Googler John Mueller shocked the SEO industry last week with his announcement that Google is removing authorship photos and circle counts from the SERPs.

The big question is: WHY? Why would Google kill a feature they had said would instill user trust in quality search results and help valuable content stand out?

Why did they want us all to implement it in the first place?

Was anything we were told about Google+ authorship markup and profile images in search true to begin with?

It didn't take Moz's Rand Fishkin long to tweet his thoughts on the motivation behind the change:

And even more pointedly:

Since Google+ authorship and the rich snippets with photos in search results were implemented, we've seen eye tracking studies point to additional attention for the enhanced results. We've seen research from Catalyst and Cyrus Shepard– and even Google itself– supporting the notion that results with authorship photos have higher click-through rates than their plain text counterparts. Our own internal research also confirms this.

Image via Moz

It does seem more than a little disingenuous for Google to suggest now, after all the work they did encouraging and convincing people that authorship photos in the SERPs would get them more clicks (and it wasn’t exactly easy to set them up), that authorship photos are actually costing people clicks or don’t help at all. So what’s going on?

Google+ Authorship Clicks Had to Come from Somewhere

Clicks on the search results page are basically a zero sum game. If there's an increase in CTR for one part of the SERP, some other part is losing that click. There must be a decrease in CTR elsewhere. And that includes the ads.

We know images in the SERPs have a big impact on users and are intent- and click-sucking monsters. Google knows this, too, which is why Google's Shopping Ads (formerly Product Listing Ads) aren't plain text.

Maybe Google realized they were giving away free branding with authorship markup – at the expense of paid clicks. Besides, they have their own Sponsored Posts on Google+ for authors who want to promote themselves.

Was it another way for Google to "break the spirits of SEOs," by taking away a feature they had adopted wholeheartedly? That may be taking things too personally.

However, it's pretty clear that Google's excuse for removing author photos from organic results – decluttering and improving user experience with no effect on CTR – just doesn't hold water.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

One of the biggest obstacles I face with clients is taking control of a messy and hard to manage account. Often times AdWords accounts change hands over time, have an “old school” strategy for setup, or just have too many cooks in the kitchen for a lack of better terminology. This often leads to an account with more campaigns, ad groups, and keywords than you know what to do with.

I speak with many clients who feel like they are drowning in their accounts and don’t even know where to begin. Upon analyzing these accounts, I often have the same sentiments; it can feel impossible to know what the best first step is because there are so many things that can and need to be fixed.

The obvious question is then, “Do we try to fix what currently exists or would it be better to start over?” Either option can feel rather daunting, but in my experience, I’ve had more success and fewer headaches when we have scrapped the mess and started over with a neatly organized account structure and a lot more simplicity.  

Here are 3 reasons why you should consider building out a new AdWords account from scratch and walking away from the current mess of a situation that you are trying to navigate.

#1: It’ll be easier to manage

Just think about it. If you have 10 campaigns, 100 ad groups, and hundreds of thousands of keywords (this might be a bit dramatic for some, but it’ll get the point across), that means you have to look at each of these elements to decide what optimization steps to take in your account. Daily tactics include questioning which of the hundreds of thousands keyword bids should be changed, which match types are working well, which ads should be optimized, and overall just where to even begin.

With an abundance of campaigns and ad groups, there is often overlap in the account, keywords competing against each other, and a whole lot of keywords that aren’t even seeing any performance and yet are taking up space and cluttering the account.

I often see misspellings, different match types, and even just the plural version of a keyword located in different ad groups. It feels confusing to even try to explain this, so imagine trying to manage an account with a structure that doesn’t allow you to easily locate specific items. Having too much clutter makes it too hard to take action, especially if you have not been deeply involved in the setup and continued growth of the account.

Starting over will most likely allow you to cut down on the number of keywords, ad groups, and campaigns necessary to advertise your specific product or service offering. Often a product/service can be communicated in only a handful of semantically related keywords rather than hundreds of overlapping keywords. If you start from a fresh slate, this will allow you to not only acquire a sense of organization, but you will be able to easily locate keywords and themes within the account, make changes to a smaller number of keywords during a normal workflow for optimization, and gain control in targeting and communicating to your potential searchers.

#2: You can track your performance more efficiently

Along with being able to manage individual aspects of your AdWords account within sifting through a bunch of waste, starting over with a neatly organized account will allow you to track performance much more effectively. Rather than having to look through every nook and cranny of your old messy account in an attempt to see which of the pieces is performing well, you will have fewer places to look and a better understanding of what is working well and what needs improvement. Looking at the performance of 100 or so keywords is certainly a lot more manageable than looking through the performance (or lack thereof) of 100,000+ keywords.

Similarly, when there are too many moving pieces in an account, especially with broad keywords and just general overlap, it can be difficult to truly pinpoint what is working well – there could be 5 or more keywords all competing for the same search queries, and that means having to look at the performance of all 5 of those keywords just to identify if there is success or failure. By cutting down the number of keywords, you can look at just one instance of a keyword and much more quickly identify positive or negative performance.

#3: There won’t be as many surprises

You might be tempted to take the road of fixing your account rather than starting over because you have the common feeling that you do have some good data, that you can benefit from historical performance, and that a lot of work has gone into the account in the past so it doesn’t make sense to just walk away from it. I get that, I really do, but I can predict that you will run into more obstacles and surprises than you realize when trying to “fix” what’s wrong in your account now.

With every pause of a keyword and with every change, you have to worry about the hundreds or thousands of other keywords that weren’t seeing performance previously but could easily be activated as soon as you make a change. In my experience, pausing one keyword meant seeing a performance spike in an unwanted area; keywords that we didn’t even realize were in the account would all of a sudden start seeing performance after even the smallest change. Especially with large, unorganized accounts, there can be numerous unknowns, which can make it very difficult to predict the outcome of a change to the account.

Starting over will allow you to avoid the scenario of being in a sinking ship where plugging one hole just causes a more forceful flow of water through another hole. If you start from scratch you’re building up successfully rather than trying to jump in five different directions just to salvage something that has been doomed from the beginning. You maintain control over what you are putting into your account and can drive forward movement rather than having to simply react to whatever goes wrong next.

Case Study: Why I Deleted My Client’s AdWords Account

When one of my clients joined WordStream, he was new to his company’s AdWords account and yet was tasked with the duty to help them at least break even in paid search. My first look at the account made me realize we had a lot of work ahead of us, as there were close to 50 active campaigns, even more ad groups, and literally hundreds of thousands of keywords. There were so many components to analyze and so many moving pieces that it was quite difficult to determine the best first steps.

For a while we tried to salvage what we had, so we started pausing some obvious keywords that weren’t contributing to the account, started working on some of the keywords that were clearly wasting money, and focused on some of the high CPA areas. Initially, we paused 100,000+ keywords and saw just about zero change in performance; this just goes to show how much junk was sitting in the account making it even more frustrating to manage, but really contributing nothing at all. From here we started making changes to keywords and run into more and more unexpected changes in performance due to keywords in the account that we didn’t even realize existed.

Ultimately the pace of small changes wasn’t helping, and we were still just seeing performance metrics that weren’t in line with goals. Not only that, but the account wasn’t feeling any more manageable. We finally decided to simply ditch everything and completely start over so that we could have full control over every keyword, every bid, every match type, and so on.

We started over in early to mid-May, so it has been about one and a half to two months since we revamped the account. So far performance has been great. We have seen:

• 149% increase in CTR
• 27% decrease in CPA
• Roughly a 40% decrease in overall cost

Not bad, right?

Other metrics such as impression share have certainly improved as well:

And seeing a graph where CTR is going up month over month and CPA going down is always a good feeling:

The Biggest Takeaway

As if an improvement in performance isn’t a good enough motivator, I think that the biggest incentive for me in telling clients to consider starting over is that it will make account management that much easier. If your job is to manage even just one AdWords account, you should want it to be as easily executable as possible. It’s not worth it to make your PPC experience miserable just because you’re afraid that starting over could lead to negative results or you don’t want to give up on an account that has existed for quite some time. An easy to navigate account is going to cut down on time spent working in the account and will make overall optimization much more convenient.

I’m also not saying that starting over is for everyone; some accounts certainly just need a bit of a tune-up, but I certainly wouldn’t rule out the option of creating something new for your own sanity as well as overall performance.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

The chances are pretty good that, even though you may not have realized it, you’ve seen several examples of native advertising. These days, native advertising is everywhere – and it’s getting harder and harder to spot.

There’s something not quite right about this cheeseburger…

In today’s post, we’re going to look at what native advertising is, why it can be so controversial, and several native advertising examples that are really impressive – as well as a few that are downright terrible.

What is Native Advertising?

