Facebook Unveils (Then Veils) New Custom Audience: Link Sharers!

There’s a new reason to start cranking out quality content, folks. Facebook appears to be close to launching a brand new targeting method, one that will allow advertisers to target users who share your on-site content on Facebook.

Yesterday, Facebook advertising wunderkind Jon Loomer blogged about his experience with this new custom audience. It appeared randomly and disappeared soon thereafter:

Normal Custom Audience Options – Engagement

Jon Loomer’s Options

This means advertisers who allow site visitors to share content on Facebook through the use of on-site plugins will have the ability to target an incredibly valuable audience: brand evangelists.

According to Loomer, the feature (in its current form, at least) allows for an audience duration of up to 30 days and lets advertisers create new audiences based on people who either share a specific URL, group of URLs, or, more generally, anything from your site to Facebook. The combination of duration and ability to target users based on exactly what they shared means you can create really granular audiences (which translate to better Lookalikes).

What does this mean for your digital strategy?

For small businesses with little content or relatively sparse engagement, this feature might not seem exciting. If you’re in this camp, get motivated: let the fact that the Link Sharing feature seems to have faded into the ether (for now!) serve as a kick in the pants. Start putting a content plan together and make sure you give your audience the ability to share the valuable, engaging, entertaining resources you create with their friends.

For those of you creating and sharing incredible stuff daily, this new custom audience represents a way for you to blend your content and paid social marketing strategies in a mutually beneficial way.

Benefits to Your Facebook Ad Campaign

This is pretty obvious: you’ve got a new way to serve ads to the people who value what you say or do enough to share it with their network of followers and friends.

By creating an ad set in which you target an audience of those who share your posts to Facebook, but negate previous converters, you can market to a subset of individuals who identify with your brand but haven’t pulled the trigger.

In a broader sense, while the link share audiences will be small, the ability to create Lookalikes of the people who promote specific posts could serve as a useful strategy for introducing new prospects to your brand.

***

The addition of Link Sharing within the “Engagements on Facebook” subset of custom audience parameters adds even more incentive to create amazing content. It also represents an intersection of two major marketing channels: on-site content creation and paid social. If Facebook is experimenting with new ways for advertisers to blend thought leadership and paid efforts, who knows what else could be on the horizon...

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How Analytics Is Transforming Customer Loyalty Programs

Customer loyalty programs are crucial.

The goal of loyalty initiatives is to engage, not pander more products to frequent buyers.

But how do you determine if your loyalty program is working well?

Use data to steer your customer loyalty program in the right direction.

McKinsey found that “executive teams that make extensive use of customer data analytics across all business decisions see a 126% profit improvement over companies that don’t.”

“By instituting a loyalty program, you not only improve customer appreciation of your business, but you also increase the chances that existing clients will share this joy with those close to them,” says Steve Olenski, a senior creative content strategist at Oracle Responsys.

Upgrade your loyalty program. Let’s explore how.

Focusing on Retention

One primary mission of loyalty programs is to increase customer retention. You want buyers to remain with your brand after they make a purchase.

For your business, higher retention means a steady flow of revenue. And it cuts down on your costs to constantly acquire new customers.

Therefore, your loyalty programs must be effective. They need to serve a real purpose for the consumer, not just your bottom line.

To provide the best customer experience, fuse data into your retention strategies. It will impact how your team approaches the buyer.

“Influencing customer loyalty in this way doesn’t require magic, it requires data – usually data that you already have but aren’t using to full advantage. Regardless of industry, most organizations today generate mountains of data,” writes Mike Flannagan, vice president and general manager of Cisco.

Uncover the correlation between customer characteristics and purchasing behavior. Assign your team to analyze the current data of your most valuable customers. And learn which characteristics these customers have in common and which traits are dissimilar.

Image Source

Consider data an ongoing process of observing, acting, and learning. Improve your loyalty programs by taking action on your insights. Measure success by monitoring your customer lifetime value, loyal customer rate, and redemption rate.

Start with retention. And let the data guide you to customer loyalty.

Targeted Product Recommendations

Research shows that “customers that are actively engaged with brands and their loyalty programs make 90% more frequent purchases, spend 60% more in each transaction and are five times more likely to choose the brand in the future.”

Sending targeted product recommendations is one way to keep customers engaged. Because if they are not receptive to certain products, consumers will feel more inclined to take their business elsewhere.

Integrate real-time purchase data with historical purchase data to make specific recommendations. For example, if a small business bought payroll software from you, their team might be interested in purchasing your series of on-demand accounting webinars.

“Consumer data must be analyzed to create highly targeted product recommendation offers. Analyze consumer data such as demographics, lifestyle, products purchased by category and type, frequency of purchase, and purchase value,” states Larisa Bedgood, director of marketing at DataMentors.

