Being Signal Amidst the Noise - Rand Fishkin, Moz
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Transcript of Being Signal Amidst the Noise - Rand Fishkin, Moz
04/15/20231
bit.ly/randsignalGet the presentation:
5 Minutes
OnlineOnline
Let’s see what’s going
on…
Sounds fun, but no time
Meh. Don’t need it.
I know I should read this…
Meh.
Saw that earlier.
Yeah, yeah. Not causation blah blah.
Meh.
Maybe later.
Meh.
Thanks Richard!
I should check these, but…
Cool.
Older post. I can probably skip.
At some point, I need to read through
these…
Ad. Ignore.
Why are there so many @#$%!
kinds of notifications!?
283? I’m never going to have time for this…
Whoa. I should really comment on this, and maybe send my
friends an email to say congrats.
@#$%! Assholes are trying to ruin the gender-balance progress we’ve
been making as an industry.
Whoa! Friends are having babies! I should really drop them a line…
Meh.
Meh.
Meh.
Meh.
I might read this one…
The rest of these… Meh.
This sounds interesting.
Ugh. Email’s overloaded again.
Actually, that only took me
4 Minutes4 Minutes
More People Online
Spending More Time
Clicking More Stuff+ +
=Easier to Get Web Traffic!
More People Online
Spending More Time
Clicking More Stuff+ +
=Easier to Get Web Traffic!x
Harder
The Law of Shitty Clickthrough Rates
Via Andrew Chen’s Blog
Part of brain that pays attention
Internet
Via Has Technology Changed Us
Research into brain plasticity suggests that screen engagement is literally rewiring our minds
This Leaves Marketers in a Scary Predicament
Why isn’t anyone paying attention to
me?!
Stand out from the crowd
Or Become the Noise Everyone’s Trying to Filter
Hello?
Strategies to BecomeSignal Amidst the Noise5
Pursue Less Accessible Opportunities
#1
Everyone is Chasing the Same Keywords
AdWords Hiding Data Spells Opportunity for Those Who Broaden their Keyword Sets
AdWords Hiding Data Spells Opportunity for Those Who Broaden their Keyword Sets
Clearly, they have search volume…
UberSuggest & KeywordTool.ioare Used by Many Folks
Google Suggest + Wildcards Are Rarely Used
Related Searches Are Also Underutilized
As is Google Correlate
Manually Extracting Topics, Interests, and Language from Online Discussions Is Hardest (and least pursued) of All
Top Influencers AttractEveryone’s Attention
But these folks have massively busy streams,
often teeming with “outreach attempts”
Perhaps, we could look at who influences them…
Or sort our influencers
by more useful metrics
Or scroll further down the list to
find those who’d be more
receptive
Marketers Are Told to Pursue Channels & Tactics that Scale
Via the GrooveHQ Blog
Which means the tactics that don’t scale stand out from the crowd
A personal email from the CEO/founder to
every single new customer?
This is not a man, but rather, a machine intelligence, simulating a human, sent to show us all what
incredible participation on a social network looks like.
My non-scalable activity is to answer almost every request I get – to meet, to answer questions, to do
an interview – doing that for a decade has built some hard-to-replicate goodwill connections.
Invest in Formats that Others Avoid
#2
The Easier Content is to Create;The Harder it is to Stand Out
Blog Post
Tweet
Useful Guide Interactive Tool
Guest Contributionfor a Notable
Publisher
Photo
Mobile App
Video Custom Illustration
Physical Product
Successful,scalable community
Easier Harder
The Fastest Growing Social Platforms Are
Based on Visuals:
Via Global Web Index
Visuals are often perceived as more trustworthy and accurate than text alone.
Chart from NYMag’s Science of Us, Data from Prof. Brendan Nyhan
Unfortunately, A Lot of Marketing Investments in Visuals… Well… Suck.
