Google RankBrain is a machine-learning system integrated within a Google algorithm update called Hummingbird. This Google system is able to better serve search results to users based on their intent, rather than just keyword matching.
It’s hard to realize how complex and sophisticated is the Google search algorithm just because it works so marvelously well that it seems natural it does so. Yet before we got there, it took almost two decades. And that revolution was evident in 2015.
In fact, that year futurist Ray Kurzweil arrived at Google, with one mission: make search engines understand human language. That is how he put it:
My mission at Google is to develop natural language understanding with a team and in collaboration with other researchers at Google. Search has moved beyond just finding keywords, but it still doesn’t read all these billions of web pages and book pages for semantic content. If you write a blog post, you’ve got something to say, you’re not just creating words and synonyms. We’d like the computers to actually pick up on that semantic meaning. If that happens, and I believe that it’s feasible, people could ask more complex questions. Source: Wired.com
From that quest, Google updated its algorithm in 2013, with Hummingbird and later on in 2015, AI (in the form of Natural Language Processing) became a major factor for search with RankBrain.
In other words, a few years back it didn’t make any sense to ask questions to Google because it didn’t know what to do with them. Today the scenario has changed substantially. We can test that right now:
When I type in Google’s search box “moon distance,” that is what I get:
You may think this is pure keyword matching, but it is not.
In fact, if I ask “How far is the moon?”
I get the same answer:
Google’s ability to understand language goes further. If I search “moon distance in meters” that is what I get:
In short, Google knows I’m referring to the same thing and gives me the proper answer.
What does that mean for SEO? Is traditional SEO dead?
The old SEO says that if you want to be successful at ranking your site you got to have backlinks, keywords and optimize for those. Those basic tactics still work. Indeed, the backbone of the web got built upon backlinks.
In fact, in a Q&A with Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, when asked what factors, together with RankBrain affected Google’s rankings, he replied:
I can tell you what they are. It is content. And it’s links pointing to your site. (source: searchengineland.com)
Therefore, it was confirmed that the three major factors in Google’s rankings are:
1 & 2: Links, Content (hard to say what comes first among the two)
3: RankBrain
How do you make your SEOstrategy effective in an era where NLP-powered search algorithms can read human language independently from keywords?
First, this process is more like a transition. Therefore, even though keywords still matter they are becoming obsolete. When is this happening? Hard to say!
That will probably also depend on how fast voice search will take over, which will speed up the process as people will start interacting in natural language rather than keywords with those digital assistants.
What can you do then?
As made clear by Google itself there are a few things that still help it understand web pages. One of them is structured data. In fact, not by chance Google has inserted structured data in its Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guideby making clear that:
Proper structured data in your news, blog, and sports article page can enhance your appearance in Google Search results. Enhanced features include entry in a top stories carousel and rich result features such as headline text and larger-than-thumbnail images.
First, you can’t think any more of SEO as single and isolated “tricks” or tactics. That is something that great SEO experts already knew. But now this needs to be clear to everyone looking to implement advanced SEO strategies today.
Second, with structured data; SEO, PASO and editorial strategy become the same thing. If you start building your content
Third, you need an entity-based content model based built upon a sort of barbel strategy. On the one hand, short, conversational and voice-ready content. On the other hand, long, detailed content. The short content will be used to address specific questions, to make it ready for voice search.
In short, that is how you make your SEOstrategy holistic. You also need a rigorous process of SEO Hacking if you want your site to gain traction, quickly.
How does SEO change in this context?
We saw how Google changed in the last years. What was relevant just in 2015, it isn’t so anymore. Of course, old strategies might still work in the short term, but they’re slowly losing relevance. This means that a winning SEO strategy has to be more holistic and it has to take into account an entity-based content model built upon three pillars:
long-form content for the top of the funnel
short-form, conversational content for the bottom of the funnel
structured data to make that content better understood by search engines and voice-search ready
Those things together can help you reach the top of Google’s search but most importantly get ready for voice search.
This kind of approach – the entity-based content model – has been developed together with the WordLift team for whom I’ve been involved as a Business Developer. WordLift is a software that uses AI in the form of NLP to enhance on-page SEO and assist SEO experts to transition toward a future where RankBrain became a primary factor for Google’s search algorithm.
As of 2018 structured data and open linked data are two crucial factors that Google is taking into account to rank web pages. Not only that. In fact, nowadays things are changing, and Google’s search algorithm is getting smarter and smarter. For that matter, there are three crucial aspects of search to take into account:
Google’s featured snippet
Google’s Knowledge panel
Voice search
From a superficial look, those might seem like three separated aspects of SEO. However, that is not the case. In fact, with a proper Semantic SEO strategy, you can target them all.
Before we get to more advanced strategies, let’s cover some basics.
SEO copywriting basics
Many who write online believe that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something too complicated to handle. That is why they give up before even figuring out what is SEO and how it works. However, I want to show you a practical way to use a few free and simple tools to use right now to master the basics of SEO copywriting.
