This week at SEOPartner, we’re sharing: SEO updates that deliver significant impact to your results, exciting changes to watch out for, good-to-know studies and information, and tips to try based on recent findings.
From social media innovations to insightful revelations on conversion rate and CTRs, here are some of the recent releases that are currently making the online marketing space abuzz.
What’s Hot?
The Biggest Social Media Updates: One month, numerous developments. That’s what happened this June, as documented by Search Engine Journal’s social media roundup.
Facebook rolled out new Facebook Live features which included two-person broadcasting (two users in different locations can broadcast at the same time) and pre-scheduled broadcasts.
Instagram monthly active users surged to 500 million, with 300 million of them using the app daily.
Pinterest, aiming to be the eminent social shopping platform, releases four new shopping features to help businesses with their sales.
Snapchat daily active users reach 150 million, surpassing Twitter’s average of 136 million.
Twitter, aside from introducing Stickers as a new feature, also launched the Dashboard app that can be valuable for small-to-medium businesses.
YouTube just announced the live streaming capabilities for their mobile app. Although only reserved users are able to use this feature, a wider release is expected soon.
What’s Cooking?
Google Tests the Removal of Results Estimate. Some users have reported not seeing the estimated “about” count that usually appears on top of the search results for a given query. According to Search Engine Land, the change is most likely just one of the many tests Google is constantly conducting on their new interfaces, and there’s no sign that removing the count will be implemented in the future. Google has described the search results number as “incorrect” and “inaccurate.”
Pinterest Gears to Become a Social Visual Powerhouse. Pinterest’s latest features hint at its impending transformation into a powerful visual search engine and e-commerce channel, reports Search Engine Watch. Many of these new features make search results more helpful and personalized, such as idea search, predictive search based on user’s search history, logical sequencing of search results, and the ability to search within an existing pin. Local businesses can also take advantage of the new camera search technology (which allows users to get search results based on a photo they took), as well as search results that integrate with local business tools such as maps and Foursquare.
Good to Know
The Most Important CRO Metric You Might Be Overlooking
In conversion rate optimization, the ultimate goal is to increase sales and quality leads. Or is it? Newsflash: There’s an even more important CRO metric you should be paying attention to – the most important of all, actually. And it is the click-through rate (CTR). Search Engine Watch explains why:
A high conversion rate relies on a high CTR. If your offer gets visitors excited enough to click, then it will get them motivated all throughout the way toward making a purchase.
Conversion rates are biased. Your conversion rate reflects the percentage of people who are interested in your offer, and that interest was triggered by a previous encounter with your brand. Well and good. But it doesn’t tell you is how new audiences are responding to you offer.
CTRs offer a clearer direction. Compared to conversion rates, CTRs provide a more honest and therefore more insightful view of your offers. If you find your CTR is low, then it’s a clear direction for you to make the improvement your campaigns – and your conversion performance – need.
SEO Tips to Try
4 Ways to Create Images that Attract Your Target Audience
The magic behind an effective image is its ability to appeal to both our conscious minds and subconscious awareness. A Moz contributor recently shared some tips for creating graphics your audience will love.
– Use symbolism to share not only what you want to say to your audience, but also what you want them to feel.
– Maximize visuals to sell the experience, not just the product.
– To build credibility, incorporate numbers (graphs, charts and statistics) to your images.
– Learn data storytelling, which allows you to deliver demographics information while and putting a face to the campaign.
Traffic Loss? Use This Troubleshooting Checklist
When your site experiences a significant drop in search result rankings, it’s easy to go into panic mode. But with more than a hundred signals, it’s difficult to pinpoint which single factor caused your traffic to plummet. Diagnosis can be made easier with an SEO audit checklist. Search Engine Land recently published a 10-point SEO audit checklist which included the following common causes of a ranking drop:
Newly acquired links. Use tools such as MajesticSEO or Ahrefs to see newly discovered links and assess if they’re causing your ranking to fluctuate. A spike in the acquisition of links may also cause Google may suspect the site as doing unnatural or a shady link-building practices.
Lost backlinks. Deleted, removed or deindexed links can have a significant impact on your rankings. A high-authority link or group of links that have been removed can negatively impact a site’s authority and may thus cause rankings to drop.
Redirection. Removed redirects can stop the flow of link juice which can affect your site’s rankings. When you rebrand or shift to another domain, 301 redirect helps you recover lost link juice during migration.
Penalties & algorithm updates. Regularly monitor Google Webmaster Tools for manual penalties, and look at your Google Analytics for any sign of traffic drop weeks after an algorithmic update.
On-page factors & server issues. Slow site speed and server errors can affect user experience and may cause your pages to get deindexed, losing all your traffic & rankings in an instant. Make sure to conduct hourly checks to detect errors early.
SUMMING IT ALL UP
Here are the top takeaways from this week’s SEO news roundup:
What’s Hot?
The Biggest Social Media Updates. One month, lots of exciting developments. Know more about these changes to discover how they affect – and can benefit – your business.What’s Cooking?
Google Tests the Removal of Results Estimate. Some users have reported not seeing anymore the estimate “about” count on top of Google results. Experts say it’s no big deal.
Pinterest Gears to Become a Social Visual Powerhouse. Pinterest launches new features. Brands, especially those in e-commerce, should sit up and take notice.Good to Know
The Most Important CRO Metric You Might Be Overlooking. Hint: It’s not your conversion rate…SEO Tips to Try
4 Ways to Create Images that Attract Your Target Audience. The fool-proof way to great graphics is to create it according to what your audience will love.
Traffic Loss? Use This Troubleshooting Checklist. In panic due to plummeting rankings? Use an audit checklist to fix things out.
