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Monday, July 31, 2017
Missing Cobham man aged 91 has been found 'safe and well', police confirm
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/missing-cobham-man-aged-91-13412921
M3 Smart Motorway: Milestone for motorway as junctions 2 to 4a set to open at 70mph
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m3-smart-motorway-milestone-motorway-13411377
Here's why you should probably avoid Clapham Junction and London Waterloo this month (if you can!)
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/heres-you-should-probably-avoid-13411317
'We could see the superimposed bunny ears and nose': Snapchat and drive? Your picture might end up on Twitter
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/we-could-see-superimposed-bunny-13412028
Residents attack plans for West Byfleet recreation ground pub
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/residents-attack-plans-west-byfleet-13412207
Locked up in Surrey: See the county's criminals jailed during July 2017
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/locked-up-surrey-see-countys-13411267
Philip Hammond reinforces 1% public sector pay rise move as he backs plans for Weybridge hospital site
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/philip-hammond-reinforces-1-public-13411743
Search for missing Cobham man aged 91 as police grow 'increasingly concerned'
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/search-missing-cobham-man-aged-13412767
Hampton pub fire: Family pet hamster rescued and around 20 people evacuated from building after blaze
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/hampton-pub-fire-family-pet-13412739
From Devil shrimp to quagga mussels - Here are the 'alien invaders' damaging Surrey's wildlife
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/devil-shrimp-quagga-mussels-here-13408728
Picture shows car stuck in beauty spot after becoming wedged on a tree stump
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/picture-shows-car-stuck-beauty-13411117
Aldershot murder probe: Woman set to face trial after elderly man's body found in flat
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/aldershot-murder-probe-woman-set-13412312
What colour should your wee be? New study urges you to check the colour of your urine
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/what-colour-should-your-wee-13410156
Coach Trip star's dad faces jail after laundering profits of £430k fraud on elderly
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/coach-trip-stars-dad-faces-13412056
Brewery unveils plan for pub-restaurant on West Byfleet recreation ground
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/brewery-unveils-plan-pub-restaurant-13410985
Ex music mogul Jonathan King appears in court over Walton Hop child sex abuse claims
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ex-music-mogul-jonathan-king-13411841
Game of Thrones: Did you know you can watch episodes of Season 7 for FREE without Sky? Here's how
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/game-thrones-you-know-you-13410837
'He died doing what he loved': Married dad-of-four suffers fatal cardiac arrest during RideLondon Surrey 46
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/he-died-doing-what-loved-13411529
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child extra tickets to be released this week
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/harry-potter-cursed-child-extra-13411240
Esher High Street assault sees two men 'punched repeatedly in the face' by group
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/esher-high-street-assault-sees-13411048
Is this the worst parked car EVER? Police slam 'selfish' driver who left car strewn across disabled bay
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/worst-parked-car-ever-police-13410383
Brookwood 'illegal rave' investigation: Enquiries ongoing after police break up unlicensed music event
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/brookwood-illegal-rave-investigation-enquiries-13410760
Earlsfield police incident: 'Suspicious vehicle' report outside railway station sees South West Trains services halted
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/earlsfield-police-incident-suspicious-vehicle-13410771
Handy beach tips to save you stress on your holidays this year
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/handy-beach-tips-save-you-13410137
Travellers in Surrey: Runnymede Borough Council obtains High Court injunction BANNING travellers from green spaces and fields
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/travellers-surrey-runnymede-borough-council-13410362
Children with smartphones and tablets 'twice as likely to get head lice', study finds
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/children-smartphones-tablets-twice-likely-13410159
'He was always ready to serve his community': Family pays touching tribute to 'good son and brother' who died after being hit by lorry
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/he-always-ready-serve-community-13410203
Weather forecast: Brits warned to brace for wet and windy August as Europe faces washout summer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weather-forecast-brits-warned-brace-13410037
Windlesham Heathpark Woods housing application appeal GRANTED despite two years fierce opposition and more than 300 objections
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/windlesham-heathpark-woods-housing-application-13409818
Guildford Borough Council urged to avoid 'volatile and potentially risky investment' as treasury report approved
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/guildford-borough-council-urged-avoid-13394605
GTA Surrey: Cops chase down burglary suspects after 'Grand Theft Auto-style car jacking'
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/gta-surrey-cops-chase-down-13408875
Father Martyn Neale death: Police not treating passing of 'wonderful' Hawley vicar as suspicious
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/father-martyn-neale-death-police-13409075
Oxted man denies stealing clothes during two raids at clothing shops in Surrey and Sussex
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/oxted-man-denies-stealing-clothes-13403375
Woking South West Trains delays: Rail replacement buses operating after another serious signalling failure halts London-bound trains
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/woking-south-west-trains-delays-13408905
Addlestone One: Waitrose 'excited' to open up in town after Staines departure
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/addlestone-one-waitrose-excited-open-13408916
Frank Bruno to join Ricky Hatton on stage to recall greatest career moments
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/frank-bruno-join-ricky-hatton-13383610
'Deliberate' anti-freeze poison warning after three cats struck down in Mytchett
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/deliberate-anti-freeze-poison-warning-13408402
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Hogs Back Brewery has high hopes for hop harvest
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/hogs-back-brewery-high-hopes-13377070
Story of Aldershot firm Gale and Polden told for first time in historian's book
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/story-aldershot-firm-gale--13382591
Roadworks and road closures for major routes around Surrey this week
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/roadworks-road-closures-major-routes-13400790
Can you home one of these adorable furry friends? Chimney Farm Dog Sanctuary looking for loving adopters
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/can-you-home-one-adorable-13400440
Crossrail 2: How the new train line could make a difference to YOUR journey
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/crossrail-2-how-new-train-13396332
RideLondon 2017: Looking back on annual cycling event as thousands of riders tackle streets of Surrey
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ride-london-surrey-highlights-2017-13407442
RideLondon 2017: Police patrol car tour for one young fan as amateurs stream through Walton and Esher
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-2017-police-patrol-car-13406445
Vicar found dead at rectory amid investigation by police
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/vicar-hawley-dies-police-investigation-13406145
RideLondon 2017: Meet the amazing people who make this remarkable event happen every year
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-2017-meet-amazing-people-13406262
'Caring' vicar dies 'after setting himself on fire' amid police investigation
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/caring-vicar-dies-after-setting-13406145
Camberley missing man search: Officers scour woods and heathland for signs of Gordon Read, 57, after car found abandoned
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/camberley-missing-man-search-officers-13405823
RideLondon 2017: First shots from Surrey 100 as riders power round county countryside
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-2017-first-shots-surrey-13405756
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Friends and family band together to create special 'healing garden' for brave boy fighting cancer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/friends-family-band-together-create-13399293
RideLondon 2017 weather: Forecasters warn of heavy rain and 'risk of thunder' on Saturday evening but largely dry for race day
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-2017-weather-forecasters-warn-13404603
Racegoers battle climbing frames and get stuck in mud all in aid of Cancer Research
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/racegoers-battle-climbing-frames-stuck-13404059
Have you seen this man? Appeal launched to help find Egham man as friends and family 'grow increasingly concerned' for his safety
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/you-seen-man-appeal-launched-13404386
'Serious and organised crime, child sexual exploitation and modern slavery on the rise in Guildford borough', councillor warns as safety plan adopted
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/serious-organised-crime-child-sexual-13392194
Surrey Heath's cancer survival rate is one of the best in country
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-heaths-cancer-survival-rate-13382251
Surrey Police condemn non-emergency use of 999 after receiving bizarre request from lost member of public
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-police-condemn-non-emergency-13402901
How to make pink gin and Prosecco cocktails in under 60 seconds
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/lifestyle/food-drink/how-make-pink-gin-prosecco-13402856