Enter Google Autocomplete and Google related searches
Unknowingly we’re all search engine experts. By that, I don’t mean to say that we all need to be going around telling others what to do. Instead, that Google is a website we use on a daily basis. Therefore, we know how to deal with it. For instance, you might have noticed that when you type something in the search bar, you get suggestions:
Those suggestions you get is called Google autocomplete. That feature is quite useful for a few reasons. First, it helps you complete the search by suggesting you valuable things. Second, it saves you time. Third, it also gives you new ideas about things you might not have thought about.
That is from the user standpoint. What about who writes content? Well for those who write content Google autocomplete feature is even more useful. In fact, those suggestions are queries or questions that users frequently ask Google. That is why they are getting featured as autocompleted results.
Also, Google also shows related searches at the bottom of the page:
Those two tools are all you need to pick a topic, title and the right keywords for your next copy. In fact, that is Big Data Google is giving you about your target audience. That is also all you need to understand the basics of SEO copywriting.
It is critical to writing about something you’re passionate about. Yet if you’re writing for business, you need to find an audience first. How do you see that? Simple, look at Google’s autocomplete. In fact, those are frequently asked questions, which means there is an audience for that specific topic.
In fact, we all use Google mostly to solve practical issues. Therefore, with the autocomplete, you can figure out whether there is an audience for the article you’re about to write.
For instance, let’s say you’re writing a piece about SEO for Google. Of course, Google is the most used search engine; we’re so used to it that many users still believe that is the only search engine out there. Also, “why” is a powerful question to be used as a hook for your next piece. Thus, you type into Google search box something like “Why Google” and see what the autocomplete will suggest:
The first suggestion “Why is Google the best search engine” seems excellent as the topic of your next piece.
Let your readers pick the right title
Journalists know the title is a crucial component of the whole piece. Therefore, you might want to spend time understanding what title to use for an article. One kind of claim that works pretty well for business content is that title that addresses a specific pain point of the users. Where do people show their pain? On social media, for sure they don’t. Once again, Google is the place, and the autocomplete is the answer.
In the previous paragraph, we used the autocomplete to see whether the topic we want to write about has an audience. Now we want to figure out whether the title is good enough. Google told us through the autocomplete that people often ask “Why is Google the best search engine.” All you have to do now is to check if this title has potential. For instance, you could use the Headline Analyzer to check this out:
The Headline Analyzer gave a score of 72 out of 100. That is pretty good considering I’ve never had a score higher than 76. I wouldn’t focus too much on the number, but I believe from 70 up the headline shows great potential.
We have the title; now we need the right keywords. How do you do that?
Target the right keywords with Google related searches
Most people that write online fear SEO, because they believe that is too hard, or that they need to know sophisticated search engine optimization techniques. That doesn’t make sense at all. First, if you think of SEO is about gaming Google’s algorithm, you got it wrong. SEO is a set of insights that you have about what people look for through Google. In short, you can uncover data about your potential readers, and customers with the utmost simplicity.
In fact, SEO doesn’t have to be complex at all. For instance, now that we picked a topic and a title, we can find some keywords users are typing into Google related to the topic we’re about to write. How? Simply by using Google’s suggestions.
For instance, I start by typing the autosuggestion that helped me pick the topic:
Once Google gives me the result page I can scroll to the bottom of the page to see the related searches Google gives me:
This will be a good list of long-tail keywords, which are merely questions users type into Google search box, which is as popular as the one we just typed in. Use that list like I’m doing below:
what makes google so popular
what has made the google search engine so successful
best search engines
internet search engines
search engine definition
bing search engines
why google is good for us
types of search engines
You could pick a few of those and include that in your copy. Of course, you need to do it in a way that doesn’t make your writing worse. In other words, in your text among the questions that you pose there might be “Is Google the best search engine?” or “Why Google is good for us?”
These questions even though usually have a way lower volume compared to simple keywords like “SEO” they are also more specific and address an issue the user is having at that moment. Therefore, those are transactions.
That is how you get questions users frequently ask, to include in your copy to address real doubts your target customers might have. That’s it.
Key takeaway on SEO copywriting
Search engine optimization is not complicated. That is how we perceive it though. Of course, there are basic to advanced tactics. The advanced tactics are for those people that gained experience in the SEO industry for years. However, if you’re trying to put down a simple piece, which copy is optimized and at the same time useful to your potential users you can do that in four simple steps:
make sure there is an audience for the topic you’re writing about with Google autocomplete
pick the right title by looking at questions users frequently ask Google
find out relevant and related long-tail keywords/ queries users are asking to Google
include those keywords organically in your text, always focusing on the user needs so that the copy is accessible to readers
An SEO case study
A little caveat: the purpose of this article is to show you the findings of my experiments. I try to test things, not in the sense of gathering data but rather to do simple experiments with a low probability of succeeding. When one of those does succeed; for me the signal is clear. There is something in the experiment that Google liked. I can’t say exactly why and what. But that doesn’t matter. As long as you follow the steps I’ve taken chances are you’ll also get similar results.
I intended to target a long-tail keyword with low search volume and competition and see if I could trigger a featured snippet. Once and if the featured snippet would have been triggered. I’d wait a few days and then test whether that also triggered a voice search from my Google assistant. That is what I did, and it worked!
Of course, thinking about a fixed percentage might be deceiving as Google continuously updates its search algorithm. Also, voice search is so new that it’s hard to say how it will evolve in the next months.
Yet as of now a featured snippet is a powerful way to get into voice search, that is also why I like a strategy based on targeting for the Google’s featured snippet.
In a recent post I explained how I triggered the featured snippet and what steps I did take to make that happen:
Above you can see a summary and breakdown of five critical aspects.
Google’s search algorithm is smart enough to split text and images: how to optimize for both image and text in the featured snippet
In my editorial strategy, you’ll see that in some cases I divide up the title of an article in two parts. The first part is usually a question. In fact, the purpose of that question is to target a featured snippet.
Recently I had written an article on DuckDuckGo business model:
I was targeting the question: “How does DuckDuckGo make money?”
However, this one was way more competitive as the featured snippet was already taken by Quora (as you might imagine Google trusts Quora way more than a small blog like mine). However, not all is lost.
Thus, I had already an answer to that question on Quora. So I used the infographic I had produced for my article, and I added it to the same question on Quora.
My reasoning was simple. First, the question that was ranking first on Quora and that Google was using as featured snippet didn’t have any image inside. So why not try to see whether I could trigger a featured snippet by signaling Google that my answer was more comprehensive as it comprised the infographic.
Second, by positioning my content on Quora, I was also trying to signal to Google that the same content coming from my blog could be trusted. In short, I was trying to use Quora as a vehicle to bring credibility toward my blog. Something interesting happened.
The day after I had repurposed my content over Quora. When I typed on Google the question “how does DuckDuckGo make money?” it triggered the old featured snippet.
This time though, while the text was coming from the old answer; the image was coming from my answer (which includes a graphics I had inserted inside). Even though I didn’t manage to steal the featured snippet; I still managed to position my image inside the featured snippet.
In short, I believe since the text answer from Quora didn’t provide any graphics. The search algorithms pulled it out from mine.
In other words, Google’s search algorithm is smart enough to split the featured snippet in half: text and image.
Remember the purpose of the featured snippet is to give a direct, short answer to users for questions. Further, the goal is to provide relevant content that can quickly answer, be it text or an image.
That is also why at times the search algorithm might get the text from a site and the image from another site. Therefore, when you’re planning to trigger a snippet, you have to make sure to do a consistent strategy for both text and image. Both have to be prone to be “snipped!”
Do you want to skip the line? Target the featured snippet!
In 2017 ahrefs.com analyzed 2 million featured snippets. From the analysis it turned out that a featured snippet didn’t always come from the first position on Google’s SERP:
From the data above you can see that also search results that are at the 4th or 5th position have chances of getting the featured snippet. This is important because if you do get it, then you’ll steal traffic from the first position.
As pointed out by the same study, when a search result is ranked first, and there is no featured snippet, it gets 26% of the traffic for the overall query. When instead, there is a featured snippet on that page the first result only reaches 19.6% of traffic. In other words, the featured snippet steals traffic from the first positions.
At times a featured snippet might be triggered by the last results on the first page, just like it happened to me with this query:
Even though my result was in the 7th position in the SERP (therefore according to ahrefs.com study it only had 0.7% of chances of getting snipped) it still triggered a featured snippet.
Featured snippet vs. knowledge panel: Who’s the winner?
Another SEO experiment I had done was based on personal branding. In short, I was trying to assess whether I could trigger a featured snippet on the query “who’s Gennaro Cuofano?”
Thus, control my brand through Google. Therefore, I set up a page for the scope and used a strategy that I explained in this article. This SEO experiment is important because usually a featured snippet of a person is triggered either when there is a Wikipedia page that supports it. Or the site from where it’s coming from has high authority. Yet I wanted to see whether I could do that with my small blog based on the quality of data I provided to Google.
It did trigger it:
Thus, the featured snippet showed up. Also, something interesting happened! A knowledge panel that before wasn’t there was triggered:
In this particular case that is pulling up information about me taken from an author page, I have on Amazon.
When people search for a business on Google, they may see information about that business in a box that appears to the right of their search results. The information in the box, called the Knowledge Panel, can help customers discover and contact your business.
How do you get one?
Like search results, whether or not a business’s information will appear in the Knowledge Panel is determined by a variety of factors. Relevance, distance, and the prominence of the business all contribute to its standing in local search results. Verifying a business does not guarantee that it will appear in the Knowledge Panel.
