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There's a new ranking factor in town: Core Web Vitals. Expected in 2021, this Google-announced algorithm change has a few details you should be aware of. Cyrus Shepard dives in this week on Whiteboard Friday.
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. I'm Cyrus Shepard here at Moz. Today we're talking about the next official Google ranking factor — Core Web Vitals. Now what do I mean by official ranking factor?
Google makes hundreds of changes a year. Every week they introduce new changes to their algorithm. Occasionally they announce ranking factor changes. They do this in particular when something is important or they want to encourage people, webmasters to make changes to their site beforehand. They do this for important things like HTTPS and other signals.
So this is one they actually announced. It's confusing to a lot of people, so I wanted to try to demystify what this ranking signal means, what we can do to diagnose and prepare for it, and basically get in a place where we're ready for things to happen. So what is it? Big first question.
What are Core Web Vitals?
So these are real-world experience metrics that Google is looking at, that answer things like: How fast does the page load? How fast is it interactive? How fast is it stable? So basically, when visitors are using your web page on a mobile or a desktop device, what's that experience like in terms of speed, how fast can they interact with it, things like that.
Now it's joining a group of metrics that Google calls Page Experience signals. It's not really a standalone. It's grouped in with these Page Experience metrics that are separate from the text on the page. So these are signals like mobile friendliness, HTTPS, intrusive interstitials, which are those pop-ups that come on and appear.
It's not so much about the text of the page, which are traditional ranking signals, but more about the user experience and what it's like, how pleasant it is to use the page, how useful it is. These are especially important on mobile when sometimes the speed isn't as high. So that's what Google is measuring here. So that's what it is.
Where is this going to affect rankings?
Well, it's going to affect all regular search results, mobile and desktop, based on certain criteria. But also, and this is an important point, Core Web Vitals are going to become a criteria to appear in Google Top Stories. These are the news results that usually appear at the top of search results.
Previously, AMP was a requirement to appear in those Top Stories. AMP is going away. So you still have to meet the requirements for regular Google News inclusion, but AMP is not going to be a requirement anymore to appear in Top Stories. But you are going to have to meet a minimum threshold of Core Web Vitals.
So that's an important point. So this could potentially affect a lot of ranking results.
When is it going to happen?
Well, Google has told us that it's going to happen sometime in 2021. Because of COVID-19, they have pushed back the release of this within the algorithm, and they want to give webmasters extra time to prepare.
They have promised us at least six months' notice to get ready. As of this recording, today we have not received that six-month notice. When that updates, we will update this post to let you know when that's going to be. So anytime Google announces a ranking factor change, the big question is:
How big of a change is this going to be?
How much do I have to worry about these metrics, and how big of results are we going to see shift in Google SERPs? Well, it's important to keep in mind that Google has hundreds of ranking signals. So the impact of any one signal is usually not that great. That said, if your site is particularly poor at some of these metrics, it could make a difference.
If you're in a highly competitive environment, competing against people for highly competitive terms, these can make a difference. So it probably is not going to be huge based on past experience with other ranking signals, but it is still something that we might want to address especially if you're doing pretty poorly.
The other thing to consider, some Google signals have outsized impact beyond their actual ranking factors. Things like page speed, it's probably a pretty small signal, but as users experience it, it can have outsized influence. Google's own studies show that for pages that meet these thresholds of Core Web Vitals, visitors are 24% less likely to abandon the site.
So even without Core Web Vitals being an official Google ranking factor, it can still be important because it provides a better user experience. Twenty-four percent is like gaining 24% more traffic without doing anything, simply by making your site a little more usable. So even without that, it's probably still something we want to consider.
Three signals for Core Web Vitals
So I want to jump briefly into the specifics of Core Web Vitals, what they're measuring. I think people get a little hung up on these because they're very technical. Their eyes kind of glaze over when you talk about them. So my advice would be let's not get hung up on the actual specifics. But I think it is important to understand, in layman's terms, exactly what's being measured.
More importantly, we want to talk about how to measure, identify problems, and fix these things if they happen to be wrong. So very briefly, there are three signals that go into Core Web Vitals.
1. Largest contentful paint (LCP)
The first being largest contentful paint (LCP). This basically asks, in layman's terms, how fast does the page load? Very easy concept. So this is hugely influenced by the render time, the largest image, video, text in the viewport.
That's what Google is looking at. The largest thing in the viewport, whether it be a desktop page or a mobile page, the largest piece of content, whether it be an image, video or text, how fast does that take to load? Very simple. That can be influenced by your server time, your CSS, JavaScript, client side rendering.
All of these can play a part. So how fast does it load?
2. Cumulative shift layout (CSL)
The second thing, cumulative shift layout (CSL). Google is asking with this question, how fast is the page stable? Now I'm sure we've all had an experience where we've loaded a page on our mobile phone, we go to click a button, and at the last second it shifts and we hit something else or something in the page layout has an unexpected layout shift.
