How to Build Links Using Expired Domains

Image Credit: Travis Isaacs/Flickr

Many people have had great success snapping up expired domains and using those sites for link building purposes. One of the main reasons for this was that it saved work, as you could grab a site that already had content and backlinks and at least a baseline established presence.

However, after the past year with all the Google changes that make link building trickier than ever, this process is no longer as easy and safe as it once was, but it can still be valuable if you think about what you're doing and don't just buy every domain that has your desired keyword in it then hastily 301 redirect it to your own site or trash the content with links to your main site, expecting miracles.

Affiliate marketers are also fond of expired domains to use for their work so while we won't go into detail on that, we will cover some topics that are relevant for that specific use.

How to Find Dropped/Expired/Expiring Domains?

Domain Tools is one of the main places that I check but there are many sites that list expired or about-to-expire domains that are up for grabs. Network Solutions has custom email alerts where you can put in a keyword and get an email when domains matching that are expiring so that's a nice option for those of you who like a more passive approach.



Snap Names is also good, as is Drop Day. You may find that there are certain sites that are best for your purposes (whether it's keeping an eye on ones you want or getting ones that just expired) so look around and figure out what best suits you.

Want a domain that's at least 9 years old and has a listing in DMOZ? Domain Tools is where I'd go for that, for example:



Of course if you come across a domain that you like and it's not set to expire any time soon, there's nothing wrong with emailing the owner and asking to buy it.

How to Vet Expired Domains

• Check to see what domains 301 redirect to them. I use Link Research Tools for this as you can run a backlink report on the domain in question and see the redirects. If you find a domain that has 50 spammy 301s pointing to it, it may be more trouble that it's worth. Preventing a 301 from coming through when you don't control the site that redirects is almost impossible. You can block this on the server level but that won't help you with your site receiving bad link karma from Google. In that case, you may have to disavow those domains.
• Check their backlinks using your link tool of choice. Is the profile full of nothing but spam that will take ages to clean up or will you have to spend time disavowing the links? If so, do you really want to bother with it? If you want to buy the domain to use for a 301 redirect and it's full of spammy links, at least wait until you've cleared that all up before you 301 it.
• Check to see if they were ever anything questionable using the Wayback Machine. If the site simply wasn't well done 2 years ago, that's not nearly as big of a problem as if you're going to be using the site for educating people about the dangers of lead and it used to be a site that sold Viagra.
• Check to see if the brand has a bad reputation. Do some digging upfront so you can save time disassociating yourself from something bad later. You know how sometimes you get a resume from a person and you ask an employee if they know this Susan who also used to work at the same place that your current employee worked years ago and your employee says "oh yes I remember her. She tried to burn the building down once"? Well, Susan might try to burn your building down, too.
• Check to see if they were part of a link network. See what other sites were owned by the same person and check them out too.
• Check to see if they have an existing audience. Is there an attached forum with active members, are there people generally commenting on posts and socializing them, etc.?

How Should You Use Expired Domains?

Many people 301 redirect these domains to their main sites or secondary sites in order to give them a boost. Others turn them into part of their legitimate online arsenal and use them as a proper standalone resource.

Some people add them to their existing blog network and interlink them. Some people keep them and use them to sell links. Some people keep them and try to resell them. Some people use them to try their hand at affiliate marketing.
However that's talking about how people use them, not about how they should use them, but how you should use them is up to you.

I once worked with an account where we used tons of microsites. They were standalone sites that each linked to the main brand site and we built links to them. It worked for a while (and still works for many people according to what I see in forums) but as far as I can tell, most of those microsites are no longer in Google's index or no longer contain live links to the brand site. That's because in that case, it stopped working and became more of a danger than anything else. They served no purpose at all other than to host a link to the brand site, and since they gained no authority, it just wasn't worth the trouble of keeping them up.

I've also dealt with someone who successfully bought expired domains and redirected them to subdomains on his main site in order to split it up into a few niche subdomains. He didn't overdo it, and each expired domain had a good history with content relevant to what the subdomain was, so it all worked very well.

As mentioned early on, affiliate marketers also use expired domains. One big benefit of this is that if you plan to just use PPC for affiliate marketing, you don't have to be as concerned about the backlink profile of the domain as you might not care that much about its organic rankings.

Some Good Signs of Expired Domains

Some of these probably depend upon the purpose you have in mind, but here are a few things I like to see on an expired or expiring domain but please keep in mind that these aren't discrete defining features of a quality domain; they are simply a couple of signs that the domain might be a good one to use:

• Authority links that will pass through some link benefits via a 301 redirect (if I'm going that route.)
• An existing audience of people who regularly contribute, comment, and socialize the site's content (if I'm going to use it as a standalone site.) If I'm looking to buy a forum, for example, I'd want to make sure that there are contributing members with something to offer already there. If I want a site that I will be maintaining and adding to and plan to build it out further, seeing that there's an audience of people reading the content, commenting on it, and socializing it would make me very happy.
• A decent (and legitimate) Toolbar PageRank (TBPR) that is in line with where I think it should be. If I see a site that is 7 months old and has a TBPR of 6, I'll obviously be suspicious, and if I found one that was 9 years old and was a TBPR 1, I would hestitate before using it, for example. I also have to admit that while I don't rely on TBPR as a defining metric of quality, I'd be crazy to pretend that it means nothing so it's definitely something I look at.
• A domain age of at least 2 years if I was going to do anything other than hold it and try to resell it.
• Internal pages that have TBPR. If there are 5000 pages and only the homepage has any TBPR, I'd be a bit suspicious about why no internal pages had anything.

A Few Red Flags of Expired Domains

• Suspicious TBPR as mentioned above.
• The domain isn't indexed in Google. Even if you look at a recently expired site and see it has a TBPR of 4 with good Majestic flow metrics, is 5 years old, and has been updated in some way until it expired (whether through new blog posts, comments, social shares, etc.), it's safe to ssume it's not indexed for a good reason and you probably want to stay away from it.
• Backlink profile is full of nothing but spam.
• All comments on the site's posts are spammy ones and trackbacks.

Bottom Line: Is Using Expired Domains a Good Idea?

As with almost anything in SEO right now, some tactics aren't really great ideas for the long-term but since they work for the short-term, people still use them. Some tactics that won't work in one niche will still work well in certain other niches and some sites seem to be able to weather just about any algorithmic change in Google.

That's why it's hard to say that you shouldn't do this, or you should do that, because every case is different, every webmaster/site owner has a different idea about risk, and a lot of people have made a lot of money off doing things that I personally wouldn't do.

I don't have time to keep up the blogging on my own site so I would never expect that I could keep it up on five sites, each devoted to a specific area of my industry, but with the right manpower and the right people, this can be a successful strategy for many.