In short, it seemed like the work I’ve done for the featured snippet (Schema and Open Linked Data might have been the most significant contributors) had also triggered the knowledge panel.
However, as of the time of this writing, the knowledge panel has eaten the featured snippet:
Like in a poker game where there are winning hands. If I had to compare featured snippet to knowledge panel; I’d say the featured snippet is like having a four of a kind. Instead, the knowledge panel is like having a straight flush!
In fact, today if you look for “Gennaro Cuofano” you’ll only see that box on the right side of the search box (that is the knowledge panel).
As we’ve seen the knowledge panel has a different purpose than the featured snippet; while the featured snippet aim is to answer a specific question. The knowledge panel gives relevant information about a business.
The featured snippet is way more fluid and based on rankings; the knowledge is based on the ability of the information you’ve provided to enter Google’s knowledge vault. While there is no sure way to trigger a knowledge panel; getting a featured snippet might facilitate it. When the knowledge panel cannibalizes the featured snippet that is a good sign – I argue – as this implies that Google might be trusting more your data.
As pointed out by Dr. Peter J. Meyers on Moz, over time featured snippets get cannibalized by knowledge panels:
It’s likely that Google is trying to standardize answers for common terms, and perhaps they were seeing quality or consistency issues in Featured Snippets. In some cases, like “HDMI cables”, Featured Snippets were often coming from top e-commerce sites, which are trying to sell products. These aren’t always a good fit for unbiased definitions. Its also likely that Google would like to beef up the Knowledge Graph and rely less, where possible, on outside sites for answers.
Therefore, over time Google’s knowledge panels might consolidate around websites like Wikipedia, Amazon and so on.
What’s going on with Google?
A debate is going on about what’s happening with Google. In fact, Google introduced a featured snippet with no SERP:
In other words, for some queries, Google prefers to give a result in the form of a featured snippet. If users want to see the other search results they have to voluntarily click on “show all results.” This seems to be an important change as for the first time Google is hiding its results page.
On the one hand, this isn’t surprising as those queries (like knowing what’s the time) have a clear intent. In short, users just want to get a straight answer. In this case, Google is acting just like Wolfram Alpha. In addition, as pointed out by Bill Slawski this isn’t new as it was since 2005 that Google started to work on “Just the Facts, Fast”:
Yet now the question comes naturally: Will Google cannibalize content from the SERP? Is going getting into the content business?
Well, I thought what a better way to solve the impasse than to ask Google itself. If you think about it – I argue – it’s all about its business model. If the business model fails, then the company doesn’t exist anymore.
So I asked Google itself, what is its business model:
The answer is clear: “Googe is a one-stop shop for helping you find things.”
Now, “one-stop shop” means that users can get all they need right there, on that blank page. Thinking about how Google has evolved in the last years. There is no doubt that Google needed third-party websites – it still needs them – to offer relevant content to its users, besides paid ads.
Imagine a web filtered through Google where all you got was a bunch of paid ads. Who would have found that interesting at all? Instead, when Google introduced its paid network for publishers (AdSense), this allowed any site to monetize their content quickly.
As anyone – that deals with Google – knows, the search engine from Mountain View loves content. This spurred the birth of a content industry on the web, which main aim was to feed as much web pages to Google. The deal – although implicit – seemed to work quite well. Google got “quality content” from third websites. It allowed them to monetize it; while those websites remained the intermediaries between Google’s users and Google itself.
This deal made sense for anyone. In fact, Google didn’t have enough power to produce content itself. However, starting 2012 Google has introduced a set of initiatives (Knowledge Graphs, Hummingbird, and RankBrain just to mention a few) that made it way smarter than it was. Those initiatives allowed Google to gather content around the web, converts it into data, which can be easily manipulated to create new data. That data, in turn, can become content, served to its users.
Thus, if Google can produce that content itself? Would it still make sense to show search results coming from third-party websites?
The question remains open. It’s too early and too hard to say what will the future hold. There are a few considerations to make though. First, if we look at AdSense compared to AdWords. There is no doubt that the former help fuel the latter. However, it is true that Google shares most of its revenues with AdSense partners. That is also why AdSense has such lower margins compared to AdWords.
Thinking business, if I were Google, I’d try to focus on the part of the business that has high margins. Second, Google has no control over third-party websites part of AdSense. As a company that wants to be a one-stop shop, it also makes sense to have as much control over its content. Thirds, today for Google might be cheaper to index the visible web and give back search results. But what if it becomes cheaper to create its own content? Imagine how much resources would Google save in terms of crawling budgets, and spamming controls.
Another little caveat: featured snippets are volatile as they depend on ranking and other aspects that Google might take into account from time to time. Thus, some snippets that appeared at the time of this writing might have disappeared. However, the overall strategy proved to be successful, at least in the short run. In fact, the objective isn’t just the featured snippet but the knowledge panel, which is usually way more stable over time. Yet, one and the other might often be connected if in you use a Semantic SEO strategy based on structured data and open linked data.
