What Is Cameo? Using Celebrity Videos to Promote Your Brand
From the decline of celebrity endorsements, to longer contracts and a preference for the term “creator”, these are the influencer marketing trends to note.
Local ranking factors that help your small business’ SEO
If you have a local business selling products or services, you have to think about the local ranking of your website. Local SEO will help you surface for related search queries in your area. As Google shows local results first in many cases, you need to make sure Google understands where your location is. In this article, we’ll go over all the things you can do to improve Google’s understanding of your location, which improves your chances to rank locally.
What are ranking factors?
Ranking factors are elements that Google considers when determining the position of a URL in the search results. There are many ranking factors, most of which are characteristics of the URL and your website, but they can further extend to your online presence. An example of a ranking factor is page speed: a fast-loading page that delivers a good user experience is likely to rank higher than a slow page when other characteristics are comparable.
Local SEO ranking factors
In this post, we’ll focus on the factors that influence the ranking of your website’s pages in local searches. As you can read here, Google itself talks about local ranking factors in terms of:
- Relevance: are you the relevant result for the user? Does your website match what the user is looking for?
- Distance: how far away are you located? If you are relevant and near, chances are you’ll get a good ranking.
- Prominence: this is about how well your business is known. More on that at the end of this article.
So you have to show you’re relevant, you’re close by, and you’re well-known. Let’s see how you can work on these factors with some concrete actions!
Be relevant
Being relevant means that you offer the service or products the searcher is looking for. While this might seem pretty straightforward, sometimes, people can get too cryptic on their website. Make sure that you clearly mention what your business or profession is, what kind of products and services you offer, and make sure to do this in the wording your audiences use. To find out if you indeed communicate using the language your audiences use, please conduct some keyword research and speak with your customers to find out which terms they use when looking for a service like yours.
Check out this local content strategy guide for more inspiration to write relevant content for your local business site.
Google Business Profile
For your local ranking in Google, you can’t do without a proper Google Business Profile listing. Google Business Profile is especially helpful if you want to show up properly in the local pack – i.e., the big panel with the map. You need to sign up, pick the right primary categories for your business, add all your locations, verify these and share some photos. You’ll also need to actively manage your profile and build it up over time.
Google Business Profile allows for customer reviews, and you should aim to get some of those for your listing. Every year, the importance of online reviews for local SEO grows. Positive reviews (and negative ones) help Google and its users judge your business. This is pretty much like your local market. If people talk positively about your groceries, more people will be inclined to come to your grocery stand.
Getting reviews is one, but you can keep the conversation going by responding to these reviews. But, as Google puts it, be a friend, not a salesperson.
LocalBusiness schema structured data
If you have a local business and serve primarily local customers, of course, you’ll add your address to your website. To help Google and other search engines understand the primary address, you can best serve it in a specific format readable for machines. Use localBusiness schema for that. Our Local SEO plugin makes adding that LocalBusiness schema to your pages a breeze!
This is very much about what Google calls distance. If you are the closest result for the user, your business will surface sooner.
Make sure you have one main NAP!
Even if your business has multiple locations, make sure to match the main NAP (name, address, phone number) on your website with the Google Business Profile NAP. That is the only way to make sure Google makes the proper connection between the two. Add the primary address on every page (you are a local business, so your should mention your address on every page). For all the other locations, set up a page and list all the addresses of your branches.
Facebook listing and reviews
What goes for Google Business Profile goes for Facebook as well. Add your company as a page for a local business to Facebook here. People search a lot on Facebook as well, so you’d better make sure your listing on Facebook is in order. Facebook also allows for reviews, which could help your business too. Keep an eye on those reviews! If your reviews aren’t that great, make sure to fix that by providing better products or services, or at least show in your replies you take the feedback you get seriously.
Location and keywords in title
The obvious one: for ranking locally, adding city and (in the US) state to your
Local directories help your local ranking
In addition to your Google Business Profile listing, Google uses the local Yelp and other local directories to determine just how important and local you are. While we usually recommend against putting your link on a page with a gazillion unrelated links, the common ground for a local listings page is, indeed, the location. And, these links do help your local rankings.
So get your web team to work, find the most important local directory pages and get your details up there. We’re explicitly writing details and not just links. Citations work in confirming the address to both Google and visitors. If a local, relevant website lists addresses, do consider getting yours up there as well. And while you are at it, get some positive reviews on sites like Yelp as well!
Get relelated, high-quality links
Following how directories help your local ranking – especially in the organic local search results, exchanging links with related local businesses also pays off. If you work together in the same supply chain or sell related products, feel free to exchange links. Don’t just exchange links with any business you know. In most cases, these will be low-quality links for your website (because they’re usually unrelated). Also, try to build high-quality content that attracts relevant links. And, don’t forget to get those local keywords in the anchor text of those inbound links.