If you plan to use them for affiliate marketing and you're going to use PPC for that, you don't have to worry about some of the things that you would have to be concerned with if you planned to rank well.

In the end, it depends on what you want to do, how much time and effort you have to put into doing well, and how much risk you can handle, just like everything else.

Original Article Post by Julie Joyce @ Search Engine Watch

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Top Search Result = Poor Ad CTR [Study]

Advertising network Chitika released a study today that showed how ad click-through rates on a website vary when users come to that website from Position 1 in the organic search results versus other positions. Data showed the highest CTR on ads in a website occured when users found the site from Position 10 in the SERPs.



As a follow up to Chitika's study last summer that showed how rankings yielded traffic, Chitika said this is a stark contrast in terms of ad performance.

"What is clear from the data set is that although the first position of a Google search result drives the most search traffic, an average visitor coming from that link is the least likely to convert into an ad click," according to Chitika.

Chitika said the reason why Position 10 might be driving the most ad CTR on a site could be due to unsatisfactory results.

"When a user scrolls down and clicks on a link at Position 10, it is more likely that they have not found what they were looking for, increasing the probability of that person clicking on an ad related to their search query," Chitika said.

Chitika said that marketers shouldn't necessarily be vying for 10th position on every keyword, but that in terms of driving ad revenue, it's not a bad place to be overall.



"On a popular search term, 2.4 percent of potential visitors still represents a sizable audience, and by being the number 10 result, it's likely a site will see higher ad revenues," Chitika said in its report. "However, for lower volume or specialized search terms, ranking as high as possible will help in attracting the largest audience, since the proverbial 'pie' of users on those terms is already fairly small, along with the potential revenue impact of higher visitor CTRs."

So what's a marketer to do with this data? Cristian Potter, a data solutions engineer at Chitika, said it's important to note that this report examines aggregate traffic trends, and may not apply to groups of sites.

"Hitting the sweet spot requires some analysis of an individual site's traffic, for example, understanding how users are finding the site, and how certain campaigns have impacted actions undertaken by users on the site itself," Potter said. He added that this research can serve as a "as a point of reference in plotting metrics and key performance indicators."

While the data seemed to show an interesting relationship, sites that go after ad revenue have a seemingly delicate balance of providing a great user experience and making money. Not having the most relevant content (Position 10 versus Position 1) and subsequently driving users away through an ad doesn't seem like a great idea, either.

Potter agreed.
"User experience is always a key consideration when it comes to deciding on the number and placement of ad units," Potter said. "This also ties in with expected CPM on each ad unit - it should be worth the site's while to place an ad in a prime position. However, this study was solely behavior focused. The characteristics of the one or more ad units on each site within the sample will have varied considerably."

For more on Chitika's latest research, go here.

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Google Fixes Webmaster Tools Bug, Missing Search Query Data to Return

When Google turned on secure search last Monday, it meant webmasters were seeing nearly all their keyword referral data as "(not provided)". The best workaround to get organic search data was to access similar keyword data under Search Queries within the Search Traffic section of Google Webmaster Tools.

However, once the secure search switch was flipped, that keyword data stopped being updated or provided in Google Webmaster Tools. Well, webmasters can breathe a sigh of relief, as the missing keyword data in Google Webmaster Tools was simply a bug, Google has confirmed.

"We've recently fixed a small bug related to data reporting in Webmaster Tools. We expect reporting to return to normal in the coming days," a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Watch.

This is great news, as currently Webmaster Tools is the only way to get actual data from Google regarding the keywords that searchers are using when they land on your website. It's great that this source of keyword information will be staying around despite the secure search change.

Just yesterday, no search query data appeared in Google Webmaster Tools beyond Sept. 23. Now keyword data is available through September 25.

Original Article Post by Jennifer Slegg @ Search Engine Watch

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Riding the Motivation Wave in Search Engine Marketing

Image Credit: HaPe_Gera/Flickr

Every couple of months I get the urge to meditate. Like, to free myself once and for all from the illusion of separation and fully realize my oneness with all creation.

Or maybe just to feel virtuous and spiritual.

Or to help me avoid distractions so I can focus on important tasks, like writing this article – ooh, a squirrel!

The reasons vary, but one thing has remained constant for many years: I have never maintained a meditation habit. I've started them plenty of times, whenever my motivation reaches a critical mass.

Out come the cushion, timer, candle, and lighter. I wake up 30 minutes early and stumble down to where I've set up for sitting.

I power through for a few days, willing myself not to crack open an eye to check the timer when I'm sure I've been sitting for 45 minutes and the timer's broken (it never is, and I've usually been sitting for less than 7 minutes when I first get the urge).

And after not achieving a cosmic state of realization in all that time, I eventually let go of the practice and sleep in.

For years I assumed I was just weak. Weak-willed. Weak-backed. Weak-intentioned. But then I stumbled upon the behavioral theories of Stanford researcher B.J. Fogg, whose work gives me a much more empowering and practical diagnosis.

I've been squandering the peak of the motivation wave on willpower, rather than structuring my future or building my skills.

To explain what this means, let's move from meditation to search marketing.

Search = A Motivational Peak

We engage in a behavior when we're sufficiently motivated and capable, and when something triggers us to do it, according to Fogg's behavioral model. Of the three elements (motivation, ability, and trigger), motivation is the most fragile and unstable.

The act of searching Google is indicative of a motivational peak in the searcher. You may have had a vague interest in learning how to play classical guitar for years, but you haven't searched for a guitar, a teacher, an instructional YouTube video, or a book yet, have you?

Then one day you find yourself on Google, looking for local teachers. What happened?

For some reason, you experienced a surge of motivation for that behavior (playing the guitar). There was a search trigger (perhaps a piece you heard on the radio, a guitarist in the subway, or a dream in which you were receiving the Nobel Prize for Music) that either occurred at precisely the time that your motivation was peaking, or that itself contributed to the peak.

Because the motivational peak is such an ephemeral occurrence (when you think about it, most of us don't spend a ton of time super jazzed about our new behaviors and habits that we haven't developed yet), we must use it wisely.
And as marketers, when prospects come to us via search marketing, thereby signaling their temporary motivational spike, we must shepherd them wisely as well.

The Motivation/Ability Tradeoff

One of Fogg's key insights is that there can be a tradeoff between motivation and ability. The more motivation, the harder we're willing to work. When I'm super excited about the benefits of meditation (or running, or yoga, or whatever else), I'll put in long hours and withstand high degrees of discomfort.

When I'm rather unmotivated, I do only the easy things. A minute of deep breathing every hour. A short walk around the block. Five minutes of sun salutation.

