Nov 11 2022
What is SEO? An explanation for beginners

Do you have a website? And do you want more traffic? If yes, then there’s no doubt about it: SEO should be part of your marketing efforts. It’s a great way to get and keep people on your website. But what does it actually entail? In this post, we’ll explain what SEO is and how you can get started!

What is SEO?

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’. It’s the practice of optimizing your web pages to make them reach a high position in the search results of Google and other search engines. In other words: People will be more likely to encounter your website when searching online. SEO focuses on improving the rankings in the organic – aka non-paid – search results.

Google’s search result page for the term ‘neptune planet’

In the image above, we see the first few results when someone searches for the keyphrase ‘Neptune planet’. In this case, Wikipedia is the first result and this means that their page on Neptune ranks #1 on this search term. The idea behind SEO is that when you optimize your page to become the best result, you can climb those rankings and become one of the first results that people see. Which will get you more clicks and traffic to your site!

Although this example only shows us organic results, that isn’t always the case. Depending on the search term someone uses, there can also be ads or a rich result at the top, or a few products by Google Shopping. There are a lot of different possibilities. What Google shows can also depend on what it knows about the searcher (the country they live in, for example).

Why is SEO important?

You’ve created a website because you want people to buy your product, subscribe to your service, or read your content. Whatever your goal, you want people to visit your website. If you own a donut shop in Amsterdam, for example, you want your website to be number 1 when people Google: “donuts Amsterdam”. Because the chances of people clicking on your website are much higher when it’s the top result!

But how do you make this happen? One word: Search Engine Optimization! SEO is a great way to get people to your website for free. Which is especially useful if you’re a small business owner who doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on advertising.

What determines how high you rank?

How high each result ranks is determined by Google’s algorithm. And although parts of Google’s algorithm remain secret, years of experience in SEO have given us insight into the most important ranking factors. These ranking factors can be divided into two categories:

On-page SEO factors

The ranking of your pages is partly determined by on-page factors. On-page factors are all the things on your website that you have a direct influence on. These factors include technical aspects (e.g. the quality of your code and site speed) and content-related aspects, like the structure of your website or the quality of the copy on your website. These are all crucial on-page SEO factors that you can work on.

Off-page SEO factors

In addition to on-page SEO factors, your rankings are also determined by a few off-page SEO factors. These factors include links from other websites, social media attention, and other marketing activities that happen off of your own website. Although not impossible, these off-page SEO factors can be more difficult to influence. The most important of these off-page factors is the number and quality of links pointing towards your site. The more quality, relevant sites that link to your website, the higher your position in Google will be.

Another off-page factor that plays a role in SEO is your competition relating to the niche of your particular business. In some niches, it is much harder to rank than in others. The competitiveness of your market therefore also has a major influence on your chances of ranking.

Holistic SEO: A long-term strategy

At Yoast, we practice ‘holistic SEO‘. With holistic SEO, your primary goal is to build and maintain the best possible website. You don’t try to fool Google; Instead, you invest your time and effort in a sustainable long-term strategy. If you work on improving your pages and having a high-quality website, then your chances of ranking will improve too. After all, Google wants to offer its users the best results to their search query, and the best results often have great content and are user-friendly, fast, and easily accessible.

Ranking well in search engines like Google asks for an extensive SEO strategy focused on every aspect of your website and its marketing. The technical side, the user experience (UX), the content on your website: all need to be top-notch. To keep ranking well in Google, you should develop – what we call – a holistic SEO approach.

A holistic SEO approach isn’t just better for your rankings — it also helps users find what they need more quickly. And that’s better for environmental sustainability too!

How can we help you get started?

At Yoast, our mission is to make SEO accessible for everyone. That’s why we have a few plugins that can help you with that, like our popular Yoast SEO plugin. We have a free and premium version of this plugin. One of the main advantages is that it helps you create high-ranking content. Our free SEO and readability analysis gives you detailed suggestions to create copy humans and search engines enjoy!

The premium version of our plugin will help you get to that next level and optimize your content for synonyms and related keywords and boost your site structure with our internal linking suggestions. You’ll also get access to all of our SEO courses, where you can learn vital SEO skills that you will be able to apply immediately!

Go Premium and get access to all our features!

Premium comes with lots of features and free access to our SEO courses!

Conclusion

SEO is the practice of optimizing websites to make them reach a high position in Google’s – or another search engine’s – search results. At Yoast, we believe that holistic SEO is the best way to rank your pages because you focus on optimizing every aspect of your site.

Don’t use any black-hat tricks, because eventually, this will have negative consequences for your rankings. Instead, practice sustainable SEO with your user in mind, and you will benefit in the long run. Read more on how to rank high in Google or if you use WordPress, make sure to check out our ultimate guide on SEO in WordPress:

Read more: The ultimate guide to WordPress SEO »



Marieke van de Rakt

Marieke is the head of strategy at Yoast and founder of Yoast SEO academy. She loves coming up with new ideas and products to make SEO attainable for everyone, and ensure a healthy growth for Yoast!

Avatar of Marieke van de Rakt

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
How to get creative with content: An interview with Hannah Smith

With more than 15 years of experience in the industry, Hannah Smith has worked with a range of well-known companies, and her creative work has won multiple awards. She knows her stuff when it comes to creative content. That’s why we decided to pick her brain and ask her a few questions about content strategy and how to create content that helps you achieve your goals.

The SEO industry agrees that having a good “content strategy” is critical. But what does that mean? What does that look like?

I think that part of the challenge here is the term “content strategy” itself. It’s a term that means different things to different people, right? There are a bunch of definitions out there, but the one Adria Saracino and I came up with when we were at Distilled (c. 2014) is still the one I use today:

“A content strategy is the high-level vision that guides future content development to deliver against a specific business objective.”

I like this definition because I believe all content should be goal-driven: i.e., what you create depends on what you want to achieve. As such, the first question you must answer when formulating your strategy is: what is your core objective for this content?

For example, if you want to increase your revenue, one way to do that might be to rank better in organic search for terms relating to your business. If that’s the direction you want to go in, then you’ll need to figure out what you think you’ll need to do to achieve that. 

You may need to update and improve existing pages and/or create new pages. Plus, page content aside, you’ll also need to think about how you will help those pages rank. So you’ll need to think about internal links; and potentially external links too.

I like thinking about content strategy this way because it forces you to plan out your activity sensibly and think about measurement from the outset.

But back to your question – of what a “good” content strategy should look like – to my mind, a content strategy should have the following:

  • A clear objective
  • A well-researched hypothesis and a plan – i.e., what you’re going to do to achieve that objective
  • Clearly outlines internal and external resources required, plus costs
  • Explains how these efforts will be measured (i.e., appropriate tracking is in place)
  • Includes key timelines and dates to review progress and results
  • Is appropriate and realistic – i.e., this is something that the business can execute

How do you close the gap between “writing blog posts and articles” to producing creative stuff that’s more impactful, successful, etc.? 

I get the sense that you’re talking about creating content designed to get coverage externally – e.g., from journalists and/or other high-authority sites in your niche.

First and foremost, I’d encourage people to think hard about their objectives before embarking on anything like this. Do you need to get coverage from journalists to achieve your objectives? Or might there be a different way to go about this?

Let’s assume that you’ve done your research and need linked coverage from journalists. Where do you begin? I suggest starting with 5-10 publications on which you’d like coverage. Look closely at the articles journalists are writing – which topics appear repeatedly? What sorts of emotions are those articles provoking? Why do you think journalists are writing those articles? 

Then, based on this research, I’d encourage people to think about what sorts of things they might be able to create that could add to the articles that those journalists are writing.

What are the challenges and risks of this type of activity?

The main thing to note is that this type of activity fails at a pretty high rate. I recently benchmarked the performance of more than 2,000 digital PR pieces created by eleven agencies and in-house teams.

To give some context, asset-led digital PR pieces are those where there is something live on the client’s site that a journalist could link to, ranging from a blog post to a fully-interactive page. Only a press release is created for a digital PR piece without assets; there is no asset live on the client’s site for the journalist to link to:

Number of pieces of Linked Coverage % of Asset-Led Digital PR Pieces (1,398 pieces) % of Digital PR Pieces without Assets(730 pieces)
0 pieces of linked coverage 5% 31%
1-9 pieces of linked coverage 35% 49%
10-29 pieces of linked coverage 31% 13%
30-49 pieces of linked coverage 11% 5%
50-99 pieces of linked coverage 10% 1%
100+ pieces of linked coverage 8% 1%

If you’re new to this, I’d expect your failure rates to be higher than this. As such, you might consider using a freelancer or agency to do this work for you.

What about small businesses in particular? How can they stand out, get cut-through, and get coverage?

A digital PR tactic like offering expert commentary to journalists can be an excellent option for small businesses that want coverage but don’t have the budget or resources to create bespoke content. 

You’ll likely have noticed #journorequest on Twitter, plus there are services like HARO (help a reporter out), to help you filter and keep track of requests like this. I’d strongly recommend taking a look at Surena Chande’s BrightonSEO talk. In her talk, she covers what journalists are looking for and how best to respond to requests like these.