That's poor user experience. So that's what Google is measuring with cumulative shift layout. How fast is everything stable? The number one reason that things aren't stable is that image sizes often aren't defined. So if you have an image and it's 400 pixels wide and tall, those need to be defined in the HTML. There are other reasons as well, such as animations and things like that.
But that's what they're measuring, cumulative shift layout.
3. First input delay (FID)
Third thing within these Core Web Vitals metrics is first input delay (FID). So this question is basically asking, how fast is the page interactive? To put it another way, when a user clicks on something, a button or a JavaScript event, how fast can the browser start to process that and produce a result?
It's not a good experience when you click on something and nothing happens or it's very slow. So that's what that's measuring. That can depend on your JavaScript, third-party code, and there are different ways to dig in and fix those. So these three all together are Core Web Vitals and play into the page experience signals. So like I said, let's not get hung up on these.
How to measure & fix
Let's focus on what's really important. If you have a problem, how do you measure how you're doing with Core Web Vitals, and how do you fix those issues? Google has made it very, very simple to discover. The first thing you want to do is look in Search Console. They have a new report there — Core Web Vitals. They will tell you all your URLs that they have in their index, whether they're poor, needs improvement, or good.
If you have URLs that are poor or needs improvement, that's when you want to investigate and find out what's wrong and how you can improve those pages. Every report in Search Console links to a report in Page Speed Insights. This is probably the number-one tool you want to use to diagnose your problems with Core Web Vitals.
It's powered by Lighthouse, a suite of performance metric tools. You want to focus on the opportunities and diagnostics. Now I'm going to be honest with you. Some of these can get pretty technical. You may need a web developer who is an expert in page speed or someone else who can comfortably address these problems if you're not very technical.
We have a number of resources here on the Moz Blog dealing with page speed. We'll link to those in the comments below. But generally, you want to go through and you want to address each of these opportunities and diagnostics to improve your Core Web Vitals score and get these out of poor and needs improvement into good. Now if you don't have access to Search Console, Google has put these reports in many, many tools across the web.
Lighthouse, of course, you can run for any page. Chrome Dev Tools, the Crux API. All of these are available and resources for you to find out exactly how your site is performing with Core Web Vitals and go in and we have until sometime in 2021 to address these things. All right, that's it.
That's Core Web Vitals in a nutshell. We've got more than six months to go. Get ready. At least at a very minimum dive in and see how your site is performing and see if we can find some easy wins to get our sites up to speed. All right. Thanks, everybody.
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Wow! What a crazy ride MozCon has been this year. In case you missed it, we were able to double the number of attendees and include over 2,800 people.
Not only were we able to include them, we were also able to see their families, pets, and home offices. It was an unusual experience for sure, but one we won’t be forgetting any time soon.
As always, the speakers served up some flaming hot content (including an actual movie). We can’t wait to share some of these takeaways with you!
Britney Muller — Accessible Machine Learning Workflows for SEOs
Britney started off by assuring everyone that they absolutely can use machine learning. She knows this because she was able to teach her dad how to use it!
Let’s jump right in.
Basically, machine learning can be used for a lot of things.
Britney suggests starting with a notebook in Colaboratory for increased accessibility. She showed us to do the basics like upload, import, and download data before jumping into the fun stuff:
Using Google NLP API to extract entities and their categories from URL
Using Facebook’s Prophet data for time-series predictions
Keyword research using Search Console Data and a filtering function
Honestly, we were surprised at how easy she made machine learning look. Can’t wait to try it ourselves!
Izzi Smith — How to Be Ahead of the (CTR) Curve
Not all clicks are created equal! While you may want as many clicks as possible from the SERP, there’s a specific type of click you should be striving for — the almighty long click.
“What is a click without the intent to be there?”
Google’s patent clearly states that reactions to search results are gauged, and short interactions (clicks) can lower rankings while longer interactions (clicks) can lead to higher rankings.
Great point by the wonderful @izzionfire - focus on the "long clicks" - the ones where users spend a long time on your page after clicking your result.
Google tends to show answers for the "short clicks" within the SERP - if it doesn't now, it will soon.#MozConpic.twitter.com/mCvWUpDTKQ
Are you ready to track your clicks and get to work? Good! Izzi broke it all down for you:
Pull your data from Google Search Console, specifically by using their API.
Know what you are looking for BEFORE getting into the data.
Look for these patterns:
Performance-based core update impacts — decrease in positions and impressions
Identifying Irrelevant rankings — large impression spike (with low CTR) then a sharp decline in impressions
Losing SERP feature — a sharp decrease in CTR and a decrease in impressions
Izzi, you’re a rockstar! We can’t wait to go play with all of our data later.
Flavilla Fongang — How to Go Beyond Marketing for Clients: The Value of a Thriving Brand Ecosystem
Flavilla is a true gem. Instead of focusing on the top of the funnel, she focused on how we can keep customers coming back.
She told us that “business is like love”. You don’t want to move too fast. You don’t want to move too slow. You have to add value. You have to keep things exciting.