As marketers, we want to take full advantage of our prospects' temporary motivation highs, to get them to take actions that they wouldn't ordinarily take.
That's pretty obvious, even if you haven't studied motivational theory. When someone's hot for what you got, show them the buy button and ask for the money.

But for many businesses (and all lead-generation business models), the sale is some time in the future. So how to harness high motivation now to make that sale more likely or to make it come sooner?

The Biggest Motivation Mistake

The biggest online mistake I see is assuming that the prospect's motivation is insufficient. Too many web pages try to amp up the motivation, piling benefit upon benefit, fear upon fear, judgment upon judgment, until the prospect simply can't live with such a huge gap between current reality and desired future.

This tendency is a legacy from the direct mail era, when marketers mailed millions of letters to people who didn't ask for them, didn't want them, and probably wouldn't read them.

In that scenario, the third stage of the AIDA process, desire, was absolutely necessary to make sales.

In the world of active search, it's much more efficient to utilize whatever level of motivation already exists in the prospect and get them to take an immediate action commensurate with that motivation.

The Right Ways to Use High Motivation

Fogg suggests that motivational peaks are best exploited by getting the person (whether yourself or someone else) to take the most difficult action they can take at that moment that either structures the future or increases their ability.

1. Structure the Future

By structuring the future, Fogg means creating an environment in which it's easier to perform the desired behavior or in which there are clearer, more intense, and more frequent triggers for the behavior.

If you want your prospect to hire your accounting firm, you can make it easier by sharing a list of existing clients, along with their testimonials. Risk reduction makes new behaviors easier to perform.

Increasing triggers might involve an email series that gives prospects ways of evaluating the performance of their current accountant. Each day might include a suggested quick, simple diagnostic that may point out gaps in the current accountant's performance.

2. Increase their Ability

The other that's hard for most of us is self-improvement. Most of us tend not to try to get better at things unless we're in the grip of a motivational wave. Because getting better means attempting actions outside of our comfort and competence zones.

But a motivated prospect is often willing, for a brief, precious time, to stray outside their comfort zone. The question we should be asking as marketers is, "What new capability or knowledge would make this person a more qualified prospect?"

If I'm selling neurofeedback software to improve athletic performance, for example, I may need my prospect to understand some pretty complex science about the relationship between heart rate variability, physical stress, and training cycles.

In that case, I would want the prospect to watch a video or read a report that increased their knowledge in that area.

Marketers must take advantage of their prospect's motivational peaks to get the opt-in. Since those peaks are so short-lived and unstable, it's crucial that we be able to continue the conversation with our prospects and reconnect them to the surge of desire that allowed our paths to cross in the first place.

Back to the Cushion

Now that I understand how to harness a motivational peak, I'll market meditation quite differently to myself the next time I'm high on chasing nirvana.

Rather than jump into a hard activity that I can only sustain when I'm highly motivated, I'll use the spike in enthusiasm to develop the habit of daily meditation. Like, 30 seconds every morning. Without fail, and without excuse.

It doesn't matter how unmotivated I am, I can sit still and breathe consciously for 30 seconds.

In that way, I'm structuring my future in a completely new way. And when it's time for 30 seconds to turn into a minute, or two, or five, or 20, or 3 hours, it will happen naturally and easily.

Remember that our prospects already want the benefits of what we're selling. All we need to do is show them the easy way to get there.

Original Article Post by Howard Jacobson @ Search Engine Watch

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Google '(Not Provided)' Keywords: 10 Ways to Get Organic Search Data

 
SEO professionals have been dealing with the "(not provided)" issue in Google Analytics for a while. Despite initial claims by Google that it would only affect a small percentage of overall analytics data for organic search, the reality is some sites were seeing well over 50 percent "(not provided)", particularly in sectors like technology where there is a higher likelihood that a visitor would be logged into their Google account as well.

While not ideal, many websites still had a decent chunk of keyword data from Google organic search visitors that while it was annoying, it wasn't causing significant issues when it came to determining which keywords were the most important, converting the best, and had the highest ROI – as well as to determine where an SEO budget should be allocated.

All of this came to a crashing halt September 23. Google flipped a switch and made all Google searches secure, regardless of whether a searcher was logged into a Google account.

What does this mean? Suddenly, organic analytical data is nonexistent for Google traffic, and many webmasters are seeing 95+ percent of keywords being reported as "(not provided)", with that remaining 5 percent coming from non-Google searches.

What is Secure Search & Why Did Google Implement it?

 
What exactly does it mean when Google searches are secure? When a user goes to Google to search, they are automatically redirected to the https:// version of their Google domain of choice.

When someone conducts a search on Google, it is now always done as an SSL encrypted search, so all search queries are now encrypted. It routes the click to the website through a redirect so that the website a user lands on has no idea what actual keywords the searcher found the website under, and what keywords were used that brought the person there.

This is great from a privacy perspective, and is why Google is making the change. However, only natural search clicks are affected; Google AdWords advertisers still have full access to the keywords on every ad click made on their ads.

There has been plenty of speculation, running wildly from "the NSA told them to" to "they did it to force people to buy more AdWords ads!" Tin foil hats aside, neither of those options make a good case for why Google made the secure search change.

First, Google has been making major steps to protect everyone's privacy, to prevent eavesdropping from government agencies throughout the world. Google has filed an amended petition in the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for greater transparency.

As for Google doing it for more ad revenue, when a business or website dominates natural search results for their chosen keywords, unless it's for branding or market saturation, they don't tend to dump a ton of money into AdWords as well. With the "(not provided)" change, I could see some businesses using AdWords to test new keyword market areas, but not as a huge budget for strictly keyword collection.

There is a possibility that after some time has elapsed, that Google might release a new "premium" version of Google Analytics where users would pay a monthly fee in order to get access to full keyword data from natural search referrals. As a public company always looking for new revenue streams, this would definitely be a way for Google to do it, and many SEO professionals would definitely pay the fee while others would likely refuse on principle for data that used to be free.

How Does Secure Search Affect SEO?

From an SEO perspective, this means whenever a user lands on your site, you have absolutely no idea what the person was looking for when they landed there or if they found it. And if your customers placing orders, you have no idea which organic keywords are converting into sales, because you can't track that from Google referrals anymore.

It also means that there is a high bounce rate for a page, aside from doing some landing page optimization, you can't make any adjustments since you not know precisely what the user was looking for when they got to your page in the first place and seemingly didn't find.

You can't look at referring keywords to try and discover what they were looking for, and how you can change things so that the next user can actually find it. So the change is actually likely to result in a worse user experience for searchers from that perspective, since in the past many webmasters and SEO professionals made that adjustment so that their visitors could find what they were expecting.

