Ball kicked repeatedly against wall of Woking home led to occupant's assault on boy's mother

Judge Jonathan Black told Margaret Long he accepted that there was 'provocation' for the assault

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ball-kicked-repeatedly-against-wall-12254940

Staines fire station could close due to 'severe' budget strain

Surrey County Council said crews would operate only out of Sunbury following delays on building a new base

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/staines-fire-station-could-close-12253796

Neighbourhood policing changes going in 'right direction', says commissioner

The new model saw the number of Safer Neighbourhood Team officers reduced from 438 to 187

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/incoming/neighbourhood-policing-changes-going-right-12252816

Redhill cafe and bakery opens selling more than 200 different flavours of muffin

Muffin Break's flavours include apple cinnamon, coffee nut, peach and even sweet chilli and corn

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/redhill-cafe-bakery-opens-selling-12255670

Christmas 2016: Last minute advent calendars available from Amazon Prime Now

Woken up without an advent calendar? If you order one from Amazon Prime Now, it will arrive in a couple of hours

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/christmas-2016-last-minute-advent-12254688

Paul Weller donations help make hit and run survivor's Ripley charity event 'a cracking day'

The charity event on Ripley Green proved to be a big success

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/paul-weller-donations-help-make-12245367

Epsom rape trial: Defendant stabbed teenage girl 'to get revenge' after being dumped by another woman

Costica Voedes told the court the incident "was the greatest mistake" in his life

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/epsom-rape-trial-defendant-stabbed-12255304

Great British Bake Off 2015 winner Nadiya Hussain in Woking for book signing and storytelling event

The baker and now twice-published author was in Woking to meet fans and host a storytelling session

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/great-british-bake-2015-winner-12247956

Godalming Christmas lights: Thousands pack streets for festive market and entertainment

There was plenty of fun to be had with a busy market and stalls selling a wide range of festive goods, along with street food and drink

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/godalming-christmas-lights-thousands-pack-12254990

Weather forecast: Frost to return but temperatures have hit their low

The Met Office forecast suggests temperatures overnight and on Thursday will not drop as low as they did on Tuesday

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weather-forecast-frost-return-temperatures-12253283

Pop Up Guildford's official opening - Everyone's invited!

Guildford's Pop Up Village is celebrating its official opening on Thursday December 1, just in time for Christmas shopping

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/pop-up-guildfords-official-opening-12253646

A3 Guildford crash: Pedestrian confirmed dead after collision with lorry

A man in his 50s was pronounced dead following the crash on the southbound carriageway between the A31 and Compton

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/a3-guildford-crash-pedestrian-confirmed-12253688

Site structure: the ultimate guide

Your site needs a certain structure. Otherwise, it’ll just be a collection of pages and blog posts. Your users needs the structure to navigate through your site, to click from one page to the other. And Google uses the structure of your site in order to determine what content is important and what content is less important. In this ultimate guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about site structure.

Are you struggling with setting up your site’s structure? Don’t know exactly what the best strategy is to link from one post to another? Early december 2016, we’ll release a brand new Site structure training. After following this course, you’ll be able to manage your own site structure.

• Why is site structure important?
• How to set up the structure of your site?
  • Ideal blog structure
  • Dividing your pages into categories
  • Equally large categories
  • Internal link structure
• Taxonomies and tags
• Cornerstone content
• Practical tips and quick wins
  • Remove and redirect!
  • Evaluate your menu
  • Rethink your taxonomy
• Duplicate content

Why is site structure important?

Structuring your website is of great importance for both usability and findability. A lot of sites lack a decent structure to guide visitors to the product they’re looking for. Apart from that, having a clear site structure leads to better understanding of your site by Google, so it’s really important for your SEO. In this chapter, we’ll explain the importance of having a good site structure in detail.

1 Importance for usability

The structure of your website is of great importance for the User eXperience (UX) on your website. If visitors are able to find the products and information they’re looking for, chances increase that they’ll become customers. In other words, you should help them navigate through your shop. A good site structure will help you do that.

Navigating should be easy. You need to categorize your posts and products in a way that they will be easy to find. New audiences should be able to instantly grasp what kind of products you’re selling.

2 Importance for SEO

The structure of a website or a shop is of great importance for its chances to rank in search engines. In our opinion, there are three main reasons for this:

1. It helps Google ‘understand’ your site

The way you structure your site will give Google important clues about where to find the most important content. Your site’s structure determines whether a search engine can understand what your site is about and what you’re selling. It also determines how easily a search engine will find and index the content on certain products. A good structure could, therefore, lead to a higher ranking in Google.

2. It prevents competing with your own content

In your site, you might have blogposts that are quite alike. Perhaps you write a lot about SEO. You could have multiple blog posts about site structure (each covering a different aspect). Consequently, Google would not know which of the product pages is the most important one. So you’d be competing with your pages for a high ranking in Google. You should let Google know which page you deem most important. To do this, you need a good internal linking structure and taxonomy structure, so you can make all those pages work for you, instead of against you.

3. It deals with changes in your website

The products you sell in your shop will probably change over time. So could the content you’re writing. A new collection will be added, as the old one is sold out. Or perhaps you think the information of outdated blogpost should disappear from your site. You do not want Google to show outdated products or blogposts which are no longer available.  You’ll have to deal with these kinds of changes in the structure of your site.

How to set up the structure of your site?

So, how do you construct a decent site structure? We’ll first explain what an ideal site structure looks like and then explain to you how to achieve that for your own site.

Ideal blog structure

The structure of your site should be like a pyramid. On the top of the pyramid is your homepage, and under the homepage are a number of category pages. For larger sites, one should make subcategories or custom taxonomies (more on that later). Within the categories and subcategories you will have a number of blog posts, pages or product pages.

Read more: ‘Intelligent site structure for better SEO’ »

Dividing your pages into categories

If you’ve not yet divided the blog posts or product pages on your site into a number of categories, you should definitely do so (right away). Make sure to add these categories to the main menu of your site.

Equally large categories

Make sure that categories are about equally large. If a category becomes too large because you are blogging a lot about a certain topic, you should divide that category into two main categories. A good rule of thumb for the size of categories is to make sure that no category is more than twice the size of any other category. If you have one such category, dividing it into two separate ones would result in a more accurate reflection of the content on your website. Note that if your category name is reflected in your website’s permalink structure, you should make sure URLs are properly redirected after splitting up a category.

Internal link structure

Your linking structure is of great importance. Each page in the top of a pyramid should link to its subpages. And vice versa, all the subpages should link to the pages on top of the pyramid. There should be really important content (cornerstone articles) at the top of your pyramid, and these should be the articles you link to from all of your blog posts.

Because you’re linking from pages that are closely related to each other content-wise, you’re increasing your site’s possibility to rank. Linking this way will help out search engines by showing them what’s related and what isn’t.

On top of that, with all subpages linking to that one main page at the very top of your pyramid, you are creating cornerstone pages (read more about cornerstone content later on). These will make it easy for search engines to determine what your main pages per subject are.

How to incorporate cornerstone content[/readmore]

Taxonomies and tags

Your site will also benefit by adding tags. Tags and taxonomies will give your site more structure (or at least Google will understand it better).

In WordPress there are two standard ways of adding taxonomies: you can use the aforementioned categories (which will give you the pyramid-like structure) and you can use tags. The difference has to do with structure. Categories are hierarchical; you can have subcategories and sub-subcategories, whereas tags don’t have that hierarchy. Think of it like this: categories are the table of contents of your website, and tags are the index.

Try not to create too many tags. If every post or article receives yet another new unique tag, you are not structuring anything. Make sure tags are used more than once or twice. Make sure tags group articles together that really belong together.

In some WordPress themes, tags are displayed with each post. But, some themes neglect to do so. You should make sure your tags are in fact available to your visitors somewhere, preferably at the bottom of your article. Tags are really useful for your visitors (and not just for Google) to read more about the same topic.

Keep reading: ‘Tagging post properly for users and SEO’ »

Cornerstone content

Really important content pages are called cornerstone content. Cornerstone articles are the most important articles on your website. This is the content that exactly reflects your business or the mission of your business. But focusing on the field around your business could also be a fine strategy to increase your audience and potential buyers.

As we’ve discussed before, cornerstone articles should be relatively high in your site structure, focusing on the most ‘head’ and competitive keywords. If you think of four specific pages you would like someone to read in order to tell them about your site or company, these would need to be the cornerstone articles. In most cases, the homepage would link to these articles.

Websites should have a minimum of one or two cornerstone articles and a maximum of eight to ten. If you want to write more than ten cornerstone articles, you should probably start a second website.

Read on: ‘What type of content should a cornerstone article be?’ »

Category pages or tag pages could make great cornerstone ‘articles’ as well. If you want to optimize your category pages for cornerstone content, it is of great importance to provide really awesome introductory content. You should make sure that this page is a compelling overview of the subject and invites visitors to read even more articles on your sites.

Practical tips and quick wins

Your structure is dynamic. Your business might change over the years, and it makes sense your site’s structure will reflect this change. When you don’t think about your website’s structure on a regular basis, it could grow into this monstrous collection of pages. Your pages or products might not fit in your navigation anymore, and the coherence of your website is nowhere to be found.

Remove and redirect!

Lots of shops will sell a different collection of products (clothes; shoes) every season. The old products could go on sale for a while, but eventually they will be sold out. If you don’t expect to sell the exact same product again, you should remove the page. Also, if content is completely outdated, remove that page!

However, you may have had some valuable links to that exact page. You want to make sure you benefit from these links, even though the page does not exist anymore. That’s why you should redirect the URL.

Redirecting pages is not that hard. If you use WordPress, our Yoast SEO Premium plugin can help you to take care of redirects. Preferably you should redirect the URL (301) to the product that replaced the product or, if there is no replacement, a related page. That could be the category page of the specific product,  as a last resort to your homepage. This way the (outdated) page won’t interfere with your site structure anymore.

Evaluate your menu

When your business goals or your website changes, your menu should probably change as well. When you start restructuring your site, making a visual presentation (like an organogram) will pay off. Start with your desired (one or two level) menu and see if you can fit in more of the pages you have created over the years. You’ll find that some pages are still valid, but don’t seem suitable for your menu anymore. No problem, just make sure to link them on related pages and in your sitemaps. This way Google and your visitors can still find these pages. Perhaps the organogram will also show you the gaps in the site structure.

Rethink your taxonomy

Creating an overview of your categories, subcategories and products or posts will also help you to reconsider your site’s taxonomy. Do your product categories and subcategories still provide a logical overview of your product portfolio? Perhaps you’ve noticed somewhere down the line that one product category has been far more successful than others.Or perhaps you wrote many blog posts about one subject and very few about the others.

If one category grows much larger than others your site’s pyramid might get off balance. Think about splitting this category into different categories. But, if some product lines tend to become much smaller than others you might want to merge them. Try to create eight to ten top level categories max to keep your site and structure focused. And don’t forget to redirect the ones you delete.

Tell Google about it

In the unlikely event you have constructed your HTML sitemap manually, update that sitemap after changing your site structure. In the likely event you have an XML sitemap, re-submit it to Google Search Console.

Read more: ‘The structure of a growing blog’ »

Duplicate content

The same content is shown on multiple locations on your site. As a reader, you don’t mind: you’ll get the content you came for. But a search engine has to pick which one to show in the search results, as it doesn’t want to show the same content twice.

Above that, when other websites link to your product, chances are some of them link to the first URL, and others link to the second URL. If these duplicates were all linking to the same URL, though your chance of ranking in the top 10 for the relevant keyword would be much higher. Joost wrote a huge article about this on our website that you should definitely read.

from Yoast • The Art & Science of Website Optimization https://yoast.com/site-structure-the-ultimate-guide/

Weybridge axe killing: Sanjay Nijhawan to be sentenced for manslaughter of wife Sonita

Sanjay Nijhawan, 46, was found guilty of manslaughter after inflicting 124 "significant" injuries on Sonita Nijhawan in May

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weybridge-axe-killing-sanjay-nijhawan-12252904

Vehicle breakdown every 22 minutes on the M25 last year

The London orbital motorway was second only to the M1 in terms of breakdowns last year, with the M3 through Surrey and Hampshire ninth       

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/vehicle-broke-down-every-22-12252152

Walton Festival of Light returns to bring festive cheer to town

The popular event took a year out last Christmas for organisers to revamp the festivities

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/walton-festival-light-returns-bring-12248723

South West Trains Woking to London Waterloo delays and cancellations due to 'cracked track'

There were serious delays, disruption and cancellations to South West Trains services between Surrey and London on Wednesday

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/south-west-trains-woking-london-12252182

Gin advent calendar returns this Christmas

Everything you need to know about getting your hands on Gin Foundry's boozy advent calendar this Christmas

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/gin-advent-calendar-returns-christmas-12146379

Police 'frosting' warning: Motorists leaving cars to thaw unattended could be breaking the law - and inviting opportunist thieves

Do you leave your car to thaw with the engine running on a cold morning? Surrey Police has got some advice for you

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/police-frosting-warning-motorists-leaving-12251483

Opinion: Roadworks that benefit the residents and road users of tomorrow drive away those of today

With a slew of roadworks schemes scheduled in already for 2017, we ask why these works so often overlap

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/opinion-roadworks-benefit-residents-road-12251380

Crimestoppers' top tips to spot fake banknotes this Christmas

Crimestoppers is urging the public to be on the lookout for fake banknotes during the festive season

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/crimestoppers-top-tips-spot-fake-12248818

Chobham Adventure Farm: Take first look at new children's play park

Take a squiz round the hottest new attraction for children in Surrey after the centre officially opened on Tuesday

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/chobham-adventure-farm-take-first-12250341

Adele Wembley Stadium tour: Get your pre-sale tickets for massive homecoming shows

Tickets to see the world-famous singer and songwriter will be released at 10am on Wednesday (November 30)

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/adele-wembley-stadium-tour-your-12250228

5 Takeaways from Earning Links in 130 Countries

Posted by kerryjones

I was in Peru earlier this year for a digital marketing conference, and I overwhelmingly heard the same frustration: “It’s really hard to use outreach to earn links or PR coverage in our country.”

This wasn’t for lack of trying. As I continued to hear this sentiment during my visit, I learned there simply weren’t a lot of opportunities. For one thing, in Peru, there aren’t nearly as many publishers as in more populous countries. Most publishers expected payment for mentioning a brand. Furthermore, journalists did a lot of job-hopping, so maintaining relationships was difficult.

This is a conundrum not limited to Peru. I know many people outside of the US can relate. When you see the Fractl team and others sharing stories about how we earn hundreds of links for a single content piece, you might think it must be nice to do outreach somewhere like the US where online publishers are plentiful and they'll feature great content with no strings attached. While the work my team does isn’t easy by any means, I do recognize that there are ample opportunities for earning links and press coverage from American publishers.

What can you do if opportunities are scarce in your country?

One solution is focusing your outreach efforts on publishers in neighboring countries or countries with the same language and a similar culture. During conversations with the Attachmedia team (the company hosting the conference I was at), I learned they had much greater success earning media stories and building links outside of Peru because publishers in surrounding South American countries were more receptive to their email pitches and publishing third-party content.

But you may not need to do any international outreach if you know how to create the type of content that will organically attract attention beyond your borders.

At Fractl, many of our top-performing client campaigns have secured a lot of international links even without us doing much, or any, international outreach. To dig deeper, we recently conducted an analysis of 290 top-performing client content campaigns to determine which content naturally attracted coverage from international publishers (and thus, international links). Altogether, these campaigns were featured by publishers in 130 countries, earning more than 4,000 international media stories.

In this post, I’ll share what we found about what causes content to spread around the world.

1. Domestic success was a key factor in driving international placements for Fractl’s campaigns.

For years, we’ve noticed that if content gets enough attention in the US, it will organically begin to receive international press and links. Watch how this happens in the GIF below, which visualizes how one of our campaigns spread globally after reaching critical mass in the US:

Our study confirmed that there’s a correlation between earning a high number of links domestically and earning international links.

When we looked at our 50 most successful client campaigns that have earned the highest number of media stories, we discovered that these campaigns also received the most international coverage. Out of the 4,000 international placements we analyzed, 70 percent of them came from these 50 top-performing campaigns.

We also found that content which earned at least 25 international media pickups also earned at least 25 domestic pickups, so there’s a minimum one-to-one ratio of international to domestic pickups.

2. Overcome language barriers with visual formats that don’t rely on text.

Maps showing a contrast between countries were the visualizations of choice for international publishers.

World maps can be easily understood by global audiences, and make it easy for publishers to find an angle to cover. A client campaign, which looked at how much people eat and drink around the world, included maps highlighting differences between the countries. This was our fourth-highest-performing campaign in terms of international coverage.

It’s easy for a writer whose primary language isn’t English to look at a shaded map like the one above and pick out the story about his or her country. For example, a Belgian publisher who covered the consumption campaign used a headline that roughly translated to “Belgians eat more calories than Americans”:

Images were the second most popular visual format, which tells us that a picture may be worth a thousand words in any language. One great example of this is our “Evolution of Miss Universe” campaign, where we created a series of animated and interactive visualizations using photos of Miss Universe winners since 1952:

The simplicity of the visuals made this content accessible to all viewers regardless of the language they spoke. Paired with the international angle, this helped the campaign gain more than 40 pickups from global sites.

As we move down the rankings, formats that relied on more text, such as infographics, were less popular internationally. No doubt this is because international audiences can’t connect with content they can’t understand.

When creating text-heavy visualizations, consider if someone who speaks a different language can understand it — would it still make sense if you removed all the text?

Pro tip: If your outreach strategy is targeting multiple countries or a country where more than one language is widely spoken, it may be worth the effort to produce text-heavy visuals in multiple languages.

3. Topics that speak to universal human interests performed best internationally.

Our top-performing international campaigns show a clear preference for topics that resonate globally. The six topics that performed best internationally were:

1. Drugs and alcohol
2. Health and fitness
3. Entertainment
4. Sex and relationships
5. Travel
6. Technology

Bear in the mind that these topics are reflective of our client campaigns, so every topic imaginable was not included in this study.

We drilled this down a little more and looked at the specific topics covered in our top 50 campaigns. You’ll notice many of the most popular topics would make your grandma blush.

We know that controversial topics are highly effective in grabbing attention, and the list above confirms that pushing boundaries works on a global scale. (We weren’t exactly surprised that a campaign called “Does Size Matter?” resonated internationally.)

But don’t look at the chart above and assume that you need to make your content about sex, drugs, and rock and roll if you want to gain international attention. As you can see, even pedestrian fare performed well globally. Consider how you can create content that speaks to basic human interests, like technology, food, and … Instagram.

4. A global angle isn’t necessary.

While our top five international campaigns did have a global focus, more than half of our 50 top-performing international campaigns did not have a global angle. This tells us that a geographic angle doesn’t determine international success.

Some examples of non-geographic ideas that performed well are:

• A tool that calculates indirect sexual exposure based on how many partners you’ve had
• The types of white lies people commonly tell and hear
• A face-off between Siri, Cortana, and Google Now performance
• A sampling of how many bacteria and germs are found in hotel rooms

We also found that US-centric campaigns were, unsurprisingly, less likely to succeed. Only three of our campaigns with America-focused titles received more than 25 international placements. If your content topic does have a geographic angle, make sure to broaden it to have a multi-national or worldwide focus.

Pro tip: Consider how you can add an international twist to content ideas that already performed well domestically. The Miss Universe campaign example I shared above? That came to fruition after we successfully did a similar campaign about Miss America. Similarly, we could likely reboot our “Tolerance in America” campaign to look at racism around the world and expect it to be successful, as this topic already proved popular at home and is certainly relevant worldwide.

5. The elements of share-worthy content hold true internationally.

Over the years, we’ve seen time and time again that including certain elements in content greatly increases the chance of success. All of our content that achieved international success included some combination of the following:

• Surprising information
• An emotionally resonant topic
• A universally appealing topic
• Comparison or ranking of multiple places, things, or ideas
• A geographic angle
• A pop culture angle

Look back at the content examples I shared in this post, and make note of how many of the characteristics above are present in each one. To increase the likelihood that your content appeals to global audiences, be sure to read this post about the vital role these elements play in creating content that earns a lot of links and social shares.

What has your experience been like using content to attract international press and links? I’d love to hear what’s worked for you — leave a comment below!

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!

from The Moz Blog http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/9375/4877673

Godalming couple forced to rethink Christmas and wedding plans after Land Rover theft

The stolen Land Rover was used vital to husband-to-be's Daniel Rigden's tree surgery business and the couple's social enterprise

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/godalming-couple-wedding-plans-rethink-12248605

Camberley on Ice: Everything you need to know about the new Christmas 2016 attraction

Everything you need to know about Camberley on Ice including prices and opening hours

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/camberley-ice-everything-you-need-12248862

Fuller's horses enjoy a pint to mark Chertsey landlady's 25 years behind the bar

Coach and Horses landlady Claire Trinder has been running the pub for a quarter of a century

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/fullers-horses-enjoy-pint-mark-12246362

Two independent Surrey schools named in new Sunday Times league table

Guildford High School and Royal Grammar School both feature in this year's table based on exam results

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/two-independent-surrey-schools-named-12245861

Godalming couple wedding plans rethink after Land Rover theft

The Land Rover was used for the husband-to-be's tree surgery business and the couple's social enterprise

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/incoming/godalming-couple-wedding-plans-rethink-12248605

Epsom rape trial: Police face investigation into release of defendant accused of multiple sex attacks

The trial of Costica Voedes heard that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is carrying out an investigation

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/epsom-rape-trial-police-face-12249474

South Godstone mum's Facebook 'rant' leads to flood of donations for seriously disabled girl

Lily Hall's mother posted a late night Facebook "rant" after she had no way of securing money to buy equipment for her daughter's deteriorating condition    

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/south-godstone-mums-facebook-rant-12249498

Harry Potter shop: Take a look inside the magical world of new Heathrow Airport store

From wands to Slytherin scarves, you can get your hands on all things magical in the Harry Potter shop at Heathrow Airport

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/harry-potter-shop-take-look-12249442

West Molesey house fire neighbour recalls 'very scary' moment she discovered the blaze

“I was very emotional, I knew we had an emergency and it had to be dealt with."

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/west-molesey-house-fire-neighbour-12249323

Motorcyclist James McDonald lost control of bike on A22 Caterham bypass in tragic accident

The inquest found there was no evidence Mr McDonald was "travelling at or near an excessive speed"

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/motorcyclist-james-mcdonald-lost-control-12249342

Weather forecast: Freezing fog patches and -9C temperatures predicted across south east

It's set to be another chilly night in Surrey as a widespread sharp frost is forecast

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weather-forecast-freezing-fog-patches-12249047

Bank of England confirms new plastic £5 notes contain animal fat to uproar from vegans and vegetarians

The new polymer £5 notes sparked a surge of goodwill with the #firstfiver campaign but there's now uproar from vegans over an unusual ingredient

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/bank-england-confirms-new-plastic-12248831

Guildford Pop Up Village: What shops and restaurants will be at the town's newest attraction?

Whether it's vintage fashion, leather goods, gourmet foods or even disco equipment, shoppers can expect something new

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/guildford-pop-up-village-what-12248274

Man robbed at knifepoint near Byfleet and New Haw station

A man was walking to the station when he was approached from behind by two men and a woman who pulled out a knife and demanded cash

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/man-robbed-knifepoint-near-byfleet-12246751

Will it snow at Christmas? Bookies think so and a Surrey weather expert is not ruling it out

Meteorologist Ian Currie believes it's hard to call but is expecting a drier winter in comparison to previous years

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/snow-christmas-bookies-think-surrey-12248050

E-fit image released after Bookham indecent assault which saw teenager fight off man

A man became verbally abusive and touched a teenager inappropriately in Guildford Road

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/e-fit-image-released-after-12246730

Redhill 'public order' incident: Two arrested on suspicion of GBH after man suffers serious facial injury

Two men, aged 20 and 23 from Redhill, were arrested on suspicion of GBH after an incident in Redhill town centre on Monday (November 28)

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-public-order-incident-two-12248062

Epsom rape trial: Restaurant manager left pouring with blood after bravely trying to halt knifeman, court hears

A police officer, who was called to the scene, said he saw the victim clutching his injured arm and "blood flowing through the fingers of his hand"

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/epsom-rape-trial-restaurant-manager-12244639

Southern Rail strike: Unions announce fresh walkouts over Christmas and New Year period

Train drivers union ASLEF and the RMT union have announced a fresh series of walkouts over driver-only operated trains

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/southern-rail-strike-unions-announce-12246622

Guildford MP Anne Milton launches commuter survey as South West Trains wins four 'Golden Spanner' reliability awards

Guildford MP Mrs Milton made the announcement on Tuesday - just days after South West Trains won four awards for reliability

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/guildford-mp-anne-milton-launches-12246749

KISS announce London O2 Arena show on UK tour - how to get tickets

The rock legends will play just four dates on the UK leg of their 2017 European tour, including a show at the O2 in May

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/kiss-announce-london-o2-arena-12245369

West Molesey house fire branded 'deliberate and despicable' act by police as man rushed to hospital

“If you have any information, however small, please call [police]and help locate those responsible for this despicable crime," said Surrey Police

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/west-molesey-house-fire-branded-12246137

Chobham Adventure Farm: Watch owner Bean Chapman discuss heartwarming journey to create amazing family venue

Parents and children from across the county and beyond descended on the hotly-anticipated venue first the first time on Tuesday

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/chobham-adventure-farm-watch-owner-12245968

Redhill 'public order' incident: Youth covered in blood 'asked for taxi after being stabbed in the mouth'

A youth suffered a serious facial injury in the incident in Redhill town centre on Monday and was taken to hospital for treatment

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-public-order-incident-youth-12245620

Christmas is coming - but when should I put up my tree?