"Your clients don't continue buying from you because you meet their expectations. They do it because you EXCEED them." It's like falling in love. -- @FlavillaFongang#MozConpic.twitter.com/S4RwlkC6pp
Flavilla challenged us to find what makes us remarkable:
Can you offer a unique experience?
Can you create a community?
Can you offer integrations?
Can you partner with people to bring something new?
Really sit down and think about why you started your brand and reflect on it. If you build a brand people come back to, you’ll have far less to worry about.
Brian Dean — How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss
We finally did it! We got Brian Dean to speak at an SEO conference.
If you don’t know him by now, you haven’t been searching hard enough. Brian is a master of content creation and marketing.
It wasn’t always that way, though. Brian’s first blog never took off because he spent more time creating content than he did promoting it. Once he realized just how important promotion was, he went all-in and ended up reaping the benefits.
This year, he finally shared with us some of his Jedi-like promotion tactics.
7 promotional strategies
1. Create for the linkerati (bloggers+journalists)
2. Expanded social posts
3. Avoid JarJar outreach
4. The Jedi mind trick
5. Hyperdrive-boosted Facebook posts
6. Infiltrate scarif: subreddits
7. Hack the Halonet: click to tweet links@backlinko#mozcon
He shared multiple tips for each of these strategies, but here is a quick summary:
Social sites hate it when you post links. Instead, tease the content with a “hook, lead, summary, link, call-to-action”.
Ask journalists or bloggers if they’d be interested in reading your pieces, but do so before you publish it to take some pressure off.
Actually personalize your outreach by mentioning something on the contact’s site.
Boost Facebook posts with ample engagement to audiences who have interacted with previous posts.
Just implementing one of these tactics could change the way your content is received by the internet. Who knows what could happen if you implemented all of them?
Joy Hawkins — Google My Business: Battling Bad Info & Safeguarding Your Search Strategy
Not everyone does local SEO, but if you do (or if it ties into what you do at all) you’re going to want to buckle your seatbelt.
Joy showed us some of the insights she was able to pull from a large study she did with her team. They had noticed a major discrepancy in the data between Google My Business and Google Search Console, and wanted to get to the root of it.
Google My Business “views” are a lot of different things (not just the traditional impressions we’re used to tracking).
Mobile searches don’t show website icons in the local pack.
The search queries that show up in GMB are different from the ones that are shown in Search Console.
Explicit intent does not always mean higher intent than implicit intent
If you work in local search, Joy wants to challenge you to move away from views and Search Console impressions. Instead, focus on the search data that GMB provides for keywords and on click data in Search Console.
Michael King — Runtime: The 3-Ring Circus of Technical SEO
In true Michael King style (with a ton of flare), he showed us just what’s possible at a virtual conference and blew our minds with technical SEO awesomeness.
That moment you think you kinda know technical SEO and then you see @iPullRank at #MozCon. Mind. BLOWN.
The thing is, all of this has been out there and accessible, but as Mike says in Runtime, “Doing things the same way everyone else does them is going to get you everyone else's results. Do things your own way."
Dana DiTomaso — Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights
The idea of discovery is not a new one, but Dana came ready to shine a new light on an old tactic. Most of us do minimal research before agreeing to do a project — or at least minimal compared to Dana and her team!
These are just a few questions from Kick Point’s discovery process:
If there were no limitations, what would you want to be able to say at the end of this project?
Which of these metrics affects your performance report?
What does your best day ever look like?
What didn’t work last time?
The discovery process isn’t just about talking to the client, though, it’s about doing your own research to see if you can find the pain points.
Actually testing your client's transaction process.
I only do that when setting up eCommerce tracking and test the purchasing journey for customers.
As always, Dana shared some true gems that are sure to make our industry better.
David Sottimano — Everyday Automation for Marketers
David brought us automation greatness all the way from Colombia! There were so many practical applications and all of them required little to no coding:
Wit.ai for search intent classification
Using cron for scheduling things like scraping
Webhooks for passing data
Creating your own IFTTT-like automation using n8n.io on Heroku
We got to see live demonstrations of David doing each of these things as he explained them. They all seemed super user-friendly and we can’t wait to try some of them.
Russ Jones — I Wanna Be Rich: Making Your Consultancy Profitable
Most businesses fail within their first five years, and that failure often comes down to business decisions. Now, Russ doesn’t enjoy all of this decision-making, but he has learned a few things from doing it and then seeing how those decisions affect a business’s bottom line.
The number one way to become more profitable is to cut costs. Russ looked at cutting costs by having fewer full-time employees, renting/owning less space, making leadership changes, and cutting lines of service.
When it comes to actually bringing in more money though, Russ suggests:
Adding new service lines
Raising prices
Automating tasks
Acquiring new business
At the end of the day, Russ boiled it down to two things: Don’t be afraid to change, and experiment when you can — not when you must.