Ever since Google made the change to use secure searches for those logged into their Google accounts, it was only a matter of time before the switch to where all searches were secure. This wasn't a huge surprise, although granted it was an unwelcome one, as many had been planning for the day "(not provided)" became a ~100 percent reality.

Replacing '(Not Provided)' Data

There are some workarounds you can use in order to capture that traffic. Here are some valuable ways you can look at replacing the data now that Google isn't providing it.

1. Learn from Avinash Kaushik

In 2011, Avinash Kaushik, one of the world's top analytics experts and an evangelist for Google, wrote a blog post "Smarter Data Analysis of Google's https (not provided) change: 5 steps" detailing the things marketers can do within their Google Analytics account when Google first turned on the search encryption for logged in users. It is for high level Google Analytics users, but he goes over it step by step, and is well worth the time setting it up.

2. Look at Non-Google Keywords

Look at your non-Google search engine referral traffic. While Bing doesn't send a significant portion of traffic for a site will looking at overall search, you still can get an idea of what keywords are bringing traffic, particularly for sites that have significant amount traffic. However, for smaller sites, this isn't ideal.

If you're in a country where Google doesn't dominate the search market, you will have the advantage.

3. Use Google Webmaster Tools

If you've gone this long without using Google Webmaster Tools, you will definitely want to sign up for it now. You can still get keyword data in Google Webmaster Tools, by clicking on Search Traffic > Search Queries, and yes, it does include search data from encrypted searches.

There are some filters, so you can drill down things like web versus mobile. It only goes back for a limited period of time, currently only 90 days.

You should make a point of going into your account every 30 days to save your data, as it can be downloaded in both CSV and Google Docs, so you do have access to it forever.

It also gives you impression versus click data, which is data Google never gave webmasters in Google Analytics, so it can help you see what keywords people are using where your site got an impression in the search results, but the user didn't pick your site for whatever reason.

Using Google Webmaster Tools is currently the only reliable and accurate way to get keywords from Google encrypted search.

4. Analyze On-Site Searches

You should capture all the on-site searches that visitors are doing on your site, so you can also get a better idea of exactly the keywords they are for. Crazy Egg has a detailed post on how to set up internal site search analytics.

5. Use Google AdWords

Using Google AdWords will still be useful, particularly if companies are trying to determine the value of either high traffic keywords, or keywords they suspect are the ones that are converting well and want to smart check it before they throw more budget into the organic SEO side for those keywords.

At this time advertisers still get full keyword referral data from Google, while there is speculation this could change sometime in the future, there is also the necessity for advertisers to be able to determine conversions from the traffic they are paying for.

Paying for AdWords doesn't get you any referral data for organic search keywords, even if a user clicks on an organic search result for your site when an ad for your site also appears.

6. Use Search Volume Tools

Particularly if you're looking to expand into new keyword areas, you can use the Google Ad Planner to determine search volume and estimated clicks (on ads) for particular keywords.

7. Use Filters to Segment '(Not Provided)' Data

Seeing that you have a 97 percent "(not provided)" rate isn't very useful for webmasters. But you can turn that data into something a bit more meaningful and helpful.

You can set up filters for all your "(not provided)" traffic so that it shows you the landing page for each of those "(not provided)" referrals. So even though you might not know the exact keyword that's bringing in the traffic, you can instead filter it so that you have a bit better idea of what the user was searching for when they landed on the page.

While not ideal, it does give more analytical data back to the webmaster. Econsultancy has a detailed post on how to set up "(not provided)" filters for landing pages in "How to steal some ‘not provided' data back from Google".

8. Look at Historical Data

You will still have all your historical data for keywords prior to the SSL switch to Google. While you won't have access to the new data, your old data is still going to be valuable, especially for so-called "evergreen" data that has been performing well consistently for a long period of time.

You can also use your historical data to look at seasonal content, such as seeing what keywords and content performed well over Christmas 2012 and apply that to the potential keywords and content for the same period this year.

9. Use Google Trends

Using real-time Google Analytics has been a great way to be able to spot content on the site that is trending with referrals from Google search. But without the keyword data, you'll be stuck kind of guessing at the potential keywords that are bringing in people to a page on your site.

Sometimes guestimating can work if you have a suspicion as to why people are landing on a specific page on your site. Other times, however, the page can cover enough keywords or be generic enough that you'll struggle to figure out which keywords are causing your traffic spike.

If you do notice a huge spike in traffic and you suspect it could be something newsworthy or trendy, but the majority is "(not provided)", checking Google Trends can possibly give you an idea on what exactly it is that is trending that is bring you traffic. While this isn't as easy as it used to be, it can help you if you're struggling to figure out what specifically is bringing in large amounts traffic and why.

10. Additional Ways to Capture Keyword Data

SEOORB has collected a list of 11 actionable posts on other ways you can try to determine some of the keyword data that is missing with the new SSL change.

The Future?

Whether we like it or not, Google's encrypted search is here to stay. Complaining to Google about how unfair it is won't make them change their stance because this was a security decision.

Now that Google has made the change to secure search, I wouldn't be all that surprised if other search engines, such as Bing, also make a switch to encrypted search as well, meaning that small percentage of keyword data you are still getting from search engines will be reduced even further.

The abilities and role of an SEO have been changed dramatically. It will never be as easy to get the organic search data as it has been up to this point, with the possible exception of Google making a paid version of Google Analytics that does contain that missing (not provided) data.

It will be the SEO professionals who are able to adjust and compensate for the missing data who will win the rankings game in the end.

 Learn More: Keyword Data, Secure Search & "(not provided)"

• Google Webmaster Tools Search Query Data is Accurate (and Valuable)
• 5 Ways to Create Productive B2B SEO Benchmarks in a 'Not Provided' World
• 5 Tips for Handling (Not Provided) Data
• How to Understand Your Google “Not Provided” Traffic
• Google Encrypted Search: 9 Key Points B2B Marketers Need to Know

Image Credit: AT Internet Blog

Original Article Post by Jennifer Slegg @ Search Engine Watch

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YouTube's New Comment System: 7 Things Video Marketers Should Do

 
YouTube has announced that better commenting is coming. In a post on YouTube's Official Blog, Nundu Janakiram, Product Manager, and Yonatan Zunger, Principal Engineer, said:

Starting this week, you'll see the new YouTube comments powered by Google+ on your channel discussion tab. This update will come to comments on all videos later this year, as we bring you more ways to connect with familiar faces on YouTube.