'Vulnerable' teenager missing from Knaphill found safe and well, say police
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/vulnerable-teenager-missing-knaphill-found-13402761
Is it ever legal to shoot a dog? The finer points of the law explained
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ever-legal-shoot-dog-finer-13402217
Friday, July 28, 2017
Camberley town centre regeneration: First phase of The Mall refurbishment gets under way in Grace Reynolds Walk
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/camberley-town-centre-regeneration-first-13386688
RideLondon facing claims of 'secret' racing using apps and 'illegal' road closures ahead of race day
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-facing-claims-secret-racing-13394624
'The loss of life...the screaming, it was awful': Last surviving First World War widow describes husband's trauma 100 years on from Battle of Passchendaele
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/the-loss-lifethe-screaming-awful-13402350
Surrey Police appeal for help after vulnerable man goes missing from Knaphill
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-police-appeal-help-after-13402561
'Welcome to Surrey, sorry about the potholes', council tells new resident
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/welcome-surrey-sorry-potholes-council-13399921
M3 Lightwater crash: Fire crews rush to help motorists trapped after serious six-vehicle smash
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m3-lightwater-crash-fire-crews-13402316
10 of the most OUTRAGEOUS Surrey drug crimes seen over the years
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/10-most-outrageous-surrey-drug-13399184
Can you solve the case of the missing gun? This detective-themed escape room is coming to Surrey
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/detective-themed-escape-room-surrey-13399872
Surrey radio enthusiasts make contact with the International Space Station
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-radio-enthusiasts-make-contact-13396651
Can you sold the case of the missing gun? This detective-themed escape room is coming to Surrey
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/can-you-sold-case-missing-13399872
'Mindless devastation' as tennis clubhouse trashed forcing kids' summer programme cancellation
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/mindless-devastation-tennis-clubhouse-trashed-13400626
Owner of 'smallest pub in UK' takes on RideLondon challenge in support of first ever disabled customer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/owner-smallest-pub-uk-takes-13396125
A3 Esher crash: BMW driver located with minor injuries after mysterious disappearance
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/a3-esher-crash-bmw-driver-13401657
'We didn't seize the evidence!': Cops fine driver after catching him watching PORN behind the wheel
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/we-didnt-seize-evidence-cops-13401267
These are the toys Argos predicts YOUR kids are going to be going wild for this Christmas
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/toys-argos-predicts-your-kids-13399096
See inside one of Surrey's smallest pubs which only seats people but sells 150 different varieties of bottled beer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/see-inside-one-surreys-smallest-13400943
John Terry burglary gang sent down for total of nearly 28 years following raid on former Chelsea FC star's Oxshott home
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/john-terry-burglary-gang-sent-13400460
'It was a question of let's get out': Staff evacuated after Weybridge Slug and Lettuce shop front fire
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/slug-lettuce-weybridge-fire-evacuation-13400046
Next step of Aldershot's Wellesley development approved by council
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/next-step-aldershots-wellesley-development-13400623
Why using gloss paint or getting satellite TV could get you into trouble if your home is listed
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/property-news/using-gloss-paint-getting-satellite-13398284
Thousands of Lloyds Bank customers will get a big refund - here's who and why
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/thousands-lloyds-bank-customers-big-13399785
This is what 'a burrito of awesomeness' looks like - magnificent auroa borealis filmed from International Space Station
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/what-a-burrito-awesomeness-looks-13398024
Curry of the Year 2017: Experience authentic Bangladeshi flavours in an historic atmosphere at Farnham's Bengal Lounge
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/curry-year-2017-experience-authentic-13399969
Curry of the Year 2017: Experience authentic Bangladeshi flavours in an historic atmosphere at Farnham's Bengal Lounge
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/curry-year-2017-experience-authentic-13399934
Curry of the Year 2017: Hartley Wintney's The Viceroy proudly serving the local community for nearly 30 years
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/curry-year-2017-hartley-wintneys-13399923
Curry of the Year 2017: New restaurant Agor gets off to a dream start in Cove
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/curry-year-2017-new-restaurant-13399904
Free chicken and get paid? Nando's is looking for new assistant managers
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/free-chicken-paid-nandos-looking-13396499
Curry of the Year 2017: Camberley curry house adds a sprinkle of spice to keep customers coming back for more
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/curry-year-2017-camberley-curry-13399811
Aldershot's historic Union Building to be transformed into 17 apartments
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/aldershots-historic-union-building-transformed-13399773
Curry of the Year 2017: Hartley Wintney's The Viceroy proudly serving the local community for nearly 30 years
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/curry-year-2017-hartley-wintneys-13399794
How much of Surrey's land is taken up by fairways and putting greens
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/how-much-surreys-land-taken-13390385
Backache? Pain in your leg? How YOUR sleep position can fix all these problems
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/backache-pain-your-leg-how-13398677
Fleet All Saints Church fire: Day of prayer will mark second anniversary of devastating arson attack
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/fleet-saints-church-fire-day-13399454
Fleet All Saints Church Arson: Troubled teenager's sentence cut on appeal
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/fleet-saints-church-arson-troubled-13399420
Travellers in Surrey: Group of caravans move on to Send Recreation Ground
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/travellers-surrey-group-caravans-move-13399224
Fleet teenager jailed for four years for setting fire to 'beautiful church' and leaving it to burn
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/fleet-teenager-jailed-four-years-13399270
Is this Camberley's coolest pub? From rustic bikes to vinyl records, a new venue has opened its doors
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/camberleys-coolest-pub-rustic-bikes-13397518
2017 RideLondon 'Surrey 100' route: All you need to know about the big cycling race day in the county
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/ridelondon-route-you-need-know-13316303
Find James Middleton: Search for missing Epsom pensioner continues as volunteers scour 'vasts amount of land' near A243
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/find-james-middleton-search-missing-13398484
The five Surrey streets which saw the most violent crimes in 2016
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/five-surrey-streets-saw-most-13396960
Ramblers of Surrey - this new guide details 100 of the best walks and their highlights, plus parking
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ramblers-surrey-new-guide-details-13395896
'Rain followed by showers': What is a cyclonic block and why is it affecting the UK? Top meteorologist explains this bad weather phenomenon
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/rain-followed-showers-what-cyclonic-13398026
M23 Pease Pottage Service Station food hygiene ratings revealed - and it's good news
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m23-pease-pottage-service-station-13397611
M3 crash: Motorcyclist airlifted to hospital with 'serious injuries' following three-vehicle collision
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m3-crash-motorcyclist-airlifted-hospital-13398030
Count butterflies at Chessington World of Adventures this summer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/count-butterflies-chessington-world-adventures-13358224
RideLondon road closures: All you need to know about restrictions in your area
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-road-closures-surrey-cycling-13314762
Clandon Park project manager needed to rebuild National Trust property two years after devastating fire
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/clandon-park-project-manager-needed-13393307
Heathrow third runway: Passengers will not face air fare increase despite costs of project, airport says
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/heathrow-third-runway-passengers-not-13397423
X Factor winner Joe McElderry meets aspiring Surrey actors
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/x-factor-winner-joe-mcelderry-13393059
5 Tactics to Earn Links Without Having to Directly Ask - Whiteboard Friday
Posted by randfish
Typical link outreach is a tired sport, and we've all but alienated most content creators with our constant link requests. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand outlines five smart ways to earn links to your site without having to beg.
Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week, I'm going to help you avoid having to directly ask for links.
Some people in the SEO world, some link builders are extremely effective. If you go to the Russ Jones School of Link Outreach, you need to make a big list of people to contact, get in front of those folks, outreach them, and have these little success rates. But for some of us, myself included, I just absolutely hate begging people for links. So even though I often produce content that I want people to link to, it's the outreach process that stops me from having success. But there are ways around this. There are ways to earn links, even from very specific sources, without needing to directly say, "Hey, will you please link to this?" I'll try and illustrate that.
