seo

Posted by ahpromes

Remember back in January, when we asked you to help us run an experiment with the Marketing Experiments Blog testing the effectiveness of different  email subject lines? The results are in, and we have a subject line winner! We’ll talk about the test methodology and the winning submission, but before getting to that, I wanted to go over some of the common pitfalls and danger zones when it comes to email subject line testing (and, really, testing in general). Think of it like this:

(Image licensed from Getty Images)

Boundary #1: Make sure you’re measuring the right thing

Generally speaking, the impact that email subject lines have on the performance of an email campaign is concentrated on open rate; more effective and intriguing subject lines drive more opens. This is because the subject line is the primary thing that you see when you make it to your inbox – and how much of that subject line a reader will or won’t see is heavily influenced by that individual’s choices in how they’ve set up their browser and reading panes.

Using my own email accounts as a visual example, you can see that the Gmail inbox can be generous; here it’s showing up to 63 characters of the subject line and body text:

My Outlook web interface cuts at 52 characters, although this is heavily influenced by my setup – because my reading pane is set to “right,” (vs. “bottom,” or “off,” Outlook’s other two choices), I have less screen devoted to email previews and can see fewer subject line characters.

My Yahoo! Mail setup is the least generous, cutting subject lines at 49 charcters (but let’s be real; it’s unlikely that many of your potential customers are still using Yahoo! Mail).

If this is giving you the sneaking suspicion that email subject line length also has an influence on email subject line effectiveness, you’re right. In our subject line test, we have line lengths ranging from 38 characters to 94 characters. The best performing subject line, in terms of driving the highest open rate? Smack in the middle at 51 characters.

Does this mean 51 characters is the ideal, maximum subject line length? Not necessarily. Too short can be an issue as well, as too few characters means fewer words at your disposal to entice an open and convey meaning. The three best performing subject lines in this test (average of 17.5% opened) averaged 51 characters long; the three with the lowest open rates (average of 15.9% opened) averaged 71 characters long. The two control group subject lines (average of 16.4% opened), at our shortest 38 characters, landed squarely in the middle in terms of open rate.

Boundary #2: If email subject lines only influence open rates, why should I track clicks?

An email subject line can also impact overall click-to-open rate for an email. This, by the way, is a better measure for performance than click-through rate alone: A high click-through rate but a lower click-to-open rate means that your body copy is strong but that you have opportunity to drive even more traffic by modifying your subject line for better open rates, thus increasing the size of the audience exposed to your awesome body copy.

A subject line sets up an expectation in the mind of the email reader of what is to come; how well the actual content of the email delivers against this expectation leads to either reader satisfaction or disappointment. Strong email subject line-content alignment generally leads to more clicks vs. a subject line that poorly represents the body content of the email.

I can illustrate this with an example of an email test that I ran years ago while working at an online travel company (without all of the specific numbers, which are proprietary), where we tested different subject lines offering varying percent discounts on the purchase of our products. Our test went something like this, but with a dozen or so different test cells sent to millions of customers:

• Subject Line 1: Get 15% off vacation packages!
• Body of Email 2: Blah, blah, blah, Get 15% off vacation packages!
• Subject Line 2: Open to discover your vacation package discount!
• Body of Email 2: Blah, blah, blah, Get 15% off vacation packages!
• Subject Line 3: [etc.]

What we learned was that we had better click-to-open rates on the emails where we had strong subject-body agreement, like in example 1; where we had vague subject lines we could drive a lot of interest (read: opens), but our body content seemed to disappoint in that our click-to-open rates were lower than in our matchy-matchy test cells.

For this VolunteerMatch email test, the body copy of all emails was identical except for one sentence; that one sentence had four different variations that were written to map to the six test (and one control) subject lines.

Our highest click-to-open rate (6.3%) in this email test, ” Volunteering matters: We have the proof.” was also the subject line that delivered the highest click-through rates (1.08%), even though it placed only second in terms of overall opens (17.3%). This indicates that the body copy of the email delivered on the promise of the subject line pretty well, and that an area of opportunity here would be to work on increasing overall opens (e.g., more potential people to click).

Our highest open rate subject line (18.2%), ” The volunteer app your coworkers will talk about” did not win in terms of either overall clicks (0.98%) or click-to-open rate (5.4%). This tells me two things:

• The email body copy did not do a strong job of delivering on the expectations set by the subject line, and
• The more I can refine that body copy to closely match the expectations set by the subject line, the more likely I am to drive total clicks.

Boundary #3: Are you measuring or categorizing tangible things?

I call this the “specious lens” test. When you’re looking at test results, be wary about what you use to classify or categorize your results. The subject line character length category is a tangible thing, perceivable by both testers and email recipients. Let’s look at some other subject line classifications for this email test to see if anything else has a real impact on open rates:

• Use of special characters (e.g., punctuation marks)
• Use of title case vs. sentence case

Both use of special characters and use of case are tangible to customers. But from the chart above, you can see that there really isn’t any correlation between either of these classifications and higher (or lower) open rates. The best performing subject line and one of the test’s bottom three both excluded any kind of punctuation. Same for case; both the highest and worst performing subject lines used sentence case. Neither of these classifications appear to have any real, measurable impact, in this example, on customer email open rates.

If you are applying value categorizations to your test results, however, you need to be especially wary when trying to draw conclusions; this is because the value categories that you create are less likely to be tangibly perceptible by your customers. If I group the tested subject lines by the value or sentiment that they primarily convey, I create the following four buckets:

• Focuses on Caring as a sentiment
• Focuses on Mobile App
• Focuses on Quantifiable results
• Focuses on Values (Good/Bad)

If you are classifying your test results based on you or your team’s value judgments, as I did here, and you can’t see any performance difference between your classifications, as is true here, ask yourself, “Are these classifications tangible to the customer? Do they fail to have a real impact on outcomes, or are they simply not real?”

In this case, my answer is, “It’s not that value or sentiment don’t have an impact on outcomes, it’s that these sentiment classifications are likely not perceptible to the customer and thus aren’t a valid way in which to categorize this test.” It’s also risky to classify results after you already know the test outcomes; this can lead to you fitting a hypothesis to the test results vs. letting your test results prove or disprove your hypothesis.

Boundary #4: Statistics is your friend (i.e. math is important)

The last boundary to be aware of is statistics. Run all of your results data through some kind of statistical tool to make sure that the variations you’re seeing between your test segments are more than just random background noise. There are a lot of factors that go into determining statistical significance, such as overall sample sizes, overall “action” rates, the differences between action rates, and how confident you’d like to be in your results (e.g., it’s often easier to measure the difference between 1.1% and 0.1% than it is to measure the difference between 101% and 100%).

For this test, I’ve mentioned several times that two control emails were used. These both went to approximately the same number of people (36,000), and had identical subject lines and identical body copy. These two segments had similar, but not identical, overall open rates of 16.4% and 16.5%. In order to make sure that overall results are valid and there is no unintentional selection skew when creating (what should be random) segments, it’s imperative to make sure that the variation between these two control segments is nothing other than random noise.

In the chart below, you can see that these slight variations in open rate between the two test cells are not statistically significant; a very important signal that the total data set from the test is valid, too.

If you don’t have your own stats or analytical resources to help you with this last step, there are a lot of great tools and worksheets online to get you started, including the one that I’ve used here, from http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/

And now to the contest results!

The methodology

First things first, let’s go over what was actually tested:

• 6 subject line “test cells” that each received a different email subject line
• 2 subject line “control cells” that received the same email subject line
• Just under 36,000 emails delivered to each test and control cell
• 287,117 emails delivered, overall
• Email body copy differed by one sentence in each test cell; otherwise was identical

Metrics recorded included:

• Emails delivered
• Email opens
• Email clicks

These three metrics were then used to calculate:

• Open rate (opens / delivered)
• Click-through rate (clicks / delivered)
• Click-to-open rate (clicks / opens)

The actual subject lines that were used in the test, along with all of the corresponding metrics:

Spread the Only “Good” Office Virus was used as the subject line for the two control cells (why use two control cells? The Marketing Experiments Blog wrote up their takeaways from the experiment a few weeks ago, and you can read the details and rationale there).

The winning, reader-submitted subject line (that drove the highest rate of clicks) was submitted by Moz Blog reader Jeff Purdon, an In-House Web Marketing Specialist for a manufacturing company. Jeff wins a ticket to the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2015 and a stay at the ARIA Resort in Las Vegas. Congratulations, Jeff!

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Posted by RuthBurrReedy

SEO is a seller’s market. The supply of people with SEO experience is currently no match for the demand for search engine marketing services, as anyone who has spent months searching for the right SEO candidate can tell you. Even in a big city with a booming tech scene (like Seattle, LA, New York, or Austin), experienced SEOs are thin on the ground. In a local market where the economy is less tech-driven (like, say, Oklahoma City, where I work), finding an experienced SEO (even one with just a year or two of experience) is like finding a unicorn.

You’re hired. (Photo via  Pixabay)

If you’re looking for an in-house SEO or someone to run your whole program, you may have no choice but to hold out for a hero (and think about relocating someone). If you’re an SEO trying to grow a team of digital marketers at an agency or to expand a large in-house team, sometimes your best bet is to hire someone with no digital marketing experience but a lot of potential and train them. 

However, you can’t plug just anyone into an SEO role, train them up right and have them be fantastic (or enjoy their job); there are definite skills, talents and personality traits that contribute to success in digital marketing.