They added a couple of interesting details:

• You'll see posts at the top of the list from the video's creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles.
• You can choose to start a conversation so that it is seen by everyone on YouTube and Google+, only people in your Circles, or just your "bestie" (a best friend). Like Gmail, replies will be threaded so you can easily follow conversations.
• You'll have new tools to review comments before they're posted, block certain words or save time by auto-approving comments from certain fans. These can help you spend less time moderating, and more time sharing videos and connecting with your fans.

This is a significant development.

Lee Bell, a reporter for The Inquirer, said, "The change means that commenters won't be able to leave anonymous remarks any longer, as you'll have to be signed in to Google+ in order to comment."

Steve Cooper, a contributor at Forbes, said, "What's particularly interesting about the new system is how it will combat ‘trolls,' as in those nasty commenters who drag the conversation into the gutter without offering up any insight or value."

Carla Marshall, the Managing Editor of ReelSEO, said, "Account holders are being given the facility to ban commenters who consistently leave negative remarks as well as filter out comments that contain certain trigger words."

And Amanda Marcotte, a journalist who writes for Slate Magazine, said, "Clearly, the whole world is out to get the angry dude. If he can't cause ordinary people to accidentally glance at the comments on a video and then look away in disgust, what does he have left?"

So, now that better commenting is coming to YouTube, what should marketers do?

1. Seize the Opportunity

B2B and B2C marketers for both large and small businesses should seize the opportunity! This will transform YouTube from an anti-social into a social medium. In fact, it will turn YouTube into the second largest social medium in the U.S., behind only Facebook.

According to Compete PRO data for August 2013:

• 163.4 million American adults visited facebook.com
• 162.5 million American adults visited youtube.com
• 59.3 million visited blogspot.com
• 41.2 million visited linkedin.com
• 34.1 million visited twitter.com
• 33.2 million visited wordpress.com
• 33.1 million visited plus.google.com
• 29.6 million visited pinterest.com
• 25.6 million visited instagram.com
• 23.5 million visited tumblr.com

So, if your social media marketing campaigns didn't include YouTube before, then they should now. YouTube gets 4.8 times more unique visitors a month than Twitter and 6.3 times more unique visitors than Instagram, just to pick a couple of names out of the hat.

2. Enable Comments Now

If you have disabled commenting on your YouTube videos, then enable comments now. Here's how to do that:

1. Click the arrow next to the Upload button at the top of the page.
2. Select Video Manager.
3. Click the Edit button under the video you wish to edit.
4. Click Advanced Settings.
5. Adjust your preferences under "Comments", then Save changes.

And don't worry: You can still require approval for comments before they're posted. If you want to be able to do that, follow steps 1-4 in the instructions above. Then, under "Allow comments", select Approved. When somebody leaves a comment, you'll receive an email notification that directs you to a page where you can approve or remove the comment.

3. Enable Your Discussion Tab

If you have disabled commenting on your YouTube channel, then enable your Discussion tab now. If enabled, you can then select if channel comments need to be approved by you to display on your channel.

If the Discussion tab is enabled for your channel, other YouTube users can post comments on your channel. And don't worry: Since it's your channel, you have some tools to moderate the discussion.

To see your options, click the arrow in the upper right of a comment on your channel. You can:

• Remove deletes the comment from YouTube. If the comment has any replies, they will also be removed.
• Ban from channel blocks the user from posting comments on your channel. You can remove the user from the banned list later.

In addition, you can require approval for all new comments before they're posted to your channel. When someone comments, a blue banner will let you know. You can then review the comments to approve, delete, or flag them for abuse or spam. You can turn this on in your Channel Navigation settings.

There are also a couple of automated filters:

• Approved users and banned users. In your comments settings, you'll find a list of approved users and banned users. Approved users' comments will automatically be approved and shown. Banned users' comments will never be shown. You can add or remove individual users or Google+ Circles.
• Blacklist. In your comments settings, you can specify a comma separated list of words and phrases. Comments closely matching these terms will be held for your approval.
• Spam filtering. If someone leaves a comment that looks like spam, a yellow banner will let you know. You can then review these comments to either delete them or approve them if they're not actually spam.

4. Build Your Community

Build a genuine community around your channel and what it stands for.
People are drawn to online video because they can interact with the channel in ways that they can't with television. So, speak to your audience, and listen to what they say. If you actively engage with your audience through your channel, it will pay off in the long run. Your fans will become your social advocates and spread the word about your brand.

Here are some tips for building a community from the ground up:

• Develop relationships with top contributors.Think of each viewer as an individual. Respond to frequent commenters, and take a genuine interest in them.
  • Respond to comments in the first few hours after you publish a video. These first commenters are your loyal community members, so keep them engaged.
  • Your own comments on your uploaded videos get pinned to show up at the top of the comments section, prominently featuring your engagement with the fans.
• Recognize the contributions of individuals in the community. People love to be recognized; responding to first-time contributors is a way to encourage ongoing engagement. Consider recognizing your community through in-video shout-outs, or by offering other rewards like fan merchandise or exclusive content shared through unlisted videos.
• Create content about your community. Whenever possible, include your community in the video content itself. Shout them out by name, acknowledge that you're reading their comments, or even let viewers choose the direction of a special feature. Many creators find ways to work-in their fans, letting the whole community know how much they appreciate their viewership.
• Spur conversation. Create relevant content that generates conversation among your community. Ask for their opinions and feedback. Remember, good debates are a part of a healthy community; only remove / flag hateful comments targeted at an individual or group.

5. Set up a Google+ Page

If you haven't already created a Google+ page or profile to engage with fans and other YouTube creators, then set one up now. Google+ allows you to organize people into different "circles" to help tailor your engagement to a circle's specific interests. Engage your fans directly in Google Hangouts, and broadcast live Hangouts on your YouTube channel via Google+ Hangouts on Air.

If your channel represents you as an individual, and you personally manage the channel and plan to manage your Google+ presence on the same account, then a G+ profile is the way to go. However, marketers should link a Google+ page to their channel to access the features below:

• Better name: Change your channel name through Google+ or even add spaces and punctuation.
• YouTube Tab: Feature nine of your most recent public videos in a tab on your Google+ profile. The videos play on YouTube, and the tab links to your channel.
• Google-wide notifications of YouTube video uploads shared from a channel merged with Google+.
• Channel and video recommendations to your Google+ followers on YouTube.
• Recommendations to channel subscribers to follow your connected Google+ page.
• Improved YouTube comments on your channel's Discussion tab and the Watch page – when this feature arrives later this year.

6. Obsess on YouTube Analytics

YouTube Analytics is your channel's pulse. It helps uncover key channel insights based on real viewer data and the content they engage with most.