The problem
So the problem is I think that most of the web at this point is sort of burned out on this conversation of, "Hey, I have this great resource." Or, "Hey, you linked to this thing which is currently broken and so maybe you'd like to," or "Hey, I noticed that you frequently mention or link to blah, blah, blah. Well I have a blah, blah, blah like blah, blah, blah."
Folks I think are just like, "Oh, my God, I hate these SEOs, like I'm so done with this." Most of these folks, the journalists, the bloggers, the content creators of all kinds start to detest the link requests even when they're useful, even when they help your success rates. I mean, great success rates.
The world's best link builders, link outreach specialists, when I talked to agencies, they say, "Our absolute best folks ever hover in the 5% to 10% success range." So that means you're basically like, "No. Nope. Nuh-uh. Uh-uh. No way. Sorry. Uh-uh. Yeah, no. Uh, no." Then, maybe you'll get one, "Okay, fine. I'll actually link to you."
This can be a really demoralizing practice, and it also hurts your brand every time you outreach to someone and have no success. They're basically associating you with . . . and in fact, there are many people in the SEO world who my only association with them is, gosh, they have asked me for a lot of links over the years. It kind of sucks the souls from people who hate doing it. Now granted, there are some people who like doing it, but you have two options.
Number one, you can optimize the outreach to try and get a higher success rate, to do less damage to your brand when you do this, to make this less of a soul-sucking process, and we have some Whiteboard Fridays on exactly that topic and some great blog posts on that too. But there are ways to build links without it, and today I'm going to cover four and a half of them, because the fifth one is barely a tactic.
5 Tactics to earn links
1. The "I made this thing you'll probably use"
The first one is the tactic — I'm going to use very conversational naming conventions for these — the "I made this thing you will probably use." So this is, in effect, saying not, "Hey, I made this thing. Will you link to it?" but rather, "I made this thing and I can have some confidence that you and people like you, others like you, will probably want to link to it because it fulfills a specific need."
So there's some existing content that you find on the web, you locate the author of that content or the publisher of that content, and you form a connection, usually through social, through email, or through a direct comment on that content. You have an additional resource of some kind that is likely to be included, either in that particular element or in a future element.
This works very well with bloggers. It works well with journalists. It works well with folks who cover data and studies. It works well with folks who are including visuals or tools in their content. As a result, it tends to work well if you can optimize for one of those types of things, like data or visuals or ego-bait. Or supporting evidence works really well. If you have someone who's trying to make an argument with their content and you have evidence that can help support that argument, it will very often be the case that even just a comment can get you included into the primary post, because that person wants to show off what you've got.
It tends not to work very well with commercial content. So that is a drawback to the tactic.
2. The "You list things like X, I have or I am an X."
So this is rather than saying, "I would like a link," it's a very indirect or a relatively indirect ploy for the same thing. You find resources that list Xs, and there's usually either an author or some process for submission, but you don't have to beg for links. You can instead just say, "I fit your criteria."
So this could be, "Hey, are there websites in the educational world that are ADA-compliant and accessible for folks?" You might say, "Well, guess what? I'm that. Therefore, all of these places that list resources like that, that are ADA-compliant, will fit in here."
Or for example, we're doing design awards for pure CSS design, and it turns out you have a beautifully-designed site or page that is pure CSS, and so maybe you can fit in to that particular criteria. Or websites that load under a second, even on a super slow connection, and they list those, and you have one of those. So there's a process, and you can get inclusion.
3. The "Let me help you with that."
This can be very broad, but, basically, if you can identify sources and start to follow those sources wherever they publish and however they publish, whether that's social or via content or broadcast or other ways, if you find those publications, those authors expressing a need or an interest or that they are in the process of completing something, by offering to assist you will almost always get a link for your credit. So this is a way where you're simply monitoring these folks that you would like to get links from, waiting for them to express some sort of need, fulfilling that need, and then reaping the benefit through that link.
4. The "I'd be happy to provide an endorsement."
This is sort of a modified version of "I made this thing you'll probably like." But instead of saying, "Here's the thing that you will probably like and maybe include," you're saying, "I noticed that you have a product, a piece of content, a tool, a new piece of hardware, some physical product, whatever it is, and I like it and I use it and I happen to fit into the correct demographic that you are trying to reach. Therefore, I am happy to contribute an endorsement or a testimonial." Oftentimes, almost always, whenever there's a testimonial, you will get a link back to your source, because they'll want to say, "Well, Rand Fishkin from Moz says X and Y and Z," and there's the link to either my page or to Moz's page.
5. The "Guest contribution."
The one you're probably most familiar with, and it was probably the first one that came to mind when you thought about the "How do I get links without asking for them?" and that is through guest contributions, so guest blogging and guest editorials and authorship of all kinds. There are a few Whiteboard Fridays on that, so I won't dive deep in here.
But I hope you can leverage some or all of these tactics, because if you hate link building the outreach way, these all have more work that goes into them, but far, far better results than this 5% to 10% as the top. Five to ten percent is probably the bottom range for each of these, and you can get 50%, 75% on some of these tactics. Get a lot of great links from great sources. It just requires some elbow grease.
All right, everyone. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Video transcription by Speechpad.com
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Princess Royal Barracks development: 'Momentous stage' reached as building on first homes expected in early 2018
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/princess-royal-barracks-development-momentous-13386227
Thursday, July 27, 2017
'Inspirational' 10-year-old girl from Camberley celebrates summer Christmas after recovering from life-saving cancer treatment
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/inspirational-10-year-old-girl-13387875
New chapter as Fleet Library embraces virtual reality and coding after major refurb
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/new-chapter-fleet-library-embraces-13389048
Leisure centre apology after shocking image of padlocked fire exit emerges while hundreds in attendance
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/leisure-centre-apology-after-shocking-13390779
Dunsfold Park development could feature world's FIRST entirely renewable power grid
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/dunsfold-park-development-could-feature-13388888
Six-year-old girl reels in thousands of live bullets from waters near Pirbright army base
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/six-year-old-girl-reels-13393439
RideLondon: Royal Artillery ready to take on event to raise funds for centre for seriously wounded soldiers
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/ridelondon-royal-artillery-ready-take-13353841
Frimley paedophile's 32-year child rape sentence upheld after he claimed it was too long
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/frimley-paedophiles-32-year-child-13396928
Love a family day out to the nudist beach? This is the TV opportunity for you
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/love-family-day-out-nudist-13388207
UK Cat Killer victims 'nearing 300' after deer's head found in Warlingham
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/uk-cat-killer-victims-nearing-13396455
Councils given nine months to solve A331 nitrogen dioxide spike - or face having to CHARGE motorists
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/councils-given-nine-months-solve-13392755
M25 crash: 'Minor injuries' only after four-vehicle smash and oil spillage sparks rush hour chaos for commuters
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m25-crash-minor-injuries-only-13396284
Wolf Alice announce Boileroom gig on intimate UK tour - here's how to get tickets
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/wolf-alice-announce-boileroom-gig-13395245
Prosecco Pong is the new must-have game for parties this summer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/prosecco-pong-new-must-game-13394671
No, Home Alone's 'Wet Bandits' aren't bogus water board men - but this social media post has a serious message
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/no-home-alones-wet-bandits-13394696
Farnham man dies in hospital after being hit by lorry
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/farnham-man-dies-hospital-after-13394305
The Society: How two friends came together to launch Guildford's first community group for gay men
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/society-how-two-friends-came-13394639
Weybridge hospital fire: Temporary buildings for GP practices could go up as soon as autumn
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/weybridge-hospital-fire-temporary-buildings-13394376
'Highly dangerous' blue asbestos found in almost 70-year-old Cranleigh water pipes
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/highly-dangerous-blue-asbestos-found-13376751
Dunsfold Park inquiry: 1,800-home development 'will be a new Surrey village for the 21st century'
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/dunsfold-park-inquiry-1800-home-13390121
Twisted Mark Dixie jailed for raping and murdering aspiring model Sally Anne Bowman admits two further shocking sex attacks
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/twisted-mark-dixie-jailed-raping-13393577
Man indecently exposes himself to teenage girl in school uniform
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/police-appeal-witnesses-after-man-13393379
Travellers stop play: Englefield Green Cricket Club fixtures in doubt as caravans occupy ground
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/travellers-stop-play-englefield-cricket-13392585
Peri good news for Nando's lovers as new restaurant set to open at M25 Cobham Services
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/peri-good-news-nandos-lovers-13392965
Woking traveller incursion: More than 12 caravans spotted at leisure centre car park
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/woking-traveller-incursion-more-12-13393037
Infrastructure costs for Wisley Airfield development will make 2,000-home scheme 'economically unsound', say campaigners
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/infrastructure-costs-wisley-airfielddevelopment-make-13391887
Firefighter claims Esher fire station will close and Painshill service to be reduced amid £10m cuts
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/firefighter-claims-esher-fire-station-13390325
1,000-year-old ancient yew trees 'at risk of damage' if Newlands Corner play structures built
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/1000-year-old-ancient-yew-13392332
Trodds Lane police presence: Man charged with two counts of rape after alleged incident in Guildford
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/troddslane-police-presence-man-charged-13392626
Police seize more than £8,500 after disqualified drink-driver found with duplicated licence under different name
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/police-seize-more-8500-after-13392173
Ask Yoast Case Study: SEO for a quality brand
Within our Ask Yoast case studies we help clients with their SEO by reviewing the website and giving clear advice and hands-on tips. Those clients send us their website because they’re curious what improvements can be made to improve the overall rankings. This time, we reviewed the website of a high-quality sun protection brand: Calypso. The brand started many years ago in the UK but is nowadays sold all around the globe. Let’s dive into the website to see what they’re doing well and what things need improvement.
