Sep 12 2024
International SEO Expansion: Best Practices Guide

Getting your international SEO strategy right can be an elusive feat.

There are a lot more factors at play than people give credit for, and it’s often a thankless job.

A successful international SEO strategy requires a deep knowledge of your company’s commercial strategy as well as technical SEO knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and excellent data skills.

Yet the industry often regards international SEO as just your hreflang setup.

In this article, I will distill the complexities of international SEO success into an actionable step-by-step list that will take you from beginner to advanced practitioner. Let’s begin!

Part I: Be Commercially Aware

1. Understand Why Your Company Is Going International

Companies can grow by expanding their products and services, focusing on gaining market penetration or expanding into new markets.

While your team’s goal might be traffic, leads, or revenue, the leadership team is likely working under a different set of parameters. Most of the time, leadership’s ultimate goal is to maximize shareholder value.

  • In founder-owned companies, growth goals might be slower and more sustainable, usually aimed at maintaining and growing profitability.
  • VC-owned companies have high growth goals because they must provide their investors with a return that’s higher than the stock market. This is what is known as the alpha, or your company’s ability to beat the market in growth.
  • Publicly traded companies are likely aiming to grow their share value.
  • Startups, depending on their maturity stage, are likely looking to prove product-market fit or expand their reach fast to show that their operations are scalable and have the potential to be profitable in the future. The goal of this is to aid in raising further capital from investors.

Understanding why businesses go international is essential for informing your SEO decisions. What’s best practice for SEO isn’t always what’s best for business.

You must adapt your strategy to your company’s growth model.

  • Companies choosing to grow sustainably and maintain profitability will likely expand more slowly to a market that resembles their core market.
  • VC-owned companies will be able to invest in a wider range of countries, with a smaller concern for providing their users with an experience on par with that of their core markets.
  • Startups can try to beat their competitors to market by expanding quickly and throwing a lot of money at the project, or they might be concerned with cash flow and try to expand fast but cut corners by using automatic translation.

2. Stack Rank Your Target Markets To Prioritize Your Investment

I promise I’ll get to hreflang implementation soon, but so much about international SEO has to do with commercial awareness – so bear with me; this will make you a better professional.

Many companies have different market tiers to reflect how much of a priority each market is. Market prioritization can happen using many different metrics, such as:

  • Average order value or lifetime customer value.
  • Amount of investment required.
  • Market size.
  • And market similarity.

American companies often prioritize developed English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada, or Australia. These are most similar to their core market, and most of their market knowledge will be transferable.

After that, companies are likely to target large European economies, such as Germany and France. They might also target the LatAm market and Spain in the same effort.

The last prioritization tier can vary widely among companies, with a focus on the Nordic, Brazilian, or Asian markets.

Part II: Know Your Tech

3. Define Your International URL Structure

When doing international SEO, there are 4 different possible URL structures, each with its pros and cons.

ccTLD Structure

A ccTLD structure is set up to target different countries based on the domain type.

This structure is not ideal for companies that target different languages rather than different countries. For example, a .es website is targeting Spain, not the Spanish language.

An advantage to this kind of structure is that the ccTLD sends a very strong localization signal to search engines as to what market they are targeting, and they can lead to improved trust and CTR in your core country.

On the other hand, ccTLDs can dilute your site’s authority, as links will be spread across domains rather than concentrated on the .com.

gTLD With Subdirectories

This is my personal favorite when it comes to international SEO.

These URL structures can look like website.com/en if they’re targeting languages or website.com/en-gb if they’re targeting countries.

This configuration aggregates the authority you gain across your different territories into a single domain, it’s cheaper to maintain, and the .com TLD is widely recognizable by users worldwide.

On the other hand, this setup can look less personalized to people outside the US, who might wonder if you can service their markets.

gTLD With Subdomains

This setup involves placing international content on a subdomain like us.website.com. While once popular, it’s slipping in favor because it doesn’t bring anything unique to the table anymore.

This setup offers a clear signal to users and search engines about the intended audience of a specific subdomain.

However, subdomains often face issues with SEO, as Google tends to view them as separate entities. This separation can dilute link, similar to the ccTLD approach but without the geo-targeting advantages.

gTLD With Parameters

This is the setup where you add parameters at the end of the URL to indicate the language of the page, such as website.com/?lang=en.

I strongly advise against this setup, as it can present multiple technical SEO challenges and trust issues.

4. Understand Your Hreflang Setup

In the words of John Mueller: hreflang can be one of the most complex aspects of SEO.

Tweet by John Mueller talking about how hreflang can be one of the more complex aspects of SEO.Screenshot from Twitter, May 2024

Hreflang reminds me of a multilingual form of a canonical tag, where we tell search engines that one document is a version of the other and explain the relationship between them.

I find hreflang implementation very interesting from a technical point of view. Because development teams mostly manage it, and it can be very much hit or miss.

Often, hreflang is constructed from existing fields in your content management system (CMS) or content database.

You might find that your development team is pulling the HTML lang tag, which follows a different ISO standard than hreflang, leading to a broken implementation.

Other times, there is a field in your CMS that your development team pulls from to build your hreflang setup.

Finding out how your hreflang tags are generated can be extremely helpful in identifying the sources of different issues or mitigating potential risks.

So speak to your engineering team and ask them how you’re currently generating hreflang.

5. Implement Hreflang Without Errors

There are three ways to implement hreflang on your site:

  • On your sitemap.
  • Through your HTTP header.
  • On your HTML head.