It’s key not to draw wild conclusions from one piece of data. Just because a Florida resident buys a winter coat doesn’t mean he wants to be flooded with similar recommendations. The consumer might have bought it as a gift for a friend living in Michigan.

So, gather multiple data points in order to make intelligent recommendations. You don’t want to frustrate loyal customers.

Your brand also can take a different approach. Use social proof to your advantage. If consumers are hesitant about particular products, remind them that other people are buying the product, too.

Home Depot uses this tactic by displaying a list of bestselling inventory. It persuades the customer to join the crowd.

Image Source

Sift through your analysis reports. Uncover the best product recommendations for your customers.

Timely Promotions

For customers, loyalty takes effort. They receive lots of promotional ads everyday to try products from other brands. Appreciating your consumer’s urge to resist the hype is important.

Mobile phone carriers lead the way in baiting consumers to switch their services. AT&T offers cell phone users up to $650 in credit just to say bye to T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon.

To keep their loyalty, customers will hold your team accountable. They expect timely promotions that not only fit their buying habits but also their lifestyles.

At the end of the day, you want to deliver the right offer at the right time. This will increase the likelihood of the promotion redemption.

Monitor the sales data to learn when promotional codes are redeemed. Do your consumers use promotions more often in the morning? Right after a sales announcement? Or during summer months?

“By creating a time-sensitive sales promotion and having a good grasp on your target customer demographic, you’ll be able to incentivize the right actions, get them to respond, and grow your business in the process,” states Humayun Khan, former content marketer at Shopify.

Moreover, analyze your reports to discover the best product promotions. A timely discount matched with the wrong product won’t be useful for the consumer or your company.

Segment your customers to offer relevant discounts for multiple channels—in-store, online, and mobile. Every loyalty member doesn’t have to receive the same offer.

For instance, Starbucks offers its Gold members the opportunity to earn double stars. The coffee company surprises its loyal consumers on a different day each month. This technique increases the excitement and prepares customers to spend more money on a particular day.

Don’t wait for your competitor to offer your customers a good deal. Start creating your own timely promotions.

Personalized Rewards

Everyone likes to be rewarded. It signifies that you’ve done something commendable. And incentives compel you to continue the rewarded behavior.

Recognize the value of your customer’s actions. Because that’s what you’re rewarding.

You can offer perks based on monetary transactions, shopping frequency, or even survey responses. It’s all about showing appreciation for consumers’ actions.

But it’s your team’s job to appropriately reward customers. Don’t expect people to buy $1000 worth of services in one month if your highest service retails at $10.

In addition, manage your loyalty members’ expectations. They shouldn’t expect your brand to give away free Beyonce tickets every day.

Personalized rewards ensure you’re giving your customers what they desire. It also shows that you are truly invested in the customer experience.

Send a simple email survey asking consumers what type of incentives excite them. Or conduct social media listening to identify useful prizes that can make your customers’ lives better.

Dick’s Sporting Goods sends emails asking customers for their opinions. The company uses the information to improve its inventory and customer service.

Remember to focus on maintaining positive relationships with your consumers. Because that’s the ultimate goal for loyalty initiatives.

You want people to feel comfortable with your brand. Aim to offer rewards that bridge the gap between the consumer-brand relationship.

“A significant aspect of customer loyalty comes down to your likability. People will almost always remain committed to a brand if they believe they’ve developed a genuine and mutually beneficial relationship,” says Entrepreneur contributor Dave Thompson.

Tailor your rewards to satisfy your customers. Offer them something special.

Analyze Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty can lead to retention. That’s why your team must use data to drive your loyalty programs.

Give consumers targeted product recommendations they can’t resist. Send promotions at the right time. And personalize rewards so the customer feels part of the brand.

Look at the data. Improve customer loyalty programs.

Did you know? With Kissmetrics, you can find your most valuable customer segments. Analyze customer behavior to understand where they’re coming from and how to acquire more of your best customers.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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6 Ways To Grow Your Email List that Prove You Don’t Need a Website

Growing an email list isn’t just for those with visually captivating, multi-page websites. It’s for anyone who wants to use email to engage their audience and grow their business.

And considering that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter, you definitely don’t want to put your list growth efforts on hold until your website is ready (or, if you don’t plan on building a website at all).

Thankfully, there are a number of simple approaches you can take in the next hour to help you get moving – and they don’t require a huge chunk of time or a team of design experts. To kick-start your email marketing efforts, let’s take a look at 6 quick ways you can promote your sign up form.

1. Set up a landing page.

Don’t have a website? Not a problem. Using a landing page platform, such as Unbounce, you can create a simple landing page that hosts your sign up form and provides basic information about your business.