Most advice on hiring SEOs is geared toward making sure they know their stuff and aren’t spammers. That’s not really applicable to hiring at the trainee level, though. So how can you tell whether someone is right for a job they’ve never done? At BigWing, we’ve had a lot of success hiring smart young people and turning them into digital marketers, and there are a few things we look for in a candidate.

Are they an aggressive, independent learner?

Successful SEOs spend a ton of time on continued learning—reading blogs, attending conferences and webinars, discussing and testing new techniques—and a lot of that learning happens outside of normal work hours. The right candidate should be someone who loves learning and has the ability to independently drive their ongoing education.

Ask job candidates about another situation where they’ve had to quickly pick up a new skill. What did they do to learn it? How did that go? If it’s never come up for them, ask what they might do in that situation.

Interview prep is something I always look for in a candidate, since it shows they’re actually interested in the job. Ask what they’ve done to prep for the interview. Did they take a look at your company website? Maybe do some Googling to find other informational resources on what digital marketing entails? What did they learn? Where did they learn it? How did they find it?

Give your candidates some homework before the interview. Have them read the  Beginner’s Guide to SEO, maybe Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, or the demo modules at Distilled U. How much of it did they retain? More importantly, what did they learn? Which brings us to:

Do they have a small understanding of what SEO is and why we do it?

I’ve seen a lot of people get excited about learning SEO, do OK for a year or two, and then crash and burn. The number one cause of SEO flame-out or burn-out, in my experience, is an inability to pivot from old tactics to new ones. This failure often stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what SEO is (marketing, connecting websites that have stuff with people who want that stuff) and what it is not (any single SEO tactic).

It can be frustrating when the methods you originally learned on, or that used to work so well, dry up and blow away (I’m looking at you, siloing and PageRank sculpting). If you’re focused on what tricks and tactics can get you ranking #1, instead of on how you’re using digital techniques to market to and connect with potential customers, sooner or later the rug’s going to get pulled out from under you.

Ask your candidates: what did they retain from their research? Are they totally focused on the search engine, or have they thought about how visits can turn into revenue? Do they seem more interested in being a hacker, or a marketer? Some people really fall in love with the idea that they could manipulate search engines to do what they want; I look for people who are more in love with the idea of using the Internet as a tool to connect businesses with their customers, since ultimately your SEO client is going to want revenue, not just rankings.

Another trait I look for in the interview process is empathy. Can they articulate why a business might want to invest in search? Ask them to imagine some fears or concerns a small business owner might have when starting up an Internet marketing program. This is especially important for agency work, where communicating success requires an understanding of your client’s goals and concerns.

Can they write?

Photo via  Pixabay

Even if you’re looking to grow someone into a technical SEO, not a content creator, SEO involves writing well. You’re going to have to be able to create on-page elements that not only communicate topical relevance to search engines but also appeal to users.

This should go without saying, but in my experience definitely doesn’t: their resume should be free of typos and grammatical errors. Not only is this an indicator of their ability to write while unsupervised, it’s also an indicator of their attention to detail and how seriously they’re taking the position.

Any kind of writing experience is a major plus for me when looking at a resume, but isn’t necessarily a requirement. It’s helpful to get some idea of what they’re capable of, though. Ask for a writing sample, and better yet, look for a writing sample in the wild online. Have they blogged before? You’ll almost certainly be exchanging emails with a candidate before an interview—pay attention to how they communicate via email. Is it hard to tell what they’re talking about? Good writing isn’t just about grammar; it’s about communicating ideas.

I like to give candidates a scenario like “A client saw traffic to their website decline because of an error we failed to detect. We found and corrected the error, but their traffic numbers are still down for the month,” and have them compose a pretend email to the client about what happened. This is a great way to test both their written communication skills and their empathy for the client. Are you going to have to proofread their client emails before they go out? That sounds tedious.

How are their critical thinking and data analysis skills?

A brand-new digital marketer probably won’t have any experience with analytics tools like Google Analytics, and that’s OK—you can teach them how to use those. What’s harder to teach is an ability to think critically and to use data to make decisions.

Have your candidates ever been in a situation where they needed to use data to figure out what to do next? What about tell a story, back up a claim or change someone’s mind? Recent college grads should all have recent experience with this, regardless of their major—critical thinking and data analysis are what college is all about. How comfortable are they in Microsoft Excel? They don’t have to love it, but if they absolutely loathe it, SEO probably isn’t for them. Would it make them miserable to spend most of a day in a spreadsheet (not every day, but fairly regularly)?

Are they a citizen of the web?

Even if they’ve never heard of SEO, a new employee is going to have an easier time learning it if they’re already pretty net savvy. An active web presence also indicates a general interest in the the Internet, which is one indicator of whether they’ll have long-term interest in digital marketing as a field. Do some recon: are they active on social media? Have they ever blogged? What comes up when you Google them?

