Daily SEO Tips

Learn more about why as a federal agency you need a coordinated YouTube strategy to ensure that your videos are found by US citizens.

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There are signs that Apple may soon launch a search engine to compete against Google Search

Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today.

SEOs have been noticing increased activity from AppleBot (Apple’s crawler) and in July the company updated information about its crawler as well as published information about its ranking factors. It also seems that Apple search is possibly not using Google (or Bing) anymore for its results.

Here are the details:

In July of this year, Apple updated its search ranking factors in its help documentation. It includes the following:

• Aggregated user engagement with search results
• Relevancy and matching of search terms to webpage topics and content
• Number and quality of links from other pages on the web
• User location-based signals (approximate data)
• Web Page design characteristics

It did not say which factor has more weight in its rankings. And note that Apple is mentioning that it’s watching CTR and pogo-sticking when it ranks items. Apple also uses the content and topic of your pages for ranking, it looks at links, user location, and even the design characteristics of the page.

It also published information about Applebot – how to verify the traffic via its user-agent, and expanded robots.txt rules. They also highlighted that they don’t just crawl HTML but can also render pages with JavaScript

Back in June, Google was still powering Siri’s web results. At times it was using Bing, But now in Spotlight Search on IoS and IPadOS 14 beta shows up as Siri Suggestions – allowing users to go to sites bypassing Google search. This new move is probably due to European regulatory pressure that would force Apple to use its own search engine. 

If you’re curious about Apple’s search focus, Bill Slawski has saved parts of a machine learning job description at Apple – focused on building out its search offering. Bill’s deconstruction of the Apple search patent is definitely worth a read.

So your tip for today is the following – if you’re on a CDN where you have to whitelist your bot IPs and user agents, I would update that for Applebot.

Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

When do you need local SEO?

Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today.

Let’s talk through today about when you might need to invest in a local SEO plan for you or your client and what that would even mean.

If you’ve been working on SEO for a site that does NOT have any local offices or a brick and mortar presence where customers can interact with you or your client, you might not be aware of what local SEO is and if you need it.

Ultimately, if your audience is looking for your topics and adding a local identifier (like whoopie pies in Camden, Maine) or “whoopie pies near me,” then you need a local SEO plan.

And unfortunately, it will just mean more work for you- as these are signs you need a local SEO plan.  Local search queries often show map results pulled from a Google My Business listing, so you’re going to want to claim that for every locality.

But it’s more complicated than that. There are some big data aggregators where you’re doing to walk to make sure that you’re Name, Address, and Phone number are accurate because those listings populate much of the rest of the Internet, and a punctuation difference could mean that the various search engines don’t understand your local business or local office.

You’re going to want to do an audit and fix every mention of your name, address, and phone number and claim your listings in all of the major directories used for mobile and voice queries for local businesses, which includes things like Bing and Apple Maps and Yelp.

And ranking? Well then, beyond relevant content, you’re going to need local links — think like from your local church or community bulletin board.

It’s all frankly a lot of work. There are excellent resources out there for you to learn more like Moz Local, BrightLocal, and WhiteSpark, and if you can find a video from any search show with Greg Gifford, I would highly recommend watching as he’s one of the rock stars in the local SEO space.

So that’s your tip for today – when you might need to consider a local SEO plan.

Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

A few tips for digital marketing discovery for new food brands

Do you need to create a digital marketing strategy for discovery of a new food brand? If so this tip is for you.

If you’re working on launching a strategy for discovery of a new brand – your work is less about SEO for your brand terms and more about optimizing for discovery when your target audience is browsing – as they won’t yet know your brand’s name. 

Trying to be “found” with that kind of online behavior brings to the forefront different online platforms that excel at that type of discovery. The three big players are Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.

Pinterest

It turns out that 97% of all Pinterest searches are non-branded (facilitating brand discovery), and 70% of weekly Pinners discover new products on Pinterest (that they were not proactively searching for). (Source)

Not surprisingly, the global pandemic has accelerated Pinterest’s role in the grocery decision-making process. Starting in March 2020, Pinterest saw an increase in online grocery activity with the number of online purchases Pinterest drove to grocery retailers jumped nearly 70% over February, and that trend accelerated in April.

Here’s more from the study:

“Before the pandemic, two in three Pinners shopped for groceries online at least once every two weeks—14% more likely to do so than non-Pinners. And the types of recipes they were looking for have also changed; in April, Pinterest saw searches for “quick, easy meals for dinner,” increasing 153% over the previous month.” 

