Posted by EricaMcGillivray

You may heard that in partnership with  Local U, we’re putting on a local SEO conference called LocalUp Advanced on Saturday, February 7. We’re super-thrilled to be able to dive more into the local SEO space and bring you top speakers in the field for a one-day knowledge explosion. We’re expecting around 125-150 people at our Seattle headquarters, so this is your chance to really chat with speakers and attendees one-to-one with a huge return on investment.

Moz Pro or Local U Subscribers $699
General Admission $999

---

LocalUp Advanced 2015 Agenda

---

8:00-9:00am	Breakfast
9:00-9:05am	Welcome to LocalUp Advanced 2015! with David Mihm
9:05-9:30am	Pigeons, Packs, & Paid: Google Local 2015 with Dr. Pete Meyers In the past year, Google shook the local SEO world with the Pigeon update, rolled out an entirely new local pack, and has aggressively dabbled in local advertising. Dr. Pete covers the year in review, how it’s impacted the local landscape, and what to expect in 2015. Dr. Pete Meyers is the Marketing Scientist for Moz, where he works with the marketing and data science teams on product research and data-driven content. He’s spent the past two years building research tools to monitor Google, including the MozCast project, and he curates the Google Algorithm History.
9:30-9:55am	Local Battlegrounds – Tactics, Trenches, and Ghosts with Mike Blumenthal Join Professor Maps and take a ride in the Way Back Whacky Machine to look at Google’s technologies, tactics, and play books used to create, shape, and dominate the local ecosystem in their image. Learn what’s relevant to marketing today and how these changes are shaping Google’s coming battles in the space. If you’re in Local, then you know Mike Blumenthal, and here is your chance to learn from this pioneer in local SEO, whose years of industry research and documentation have earned him the fond and respectful nickname ‘Professor Maps.’ Mike’s blog has been the go-to spot for local SEOs since the early days of Google Maps. It’s safe to say that there are few people on the planet who know more about this area of marketing than Mike. He’s also the co-founder of GetFiveStars, an innovative review and testimonial software. Additionally, Mike loves biking, x-country skiing, and home cooking.
9:55-10:10am	Q&A with Dr. Peter Meyers and Mike Blumenthal
10:10-10:45am	Going Local with Google with Jade Wang Learn about local search with Google. We’ll chat about the potential of local search and discuss how business information gets on Google. If you’ve gone to the Google and Your Business Forum for help (and, of course, you have!), then you know how quickly an answer from Google staffer Jade Wang can clear up even the toughest problems. She has been helping business owners get their information listed on Google since joining the team in 2012.
10:45-11:05am	AM Break
11:05-11:25am	Getting Local Keyword Research and On-page Optimization Right with Mary Bowling Local keyword data is often difficult to find, analyze, and prioritize. Get tips, tools, and processes for zeroing in on the best terms to target when optimizing your website and directory listings, and learn how and why to structure your website around them. Mary Bowling’s been specializing in SEO and local search since 2003. She works as a consultant at Optimized!, is a partner at a small agency called Ignitor Digital, is a partner in Local U, and is also a trainer and writer for Search Engine News. Mary spends her days interacting directly with local business owners and understands holistic local needs.
11:25-11:50am	Local Content + Scale + Creativity = Awesome with Mike Ramsey If you are wondering who is crushing it with local content and how you can scale such efforts, then tune in as Mike Ramsey walks through ideas, examples, and lessons he has learned along the way. Mike Ramsey is the president of Nifty Marketing with offices in Burley and Boise, Idaho. He is also a Partner at Local U and many other ventures. Mike has an awesome wife and three kids who put up with all his talk about search.
11:50am-12:15pm	Review Acquisition Strategies That Work with Darren Shaw Darren Shaw will walk you through multiple real-world examples of businesses that are killing it with review acquisition. He’ll detail exactly how they manage to get so many more reviews than their competitors and how you can use their methods to improve your own local search visibility. Darren Shaw is the President and Founder of Whitespark, a company that builds software and provides services to help businesses with local search. He’s widely regarded in the local SEO community as an innovator, one whose years of experience working with massive local data sets have given him uncommon insights into the inner workings of the world of citation-building and local search marketing. Darren has been working on the web for over 16 years and loves everything about local SEO.
12:15-12:30pm	Q&A with Mary Bowling, Mike Ramsey, and Darren Shaw