Numbers and Results
Let’s talk numbers now!
As you can see even though the number of total impressions deteriorated by 18% (from 31,170 impressions down to 25,525). On the other hand, if we look at total clicks, they went up by 6% (from 521 to 554) in the last 28 days. In addition, the average CTR (click through rate) has increased from 1.52% to 2.17% (this is a staggering 42% increase). Also, the average position of my keywords on the SERP increased from 47.8 up to 45.9.
If we look at the numbers in absolute terms, they might seem small. Yet, if we take into account the % increase that is not bad at all! Imagine this kind of metrics improvement for a large site.
If you look at the users for this month (in blue) from organic traffic alone, compared to the previous month (in orange) that is clear that the slope is upward. I also noticed that some of that traffic was coming from specific questions:
On those keywords the volume is low. Yet as of now they seem to have a good click-through rate. Of course, numbers are still too small to draw any conclusion. However, It will be fun to see how traffic coming from those keywords will evolve over time.
Personal branding and SEO
Just a few months back I was curious to understand how Google algorithm was changing in light of the transition toward voice search. That is why together with WordLift Co-founder Andrea Volpini we undertook an SEO experiment to see how I could use SEO for personal branding. In short, I wanted to know whether I could trigger a featured snippet based on the question “who is Gennaro Cuofano?”
For me, it was an SEO experiment, but of course, now that it worked it is also a good business card to have. Why? First, I was able to have it based on a web page of my site. That rarely happens. In fact, most times when it comes to people, Google only offers a featured snippet if you have a Wikipedia page or an authority website.
In short, Wikipedia has such an authority in Google’s algorithm eyes that it will take it for good and offer it as a snippet. Even so, if you’re a person, unless you’re a public person there is no way Google is going to use that information in a featured snippet. At least that is what I thought before of this experiment!
For the sake of this discussion I’m also going to mention how I used WordLift (the company I currently work for) to hack my personal branding.
The Featured Snippet Framework
You need a few steps to improve your chances of having the snippet:
If you want to set up your page to make it to the featured snippet you want to make sure to have it set up as a biographical age. Ideally about 58-60 words and avoid storytelling. To have an idea on how to set it up you might want to look at Wikipedia pages for other people. For instance that is how I set that up:
Gennaro is a digital entrepreneur specialized in growing online businesses. He launched and created FourWeekMBA.com. He holds a Law Master’s Degree and an International MBA from LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego. In San Diego, he worked as a financial analyst for a real estate investment firm. Now Gennaro is a Business Developer for WordLift.
You might notice how I avoided story-telling, kept it short and biographical. That leads to the second point.
Target a specific long tail keyword
To make the page optimized for the featured snippet make sure to target a particular question. For instance, on my short page, I targeted the question: “who is Gennaro Cuofano?”
That will make it easier for Google to understand that you’re targeting that specific question, thus improving your chances to get the snippet.
Use structured data
Google Search works hard to understand the content of a page. You can help us by providing explicit clues about the meaning of a page to Google by including structured data on the page. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content; for example, on a recipe page, what are the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the calories, and so on.
Although Google makes a case for using structured data for recipes, we now know that structured data is crucial also to rank any other kind of page. In other words, with structured data, you do Google’s little crawlers job easier to index and rank the page easier.
How can you implement structured data? With a vocabulary called Schema.org.
What is Schema.org? As explained on their website:
Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.
and it continues:
Founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex, Schema.org vocabularies are developed by an opencommunity process, using thepublic-schemaorg@w3.org mailing list and throughGitHub.
In short, Schema is the most efficient way to translate the content on that page as data that Google can quickly process. That is why I used WordLift to create a page and set that up as a schema type “person.” In fact, that is a particular property of Schema.org that allows Google to understand what the web page is about.
I then used an additional field to link my page to all the other pages about me on the web.
With this setting, you will create an entity, or a defined object now existing on the web. It is almost like Google finally knew I existed.
Bring link juice to that page
To make that page more relevant connect it to other key pages of your site. For instance, if you have a few articles that are ranking pretty well use them to create internal linking toward your page.
Bring authority to that page
To make sure that page becomes authoritative for Google you need a bit of backlink. How do you get them? One effective way is to use that page as a bio to link when writing guest posts for other sites.
Key takeaway
Getting a featured snippet isn’t only about getting leads but also building your brand through Google. For how unconventional that might seem Google is the ultimate source of authority. Therefore, that is the best business card you could ever present to anyone.
Free SEO tools
I’ve been dealing on a daily basis with advanced SEO strategies as part of the WordLift team, in the last year and a half. In addition, I use SEO Hacking as a process to gain traction over larger publishing outlets.
A few months back I was looking for some quick and free Google Chrome extensions I could use to have a quick glance and an overview of any website.
As I talk to dozens of people on a weekly basis to consult on SEO related issues I’ve developed my swiss knife for SEO. This comprises mainly five Google Chrome extensions that I’ve been using on a daily basis for the last years.