One benefit of using a platform like Unbounce is that you get access to pre-designed templates, which means it shouldn’t take longer than an hour to set up a page. To give you an idea of what you’d have to work with, here’s an example of one of their templates:

As you can see from this template, you have a place to brand the page with your business name, inform visitors of your business value, feature a sign up form, and add additional relevant information as you see fit. And even though it’s not visible in the example, you’ll have access to an editor that allows you to change some of the visual elements, such as color scheme, to design it to fit your brand.

If you take this approach, you’ll want to make sure the page includes:

• Your business name
• A logo (if you have one)
• Brief description about what your business does
• Ways to contact you (phone number, email address)
• Sign up form
• Social media links (if applicable)

To optimize email sign ups, I’d also encourage you to include a description of your emails and the value they bring to subscribers. The more you highlight what subscribers will get out of it, the more likely they’ll want to sign up if it resonates with them.

If you have any incentives to offer (ebook, checklist, coupon), be sure to also mention that here as well.

How you can use this page: Since this page has additional information about your business, it’s ideal for individuals who may not be familiar with your brand. You can share the link with prospects at conferences, your social channels, paid ads and more.

2. Create a single-page website.

If you plan on creating a more robust website in the future, you don’t have to wait until it’s finished to start growing your email list. Instead, you can get started by publishing one simple page.

By doing so, you can begin earning organic traffic from people searching for services or products your business offers. You can also direct your existing customers to the page so they can learn more about you and get on your email list.

Using a website building platform like Wix or Weebly, you can select a template design and drag and drop different elements to create a super simple website (no coding required!). Some platforms allow you to publish or hide pages as you see fit, so you can have your homepage with your sign up form live as you continue developing the rest of your website.

Again, you’ll want to at least include your business name and logo (if you have one), information about what your business does, contact information and your sign up form.

How you can use this page: Since this page will have information about your business, you can use this link just as you would with the landing page we previously covered – you can share the link with customers at your store, on your business cards, in social channels and more.

3. Use a web hosted sign up form.

If a landing page or single page website has more bells and whistles than you need, you can take an even simpler approach by using a web hosted sign up form provided by your email service provider.

With AWeber, for example, customers have the option to share this type of form directly from their account. After creating a sign up form, they can publish their form in three different ways: 1) By copying and pasting the code onto their website, 2) Sending the code to their web designer to add it to the website, or 3) Sharing a link that directs to a page (hosted by AWeber) with their form.

The design you create using our sign up form generator will automatically carry over to the page, which means you can customize the content and design to your liking, like so:

Again, be sure to set clear expectations as to what your emails contain.

How you can use this page: This page is perfect if you’re looking for a no-frills web page to promote email sign ups. If you’re publishing social posts that encourage people to subscribe to your email list, for example, you can link to this page so they can easily sign up after they click through. If you have an email newsletter you want clients to subscribe to, you can also feature this link in your email signature.

4. Share your broadcast archive page.

Want to give future subscribers a sneak peek into the emails you send? Simply send a link to your broadcast archive page to show the value of being on your list.

AWeber users have the option to save the one-time emails they send to subscribers. When they do, the emails are stored on a page that can be shared with others:

In addition to being able to view every email you’ve ever sent, visitors to the page also have the option to subscribe to your email list:

 

So if you want to let your emails speak for themselves, the broadcast archive page is a great way to show that off.

How you can use this page: I recommend sharing this link just as you might share the link to your web hosted sign up form (via social posts, in an email, etc.). However, keep in mind that while you’re letting your emails speak for themselves, you’re limited as to the call-to-action and context you can provide to convince someone to sign up to your email list. As a result, this is ideal for those who already have some familiarity with your business, and wouldn’t need an additional explanation as to who you are. 

5. Promote your email list on social media.

If you primarily interact with customers on social media platforms, there are plenty of ways you can promote your email list. While your strategy will depend on the social platform you use, you’ll at least be able to add a link to a web-hosted sign up form or landing page in your social profiles or posts.

You can also explore the unique lead generation opportunities different social platforms offer to help you cross-promote your email list.

If you have a large Facebook following, for example, you can run paid ads that direct people to subscribe to your list. You can also use their Call-to-Action feature on your business page cover photo and link to your hosted sign up form:

6. Leverage offline networking with mobile sign up form apps.

If you often interact with potential customers during conferences, networking events or meet ups, chances are you’ll need a simple way to get them to sign up to your email list.

With a mobile sign up form app, such as Atom, people can easily subscribe to your email list in less than a minute directly from your mobile device:

The benefit of an app like this is that it provides an easy user experience for someone who’s signing up to your list in person. And since it functions just like a sign up form you’d have on your web page, you can include information about your email list and customize the design. The best part of all? You don’t need access to the internet in order for people to subscribe.

How you can use this page: While any event where you’re face-to-face with customers and prospects is ideal for using a mobile sign up form app, you can also set this up at your brick and mortar store. It even comes in handy if you strike up a conversation with someone in line at the grocery store!

Start growing your email list today!

When you get creative with how you think about building an engaged community of subscribers, it becomes easier to see how you can get started with just the basics. And hopefully now you have a few new tricks up your sleeve to make that happen.

Are you ready to start growing your list using one of this tips above? Or do you have a strategy of your own that wasn’t mentioned in this post? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

The post 6 Ways To Grow Your Email List that Prove You Don’t Need a Website appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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New AdWords Data, Hot Social Trends, and Other Top Stories from September

I spent entirely too much time deciding on how to open this post. Should I try to cram a Dune gag about pumpkin spice in there somewhere? A little dated, maybe. How about a poetic observation of autumn’s natural beauty? Probably not. Maybe something about the highly civilized, not-at-all-distasteful U.S. presidential election?

Hell no.

 

I’m sure I’m not alone in my shock that it’s nearly October already. While September may have flown by in the blink of a proverbial eye, it was a very busy month here at the WordStream blog. Today, for your reading pleasure, we’ll be taking a look at the top stories from September, so kick back, sip your pumpkin spice latte (sorry), and enjoy the most popular posts of the month.

1. NEW in AdWords: Demographic Targeting for Search Campaigns

When Google announced that the kind of demographic targeting options that display advertisers have enjoyed for some time would be coming to search campaigns in AdWords, marketers were understandably excited. Check out everything you need to know about these awesome new targeting options in our most popular post of September, courtesy of Mark Irvine.

2. 5 Insights from Analyzing Half a Billion Dollars in Ad Spend [New Data]

Half a billion dollars is a lot of money. So much, in fact, that you could buy New York City’s most expensive condo – a four-floor, 11,000 square-foot quadruplex at 220 Central Park South worth $250 million – twice.

 

Half a billion dollars is also how much advertising spend WordStream has analyzed with its AdWords Performance Grader (which recently celebrated its 1 millionth report!), so Larry Kim dove deep into the data to find out exactly what that ad spend could tell us.

Packed with original data, visuals, and research, this is essential reading for AdWords advertisers.

3. 10 Dos and Don’ts for Sitelink Extensions

In Erin’s words, sitelink extensions are “the king of all AdWords extensions.” They’re so powerful, that in Google’s estimation, they can lift click-through rates by as much as 10-20% – and even as much as 50% on branded searches.

However, as powerful and versatile as sitelink extensions can be, there are several things that you, the advertiser, have to do in order to see that kind of improvement. Find out exactly what you should – and shouldn’t – be doing with sitelink extensions in this post by Erin.

4. The Complete, Digestible Guide to AdWords Budgets

AdWords budgeting certainly isn’t the sexiest topic in PPC, but it’s among the most important. The more effectively you plan and execute upon your AdWords budget, the greater the potential return. However, knowing precisely where and how to get started with AdWords budgeting can be intimidating.

 

Fear not, loyal reader, as Allen Finn has got your back. In this comprehensive but accessible guide, Allen walks you through everything you need to know about how to plan and maintain a solid AdWords budget.

5. 5 Big New Social Media Marketing Trends

Keeping up with what’s going on in social media can be a full-time job, and even experienced digital marketers often find themselves overwhelmed trying to keep up. This can result in missed opportunities to engage with your audiences in new ways, and in our fifth-most popular post of September, Margot examines five of the latest and hottest trends in social media.

6. 7 Things I Still Hate About LinkedIn Ads

We all had a good giggle when, shortly after writing about how much he hated LinkedIn Ads more than a year ago, Larry received an invitation to visit LinkedIn to chat. Despite suspecting the ominous undertones of the invitation (not really), Larry did indeed visit LinkedIn to talk about the social network’s ad platform.

 

Unfortunately, Larry still doesn’t like LinkedIn Ads. In this follow-up post, Larry explains exactly what he thinks about the service and highlights the persistent shortcomings of LinkedIn Ads as an ad platform – shortcomings that could be transformed into lucrative opportunities if they were implemented.

Presumably Larry will be heading off to beautiful Mountain View, California, again at some point in the near future.

7. 7 PPC Trends to Stay Ahead of the Curve in 2016 & Beyond

It’s never too soon to start thinking about how the (frequent, constant, overwhelming) changes in PPC could affect your campaigns, especially as we move into fall. In this guest post, Nancy Kapoor explores seven PPC trends you should be aware of to keep up with the competition for the rest of this year and into 2017.