For example, you can use YouTube Analytics to learn which videos your audience interacts with most. This can help you craft more successful content and promotional strategies. You will want to examine the Likes & Dislikes, Comments, and Sharing Reports on standout videos to understand what type of content resonates best with your audience.

Then, here are some sample uses for these key reports:

• Determine how many Likes and Comments per View various videos generate to inform what types of content you should consider creating in the future.
• Read your community's thoughts on highly Commented videos and consider addressing, incorporating, or otherwise referencing them in future videos.
• Determine which videos your audience is most likely to share and increase the number of Shares via in-video calls-to-action.

7. Roll With the Punches

Comments can provide valuable feedback and additional information about your videos and your audience. Viewers will tell you what they like and don't like about your videos. But, better commenting features don't guarantee that you will always get plenty of positive comments. So, you'll still need to roll with the punches.

This means you need to have a bit of a thick skin – even if your informal corporate motto or slogan is "don't be evil." In fact, YouTube's Community Guidelines, which ask users to "respect the YouTube community," also go on to say, "We're not asking for the kind of respect reserved for nuns, the elderly, and brain surgeons."

So, even if YouTube's better commenting features miraculously manage to defeat all the spammers, haters and trolls later this year, YouTube will continue to encourage free speech and defend "everyone's right to express unpopular points of view."

That's why you still need to create content that is unique, compelling, and entertaining or informative. You also need to dedicate time to interact with your audience and develop relationships with top contributors. And you should respond to comments in the first few hours after you publish a video.

No one said it would be easy. They just promised that it would be worth it.

Original Article Post by Greg Jarboe @ Search Engine Watch

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Online Reputation Management (ORM): A Quick Guide

Most people don't give a lot of consideration to online reputation management until the time comes when they think they need it.

In actuality, you need to institute an online reputation management program before negative mentions of you or your company appear in the SERPs. It's much better to take a proactive approach to owning the real estate on Page 1, as opposed to clawing your way in, after bad news is attached to your brand.

Reputation Management Can be a Dirty Business

Ironically, online reputation management has had a bit of an image problem itself of late.

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, busted 19 different SEO companies for creating fake reviews (a.k.a., astroturfing). This is actually fraud and not reputation management, but when a half-star change in Yelp rating can make or break a restaurant, it's easy to see how a business owner could succumb to the temptation.

Reputation management can also be a dirty business.

In the past, prospective clients have approached me about cleaning up mentions of financial scams they've pulled, duping people out of their life savings.

A convicted pedophile even approached me to help him clean up his reputation. This guy was a contractor that entered people's homes – presumably homes with kids. Creeps like this disgust me and I refuse to give them cover. You should, too.

The majority of online reputation issues that we deal with originate from disgruntled customers, clients, patients, or employees. Their comments typically show up on review sites or hate sites created for the sole purpose of generating ill will.

Even the best organizations will have some customer or personnel issues. Due to the nature of the web, a single complaint can find its way to Page 1, and potentially cost a business a lot of customers. That isn't fair.

I don't see an ethical problem in helping a good business mitigate this risk. Neither does Google. Here's their official position on managing your reputation through search results.

Claim Your Profiles

Not surprisingly, Google suggests publishing positive content as a method for reputation management. Thanks to Google's brand bias, using a parasite hosting strategy still works for getting user profiles ranked.

Parasite hosting refers to websites with high trust and authority that allow the self-publishing of content. The benefit lies in the ability to leverage the host domain's authority and trust to get your content ranked.

Some of the best parasite hosts for online reputation management include:

• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Quora
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Yelp
• YouTube

This could vary by niche, country, and industry.

Pro Tip: It's advisable to claim all available profiles, but essential to actively manage and participate in the top 10 or so. Use a tool like HootSuite to manage and schedule multiple social media accounts and track brand mentions.

Create & Optimize Content

In addition to parasite hosting, you should leverage the value of your own website:

• Create or optimize a bio page.
• Add sub-domain(s) and ORM optimized content (e.g., Reviews.YourDomain.com).
• If you haven't implemented Google+ authorship, do so.
• Add content to your blog (create a blog if necessary).

When creating new content, optimize it to address any ORM issues. This usually means creating content about:

• Brand Name(s) + Category.
• Brand Name(s) + Top Products.
• Brand Name(s) + Google Suggest Phrases (Ex: Brand Name Scam, Brand Name Reviews).

Promote pre-existing content on the web that has the potential to move up the SERPs:

• Sometimes you will find positive content on Page 2 that can be pushed up the SERPs to Page 1 with nominal effort. Take advantage of these pages.

Guest posts:

• As with all guest posting efforts, the post needs to go on a real blog that is related to the niche. The only difference is that the post is optimized for ORM phrases.

EMAT defense:

• Consider purchasing the .com, .net, and .org versions of the exact match Brand Name(s) + ORM Phrases (e.g., BrandNameReviews.com). At minimum, this keeps the domains out of the hands of evildoers. Depending on the situation, you might consider building out mini-sites on different C-class IP addresses.

Defamatory domain defense:

• Consider registering variations of domain names that could be damaging to key employees or the brand. It wouldn't be very nice to stumble across the domain YourNameSucks.com or YourBrandSucks.com, would it? Take away those TLD options for individuals looking to create a rant or hate site.

Link building:

• Some of the pre-existing pages that you will try to push up the SERPs reside on authority sites. Most, if not all, of the phrases will be non-competitive in nature. What this means for you is that it will only require a few links, in many cases, to move or rank a URL. Grabbing easy links that are Penguin-approved and require no outreach will often be enough.

Create a Social Media Policy

Having a program in place to dominate organic search is a good start, but social media has added a whole new dimension to ORM. As crazy as it may seem, a significant number of social media "disasters" are self-inflicted.

This results from "well meaning" owners or employees, who aren't savvy in social media, reacting inappropriately. A classic example is Dark Horse Espresso in Toronto:



This isn't an awesome response, but it could be much worse.

Having a social media policy in place and communicating that policy to every employee can often prevent missteps like this. Rather than reinvent the wheel, take a look at the extensive Social Media Governance database of 247 different policies assembled by Chris Boudreaux. Review the policies of businesses similar to your own and take away the best practices for yourself.

What to Monitor

After you've established some common sources of reputation problems, it's time to address the best way to manage these issues. The first step is assessing the current situation.

Generally, you'll want to monitor the following:

• Company Name
• Brand Name(s)
• Key Employee Name(s)
• Persona / User Name(s)

How to Monitor

Here are some suggested tools:

• Google Web Alerts – found in the Google Dashboard > Me on the Web
• Yahoo Alerts
• Mention.net
• Naymz
• Rankur
• Twitter Search
• Google Search

Pro Tip: Manually review on a regular basis any "scam" or "review" sites appearing on Page 1 of the SERPs you're tracking.