Simply put, native advertising is paid content. Articles, infographics, videos, you name it – if a content producer can make it, corporations can buy it and publishing platforms can promote it.

Now, you might be thinking, “How does a native advertisement differ from an advertorial?” Well, in order to be considered a true native advertisement, the content should align with the publication or site’s established editorial style and tone, and must also provide the kind of information that the publication’s audience typically expects.

These qualities are what make native advertisements difficult to spot, as they often blend in with the “organic” content extremely well. This is made even more challenging by the fact that there are no defined rules or guidelines on how publishers must label native ads, and standards of transparency vary widely from one publication to another.

Why is Native Advertising So Controversial?

“Don’t trick them. Don’t piss them off.”

This was the advice of Eric Goeres, director of innovation at Time magazine, speaking at the recent Contently Summit. Goeres spoke during the “Truth in Advertising” panel at the event, during which the topic of native advertising took center stage. Goeres’ words of warning refer to the trust between a publisher and its audience, and he emphasized the dangers of angering readers by resorting to trickery and deception to make a quick buck.

Brands and advertisers love native ads, mainly because the click-through rates tend to be much higher than typical advertisements and engagement is usually much stronger. However, not everyone is as enamored with native ads, particularly consumers.

Several professional organizations have weighed in on the often vague nature of native advertising. The Federal Trade Commission is considering implementing regulatory measures on brands using native ads to promote their products, and the FTC has also indicated it may monitor the market closely to ensure that native advertising is being used in a manner that benefits consumers. The American Society of Magazine Editors has also called for greater transparency and oversight when it comes to native advertising.

The reason that many publishers see native advertising as a risky proposition is the potential for this kind of content to erode the public’s trust. After all, if The New York Times publishes a “story” by Dell in exchange for money, can the Times objectively report on matters relating to Dell, or has every mention of the company been paid for? This is the dilemma facing publishers today.

Native Advertising Statistics

Before we look at some of the best native advertising examples (and a rogue’s gallery of some of the worst), let’s acquaint ourselves with the state of the native advertising landscape:

• Almost half of consumers have no idea what native advertising is
• Of those consumers who do, 51% are skeptical
• Three out of four publishers offer some form of native advertising on their sites
• 90% of publishers either have or plan to launch native advertising campaigns
• 41% of brands are currently using native advertising as part of wider promotional efforts

5 Great Native Advertising Examples

So, now that we’ve established that native advertising is here to stay (for the time being at least), let’s take a look at some of the best – and worst – native advertising examples.

1. ‘Woman Going to Take Quick Break After Filling Out Name, Address on Tax Forms,’ The Onion

One of the funniest satirical sites on the web, The Onion also has a strong grasp on native advertising, as exemplified by this particularly well-known example.

This example is, admittedly, a little murky when it comes to the definition of native advertising above. Firstly, The Onion created this content specifically for its client (in this case, H&R Block), rather than Block simply publishing its own content on the site. However, the content itself and its positioning still classify it as native advertising, rather than “traditional” sponsored content, at least in my book.

When this content was published in 2012, it was framed by several traditional vertical and horizontal banner ads for H&R Block. Even if visitors didn’t click on these banners (which they’re unlikely to, as you’re 475 times more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad, according to Solve Media), the result was significantly increased brand awareness.

Why It Works

Although the content of this post isn’t about H&R Block specifically, it does address the typically bland, dry topic of taxes in a fun, relatable and highly entertaining way, creating a positive association with the advertiser. This native ad even poked fun at the box that clearly marks the page as sponsored content by including an endorsement from The Onion’s fictitious “publisher emeritus” T. Herman Zweibel.

Although the banners served as calls to action, the main purpose of the campaign was to further increase H&R Block’s brand awareness – a goal that this native advertising example accomplished admirably.

2. ‘Infographic: UPS’s 2012 Change in the (Supply) Chain Survey,’ Fast Company

This infographic highlighting UPS’s innovations in its supply chain management operations is another excellent example of native advertising. It’s not the prettiest infographic you’ll ever see, but it gets the job done.

Why It Works

What makes this infographic such a great example of native advertising is that its virtually indistinguishable from Fast Company’s typical content. Notice the tiny gray “Advertisement” tag at the top? It’s definitely easy to miss. The infographic’s use of UPS’ brown and yellow color scheme further reinforces the content’s brand messaging in a subtle way, and the infographic succeeds in selling UPS’ services in the tried-and-trusted “problem/solution” format.

3. ’10 Quotes Every Grad Needs to Read,’ BuzzFeed

Alongside Upworthy, BuzzFeed is the most successful viral hit factory on the web. Is it any wonder that the site would eventually open up its coveted readership to sponsors with deep pockets? Case in point, the BuzzFeed “Community” pages, featuring brands like publishing giant HarperCollins:

As you can see above, posts made to the Community section of BuzzFeed have “not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed’s editorial staff,” meaning that HarperCollins (and Mini, and Pepsi, and the other brands that publish content at BuzzFeed) have simply paid for the privilege of getting their brand in front of BuzzFeed’s audience. Apart from the prominent HarperCollins logo above the social share buttons, there’s little to set this apart from BuzzFeed’s regular content.

Why It Works

Timeliness factors into the success of this native advertising example. Firstly, the post was published in late June, coinciding well with graduation season. Secondly, the basis of the post was teacher David McCullough, Jr.’s famous “You Are Not Special” commencement speech, which itself went viral.

The post adheres strictly to BuzzFeed’s popular animated .GIF/listicle post format, making it easily digestible, and the headline is impeccably crafted for BuzzFeed’s audience, as you’d expect. There’s very little obvious connection between the client (a major publishing house) to the content, aside from the implied relationship between college graduates and books, so the ad comes off as a “soft sell,” which is easier for audiences to stomach than forceful product placement.

4. ‘Should You Accept Your Employer’s Pension Buyout Offer?’, Forbes

Forbes has published articles like this for years, but as the publication has transitioned from a full-time staff to a contributor-led model, it’s hardly surprising that Forbes has begun to publish native advertising by financial institutions like this one from Fidelity Investments.

This is a particularly good example of native advertising, as while the post is most definitely branded and has an unmistakable angle, the post itself contains some real substance. It outlines the pros and cons of both monthly payment and lump sum pension buyout options, backed up with hard numbers about inflation rates and how accepting a pension buyout offer can affect your tax status.

Why It Works

Yes, it’s blatantly branded content, and Fidelity makes no secret of its services, but this post actually contains more financial advice and insight than most typical Forbes finance and business content. Readers should most definitely remain aware of Fidelity’s agenda when reading, but overall, this native advertisement provides real value to the reader, does so in a way that Forbes’ audience would expect, and aligns with the publication’s editorial and stylistic guidelines. A great example.

5. ‘Hennessy Fuels Our Chase for the Wild Rabbit … But What Does It All Mean?’, Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair has a long tradition of publishing effortlessly trendy lifestyle journalism, which makes it an ideal vehicle (pardon the pun) for native advertising.

This native ad combines video and written content to go behind the scenes of a video about English race car driver Sir Malcolm Campbell, “The Fastest Man on Earth.” Campbell was the first man to break the 300mph land speed record way back in 1935, and he remains an enduring symbol of ambition – the perfect gentleman to sell top-shelf liquor. Hennessy partnered with creative agency Droga5 to produce the video, which coincided with the drink maker’s “Never Stop, Never Settle” campaign.

Why It Works

In addition to drawing a subtle yet striking comparison between Campbell’s spirit of adventure and Hennessy’s “Wild Rabbit” campaign (“a metaphor for one’s inner drive to succeed”, according to the article), the piece is genuinely interesting. The content’s inevitable product placement is handled well, and it doesn’t feel gratuitous or tenuously positioned alongside the subject matter. Finally, the piece is as stylish as a regular Vanity Fair feature, which results in an engaging experience for the reader.

The Hall of Shame: Terrible Native Advertising Examples

Now that we’ve seen how the pros create sponsored content, how about we point and laugh at some of the very worst native advertising examples on the web?

‘David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year,’ The Atlantic

Although The Atlantic was quick to pull this disastrous foray into native advertising from its site soon after it went live, it will live on forever thanks to the fine folks at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, who decided to permanently archive it – presumably to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.

Now, aside from the boatloads of cash The Atlantic must have received for publishing this shameless advertorial, I can’t think of a single reason why shilling for what some describe as a dangerous cult in a reasonably well-respected national publication ever seemed like a good idea.

Yes, The Atlantic had the common sense to highlight (with a bright yellow tag) that this was “Sponsor Content”, but this did little to mitigate the damage. The publication was widely mocked in the mainstream media, and this classic blunder is routinely used as the poster child for bad native advertising examples.

‘How to Transform into a Total Nerd Babe,’ Gawker

I find everything about this content – and I do mean everything– utterly objectionable and completely offensive, from the vapid headline to the clichéd copy. Unfortunately, that’s not even the worst part.

