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.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Guide to Excel VLOOKUP basics and top five rookie mistakes

Following on from our time saving Excel shortcuts, we continue offering updated advice for the time-sensitive spreadsheet enthusiast.

Back in 2013 John Gagnon wrote a very popular post about VLOOKUP basics and rookie mistakes.

We thought we'd update the piece to reflect some minor changes for accessing the functionality to VLOOKUP words and values in Excel 2016.

An Excel VLOOKUP can be a marketer's best friend because it can save you hours of work. Give this formula the information you have (a name) and it looks through a long list (list of names) so it can return the information you need (phone number).

The problem is we often struggle to remember how to use the formula – or worse make mistakes.

We're going to fix that now. This post will explain:

• How VLOOKUPs work.


• Using 'Tell me' to access VLOOKUP functionality in Excel 2016.


• Five rookie VLOOKUP moves to avoid.


• Limitations you might encounter.

Many of the tips are courtesy of John Gagnon, and are accurate as of September 2016.

How to use a VLOOKUP

Remember phone books? Phone books happen to give us a fantastic mental model to understand how VLOOKUPs work.

Basically, the phone book is a long list of just a few columns: names and phone numbers. You pick up a phone book with a clear intention – find a phone number (info you want) for a specific person (info you have).

Once you've found the person you're looking for, you look at over to the second column to find their phone number. Call made, problem solved.

It turns out this is the same principle for how a VLOOKUP works. Let's breakdown what each piece of the formula to understand what they mean:

There is an added piece of information needed for a VLOOKUP called a range_lookup. This basically is how accurate you want your results.

Excel 2016: Using 'Tell Me' to access VLOOKUP functionality

Excel 2016 comes with a new multi-purpose search box, the 'Tell me what you want to do' tool. Click the box, or ALT + Q to jump right to it. From there, if you type 'VLOOKUP' or any lookup or reference search term, really, then the function you need will appear in a dropdown menu.

For the purpose of this article, I want to VLOOKUP a value. Selecting this then offers the 'Function Arguments' box where you can add in the Lookup_value and Table_array etc.

As you can see, it's a little more helpful for newer users than in previous editions of Excel.

Five rookie VLOOKUP mistakes to avoid

Realizing VLOOKUPs work the same as a phone book is helpful. It's also helpful to know the common mistakes. Here are the top five mistakes made by VLOOKUP rookies.

1. Not having Lookup_Value in first column of your table array

VLOOKUPs only work when the info you have (lookup-value) is in the first column of data you're looking at (table array). To use the phone book, you need to start with a name first. You can't start with the phone number and find the name.

2. Counting the wrong number of columns for Col_index_num

Once Excel has found the value you gave it, it needs to know what give you back. This comes in form of a column number. Make sure to start counting from the first column of the range (table array).

3. [Range_Lookup] Not using FALSE for exact matching

Many marketers get the wrong values because they forget one step. Ninety-nine percent of the time we want exact match, which means a value of FALSE (here's why).

4. Forgetting absolute references (F4) when copying the formula

The power of a VLOOKUP is it can be copied down to hundreds or thousands of cells. But once you copy this down, the references change leading to errors. To fix this issue convert your range to an absolute value instead of a relative value, so cells don't move around (as they tend to do).

5. Extra spaces or characters

Occasionally when data is copied from one source to another, a few leading or trailing spaces tag along. This causes issue during the match, so use TRIM to delete any spaces added to the cell (except for any single spaces between words).

VLOOKUP 201: The John Smith problem and going left

After you use VLOOKUP enough, you'll encounter its limitations. For example:

• It only returns the first match it finds, even if there are hundreds of possible matches.


• It can only return a value in the table array to the right – it can't go left!

(There are simple solutions to these problems, creating unique keys and pasting – but we'll save those for another time.)

Back to the phone book for a moment. How many John Smiths are listed? Probably more than one. But with a VLOOKUP, only the phone number of the first John Smith is being returned! You're probably calling the wrong guy.

To make sure you're calling the right John Smith, you need to bring in additional information. Commonly for phone books it's an address (e.g., John Smith at 123 Acme Lane or John Smith at 765 NW Jones St.).

Again, it's the same for VLOOKUPs.

Let's say you want to know match type by keyword. Your match type column would be identical (all “broad”, in this case), and your second variable (keyword) would differentiate the data.