How to Handle Alerts

Alerts should be reviewed promptly and a determination should be made regarding how to handle it. Appropriate responses include:

• Do nothing: This will be the most common response, as most mentions will likely be positive or neutral
• Respond: If your social media policy dictates a response, determine the best forum for the response. Will a one on one conversation be more productive than a back and forth online exchange? Never respond with negative emotion. Never say anything "privately" that you would be concerned about seeing online.
• If you're in the wrong: Accept responsibility. Apologize. Explain what will be done to rectify the situation, take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. Communicate with all parties involved in the mistake, so they are aware of it and can prevent the same mistake from happening again the future.

Bottom Line

Make customer service a top priority in your organization and communicate this to everyone on the front line. Have a social media policy in place and follow it. Exercise the principles of the Golden Rule every time you deal with the public. You can and will avoid many reputation problems by following this simple advice.

Original Article Post by Chuck Price @ Search Engine Watch

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How to Build Your First Content Marketing Strategy

Google's recent Penguin algorithm updates have forced many business owners to take a hard look at their content strategy and link portfolios. Sites with unsavory linking practices, sub-par content, and no social media signals, are losing visibility in Google's search rankings.

Many sites have also incurred manual penalties that have either caused them to rank much lower in search engine results pages, or become de-indexed completely. And once you've been knocked into search engine oblivion, it's nearly impossible for people to find your site.

Whether the main goal of your site is to make a little extra cash each month or your site the main hub of your business, your content conveys your message, establishes your brand, and converts potential customers into sales. There are a few key questions you should ask yourself when examining your content strategy or when determining that you need to get started with one altogether.

High-quality content serves two purposes. It:

• Attracts your readers and keeps them engaged.
• Helps your site rank well in search engines.

A Good Content Strategy: The Basics

To better understand how to develop an effective content strategy, it's important to explore what content is. Let's start with a basic definition.

Content can be either visual, auditory, or written. It includes everything from blog posts, articles, website copy, letters to customers, and social media posts, to podcasts, recorded interviews, infographics, photos, and video. Most content is created and published with a particular target audience in mind.

If you look at any successful business online, you're likely to notice one common element: they're producing high-quality content that's both engaging and informative on a regular basis.

So how do you know if you're producing effective content in your own business niche? A simple test can help shed some light on this question.

If you're creating content regularly, grab a few of your recent pieces for evaluation, then get started by asking yourself the following five questions.

1. Who Are You Writing For?

It's time to take a good look at whether you're creating content with your target audience in mind. Many business owners make the mistake of writing for their peers as opposed to their customers.

Take stock of your web copy and recent social media content. Are you using these channels as effectively as you could be to engage with new clients?

Consider the following scenario. You own a graphic design business and the last two articles you've written are highly technical pieces related to user experience design and trends in vector options. While the content may be well written, it is more likely to appeal to other professional web designers rather than potential customers. Clients are going to be looking for less technical posts like "how to make your website stand out from competitors," "what you should budget for professional web design," and "what criteria you should use when choosing the right designer."

Often, we draw inspiration for our content from popular industry blogs and publications. The things we read daily influence our thought process. So it's important to take a step back sometimes and evaluate whether you are writing for the right audience.

You can still write technical pieces as well. But consider pitching them to popular magazines, journals, and blogs written for those in your industry.

Publishing content on external publishers with an existing, established audience that fits your target criteria should be a primary goal of your content marketing campaign, as it can yield tremendous ROI while also establishing your brand as an authority in your field. For more information on building a content strategy specifically for a B2B business, see "How to Create a Content Strategy for a B2B Business".

2. What is Your Customer Avatar?

You've now made a commitment to creating content with your potential customers in mind. But do you know who your customers are, exactly?

Let's take another professional services example: lawyers. The logical assumption is that a lawyer's target audience would be clients who want to find legal representation.

But most often, this isn't the case. The "clients who need a lawyer" category is too general, so businesses who target that broadly typically don't experience much success. If you take a deeper dive into your previous client list, you may find that the majority of your customers are individuals needing a specific kind of representation. Maybe they're looking for a divorce attorney, or a bankruptcy specialist.

Let's continue the example with the divorce context in mind.

So your target audience is individuals in the midst of a divorce or considering that path that want to talk to an expert. Once you've identified your customer avatar, it becomes easier to focus your content strategy.

You can use the information you've gathered to plan and design your content specifically for your audience. The right information goes from "how to choose a lawyer" to "the top 10 things every woman should know during a divorce." Which one do you think is more likely to get your specific target audience to read your content?

3. How Can You Make Your Customers Lives Easier by Solving a Common Problem They Face?

Typically, the first thing that comes to mind when we think about our business: the features we offer to our customers, either products or services. A web designer, for example, would probably consider features such as brand consultation, requirements analysis, design mock-ups, reviews and changes, and the final product. From the client side, we'd be focused on the product: a professionally designed site that aligns with our brand and presents us well to our audience.

When you're creating your content strategy, try to think ahead about what kinds of questions your clients may have. Sometimes it's better to focus on the basics for a mainstream audience.

A typical client who is seeking a professionally designed site may have questions like:

• What will the total cost be?
• What's the turnaround time?
• What should I expect from the process?
• Who will write my content?
• Should I provide photos for the site?
• Which company will provide hosting?
• Will I be able to manage my own site if I need to make changes?

As you take a deeper dive into your audiences' questions, you can start to shape your content strategy. Effective content will address your customers' pain points and help them solve their problems. It provides simple answers to their most pressing problems, while solidifying the idea that you're the go-to expert in their minds.

4. How Do You Keep Your Audience Engaged?

By this point, you know who you're writing for and the topics they're interested in reading about. Now how do you capture their attention and keep them interested? A quick search online will reveal that certain types of content are popular.

For example, readers love top 5 or top 10 lists. But chances are those lists already exist in your industry. So how can you craft engaging content? The key is finding your story and writing compelling pieces.

Let's pause for a moment and take a look at these two examples:

"Bill M. and I first met on a sunny morning in my San Francisco office. At first glance, you could tell that Bill was overworked and wiped out, his skin was pale, large bags under his eyes, shoulders tense. I could tell this was going to be an interesting meeting. Suddenly, everything became clear when Bill laid it all out for me: 'Marie, my brick and mortar business is on the verge of bankruptcy and something's got to give. It's time to take my operation online to attract more customers.'"

Or the following:

"Retail businesses can be affected negatively by technology. Unfortunately for many stores, they are in dire financial straits before they realize they need to make a change. One of my clients was close to bankruptcy because he was losing business to big name online retailers."

