Author: Brad Johnson

Brad Johnson is an author and blogger who helps writers discover their niche, build successful habits, and quit their 9-5. His books include Ignite Your Beacon, Writing Clout and Tomes Of A Healing Heart. For strategic content and practical tips on how to become a full-time writer, visit: BradleyJohnsonProductions.com.

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Published by Brad Johnson on 05/09/2020

https://econsultancy.com/covid-19-changed-shopper-behaviour-online-stats/

It’s been nearly eight weeks since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic. In this time, the retail space as we know it has had to completely evolve.

Without warning and without choice, brands and retailers have had to adapt to a pandemic that no one saw coming. As a direct result of Covid-19, many non-essential physical stores have been forced to close until further notice. Stores that have remained open have suffered from reduced/rationed stock and social distancing requirements. These actions have resulted in consumers changing their shopping behaviours, which in many cases has resulted in more transactions moving online.

With a network of over 6,200 brand and retailer sites as our client base, Bazaarvoice has unique visibility into current online shopping activity. We have analysed the different patterns and changes in behaviour, from increases and decreases in product page views to orders placed, reviews submitted and questions asked. We’ve reviewed this data globally across more than 20 product categories and compared it to the same time period in 2019, as well as the earlier months in 2020.

How people were shopping in March 2020 – the beginning of the shutdown

During the earliest stages of the lockdown in March 2020, data from the Bazaarvoice Network shows that customers started to really embrace online shopping and began setting themselves up for what looked to be a long period spent at home. We saw a 21% increase in online orders in March 2020 vs March 2019, and in a survey we conducted with over 3,000 members of the Influenster community, 41% of respondents said that they were currently shopping online for things they would normally shop for in-store.

This data highlights what most of us are currently experiencing, as we are having to change our normal shopping habits and look to purchase more items online than we all usually would. When we compared March 2020 vs March 2019, we saw a 25% increase in page views. This is likely due to the increase in time consumers have to search for new products, now that they are mostly housebound, and the fact that they may be purchasing brands they are not familiar with due to limited product availability.

The increase in page views led us to analyse the network data by category to help highlight which products people were browsing, versus which products people were actually purchasing. We saw a year-over-year increase in page views and order count for nearly every product category, but it was the food, beverage and tobacco, toys and games, and sporting goods categories that were in the top five for growth in both page views and order count.

It’s no surprise to see that people prioritised necessities, and also that they looked for ways to entertain themselves and their families.

It’s interesting to note that not all categories have seen the same growth that we mentioned above. Browsing activity is on par with last year for apparel and accessories products, but buying behaviour is down.

This may be due to people not wanting to purchase items in this category until they know when social distancing measures might ease off, yet still wanting to browse the items so they’re up to date with current trends and offers. Luggage and bags have seen a reduction in browsing and buying behaviour, which is expected due to the social distancing measures and restrictions meaning that people aren’t travelling as they were before.

How that differs from online shopping throughout April 2020

Now to take a look at April 2020. If we compare the data month-on-month, we can see that the stats for April are growing even more rapidly than they were for March. While we can see that page views and order count are trending upwards, with a 75% increase and 95% increase respectively, we wanted to delve into whether the number of reviews shoppers were leaving has also increased.

The data highlights that review count is up, with April growing at 32% year-over-year. As shoppers are increasing the number of items that they purchase, this is likely triggering more post-interaction emails than usual. Question submission – which is where a shopper submits a question around a particular product, such as asking for dimensions or whether they can use it in a specific way – is also seeing positive growth year-over-year, with an increase of 54% in April.

This increase in review and question counts shows that brands, now more than ever, need to engage with their customers. They can do this by answering any questions that they are submitting and also by taking the time to analyse their reviews, to help improve the overall experience for their customers.

Nearing the end of April, we’re seeing toys and games, arts and entertainment, animals and pet supplies, business and industrial, and sporting goods pulling in the largest number of page views. They have pushed the food, beverage and tobacco, and office supplies categories out of the top five.

This is an interesting change in shopper behaviour, as it may highlight that as people get used to spending longer periods of time at home, they are moving past the necessity phase and are now looking to prioritise different categories. This is also true for order count where we see that hardware, sporting goods, vehicles and parts, business and industrial, and arts and entertainment hold the top five spots.

Top priorities for shoppers

Alongside the products that people are viewing and purchasing, consumers’ priorities are also changing as a result of Covid-19. According to our survey, before the pandemic, respondents’ main priorities when purchasing were quality (48%), price (47%) and brand (24%). Now, they’re mostly focused on availability (49%), price (36%) and quality (34%).

It makes sense that availability is such a concern – over half (58%) of respondents said that they have experienced product shortages at stores from which they’ve tried to make a purchase. When asked if they feel like they have access to essential and non-essential supplies, 44% said that they’re getting by, but it’s tricky. Only 30% said that they have been able to get everything they need quite easily.

It’s very interesting to see the change in priority for shoppers, with the focus moving to availability. This will prove a key time for consumers to try new brands that they perhaps wouldn’t have before. This may result in a change in brand loyalty for some consumers who discover new products as part of their new shopping experiences.

Change to shopper circumstances

While we have delved into how people’s shopping behaviour is changing, we are also interested in some of the specific reasons behind why it may be changing, and one of those is changes in our work circumstances. In a recent survey we conducted with over 2,800 members of the Influenster community, we were interested to find out how people’s working situations have changed, as that will have a direct impact on how consumers are shopping and products they are prioritising.

Only 30% said that they have been able to get everything they need quite easily.

Thirty-six percent of respondents are still working their regular hours with their usual salary, while 22% have experienced lay-offs, and a further 8% are anticipating some sort of change based on their company’s current situation. The remaining 34% have experienced either reduced hours, reduced pay, been furloughed or have had to use their paid time off during this time.

As Covid-19 and its impacts continue, we are likely to see further changes to people’s working situations, which may alter shopping behaviour further.

What could this mean for retail?

While it’s key to explore how shopper behaviour is changing throughout this period, the question many people want the answer to is what long lasting impact will Covid-19 have on ecommerce and shopping habits. Which categories will people continue to increase spend in, and which will likely become less of a priority?

The shift we’ve seen in consumers moving to online shopping can only help to accelerate innovation in ecommerce across multiple industries. As companies have been working hard to improve their ecommerce experience – whether that be from improving delivery times, updating product descriptions on web pages, or utilising ratings and reviews across their products – it will be interesting to see whether once Covid-19 is over these consumers keep shopping online, or if they will want to return to shopping in physical stores.

We just don’t know yet. But one thing is for sure: brands that provide a seamless, informative online experience are poised to succeed during this challenging time.

Suzin Wold is SVP of marketing at Bazaarvoice.

Diary of a London Lockdown

Published by Brad Johnson on 05/09/2020

Date: Thursday 12 March 2020
Reported deaths in the UK: 10
Reported cases in the UK: 590
Epicentre of the virus: Wuhan

For a few days this March staying at home felt anarchic. The World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus a global pandemic and although the virus was creeping up around us here, life in the UK continued largely as normal. Our government simply told us to wash our hands. I called my friends in Beijing. They’d been in lockdown for weeks and spoke of what they’d been following in Wuhan: the havoc this illness makes on the body, any body; how it overwhelms healthcare resources; kills medics who are too exposed. They told me to stay at home. And so in my house we decided to join the Beijing lockdown and hope that our government would make this the plan for everyone in the UK.

That evening we listened to our prime minister speak on the radio. His strategy he said was to ‘delay’ the spread of the virus. Delay. Why not prevent? Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and now China was preventing the spread. His single piece of advice for the elderly, those most at risk of death, was to avoid cruise ship holidays. It was an absurd thing to say. Beneath his words I heard Dominic Cummings (his chief advisor), cavalier, cynical, nonchalant, as though he’d taken the view that pensioners were dispensable, a drain on the state.

‘It’s naughty to say ‘stupid’, mummy!’ my three-year-old said at bedtime. He told me quite seriously that I must stop shouting at the radio. He was upset by how furious I seemed when Johnson spoke, how worried, how out of control. But it was frightening to feel that our government wasn’t taking care of us. Or was it that we were overreacting? How could we be sure?

Luckily there were other good sources for guidance. The editor of the Lancet, the UK’s medical journal, was a vocal critic of our government’s approach. Among friends we shared articles, posted them on Twitter. BBC News had begun blanket coverage of the virus a few days earlier. Having worked there throughout my career I often find I’m critical of the news, but there was something about the corporation’s decision to focus on this story, and the calm, concerned tone that presenters and reporters had fallen into, that moved me and I tuned in. The next day the Premiere League cancelled all matches. The day after Apple closed its stores. There was reassurance in the idea that even if our government wasn’t responding then individuals, institutions, companies were taking this into their own hands.

During those early days the coronavirus was like permanent surround sound. Our red, scoured hands were wrapped to our phones obsessively retrieving and circulating information. Panic fuzzed around us. It was like being on a precipice that at any moment could give way. For a second I recognised this feeling from childhood when my father was diagnosed with a terminal illness and I was suddenly overly aware that anybody I loved could be taken. Now everybody in the world might share this fear, all of us forced to face the fragility of life at exactly the same time.

I’d just managed to convince my mother, now in her seventies, to stay at home. She’s rebellious and freedom-loving; she was expelled from school as a teenager for skipping class and running across a field to a sweet shop. It had taken days of forwarding her terrifying articles, but my brother was sending her different messages and encouraging her to go out. He had his own legitimate worries – about her feeling afraid and isolated on her own. Running a small business and responsible for his employees, the implications of staying at home without government endorsement or support seemed impossible to my brother, whereas for my family of freelancers, the decision to stay at home may have been easier to make. So my brother and I found ourselves in a battle over what we thought was best. I’d passive-aggressively dump articles on his WhatsApp, he’d respond infuriated. We’d meet on FaceTime, I’d see his face, miss him; we’d have a tender conversation about something else. Different technology platforms contained both our friction and fondness.

All our ‘real-life’ interactions seemed to be taking place across platforms now too: conversations through open windows, closed doors, across rooftops, doorsteps to front gates, from the pavement up to a balcony on the second floor.

At this moment there was still time for existential thinking. In the pre-modern age people often thought that when the natural world turned on its inhabitants it was a warning from God. This is rooted in our scriptures: the floods in Noah’s Ark, the ten plagues in Exodus. To what extent has this religious thinking seeped into our modern world? Even the secular among us, do we feel punished? Taught a lesson? Awoken? Do we try to find meaning in it? Or do we explain with science? As unbelieving as I am, I can’t resist trying to make sense of the virus in this older way. It did feel like a comeuppance of some kind. The coronavirus seemed to demand immediate responses to the questions we’d been struggling with for years. Are we able to sacrifice our consumer comforts for a greater good? What happens if we close our borders? What do we value more life or economy? Who can afford to put their life before their need for income? Who owes what to zero-hour workers? Climate change, Brexit, populism, inequality. The virus re-colours the issues that have been dividing us, the ways we’ve let things go. We thought we’d received our punishment for leaving all this unresolved when Boris Johnson won an election in the UK, when Trump won in the USA, but what we didn’t realise was that the ultimate penalty would be their leadership during a global pandemic.

A friend FaceTimed us, my son in his bath, her daughter in her bath. The kids splashed about as if they were together in the same room. After the squealing I realised that for the first time all week, for the three minutes of that call, I’d forgotten the virus.

Date: Monday 23 March
Reported deaths in the UK: 335
Reported daily deaths in the UK: 54
Reported cases in the UK: 6650
Epicentre of the virus: Europe

Birds sing and we hear them. The streets are quiet. Stars prickle back into the night sky. Everything has stopped to prioritise life. We’ve stopped travelling to work unless it’s essential, we’re not shopping unless it’s essential, we’re burning fewer fossil fuels, we’re not busying about. Our government finally instituted a lockdown, and all that we thought was impossible a few months ago has become the new normal. It turns out that we won’t collapse on the street if we don’t hold a cappuccino in a paper cup. We barely notice they’re gone. In many countries around the world life is being put before economy for the first time in modern capitalism. It’s beautiful, for a moment.

Not only this, but also our government’s compensation packages explode some of our myths about money. We can now see that money is not finite; the government doesn’t need to rely on our taxes to reduce its deficit. It can print money, or add zeroes to its balance, without sparking inflation if done in the right way. It can afford, for example, to fund a Universal Basic Income. Homeless people are given housing in hotels. There’s a moment of hope. People are asking: if we can do this in exceptional times, what can we do after them?

People have, over the last few weeks, been panic-buying, stock-piling, even occasionally wrestling over goods in supermarkets. But it turns out that we can still get the stuff we need. Who is making it? How does it arrive at the shops? To our doors? With what precaution? What risk to life? This is the world as it was, but now heightened to the nth degree.

The coronavirus begins to act like the ‘show all formatting’ option on a Word document, exposing the workings of our society for all of us to see. A gap in life expectancy between rich and poor has been growing in the UK over the last fifteen years. Now the discrepancy is not just about a future date, decades from now, a fiction, a statistic, a number with a decimal point inside a bracket on a category. Now it’s immediate. Today, tomorrow, people working on the supply chain making and distributing essential goods, working in hospitals, their lives are potentially threatened three weeks from now while the rest of us are relatively protected at home, tapping on screens.

Maybe this is why the coronavirus coverage feels different. During the last few years the BBC’s commitment to balance has meant that discussions have been polarised: climate change activists versus deniers; globalists versus Brexiters. Now a single value unites the coverage: what chance is our government giving each of us at life. The news has become Hippocratic. A journalist from The Times picked up a leak that Dominic Cummings’ initial advice on the virus had been (paraphrased): ‘Herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die – too bad.’ Journalists across the span of left and right leaning media outlets lean together in their horror.

On Thursday night we all stand outside our front doors at eight to Clap for our Carers, to thank the people working in our healthcare system. People are raucous with excitement at this expression of solidarity, and to be focusing on something that people feel positive about and grateful for: the courage and care of doctors, nurses and hospital workers, and the NHS which provides free healthcare to all.

Date: Saturday 4 April
Reported Deaths in the UK: 4313
Reported Daily Deaths in the UK: 708
Reported Cases in the UK: 41,903
Epicentre of the Virus: USA

Lockdown isn’t only about being at home, in one place, but also in one time: the immediate present. Socially agreed upon hours have vanished from the day; there are no more commuting times, no rush hour, no ‘after-work’. We no longer feature in slots in other people’s diaries, we don’t consult diaries. There is no past except for before the virus, and no future except for a thought about when the fridge might be empty and a plan for how to refill it.

Insomnia trends on Twitter.

Of all of us here, it’s our three-year-old who knows best how to be at home. On our living room floor we are diamond thieves (diamond thievery is a trope in Western children’s animation); he’s a jailer, I’m in prison (this one he likes to repeat a lot); he’s Heracles carrying out murderous tasks against wild beasts. Children build the world with their imagination more obviously than we do. I go out for a walk on the high street. Everything is shut. I pass a French clothing shop where I once bought a taupe cotton cardigan. Suddenly the making of these clothes, originating on a piece of paper in Paris, via a factory somewhere very far away, and ending up on this particular street corner seems like a hysterical act.

Just as the 2008 government bailout was distributed to financial institutions at the expense of austerity on the British public, this time the government’s stimulus package reaches businesses and people in fixed employment but leaves out the UK’s precarious workforce. People are losing their jobs, not being compensated, going to food banks so as not to starve, and with schools closed there are no free lunches being served to children who rely on them.

The world economy, we hear, is falling apart. But isn’t economy the sum of all the things that we do and we make? And can’t this pause be an opportunity to re-think, start again? Many people now wish for an index of companies that are ecological and ethical, all the ones that have treated their employees well during the virus, helped them to survive. Surely this is the time to build new businesses and an economy that fits this earth now.

The NHS doesn’t have enough personal protective equipment: gowns, masks, gloves. Nor are there enough ventilators to help their patients recover. We hear a manager of manufacturing firms on the radio who’s been trying to contact the government about supplying them but received no reply. Will is everywhere. The national effort is enormous. Instead of listening to the radio I want to work for it again. Being at home is nothing like anarchy. It’s luxury.

Date: Sunday 12 April 2020
Reported deaths in the UK: 10,612
Reported daily deaths in the UK: 737
Reported cases: 84,279 (includes our prime minister, his chief advisor and our health secretary)
Epicentre: USA

‘Are wizards real? Are baddies real? Are police real? I think I saw two once,’ our three-year-old asks us. The outside world gets murkier, further away, smudged. I’m sure I must be missing my old life but I can’t particularly remember it. Some days at home we don’t know how to look after each other. We get it wrong. We start again. The news becomes too awful to listen to. We tune out. It’s difficult to take in the enormity of the loss, the failures, our failures. We’ve become immune to the numbers. When Italy had as many deaths a day as we have now we were shocked, devastated, afraid. Now we can’t take in the volume of the loss. Slowly a new way of life is becoming established, and again we’re too busy to think.

Our prime minister leaves intensive care and tells us, starry-eyed, that the NHS is ‘powered by love’. As if we didn’t know. Over the last ten years Conservative governments have reduced funding to the NHS as demands on it have increased. We wonder if he might now start giving the NHS the money it needs, but epiphanies often dissipate when the everyday returns.

For now, the workings of our society still remain visible on every street. Dots in the spaces, arrows on the line-breaks. I go for a morning run. Nobody else is around apart from a guy in a high-vis jacket sweeping the street. We greet each other with a warmth and sincerity that is rare in normal times here. He has a pride in what he’s doing, and I a realisation about how easy this is for me in comparison. That was true before the coronavirus, but now it’s impossible to imagine or pretend it’s any other way. Although lockdown conditions might not be the best for us to re-think everything, if we don’t now use the clarity the coronavirus gives us – when we step back out to our cities heaving again, the moment might have slipped away.

Our three-year-old finds that staying at home is beginning to drag. He says that he’d like to go to a playground, and he misses his grandmothers. I ask him whether he prefers his life before the coronavirus came to the UK or after. ‘Before,’ he pauses. ‘And after. I like after and before.’

author’s note: All data refers to reported figures. Real figures are not known because from 12 March only people admitted to hospital were being tested in the UK. Real death figures are also unknown. Causes of death may not be clear if people haven’t been tested. Towards the end of March the government increased its targets for testing but hasn’t yet come close to meeting these targets. We attend to these reported numbers nonetheless.

Image courtesy of the author

The post Diary of a London Lockdown appeared first on Granta.

What’s the most praiseworthy list software you’ve uncovered today?

What’s the most praiseworthy list software you’ve uncovered today?

Published by Brad Johnson on 05/08/2020

https://econsultancy.com/covid-19-changed-shopper-behaviour-online-stats/

It’s been nearly eight weeks since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic. In this time, the retail space as we know it has had to completely evolve.

How people were shopping in March 2020 – the beginning of the shutdown

It’s no surprise to see that people prioritised necessities, and also that they looked for ways to entertain themselves and their families.

How that differs from online shopping throughout April 2020

Top priorities for shoppers

Change to shopper circumstances

Only 30% said that they have been able to get everything they need quite easily.

As Covid-19 and its impacts continue, we are likely to see further changes to people’s working situations, which may alter shopping behaviour further.

What could this mean for retail?

We just don’t know yet. But one thing is for sure: brands that provide a seamless, informative online experience are poised to succeed during this challenging time.

Suzin Wold is SVP of marketing at Bazaarvoice.

What’s the most interesting content marketing tip you’ve found from this post?

Published by Brad Johnson on 05/08/2020

https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/623402024/0/convinceandconvertconsulting/

When it comes to search engine optimization, content is key to success. The thing is, while technical SEO does exist (and even plays a teeny-tiny factor), Google has stressed it time and again: All you really need for Google to like your site is publish high-quality, useful content. But what exactly is perceived as a sign of high-quality content?

Here are five content-related ranking signals Google is using to determine whether a specific article deserves to appear on top of Google.

1. Highly-Linked Content

A backlink profile is Google’s oldest ranking signal. Ever since Google launched, backlinks were at the core of its ranking algorithm. And while Google has repeatedly added dozens — and even hundreds — of other signals, backlinks have remained the most powerful one.

It used to be very simple: the more, the better.

When website owners figured it out, Google’s search result pages were heavily manipulated, so Google had to up its game. It’s all very complicated now, to the point where I doubt there’s a single person working for Google who completely understands how it works.

There are good and bad links, there are natural and unnatural links, and there are high-authority and low-authority links. One group may be balancing the other. Some links may be dragging you down, and some may be driving you up, and it’s not always possible to tell one from the other.

Now, this all comes down to one thing: you need as many editorial and natural links as possible. In other words, we need to create linkable content.

This is where the content creator can play a crucial role: it is actually in our power to create content that attracts links.

What is linkable content?

There is no single definition to linkable content, as there is no single type of link. Educational content attracts links from teachers, bizarre content drives links from popular media outlets and discussion boards, and innovative content may get links from niche journalists.

There are no set rules here, so it will be up to how well you do your research, and for the most part, up to your luck.

When working on an article, check out Buzzsumo to get an idea of which content attracts most links on your topic. Buzzsumo allows you to filter results to see recently published content and evaluate the current linkable trends:

Buzzsumo allows you to filter results to see recently published content and evaluate the current linkable trends:

2. Relevancy

Actually, this one should be #1, of course. I put after links only because it is a more recent signal — the one Google is still figuring out.

Years ago, adding a specific keyword several times in an article or on a page was enough for Google to consider that content relevant to the matching search query.

Obviously, this was a very easily-manipulated signal, so Google has been working hard on improving its relevancy signals.

Yes, there’s no single signal here, so, like with backlinks, we are talking about a group of signals. But as copywriters, we have more control here, as we actually create the content.

One of the biggest improvements to Google’s relevancy algorithms has been implemented thanks to the introduction of semantic mapping, which helped Google understand each query in context rather than matching the exact sequence of words to the indexed documents.

Semantic research can help publishers create better-researched, more relevant content, similar to how it helps Google algorithmically calculate relevance.

Text Optimizer is a great tool that helps you create a more relevant context to better match Google’s and its users’ expectations:

Text Optimizer is a great tool that helps you create a more relevant context to better match Google’s and its users’ expectations.

Text Optimizer will also score your content relevancy and point you to all possible areas of improvement.

Other improvements to Google’s relevancy algorithms which are not so easy to put into practice but still are good to be aware of include:

3. Content Length

This is one of those search signals that keeps causing lots of debates and arguments in the SEO niche. In truth, we will ever know the definitive answer, even though multiple research studies (including this one) seem to show that Google favors long-form content.

The average length of content ranking on Google’s first page is 1,447 words.

It is rightfully argued that long-form content may be generating more backlinks, and hence it tends to rank higher.

Either way, whether it is a direct ranking signal or simply a way to create more linkable content, long-form content seems the way to go.

Always use your own editorial judgement, but as a rule of thumb:

If you have a choice between writing one 1000-word article or three 200-word articles, choose the longer option.
However, if you feel like your article is turning into a 5000-word book, it is time to consider breaking into a series by breaking it into more specific angles and subtopics.
Finally, if you feel like you have fully covered a target question in your 500-hundred article (this often happens when you address very specific / narrow queries), don’t force it. A useful article that clearly answers a question is better than a long-form content that was written solely for word count.

4. Exact Keyword Match

While Google has moved beyond exact-match keywords and can now understand relevancy beyond word strings, including your target keyword is still important.

The same study mentioned above found that “the vast majority of title tags in Google exactly or partially match the keyword that they rank for”. Note that most titles didn’t have exact-match keywords but rather some variations of those.

Most title tags on the first page of Google contain all or part of the keyword that they rank for.

This does tell us that Google is still looking at keywords, so keyword research and optimization is still important. Here’s a helpful list of best keyword research tools out there, updated for 2020.

5. Content Engagement

To the best of my knowledge, Google has never confirmed that they use on-page engagement (what people do once they land on your page) as a direct ranking factor.

I can see why it may be a difficult decision for them. If users leave right away, does it mean the content was useless? Or does it mean it is so great that people found an answer right away, totally satisfied with what they read?

The above question makes both “bounce rate” and “time on page” metrics questionable signals of content quality.

However, for the search giant to totally ignore user satisfaction signals would be a huge oversight, given that they also own Google Analytics, which gives them plenty of data to peruse.

There are educated theories that Google uses some user engagement metrics as a ranking single, but those signals are evaluated differently from SERPs to SERPs, and they are never absolute metrics. Instead, they are being compared for top-ranking sites, allowing Google to quickly identify possible anomalies.

There’s not much content creators can do to impact user engagement, apart from creating genuinely useful content. But it is always a good idea for content creators to view site analytics and track content performance.

Finteza is the modern web analytics platform with a huge focus on conversions and engagement monitoring. You can use Finteza to better understand which of your articles are read in full, which of them send the users down the sales funnels, and which send them away from your site.

Use web analytics to figure out how to create more engaging content.

Conclusion

Of course, there are many more search signals that help Google serve up the most relevant search results. It is likely there are hundreds (at least 200) search signals at play any time a user clicks the “search” button. Many of those SEO factors can be handled through plugins. But content is still the foundation.

A content creator cannot influence all the aspects of search engine optimization. There are still technical elements to figure out (including the most important ones like site architecture and internal linking). And there are powerful ranking signals that are beyond an optimizer’s reach, like personalization and localization.

What you, as a content creator and content marketer can do is lay the important foundation for a high-ranking asset.

The post 5 Google Ranking Signals Content Marketers Need to Know appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

How will you implement the advice from this post?

Published by Brad Johnson on 05/08/2020

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/1iAVi4ucvmw/

How COVID-19 Is Impacting Business Event Planning
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Google ad sales steady after coronavirus drop; Alphabet leads tech share rally
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Spotify-owned Anchor can now turn your video chats into podcasts
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Google’s new Podcasts Manager tool offers deeper data on listener behavior
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LinkedIn’s up to 690 Million Members, Reports 26% Growth in User Sessions
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Advertisers Continued to Gravitate to Instagram in Q1
Advertisers moved to spend more on Instagram during the first quarter of 2020, with ad spending up 39 percent year-over-year on the platform, holding steady at 27 percent of parent company Facebook’s total ad spend, according to recently-released Merkle data. MarketingCharts

Brands Are Using More Data And Spending More On It: Study
B2B marketers are making greater use of data and spending increasingly to gather it, according to recent report data from Ascend2, showing that 47 percent use engagement data to make marketing decisions, one of several report statistics of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

Most consumers are trying new brands during social distancing, study finds
Brands are seeing newfound levels of audience interest, with an uptick in consumer interest for trying new brands that has been observed during the pandemic, with members of the Gen Z and Millennial demographic seeing the biggest increases, according to recently-released survey data. Campaign US

Marketers Ante Up for In-Game Advertising
A $3 billion in-game advertising market in the U.S. alone has attracted additional advertisers, and a new Association of National Advertisers (ANA) examination of data from eMarketer found some surprises in that most mobile gamers were over 35, with 20 percent being over 50, while the majority were female, several of the in-game advertising statistics of interest to digital marketers. ANA

Data Hub: Coronavirus and Marketing [Updated]
Digital marketing has fared better than traditional campaigns in the face of the global health crisis, according to newly-released survey data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) exploring the differences between the pandemic and the 2008 recession. MarketingCharts

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at generic advertising “in these uncertain times” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

WHO Releases New Guidelines to Avoid Being Nominated for Viral Challenges — The Hard Times

Major Relief: Microsoft Has Confirmed That The Xbox Series X Will Play Video Games — The Onion

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

Lee Odden — What’s Trending: Embracing Data — LinkedIn (client)
Lee Odden — 10 Expert Tips for Marketing During a Crisis — Oracle (client)
Lee Odden — Klear Interviews Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing [Video] — Klear
Lee Odden and TopRank Marketing — Pandemic Cross-Country Skiing in Duluth, Minnesota: A Personal Timeline — Lane R. Ellis

Have you got your own top B2B content marketing or digital advertising stories from the past week of news? Please let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for taking time to join us, and we hope you will join us again next Friday for more of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don’t miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

The post B2B Marketing News: Brands Spending More on Data, Spotify Turns Video Chats into Podcasts, & Consumers Trying More New Brands appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

Hang Out With Oprah And Reese Witherspoon: Join An Online Virtual Book Club! | Writer’s Relief

Published by Brad Johnson on 05/08/2020

Attention POETS!

A special Review Board just for poets! We have a few more spots open for poets, so submit your poetry today!

DEADLINE: Thursday, April 30, 2020

Hang Out With Oprah And Reese Witherspoon: Join An Online Virtual Book Club! | Writer’s Relief

Just because you’re self-isolating doesn’t mean you can’t join other readers and talk about books—one of our favorite topics! And there are lots of great virtual book club options in this article Writer’s Relief found at usatoday.com. You can read along with Oprah or Reese Witherspoon, or check out The Perks of Being A Book Addict or the Andrew Luck Book Club (yes, the former NFL quarterback!).

You’ll find info about more virtual book clubs here.

Author: Brad Johnson

Drop a link below if you’ve recognized anything cool for authors!

How people were shopping in March 2020 – the beginning of the shutdown

How that differs from online shopping throughout April 2020

Top priorities for shoppers

Change to shopper circumstances

What could this mean for retail?

Recommended

Diary of a London Lockdown

What’s the most praiseworthy list software you’ve uncovered today?

How people were shopping in March 2020 – the beginning of the shutdown

How that differs from online shopping throughout April 2020

Top priorities for shoppers

Change to shopper circumstances

What could this mean for retail?

Recommended

What’s the most interesting content marketing tip you’ve found from this post?

Here are five content-related ranking signals Google is using to determine whether a specific article deserves to appear on top of Google.

1. Highly-Linked Content

2. Relevancy

3. Content Length

4. Exact Keyword Match

5. Content Engagement

Conclusion

Related Stories

How will you implement the advice from this post?

Hang Out With Oprah And Reese Witherspoon: Join An Online Virtual Book Club! | Writer’s Relief

Attention POETS!

A special Review Board just for poets! We have a few more spots open for poets, so submit your poetry today!

DEADLINE: Thursday, April 30, 2020