Here’s a quick and dirty version. Resist the urge to sell or promote yourself or your products, and instead try to:

  • Provide actual expertise (should go without saying, but doesn’t)
  • Offer something unique: a new perspective or alternative take is better than the same old advice everyone spouts, and it will increase your chances of coverage
  • Educate readers via unbiased, honest, useful, accurate, and up-to-date advice

All that said, I think it bears repeating that not all small businesses need to get coverage. I run a small business myself and don’t do any digital PR for my own company. Honestly, I don’t think it would make sense to me. Coverage is unlikely to get me the clients I want, which is my core objective. Instead, I focus on speaking at industry events, appearing on podcasts, writing for industry sites like this one, and my newsletter.

How can folks learn to be more creative? Are there tools, processes, resources, or shortcuts they can take? 

Creativity is a skill, not a talent: it’s something you can learn 🙂

Here’s my process:

  • Inspiration
    • You can’t come up with ideas in a vacuum, so I spend a lot of time seeking inspiration. I review the most shared articles on the client’s target publications to identify resonant topics, seek data sources, talk to humans, read books, etc.
  • Generation
    • I do this bit quickly. Only one in twenty ideas I come up with is likely worth making, so if I’m trying to come up with four ideas for a client, I need to generate 80. The stuff I generate aren’t ideas yet; that stuff happens in the final stage.
  • Development & validation
    • Turning the seed of an idea I’ve generated into something which can be made.

An example of this in practice

I’m aware that in the abstract, this doesn’t make a heap of sense, so here’s an example of how “Grilled Cheese-us” (a phrase I wrote down during the generation process) eventually became Making Faces, a piece we created for one of our clients when I was at Verve Search.

What do I mean by “Grilled Cheese-us”? Our propensity to see faces in inanimate objects – e.g., when people see Jesus in a slice of cheese on toast. I wondered whether or not this was something that had been studied previously, and after a little googling, I found this BBC article. It was there that I discovered that there was a proper name for this propensity (it’s called pareidolia); plus, I learned tonnes more about it:

  • There could be evolutionary reasons why we are especially prone to seeing faces. Human survival depends so heavily on others – whether we need their help or fear their violence – that we must react quickly and understand their motives. So the brain may be wired to detect others whenever it can quickly. If we occasionally make a mistake and see a face in tree bark, that’s less serious than failing to spot someone hiding in the bushes.
  • According to other researchers, a more speculative view is that a similar mechanism could explain human spirituality. The idea is that the brain, being hard-wired to understand people and their motivations, tries to look for human-like intentions in everything around us – a thunderstorm, a plague, or a terrifying and abstract concept like death. To make sense of our fears, we begin to personify them, filling the world with gods and demons. Intriguingly, Tapani Riekki at the University of Helsinki in Finland and colleagues have found that religious people are likelier to see faces in ambiguous photos than atheists.
  • Interesting about cars:  in 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that “cuter” cars, like the iconic Volkswagen Beetle, were experiencing falling sales – perhaps because their owners felt intimidated by the growing number of large SUVs. So designers decided to create cars with more dominant expressions. The Dodge Charger, for instance, was designed with thin, sloping headlights to give it a menacing look that could outstare the other cars. “The headlights seem to make eye contact the same way people do on the street,” said Chrysler designer Ralph Gilles. “A mean face is what we’re going for.” 
  • Stuff about honesty: Various studies have shown a simple picture of a pair of eyes can lead people to act more honestly – a “nudge” technique that has been shown to reduce bicycle theft by more than 60% in certain areas. 

Finding out all of this stuff (in a very roundabout way) led me to propose that we:

  • Create our own thing, allowing people to discover whether they’re more or less likely to see faces in inanimate objects than the Great British public.
    • To do this, we took photos and then ran 2,000 survey respondents through the piece (we asked them a bunch of questions, plus for each image, we asked – “can you see a face here?”)

Are brainstorms evil?

Ha! I’m not a fan of brainstorms. I’m an introvert, and I do my best work alone. That’s not true for everyone, of course. But I think brainstorming without prior research into the publications you’re seeking to target is often a waste of time. 

How do you think the relationships between content, strategy, campaigns, creativity, and link-building have changed over time? And what’s next?

I’m not sure it has! People are still buying links, and PR isn’t new.

I’d hope that digital PR becomes less siloed in the future. Many of us are doing stuff for links because that’s what our clients want us to do, but it’s often very disconnected from other types of SEO, content, and marketing activity. I’d love for that to change.

I’d also love to see more long-term thinking and investment. Most clients want an ‘x’ number of campaigns per quarter, and they want them all to be shiny new things. My concern is that there’s not much appetite to build stuff that lasts. I’m thinking something like the Michelin Guide (which was started in 1900!).

Hannah Smith bio

Hannah Smith is the founder of Worderist.com. She offers creative content consultancy, coaching, and training to agencies and in-house marketing teams. Her creative work for clients has won multiple awards, and she’s worked with various companies, including the BBC, Dyson, Expedia, GoCompare, MailChimp, Salesforce, and Zoopla. She has spoken at numerous conferences across Europe and the US, interviewed Google’s John Mueller live on stage in front of an audience of 3,000, and acted as a guest lecturer at the University of Greenwich. 

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here, you might like to subscribe to Hannah’s fortnightly newsletter, Manufacturing Serendipity.

Enjoyed reading this interview and want to hear more of what Hannah has to say? You’re in luck! We recently hosted a news webinar where she and Jono Alderson discussed the SEO news in October. 



Jono Alderson

Jono is our Head of SEO, and part of our leadership team. He’s a digital strategist, marketing technologist, and full stack developer. He’s into technical SEO, emerging technologies, and brand strategy.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
Letter From the Editor: Yes, We Have to Talk About Twitter. via @sejournal, @Amanda_ZW

The opinions expressed within this story are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Search Engine Journal or its affiliates.

Greetings, SEO pros, digital marketers, journalists, and curious minds among us. For I have the pride, the privilege, nay, the pleasure of addressing my very first official “Letter From the Editor” to such an esteemed audience.

And as much as I hate to kick things off on this note: We have to talk about Twitter.

I know, I know. You don’t want to talk about Twitter. I don’t want to talk about Twitter. Nobody wants to talk about Twitter. But would you rather talk about the U.S. midterm elections? Yeah, me neither.

Let’s start with an extremely broad timeline of events. You know the old trope: Billionaire Boy meets social media, social media gives into Billionaire Boy’s often nonsensical ramblings and, next thing you know, Billionaire Boy is offering (threatening?) to purchase one such social media platform, only to abandon it at the altar and come running back for an actual purchase.

Forgive me; I have a penchant for storytelling.

And since then, it’s been genuinely difficult to keep up – even for those of us who live in the trenches of this industry’s news.

How much does Twitter Blue cost, anyway (that is, if it still exists)? Are recently laid-off employees actually being asked back? What is “free speech,” anyway, when you’re not making jokes about Twitter’s new owner? And, honestly – what the heck is Mastodon? (I recently joined that last one, actually – but that’s a story for another day.)

I know we promised not to talk about the elections, but – hoo, boy. If not for them, we’d have absolutely no variety in this whiplash-inducing Tech Nerd News Cycle™️(of which I am a proud and willing participant).

As I said to a forlorn, non-industry friend (as if she doesn’t have enough to deal with as a high school science teacher) over brunch, “I am loath to give Billionaire Boy airtime in my personal life, but it’s all I can talk about because, apparently, I hate myself.”

But then, one of my esteemed colleagues made a good point: Why the uproar over Twitter’s massive layoffs, and barely a peep (at least, from a birds-eye view) about those at Meta?

It’s more than a fair point. This move is just the latest in Meta’s modus operandi of airing its dirty laundry when it thinks no one is watching – for instance, on a significant holiday weekend or during an already chaotic news cycle when, say, a major election cycle in the U.S. or one of its industry peers is already making endless headlines.

And it’s not like Mark Zuckerberg is exactly the quintessential “good guy” — hell, he’s not even a modicum of a tragic hero — and is, at best, “the guy who charges you to grow virtual farmland,” as the same colleague put it.

In my opinion, the nonstop chaos of the situation at Twitter makes it hard to quit the drama of it all. So much about this takeover has been a complete mess since the beginning, starting with Musk’s oopsie-just-kidding-I-don’t-actually-want-to-buy-Twitter, ranging to the legitimately dangerous implications of the verification-for-hire feature.

Think back to the spring of 2018, when the company then known as “Facebook” faced an endless barrage of bad news; namely, when it seemed as though the U.S. news cycle couldn’t be bothered with anything but the notorious CEO’s congressional hearings.

Sure, another midterm election cycle was on the horizon. But it was too many months away to be a sufficient distraction, and it wouldn’t be for another few weeks that Musk emerged as Tech CEO Enemy #1 after a highly publicized (and bizarre) Tesla earnings call.

Indeed, the writing has been on the wall with Musk’s volatility for some time now. But it’s only a matter of time before the pattern repeats itself, and one of his industry peers once again steals away the Tech Nerd News Cycle™️ spotlight – especially since most of you, according to our own poll, aren’t ready to leave Twitter just yet.

But I’m giving it time. And over that course of time, my looming questions revolve around what will be left for Musk.

If enough users and advertisers alike flee the platform (and, by the way, where will they ultimately take their money and time?), and enough key executives resign – will Twitter become a hollow echo chamber of one man’s proclamations? After all, if an ultra-rich dude yells in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

On that note – I think I’ve talked about Twitter enough for one day. And shockingly, there have been other newsworthy items that caught my eye this week:

  • We mere mortals (a.k.a., YouTube users) will probably have even less control over how many times we see the same ads. Google rolled out target frequency for YouTube campaigns earlier this week, letting advertisers control how many times an ad is shown. SEJ senior news writer Matt Southern gets into here.
  • John Mueller responded to Reddit rumblings regarding search console warnings about mobile usability leading to rankings drops. But according to Mueller, it was likely unrelated to mobile usability altogether, and had more to do with content quality. It’s a case study, writes Roger Montti here, in “how the most obvious reason for something happening is not always the correct reason … it’s only the most obvious.”
  • Social media managers, rejoice: Instagram is rolling out the ability to schedule posts and reels in the mobile app up to 75 days in advance. Finally. Full story here.

Whew! What a week to write my first letter. Thanks for reading – in the words of a man-bunned gentleman I recently went on a date with, “It’s been super pleasant to hang out.”

Until next time,

AZW

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor? via @sejournal, @KayleLarkin

Google search representatives have consistently and clearly stated that they do not use Google Analytics data to rank websites.

But, there are discrepancies between what Google says and what SEOs believe.

Despite Google’s public statements, some search marketers continue to believe that bounce rate is in some way a ranking factor.

Why do they believe this? Is there any validity to the claims against Google’s public statements?

Does Google use bounce rate to rank webpages?

[Recommended Read:] Google Ranking Factors: Fact Or Fiction

The Claim: Bounce Rate As A Ranking Factor

As recent as Q3 2021, recognized and respected resources have perpetuated the myth that bounce rate is a ranking factor.

Rand Fishkin, Founder of MOZ, tweeted in May 2020 that “…Google uses (relative) bounce rate (or something that’s pretty darn close) to rank websites.”

Rand Fishkin, Founder of MOZ, tweeted in May 2020Screenshot from Twitter, June 2022

Backlinko published an article (June 2020) about bounce rate saying that “bounce rate may be used as a Google Ranking factor.”

They cite an industry study they ran and claim it found a correlation between first-page Google rankings and bounce rate.

Backlinko published an article (June 2020) about bounce rateScreenshot from Backlinko.com, June 2022

Later the same year, Semrush reinforced this claim in December 2020, saying, “Bounce rate is an important ranking factor.”

They did not provide evidence to back up the claim.

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Screenshot from Semrush.com, June 2022

HubSpot included bounce rate in a rundown of “all 200 ranking factors” in a cheat sheet to Google’s known ranking factors in July 2021.

Bounce rate is included as a factor twice under “site-level factors” and under “user interaction,” with no supporting evidence for their claim.

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Screenshot from Hubspot.com, June 2022

So, let’s take a look at the evidence, shall we?

The Evidence: Bounce Rate As A Ranking Factor

In “How Search Works,” Google says, “…we use aggregated and anonymized interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries.”

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Screenshot from Google Search, June 2022

The vague wording here has led to many assumptions about what “interaction data” Google uses to inform its machine learning systems.

Some marketers believe the “interaction data” includes bounce rate.

They use a handful of studies to support this hypothesis.

The Backlinko study mentioned above ran a subset of domains from their own data set through Alexa to determine a site-wide time on site.

They discovered that the average time on site for a Google first-page result is 2.5 minutes.

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Screenshot from Backlinko.com, June 2022

The study goes on to clarify:

“Please keep in mind that we aren’t suggesting that time on site has a direct relationship with higher rankings.

Of course, Google may use something like time on site or bounce rate as a ranking signal (although they have previously denied it). Or it may be the fact that high-quality content keeps people more engaged. Therefore a high time on site is a byproduct of high-quality content, which Google does measure.

As this is a correlation study, it’s impossible to determine from our data alone.”

Brian Dean confirmed in reply to a comment that the study did not actually look at bounce rate (or pageviews).

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Screenshot from Backlinko.com, June 2022

The Backlinko study, which supposedly found a correlation between first-page Google rankings and bounce rate, did not look at bounce rate.

Rand Fishkin stated that Google uses relative bounce rate to rank websites, and discussed this topic with Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google Ireland, in 2016.

Rand described tests he had been running where he would ask people to do a search, click on the seventh result, and then observe over the next 24 hours what happened to that page’s ranking for that query.

The results were inconclusive.

In seven to eight tests, rankings improved for a day or two. Rand said the rankings did not change in four to five tests.

Andrey responded that he believes it’s more likely that the social mentions, links, and tweets (which are basically links) throw Google off temporarily until they can establish that the “noise” is irrelevant to the user intent.

Both the Backlinko study and Rand’s experiments helped shape the bounce rate myth. But the study didn’t look at bounce rate, and Rand’s experiments did not prove a causational relationship between user behavior and ranking.

[Download:] The Complete Google Ranking Factors Guide.

Does Bounce Rate Affect Search Rankings?

Google has stated that bounce rate is not a ranking factor for over a decade.

“Google Analytics is not used in search quality in any way for our rankings.” – Matt Cutts, Google Search Central, February 2, 2010.

“…we don’t use analytics/bounce rate in search ranking.” – Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, Twitter, May 13, 2015.

“I think there’s a bit of misconception here that we’re looking at things like the analytics bounce rate when it comes to ranking websites, and that’s definitely not the case.” – John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google,  Webmaster Central office-hours, Jun 12, 2022.

Why Google Doesn’t Use Bounce Rate As A Ranking Factor

There are technical, logical, and financial reasons why it is improbable that Google would use bounce rate as a ranking factor.

This can be summarized by looking at three primary facts:

  1. What bounce rate measures.
  2. Not all websites use Google Analytics.
  3. Bounce rate is easily manipulated.

What Does Bounce Rate Measure?

A lot of the confusion around bounce rate can be cleared up once people understand what bounce rate actually measures.

Bounce rate is a Google Analytics metric that measures the percentage of single-page sessions (no secondary hits) to your site divided by the total sessions.

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Image created by author, June 2022

Marketers often misinterpret this metric to mean that the webpage did not provide what the user was looking for.

But, all a bounce means is that a measurable event (secondary hit) did not occur.

Technically speaking, Google can’t understand how long a user spends on a page unless a second hit occurs.

If a user spends 2.5 minutes reading the webpage (as the Backlinko study found correlates with page rank) and then exits, it will count as a bounce because they did not send any subsequent hits to GA.

So, keep in mind that bounce rate does not necessarily indicate a bad user experience.

Users may click on a result, read it, and leave because their query was satisfied. That’s a successful search, and it doesn’t make sense for Google to penalize you for it.

This is why Backlinko’s study, looking at the time on the page, does not support the claim that bounce rate is a ranking factor.

[Discover:] More Google Ranking Factor Insights.

Not All Websites Use Google Analytics

While Google Analytics is a widely-used analytics tool, not all websites use it.

If Google used bounce rate as a ranking factor, it would have to treat websites with the GA code differently than those without the GA code.

If websites without the GA code were not graded by bounce rate, they would theoretically have greater freedom to publish whatever content they wanted.

And if this were true, it would be illogical for any marketer to use the GA code.

You see, Google Analytics is a “freemium” service. While most businesses use their service for free, large companies pay a monthly fee for more advanced features.

The paid version is called GA 360, and pricing starts at $150,000 annually.

There are 24,235 companies currently using GA 360.

That equates to $3,635,250,000 per year (on the low end.)

Using bounce rate as a ranking factor is not in Google’s financial interest.

Bounce Rate Can Be Easily Manipulated

Some of you may still not be convinced.

You may have even noticed a correlation between average position improving and bounce rate decreasing in your daily practice.

While bounce rate and average ranking may correlate, they certainly are not dependent on each other.

What happens when you increase your bounce rate? Do the rankings fall back to where they were?

Bounce rate is easy to manipulate, and you can try this experiment yourself.

You will need to increase and decrease your bounce rate for this test while comparing the average position for a search query over time.

Remember that the bounce rate is sessions with zero secondary hits / all sessions.

So, all you need to do to reduce your bounce rate is send a secondary hit.

You can add a second pageview event using Google Tag Manager.

Do not make any other changes on-page or off-page; chart your average rankings over three months.

Then remove this extra pageview tag.

Did your average rankings increase and decrease in unison with modifying the bounce rate?

Below is a graph of a quick version of this study on my own site; one that shows no correlation between bounce rate and average position.

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?Image created by author, June 2022

Our Verdict: Bounce Rate Is Definitely Not A Ranking Factor

Is Bounce Rate A Google Ranking Factor?

No, bounce rate is not a Google ranking factor. Bounce rate is not a reliable measurement of the relevance of webpages – and Google has repeatedly said it does not use it for rankings.

With big industry names like Rand and Backlinko putting their weight behind bounce rate as a ranking factor, confusion is understandable.

Experts have tested this user signal with varying results.

Some experiments may have demonstrated a correlation between bounce rate and SERP rankings in certain situations.

Other experiments haven’t done that, but people reference them as if they’re proof.

“Confirmed ranking factor” requires a high degree of evidence. No one has proven a causal relationship.

You need to watch out for this in SEO, even when reading trusted sources.

SEO is complicated. Google representatives and industry pros love to joke that the answer to every SEO question is: “It depends.”

We’re all looking for ways to explain success in SERPs. But we need to avoid jumping to conclusions, which can cause people to invest resources in improving unconfirmed metrics.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Ranking Factors: Fact Or Fiction? Let’s Bust Some Myths! [Ebook]

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
Senior Twitter Execs Resign – Bankruptcy Reportedly Isn’t Out Of The Question via @sejournal, @martinibuster

According to a tweet by a journalist for Platformer (@platformer), multiple senior level executives in charge of security, privacy and safety & integrity have all resigned from Twitter. Because their roles are core to Twitter’s functioning, the departures may raise questions of Twitter’s viability.

The senior executives are:

  • Chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty
  • Chief information security officer Lea Kissner
  • Global Head of Safety & Integrity Yoel Roth
  • Chief privacy officer Damien Kieran

The news was first reported by journalist Casey Newton on Twitter:

Yoel Roth – Global Head of Safety & Integrity

Yoel Roth, the now-former Global Head of Safety & Integrity led a team of data analysts, policy makers and threat investigators that was responsible for making Twitter safe from platform manipulation, artificial amplification of tweets, fake accounts, protecting election integrity, fighting spam and other threats to users and the platform.

An example of the important work carried out by his team was Twitter’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Within four days of the invasion, Twitter added labels to tweets that that were promoting information from Russian media. They also took action to reduce the views of such accounts.

They were also responsible for reducing hateful conduct:

Another important contribution was introducing a global crisis misinformation policy.

Yoel’s team unveiled their work in an official Twitter announcement:

“Today, we’re introducing our crisis misinformation policy – a global policy that will guide our efforts to elevate credible, authoritative information, and will help to ensure viral misinformation isn’t amplified or recommended by us during crises.

In times of crisis, misleading information can undermine public trust and cause further harm to already vulnerable communities.

Alongside our existing work to make reliable information more accessible during crisis events, this new approach will help to slow the spread by us of the most visible, misleading content, particularly that which could lead to severe harms.”

There is no word on who will lead Twitter’s Safety & Integrity team.

Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty

Marianne Fogarty was in charge of regulatory compliance.

The Federal Trade Commission recently fined Twitter $150 million dollars for asking users for private information to help keep accounts secure and then using that information to serve targeted advertising.

The FTC issued a statement of concern about what is happening at Google.

A spokesperson from the FTC was quoted by The Hill:

“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern… …companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

Casey Newton of news site Platformer reported that employees were told that they would be responsible for self-certifying themselves for compliance, which seems like an unorthodox approach to regulatory compliance.

Casey tweeted:

Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner

A chief information security officer is primarily in charge of website and company cyber security.

Lea Kisnner tweeted news of her resignation:

How Long Can Twitter Survive?

The departure of so many senior-level employees that are key to the successful day to day operation of Twitter may raise concerns in some about how long Twitter can continue as a functioning company.

Musk himself is contributing to the perception that Twitter really is on the way out.

Many in the search community are wondering if Twitter is done.

The departure of so many key executives may cause some to conclude that Twitter is not heading in the right direction.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
The 40 Best Google Tools For Productivity And Marketing via @sejournal, @BrianFr07823616

Can you imagine a world without Google?

Though the company has only been in existence since 1998, it has become a ubiquitous part of the tech landscape.

In their wildest dreams, Larry Page and Sergey Brin probably didn’t expect their Stanford University research project to become the world’s most dominant search engine.

But thanks to innovations like PageRank, that’s exactly what it did.

Today, everyone is familiar with Google as a search engine. And you’re probably aware that the company’s offerings have expanded to include a wide range of other tools.

In this piece, we’re going to look at 40 different tools offered by the Mountain View, California-based tech giant and how they can be used by businesses, big and small.

1. Gmail For Secure Email Service

With over 1.8 billion users worldwide and a 27% share of the email client market, Gmail offers more than just personal email accounts.

It’s also popular with businesses. Today, more than 5 million businesses are using G Suite, which also includes Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Hangout, and more. We will explore some of these later.

Customizable to your domain, Gmail is a fast, secure, and reliable email service provider. You can also try these Gmail hacks to increase productivity.

2. Google Ads To Reach New Customers

If your customers are using the internet – and they undoubtedly are – you should be targeting them online.

Google Ads is the best and most effective way to do this.

Integrated across Google search results, YouTube, and its Display Network, Google Ads gives you all the analytics data and targeting capabilities you need, plus offers automated solutions to help you maximize your marketing spend.

3. Google Alerts For Reputation Monitoring

Whoever said “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” never had the disapproving weight of the internet come crashing down on them.

But even if your business has a spotless track record, proven customer service, and an unimpeachable reputation, occasionally, someone is going to have a less-than-stellar experience.

Google lets you get out ahead of bad news, as well as find good publicity, via Google Alerts.

These will automatically notify you of any mentions of your business, allowing you to proactively deal with potentially damaging mentions – or share positive ones.

4. Google Analytics For Measuring App Usage And Website Traffic

Google Analytics is the easiest way to monitor your app’s usage and web traffic, as well as where it’s coming from.

Free to use, it provides you with insights about your customers and their purchasing journey, so you can streamline marketing processes, identify your targets, track campaigns, and troubleshoot individual webpages – all from the same dashboard.

5. Google Authenticator For Two-Step Verification Security

Spammers, hackers, and other cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated all the time.

Google helps keep you safe across all its digital properties with the help of 2-Step verification.

By texting or emailing you a unique code that you can use to log in to your accounts, it provides stronger security than a password alone.

6. Google Business Messages To Communicate With Potential Customers

An SMS and instant messaging service originally designed for the Android operating system, Google Business Messages allows you to interact with your customers through a number of entry points, including Maps, Search, and your own website.

Use it as a chat feature to convey expected wait times or answer frequently asked questions.

7. Google Business Profile For Local Business Promotion

Since rolling out new local search features in November 2021, Google has placed an increasing emphasis on nearby search results.

Creating a Google Business Profile is an important part of ranking highly in your neighborhood.

Use your profile to help customers discover you on Search and Maps or to promote a sale to the people in your area.

8. Google Calendar For Time Management And Scheduling

Disorganization is a major problem for many people.

Google Calendar is a great way to eliminate that problem, more effectively manage your time, and stay on top of your schedule.

Sync it across your devices to remind yourself of a vendor call, block out time for a sales presentation, or schedule an appointment from anywhere.

9. Google Chat For Instant Messaging

In this era of remote work, instant messaging is a must-have tool for any business.

But why complicate things by adding a third-party app when Google gives you all the functionality you need in Google Chat?

It lets you get all your messages in one place, collaborate with teammates, and integrate with other Google apps and tools with no hassle.

10. Google Chrome For Web Browsing And Development

If you’ve ever had to help a relative delete numerous toolbars from their browser or waited impatiently for a window to deal with a memory leak, you know how important a quality web browser is.

Google Chrome gives you a secure way to surf the internet.

It also has dedicated developer tools to help you create new websites and test APIs – and its functionality is updated weekly.

11. Google Chrome Remote Desktop To Connect With Home Or Work Computers

Another great tool for remote workers, Chrome Remote Desktop allows you to remotely access your work computer from home, share your screen with coworkers, or view files while traveling.

Originally a Chrome extension, it’s also available on Android and iOS devices.

12. Looker Studio For Interactive Dashboards And Engaging Reports

Formerly known as Google Data Studio, Looker Studio allows you to unlock the power of your data with customizable reports and dashboards.

Allowing you to connect all your spreadsheets, analytics, and other sources of data into one platform, Looker Studio is an essential tool for any business seeking new insights or trying to convey an impactful message.

13. Google Digital Garage For Learning New Skills

Want to add some new tools to your toolbox or enhance your skill set? Or maybe you just want to learn how to be more productive.

Google Digital Garage can help.

With a wide range of courses covering everything from cloud infrastructure to public speaking, digital marketing to machine learning, it can help you master new skills that will benefit your business and your career.

14. Google Docs For Online Document Creation And Editing

When it comes to real-time collaboration on documents and spreadsheets, Google Docs is extremely useful.