This “content” was originally created to promote the TBS reality TV show “King of the Nerds.” Aside from the tiny “Sponsored” tag toward the top of the post (highlighted above), there is nothing to distinguish this ad from the type of drivel Gawker usually publishes. After the promo was over, the editorial staff at Gawker couldn’t even be bothered to restructure the article to remain grammatically correct, and instead just deleted the name of the show (see the second paragraph). For shame.

Gawker (deservedly) took a lot of heat for this and its other native ads, which led the publisher to implement a new policy of transparency. These days, a native Gawker ad looks like this:

Gawker’s native ads are now tagged by network, appear in a dedicated section of the site (Studio @ Gawker), have their own writers, and the nice, clear statements at the bottom indicating that this is, indeed, an ad. At least now it’s easier to identify which posts should be avoided.

‘Will Millennials Ever Completely Shun the Office?’, The New York Times

This advertorial is so bad, it’s actually a little embarrassing.

Not only is the agenda of this piece completely transparent from the outset, the “Millennial work ethic” angle is so tired it’s practically comatose. Even the question posed by the article is ridiculous – no, Millennials will not “shun” offices, because most of them are saddled with back-breaking student loan debt and can’t find work. Oh, but if they do choose to shun the office, they can always use Dell hardware to telecommute, right?

The only thing this native ad has going for it is that it’s impossible to mistake this ad for the Times’ actual editorial content. It also appears that (as of the time of this writing) the Times has removed Dell’s other three sponsored posts, which I’m guessing is because the whole experiment was an unmitigated disaster.

Oh dear.

More Than Meets The Eye?

Done well, native ads can be interesting, informative and sell a product or build a brand. Get them wrong, however, and your readers will hate you for it. Knowing how to strike this delicate yet crucial balance is difficult, but that hasn’t stopped publishers from jumping firmly on the native ads bandwagon. Only time will tell whether the FTC or other regulatory bodies will chime in on how these ads should be displayed, but for now, it seems likely that both brands and publishers will continue to try and discover the magic formula.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

When Google announced a couple of weeks ago that Google+ authorship markup would be disappearing from the SERPs, Larry and Rand Fishkin were on the same page – both suspected that the reason for the reversal was a loss of clicks on ads.

As Larry put it, “Clicks on the search results page are basically a zero sum game. If there's an increase in CTR for one part of the SERP, some other part is losing that click. There must be a decrease in CTR elsewhere. And that includes the ads.”

Do I think this theory is plausible? Sure, for two reasons:

• You’d expect that Google would test the feature before they told SEO’s to start using it. So it’s suspicious that we are now being told that the author photos have no positive effect.
• Images have been shown to increase CTR on the paid side (in product listing ads and Shopping Campaigns), so why wouldn’t they increase CTR on the organic side as well? Rand, for example, has said that attaching his author photo to the Moz SEO Beginner’s Guide increased CTR/traffic from organic search.

Not everyone likes the theory, though; Bill Slawski, for example, has been vocal with his criticisms on Google+ and elsewhere. He said in a comment on our blog:

Google has conducted and published usability studies explaining why they have removed smaller photos for social annotations in search results when people endorsed or shared those results. It had nothing to do with less clicks on ads, and everything to do with no one clicking on those results.

Even if the usability studies are accurate, this doesn’t explain why they pushed the feature so hard in the first place, of course. In any case, I’ve got an alternate theory: My theory is, click-through rate has nothing to do with it. Authorship photos are going away because Google+ is going away.

Authorship Photos Were a Dangling Carrot for Marketers

Think about it – how did authorship markup work? It was wired through Google+. Maybe Google pushed authorship markup in the first place not because photos increased CTR, but because they hoped the lure of author photos would increase adoption of Google+.

Google told us author photos increase CTR because otherwise, no one would go to the trouble to set it up; it was notoriously difficult to get working properly. The switcheroo suggests one of the following is true:

• If they are now planning to abandon (or shall we say “de-emphasize”) Google+, all that work is going to so be lost, so they might as well admit that author photos didn’t work the way they said they would.
• Alternatively, maybe they are just claiming that photos don’t increase CTR to distract from the real reason they are going away. (Markup will be broken when your Google+ profile dies.)

Maybe Google+ Isn't Dying, Just (D)evolving

I’m not the first to suggest that Google is killing Google+ – there have been rumors of its impending death ever since Vic Gundotra left the company in April. Google has denied the rumors, but it’s telling that they’ve been seeming to back off Google+ in the past year (after ramming it down our throats for two years in a row). At the very least, they're not banking everything on G+ anymore. It looks like they may scale Google+ way back so it's more like a management platform for various Google services, not a competitor to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. In that scenario, it wouldn't make sense for Google to essentially give away free branding to SEO's in the form of authorship photos.

I know a lot of you SEO’s love Google+ and don’t want to accept that it might be joining the Google Graveyard. But having loyal users didn’t stop Google from killing Reader when they decided that adoption didn’t justify the resources.

What do you think? Do you like my theory better than Larry’s?

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

My last blog post was at the end of last summer, when we achieved a “Hat Trick” of key milestones. We had surpassed a thousand clients, made the Inc. 500 for the first time, and our AdWords Performance Grader passed $2.5 billion in unique spend analyzed. In the last few months, we’ve achieved a few more key milestones. Our team is now 100+ people strong, and we recently surpassed the $10 million in annual recurring revenue mark. 

Today, I’m excited to tell you about another big milestone on our journey to build the best search marketing software for small and medium-sized businesses. We have just raised $12 million of fresh funding, led by Baird Capital of Chicago. This is the biggest fundraising round WordStream has ever done! As exciting as things have been in the past few years, our team is pumped about what the future holds. 

What are we going to use the $12M for? 

• Innovation: We have a wealth of ideas on where to take our product offering. Many of these ideas are fueled by customer feedback. At the end of last year, we released our Landing Pages & Leads offering. Just this month we released Call Tracking, and we have a number of key initiatives in our pipeline. This funding is going to allow us to expand our Product team, hire more engineering resources, and accelerate the features and capabilities of our software to make it even more awesome.
• Free Tools: We’re known throughout the industry for our groundbreaking free AdWords Performance Grader. The Grader now analyzes three quarters of a billion dollars every single month! This staggering volume is beyond anything we could have imagined, and it keeps growing! Earlier this year, we added a free Landing Page Grader to help small and medium-sized businesses get insights about their lead conversion funnel. With this fresh funding, you can expect continued evolution of our existing free tools as well as a few new surprises. 

We have a lot more planned. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you have areas you would like to see us focus on, please comment below, or pass along your thoughts to your key WordStream contact.

Here I am toasting the team on our recent harbor cruise

I want to extend a big thank you to our clients, many of which have been with us for a long time and have provided valuable feedback and guidance along the way that helped to make this round of funding possible. Thanks also to our tremendous staff at WordStream—we have a great team filled with smart,  passionate people that want to make a difference. Lastly, thank you to our early investors, Sigma Partners and Egan Managed Capital, which provided the initial capital and guidance to build the company that we have today.

Big things ahead!

Ralph

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Good visual content is a key component of online marketing. Posting pictures and illustrations on social media networks helps brands boost engagement and get noticed by fans.

Our social media images guide seeks to provide you with everything you need to know about using images on social networks. We’ll be covering:

• Where to get free social media images

• Optimizing images for dimensions and sizing on various social networks

• Techniques for using images creatively on social media

Where to Get Social Media Images

When it comes to using images online, it’s best to play it safe by using social media images that are under a creative commons license. What is a creative commons license?

Creative Commons licenses let creators easily choose a simple license that communicates which rights to their content they reserve, and which rights they choose to waive so that others may use their work.

These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

There are a number of sites that offer images under a creative commons license with photos that are free to use. Most require attribution, but not all.

• Flickr: Easy to find TONS of CC licensed materials by modifying Flickr search parameters.

• Pixabay: Great source for free photos and free vector illustrations. The best thing about it? You can use these images and illustrations without attribution, even for commercial purposes. Just be sure to steer clear of the ShutterStock ad photos that show up within the results for free photos - those will cost ya.

• Free Images: Lots of free high-quality stock photos and graphics to choose from. Avoid the “premium” photos on the top line of searches which are not free.

• Open Clipart: I’m a big fan of using clip art, as clip art is often no-strings-attached free and easy to use with other photos to create a new, customized piece of content. Open Clipart is a gigantic resource of free clip art, with unlimited commercial use.

This clip art and more could be yours!

• Morgue File: MorgueFile is another great collection of free photos. Some photos can be used for commercial uses, while others can’t. Usually you’ll have to provide attribution.