Does one of these introductions make you want to read more? Think about how you can tell your story or capture your readers' attention with your new content.

5. Are You Providing a Call to Action for Readers? Will They Feel Compelled to Get in Touch?

Last but not least, you want to make sure that everything you create has a strong call to action.

For example, maybe you're writing about a popular service that your business provides. You'll want to end your piece with something like, "if you want more information about service packages, please get in touch with me(@)mybusinessname.com."

Ensuring that everything you're writing provides a clear message to customers will help increase your sales conversions. This single step alone will dramatically increase the ROI on content that you create. I recommend this article, "The Definitive Guide to Crafting Winning Calls to Action in Your Content."

Did Your Business Pass the Test?

Were you writing for your audience? Did you choose a topic they were interested in? Was your content engaging? Did your content focus on solving a pain point and help your customers?

In order for your content strategy to be effective, everything you produce needs to meet these goals.

How to Develop Your Future Content Strategy

Hopefully the evaluation of your current content helped shed some light on how effective your previous content has been, and you now have some in-depth knowledge of what it means to create good content.

If you truly want to develop an effective content strategy, it's important to have a plan. Otherwise you might fall into a rut, and simply create content that feels forced and doesn't help your business achieve its goals. Or you might lose your way, and fail to produce content at the rate needed to achieve your goals.

So before you start writing, take the time to reflect and plan. Developing your strategy will help your business in the long run. It's going to make it easier to achieve goals for your site and your sales, cut down on costs, and you may even surprise yourself and surpass your expectations.

1. Have Clear Goals in Mind

You should always approach your content strategy with goals in mind. Truly think about what you want to achieve and write it down.

It's a good idea to set a series of milestones for yourself, rather than one large overly-general goal. Once you've identified your goals, reflect on how you can achieve them with your content.

Let's consider the following. A local industrial equipment dealer specializes in selling trucks and repairing industrial vehicles. They are interested in grabbing the attention of potential customers, but their products and services attract different audiences: those who are interested in purchasing a truck and those who want a trusted mechanic for a range of industrial machinery. So, instead of creating one overarching goal, they identify a series of smaller ones. Those goals may include increasing the visibility of their repair shop and getting the word out to the community about their line of trucks. The auto dealer can then use these goals to develop their content strategy.

2. Review Your Data to Develop Great Content

Do you have a monthly newsletter through an email marketing service? Or perhaps you have an analytics program (like Google Analytics) installed on your website? Use that data to help you develop your strategy moving forward.

Reviewing previous campaigns and assessing your site can help you understand what types of content are getting the most interest from your readers.

If you haven't been tracking data from previous campaigns, there's no need to worry. You can take a look into industry trends, do some keyword research, and see what's driving the most traffic to your site, and what traffic is converting the most.

3. If You Need to Know, Just Ask

Nobody knows what your customers are looking for better than your customers themselves. Think about doing some market research to help get a better understanding of customer needs. A quick survey should do the trick.

Ask questions like:

• What do you enjoy reading about?
• What would you like to learn more about?
• Are you looking for something specific?
• Do you enjoy watching videos or prefer to read blog posts?

Get your customers talking and you may be surprised at the insights you gather. You can also get creative with customer follow-ups.

Set up a customer service survey, or email customers to ask for their feedback on a recent purchase. Customers will appreciate the opportunity to share their thoughts with you.

4. Look Inside for Opportunities Before You Go Outside

You've set your goal. Take a look at your existing audience and do a quick analysis. Can you meet the needs more effectively to help meet that goal? If the answer is yes, then you may want to consider developing a feature blog that provides valuable information for your customers or targeting existing customers with your email marketing. These things would make a lot of sense and create a positive impact for your business.

If you need to look toward an external audience to meet your goal, consider writing and placing some guest posts at targeted sites.

5. Create a Timeline

You've taken the time to think things through, now it's time to create a timeline to achieve your goals. Make a plan to step back and evaluate your strategy at the 3-, 6-, and 12-month marks.

Typically, it takes time for an effective content strategy to truly take hold. In that time, you'll probably have at least one piece that drives considerable social activity and website traffic.

But it's always good to focus on your long-term success. Identify weekly or monthly benchmarks that indicate who your target audience is, which topics you'll discuss, what format you plan to use, and how you'll share your content – either on your own site, through guest blogging, email, etc.

After you've developed your timeline, evaluate it to ensure that your topics are focused and not repetitive.

Creating a timeline will help you develop specific goals with your content marketing efforts.

You've spent time reviewing the data from past campaigns. You've used that data as well as input from customers to plan your future strategy. And you've created a timeline of how to make the most of your content marketing and meet your goals in the coming months.

The next steps are execution, tracking your successes, modifying your timeline, and keeping up with your efforts.

Are you tackling your first content marketing strategy? Let me know what challenges you're facing in the comments below.

Original Article Post by Jayson DeMers @ Search Engine Watch

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Google Keyword Data Goes Missing Again, This Time From Webmaster Tools

Encrypted search has been hard on SEO professionals and marketers. For two years, we've been hit with keywords "(not provided)" in Google Analytics. While the keyword data was still available in Google Webmaster Tools with impressions and click-throughs, it wasn't able to be tied directly to landing pages.

Now, it appears that Google Webmaster Tools is missing the keywords data, as well. At least, it doesn't appear query data has been recorded since last Monday, September 23.



The following, while not confirmed to Search Engine Watch by Google, has been confirmed independently by several independent SEO professionals on dozens of sites.

This is the search queries report from Webmaster Tools in the Search Traffic section. The timeframe selected is the past week from September 22 through September 29. As you can see, there are data plots for two days – 22 and 23 – and no more data afterward.

This is further confirmed in Google Analytics:

If you tie your Webmaster Tools and Analytics accounts together, you can also view query data under Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimization. If you use it, you likely also know Webmaster Tools data takes several days to copy to Analytics, hence the yellow warning. However, this graph clearly shows there has been no data inserted for an entire week.



Historical query data isn't available in Google Analytics. Additionally, the dates for which query data are available don't line up between the two products. Webmaster Tools has data going back through July 2, 2013. Analytics query data goes back to June 23, 2013. Still, both have no more query data after September 23.

Search Engine Watch reached out to Google earlier today, asking if this was a new policy going forward, or if it is simply a bug. We are still awaiting a reply.

There has been discussion in the Google webmaster help forums on this topic.

"Thanks for posting, everyone!" wrote Google's John Mueller, a member of the Webmaster Tools team in Europe, Google Webmaster Central forum. "The team is aware of the problem and working on speeding that data back up again. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.


Original Article Post by Thom Craver @ Search Engine Watch

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