19th April 2021 - What articles you need to be reading
Here are the articles that are making waves in digital and search that you should be aware of because they are going to be game changers
Learning SEO?
Ultimate guide to indexing
On average, 16% of valuable, indexable pages on popular websites aren’t indexed…. yep that is right Google won’t likely ever index every page on your website but understanding how to help Googlebot crawl and index more pages on your website is key for success! Tomek Rudzki highlights that it can take up to 8 weeks to get content indexed along with several other great insights where webmasters and SEOs get it wrong.
Software of Note
How researchers are using SISTRIX search data
In a cool use of big data Goethe University in Frankfurt are using SISTRIX data to create new approaches to competitive analysis. The two examples shared are the US banking market with a focus on the submarkets of accounts and credit cards. You can also play with the interactive chart here but it’s interesting to see search data visualised at a industry level.
Social Media
Facebook microtargeting for both sides of politics
Several organisations such as NYU Ad Observator is using the insights available from the Facebook Ad Library to uncover how aggressively some brands are targeting different political view points such as ExxonMobil shown below. Read more about this topic from Jeremy B Merrill over on The Markup.
Reddit Talk designed for subreddits
Reddit Talk seems to be possibly a major opportunity for subreddits to gain a larger audience or a moderators nightmare if not done well. The Talk feature will be opt-in so subreddits should be able to opt-out of the feature if the mods wish but does seem like an interesting way to capture some more engagement from the millions of captive subreddit lurkers. If you want to give it a go you will need to signup for their waitlist…
Facebook doubles down on audio trend
During a Discord chat yesterday 18th April 2021, Mark Zuckerberg provided their product roadmap for the next 3-6 months focused on audio.
Soundbites - short-form audio product or an audio version of TikTok
Podcasts - podcast discovery tool because Facebook is so amazing at search
Live audio - Like their live video yet another product that hasn’t considered moderation
Google Products
Google delays CWV algorithm update
Google has made the right decision to delay the page experience update from beyond May 2021 to a gradual roll-out starting Mid-June 2021 and taking until the end of August 2021 before it has a full impact. The gradual roll-out buys webmasters and SEOs more time to fix page experience issues but also means the gradual roll-out is going to be harder to track and analyse.
Media & Technology
Dynamic Exclusions lists are being rolled out for Google Ads
This change focuses on their Display and Video inventory only. Advertisers and agencies can create their own exclusion lists or use lists from trusted third parties, such as brand safety organizations and industry groups, which can be updated seamlessly. It’s a long overdue feature for advertisers to gain more control over where their ads are run, read the announcement in detail here
Facebook to kill the audience insight tool
From the 1st July 2021, access to Audience Insights won’t be available anymore but there has been questions raised over it’s accuracy for several years. Facebook is pushing marketers from audience insights to business suite insights… most of this seems driven by iOS14. While you can still use your audiences across Facebook’s business tools the reliability of the data will likely decline.
Facebook Analytics is being cancelled
Facebook Analytics was never really a decent product so the fact that it’s being shut down probably won’t be noticed by most marketers. There was already signs of data quality issues with messaging metrics reporting unavailable due to privacy rules in some regions. The platform will no longer be available after the 30th June 2021
Ecommerce
How Kimberly Clark looks at Data
Back in March 2021 Juliana Chu spoke at the Festival of Marketing on how Kimberley Clark has developed an agile approach to analytics using CRM and social listening to drives sales and increase consumer engagement. It’s an interesting insight into how a company can shift it’s focus to being data led and relying on digital consumer survey tools to get data quickly not waiting 2-3 weeks. Read the full article here
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Cumulative Layout Shift GIF Generator
Chris Johnson has updated his free tool to use the new maximum session window metrics for CLS. Leading up to the now delayed Core Web Vitals update in June 2021 it’s important that you continue to fix issues like this. Great news is that you can download it here free
Security, Data & Privacy
Dynamic URL Rewriting at the edge with Cloudflare
Cloudflare have continued their push to do things better at scale and now they are helping website owners deal with making ugly URLs eg Example.com/documentid=23234 into human friendly URLs eg Example.com/Cloudflare.
While this can be done with a few clicks in WordPress by enabling permalinks previously this task in monolith or enterprise systems often took developers months to change the URLs to a friendly URL. There was also always push back on how it was handled but also questions asked on what is the performance impact on the server. Announcing Cloudflare Transform Rules that allow you to easily do static or dynamic rewrites of URLs at scale without the development headache.
Vivaldi browser doesn’t support FLoC
Vivaldi browser based on Chromium browser engine has made a public stand against Google’s new data harvesting technology. The new tracking technology Google has developed to circumvent the death of third-party cookies is called FLoC (The Federated Learning of Cohorts). FLoC creates a cohort based on all your browsing habits which creates a profile within your browser but advertising companies no longer see a unique identifier just you as a dog owner are in FLoC 2332 or 21321. The big issue is that FLoC allows you to be tracked across the entire web not just the website where the advertiser was running ads and managed to add a cookie. Vivaldi has followed Brave that announced the previous day that they will disable FLoC API in their browser. The growing concern around FLoC is that it might not actually be legal under GDPR so it will be an interesting privacy battle as Chrome starts to roll it out.
WordPress that runs 41% of the world’s websites have also raised a proposal for FLoC to be labelled as a security issue and can block Chrome FLoC with just 4 lines of code on a website. It will be interesting to see how much traction Google can force on it’s audience as browsers Microsoft Edge & Mozilla have also said they are not joining FLoC and DuckDuckGo have released a browser extension to block FLoC.
Google mislead consumers about data collection
The Australian Federal Court has found that Google misled consumers about personal location data collected through Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018, in a world-first enforcement action brought by the ACCC. The Court also found that Google’s conduct was liable to mislead the public. Read the full media release here
Jobs & Careers
Jellyfish - SEO Director - You will have responsibility for a portfolio of prestigious clients and manage teams of SEO specialists, while effectively delivering advanced SEO strategies that meet/exceed client expectations and KPIs. It will be your responsibility to constantly re-evaluate and reimagine the organic search solutions provided to your clients - remaining competitive and aligned with the needs of an ever-changing digital landscape. Apply here directly
World of Warcraft - Franchise Director - As World of Warcraft Franchise Lead, you will be responsible for the marketing and performance of your franchise in the EMEA region, with the support of a small team. To succeed in this role, you will work under the US Headquarter guidance to analyse sales, market, and game trends to ensure the EMEA region is maximizing the franchise opportunity. You will provide Headquarters will input from EMEA gamers. Apply here directly
Lacoste - Head of Digital - Digital is one of the key strategic axis of Lacoste. We have built a Digital Factory composed of 80 people, from e-commerce, IT, marketing and data to bring our brand to the next level. The Digital Factory oversees Lacoste digital flagship, marketplaces, digital wholesale, digital in-store, logistics, customer service and media. We are looking for our next Head of Digital Flagship Europe to oversee Lacoste.com in our 13 European countries. As the Head of Digital Flagship Europe, you will be overseeing the strategy and performance of Lacoste.com, from budget definition to execution. With a team of 8 people, your objective is to deliver a strong performance and offering a premium experience to reflect the brand purpose of Lacoste. You will be reporting to the Global e-commerce Director. Apply here directly
Miro - Head of Growth - As the Head of Organic Growth, you’ll not only be responsible for our SEO efforts at scale but also develop and execute other organic channels and opportunities, contribute to Miro’s mission. You will align your strategies and your team initiatives with the broader company roadmap and goals, and prioritize them accordingly. You will build a world-class team of SEO professionals and Organic Growth hackers who can think outside the box and drive impactful results. You will report directly to the Head of Growth Marketing and will be part of the Growth Marketing senior leadership team. Apply here directly
WorldRemit - SEO Lead - We are looking for a SEO Lead to help drive our global SEO efforts across our key remittance countries including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Spain, Germany and France. You will help shape, build and improve our SEO department to deliver our future growth aspirations. You will be accountable for directing and executing the SEO strategy with the goal of driving new customer account acquisition and revenue from new and existing remittance corridors. Apply here directly
The Body Shop - Global Head of Search Marketing - Reporting onto the Global Digital Marketing Director, you will be an inspirational coach and as part of the Performance Marketing Team you will lead and develop a team of 13 Paid Search and Organic Search Managers. With responsibility for managing all third-party relationships (search engines, feed providers and global agencies) you will be responsible for migrating paid search activities in house and be accountable for the successful deployment of all search marketing campaigns. You will in turn see opportunities to develop and grow capability in this team and across the globe and will encourage a culture of autonomy to make decisions and to propose and own solutions. Apply here directly
HubSpot - Senior Director of Product Marketing - As Senior Director of Product Marketing you will lead the team responsible for the positioning, messaging, and launch strategy for HubSpot’s individual products (“hubs”) and the entire CRM platform. This includes our CRM, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and CMS Hub across versions from free to enterprise, as well as our ecosystem of integrations, apps and extensions. This is a highly cross-functional role in which you’ll get to work closely with each product general manager, the product team, marketing, sales, services and support globally. You’ll also work with HubSpot’s founders and executive team to bring the product message to main stages like HubSpot’s annual INBOUND event. Apply here directly