check on this pretty quickly by plotting your SEM vs. SEO traffic. If it’s not obvious after doing this whether it’s a factor, then it can be worth pausing your SEM campaigns for specific landing pages and seeing if SEO traffic rebounds for those pages.

To be clear, some level of cannibalization between SEM and SEO is inevitable, but it’s still worth understanding how much of your traffic is being cannibalized and whether the incremental clicks your SEM campaigns are driving outweigh the loss in SEO traffic (in my experience they usually do outweigh the loss in SEO traffic, but still worth checking!).

If your SEM vs. SEO traffic graph looks similar to the (slightly extreme) one above, then SEM campaigns might be cannibalizing your SEO traffic.

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That’s all I’ve got — hopefully at least one of these questions will lead you to the root cause of an organic search traffic drop. Are there any other questions that you’ve found particularly helpful for diagnosing traffic drops? Let me know 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!

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The Untapped Social Network With 10x the Potential of Twitter

Social networks have changed the way we communicate…

But their use and relevance are constantly on the hop.

I remember when the world was consumed by MySpace. If you didn’t have a MySpace page you were digitally irrelevant. Now there is a generation of teens and pre-teens who don’t even know what MySpace is.

Then there was Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Instagram. Snapchat.

Which social network is going to become obsolete next?

The social networks today are smarter than they were 20 years ago. They have seen the fate of platforms like MySpace and are desperate to adapt. They are always on the lookout for the next trend that they can woo users with and entice engagement.

Live video, automated messaging and disappearing snippets of our life are hot at the moment. But are you ready for the next big trend in social?

Why you should care about what is coming next

I remember when I first started out on Twitter. There were only about 5 million users at the time (there are now over 330 million), and people were genuinely engaged and interactive.

By publishing visually eye-catching and helpful content about digital marketing, people took notice. I could proliferate my message and create a splash in a not-so-crowded neighborhood.

In a sense I was lucky. I rode the Twitter wave, and soon became a figure of influence.

But today it is much harder to create a similar influence on Twitter and many of the other established social media platforms. Engagement has dropped for new users. True followers are hard to find. And they are making just about everyone pay to get the same attention that was once free.

So if you want to use social media to influence people to know, like, trust, and buy from you – adaptation is a necessity.

You need to have your finger on the pulse of what is coming next, what is trending, and what will enable you to create a significant impact at scale in the shortest time frame possible.

But how do you know what is coming next? How can you ride the next wave of social growth?

Here’s a shortcut…

The next big thing in social

More and more people are turning to voice as a medium for communication. Unlike text-based communication, voice conveys emotion, tone, and subtleties that text is unable to capture.

Not convinced? These stats might change your mind:

• The average human can speak 150 words per minute, but only type 40 words at the same time.
• Comscore estimates that by 2020 over 50% of all searches will be done by voice.
• There were 35x more Google voice search queries in 2016 than there were in 2008.
• 60% of people using voice as a medium of communication have only started in the last year.

Ok, so voice is on the rise… but what does that have to do with social media? How can you make the most of this trend?

The new social network that is disrupting the way we consume social content

HearMeOut is a voice-based social network built around 42-second voice recordings.

The beauty of this fast-growing social network is the opportunity it presents for people like you and me to tap into a HUGE new audience. With voice taking over our home, our cars, and even our messengers, people are rapidly switching to audio for their daily needs.

But you better move fast, HearMeOut have partnered with Ford Motors and are currently the only social app in Ford entertainment systems, a natural fit for a voice-based social network, which is building traction.

Hundreds of influencers are already using the HearMeOut app, taking advantage of what voice can do for the brands they work with and even their own personal brand. They are even using this app with their existing social networks by sharing a voice post on Twitter and essentially creating “Voice Tweets”.  Their 2.0 version, which was just released, has a homepage full of content and feature opportunities for brands and influencers.

Why voice?

With the ability to listen to your social feed when driving, running or any other hands-free activity, voice-based social adds more “screen time” to peoples days, expanding the reach for advertisers.

Voice not only expands the time users can be social but with over 256 million visually impaired individuals globally who have been widely overlooked for years, a voice-based social network is an accessible opportunity to be “social” like never before.

Voice-based advertising is also an emerging trend that you should be aware of. Unlike static text or image ads, you can actually have a conversation (albeit limited) with voice ads. This approach to advertising is interactive, engaging, and highly effective for brands as a competitive differentiator.

Now is the time for brands and influencers to be early adopters of this voice-based social trend. It’s also an opportunity for emerging influencers to skip the “queue” of more crowded and mature mediums like Twitter or Facebook.

There is enough evidence to suggest that voice and video are where all digital activity is going.

Will you be the one standing there on top of the pops when the hockey-stick growth comes for HearMeOut?

The post The Untapped Social Network With 10x the Potential of Twitter appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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10 Amazing Facts About Pinterest Marketing That Will Surprise You

How to Optimize Content for the Google Featured Snippet Box

The above featured snippet box displays information pertaining to “breaking into affiliate marketing”. This has been extracted from the “wikihow.com/make-money-as-an-affiliate-marketer” website. If I had prepared and optimized my content well, I could have perhaps extracted this information from one of …

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The Top 10 Digital Conferences for Entrepreneurs in 2018

Affiliate marketing is big business – so big that Affiliate Summit, the largest affiliate marketing conference, now produces three conferences a year. 2018’s Affiliate Summit in New York will be one of the biggest affiliate events to come. Join thousands of performance marketers from over 70 countries for …

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STS launches affiliate program with Income Access

(PRESS RELEASE) – STS.pl, the biggest bookmaker in Poland in terms of market share, has launched an affiliate program in partnership with Income Access, Paysafe’s marketing technology and services provider. The new STSpartner affiliate program will be managed by STS’ in-house team using …

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Can Performance Marketing's AI-Enthusiasts Turn 'Sexy Tech' Into Legitimate Use Cases?

Predicting uplift for a given promotion and to a given spend target is one of the most common-place tasks for affiliate marketers. It’s also an inherently manual task, reliant on an individual’s knowledge and instinct, and often performed in complicated spreadsheets that are the sole domain of their creators.

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Affiliate marketing industry failing on privacy compliance

The issues found in the sweep included an apparent lack of self-regulation, lack of consent, misleading advertising and issues around affiliate marketing platforms. A majority of participants noted that most of the publicly available terms of services between the affiliates, merchants and affiliate platforms …

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Shortlist Unveiled for the Performance Marketing Awards 2018

Shortlisted for the peer-voted Industry Choice of Network is admitad, Awin, Button, CJ Affiliate by Conversant, Rakuten Marketing Affiliate Network and Visualsoft Affiliates. Shortlisted for Industry Choice of Publisher is easyfundraising, Quidco, Smarter Click Technology, TopCashback, VoucherCodes and …

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Canada Participates in International Online Gambling Affiliate Investigation

The online gaming industry is more popular than ever, generating billions of dollars worldwide each year. Even though there are several ways to promote an online casino, affiliate marketing plays a key role in the proliferation of the online gambling industry. Affiliate programs turned out to be the …

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E*TRADE Earns Wide Array of Honors from Industry Expert StockBrokers.com

“Traders and investors alike need the tools and resources to keep their fingers on the pulse of their portfolios, and act at a moment’s notice—especially in periods of pronounced volatility,” said Christopher Larkin, Senior Vice President of Trading Product at E*TRADE Financial. "The diversity of these …

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Investigation identifies privacy law compliance failings in affiliate marketing

The affiliate marketing industry has been warned of “significant issues” that must be addressed to ensure compliance with regulations concerning privacy and unsolicited communications. The warning follows a 2017 investigation by the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network (UCENet), …

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Video interview: Dr. Armin Sageder, CEO, Playtech BGT Sports

“Playtech, coming from digital casino, brings customer segmentation, CRM, and affiliate marketing – we’re getting knowledge base together and adding the features which were not there before or even coupling the architectures of the system, which gives us a unique advantage,” he explained. Dubbing …

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ABC Affiliate Relations & Marketing Internship (DATG)(CA)

Learn more about applying for ABC Affiliate Relations & Marketing Internship (DATG)(CA), Summer 2018 at Disney Professional Internships.

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Beattie appoints Head of Search from Venn Digital

Facey joins Only Digital, Beattie’s digital marketing boutique, from Venn Digital, where he is head of paid media. Jessica McAndrew, director of Only … Its services include multi-channel marketing and advertising, website design, content marketing and affiliate marketing. The agency is recognised as a …

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A Vans x Marvel Collaboration Is Coming

After going under the sea with its Spongebob Squarepants collaboration, Vans is gearing up to release a co-branded collection with none other than Marvel. This isn’t the first time the two brands have crossed paths, previously teaming up on a footwear collection in 2013 that included various Vans …

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Our 10 Favorite adidas Ultra Boost Sneakers Available to Buy Right Now

For many new sneakerheads, it was the adidas Ultra Boost that sparked an obsession with footwear. Kanye West, of course, helped the silhouette gain notoriety when he wore a triple white pair during the Billboard Music Awards, while collaborations with popular sneaker boutiques have helped sustain …

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FullyDroned.com is Making it Easier than before to Find the Best Drones at Present

It aims at helping its visitors in finding the best drones at present in the market. The portal does so by offering comprehensive reviews of different popular drones. The owner shares posts and videos about top drones as well as the latest drone news. The portal seems to be a member of affiliate marketing …

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Vantage FX launches Affiliate program using Cellxpert platform

Global forex broker Vantage FX has announced a new partnership with performance marketing technology provider Cellxpert, aimed at bolstering Vantage FX’s Affiliate CPA program. By partnering with Cellxpert, Vantage FX affiliates have access to state-of-the-art marketing and tracking tools all in one …

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GET Iman Shafiei Affiliate Marketing Secrets

61 GB What is Affiliate Marketing Secrets The Affiliate Marketing Secrets Program is a 6 week online program with the Iman Shafiei - Affiliate Marketing Secrets | 3. 61 GB. Now it’s finally getting a long-awaited, full 3D remake! The game faithfully retells the beloved story while adopting modern 3D …

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Anwar Carrots Updates K-Swiss's Classic 66 Sneaker

Working together to reinterpret its Classic 66 model with minimalist appeal and balancing street with sophistication, the outcome is a Carrots made in Japan Classic 66, that has been recreated to original specifications by master shoemakers in Himeji, Japan. In addition, the highly limited edition …

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Connecting shopify to wordpress website and affiliate marketing question?

Hello, I am a novice when it comes to website creating and such. Recently I started to work on a WordPress site for my clothing brand that I want to launch in April. I had received advice saying that I could link shopify and my WordPress site together so the information can be on my website but when a …

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Marketing Director

Your experience includes strategic planning, digital marketing and data utilisation, brand & product evolution, communications, affiliate relationships, and sales. We want you to showcase how the effective use of data can complement and amplify the energetic, passionate, responsive, nimble and …

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4 Reasons Why Copywriters and Graphic Designers Should Collaborate

The online world is dynamic and constantly evolving…

The tactics that hold the high ground today, will lose effectiveness tomorrow.

But in spite of this volatile nature, one thing remains the sine qua non of online success – content.

However, the question remains whether there’s a type of web content that is one-size-fits-all?

The answer is NO.

Big brands churn out high-quality content in the form of blog posts, infographics, videos, social messages, and much more, as a tool for lead generation. Doing this, they know that using a one-way approach to content creation in today’s age of big data and visual culture will take them nowhere.

That’s why, for a freelancer or solopreneur, combining the power of designers and copywriters makes so much sense. It’s a pathway to competing with bigger budgets and creating high-quality diverse content.

When graphic designers and copywriters work together, they flourish. Part of the reason is that design connects directly with a side of the brain which is responsible for creative thinking and image recognition. While writing occupies the other side that handles logic and critical thinking.

For any content to hook prospects and compel immediate action, these forces must come together. And that emphasizes why designers and copywriters should not transfer work but handle it hand-in-hand.

Here’s a thumbnail analysis of why designers and copywriters should work together to create all-in-one content, and the benefits of going down that road.

1. All-in-one content offers greater value

Because the Internet is jam-packed, attention is perhaps the most expensive thing online. According to Jakob Nielsen, an average web visitor is only likely to read 20-28% of a blog post. The only way to extend the duration lies in truly compelling content.

What’s that?

Any beautifully crafted article that’s saturated with high-value, attention-grabbing images and visuals.

But if you’ve never tried this before, you might doubt its efficiency. Luckily for you, experts say that articles with images get 94% more total views than text-only posts. And there’s more. Infographics deliver up to 120-180% more engagement, thereby increasing viewers retention, engagement and, ultimately, sales.

Image Source: Ethos3

2. It creates better understanding

What makes the above possible is the extraordinary power of visual content in creating a digestible understanding of text-based messages. Indeed, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Readers are believed to retain 65% of any information three days later when communicated through visuals.

3. It’s brain-friendly

One of the top reasons brands’ create content is to provide the insights that make it easier for prospects to comprehend how their products and services work. Another reason why copywriters and designers need to work in collaboration to make content more digestible. Visual content is the answer.

The reason, as implied in point two, is that the human brain processes visual data 60,000 times quicker than text, according to WebDAM. Brain Rules also notes that “We [human beings] are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.”

Image Source: Ethos3

It’s clear… Web visitors do not struggle to remember details when they’re given all-inclusive memorable content.

4. SEO, SEO, SEO

Going from merely adding glamour to a blog post to creating other essential values, visuals can also boost rankings on search engines when seamlessly integrated into a body of valuable text.

If SEO were key to content marketing success, creating all-inclusive content is a task that you cannot ignore – and that’s easier done through collaborative efforts between designers and copywriters.

Other benefits

There are a plethora of benefits to this match made in heaven, but the following are the key benefits of copywriter-designer collaborations:

• Unlocking new ideas

According to William and Phyllis of Mack Institute for Innovation Management, choosing the right partners is the first step to successful innovation.

The innovation experts argue, “In today’s globalized business environment, firms are no longer developing innovations in a vacuum. Instead, companies often work with partners from all over the world to develop innovative strategies and products.”

Are innovative ideas important to copywriters and designers? There’s no other option than YES, and experience has shown that more ideas emerge when these set of creatives work together.

Even in Science, it’s easier to make new discoveries when scientists share ideas rather than working as a lone genius. “The best ideas don’t come from working in a silo,” says Michele Kamenar.

• Enabling premium services and increased authority

To deliver excellent services and drive bottom-line results for all parties, it’s hard to thrive in isolation as a copywriter or designer. You MUST collaborate!

Sara Duane-Gladden of Specky Boy says:

“The jobs of copywriters and designers are very similar. They are both masters of their crafts. They express complex concepts and ideas in bite-sized bits that convey meaning in a moment. The fact that one does all this with words while the other accomplishes it with images isn’t important: They are kindred, creative spirits that can amplify their abilities when they work together.”

So if you want to improve the quality of your service and build authority, you should collaborate.

• Reducing the burden

As a copywriter with a long list of deadlines, you’re always on the search for an expert designer to turn text into visuals. Even if you find one you’re still not off the hook. You probably keep reviewing their work because only an impeccable job will satisfy your clients and win you more referrals. On the other hand, a designer goes through a similar situation each time there’s a need to come up with a masterpiece that will complement an infographic or other visuals.

The process is time-consuming and difficult. With collaboration, however, it can be streamlined. A teamwork approach will enhance efficiency on both sides.

Going forward

Designers and copywriters are important personalities in the world of digital business. Media and SEO companies, PR organizations, marketing, and advertising agencies, all need them to satisfy their client needs.

If you’re one, not only can you generate new ideas through effective collaboration, you can also increase the quality of your service, minimize hassles, expand your business and even make more income.

Guest Author: Shakir is a writer, content marketer, and the founder of 501 Words. He’s an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum, focusing on millennials and business. He also writes for Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Forbes Africa, and other sites where he shares insights on startup, marketing, and growth strategy.

The post 4 Reasons Why Copywriters and Graphic Designers Should Collaborate appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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The 5 Elements of Narrative Structure That Brands Use to Inspire Prospects

We all like to hear stories.

The concept of telling and being told them is as old as human civilization itself.

It should be of little surprise then, that this fact hasn’t escaped savvy marketers looking to create powerful and enduring brands.

Of course, there is always another agenda to telling stories in brand marketing, outside of evoking an emotional response in the viewer, and that’s to promote something.

In today’s a la carte content-rich digital environment, consumers don’t want to think they’re being sold something, which is why the emphasis on story has once again taken center stage.

Stories might not directly sell products or services but they do help to sell brands. Research undertaken by Headstream in 2015 revealed that almost 80% of adults in the UK believe that brands telling stories through their marketing efforts is a positive thing, with 55% stating that they are more likely to make a purchase if they enjoy and connect with a brand story.

Undoubtedly video remains the most effective medium for telling memorable brand stories, but creating a compelling film requires a compelling narrative arc. In this article, I want to look at the five essential elements that make up this narrative structure in brand marketing.

We’ll start, as many great takes start, with a quest.

#1. Quest

Narrative brand marketing needn’t be fictional in style. In Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ docu-film, the quest lies firmly in the brand’s aim to help women feel more confident about their looks.

A quest is the driving force of every successful story, although it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as destroying a Death Star and or defeating Voldemort, it should still carry the same level of intrigue and impact. A quest creates a sense of purpose and direction to your narrative, captivating an audience and establishing an emotional connection with your protagonist(s).

Things to consider:

• What does the protagonist want, and why?
• Is the protagonist taking an active role, or are events uncontrollably happening to them?
• Will audiences understand the quest, and will it induce an emotional connection?

#2. Conflict

In their 2016 Christmas commercial, masters of brand storytelling John Lewis introduce conflict with nothing more than a simple glass door, which prevents our four-legged friend from bouncing on the household’s newly constructed garden trampoline.

A source of conflict should sit between the protagonist and the resolution of their quest. Used to induce feelings of suspense and to heighten the audience’s emotional connection to the protagonist, conflicts come in many forms. On the more extreme end lies the Harry Potter and Voldemort duality, with Scrat’s acorn remaining perpetually just out of reach in the Ice Age movies a more light-hearted, yet still highly emotive, example.

Things to consider:

• What is standing between the protagonist and their goal, and why?
• Does the story contain enough suspense, or are things unfolding too simply?
• Is the source of conflict believable?

#3. Stakes

The production values on Budweiser’s epic ‘Born the Hard Way’ TV Commercial may have been high but the brand power of this film is unquestionable, as are the stakes with which our young protagonist faces upon arriving in 1840’s America.

Brand stories don’t work without the effective establishment of an emotional connection. Audiences should be invested and feel compelled to root for the protagonists’ success, because otherwise, they simply aren’t going to care whether the quest is completed successfully, greatly reducing the impact of the narrative’s subsequent climax.

Things to consider:

• Why is the quest important and what are the wider implications?
• Why should audiences care about the protagonist and their quest?
• What happens if the protagonist does not successfully complete their quest?

#4. Climax

It’s rare that brands can marry genuine laugh-out-loud humor with outright tear jerker and pull it off, but Allegro’s ‘English for Beginners’ ad manages it with a final scene that is an absolute masterstroke.

The ending of a story is signified by its climax. This is the point at which the conflict is overcome and the stakes are realized. Ensuring the narrative doesn’t fall flat when it should reach a crescendo is imperative to delivering an effective and memorable brand story.

Things to consider:

• How is the climax reached, and are the events leading up to it relatable and believable?
• Is there a discernible conclusion, or is an ambiguous outcome more beneficial to the narrative?

#5. Emotional Resolution

Although the climax is reached when the airplane lands, in this endearing ad from Turkish Airlines, the emotional resolution only comes when the plane’s captain gives the young protagonists a salute as he walks by.

Although the climax brings the narrative arc to a close in terms of satisfying the quest, a great brand story will only be complete when it delivers a final, satisfying, emotional resolution. Unlike your typical Hollywood blockbuster, successful emotional resolutions within brand marketing are slightly more complex, because they must align the narrative to the brand in a way that is unambiguous but not opportunistic or salesy. This is often done through the idea of shared values (ie the brand shares the values that are implicit in the story itself).

Things to consider:

• Does the narrative successfully build a valuable emotional resolution?
• Are the messages of the story clearly expressed?
• Does the message accurately reflect the brand’s core values?

Conclusion

Brand stories have the power to both humanize a business and form strong emotional associations with your target market.

But the process of convincingly communicating a relatable and compelling narrative, whilst also setting out clear brand values, is not an easy task.

However, by keeping these five principles of narrative structure in mind and maintaining a clear focus on telling a tale your audience wants to hear, you can create marketing films that really resonate for months and even years to come.

Guest Author:  Evelyn Timson is the Managing Director of UK video production agency, Aspect Film & Video. She has years of experience working with some of the world’s most recognisable brands like UNICEF, Nationwide, North Face, TaylorMade adidas, Slimming World and Farrow & Ball. You can connect with Aspect on Facebook or Twitter or see a selection of their award winning work on their YouTube Channel.

The post The 5 Elements of Narrative Structure That Brands Use to Inspire Prospects appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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