12:30-1:30pm	Lunch
1:30-1:55pm	The Down-Low on LoMo (Local Mobile) SEO with Cindy Krum Half of all local searches happen on mobile, and that stat is just growing! Map search results are great, but your mobile site has to be great too. Cindy Krum will review the best practices for making your local site look perfect to mobile users and crawlers alike. No mobile site? No problem as you’ll also get tips for how to make the most of mobile searches without one. Cindy Krum is the CEO and Founder of MobileMoxie, LLC, a mobile marketing consultancy and host of the most cutting-edge online mobile marketing toolset available today. Cindy is the author of Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are, published by Que Publishing.
1:55-2:20pm	Thriving in the Mobile Ecosystem with Aaron Weiche A look into the opportunity of creating and growing the mobile experience between your customers and your brand: one strong enough to delight fingers, change minds, and win hearts. Aaron Weiche is a digital marketing geek focused on web design, mobile, and search marketing. Aaron is the COO of Spyder Trap in Minneapolis, Local U faculty member, founding board member of MnSearch, and a Local Search Ranking Factors Contributor since 2010.
2:20-2:45pm	Content, Conversations, and Conversions with Will Scott How local businesses, and the marketers who love them, can use social media to bring home the bacon. Helping small businesses succeed online since 1994, Will Scott has led teams responsible for thousands of websites, hundreds of thousands of pages in online directories, and millions of visits from search. Today, Will leads nearly 100 professionals at Search Influence putting results first and helping customers successfully market online.
2:45-3:10pm	Segmentation Domination with Ed Reese Learn how to gain powerful insight by creating creative custom segments in Google Analytics. This session shows several real-world examples in action and walks you through the brainstorming, implementation, and discovery process to utilize segmentation like never before. Ed Reese leads a talented analytics and usability team at his firm Sixth Man Marketing, is a co-founder of Local U, and an adjunct professor of digital marketing at Gonzaga University. In his free time, he optimizes his foosball and disc golf technique and spends time with his wife and two boys.
3:10-3:30pm	PM Break
3:30-4:00pm	Playing to Your Local Strengths with David Mihm Historically, local search has been one of the most level playing fields on the web with smaller, nimbler businesses having an advantage as larger enterprises struggled to adapt and keep up. Today, companies of both sizes can benefit from tactics that the other simply can’t leverage. David will share some of the most valuable tactics that scale—and don’t scale—in a presentation packed with actionable takeaways, no matter what size business you work with. David Mihm is one of the world’s leading practitioners of local search engine marketing. He has created and promoted search-friendly websites for clients of all sizes since the early 2000s. David co-founded GetListed.org, which he sold to Moz in November 2012. Since then, he’s served as our Director of Local Search Marketing, imparting his wisdom everywhere!
4:00-4:25pm	Don’t Just Show Up, Stand Out with Dana DiTomaso Learn how to destroy your competitors with bringing personality to your marketing. Confront the challenges of making HIPPOs comfortable with unique voice, keep brand standards while injecting some fun, and stay in the forefront of your audience’s mind. Whether at a conference, on the radio, or in a meeting, Dana DiTomaso likes to impart wisdom to help you turn a lot of marketing BS into real strategies to grow your business. After 10+ years and with a focus on local SMBs, she’s seen (almost) everything. In her spare time, Dana drinks tea and yells at the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
4:25-4:40pm	Q&A with David Mihm and Dana DiTomaso
4:40-5:20pm	Exposing the Non-Obvious Elements of Local Businesses That Dominate on the Web with Rand Fishkin In some categories and geographies, a local small business wholly dominates the rankings and visibility across channels. What are the secrets to this success, and how can small businesses with remarkable products/services showcase their traits best online? In this presentation, Rand will dig deep into examples and highlight the recurring elements that help the best of the best stand out. Rand Fishkin is the founder of Moz. Traveler, blogger, social media addict, feminist, and husband.

And if that doesn’t quite tickle your fancy… Workshops!

We’ll also be hosting workshops with our speakers, which are amazing opportunities for you to dig into your specific questions and issues. I know, sometimes I get a little shy to ask questions in front of a crowd or just want to socialize at the after party, so this a great opportunity to get direct feedback.