Over the dozens of extensions I’ve been trying out, those have stuck with me, and I believe that if you are an SEO professional or on the road to be one, those extensions might help you out. Of course, those extensions are meant to give you a quick glance; an overview of any website you’re looking at.
Those are not meant as a substitute for a proper analysis. In fact, for a more in-depth analysis, you’ll need to check your data and cross-reference it. However, for a quick glance, those tools are quite useful.
If you’ve been following how Google has been evolving in the last years. You’re aware that since 2012 it has been building up a so-called knowledge graph. In other words, Google is organizing the information on the web to have it become knowledge. This knowledge graph is built on top of triples, which are simple phrases (that comprise a subject-verb-object). Those triples are organized in data, which is called structured data. Just as humans use language; nowadays search engine use structured data to talk to each other.
For instance, in the case above, you can see how with WordLift I automated the process by adding critical information about my website and the web page in the form of JSON-LD, a format that Google likes to understand web pages. Why? Because this format isn’t affecting the performance of the page and it is allowing Google bots (the crawlers that go on a web page to extract critical information to index a web page) to have rich data about the web page.
Wappalyzer Chrome Extension
If you’re like me, the first question that comes to mind when on a website is, what CMS is this website using? The fastest way to understand that if to use Wappalyzer:
The app shows you right away with a small icon on your Chrome Browser what CMS the website is using. Also, if you click on it, you’ll also have a more in-depth analysis of plugins and tools used by that website. This is by far the fastest way to assess what CMS any site is using once you land on them.
Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension
This Chrome Extension is a goldmine. It allows me to have constant access to keywords data from the Google page. This is why I like it so much. That is why I suggest you download keywords everywhere:
You will see the data related to a keyword you type in the Google search box. You’ll also get a box on the right side that says “people also search for” which shows you all the related keywords with volume, CPC, and competition. The data seems to be pretty reliable, and I’ve been using it in the last months with great pleasure.
SimilarWeb Chrome Extension
When checking out a website, it is critical to understand its marketing mix. SimilarWeb Google Chrome Extension helps me with that! I always remind people to whom I suggest to use SimilarWeb that the data is an estimate and in no way to take it as a 100% reliable data:
In fact, the quality of data from SimilarWeb depends really on several factors. In general, it is a great tool to have a quick glance at any website. In my opinion, the app is getting better and getter.
Here the same caveat I did for the SimilarWeb app. It is an estimate which is not supposed to substitute a rigorous analysis but to have a quick glance of any website, in a matter of instants!
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy where the marketing and sales departments come together to create personalized buying experiences for high-value accounts. Account-based marketing is a business-to-business (B2B) approach in which marketing and sales teams work together to target high-value accounts and turn them into customers.
Ad Ops – also known as Digital Ad Operations – refers to systems and processes that support digital advertisements’ delivery and management. The concept describes any process that helps a marketing team manage, run, or optimize ad campaigns, making them an integrating part of the business operations.
Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.
Affinity marketing involves a partnership between two or more businesses to sell more products. Note that this is a mutually beneficial arrangement where one brand can extend its reach and enhance its credibility in association with the other.
As the name suggests, ambush marketing raises awareness for brands at events in a covert and unexpected fashion. Ambush marketing takes many forms, one common element, the brand advertising their products or services has not paid for the right to do so. Thus, the business doing the ambushing attempts to capitalize on the efforts made by the business sponsoring the event.
Affiliate marketing describes the process whereby an affiliate earns a commission for selling the products of another person or company. Here, the affiliate is simply an individual who is motivated to promote a particular product through incentivization. The business whose product is being promoted will gain in terms of sales and marketing from affiliates.
The bullseye framework is a simple method that enables you to prioritize the marketing channels that will make your company gain traction. The main logic of the bullseye framework is to find the marketing channels that work and prioritize them.
Brand building is the set of activities that help companies to build an identity that can be recognized by its audience. Thus, it works as a mechanism of identification through core values that signal trust and that help build long-term relationships between the brand and its key stakeholders.
According to inbound marketing platform HubSpot, brand dilution occurs “when a company’s brand equity diminishes due to an unsuccessful brand extension, which is a new product the company develops in an industry that they don’t have any market share in.” Brand dilution, therefore, occurs when a brand decreases in value after the company releases a product that does not align with its vision, mission, or skillset.
The brand essence wheel is a templated approach businesses can use to better understand their brand. The brand essence wheel has obvious implications for external brand strategy. However, it is equally important in simplifying brand strategy for employees without a strong marketing background. Although many variations of the brand essence wheel exist, a comprehensive wheel incorporates information from five categories: attributes, benefits, values, personality, brand essence.
The brand equity is the premium that a customer is willing to pay for a product that has all the objective characteristics of existing alternatives, thus, making it different in terms of perception. The premium on seemingly equal products and quality is attributable to its brand equity.