• Free Digital Photos: There’s a lot of free, high-quality stock photos to choose from here. Only the small sizes of images are free, but they should be adequate for most web-related purposes. The images require attribution and you’ll also need offer up an email address to download the images.

• Unrestricted Stock: Here you’ll find a solid selection of free photos and vector files. Everything is free and can be used for commercial purposes.

• Wiki Commons: Searching for photos in Wiki Commons often feels like a grab bag, but there are definite gems here. Most content is under a creative commons license, so you’ll usually have to credit the source and author.

Social Media Image Dimensions

It’s often hard to keep track of all the various social media picture dimensions on the web. That’s why we’ve created a collection of quick and dirty social media image cheat sheets for formatting pics across various social networks.

Facebook Image Dimensions

• Cover Image: 850 X 315 px

• Profile Picture: 180 X 180 px

• Shared Image:504 X 504 px (Note: horizontal images are scaled to 504 width. Vertical images are scaled to 504 height and may show a grey border on the sides. To take up maximum image real estate, use square 504 X 504 images).

• Shared Link:484 X 252 px

For complete Facebook sizes of every sharable item imaginable, plus ad image sizes and variations, check out this great Facebook image guide by David Coleman.

Twitter Image Dimensions

Dimensions for Twitter Profiles

• Cover Photo: 1500 X 500 px

• Profile Picture: 400 X 400 px

Twitter has semi-recently rolled out a sleek new look for Twitter profiles. You may get a sense of deja vu, as this redesign is highly reminiscent of Facebook’s look.

For Twitter posts, keep in mind the expanded, full-size image as well as how the image will appear via in the in-stream pic preview.

Dimensions for Tweets

Twitter In-Stream Image Preview: 440 x 220 px

To optimize images so that the preview image and expanded image are the same, use a horizontally oriented image with a 2:1 aspect ratio whose dimensions do not exceed (1024 X 512 px).

Always use images with a 2:1 aspect ratio and vertically centered text and graphics. This ensures that the main message is viewed in the Twitter in-stream preview, with the expanded image revealing additional info or imagery.

Twitter Image Tip: The links for photos use up 26 characters of a tweet. This gives you a remaining 114 characters for your tweet message. Remember to keep it short!

YouTube Image Dimensions

• Channel Cover:2,560 x 1,440 px

• Profile Picture: Linked to Google+ Profile Picture

Other YouTube Info:

• Video Title:Max of 100 characters

• Video Description: Max of 5,000 characters

• Video Dimensions: 2,560 x 1,440 px

Pinterest Image Dimensions

• Profile Picture: 165 X 165 px

• Board Cover Photo: 217 X 146 px

• Board Thumbnails: 51 X 51 px

Pin Image Dimensions:

• Pin Feed Preview: 238 X scaled height

• Enlarged Pin: 735 X infinite

LinkedIn Company Page Dimensions

• Cover Photo: 646 X 220 px

• Horizontal Logo:100 X 60 px

• Square Logo: 50 X 50 px

Instagram Image Dimensions

• Profile Picture: 110 X 110 px

• Instagram Pics: 2048 X 2048 px (this is maximum resolution of photos taken with Instagram camera app)

Note: Maximum resolution is 2048 x 2048 px with Instagram camera. Pictures exported via mobile, not taken with Instagram, will have a resolution less than 612 x 612 px.

Google+ Image Dimensions

Google+ Icon: 250 X 250 px (Note: square upload is displayed as circle)

Google+ Cover Photo

• Recommended size: 1080 x 608 px

• Minimum size: 480 x 270 px

• Maximum size: 2120 x 1192 px

Google+ Posting Dimensions:

• Google+ Shared Image: 497 X 373 px (Note: photos are auto-resized to fit display. This is the minimums size recommended. Photos can be uploaded at maximum dimensions of 2048 X 2048 px).

• Google+ Shared Video Preview:497 X 279 px

• Google+ Link Thumbnail: 150 X 150 px

Social Media Images: Innovative Techniques

Despite all this talk of social media image sizes, you may be wondering if it really matters whether or not your photo fits the ideal dimensions perfectly.

Usually a little bit of image cut-off is not a huge deal. But if you’re using social media images innovatively with text, you’ll want to be exact and match the specified social media dimensions to ensure no important parts of your image get cropped.

Let’s look at some creative social media image examples and marketing ideas.

Infographics

While it can be difficult to share full infographics as social media images, you can still capitalize on an infograhic’s visual appeal. On Facebook or Twitter, try cropping part of an infographic to post as a social media image and then link to the full infographic.

