being signal amidst the noise: how to stand out in a crowded web marketing field
Post on 22-Aug-2015
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Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
Being Signal Amidst the Noise
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 Become
Signal 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.io
are 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 Attract
Everyone’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 Contribution
for 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
Browsing
Social
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
Research
If 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.
Reaching Top
Influencers Can Feel
Almost Impossible
I may not be able to get
Nilofer’s attention, but I
can probably get in front of
her up-and-coming
influencers
(via followeronk)
Socialbakers will
show you the fastest-
growing profiles on
Twitter, G+, &
Youtube in given
categories and
countries
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:
Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
bit.ly/randsignal
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