The method most of us are most familiar with is the HTML head. And while you can use more than one method, they should match each other perfectly. Otherwise, you risk confusing search engines.

Here are some basic rules for getting it done correctly:

  • In your hreflang implementation, the URL must include domain and protocol.
  • You must follow the ISO 639-1 language codes – don’t go around making up your own.
  • Hreflang tags must be reciprocal. If the page you’re listing as a language alternative does not list you back, your implementation won’t work.
  • Audit your hreflang regularly. My favorite tool for this, since it added the hreflang cluster analysis and link graphs, is Ahrefs. For the record, Ahrefs is not paying me to say this; it’s a genuine recommendation and has helped me a lot in my work.
  • You should only have one page per language.
  • Your hreflang URLs should be self-canonicalizing and respond with a 200 code.

Follow the above rules, and you’ll avoid the most common hreflang mistakes that SEO pros make.

And if you’re interested in the technical SEO aspect beyond hreflang, I recommend reading Mind your language by Rob Owen.

Part III: Invest In Content Incrementally

6. Translate Your Top-performing Content Topics

Now that you have the basic commercial and technical knowledge covered, you’re ready to start creating a content strategy.

You likely have a wealth of content in your core market that can be recycled. But you want to focus on translating high-converting topics, not just any topic; otherwise, you might be wasting your budget!

Let’s go step by step.

Cluster Your Website’s Content By Topic

  • Crawl your site using your favorite SEO tool and extract the URL and H1.
  • Use ChatGPT to classify that list of URLs into topics. You might already know what you usually write about, so include those topics in your prompt. You don’t want to have a classification that’s too granular, so you can prompt chatGPT to only create groups with a minimum of 10 URLs (adjust this to reflect the size of your website) and class everything else as other. This is an example of what your prompt might look like: “I will provide you with a list of article titles and their corresponding URL. Classify this list into the following topics: survey best practices, research and analysis, employee surveys, market research and others. Return this in a table format with the URL, title and group name.”
  • Start a spreadsheet with all your URLs in the first column, titles in the second column, and the group they belong to in the third column.

Measure Your Performance By Topic

  • Export your GSC data and use a =VLOOKUP formula to match your clicks to your URLs.
  • Export your conversion data and use a =VLOOKUP formula to match your conversions (leads, sales, sign-ups, or revenue) to the right URL.
  • You can then copy your topics column onto a new sheet. Remove duplicates and use the =SUMIF formula to aggregate your click data and conversion data by topic.

Choose What Topics You’ll Be Translating First

Using this data, you can now choose what topics are most likely to drive conversions based on your core market data. Choose how many topics or pieces of content you’ll be translating based on your budget.

Personally, I like translating one topic at a time because I’ve found that generating topical authority on one specific topic makes it easier for me to rank on an adjacent topic that I write about next.

7. Localize Your English Content

Once you’re set up with all your key pages and a few content topics, it’s time to evaluate your investment and see where you could be getting a bigger return.

At this stage, many companies have translated their content into a few different languages and likely copied the US content into their UK and Australian sites. Now that you’ve done some translation, it’s time to work on localization.

If you’ve just copied your US content into your UK and Australian sites, your Google Search Console indexing report might be screaming at you, “Duplicate, Google selected a different canonical than the user.”

A very easy fix that could yield great returns is to localize your English content to the nuances of those English-speaking markets.

You will want to instruct your translation and localization providers to adapt the spellings of certain words, change the choice of words, introduce local expressions, and update any cited statistic for the US with their local equivalent.

For example, if I’m targeting a British audience, “analyze” becomes “analyse,” a “stroller” becomes a “pram,” and “soccer” becomes “football.”

8. Invest In In-market Content

Once you’ve got the basics in place, you can start tackling the specific needs of other markets. This strategy is expensive, and you should only use it in your priority markets, but it can really set you apart from your competitors.

For this, you will need to work with a local linguist to identify pain points, use cases, or needs exclusive to your target market.

For example, if France suddenly made it mandatory to run a diversity and inclusion study for companies with over 250 employees, I’d want to know this and create some content on DEI surveys at SurveyMonkey.

9. Integrate With Other Content Workflows

In step six, we evaluated our top-performing content, chose the best articles to translate, and got it all down. But wait. Some of these source articles have been updated. And there is even more content now!

To run a successful international SEO campaign you must integrate with all the other teams publishing content within your organization.

Usually, the teams creating content in an organization are SEO, content, PR, product marketing, demand generation, customer marketing, customer service, customer education, or solutions engineering.

That’s a lot, and you won’t be able to integrate with everyone all at once. Prioritize the teams that create the most revenue-generating content, such as SEO, content, or product marketing.

Working with these teams, you will have to establish a process for what happens when they create a new piece, update some content, or remove an existing piece.

These processes can differ for everyone, but I can tell you what I do with my team and hope it inspires you.

  • When a piece of content that’s already been localized into international markets is updated, we get the content in a queue to be re-localized the next quarter.
  • When they create a new piece of content, we evaluate its performance, and if it’s performing above average, we add it to a localization queue for the next quarter.
  • When they change the URL of a piece of content or delete it, all international sites must follow suit at the same time, since due to some technical limitations, not making the change globally would create some hreflang issues.

Wrapping Up

International SEO is vast and complex, and no article can cover it all, but many interesting resources have been created by SEO pros across the community for those who want to learn more.

Navigating the complexities of international SEO is no small feat. It’s an intricate dance of aligning commercial strategies with technical precision, cultural insights, and data-driven decisions.

From understanding your company’s core motives for global expansion to meticulously implementing hreflang tags and localizing content, every step plays a crucial role in building a successful international presence.

More resources: 

Featured Image: BritCats Studio/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
How conversational content can help your marketing efforts

Another way to market your product or service? Really? Yes, we’re really looking into something new today. But don’t worry. It’s not groundbreaking. If you look at how the internet and your audience’s interests have changed, you’ll understand why conversational content might be worth investing in.

Does this interest you?

That’s the big question you want to ask your audience. Because you want to write content that interests them, and yet… Something’s not going right. With Reddit moving up in the search results, instead of actual blog posts, there’s a trend happening that people can’t seem to make sense of.

Except it does make sense. People want to read what interests them, and lately, they haven’t been interested in the cold and business-like approach that most websites and blogs have adopted. And let’s be real with ourselves, what’s more appealing? 

The latest shift has indicated that audiences engage more frequently with content that’s written in a semi-casual or even fully casual style, with syntax one might use while talking. 

Or: I’ve noticed that my blogs get more engagement when I talk about personal preferences and experiences. Here’s what I did. 

Yep. It’s the latter, isn’t it?

Why the shift towards conversational content?

Listen, we don’t want to blame AI again, but… It’s not helping. It makes every blog post sound the same; worse, it’s not even right half the time. That’s why we don’t want to read a fully-generated blog post either. And yes, we can tell it’s generated. A lot of people can nowadays.

Conclusion: people can tell when content is generated, and they don’t want it. They want authenticity. Which is why they go to… Reddit. Because there, humans give advice to and talk about their problems with other humans. 

Example of Reddit appearing high in the search results

What about influencers?

Good question (I once read a blogger complain about the use of questions in headings, because it’s not an interview, they said, but it reads more like a conversation this way, doesn’t it?). Influencer marketing doesn’t work as well as it used to, mostly because people aren’t clueless. They can see through the beautiful photos/videos/words. They know the influencer is being paid to say positive things, making it less appealing and ineffective. 

Don’t entirely give up on influencers

What does seem to work is working with micro or nano influencers. People with a small following usually have a better connection with their audience. Their brand deals are also less common, because they’re not well-known, so they’re not throwing commercial after commercial at their followers. Plus, the brands who sponsor/work with them might be smaller too, and more fitted with the micro/nano influencer’s own brand. 

Screenshot of the Instagram account of foodgirlblogs. She has 23 thousand followers. Her pictures are of food and herself.
Example of a micro influencer

Though the reasons might be varied, they all boil down to the same thing: the content of micro and nano influencers is more authentic. 

A shift in the audience’s needs

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Write for your users”. Yes, we’ve used it too, because the underlying message isn’t wrong. You should write content that interests your users. The problem is that people don’t want to read cold and factual content anymore. They want to have a conversation with you. 

So what should you do?

Take a look at your own content. Try to see how you can make it more authentic, more genuine, and how you can add value to your audience. And no, we’re not talking about how your product adds value. We’re talking about your content. Your brand.

Brand marketing is where it’s at

Yes, it sounds like a no-brainer, but hear us out. Let’s say you’ve been seeing posts and content from a brand that really inspires you. It makes you laugh, it makes you think, it makes you feel connected to the brand. When you eventually visit their website and see their product, which aligns with their brand, you’ll probably feel more inclined to buy/subscribe. 

Why? Because you’ve not been beaten to death with commercials or ads or buy our fastest, bestest, newest solution that will change your entire life. You will look back at your life Before Our Product and think: Wow. How could I have ever lived without Our Product?  

That kind of marketing becomes exhausting. Plus, it doesn’t mean anything. Everyone’s the fastest, and everyone’s product is the best. We don’t believe it anymore, and you probably don’t either.

Be genuine with your brand marketing

People are looking for authentic web experiences. They don’t want to walk into a sales pitch, even though that’s exactly what half (if not more) of the web is nowadays. Visiting a website is like opening your front door to someone selling vacuum cleaners. It’s exhausting. 

You have to establish a real connection first. So foster your brand’s identity. Show concern for your users and their lives. Talk with them like a real person would. Have a dialogue with them. And please don’t ask people to open their wallets and fork over money without even saying hi, how are you? first.

Read more: Should your content be globally relatable? »



Cindy Paul

Cindy is a content manager at Yoast. She writes and optimizes blog posts, and enjoys writing content that will help people create better content for their site and users.

Avatar of Cindy Paul

Coming up next!

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
Google Introduces New Data Privacy Technology for Advertisers via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has announced a new technology called “confidential matching” to enhance data privacy for advertisers.

Confidential matching, which uses confidential computing technology, allows businesses to use their first-party data for advertising while maintaining stricter privacy controls.

The system employs Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), a combination of hardware and software that isolates data during processing.

According to Google, this technology prevents external access to the processed data, including by Google itself.

The announcement comes as the tech industry faces increasing scrutiny over data handling and privacy concerns.

Key Features

The new system offers several features that Google claims will enhance data security:

  1. Default security protections for customer information
  2. Increased transparency into product code
  3. Attestation mechanisms to verify data processing

Implementation & Availability

Confidential matching is now the default for Customer Match data connections, including those made through Google Ads Data Manager.

Google plans to expand this technology to other advertising solutions in the coming months.

This technology is available at no additional cost to advertisers. This move could give Google a competitive edge in digital advertising, where privacy concerns have become increasingly important.

Industry Reactions & Concerns

While Google frames this as a positive step towards better data protection, there is potential for Google to consolidate its dominance in the digital advertising space further.

Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, expressed support for the initiative, stating that it shows “continued momentum in adopting PET-powered solutions.”

However, it would help to have more transparency regarding how the technology works and its effectiveness in protecting user data.

Broader Privacy Landscape

This development comes amid a shifting landscape in digital privacy, with increasing regulatory scrutiny and growing consumer awareness of data protection issues.

Other major tech companies have introduced privacy-focused initiatives, reflecting a broader industry trend.

The long-term impact of technologies like confidential matching on user privacy and advertising effectiveness is unknown.

Industry folks will be closely monitoring how this technology is implemented and its effects on the digital advertising landscape.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
Ask An SEO: How Can I Make Myself Stand Out As A Strong Candidate For My First Full-time Marketing Role? via @sejournal, @HelenPollitt1

Our question this week is an excellent one for anyone who is looking to start their career in marketing: “How can I make myself stand out as a strong candidate for my first full-time marketing role?”

The job market is tough at the moment. It can be hard to stand out amongst other candidates. It’s even more difficult if you are looking for your first role in the industry.

I’m going to walk through a few ways that you can identify the right role for you, increase your chances of being invited to interview, and demonstrate your suitability for the role to hiring managers.

Finding The Right Opportunities To Apply For

One of the most important steps in standing out amongst a sea of other applicants is making sure you are applying for the right roles.

When you are looking through the job boards or speaking with recruiters, it’s critical that you consider the following:

Do I Want To Be A Specialist Or A Generalist Marketer?

Marketing is an extremely broad industry. It covers online and offline, acquisition and retention, creative and technical – email, paid, organic, CRM, and social.

There are many types of work that can be carried out under the “marketing” umbrella. You may have a clear idea of what type of marketing interests you, or you might still be unsure.

If you are unsure, then it may be a good idea to look at a more generalist role for your first one. This would be one that gives you exposure to different types of marketing. For example, a role that means you’ll be working on a paid ad campaign one day and an email campaign another.

This way, after a few years in the role you’ll have solid experience in a range of disciplines and can make a more informed decision about the direction you want your career to go in.

Having a broad experience also makes it easier for you to work collaboratively with other marketers in the future, as you’ll have an understanding of what their work entails.

In-house Or Agency?

Speak to any marketer, and they will tell you that there are some big differences between working in-house for a brand and working for clients in an agency.

It is worth considering these when looking for your first role. For example, when working as an in-house marketer, you will likely get to really dig deep into marketing for that one industry.

You may be working with other industry specialists and will have the opportunity to learn a lot about how to market to that particular audience.

However, there’s a risk that you may not have many other marketers to learn from. You may be in a team of one or two other marketers, and you may not benefit from the wisdom of a wide range of experienced colleagues. Your stakeholders will be the business’s decision-makers, potentially very senior members of staff.

However, working for an agency gives you exposure to many more industries, businesses and types of activities.

If you are looking to focus on SEO, for example, your likelihood of being involved in complicated SEO processes like migrations and technical audits will increase.

Your stakeholders will mainly be clients, other agencies, and perhaps your agency’s development team. However, you will always be one step removed from the business you are marketing for and the decisions made about it.

Do I Need To Research Marketing Channels Further?

You may need to pause your search for your new role to do some more research. Spend some time looking into the different marketing channels and the skills needed for them.

If you have any connections who are marketers, spend some time speaking to them about what they enjoy about their roles and what their favorite marketing activities are. This way, you can start to get a feel for what roles you might thrive in.

Applying For Roles

Once you have identified the jobs that you are interested in, it’s time to start applying. This is your opportunity for first impressions. There are many guides available on how to structure your resume to show off your skills.

For your first role in the marketing industry, you need to pay attention to the skills listed in the job adverts and make sure you include and demonstrate them in your resume.

That’s tricky to do, though, if this is your first marketing job. So how do you evidence your suitability through your application?

Transferrable Skills

Look at the skills involved in the marketing activities the role would require you to carry out. Read through the job description and pick out any specific behavior traits it mentions. Think back through your recent work or voluntary experience and pick out where those skills overlap with the job requirements.

For example, if you have worked in retail or customer service, you will have likely developed excellent stakeholder management skills. These are always useful for marketing roles. Working as an administrator in an office will have given you experience in meeting tight timelines. Your prize-winning art school submission evidences your creativity!

Whatever your previous experience is, there will most likely be aspects from which you can draw parallels to the requirements of the role you are applying for.

Remember, if you are applying for entry-level marketing roles, the hiring team should be expecting you to have little to no formal work experience within the industry.

Demonstrating that you are aware of what the role entails, and that you have already begun cultivating the skills needed for it will set you apart from a vast number of other candidates.

Voluntary Experience

Voluntary work experience in marketing will help you stand out. It will further demonstrate that you understand different marketing techniques and job requirements. Many charities will be grateful for assistance with their marketing.

If you do this, just make sure that you feel confident enough in your knowledge that you are not going to make serious mistakes or that you will be given a supervisor who can help guide you.

If you can’t find suitable voluntary experience you could try approaching local marketing agencies and seeing if they offer work experience placements.

Even a week of work will give you experience you can include on a resume and, perhaps more importantly, will help you create a network of other marketers.

Get A Resume Check From A Marketing Recruitment Specialist

Finally, if you are unsure that your resume is showcasing all of your transferrable skills and marketing knowledge in a way that is attractive to hiring managers, consider a resume review.

Many recruiters will offer you the opportunity to have your resume reviewed by them for free. Look for ones that specialize in recruiting for marketing roles.

You benefit from their years of experience working with candidates. They may even forward you for any appropriate roles they are recruiting for.

Nailing The Interviews

Remember, if you are applying for the right types of roles, no one is going to expect you to have all the answers during your interview. They will know that you are looking to break into the industry.

I have a lot of experience in hiring marketing interns and early-career colleagues. The candidates who have impressed me the most for these roles are those who have shown that they understand what it entails and can demonstrate a passion for marketing.

These roles have been designed to train new marketers, so the emphasis isn’t on their experience but on their ability to learn and their interest in doing so.

So when you get to your interviews, think about the following.

What Excites You About The Role?

Research each company that you are interviewing with and be ready to talk about why that role interests you.

For example, if you are applying to an agency, you can look at its website and social media accounts to identify some of the clients and industries it works with.

Perhaps its focus on charities appeals to you, or you feel that the opportunity to work with a broad range of companies will help grow your marketing skills quickly.

Take a look at some of the campaigns the agency has carried out or the work it has done to win awards. Speak to the team about specific examples and why you feel that is the sort of work you want to be involved with.

If you are applying to in-house roles, still take a look at their social media and websites. Sign up for their email newsletters.

This will give you an understanding of what sort of marketing they are doing. Perhaps you like the tone of voice they use with their audience or think their most recent email campaign was particularly effective.

Discussing these aspects shows you are interested in their company, but more importantly, that you understand the different marketing levers they are already using.

Where You Have Learned Marketing

Be ready to discuss where you have learned about marketing. This may be through formal education like a degree, or it might be that you have taken on your own personal studies.

Interviewers will be interested to know what you already understand about marketing theory but also that you are still trying to stay up to date. Remind yourself of the conferences you’ve attended, podcasts you’ve listened to, and articles you’ve read. This can demonstrate both a passion for marketing but also a strong grounding in its principles.

Perhaps your knowledge has come about through some side projects you’ve worked on at your previous jobs.

You may not have been the company’s full-time marketer, but you may have assisted in putting together an ad campaign or carrying out marketing surveys.

This is all relevant experience and knowledge that you should highlight at the interview to stand out from the crowd.

Show Your Continued Interest In Marketing

Another way to stand out as a candidate who is genuinely interested in the marketing industry is to talk about news, trends, and campaigns that you have recently seen.

For example, keeping up-to-date via publications like Search Engine Journal means you can talk about the latest advancements regarding AI in marketing – or you can discuss recent Google system updates and changes to social media platforms. All of this will show that you are embedding yourself in the industry and keeping abreast of important changes in it.

Have a look at some recent marketing campaigns that have stood out to you – both successful and not. Think about what they got right in terms of audience, messaging, and channels. Think about what you would recommend they change.

Also, note some companies that you think are leading the charge within the marketing channels you are looking to work with.

Or perhaps even research some of the competitors for the company you are applying to. You can have a look at what they are doing well or poorly at in regards to their marketing.

This will demonstrate that you are already thinking about how to critique and improve campaigns. It also shows that you understand the importance of competitor analysis and monitoring.

Get Advice From People Already In The Industry

A lot of what goes into landing a good job in marketing, especially if it is your first one, is who you know.

The marketing industry, especially among channel specialists, can be very tight-knit. This means that you should try to take full advantage of the communities and conferences available to you.

Ask people already doing the type of marketing you’re hoping to work in what they would be looking for when hiring a junior – what skills they are looking for and what sort of behaviors they would want to see demonstrated in interviews.

You might be able to arrange for a mentor through one of these communities. That way you are getting to know someone more senior than you who will be able to connect you with other marketers and potentially even provide a reference for you.

Have Examples

Finally, a great way to stand out from the crowd is to start doing the work that you want to end up doing.

By that, I mean create some draft Facebook adverts or sketch out some ideas for a digital PR campaign. You can talk about these at an interview, or if you share them more widely, it might even help you get an interview.

Sharing your ideas and asking for feedback on social media is a great way to learn. It also helps to get your name out there to potential employers.

If you are looking to specialize in something like SEO, digital PR, or content creation, start your own website or channel. Practice the skills you are learning, and you’ll be ready with some examples of what you’ve learned when you get to interviews.

It’s Not Just About Making Yourself Stand Out

In essence, it can feel overwhelming when trying to break into the marketing industry.

In reality, though, there are ways you can start to learn and practice skills way in advance of getting your first interview. Any voluntary experience you have can help to demonstrate your aptitude and interest in marketing.

Most critically, though, if this is a career that you see yourself in for a while, it is good to take some time to find the right first job.

Look for a company that is going to support you as you grow in confidence and give you the opportunities you need to become an expert marketer.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal 

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
Google says it’s made a quantum computing breakthrough that reduces errors

Google researchers claim to have made a breakthrough in quantum error correction, one that could pave the way for quantum computers that finally live up to the technology’s promise.

Proponents of quantum computers say the machines will be able to benefit scientific discovery in fields ranging from particle physics to drug and materials design—if only their builders can make the hardware behave as intended. 

One major challenge has been that quantum computers can store or manipulate information incorrectly, preventing them from executing algorithms that are long enough to be useful. The new research from Google Quantum AI and its academic collaborators demonstrates that they can actually add components to reduce these errors. Previously, because of limitations in engineering, adding more components to the quantum computer tended to introduce more errors. Ultimately, the work bolsters the idea that error correction is a viable strategy toward building a useful quantum computer. Some critics had doubted that it was an effective approach, according to physicist Kenneth Brown of Duke University, who was not involved in the research. 

“This error correction stuff really works, and I think it’s only going to get better,” wrote Michael Newman, a member of the Google team, on X. (Google, which posted the research to the preprint server arXiv in August, declined to comment on the record for this story.) 

Quantum computers encode data using objects that behave according to the principles of quantum mechanics. In particular, they store information not only as 1s and 0s, as a conventional computer does, but also in “superpositions” of 1 and 0. Storing information in the form of these superpositions and manipulating their value using quantum interactions such as entanglement (a way for particles to be connected even over long distances) allows for entirely new types of algorithms.

In practice, however, developers of quantum computers have found that errors quickly creep in because the components are so sensitive. A quantum computer represents 1, 0, or a superposition by putting one of its components in a particular physical state, and it is too easy to accidentally alter those states. A component then ends up in a physical state that does not correspond to the information it’s supposed to represent. These errors accumulate over time, which means that the quantum computer cannot deliver accurate answers for long algorithms without error correction.

To perform error correction, researchers must encode information in the quantum computer in a distinctive way. Quantum computers are made of individual components known as physical qubits, which can be made from a variety of different materials, such as single atoms or ions. In Google’s case, each physical qubit consists of a tiny superconducting circuit that must be kept at an extremely cold temperature. 

Early experiments on quantum computers stored each unit of information in a single physical qubit. Now researchers, including Google’s team, have begun experimenting with encoding each unit of information in multiple physical qubits. They refer to this constellation of physical qubits as a single “logical” qubit, which can represent 1, 0, or a superposition of the two. By design, the single “logical” qubit can hold onto a unit of information more robustly than a single “physical” qubit can. Google’s team corrects the errors in the logical qubit using an algorithm known as a surface code, which makes use of the logical qubit’s constituent physical qubits.

In the new work, Google made a single logical qubit out of varying numbers of physical qubits. Crucially, the researchers demonstrated that a logical qubit composed of 105 physical qubits suppressed errors more effectively than a logical qubit composed of 72 qubits. That suggests that putting increasing numbers of physical qubits together into a logical qubit “can really suppress the errors,” says Brown. This charts a potential path to building a quantum computer with a low enough error rate to perform a useful algorithm, although the researchers have yet to demonstrate they can put multiple logical qubits together and scale up to a larger machine. 

The researchers also report that the lifetime of the logical qubit exceeds the lifetime of its best constituent physical qubit by a factor of 2.4. Put another way, Google’s work essentially demonstrates that it can store data in a reliable quantum “memory.”

However, this demonstration is just a first step toward an error-corrected quantum computer, says Jay Gambetta, the vice president of IBM’s quantum initiative. He points out that while Google has demonstrated a more robust quantum memory, it has not performed any logical operations on the information stored in that memory. 

“At the end of the day, what matters is: How big of a quantum circuit could you run?” he says. (A “quantum circuit” is a series logic of operations executed on a quantum computer.) “And do you have a path to show how you’re going to run bigger and bigger quantum circuits?”

IBM, whose quantum computers are also composed of qubits made of superconducting circuits, is taking an error correction approach that’s different from Google’s surface code method.  It thinks this method, known as low-density parity-check code, will be easier to scale, with each logical qubit requiring fewer physical qubits to achieve comparable error suppression rates. By 2026, IBM intends to demonstrate that it can make 12 logical qubits out of 244 physical qubits, says Gambetta.

Other researchers are exploring other promising approaches, too. Instead of superconducting circuits, a team affiliated with the Boston-based quantum computing company QuEra uses neutral atoms as physical qubits. Earlier this year, it published in Nature a study showing that it had executed algorithms using up to 48 logical qubits made of rubidium atoms.

Gambetta cautions researchers to be patient and not to overhype the progress. “I just don’t want the field to think error correction is done,” he says. Hardware development simply takes a long time because the cycle of designing, building, and troubleshooting is time consuming, especially when compared with software development. “I don’t think it’s unique to quantum,” he says. 

To execute algorithms with guaranteed practical utility, a quantum computer needs to perform around a billion logical operations, says Brown. “And no one’s near a billion operations yet,” he says. Another milestone would be to create a quantum computer with 100 logical qubits, which QuEra has set as a goal for 2026. A quantum computer of that size would be capable of simulations beyond the reach of classical computers. Google scientists have made a single high-quality logical qubit—but the next step is to show that they can actually do something with it.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
Why a ruling against the Internet Archive threatens the future of America’s libraries

I was raised in the 1980s and ’90s, and for my generation and generations before us, the public library was an equalizing force in every town, helping anyone move toward the American dream. In Chantilly, Virginia, where I grew up, it didn’t matter if you didn’t have a computer or your parents lacked infinite money for tutors—you could get a lifetime’s education for free at the public library. A ruling from the US Second Circuit against the Internet Archive and in favor of publisher Hachette has just thrown that promise of equality into doubt by limiting libraries’ access to digital lending.

To understand why this is so important to the future of libraries, you first have to understand the dire state of library e-book lending. 

Libraries have traditionally operated on a basic premise: Once they purchase a book, they can lend it out to patrons as much (or as little) as they like. Library copies often come from publishers, but they can also come from donations, used book sales, or other libraries. However the library obtains the book, once the library legally owns it, it is theirs to lend as they see fit. 

Not so for digital books. To make licensed e-books available to patrons, libraries have to pay publishers multiple times over. First, they must subscribe (for a fee) to aggregator platforms such as Overdrive. Aggregators, like streaming services such as HBO’s Max, have total control over adding or removing content from their catalogue. Content can be removed at any time, for any reason, without input from your local library. The decision happens not at the community level but at the corporate one, thousands of miles from the patrons affected. 

Then libraries must purchase each individual copy of each individual title that they want to offer as an e-book. These e-book copies are not only priced at a steep markup—up to 300% over consumer retail—but are also time- and loan-limited, meaning the files self-destruct after a certain number of loans. The library then needs to repurchase the same book, at a new price, in order to keep it in stock. 

This upending of the traditional order puts massive financial strain on libraries and the taxpayers that fund them. It also opens up a world of privacy concerns; while libraries are restricted in the reader data they can collect and share, private companies are under no such obligation.

Some libraries have turned to another solution: controlled digital lending, or CDL, a process by which a library scans the physical books it already has in its collection, makes secure digital copies, and lends those out on a one-to-one “owned to loaned” ratio.  The Internet Archive was an early pioneer of this technique.

When the digital copy is loaned, the physical copy is sequestered from borrowing; when the physical copy is checked out, the digital copy becomes unavailable. The benefits to libraries are obvious; delicate books can be circulated without fear of damage, volumes can be moved off-site for facilities work without interrupting patron access, and older and endangered works become searchable and can get a second chance at life. Library patrons, who fund their local library’s purchases with their tax dollars, also benefit from the ability to freely access the books.

Publishers are, unfortunately, not a fan of this model, and in 2020 four of them sued the Internet Archive over its CDL program. The suit ultimately focused on the Internet Archive’s lending of 127 books that were already commercially available through licensed aggregators. The publisher plaintiffs accused the Internet Archive of mass copyright infringement, while the Internet Archive argued that its digitization and lending program was a fair use. The trial court sided with the publishers, and on September 4, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reaffirmed that decision with some alterations to the underlying reasoning. 

This decision harms libraries. It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. It leaves local communities’ reading habits at the mercy of curatorial decisions made by four dominant publishing companies thousands of miles away. It steers Americans away from one of the few remaining bastions of privacy protection and funnels them into a surveillance ecosystem that, like Big Tech, becomes more dangerous with each passing data breach. And by increasing the price for access to knowledge, it puts up even more barriers between underserved communities and the American dream.

It doesn’t stop there. This decision also renders the fair use doctrine—legally crucial in everything from parody to education to news reporting—almost unusable. And while there were occasional moments of sanity (such as recognizing that a “Donate here” button does not magically turn a nonprofit into a commercial enterprise), this decision fractured, rather than clarified, the law. 

If the courts won’t recognize CDL-based library lending as fair use, then the next step falls to Congress. Libraries are in crisis, caught between shrinking budgets and growing demand for services. Congress must act now to ensure that a pillar of equality in our communities isn’t sacrificed on the altar of profit. 

Chris Lewis is president and CEO of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that works to shape technology policy in the public interest. Public Knowledge promotes freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
The Download: a quantum breakthrough, and the Internet Archive ruling

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.

Google says it’s made a quantum computing breakthrough that reduces errors

The news: Google researchers claim to have made a breakthrough in quantum error correction, one that could pave the way for quantum computers that finally live up to the technology’s promise.

Why it matters: One major challenge facing the field has been that quantum computers can store or manipulate information incorrectly, preventing them from executing algorithms that are long enough to be useful. 

The new research from Google Quantum AI and its academic collaborators demonstrates that they can add components to reduce these errors. Ultimately, it bolsters the idea that error correction is a viable strategy toward building a useful quantum computer. Read the full story.

—Sophia Chen

Why a ruling against the Internet Archive threatens the future of America’s libraries

—Chris Lewis is president and CEO of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that works to shape technology policy in the public interest.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, it didn’t matter if you didn’t have a computer or your parents lacked infinite money for tutors—you could get a lifetime’s education for free at the public library.

A ruling from the US Second Circuit against the Internet Archive and in favor of publisher Hachette has just thrown that promise of equality into doubt by limiting libraries’ access to digital lending. Read this to learn why.