8. Bing Expanded Text Ads: 5 Things You Need to Know

As many PPC experts predicted, Bing Ads announced that Expanded Text Ads would be coming to Bing in the coming months. While this is great news for Bing Ads advertisers, it’s also an opportunity to get started on the right foot and use Expanded Text Ads in Bing correctly.

 

In this post, Erin highlights five crucial elements of Bing Ads’ ETAs, and how their introduction could affect your campaigns.

9. AdWords Extends Timeline for Transition to Expanded Text Ads

By now, it’s clear that Expanded Text Ads are among the most powerful tools at advertisers’ disposal to dramatically lift click-through rates and improve the performance of their ads. That said, many advertisers are confused about what the transition to this exciting new ad format could mean for existing campaigns. To put your mind at ease, Mark explains exactly what the extension of the transition to ETAs in AdWords means for you, as well as what you can expect during the rollout.

10. Mobile Advertising Statistics & Trends [Infographic]

Did you know that clicks from mobile devices account for more than half of all ad clicks? In our final post of this month’s round-up, Mary offers up a fascinating infographic about the current state of mobile advertising, packed with juicy stats and figures that prove – in case you hadn’t heard by now – mobile is the way forward in PPC. 

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Creating Your Company Using $0

If someone told you that your startup could cost you nothing to get off the ground, you would think it was a joke. It may sound impossible, but it truly isn’t with careful planning, a pinch of talent, and a […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Creating Your Company Using $0

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Written by Stephen Moyers, SPINX Digital Agency

The post Creating Your Company Using $0 appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.

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Optimizing for RankBrain... Should We Do It? (Is It Even Possible?) - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

If you've been stressing over how to optimize your SEO for RankBrain, there's good news: you can't. Not in the traditional sense of the word, at least. Unlike the classic algorithms we're used to, RankBrain is a query interpretation model. It's a horse of a different color, and as such, it requires a different way of thinking than we've had to use in the past. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand tackles the question of what RankBrain actually is and whether SEOs should (or can) optimize for it.

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

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about RankBrain SEO and RankBrain in general. So Google released this algorithm or component of their algorithm a while ago, but there have been questions for a long time about: Can people actually do RankBrain SEO? Is that even a thing? Is it possible to optimize specifically for this RankBrain algorithm?

I'll talk today a little bit about how RankBrain works just so we have a broad overview and we're all on the same page about it. Google has continued to release more and more information through interviews and comments about what the system does. There are some things that potentially shift in our SEO strategies and tactics around it, but I'll show why optimizing for RankBrain is probably the wrong way to frame it.

What does RankBrain actually do?

So what is it that RankBrain actually does? A query comes in to Google. Historically, classically Google would use an algorithm, probably the same algorithm, at least they've said sort of the same algorithm across the board historically to figure out which pages and sites to show. There are a bunch of different ranking inputs, which we've talked about many times here on Whiteboard Friday.

But if you search for this query today, what Google is saying is with RankBrain, they're going to take any query that comes in and RankBrain is essentially going to be a query interpretation model. It's going to look at the words in that query. It's potentially going to look at things possibly like location or personalization or other things. We're not entirely sure whether RankBrain uses those, but it certainly could. It interprets these queries, and then it's going to try and determine the intent behind the query and make the ranking signals that are applied to the results appropriate to that actual query.

So here's what that means. If you search today — I did this search on my mobile device, I did it on my desktop device — for "best Netflix shows" or "best shows on Netflix" or "What are good Netflix shows," "good Netflix shows," "what to watch on Netflix," notice a pattern here? All five of these searches are essentially asking for the very same thing. We might quibble and say "what to watch on Netflix" could be more movie-centric than shows, which could be more TV or episodic series-centric. That's okay. But these five are essentially, " What should I watch on Netflix?"

Now, RankBrain is going to help Google understand that each of these queries, despite the fact that they use slightly different words and phrasing or completely different words, with the exception of Netflix, that they should all be answered by the same content or same kinds of content. That's the part where Google, where RankBrain is determining the searcher intent. Then, Google is going to use RankBrain to basically say, "Now, what signals are right for me, Google, to enhance or to push down for these particular queries?"

Signals

So we're going to be super simplistic, hyper-simplistic and imagine that Google has this realm of just a few signals, and for this particular query or set of queries, any of these, that...

• Keyword matching is not that important. So minus that, not super important here.
• Link diversity, neither here nor there.
• Anchor text, it doesn't matter too much, neither here nor there.
• Freshness, very, very important.

Why is freshness so important? Well, because Google has seen patterns before, and if you show shows from Netflix that were on the service a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, you are no longer relevant. It doesn't matter if you have lots of good links, lots of diversity, lots of anchor text, lots of great keyword matching. If you are not fresh, you are not showing searchers what they want, and therefore Google doesn't want to display you. In fact, the number one result for all of these was published, I think, six or seven days ago, as of the filming of this Whiteboard Friday. Not particularly surprising, right? Freshness is super important for this query.