Time	Workshop Option A	Workshop Option B
1:30-1:55pm	Reporting Q&A with Ed Reese and Dana DiTomaso Need help with your reporting? Ed and Dana will make sure you’re on the right track and tracking the right things.	Google My Business Q&A with Jade Wang Google My Business can be confusing, but Jade Wang is here to lend a hand. She’ll look over your specific problems and help you troubleshoot.
1:55-2:20pm	How to Troubleshoot All Things Local with Mike Blumenthal and Mary Bowling No Local SEO problem can get by the combined powers of Mike and Mary. This dynamic duo will assist you in diving into your specific questions, problems, and concerns.	Google My Business Q&A with Jade Wang Google My Business can be confusing, but Jade Wang is here to lend a hand. She’ll look over your specific problems and help you troubleshoot.
2:20-2:45pm	Citation Q&A with David Mihm and Darren Shaw Getting the right citations for your business can be a powerful boost. David and Darren will show you how to wield citations correctly and creatively for your business.	Google My Business Q&A with Jade Wang Google My Business can be confusing, but Jade Wang is here to lend a hand. She’ll look over your specific problems and help you troubleshoot.
2:45-3:10pm	Mobile Q&A with Aaron Weiche and Cindy Krum Local and mobile go hand-in-hand, but mobile implementation, optimization, and perfection can be tricky. Aaron and Cindy will help guide you and your business.	Google My Business Q&A with Jade Wang Google My Business can be confusing, but Jade Wang is here to lend a hand. She’ll look over your specific problems and help you troubleshoot.

---

See you in February, friends. And please, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Continue reading →

Posted by Isla_McKetta

You may have noticed a trend in the blog posts I’ve written for Moz lately:

• When Is a Blog the Right Form of Content Marketing?
• A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On
• “But How Do I Know if It’s Good?” How You Can Evaluate Content Quality (and Ditch Content Anxiety)
• Is that Mind-Blowing Title Blowing Your Credibility? You Decide

Basically, I ask a lot of questions because I don’t like or trust hard and fast rules. And while every last one of these posts offers you a little bit of knowledge to then take back to your marketing campaigns and apply in the way that works best for your team and your company, there’s not a guaranteed formula for success or correct answer in the bunch.

If you’re resorting to tried and true advice, you’re missing opportunities to do something better than anyone’s ever done it before. Instead, I want you to question everything anyone’s ever told you about how to make marketing (especially content marketing) work. You might fail a little along the way, but even the failures will teach you something about what success looks like.

Winning by breaking the rules

Image by laffy4k.

So in honor of the holiday season, let’s unwrap our presents early and look at some marketing campaigns that won by flouting some fundamental rules of marketing.

Appeal to a wide audience

Not everyone knows who Skeletor is. And few of those love him, but Honda threw caution to the wind and let him star in their latest commercial.

While they are hedging their bets with other commercials starring Jem, Strawberry Shortcake, Gumby, and Stretch Armstrong, none are designed for mass appeal. Instead, they’re taking advantage of random affinities that can help consumers feel deeply connected to your brand. I know I can’t stop talking about them.

Stay on message

In 2013, Oreo newsjacked the hell out of the lights going out at the Super Bowl with this now iconic tweet:

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

You know what happened. 15,000 retweets later, Oreo had won the Internet and real-time marketing was born. Imagine what would have happened if they’d stuck to their super-sweet pregame message of game day recipes. For one, we wouldn’t be talking about them here.

Focus on your competitive advantage

I have no idea if TD Bank has a local branch, what their rates are like, if their tellers are awesome, or if they have an app that will revolutionize the way I do online banking.

But after this commercial, I want desperately to do business with them because of the core values this video speaks to. They’re asking us to connect with who they are, not what they do. And it works.

Meanwhile, this commercial for the MacBook Air also skips product info and instead focuses on how people use the product rather than what’s amazing about it.

At the end, I have zero idea what the competitive advantages of a MacBook are. But I want one. And I want to put stickers on it.

Don’t offend anyone

Remember the Joe Boxer/Kmart commercial from a few years ago?

How could any of us forget? Sure, some people were annoyed when this commercial came out, but the rest of us played it over and over for our co-workers, friends, and family. Daring to be different is daring to be remembered.

Don’t be annoying

Speaking of memorable. While this Old Spice commercial is physically painful to listen to:

I can’t stop myself. This one will stick with you and everyone else who watches it. They’re stretching a little beyond those charming Isaiah Mustafa commercials and into Old Navy territory (please make it stop), but it just might work.