“Stockneric”
“Borporate”
“Illedgfographic”
If You Can Stand Out Amidst this Crowd, Amplification is Far Easier to Achieve
Data from Stone Temple Consulting’s Dec. 2014 Twitter Engagement Study
Weirdly, Authentic & Amateur seems to often outperform Polished
& Professional
Via T-Shaped Web Marketer and Why SEOs Need to Care About Correlation
The Less Directly a Tactic Leads to Sales, the Less the Competition
Most Marketers and Sites Focus
on Optimizing for Conversion
Get More and More
People Through
These Steps
And Get
Paid
$$
But Investments in Education and Entertainment are Often Less Crowded
Overrun with ads; hypercompetitive
No ads; plenty room for new players
Playing Games
BrowsingSocial
Reading News
Engaging in Discussions
Following Influencers
If you get to know your audience well enough, you’ll know what they
do before they ever reach the funnel
ResearchIf You Don’t Know…
Via Growing Your Audience w/ Random Affinities
Via Use Customer Surveys to Define Your Content Marketing Efforts
Ask
Adopt Early, While Competitors Delay
#3
Facebook’s Ads Are Finally Reaching Saturation
But These Platforms Aren’t (Yet)
Via Instagram Starts Letting Ads Be Clickable
See A Pinteresting New PPC Platform
Excellent article from AJ Kohn on using StumbleUpon + Remarketing with Great Results
See Native or Not, Gum Gum’s In-Image Ads Work, and That’s What Matters
See The Advertiser’s Guide to Surviving Reddit
Mobile-Friendly is Table Stakes,But Mobile-First is Still in Infancy
Via Benefits of a Mobile-First Design Strategy
Tinder is one of the most powerful examples of a mobile-first design success.
CNN has recently been experimenting with mobile-first content formats that create unique, engaging experiences around content.
Target Keywords, Sites, & Influencers BEFORE they Become Popular
As an early Niice supporter, Mailchimp got a sweet ad deal to a great audience
When stories like this becomes popular, keyword demand skyrockets, and fresher content has a better chance to rank.
Pay Attention to Correlation as Well as Causal Inputs
#4
In Social Media, Correlation Data is Well-Accepted
Via Stone Temple’s Study of 4M+ Tweets
e.g. Social Shares are Poorly Correlated w/ Content Engagement
Via What You Think You Know About the Web Is Wrong (from Chartbeat)
e.g. Facebook Likes of Movie Pages Are Well-Correlated to Box Office Returns
Via CitizenNet
Via Experience the Blog
Little Correlation Between Facebook Activity and Stock
Performance
We Use Correlation Data Intelligently in CRO
Via Wordstream & KISS Metrics
And In Advertising
Via Comscore & MarketingLand
But, For Some Reason, When We Observe Correlations in SEO….
Via SearchMetrics Google UK Correlations
Everyone Loses Their Minds
Via Northcutt Blog
When You Hear This:
“Just because you implement schema.org doesn’t necessarily mean you should rank higher.”
Via Does Use of Schema.org Markup Create a Ranking Benefit
Think This:
“Schema might boost your rankings, because CTR, which is improved by schema, can directly or indirectly affects rankings.”
Via Does Use of Schema.org Markup Create a Ranking Benefit
Then Consider Analyzing the Data:
Via Schema Analysis in SERPs from SearchMetrics
Correlation doesn’t tell us why a site/page ranks higher than another.
Correlation tells us what features & metrics sites/pages that rank higher have that lower ranking sites/pages don’t have..
More in this post: Why SEOs Need to Care About Correlation
I want to know what top ranking sites are doing differently than lower ranking sites, even if it’s not a directly causal input to Google’s algorithm!
More in this post: Why SEOs Need to Care About Correlation
Invest in the Hardest Tactic to Measure: Brand
#5
Via Microsoft Research’s Domain Bias in Web Search
Web Searchers Are Strongly Biased by Brands
Searchers clicked WebMD 25%+ more often, even when it was given a less relevant snippet
Via Queries & Clicks Can Influence Google’s Results
Given that Queries & Clicks Can Influence Rankings…
A few hundred clicks moved this result from #7 to #1 in under 3 hours.
And that Topical Domain Authority is Such a Powerful Influencer of Rankings:
Via Cognitive SEO’s Panda 4.0 Analysis
Via SEER Interactive’s Post on Offline Advertising Influencing Organic Search
In the Future, Brand Advertising May Be a Part of How SEO Campaigns Are Done:
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/digital-advertising-offline-media-your-business-tag-team-champs/
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