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Facebook Says Goodbye To Brands (and Businesses and Media)

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facebook zuckerberg people firstYou may have noticed a trend on Facebook that organically (not paid ads) businesses and brands are showing up less and less. Recently Facebook was running a test where they moved these types of post from the main feed into the new “Explore” tab for some users. It seems that this will roll out to all users.

Facebook for Business can still be effective

This is important to for businesses because this solidifies further that Facebook will be “pay to play” platform for brands. This doesn’t mean it can’t be used effectively, you just have to be aware of the rules and how the platform is evolving.

In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg wrote:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments [from friends and family] that lead us to connect more with each other.”

Zuckerberg also commented about how the future Facebook feed will look,

“Less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media” and that he expects “the time people spend on Facebook … will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”

Do you think this will make Facebook better?

Google Updates Meta Descriptions Length – But Don’t Panic!

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google updates meta description length

OK Melodrama aside, you may or you may not need to rewrite all your meta descriptions. Here’s why.

If  you have searched for anything recently you may have noticed a lot more text under each result.  Google has changed their rules for meta descriptions that show up in search results.  Although meta descriptions are not part of the ranking algorithm, they do play a role in whether people click or not. The change means that Google may show up to 320 characters instead of the previous 160 characters.

This is what Google is saying about the change.

The fact that our snippets have gotten longer doesn’t change the fundamentals of writing a description tag. They should generally inform and interest users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about

What this means is that we now have the freedom to write longer descriptions, however if you are happy with your current descriptions you don’t need to change them. If you’re not happy with them or you think you could do a better job with more characters, now is your change to write a bit more.

What it doesn’t mean is that we should stuff a bunch of keywords and junk in there in order to try to trick the search engines.

As always, Google may or may not use the meta descriptions you write. Well written enticing descriptions that describe the content of the page will continue to be best practice, and will give a better chance that Google will use them and that people will click. .

If you’re interested in reading more about this, check out this article from Search Engine Land.

Google: Fundamentals of writing meta descriptions don’t change with longer search snippets

Why Conversion Attribution Modeling is Important – Who Gets the Credit?

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“First click attribution is akin to giving my first girlfriend 100% of the credit for me marrying my wife.” ~A. Kaushik

attribution models

Many analytics reporting platforms use First touch as their default for conversion attribution.  Like the above quote says, this is not the best way to give attribution. Just ask your wife, or husband!

Ok, but first what does that mean? Time to geek out a bit… First touch attribution means that the way a visitor arrives to your site for the very first time is credited with the conversion.

When someone searches for candied yams, you sell candied yams and they click on your listing in the search result which brings them to your site. That is the interaction that gets the credit for the sale. In some ways this might make sense. It means the effort that you put into getting found in search is what paid for the sale. The challenge is though. They may have first come through search, but then a referral, then through search again, then direct, and another referral. Then after all that they finally converted.

conversion attribution path

So was that conversion really created only by the initial touch through organic search? Or was it the last touch that finally made them convert. Or some would argue that it was the whole series of touch points that made the sale.

Follow so far? The next question is, “Why does attribution even matter?”

Well, if you’re running a paid search campaign and look at standard First Touch Attribution, you might see that there are very few conversions for paid search. How do you then explain to your boss/client that paid search is benefiting the company? With only first touch conversion attribution, you’re probably going to lose your budget pretty quickly.

In the two examples below you see paid search is buried in the middle of the conversion path. The Organic Search team is getting all the credit when really these conversions were assisted by other channels.  Without looking deeper you wouldn’t know this.

organic search first touch conversion attribution

Although the major analytics platforms have a default setting they also have ways to build custom attribution models. For example Google Analyics has a few alternatives built in to its free platform.

GA attribution models

Deciding on the best model for your site might depend on the channels you are using as well as your overall marketing strategy. But without at least exploring the options you are hampering your ability to truly understand your visitors.

Have questions? Post in the comments.

 

Why You Always Need Editors #HomeDepot

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As SEOs we often look at a lot of website pages. It can sometimes be monotonous to write meta-descriptions, titles, H1 copy and other SEO bits that go into a site. But it’s always a good idea to have an editor (or at least a second set of eyes) no matter how little or if it seems like something trivial that is behind the scenes.

After all, you don’t want people to miss your best iffer!

Sometimes things slip through.. even for big national companies!

home depot - bad meta description