Name recognition is everything

In 2008, hipster author Tao Lin plastered New York City with stickers that read “Britney Spears” in bold black and white. Weird fan geek moment? Actually it was a guerilla marketing ploy for his book, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (which has nothing to do with Britney). The ploy may have made no sense, but publisher Dennis Johnson said soon his phone was ringing off the hook with people who somehow made the connection. 

The lesson here is that shouting your name from the rooftops is not the only way to get people to remember your brand for years. You may not have heard of Tao Lin before reading this post, but the stunt was weird enough that it lives on in publishing (and now Internet marketing) legend even eight years later.

Your turn

But really, other people’s presents are boring. Are you ready to bet on out-of-the-box thinking this holiday season (and beyond)? Here are some rules I want you to go break to see what the rewards might be.

Write right

If your brand voice skews toward concision and you’re using the Hemingway App (like everyone else is), are you really standing out? If your paragraphs are short and scannable, is anyone really remembering what you had to say? And if you’re writing to an eighth-grade reading level are all those simplified words just washing over your audience? There are a lot of rules for writing. They’re all made to be broken.

Bigger (content) is better

Simon Penson already covered this fallacy quite well last week in his article about content flow. Just remember that if you’re aiming for big bang followed by bigger bang and then even bigger, you could be wearing your readers (and your writers) out. Try out a smaller project. See how people react.

Use storytelling

Stories are awesome. But nothing can make you crave a bulleted list of value props like sitting at a huge gathering with people shouting stories at you (ahem, the Internet). Why not A/B test storytelling versus a more straightforward style and see what converts.

The best headlines follow this formula

I’m all for a good headline. I’ll even resort to clickbait (if I think the reward for the reader is high enough). But what’s interesting to watch at Moz is that we’ll often choose the more academic headline over the flashier one. I’m not saying you should do the same (remember, the only rule here is that you should break all the rules), but consider your audience when writing that headline.

Narrow down your CTAs

Paralysis of choice blah blah blah. If you have only one action you want your site visitor to take, then of course you don’t want to confuse them with multiple other things to click. But too often we “simplify” pages by removing options people might actually want. I’m not saying you should add all those “click here” buttons back to your site, but I am saying you should think before turning your homepage into a single “buy here” button.

Make your blog posts actionable/entertaining/educational

One of the rules at the Moz Blog is that our readers like actionable posts. I’m glad we know our audience that well. But we’re also not going to sit back and decide that means a theoretical post won’t do well because the numbers say actionable=popular.

In fact, this post isn’t especially actionable (unless that action is “go back and think about what you’re doing”). Is it going to help you? I hope so. Even if it isn’t what you’ve come to expect from us.

Publish or perish

An editorial calendar is a terrible thing to let control your life. While publishing new content on a regular basis can be a very good idea, it’s also a good way to get stuck in the flywheel, churning out another interview with a supplier because that’s what you do on Tuesdays.

At Moz, we recently decided to let a day pass without publishing a new blog post (long story). As much as everyone on our content team believes in putting out fewer, better posts, it was still challenging to actually follow through with this decision.

But the resulting loss of traffic was negligible.

And while we aren’t eager to repeat the experiment (authors, please turn things in on time), we learned that the world does not end when we don’t put up a post. Our time on page and page values actually went up. Who knew?

Remember that blogs aren’t Twitter and you won’t be forgotten if you already have a reputation for good content. Publish when you have something worth publishing.

Create once, publish everywhere

Using one piece of content for multiple purposes seems like a good idea until you’ve got a LinkedIn feed full of podcasts no one has ever listened to and a Facebook wall covered in blog posts announcements that achieved no reach.

If your gut (and your data) tell you that your audiences on different channels expect different things, find a way to get them more of what they want, don’t just feed them what they have. Piece out that infographic so it shows up well on Twitter and your tweeps can get that two seconds worth of information they’re looking for. Or record a fantastically fun intro for your webinar and put the intro (not the webinar) on YouTube to see if you can tease people over to your site.

Get social

Social media can be an excellent way to get traffic to your posts. And sometimes it isn’t. Copyblogger is just one of the big brands who looked deep into the traffic and engagement they were getting from Facebook before deciding to close their page.

You’ll have to look at your numbers to see what the right decision is for you, but when it comes to social media, doing something simply because you’ve been doing it forever is almost as bad as jumping on every new platform that comes out before investigating it.