Instagram

Instagram is also a social network where the discovery of new brands is possible via browsing. It is also a network with a massive food focus. There were over 340 million posts on Instagram for #food in 2019 and brands interested in appearing in that environment need visually appealing food photos. 

YouTube

YouTube also plays a huge role in food products and idea discovery when a user is browsing. Here are stats from a dated Google’s 2014 report (we can only assume that these trends are more pronounced now): 

• Nearly half of all adults watch food videos on YouTube (75% of those views are on mobile).
• And YouTube food videos also drive first-time website visitors. 

With 500 hours of video uploaded every minute, video discovery on YouTube requires paid promotion and a well-established channel and engagement strategy, as 70% of what people watch on YouTube is determined by its recommendation algorithm.  

You can work to influence the recommendation algorithm through smart video targeting, playlist optimization and YouTube partnerships AND your paid activity is counted toward your organic view counts (unlike Google search were those two parts of search don’t intera

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Hi there. Just a quick note for me, Katherine Ong. Thank you for listening to SEO tips today, I don't actually have a tip and just letting you know that I'm going to be taking a vacation for about a week. So you are not going to have any tips for the next week or [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s talk about the importance of mapping customer journeys Online audiences, during their research and selection process, are influenced by more than one marketing channel. And brands that integrate their marketing efforts are more successful as they become the preferred brand by online searchers and often selected. Google research shows that: 80% of customers favor [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Does your client have enough SEO resources on board to compete in their niche? Hello, thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Today I m going to walk through the process that I undertake to do competitive audits for my clients to give them a better understanding of how they stand on line for the topics [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Federal .gov websites will not rank if they don t have the expertise. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. I have the pleasure of working with high domain authority websites, but that doesn t mean that they can rank for just anything. I was reminded of this when I saw Google s recent blog post [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s catch you up with the latest changes in the voice search world. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Today is going to be a round-up of a few voice search updates. Let s get started. We are at the 50% of voice searches. We are close to that 50% of searchers will [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s talk about the importance of transcripts and captions. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Today we will talk about how powerful captioning and having transcripts are to increase the views and engagement with your audio and video assets. Providing transcripts and captions is an issue near and dear to my heart [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Do federal .gov websites need SEO? Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. If you ve been following my tips for a bit, you might have picked up that I like helping federal (.gov) websites with their SEO. I created the digital marketing plan for HealthIT.gov and supported its organic traffic growth for three [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s talk about empathy in your online marketing – the fastest way to get more engagement. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. I think now more than ever with a global pandemic, your online content needs to take into account your user s mental state. Are you familiar with how emotions impact your [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

How do you diagnose and recover from a Google ranking drop? You might not be able to. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Let me give you some examples. I did a ranking drop analysis for Cancer.gov. It s a huge domain, huge domain authority and yet it lost traffic. The cause? [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Are you involved in YouTube optimization? Let s talk about what you should track in your YouTube account to improve your video discovery and consumption. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. There are two ways to get more views of your video. You can work to rank in Google search or the [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s talk about how to show up on Google Discover Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Google has made updates to their help documentation for Google Discover, and here s a summary of the updates: There is a focus on content that meets E.A.T (Expertise, Authority, and Trust). You also want to make [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Do you need to include voice search in your SEO strategy? Let s talk about how to look at voice for your brand or client. Hello! And thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Think about yourself using search on your phone with your voice to find instructions while cooking. Or because your kids ask you [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Did you know that fast pages will now be labeled in Android search? Hello. Thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Google just announced on their Chromium blog that Chrome 85 beta will begin to use the Web Core Vitals measurement to highlight faster loading pages in Android search. They are starting by labelling fast [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s talk about using Reddit for SEO research. Hello. Thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Did you know that 26.4 million Americans Use Reddit monthly? Or that it s the 6th most popular site in the US? Users on Reddit are anonymous. For that reason, it s a great tool to use when you re conducting keyword [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Let s talk about Google Discovery for Podcasts Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Google can expose your podcast to listeners through many different Google platforms, including: Google Search on all browsers, desktop and mobile. Users can play your episodes in the browser (sample Google Search result shown below). Google Search App for [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

Do you think you know everything about meta titles and descriptions? I have some tips for you. Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today. Patrick Stox had a great Twitter thread with uncommon knowledge about meta titles and descriptions. It was so amazing that I had to share the highlights with you. Did [...]

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode.