|
| | |
|
Keywords can be a dangerous way to discover SERP competitors
Don’t look at JUST “keywords” to determine who your Search competitors are.
Sound crazy? It’s not.
Did you know an SEO tool will tell you that Waze (the directions app) and Zillow (the real estate listing site) are competitors?
In fact, according to Semrush they share a whopping 211K keywords!
But they are not competitors. They just happen to rank together on location searches (e.g., Ocean City, Maryland) for two very different reasons (i.e., intents).
Common keywords are— maybe I should say “can be”—a terrible way to assess a SERP competitor.
Here’s what you should be doing:
1. Looking at intent. Are your competitors ranking for informational intents while you’re ranking for commercial or transactional keywords (i.e., keywords that might directly convert)?
2. Looking at the pages bringing in traffic. Even when you rank on the same SERPs, are they ranking with informational content while you rank for commercial or transactional content?
Zillow might think Redfin is it’s largest competitor, but are they really, when Redfin’s top page beyond the home page is informational, whereas Zillow’s are transactional? (For the record, we’d need to dig deeper here—I’m just using this for demonstrative purposes.)
Point is, you have to really start qualifying “keywords” and “rankings” in order to really see who your SERP competitors actually are.
| |
|
|
|
 | Mordy Oberstein |
| Another Google core update is here!
On August 15th, Google announced the rollout of the August 2024 Core Update. The update should take a full month to roll out (so by the time you’re reading this, the update should still be live).
As tough as it might be for those being impacted by the update, it's best to let things fully roll out before making any adjustments. There can be a heap of rank reversals along the way and it's hard to know exactly where things will end up (this isn’t just me saying this, it’s Google’s official advice).
Of course, the big question is: Will sites hit by the Helpful Content Update (HCU) back in September see some signs of ranking life?
There are indicators that we might finally be seeing some of these “HCU” sites bouncing back a bit. It’s a complex landscape, with Barry Schwartz initially reporting that some of the HCU sites were seeing ranking gains, and then reporting some of those gains had disappeared.
Concurrently, folks like Glenn Gabe have seen some major comebacks.
Again, it’s hard to say anything with 100% certainty until the update has officially completed.
As an aside, Google did say that URL appearances in AI Overviews (AIOs) are impacted by core updates.
This comes as Google has expanded AIOs into new markets and changed how links appear within the overviews themselves.
| |
|
|
How would you define the host’s role on a podcast?
|
|
|
How can SEOs and marketers deal best with consumer bias?
Cognitive biases play a major role in search behavior. They're the mental shortcuts we make to reduce the work our brains need to do. People always bring the context of their lives to their searches. As SEOs and marketers, we can research and understand our audience's unconscious biases to produce a content strategy that aligns with their needs.
There are hundreds of cognitive biases, but some of the most prevalent in search include:
- Confirmation bias: We search for information that confirms our existing beliefs. Google delivers results that support those biased searches.
- Familiarity bias: People are more likely to trust (and click on) brands that they recognize. Brand marketing has an increased impact on SEO performance.
- Authority bias: We trust people and organizations that we consider to be experts. By positioning our brands as authorities, we earn more authoritative links, drive more conversions, and get more traffic.
- Salience bias: We focus on items or information that are more noticeable or emotionally striking, often at the expense of other, less prominent information. There are visual opportunities across the SERPs. Target the featured snippets, optimize for image carousels, build rich snippets with stars, product attributes, and more.
How do you put it into action? Your content and SEO strategy should be driven by customer and market research. Learn the biases of your audience with well-constructed interviews and surveys. Then appeal to their commonalities with your brand. Win over the loyalists and the undecideds. |
|
|
| Join our all-star panel for a live milestone episode covering new local ranking factors, the reality of AI's potential, and more of the latest SEO news (from him who makes it). |
|
|
 | | Make podcasting your next marketing move | From knowledge sharing to deep-dive niche conversations and repurposable content, discover why podcasts are a powerhouse tool and learn how to add them to your mix.
Tune in → | |
|
 | | Keyword difficulty assessment matrix | Ditch ambiguous weighted scores for insights in plain English. Use this Google Sheet to understand how difficult it might be to rank for a keyword in search results.
Download the worksheet → | |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