Prior experience

Different applicants will have different backgrounds, and you’ll have the best idea of what skills someone will need to bring to the table to fill the role you need. When I’m reading a resume, I take experience in any of these areas as a good sign:

• Marketing 
• Advertising 
• Public relations 
• APIs (using them, creating apps with them, what have you) 
• Web development or coding of any kind 
• Web design 
• Copywriting

Your mileage may vary

Photo via  Knowyourmeme

Very few candidates are going to excel in all of the areas outlined above, and everyone you talk to is going to be stronger in some areas than others. Since digital marketing can include a wide variety of different tasks, keep in mind the things you’d actually like the person to do on the job; for example, written communication becomes somewhat less important in a non-client-facing role. At the very least, look for a smart, driven person who is excited about digital marketing as a career opportunity (not just as a next paycheck).

Hiring inexperienced people has its risks: the person you hire may not actually turn out to be any good at SEO. They may have more trouble learning it than you anticipated, and once they start doing it, they may decide that SEO just isn’t what they want to do long-term.

On the other hand, hiring and training someone who’s a great fit for your company culture and who is excited about learning often results in a better employee than hiring someone with experience who doesn’t really mesh well with your team. Plus, teaching someone SEO is a great way to make sure they don’t have any bad habits that could put your clients at risk. Best of all, you have the opportunity to unlock a whole career for someone and watch them grow into a world-class marketer—and that’s a great feeling.

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Posted by Justin_Briggs

Mobile isn’t the future. It’s the present. Mobile apps are not only changing how we interact with devices and websites, they’re changing the way we search. Companies are creating meaningful experiences on mobile-friendly websites and apps, which in turn create new opportunities to get in front of users.

I’d like to explore the growth of mobile app search and its current opportunities to gain visibility and drive engagement.

Rise of mobile app search

The growth of mobile device usage has driven a significant lift in app-related searches. This is giving rise to mobile app search as a vertical within traditional universal search.

While it has been clear for some time that mobile search is important, that importance has been more heavily emphasized by Google recently, as they continue to push mobile-friendly labels in SERPs, and are likely increasing mobile-friendliness’s weight as a ranking factor.

The future of search marketing involves mobile, and it will not be limited to optimizing HTML webpages, creating responsive designs, and optimizing UX. Mobile SEO is a world where apps, knowledge graph, and conversational search are front and center.

For the top 10 leading properties online, 34% of visitors are mobile-only (comScore data), and, anecdotally, we’re seeing similar numbers with our clients, if not more.

It’s also worth noting that 72% of mobile engagement relies on apps vs. on browsers. Looking at teen usage, apps are increasingly dominant. Additionally, 55% of teens use voice search more than once per day. 

If you haven’t read it, grab some coffee and read A Teenagers View on Social Media, which is written by a 19-year old who gives his perspective of online behavior. Reading between the lines shows a number of subtle shifts in behavior. I noticed that every time I expected him say website, he said application. In fact, he referenced application 15 times, and it is the primary way he describes social networks.

This means that one of the fasting growing segments of mobile users cannot be marketed to by optimizing HTML webpages alone, requiring search marketers to expand their skills into app optimization.

The mobile app pack

This shift is giving rise to the mobile app pack and app search results, which are triggered on searches from mobile devices in instances of high mobile app intent. Think of these as being similar to local search results. Considering mobile searcher behavior, these listings dominate user attention.

As with local search, mobile app search can reorder traditional results, completely push them down, or integrate app listings with traditional web results.

You can test on your desktop using a user-agent switcher, or by searching on your iOS or Android device. 

There are slight differences between iPhone and Android mobile app results:

From what I’ve seen, mobile app listings trigger more frequently, and with more results, on Android search results when compared to iOS. Additionally, iOS mobile app listings are represented as a traditional website result listing, while mobile app listings on Android are more integrated.

Some of the differences also come from the differences in app submission guidelines on the two major stores, the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Overview of differences in mobile app results

1. Title – Google uses the app listing page’s HTML title (which is the app’s title). iOS app titles can exceed 55-62 characters, which causes wrapping and title truncation like a traditional result. Android app title requirements are shorter, so titles are typically shorter on Android mobile app listings.
2. URL – iOS mobile app listings display the iTunes URL to the App Store as part of the search result.
3. Icon – iOS icons are square and Android icons have rounded corners.
4. Design – Android results stand out more, with an “Apps” headline above the pack and a link to Google Play at the end.
5. App store content – The other differences show up in the copy, ratings, and reviews on each app store.

Ranking in mobile app search results

Ranking in mobile app search results is a combination of App Store Optimization (ASO) and traditional SEO. The on-page factors are dependent upon your app listing, so optimization starts with having solid ASO. If you’re not familiar with ASO, it’s the process of optimizing your app listing for internal app store search.

Basics of ASO

Ranking in the Apple App Store and in Google Play is driven by two primary factors: keyword alignment and app performance. Text fields in the app store listing, such as title, description, and keyword list, align the app with a particular set of keywords. Performance metrics including download velocity, app ratings, and reviews determine how well the app will rank for each of those keywords. (Additionally, the Google Play algorithm may include external, web-based performance metrics like citations and links as ranking factors.)

Mobile app listing optimization

While I won’t explore ASO in-depth here, as it’s very similar to traditional SEO, optimizing app listings is primarily a function of keyword targeting.

Tools like Sensor Tower, MobileDevHQ, and App Annie can help you with mobile app keyword research. However, keep in mind that mobile app search listings show up in universal search, so it’s important to leverage traditional keyword research tools like the AdWords Tool or Google Trends.

While there are similarities with ASO, optimizing for these mobile app search listings on the web has some slight differences.

Differences between ASO & mobile app SEO targeting

1. Titles – While the Apple App Store allows relatively long titles, they are limited to the preview length in organic search. Titles should be optimized with Google search in mind, in addition to optimizing for the app store. Additionally, several apps aggressively target keywords in their app title, but caution should be used as spamming keywords could influence app performance in Google.
2. Description – The app description on the App Store may not be a factor in internal search, but it will impact external app search results. Leverage keyword targeting best practices when writing your iOS app description, as well as your Android app description.
3. Device and platform keywords – When targeting for app store search, it is not as important to target terms related to the OS or device. However, these terms can help visibility in external search. Include device and OS terms, such as Android, Samsung Note, iOS, iPad, and iPhone.

App performance optimization

Outside of content optimization, Google looks at the performance of the app. On the Android side, they have access to the data, but for iOS they have to rely on publicly available information.

App performance factors

• Number of ratings
• Average rating score
• Content and sentiment analysis of reviews
• Downloads / installs
• Engagement and retention
• Internal links on app store

For iOS, the primary public metrics are ratings and reviews. However, app performance can be inferred using the App Store’s ranking charts and search results, which can be leveraged as proxies of these performance metrics.

The following objectives will have the greatest influence on your mobile app search ranking:

1. Increase your average rating number
2. Increase your number of ratings
3. Increase downloads

For app ratings and reviews, leverage platforms like Apptentive to improve your ratings. They are very effective at driving positive ratings. Additionally, paid tactics are a great way to drive install volume and are one area where paid budget capacity could directly influence organic results in Google. Anecdotally, both app stores use rating numbers (typically above or below 4 stars) to make decisions around promoting an app, either through merchandising spots or co-branded campaigns. I suspect this is being used as a general cut-off for what is displayed in universal results. Increasing your rating above 4 stars should improve the likelihood you’ll appear in mobile app search results.

Lastly, think of merchandising and rankings in terms of  internal linking structures. The more visible you are inside of the app store, the more visibility you have in external search.

App web performance optimization

Lastly, we’re talking Google rankings, so factors like links, citations, and social shares matter. You should be conducting content marketing, PR, and outreach for your app. Focus on merchandising your app on your own site, as well as increasing coverage of your app (linking to the app store page). The basics of link optimization apply here.

App indexation – drive app engagement

Application search is not limited to driving installs via app search results. With app indexing, you can leverage your desktop/mobile website visibility in organic search to drive engagement with those who have your app installed. Google can discover and expose content deep inside your app directly in search results. This means that when a user clicks on your website in organic search, it can open your app directly, taking them to that exact piece of content in your app, instead of opening your website.

App indexation fundamentally changes technical SEO, extending SEO from server and webpage setup to the setup and optimization of applications.

This also fundamentally changes search. Your most avid and engaged user may choose to no longer visit your website. For example, on my Note 4, when I click a link to a site of a brand that I have an app installed for, Google gives me the option not only to open in the app, but to set opening the app as a default behavior.

If a user chooses to open your site in your app, they may never visit your site from organic search again.

App indexation is currently limited to Android devices, but there is evidence to suggest that it’s already in the works and is soon to be released on iOS devices. There have been hints for some time, but markup is showing up in the wild suggesting that Google is actively working with Apple and select brands to develop iOS app indexing.

URI optimization for apps

The first step in creating an indexable app is to set up your app to support deep links. Deep links are URIs that are understood by your app and will open up a specific piece of content. They are effectively URLs for applications.

Once this URI is supported, a user can be sent to deep content in the app. These can be discovered as alternates to your desktop site’s URLs, similar to how separate-site mobile sites are defined as alternate URLs for the desktop site. In instances of proper context (on an Android device with the app installed), Google can direct a user to the app instead of the website.

Setting this up requires working with your app developer to implement changes inside the app as well as working with your website developers to add references on your desktop site.

Adding intent filters

Android has documented the technical setup of deep links in detail, but it starts with setting up intent filters in an app’s Android manifest file. This is done with the following code.

<activity android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity"
android:label="@string/title_gizmos" >
<intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_title_viewgizmos">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<data android:scheme="http"
android:host="example.com"
android:pathPrefix="/gizmos" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

This dictates the technical optimization of your app URIs for app indexation and defines the elements used in the URI example above.

• The <intent-filter> element should be added for activities that should be launchable from search results.
• The <action> element specifies the ACTION_VIEW intent action so that the intent filter can be reached from Google Search.
• The <data> tag represents a URI format that resolves to the activity. At minimum, the <data> tag must include the android:scheme attribute.
• Include the BROWSABLE category. The BROWSABLE category is required in order for the intent filter to be accessible from a web browser. Without it, clicking a link in a browser cannot resolve to your app. The DEFAULT category is optional, but recommended. Without this category, the activity can be started only with an explicit intent, using your app component name.

Testing deep links

Google has created tools to help test your deep link setup. You can use Google’s Deep Link Test Tool to test your app behavior with deep links on your phone. Additionally, you can create an HTML page with an intent:// link in it.

For example :

<a href="intent://example.com/page-1#Intent;scheme=http;package=com.example.android;end;"> <a href="http://example.com/page-1">http://example.com/page-1></a>

This link would open up deep content inside the app from the HTML page.

App URI crawl and discovery

Once an app has deep link functionality, the next step is to ensure that Google can discover these URIs as part of its traditional desktop crawling.

Ways to get apps crawled

1. Rel=”alternate” in HTML head
2. ViewAction with Schema.org
3. Rel=”alternate” in XML Sitemap

Implementing all three will create clear signals, but at minimum you should add the rel=”alternate” tag to the HTML head of your webpages.

Effectively, think of the app URI as being similar to a mobile site URL when setting up a separate-site mobile site for SEO. The mobile deep link is an alternative way to view a webpage on your site. You map a piece of content on your site to a corresponding piece of content inside the app.

Before you get started, be sure to verify your website and app following the guidelines here. This will verify your app in Google Play Developer Console and Google Webmaster Tools.

#1: Rel=”alternate” in HTML head

On an example page, such as example.com/page-1, you would add the following code to the head of the document. Again, very similar to separate-site mobile optimization.

<html>
<head> 
... 
<link rel="alternate" href="android-app://com.example.android/http/example.com/page-1" /> 
...
</head>
<body>
</body>

#2: ViewAction with Schema.org

Additionally, you can reference the deep link using Schema.org and JSON by using a  ViewAction.

<script type="application/ld+json"> 
{ 
"@context": "http://schema.org", 
"@type": "WebPage", 
"@id": "http://example.com/gizmos", 
"potentialAction": { 
"@type": "ViewAction", 
"target": "android-app://com.example.android/http/example.com/gizmos" 
} 
} 
</script>

#3 Rel=”alternate” in XML sitemap

Lastly, you can reference the alternate URL in your XML Sitemaps, similar to using the rel=”alternate” for mobile sites.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> 
<url> 
<loc>http://example.com/page-1</loc> 
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" href="android-app://com.example.android/http/example.com/page-1" /> 
</url> 
... 
</urlset>

Once these are in place, Google can discover the app URI and provide your app as an alternative way to view content found in search.

Bot control and robots noindex for apps

There may be instances where there is content within your app that you do not want indexed in Google. A good example of this might be content or functionality that is built out on your site, but has not yet been developed in your app. This would create an inferior experience for users. The good news is that we can block indexation with a few updates to the app.

First, add the following to your app resource directory (res/xml/noindex.xml).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<search-engine xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> 
<noindex uri="http://example.com/gizmos/hidden_uri"/> 
<noindex uriPrefix="http://example.com/gizmos/hidden_prefix"/> 
<noindex uri="gizmos://hidden_path"/> 
<noindex uriPrefix="gizmos://hidden_prefix"/> 
</search-engine>

As you can see above, you can block an individual URI or define a URI prefix to block entire folders.

Once this has been added, you need to update the AndroidManifest.xml file to denote that you’re using noindex.html to block indexation.

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.example.android.Gizmos"> 
<application> 
<activity android:name="com.example.android.GizmosActivity" android:label="@string/title_gizmos" > 
<intent-filter android:label="@string/filter_title_viewgizmos"> 
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/> 
... 
</activity> 
<meta-data android:name="search-engine" android:resource="@xml/noindex"/> 
</application> 
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/> 
</manifest>

App indexing API to drive re-engagement

In addition to URI discovery via desktop crawl, your mobile app can integrate Google’s App Indexing API, which communicates with Google when users take actions inside your app. This sends information to Google about what users are viewing in the app. This is an additional method for deep link discovery and has some benefits.

The primary benefit is the ability to appear in autocomplete. This can drive re-engagement through Google Search query autocompletions, providing access to inner pages in apps.

Again, be sure to verify your website and app following the guidelines here. This will verify your app in Google Play Developer Console and Google Webmaster Tools.

App actions with knowledge graph

The next, and most exciting, evolution of search is leveraging actions. These will be powerful when combined with voice search, allowing search engines to take action on behalf of users, turning spoken language into executed actions.

App indexing allows you to take advantage of actions by allowing Google to not only launch an app, but execute actions inside of the app. Order me a pizza? Schedule my meeting? Drive my car? Ok, Google.

App actions work via entity detection and the application of the knowledge graph, allowing search engines to understand actions, words, ideas and objects. With that understanding, they can build an action graph that allows them to define common actions by entity type.

Here is a list of actions currently supported by Schema.org

• AchieveAction
• AssessAction
• ConsumeAction
• ControlAction
• CreateAction
• FindAction
• InteractAction
• MoveAction
• OrganizeAction
• PlayAction
• SearchAction
• TradeAction
• TransferAction
• UpdateAction

For example, the PlayAction could be used to play a song in a music app. This can be achieve with the following markup.

<script type="application/ld+json">
 {
 "@context": "http://schema.org",
 "@type": "MusicGroup",
 "name": "Weezer", "potentialAction": {
 "@type": "ListenAction",
 "target": "android-app://com.spotify.music/http/we.../listen"
 }
 }
</script>	

Overview of mobile app search opportunities

In summary, there are five primary ways to increase visibility and engagement for your mobile app in traditional organic search efforts.

The growth of mobile search is transforming how we define technical SEO, moving beyond front-end and back-end optimization of websites into the realm of structured data and application development. As app indexing expands to include iOS, I suspect the possibilities and opportunities associated with indexing applications, and their corresponding actions, to grow extensively. 

For those with Android apps, app indexing is a potential leapfrog style opportunity to get ahead of competitors who are dominant in traditional desktop search. Those with iOS devices should start by optimizing their app listings, while preparing to implement indexation, as I suspect it’ll be released for iOS this year.

Have you been leveraging traditional organic search to drive visibility and engagement for apps? Share your experiences in the comments below.

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Posted by AnnSmarty

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.

A hashtag is the wonder of the past decade. It was born to address the need to organize and make sense of the overwhelming social media buzz. Thanks to active and creative user adoption, hashtag support has been added to most popular social media platforms.

This article shows how different social media sites make use of hashtags. Most importantly, it shares some insight into how you can make the most effective use of hashtags for your brand.

Twitter

Twitter hashtags don’t support special characters like +, !, $, %, -, ^, &, *, etc. They do support letters, numbers and _ (underscore).

There are no hashtag limits (length, number) as long as you keep your message within 140 characters (which is already limiting in itself).

While Twitter hashtags are reported to increase engagement, the most efficient way to use them is through hosting and participating in Twitter chats. Here’s a detailed tutorial on hosting a Twitter chat.

Event hashtags (conferences, festivals, etc.) also work very well on Twitter. You don’t need to actually be in an event to network with people through the official hashtag. Event organizers usually market the official hashtag very well, which means additional exposure for you if you use it.

Twitter search results are ranked by most popular. You can switch to “All” results,  which are filtered by date.

Useful Twitter Hashtag Tools:

• Hashtagify tracks trending hashtags and shows “related” hashtags for any base terms you provide.
• TwChat lets you discover, participate in, and easily host Twitter chats. It’s also a useful tool for monitoring and archiving any hashtag streams.

Instagram

Like Twitter, Instagram hashtags don’t support special characters like +, !, $, %, -, ^, &, *, etc. They do support numbers and _.

You can add up to 30 hashtags to a single photo. You can even tag your photo after publishing it. Simply list your hashtags in the comments. (Note that you can only do this for your own uploads.)

Instagram hashtags increase your following dramatically, especially if you use hot and trending hashtags.

The best use of hashtags on Instagram is to participate in hashtag games like #tbt and #MondayBlues. Both can make your Instagram posting very consistent (e.g., you have a theme for every day of the week) and increase your following and interactions.) In my experience, people are very willing to click these specific hashtags to see the photos of other participants.

Location-based hashtags also work very well for Instagram. I use both abbreviated and full location names  (#la and #losangeles, for instance).

Instagram search results are sorted by “most recent”.

Use Websta to track hot hashtags on Instagram.

Google Plus

The only official rule for Google Plus hashtag character support is “no spaces”. However, you may have trouble using any characters (which are not letters, numbers or underscore) because Google Plus will attempt to drop them from the linked part of the hashtag.

There’s no way to make a hashtag with numbers only (e.g., #2015).

Google Plus has perceived hashtags differently from the very start. Instead of letting users organize and monitor their conversations, Google Plus hashtags allow for greater exploration of the platform, by Google and users. 

This explains why Google Plus updates are auto-hashtagged, meaning that they are added automatically by Google when the topic is clearly discerned.

There are no known limits to the number of hashtags you can add to Google Plus posts.

Google Plus hashtags seem to work great for exposing your updates to a wider range of people. I haven’t found any research to back this up, but I’ve personally seen them work this way. Any time I use hashtags on Google Plus, I see more people outside of my extended circles like and comment on my content:

Unlike Twitter and Instagram, “specific” hashtags (e.g., games, events, and locations) don’t seem to work well on Google Plus. Instead, I try to let Google understand what my update is about by using descriptive hashtags (e.g., #marketingtips).

Google Plus hashtag search results seem to be ranked by popularity. Moreover, search results are powered by “related” hashtags. Sometimes the result will even miss your initial search term.

Cyfe is the only tool I know of that supports searching and archiving Google Plus hashtag results.

Pinterest

Pinterest hashtags have been quietly supported for some time. “Supported” means the word after the # is clickable (and only in the description).

There are no official rules or limitations on the number of hashtags you can add to a Pinterest post, and Pinterest hashtags seem to support the same set of characters as most other social platforms do. 

Pinterest hashtag support remains limited. If you search Pinterest by a hashtag, search results will include all types of words and phrases from the hashtag. This makes using Pinterest hashtag almost pointless.

The only reasonable way to use Pinterest hashtags is to use them for branding, especially for cross-promotion (to further spread awareness of your event, Twitter chat, etc.).

Tumblr

Tumblr hashtags work similarly to Wordpress tags. They will be linked only in the “tags” field. You can’t create an in-text hashtag by simply adding # in front of a word.

Unlike Wordpress, Tumblr hashtags improve the discoverability of your updates across the whole platform.

Here’s a quick example: I am not really active on Tumblr, but I do post random updates from time to time. 

I treat Tumblr more as a curation tool rather than a social media network, so I’ve never cared about hashtags or if my updates get any visibility, which they didn’t until I used a few hashtags in this post. That day I saw a sudden spike in activity on my pretty abandoned Tumblr blog!

[Note: I did nothing special to create the spike. All I did was adding a few hashtags. Seems pretty easy, right?]

You can have spaces, apostrophes, commas, dots, and many other symbols in your Tumblr hashtags.

There are no limitations as to how many hashtags you can use on Tumblr, but only the first five hashtags you use are searchable. Your update will only make it to the search results if it’s an original one, not a re-blog, so don’t bother adding tags if you re-blog.

Any hashtag search will bring up users who recently used those hashtags for you to follow, which means that hashtags are huge for acquiring followers on Tumblr.

Tumblr filters hashtag search results by “most popular” by default. You can switch this to “most recent”.

Furthermore, Tumblr has a “track your tags” feature which allows anyone to add hashtag search results to their “favorite search”. There are no stats available as to which hashtags are tracked by more people, though.

Flickr

Flickr allows all sorts of symbols to be typed after the #, but seems to only link letters and numbers. While serving the same goal (e.g., organizing photos), Flickr tags and hashtags do behave slightly differently.

• Clicking on a Flickr tag brings you to search/?tags= page, where you can filter by license, search for groups, and more.
• Clicking on a Flickr hashtag brings you to /explore/ page, which shows related [hash]tags and the photos with the same tags (yes, that’s confusing). These results are sorted by “most recent” by default, although you can switch to “most interesting.”

It’s still not quite clear whether hashtags improve visibility on Flickr, or how different they are from tags, which have existed on the platform for ages. The fact that Flickr hashtags were announced and are now proactively supported in the iOS app may indicate that the whole point of a hashtag on Flickr is to make it easier to organize your photos from the iPhone.

Facebook

Facebook hashtags support the standard set of characters that most popular social platforms support.

There are no limitations as to the number of hashtags you can add to a Facebook update.

Facebook hashtag search is somewhat weird. Try searching for #california, for example. You’ll likely end up landing on a Facebook page instead of a hashtag search results page.

An easier way to generate hashtag search results is to simply add the hashtag after facebook.com/hashtag/ (e.g., facebook.com/hashtag/dogs).

You can also bring up hashtag search results by clicking on any hashtag in your Facebook stream. Facebook’s ranking algorithm is complicated. It seems to be a mix of lots of factors, including how closely you are related to the person posting the update, how often you interact with him/her, how popular the actual update is, etc.

I don’t use hashtags on Facebook beyond random cross-posting from Instagram. I have also seen quite a few of my friends become irritated when someone uses hashtags, so I guess it’s too early to tell. With Instagram’s help,  however, hashtags may ultimately become widely adopted by Facebook users.

To sum up…

(All images in this post were created by the author)

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