Social mentions from local folks
Again, there’s a local marketplace online as well. People talk about business, new developments, or new products on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more. All these social mentions find their way to Google’s sensors as well. The search engine will pick up on positive or negative vibes and use these to help them rank your local business. If many people talk about your business and link to your website, you must be relevant. Monitor these mentions and engage.
Some say links from other websites, directories, and social media are critical for local rankings. As always, we believe it’s the sum of all efforts that makes you stand out from the crowd, not just optimizing one aspect. Take your time and make sure your Google Business Profile is correct, local business structured data is active on your site, and you have proper links to your site and the right people talking about you on other platforms like Twitter. And please don’t forget to do proper keyword research and make sure the right content is on your website.
Optimize your content for better local rankings
Google won’t rank your site for a keyword if that keyword isn’t on your website. It’s as simple as that. If your business is in city X, you probably have a reason why you are located there. Write about that reason. And note that these may vary:
- You are born there or just love the locals and local habits
- There is a river which is needed for transport
- Your local network makes sure you can deliver just-in-time or provide extra services
- The city has a regional function and your business thrives by that
- There are six other businesses like yours, you’re obviously the best, and you all serve a certain percentage of people, so your business fits perfectly in that area.
These are just random reasons to help you write about your business in relation to your location. They differ (a lot) per company. Make sure your location/city/area is clearly mentioned on your website and not just in your footer at your address details! If you have multiple locations, set up and write pages for each one and include the proper business details.
Read more: Tips for your local content strategy »
One more thing: what about prominence?
Prominence means that when Google can serve a result first from a well-known brand or business, they actually will. Despite all your efforts to improve your local ranking, this might get in the way of that number one position. But, it just means you have to step up your game, keep on doing the great work you do, work on your branding, and trust that eventually, Google will notice this as well. As a result, Google might allow you to rank on that number one position for that local keyword!
Another thing to note is that prominence is also based on the information that Google knows about a business. All this information is derived from links, articles, and directories across the web. The more positive reviews and ratings your business has, the more likely Google will place it in a high position for local search queries. Not to mention, your position on the “normal” search results page (web results) is also a ranking signal. So, invest some time and resources into SEO if possible, and ask your satisfied customers to leave a good review on Google and other platforms such as Yelp or Facebook.
Keep reading: The ultimate guide to small business SEO »
Edwin is a strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he spent years honing his skill at The Netherlands’ leading web design magazine.
Coming up next!
Instagram Lets Users Schedule Posts & Reels In The App via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Instagram users with professional accounts can schedule posts and reels up to 75 days in advance directly from the mobile app.
Until now, it hasn’t been possible to schedule Instagram posts in the app. Users previously had to go through third-party tools or use desktop solutions like Meta Business Suite.
Now you can schedule Instagram content with nothing more than the iOS or Android app that’s already on your phone.
The only caveat is you need to have a professional account. If you use Instagram for business, you likely have a professional account. If not, it’s free and easy to upgrade from a standard account.
Here’s more about Instagram’s post scheduling feature rolling out globally.
Schedule Posts On Instagram
You can schedule a picture, video, carousel, or reel in the Instagram app up to 75 days in advance.
Schedule content from the Instagram post composer by tapping Advanced settings and selecting Schedule this post.
Select the time and date you want the content to go live and tap Schedule.
That’s it — your content is ready to publish.
You may be wondering how to get the most out of this feature.
Automation allows you to use your time more efficiently by publishing to Instagram without being physically present.
You could be out meeting with clients while keeping your Instagram profile updated at the time time.
One of the ways you can take advantage of scheduling posts on Instagram is to publish more consistently during prime engagement periods.
Identify when your audience is most active and routinely publish content during those hours.
For assistance with figuring out when to schedule posts, see this article about the best times to post on Instagram.
Source: Instagram
Featured Image: DVKi/Shutterstock
Twitch Ads Explained: Grow Your Brand With Streaming Ads
Discover the best time to stream on Twitch for the most viewers, follows, and subs, no matter what you stream or how big your channel is!
Google Allows Custom Dimensions In GA4 Reports via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google is updating the GA4 custom report builder with the ability to add dimensions and metrics that are important to your business.
The official Google Analytics changelog reads:
“You can now add custom dimensions and metrics to your custom reports as primary dimensions, enabling you to more easily report on custom information that’s important to your business. Additionally, the dimensions and metrics pickers in the Reports Builder have been updated to allow for easier navigation to help you find dimensions and metrics quickly.”
In an example provided by Google, see how custom dimensions can include metrics like article length, giving publishers a way to combine Google Analytics data with non-Google Analytics data.
You can now add any custom dimensions and metrics to GA4 reports that are defined in your Google Analytics property.
Previously, this option was only available for Universal Analytics reports.
Here’s more on how to add a custom dimension or metric to a report for GA4 properties.
How To Add Custom Dimensions & Metrics To GA4 Reports
To access the Google Analytics report builder, click the customize report button (looks like a pencil) in the upper-right corner of any report, or click Library in the left navigation menu.
Next, scroll down to the reports table, click +Create new report, and select “Create detail report.”
Next, click Edit or Make a copy from the drop-down menu. The report builder should now appear on the screen.
The Report Data section is where you set the dimensions and metrics that appear in the report table. You can choose from default and custom dimensions and metrics in the report.
For more information, see these step-by-step instructions for creating a custom report in GA4.
Source: Google
Featured Image: photo_gonzo/Shutterstock
Yoast SEO, Local SEO, and WooCommerce SEO updates
Today, we’re releasing updates for four plugins and add-ons: Yoast SEO 19.10, Yoast SEO Premium 19.5, Local SEO 14.7, and WooCommerce SEO 15.3. The updates mainly consist of enhancements and fixes, plus support for material structured data in WooCommerce SEO. Find out what else is new!
Yoast SEO 19.10 and Premium 19.5
The overarching theme of these releases is to get ready for the upcoming High Performance Order Storage feature in WooCommerce 7.1+. This feature is more commonly known as custom order tables. This long-awaited improvement promises significant performance gains for ecommerce sites. With today’s update, all of our WordPress plugins support this.
Besides that, we improved some small things in Yoast SEO, like giving you better feedback in the Flesch Reading Ease insights when we see that text is fairly difficult. Plus, we’ve fixed two bugs related to our integration with Elementor.
WooCommerce SEO: material structured data
When working on your ecommerce store, you need help from the WooCommerce SEO add-on for Yoast SEO. This helps you finetune your online store and improves the product structured data that Google needs to present your products in the search results.
Besides updating it for the above-mentioned new feature in WooCommerce, we’ve added two enhancements that make WooCommerce SEO even better. Recently, Google added support for material in the product structured data, which lets you specify what material your product is made of. This gives Google more details about your product; we all know the more information you provide, the better.
Simply follow these steps to try it out:
- Activate Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO for WooCommerce
- Go to the dashboard and click on Yoast SEO > WooCommerce SEO
- Set the Material option to Product Material
- Go to Products > Attributes
- Add a new attribute and name it Material
- Add a product material, like Wood
- Go to Products -> Add new
- Set a name and a price for the product, choose Material from the custom attributes, and select Wood
- Go to the product page, inspect the source code and scroll down to the
Productschema structured data - Tadaa! You’ll notice the
materialproperty in theProductschema. This should be set to the product material wood
Here’s what that looks like in the Schema Validator:
Local SEO for Yoast SEO
Local SEO is the add-on you need if you focus on getting your business noticed locally. The Local SEO plugin helps you get all your business details in order — like opening hours and maps — and translates those details into structured data that Google can use to highlight in the search results. In this release, we’ve fixed several minor issues to keep Local SEO in top shape.
Update now to Yoast SEO 19.10 and the others
Today, we’re releasing updates to most of our plugins. These updates come with loads of fixes and enhancements to help you make the most of your work! Update now to get the latest and greatest.
Edwin is a strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he spent years honing his skill at The Netherlands’ leading web design magazine.
Coming up next!
The Do’s And Don’ts Of Social Media Management via @sejournal, @ab80
Are you looking for better ways to manage social media accounts without missing out on anything important?
Social media platforms play a vital role in our lives today. From staying connected with friends to sharing personal updates, they provide countless opportunities to connect with others.
In addition to staying informed about current events, brands can also build relationships with potential customers and grow their audience.
Social media management tools allow you to post content from multiple sources at once and schedule posts in advance. They also give you access to analytics data, allowing you to track metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and even conversions – all of which can serve as helpful guides in determining the effectiveness of specific campaigns.
These tools can also work with various platforms (i.e., Twitter and Facebook), giving you complete control over your presence across multiple mediums.
So now, let’s get into the current social media management trends for B2B and B2C brands.
Social Media Management Strategy Trends
Social media is one of the most versatile and effective marketing tools today.
We use social media to drive our branding efforts, connect with customers, generate new leads, gain insights into buying habits, manage reputation, and bolster our digital footprint.
But, while social media is an essential part of modern business, many companies still aren’t getting the full potential from their digital efforts.
As Social Media Examiner’s 2022 Social Media Marketing Industry Report reveals:
- Those new to social media marketing generally focus on Facebook (82%) and Instagram (67%). However, those who have been social media managers for more than five years have diversified across multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok.
- The top two platforms that B2C marketers use are Facebook (94%) and Instagram (85%).
- The top two platforms that B2B marketers use are Facebook (85%) and LinkedIn (81%).
- Regarding organic social plans, 61% of marketers will be increasing their Instagram activity.
- Most marketers agree that they want to increase their video marketing, with 68% of marketers planning to increase their video marketing for Instagram, 67% for YouTube, and 56% for Facebook.
If this surprises you, you might want to shift your marketing efforts. Because unfortunately, most B2B and B2C businesses lack an effective strategy for social media management. You’ll have to create a strategy that moves with social media trends and help companies to understand that shift.
Now, I’ll walk you through the most important social media “Do’s” and “Don’ts.”
And at the end of this article, I’ve also included a table that recaps my main points. Feel free to print it out and use it as a reminder whenever you need to get your social media strategy back on track.
Do
1. Have A Strategy
The most important part of social media management happens before you sign up for Facebook or publish your first Tweet.
Each social media marketing campaign should start with clearly outlined goals and a battle plan that will help you achieve those goals.
Here’s the secret of an effective strategy: For a plan to be successful, it must be as specific as possible.
For example, SEJ’s Social Media Strategy breaks down tactics for dealing with the different types of platforms (photo sharing, video sharing, bookmarking, and discussion forum), and each one is specific in its aims. They refine their strategies by listing tone guidelines, posting strategies, engagement strategies, and strategies to find new followers.
Typical start-up social media management strategies will look a little different. These strategies revolve around assessing your strengths and weaknesses as a company and finding opportunities to turn your early customers into brand loyalists.
Of course, your perfect strategy won’t be a carbon copy of some other brand’s goals. So, when building your social media management strategy, set realistic goals to impact your business.
Editor’s Note: To learn more about creating a social media strategy that also incorporates SEO efforts, check out this article.
2. Choose The Best Platforms
How’s your Facebook outreach going? What about Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+? Do you have a YouTube account? What about Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr? And lest we forget, TikTok.
With so many social media platforms to choose from, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you don’t stay organized. The worst part is that overlooking one platform might mean missing out on a massive potential market.
Check out Shelley Walsh’s research on social media usage, marketing, and strategy.
3. Use The Right Tools
Keeping up with social media is an impossible task for us mere mortals.
Fortunately, there are some handy software options to help you manage and monitor all of your social media accounts from one central hub. Here are some of the best options:
- BuzzBundle: BuzzBundle was developed to be the ultimate social media management tool. Not only does it connect with all the biggest social media platforms, but it helps you monitor blogs, forums, and Q&A sites, too. BuzzBundle analytics gives you the insights you need to reach new customers, boost your SEO campaign, and find key influencers in your industry.
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite connects you to numerous social networks. Like BuzzBundle, Hootsuite lets you find out what your customers are saying about your brand and easily manage your outreach, thanks to a central hub for all of your social media management.
- Buffer: Social media is Buffer’s specialty. Buffer lets you post photos, videos, and posts to the most popular social media sites. It also enables you to craft posts in advance and publishes them later for maximum exposure.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social’s platform lets you manage your social messages through a single-stream inbox. You can schedule, publish, and post content to your favorite social media sites and get valuable insights into how audiences engage with your content.
- Social Studio: Social Studio’s offering helps you engage with your customers by connecting you to different sources and can replace programs like Photoshop and Canva. With this software, you can use AI capabilities to create posts across platforms.
4. Track The Metrics That Matter
If you don’t know whether or not your social media outreach is impacting your business, then what’s the point? When you’ve defined a goal for your social media campaign, gathering corresponding metrics is the only way to tell if it succeeded.
Here are some metrics that might indicate success:
- If your goal is to expand your reach, measure the engagement and new followers.
- If your goal is to grow brand awareness, measure shares and influencers mentioning your brand.
- If your goal is to get more sales, measure referrals, CTR, and conversions.
The tools listed above will give you a lot of insights into the metrics you need to measure the success of your campaign.
5. Engage And Post Regularly
Last but not least, the point of a social network is to socialize. So, share great content regularly to give your followers something to share and get excited about.
Don’t forget to engage with their content, too. Make sure to follow the industry leaders in your niche and try to give more than you receive.
To ensure you keep up with social media, consider setting a schedule for yourself. Even 10 minutes spent sharing and engaging daily goes a long way toward boosting your web presence.
Don’t
1. Try To Please Everyone
Understanding your audience is one of the most critical parts of your strategy. If you try to please everyone, you’ll offer nothing unique, and nobody will be satisfied.
On the other hand, if you know your audience and understand their pain points, you can tailor your services to solve their specific problems.
Do that better than any of your competitors, and you’ll have a loyal following in no time.
2. Delete Negative Reviews
When you see every mention of your brand, it can be tempting to purge negative experiences from the web. Resist that urge.
Instead, reach out to people who leave a negative review. Ask how you can improve their experience and work hard to regain their trust. Doing this may not only salvage a bad situation but also show other potential leads how far you’re willing to go for your customers.
Responding to both positive and negative reviews is a helpful way to gain insight into your business and target market.
3. Lose Your Personal Touch
Automation may be the only way to keep up with all the bustling social spheres, but that’s no excuse to lose the human element in your brand.
That means posting new content for every demographic, no matter where they fall in your sales funnel. Keep your messaging personal, targeted, and bursting with your brand’s unique personality.
On this note, make sure that your outreach always feels organic. Don’t make the mistake of befriending every follower and spamming inane posts.
On the flip side, don’t be a hermit who only posts and promotes their content. Instead, share content you truly love and connect with people whose insights you value.
4. Become Complacent
Finding your audience on all the bustling social media platforms and watching them respond enthusiastically whenever you post new content isn’t enough. So, the best social media strategists plan ahead – and they’re always experimenting.
The truth is that social media management is never done. There’s always a better way to reach your target audience, a new platform waiting to be discovered, and more avenues for you to engage with your customers.
Stay ahead of the curve and never let your current strategy be “good enough.”
5. Neglect Your Audience
Disengaging is one of the worst social media sins. Don’t neglect one network in favor of another or leave comments and questions from a genuinely engaged audience unanswered.
If you need to go on a hiatus, use social media to inform your followers – they’ll value the communication.
Final Takeaways
Social media management can be overwhelming if you aren’t careful. However, countless platforms, apps, and tools are available today to help you manage your accounts and eliminate some of the unnecessary stress.
If you focus on these simple “do’s” and “don’ts,” you’ll be able to create an effective and streamlined social media management strategy for any brand.
To recap, here are the top “dos” and “don’ts” when it comes to social media management:
Image created by author, September 2022More Resources:
Featured Image: Red Fox studio/Shutterstock
What is a Canonical URL? A Guide for SEO via @sejournal, @tessabonacci
The phrase “canonical tag” often comes up in discussions around SEO, and likely more so when working with cross-functional partners like engineering, analytics, etc.
At first glance, it might seem a bit intimidating, especially if you are newer to the SEO space.
Great news, though: With this guide, we will walk through the fine print around what a canonical tag is, why they matter, what they look like in the wild, where they belong, and some nitty-gritty details.
What Is A Canonical?
First and foremost, before we even define a canonical tag, if there is one piece of information you take from this guide, let it be this: Canonical tags are not directives like Robots.txt file.
This means Google views canonical tags as a strong hint, but at the end of the day, it considers many signals and decides whether to honor them.
Now that we have the golden rule out of the way, let’s get into what it is!
The canonical tag came into play in 2009 as an HTML tag found in the source code to tell search engines which URL is the master version of a page. This can be leveraged to tell Google what page variation it should index for users.
A canonical tag is the HTML tag itself on a page, but the “canonical” – now, that’s a bit different.
There are two simple ways to define the canonical variations: a user-declared canonical and a Google-declared canonical.
- User-declared canonical: This is precisely what it says; it’s the canonical specified in the canonical tag.
- Google-declared canonical: This is the URL Google chooses to honor as the canonical.
If you have access to Google Search Console, you can leverage the URL Inspection Tool to see both of the above canonical types.
In an ideal state, they match – but what if they don’t? We will talk more about that next.
Screenshot from Google Search Console Inspect URL, October 2022How Google Chooses A Canonical URL
When Google crawls and indexes a site, it reviews the primary content on the page. (Pro tip: Don’t confuse content as solely written content).
In this crawl, it will likely discover similar pages, and Google will then choose the page it feels is the best representation of what the page is trying to convey to users and select it as the canonical.
As we discussed above, a canonical tag is not a directive, so besides the canonical tag itself, Google considers other signals – so be consistent!
Internal links and external links are just a couple of the additional factors Google considers with a canonical tag.
Caution: If you internally link your pages with query parameters like /?some_parameter=xyz, there is a high chance that Google will ignore your canonical meta tag and choose a URL with a query parameter as canonical.
Google crawls RSS very aggressively, so make sure your declared canonical matches to URLs in your RSS feed.
If you add URLs to your RSS feed with parameters like /?source=feed in order to track traffic to your site from RSS subscribers, there is a chance that Google will choose a canonical with the query string e /?source=feed even though it is a tracking parameter – and Google knows about that.
You may use link-shortening services for your URLs in the RSS feed to be able to track clicks on them or use RSS services like FeedPress.
Google will also make choices for the sake of user experience.
If you have a desktop version of your site, Google may serve the mobile version to a user on a mobile device.
How Canonical Tags Can Be Helpful For SEO
Canonical tags are essential for sites with a handful of pages and millions of pages.
They are necessary for several reasons.
1. You Choose The Canonical Tag
The canonical tag is the opportunity for you to suggest to Google the very best version of a page on your website that you want to provide to users.
2. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is one of those areas that seems simple on the surface but is more complicated than its name lets on, and tends to carry a negative connotation with it.
So you may be thinking, “I don’t have any duplicate pages,” but before making that declaration, let’s take a quick look at what can be defined as “duplicate” via Google Search Central Documentation.
Duplicate pages can be classified as any pages that contain the same primary content in the same language. Suppose you are using different pages to support mobile pages (an m., amp, etc.) and dynamic URLs that help things like parameters or session IDs.
In that case, your blog creates paths in multiple folders; you have an HTTP and HTTPS version of your site, and your site has duplicate content. This is nothing to panic about and quite common, hence the canonical importance!
3. Google Uses Canonicals As Its Main Source
Google leverages the canonical to determine a page’s content and quality.
The canonical is crawled more frequently than non-canonical pages.
4. May Help With Crawl Budget
You have probably heard the phrase “crawl budget” tossed around quite a bit if you have a relatively large site.
When done correctly, canonicals can help ease the burden of your crawl budget, as Google will crawl the canonical versions of pages much more frequently than the non-canonical version.
This is not a replacement for no-index tags, redirects, or a robots directive.
5. Consolidate Link Signals
Canonicals guide search engines to take various information they have available for multiple similar pages and consolidate that into a single URL, increasing its value.
6. Content Syndication
If you have a site that syndicates its content out for publication or is being leveraged by partners, you want to make sure it’s your version that appears in the search results.
How To Implement A Canonical Tag
Now that we have gone over the what and why of canonical tags, let’s talk a bit more about how to implement a canonical tag on your site.
Pages can (and should) have self-referencing canonicals when they are the best version of the page to consolidate things like metric tracking, HTTPS versions, mobile experiences, etc.
Unless you can edit the HTML directly, you will likely need to work with your development/engineering partners.
A canonical tag is a line of code that you add to any page’s
section.It can look like this:
Screenshot from author, October 2022Canonical Tag FAQs
Q: Can I Canonical Across Domains?
A: Yes, you absolutely can. For instance, if you have a variety of sites you publish the same article across various websites, using a canonical tag will focus all the power on the version you selected as the canonical. This would also be good practice for syndicated content best practices when working with sites you don’t own.
Q: Do Canonical Tags Pass Link Equity?
A: The consensus is yes, they do, but canonicals should not be mistaken as the same thing as a 301 redirect.
Q: Should I Use a Canonical Tag or No-Index Tag?
A: First and foremost, a no-index tag is a directive, unlike a canonical tag intended to drop a page out of the index. A Canonical tag is a great solution when you want to consolidate all the links and relative signals into a single URL.
Our favorite answer in the SEO space applies to this question, “it depends.” In an SEJ where John Mueller discusses when to use a canonical or noindex, he goes a bit more in detail on questions to ask yourself when selecting one over the other or… both.
Q: Should I use a 301 Redirect or Canonical Tag?
A: A 301, like a no-index tag, is a directive. This is another “it depends” situation; however, there are some things to consider when choosing one over the other. If you have two very similar pages and don’t need both to be live for business reasons, a 301 redirect might be a good choice.
A good example would be on a product page that is permanently out of stock or an old page that isn’t worth updating any longer. You can read more use case scenarios in this article that goes into detail around 301 vs. canonical tags.
Q: What if Google Doesn’t Respect the Chosen Canonical?
A: As mentioned above, there are times where Google may not respect the canonical you have chosen, and you can view that information via the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console. There can be several reasons why Google isn’t respecting the user-selected canonical.
It is possible the tag isn’t correctly implemented; site signals contradict the selected canonical and various other possibilities. It is likely you will need to perform some analysis to determine the root cause.
Conclusion
We hope that this guide has helped you understand the what, where, and why of canonical tag usage. Be sure to review your canonical tags and see where improvements can be made to help get your preferred information noticed by search engines.
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Featured Image: Luis Molinero/Shutterstock
9 Chrome Extensions To Increase Your Productivity via @sejournal, @krisjonescom
If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my long career in digital marketing, it’s that productivity and time management do not come naturally to everyone.
In fact, I’ve noticed that effective time management actually eludes many people, even when there’s a lot on their plates.
I think it suffices to say that anything that can contribute to a professional’s productivity would be most welcome.
That’s why, today, I want to share some insight into nine Google Chrome extensions that can truly help you to get more done in your day.
From note-taking to time tracking to automatic writing suggestions and tab consolidation, this listicle is going to jump around to all kinds of areas.
Ideally, though, by the end, you’ll have a decent collection of new Chrome extensions that will come together to save time and make you much more productive.
1. Grammarly For Chrome
Screenshot from Grammarly, October 2022You’ve heard of Grammarly, surely, but did you know about Grammarly for Chrome?
Yes, the famous writing improvement tool is available as a Chrome extension, too, so you don’t have to paste all your text into the website version.
You’ll feel empowered with Grammarly following you around everywhere and jumping in basically anywhere on Chrome where you have a box or field to write something.
You get grammar and typo corrections in real-time as you write, so if those areas have presented trouble for you in the past, you now have a helper there with you every step of the way.
When you upgrade to the premium version of Grammarly, you also get recommendations on tone, clarity, and word choice.
That way, even if everything is grammatically correct but still clunky and confusing, Grammarly will let you know about it, so your writing can be the best of the best when it comes time to send or submit.
2. Clockify
Screenshot from Clockify, October 2022Like Grammarly, the time-tracking app Clockify has website, app, and extension versions. But for maximum productivity, you’ll want to go with the Chrome extension.
Clockify is your all-in-one scheduler and time tracker, perfect for any professional, really, but especially useful for freelancers and anyone doing work outside the typical day-job setting.
The extension lets you generate projects, task tracking, timesheets, schedules, and reports of your activity.
Aside from being useful for tracking your work time in the moment, Clockify’s reports allow you to analyze your day, week, month, or longer to look at trends in your habits.
That way, you can tighten up any inefficiencies that you discover.
3. BlockSite
Screenshot from BlockSite, October 2022I mentioned above that time management is an issue for many people, and a lot of that comes from self-inflicted procrastination.
When you’re on your own time, doing freelancing or contract work, with no one really looking over your shoulder, it’s easy to let your mind and your fingers wander to other websites or apps that distract you. From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram, distractions are all around us.
Enter BlockSite, a Chrome extension that lets you block websites and apps on your device so you can work in peace.
Obviously, you’re always in control of the extension and what it’s blocking, but the idea is that by removing the ease with which you can access your distracting sites, you’ll stay focused on your work.
BlockSite sets things up nicely by allowing you to set schedules for the blocking, so you’ll only be unable to access those sites and apps during the hours that you set.
You can also activate site redirects for all your blocked sites.
That means you’ll be redirected back to a “work” site of your choice if you try to go to any of your blocked sites.
Productivity is a combination of the things you do and the things you don’t, and if you can cut down on the things that take away from your work, your productivity should increase.
4. Win The Day
Screenshot from Win The Day, October 2022Often, when we talk about productivity, we just have to get down to brass tacks and discuss setting goals and meeting them.
That’s where Win the Day can help.
This Chrome extension is all about determining your objectives daily, weekly, or monthly, and then working up to them gradually.
Win the Day is particularly helpful with medium- to long-term goals since you can set one big, main goal and then add in smaller, daily goals that help you build up slowly to the ultimate one.
You can also use the extension to identify and track your habit forming. So, in case you’re looking to alter a behavior you already have, it can help to see your progress on your screen day after day.
This all makes complete sense since big goals often require a long journey.
Win the Day even lets you set the time during which you’d like to meet your goals or form new habits.
Taken altogether, this Chrome extension is quite useful for getting more done.
5. Scribe
Screenshot from Scribe, October 2022Whether you work in digital marketing, sales, education, or anything else, you could have a use for Scribe.
If you want to talk productivity, this is one Chrome extension you won’t want to be without.
Scribe lets you record your clicks and keystrokes as you go through a process, and then automatically generates screenshots and written steps to create ordered tutorials for training purposes.
Scribe is for all those trainers or managers who spend a ton of time writing up documents or meticulously taking screenshots to train new employees. Now, you don’t have to waste another second doing it manually.
Once Scribe has generated your screenshots, highlighted the click areas, and shown you what to type where, you can edit any part of the tutorial you want, save it forever, and then share it with whomever you want.
That’s called working smarter, not harder.
6. Word Counter Plus
Screenshot from Word Counter Plus, October 2022Here’s a quick and easy one: Word Counter Plus, which lets you select text anywhere, right-click it, and instantly see the number of words and characters contained within it.
You can also see the average length of the words in that text.
Word Counter Plus is extremely useful when you’re writing something and trying to adhere to a minimum (or maximum) word count, or performing competitive research to determine content length.
Prior to extensions like this, you would have had to paste the text into a document such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs to get the word count that way.
Now, it can all be done right on the page where you find it.
Definitely check this one out to save yourself some time.
7. OneTab
Screenshot from OneTab, October 2022Productivity is about many things, all in the service of letting you get more done – and OneTab helps with that in its own way.
Whether you’re a prolific multitasker or a researcher who needs to have multiple tabs open at once, OneTab does just what its name suggests and condenses all your tabs into a single one.
When you need one or several of those tabs, just go to the single tab and pull everything down in a vertical-list format. From there, you can bring as many tabs back to your main window as you need.
Not only does this help you visually, but it also reduces the RAM your device has to use to support all those tabs, making your work experience faster and more efficient.
8. Postlight Reader
Screenshot from Postlight Reader, October 2022The Postlight Reader Chrome extension is all about stripping away distractions to allow you to focus.
It’s sort of like AdBlock (which many people know about), except Postlight Reader removes not only ads but also other unnecessary elements – the extension calls it “clutter”– to leave just the words and images on the page.
In other words, you’re left with just the meat of the content.
What’s cool about Postlight Reader, in particular, is that the extension really takes user experience into account, allowing you to choose a light or dark theme and even alter the font and size of the text on the page.
Finally, that experience doesn’t just have to be for you! Postlight Reader also lets you share your optimized versions of web pages with others on social media and through email.
9. ClickUp Chrome Extension
Screenshot from ClickUp, October 2022Finally, let’s talk about productivity through the lens of the officially named ClickUp Chrome Extension.
ClickUp on its own is one of the best project management softwares I’ve ever used, so it should come as no surprise that the tool has its own Chrome extension.
You can create tasks from anywhere, track your work time, take screenshots, and integrate Gmail and Outlook emails with your tasks.
You’re limited in some areas, of course, but the most basic functionality of the extension should truly help you to get more done.
Once you know what you’re doing, having all these features together in a convenient Chrome extension can really start to make a difference for you.
Productivity Starts With The Right Tools
So much about getting more done comes down to you and your psyche. You have to lock in and stay focused.
But human endeavors often go only so far, and so to fill in those gaps, we have Chrome extensions.
Which of these was your favorite?
It depends on where you need the most support, but they can all help in their own way.
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Featured Image: alphaspirit.it/Shutterstock
8 Digital Marketing Strategy Insights For Massive Agency Growth In 2023 via @sejournal, @CallRail
If there’s one statement that rings true for marketers, it’s that “change is the only constant.”
The marketing landscape can be unpredictable, particularly with the challenges and uncertainty of the past few years.
According to CallRail’s agency growth surveys, 94% of small businesses were seeking help from a marketing agency after the 2020 shutdowns. And this year’s report reveals that 95% of U.S. marketing professionals met their revenue goals last year.
So, what’s next for small business marketers looking to get ahead in 2023?
Are you equipped with the necessary tools, skills, and knowledge to succeed in this ever-evolving landscape?
How should your agency adapt its strategy to accommodate frequent market shifts and prepare for the future?
With agency professionals predicting even more changes for the upcoming year, now’s the perfect time to get on the right track.
In CallRail’s latest report, 2023 Agency Predictions: Marketing is becoming more complex – and agencies must adapt, you’ll find all the insights you need to give your marketing strategy the boost it needs.
1. Outperform Your Competition With Must-Have Automated Marketing Tools
If you’re looking to set your agency apart from the competition, you’ll want to find ways to make your workflow more efficient – and in this case, automation is a must.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a major player in small business marketing next year, with many top agencies already starting to embrace the technology.
AI is a term that’s commonly tossed around, but what exactly does it mean?
Artificial Intelligence is basically an umbrella term that describes a set of unique but related technologies that can simulate human capabilities.
CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence is an essential marketing tool that uses AI to automatically analyze calls and provide insights into the words and ideas your customers are using. Agencies can then utilize this information to adjust their keyword and marketing strategies.
Andrew R. Mimault, Founder of Mantic Media Group, shared the following about how automated tools have impacted his business:
“Using call transcription, we’re able to listen to the calls, find the specific keywords that people are using and even the vocabulary that we might not have thought to build out – and then add them to our search programs.”
Read the full report for more details on how this technology could work for your agency.
2. The Evolution Of SEO: How To Adjust Your Digital Marketing Strategy
There was a time when SEO seemed to be all about optimizing your site to rank on Google, and that was pretty much the end of it.
Although search engine optimization (SEO) is still a huge factor in digital marketing strategy, its nature of it has certainly changed.
Today, digital marketers are branching out to include a variety of alternative search engines in their SEO strategy, including Bing. Not to mention, it’s also becoming more common to optimize content specifically for social media platforms.
These changes present a range of new opportunities for marketers of small and mid-sized businesses.
As SEO continues to evolve, you should try implementing the following to create a successful strategy:
- Testing new search terms.
- Optimizing for different search engines.
- Creating different kinds of content for different channels.
- Assessing your results to see which practices work best.
Start expanding your digital marketing campaigns today with these SEO insights.
3. How Thought Leadership Can Take Your Agency To The Next Level
Every brand wants to be a thought leader. When you’re the one who others within your industry look to for insights, you know you’re doing something right!