Packaging should be practical

While there is always a practical aspect to packaging, once you’ve seen the Nike Air sneakers packaged in a bubble of air or the labels on Smirnoff’s Caipiroska that peeled off like the skins of the fruits the vodka was flavored with, it becomes obvious that an investment of time and creativity in packaging (as with everything you do) can have a much bigger impact than more of the same.

Cover the next How to Train Your Dragon in dragon scales, wrap that hi-tech travel bag in special edition maps of popular destinations, or print your anti-pesticide pamphlet on seed paper that can be used to start an organic garden. Better yet, let your design team loose to create something amazing and brand new that’s exactly right for your audience.

Stick to your content strategy

While strategy is a very good thing (and you’ve likely invested significant money and/or resources into creating that strategy), how do you really know if it’s working unless you push at the edges a bit?

Know that your audience likes reading about car parts? See if they respond to a post waxing nostalgic about Knight Rider. Or introduce your organic skincare clients to some of the politics behind GMOs. You might bore someone. You might offend someone. You might also find you’ve made a stronger connection with some of your core customers.

Go break some rules

So if it’s been awhile since you asked “why are we doing this?” or tried something new, go shake it up already. Because unless you’re making Nestle Toll House cookies, chances are your recipe can still use some refinement.

Go forth and open your presents early. Enjoy the rush of innovation rather than the boredom of imitation. Then come back and tell us how it worked out and what you learned.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Continue reading →

Posted by bridget.randolph

As a marketer, if your product is the obvious solution to an obvious problem, your job is relatively straightforward. You simply need to show the customer why your product is the best one out there. Often the easiest way to do this is by demonstrating your USP; sometimes you can also compete on price. Either way, if your customer is already looking for the product or service you offer, and not attached to any particular brand, all you have to do is convince them that your brand does it best.

Image source.

This is where the old saying comes from: “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”

But the reality is, a lot of us don’t sell products that fill an obvious need. Even if your product or service does fill a genuine need or solve a real problem… do people actually realise that they have that problem? And do they know that a solution exists?

The three stages of consumer awareness

A lot of marketers today are facing this conundrum: “How do I sell the benefits of my brand over those of my competitors when my customer doesn’t even know they need my product?” There’s no point shouting about how you are the best at ‘whatever-it-is’ if people don’t know they need it. The harsh truth is: no one cares.

How do we make them care?

This is where it gets a bit tricky. The immediate response you are likely to get when you ask this question is a fun one: “we need to increase brand awareness!!” After all, marketing blogs are full of posts about how digital marketing is all about brand loyalty, warm fuzzy feelings towards brands, brands as people, and so on. But for this type of situation, brand awareness actually isn’t the right answer.

When people don’t know they need something, you don’t need increased brand awareness… you need increased need/want awareness, followed by solution/product awareness, and only then should you be looking to raise brand awareness.

This leads to a 3-stage customer journey:

1. Creating awareness of the need/problem. At this stage the customer is both product and brand agnostic; they don’t realise they have a problem or need which requires a solution. Your job at this stage is to show them that they have a problem or need. They may not be aware that this is a problem at all; or they may perceive it as an annoyance but not a problem they care enough about fixing. Raising awareness of this need or problem can be done through either an emotive or a logical message but either way the focus should be on the customer, not on you.
2. Demonstrating the basic solution to that need/problem. At this stage the customer is still brand agnostic; they are now aware of the problem but not yet sure what the solution is. Your job at this stage is to present your solution as the best way to solve their problem or meet their need. However, the first step is simply to show them that this type of product or service is a good solution to their problem or need. Again, at this stage, you are focusing on the customer and his or her need. Don’t try to sell them on “you” just yet.
3. Selling your solution and your brand as the best version. At this stage, the customer knows they have a problem, and they know their preferred approach to solving the problem is through using the product or service that you provide. Your job now is to show that they should choose to buy that solution from you, and to link that solution with your brand in the customer’s mind. This is the point at which talking about yourself is allowed. 🙂

Take one step at a time

The temptation which a lot of brands face is to try and create brand messaging and content which can do all three of these things at once. This can be due to a fear of inadvertently promoting their competitors, or sometimes a directive from above which dictates that we ‘push the brand’ regardless of the stage of the customer journey you are currently targeting, or any number of other reasons. Sometimes it happens because the marketers themselves are keen brand advocates and love talking about how great the brand is and what they do. But this is a mistake.

