The MozCon Virtual 2020 Final Agenda

Posted by cheryldraper

We're just about a month out from this year's MozCon and we couldn't be more excited! If you've never considered it before, it's high time you became acquainted with the idea of a "couchference" — a full-fledged conference held from the comfort of your home office space, real office space (depending on your local quarantine phase), or even your sofa.

On July 14th & 15th, we'll be charting brand-new territory with MozCon Virtual: with a choose-your-own-adventure two-stream show, robust opportunities for online networking, and some of the industry's top speakers, you're in for all the turbo-charged SEO education and peer interaction of in-person MozCon with none of the troubles of travel. Plus, at $129 per ticket (including full access to the professionally produced video bundle, a $350 value!) you'll access incredible marketing thought leadership at an unheard-of price:

Nab my ticket and video bundle for $129

And remember, this is a great opportunity for our friends around the world and those who aren't able to travel to experience the MozCon magic live! If this will be your first time attending, we'd love to hear what talk you're most excited for in the comments.

Read on to see what your favorite industry leaders are speaking on this year!

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Tuesday, July 14th

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8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Keynote – Welcome to MozCon Virtual 2020 + State of the Industry

Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz

Sarah has a storied history of kicking MozCon off with a bright, sparkly bang. The fearless leader of Moz will be welcoming each and every one of us to this year's virtual event, laying out all the pertinent details of the conference, and setting the tone for two jam-packed days of learning with a look at the State of the Industry.

9:25am – Keynote – Thought Leadership and SEO: The 3 Key Elements and Search Ranking Strategies

Andy Crestodina, Co-founder and CMO, Orbit Media

Everyone wants to do it, but no one really knows what it is. So what is thought leadership? What isn’t it? And how does it affect search rankings?

This presentation is a data-rich perspective on the oh-so-popular topic of thought leadership, filled with practical takeaways for becoming an authority. And it’s all about the relationship between thought leadership and SEO. We’ll see how the research answers the questions and informs the tactics: Can brands be thought leaders? Can it be outsourced? Do you need to publish research? Or strong opinion? And how does it attract links and authority, rankings, and qualified visitors? Learn how a personal brand combines with content to drive big wins in SEO.

10:20am – Stream 1 – Great Expectations: The Truth About Digital PR Campaigns

Shannon McGuirk, Head of PR & Content, Aira

In her talk, Shannon will challenge the desire for virality over consistency when it comes to digital PR and link building campaigns, while exploring the impact on the industry, team morale, and client expectations. By honestly sharing her own shortcomings, she'll push you to learn from your own campaign failures using tried and tested frameworks that’ll mean you can face any creative campaign or outreach struggle head-on.

10:20am – Stream 2 – Whatever You Do, Put Billboards in Seattle – Getting Brand Awareness Data from Google

Robin Lord, Consultant, Distilled

How can you harness the vast power of Google data to gain special insight into city- and product-level brand awareness? Robin will lead us on a journey through his Google Trends methodology to use Adwords search volume data for better brand intelligence.

11:15am – Stream 1 – How to Build a Global Brand Without a Global Budget

Phil Nottingham, Brand and Video Marketing Strategist, Phil Nottingham Ltd.

As funnel-based marketing becomes less effective and harder to measure, "building a brand" is frequently touted as the panacea for all marketer's woes. But it's unclear how this can be achieved scalably and with a limited budget. Large enterprises resort to huge creative advertising campaigns that get their names out there by force of spend alone — but this isn't realistic for the smaller companies and the number of impressions is not the number of people impressed. In this session, Phil explains how modern brands are built through advocacy more than awareness alone, offering a deliverable method of brand marketing to radically shake up your content strategy.

11:15am – Stream 2 – The Science of Seeking Your Customer

Alexis Sanders, Senior SEO Account Manager, Merkle

Users are at the core of everything we do in modern SEO. However, finding and understanding audiences can be daunting. Alexis will cover how to find your audience, share tools that are available for all price points, and show ways in which she’s found audience research to be useful as an SEO.

12:10pm – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:55pm – Keynote – Moving Targets: Keywords in Crisis

Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Marketing Scientist, Moz

Too often, we take a once-and-done approach to keyword research, but Google changes at the pace of information, and that pace speeds up even more during a crisis. How do we do keyword research in fast-paced industries and during world-changing moments? Dr. Pete provides concrete tactics for adaptive keyword research and spotting trends as they happen.

1:45pm – Stream 1 – A Novel Approach to Scraping SEO Data

Rob Ousbey, VP Product, Moz

Throughout a decade in SEO consulting, Rob needed to extract data from websites on many an occasion. Often this was at scale from sites that didn't have an API or export feature, or on sites that required some kind of authentication. While this was primarily a way to collect & combine data from different SEO tools, the use-cases were endless.

He found a technique that helped immensely, particularly when traditional tools couldn't do the job — but hadn't seen anyone using the same approach. In this very tactical session, Rob will walk through the steps he's used to extract data from all sorts of sites, from small fry to the giants, and give you the tools and knowledge to do the same.

1:45pm – Stream 2 – Let It Go: How to Embrace Automation and Get Way More Done

Francine Rodriguez, Manager of Customer Success, WordStream

Let the robot uprising begin! We've all heard horror stories about the dangers of automating your tasks, but now is not the time to deny yourself extra help. Robots never sleep. They don't get tired or overwhelmed by their to-do lists, and they're ready to work round-the-clock to accomplish whatever task we set before them. In this talk, you'll explore all the areas were automation is kicking butt in PPC — and how you can harness the power of robots to make more time for other efforts.

2:35pm – Keynote – Designing a Content Engine: Going from Ideation to Creation to Distribution

Ross Simmonds, CEO, Foundation

What does it take to develop a content engine that drives results? In this presentation, Ross will share data around the power of having a content engine, tools & strategies for content ideation, tools and tactics for content creation, and frameworks that brands can use to ensure that their content is distributed effectively after hitting publish. This presentation will help you not only uncover content-market fit, but also capitalize on it.

3:30pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

4:30pm — Day One is in the books!

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Wednesday, July 15th

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8:30am – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

9:00am – Welcome to Day Two!

Cyrus Shepard, emcee

9:10am – Keynote – Accessible Machine Learning Workflows for SEOs

Britney Muller, Senior SEO Scientist, Moz

"Machine learning" and "automation" aren't words SEOs need to fear. Machine learning enthusiast and ambassador of technical SEO Britney Muller shares a series of workflows intended for any SEO to access and use in their everyday work — no intimidation required.

9:55am – Stream 1 – How to Be Ahead of the (CTR) Curve

Izzi Smith, Technical SEO Analyst, Ryte

Let’s face it: Carrying out SEO magic is all in vain when you’re forgetting about how your brand and products are being surfaced in the SERPs. By not properly analyzing or enhancing our organic CTR, we're greatly limiting our potential. Izzi will help you create the perfect SERP engagement strategy by covering practical ways to uplift your significant CTR, such as remedying your critical keyword rankings that could soon be lost, leveraging brand-empowering entity features (and assessing the risks of doing so), more intelligent testing of rich & featured snippet optimizations, and a whole lot more. CTR-you-ready?? You better be!

9:55am – Stream 2 – How to Go Beyond Marketing for Clients: The Value of a Thriving Brand Ecosystem

Flavilla Fongang, Brand Strategist, 3 Colours Rule

Too many marketers serve their clients the bare minimum of what's expected from an agency. To stand out among the crowd, cultivate real loyalty, and maximize the lifetime value of your clients, you have to go beyond mere marketing — developing a thriving brand ecosystem that aligns with the brand's ultimate goals. Flavilla Fongang shares her tried-and-true framework for optimizing the customer journey, improving acquisition and retention, and going beyond what's expected to serve your clients well.

10:50am – Stream 1 – How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss

Brian Dean, Founder, Backlinko

Creating content is easy. But getting people to see your content? That's a different story. Brian Dean shares over a dozen practical strategies that you can use to spread the word about your latest blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video.

10:50am – Stream 2 – Google My Business: Battling Bad Info & Safeguarding Your Search Strategy

Joy Hawkins, Owner, Sterling Sky Inc.

What's the harm in a little misinformation here and there? In the realm of local SEO, Joy Hawkins is here to outline exactly that. When it comes to local search and Google My Business, bad info can be make or break for your campaigns. Follow real data from a recent case study that illustrates why strategic decisions should be based on accurate information — and what can happen when that info is bad, wrong, or just plain incomplete.

11:45am – Birds of a Feather discussion groups

Connect and chat with like-minded marketers on a wide range of digital marketing topics!

12:10pm – Keynote – Up-Level Your Technical SEO Game

Michael King, Managing Director, iPullRank

Mike redefined technical SEO and its importance in our industry back in 2016. In 2018, he taught us everything we didn't know about SEO. This year, he's back to share the hottest technical tactics to up-level your efforts, plus the case studies and data that should be guiding your decisions.

1:25pm – Stream 1 – Everyday Automation for Marketers

David Sottimano, Independent Marketing Consultant, Opensource.org

As a general rule, we shouldn't be doing things that a computer can do better. However, a lot of automation is achieved through programming expertise — and that expertise isn't usually a marketer's forte. In this session, you'll learn how to gather data, use machine learning, and automate everyday tasks for marketers using low-code or no-code solutions.

1:25pm – Stream 2 – Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights

Dana DiTomaso, President and Partner, Kick Point

Ever get a few months into working with a new client and you’re thinking “if only we’d known…”? Or how about when you start that new job, except you can’t seem to make any forward progress because you’re always mopping up prior mistakes? Running a discovery process at the start of a project — or even as its own project — will help you turn those red flags into green lights.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – Competitive Advantage in a Commoditized Industry

Heather Physioc, Group Connections Director, Discoverability, VMLY&R

SEO isn't dead — it’s commoditized. In a world where search companies are a dime a dozen and brands tout bland "unique selling propositions" that aren't unique at all, how can you avoid drowning in the sea of sameness? What are you doing that's any different from every other SEO firm? In this talk, you'll learn how to find, activate, and articulate your competitive advantage. Learn how to identify unique strengths and innovative offerings that equate to competitive advantage through these real, working examples so you can bring them to life in search. You'll leave with actionable tips and homework to help your search business stand out — and that you can use with clients to help them find their competitive edge, too.

2:20pm – Stream 1 – I Wanna Be Rich: Making Your Consultancy Profitable

Russ Jones, Principal Search Scientist, Moz

How will your company weather the next update? How will you avoid layoffs and salary cuts? Being a master of SEO doesn't guarantee that your consultancy will succeed. After a decade and a half of experience, Russ Jones will outline the techniques that will keep your clients happy and your bottom line healthy.

3:10pm – Keynote – The CMO Role Has Been Disrupted: Are You Ready for Your New Boss?

Will Reynolds, Founder & Vice President of Innovation, Seer Interactive

CMOs have the shortest tenure in the c-suite, and the CMO role has been eliminated at some of the largest brands. CEOs are now asking tougher and tougher questions about the value of marketing — and oftentimes marketers are not prepared.

Connecting your data and building your data flywheel is one way to support the swift answers CEOs expect from their CMOs. We need to get stronger at bridging our day-to-day work to the value it drives. And more than ever, “brand lift” isn’t enough to satisfy CEOs.

This presentation will start at the top. How businesses are run, how CEOs talk, and how we as search marketers can use the data we have access to everyday in new ways to answer the questions of the c-suite and raise our visibility and value in organizations.

4:15pm – Networking

Open time for attendees to connect with other attendees and MozCon partners.

5:15pm – That's a wrap for MozCon Virtual 2020!

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See you there?

Chatting with speakers via Q&A, connecting with peers and potential partners over Birds of a Feather groups, absorbing all the knowledge for another fruitful year of marketing... we can't wait to share it with you! 

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Third-party vs. In-house Delivery: A Guide to Informed Choice

Posted by MiriamEllis



Image credit: Robert Couse-Baker

Before all else, gratitude to every delivery person, whether in-house or third party, doing the essential work of keeping households safer and supplied in these times. I’m dedicating today’s column to the manager of a nearby Sprouts grocery store who personally drove my order to my door when an Instacart driver just couldn’t get the job done.

If your business or clients are weighing whether to fulfill delivery in-house or partner with a third party, my small experience is an apt footnote to the huge, emergent debate over last-mile fulfillment options. I’d searched all over town for scarce potatoes, finally arranging by phone with the local Sprouts market to hold their last two bags for me one morning, and texting the Instacart driver about where the spuds were being held. Next:

For whatever reason, the driver chose not to retrieve them, claiming the manager told them there was nothing being held for me. Not knowing whom to believe, I phoned the manager who confirmed the driver had never asked for the potatoes and, to my astonishment, told me he was going to bring the groceries to my house right away, himself.

“I feel really bad about this,” he said. “Sometimes Instacart’s drivers just go so fast, they don’t do a good job. It’s really important to me that my customers get good service and feel good about our store, especially with this hard time we’re all going through.”

And that’s the crux of what has suddenly become a pressing issue for millions of local businesses, as well as all local search marketers who draw a through-line between reputation and revenue.

Today, we’ll:

• Stack up the pros and cons of in-house vs. third-party delivery
• Interview a software engineer who has been on the ground with this evolving narrative of critical choices
• Excerpt the revealing comments of a former head of development at Grubhub.
• Plan SEO and marketing strategy for competing with corporate delivery
• Examine the welfare of and best options for drivers
• Help your brand or clients make a better-informed delivery decision

A piece of the pie

On March 15, 2020, downloads of Instacart’s app shot up 218% over their normal daily average. Restaurants, grocers, and a wide variety of retailers have spent the past two months forging paths from shelves to customers’ front doors to meet demand. While initial implementation may have been a scramble for the state of emergency, we’re getting to the place where it’s time to talk long-term plans.

I recently surveyed a group of several hundred local business owners and local search marketers to ask whether they intend to permanently offer home delivery. Of those who answered “yes,” I asked whether they would be staffing up an in-house delivery fleet or outsourcing to a third party, like Instacart, or Postmates, GrubHub, or Uber Eats. I found it amazing that my survey group was split right down the middle:

Clearly, there’s an even divide between brands that expect to manage the entire customer experience from start to finish, and those whose circumstances are causing them to entrust the last mile to a workforce they can’t directly control. I wondered if the 50/50 split represented settled decisions or indecisions and, also, how my pie chart might look a year from today, when all parties have had more time for implementation and analysis.

For now, we’ll start by examining another type of pie with a technician who experienced a pizza company shifting from in-house to third-party delivery.

A tale of cold pizza and ghosting drivers

My friend is a software engineer who worked on last-mile delivery integration for a headlining US pizza startup, and whose anonymized takeaways serve as a stunning cautionary tale. The engineer tells it this way:

“We started with an in-house delivery fleet, with two drivers assigned to each company vehicle and each vehicle servicing a radius of approximately five miles. Delivery times were under fifteen minutes with this setup, and we had a ton of very happy customers. Leadership then decided to outsource delivery to a well-known third party.”

Take note of what happened next.

“Average delivery time shot up to sixty minutes for peak dinner hours, and holidays were especially bad. One Hallowe’en, it was taking three hours for customers to receive their dinnertime pizza because of driver availability. The third party can’t simply add more drivers as they have no control over when drivers sign onto their platform, but with an in-house fleet, you can plan for high demand and increase staffing. And, instead of having an in-house driver waiting with their truck on the premises to take a delivery, you have to wait for the third party to assign a driver (between 5-30 minutes), wait for the driver to arrive (another 5-30 minutes), and then, finally, deliver. You’d sometimes see deliveries assigned to third-party drivers twenty miles away who would end up ghosting because they don’t want to be bothered with the long drive.”

As for technical concerns, the engineer told me:

“Technically, the third-party service was not reliable. I had to deal with a lot of random bugs in their API, as well as constant service interruption, and they had very poor engineering support for their API. This might not be true of all third-party services, of course.”

And, finally, here’s how the engineer summed up the impact of this on customers:

“The third-party delivery fleet wasn’t just inefficient in terms of time, but often, they didn’t have the proper bags to keep the pizzas warm. Customers waiting a long time for cold pizza will obviously lead to dissatisfaction. In-house drivers care more about the product they’re delivering, in my experience. I’m convinced that, given the choice, customers would always prefer restaurants to have in-house delivery staff, but it’s hard to compete nowadays with the big name last-mile platforms. Some brands have taken a very public stance on refusing to work with third parties, and I’d like to see Google and Yelp roll out features to let customers know when businesses have their own delivery staff, because it can make such a difference for the customer.”

As a local SEO, I know that difference for the customer is going to show up in the reviews and word-of-mouth sentiment for any brand, and that, cumulatively, it could equal the brand building, maintaining, or shedding loyalty. Reputation can, quite literally, be the difference between solvency and closure.

Positive press for third-party deliveries

If there are so many potential negatives associated with outsourcing delivery, why do so many successful brands go this route? We’ve looked at some cons, but this shortlist of pros is illuminating:

• Third parties have their own, highly-visible, well-ranked directories of businesses they service. These websites are hard to compete with if you’re not included in them. Seen in a certain light, third parties can bring a business new visibility and new customers. More on this ahead.
• Third parties have ordering technology, logistics, drivers and either proprietary or driver-owned vehicles all ready to go, doing much of the heavy lifting. Not having to pay for a fleet of vehicles or directly pay the wages of drivers can impact brands’ initial, fixed, and ongoing costs. Concerns about insuring these drivers also belong to the third party, not the brand.
• Third-party reliance means the grocer can focus on groceries and the chef can focus on cooking, not delivery. For some brands, the challenge of becoming delivery experts is just too distracting.

Many brands report having a good experience with major third parties. It’s important to read pre-COVID stories like these told by QSR’s Daniel P. Smith about companies that have relied on these providers for multiple years. Consider:

• The Buona family found that trying to focus on delivery detracted from the core operations of their 27-location Italian restaurant chain. In 2017, they turned the last mile over to DoorDash and were so pleased with the operation that they’re now also partnering with Uber Eats and Grubhub.
• Two years ago, the Habit Burger Grill launched a Postmates partnership in Northern California, and were happy enough with the arrangement to expand delivery from all 240 of their locations via Postmates, Doordash, and Uber Eats.
• Meanwhile, the 40-unit Just Salad chain has been using Grubhub since it launched sixteen years ago and praises their delivery time of under 35 minutes. At the same time, Just Salad also has an in-house delivery fleet. CEO Nick Kenner states that the company would prefer customers to choose the brand’s own delivery service, to “cut out the middleman.”

That last point is absolutely key to this story and to the third-party vs. in-house decision.

Cost issues with the middleman



A narrative amplifying in volume during the public health emergency is that third-party delivery fees simply aren’t sustainable for small businesses. When BBQ restaurant owner Andy Salyards shared his Uber Eats bill with a local news station, I started doing some math.

• Salyards made $636.00 (pre-tax) selling 22 dinners.
• Uber Eats charged him $190.80 to deliver them.
• Salyards paid Uber Eats 30% of his earnings.

I found averages stating that a driver can typically make 2.5 deliveries per hour, though this depends on geography. Out of respect for the drivers, let’s hypothesize that Salyards is operating in a city that’s passed a $15 minimum wage and that he decides to employ in-house delivery persons.

• It would take 8.8 hours for one driver to make 22 deliveries.
• 8.8 hours x $15 an hour = 132.00.
• Salyards would be paying 20.75% for in-house delivery instead of 30% for third-party fulfillment for the same work in this dynamic. And obviously, where the minimum wage is lower, Salyards costs for in-house delivery would be far less.

On the face of it, in-house fleets look far more profitable than third parties, but here’s what my math doesn’t cover:

• Do in-house drivers use their own cars, or does the business have to make a major initial investment in a vehicle fleet?
• Who pays for gas/electric charging, auto maintenance, and liability insurance?
• How do you measure out the benefits of marketing your own brand by advertising on your company vehicles, vs. the loss of that opportunity because third-party vehicles don’t display your logo?
• What is the true cost to reputation, retention, and revenue when a brand loses control of the last mile of the customer experience? Is there an acceptable level of customer dissatisfaction caused by slower delivery times, lack of proper equipment, or ghosting drivers?

Each business has a unique scenario, and all of them will need to find customized answers to all of these questions.

Trust issues with the middleman

Customer service rules the viability of local businesses, and the best ones labor over every aspect of their operations to get things just right. Handing off the home stretch between the physical locale of the business and the customer’s front door is a phenomenal act of trust, and unfortunately, the local SEO industry has long been documenting the damages of trust misplaced.

To be completely honest, being set down amid Google, Yelp, and some of the major delivery brands, local business owners are gazelles amid a pride of lions. Some of the more infamous accusations against the lions over the past few years have included:

• Yelp and Grubhub cited for partnering up to replace restaurants’ listed phone numbers with Grubhub numbers.
• Google giving prime placement to Doordash on local business listings and telling furious business owners it’s on them to request removal of these unauthorized links.
• Grubhub’s awkward refutation and subsequent cancellation of the appearance of cybersquatting — i.e. buying up the domain names of its customers.
• Doordash cited for pickpocketing its drivers’ tips
• Uber Eats cited for giving no thought to safety inspections and delivering food from unvetted backyard BBQers.
• Most recently, and perhaps most infamously, Doordash cited for unauthorizedly scraping restaurant website menus and opening the door to bizarre pizza arbitrage.

This last example, published by Ranjan Roy, received hundreds of frustrated comments, but it was the epic statement of Collin Wallace that glued me to my screen and deserves excerpting here:

“I was the former Head of Innovation at Grubhub, so I have seen the truth behind many of these claims first hand. Sadly, I invented a lot of the food delivery technologies that are now being used for evil…COVID-19 is exposing the fact that delivery platforms are not actually in the business of delivery. They are in the business of finance... like payday lenders for restaurants and drivers…

In the case of restaurants, these platforms slowly siphon off your customers and then charge you to have access to them. They are simultaneously selling these same customers to your competitor across the street, but, don’t worry, they are also selling their customers to you.

For drivers, they are banking on a workforce that is willing to mortgage their assets, like cars and time, well below market value, in exchange for money now. They know that most delivery drivers are simply not doing the math...If they did, drivers would realize that they are actually the ones subsidizing the cost of delivery.

Delivery platforms are “hyper-growth” businesses that are trying to grow into a no-growth industry. Food consumption really only grows at the rate of population growth, so if you want to grow faster than that, you have to take market share from someone else. Ideally, you take it from someone weaker, who has less information. In this industry, the delivery platforms have found unsuspecting victims in restaurants and drivers… Restaurants need to realize that they are now running e-commerce businesses and they need to act accordingly. Being proficient on Google, Yelp, Facebook and the dozens of other platforms is no longer optional, it is essential.”

Local SEOs will nod their heads over the need for local Internet proficiency, but it’s Wallace’s summation of the welfare of the drivers that strikes the most discordant note with me for relationships hinging on trust.

The Instacart driver who didn’t bother to bring me my potatoes sincerely worries me, not for my family’s sake, but for theirs. I already knew before reading Collin Wallace’s comments that some gig workers are living in their cars, camping in parking lots, and being forced to choose between safety and money. When you a moment, brace yourself and read Quora threads in which gig drivers are arguing about how little they make. One of my own nieces is a gig worker, and she’s out there today as I write this column, trying to make ends meet and sanitizing her hands every five minutes. I’m worried about her every single day.

There are local business owners who treat their staff like family, and others who don’t. Where trust and your brand’s reputation are involved, a question that deserves to be asked is whether you can trust business partners and models that rely on a desperate workforce. How do you feel about your handcrafted pizza being delivered, not by employees whose wellbeing you directly influence, but by one in four drivers who are hungry enough to be eating the food they’re supposed to deliver?

As we look ahead with hope to a post-COVID marketplace, it’s worth taking the time to reflect on this question and how it relates to the quality of life in the community where you live and serve.

Dignified work for local delivery drivers



“Please leave it on the walkway. Thank you so much!”

“Okay. You take care!”

“Thank you. Stay safe! Take care!”

This is the socially-distant duet I now sing through my kitchen window several times a week with the essential delivery workforce. While we may not deserve a Grammy, I do feel every driver who has brought water, food, and goods to my family these past few months deserves more than recognition — they deserve a dignified workplace and wage.

If Grubhub’s former head of innovation is troubled by drivers subsidizing delivery costs in exchange for urgently-needed quick money, I am completely convinced that no local community is improved by reliance on an underpaid workforce with few protections, inadequate healthcare in time of illness, or housing insecurity. That’s the thing about seeing life through a local SEO’s lens: everyone is a neighbor, and people working in your city are your friends and family.

I would prefer my niece to find work with a local business with an in-house delivery fleet being paid a living wage. I’d prefer her workforce to have a union, too. This is the advice I would give both as an aunt and as a local SEO, but if you are a driver trying to evaluate your personal decision about where to work, these links are for you:

• Here’s a short but good article from Fast Company comparing in-house to third-party realities for drivers.
• Read up on Instacart gig workers unionizing and Safeway drivers unionizing
• Read up on gig workers forming the first delivery app unions
• Check out the PayUp initiative organizing for a $15 minimum wage + tips + transparency for gig workers in Washington. Gig Workers Rising is a similar effort in California.

In recent memory, many delivery jobs were filled by teenagers — like my big brother at 16 — with a new driver’s license, a stack of pizzas, and a need for part-time income to purchase disco records and car insurance. Now, it’s mothers, fathers, and grandparents driving those long miles to bring absolute necessities to our doors.

If you work in delivery, my best advice to you is to study what Collin Wallace has said, study the market, and seek jobs with the best pay and best protections. You and your work are essential, and if you plan to work in delivery for the long haul, finding a union job, like the American Postal Workers Union, is likely to offer you the most protections and benefits.

It’s not accurate to state that in-house drivers will automatically do a better job than gig workers for third parties. Many gig workers are going above and beyond to provide excellent service, day-in-day-out. But it’s only the in-house model that enables employers to ensure staff are receiving what they need to support themselves and support the brand. Last year, I did a very quick Twitter poll asking what it is that employees want most:

Employers: keep seeing that through-line between reputation and revenue when weighing the wages and working conditions you feel will make your brand most trusted by customers. Think of me, and my hunt for taters, and my feelings of uncertainty about trusting Instacart again, or any business that’s using them for fulfillment right now.

If you opt for in-house delivery, how will you compete?

While competition will differ from market to market, here’s a very simple schematic of the typical set of Google results I’ve seen in my region for delivery-related queries, broken down into third-party vs. in-house delivery entries:

As referenced above, corporate delivery services have massive, authoritative websites and big ad budgets that allow them to gobble up visibility in Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages). In my schematic of 16 opportunities — which represents an actual SERP in my town for the keyword phrase “hamburger delivery near me” — 10 of the entries are being bought or won by brands like GrubHub, DoorDash, and Postmates.

If your business isn’t listed on the highly-ranked directories published by these services, and you lack a large paid advertising budget, a SERP like this leaves you just six places to compete for the customer’s attention. Here’s a basic three-part framework for how to compete:

1. Build your business for customers

If Collin Wallace is right in casting third parties as payday lenders and in the business of finance, your competitive advantage is to be in the business of customers’ needs. In practical terms, this means:

• Analyzing what’s essential to the community you wish to serve.
• Investing in staffed, always-on lines of communication with customers and vigorously inviting feedback.
• On-going analysis of all forms of customer sentiment, especially online reviews, as cues for operational improvements.
• Mastering transforming negative sentiment into positive sentiment.
• Determining to feed, fight, and flip Google in ways that will benefit your local community.

2. Build the strongest website you can

The usefulness, optimization, and technical quality of your website will all help you compete in both the organic and local SERPs. The more competitive your market, the more you will need to invest in implementing:

• Organic on-site SEO
• On-site local SEO
• Keyword research
• Local content publication and marketing, including great content about your delivery service
• E-commerce and delivery technology
• Local link building
• Local competitive analysis (check out the beta of Moz’s Local Market Analytics for pro-level analysis)
• Technical SEO

Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO and Local Learning Center will get you well on your way to competitive wins. And double down in writing about the superlatives of your delivery service — don’t be shy about explaining exactly why ordering directly from your brand is best for the customer, the business, the delivery staff, and the community.

3. Build the strongest local SERP presence you can

Your ability to publish, distribute, and manage your non-website-based local assets will strongly contribute to your ability to compete in Google’s local search engine results. Depending on your market competition, you’ll need to meet and exceed your competitors’ investments in:

• Managing all aspects of your Google Business Profiles, from basic informational fields, to reviews, to Google Posts, menus, Q&A, photos, and more.
• Getting your other third-party local business listings in good shape with complete and accurate data (a service like Moz Local can help with this).
• Fighting Google local spam with determination.
• Staying alert: if a third-party delivery service “mysteriously” appears on your Google listing, take these steps to request removal.

There’s no downplaying the hold corporate delivery websites have on Google’s SERPs, nor the fact that Google has special relationships with some of them that redound to Google’s own financial interests. In competitive markets, it will be no easy task to compete with these brands. Many local businesses may feel that “if you can’t beat them, join them” is the only option to remain operational.

But don’t overlook the powers you do have to compete by dint of running a beloved business and a brilliant search marketing strategy. You could even choose to utilize a third-party service only until you’ve got a large, built-in customer base you can guide to come directly to you for fulfillment in the years ahead.

Summing up third-party vs. in-house delivery risks and benefits

As you evaluate which solution will be the best fit for last-mile operations for your brand, you’ll want to painstakingly chart out the pros and cons of each option. Here’s my simple checklist to get you started, delineating which solution is most likely to afford the benefits we’ve covered today, as well as a few extra points of consideration:

It’s too soon to predict what the sum total of change will be to the whole concept of delivery across all relevant industries. I talked with multiple business owners on St. Patrick’s Day, when California instituted its shelter-in-place order and all of them were hustling to create piecemeal solutions for remaining operational and serving my community. Several months later, brands are in a better position to evaluate consumer feedback and make adjustments to their delivery strategy.

As our risk/benefit chart shows, there are clear pros and cons for in-house vs. third-party implementation. Many brands will take a “best of both worlds” approach, like Just Salads, while hoping more customers come directly to them instead of their outsourcing partner. Other business owners may steer clear of the big delivery brands and bet on a smaller service, like Takeout Central serving North Carolina, or Lodel covering seven states in the American West. And definitely check out this CHOMP restaurant cooperative story over at Localogy.

What we can say with certainty in June of 2020 is that the brands you operate and market have major decisions to make about serving customers in both the best and worst of times. This is crucial work, and the only thing more important in local commerce right now is the significant power brands are suddenly wielding to set standards for how delivery and delivery persons will work. Recognize that power.

We’ve all had enough of experiencing the “worst”, and it’s motivation enough to plan a better future, with consistently excellent service for customers, the building blocks of lucrative reputation for brands, and local communities that deliver fair and dignified livelihoods for valued essential workers.

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Is Google E-A-T Actually a Ranking Factor? - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard

Many SEOs agree that showing expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in your site content is important to ranking well. But why is that, exactly? Is it because Google E-A-T is an actual ranking factor, or is it something else? In this episode of Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus Shepard explores whether it can be considered a true ranking factor, making your E-A-T goals SMART, and how to communicate it all to curious stakeholders.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday, coming to you from my home where I am wearing a tuxedo, wearing a tuxedo in hope that it exudes a little bit of expertise, perhaps authority, maybe even trust.

Yes, today we are talking about Google E-A-T, expertise, authority, trust, specifically asking the question, "Is Google E-A-T actually a ranking factor?" 

Now surprisingly this is a controversial subject in the world of SEO. Very smart SEOs on both sides of the debate. Some SEOs dismiss E-A-T. Others embrace it fully. Even Googlers have different opinions about how it should be communicated. I want to talk about this today not because it's a debate that only SEOs care about, but because it's important how we talk to stakeholders about E-A-T and SEO recommendations. Stakeholders being clients, website owners, webmasters.

Anybody that we give an SEO recommendation to, how we talk about these things is important. So I don't want to judge. I don't want to be the final say — that's not what I'm attempting — about whether Google E-A-T is an actual ranking factor. But I do want to explore the different viewpoints. I talked to dozens of SEOs, listened to Googlers, read Google patents, and I found that a lot of the disagreement comes not from what Google E-A-T is — we have a pretty good understanding what Google E-A-T actually does — but how we define ranking factors.

Three ways to define "ranking factors"

I found that how we define ranking factors falls into roughly three different schools of thought. 

1. Level 1: Directly measurably, directly impact rankings

Now the first school of thought, this is the traditional view of ranking factors. People in this camp say that ranking factors are things that are directly measurable and they directly impact rankings, or they can directly impact rankings.

These are signals that we're very familiar with, such as PageRank, URLs, canonicalization, things that we can see and measure and influence and directly impact Google's algorithm. Now, in this case, we can say Google E-A-T probably isn't a ranking factor under this definition. There is no E-A-T score. There's no single E-A-T algorithm. As Gary Illyes of Google says, it's millions of little algorithms. So in this school or camp, where things are directly measurable and impactful, Google E-A-T is not a ranking factor. 

2. Level 2: Modeled or rewarded, indirect effects

Then there's a second school of thought, almost equal to the first school of thought, that says Google's algorithm is sufficiently complex that we don't really know all the direct measurements, and in these days it's a little more useful to think of ranking factors in terms of what is modeled or rewarded, things with effects that are possibly indirect.

Now this really came about during the days of the Panda algorithm in 2012, when Google started using much more machine learning and eventual neural networks in its algorithm. To give you a brief overview and to grossly oversimplify, Panda was an algorithm designed to reduce low-quality and spammy results in Google search results.

To do this, instead of using directly measurable signals, instead they used machine learning. Again, to grossly oversimplify, Britney Muller has a great post on machine learning. I'm going to link to it if you're interested. But what they did is they took sites that they wanted to see more of in Google search results, sites like New York Times, things like that, that based on certain qualifications, like did they think the site was well-designed, would you trust it with your credit card, does it seem like it's updated regularly and written by authors, and they put these in a bucket.

Instead of giving the algorithm direct signals, they told the machine learning program, "Find us more sites like this. We want to reward these sites." So in this bucket, ranking factors are things that are modeled or rewarded. People in this school of thought say, "Let's just go after the same thing Googlers are going after because we know those things tend to work."

Algorithms that fall in this bucket are like Panda, site quality, and E-A-T. In this school of thought, yes, E-A-T can be considered a ranking factor. 

3. Level 3: Any quality or action, direct or indirect effects

Then there's even a third school of thought that goes further than these two, and this school of thought says any quality or action that could increase rankings should be considered a ranking factor, even if Google doesn't use it in its algorithm, direct or indirect.

An example of this might be social media shares. We know that Google does not use social media shares directly in its algorithm. But getting your content out in front of a large number of people can lead to links and shares and eventually more traffic and rankings as those signals roll downhill.

Now it may seem kind of crazy to think that anyone would consider something a ranking factor if Google actually didn't consider it a ranking factor directly in its algorithms. But if you think about it, this is often the way real-world business scenarios work. If you're the executive of a company, you don't necessarily care if Google uses it directly or not. You just like seeing the end result. 

An example might be, aside from social media, bounce rate, long clicks. TV commercials, excellent example. If you were in a Super Bowl commercial and you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and you know that that's going to lead to increased rankings and traffic, you don't necessarily care if it's a direct impact or an indirect impact.

So those are the schools of thought, and I'm not here to judge any of them. But what I think is important is how we communicate recommendations to stakeholders. 

Use SMART goals to communicate SEO recommendations to stakeholders

When we give SEO recommendations in our audits or whatnot, the standard I like to use is I like to think of it in terms of goals.

A framework for goals that I like to use is the SMART system of goal making, meaning goals should be specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-based. Now in the traditional view of ranking signals, yes, specific and measurable are great because we're using direct impacts.

But with E-A-T, the signals get a little squishier, and it's hard to translate those into specific, measurable signals, and I think that's why people in this camp don't like considering E-A-T a ranking factor. To illustrate this, Bill Slawski, the Google patent expert, recently shared a patent that he thought might be related to E-A-T or is possibly.

We don't know if Google uses it or not. But the patent, it took website representation vectors to classify sites. Now that's a mouthful. But basically what that means is the patent's goal was to determine actual expertise of websites based on vectors. For example, it could determine, through machine learning and neural networks, if a website is written by actual experts, say medical doctors, or if it was written by medical students or laypeople or somebody else.

It can do that for any type of site, whether it's medical, law, finance, and classify its expertise. In this sense, what Google is saying, if Google wants sites within the medical sphere to be like the Mayo Clinic and they are rewarding sites that are like the Mayo Clinic, that is really hard to fix, and it's almost impossible to fake with these kinds of sophisticated algorithms. So it's very hard to give SEO recommendations based on something like this. 

What you really have to do, if you want to dive in, is start finding where the differences are between your site and those sites that are actually ranking. Marie Haynes, another SEO who thinks a lot about E-A-T, she says in an interview with Aleyda Solis, that I'm also going to link to, it's an excellent video.

Thank you, Aleyda, for doing that. She says it's about finding the gaps. But back to Lily Ray. I'm getting sidetracked here. Lily Ray is one of the few SEOs who has actually done really good research into E-A-T by comparing sites and seeing what some of the differences are of sites that have been rewarded and sites that have fallen in rankings. Some of her research has found some really interesting things.

For example, for medical queries, sites that lost had 433% more CTAs, calls to action, typically because they're selling something, they're trying to sign you up, a little bit of mixed intent. Where the expert sites had fewer CTAs. The winning sites were written 258% more by real experts as opposed to laypeople or people without advanced degrees.

The losing sites had 117% fewer affiliate links, and that could be something like this algorithm at work or something like that. But we start to identify what's actually being rewarded. Again, this is hard to fix or fake, but we can start to fill in the gaps. So the question is, though, how do we make these specific, measurable, and actionable?

Measurable is especially hard when we're talking about things like expertise and authority. Fortunately, a lot of these problems have already been solved back when Panda was released back in 2012. If you want to make these more nebulous, squishy things measurable and actionable, you have to start to measure them the same way Google does, and that's using panels of people, like the quality raters that Google employs, thousands of quality raters across the globe to look at sites and rate them.

Those ratings aren't used directly in Google's algorithm. They're used to sort of test the algorithm. But you can start to score sites on a certain deliberate scale. So you can use things like the Quality Rater Guidelines or the E-A-T questions that Google has released. It's a list of questions that say things like: Is this site written by an expert?

Would you cite this site if you were writing an academic paper about it? Questions like that. You get a group of people — maybe it's 5 people, 10 people or more — and you ask those questions about your client's site and compare it to the expert sites that are winning, and you can start to see where the gaps are. Maybe this site only scored a 5 on a scale of 10 that it appeared to be written by experts.

By assigning values to it and using panels of questions and scoring, you can make it specific and measurable and actionable, and that's how you do it. It doesn't pay to give nebulous recommendations, such as improve your E-A-T. I know of one SEO consultant who says E-A-T is meaningless, and he is definitely in this camp here that the signals should be measurable.

E-A-T is meaningless because it could mean anything you want. If you tell your clients to improve E-A-T, you could be meaning anything, improve your links, write better content, hire some experts. Instead you've got to make it measurable, and you've got to make it actionable. I think no matter what camp you're in that's the way you want to go. All right.

I hope you enjoyed this Whiteboard Friday. Hopefully, it sparks some conversation. If you enjoyed it, please share. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Get my ticket + the video bundle for $129!

We can't wait to see you there!

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Preparing E-Commerce for the Post-COVID Bounce Back

Posted by MrLukeCarthy

COVID-19 has switched up life as we know it, and it’s unlikely to stop doing so for some time.

E-commerce shopping is a perfect example of how things have changed, and in a number of ways.

If you feel like Shopify has been dropping huge, disruptive news bombs practically each week now, you’re right!

And who’d have guessed that in the UK, the exclusively online supermarket, Ocado, is now worth more than brick-and-mortar grocers Morrisons, Sainsbury's, and Marks and Spencer combined.

The speed of transformation in e-commerce since the COVID-19 outbreak (an already fast-paced industry) has been savage.

Supply chains are under strain for many brands selling online (especially where demand is high and supplies are low). How do you best manage expectations and maximize every opportunity to sell to your target audience?

With your consumers now relying on the world of online shopping more than ever, how can you be sure you're getting your fair share of that online retail pie?

Well, this post is designed to help you answer precisely these questions. Whether your sales have taken a hit or you have “off the wall” levels of demand, here are some ideas to help you navigate that bounce back and to help customers stay in love with your brand.

Pay close attention to changing on site search behavior

Your site search is a goldmine of insight, especially right now. Seriously.

Frequently checking in to understand how and what your customers are looking for once they get to your store can reveal a bunch of opportunities.

It's possible that before COVID-19 took a stronghold on everyday life, customers had different contexts in mind when searching for your products.

For example, searches for “gloves” today vs. in January are likely to be visitors searching for two separate products entirely. It's important to ensure that you're serving today's customer sufficiently and addressing their context correctly to remain relevant and to improve conversion.

Here's an extreme example, but it's a poignant one nonetheless. For context, Holland and Barrett are a popular, high street healthcare retailer with a strong web presence here in the UK.

When searches for “coronavirus” had skyrocketed and demand for hand sanitizer and Paracetamol (another brand of acetaminophen, like Tylenol) were painfully high, what I found incredible was that searching for “coronavirus” on their website yielded no results.

This seemed particularly jarring for a retailer that, first, sells items that have been scientifically proven to kill and help prevent the spread of the virus and, second, is a dedicated healthcare business.

Not only does this throw a huge wrench in the works when it comes to CX and customer perception, this tiny yet costly oversight is likely to have cost them sales and customers too.

Customers are also searching for products that aren't typically associated with a certain brand or online store due to exhausted stocks elsewhere.

For example, the top three search terms for one of my e-commerce clients are now "Mask", "mask", and "PPE". The search terms “mask”, “PPE”, and close variants were practically non-existent prior to mid-May.

Kit and Ace, a clothing retailer, has responded to precisely this changing behavior. After seeing a huge spike in the number of site searches for masks, they're now introducing a new, premium, scientifically-derived mask that also fits their brand. They’re donating 100% of profits from the masks, but this tactic will likely to drive more sales in their other categories too.

This is a great move, especially since apparel sales have shrunk during this time. It's important to find emerging opportunities when typical product lines are no longer in demand.

The point I'm trying to make here is that, in order to succeed coming out of the other side of this pandemic, you need to ensure you're fully in tune with the wants and needs of today's customer — whatever that looks like for you. Using site search can absolutely give you a huge window into their demands and interests.

If products are out of stock, offer excellent alternatives (where possible)

As touched on earlier, supply chain management is going to be increasingly challenging — especially in areas where demand is outstripping supply — yet so many retailers miss out here.

For some products, it doesn't matter how hard you try, every retailer has them listed as “out of stock.”

For branded items that have stock issues globally, being the retailer that offers a perfectly good alternative could be enough to win over that visitor and win the sale that other retailers have lost.

To use a specific example, FTX is a manufacturer of radio-controlled cars, and is a brand sold on Europe e-commerce site Wheelspin. There's an FTX item that you cannot get before the end of June (for love nor money) on any website due to COVID-19. The pandemic has forced factories to close and that disrupts production for many goods.



Specifically, in this example, it's the FTX brushed motor that's become victim to supply chain issues. However, there's a brand that has a perfectly suitable alternative item that's identical in specification, and it’s in stock:



Proactively offering solid alternatives with as few compromises as possible can be a great way of winning sales and delighting customers in a way that your competitors likely won't be.

Add an “in stock only” filter

Continuing on the topic of store stock and managing a turbulent supply chain, a simple but welcome feature is to add an “items in stock” filter.

It goes without saying that allowing customers to browse items they’re able to get their hands on quickly will go down well and could help improve conversion on your website.

Another benefit of adding such a filter is the ability to bring light to other lines that are typically overshadowed by more popular (but now out of stock) items.

Taking this a step further, you could also help your customers experience by adding a filter for products expected to arrive within a certain timeframe, or filter out those that can be backordered.

Add an “email me when back in stock” CTA

If you're a retailer struggling to get stock of popular lines, there's a good chance you're not the only retailer with that problem. Although it may not be possible to get stock any quicker than your competitors, you can absolutely ensure that you're the first to let potential customers know that it's back in stock.

Sweeten the deal by personalizing the back-in-stock email

Letting a potential customer know that the item's back in stock is great, but why not suprise and delight your customers by taking the opportunity to personalize this email too?

Offering personalized cross-sells of the item that's now back in stock can be a great way to not only give them the good news, but give them additional reasons to visit your shop and potentially increase basket value simultaneously. It's certainly a win, win here.

Remarket to people when items are back in stock

People are spending more time online — fact. So it makes sense to reach your audience where they're most likely to be spending time for the foreseeable future.

Depending on the popularity of an item (and how much traffic is going to it whilst it's remained unavailable), you could create a retargeting list based on visitors that expressed an interest in it now that it's back in stock.

This can prove to be a great way to reach people, say on social media, that aren't particularly responsive to email but are spending increased amounts of time on their favorite social platforms.

Although this may not be scalable, or at least I haven't found a way to make it so, doing this across your top-selling lines or lines with greater margins could prove to be a successful way of pulling engaged and semi-invested visitors back to your site.

Don't be afraid to increase prices where necessary

Let's not forget the basic principles of commerce, right? High demand (coupled with low supply) increases prices.

Businesses shouldn't feel guilty for increasing prices, but of course, there's a difference between a justifiable increase and straight ripping people off (as demonstrated below):



For context, four tins of 400g Heinz Spaghetti Plus Sausage would retail at around £4 in UK supermarkets (that’s about $5 at current exchange rates).

Think about this scenario for a second: You and your staff are potentially working in environments that could pose serious health risks. Plus there's additional costs to consider in order to keep people safe. PPE, cleaning products, masks, sick pay for unwell staff, etc., all these factors will push up the cost per sale and erode your margins.

Equally, there are no guarantees right now. Those all-time high levels of sales could come slamming to a fierce halt at any time. Whether that's caused by a change in demand, decrease in stock, or your business is no longer able to fulfil orders due to an internal COVID-19 outbreak.

Increasing prices fairly to better protect your business against these mostly uncontrollable factors is not a bad thing. In my opinion, it's just good business sense.

You've got to ensure your business is as robust as it can be when faced with these potential eventualities. Increasing your prices fairly can help to better protect it.

Discover creative ways to connect with your audience

As the saying goes, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. It's a huge cliché, but it absolutely rings true and remains a powerful statement today.

Finding ways to be creative, cut through the noise, and engage with your audience is essential to staying relevant. Especially if your customer's cash is heading elsewhere right now.

Here's an example of a potentially powerful idea that I've been working on for a client in the world of apparel — one of the more fiercely affected industries during the pandemic.

People are spending less on fashion, and even less at the luxury end of the scale. So, why not let your audience build themselves a virtual dream wardrobe? Something they'd consider buying for a night out, things they'd have in their suitcase for a summer vacation, etc. It's a fairly simple idea, but let's think about the impact this could have for both customer and business:

You're throwing down a few slices of “feel good”So many people miss going out, right? Heading to bars, clubs, celebrating a milestone, going on a vacation, or even just getting back to the office, so many of us associate buying new outfits as part of those moments.

Allowing your loyal fans and customers to pick out their money’s-no-object dream outfits based on some predetermined wardrobes (office attire, night out, summer holiday) is naturally going to invoke some positive emotions and memories — especially if you inject a social element into it by allowing people to share their collections.

But other wins can be extracted from such an idea too:

You're collecting valuable user data: You're getting some valuable insight into the sort of clothing people may buy when lockdown policies begin to wind back. This could help to get a better understanding of demand so you can work on reinvigorating your supply chain successfully.

Plus, you're getting an idea of what items visitors would put together to help educate new fashion trends and inform “recommended for you” personalization.

You're helping to alleviate boredom: In some ways, this kind of activity is adding an element of gamification to apparel. With so many people stuck indoors experiencing high levels of procrastination and boredom, it can help to cut through and detach from the realities of lockdown.

You’re creating an opportunity to welcome sales when things pick back up:

Offering an incentive (say 15% off your dream collections) once we're on the cusp of restoring “normality” could be a really powerful way of encouraging and helping to re-energize apparel and fashion spend online. It's also a great way to celebrate the comeback.

Last but not least, you're building brand affinity: I've said it before, but it's extremely important, so I'll say it again: remaining relevant and keeping marketing efforts up is essential to ensure you remain in good shape when society heads towards the new normal.

Having your audience resonate with your brand and remember your positive actions whilst they're away will be a major influence on your ability to maintain and deepen those customer relationships post-pandemic.

Final thoughts: the rise of big brands diving into D2C eCommerce

What's amazing to see is a huge move by big household names and brands. They're now setting up their own direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce outfits, and on the surface, appear to be going head-to-head with supermarkets.

To highlight a few of my favorite examples, there's snacks.com — created by Frito-Lay — shipping their brand’s snacking staples across North America.

Then there’s Heinz to Home, delivering popular Heinz products to households in the UK.



How these new D2C e-commerce brands fare in the long term will be interesting to see, but what’s certain is the pandemic is accelerating and evolving e-commerce in a way that's not been seen before.

As a final note, to those of you hit hard by COVID-19, may I wish you a speedy recovery — personally and professionally.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

The State of Local SEO Industry Report 2020, Announced

Posted by MiriamEllis

Moz’s very warmest thanks to the 1,453 respondents who volunteered time to contribute to this second installation of our industry survey. It’s rewarding to have such a large survey group; as this report details in high relief, the work of marketing a single business location can pass through a dozen hands.

Owners, staff, in-house SEOs, agencies, creative directors, webmasters, project managers, and consultants may all be contributing to promoting just one local company. By capturing their hands-on experience, we get the big picture of local SEO as an effort not confined to experts, but rather, requiring all hands on deck.

In this report, you’ll find insights to share with coworkers and clients on:

• Company infrastructure
• Local ranking factors
• Tool & software usage
• Gaps in the marketplace
• High ROI strategies and tactics

Get the full report!

A window in time on local business marketing

The data in our survey depicts the local SEO industry both before and during the public health emergency. As such, it’s an eagle’s eye view of both the status of marketing priorities up to the present and a gauge of preparedness for change. Change has always been the only constant in local SEO — our industry is accustomed to an environment that can turn on a dime, literally overnight. This challenging setting toughens businesses for tough times.

No one knows yet how COVID-19 may ultimately alter consumer behavior, but in the short term, one good sign which has emerged from the State of the Local SEO industry report is that local businesses were strongly embracing organic assets prior to the pandemic. Not long ago, you might have encountered narratives about websites being “dead” due to the dominance of local packs, zero click SERPs, and other Google features. Fortunately, our report indicates that many marketers have wisely ignored such schools of thought and have continued to promote the vital role local business websites play in connecting with communities.

For now, if connection is curbside or delivery instead of foot traffic, local businesses which have been thoughtfully maintaining their websites own a strong platform for next moves — perhaps implementing local e-commerce, or taking orders via form submissions, or hosting gated video consultations.

Access to the State of the Local SEO Industry’s data will enable you to do your own analysis of the sum total of marketing knowledge up to the present with an eye to future strategy. Here’s a preview of 3 emergent narratives that particularly caught my eye.

Proximity falls to third as a local ranking factor

Our 2019 report cited user-to-business proximity as the dominant influence on Google’s local pack rankings. So has every Local Search Ranking Factors survey since 2017. This is a surprising departure. Download the report for further analysis and view the numbers in the light of how Google might adjust proximity based on new factors like curbside pickup and local delivery.

YOY, 19% more respondents are involved with offline marketing

94% (up from 75%) of our survey group are consulting with clients at least some of the time on topics like real-world customer service and consumer policies.This statistic professionally delights me, because of my years of advocacy here on the Moz blog for local search marketers to care deeply about what happens in real time between consumers and brands. Some enterprising agency should consider doing a webinar or eBook on the history of brick-and-mortar marketing so our industry can engage in deeper levels of learning and make informed decisions about future offline marketing strategy.

COVID-era customer fulfillment strategies are here to stay



51% of respondents intend to permanently offer amenities like home delivery, curbside pickup, and video conferencing. Now is the time for innovative marketing agencies to put in the work researching the best possible solutions for clients for the long haul. Will it be in-house delivery fleets, or outsourcing to third parties like Instacart and Doordash? Which e-commerce platform is the best, not just for UX but for SEO? Many brands swiftly cobbled together new services to meet the state of emergency, but as time goes by, consumer feedback and marketing analysis will point the way to thoughtfully choosing the best transactional methodologies and platforms. All of these technologies predate the pandemic, but the year ahead is going to see them much more fully tested.

Please accept our invitation to download the free State of the Local SEO Industry Report 2020, with 30+ timely questions on topics that impact how you work, what to offer, and how to improve your strategy for the year ahead whether you own a local business or are in the business of marketing local brands!

Get the full report!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

How to Network Online Like a Champ

Posted by cheryldraper

This conference season feels a bit different, doesn't it? Where we're usually globetrotting from event to event, this year most conferences have either postponed their dates or switched to online, remote-friendly formats, offering video sessions by top-notch speakers or live streams with open chats. But what about everyone's favorite bonus during conference season — networking?

Thankfully, all is not lost! With a little ingenuity and virtual elbow grease, you can still forge new professional relationships over an internet connection rather than a cocktail. (And hey, nothing's stopping you from enjoying a nice, frosty Mozcow Mule or tasty mocktail in your home office space, right?) In our current reality of social distancing, marketing conference networking will look different, but it's not going anywhere. Read on for tips on how to effectively network while remote!

Step 1: Look for networking opportunities

Depending on which virtual event you attend, the networking opportunities will look different. Keeping a creative eye out for opportunity is key to your success!

Live chats

Much like during regular conferences, there are bound to be live chats happening. They may happen on the actual event platform, or they may take place on social media. Some events will use a platform like Zoom that allows viewers to chat with each other within the platform, while others may have more of a broadcast format where chats happen on Twitter with a hashtag.

Joining Q&As

A super valuable aspect of conferences is being able to speak to presenters after they give their talk. Sometimes this happens during a predetermined time slot, such as right after the presentation, or it may happen when you catch them in the lobby or at an event later on. Either way, this time to ask questions about their expertise is a huge value-add to the experience.

With conferences going virtual and live chats happening publicly during the presentations, this Q&A time has shifted a bit. Instead of having to wait for the presentation to be over, in some cases, presenters will reply to questions from the live chat as they're speaking. Some panels are pre-recorded, giving speakers a chance to interact on various platforms during the event itself. Some events will even have specific “presentations” that are more like facilitated Ask Me Anything-style interviews or panels where questions are taken from the audience and posed to the speaker(s).

Birds of a Feather discussions

Many conferences will offer some sort of industry or concept specific conversation facilitation. For instance, at MozCon, we host Birds of a Feather discussions. These discussions are headed up by an industry professional and have predetermined topics such as EAT, AI, Gutenberg, etc. Other times, these conversations may be organized and headed up by attendees.

In a virtual setting, these will likely be smaller breakout groups using some sort of video chat software. Zoom, specifically, has created a way for conferences to organize these “breakout sessions” in advance.

Birds of a Feather conversations are one of the best ways to connect as there is a common ground established from the get-go. These. Are. Your. People. Connections here will likely be the most valuable.

Step 2: Get active

No matter where the chats are happening, be sure you're a part of them! The more you interact, the more likely people are to recognize your name when you reach out after the event. The only caution here is that you have to be sure your interactions are meaningful — don’t just comment clapping hands. Add something to the conversation.

Add insight

The best thing about people is that we're all different and have fresh perspectives to bring to the table. Don’t be afraid to add on to someone’s thoughts.

Let's use a fun example. If someone says that the best mascot hug ever was from Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, you may jump in and ask if they’ve ever met Roger MozBot, famed hugger and robot dancer extraordinaire. Or you could build on the thought by saying something like, “Mickey is a great hugger, I think it’s because he goes over instead of under!”

In both of these instances, you’ve joined the conversation and added value.

Add clarification

Speakers often try to fit a lot of information into a relatively short timeframe. That said, questions will likely arise in the live chats. This could very easily be your time to shine! If you've got knowledge to share, feel free to answer the question to the best of your ability and try to add clarification.

This is absolutely one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert and form a relationship with someone you’ve never met. It allows you to prove you’re knowledgable and give the person something they value for free.

Add sources

Whether you are asking a question, answering a question, or just chiming in with added insight, adding resources in conversation is extremely beneficial. This could mean that you recommend a tool, a person, or an article link. These resources for the other viewers can be extremely beneficial and help you establish your credibility.

Now, we don’t suggest trying to come up with a source for everything, but if you have one right off of the top of your head, dropping a link in the chat may really help someone.

BONUS: Add people on social

While this one's not necessarily about adding value per se, it is about adding. Adding influencers, presenters, or other attendees after interacting with them (even if briefly) may increase your chances of getting a follow-back or accepted request as you'll still be top of mind. Try to add people no later than 24 hours after your last interaction, and consider sending a friendly "hey!" with a note about what you spoke about to keep the connection fresh.

Step 3: Perfect your follow-up

After connecting with people during the online conference, you'll want to follow up with them and stay in touch.

The most important part of following up is the first impression. You don’t want to come right out of the gate with a request of any sort. Instead, look to build a relationship first. This could mean shooting a quick follow-up message recapping your conversation with the person, telling them that you appreciated their time and that you look forward to more conversations.

After sending your initial follow-up, be sure to interact with the person at least once a week to stay top-of-mind. This is easiest on social media as you can like, comment, share their content, and ensure that your name is showing up in their notifications. However, direct messages, emails, and even phone calls are sure to be more impactful.

The best thing you can do when following up is to stick to what you're most comfortable with and be consistent while continuing to add value.

Have fun and be yourself!

The number-one thing you have to offer is yourself. Your experiences make you unique and others can learn from that! So when you are connecting with others, just remember to be yourself. And lastly, have fun! Networking is meant to be fun as it gives you the opportunity to connect with others and build a community. Embrace that connection and enjoy it.

Networking at MozCon Virtual 

Every year, we hear from attendees about how networking is one of their favorite parts of the conference. We made sure to keep it an integral part of this year's virtual event, too — check out all the ways you can connect with speakers, industry experts, attendees, and thought leaders at MozCon Virtual 2020!

In-session Q&A chat

Mid-presentation, pop into the Q&A chat with your real-time questions and get them answered by speakers. You'll also be able to chat with other attendees about the content, provide your own insights, and participate in real-time virtual convos about the session and topic. Speakers will be available to answer questions during their scheduled session times, so it's a perfect opportunity to get clarification, further insight, or forge those all-important connections!

Customizable profiles: Interests, personal bio, tags, and more

Attendees can search for like-minded folks with similar interests based on what you add to your profile when signing in. You can choose to upload your photo, create your biography, add specific interests and tags, and reach out to those you'd like to follow up with.

Create your own "Want-to-Meet" list

Browse attendee profiles and click "want to meet" when you find someone you'd like to reach out to later. With your personal contact info safely hidden, this is a great way to find and get found by those looking for new talent, professional partnerships, debate buddies, and more. Build your list ahead of time, then review in-platform and reach out when you're ready!

Schedule 1:1 meetings

After connecting with someone, you can easily send a meeting request to the folks you've connected with to chat live outside of the bigger group discussions. Your invited guest can choose to accept or decline the invite, and all 1:1 meetings occur directly within the conference platform's meeting rooms, making for easy facilitation!

Birds of a Feather "table" discussions

Birds of a Feather lunch tables are one of the biggest MozCon hits year after year, and we didn't want anyone to miss out! We'll facilitate 30-minute-long group discussions each day of the conference for you to connect with those interested in specific topics via video and audio chat. Each discussion will be led by an industry leader, giving you all the opportunity to say "hey" to the folks whose work you admire and collaborate with them on ideas, theories, obstacles you've faced, and more.

We're super excited about all the networking opportunities at MozCon Virtual — at $129 per ticket, it's an incredible value for growing your digital marketing skillset and your career:

Get my ticket to MozCon Virtual!

Let us know your own best virtual networking tips in the comments. We hope to see you at MozCon this July 14 & 15!

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