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Posted on October 20, 2012May 18, 2022

YouTube: More Time Watched, More Traffic

Excerpts from my latest article at Practical Ecommerce: “YouTube’s Time Watched Algorithm Update.”

In the past, YouTube measured a video’s popularity based on the number of clicks it received. Last Friday the video search giant changed its algorithm to take the time spent watching a video into account. As a result, ecommerce sites wanting to attract more viewers to their videos need to focus more than ever on creating video content that speaks to their audiences and holds their attention.

A snappy or controversial headline or an attractive thumbnail may get a lot of clicks, but if the content of the video doesn’t live up to viewers’ expectations, the “time watched” metrics will be poor and the video’s YouTube rankings will suffer.

The update measures actual minutes watched …

Read the full article at Practical Ecommerce >>


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Originally posted on Web PieRat.

Posted on September 14, 2012May 18, 2022

Using Marketing Automation Tools for SEO

Excerpts from my latest article at Practical eCommerce: “SEO: Using Automated Landing Pages.”

Marketing automation tools make creating landing pages a snap. They focus on making it more efficient to deliver relevant content to relevant individuals at relevant times via email and paid search campaigns. Why not use them to create landing pages for SEO campaigns as well, right? Unless they’re set up to create searchable landing pages, your marketing automation platform may be completely unable to drive organic search traffic and sales.

Email marketing platforms were the genesis of today’s more sophisticated marketing automation platforms. Today, these platforms can track the behavior of customers interested in your products to understand intent and deliver more targeted messaging. The goal is to move potential customers farther through that marketing funnel to eventually convert them to paying customers.

Email campaigns and paid search ads are common drivers to the customized messages contained on these targeted landing pages. Because they’re so targeted, marketers feel confident in placing specific promotions on them such as a discount or a special download. Naturally, marketers don’t want these types of targeted promotions to get indexed for anyone to find in Google and the other engines. The result would be skewed metrics and campaigns with potentially high-value promotions being distributed far too widely as more customers find the content via organic search.

That natural desire to keep targeted email and paid search landing pages out of organic search results can be the foundation of the problem with using marketing automation platforms for SEO. Unless they’re set up to make specific landing pages searchable and others hidden from search engine spiders depending on campaign needs, creating optimized landing pages for organic search with your marketing automation platform could get you a bit of nowhere.

The article goes on to explain:

  • How to Tell if Landing Pages Are Indexable
  • How to Fix Indexation Problems
  • More Links and Sound SEO

Read the article in full at Practical eCommerce >>


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Originally posted on Web PieRat.

Posted on September 7, 2012May 18, 2022

Meta Keywords: Spam & Spy Wrapped into One

Excerpts from my latest article at NBC Chicago’s Inc. Well: “Why Meta Keyword Tags Are a Waste of Time.”

 

When discussing keywords and content optimization best practices, clients will invariably ask about meta keywords. Sorry, guys, but meta keywords have been dead to the major US search engines as ranking signals for nearly three years now. Google was the first to denounce meta keywords, then Yahoo! and Bing.

Once upon a time when the Internet was young and search algorithms hadn’t evolved independent methods to determine relevance and context, meta keywords allowed site owners to specify the keywords their content was relevant for.

Unfortunately, meta keywords were visible only as a signal to search engines. Humans never see meta keywords unless they enjoy staring at source code, which is not typical consumer behavior. Spammers everywhere rejoiced at the ability to stuff popular keywords into a page to improve its rankings without the human visitors ever seeing that nasty cruft behind the scenes.

Consequently, meta keywords were short-lived as a search engine ranking signal and quickly became nothing more than a spam signal. Or a traitorous avenue for competitors to spy on your optimization efforts….

Read the full article with all the details at NBC Chicago’s Inc. Well >>


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Originally posted on Web PieRat.

Posted on October 7, 2011August 29, 2021

Meta Keywords?! Face Palm [Web Piecat]

image
Mittens, the youngest Web Piecat, encountered an SEO living in 1995. A heated discussion ensued. Mittens was rubbing used stocks on his face at the time, naturally. But the ancient SEO’s insistence on the value of meta keywords to organic search rankings made Mitty do the classic face palm, with socks. Dirty socks. Yeah, he likes them. Lots.

Go ahead and tell them, Mittens:

Continue reading “Meta Keywords?! Face Palm [Web Piecat]”

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