Everything you need to know about the etiquette in putting up Christmas decorations

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/christmas-coming-should-put-up-12223880

Yoast SEO 3.9

It’s high time for a new release of our SEO plugins. Since moving to a two-week release schedule, we’ve fixed more bugs than ever and added some awesome new features. With version 3.9, we are gearing up for the big four-oh. In that last release of this year, we will add something remarkable.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now, we’re talking about Yoast SEO 3.9 and the changes and enhancements it brings. So, let’s get right to it, ok?

Yoast SEO 3.9

If you use the free version of Yoast SEO, then the first things you’ll notice are the new banners. These are slightly less annoying, while still informing you of our premium products. Besides that, we’ve moved the reload button for Google Search Console from the header. It is now easier to find and use.

We’ve made it possible for other plugins and themes to add HTML namespaces, via the wpseo_html_namespace filter. By doing so, we’ve also made sure to prevent conflicts with other plugins and themes that also add HTML namespaces.

Yoast SEO 3.9 Premium received the same updates and fixes as the regular one, plus a better title update in the social preview section.

Video SEO 3.9

The Video plugin also received some great updates. We’ve added support for traditional Wistia video URL’s and embed codes. To use this, it is recommended to re-index your video’s. There’s now a fallback for the detail retrieval of private Vimeo video’s, so they will be recognized. The plugin now recognizes //player.vimeo.com/… type URL’s. Force a re-index to use it on existing posts.

Local SEO 3.9

Our Local SEO plugin is undergoing some changes as well. The import function has been overhauled, and there is a new export for Yoast Local SEO locations. You can also find a second address line for business addresses that you can use for room numbers or floors, for instance.

Yoast SEO 4.0

In December, we’ll be releasing version 4.0 of Yoast SEO. This release will come with a genuinely awesome new feature for Premium. We can’t tell you too much about it. However, it is something a lot of you will find extremely valuable. Just a few more weeks…

from Yoast • The Art & Science of Website Optimization https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-3-9/

Cyclist suffers facial injuries after being hit by van which failed to stop in Pirbright

The cyclist, a man in his 60s, was taken by ambulance to Frimley Park Hospital with facial injuries said police

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/cyclist-suffers-facial-injuries-after-12245434

Redhill Wetherspoons fight: Three men charged following brawl outside Sun pub

Umang Sharma, 18, from Horley, Reham Khan, 21, from Redhill, and Sameer Khan, 20, will appear before magistrates in the new year

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-wetherspoons-fight-three-men-12245446

Weather forecast: Chilly start for Surrey Police's road cops as temperatures plummet to -7C

Surrey Police's roads policing unit endured the first truly nippy night of the year and warned motorists to take extra care

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weather-forecast-chilly-start-surrey-12244713

Redhill garden community: What is it, how advanced are the plans and how will it affect me?

Like Fairoaks Airport, Redhill Aerodrome is also currently subject to ambitions to turn the airstrip over to housing     

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-garden-community-what-it-12244462

The 7 Citation Building Myths Plaguing Local SEO

Posted by JoyHawkins

Previously, I wrote an article unveiling some of the most common myths I see in the Local SEO space. I thought I’d do a follow-up that specifically talked about the myths pertaining to citations that I commonly hear from both small business owners and SEOs alike.

Myth #1: If your citations don’t include your suite number, you should stop everything you're doing and fix this ASAP.

Truth: Google doesn’t even recognize suite numbers for a whopping majority of Google business listings. Even though you enter a suite number in Google My Business, it doesn’t translate into the "Suite #" field in Google MapMaker — it simply gets eliminated. Google also pays more attention to the location (pin) marker of the business when it comes to determining the actual location and less to the actual words people enter in as the address, as there can be multiple ways to name a street address. Google’s Possum update recently introduced a filter for search queries that is based on location. We’ve seen this has to do with the address itself and how close other businesses in the same industry are to your location. Whether or not you have a suite number in Google My Business has nothing to do with it.

Darren Shaw from Whitespark, an expert on everything related to citations, says:

“You often can’t control the suite number on your citations. Some sites force the suite number to appear before the address, some after the address, some with a # symbol, some with “Ste,” and others with “Suite.” If minor discrepancies like these in your citations affected your citation consistency or negatively impacted your rankings, then everyone would have a problem.”

In summary, if your citations look great but are missing the suite number, move along. There are most likely more important things you could be spending time on that would actually impact your ranking.

Myth #2: Minor differences in your business name in citations are a big deal.

Truth: Say your business name is "State Farm: Bob Smith," yet one citation lists you as “Bob Smith Insurance” and another as “Bob Smith State Farm.” As Mike Blumenthal states: “Put a little trust in the algorithm.” If Google was incapable of realizing that those 3 names are really the same business (especially when their address & phone number are identical), we’d have a big problem on our hands. There would be so many duplicate listings on Google we wouldn’t even begin to be able to keep track. Currently, I only generally see a lot of duplicates if there are major discrepancies in the address and phone number.

Darren Shaw also agrees on this:

“I see this all the time with law firms. Every time a new partner joins the firm or leaves the firm, they change their name. A firm can change from “Fletcher, McDonald, & Jones” to “Fletcher, Jones, & Smith” to “Fletcher Family Law” over the course of 3 years, and as long as the phone number and address stay the same, it will have no negative impact on their rankings. Google triangulates the data it finds on the web by three data points: name, address, and phone number. If two of these are a match, and then the name is a partial match, Google will have no problem associating those citations with the correct listing in GMB.”

Myth #3: NAP cleanup should involve fixing your listings on hundreds of sites.

Truth: SEO companies use this as a scare tactic, and it works very well. They have a small business pay them for citation cleanup. They’ll do a scan of your incorrect data and send you a list of hundreds of directories that have your information wrong. This causes you to gasp and panic and instantly realize you must hire them to spend hours cleaning all this up, as it must be causing the ranking of your listing on Google to tank.

Let’s dive into an example that I've seen. Local.com is a site that feeds to hundreds of smaller directories on newspaper sites. If you have a listing wrong on Local.com, it might appear that your listing is incorrect on hundreds of directories. For example, these three listings are on different domains, but if you look at the pages they're identical and they all say “Local.com” at the top:

http://directory.hawaiitribune-herald.com/profile?listingid=108895814

http://directory.lufkindailynews.com/profile?listingid=108895814

http://flbiz.oscnewsgazette.com/profile?listingid=108895814

Should this cause you to panic? No. Fixing it on Local.com itself should fix all the hundreds of other places. Even if it didn’t, Google hasn’t even indexed any of these URLs. (Note: they might index my examples since I just linked to them in this Moz article, so I’m including some screenshots from while I was writing this):

If Google hasn’t even indexed the content, it’s a good sign that the content doesn’t mean much and it’s nothing you should stress about. Google would have no incentive or reason to index all these different URLs due to the fact that the content on them is literally the same. Additionally, no one links to them (aside from me in this article, of course).

As Darren Shaw puts it,

“This one really irks me. There are WAY more important things for you to spend your time/money on than trying to fix a listing on a site like scranton.myyellowpageclassifieds.biz. Chances are, any attempt to update this listing would be futile anyway, because small sites like these are basically unmanaged. They’re collecting their $200/m in Adsense revenue and don’t have any interest in dealing with or responding to any listing update requests. In our Citation Audit and Cleanup service we offer two packages. One covers the top 30 sites + 5 industry/city-specific sites, and the other covers the top 50 sites + 5 industry/city-specific sites. These are sites that are actually important and valuable to local search. Audit and cleanup on sites beyond these is generally a waste of time and money.”

Myth #4: There's no risk in cancelling an automated citation service.

People often wonder what might happen to their NAP issues if they cancel their subscription with a company like Yext or Moz Local. Although these companies don’t do anything to intentionally cause old data to come back, there have been some recent interesting findings around what actually happens when you cancel.

Truth: In one case, Phil Rozek did a little case study for a business that had to cancel Moz Local recently. The good news is that although staying with them is generally a good decision, this business didn’t seem to have any major issues after cancelling.

Yext claims on their site that they don’t do anything to push the old data back that was previously wrong. They explain that when you cancel, “the lock that was put in place to protect the business listing is no longer present. Once this occurs, the business listing is subject to the normal compilation process at the search engine, online directory, mobile app, or social network. In fact, because Yext no longer has this lock in place, Yext has no control over the listing directly at all, and the business listing data will now act as it normally would occur without Yext.”

Nyagoslav Zhekov just recently published a study on cancelling Yext and concluded that most of the listings either disappear or revert back to their previous incorrect state after cancelling. It seems that Yext acts as a sort of cover on top of the listing, and once Yext is cancelled, that cover is removed. So, there does seem to be some risk with cancelling Yext.

In summary, there is definitely a risk when you decide to cancel an ongoing automated service that was previously in place to correct your citations. It’s important for people to realize that if they decide to do this, they might want to budget for some manual citation building/cleanup in case any issues arise.

Myth #5: Citation building is the only type of link building strategy you need to succeed at Local SEO.

Many Local SEO companies have the impression that citation building is the only type of backlinking strategy needed for small businesses to rank well in the 3-pack. According to this survey that Bright Local did, 72% of Local SEOs use citation building as a way of building links.

Truth: Local SEO Guide found in their Local Search Ranking Factors study that although citations are important, if that’s the only backlinking strategy you’re using, you're most likely not going to rank well in competitive markets. They found also found that links are the key competitive differentiator even when it comes to Google My Business Rankings. So if you're in a competitive industry or market and want to dominate the 3-pack, you need to look into additional backlinking strategies over and above citations.

Darren adds more clarity to the survey’s results by stating,

“They’re saying that citations are still very important, but they are a foundational tactic. You absolutely need a core base of citations to gain trust at Google, and if you don’t have them you don’t have a chance in hell at ranking, but they are no longer a competitive difference maker. Once you have the core 50 or so citations squared away, building more and more citations probably isn’t what your local SEO campaign needs to move the needle further.”

Myth #6: Citations for unrelated industries should be ignored if they share the same phone number.

This was a question that has come up a number of times with our team. If you have a restaurant that once had a phone number but then closes its doors, and a new law firm opens up down the street and gets assigned that phone number, should the lawyer worry about all the listings that exist for the restaurant (since they're in different industries)?

Truth: I reached out to Nyagoslav Zhekov, the Director of Local Search at Whitespark, to get the truth on this one. His response was:

“As Google tries to mimic real-life experiences, sooner or later this negative experience will result in some sort of algorithmic downgrading of the information by Google. If Google manages to figure out that a lot of customers look for and call a phone number that they think belongs to another business, it is logical that it will result in negative user experience. Thus, Google will assign a lower trust score to a Google Maps business record that offers information that does not clearly and unquestionably belong to the business for which the record is. Keeping in mind that the phone number is, by design and by default, the most unique and the most standardized information for a business (everything else is less standardize-able than the phone number), this is, as far as I am concerned, the most important information bit and the most significant identifier Google uses when determining how trustworthy particular information for a business is.”

He also pointed out that users finding the phone number for the restaurant and calling it continually would be a negative experience for both the customer and the law firm (who would have to continually confirm they're not a restaurant) so there would be added benefit in getting these listings for the restaurant marked closed or removed.

Since Darren Shaw gave me so much input for this article, he also wanted to add a seventh myth that he comes across regularly:

Myth #7: Google My Business is a citation.

“This one is maybe more of a mis-labelling problem than a myth, but your listing at Google isn’t really a citation. At Whitespark we refer to Google, Bing, and Apple Maps as 'Core Search Engines' (yes, Yahoo has been demoted to just a citation). The word 'citation' comes from the concept of 'citing' your sources in an academic paper. Using this conceptual framework, you can think of your Google listing as the academic paper, and all of your listings out on the web as the sources that cite the business. Your Google listing is like the queen bee and all the citations out there are the workers contributing to keep the queen bee alive and healthy.”

Hopefully that lays some of the fears and myths around citations to rest. If you have questions or ideas of other myths on this topic, we’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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!

from The Moz Blog http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/9375/4871684

Surrey street lights switch-off: 1,200 people sign petition calling for council U-turn

George Dokimakis launched a petition after the local authority announced it would be switching off many streetlights overnight to save cash

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-street-lights-switch-off-12241470

'Terrified' Guildford teenager woke in the night to find housebreaker sat at the end of her bed

Thomas Skae, 26, was handed 14 months in prison, most of which has already been served

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/terrified-guildford-teenager-woke-night-12241176

Weybridge act KEELS shows determination to succeed with release of haunting debut single Surrender

Niall Keelaghan, the man behind Weybridge band KEELS, is looking forward to a busy 2017 following the release of his debut single

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weybridge-act-keels-shows-determination-12240886

Shepperton mobility scooter parked at petrol pump fuels 'fits of laughter'

The owner of the scooter got off and popped into the shop at the BP garage in Shepperton

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/shepperton-mobility-scooter-parked-petrol-12219555

Horley riding school for disabled people under threat after housing development granted

Sandra Harker, who runs the riding school, said safety concerns created by heavy traffic from a project to develop 46 homes will make it impossible to continue rides

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/horley-riding-school-disabled-people-12244027

From The Jam to rock out at GLive with greatest hits

From The Jam’s new tour will reach Guildford’s G Live on Friday December 2

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/jam-rock-out-glive-greatest-12244073

Redhill 'public order' incident: Police investigation underway after disturbance involving group of youths

WARNING: Graphic images within story. A youth was taken to hospital after the incident in Redhill town centre

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-public-order-incident-police-12244231

Redhill 'public order' incident: Teenager reportedly 'stabbed in the mouth' in alleyway

Surrey Police is yet to confirm the incident was a stabbing, despite witnesses seeing a teenager "covered in blood"

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-public-order-incident-teenager-12244132

Olly Murs announces 2017 outdoor tour including Sandown Park date

X Factor singer Olly Murs will perform at Sandown Park Racecourse as part of a string of outdoor gigs in 2017

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/olly-murs-announces-2017-outdoor-12240770

Theresa May visits Hersham as guest of honour at Conservative association Christmas dinner

“She appeared extremely relaxed and established direct contact with people,” said dinner organiser Olga Denyer

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/theresa-visits-hersham-guest-honour-12243209

Chobham Adventure Farm: Find out about all the future attractions at new family fun venue

The much-awaited adventure farm opens to the public on Tuesday November 29

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/chobham-adventure-farm-find-out-12242278

Harry Potter shop: Discover the best selling gifts as new store opens in Heathrow

Take a look inside the newly opened Wizarding World of J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/harry-potter-shop-discover-best-12243845

Zig Zag Road closure: How to get up Box Hill while main access road is shut

Zig Zag Road is closed during the week from Monday November 28 for maintenance work to be carried out

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/zig-zag-road-closure-how-12242245

Redhill 'public order' incident: Large police presence in town centre

Surrey Police were called to Redhill town centre at about 4.15pm on Monday (November 28)

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/redhill-public-order-incident-large-12243578

Walton car wash raid tackles potential slavery and human trafficking offences

A man was held following the multi-agency operation which aimed to "safeguard" workers

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/walton-car-wash-raid-tackles-12243247

West Byfleet 'racially aggravated' assault sees two taxi drivers taken to hospital

A group of three men were reported to be shouting racial abuse while attacking a taxi driver outside Costa in Station Approach

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/west-byfleet-racially-aggravated-assault-12242312

Weather forecast: Widespread frost and -6C temperatures predicted across south east as winter bites at last

A hot water bottle and a steaming mug of cocoa look set to be the order of the week as sub-zero temperatures are forecast across the south east

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weather-forecast-widespread-frost-6c-12241067

Roadworks planned for major routes in the south this week

Everything you need to know about new and ongoing planned road improvements on the M3, M4 and A3 from Monday November 28

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/roadworks-planned-major-routes-south-11872232

Ask Yoast: Duplicate content on LinkedIn Pulse

Motorists warned to expect delays as major 20-week Churt to Hindhead roadworks scheme gets under way

Motorists have been warned to expect delays as a 20-week project gets underway to replace vital gas mains

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/motorists-warned-expect-delays-major-12240761

Chobham Adventure Farm opening times and prices

Everything you need to know about taking the kids to Chobham Adventure Farm

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/chobham-adventure-farm-opening-times-12240162

Masked robber jailed after punching pensioner in the face during vicious armed robbery at Whytleafe home

Ashley Nevers, 26, repeatedly punched the 71-year-old victim in the face before his gang fled with more than £15,000 valuables

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/masked-robber-jailed-after-punching-12240076

Addlestone Salvation Army charity shop attack suspect charged with attempted murder

Graham Richard Eley, 52, of Strawberry Fields in Addlestone will appear at Guildford Crown Court on December 15

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/addlestone-salvation-army-charity-shop-12239991

CCTV appeal after teenagers attacked and robbed during taxi ride after Farnham night out

Surrey Police want to speak to this man in connection with the robbery, which happened in a taxi between Farnham and Guildford

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/cctv-appeal-after-teenagers-attacked-12239804

Christmas fairs and markets for gifts and festive treats this winter

A guide to Christmas fairs and markets taking place around Surrey and Hampshire in the run-up the festive season

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/christmas-fairs-markets-gifts-festive-12084174

See Surrey County Council leader's desperate plea to county's MPs to help authority avoid 'damaging cuts'

Councillor David Hodge said Surrey's financial crisis is showing "no sign of ending" without further help from central government

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/see-surrey-county-council-leaders-12232138

Cyber Monday: Free cake and coffee vouchers for Guildford shoppers avoiding the online craze

The Friary will reward shoppers for getting away from their screens by handing out free cake in shopping centre on Cyber Monday

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/cyber-monday-free-cake-coffee-12223161

Fairoaks garden village: 1,500-home plan would see runway shut and aviation operations cease indefinitely

Fairoaks Garden Village Ltd has revealed more details of its plans to create a new 1,500-home community, which would be "separate to Chobham"

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/fairoaks-garden-village-1500-home-12239252

Police detain 15 suspected 'illegal immigrants' at M25 Clacket Lane Services

The group, 14 adults and one child, were discovered when an HGV driver reportedly heard noises from their trailer.

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/police-detain-15-suspected-illegal-12239028

5 Lead Generation Ideas to Help You Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rates

Posted by lkolowich

It’s been years since the power’s shifted away from marketers and advertisers and in favor of Internet consumers. Now more than ever, people are empowered to choose their own experiences online. They’re actively avoiding ad content — and instead of living by advertisers’ rule books, they’re deciding what to click on, what to read, what to download, and what to buy … and what not to.

And they have a lot of choices.

When inbound marketers like us are looking to generate more leads from our website, we need to think not just about how to capture people’s attention, but how to capture it in a way that makes people want to learn more from us. A smart lead generation strategy includes creating valuable offers and experiences that fit seamlessly into the context of what people already like and want to do online. It’s the consumer’s world; us marketers are just living in it.

People read calls-to-action that say things like “Sign up here!” as basically synonymous with “We’re gonna spam you.” If you’re recycling these same old lead generation tactics over and over again, it’s quickly going to become white noise. But calls-to-action that fit into the context of what a person’s doing already? That’s smart marketing.

If you want to increase the conversion rate on your website, you need to get smart and creative with your lead generation tactics. Asking for blog subscriptions and gating high-quality content like comprehensive guides, ebooks, and whitepapers behind landing pages still works, but you have to be smart about where you’re offering them on your website. And they shouldn’t be your only lead generation plays.

There are many ways to get creative with lead generation to make sure you’re reaping the benefits of the traffic you’re working so hard to get. Here are some lead generation ideas for B2B and B2C marketers to try. Test them out, tweak them according to your audience’s preferences, and share your own ideas you have in the comments.

1) Put your calls-to-action in people’s natural eye path.

CTA placement can have a profound effect on the number of leads you’re generating from your site. And yet, not many marketers are spending a whole lot of time thinking about, testing, and tweaking CTA placement to optimize their conversions. Many claim that as long as they place their primary CTA above the fold, they’re good to go. (Side note: Even though putting primary CTAs above the fold is often considered a best practice, even that is still up for debate.)

Start your CTA placement tests by putting them where people’s eyes naturally go on a webpage. An eyetracking study found that when people read a webpage, we naturally start by looking in the upper lefthand corner of the page, and then move our eyes in an F-shaped pattern.

[Image credit: Nielsen Norman Group]

Here’s what that looks like:

[Image credit: Envato Studio]

You can capitalize on this natural eye path by placing important information in these key spots. Here’s an example of what that might look like on a website:

[Image credit: Envato Studio]

Notice how the business name is placed in the top left, which is where a person would look first. The navigation bar takes over the #2 spot, followed by the value proposition at #3 and the primary CTA at #4.

Does this order look familiar to you? When you’re browsing the web, you might have noticed that many of them put the primary CTA in the top right corner — in that #2 spot. Here are a few real-life examples:

[Prezi’s homepage]

[Uber’s homepage]

[BarkBox’s homepage]

In the last example from BarkBox, you’ll notice that the secondary CTAs still follow that F-pattern.

Keep this in mind when you’re placing your CTAs, especially on your homepage and your other popular webpages — and don’t be afraid to experiment based on how it makes sense for your own marketing story should be told.

2) Use pop-up and slide-in forms the right way.

Pop-ups have been vilified in the last few years — and quite understandably, too. Far too many marketers use them in a way that disrupts people’s experience on their website instead of enhancing it.

But pop-ups do work — and, more importantly, when they’re used in a way that’s helpful and not disruptive, they can be a healthy part of your inbound strategy. So if you’re wondering whether you should be using pop-up forms, the short answer is yes — as long as you use them in an inbound-y way. First and foremost, that means offering something valuable and relevant to the people visiting that site page.

When you’re considering what type of pop-up to use and what action should trigger them, think about how people are engaging with your pages. When someone reads a blog post, for instance, they’re typically going to scroll down the page to read the content. In that case, you might consider using a slide-in box that appears when someone’s scrolled a certain percentage of the way down the page.

Here’s a great example from a post on OfficeVibe’s blog about how managers gain respect. While I was scrolling, a banner appeared at the bottom of the screen offering me a live report of employee engagement — an offer that was perfectly relevant, given the post was aimed at managers.

It felt helpful, not disruptive. In other words, it was a responsible use of a pop-up.

Similarly, someone who’s spending time reading through a product page might find value in a time-based pop-up that appears when a visitor’s been on the page for a certain number of seconds, like this one from Ugmonk:

The most important takeaway here is to align what you offer on a pop-up with the webpage you’re adding it to, and make sure it’s actually adding substantial value.

If you’re looking for a good free tool to get started with inbound-y pop-up forms, I’d recommend you try HubSpot Marketing Free. We built the Lead Flows feature within this free tool to help marketers generate more leads across their entire website without sacrificing user experience.

3) Add anchor texts to old blog posts that align closely with your gated offers.

It’s common for business bloggers to add an end-of-post banner CTA at the end of every one of their blog posts, like this one:

In fact, you might already be including CTAs like this on your own business blog posts. At HubSpot, we include an end-of-post banner CTA on every single one of our posts, and we also add slide-in CTAs to blog posts that prove themselves to convert visitors into leads at a high rate via organic traffic.

But let’s admit it: At first glance, these types of CTAs look a little bit like ads, which can result in banner blindness from our readers. That’s why it’s thanks to a recent study conducted by my colleague Pam Vaughan that our blogging team has added one more, highly effective lead generation tactic to their arsenal: anchor text CTAs.

In Vaughan’s study, she found that anchor text CTAs are responsible for most of our blog leads. On blog posts that included both an anchor text CTA and an end-of-post banner CTA, she found that 47–93% of a blog post's leads came from the anchor text CTA alone, whereas just 6% of the post’s leads came from the end-of-post banner CTA.

What’s an anchor text CTA, you might be wondering? It’s a standalone line text in a blog post linked to a landing page that’s styled as an H3 or an H4 to make it stand out from the rest of the post’s body copy. On HubSpot’s blog, we’ll typically put an anchor text CTA between two paragraphs in the introduction, like this:

What makes anchor text CTAs so effective? Let’s say you search for “press release template” in Google, and you click on the first organic search result — which is currently our blog post about how to write a press release, which I’ve screenshotted above.

As a searcher, the next thing you’d probably do is quickly scan the post to see if it satisfies your search. One of the first things that’ll catch your eye is an anchor text that reads, “Download our free press release template here” — which happens to be exactly what you were looking for when you searched "press release template." There's a pretty good chance you're going to click on it.

This is where relevancy becomes critical. The anchor text CTA works really well in this case because it satisfies the visitor's need right away, within the first few paragraphs of the blog post. The more relevant the anchor text CTA is to what the visitor is looking for, the better it’ll perform. Simply adding an anchor text CTA near the top of every blog post won’t necessarily mean it’ll generate a ton more leads — and frankly, you’ll risk pissing off your loyal subscribers.

If you decide you’d like to experiment with anchor text CTAs, be selective about the posts you add them to. At HubSpot, we typically add them to old posts that rank well in search. We purposely limit our use of anchor text CTAs on brand new posts — because most of the traffic we get to those posts are already leads and some of the biggest fans of our content, whom we want to have the best possible user experience. (You can read more about anchor text CTAs here.)

4) Support the launch of a new campaign with a launch post and other blog posts on related topics.

Every time you launch a new marketing campaign, posting the good news on your blog should be a key part of your launch plan. It’s a great way to let your existing subscribers know what new content, products, and features you’re putting out there, and it also helps introduce these launches to brand-new audiences.

At HubSpot, we’ve found the best strategy for promoting campaigns on the blog is to write one official launch post, followed by a handful of follow-up posts that are relevant to the campaign but are written in the style of a normal blog post. We typically scatter these follow-up posts over the weeks and months following that initial launch.

When done correctly, launch posts and their supporting blog posts have very different formulas:

• A launch post is between 150–300 words long. It includes a captivating introductory paragraph on the general topic or pain point the campaign is about, followed by a paragraph or two describing how the offer can help and a list of 4–6 bullet points on what the offer includes. It includes one or two in-line text CTAs leading to the campaign, followed by a banner CTA at the end of the post.

• A supplemental blog post can take on any post format and length typical of what you’d normally publish on your blog, such as a how-to post, a list-based post, or a curated collection post. It includes an end-of-post banner CTA leading to the campaign, and an anchor text CTA in the introduction, if applicable.

Let me show you an example. Earlier this year, HubSpot partnered with Iconosquare to write an ebook on how to use Instagram for business. A few days after we launched the offer online, we published a launch post on HubSpot’s Marketing Blog specifically promoting it to our own audience. Here’s what that launch post looked like:

Notice it has a brief introduction of the topic, an introduction of the ebook as a helpful resource, a bulleted list of what’s inside the ebook, two in-line text CTAs pointing toward the ebook, and an end-of-post banner CTA.

Once we published that initial post, we published a series of follow-up blog posts about the same topic — in this case, Instagram for business — that supported the launch, but promoted it much more subtly. These posts covered topics like:

• “17 of the Best Brands on Instagram Right Now”
• “How to Edit Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Instagram Filters & More”
• “48 Instagram Stats That'll Help You Improve Your Posting Strategy”

In each of these cases, we used keyword research to find long-tail keyword phrases related to our offer topic, and then wrote blog posts related to those highly searched terms and included CTAs to our offer.

The goal here? Both to expose our own audience to more content related to the offer and to expose our offer to a new audience: specifically, people who were searching for related topics on search engines, as we’ve found visitors who find our posts through organic search tend to convert at higher rates.

When you’re planning out your next campaign, be sure to include both a launch post and supportive, follow-up blog posts like these — and plan them all out using a blog editorial calendar like the simple one HubSpot’s blogging team uses with Google Calendar.

5) Use social media strategically for lead generation.

Top-of-the-funnel marketing metrics like traffic and brand awareness isn’t all social media is good for. It can still be a helpful — not to mention low-cost — source for lead generation.

In addition to promoting new blog posts and content to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social sites, be sure to regularly post links to blog posts and even directly to the landing pages of offers that have historically performed well for lead generation. You’ll need to do a lead generation analysis of your blog to figure out which posts perform best for lead generation.

When you link directly to landing pages, be sure the copy in your social posts sets the expectation that clicking the link will send people to a landing page, like Canva did in this Facebook post:

Contests are another way to generate leads from social. Not only are they fun for your followers, but they can also teach you a whole lot about your audience while simultaneously engaging them, growing your reach, and driving traffic to your website.

In addition to posting links to lead generation forms, you’ll also want to make sure you’re using the real estate for lead generation that’s available to you on the social networks that you’re using. On Facebook for example, use the feature available for Pages that lets you put a simple call-to-action button at the top of your Facebook Page. It can help drive more traffic from your Facebook Page to lead generation forms like landing pages and contact sheets.

Here are more lead generation tips for Facebook, and for Twitter.

In addition to optimizing your webpages and social presence for leads, always be looking for opportunities to increase the traffic of your highest-converting pages by optimizing these pages for the keywords they're already ranking for, and linking to these pages internally and externally.

I hope this list has helped spark some ideas for lead generation tactics to test for your own audience. If you’ve tried any of the tactics I’ve listed above, tell us about your experiences in the comments — and feel free to add more ideas to the list.

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from The Moz Blog http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/9375/4865051

When is Christmas Jumper Day 2016?

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/university-surrey-academics-develop-precise-12214665

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/eds-easy-diner-replacements-suggested-12232191

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surreys-secondary-school-place-pressure-12232483

Claustrophobic woman stuck in Café Rouge toilet for 30 minutes

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Seeking planet Earth II: University of Surrey's Jim Al-Khalili on the hunt for alien life

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/seeking-planet-earth-ii-university-12205457

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/spelthorne-councillor-cleared-fraud-hails-12237349

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/internationally-renowned-stuntman-open-guildford-12233406

Farnborough Widow's fundraising head shave to give back to Royal Surrey after hospital wedding

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/farnborough-widows-fundraising-head-shave-12232470

Cobham Christmas lights: Lantern parade and marching bands as village marks start of festive season

Sky News' Nazaneen Ghaffar turned on the lights as packed crowds enjoyed music, parades and performances on Friday (November 25)

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Oxted Christmas Fair 2016: Families enjoy festive day out

Father Christmas decided to let his reindeer have a rest at the weekend and took the train instead to the fair, held on Saturday November 26.

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/oxted-christmas-fair-2016-families-12237134

Pedestrian suffers 'serious injuries' after being hit by car in Woking

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/woking-pedestrian-suffers-serious-injuries-12236940

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Dominic Raab MP is ready to shape the future on the 'bumpy' road to Brexit

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Burglar jailed for stealing thousands of pounds from West Byfleet Social Club

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/burglar-jailed-stealing-thousands-pounds-12231058

Multiple fights at Thorpe pub result in man taken to hospital with 'serious' stab wound

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/multiple-fights-thorpe-pub-result-12234896

Review: Christmas at Kew Gardens sees 60,000 lights peppered through one mile of a festive heaven

Get Surrey reporter Charlotte Neal visited Kew Gardens exactly one month before Christmas Day to check out the light spectacle after dark

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Two workers arrested after immigration raid at Godalming Indian restaurant

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/two-workers-arrested-after-immigration-12230128

Godalming dating agency: 'We can find your perfect partner'

With 35 weddings, 20 babies and a 75% success rate - Godalming's modern dating agency attributes its triumphs to 'old fashioned values'

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/godalming-dating-agency-we-can-12190091

Godalming company preserves veterans' war stories for years to come

The company specialising in ghost-writing autobiographies is encouraging war veterans to tell their life stories so they will never be forgotten.

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/godalming-company-preserves-veterans-war-12234383

Chelsea Football Club has second highest total of banning orders, Home Office figures reveal

Chelsea currently has 60 fans banned from attending its games according to newly released figures

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/chelsea-football-club-second-highest-12231895

Penny Black stamp with rare production fault will go on sale at Ashtead auction

The stamp, which was the world's first adhesive postage stamp in May 1840, has red letters over the image of Queen Victoria

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/penny-black-stamp-rare-production-12233751

Chobham Adventure Farm: Sneak preview as venue prepares for grand opening on November 29

There's just days to go until the official opening of Bean Chapman's adventure farm

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Surrey County Council reject 78% of pleas for help with social care

Data reveals the number of adults for whom Surrey County Council provides social care is in decline

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Public 'must be involved' in shaping the county's health services over the next five years, says Healthwatch Surrey

Major investment is planned for health services across the county but Healthwatch Surrey fears the public may not be involved as much as it  should be

from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/public-must-involved-shaping-countys-12222158

Surrey bus service reductions: Changes announced as council attempt to fill gaps left by Abellio

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-bus-service-reductions-changes-12229270

Drunk threatened to cut paramedic’s throat with razor after falling off bus, court hears

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/drunk-threatened-cut-paramedics-throat-12232984

Guildford Spectrum: Your questions answered about plans for the new-look £80m facility

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/guildford-spectrum-your-questions-answered-12221051

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/chertsey-accident-air-ambulance-attends-12233155

Flats to be built on site of Woking Liberal Club where The Jam rehearsed

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/flats-built-site-woking-liberal-12222156

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/fairoaks-garden-village-chobham-councillor-12232176

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/salesian-school-expansion-plans-postponed-12230855

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Local business listings with Schema.org and JSON-LD

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/former-oxted-vicar-appears-court-12228281

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/east-molesey-boat-owner-traumatised-12226615

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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/teenager-stabbed-during-violent-assault-12228049

Backlinks from Client Sites, Sites You Own, Widgets, & Embedded Content: How to Maximize Benefits & Avoid Problems - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

When it comes to certain kinds of backlinks, avoiding penalties can be a real gray area. How can you earn the benefits without gaining the scrutiny of Google? In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand will teach you which rules to follow to keep you safe and on the up-and-up, all while improving your link profile.

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

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week, we're going to chat about a question we see a lot here at Moz, around what you should do with websites that you maybe design or build or do work for, your clients' websites if you're an agency or consultant, or a web designer or builder, sites that you own but are not your primary website, and widgets and embeds, blogrolls, all these kinds of things where you control the link infrastructure, or could control it, and should you.

I think one of the challenges here is to understand that many folks have recognized that, over the years, widgets, embeds, links from client websites have gotten other sites penalized, potentially even your sites penalized over the years, because you had all these links that you control pointing back to places, and to Google that can look really sketchy. So I want to talk through some best practices about how you can get link benefit and value from these places without getting yourself into trouble.

The challenge

All right. The challenge here is let's say that I own sneakerobsessed.com, but it is not my primary website, or maybe it's a client's website. But I do own sneakysneakers.com, and I'm thinking to myself, "Gosh, you know the fact that I control, I have the login for the admin here, the site owner, or me, would be fine with linking from these pages to these pages. What should I do there? I don't want to get into trouble. But I would love to get some benefit, and I think that these links could help me. Should I:

A. Add a link from every page here to a bunch of pages here or to my homepage?

B. Should I link to a variety of my pages, like take a few of these and link them to my homepage, take a few others and link to some internal pages?

C. Should I use a single page on this website to link back to maybe my homepage?

The answer is kind of, it depends. It depends.

My recommendations

Client websites

If it is a client website or a site you've done work for, a site you designed or built, or your agency did, if you have clientdomain.com, what I'm going to suggest is that you take a page, the About page or a page you specifically built like About This Site, and you link to that page from the footer or the sidebar or the header. It's kind of one of those things that gets us linked to from a lot of pages. It's like the About page or the Contact page or the Privacy Policy, those kinds of things would get on clientdomain.com. You make that the only page where you intentionally specifically link back to your domain. You essentially have some blurb about, "Here are the details about the designer or developer, the technologies used on this website," those kinds of things. "If you would like to get in touch with the creator of this website, it is these folks over here," and that points over to you. That means you essentially have a site-wide link to one page, which is flowing a lot of link equity to that single page on your client's website, and that link is pointing over to you. This is very unlikely to be penalized. It's very likely to draw in clicks. It has all these beneficial properties.

Site(s) you own

For sites that you own, so myothersite.com and mymainsite.com, what I'm going to suggest here is that you don't have an intentional specific link strategy like, "Okay, one out of three pages I'm going to have a link. I'm going to have them link to these pages in particular. I'm going to have the anchor text always be this." Don't set up that kind of policy or process. Instead, I want you to focus on providing visitor value. Reference things on your main site when they are relevant to content on your other site, and this should happen naturally and organically.

Anytime you're referencing other content you've created or things that you've done, or recognition that you have, or someone else from your organization, you would naturally link over here. That's the way you should play it, not with some specific process and checklist. Anything that matches a very standard pattern is going to be easily recognized by Google, and that can get you into trouble.

Blogrolls, syndicators, etc.

With blogrolls and syndicators and those type of sites, it's a little less stringent, because blogrolls and syndicators have these unique attributes of basically saying it is the right thing to do for a blogroll when it exists usually on one of the sidebars of a blog, sometimes the blog's homepage, sometimes every page of a blog, it's usual for those to be kind of site-wide style links that always point back to the other blogs' websites' homepage or blog pages. That's okay here too. That is not a big problem.

The only time you get into real trouble is if that blogroll is essentially just a paid manipulation. It's technically a blog network. It's not that you're being editorially endorsed by someone else. They're only linking to you because you're linking to them. You get into that reciprocity challenge. That's not to say you should never link to anyone who has you in their blogroll either. It's just that this has to look natural and editorial to Google, or you can get in trouble.

Syndicators, by the way, it's okay to link from every syndicated piece of content back to the original piece of content. In fact, that's the way it should be. If you do your own syndication, like I do sometimes on Medium, where I put up my blog posts that I've already put on moz.com/rand on medium.com/randfish, then you should have each of those link back to their original pieces, and that's just fine.

Widgets & embeds

For widgets and embeds, things get a little dicier, and this is actually where we see a ton of penalties. Not to say that people don't have problems with their client sites too a lot of the time, but widgets and embeds have been particularly taken to task by Google in the recent past.

So the idea here is that you have this piece of content here that's being embedded from your site. So Sneaker Obsessed, maybe the guys there went to Sneaky Sneakers. They saw a data graph of Nike shoes versus Adidas shoes sales over the last 12 months, and they were like, "Oh, man. I really want to show that. That's awesome." In fact, there's a little "embed this graph onto your own website." So they took that, and they put it on there.

More dangerous

You get into more dangerous territory with this type of thing when in the link between here there's:

• Keyword-matching anchor text
• No opt-out option, meaning there's no way to say, "I don't want to include the link to the original"
• When visitors are very unlikely to click that link; when there's no sort of, "Oh, why would I ever click on the attributed link from the embed?"
• Remotely controlled via JavaScript, meaning you can remotely update this link and anchor text, that gets real sketchy.
• Widget's purpose feels like it exists only for links, like it's not particularly useful, there's not a clear reason why this is a widget instead of just a graphic that other people can use or content they can syndicate, why make it a widget as opposed to something like a graph whose data can change, or an interactive content element, or a video player, or something like that?
• Any sort of payment or discounts that you offer or coercion to get people to embed it gets you into more dangerous territory.

Less dangerous

You're much less likely to have problems if you:

• Keep that anchor text branded or omitted entirely. It's non-branded anchor text. It's just your brand name, or it's very limited. It just says "Data Via," and via is the link itself.
• Opt-out of the link is available, meaning that someone could say, "Yeah, I want to embed that. Include a link back to sneakysneakers.com? No. No, thank you."
• There should be a compelling reason to click.
• That embed is static.
• It's not controlled by JavaScript.
• The widget feels like it's reference-focused, so there's actually some value there.
• Only embedded intentionally by those who are naturally and editorially choosing to include it.

That will keep you safe.

Hopefully, you will not encounter these problems. I think if you follow these rules, you'll be in the safe zone, and you'll also be benefiting from the link value that these can provide. I look forward to your comments. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

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