A clean entrance
On entering the website, we immediately see a clean and inviting homepage. The homepage makes sure visitors can easily navigate to the most important content of the website: the actual products. However, we also see things that can be improved.
First of all, we see the slider on top of the homepage. We’re not a big fan of sliders because different studies show that only around 1% of your visitors would actually click on a slide. Besides, sliders often slow down your website a lot, and there are a lot more reasons which you can read in the linked post on our website.
We think the slider on Calypsosun.com is even more confusing because it contains a video. When a visitor presses the play button within the video, he or she is sent to the video on YouTube:
This means that you say goodbye to your visitors in an early stage of their visit. Try to keep them on your website and send them to your content.
What is the best practice in this case? In our eyes, another image, which is now below the fold on the homepage, would be a great top image:
The image contains some introductory content which tells your visitors what’s on the website. Adding a clear call-to-action below this image would be great. Think of a button with a text such as ‘See all products’ to guide your visitors to the product overview page. Below this call-to-action, you can still show the top sellers as you do now.
What are the site’s pages about?
Google needs to understand what the website’s pages are about before the pages can rank for certain keywords. Of course, textual content tells Google what a page is about. But you can also use the headings within texts. Headings are meant to tell Google what the main subject of a page is and what other relevant subjects are on the page. This means that the main subject of a page should always be an H1 heading. Subheadings in the text should be H2 or H3 and less important headings should be H4, H5, etc. We recommend using H4 and higher for headings in a sidebar or footer because Google shouldn’t use those links to determine what the page is about.
For example, checking one of the product pages of Calypso, we noticed there is no H1 or H2 heading.
The name of the product is an H3 heading, but this should be the H1 heading. The subheading ‘Directions of Use’ doesn’t tell something about the subject of this page so this could indeed be an H5. When the subheading is relevant to the text, it should be an H2 of H3 heading.
Another way of telling Google what a page or post is about is optimizing your site’s metadata such as page titles and meta descriptions. We noticed that Calypso uses great page titles and meta descriptions so you’ve already understood how important this for SEO can be.
Making your pages stronger
It’s clear that every website needs content to rank for certain keywords. If the content is well-structured with headings and the page titles are optimized, it’s time to make your most important pages stronger. You’ll always have your most valuable content, but you’ll also have less important pages and posts. For Calypso, the product pages are the most important because these reflect the product the company as on. In this case, the product overview page could benefit from a little more SEO-optimized copy.
You might think that blog posts on the website are less relevant. However, these blog posts can be valuable in another way which we will explain in the next paragraph. You’ll always have your most important content and besides, you have less important pages and posts. For Calypso, the product pages are the most important because these reflect the product the company is based on. You might understand that blog posts on the website are less important. However, these blog posts can be important in another way which we will explain in the next paragraph.
Let Google know what’s important
How do you let Google know what pages are more important? By adding internal links from all relevant pages to the most important pages, you make those pages stronger. When a certain page has lots of links from relevant other pages, Google understands that this page might contain the most important content around a keyword. Make sure you add relevant anchor texts to the internal links to make Google understand for what keywords the most important pages of your website should rank.
For example, when you write a blog post about the best sun protection for kids, you should add internal links to the actual products. Using an anchor text such as ‘Sun protection for kids’ it will be clear to Google what the relevancy between the pages is. Doing this consistently, your product pages will get more and more links and will become the strongest pages of your website.
The Be Sun Ready page could be a great cornerstone article for ranking on relevant keywords. This page, however, could benefit from a few optimizations: please add links to relevant products in the content and a call-to-action-button to the products page. Your keyword research should provide you with enough keyword suggestions to make this great page SEO-proof.
The products overview
Navigating to the product overview page, we noticed that the categories are visible in tabs above the products:
We recommend adding narrow signs to make sure visitors understand that more content can be found clicking on those tabs. Think of a drop-down sign like we use in our main menu:
You’ll see that these signs could make it clearer to your visitors that they can click on the tabs. Make your site as user-friendly as possible, because the signals users provide are precious as Google uses these as well in their algorithm. Since SEO and UX are increasingly tied, it’s important to improve those user signals.
Using buttons to navigate your visitors
Clear buttons can have a positive effect on the page path visitors take. You can guide your visitors to the pages you want them to go to next page. For example, you could add a button below each product which says ‘More information’. Doing this, you guide the visitors to the specific product pages and you make sure visitors understand that they can find more content related to the product by clicking on it. Now, the only way visitors see that there is a link behind the product on the current overview is by hovering over the image.
The product pages already have clear calls-to-action added: buttons which say ‘Where to buy’:
However, there is a way to increase the number of clicks on this button. We recommend changing the color of the button into a color that’s not in your color scheme. Doing this, the button will stand out more and might get more visitors to click on the button. Don’t you think the button catches your eye when it’s in another color?
Of course, if you have a sufficient amount of traffic you can – and should – do A/B tests for these kinds of things. After an A/B test, you can easily conclude what color works best.
The last tip we want to give for the product page is related to the ‘Where to buy’ section. After clicking on the button, a screen pops up with the names of all the different resellers of the products. However, the only supplier which contains a link is Amazon and this logo is placed at the bottom of the popup screen. When visitors come to your website, they are already online, and they might immediately want to buy your products online. This means that it could be a good idea to guide them to Amazon first to give them the opportunity to buy your products directly.
Make sure your website loads fast
An important issue for the website of Calypso is page speed. Page speed is crucial in the eyes of Google and is considered to be a ranking factor in the future mobile-first index. The longer it takes to load a page, the less user-friendly the page is. You might agree that it can be annoying if you have to wait too long for a web page to load. Visitors will bounce because of the loading times and this will have a negative effect on the user signals we mentioned before.
Testing the website of Calypso in the Google PageSpeed Tool we noticed a very low score: 18/100. This means you have to start working on the loading times of the website. All possible improvements regarding speed are listed in the Google PageSpeed tool. We recommend starting with enabling compression and with optimizing images. Resolving those two issues probably result in the quickest and easiest increase in the page speed score.
To sum it up
We really loved reviewing the website of your well-known sun protection brand. You’ve created a very clean and clear website and with a couple of changes, you can improve your site’s SEO as well.
For your homepage, we recommend removing the slider and instead, add a clear image which reflects the website. Some introductory content will tell your visitors what the website is about and with a clear call-to-action you can guide your visitors to the most important pages.
To make those crucial pages even stronger, we recommend setting up an internal linking strategy. Make sure your internal linking reflects the hierarchy of the website to make Google understands the site structure. Besides, using the right headings will improve the site structure as well.
And last, but definitely not least, working on your site’s loading times can be very beneficial. Increasing the page speed score will be valuable for both your visitors as for your site’s SEO. Good luck!
Read more: ‘Ask Yoast case study: SEO of an online shop’ »
from Yoast • SEO for everyone https://yoast.com/ask-yoast-case-study-seo-quality-brand/
Is this the worst summer job ever? South West Trains is looking for 'crowd control officers' during London Waterloo disruption
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/waterloo-upgrade-trains-worst-job-13391901
Meal prep delivery service launched in Surrey for gym-goers and health enthusiasts
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/meal-prep-delivery-service-launched-13358598
Surrey fire service cuts branded 'disgusting' by Staines fire station after entering building to save woman
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-fire-service-cuts-branded-13380703
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
'You can't even text and walk - so why do you text and drive?': Shocking viral campaign video highlights danger of texting while driving
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/you-cant-even-text-walk-13357120
Victims of 'serious' sexual offences in Surrey waiting too long for justice, says PCC
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/victims-serious-sexual-offences-surrey-13384226
Neighbours left in limbo over former councillor's go-kart track plans as council awaits expert report following 'strong' objections
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/neighbours-left-limbo-over-former-13259040
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Gay Surrey founder warns of backward steps in way LGBT community is treated in county
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/gay-surrey-founder-warns-backward-13390770
University of Surrey awarded cash to explore challenges faced by LGBT people in Europe
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Surrey Police named as a LGBT+ inclusive employer
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-police-named-lgbt-inclusive-13389747
President of LGBT society says he would not feel comfortable holding another man's hand in Guildford
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/president-lgbt-society-says-would-13389407
Scott Wilkinson murder probe: Fresh appeal for public's help one year on from 'brutal attack'
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/scott-wilkinson-murder-probe-fresh-13387510
Drugs gang responsible for 'wholesale' supply of cocaine, cannabis and MDMA across south east jailed for more than 27 years
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/drugs-gang-responsible-wholesale-supply-13390517
West Byfleet death: Community pays tribute to loving 'brother and son' Asif Ali Nawaz at funeral
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/west-byfleet-death-community-pays-13390338
Person trapped after a three-vehicle collision in Aldershot High Street
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M25 Cobham Services death: Police make fresh CCTV appeal to trace Quhey Saunders death witnesses
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m25-cobham-services-death-police-13390505
There's more than 700 job vacancies in Surrey RIGHT NOW... here's a few from each pay band
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/theres-more-700-job-vacancies-13389348
'Bring your brollies!': Customers slam bowling alley for poor evacuation after water 'gushed out of ceiling'
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/bring-your-brollies-customers-slam-13387679
South West Trains passengers warned to expect HOUR waits at stations during August works
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/south-west-trains-passengers-warned-13389427
Kingston death: Trial date fixed for men charged over kidnap, rape and murder of young woman
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/kingston-death-trial-date-fixed-13389645
Devil's Punch Bowl recognised as wildlife haven six years after Hindhead Tunnel opens
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/devils-punch-bowl-recognised-wildlife-13387019
Woking roadworks: Victoria Way full weekend closure set to plunge town into fresh traffic chaos
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Tom Hanks confirmed for London Literature Festival - how to buy tickets
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Animal charities react to the killing of EIGHT penguins by fox at Chessington World of Adventures
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/animal-charities-react-killing-eight-13388028
E-fit released of man who attacked woman in Dorking while she was out running with dog
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/e-fit-released-man-who-13387806
Figures reveal reports of sexual offences on Britain's trains doubled over five years
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/figures-reveal-reports-sexual-offences-13360146
Looking back on the history of St Bede's School in Send after buildings demolished
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'Serious' and 'highly contagious' fish disease outbreak with up to 100% mortality rate discovered in Camberley
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/serious-highly-contagious-fish-disease-13386084
Staines man in his 60s tragically hit and killed by train at Ashford railway station
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/staines-man-60s-tragically-hit-13386877
Struggling to choose between gin and Prosecco? Not any more - you can now buy sweet pink gin
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/struggling-choose-between-gin-prosecco-13386521
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from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/take-prudential-ridelondon-london-marathon-13322288
Take on Prudential RideLondon, London Marathon and Swim Serpentine in ultimate sporting challenge
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/take-prudential-ridelondon-london-marathon-13322288
Government to set out plans to ban new diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/government-set-out-plans-ban-13386091
EasyJet is looking for new cabin crew members and you don't need to have any experience
from getsurrey - News http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/easyjet-looking-new-cabin-crew-13386029
The Lazy Writer’s Guide to 30-Minute Keyword Research
Posted by BritneyMuller
You, a content marketing ninja, are able to wield immense SEO reach with your content in ways most SEOs (*cough* like myself) can only dream of.
BUT, you’re not leveraging keyword research to your advantage!
The fact that you can discover how many people per month are searching for something, what words they're using, and what questions they're asking still blows my mind!
Keyword research doesn’t have to be a marathon bender. A brisk 30-minute walk can provide incredible insights — insights that connect you with a wider audience on a deeper level.
Why keyword research is essential [Case Study]
My previous company, Pryde Marketing, was not founded on out-of-this-world high-quality content. It was founded on leveraging online data strategically for private medical practices.
When we were hired to do keyword research for an MRI company, we discovered that hundreds of people a month were searching “open vs closed mri” but no one was providing any good answers, content, or photos for these searchers.
We decided to create an "Open Vs. Closed MRI" page for our client that, to our surprise, continues to see over double the traffic of the homepage. Plus, it's brought in over 50k+ unique visitors.
We were not successful because we thought of this content idea.
We were successful because we listened to the keyword data.
5 keyword research hacks in under 30 minutes
Example client: Hunter & Company (Wedding & Event Planning)
Objective: Write better content for their website and assist with digital marketing efforts.
#1: Blog category keyword research
Having five to ten data-driven blog categories can help you rank for popular topics, allow readers to find more relevant content, and help to organize your blog.
Evaluate top industry websites (10 mins)
Identify the most common navigation items and blog categories on leading industry sites.
Advanced search operators (3 mins)
While exploring top websites, you can use advanced Google operators to dig deeper.
Example: Bride.com has topic pages like /topic/wedding-beauty. To view all of Bride.com’s topics search this: site:brides.com/topic
Google Suggest (10 mins)
Google "wedding" and don’t hit enter!
Instead, make note of the drop-down search suggestions. You can also search "wedding a" [don’t hit enter], "wedding b" [don’t hit enter], all the way through to z to get the most popular and/or trending wedding-related searches.
Now that we have aggregated keywords from the above tactics, we have a solid list:
wedding venues, wedding photographers, wedding dj, wedding beauty, wedding videographers, wedding bands, wedding budget, wedding invitations, wedding registry, wedding colors, wedding decorations, wedding party, wedding ideas, wedding cakes, wedding centerpieces, wedding hairstyles, wedding bouquets, engagement rings, wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, mother of the bride dresses, wedding rings, flower girl dresses, wedding accessories, wedding jewelry, wedding tuxedos, wedding registry, wedding ceremony, wedding reception, wedding cake, wedding food, wedding favors, wedding flowers
Keep up the pace — we can’t stop here!
Next, let’s determine which categories are most popular by average monthly Google searches.
There are two primary tools to view average monthly search volume (AKA to know how many times a query like “wedding flowers” are searched per month): Google Keyword Planner and Moz Keyword Explorer. (Check out GKP vs. MKE to learn more.)
Google Keyword Planner (5 mins)
Step 1: Paste your saved keyword list into the box under “Enter one or more of the following” and click “Get Ideas”:
Step 2: Evaluate and save search volume data while being mindful of the large search data ranges and limited data:
Note: Google will occasionally change your keywords to something different; “wedding videographers” was changed to “wedding videos” in this case. It’s important to be mindful of this as you’re deciding on the exact category names.
You should also explore the keywords below your immediate keyword search section. Sort by average monthly searches (highest to lowest) to make sure you aren’t missing any other big category items.
Moz Keyword Explorer (5 mins)
Step 1: Create a new list.
Step 2: Paste your keyword list into the “Enter Keywords” box:
Step 3: Take a quick water break, because KWE will take a minute to gather data. Once the data is in view, sort by and evaluate average monthly search volume:
Woohoo! We reached the finish line with two minutes to spare.
To finalize our blog categories, we need to ask ourselves two things: Which topics are the most popular and the most relevant to a wedding planner site?
With that in mind, you’ve chosen six of the most popular wedding topics and have nested several sub-categories within “Wedding Decorations” — brilliant!
- Wedding Dresses
- Wedding Invitations
- Wedding Photography
- Wedding Cakes
- Wedding Venues
- Wedding Decorations
- Wedding Flowers
- Wedding Colors
- Wedding Centerpieces
- Wedding Venues
#2: FAQ keyword research
Answering the most commonly searched-for questions about your product/service will provide value to your readers and solidify you as an industry expert.
Here’s how to gather the most commonly asked questions on a topic:
AnswerThePublic.com (10 mins)
Search for your product/service.
How cool is this snazzy question wheel?! While the visuals are fun, it’s easier to gather the questions by clicking the top-right yellow “export to csv” button and deleting non-relevant questions in a .csv or Google Sheet.
Moz Keyword Explorer (10 mins)
Step 1: Search and filter “display keyword suggestions” by “are questions”:
Step 2: Add relevant questions to a new keyword list:
Step 3: Add relevant AnswerThePublic questions to list:
Research done!
I wouldn’t worry about evaluating search volume too closely for FAQs because questions are typically more long-tail (meaning they have lower search volume and are usually easier to rank for). In multitudes, these can be very valuable to your site.
Now you can start adding your newly discovered FAQs to an FAQ page (while trying to avoid duplicate types of questions):
#3: Competitive content research
Evaluate your competitor’s 10 most popular pages on SimilarWeb (5 mins)
This uncovers the specific type of content your audience is interested in. Here are the 10 most popular pages for One Fine Day Events:
Evaluate each of the top pages & gather 3 key takeaways (20 mins)
- The most popular “Gallery” page confirms that images are extremely popular in the wedding and event space. Maintaining an optimized gallery and incorporating more images into on-page content should be a top digital marketing priority.
- Interestingly, the “Preferred Vendors” page is a Category page! It's something we should consider implementing on Hunter & Co. It would also be a great link building opportunity (to get vendors to link back to Hunter & Co)... but I digress.
- Testimonials are also be a top priority and live off the primary navigation.
Pro tip: Use Google Trends to evaluate seasonal searches and prepare competitive content months before it spikes:
#4: Expand your keyword reach
Expanding your page’s topical content will expand your digital SEO reach. This is why you’ll see definitive guides like Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO ranking so well, and for such a wide range of keywords (~1,665!).
Download MozBar (Chrome add-on) (1 minute)
Step 1: Activate MozBar. Enter in your primary keyword and click “optimize.”
Step 2: Click “On-Page Content Suggestions”:
Step 3: View the 23+ content integration ideas for your webpage:
Decide which topics you want to integrate (5 mins)
You never want to force non-relevant content onto a page for SEO reasons. Instead, look through the topics and think about which would provide value to your readers.
Then, devise a plan to naturally integrate those topics into the page’s content.
Topic integrations for the Hunter & Co. homepage:
- Wedding Planning Checklist (create a checklist page that’s linked to from homepage)
- Wedding Vendors (confirms our popular page strategy! Add a page link from the homepage)
- Wedding Venues
- Couples
#5: Keep up with Google
We are seeing a big rise in "no-click" Google searches.
No-click searches occur when individuals search for something and find their answer, without ever having to click on a search result.
Example: If you search “Denver weather,” Google will show you an 8-day weather forecast for Denver. Most searchers are satisfied with that and leave, resulting in a no-click Google search.
No-click searches are rising because Google continues to provide searchers answers within search features such as featured snippets (answer boxes), People Also Ask boxes, knowledge graphs, weather forecasts, etc.
Know which search features show up most often for your keywords (5 mins)
Knowing which search features occur most frequently for your product/service-related searches can help you to steal search features by optimizing for them. Keep in mind that if you're ranking on page one or two of a desired featured snippet search, you're better positioned to steal that featured snippet than if you were on page 3+.
Remember our FAQs about “wedding planning” above? Twenty-four of 28 questions found in Moz Keyword Explorer have featured snippets (answer boxes) in their search results:
RealSimple currently has a large featured snippet for “wedding checklist”:
Looking more closely into that page, you’ll notice RealSimple’s <html> check-box markup and definitive style content.
Brainstorm a better (and more useful) wedding checklist (10 mins)
- Hire a freelance developer to create a beautiful, printable wedding checklist calendar that, once a reader enters their wedding date, populates with scheduled to-dos.
- Create an IFTTT (If This Then That) recipe to schedule Google Calendar To-Do Reminders based on the user’s wedding date.
- Provide a more detailed and more beautiful wedding checklist.
Now, my content marketing ninjas, go forth and tap gloves with a wider audience! Your content deserves it!
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A Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Automation
Posted by Angela_Petteys
To say marketing automation is a complex subject is putting it mildly. On the surface it seems simple enough, but once you get just a little bit deeper into it, it’s overwhelming. Even if you work with marketing automation on a daily basis, it can be hard to describe.
When used correctly, marketing automation can be useful in helping sales and marketing teams do their jobs more effectively so they can reach their goals. But there are also a lot of misunderstandings about what marketing automation is and isn’t. Let’s try to get a better understanding of what marketing automation is and how it can potentially help a business.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation is the use of software to deliver personalized messages to customers and leads. The software allows you to create a dynamic series of messages to send to your contacts. The message a person receives is decided by factors you specify, like what their spending habits are, where they are in the buying process, and past interactions they’ve had with your site.
Delivering content that’s tailored to a person’s needs and interests helps build stronger relationships which, in turn, can help increase conversions and revenue. Marketing automation can help you accomplish all these things while streamlining your operations at the same time.
In the broad scope of things, marketing automation incorporates several different aspects of marketing and business development, including email marketing, content development, conversion rate optimization, and lead generation.
The benefits of using marketing automation
By far, one of the biggest benefits of marketing automation is that it helps sales and marketing teams work more efficiently. People love personalized content; sending out personalized emails generates six times more revenue than sending non-personalized emails. But manually sending out customized messages to contacts simply isn’t practical. Marketing automation platforms handle the mundane and repetitive work that goes into delivering personalized content, giving sales and marketing professionals more time to focus on things that are more interesting and challenging.
Not only does marketing automation make it easier to deliver messages, it makes it easier to figure out where people are in the conversion process. Marketing automation programs typically have a lead scoring feature which helps users quickly identify which leads are the most sales-ready.
One of the most common reasons why businesses consider using marketing automation in the first place is because they want to improve their conversion rates and revenues. Marketing automation is a way to encourage customers to stay engaged longer, making it more likely they’ll stick around long enough to convert. On average, companies that use marketing automation have 53% higher conversion rates and an annual revenue growth rate 3.1% higher compared to companies that don’t.
For products and services with longer conversion cycles, marketing automation can also help speed up the process. In one example cited by VentureHarbour, Thomson Reuters was able to reduce their conversion time by 72% by using marketing automation software.
What applications are there for marketing automation?
While marketing automation has several different applications, email messaging and lead generation/nurturing are among the most common.
Yes, email is still relevant as a marketing tool. While it’s easy to say things like “Everybody’s on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram,” it’s simply not true. However, most Internet users do have at least one email address. Email inboxes also tend to move at a slower pace than social media feeds, giving you the best chance at making a direct connection with your contacts. There's a multitude of ways marketing automation can be used with email:
- Welcome messages
- Product retargeting
- Abandoned cart reminders
- Personalized product recommendations
And that's just to name a few.
Many companies use marketing automation to solicit feedback from their contacts, regardless if they’ve converted or not. Whether it’s by sending out surveys or asking people to send comments directly to them, the information they garner can be extremely valuable in guiding changes that will help improve their revenues in the long run.
Given that personalized emails generate so much more revenue than non-personalized emails, marketing automation can be an effective way to nurture your leads. According to Marketo, about 50% of leads in any system are not ready to buy and nearly 80% of all new leads will never become sales. With marketing automation, the goal is to give people something of value when they need it most so that they’re more likely to convert. Effective lead nurturing generates 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost. Nurtured leads also tend to make larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
Marketing automation platforms are also often commonly used to manage social media campaigns, create landing pages, and conduct ongoing A/B testing.
B2B vs. B2C marketing automation
Businesses of all sizes can potentially benefit from marketing automation, but whether a business has a B2B or B2C model is going to have an impact on the type of messaging used in their campaigns. While both types of businesses would have the main goals of improving conversions and revenue, there are differences in how they’ll reach that goal.
B2B sales
B2B sales tend to have longer conversion cycles than B2C sales and often involve products or services that require a more long-term commitment. (Of course, there are some exceptions.) Because of this, B2B messaging has a greater emphasis on long-form content like whitepapers, case studies, and e-books. When major purchases are being considered for a business, multiple people are often involved in the decision-making process, so it’s not always a matter of winning over one person like it is with B2C sales. It’s important for the business with something to sell to establish themselves as an authority in their industry — offering in-depth informational content is a great way to do that.
B2C sales
Since B2C sales move at a faster pace, the content used in their messaging is typically much simpler. For example, Sephora customers aren’t going to be interested in long case studies about a product, but they might appreciate a 30-second video demonstrating how to use a product instead. For B2C companies, the focus tends to be more on brand building and giving customers reasons to come back, so their messaging typically includes things like abandoned shopping cart reminders, personalized product recommendations, and offers tailored to specific types of customers.
Key concepts
Although many different aspects of marketing and business development come together in marketing automation, the whole process is ultimately driven by a few core concepts.
Conversion funnels
A conversion funnel is the process a person takes toward becoming a customer. Now that it’s so easy to find product reviews and shop around, a lot of people don’t just buy things from the first place they see it for sale. Marketing automation is a way to keep people engaged so they’re more likely to convert.
The conversion funnel can be broken down into a few basic stages:
- Awareness: The customer initially becomes aware of a company, product, or service. It’s too soon for a person to want to make any decisions, but a business has made its way onto their radar.
- Interest: Not everyone who is aware of a business/product/service is going to have a need for it. At this point, those who are interested will start becoming more engaged by doing things like requesting a quote, signing up for a free trial, following a business on social media, looking for reviews, or reading blog posts and other content on a company’s site.
- Consideration: By now, a person is familiar enough with a business to know they like what’s being offered. They’re not quite ready to make a decision, but a business is in the running.
- Action: This is the point where a person decides to convert. You’ve won them over and they’re ready to do business with you.
Ideally, after a person converts once, they’ll be so happy with their decision that they become a repeat customer. But as people move through the conversion funnel, whether they do it once or several times, some of them will always drop out at each level. On average, only 1–5 % of people who enter a conversion funnel actually convert. When people drop out, it’s known as churn, and while some churn is inevitable, marketing automation can help reduce it. By understanding the needs and interests of people at each stage of the conversion funnel, you’re better able to keep them engaged by providing them with the type of content they’re most interested in.
For example, let’s say a company installs vinyl windows and they advertise heavily in the local media. At any given time, a large percentage of the thousands of people who see their ads won’t take any action after seeing one because they either don’t need new windows or because they live in a rental property. No amount of additional messaging will win those people over. But since replacing windows can be very expensive, the people who actually do need them typically spend time doing research to make sure they choose the right type of window and get the best price. If this company were to send additional information about vinyl windows to the people who contact them to get an estimate, they may be able to convince more people to convert.
Feedback loops and metrics
One of the basic laws of physics is that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. A very similar concept also applies in the world of marketing automation, and it’s known as a feedback loop. When you send a message to a person, the recipient will have some kind of reaction to it, even if that reaction is to do nothing at all. That reaction is part of your feedback loop and you’ll need to pay attention to your metrics to get an idea of what those reactions are.
Feedback loops and metrics are a reflection of how effective your marketing automation strategy is. Whether a person converts, clicks through to your site, ignores the message, flags it as spam, or unsubscribes from your list, that tells you something about how the recipient felt about your message.
When you look at your metrics, you’ll ideally want to see high open rates, clickthrough rates, and maybe even some forwards, since those are signs your content is engaging, valuable, and not annoying to your contacts. Some unsubscribes and abuse reports are inevitable, especially since a lot of people get confused about the difference between the two. But don’t ignore those metrics just because they’re not what you want to see. An increasing number of either could be a sign your strategy is too aggressive and needs to be reworked.
User flow
While conversion funnels refer to the process taken toward converting, user flow refers to the series of pages a person visits before taking an action.
When you have traffic coming to your site from different sources like PPC ads, social media, and email messages, you want to direct users to pages that will make it easy for them to take the action you want them to take, whether it’s buying something, signing up for a free trial, or joining an email list.
You also have to keep in mind that people often have different needs depending on how they arrive at a page, so you’ll want to do your best to make sure people are being taken to a page that would appeal to them. For example, if a person is directly taken to a product page after doing a search for a long-tail keyword, that’s fine since they’re clearly looking for something specific and are more likely to be ready to convert. But someone who clicks on a PPC ad and fills out a form on a landing page is probably going to want more information before they make any decisions, so it’s not time to give them a hard sell.
Workflows
Workflows are where the automation part of marketing automation comes into play. Your workflow is the series of triggers you create to deliver messages. Creating a workflow involves taking yourself through the entire process and asking yourself, “If this happens, what should happen next?”
Workflows can consist of many different triggers, such as how long it’s been since a person has taken an action, interactions you’ve had with a person, or actions they’ve previously taken on your site. Some types of workflows commonly used by retailers include sending discount codes to customers who haven’t made any purchases in a while, reminding people to review products after they’ve had some time to enjoy their purchase, and sending reminders to people who have recently added items to their cart without actually making a purchase.
Important steps in creating a marketing automation strategy
1. Define your goals
This might seem like an obvious point to make, but before you do anything else, you need to decide exactly what you want marketing automation to help you achieve so you can plan your strategy accordingly. Are you trying to generate more leads? Working to build up business from return customers? Trying to boost sales during an off season? Each of those goals is going to require a different strategy, so it’s important to understand exactly what your main objectives are.
2. Identify who to target
Of course it’s important to understand the needs of your customers at all points of the conversion process. But depending on what your main goals are, your time and energy may be best spent focusing on people who are at a specific point of the process. For instance, if you’re not really having a problem with lead generation but you want more people to convert, your time and energy would be better spent focusing on the middle and lower parts of the conversion funnel.
3. Map user flows
By using marketing automation, you’re trying to get people to take some kind of action. Mapping user flow is a way to visualize the steps people need to go through to be able to take that action.
Depending on the way a person arrives at your site, some people might need more information than others before they’re willing to take that action. You don’t want to make people go through more steps than are necessary to do something, but you don’t want to hit people with a hard sell too soon, either. By using state diagrams to map user flows, as recommended by Peep Laja of ConversionXL, you’ll see exactly how people are arriving at a page and how many steps it takes for them to take the desired action.
4. Segment and rate your leads
It’s important to remember that not all leads are necessarily equal in terms of quality. Your database of contacts is inevitably going to be a mix of people who are on the verge of buying, people who are still researching their options, and people who probably won’t convert, so it’s not possible to create broad messages that will somehow appeal to all of those types of people. Rating your leads helps you figure out exactly who needs further nurturing and who is ready to be handed over to a sales team.
The interactions a person has had with your content and the actions they’ve taken on your site can be a reflection of how ready they are to convert. A person who has viewed a pricing page is most likely going to be closer to buying than someone who has simply read a blog post on a site. A person who has visited a site multiple times over the course of a few weeks is clearly more interested than someone who has only visited once or twice in the past year. Marketing automation software lets you assign values to certain actions and interactions so that it can calculate a score for that lead.
Marketing automation also lets you segment your database of contacts to a very high degree so you can deliver messages to very specific types of people. For example, when working with a B2B business, a marketer might want to target messages to people with certain job titles who work at businesses of a certain size. With B2C sales, a retailer might want to segment their lists to give special offers to people who have spent a certain amount of money with the company or send product recommendations to people who live in certain locations.
Building and maintaining a contact database
There’s no easy way around it: Building a high-quality database of contacts takes time. Marketing automation should come into play once you already have a fairly sizeable database of contacts to work with, but you will need to keep adding new names to that database on a regular basis.
One of the most effective ways to build a database of highly qualified contacts is by creating informative content. Blog content is great for providing high-level information, and it helps businesses build trust and establish themselves as an authority in their field. On the other hand, things like whitepapers and e-books are best for attracting people who want more in-depth information on a subject and are more inclined to be interested in what a business is offering, which is why those types of content are usually gated. With gated content, a person’s contact information is essentially the price of accessing the content.
For businesses that offer a service, free trials are an excellent way to get contact information since the people who sign up for them are obviously interested in what’s being offered.
Just say "no" to purchased lists
Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to buy a list of contacts. Purchased lists may give you a quick boost up front, but they’ll work against you in the long run.
First of all, high-quality lists of contacts aren’t for sale. The kinds of lists you can buy or rent are typically full of invalid and abandoned email addresses. Even if a person actually does see your message, they likely either won’t be interested or will be skeptical about doing business with a company they’re not familiar with.
If you were to start sending messages to a list full of contacts of questionable quality, you’ll most likely end up with high bounce rates, lots of unsubscriptions, low open rates, and a whole lot of abuse reports. Email service providers pay attention to those sorts of metrics and if they start seeing them on a regular basis, they’ll view you as a spammer, which will only make it harder for you to get your message to more qualified leads once you have them.
Best practices for marketing automation messaging
Get to the point
Make your point quickly and make it clear. We all have a limited amount of time each day and one thing people have little patience for is long messages. People just want to know what’s in it for them. How would your product or service solve their problem? What’s unique about what you’re offering?
Keep it active
By implementing marketing automation strategies, you’re trying to keep people engaged. Therefore, your messages should be written in an active tone and encourage recipients to take some kind of action, whether it’s downloading a whitepaper, reading a blog post, watching a video, or making a purchase.
Remember where people are in the process
Don’t forget that some types of content will be more appealing than others depending on where a person is in the conversion funnel. People who are just starting to learn more about a company or product are not going to be happy if they get hit with a hard sell, but highly promotional content could potentially be effective on someone further down in the conversion funnel.
Avoid looking spammy
When used correctly, marketing automation is not spam — we’ll talk more about why that is in just a little bit. But don’t give your contacts the wrong impression. Certain things will always look spammy, such as typing in all capital letters, overusing the color red, and using too many links in the body of the message. If you’re going to use symbols in your subject lines or messages, don’t use too many of them. Avoid using words known to trigger spam filters.
If you’re unfamiliar with the CAN-SPAM Act, take some time to learn about what it means for your campaign. Subject lines need to be accurate and not misleading. Companies that send marketing messages through email need to provide a physical mailing address. (PO box addresses are allowed.) You also need to provide an unsubscribe option in all messages and make sure all opt-out requests are honored as soon as possible.
Hone your list
Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to contact lists. One of the key goals for marketing automation is to get your message to precisely the right people. Pay close attention to your metrics so you know who your most qualified leads are and get rid of the ones who aren’t responding anymore. You’re better off with a smaller list of highly qualified leads than with a large list of contacts who don’t care. If it’s been months since a person last opened a message from you, just remove them from your list and focus more on the leads who are more interested.
Misconceptions about marketing automation
It’s impersonal
When done correctly, marketing automation can and should feel personal. In all fairness, it’s easy to understand how people get the wrong impression here — after all, the word “automation” is usually associated with things like computerization and robots. But for a marketing automation strategy to be successful, there needs to be a human touch behind it. Marketing automation simply makes it easier for you to get your message out there. It’s up to you to come up with content that will appeal to people and to create the strategy for getting it out there.
It’s spam
We all know how obnoxious spam is — marketers included. Marketers also understand how ineffective it is. While spam is an unsolicited message promoting something irrelevant to the vast majority of its recipients, the goal of marketing automation is to deliver highly relevant messages to users who clearly express an interest in it.
Unlike spam, marketing automation also frequently involves non-promotional content. Marketing automation messages absolutely can be promotional in nature, but ultimately, the goal is to foster positive relationships by offering something of value — and that doesn’t always involve a hard sell.
You can set it and forget it
This is another case where the word “automation” can give the wrong impression. When you think of something being automated, it’s easy to think you can just set it up, sit back, and let it run on its own. In reality, marketing automation is anything but a hands-off process. Marketing automation needs constant attention and refinement to make sure it’s as successful as possible. Many people use the A/B testing functionality of marketing automation software to run ongoing tests to see which sorts of content, subject lines, design variations, and CTAs people best respond to.
It’s just email marketing
Email is a significant part of marketing automation, but marketing automation isn’t just a new name for email marketing.
First of all, the types of messages involved in basic email marketing and marketing automation are distinctly different. When most people think of email marketing, they’re thinking of broad email blasts that go out to an entire list of contacts, but that’s just what you’re trying to avoid doing with marketing automation. Marketing automation messages are much more fine-tuned to a user’s interests and needs. Although basic email marketing programs do allow for some list segmentation, marketing automation programs allow you to get much more hyper-segmented.
Basic email marketing and marketing automation programs also offer different functionality and insights. While regular email marketing platforms give some basic information about how people interact with your message, marketing automation programs offer more measurable, in-depth insights.
While marketing automation offers a lot of benefits, it’s not going to be an ideal solution for all businesses. For some types of businesses, basic email marketing is all they really need. Studies have shown that marketers often feel like marketing automation software isn’t worth the investment, but many marketers also fail to use it to its full potential or businesses try using it before they have a large enough database of contacts to truly make it worthwhile. Before using marketing automation, the key things to consider are whether or not you have the time and resources to dedicate to training on the software so they can use it to its full potential.
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