Part of the G Suite of tools, it’s hosted online, which allows multiple users to interact with the same document at the same time. See changes as they’re made, save automatically, or easily revert back to previous versions with ease.

15. Google Domains For Domain Registration

With more than 300 domain endings to choose from (e.g., .com, .cafe, .biz), Google Domains hosts your website on fast and secure servers while providing round-the-clock live support.

It also has drag-and-drop site-building tools, professional email capabilities, and allows you to easily interface with all your other Google tools.

16. Google Drive For File Storage And Sharing

Keep important files safe on the cloud or share them with anyone using Google Drive.

With built-in protection against malware and spam, it gives you a safe way to save and collaborate on files.

It also uses Google’s powerful search capabilities, so you can easily find what you’re looking for in your 15 GB of free storage.

17. Google Fonts For Open-Source Font Families

Font embedding can be a problem for webmasters. If you choose a letter style not recognized by a user’s browser, it can turn text into a jumbled mess.

Google Fonts offers a wide selection of free-usage and readily accessible fonts. You have control over the character set, so you can restrict the ones you don’t need and reduce loading times.

Quality varies among available fonts, but there are a number of libre versions of popular typefaces available, including Monserrat and Roboto.

18. Google Forms For Online Surveys And Questionnaires

Google Forms is included in the free G Suite, allowing you to create, edit and automatically track the results of surveys and questionnaires.

Real-time updates let you track responses as they come in.

Custom colors, images, and fonts allow you to create polished forms that are on-brand for your business.

19. Google Jamboard To Create A Virtual Whiteboard For Ideas

Jamboard is an interactive digital whiteboard that can be used for online collaboration via Google Workspace.

It can be accessed either via the Jamboard device (a 55” digital whiteboard with embedded G Suite services), a web browser, or a mobile app.

Multiple collaborators can write, draw, drag, and resize elements at the same time.

20. Google Keep For Notetaking

Whether you’re taking a class, want to send a reminder, or just need something to eliminate absent-mindedness, Google Keep is another free tool you’ll find useful.

Part of the web-based G Suite, it can extract text using character recognition or transcribe voice recordings.

Color-coding functionality helps you stay organized, while pins can keep items near the top.

Like the rest of the web-based suite, it can be used to work with other Keep users in real time.

21. Google Manufacturer Center For Brand Manufacturers

If you own or license branded items, Google Manufacturer Center is an absolute must.

In addition to allowing manufacturers to provide better, more accurate product information, it also improves the online shopping experience.

A good way to improve your presence on Google, it lets you highlight your products on both the Search and Shopping tabs.

Comprehensive analytics help you identify how ads are performing.

22. Google Meet For Online Video Conferencing

One of two apps designed to replace Google Hangouts (Chat is the other), Meet is Google’s answer to Zoom, Facetime, and Skype.

Use of this video conferencing service grew exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic, partly thanks to noise-canceling filters, multi-way audio, and screen-sharing capabilities.

23. Google Merchant Center For Retailers

Show potential customers how many of an item you have in stock, both in-store and online, with Google Merchant Center.

With a few clicks, you can upload your shop and product data, making it available for Google Shopping and other services.

While you still have to pay for clicks on your Shopping ads, Merchant Center is free to use.

24. Google Optimize For A/B Testing And Optimization

Any marketer worth their salt knows the importance of A/B testing.

But what many of them don’t know is that Google Optimize (formerly Google Website Optimizer) makes it easy, giving you the data you need to test content on your website and optimize it for the best visitor experiences.

25. Google Podcasts To Reach More Listeners

Google Podcasts Manager provides podcasters with a deep dive into listener behavior, so you can understand their listening habits, see when they’re tuning in or dropping off, and how they discovered you – all information you can use to expand your reach.

26. Google Scholar For Scholarly Research

You can’t believe everything you read online – that’s internet 101.

But if you can find a scholarly source where information is backed by research, there’s a much higher chance of it being reliable.

Google Scholar gives you access to a large number of databases containing access to academic and scientific works.

27. Google Search Console To Measure Website Search Performance

It’s unbelievable to think there was once a time when webmasters didn’t have access to information about their site’s index status, search queries, crawling errors, and visibility stats.

With the power of Google Search Console, we take this for granted.

Packed with all sorts of useful tools like speed reports, information on backlinks, and the ability to submit a sitemap, this is one tool every website owner must have for tracking and measuring performance.

28. Google Sheets For Online Spreadsheet Creation And Editing

Spreadsheets: some people love them, and many people hate them. But every business uses them.

Google Sheets is a web-based, Excel-like spreadsheet program that allows for real-time collaboration.

Accessible from both computers and mobile devices, it allows you to use the same formulas and automatic calculations as other spreadsheet programs.

Sheets is another free program included in the G Suite.

29. Google Sites For Simple Website Creation

Build a structured wiki or a webpage from scratch with Google Sites.

Drag-and-drop functionality allows you to create an entire site without writing a line of code.

Free to use, Sites lets you edit a webpage with someone else and see their changes as they happen.

30. Google Slides For Online Presentation Creation And Editing

Who says you need PowerPoint to make a visual presentation?

Google Slides is an online slideshow maker that’s free to use as part of the G Suite of products.

And like nearly everything else on this list, it allows you to collaborate with remote users in real time from any device.

33. Google Tag Manager To Manage Website Tags

Quickly and easily update tags on your website with Google Tag Manager.

By adding a small segment of code to your website, you can easily deploy and manage analytics and measurement tags.

Using a container, you can replace manually coded tags from Ads, Analytics, Floodlight, and third-party apps to simplify and automate configurations.

34. Google Translate For Fast Translation In Over 100 Languages

The internet has created a truly global economy.

So what do you do when you have customers in Japan, but don’t speak Japanese?

Google Translate to the rescue. With more than 100 supported languages, it’s a neural machine translation service that gets more accurate by the day.

35. Google Travel For Business Travel Arrangements

Forget about visiting multiple sites to book a flight, schedule a hotel room, and rent a car.

Google Travel gives you the entire travel package in one location.

It lets you do everything from comparing prices to exploring local attractions, all from the convenience of a single web tab.

Perfect for business trips, you even have the option of adding flights and reservations directly to your calendar.

36. Google Trends To Analyze Search Query Popularity

Want to know what people are searching for?

Google Trends analyzes search queries across regions and languages and presents the results in easy-to-read graphs.

This is a great way to identify not only what’s happening now but what’s going to be the next big thing.

37. Google Voice For Phone And Texting Service

Remember when people used their phones for talking? Like monsters? You don’t need a landline (or even a cellular one, for that matter) anymore.

Google Voice is a telephone and texting service that can be accessed via the web.

It gives you a unique phone number to use for calls and also offers voicemail transcripts, personalized voicemail greetings, and low international rates.

38. Google Web Designer To Create Animations And Interactive Elements

Add some whimsy to your website and digital ads with animations and interactive elements created using Google Web Designer.

This program lets you create engaging videos, images, and HTML5-based designs for your business.

Included templates give you an easy starting point, while dynamic workflows let you create ads tailored to your audience.

39. Waze Ads To Reach Nearby Customers

Increase store visits and attract passersby with Waze Ads.

This location-based advertising service will literally put your business on the map, helping you increase awareness and reach new customers.

40. YouTube For Video Sharing And Promotion

YouTube is not just for funny cat videos anymore.

Smart businesses of all types are now using this Google-owned property to answer customer questions, promote brand awareness, and engage with their targets.

If you’re creating quality content, the sky is the limit for your brand on this video platform.

Something For Practically Every Need

Google is so much more than a search engine. It’s practically a one-stop shop for everything you need to run your business – and your life, for that matter.

And these 39 products are just a fraction of everything Google offers.

There’s a reason Google has become such a dominant force in the tech world – it understands the needs and desires of users and then provides tools to address them – more often than not, free of charge.

And the truly great thing is that Google is still only getting started.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Monster Ztudio/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence Tool via @sejournal, @mktbrew

This post was sponsored by Market Brew. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Wish you could rank higher than your competitors in search results?

Feel like your tried-and-true SEO tools no longer give you a true advantage?

It’s time to move past the tools that your competitors are using. Stop using historical data and start looking at SEO tools that accurately predict Google algorithm update impacts.

Gain your ultimate SEO advantage by accurately predicting future SERPs so you can truly rank higher.

You can do this with a comprehensive SEO intelligence tool, like Market Brew.

SEO intelligence uses AI to determine the future of your search by helping you:

Today, we’ll dive into how to solve hiccups at each step, but first, let’s learn more about what SEO intelligence is.

8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolImage created by MarketBrew.ai, November 2022

What Is SEO Intelligence?

SEO intelligence uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help guide search engine optimization for better rankings and organic traffic by assisting with:

  • Keyword research.
  • SERP analysis.
  • Content writing.
  • Optimization, and more.

The most successful SEO professionals prioritize testing new tools to find exciting new intelligence features that boost your search engine optimization.

Market Brew sets a new standard for forecasting SEO like no other software tool has before.

1. Predict Exactly How Algorithm Changes Will Affect Your Search Visibility

With Market Brew’s sophisticated AI process, you can confidently make predictions on the future of your search for your site.

Yes, with AI, you can immediately predict SEO rankings, months before those changes show up in their rank trackers.

Instead of spending hours upon hours researching what could happen in the future, and putting your own personal credibility on the line, Market Brew can show you exactly what to expect from a volatile Google algorithm update.

How? By creating an SEO testing platform, or predictive model, based on real algorithmic data.

When your SEO team completes a task in Market Brew, the changes are tied directly back to the predictive model that the task was based on.

Users can immediately see the effect of even the smallest optimization, leading to a deeper understanding of how each SERP is calculated.

Predict your ranking shifts, now →

2. Learn & Observe Decisions Search Engines Make

Wondering why a competitor’s page is ranking higher than yours?

Need to explain to clients why Google is shaking things up again?

Using AI, you will be able to quickly and accurately get the SEO analysis you are looking for.

With its ability to utilize a genetic algorithm and self-calibrate each search engine model, Market Brew will help you understand how each SERP change happened through comparison – it will view the different learned algorithmic bias/weight changes from before and after Google’s algorithm update.

Market Brew uses Particle Swarm Optimization to adjust the algorithmic settings on its standard model so that Market Brew’s results look exactly like the target SERP results.

Each time this calibration process runs, the bias/weight settings are updated and stored.

When Google rolls out its next algorithmic update, Market Brew automatically re-calibrates its search engine models.

With the new calibrated settings, users can easily see which algorithms are now more or less important.

3. Conduct Truly Accurate Competitive Research With AI

With Market Brew, you can start by looking at your competitors’ sites in a detailed side-by-side comparison.

You can quickly create an SEO pros and cons list, with websites in the same field.

8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolImage created by MarketBrew.ai, November 2022

Here, you’ll be able to pay attention to key comparison details, such as:

  • Elements of your competitor’s content.
  • Your competitors’ internal page links and backlinks, sorted by either link flow distribution, anchor text distribution, or both.
  • Keywords with high search volume or transaction value.
  • Your competitor’s top-performing pages.

Looking at your competition will guide you on how to improve your site. Competitor comparisons save time, money, and resources when taking over market share in search.

4. Measure Total Link Value

The links on your pages are an essential part of gaining traffic to your site, specifically the number of links and the links’ authority.

The types of links on your page can significantly affect the value and ranking authority from one page to another. Measuring links is the most straightforward method of determining a site’s backlink value.

Market Brew scores each link on your site with the most sophisticated link algorithms to create the most accurate overall depiction of how powerful each link is.

8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolImage created by MarketBrew.ai, November 2022

When viewing your total link value, here are things to consider:

  • Is the link relevant?
  • Is the linking site authoritative?
  • Is the link followed?
  • Where is the link on the page?
  • How many links are on the page?
  • Is the link reciprocal?
  • Does this link share anchor text with another link?

You should always be intentional with your linking. Remember:

  • Cluttered and excessive links are unlikely to create a seamless user experience, and oversaturation devalues links.
  • When placing your links, consider the visitor’s intent and how to help them achieve their goals.
  • Links from trusted sites that have built up their authority pass more link equity than links from brand-new sites just starting.
  • Links at the bottom of a page do not hold as much weight or authority in Google’s eyes.
  • Links that are reciprocal do not pass as much link flow as links that are not.
  • Links that appear on every page, and share anchor text and target, do not pass as much link flow as those that appear uniquely.

If you link to a restaurant business’s grand opening from an article about where to trade in your car, the link is irrelevant — Google will note this, and your SEO link software should, too. Irrelevant links do not provide authority or value.

5. Measure & Evaluate Keyword Link Value

Market Brew uses targeted keywords as anchor texts for internal linking and link building from other websites to help certain pages rank on search engines.

This calculation, combined with Market Brew’s sophisticated link scoring, determines an anchor text distribution that other tools can’t see and assigns each anchor text a specific importance, based on the quantity and quality of backlinks sharing this anchor text.

SEO tools can help you find your highest-ranking keywords. Vary your anchor text distribution using your primary and secondary anchor texts.

Link variance performs better on search results both for primary and secondary keywords. The goal is to rank for specific keywords while focusing your anchor text distribution on the right landing pages.

6. Determine Real E-A-T Scores

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. According to Google, E-A-T is one of the most important factors when considering a website’s overall Page Quality Rating.

8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolImage created by MarketBrew.ai, November 2022

Google states you need these things to be trustworthy and have authority:

  • A satisfying amount of high-quality content, including a descriptive or helpful title.
  • Satisfying website information and/or information about who handles the website. For example, an ecommerce site should have satisfying customer service information.
  • Maintaining a positive website reputation across the internet.

Until Market Brew’s insights, SEO professionals had no way to measure E-A-T scores with credibility and confidence.

In 2021, Market Brew deployed its first expertise algorithm (the E in E-A-T) which measures the coverage of content for each page’s topic cluster.

In certain search results, this expertise algorithm is now showing a correlation with ranking positions.

Market Brew is the world’s first statistical modeling tool for search engines.

Market Brew is a search engine built by search engineers that can calibrate itself to behave like any search engine in the world. Its Artificial Intelligence-powered task system provides seamless navigation through each relevant part of the search engine model, uncovering SERP-specific prioritized tasks from off-page to on-page and everything in between.

A successful SEO campaign begins and ends with Market Brew’s search engine models.

7. Establish Topic Authority

Imagine being able to submit every change to Google to see what would happen. With Market Brew’s SEO testing platform features, you can.

Market Brew’s Spotlight algorithm allows users to establish the perfect Topic Authority and understand exactly what the outperforming site’s topic cluster is, and even which expert topics the content should be talking about.

8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolScreenshot from Market Brew’s Spotlight Algorithm tool, November 2022

Each Market Brew account comes standard with the following:

  • Evergreen Googlebot Crawler.
  • Blink JavaScript Rendering Engine.
  • Particle Swarm Optimization for all of your search engine models.
  • Proven search engine algorithms.
  • Rapid testing capabilities.
  • SEO Teams tool to help Manage Optimization.
  • The ability to compare and contrast how your changes fared.
8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolImage created by MarketBrew.ai, Novembe 2022

8. Identify Keyword Stuffing

Topic clusters are a distillation of keywords, and keywords are essential for SEO.

But stuffing your copy with an overkill of keywords gives the impression that you focus on rankings rather than readers – and search engines notice.

Instead, Google wants to see intentional content that adds value to its readers. That is why Google frowns on pages that stuff their keywords.

Instead, focus on responsible keyword SEO optimization.

Using two to five keywords on a page is a safe number to stick with for your SEO.

Instead of using the same keyword repeatedly on your site, find related topics for each keyword to prevent the overuse of one keyword and build a topic cluster.

Google rewards sites with focused topic clusters, and sites that use them will usually have more dense content if there are a variety of keywords and related topics on a page.

8 SEO Software Problems Solved By This SEO Artificial Intelligence ToolImage created by MarketBrew.ai, Novembe 2022

Simplify Your SEO Process

If you want to simplify your enterprise SEO optimization process, stick with Market Brew.

Each Market Brew account comes with Market Focus capability, which begins with a keyword-based approach. Then, with Market Brew’s robust link-scoring layer, the technology calculates a basket of keyword clusters for each page.

Market Brew’s automated discovery system uses this data to guide you to the exact algorithms that are the deciding factors in the target search engine environment, shown on the Top Optimizations screen.

In conclusion, manipulating search rankings with repeated words or phrases will only cause a site to rank lower in Google’s search results.

Make your life simpler and let Market Brew take your keyword optimization to the next level with our software.

SEO professionals find our predictability analysis to be the closest thing you can get to an SEO services guarantee.

Through our search engine replication process, we quickly and clearly show you how best to optimize your site, making it a walk in the park for you and your business.

Are you interested in signing up for a Market Brew account? Book a demo today, and see how valuable our software can be for your business.

BOOK A DEMO

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Market Brew. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 11 2022
This sci-fi blockchain game could help create a metaverse that no one owns

Start exploring in Dark Forest, and you quickly realize just how much you don’t know. 

The universe is vast, and most of it is shrouded in darkness. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to venture into the unknown, avoid being destroyed by opposing players who may be lurking in the dark, and build an empire of the planets you discover and can make your own.

But while the video game seemingly looks and plays much like other online strategy games, under the hood it’s a very different story.

That’s because it doesn’t rely on the servers running popular online strategy games like Eve Online and World of Warcraft. Instead, Dark Forest runs completely on a blockchain, in a way that means no one is in control of how it plays out. 

Its early success doesn’t just reflect a fun way of making games that work in an entirely different way. It also helps prove that blockchains can be used for far more interesting and complex applications than just moving digital money around, something some blockchain boosters have been saying since the technology first emerged. 