Create a new table with both pieces of data in columns, and insert “&” in the table_array field of your VLOOKUP. Then the VLOOKUP knows to return the combined data for your result.

What are your most common uses for VLOOKUPs? Is there anything about VLOOKUPs that stump you?

How to Build Backlinks Using Your Competitors' Broken Pages

Posted by TomCaulton

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

We all know building backlinks is one of the most important aspects of any successful SEO and digital marketing campaign. However, I believe there is an untapped resource out there for link building: finding your competitors' broken pages that have been linked to by external sources.

Allow me to elaborate.

Finding the perfect backlink often takes hours, and it can can take days, weeks, or even longer to acquire. That's where the link building method I've outlined below comes in. I use it on a regular basis to build relevant backlinks from competitors' 404 pages.

Please note: In this post, I will be using Search Engine Land as an example to make my points.

Ready to dive in? Great, because I'm going to walk you through the entire link building process now.

First, you need to find your competitor(s). This is as easy as searching for the keyword you're targeting on Google and selecting websites that are above you in the SERPs. Once you have a list of competitors, create a spreadsheet to put all of your competitors on, including their position in the rankings and the date you listed them.

Next, download Screaming Frog SEO Spider [a freemium tool]. This software will allow you to crawl all of your competitors website, revealing all their 404 pages. To do this, simply enter your competitors' URLs in the search bar one at a time, like this:

Once the crawl is complete, click "Response Codes."

Then, click on the dropdown arrow next to "filter" and select "Client Error 4xx."

Now you'll be able to see the brand's 404 pages.

Once you've completed the step above, simply press the "Export" button to export all of their 404 pages into a file. Next, import this file into to a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Docs. On this part of the spreadsheet, create tabs called "Trust Flow," "Citation Flow," "Referring Domains," and "External Backlinks."

Now that you've imported all of their 404 pages, you need to dissect the images and external links if there are any. A quick way to do this is to highlight the cell block by pressing on the specific cell at the top, then press "Filter" under the "Data" tab.Look for the drop-down arrow on the first cell of that block. Click the drop-down arrow, and underneath "Filter by values," you will see two links: "Select all" and "Clear."

Press "Clear," like this:

This will clear all preset options. Now, type in the URL of the competitor's website in the search box and click "Select all."

This will filter out all external links and just leave you with their 404 pages. Go through the whole list, highlighting the pages you think you can rewrite.

Now that you have all of your relevant 404 pages in place, run them through Majestic [a paid tool] or Moz's Open Site Explorer (OSE) [a freemium tool] to see if their 404 pages actually have any external links (which is what we're ultimately looking for). Add the details from Majestic or Moz to the spreadsheet. No matter which tool you use (I use OSE), hit "Request a CSV" for the backlink data. (Import the data into a new tab on your spreadsheet, or create a new spreadsheet altogether if you wish.)

Find relevant backlinks linking to (X's) website. Once you've found all of the relevant websites, you can either highlight them or remove the ones that aren't from your spreadsheet.

Please note: It's worth running each of the websites you're potentially going to be reaching out to through Majestic and Moz to find out their citation flow, trust flow, and domain authority (DA). You may only want to go for the highest DA; however, in my opinion, if it's relevant to your niche and will provide useful information, it's worth targeting.

With the 404s and link opportunities in hand, focus on creating content that's relevant for the brands you hope to earn a link from. Find the contact information for someone at the brand you want the link from. This will usually be clear on their website; but if not, you can use tools such as VoilaNorbert and Email Hunter to get the information you need. Once you have this information, you need to send them an email similar to this one:

---

Hi [THEIR NAME],

My name is [YOUR NAME], and I carry out the [INSERT JOB ROLE – i.e., MARKETING] at [YOUR COMPANY'S NAME or WEBSITE].

I have just come across your blog post regarding [INSERT THEIR POST TITLE] and when I clicked on one of the links on that post, it happened to go to a 404 page. As you're probably aware, this is bad for user experience, which is the reason I'm emailing you today.

We recently published an in-depth article regarding the same subject of the broken link you have on your website: [INSERT YOUR POST TITLE].

Here's the link to our article: [URL].

I was wondering if you wouldn't mind linking to our article instead of the 404 page you're currently linking to, as our article will provide your readers with a better user experience.

We will be updating this article so we can keep people provided with the very latest information as the industry evolves.

Thank you for reading this email and I look forward to hearing from you.

[YOUR NAME]

---

Disclaimer: The email example above is just an example and should be tailored to your own style of writing.

In closing, remember to keep detailed notes of the conversations you have with people during outreach, and always follow up with people you connect with.

I hope this tactic helps your SEO efforts in the future. It's certainly helped me find new places to earn links. Not only that, but it gives me new content ideas on a regular basis.

Do you use a similar process to build links? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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Just 36% of people entering the tech industry are women

The technology industry is lagging behind many other sectors when it comes to the proportion of women taking up entry level positions.

This is according to US research by McKinsey in their new report: Women in the Workplace

The study surveyed 132 companies which collectively employ more than 4.6m people. It shows that while 75% of CEOs in corporate America are saying gender equality is a top ten priority – and in the wake of the high-profile Gamergate controversy – tech is still woefully behind.

Women entering the tech industry are far outnumbered by men and they lose ground on every step of the ladder

The McKinsey report separates out key industries in the US and shows the proportion of women working at each stage of the corporate ladder.

For the tech industry (including electronics, hardware, software and IT) just 36% of entry level positions are accounted for by women. This proportion goes down to 31% at manager level and an even lower 19% at the C-Suite level.

Tech is certainly lagging behind other sectors…

For instance, the asset management and institutional investors industry sees 50:50 parity for men and women at entry level (but just 14% women in the C-Suite). Professional and information services sees a majority of women at entry level (59%) but just 22% at C-Suite.

The report also allows for comparison of the issue with corporate America as a whole. On average, 46% of all people going into corporate jobs in the US are women but this shrinks down to just 19% at the C-Suite level. For women of colour, the percentage is 17% at entry level and 3% at the C-Suite.

Gender inequality research in tech and digital is growing

McKinsey's research builds on wider research into gender disparities across tech and digital.

In February, Econsultancy released UK-centric career and salary data for those working across the marketing, digital, design and advertising industries. The research highlighted the inequality in average pay between men and women across the digital sector – from specialists to general marketers.

In 2016, the average female digital specialist earns £38,176 – around £8,000 less than her male peers. For women in general digital marketing roles, the average salary is £37,477 – again around £8,000 less than the £45,750 earned by the average man doing the same work.

Gender inequality as contributor to the digital skills gap

The latest McKinsey report and that by Econsultancy earlier in the year will be cause for concern for those in government.

As I wrote in an article last month, a recent report by the Science and Technology Committee highlights that 90% of jobs in the country today require digital skills to some extent and suggests that we need 745,000 workers with these skills to fulfil industry demand by 2017.

The report also looks at methods for overcoming gender inequalities in its chapter headed Role models and diversity in STEM, stating:

“There is continuing concern over the lack of diversity among computer science/IT graduates and in wider Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) careers. Role models are an effective way of inspiring confidence to pursue a career path, but FDM Group highlighted that children and young people are more likely to identify with Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) as technology role models than Baroness Lane-Fox, Sheryl Sandberg (CEO of Facebook) or Marissa Mayer (president and CEO of Yahoo).”

And:

“Despite long standing campaigns from Government and industry, however, there remains a marked gender imbalance in those studying computing-only 16% of computer science students at school are female (compared with 42% who studied ICT) and this low level of representation persists through higher education and in the workplace. A survey of more than 4,000 girls, young women, parents and teachers in 2015 showed that 60% of 12-year-old girls in the UK and Ireland thought that STEM subjects were too difficult to learn and nearly half thought that they were a better match for boys.”

Gender inequality as contributor to lost GDP

McKinsey back in April also conducted research into the actual monetary gains all US states can make should women attain full gender equality in the labour force.

Their report The power of parity: Advancing women's equality in the United States posits that collectively more than $4 trillion could be added to the US economy by 2025 if gender parity is fully realised.

Referring back to the Women in the Workplace data which sees the worst gender inequality in job roles further up the corporate ladder, it's notable that The power of parity report singled out inequality in leadership and managerial positions as one of six priority 'impact zones' for action to improve business opportunities for women and the economic benefits this will lead to.

So are things improving?

Women in the Workplace does show that CEOs seem increasingly keen to make their workplaces more equal and that things are moving in the right direction. But progress is slow at just one or two percentage points closer towards gender parity from 2015 to 2016.

That said, it is positive to see another report highlighting the issues of inequality in tech, as well as for providing evidence for the social and economic gains from better gender parity in business. But this latest McKinsey data shows there is still a lot of ground to be covered in the industry before the gap is closed and the benefits are realised.

13 time-saving Excel shortcuts & tips for marketers

Back in 2013 John Gagnon wrote a very popular post detailing some of his favourite Excel tips and tricks.

We thought we'd update the list of classic shortcuts with a few that reflect some new functionality in Excel 2016.

New Excel tips for 2016:

1. Navigate 'The Ribbon' with ALT

In Excel 2016 the ribbon refers to the menu of tabs (File, Home, etc.) at the top of your workbook. Simply hitting ALT will quickly highlight the related keys then used to jump to certain ribbon tabs.

For instance, ALT followed by M will take you to the 'Formulas' tab.

You can easily move between tabs by pressing ALT and using the left and right arrow keys, while CTRL + F1 toggles between hiding and showing the ribbon altogether.

2. Tell me what you want to do

Excel 2016 comes with a new helpful feature located in the ribbon, the 'Tell me what you want to do' search box.

Click the box, or if you are using Excel without a mouse hit ALT + Q to jump right to it. Whether it's adding rows or using VLOOKUP, the box is very useful for new and old Excel users alike.

3. New Excel Tip: smart lookup

If you want information from beyond the realms of Excel, another new function for 2016 is the 'Smart Lookup' tool which allows you to make a Bing-powered internet search without leaving the Excel pane.

Smart Lookup is located in the 'Review' tab and can also be accessed by ALT + R + S.

Classic Excel tips:

Courtesy of John Gagnon. The following tips are accurate and still work as of September 2016.

4. Automatically SUM() with ALT + =

Quickly add an entire column or row by clicking in the first empty cell in the column. Then enter ALT + '=' (equals key) to add up the numbers in every cell above.

5. Logic for number formatting keyboard shortcuts

At times keyboard shortcuts in Excel seem random, but there is logic behind them. Let's break an example down. To format a number as a currency the shortcut is CRTL + SHIFT + 4.

Both the SHIFT and 4 keys seem random, but they're intentionally used because SHIFT + 4 is the dollar sign ($). Therefore if we want to format as a currency, it's simply: CTRL + '$' (where the dollar sign is SHIFT + 4). The same is true for formatting a number as a percent.

6. Display formulas with CTRL + `

When you're troubleshooting misbehaving numbers first look at the formulas. Display the formula used in a cell by hitting just two keys: Ctrl + ` (known as the acute accent key) – this key is furthest to the left on the row with the number keys. When shifted it is the tilde (~).

7. Jump to the start or end of a column keyboard shortcut

You are thousands of rows deep into your data set and need to get to the first or last cell. Scrolling is OK but the quickest way is to use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + ↑ to jump to the top cell, or CTRL + ↓ to drop to the last cell before an empty cell.

When you combine this shortcut with the SHIFT key, you'll select a continuous block of cells from your original starting point.

8. Repeat a formula to multiple cells

Never type out the same formula over and over in new cells again. This trick populates all of the cells in a column with the same formula, but adjusts to use the data specific to each row.

Create the formula you need in the first cell. Then move your cursor to the lower right corner of that cell and, when it turns into a plus sign, double click to copy that formula into the rest of the cells in that column. Each cell in the column will show the results of the formula using the data in that row.

9. Add or delete columns keyboard shortcut

Managing columns and rows in your spreadsheet is an all-day task. Whether adding or deleting, you can save a little time when you use this keyboard shortcut. CTRL + '-' (minus key) will delete the column your cursor is in and CTRL + SHIFT + '=' (equal key) will add a new column. From an earlier tip, think about CTRL + '+' (plus sign).

10. Adjust width of one or multiple columns

It's easy to adjust a column to the width of its content and get rid of those useless ##### entries. Click on the column's header, move your cursor to the right side of the header and double click when it turns into a plus sign.

11. Copy a pattern of numbers or even dates

Another amazing feature built into Excel is its ability to recognize a pattern in your data, and allow you to automatically copy it to other cells.

Simply enter information in two rows which establish the pattern, highlight those rows and drag down for as many cells as you want to populate. This works with numbers, days of the week or months!

12. Tab between worksheets

Jumping from worksheet to worksheet doesn't mean you have to move your hand off the keyboard with this cool shortcut. To change to the next worksheet to the right enter CTRL + PGDN. And conversely change to the worksheet to the left by entering CTRL + PGUP.

13. Double click format painter shortcut

Format Painter is a great tool which lets you duplicate a format in other cells with no more effort than a mouse click. Many Excel users (Outlook, Word and PowerPoint too) use this handy feature, but did you know you can double-click Format Painter to copy the format into multiple cells? It's quite a time-saver.

How a Single Piece of Content Increased Our DA by +7 Points [Case Study]

Posted by sergeystefoglo

Content marketing has been discussed and researched more in the last 5 years than ever before.

Source: Google Trends

There are various kinds of content marketing strategies out there. Blog promotion, infographics, video strategies, and creative content are some. Depending on your goals, some are more effective than others.

At Distilled, we've been fortunate enough to work on many creative content pieces with some incredible clients. This article is going to focus on a piece of content that my team and I created for a client. We'll take a look at both the creation process and the tangible results of the piece we made.

Note: In general, you don't want to rely on one piece of content for link acquisition. It's recommended to focus on multiple pieces throughout the year to add link diversity and give your content pieces a good chance to succeed. The following is simply a case study of one piece of content that worked well for my client.

---

Client backstory: We need links!

Our client is Ginny's (shoutout to Matt and Cailey). Ginny's is an ecommerce business based in the beautiful state of Wisconsin.

We knew that regardless of how much optimization was done on the site, their lack of incoming links would be a huge barrier to success. This quickly became a topic of discussion for us.

The general rule of thumb: the more linking root domains (LRDs) your site has, the stronger the domain authority should be. And the stronger the linking root domains are, the better it is for your DA. In other words, it's better to get 1 strong link (DA 80+) than 10 weak links (DA 20-). Kudos if the links are topically relevant to your website/brand.

So, my team and I sat down and started thinking of different ways we could accomplish the task of increasing LRDs and (hopefully) DA for my client.

---

The process of creating a link-worthy story

Here are the steps my team and I went through for this particular client.

Note: For an extensive look at creating creative content, please see the following articles:

• How to Make Award-Winning Creative Content - Part 1


• How to Make Award-Winning Creative Content - Part 2

Ideation

The first step in the creative process is ideation, because without great ideas you can't a have a great piece of content. It's important to give yourself enough time for ideation. Don't rush it, and be sure to include various team members with different backgrounds to get as many ideas as possible. Note: stock up on coffee/Red Bull and snacks for this.

Validation

Typically after an ideation session you'll have many potential ideas. It's important to go through and validate them. When I say "validate," I mean making sure others haven't already done something similar, or that creating the piece is actually possible (you have access to the right data, etc.)

Note: For more information on researching and validating your creative ideas, read this post titled “Researching Creative Ideas: 10 Dos and Don'ts.”

Pitching

At this point you'll have a handful of ideas that are not only on-brand and interesting, but have great potential in being picked up by various sources. Put together a nice deck and pitch your ideas to the client. The goal is to get your client to pick one (or a few, depending on the budget).

Note: Here's an awesome write-up on a framework for pitching creative ideas to your clients.

Gathering the data

Once your client signs off on a piece, it's time to dive into the data! Depending on the piece you're creating, this might look like scraping websites and doing a ton of research to get the right data you need. Take your time on this, as you want to make sure your data is accurate and relevant.

Design

During this part of the process, it's a great idea to start mocking up some potential designs. If your piece is smaller, this might be a quick and simple task. If you have a data visualization, this will be longer. Typically, it's a good idea to create 2–3 mockups and give your client some options.

Development

Once your client signs off on a particular design, it's time to dive into development.

Copy

The actual copy for the piece doesn't have to happen after the development, but it's usually a good idea to allow the copywriter to see how much space they have to work with. What you don't want is for your copywriter to write 500 words when the designer has made space for 100. Communication is key in this process.

Testing

Once the piece is built, it's important to test it out on various browsers and devices. Ask people to give it a run and try to fix as many errors/bugs as possible.

Promotion

Depending on your timeline, you might want to start promotion sooner than this. The important thing to note is to consider pre-pitching and reaching out to contacts to gauge their interest in the piece as soon as possible. Keep your contacts updated and be sure to give them everything they need for their stories.

Note: For further reference on pitching journalists, please see this post titled, “Beyond the Media List: Pro-Active Prospecting for Pitching Creative Content.”

Launch

It's time to launch!

Push

On the day the piece launches, be sure that you are reminding journalists, reaching out to contacts, sharing the piece on social media, and making your social campaigns live.

Celebrate

There are a lot of steps to building a creative piece, so don't underestimate the work that goes into it! After you launch the piece be sure to have a beer, give yourself a pat on the back, or do whatever it is you need to do to celebrate.

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Post-ideation: What we came up with

After the process outlined above, our team came up with 50 States of Bacon.

The idea was simple: Everyone likes bacon, but who likes it the most? Ginny's caters to a lot of people who love deep frying, so this was on-brand. We decided to use Instagram's (now difficult to access) API to extract 33,742 photos that were tagged with #bacon and located within the USA. To normalize for population distribution and Instagram usage, we also collected 64,640 photos with the tags #food, #breakfast, #lunch, and #dinner.

To make this data more visual, we made it interactive and included some fun facts for each state.

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What happened after we launched the piece?

So, what happened after we launched the piece? Let's dive in.

Here are some of the larger websites 50 States of Bacon got picked up on.

Website	Domain Authority	Other
US News	94	Tweeted from account (115K+)
Mashable	96	Tweeted from account (6.95M+)
AOL Lifestyle	98	Referred 1,200+ visitors
Eater	85	N/A
Daily Dot	85	Tweeted from account (274K+)

Here is what the LRDs and DA looked like before we launched the piece, and then after 4 months of it being live:

	Before Launch	4 Months Later
Linking Root Domains	450	600
Domain Authority	29	36

Let's break this down by metric. Here's a graph of the LRDs over time (we launched the piece at about the start of the uplift).

The domain authority didn't budge until about 4 months after we launched the piece. We weren't actively pursuing any other link-based campaigns during this time, so it's safe to say the creative piece had a lot to do with this boost in DA.

Note: Since DA is refreshed with new pools of data, this observation wouldn't have been as valid if the DA only moved one or two positions. But, since it moved 7 positions so close to the launch of this piece, I feel like it's safe to assume the piece contributed greatly.

Does this mean if you do a similar piece that your DA will also increase? No. Does it give us a good example on what can happen? Absolutely.

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A note on LRDs, DA, and setting expectations

Setting expectations with clients is hard. That's even more true when you both know that links may be even more important than user engagement with your campaign. To make sure expectations are reasonable, you may want to encourage them to see this campaign as one of many over a long period of time. Then there's less pressure on any individual piece.

So, it's important to set expectations upfront. I would never tell a client that we can guarantee a certain number of links, or that we guarantee an increase in domain authority.

Instead, we can guarantee a piece of content that is well-built, well-researched, and interesting to their target audience. You can go one step further and guarantee reaching out to X amount of contacts, and you can estimate how many of those contacts will respond with a "yes" or "no."

In fact, you should set goals. How much traffic would you like the piece to bring? What about social shares? What seems like a reasonable amount of LRD's you could gain from a piece like this? Benchmark where you currently are, and make some reasonable goals.

The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't promise your client a certain amount of links because, frankly, you'd be lying to them. Be upfront about what this looks like and show examples of work you've done before, but make sure to set their expectations correctly up front to avoid any conflicts down the road.

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Conclusion

There's a lot to be learned from the results of creative campaigns. The goal of this article is to share one piece that I've worked on with a client while highlighting some things that I learned/observed along the way. If you'd like to see more campaigns we've worked on at Distilled, take a look at our creative roundup for last year.

To wrap things up, here are the key takeaways:

• Creative pieces take a lot of thought, work, and time. Don't underestimate the task at hand.


• Don't frame the project as only focused on gaining links. Instead, aim for creating a compelling piece of content that is on-brand and has the potential to gain traction.


• Oftentimes it's best not to put all your eggs in one basket. Plan multiple pieces throughout the year.


• If your research is right and you pitch the piece to the correct people, this is a strategy that can gain your domain some very strong LRDs. In this particular case, 110 linking root domains (and counting).


• …But those links won't come easy. You need to pre-pitch, remind, and re-pitch your contacts. There are many great pieces of content being published daily; you need to be proactive about ensuring your spots online.


• There are other benefits to doing pieces like this aside from links. Social shares, brand awareness, and referral traffic are some other metrics to look at.


• It is possible to increase your DA by doing a piece like this, but it takes time. Be patient, and continue doing great work in the meantime.

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Other thoughts

• There are some arguments to be made that a piece of content like this only has spikes and doesn't do any good for a brand. I don't believe this to be true. The way I see it, if a piece is too evergreen, it might not gain as many strong links. At the same time, if a piece is completely left-field and doesn't fit with the brand, the links might not be as impactful. I think there's a fine line here; it should be up to your best judgment on the pieces you should create.

• This piece could potentially be updated every year to gain more links or traction (although it would be a lot more difficult with Instagram drastically limiting their API).

• It's possible that this piece didn't have a direct impact on DA, but because there were no other link acquisition strategies during the 4 months, we can safely assume the two are correlated.

• There's an argument to be made that jumping from the 20s to the 30s is much easier than from 40s to 50s when you're speaking of DA. We know that it gets more difficult to increase DA as it gets higher, so do keep that in mind.

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How to take advantage of Facebook Video's creative opportunities

We are living in a video-first world, where moving images are at the heart of all apps and services.

Facebook recorded an increase of 800% in video consumption from 2015 to 2016, jumping from 1 billion views to 8 billion views in just a year.

During Social Media Week, Ian Crocombe, Regional Head of Facebook's Creative Shop presented all the opportunities that video content may offer, both for publishers and advertisers on Facebook.

Moving from TV to social media

Video ads on Facebook are different from the ones we knew on TV, and they also lead to a different behaviour from the audience.

Moreover, users have a shorter attention span when using their mobile devices, which also requires a different perspective when creating a video.

This creates the need for brands to adjust their content when they have to transfer their message from TV and traditional marketing to social media and Facebook in particular.

Adjusting content for Facebook videos

Facebook's Creative Shop aims to help brands understand what makes an effective Facebook video and how they can make their message heard to an increased audience.

They are responsible for “feed proofing”, which means the process of taking the brands' ideas and making them work on mobile.

It focuses on four main areas, all aiming to improve the success of the video – Capture, Design, Frame and Play…

1. Capture attention quickly

Facebook suggests you place the brand and the product at the centre of the video, keeping the message simple and clear from the very first seconds.

This informs the audience what the video is about, and if it's creative enough to grab their attention quickly, it makes them watch more of it.

2. Design for sound off

According to Facebook, 80% of videos are currently played without sound, which means that you cannot ignore this when creating a new branded video.

Instead of making customers turn the sound on, how about delivering your message through text?

Subtitles are better than nothing, but text overlays offer the best way to increase comprehension without a sound.

3. Frame your visual story

Cut extra footage from existing ads to reinforce the key message. Crop the video in square, pick the right frames and experiment with the best format that could be more appealing on Facebook.

4. Play more

Ian Crocombe's main tip is to “be really playful” with Facebook videos. Don't stop experimenting with new content, take a creative idea and play with it.

For example, how about starting your video with a question to spark curiosity?

Feed proofing is good, but it's quite defensive. There's also the need for a new creative approach when starting with mobile-first content.

It's time to work with new story arcs…

New creative approach 

A new creative approach needs its own tips to make sure that the audience is interested in the video content. Here's what Facebook suggests for an increased engagement.

1. Heartbeat frequency = attention

There's no need to have a theatrical narrative, following the traditional sequence of beginning, middle, end.

It may be more effective to deliver loops of the story every few seconds to keep your audience interested. A new vignette may start after a few seconds, creating multiple stories with a consistent message.

The duration of the content is not important, as long as you're able to keep the audience interested.

2. Zigs & Zags = hook

It has been observed that 65% people who watch 0.03 secs of Facebook videos can watch up to 0.10 secs and 45% who watch 0.10 secs can watch up to 0.30secs.

Zigs and zags try to move people across by hooking them at the beginning while getting the product visible. Once the hook occurs in the introduction, users can watch more of the video, with short and repeated stories contributing to the promotion of a brand's message.

3. Start with the end 

This tip is focused on “super logical people” with Facebook suggesting we start a video with the product shown in a visually appealing way, then end with the product's benefits.

This can be a clever way to capture the audience's attention by offering the emotional reward and the solution to the problem from the very first seconds while proceeding to the actual description of the problem through the rest of the video.

Takeaway

Ian Crocombe sums up his presentation by reminding us that “video on mobile is different”, and as we are heading into a more visually-focused world, it's time to experiment with more creative approaches.

This is an edited version of an article originally published in on our sister website ClickZ: New creative opportunites on Facebook for a video first world.