Twitter Testing 280 Character Limit, Apple Switches To Google and Revised Adwords T & C: Weekly Forum Update

Much of the big discussion this will was around Twitters testing a character limit that is double their existing character limit.

Beyond that, there was some interesting discussion around Apples switch to from bing to Google as the search engine for spotlight and Siri.

Twitter tests 280 character tweets

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Twitter  announced that it is testing upping the twitter character limit to up to 280 characters.

Can’t fit your Tweet into 140 characters? 🤔

We’re trying something new with a small group, and increasing the character limit to 280! Excited about the possibilities? Read our blog to find out how it all adds up. https://t.co/C6hjsB9nbL

— Twitter (@Twitter) September 26, 2017

Over on Webmaster World the sentiment seems positive or neutral on the change but over on CEO, Jack Dorsey’s twitter – long time users were not keen on the change and felt that the character limit was part of the essence of what Twitter is. Jack Dorsey responded to the criticism with the following:

We expected (and ❤️!) all the snark & critique for #280characters. Comes with the job. What matters now is we clearly show why this change is important, and prove to you all it’s better. Give us some time to learn and confirm (or challenge!) our ideas. https://t.co/qJrzzIluMw

— jack (@jack) September 27, 2017

Apple switches from Bing to Google for Siri web search results on iOS

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A lot of the discussion on Webmaster World surrounding the switch was why Apple has not tried to buy a smaller search engine or build their own. One member commented seeing Applebot on their servers for a couple of years.

Google Adwords Updating Terms & Conditions

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Some of the changes highlighted as part of the new Adwords Terms and Conditions include:

• Allowing Google to test campaigns without notifying advertisers
• Disputes to be settled by binding arbitration and blocks advertisers from joining class action lawsuits

On Webmaster World the discussion was around how users don’t ever read terms and conditions. Also, it was noted that with ‘deep enough pockets’ arbitration clauses can be challenged.

 

Best way to link to site in a Facebook post?

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Over on SEOchat, a photogprapher asked about the best way to link back to her site from Facebook, without being spammy.

Member Mike Hoklin provided the following advice,
“This is what I do. When I come back from a trip (like I’m doing tomorrow), I post the photo on my blog with the details. Then I create a new Facebook Page entry with a short teaser and/or title of image….something like that. The paste that copied link into that FB entry. I usually share that FB Page Entry into my personal FB account and some of the FB Groups I belong.”

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How to Use Influencer Marketing to Build Stronger Content for Your Blog #InfluencerDays

This week I was in NYC speaking about influencer marketing and how it helps creating stronger content assets for your blog. Here’s my recap of the presentation:

First of all, content marketing is ALL about influencing – not just your potential customer – but also about influencing the influencer, i.e. those people who can effect buyers’ decisions.

And what’s a better way to accomplish that than to actually get that influencer create content for you?

According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) report, The Value of Influencer Content 2017 from Linqia, 57% of marketers indicated that influencer-powered content outperforms brand created content:

• Influencer-powered content is more authentic and trusted than brand-created content (because influencers are real people who have already earned that trust);
• Influencer-powered content sparks audience engagement (because people engage with people)
• Influencer-powered content provides higher ROI (because it’s more trusted and authentic and spread easier with help of participating influencers)

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A few case studies and examples:

• ShaeBaxter: Here’s how an influencer-powered articles led to over 80% boost to the blog’s organic search engine traffic
• Robbie Richards: Here’s another case study on creating an influencer-powered roundup that got the host 11,065% more organic traffic in 6 months
• And here’s how Sam Obrart increased his inbound links by 310% in 21 days by having influencers contribute for his blog

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Tools to Identify Influencers:

• MyBlogU is always a place where I start my outreach because it’s full of people who are actually eager to participate in your content ventures. When you have a few participating experts, it’s easier to branch out to more influencers. MyBlogU also helps with many other stages of putting collaborative content together: It allows bulk emailing and auto-notifies participants of published piece.
• A good place to find more influencers is BuzzSumo: Search your primary topic of your future article and use “Interviews” filter to find people who don’t mind contributing their answers to blog roundups.

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Ways to Keep in Touch with Influencers:

• Use Twitter lists to monitor all of them on Twitter. For example, back when I was managing contributors for Search Engine Journal, I made sure I added each of them to a separate Twitter list. Then, using my Twitter manager Tweetdeck I was able to add a separate column to monitor that list and made it part of my weekly schedule to engage with them on Twitter.
• Use Private groups (Facebook, Slack, etc.) to keep in touch with those influencers on a regular basis. For example, we invite all the influencers we interview on #VCBuzz Twitter chats to a Private Facebook group where we encourage them to ask for help, shares or anything else they may need.

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Mistakes When it Comes to Influencer-Driven Content

• Doing too many expert roundups: An expert roundup is the most popular type of content collaboration which is quickly becoming overused. It’s simple to replicate the tactic, so too many marketers and media outlets are jumping into the bandwagon.
• Scaling too much: it’s really more about relationships than the content you get. Instead of trying the tactic too often, try investing more time into managing those relationships, connecting to those influencers more, interacting with them more, making sure those relationships will become stronger.
• Failing to find an interesting and engaging topic for your content. Content is still king! Influencer-powered content has been widely used recently, mostly by people who don’t get it. They don’t get personalized outreach and relationship building, but more importantly they don’t get what lies at the foundation of a successful influencer-powered content. The key to influencer-powered content is finding an interesting and engaging topic. In fact, most people who plan to include influencers into their content marketing strategy think too much about influencers and totally forget about a more important part of the process: What the content is actually going to be about. It’s still content, so unless you find an interesting question to discuss in your future article, you’ll see:
  • Most influencers ignoring your pitch
  • Much fewer shares from social media users

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Invest a lot of time in topic brainstorming, focus on current trends, events and interesting tools. Avoid boring topics everyone else is covering.

How to influencers help in content marketing and vice versa from Ann Smarty

Bottom line

Stand out. Don’t do what other people are doing. Play with formats and topics. Note that mega live show example from David Bain in the deck above? No one did that before in our industry, so it did very well! Think out of the box!

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Take a Deep Dive into Comprehensive Content Marketing Strategy

This week was all about the bigger picture of content marketing strategy. “Great content” is a wonderful start, but you need the strategic context that pulls it all together. Whether you’re a pro or just getting started, the posts and podcasts below will give you a framework to make your project really strong. On Monday,
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[Last Day] Join The Showrunner Podcasting Course Before the Doors Close

Jonny Nastor and I want to help you develop, launch, and run a remarkable show. That’s why we created The Showrunner Podcasting Course — which is currently open, but closes today at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. And yes, I said show — not “podcast.” For most intents and purposes, the distinction doesn’t make a huge
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The Magical Sixth ‘Ingredient’ that Can Take Your Content to Greatness

On Monday, Ronell shared with us his five “ingredients” for creating truly high-quality content. These are the consistently important factors he’s observed while working with many different kinds of clients. We agree! Ronell’s advice will help you create content that genuinely helps your audience. And that content will be interesting because it speaks directly to
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How Blogging Boosts the Profitability of Your Ecommerce Website (and 8 Ways to Get Started)

With the release of the Outfitter Pro Premium WordPress theme, Rafal Tomal and I have been talking a lot about ecommerce websites. Naturally, Rafal has great ideas about designing a t-shirt store, while I’m interested in how I can market an ecommerce store with, yes, geeky merchandise, but also robot kits and other nerdery for
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Combine These 5 Research-Based Ingredients for Higher-Quality Content

It’s undisputed: well-crafted, high-quality content is how a brand builds an audience, trust, and loyalty today. Great content helps you earn the attention of the people who need your product or service. Existing loyal customers are drawn to quality content, too, in large part because it builds trust and authority, creating top-of-mind awareness for your
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Google Shopping Proposal to EU, iOS11 Intelligent Ad Blocking, Getting Accurate Rankings: Weekly Forum Update

This week Google presents their proposal for assuging EU anti trust authorities.

iOS 11 launched to users with new intelligent tracking prevention.

Members discuss how to get accurate rank tracking data and what to do if you’re a well known brand but do not rank for your core short tail term.

Google May Open Up Ad Space to Competitors

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In order to meet compliance requirements of European Commission antitrust findings, Google offered a proposal to open up Google Shopping Ad System to allow rivals to bid against Google.

Webmaster World members questioned if this action was sufficient.

Glakes commented that, “I can’t help but to think that despite the offering, its overall value will be limited. One of the key benefits of advertising outside of Google are lower costs and a higher ROI. Allowing competition to come in to bid in bulk may be a ploy to inflate an already high CPC when such competitors would have to outbid Google to participate.”

isellstuff who owns a shopping comparison site noted their doubts regarding possible profit margins , “I own a price comparison website in the United States that has a bit of traffic. Google has been offering price comparison websites access to shopping ads for years. This is not a viable option for us due to slim profit margins. The problem being that Google controls the keywords with their shopping ads program. We can use negative keywords, but we can not bid on keywords.

This is a safe offer for Google. They know price comparison websites can not turn a profit via shopping ads. So they are essentially offering smoke and mirrors. They need to offer price comparison websites equal display time via text ads instead of hiding most, if not all text ads and only displaying the shopping ads when highly profitable keywords are used.“

 

Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is ‘sabotage’ – “Intelligent tracking prevention” is here.

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The latest version of Apples Operating System, iOS11, which became available to users September 19 has a new feature, “intelligent tracking prevention”, that prevents ads that retarget.

Webmasterworld members were split on if this was a good and responsible action on Apples part or not. Members who did not agree with the action cited that relevant ads are more relevant for users and better for advertisers, since they’re less susceptible to banner blindness. These members also pointed out that there is an opt out option but did state that it is not intuitive and has to be repeated for every device.

Members who supported Apples move agreed with if for a variety of reasons. Some members referenced precidence with print; ergophobe stated, “where was it written that the manufacturers of the hardware that runs the internet have an obligation to make every user trackable? This was never the case with radio, TV, or print ads. Suddenly, the ad industry thinks it’s a God-given right on the internet? I’m sorry, but no.”. Ergophone added, ”
In my opinion, the ad industry broke the social contract at some point and now they are trying to glue it back together with things like the IABs LEAN campaign and such, but for me and many others, it’s just too late.”

Other memebers drew the comparision to how email clients developed methods to better control of email spam, after advertisers began to abuse of email marketing.

Accurate Keyword Position Analyzer

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A Webmaster World member who purchased a number of paid rank trackers is finding that many of them do not show the correct position. Other members state that for a variety of reasons, it is not possible to get fully accurate position data and that any insights provided are in aggregate and directional.

NickMNS comments, “There is no tool that can give you accurate picture, because there is no one keyword position (To be clear keyword position == position of you website in serp when a specific keyword is searched). Personalization, time of day, year, month, location, browsing history, and many more factors all influence what sites are returned for any given search. As such it is simply impossible for any tool to provide an accurate response.

Your best bet is to use search analytics in Google Search Console, it should provide an accurate result. But the result will be an “average” view of the results and for low traffic keywords it may not be representative.“

Google moves to restrict ads for addiction queries

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This week it was announced that google will limit ads for addition related queries, including:

“drug detox”
“drug rehabilitation”
“drug treatment program”

While Google takest steps to identify ways to improve how they combat false ads, they will be showing a local pack at the top of search results in the meantime. One question around this issue is if this change will result in a shift of adspend in this sector from SEM to SEO while google figures out new advertising guidelines for addiction?

One Site Or 19?

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A consultant is working with a client that has 19 websites targeting specific locations, which have mostly duplicate content. In addition to getting the websites on SSL, Crea8asiteforum members recommend consolidating the sites to either subdomains or create branch pages on subdirectories. Additionally, members suggest using location and branch of schema to help boost SERP appearance.

Authoritative website & famous product can’t get onto SERP for product category

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Over on SEOchat, a member asks why their well known brand is not ranking for key phrases even though they are a top three brand in their niche. One item that was considered is if there is a user intent issue with this phrase in US English and another item considered was on page optimization for the phrase on the homepage.

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Smarter Outreach: 3 Google Chrome Extensions to See Who is Behind Each Email

Today’s social networking world is overwhelming: You meet people online, talk to them, lose them for a month or two, then find them again. There should be better ways to keep up than trying to remember everything!

Luckily, apps are popping up that allows for smarter outreach, by putting a social dashboard inside your inbox. These three helpful tools work by giving you information on each contact, effectively establishing your own little social network.

If you have been looking for a more social way to interact with your contacts, or just don’t always remember names without faces attached, check these programs out.

1. FullContact for Gmail

FullContact for Gmail has been named the best alternative to Rapportive after the latter became Linkedin’s Sales Navigator (as discussed below, Sales Navigator is still a useful Google Chrome extension if you spend a lot of time on Linkedin). FullContact for Gmail is an awesome tool allowing you to see social profiles, job titles, tags, and notes for each of your Gmail contact. View recent tweets and company information without leaving your inbox.

If you subscribe to FullContact for Teams ($9.99 /Month with a free trial available), you can use the extension to share contacts with team members, add notes for individual contacts, apply collaborative tags.

The tool is one of the highest-sated extensions currently in Google Chrome web store.

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2. Discoverly

Integrate your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn emails inside of your inbox, and that is just a start. Discoverly is all about creating a more interactive email experience, not only adding that element to the email itself but also putting interactive live feeds within your range of sight.

They also have security icons, allowing you to confirm the source of emails and quickly catch phishers posing as official parties. It works with Gmail, Yahoo and Outbox email clients, and you can download it for free.

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3. Linkedin Sales Navigator for Gmail

Formerly known as Rapportive, this Gmail client is the first program I ever came across. Since it became Linkedin Sales Navigator, it has lost some of its initial appeal (the product had shifted away from supporting other social networks) but it still remains a useful extension, especially if you spend a lot of time and effort building your Linkedin connections. It also makes sense if you already have Sales Navigator subscription which is required in order to use this product.

This is a free tool, and you simply add it to Gmail. It can be customized, but the features are pretty straight forward.

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What Do Do With This Info?

Alright, so you can get all these social and demographic tidbits about your contacts. What exactly are you supposed to do with all this data once you have it? Knowing things like their social activity, general location and work info is great, because it lets you better target the conversation.

Do they live in the same city as you? Invite them out to lunch for some one on one networking. See that they are going to be attending a conference you are? Set up a meeting during it to get face time with people you normally wouldn’t. Just finding contacts at companies you want to be affiliated with can be a major benefit.

At the very least, these tools can be a great way to organize your contacts, a list that can get very long and hard to keep track of.

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Conclusion

Anyone can see a real change in their engagement and outreach with one of these tools. They are quick, easy to use, and (mostly) free. Not to mention a fun way to keep up with social media in your personal life.

Do you know of any good outreach tools for email clients? Have you been using one not on this list? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to include a link!

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A Desert Island Paradise … and a Great Podcasting Course

On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman showed off an incredibly easy (no, really) way to boost the power of your content, make it more audience-friendly, and even enhance your SEO. On Tuesday, things got a little silly when we asked our editorial team what their “desert island” copywriting technique would be. Come check them out — with
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The Showrunner Podcasting Course Is Open (For a Limited Time)

Yes, the course is open (temporarily). Yes, I want you to join our community. Yes, podcasting is an excellent marketing channel. But first, we need to answer the question burning inside your brain … Who is The Showrunner Podcasting Course for? Now, I’m going to be one of those guys and answer your question with
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What’s Your ‘Desert Island’ Copywriting Technique? Answers from Our Team

You’ve been shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, somewhere with blue skies and dazzling aquamarine waters. But after some time passes, no matter how big a fan of sushi you are, the appeal of your solitary paradise starts to wane. You’ve amassed a fine collection of rocks — suitable for crafting, let’s say, a copywriting message.
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One Ridiculously Easy Way to Enhance the Power of Your Blog Posts

The overall aim of your blog is to help your audience with the issues they struggle with while also educating them on what they need to know to do business with you. That’s too much responsibility for just one article, so each blog post you publish can be thought of as a piece of your
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Facebook Skewed User Data, Google on Use of Click Data in Rankings: Weekly Forum Update

This week brings us news that Facebook Ad audience  metrics may as accurate as some advertisers imagine.

Additionally, an attendee at an event in Canada gets confirmation that click data does play some role in organic search rankings.

Also, EU renews a possible filter as part of copyright proposal

Facebook Ad Metrics Questioned by Analyst

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Facebook Ad Metrics may not as accurate as some advertisers imagine. It was discovered that in some cases, Facebook data differs from census data. According to Facebooks ad buying website, it is stated that Facebook has a reach within the 18-24 demographic that is greater than the amount of teenagers and young adults in the United States.

Facebooks response was that, audience estimates do not match census date because they  “are designed to estimate how many people in a given area are eligible to see an ad a business might run. They are not designed to match population or census estimates”. Other factors that may be to blame also include self reporting of age and usage of location data.

Over on webmasterworld, NickMNS commented that, “The census data cannot be trusted, as it fails to include bots in its data.”

Google Search User Click Data Used in AI Models

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Over on threadwatch, news that google is indeed using click data to inform Google Brain search, as surfaced from recent event in Canada:

@rustybrick Nick Frost, Head Google Brain Toronto/Canada just confirmed pogosticking part of Google Brain search algo, I have it on tape https://t.co/pouRARaegm

— Mike Kilinski (@mikekilinski) September 7, 2017

As noted on SERoundtable, it is not clear on if Nick Frost was referring to the training of models or if live search results are directly impacted. Over on Webmaster World, points of view were split on if pogosticking is a ranking factor or not.

 

What happens in an internet minute in 2017?

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Shared over on thread watch is what happens in an internet minutes in 2017, including $751,522 spent online, 6 Million text messages sent and 452K tweets made.

Scientists, free software bods worried about EU copyright proposal

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Copyright has been the subject of legislative tug-a-war worldwide, but nowhere is this more pronounced than in the EU, where there is great pressure to get something past. A number of proposals were considered in the past, including charging Google for scraping content, a link tax, and applying a Youtube-like filter against copied content. As the Register reports, even though this has fallen out of the press, it seems that the upload filter, mentioned above, seems to be back on the table. Free Software Foundation Europe and Open Forum Europe, argue that the possibility of filter false-positives will hurt people to collaborate on platforms like github.

Webmasterworld member graeme_p, notes that a major concern is,” it kills fair dealing/fair use, because the finger print matching cannot tell if something qualifies for an exemption or not.”

Search News Central Relaunched

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Doc Sheldon has brought Dave Harry’s website back to life, along with co-owner Rob Jones. The reboot will include an impressive set of contributors, including Ann Smarty and Kim Krause Berg.

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