Brand positioning is about creating a mental real estate in the mind of the target market. If successful, brand positioning allows a business to gain a competitive advantage. And it also works as a switching cost in favor of the brand. Consumers recognizing a brand might be less prone to switch to another brand.
Business storytelling is a critical part of developing a business model. Indeed, the way you frame the story of your organization will influence its brand in the long-term. That’s because your brand story is tied to your brand identity, and it enables people to identify with a company.
Content marketing is one of the most powerful commercial activities which focuses on leveraging content production (text, audio, video, or other formats) to attract a targeted audience. Content marketing focuses on building a strong brand, but also to convert part of that targeted audience into potential customers.
One of the first mentions of customer lifetime value was in the 1988 book Database Marketing: Strategy and Implementation written by Robert Shaw and Merlin Stone. Customer lifetime value (CLV) represents the value of a customer to a company over a period of time. It represents a critical business metric, especially for SaaS or recurring revenue-based businesses.
Customer segmentation is a marketing method that divides the customers in sub-groups, that share similar characteristics. Thus, product, marketing and engineering teams can center the strategy from go-to-market to product development and communication around each sub-group. Customer segments can be broken down is several ways, such as demographics, geography, psychographics and more.
Developer marketing encompasses tactics designed to grow awareness and adopt software tools, solutions, and SaaS platforms. Developer marketing has become the standard among software companies with a platform component, where developers can build applications on top of the core software or open software. Therefore, engaging developer communities has become a key element of marketing for many digital businesses.
A digital channel is a marketing channel, part of a distribution strategy, helping an organization to reach its potential customers via electronic means. There are several digital marketing channels, usually divided into organic and paid channels. Some organic channels are SEO, SMO, email marketing. And some paid channels comprise SEM, SMM, and display advertising.
Field marketing is a general term that encompasses face-to-face marketing activities carried out in the field. These activities may include street promotions, conferences, sales, and various forms of experiential marketing. Field marketing, therefore, refers to any marketing activity that is performed in the field.
interaction with a brand until they become a paid customer and beyond. Funnel marketing is modeled after the marketing funnel, a concept that tells the company how it should market to consumers based on their position in the funnel itself. The notion of a customer embarking on a journey when interacting with a brand was first proposed by Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898. Funnel marketing typically considers three stages of a non-linear marketing funnel. These are top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU), and bottom of the funnel (BOFU). Particular marketing strategies at each stage are adapted to the level of familiarity the consumer has with a brand.
A go-to-market strategy represents how companies market their new products to reach target customers in a scalable and repeatable way. It starts with how new products/services get developed to how these organizations target potential customers (via sales and marketing models) to enable their value proposition to be delivered to create a competitive advantage.
The term “greenwashing” was first coined by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986 at a time when most consumers received their news from television, radio, and print media. Some companies took advantage of limited public access to information by portraying themselves as environmental stewards – even when their actions proved otherwise. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing practice where a company makes unsubstantiated claims about an environmentally-friendly product or service.
Grassroots marketing involves a brand creating highly targeted content for a particular niche or audience. When an organization engages in grassroots marketing, it focuses on a small group of people with the hope that its marketing message is shared with a progressively larger audience.
Growth marketing is a process of rapid experimentation, which in a way has to be “scientific” by keeping in mind that it is used by startups to grow, quickly. Thus, the “scientific” here is not meant in the academic sense. Growth marketing is expected to unlock growth, quickly and with an often limited budget.
Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy that seeks to utilize low-cost and sometimes unconventional tactics that are high impact. First coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book of the same title, guerrilla marketing works best on existing customers who are familiar with a brand or product and its particular characteristics.
Hunger marketing is a marketing strategy focused on manipulating consumer emotions. By bringing products to market with an attractive price point and restricted supply, consumers have a stronger desire to make a purchase.
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is an approach used by businesses to coordinate and brand their communication strategies. Integrated marketing communication takes separate marketing functions and combines them into one, interconnected approach with a core brand message that is consistent across various channels. These encompass owned, earned, and paid media. Integrated marketing communication has been used to great effect by companies such as Snapchat, Snickers, and Domino’s.
Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy designed to attract customers to a brand with content and experiences that they derive value from. Inbound marketing utilizes blogs, events, SEO, and social media to create brand awareness and attract targeted consumers. By attracting or “drawing in” a targeted audience, inbound marketing differs from outbound marketing which actively pushes a brand onto consumers who may have no interest in what is being offered.
Integrated marketing describes the process of delivering consistent and relevant content to a target audience across all marketing channels. It is a cohesive, unified, and immersive marketing strategy that is cost-effective and relies on brand identity and storytelling to amplify the brand to a wider and wider audience.
The marketing mix is a term to describe the multi-faceted approach to a complete and effective marketing plan. Traditionally, this plan included the four Ps of marketing: price, product, promotion, and place. But the exact makeup of a marketing mix has undergone various changes in response to new technologies and ways of thinking. Additions to the four Ps include physical evidence, people, process, and even politics.
Marketing myopia is the nearsighted focus on selling goods and services at the expense of consumer needs. Marketing myopia was coined by Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt in 1960. Originally, Levitt described the concept in the context of organizations in high-growth industries that become complacent in their belief that such industries never fail.
Marketing personas give businesses a general overview of key segments of their target audience and how these segments interact with their brand. Marketing personas are based on the data of an ideal, fictional customer whose characteristics, needs, and motivations are representative of a broader market segment.
Meme marketing is any marketing strategy that uses memes to promote a brand. The term “meme” itself was popularized by author Richard Dawkins over 50 years later in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In the book, Dawkins described how ideas evolved and were shared across different cultures. The internet has enabled this exchange to occur at an exponential rate, with the first modern memes emerging in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Microtargeting is a marketing strategy that utilizes consumer demographic data to identify the interests of a very specific group of individuals. Like most marketing strategies, the goal of microtargeting is to positively influence consumer behavior.
Multichannel marketing executes a marketing strategy across multiple platforms to reach as many consumers as possible. Here, a platform may refer to product packaging, word-of-mouth advertising, mobile apps, email, websites, or promotional events, and all the other channels that can help amplify the brand to reach as many consumers as possible.
Multi-level marketing (MLM), otherwise known as network or referral marketing, is a strategy in which businesses sell their products through person-to-person sales. When consumers join MLM programs, they act as distributors. Distributors make money by selling the product directly to other consumers. They earn a small percentage of sales from those that they recruit to do the same – often referred to as their “downline”.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of the ability of a product or service to attract word-of-mouth advertising. NPS is a crucial part of any marketing strategy since attracting and then retaining customers means they are more likely to recommend a business to others.
Neuromarketing information is collected by measuring brain activity related to specific brain functions using sophisticated and expensive technology such as MRI machines. Some businesses also choose to make inferences of neurological responses by analyzing biometric and heart-rate data. Neuromarketing is the domain of large companies with similarly large budgets or subsidies. These include Frito-Lay, Google, and The Weather Channel.
Newsjacking as a marketing strategy was popularised by David Meerman Scott in his book Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage. Newsjacking describes the practice of aligning a brand with a current event to generate media attention and increase brand exposure.
A microniche is a subset of potential customers within a niche. In the era of dominating digital super-platforms, identifying a microniche can kick off the strategy of digital businesses to prevent competition against large platforms. As the microniche becomes a niche, then a market, scale becomes an option.
We can define pull and push marketing from the perspective of the target audience or customers. In push marketing, as the name suggests, you’re promoting a product so that consumers can see it. In a pull strategy, consumers might look for your product or service drawn by its brand.
Real-time marketing is as exactly as it sounds. It involves in-the-moment marketing to customers across any channel based on how that customer is interacting with the brand.
Relationship marketing involves businesses and their brands forming long-term relationships with customers. The focus of relationship marketing is to increase customer loyalty and engagement through high-quality products and services. It differs from short-term processes focused solely on customer acquisition and individual sales.
Reverse marketing describes any marketing strategy that encourages consumers to seek out a product or company on their own. This approach differs from a traditional marketing strategy where marketers seek out the consumer.
Remarketing involves the creation of personalized and targeted ads for consumers who have already visited a company’s website. The process works in this way: as users visit a brand’s website, they are tagged with cookies that follow the users, and as they land on advertising platforms where retargeting is an option (like social media platforms) they get served ads based on their navigation.
Sensory marketing describes any marketing campaign designed to appeal to the five human senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are enabling marketers to design fun, interactive, and immersive sensory marketing brand experiences. Long term, businesses must develop sensory marketing campaigns that are relevant and effective in eCommerce.
Services marketing originated as a separate field of study during the 1980s. Researchers realized that the unique characteristics of services required different marketing strategies to those used in the promotion of physical goods. Services marketing is a specialized branch of marketing that promotes the intangible benefits delivered by a company to create customer value.
Sustainable marketing describes how a business will invest in social and environmental initiatives as part of its marketing strategy. Also known as green marketing, it is often used to counteract public criticism around wastage, misleading advertising, and poor quality or unsafe products.
Word-of-mouth marketing is a marketing strategy skewed toward offering a great experience to existing customers and incentivizing them to share it with other potential customers. That is one of the most effective forms of marketing as it enables a company to gain traction based on existing customers’ referrals. When repeat customers become a key enabler for the brand this is one of the best organic and sustainable growth marketing strategies.
360 marketing is a marketing campaign that utilizes all available mediums, channels, and consumer touchpoints. 360 marketing requires the business to maintain a consistent presence across multiple online and offline channels. This ensures it does not miss potentially lucrative customer segments. By its very nature, 360 marketing describes any number of different marketing strategies. However, a broad and holistic marketing strategy should incorporate a website, SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, public relations, in-store relations, and traditional forms of advertising such as television.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