In fact, the game’s most die-hard fans believe that what makes it so cool is something even more profound—something that hints at the future of our shared digital realms. And that includes the possibility of a metaverse that isn’t owned by Meta or another big tech company but runs in a decentralized way, between its users.

How it was built

Dark Forest began as an idea in the mind of the pseudonymous Gubsheep (maintaining pseudonymity is not uncommon among figures in the crypto world), who describes it as a “massively multiplayer strategy game that takes place in an infinite, procedurally generated universe.” 

The game is partly inspired by the science fiction novel The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu. Gubsheep says he was so enthralled by the book that he read it in just one sitting, in a bookstore cafe. One theme he found particularly compelling involves the dilemma our civilization would face if it were to discover another civilization in the universe. We wouldn’t know whether it posed an existential threat, says Gubsheep, but one view is that to ensure our own survival we should assume so and make no contact.

Gubsheep happened to read The Dark Forest just a few days after he had attended a conference focused on an emerging class of cryptographic tools called zero-knowledge proofs. Using this advanced cryptography, it’s possible to prove that a statement is true without revealing anything else about it. Imagine, for instance, proving your citizenship without revealing any of the other information in your passport.

As he walked back to his apartment from the bookstore, fresh ideas inspired by The Dark Forest started to combine with others sparked by what he had just learned.

The idea behind zero-knowledge proofs dates back to the 1980s, but some of the first practical applications have appeared recently in blockchain systems. The most prominent example is Zcash, a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency that uses a class of zero-knowledge proofs called zk-SNARKs—the same kind Dark Forest uses—to hide transaction data so that users can deal anonymously, almost as if they were using a digital form of cash. 

Gubsheep began to imagine a “cryptographic Dark Forest” in which opposing players would be like civilizations “tiptoeing” through a universe filled with potentially hostile counterparts—hidden from view thanks to zero-knowledge proofs. When he got home, he stayed up all night sketching out the idea. Shortly thereafter, he convinced two friends to help him build it.

Eventually, Dark Forest’s creators decided that to make it work they’d need to use a blockchain. They wanted to build the game in a way that would allow everyone to be able to check that “the mathematical protocol underlying the game is being followed correctly,”  says Gubsheep. He acknowledges that it would have been technically possible to write the game in a traditional server so that its entire history would be viewable, including every zero-knowledge proof—“but at that point you’re basically starting to build a blockchain.”

They knew it was a “pie-in-the-sky” idea. Blockchains are slow and expensive to use—far from ideal infrastructure for a game that must keep track of many interconnected systems and a vast number of player moves. Despite all the initial hype around a wide range of non-finance uses for blockchains, the popular perception now is that using blockchains makes sense only for simpler, finance-related applications.

Proof of concepts

Gubsheep and his friends achieved what they set out to do: make a cool, sci-fi-inspired game using cutting-edge cryptography. What they built, however, has hinted at new possibilities they didn’t fully anticipate.

Dark Forest is the most complicated blockchain game to date, and the first of its kind to feature what game theorists call “incomplete information.” When a new player first arrives in Dark Forest, most of the universe—including potentially hostile opponents—is hidden. The hidden areas become visible only if the player explores them. Every time players move, they send a proof to the blockchain that the move is valid—without revealing their coordinates in the universe.

Since February 2020, more than 10,000 people have played. Some of them, like software developer Nalin Bhardwaj, have been inspired by the game’s technical underpinnings to stay and work on the Dark Forest universe—and build new Dark Forest–inspired games. They see Dark Forest as the first step toward rich digital realities—some might call them metaverses—that are run by decentralized networks instead of company servers.

Dark Forest is not only the most complicated blockhain game, says Bhardwaj: “I do not think there is an application on the blockchain that is more complex.” By designing it to run on a blockchain, the game’s creators also produced technical infrastructure that broadens the scope of how we might use blockchains to interact online, he argues. 

To Bhardwaj and other true believers, Dark Forest is proof of several new concepts at once. First, it demonstrates how advanced cryptography can be used to add new features to online worlds. Developers and computer scientists inspired by Dark Forest are already exploring new games and applications that take advantage of zero-knowledge proofs. 

Gubsheep and others have even launched an R&D organization, called 0xPARC (a reference to PARC, the storied R&D company that Xerox launched 40 years ago), to support this work. Bhardwaj recently did a stint as a 0xPARC intern.

The scope of 0xPARC is not limited to gaming. For example, one application the group is interested in is digital identification. Recall the passport example. Zero-knowledge proofs could make it possible to prove all kinds of things about yourself without revealing anything else. You could prove you were above a certain age without revealing your actual age, or that you have more than a certain amount of money in your bank account without revealing the actual amount. It could also be possible to use zero-knowledge cryptography to prove that you’ve run a machine-learning algorithm on a sensitive data set while keeping the data private, says Gubsheep.

A new vision for the metaverse?

Zero knowledge is also not the only focus at 0xPARC. The deepest thinkers about Dark Forest seem to agree that while its use of cryptography is genuinely innovative, an even more compelling proof of concept in the game is its “autonomous” game world—an online environment that no one controls, and which cannot be taken down. 

So far, Dark Forest has existed in temporary instances, called rounds, that last between one and two weeks. But since it exists entirely in blockchain smart contracts—computer programs that the blockchain stores and executes—a Dark Forest world could be deployed in such a way that no one would have the capability to stop it, says computer scientist and 0xPARC cofounder Justin Glibert. “You could think of it like a Minecraft server but it can’t be taken down,” he says. 

Once a smart contract is deployed, it’s a bit like a robot that lives in digital space—one that can run forever. Unless the creator installs a mechanism that can be triggered to kill the program, it will keep running as long as the network exists. In this case, Glibert argues, the virtual world would be “more like a digital planet” than a game. 

What happens on a digital planet? Whatever the world’s rules—its “digital physics”—allow, he says. Dark Forest players have used its digital physics to build in-game marketplaces, tools that automate game functions, and even bots that can play the game themselves. It’s also free for anyone to copy, modify, and build on.

Glibert’s team at 0xPARC is focused on creating systems that make it easier not only for game developers to create autonomous worlds but also for the inhabitants of those worlds to interact and create. 

Gubsheep says this is the natural development of the internet. “The digital world is becoming the host of more and more of our most meaningful interactions,” he says. But he wagers that people will be less likely to accept a version of “the metaverse” that is governed by a company or any other centralized entity.

What they will want instead is “a credibly neutral substrate for people to express themselves in relatively unconstrained ways and to self-organize and self-govern,” he argues. “That’s a much more powerful vision of the metaverse to me, and one that I hope 0xPARC’s experiments can contribute to.”

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Nov 11 2022
Why this year’s UN climate conference is all about the money

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

I love warm, sunny days like the ones we’ve been having in the Northeast this week. As a climate reporter I’m also a bit concerned, though. It’s way too hot. I’m trying to follow some advice I heard recently: “Enjoy the weather, worry about the climate.”

To be clear, I haven’t seen any climate change attribution studies for this particular heat wave. But the past eight years have been the warmest on record, so I’ve definitely had climate change on my mind while I walk around town in a t-shirt in November. 

I’m not the only one thinking about climate change right now, since it’s the kickoff of the UN’s climate conference, COP27. It’s a key week for climate action, so let’s take some time to dig into a few things you need to know, including fatigue around all these international meetings, lots of talk about money, and some backlash to recently-passed US climate policy.

The context: lots of talk

COP is shorthand for the United Nations’ annual climate change conference. (The acronym stands for “Conference of the Parties.”) This year will be the 27th, hence, COP27. It’s being held over the next two weeks in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

These conferences are time for world leaders and the climate community to get together to make new commitments, ask for support, and just generally talk.

This last one is becoming increasingly controversial. Many in the climate community have expressed frustration that we keep talking about climate action while greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures are rising almost every year. Thirty years of promises on climate action have been a lot of “blah blah blah,” as activist Greta Thunberg put it last year.

It’s not like nothing happens at the conferences, but anything that will gain approval from a significant number of major nations “has to be watered down to the point that it simply doesn’t demand much,” as my colleague James Temple put it in his introduction to COP26 last year. 

Speaking of watered-down promises, the Paris Agreement is a product of COP21 in 2015. It’s the closest thing we have to an international treaty on climate change, with a couple of broad goals: 

  • Reduce warming to 2°C this century, and do our very best to limit it to 1.5°C.
  • Provide climate financing to developing countries.
  • Review individual nations’ plans every five years.

There’s nothing binding in the Paris Agreement, but it frames many of the international conversations about climate action. And right now, we’re not measuring up. Recent reports have made it clear that the world is still far from cutting emissions fast enough to meet Paris targets. Limiting warming below 1.5°C is looking increasingly out of reach, and even 2°C is going to require more action.

The major topic: money

One of the biggest conversations at COP27 will be over one question: who should be footing the bill for climate change? 

It’s been an unprecedented year for climate disasters. Flooding in Pakistan killed over 1,000 people, destroyed nearly 2 million homes, and caused an estimated $15 billion in damages. Drought in East Africa has wiped out crops, threatening people across the region with famine.

These disasters are hitting hardest for countries that have contributed very little to climate change, so some argue that rich countries like the US, which has contributed about 20% of the world’s historical emissions, should pay for it. China emits far more today than any other nation, and is the second-largest historical emitter, with 11% of the global total. 

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

In a historic move, climate financing for “loss and damages” made it onto the official agenda for COP27. This is funding that would go to helping countries deal with climate disasters like floods and droughts that are becoming more common. The language took hours of negotiations to finalize, and it’s unclear what progress officials will make on actually coming to an agreement, especially because countries are already falling behind on previous climate finance obligations.

In 2009, a group of countries including the US committed to providing $100 billion dollars per year by 2020. The funding is supposed to help developing countries cut their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change with protections against effects like drought and sea level rise. 

The contributing group has fallen short, reaching just $83 billion in financing in 2020. And some countries like the US, Canada, and the UK aren’t contributing their “fair share,” according to a recent analysis by CarbonBrief that looks at countries’ financial contributions compared to their historical emissions contributions to climate change. 

Missing the mark on current climate finance targets doesn’t bode well for those looking for more help, but we’ll be keeping track of conversations over the next two weeks to see what officials come up with. Hopefully, not just more blah blah blah. 

What else I’m watching: reactions to US climate policy

COP27 comes with many in the climate world still celebrating passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August and provides $370 billion in funding for climate and energy action in the US.

When it passed, many pointed out that such a large funding bill was a success that could restore some “climate credibility” for the US on international stages like COP27. But some provisions in the IRA are also drawing criticism from US allies, especially in the EU, that aren’t happy about what they see as protectionist policies that will harm their countries. 

The IRA contains tax credits for everything from solar and wind manufacturers to consumers purchasing electric vehicles, and many of these credits are boosted for technology that’s manufactured within the US.

For example, solar power projects can qualify for a 30% tax credit, but if the hardware used is made in the US, the credit is bumped to 40%. There are also complicated rules in the EV tax credits that favor batteries and materials made in the US (read more on those here).

This wasn’t an accident: a major goal of the IRA was to boost American industry, creating jobs and pushing economic development while also building out the domestic supply chains of batteries, solar, and other technologies that are essential to cutting emissions and fighting climate change. Many of these products are mainly made in China, and the US wants to catch up.

As E&E News reported this week, officials in the EU are raising issues with these “buy American” provisions, along with Japan and South Korea.

The concerns are a window into international climate progress: climate change is a global problem, but countries largely work to make change within domestic political agendas.

Keeping up with Climate

Take an exclusive look into Alphabet X’s newest climate project. My colleague James got the inside scoop on one of X’s “moonshots,” which is focused on tracking ocean ecosystems using computer vision. The project, called Tidal, was originally focused on aquaculture, but the team is working to apply it to better understanding the opportunity for carbon removal using seagrass. (MIT Technology Review)

Automakers want more clarity about new rules in the EV tax credits. (E&E News)

An environmental group is challenging a new advanced recycling plant in Pennsylvania, citing health and environmental concerns. The facility would turn plastics into feedstocks for the chemical industry. (Inside Climate News)

When Atlanta banned electric scooters at night, traffic went up, suggesting that micromobility devices really do cut down on car use. (Nature Energy)

Governments are turning against deep sea mining. While the ocean floor can be a source of valuable metals, mining could have devastating consequences for ecosystems. (Bloomberg)

A nonprofit is using satellites to more accurately estimate emissions from industry. By measuring heat from steel plants and gasses from power plants, Climate TRACE is working to build a hyperlocal map of emissions. (New York Times)

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Nov 11 2022
The Download: who pays for climate change, and blockchain gaming

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Why this year’s UN climate conference is all about the money

This week has seen the start of COP27, the UN’s two-week climate conference, where world leaders have met in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to thrash out global solutions for the climate crisis.

Money is at the heart of many of these discussions, particularly the key question of who should be footing the bill for climate change. This is particularly important given that the countries who contribute the least towards global emissions tend to suffer the most from its effects. 

But we don’t know whether talks around funding for “loss and damages” to help less wealthy countries cope with rising temperatures will make actual progress, or amount to a whole lot more hot air. 

Any potential optimism is tempered by the fact that countries are already falling behind on their previous climate finance obligations—raising further questions about what can be considered a fair share, and who is and isn’t meeting it. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Interested in keeping up-to-date with COP27? Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

This sci-fi blockchain game could help create a metaverse that no one owns

Dark Forest is a vast universe, and most of it is shrouded in darkness. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to venture into the unknown, avoid being destroyed by opposing players who may be lurking in the dark, and build an empire of the planets you discover and can make your own.

But while the video game seemingly looks and plays much like other online strategy games, it doesn’t rely on the servers running other popular online strategy games. Instead, Dark Forest runs completely on a blockchain, in a way that means no one is in control of how it plays out. 

The game’s success demonstrates that blockchains can be used in far more interesting and complex ways than simply moving digital money around, something some blockchain champions have been repeating since the technology first emerged.

And it may point to something even more profound: the possibility of a metaverse that isn’t owned by a big tech company. Read the full story.

—Mike Orcutt

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Crypto exchange Binance isn’t buying its rival FTX after all
We still don’t know the full extent of FTX’s financial woes, though. (WSJ $)
+ Nothing and no one in crypto is too big to fail. (NYT $)
+ Crypto markets are even more volatile than normal right now. (Bloomberg $)
+ Meanwhile, crypto is back on the agenda for New York’s new Governor. (The Verge)

2 Why the Republicans’ ‘red wave’ failed to materialize
The specter of Donald Trump and the Dobbs decision loomed large. (Vox)
+ Trumpism’s appeal certainly seems to be waning. (The Atlantic $)
+ Conspiracy theories linked to the results failed to take off, too. (NYT $)
+ That didn’t stop election deniers from trying, though. (Bloomberg $)
+ Here’s how to avoid being tricked by misinformation. (WP $)

3 Brace yourself for a winter of illness
It’s a triple threat of flu, covid, and a respiratory virus. (Wired $)
+ The respiratory bug wave has hit before we have a vaccine. (Slate $)
+ Is a covid and flu “twindemic” on the horizon? (MIT Technology Review)

4 How Donald Trump unwittingly helped the Paris Agreement
His withdrawal from the treaty actually spurred other countries into action. (The Atlantic $) 
+ Reparations could finally compensate the hardest-hit nations. (Wired $)
+ Climate action is gaining momentum. So are the disasters. (MIT Technology Review)

5 A viral app has been falsely accused of being a front for sex trafficking
It’s just the latest in a long line of buzzy apps to be targeted by trafficking hoaxes. (WP $)

6 There are fewer ransomware attempts than there used to be
An unwillingness to pay ransoms could be one factor behind the decline. (FT $)
+ The world’s biggest ransomware gang has disappeared from the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Twitter’s sacked workers have been inundated with job offers
Despite the tech hiring freeze, they’re in hot demand. (The Information $)
+ More than 11,000 Meta employees will be joining them. (Motherboard)
+ Twitter’s verification and ‘official’ rollout has been a mess. (WP $)

8 How cryptography is preparing for quantum attacks
Engineers are confident that lattice cryptography will weather cracking attempts. (Quanta Magazine)
+ What is post-quantum cryptography? (MIT Technology Review)

9 Workfluencers are oversharing about their jobs 💼
Occasionally, that vulnerability is backfiring. (Insider $)

10 Uber’s homegrown rivals are thriving across Latin America
It ignored smaller towns in favor of big cities. Now, local rivals are filling the void. (Rest of World)

Quote of the day

“Sad day. Tried, but 😭”

—Changpeng Zhao, CEO of crypto exchange Binance, takes to Twitter to express his regret at failing to buy FTX, the company’s biggest rival.

The big story

Running Tide is facing scientist departures and growing concerns over seaweed sinking for carbon removal

June 2022

Running Tide, an aquaculture company based in Portland, Maine, has said it expected to set tens of thousands of tiny floating kelp farms adrift in the North Atlantic between this summer and next. The hope is that the fast-growing macroalgae will eventually sink to the ocean floor, storing away thousands of tons of carbon dioxide in the process.

The company has raised millions in venture funding and gained widespread media attention. But it struggled to grow kelp along rope lines in the open ocean during initial attempts last year and has lost a string of scientists in recent months, sources with knowledge of the matter tell MIT Technology Review.

At least several of the departures were due to concerns that the company’s executives weren’t paying sufficient attention to the potential ecological effects of its plans. And that’s just for starters. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ If you’re easily overwhelmed, kindly but firmly setting boundaries is a good place to start.
+ An AI video inspired by Black Sabbath’s War Pigs? Count me in.
+ The Tech Review office has really enjoyed the fruits of this House of the Dragon quiz. 🐉
+ Why we all need to pay attention to the beautiful things that surround us.
+ Felix Flicker is the definition of a multitalented polymath.

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