• Domain authority, that is somewhat important. Google doesn't want to get too spammed by low-quality domains even if they are publishing fresh content.
• Engagement, very, very important signal here. That indicates to Google whether searchers are being satisfied by these particular results.

This is a high-engagement query too. So on low-engagement queries, where people are looking for a very simple, quick answer, you expect engagement not to be that big. But for something in-depth, like "What should I watch on Netflix," you expect people are going to go, they're going to engage with that content significantly. Maybe they're going to watch a trailer or some videos. Maybe they're going to browse through a list of 50 things. High engagement, hopefully.

• Related topics, Google is definitely looking for the right words and phrases.

If you, for example, are talking about the best shows on Netflix and everyone is talking about how hot — I haven't actually seen it — "Stranger Things" is, which is a TV program on Netflix that is very much in the public eye right now, well, if you don't have that on your best show list, Google probably does not want to display you. So that's an important related topic or a concept or a word vector, whatever it is.

• Content depth, that's also important here. Google expects a long list, a fairly substantive page of content, not just a short, "Here are 10 items," and no details about them.

As a result of interpreting the query, using these signals in these proportions, these five were basically the top five or six for every single one of those queries. So Google is essentially saying, "Hey, it doesn't matter if you have perfect keyword targeting and tons of link diversity and anchor text. The signals that are more important here are these ones, and we can interpret that all of these queries essentially have the same intent behind them. Therefore, this is who we're going to rank."

So, in essence, RankBrain is helping Google determine what signals to use in the algorithm or how to weight those signals, because there's a ton of signals that they can choose from. RankBrain is helping them weight them, and they're helping them interpret the query and the searcher intent.

How should SEOs respond?

Does that actually change how we do SEO? A little bit. A little bit. What it doesn't do, though, is it does not say there is a specific way to do SEO for RankBrain itself. Because RankBrain is, yes, helping Google select signals and prioritize them, you can't actually optimize for RankBrain itself. You can optimize for these signals, and you might say, "Hey, I know that, in my world, these signals are much more important than these signals," or the reverse. For a lot of commercial, old-school queries, keyword matching and link diversity and anchor text are still very, very important. I'm not discounting those. What I'm saying is you can't do SEO for RankBrain specifically or not in the classic way that we've been trained to do SEO for a particular algorithm. This is kind of different.

That said, there are some ways SEOs should respond.

1. If you have not already killed the concept, the idea of one keyword, one page, you should kill it now. In fact, you should have killed it a long time ago, because Hummingbird really put this to bed way back in the day. But if you're still doing that, RankBrain does that even more. It's even more saying, "Hey, you know what? Condense all of these. For all of these queries you should not have one URL and another URL and another URL and another URL. You should have one page targeting all of them, targeting all the intents that are like this." When you do your keyword research and your big matrix of keyword-to-content mapping, that's how you should be optimizing there.
2. It's no longer the case, as it was probably five, six years ago, that one set of fixed inputs no longer governs every single query. Because of this weighting system, some queries are going to demand signals in different proportion to other ones. Sometimes you're going to need fresh content. Sometimes you need very in-depth content. Sometimes you need high engagement. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you will need tons of links with anchor text. Sometimes you will not. Sometimes you need high authority to rank for something. Sometimes you don't. So that's a different model.
   
3. The reputation that you get as a website, a domain earns a reputation around particular types of signals. That could be because you're publishing lots of fresh content or because you get lots of diverse links or because you have very high engagement or you have very low engagement in terms of you answer things very quickly, but you have a lot of diverse information and topics on that, like a Dictionary.com or an Answers.com, somebody like that where it's quick, drive-by visits, you answer the searcher's query and then they're gone. That's a fine model. But you need to match your SEO focus, your brand of the type of SEO and the type of signals that you hit to the queries that you care about most. You should be establishing that over time and building that out.

So RankBrain, yes, it might shift a little bit of our strategic focus, but no, it's not a classic algorithm that we do SEO against, like a Panda or a Penguin. How do I optimize to avoid Panda hitting me? How do I optimize to avoid Penguin hitting me? How do I optimize for Hummingbird so that my keywords match the query intent? Those are very different from RankBrain, which has this interpretation model.

So, with that, I look forward to hearing about your experiences with RankBrain. I look forward to hearing about what you might be changing since RankBrain came out a couple of years ago, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

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Data is Beautiful: 7 Data Visualization Tools for Digital Marketers

Did you know that, according to IBM, more than 2.5 million terabytes of data is generated every single day? To put this into perspective, one terabyte of data can contain:

• 17,000 hours of music
• 310,000 photos
• More than 132,000 650-page novels
• Almost 86 million full-page Microsoft Word documents

 

Now multiply any one of these by 2.5 million. In the case of images, 2.5 million terabytes of data storage could contain around 775 BILLION images. To put this into perspective, there are approximately 250 billion images on Facebook – meaning that more than three times the total number of images on Facebook’s worth of data is created every single day.

It’s easy to see why so many companies struggle with Big Data.

One problem with the sheer volume of data being produced on a daily basis is that, generally speaking, enormous numbers like the ones above tend to just slide right off our collective consciousness. It’s difficult to really understand what’s going on with these figures, because we aren’t wired to handle all this information.

That’s why data visualization tools are so powerful.

In today’s post, I’ll be taking a look at seven data visualization tools that can help you make sense of the data you’re working with. Whether you need to prove results to a client or streamline your internal workflows, these data visualization tools can help you get the job done.

In the spirit of freedom of information (free as in beer), I’ve tried to include as many free, open-source data visualization tools as possible. It’s also worth noting that for the purposes of this post, we’re focusing on true data visualization tools, as opposed to programs that help users build infographics and the like.

First, let’s take a quick look at what data visualization actually is, and the types of visualizations you can create.

What Is Data Visualization?

Data visualization (often abbreviated to data viz) is the principle of taking a data set and visualizing it in a way that can be easily understood. This can something as simple as a bar chart generated from an Excel file, or as complex as an interactive multimedia experience.

 

Newspapers such as The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune have utilized what is known as “data journalism” for years. Today, in newsrooms around the world, teams of data scientists and developers work together to create stunning visualizations of data that make the news more impactful than ever before.

One of the best examples of how powerful data visualization can be when covering a major news story is how The New York Times covered Facebook’s IPO in 2012.

 

The New York Times wanted to visually demonstrate the significance of Facebook’s IPO at that time, so the newspaper developed this fully interactive data visualization to drive this point home.

Readers can hover their mouse cursor over each individual company’s data visualized in the chart, which shows each company’s value at the time of their respective IPOs, plus or negative percentages for first-day changes in stock value, and the value of their stock three years after their IPO.

As the story develops, you can follow along the interactive technology IPO historical timeline. Perhaps most importantly, although this data visualization supported news coverage, it also serves as an excellent example of how a densely complex topic can be simplified and even enriched by this kind of interactive content – a valuable lesson for marketers in niche (or “boring”) verticals hoping to persuade others with their data.

A Short Note on Data Set Quality

Virtually all data visualization tools support data import via .CSV (comma-separated value) files, which are typically exported from a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. However, the quality and integrity of your data play a large role in the success of your visualization, and can have a significant impact on how long a visualization will take to produce.

 

Connecting to a data set in Tableau Public – the point at which the quality
of your data set becomes crucially important

The “cleaner” your data is, the more effectively you’ll be able to work with it. If your .CSV file is riddled with poor formatting, missing fields, or other problems, it may be harder (or even impossible) to achieve the results you want. Newcomers to data visualization may mistake such errors for a limitation of the program they’re using, when in fact it’s an issue with the imported data.

Although data set quality and cleaning up .CSV files are beyond the scope of this post, check out this excellent tutorial from the University of California, Berkeley’s Advanced Media Institute.

Data Visualization Tool #1: Tableau

Tableau is one of the most widely used data visualization tools on the market. Available in five versions (Desktop, Server, Online, Mobile, and free-to-use Tableau Public), Tableau is among the most intuitive and user-friendly of today’s data visualization tools. For the sake of this example, we’ll be focusing on Tableau Public.

 

Image via Tableau Public

What makes Tableau remarkable is the sheer diversity of tools within the application. Even the free Public version of the software offers an incredible variety of options and settings. You can create dozens of different types of visualizations, from scatter plots and heat maps to bubble maps and candlestick charts.

The image above is a screenshot of an interactive visualization created by Brit Cava, which plots Airbnb pricing and availability information across the city of San Francisco, in real time. It also shows acceptance rate data, price ranges by neighborhood, and other fascinating data.

It’s relatively easy to get started with Tableau Public but there is a learning curve. Fortunately, the official supporting documentation is awesome. Virtually every question you could think of is answered there, and there are also sample data sets available for download to help you get started.

Data Visualization Tool #2: TimelineJS

Mapping a series of events as they appear in time can be one of the most effective visual means to make connections between issues, track progress, or demonstrate patterns. TimelineJS is a powerful free tool developed by Northwestern University’s Knight Lab that helps you create engaging, timeline-based visuals to show off your data.

 

An example TimelineJS visual, via timeline.knightlab.com

TimelineJS supports a wide range of media formats, including YouTube URLs, Google Map data, SoundCloud embeds, and Wikipedia articles. The results are amazing, and every element on-screen is interactive, meaning users can scroll along the timeline at their own pace, or click on specific media elements, such as a YouTube video or SoundCloud audio file. The example timeline above chronicles the milestone accomplishments of women in the field of computer science, a fascinating interactive journey with a wide range of supporting media. 

Overall, TimelineJS is an awesome tool. Perhaps best of all for beginners is that you don’t need to know how to code in order to create beautiful timelines.

Data Visualization Tool #3: Google Charts

Google Charts is an entire set of data visualization tools that supports a wide range of data formats and visual output.

 

Google Charts works excellently with geolocation data, but you can also output your data in a wide range of formats, including histograms, sankey diagrams, trendlines, and waterfall charts.

As powerful as Google Charts can be, it’s not for the complete initiate. There’s some coding involved to get the most out of the tools, but the supporting documentation is very comprehensive. That said, I’d recommend Google Charts to those of you who’ve worked with data before, have a working knowledge of JavaScript, and are looking for a robust set of tools.

Data Visualization Tool #4: Plotly

Remember earlier when we talked about data journalism? About how some of the most sophisticated data visualizations were, in fact, developed by maybe dozens of people? This is one of the biggest barriers to effective, collaborative data visualization work. Plotly aims to change that.

 

The interface of Plotly’s free web-based chart tool

Plotly is a web-based data visualization platform that allows users to create everything from simple charts to complex graphs directly in their web browser. The interface of the free tool (as seen above) is clean, intuitive, and surprisingly fully featured for a free web application. It’s worth noting that some chart types, such as box plots, histograms, and satellite maps are only available to subscribers.

Data Visualization Tool #5: RAW

RAW describes itself as, “The missing link between spreadsheets and vector graphics.”

Available completely free under LGPL license, RAW is an open web app built with the D3.js JavaScript library, and was developed by Italian research lab DensityDesign. It allows users to create stylish data visualizations quickly and easily, with no coding or technical expertise necessary.

To start using RAW, simply copy/paste the relevant data directly from your spreadsheet program into RAW, choose a data visualization type, and set your parameters using a drag-and-drop interface. Each individual parameter or visual metric can be adjusted, and the interface is clean and intuitive, making it ideal for beginners.

Data Visualization Tool #6: Charted

Another data visualization tool that makes creating beautiful visuals effortless is Charted. Developed by the folks at the Product Science team at Medium, Charted couldn’t be easier to use. Either enter the URL of an online spreadsheet or upload your .CSV data manually and Charted will do everything else.

 

Although Charted is certainly visually minimal, don’t mistake its simple elegance for limited functionality. Charted is a robust tool that can handle plenty of data, so don’t be afraid to push the boundaries. It is, however, definitely one of the most accessible, lightweight data visualization tools out there.

Charted is quick, easy, beautiful, and perhaps best of all, completely free and open-source under the MIT license. Give it a shot if you need results fast.

Data Visualization Tool #7: Leaflet

Although some of the tools we’ve looked at have excellent built-in support for the creation of interactive map visualizations, we haven’t examined any of the dozens of map-building data viz tools available out there. Leaflet, developed by Vladimir Agafonkin, is one of the best.

An interactive chloropleth map of population density across the U.S., built in Leaflet using a
publicly available data set from the U.S. Census Bureau and GeoJSON data

Leaflet is a very lightweight JavaScript library (just 33 kilobytes!) that helps users build beautiful, elegant interactive maps. Leaflet boasts a wide range of features, such as tile and vector layer support, image overlays and GeoJSON data integration, pure CSS3 popups and controls for effortless visual customization, smart polygonal rendering, and even built-in hardware acceleration for Leaflet on mobile devices.

As an open-source project, the source code is freely available on GitHub for anyone to fork and improve upon, and Leaflet works on all major desktop and mobile operating systems and browsers. The API documentation is lovingly well-maintained by the project developers, and there are plenty of third-party plugins that offer even more functionality.

 

A star map generated in Leaflet using data from open-source video game Star Control 2,
generated using coordinate reference system (CRS) data

It's worth noting that although Leaflet’s tutorials and supporting documentation are excellent, you will need a working knowledge of JavaScript libraries to work with the program. That said, it’s an easy library to work with (no external dependencies needed) and the Leaflet community is awesome.

If you need to build a lightweight interactive map as part of your next visualization, you owe it to yourself to try Leaflet.

In Data We Trust

Marketers rely on data to make crucial decisions about their campaigns, secure buy-in from stakeholders, and to track the progress – and effectiveness – of projects over time. By using data visualization tools, you can bring your data to life, making it more persuasive, more compelling, and more engaging.

Whether you’re a content marketer or a PPC specialist, hopefully you’ll find some interesting ways to use the tools above. 

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