If you experiment only when you have to, you're going to fail. If you experiment now, when you can and don't wait until you must, chances are you're going to grow, succeed and beat out your competitors. @rjonesx#MozCon
Heather Physioc — Competitive Advantage in a Commoditized Industry
SEO is not dead, it’s commoditized. A strong line to start off a presentation! We can always count on Heather to bring forth some real business-minded takeaways.
First, she helped us understand what a competitive advantage actually is.
As we went through this framework, Heather assigned A LOT of homework:
Examine your brand: What do you do? Who do you serve? Why? Find the patterns within the answers.
Write a brand statement.
Activate your advantage: How can you live it fully? What things can’t you do in support of your purpose? How will you know you’re putting it to work?
She mentioned a lot of great tools throughout her presentation. Get a list of those tools and access to her slides here.
Wil Reynolds — The CMO Role Has Been Disrupted: Are You Ready for Your New Boss?
Have you ever thought about who holds the fate of the CMO in their hands? Wil started out by explaining that the CEO, CFO, and CIO actually have far more power over marketing than we give them credit for. While they all know that data is what will make their businesses successful, they also hold keys to our success: budget, IT teams/implementations, veto authority.
The issue we face isn’t that we don’t know what we are doing, but more so that we don’t know how to communicate it.
"I don't know a whole lot of CEOs that read Search Engine Land, but they're the ones that write our checks." - @wilreynolds
So instead of throwing shade at our least-favorite phrases the c-suite uses, we may want to make sure non-SEOs understand our value.#MozConpic.twitter.com/S6fClFevZo
How can you show up to talk the talk and walk the walk? Use your data, and use it to give the customers a voice at the table (something all executive teams are attempting to achieve).
Wil’s team has done an amazing job simplifying and documenting this process for all of us in search. If you haven’t yet, we highly suggest checking out their blog.
That’s a wrap
Folks, this was fun. We’re so happy that we could bring people together from all over the world for two days during this crazy time.
While there weren’t any Roger hugs or fist pumps, there were still lessons learned and friendships made. It doesn’t get any better than that. We hope you feel the same.
If you were able to attend the live conference, we would love to hear your thoughts and takeaways! Be sure to take time to reflect on what you’ve learned and start plans for implementation — we want to see you make a difference with your new knowledge.
Until next year, Moz fans!
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We’ve officially released the Moz API for Google Sheets and want to take you on a quick feature tour.
This Google Sheets add-on allows users to gather Moz URL metrics easily without using code directly in a Google Sheet and provides a few extra functions to help you manipulate data.
In the past, if you wanted link metrics for hundreds of URLs, you either had to enter them manually one at a time, or you needed technical expertise to use the LinkScape API. So, I built this free Google Sheets add-on, and now you can pull link metrics for those URLs in seconds, no coding required.
Here are a few use cases for the Moz API for Sheets add-on:
Get Moz Spam Score in metric to assist toxic link analysis (paid plan required).
Get domain authority and page authority in bulk to help you assess the quality of sites for link outreach, domain valuation, and more (available with free and paid plans).
Use built-in custom formulas to parse URLs, save URLs to the Wayback Archive, etc., all without having to write complicated nested formulas or use regular expressions.
Here’s what you can expect as output from the add-on:
The only thing you’ll need to get started is a Google account and Mozscape API credentials (a free plan is available).
Important limitations:
The free plan will allow the collection of domain authority and page authority for 200 URLs at a time, at a rate of 10 URLs per 10 seconds.
The paid plan will allow all metrics for 10,000 URLs at a time with no rate limiting.
Once you have the add-on installed, you’ll need to enter your Mozscape API credentials to activate the tool. From there, simply select your metrics and add in your URLs to get the report working.
The formulas tab
There are a few helpful custom formulas that come with the add-on. Simply click on the “formulas” tab at the bottom of the add-on to see them. As you type any of these formulas, a help file will pop up to guide you.
For example, use the =PARSE_URL formula to quickly parse URLs into the root, path, anchor, and more without having to write novel-length formulas or remember difficult regular expressions.
Stuck? Click on the “help” tab to display additional information.
That's it! We hope you enjoy the add-on and we welcome your feedback.
P.S. A massive thank you to Britney Muller and Cyrus Shepard for giving me the opportunity to build the add-on and being incredibly patient/helpful during the process.
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!
Today marked day one of the first-ever MozCon Virtual! Even though we weren’t together in person, it was so exciting to get the best people in the industry together again.
So much of the day was different from what we expected six months ago, but the one thing we can always count on from our speakers is a MASSIVE amount of value. We’re talking insights, game plans, cheat codes — you name it, we’ve got it — and this year was no different.
Let’s get to it.
Sarah Bird — Welcome & State of the Industry
It’s always inspiring to hear from our fearless leader. Sarah hit on some of the changes that we’ve seen this year and how they’ve affected both us as people and us as an industry.
Sarah also laid out her thoughts on major SEO trends for 2020.
AAAAAND WE'RE OFF! #MozCon Virtual @Moz CEO, @SarahBird, discusses her take on the State of the Industry.
5 Timely Trends for 2020:
1. welcoming our robot overlords
2. entities
3. knowledge panel
4. localization of everything
5. new & ramping up search experiences
In closing, Sarah reminded us that we rise and fall collectively and that in the end, the world is our work. In difficult times we must all come together.
We’re all so happy to be able to create this virtual experience and allow for everyone to have something (somewhat) predictable to look forward to for two days.
Andy Crestodina — Thought Leadership and SEO: The 3 Key Elements and Search Ranking Strategies
Andy started off by walking us through the three key aspects of thought leadership: personal brand, taking a stand, and proving expert insights.
Then, very kindly, Andy laid out exactly what to do to fulfill each aspect.
Expert Insights
Create original research
Write books
Share novel ideas
Take a stand
Have a strong opinion
Don’t shy away from controversy
Inspire others
Build a personal brand
Have a social following
Be cited by others
Be influential
This presentation was 163 slides of actionable insights. It’s definitely one that we’ll have to watch a few times over!
#Mozcon thank goodness I can rewatch this content. @crestodina gave so much great knowledge. I'll have to watch again and again.#winning
— Seth @ Goldstein Media (@GoldsteinMedia) July 14, 2020
Shannon McGirk — Great Expectations: The Truth About Digital PR Campaigns
Shannon came to set us straight: we aren’t showing the full picture when it comes to Digital PR, and it’s quite toxic.
She started out by showing a few of her own tweets and pointing out that she rarely, if ever, shares anything about campaigns that don’t “go viral”.
Shannon explained that we talk about Digital PR campaigns as if the majority of them are “huge wins”. The reality, however, is that most of our campaigns will be steady performers and the huge wins are actually just anomalies.
How we talk about campaigns:
How campaigns actually perform:
Aira put out a state of digital PR study and found that most campaigns only got between one and 20 links. When Shannon broke down the numbers for Aira, they were consistent: about 17 links were gained per campaign!
What do we do about this? Shannon challenged us to take as much time looking into what didn’t work as we do looking into what did work.
Using a custom made success matrix, Shannon and her team were able to spot the trends for both “successful” and “not successful” campaigns and implement plans accordingly.
Her parting strategy:
Take off the pressure of “virality” and focus on steady performers and fails.
Realize that steady performers can consistently impact weighty SEO KPIs.
Use the success matrix to review campaigns and catch trends early.
Robin Lord — Whatever You Do, Put Billboards in Seattle: Getting Brand Awareness Data from Google
Wow! Our minds are still blown from this presentation. Robin took us through some extremely valuable workflows for collecting and analyzing data.
When it comes to determining the success of your “brand,” the numbers aren’t straightforward. There are a lot of data points to take into consideration. In fact, Robin started off by asking us if we used multiple datasets, collected data on our competitors, and got granular. Needless to say, many of us knew we were in for a ride.
Need? Brand interest data.
Your new best friends? Google Trends. Census Data. Google Ads.
This analysis is blowing my mind a little bit (ok, a lot) ????#MozCon
— Meisha Bochicchio (@MarketingMeisha) July 14, 2020
Honestly, this presentation was so jam-packed with information that we had a hard time keeping up! Thankfully, at the end of his presentation, Robin laid out step-by-step instructions on how he collected, compiled, and analyzed all of this data.
Alexis Sanders — The Science of Seeking Your Customer
Determining your audience is about more than demographics and affinity data; it’s about truly understanding your audience as people.
Alexis took us through four questions we should try to answer when defining our audience:
What’s the key information?
What are they like at their core?
How do they choose products?
What’s their relationship with technology?
She even provided a list of free and paid resources that anyone can use to collect this information.
Takeaways via @alexisksanders
1. Make use of first, second and third-party information
2. Ask questions on Google Discover
3. Try Sparktoro -new tool for me!
4. Map your users' journey againts content
6. Today is change and learning fast#MozCon#marketingpic.twitter.com/DH80dThomS
Alexis also explained that audience research is not something that happens only once (at the beginning of a campaign), but instead should inform the entire customer journey.
Her parting words encouraged us to learn fast and become in-tune with the constant change, instead of always trying to guess correctly!
Phillip Nottingham — How to Build a Global Brand Without a Global Budget
The marketing funnel is broken, we all know that. But if we aren’t focusing on getting people to work down a funnel, what are we working towards? Building our brand. Right. Well, how do we go about doing that?
Phil blew our minds with insights on how he helped Wistia change their mindset when it came to creating “brand awareness.” The first step was to stop calling it brand awareness and instead call it brand affinity.
Building an affinity to a brand means spending time with a brand. A KPI that usually gets lost in the mix of impressions, clicks, etc.
In his presentation, Phil breaks down the exact method he used with Wistia to get people to spend as much time on the site watching four videos as they did reading all 1,170 blogs.
We were so thrilled to have Dr. Pete back to speak at his NINTH MozCon this year. While this year’s conference was unlike any other, his presentation was just as insightful.
Dr. Pete talked all about spotting trends. Nothing about this year could have been predicted. There was no way that hair salons could have predicted that “how to cut hair” was going to be an opportunity keyword.
However, there is still a way to capitalize on these opportunities as we spot them.
Dr. Pete showed us exactly how we can use tools that we’re familiar with, and a few that we might not be familiar with, to spot trends and turn them into opportunities including Google Trends, Pinterest, Twitter search, and even Boing Boing Store.
There were some real gems in this presentation!
In Twitter Advanced Search, restrict to your language, relevant date ranges, and set a number of minimum likes. Go lower on that last one than you think - but this way you won’t get every random tweet on the topic@dr_pete#MozCon
Needless to say, Dr. Pete has officially gone nine straight years impressing MozCon.
Francine Rodriguez — Let It Go: How to Embrace Automation and Get Way More Done
2020 has really come out swinging. Francine voiced exactly what we were all thinking: “that’s enough!”
We have enough to worry about, do we really need to keep adding to the list?
When it comes to search engine marketing, there are a lot of moving parts and it can be excruciating to try and keep up with it all. There is a solution though: ROBOTS! (Someone call Roger!)
Google is constantly learning, so why not let them leverage their new knowledge?
Francine walked us through the different areas of PPC automation:
Bidding
Ad copy
Smart campaigns
Keyword matching
If you’re looking for a great example of letting go and embracing automation, Microsoft Ads is a good place to go. They allow you to import all of your Google Ads right into Microsoft ads so they can start running right away.
Rob Ousbey — A Novel Approach to Scraping Websites
What do we even say about this presentation? Rob is one of a kind.
If you take a look at the #MozCon feed on Twitter, you’ll notice far fewer people live-tweeting — that’s because they were busy taking notes!
Actual footage of me watching this session with @RobOusbey...
Rob showed us how he scrapes websites (including the big G) in seconds using a few lines of code. He walked us through every piece of code needed to scrape G2, Google, and even Google’s Lighthouse tool.
He wrapped it all up by showing off exactly what he did to integrate Lighthouse data into Moz Pro’s SERP analysis.
Again, this is going to be one of those presentations that you have to rewatch multiple times. Or maybe even at half-speed!
Ross Simmonds — Designing a Content Engine: Going from Ideation to Creation to Distribution
We closed out day one with the Coolest of Cool.
Ross came in hot with some Disney references to make us think.
Disney movies — where do the storylines usually come from? Other stories!
In recent years we’ve seen Disney “revise” their previous movies to make them fit today’s world. And actually, some of the original Disney movies were “remixes” of Shakespeare’s plays.
Ross loves his four Rs (revise, remix, remove, redirect), and this year he gave us even more actionable plans.
This closing session really encouraged us to put on our “Sherlock Homeboy” hat and get curious about what others are doing, and how we can do it better.
A few places to find inspiration for innovation that Ross mentioned:
Your favorite website’s site map
Wayback machine for industry leaders’ sites
Wikipedia
There’s so much to do
For now, we're calling it a day and getting some rest because we get to do it all again tomorrow!
If you want to access the speaker slides, you can sign in with your Moz Community credentials and download them on this page.
If you did join us today, what was your favorite session? Your biggest takeaway? We can’t wait to see you tomorrow!
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SEO has become more important than ever, but it isn't all meta tags and content. A huge part of the success you'll see is tied up in the inevitable business negotiations. In this helpful Whiteboard Friday from August of 2018, our resident expert Britney Muller walks us through a bevy of smart tips and considerations that will strengthen your SEO negotiation skills, whether you're a seasoned pro or a newbie to the practice.
Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. So today we are going over all things SEO negotiation, so starting to get into some of the business side of SEO. As most of you know, negotiation is all about leverage.
It's what you have to offer and what the other side is looking to gain and leveraging that throughout the process. So something that you can go in and confidently talk about as SEOs is the fact that SEO has around 20X more opportunity than both mobile and desktop PPC combined.
This is a really, really big deal. It's something that you can showcase. These are the stats to back it up. We will also link to the research to this down below. Good to kind of have that in your back pocket. Aside from this, you will obviously have your audit. So potential client, you're looking to get this deal.
Get the most out of the SEO audit
☑ Highlight the opportunities, not the screw-ups
You're going to do an audit, and something that I have always suggested is that instead of highlighting the things that the potential client is doing wrong, or screwed up, is to really highlight those opportunities. Start to get them excited about what it is that their site is capable of and that you could help them with. I think that sheds a really positive light and moves you in the right direction.
☑ Explain their competitive advantage
I think this is really interesting in many spaces where you can sort of say, "Okay, your competitors are here, and you're currently here and this is why,"and to show them proof. That makes them feel as though you have a strong understanding of the landscape and can sort of help them get there.
☑ Emphasize quick wins
I almost didn't put this in here because I think quick wins is sort of a sketchy term. Essentially, you really do want to showcase what it is you can do quickly, but you want to...
☑ Under-promise, over-deliver
You don't want to lose trust or credibility with a potential client by overpromising something that you can't deliver. Get off to the right start. Under-promise, over-deliver.
Smart negotiation tactics
☑ Do your research
Know everything you can about this clientPerhaps what deals they've done in the past, what agencies they've worked with. You can get all sorts of knowledge about that before going into negotiation that will really help you.
☑ Prioritize your terms
So all too often, people go into a negotiation thinking me, me, me, me, when really you also need to be thinking about, "Well, what am I willing to lose?What can I give up to reach a point that we can both agree on?" Really important to think about as you go in.
☑ Flinch!
This is a very old, funny negotiation tactic where when the other side counters, you flinch. You do this like flinch, and you go, "Oh, is that the best you can do?" It's super silly. It might be used against you, in which case you can just say, "Nice flinch." But it does tend to help you get better deals.
So take that with a grain of salt. But I look forward to your feedback down below. It's so funny.
☑ Use the words "fair" and "comfortable"
The words "fair" and "comfortable" do really well in negotiations. These words are inarguable. You can't argue with fair. "I want to do what is comfortable for us both. I want us both to reach terms that are fair."
You want to use these terms to put the other side at ease and to also help bridge that gap where you can come out with a win-win situation.
☑ Never be the key decision maker
I see this all too often when people go off on their own, and instantly on their business cards and in their head and email they're the CEO.
They are this. You don't have to be that, and you sort of lose leverage when you are. When I owned my agency for six years, I enjoyed not being CEO. I liked having a board of directors that I could reach out to during a negotiation and not being the sole decision maker. Even if you feel that you are the sole decision maker, I know that there are people that care about you and that are looking out for your business that you could contact as sort of a business mentor, and you could use that in negotiation. You can use that to help you. Something to think about.
Tips for negotiation newbies
So for the newbies, a lot of you are probably like, "I can never go on my own. I can never do these things." I'm from northern Minnesota. I have been super awkward about discussing money my whole life for any sort of business deal. If I could do it, I promise any one of you watching this can do it.
☑ Power pose!
I'm not kidding, promise. Some tips that I learned, when I had my agency, was to power pose before negotiations. So there's a great TED talk on this that we can link to down below. I do this before most of my big speaking gigs, thanks to Mike Ramsey who told me to do this at SMX Advanced 3 years ago.
Go ahead and power pose. Feel good. Feel confident. Amp yourself up.
☑ Walk the walk
You've got to when it comes to some of these things and to just feel comfortable in that space.
☑ Good > perfect
Know that good is better than perfect. A lot of us are perfectionists, and we just have to execute good. Trying to be perfect will kill us all.
☑ Screw imposter syndrome
Many of the speakers that I go on different conference circuits with all struggle with this. It's totally normal, but it's good to acknowledge that it's so silly. So to try to take that silly voice out of your head and start to feel good about the things that you are able to offer.
Take inspiration where you can find it
I highly suggest you check out Brian Tracy's old-school negotiation podcasts. He has some old videos. They're so good. But he talks about leverage all the time and has two really great examples that I love so much. One being jade merchants. So these jade merchants that would take out pieces of jade and they would watch people's reactions piece by piece that they brought out.
So they knew what piece interested this person the most, and that would be the higher price. It was brilliant. Then the time constraints is he has an example of people doing business deals in China. When they landed, the Chinese would greet them and say, "Oh, can I see your return flight ticket? I just want to know when you're leaving."
They would not make a deal until that last second. The more you know about some of these leverage tactics, the more you can be aware of them if they were to be used against you or if you were to leverage something like that. Super interesting stuff.
Take the time to get to know their business
☑ Tie in ROI
Lastly, just really take the time to get to know someone's business. It just shows that you care, and you're able to prioritize what it is that you can deliver based on where they make the most money off of the products or services that they offer. That helps you tie in the ROI of the things that you can accomplish.
☑ Know the order of products/services that make them the most money
One real quick example was my previous company. We worked with plastic surgeons, and we really worked hard to understand that funnel of how people decide to get any sort of elective procedure. It came down to two things.
It was before and after photos and price. So we knew that we could optimize for those two things and do very well in their space. So showing that you care, going the extra mile, sort of tying all of these things together, I really hope this helps. I look forward to the feedback down below. I know this was a little bit different Whiteboard Friday, but I thought it would be a fun topic to cover.
So thank you so much for joining me on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I will see you all soon. Bye.
Scoop up more SEO insights at MozCon Virtual this July
Don't miss exclusive data, tips, workflows, and advice from Britney and our other fantastic speakers at this year's MozCon Virtual! Chock full of the SEO industry's top thought leadership, for the first time ever MozCon will be completely remote-friendly. It's like 20+ of your favorite Whiteboard Fridays on vitamins and doubled in size, plus interactive Q&A, virtual networking, and full access to the video bundle:
Still not convinced? Moz VP Product, Rob Ousbey, is here to share five highly persuasive reasons to attend!
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!
Conference season is here! Of course, this year it looks a bit different. Instead of signing in at the front table and snagging seats next to some new pals, you’ll be setting up your computer as the main stage.
For some, this is going to be a major learning curve. Virtual events can be tougher to follow and engage with. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of best practices to show up ready and take on any online event you choose to attend this year.
Don't forget, if you haven't yet, there is still time to purchase your MozCon Virtual ticket!
To get the most out of your online event, you need to go in with an intention. That way you’ll be more likely to gain something from the experience.
Ask yourself, what are you hoping to achieve? Some examples could be:
Gain a business opportunity
Learn more about how to recover from the latest algorithm update
Find ways to increase efficiency within your SEO processes
Feel more confident selling your services
Schedule accordingly
Many events will provide you with schedules ahead of time — look at them! (Pssst...if you haven’t yet, now is the perfect time to check out the agenda for MozCon Virtual.)
These schedules can help you go into the conference with a clear idea of how you’re going to spend your time. Going in with a plan will allow you to focus on the content of the event and your intentions each day, as opposed to wasting time frantically trying to decide what sessions you’re going to attend.
Choosing your sessions
Once you know what your intentions are and you have the event schedule, determine what will be the most beneficial content for you. This can be especially helpful when the event has multiple tracks, very few break times, etc.
Choosing your sessions may come down to a process of elimination, and it’s much easier to eliminate sessions when you have some sort of goal in mind.
Things to consider when choosing your sessions are:
The topic
The speaker
The time
The availability of on-demand videos post-conference
Your intention may be to broaden your horizons this year, so instead of opting to see presentations with the same topics or speakers that you saw last year, you may see someone new discussing something you find interesting but haven’t had time to explore. You may have a tight schedule and not be able to make anything past 3pm. If some of the sessions will be available after the conference, it may be worth checking out topics you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Know when to take a break
When you’re planning out your schedule, you need to make sure you build in time for breaks. This means time to eat, time to decompress, time to refill your coffee cup, and time to do work or home stuff.
Conferences usually have a lot of breaks and that’s for good reason. Ideally, you’re going to be learning a lot. But if you try to learn it all at once without giving your brain a break, very little of it will stick.
So, be sure to listen to your body. If you start to feel foggy or overwhelmed, take a break, grab some water, and move around a bit.
Build in networking time
Something else you want to account for when planning your virtual event agenda is when you’re going to network. Some conferences will have time to network built in, but others won’t.
You’ll want to dedicate time to get to know the other attendees by joining conversations and adding people on social media. This will look a bit different in the virtual space, as you won’t be meeting for coffee or chatting in the lobby, but try to stay creative! Zoom chats and video calls are a great way to connect with new or old friends.
At the end of each day, take some time to reflect. Think back to what your intention was, what you did throughout the day to fulfill that intention, and what you can put into action moving forward.
This is a great exercise to ensure you’re making the most out of the event. Far too often, we take in all of the information and do nothing with it! That’s why we like to suggest creating at least three action items at the end of each day.
Gather the essentials
Okay, it’s the first day of the conference and you’re about to jump in front of the computer. BUT! Before you do that, you need to make sure you have everything you need to be successful.
Get a clean notebook or start a fresh doc
Having a clean slate for notes will help you stay focused while attending any conference (virtual or otherwise). So grab a new, crisp notebook or create a new document file on your computer before you get started.
If you decide to go the computer route, be sure you close all other tabs and turn off notifications! You want to be sure that your attention stays on the conference.
Taking notes during a virtual conference
With that new notebook or document of yours, you’ll want to take the most effective notes possible. With that in mind, here are a few things to take note of:
What you learned
How can you apply it
What can you share with your team
To ensure that you’re on track to capture each of these things, when you go into each session, write your intention for the session at the top of your notes page. Then, divide your pages by “what I learned,” “how to apply,” and “what to share.” This will keep your notes nice and organized and give you a visual cue on whether or not you’re getting what you expected out of the session. It will also make your end-of-day recap much easier.
When it comes to virtual events, one of the biggest benefits is that you often get the slide decks and video bundles afterward. We suggest finding out whether the event you’re attending offers those things before you start taking notes, as it may lighten your note-taking burden a bit.
Have some snacks, water, and coffee (or tea)
Perhaps the most important things to have during a virtual conference are the snacks and drinks! As you know, at MozCon, we take this part very seriously, so we expect nothing less if you attend our virtual event.
Brain food can help you stay focused. Some of our favorite snacks are granola bars, nuts, veggies, and of course, donuts. However, you have full control over the spread this year.
Be sure to also have plenty of water and your favorite caffeinated beverage as well!
Show up
You’re ready to go! All that’s left is showing up. With virtual events, this can be hard to do. Especially if you know that the content is going to be available after the event is over. But there is so much to be gained by being a part of the live event and the conversations happening around it.
So show up, and show out!
PS: If you’re looking for a virtual event to attend this year, Roger is still hoping to give you a virtual hug at MozCon Virtual 2020.
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