Don’t try to make your brand messaging do all the things all the time. You will not succeed, and you will simply end up diluting the message and failing to speak to anyone’s needs. Instead, focus on one stage of the customer journey only for each piece of content or marketing activity that you do.

But wait. Am I saying we should avoid branded content in the first two stages of this customer journey?

NO.

Please don’t think that shifting the focus away from heavy brand messaging, or focusing on a different type of awareness, means that you have to avoid all branding completely! Of course any advertising, social, and website content which you produce should always incorporate your brand guidelines and include logos, straplines, etc.  (as appropriate).

What I’m talking about here is simply the focus of the messaging.

How does this work in practice?

Let’s take an example, Dyson vacuum cleaners, and look at how their product messaging fits into this 3 stage framework:

Dyson has a starting point – people do know they need vacuum cleaners. But Dyson still needs to identify a problem that they solve that the other vacuum cleaner brands don’t. In this case, their vacuum cleaners have a USP of extra strong suction that doesn’t clog – but the average consumer may not realise that this is a feature that they should care about.

Stage 1: Creating awareness of the need/problem

At this stage the potential customer is happy with their current situation.

With the Dyson example: if the messaging is simply ‘buy Dyson’, that’s not enough to convert Hoover or Oreck customers. Once you’ve chosen a brand for appliance purchases, the easiest thing when you need a new one is to replace the old one with a new version of the same thing. So the average person is happy just going back and buying another Hoover or Oreck.

Instead of shouting about the Dyson brand, your job at this stage is to show them that they have a problem or need which isn’t currently being met. In this example, a problem which a lot of people have is that their vacuum cleaner gets clogged easily and loses suction over time. So our messaging for people at this stage focuses on that problem and how our product is differentiated: “others clog; ours don’t”.

Image source.

(Note that this ad is still branded but the focus is on the potential customers’ problem.)

Stage 2: Demonstrating the basic solution to that need/problem

At this stage the customer is still brand agnostic; they are now aware of the problem (clogged vacuum cleaner –> “I wish I had a vacuum cleaner that didn’t get clogged all the time”) but not yet sure what the solution is.

Your job at this stage is to present your solution (“our vacuum cleaner doesn’t clog because our cleaner has special patented technology which keeps it unclogged and maintain suction over time”) as the best way to solve their problem or meet their need. The messaging in this ad focuses on the technology as a solution to a problem: If you want a vacuum that doesn’t clog or lose suction, you need a vacuum with no bags and this special ‘Cyclone’ technology.

Image source.

Again, at this stage, you are focusing on the customer and his or her need and why your solution is best.

Stage 3: Selling your brand as the best version

In the third stage, the customer knows they have a problem, and they know their preferred approach to solving the problem is through using the product or service that you provide. In the Dyson example, they know that they want a vacuum cleaner with this special technology that keeps it unclogged and maintains suction over time.

Your job now is to show that your brand is synonymous with that solution. For Dyson, this is the type of messaging that ties the brand explicitly to the ‘solution’:

Image source.

Image source. 

Conclusion

When people don’t already know they need your product, you can’t just sell them on your brand right away, because your brand is meaningless to them. You create meaning and an emotional feeling about your brand by guiding people through these three stages of awareness: need/want awareness, solution/product awareness, and finally brand awareness.

Each of these stages requires a distinct message for a different audience of people, so you can’t try to make your messaging one size fits all. Instead, tailor the messaging on different sections of your website, your social media and other digital content, and your advertising campaigns to speak to one group of people at a time. It may feel very counter-intuitive to sell your audience on why they need X product rather than why they need to buy from Y company. But you need to allow them to experience the need before selling your brand, they will care about the answer to that need.

And never try to do all the things at once.

…Unless you sell the best mousetraps ever, in which case I guess you can sit back and relax while the world comes to you.

Image source.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Continue reading →

Posted by josh_bachynskiJosh Bachynski takes you inside Panda 4.1 with a tour of some of the top dos and don’ts for your website. And it’s about so much more than the standard “good content” refrain. Watch the video to learn more. For refe… Continue reading →

Posted by GaryMoyle

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

Search behavior is fundamentally changing, as users become more savvy and increasingly familiar with search technology. Google’s results have also changed significantly over the last decade, going from a simple page of 10 blue links to a much richer layout, including videos, images, shopping ads and the innovative Knowledge Graph.

We also know there are an increasing amount of touchpoints in a customer journey involving different channels and devices. Google’s Zero Moment of Truth theory (ZMOT), which describes a revolution in the way consumers search for information online, supports this idea and predicts that we can expect the number of times natural search is involved on the path to a conversion to get higher and higher.

Understanding how people interact with Google and other search engines will always be important. Organic click curves show how many clicks you might expect from search engine results and are one way of evaluating the impact of our campaigns, forecasting performance and exploring changing search behavior.

Using search query data from Google UK for a wide range of leading brands based on millions of impressions and clicks, we can gain insights into the how CTR in natural search has evolved beyond those shown in previous studies by Catalyst, Slingshot and AOL.

Our methodology

The NetBooster study is based entirely on UK top search query data and has been refined by day in order to give us the most accurate sample size possible. This helped us reduce anomalies in the data in order to achieve the most reliable click curve possible, allowing us to extend it way beyond the traditional top 10 results.

We developed a method to extract data day by day to greatly increase the volume of keywords and to help improve the accuracy of the average ranking position. It ensured that the average was taken across the shortest timescale possible, reducing rounding errors.

The NetBooster study included:

• 65,446,308 (65 million) clicks
• 311,278,379 (311 million) impressions
• 1,253,130 (1.2 million) unique search queries
• 54 unique brands
• 11 household brands (sites with a total of 1M+ branded keyword impressions)
• Data covers several verticals including retail, travel and financial

We also looked at organic CTR for mobile, video and image results to better understand how people are discovering content in natural search across multiple devices and channels. 

We’ll explore some of the most important elements in this article.

How does our study compare against others?

Let’s start by looking at the top 10 results. In the graph below we have normalized the results in order to compare our curve, like-for-like, with previous studies from Catalyst and Slingshot. Straight away we can see that there is higher participation beyond the top four positions when compared to other studies. We can also see much higher CTR for positions lower on the pages, which highlights how searchers are becoming more comfortable with mining search results.

A new click curve to rule them all

Our first click curve is the most useful, as it provides the click through rates for generic non-brand search queries across positions 1 to 30. Initially, we can see a significant amount of traffic going to the top three results with position No. 1 receiving 19% of total traffic, 15% at position No. 2 and 11.45% at position No. 3. The interesting thing to note, however, is our curve shows a relatively high CTR for positions typically below the fold. Positions 6-10 all received a higher CTR than shown in previous studies. It also demonstrates that searchers are frequently exploring pages two and three.

When we look beyond the top 10, we can see that CTR is also higher than anticipated, with positions 11-20 accounting for 17% of total traffic. Positions 21-30 also show higher than anticipated results, with over 5% of total traffic coming from page three. This gives us a better understanding of the potential uplift in visits when improving rankings from positions 11-30.

This highlights that searchers are frequently going beyond the top 10 to find the exact result they want. The prominence of paid advertising, shopping ads, Knowledge Graph and the OneBox may also be pushing users below the fold more often as users attempt to find better qualified results. It may also indicate growing dissatisfaction with Google results, although this is a little harder to quantify.

Of course, it’s important we don’t just rely on one single click curve. Not all searches are equal. What about the influence of brand, mobile and long-tail searches?

Brand bias has a significant influence on CTR

One thing we particularly wanted to explore was how the size of your brand influences the curve. To explore this, we banded each of the domains in our study into small, medium and large categories based on the sum of brand query impressions across the entire duration of the study.

When we look at how brand bias is influencing CTR for non-branded search queries, we can see that better known brands get a sizable increase in CTR. More importantly, small- to medium-size brands are actually losing out to results from these better-known brands and experience a much lower CTR in comparison.

What is clear is keyphrase strategy will be important for smaller brands in order to gain traction in natural search. Identifying and targeting valuable search queries that aren’t already dominated by major brands will minimize the cannibalization of CTR and ensure higher traffic levels as a result.

How does mobile CTR reflect changing search behavior?

Mobile search has become a huge part of our daily lives, and our clients are seeing a substantial shift in natural search traffic from desktop to mobile devices. According to Google, 30% of all searches made in 2013 were on a mobile device; they also predict mobile searches will constitute over 50% of all searches in 2014.

Understanding CTR from mobile devices will be vital as the mobile search revolution continues. It was interesting to see that the click curve remained very similar to our desktop curve. Despite the lack of screen real estate, searchers are clearly motivated to scroll below the fold and beyond the top 10.

NetBooster CTR curves for top 30 organic positions

Position	Desktop CTR	Mobile CTR	Large Brand	Medium Brand	Small Brand
1	19.35%	20.28%	20.84%	13.32%	8.59%
2	15.09%	16.59%	16.25%	9.77%	8.92%
3	11.45%	13.36%	12.61%	7.64%	7.17%
4	8.68%	10.70%	9.91%	5.50%	6.19%
5	7.21%	7.97%	8.08%	4.69%	5.37%
6	5.85%	6.38%	6.55%	4.07%	4.17%
7	4.63%	4.85%	5.20%	3.33%	3.70%
8	3.93%	3.90%	4.40%	2.96%	3.22%
9	3.35%	3.15%	3.76%	2.62%	3.05%
10	2.82%	2.59%	3.13%	2.25%	2.82%
11	3.06%	3.18%	3.59%	2.72%	1.94%
12	2.36%	3.62%	2.93%	1.96%	1.31%
13	2.16%	4.13%	2.78%	1.96%	1.26%
14	1.87%	3.37%	2.52%	1.68%	0.92%
15	1.79%	3.26%	2.43%	1.51%	1.04%
16	1.52%	2.68%	2.02%	1.26%	0.89%
17	1.30%	2.79%	1.67%	1.20%	0.71%
18	1.26%	2.13%	1.59%	1.16%	0.86%
19	1.16%	1.80%	1.43%	1.12%	0.82%
20	1.05%	1.51%	1.36%	0.86%	0.73%
21	0.86%	2.04%	1.15%	0.74%	0.70%
22	0.75%	2.25%	1.02%	0.68%	0.46%
23	0.68%	2.13%	0.91%	0.62%	0.42%
24	0.63%	1.84%	0.81%	0.63%	0.45%
25	0.56%	2.05%	0.71%	0.61%	0.35%
26	0.51%	1.85%	0.59%	0.63%	0.34%
27	0.49%	1.08%	0.74%	0.42%	0.24%
28	0.45%	1.55%	0.58%	0.49%	0.24%
29	0.44%	1.07%	0.51%	0.53%	0.28%
30	0.36%	1.21%	0.47%	0.38%	0.26%

Creating your own click curve

This study will give you a set of benchmarks for both non-branded and branded click-through rates with which you can confidently compare to your own click curve data. Using this data as a comparison will let you understand whether the appearance of your content is working for or against you.

We have made things a little easier for you by creating an Excel spreadsheet: simply drop your own top search query data in and it’ll automatically create a click curve for your website.

Simply visit the NetBooster website and download our tool to start making your own click curve.

In conclusion

It’s been both a fascinating and rewarding study, and we can clearly see a change in search habits. Whatever the reasons for this evolving search behavior, we need to start thinking beyond the top 10, as pages two and three are likely to get more traffic in future. 

 We also need to maximize the traffic created from existing rankings and not just think about position.

Most importantly, we can see practical applications of this data for anyone looking to understand and maximize their content’s performance in natural search. Having the ability to quickly and easily create your own click curve and compare this against a set of benchmarks means you can now understand whether you have an optimal CTR.

What could be the next steps?

There is, however, plenty of scope for improvement. We are looking forward to continuing our investigation, tracking the evolution of search behavior. If you’d like to explore this subject further, here are a few ideas:

• Segment search queries by intent (How does CTR vary depending on whether a search query is commercial or informational?)
• Understand CTR by industry or niche
• Monitor the effect of new Knowledge Graph formats on CTR across both desktop and mobile search
• Conduct an annual analysis of search behavior (Are people’s search habits changing? Are they clicking on more results? Are they mining further into Google’s results?)

Ultimately, click curves like this will change as the underlying search behavior continues to evolve. We are now seeing a massive shift in the underlying search technology, with Google in particular heavily investing in entity- based search (i.e., the Knowledge Graph). We can expect other search engines, such as Bing, Yandex and Baidu to follow suit and use a similar approach.

The rise of smartphone adoption and constant connectivity also means natural search is becoming more focused on mobile devices. Voice-activated search is also a game-changer, as people start to converse with search engines in a more natural way. This has huge implications for how we monitor search activity.

What is clear is no other industry is changing as rapidly as search. Understanding how we all interact with new forms of search results will be a crucial part of measuring and creating success.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Continue reading →