The must-reads

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

1 OpenAI’s new reasoning AI model is coming
The Strawberry model is reportedly planned for release within a fortnight. (The Information $)+ It’s an area of research that Google DeepMind is also invested in. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Another human has contracted bird flu in the US
And worryingly, they don’t seem to have been in direct contact with animals. (Vox)
+ How worried should we be, really? (The Atlantic $)
+ What’s next for bird flu vaccines. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A US legal advisor coalition wants warning labels for social media 
The 42-strong attorney general group is urging Congress to take action. (WP $)
+ Australia is planning to introduce a minimum age limit for social media use. (BBC)
+ Should social media come with a health warning? (MIT Technology Review)

4 How 9/11 changed the internet
It shaped how we talk—and to some people’s distaste, joke—about national tragedies online. (Insider $)

5 Huawei has announced a triple-folding smartphone
The $2,800 Mate XT folds up like a pamphlet. (FT $)
+ If you want more memory, its price tag rises to an eye-watering $3,300. (Reuters)

6 Caroline Ellison is likely to receive a sentence soon
The key FTX case witness has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges.(NY Mag $)
+ She’s seeking no prison time as a result of her cooperation in the trial. (Boston Globe $)

7 Satellites are at risk from “killer electrons”
Luckily, a secretive radio wave method could help safeguard them. (Economist $)

8 Researchers have created a cloud atlas of Mars
While some formations are similar to Earth’s, others are completely different. (New Scientist $)

9 Kamala Harris supporters are using Trump’s weirdest quotes against him
A new platform catalogs all of his strangest missives in real time. (Fast Company $)

10 The British are coming! 🇬🇧
Britishcore is the latest tongue-in-cheek trend to grab Gen Z’s attention. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field and so do I.”

—Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, explains the rationale behind his government’s plans to restrict social media access for teenagers and children, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?

December 2022

In the fall of 2020, gig workers in Venezuela posted a series of images to online forums where they talk shop. The photos were mundane, if sometimes intimate, household scenes—including a particularly revealing shot of a young woman in a lavender T-shirt sitting on the toilet, her shorts pulled down to mid-thigh.

The images were not taken by a person, but by development versions of iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum. They were then sent to Scale AI, a startup that contracts workers around the world to label data used to train artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, MIT Technology Review obtained 15 screenshots of these private photos, which had been posted to closed social media groups. The images speak to the growing practice of sharing potentially sensitive data to train algorithms. They also reveal a whole data supply chain—and new points where personal information could leak out—that few consumers are even aware of. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ What do astronauts and deep sea divers have in common? Their training is surprisingly similar.
+ Eggs, eggs eggs—who doesn’t love eggs? 🍳
+ Better gut health is something we should all be aiming for. Here’s where to start.
+ Single women of TikTok, we salute you.

Correction: The piece has been updated to remove a reference to Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot, which was never completed.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 12 2024
Charts: Consumer Trust in Companies, Employers

Consumers are more skeptical than executives realize. That’s according to PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey and report titled “How to earn customer trust in your sector.” PwC surveyed 548 business executives, 2,515 consumers, and 2,039 employees in the United States across various industries.

The data reveals an opportunity for companies to strengthen trust with key stakeholders. Per the report, businesses that assess their trust levels among employees, consumers, investors, and other stakeholders can gain a significant advantage over competitors.

The trust gap is growing because the number of executives who believe they are highly trusted is increasing more quickly than consumer confidence in these industries.

–

Employees emphasize that data protection is essential for gaining their trust. They rank it as “highly important,” along with fair compensation, respectful treatment, ethical conduct, and executives who actively listen.

–

In addition, when employees feel a strong sense of trust, over half (52%) report putting in extra effort at work, positively affecting daily operations. Trust also plays a role in attracting talent, as 60% of employees say they have recommended their employer to friends and family.

–

Moreover, the data shows that consumer markets and industrial product sectors have the biggest trust gap between executives and employees.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 11 2024
New WordPress Plugin Simplifies Achieving Success via @sejournal, @martinibuster

The co-founders of Yoast have launched a plugin that helps users plan tasks, defeat procrastination, and remove distractions, making it easier to achieve success. This plugin simplifies managing critical tasks like maintaining website health, publishing posts, and updating content.

Why This Plugin Helps Users Become Successful

A reason why some websites fail to achieve all that they are capable of is momentum and consistent output. Creators to have a plan that is rigorously followed generally experience more success in search. Winning is fun but getting there is not always fun.

Immediate rewards are a powerful motivator for success. This new plugin makes achievement feel instantly gratifying, which is why it deserves serious consideration.

Clarity, Focus And Achievements

Working at home as a solopreneur or with remote workers can be challenging because there are so many distractions. People are generally task oriented but not necessarily hard-wired to follow a mental list of things to do. It’s easier when someone tells you what to do but the reality is that we have to take charge and tell ourselves what to do in order to achieve great things.

That’s the brilliant thing about the new Progress Planner plugin, it allows users to create a road map to success within the context of the WordPress site itself, embedded within the environment the user is working in.

One of the ingenious features of Progress Planner is that it gamifies task completion with badges that remind users of how much they’ve achieved, subtly encouraging them to continue completing tasks. It’s literally rewarding the brain with feedback on completion of a task, a mental pat on the back.

The Progress Planner website describes the tool like this:

“It simplifies website management by providing a clear overview of your tasks, tracking your progress, and keeping you motivated.”

Money’s a nice motivator but immediate positive feedback is a powerful motivator for progressing from achievement to achievement.

Progress Planner Beta

The plugin is currently in Beta, which is one step ahead of the Alpha stage where bugs are worked out. This means that the plugin has full functionality but is still collecting feedback from users. Nevertheless, Progress Planner is ready for use right now and the official launch date is set for October 3, 2024.

The plugin is 100% free to use and a pro version is planned for sometime in the future that will add even more features.

Progress Planner, by the co-founders of Yoast, is available right now from the official WordPress Plugin Repository and also in the plugin dashboard in the WordPress admin.

Read more and download the plugin: Progress Planner Plugin At WordPress.org

Visit the Progress Planner Website: Progress Planner

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments