The MozCon Virtual 2021 Final Agenda

This year's MozCon Virtual is right around the corner, 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, or even your sofa.

On July 12th, 13th, and 14th, join Ringmaster Roger under the MozCon big top for insights and tactical presentations from industry leaders, plus the opportunity to connect and network with fellow attendees!

Tickets are just $129 for Moz subscribers until May 31, including access to the professionally produced video bundle (a $350 value!), providing incredible marketing thought leadership at an unheard-of price:

Save my spot at MozCon Virtual!

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!

All talk times are in Pacific, so keep that in mind when planning your day!

Monday, July 12th

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8:30am – Networking

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

9:00am – Welcome to MozCon 2021

Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz

The fearless leader of Moz will be welcoming each and every one of us to this year's virtual event, laying out exactly what you can expect over the next three days.

9:35am – Doing the Perfectly (Im)Possible: Debunking Digital PR & Link Building Myths in 2021

Shannon McGuirk, Client Services and Delivery Director | Aira

"You better be pitching that campaign into the press before 9am and definitely not on a Friday or Monday!”

“Link relevancy is important if you’re a link builder, but if you're a digital PR, it doesn't really matter.”

“You're asking the impossible to get links to category and product pages.”

Tired of hearing bold claims and questions like these? We are too. Shannon is going to challenge many of the digital PR and link building myths you're seeing debated on Twitter. From the old classic myths that stand the test of time and are always asked, through to new beliefs that are hot topics, she's going to use data, insights and case studies to show you how to cover some of these beliefs and improve your link building and digital PR efforts in 2021."

10:15am — The Science of Purchasing Behavior: How to Use it Effectively to Attract & Convert More Prospects Into Customers

Flavilla Fongang, Founder & Creative Brand Strategist | 3 Colours Rule

Some brands have achieved the dream: a large audience who believes in them, buying from them time and time again without questioning the value or authenticity of the products and services. And they've done it by developing an emotional connection with that audience. These days, it's more about building a community around your brand, rather than simply having clients. We'll explore the power of brand psychology that's been used by huge, successful brands such as Apple or Starbucks to earn customers that are loyal long-term.

10:50am — Networking

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

11:15am — The Content Refresh: How to Do More With Less

Kameron Jenkins, Content Lead | Shopify

No matter where you work, there's something we all seem to have a shortage of... time. Combine that with ambitious traffic KPIs and you'll quickly realize that a 100% new content strategy isn't sustainable. Enter the content refresh. Learn how to identify and execute the best refresh opportunities so you can rank faster and increase your existing content ROI.

11:40am — Rule Your Rivals: From Data to Action

Dr. Pete Meyers, Marketing Scientist | Moz

Most competitive analysis ends in an avalanche of potential keywords to target, leaving you buried in indecision. Real case studies will show you how to forge your data into an actionable plan that drives strategic, targeted content. Escape from under the keyword pile and conquer your content rivals.

12:20pm — Build for Search: Modern Web Dev That Puts SEO First

Dana DiTomaso, President & Partner | Kick Point

With the debut of Core Web Vitals, modern SEO is more relevant to website development than ever before. Sure, we’ve always been thinking about title tags and making sure our pages convert — but the actual underpinnings of a website might have been left to your web development team and maybe that one technical SEO. They're likely very skilled people, but the chances of them thinking about how development decisions impact SEO are typically slim to none. Let's modernize the relationship between the web development process and SEO.

12:55pm — Networking

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

1:20pm — Internationalization Errors: How to Go Global Without Losing All Of Your Traffic

Jackie Chu, SEO Lead, Intelligence | Uber

Internationalization is one of the leading causes of technical SEO debt for multinational companies. We’ll talk through common internationalization mistakes and how to avoid them so you can win visibility and grow anywhere.

2:00pm — Mastering 3 Click + Engagement Signals for Higher Rankings/Traffic

Cyrus Shepard, SEO Consultant | Moz

Successful websites are all different, yet nearly all Google-ranked websites succeed in the exact same fundamental ways. In our quest to optimize for Core Web Vitals, mobile-first indexing, and JavaScript rendering, have we lost sight of the content and user experiences that dominate the very top of Google search results? In this presentation, Cyrus explores the three Google click and engagement signals that top-ranking web pages master: clicks, long clicks, and last clicks. Using examples and experiment results, he demonstrates how any website — and SEOs of all skill levels — can leverage these signals for improved Google traffic.

2:40pm — Birds of a Feather Discussion Groups

Join fellow attendees in one of our Birds of a Feather Discussion groups to share ideas, and network with peers around a common topic. Birds of a Feather groups are informal, peer-to-peer conversations.

3:15pm — That’s a wrap on Day 1!

Networking remains open until 3:30.

Tuesday, July 13th

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8:30am — Networking

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

9:00am — Day 2 Opens!

9:10am — Why Marketers Should Think More Like Investors To Drive Content Results

Ross Simmonds, Founder, CEO | Foundation Marketing

Every single piece of content your brand creates is an asset. So why do we view them as an expense? In this session, Ross will talk about the parallels between content marketing/SEO and the world of investing. From the techniques that take blog posts and landing pages to the moon, to the fundamentals of content investing to create a competitive advantage, learn how an investment mindset can drive results.

9:50am — Taking Charge of Your Indexability: How to Optimize and Prioritize Your Technical Work

Areej AbuAli, SEO Consultant

Take charge over the indexability of your website! With a focus on aggregators and classifieds, Areej will share advice on how to best reduce index bloat for large websites. Diving into parameter handling, sitemap logic, robots directives, and more, we'll also assess how to analyze the most impactful changes, how to get sign-off from senior stakeholders, and how to prioritize work with product teams.

10:25am — Networking

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

10:50am — Reporting for Duty: Why You Need to Start Using GA4 TODAY

Brie E Anderson, Owner, Founder | BEAST Analytics

Much like with any other change, the change to Google Analytics 4 may seem daunting and a bit useless. But it's better to get started now before you have to. Plus, in this presentation we will uncover secrets Google hands out in GA4. Then, stick around to see what is new and may be even better in the future.

11:15pm — Counterintuitive Content: How New Trends Have Disrupted Years of Bad Advice

Casie Gillette, Senior Director, Digital Marketing | KoMarketing

Along with the always-shifting landscape, one of the biggest things we as marketers struggle with is the sheer volume of information. For years we were told we had to produce as much content as possible. Then we were told to focus on quality but we still had to have a consistent schedule. What about YouTube or voice search or TikTok? The fact of the matter is, there's no one way to do content marketing. In this session, we’ll look at content from an entirely different perspective and talk about how you can start creating content on your own terms.

11:55 — To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts

Joy Hawkins, Owner | Sterling Sky Inc

What value do Google Posts have, and how should the average SMB prioritize them? Dive into the data from two studies conducted by Sterling Sky to answer these questions.

The first study analyzes over 1,000 Google Posts to see what types perform better based on clicks and conversions, and measures the impact of various features such as stock photos, emojis, titles, and more. The second looks at whether posting on Google has any influence on where your business ranks in the local pack. Findings from both will have you reevaluating your clients' Google posting strategy!

12:30pm — Networking

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

12:55pm — Maximize Your Conversions: Harnessing Full-Funnel Optimization for B2B Success

Joyce Collarde, SEO Supervisor | Obility

The long sales cycles presented in B2B pose a unique set of challenges for converting visitors into coveted users. Success requires a strategic approach that goes beyond the landing page to include your entire site. In this session, we'll look at three tried-and-true methods for increasing your conversion rate and winning more business.

1:20pm — Beyond the Basics: 5 SEO Tricks for Uncovering Advanced Insights from Your SEO Data

Rob Ousbey, VP Strategy | Moz

Modern SEOs have no shortage of data, but you could learn even MORE about your site, content, links, and competitors by working smarter, not harder. Rob will show you how to breathe new life into your standard SEO data, and walk away with more advanced insights that are sure to impress your team (and your boss!)

2:00pm — The Cold Hard Truth about CTR and Other Common Metrics

Britney Muller, Serial Entrepreneur + Data Science Student | Data Sci 101

Reporting on website performance is an integral part of SEO, but not all metrics are created equal. If you think your metrics are telling the full story, think again. Start building more insightful reporting methods with data science. In this session, Britney will show you how to quash your reporting woes and make easy work of identifying exactly why your website’s performance changed.

2:35pm — Birds of a Feather Discussion Groups

Join fellow attendees in one of our Birds of a Feather Discussion groups to share ideas, and network with peers around a common topic. Birds of a Feather groups are informal, peer-to-peer conversations.

3:00pm — That’s a wrap on Day 2!

Networking remains open until 3:30.

Wednesday, July 14th

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8:30am — Networking

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

9:00am — Day 3 Opens!

9:10am — The Fast & The Spurious: Core Web Vitals & SEO

Tom Capper, Senior Search Scientist | Moz

Core Web Vitals are all the rage, but do they live up to the hype? Tom explores the real SEO impact of Google’s shiny new metrics, which ones you actually need to worry about, and how to prioritize fixes.

9:50am — The Ultimate How-To for Faceted Navigation SEO in E-commerce

Luke Carthy, eCommerce Consultant

One of the biggest FAQs in e-commerce: "How do you handle faceted navigation when it comes to SEO?"

We’ll ask the tough questions and answer them head-on! Join Luke as he walks through case studies, real-world examples, and how to leverage faceted navigation to really capitalize on high-converting long-tail keywords. If you're in e-commerce, you won’t want to miss this!

10:25am — Networking

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

10:50am — Let the API Do the Work: Harnessing Natural Language for More Productive SEO

Miracle Inameti-Archibong, Head of SEO | Erudite Agency

Keyword research is a vital process in getting insights into your consumer behaviour. However, it is often a very manual and labor-intensive process. How can we speed up the process so we can get to working on our implementations and getting results? Miracle walks through practical ways marketers can use APIs to do the heavy lifting and save time.

11:15am — A Live Guide to Finding & Filling the Gaps in Your Link Strategy

Amanda Milligan, Marketing Director | Fractl

Is your link portfolio strong enough to withstand everything Google and your competitors throw at you? If you’re hyper-focused on acquisition and you ignore strategy, you can end up with a pile of weak backlinks that aren't relevant — and won't move the needle. Competitive analysis is your key to finding and filling the gaps in your link building strategy. I'll walk you through the process start-to-finish.

11:55am — From the Medic Update to Now: How the E-A-T Ecosystem Has Transformed Organic Search

Lily Ray, Senior Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research | Amsive Digital

Learn why E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) has taken a front seat in SEO discussions in recent years, the numerous places where Google focuses on E-A-T, and how the growing emphasis on surfacing authoritative content has drastically changed the organic search landscape across search, News, Discover, YouTube, and more.

12:30pm — Networking

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

12:30pm — Networking

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

12:55pm — Game-Changing Ways to Use the Google Search Console API

Noah Learner, Product Director | Two Octobers

Let’s face it, you aren’t getting what you want from your keyword data. Unlock your newest SEO secret weapon with this deep dive into the power of the Google Search Console API. This game-changing tool will help you crush the competition, sell SEO to your team, and win prospects with deep SEO insights you had no idea were available.

1:20pm — The 3 Most Important Search Marketing Tools…Your Heart, Your Brain, & Your [Small] Ego

Wil Reynolds, Founder & Vice President of Innovation | Seer Interactive

Search is a game of rankings. Only one can win the #1 spot and small tweaks can mean the difference between ranking #1 and #5. If you’re using the same tools as everyone else, what competitive advantage are you bringing to the table? Wil shows you how to transform your data into winning insights with 3 tools everyone has at their fingertips: your heart, your head, and a willingness to question everything you thought was true about SEO.

1:55pm — Birds of a Feather Discussion Groups

Join fellow attendees in one of our Birds of a Feather Discussion groups to share ideas, and network with peers around a common topic. Birds of a Feather groups are informal, peer-to-peer conversations.

2:30pm – Farewell and Goodbye from MozCon 2021

Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz

That’s a wrap on MozCon Virtual 2021! Stick around for networking until 3:30, and hope to see you again next year!

See you there?

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

8 Tips for Finding and Hiring the Right SEO Provider

It doesn’t take a pro to do SEO.

But hiring one can certainly help.

For business owners who are ready to take their SEO efforts up a notch, it may be time to move beyond the DIY approach and onboard an SEO provider that can get the job done.

But the question is: How do you find and hire the right SEO company that can generate real, tangible results for your business?

Here are our top tips for smart SEO hiring — from weighing the pros and cons of outsourcing to knowing what questions to ask during the hiring process.

Benefits of hiring an SEO company

While there are countless resources online to help you implement SEO on your own, there are also many perks to either outsourcing your SEO marketing or hiring an SEO professional in-house. SEO isn’t always the easiest to figure out, so working with a professional may be the solution to avoiding headaches, wasted time, and marketing dollars down the drain.

If you’re asking yourself if it’s worth hiring an SEO company, it’s time to consider the benefits.

An SEO provider can help:

• Take the guesswork out of SEO to start implementing an effective strategy from the start.

• Save you money by running data-driven, highly targeted campaigns that make the most of your marketing budget.

• Broaden your business’s reach online by expanding your marketing to a variety of channels.

• Prevent costly SEO errors and, potentially, Google penalties.

• Explain your website analytics, what they mean, and why they matter for your business.

Tips for SEO hiring

Choosing an SEO company or consultant takes careful consideration, as your primary goal is to find a provider that best fits the needs and goals of your business.

For this reason, we’ve included some of the best tips for effective SEO hiring to help you weigh your options and decide on the right choice for you.

1. Ask your network

One of the best sources for SEO provider recommendations is your existing network, particularly those business owners who are in your industry. By asking your network, you’ll already have people who can vouch for the provider’s services, offer an honest review, and point you in the right direction.

2. Request an honest estimate

When you end up reaching out to an SEO agency or consultant, you should request an honest estimate of how much their services will cost for your site and how long they expect those services to take. Any provider that’s cryptic about what they offer or how much it costs is one you should be wary of.

A decent SEO agency will know how much work is required to optimize your site, approximately how long it will take, and how much it will cost. There may be optional add-ons to be discussed later, but their upfront quote should give you a clear idea of what to expect when working with them.

3. Know what’s included

Many providers pitch an “all-in-one” SEO package, but it’s important to be critical of anyone who takes a one-size-fits-all approach. You’re looking for a provider that will take the time to understand your business and craft a strategy that suits your specific needs and audience.

It’s essential to ask what’s included in their SEO package so you can be super clear on what you're paying for. Some of these services might include on-page SEO, local SEO, technical optimization, content creation, or link building.

4. Ask how they measure results

Every business owner dreams of landing that #1 spot in the SERP, but SEO is about more than just rankings. A reputable SEO provider knows that the goal of any SEO strategy is ultimately to help the business make money, so they’ll look at key performance indicators (KPIs) beyond just rankings.

Some of these KPIs may include traffic numbers, conversion rate, leads, and revenue generated. They should be able to communicate the true value of SEO and why these metrics are most important when it comes to measuring the success of your SEO efforts.

5. Schedule a call

Before you sign on the dotted line, it can help to have a face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) conversation with your potential provider. This will give you a chance to discuss your needs in more detail, ask questions, and get a better sense of whether this provider is right for you.

6. Research

Before signing on with a new SEO provider, it’s best to conduct some initial research to learn more about their services, approach, and the results they’ve generated for their clients. This involves scoping out their social media profiles, looking out for client testimonials, and checking out case studies on their website.

Scope out reviews and testimonials

Whether you’re referred by someone in your network or stumble across a provider on your own, it’s always a good idea to check out the provider’s testimonials to get a read on how they work, and whether their past clients have enjoyed working with them. Also look for evidence that they’ve generated results for their clients in the form of traffic, leads, or sales.

Check out their socials

Many SEO companies are active on social media, and perusing their content is a good way to get a sense of their approach to SEO and how they work with their clients. Beyond reviews, look out for blog articles and posts being shared on their social media pages to see whether this is a brand you’d like to work with.

Look for case studies and portfolio examples

While you’re searching Facebook, Google, and Yelp for reviews, you should check out the provider’s website to see if they post any SEO case studies or examples of their past work. Testimonials may be able to tell you how much clients have enjoyed working with them, but case studies are a stronger indicator of whether their services actually move the needle.

During your research of a company, ask yourself: Do they communicate an in-depth understanding of analytics and how to interpret them? How do they measure success? Are they fixated on rankings, or on more discernible metrics?

These are all important questions to ask yourself as you read their case studies and website content. Their answers can build—or break—your confidence in their services, helping you determine whether they are the right provider for your business.

7. Communicate your business’s SEO goals

“Rank at the top of Google” may seem like a noble goal, but it’s likely that you have other, perhaps more tangible goals in mind. Be sure to communicate these to your potential provider so they know what you hope to achieve and to ensure you are both on the same page.

The right provider should be able to help you articulate your SEO goals and establish new ones. They should know what’s realistic for your business and be able to set your expectations from the very beginning.

8. Compare your options

You don’t have to pick the first SEO provider that comes your way. Feel free to compare your options, shop around, get a second opinion, or otherwise check out different providers so you can choose the right fit for your business. Ultimately, it should come down to who understands your business the best and proves that they have what it takes to bring your business positive results from your SEO campaigns.

Hire the right SEO for the job

Finding the right SEO agency for your business requires researching your options, asking the right questions, and looking out for proof of results. Any agency worth its weight will take the time to understand your business and come up with a strategy that serves to bring your business the best SEO results possible. This guide gave you some ways to identify a good SEO agency and choose the perfect fit for your needs.

5 Free Google Tools to Upgrade Your SEO Strategy

There's plenty of room for paid tools in the SEO space — Moz is a prime example — but if you’re just getting started or lack the budget necessary for fancy tools, there are still many resources available.

In this piece, we’re going to cover five of our favorite FREE Google tools, and how they can help you step up your SEO game.

1. Google Trends

Google Trends is used to track the “trends” around search queries. This makes it a great tool for keyword research.

Finding new keywords

When you go to Google Trends, you’ll see a search bar where you can input a broad topic or specific search query. Upon entering your query, you’ll be presented with a trend chart of interest in the query over time.

While this may be useful, the real gems are at the bottom of the page: Related Topics and Related Queries.

By default, these boxes will both be set to “rising.” This means that these topics and queries are currently gaining traction. These are the keywords that you may want to capitalize on quickly, as you could be a first-mover and gain rankings quickly.

Advanced keyword research

Even at a base-level, Google Trends is helpful, but you can always take it a step further. Across the top of Google Trends, there is a menu that allows you to specify a region, time period, category, and search platforms.

Region allows you to determine where you want to pull search data from geographically. This can be especially useful when working on local SEO projects.

Category allows you to select the category you’re competing in. This is a nice feature for people who offer a service in a specific industry, or who have a query that’s extremely common.

Search platform allows you to refine the data to specific platforms such as YouTube Search, Image Search, Google Shopping Search, and News Search. Search platform modifiers are great for those with an integrated SEO plan.

2. Rising Retail Categories

Though it’s almost impossible to predict what the Next Big Thing is going to be in e-commerce, you can still stay on top of the game with Rising Retail Categories.

This is Google’s compilation of data on retail. On it, you’ll find currently trending product categories and the searches around them, as well as where exactly they're trending.

As an e-commerce SEO, this can give you a good idea of which products to focus on for the most potential impact.

As an enterprise local SEO, you can use this data to determine which products to focus on in each market.

3. Visual Stories

Google summarizes Visual Stories as “Bite-size visual stories for busy marketers, driven by trending topics and data from Google.”

These stories range from holiday shopping trends to specific industry case studies, and more. They're interactive slides, each with a few insights or data points.

For example, there's a Visual Story about the automotive industry. Throughout the story, there are data points shared to give insight into how the pandemic has affected the car-buying process.

These data points don’t just focus on search data, though. It’s clear that this has been a full-on case study by Google. Some insights shared address the desires, experiences, and perceptions of the audience.

This information can easily be used to change the user journey, including the things that matter to the customer earlier on. It could also be used to address pain points that hadn’t been previously uncovered, or, on a more basic level, give an SEO an idea of what keywords to focus on.

4. Grow My Store

Grow My Store is a fantastic tool for those selling a product either online or in person. Grow My Store tests sites for Google Identifiers for Successful Online Stores.

These identifiers are broken down into five categories: Product Information, Store Details, Personalization, Customer Service, and Security.

This tool literally hands over Google’s idea of the must-haves for a product-selling business website. Some of the components included are product reviews, profiles for shoppers, live chat, and HTTPS.

To use Grow My Store, you simply answer three questions: what is your domain, what type of business do you have, and what industry are you in? Once you answer the questions, you will see a preview of your report with your overall score and some data around your industry. To get your full report complete with recommendations, you have to create an account. The report is then sent to your email.

You then get an account where you can create (and track) a checklist of changes that need to be made — according to Google.

In addition, you’ll get customized data and insights based on your industry. To find this data on Grow My Store, in the menu, select “Reach More Customers.” If you scroll down a bit, you’ll find a section with the heading “Understanding industry trends.” Here you’ll be able to choose your industry and specific category to get specific information such as top searches in that industry, top months for the industry, and so on.

5. Test My Site

Another great tool for measuring your site in the eyes of Google is Test My Site. Much like Grow My Store, Test My Site tests for three very specific categories of features on your site. These features are Speed, Personalization, and Experience. Unlike Grow My Store, Test My Site is for any website, not just product-base business sites.

The first report you will get from Test My Site is a mini report that breaks down your mobile site speed and any recommendations for fixes. There is also a tool to show the potential ROI of speeding up your site! Talk about buy-in.

If you want even more information, which you will, you can sign up to get the full report. The full report is emailed to you and breaks down recommendations and explanations for both marketers and developers. The report I got back was 16 pages long, filled with links to other resources and case studies as well as tactical tips in the form of a checklist.

In conclusion

While Google can often be cryptic about what they care about on websites, they’ve created quite a few resources that can give you insight into what they find important. Using these tools can easily get you a step ahead.

It’s not just about the tools, though. In 2021, data is more important than ever, and who better to get data from than The Giant themselves?

Now, go forth and be excellent — using free stuff!

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

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

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

1. You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 
2. You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.
3. Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.
4. Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 
5. Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 
6. Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 
7. Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: What They Are and Why SEOs Should Care

If you’re currently working to make your website accessible to all users, you’ve probably already heard about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This piece of US federal legislation was passed to prevent discrimination against disabled individuals, either by government agencies or private companies.

Even though the ADA was created before most organizations had an online presence, recent legal precedent shows that the act applies to the accessibility of websites and mobile apps just as much as it does to physical locations, such as stores, restaurants, and movie theaters.

The ADA itself doesn’t set out any specific criteria for web and mobile accessibility. Instead, many web developers and legal professionals turn to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), widely accepted as the benchmark for digital accessibility today.

In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at WCAG, and outline the steps you can take to meet its standards. We’ll also briefly explain why accessible websites typically rank higher in search engines — making accessibility the right choice all around!

What’s the link between SEO and accessibility?

Ensuring that your website is accessible to all users already brings huge benefits to your company — if more people visit your website, you’re likely to see an uptick in business. It’s that simple.

Considering the fact that one in four Americans are living with a disability, and that globally, the disposable income of people with disabilities is $1.2 trillion, making your website and mobile applications accessible to everyone opens up your products and services to a new consumer base, and can also lead to significant enhancements in the SEO of your website.

Consider this example: Search engines aim to promote pages with content that is clear and correctly ordered. This means that you need to follow WCAG guidelines on things like headings. If you don’t include the heading ranks in the right order — for instance, by placing text with a fourth-level (<h4>) heading after a second-level (<h2>) heading — you can cause accessibility issues for people using assistive technologies.

Equally, if you don’t provide appropriate alternative text for images, or if you mix up captions with alternative image text, you’ll create issues for users with disabilities and also damage the image SEO on your website. 

These are just a couple examples of how improving website accessibility can boost SEO, but for more, be sure to watch Cooper Hollmaier's new Whiteboard Series on the relationship between accessibility and SEO. 

Indeed, any investment you make in digital accessibility will also be reflected in your search rankings. In its mission statement, Google says that its purpose is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” “Universally accessible” is the key phrase here. It suggests that as Google continues to evolve its search engine and align it with the principles of accessible design, websites with strong accessibility features will be bumped up higher and higher in its search rankings.

What is WCAG and how can you achieve compliance?

WCAG offers a set of rules for web developers who are looking to create accessible websites. It was created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a global community of public and member organizations that are committed to making the internet open to everyone.

Websites and mobile applications are constantly changing as new technologies and innovations become available. To keep WCAG guidelines up to date, W3C also works to provide fresh advice to web developers on an ongoing basis.

If you review recent digital accessibility lawsuits, you’ll see that WCAG 2.0 is the most widely cited version. However, you should note that this version is already out of date. WCAG 2.1 is now available and provides further guidance on mobile accessibility — and WCAG 2.2 is hot on its heels.

It’s also crucial to note that while “WCAG compliance” is a widely used term, it’s actually a misnomer. Technically, it’s more accurate to think about successfully meeting WCAG standards. The term “WCAG compliance” implies a regulatory body, and W3C is not an industry regulator, nor is it a part of federal legislation. That said, WCAG compliance is the accepted phrasing at both web development conferences and law seminars, so we’ll use the term in this article.

Does my website need to meet WCAG standards?

If you’re in the US, yes, it does. Every website that is used by a US citizen, or owned by a US company, is required by law to comply with the ADA. And because WCAG is often cited as a standard for digital accessibility during litigation, following its guidance can help your organization avoid costly and damaging lawsuits. The notion that any company is exempt from ADA compliance is a myth, too. 

How can I make my website WCAG compliant?

WCAG sets out four main principles. These offer a solid foundation that web developers can follow to build websites that are accessible to everyone. Let’s take a closer look at each one:

1. Perceivable

To be perceivable, all the information contained on a website and all the features in its user interface — such as links, text boxes, and buttons — must be presented in ways so that all users can perceive them by at least one of their senses. If any content is hidden to any user, then the website cannot be considered perceivable.

2. Operable

A website is considered to be operable when all users can interact with it and successfully navigate it. If a website has any interactive features, all users need to be able to operate those components.

3. Understandable

All users must be able to understand the information and interface of a website. Web pages should appear and operate in predictable ways, and users should be protected against making input errors on pages that cause legal commitments or financial transactions to occur.

4. Robust

The content on a website must be open to interpretation by a broad variety of user agents. For instance, standard web browsers and assistive technologies such as screen readers must be able to access a website, and the content on a website must continue to be accessible as assistive technologies evolve.

How can I start my compliance journey?

On paper, the four principles of accessibility set out in WCAG sound simple enough. But how can you apply them? To help answer this question, WCAG offers more detailed guidelines for each of the four topics and breaks down each recommendation into a set of success criteria. WCAG also outlines several “sufficient techniques” that provide examples of how developers can achieve them in practice. Think of it as a checklist for compliance.

Each success criterion is also classified according to three levels: A, AA, and AAA. A indicates the most basic level of accessibility, and AAA denotes the most comprehensive. Currently, courts are interpreting the middle level, AA, as the benchmark.

While this article aims to provide you with a better understanding of WCAG criteria, it doesn’t list all the guidelines in full. If you want to find out more about each criterion, check out the “How to Meet WCAG” quick reference guide on the W3C website. This offers a definitive guide for each aspect of WCAG with suggestions on how developers can satisfy them.

1. A: Your website is accessible to some users

The level A success criteria details the steps you can take to avoid some of the most serious violations of accessibility principles. For instance, guideline 1.4 focuses on distinguishability, which simply means making it easy for users to perceive content.

Section 1.4.1 Use of Color is a level A success criterion. It explains that websites shouldn’t only use color as the primary way to convey information that indicates action, prompts a response, or is a distinguishing visual element.

If a website included a passage of red-colored text and the hyperlinks in that text were highlighted in green, it would be impossible for a user with red/green color blindness to distinguish links from the text. One way to improve accessibility would be to add another visual cue to the links, such as underlining them or using a different font.

2. AA: Your website is accessible to almost all users

To meet level AA, you first need to satisfy all the level A success criteria. Level AA guidelines naturally build on top of the level A criteria, providing additional requirements.

In Guideline 1.4, for instance, the 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) level AA success criterion augments the guidance of 1.4.1 Use of Color. It outlines that text on any page must have a color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or higher. There are some exceptions if text is large, or if the images of text are entirely decorative or part of a brand or logo.

You can learn more about how to achieve the correct color contrast in our full article on the topic. For the purposes of this blog, it’s sufficient to imagine the difference between a website where the main text is presented as black text on a white background, versus one where the text is pale yellow on a white background. Black-on-white has a high contrast ratio, while yellow-on-white has a very low contrast ratio. Users with visual impairments often struggle to see small differences in color contrast, which makes it all the more important for websites to ensure that the color contrast ratio of text is high enough to make it readable for all.

The AA level success criteria also include 1.4.4 Resize Text, which recommends that users should be able to enlarge text by up to 200 percent of the standard size without the need for assistive technologies.

3. AAA: Your website is accessible to the most users possible

As with the two previous levels, level AAA compliance requires meeting all the level A and level AA success criteria first. To achieve level AAA, websites must meet even more detailed standards. For instance, in Guideline 1.4, we find 1.4.6 Contrast (Enhanced), which lifts the required color contrast ratio from 4.5:1 to 7:1.

Criterion 1.4.8 Visual Presentation adds to 1.4.4 Resize Text by requiring that text can be resized up to 200 percent, while ensuring that the user can still read each full line of text without having to scroll their browser window horizontally. This criterion also makes additional suggestions, such as allowing users to select foreground and background colors themselves, and specifying settings for line spacing and justification that make text easier to read for people with visual or cognitive disabilities, such as dyslexia.

Start improving the accessibility of your website

By following the principles of accessible design, you’ll also make it easier for search engines to parse and rank your site.

Of course, digital accessibility is a huge topic, so you may be feeling in need of direction! Happily, there are numerous resources to help, not least of which is the W3C’s complete Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which should become your touchstone for all things accessibility. You can also potentially use their quick reference guide as a checklist for major accessibility topics.

There are also many automated tools available to help you find and fix accessibility issues, including those created by my company, AudioEye, and you can try them out free of charge. We also provide managed services led by a team of accredited experts, so feel free to contact us for advice and recommendations as you take the next step.

MozCon Virtual 2021 Interview Series: Ross Simmonds

Whether you recognize his iconic tweets or have read one of his content exposés on some of the world’s most powerful brands, Ross Simmonds has certainly made a name for himself in the content world. Through his experience working with clients both large and small, Ross has discovered the perfect recipe for developing and distributing content that will drive real results, and he’s ready to share it with our MozCon audience!

We're absolutely thrilled to welcome him back to the MozCon stage, and we connected with him ahead of the show to discuss how he broke into the industry, his content philosophy, and what he’s looking forward to at MozCon 2021.

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Question: You’ve been covering content creation and content marketing for quite some time, so could you tell us a bit about how you got your start? How did you set yourself apart?

Ross: I got started in content marketing accidentally. It was a time when content marketing really wasn't a thing. I got started by creating content online about fantasy sports. My first blog was all about fantasy football. I would create content three times a week writing about which players I believed were going to perform the best, and people from all over the world started to read this content and connect with it while I was living in my parents' basement in the middle of Nova Scotia, Canada.

This is when the light bulbs went off that the internet is going to be big and that this whole idea of creating content online can give you the opportunity to reach millions of people.As I started to grow that fantasy football blog, the traffic went up while my marks went down and I had to shift that fantasy football blog into a marketing blog so I could satisfy my mum's taste of wanting to make sure that I did good in school. She told me to start writing about marketing and so I did.

RossSimmonds.com became my website where I created content for years, and that eventually started to get traction and engagement from people again, all over the world, and eventually I transitioned, again, that RossSimmonds.com business, which was just me as a freelancer, into Foundation Marketing, which is a content marketing agency that works with B2B brands across the globe on content strategy, content creation, and content distribution. I have consistently been putting out new content on a regular basis on my blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and etc., for many, many years and as such, people have started to take notice and have been able to see my way of thinking around content.

Question: This year you’re discussing a new way of looking at content — seeing it as a long-term investment rather than a one-off creation. Why do you think this mindset is difficult for today's marketers to develop, and what's the best thing they can do to change their perspective?

Ross: The #1 reason why content is often seen as a one-hit thing and a one-time thing is because we live in a time where instant gratification has never been more easily acquirable and offers a dopamine hit. As such, marketers love the idea of pressing publish on a piece of content and seeing tons of notifications that people are interacting with it, liking it, sharing it, etc., and that is a great feeling to have.

But it is very temporary and what I'm talking about when it comes to content as an investment is taking a more long-term view, and recognizing that the assets and content that you create today can actually serve you consistently for years, if not decades to come from now, if you're able to optimize, improve, re-share, republish, and create things that actually have a life cycle that goes beyond today.

Question: You frequently conduct case studies on businesses like Masterclass, Shopify, and Gong, who are implementing incredibly successful content marketing strategies. What do you think these businesses have in common that is driving their success? What advice would you give to other businesses looking to achieve similar success?

Ross: Across the board, all of these companies have an internal commitment to understanding the value of content and its role in creating a competitive advantage. A lot of organizations don't view content as a force that can offer a competitive advantage long-term, but that is exactly what it offers you. If you create content for a significant amount of time that content is now going to be published and available to the public for years to come, and that content — if it's ranking in Google for high value keywords — is able to generate value for your business.

Some landing pages that exist today that were published in 2007 are still generating hundreds of thousands of dollars every single month for some companies, and these businesses that view content as an investment and recognize the power, value, and scalability of content are the ones that win, because they recognize that it's a great way to differentiate, that it is a very scalable methodology for growth and driving traction and engagement, and that is what truly differentiates some of these best-in-class content brands versus everyone else in the industry.

Question: At Foundation, you work with the full range of clients from startups to large Fortune 500 companies. How does your approach to content marketing change based on company size?

Ross: We start by understanding the goals and objectives with every single client that we're looking to provide services for, and by understanding their individual goals, we're able to tailor our recommendations and the ways in which we work with them based on their goals and what they're looking to accomplish — but we don't stop there.

We also dive deep into understanding what their existing resources are, how big their team is, the way that they internally communicate, the ways in which they're resourced in terms of their team structure, etc., and we use all of that to make a decision around how we can better serve them to accomplish that overarching goal. We also recognize that every single company is different. They have different people, different goals, different resource constraints, and different levels of funding, some are private, some are public, and etc.

All of these things fit into the way in which we can serve our clients, and thus we navigate each instance differently and in a bespoke kind of nature where it's custom and tailored to them.

Question: The way that consumers digest content is changing rapidly day by day. In your opinion, what has been the most dramatic change in content marketing in the last five years? What do you think is going to be the most important area for content marketers to focus on in the next five years?

Ross: Five years ago, everyone was talking about how you need to create more content and publish more content because all the gurus were on stage screaming "Content is king".

You fast forward to now, and guess what? Everyone has listened to that mantra and that idea but content has become very common. There's content everywhere you look. Right now, as somebody reads the words that are written on this screen or is listening to an audio version of it, they are consuming content.

Content has become easy to create and content has become essentially the bar. You're supposed to create content. Now it's more difficult than ever to stand out amongst all the noise, all of the hundreds and thousands of blog posts being published every day, and the hundreds of thousands of influencers on LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, etc., and because it is so difficult to stand out amongst them, I believe that in the next five years, the increasing emphasis on creativity and solid distribution will never be higher.

If you're in a boring industry, you still need to be creative and understand your audience's pain points and needs and give that to them in a form of content that they will want. That is consistent across the board, and I believe that there's going to be an increasing demand for creativity if you want your content to stand out in the months — if not years — to come.

Question: What’s your favorite piece of content that you’ve ever created? How can people give it a read?

Ross: A few months back, I wrote a piece called the The SEO Moat: Why SEO Can Be A Competitive Advantage, and it really speaks to the value that SEO brings to the market that often organizations are overlooking, even though it can truly play a massive role in helping an organization unlock millions of dollars in value for their organization.

Question: Who in the MozCon lineup are you most excited to watch this year? Anything else you are looking forward to?

Ross: I'm super excited to hear what Flavilla has to say this year. She always brings the heat and her perspective on the science of purchasing behavior is definitely going to be something I will be looking forward to hearing.

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A big thank you to Ross for his time! To learn more about Ross’s upcoming presentation, see details on our other speakers, and to purchase your ticket, make sure you click the link below!

How Optimizing for Voice Search Will Impact Your SEO Plan in 2021

A decade ago, you could define SEO to a layperson by establishing the relationship between “search” and “text." Fast-forward to present day, and a sizable chunk of web traffic and online purchases now come from searches initiated by voice prompt. Because users ask for content differently when they use Siri or Alexa — compared to when they type a search query into a browser — optimizing content to capture more of that traffic is going to work a bit differently.

Voice search is different than browser search

You have to make a distinction early on between voice searches that simply transcribe a voice prompt into a search bar and return a list of results, or a search action that triggers a specific command from a digital assistant-style platform. Most content isn’t going to be able to accommodate optimizations for both the Google search bar and an Alexa voice command at the same time, and some content can’t be engaged by voice-enabled devices at all, like a screen-free home smart speaker that can’t display an article or play a video. Rather, if you want to reach audiences while they interact with voice-enabled devices, you can think of voice-optimized content as another arrow in your quiver.

Source

Not all content needs to be voice friendly

Creating content specifically geared to be findable and consumable via voice search is going to be more important for some users than others. As screen-free devices and voice-enabled search become more ubiquitous, some sites and pages would likely benefit from becoming more Alexa-friendly. For example, location-based businesses have huge opportunities to increase their foot traffic by optimizing their online presence to be discoverable via voice search. There are more users to capture every day who are likely to ask Siri or Alexa to “find a pizza shop nearby,” compared to those who might navigate to Yelp or Google Maps and perform a text search for “pizza delivery.”

That said, voice searchability isn't necessarily what you should build your entire SEO strategy around, even for those users likely to benefit the most from high voice search rankings. That’s because voice isn’t exactly replacing text search — it’s supplementing it.

For example, Siri will update a user on the score of a game, but won’t narrate the action blow-by-blow. If you want a page to rank because you want to serve ads to users interested in sports commentary, then trying to optimize all of your content to accommodate voice may not be the most effective way to drive engagement.

However, if you want to boost foot traffic for a retail sandwich shop, then you can absolutely optimize the business listing to be easier to find when users ask for “lunch spots near me” via voice command while driving, and tailor your approach with that goal in mind.

Smart devices and voice search see usage grow, but not yet dominate

Voice search is arriving quickly but has not yet hit critical mass, creating some low-hanging fruit for early adopters with specific content goals.

In July 2019, Adobe released a study suggesting that around 48% of consumers are using voice search for general web searches. The study did not differentiate between digital assistants on smartphones or smart speakers, but the takeaways are similar.

In Adobe’s study, 85% of those respondents used voice controls on their smartphones, and the top use case for voice commands was to get directions, with 52% of navigational searches performed via voice. Consistent with Adobe's findings, Microsoft also released a study in 2019 reporting that 72% of smartphone owners used digital assistants, with 65% of all road navigation searches being done by voice prompt.

A 2018 voice search survey conducted by BrightLocal broke out some common use cases by device:

• 58% of U.S. consumers had done a voice search for a local business on a smartphone

• 74% of those voice search users use voice to search for local businesses at least weekly

• 76% of voice search users search on smart speakers for local businesses at least once a week, with the majority doing so daily

Smart speaker adoption in US homes grew by 22% between 2018 and 2019 to an estimated 45% of homes having at least one smart speaker. Research released by OC&C Strategists projected the smart speaker to grow voice shopping into a $40 billion market by 2022, just in the US and UK alone.

But mass adoption of voice tech is still lagging, despite inroads made during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the 2020 Smart Audio Report by NPR and Edison Research found that consumption of news and entertainment using these devices increased among a third of smart speaker owners in early 2020, a two-thirds majority of non-owners were “not at all likely” to purchase a voice-enabled speaker in the next six months, and nearly half of non-owners who use voice commands felt the same. People who own smart speakers still perform lots of traditional text searches, in accordance with Microsoft’s 2019 study, and not everyone who has access to voice command tech likes to use it for every basic function.

Part of the delay in mass adoption may be attributed to unresolved trust and privacy questions that come with being asked to fill our homes with microphones. A majority of smart speaker owners (52%) and a majority of smartphone voice users (57%) are bothered that their smart speaker/smartphone is "always listening." However, a silver lining is that roughly the same numbers of users for each respective device trust the companies that make the smart speaker/smartphone to keep their information secure.

Market share of digital assistants across search

There are four major smart assistants processing the majority of voice search requests at the time of publication, each with their own search algorithms, but with some overlap and data sources in common.

Understanding the market share for each assistant can help you prioritize your optimization strategy to your top growth objectives. Each of these digital assistants are tied to different hardware brands with a slightly different appeal and user base, so you can likely focus your analytics tracking efforts to just one or two platforms depending on the audience you’re targeting.

The Microsoft 2019 Voice Report asked respondents to list which digital assistants they had used before, which provides a broad idea of how much voice search traffic we can expect to come from each of these engines. Siri and Google Assistant tied for first place, commanding 36% of the market each. Amazon Alexa accounts for 25% of all digital assistant usage, while Microsoft Cortana ranked third place, powering 19% of devices.

An interesting thing to note here is that the engine powering Cortana leans largely on a partnership with Amazon Alexa. Cortana provides voice command functionality to laptops and personal computers, such as “Cortana, read my new emails”, while Alexa sees more smart-speaker requests like “Turn on the lights” or “Play NPR.”

Optimizing for voice search vs. voice actions

Voice commands actually fall into two categories — voice search and voice actions — and each looks for different criteria to determine which response will be returned first for any given voice request. It’s really important to define which one you’re talking about when assessing an SEO plan for voice search, because they process content very differently.

A voice search essentially just replaces a keyboard input with a spoken search phrase to return results in a browser, such as using the “OK Google” command in a smartphone browser. This may impact how you tailor your keyword phrases, based on the user's tendency to phrase queries more conversationally when interacting with a voice AI.

Voice actions, on the other hand, are specific voice commands or questions from the user that trigger certain apps or automations, such as placing an order for takeout via smart speaker or checking the weather from your car. Screen-free devices like home smart speakers and some car assistants use voice actions. These commands don’t return a ranked page of results, but often a single spoken result, with a prompt for further action. If you ask an Echo Dot device for the weather, it will describe the weather out loud based on data pulled from a predetermined source. It can’t return a list of popular weather forecast sites, because there is no screen to display a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is an important distinction.

Smart assistants often pull data from secondary sites to return these vocal snippet results, like pinging WolframAlpha for mathematical conversions or Yelp for local business listings. One such use case would be a voice search for “order a pizza.” The AI would route the query to Yelp or Google Maps, and verbally return one result such as “I found a pizzeria nearby with five stars on Yelp. Would you like to call Joe’s Pizza to place an order or look up driving directions?” This is sometimes known as “position zero,” when a search engine returns an abstract or snippet from within the content itself to answer a direct question without necessarily sending the user to the page.

Achieving position zero depends on the device

Ranking position zero for a voice action prompt depends on where those results are being pulled from. Improving the voice search ranking for driving directions to a specific physical storefront, for example, is often a matter of improving that business's visibility on listing sites like Google Maps and Yelp, which you may already be doing as part of your SEO plan anyway.

The data source depends on the platform running the voice search. Google and Android devices utilize Google Local Pack, while Siri crawls Yelp to return results when prompted for “the best” in any specific category, otherwise prioritizing the closest results. Since Alexa pulls local results from Bing, Yelp, and Yext, having filled-out profiles and robust listings on those platforms will help a business rank highly in Alexa search results.

Each assistant also pulls NAP identity (name, address, and phone number of a business’s online listing). NAP pulls profiles for location-based results from slightly different and sometimes overlapping sources:

• Siri pulls local recommendations from the NAP profiles on Yelp, Bing, Apple Maps, and Trip Advisor

• Android devices and Google Assistant pulls NAP profiles from Google My Business

• Alexa pulls NAP profiles from Yelp, Bing, and Yext

• Cortana, powered by Alexa, pulls from Yelp and Bing

Someone hoping to optimize their business page for voice search will want to max out their NAP profiles across all platforms by making sure that their listings at business.google.com, bingmapsportal.com, and mapsconnect.apple.com are completely filled out. This is also where a reputation management product like Moz Local can help businesses looking to improve their rankings.

Should you go after the voice snippet feature?

Again, many of the strategies you’d use to achieve first position on a text-based web search still apply to optimizing voice search. To improve voice performance specifically and appear in SERP features and voice snippets, on-page content should be structured so it’s easy to extract, basically reverse engineering the featured snippet you want to produce. But the question is, will it actually help you to rank well in that kind of search? That depends on your goal.

If the page you’re optimizing is built to sell more pizza to local customers, then yes, a featured snippet that pulls your NAP data from Google My Business and provides the pizzeria’s phone number to a hungry local parked nearby is a very good thing. But if the page in question is intended to serve sponsored content about diabetes management to drive clicks to an affiliate link for glucose monitoring strips, then you don’t necessarily want to build a page that helps Siri define Type II diabetes aloud to an eighth grader completing their homework.

Structuring the content headings with a question, followed by a concise answer in the paragraph below, makes it more likely that Siri will recite content from a given page when asked a similarly worded question by the user. The first answers a digital assistant gives when responding to a voice search query are typically the same type of snippets that show up in SERP features such as “People Also Ask” and Knowledge Graph results from Google.

In other words, Siri is unlikely to return your website to answer the voice prompt “What is the chemical composition of sugar?”, but you could rank highly with a featured snippet to answer a search like “Is sugar really bad for children with ADHD?”

The most valuable content for those seeking on-page visitors is the kind that addresses questions that are hard to answer with a single spoken response.

Rand Fishkin made his predictions on the role of the vocal snippet in search results as voice search was ramping up in 2016, and provided some advice on how you can plan your content around it in this Whiteboard Friday. According to Fishkin, it depends on whether you’re in the “safe” or “dangerous” zone for the content you’re trying to rank for, based on how easily a voice response can address the user’s query without sending them to your page.

“I think Google and Apple and Amazon and Alexa and all of these engines that participate in this will be continuing to disintermediate simplistic data and answer publishers,” Fishkin wrote.

He advises users to question the types of information they’re publishing, adding that if X percent of queries that result in traffic can be answered in fewer than Y words, or with “a quick image or a quick graphic, a quick number,” then the engine is going to do it themselves.

“They don't need you, and very frankly they're faster than you are,” Fishkin summarized. “They can answer that more quickly, more directly than you can. So I think it pays to consider: Are you in the safe or dangerous portion of this strategic framework with the current content that you publish and with the content plans that you have out in the future?”

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The takeaway

Voice-enabled devices are gradually becoming more embedded in consumers’ daily lives, but that doesn’t mean we should prioritize our content as though voice is bearing down on the traditional search engine results page, threatening to replace text all together in the role of SEO. Even if smart assistants and voice-enabled devices continue to become more popular year over year, they still fill a relatively niche role in most consumers’ technical gadget ecosystem at this time. That could change as the voice AIs become more sophisticated and talking to our gadgets starts to feel more normal, but the industry is still grappling with some serious growing pains.

Voice search and voice action technology still has some really exciting applications looming on the horizon, and marketers are already finding clever ways to insert their brands into the hands-free experience. Optimizing content for voice search is just one piece of that puzzle.

Give us your hottest takes and wildest predictions on where voice search is headed in 2021 in the comments!