Pinterest allows you to post full infographics with its unlimited height dimension. However, users will probably still have to click the preview pin and view the enlarged version in order to make any sense of the infographic. To capture attention in a user’s Pinterest feed, make sure your infographic is visually interesting, even from a distance.

Social media images can also be used to advertise a sale or special promotion.

When you have text overlaying an image, you’ll want to use the proper social media sizing to prevent any wording from being cut off. In the example below, an image with text was uploaded to Twitter without considering how the image would look in the Twitter image feed preview.

As you can see, with certain words cut off, the initial preview image makes no sense (it also makes the women pictured look naked, which distracts from the mission of the campaign). The user is required to expand the image in order to make sense of the post. In situations like these it’s better to use the recommended social media image dimensions to ensure that your message doesn’t become distorted.

Social media images with text overlays can also be used as a kind of cover image for your blog post, or simply to promote specific products and offerings.

You bet they do!

That concludes our guide to social media images. Never dismiss the power of visual assets online: when done right, you’ll find they greatly increase engagement across all social media outlets.

Do you have any creative uses for social media images you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments!

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Marketers spend most of their time trying to appeal to their target demographics, but when it comes to women, many of them are missing the mark. Given that women make up half the population and have a disproportionate amount of purchasing power, isn’t it in your best interest to try to understand them?  Here are 23 surprising facts you probably didn’t know about women and advertising.

Facepalm - because actions speak louder than words.

1. Women account for 85% of consumer purchases (She-conomy)
2. Despite this, 91% of women say advertisers don’t understand them (Ibid.)
3. Women control 73% of U.S. household spending (Boston Consulting Group, 2009)
4. Women account for 58% of U.S. ecommerce spend (Women’s Buying Behavior Index 2013)
5. 22% of women shop online at least once per day (Ogilvy & Mather)
6. Women account for 80% of all car purchases by influence (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 2004)
7. 33% of women research products online before purchasing them offline (Harris Interactive)
8. More than half of mothers active on social media platforms (55%) said they made a purchase based on the recommendation of a friend (Keller Fay Group)
9. The average woman sees 400 to 600 advertisements per day (“Body Image and Advertising,” Mediascope Press, 2000)
10. By the time a girl reaches her 17^th birthday, she will have seen more than 250,000 ads (“Media Influence on Teens,” Allison LaVoie, 2003)
11. As a demographic, mothers represent a $2.4 trillion market (“Power Moms: The New Rules for Engaging Mom Influencers Who Drive Brand Choice,” Maria Bailey)
12. Mothers mention brands approximately 73 times per week on average, compared to just 57 times among men (Keller Fay Group)
13. 92% of women pass along deals or finds to others (Ogilvy Mather)
14. Exposure to so-called “ideal” body images in advertising has been found to lower women’s satisfaction with their own attractiveness (“About-Face facts on the MEDIA,” L. Dittrich, Ph. D)
15. The average American woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 140 pounds, whereas the average American model is 5’11” tall and weighs 117 pounds (“The Developmental Psychopathology of Eating Disorders,” Linda Smolak et al, 1996)
16. 56% of television ads aimed at women used beauty as their primary product appeal (“Body Image and Gender Identity,” National Institute on Media and the Family)
17. 59% of women feel misunderstood by food marketers (Forbes, 2010)
18. 66% of women feel misunderstood by health care marketers (Ibid.)
19. 74% of women feel misunderstood by investment marketers (Ibid.)
20. There is a 21% gender worth gap among men and women in the search marketing industry (WordStream)
21. There is a 19.7% gender pay gap between men and women in the search marketing industry (Moz)
22. There is a 12% gender pay gap among male and female staff at the White House (American Enterprise Institute)
23. Half of all products marketed to men are actually purchased by women (Nuance Digital Marketing)

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

If you’ve been following developments in the search industry lately, you’ll have undoubtedly have come across discussions about Google’s recent decision to remove authorship photos from search results. We reported on this soon after the change went into effect, and other industry thought leaders like Rand Fishkin wasted no time weighing in, either.

However, despite overwhelming support for the idea that Google’s decision was based on authorship photos’ impact on the CTR of paid search ads, some naysayers insisted that this couldn’t be the case. I wasn’t content to leave things at that, so I set about looking for evidence to support my theory – and I’ve found it.

In the figure above, you can see that in a search for the term “negative keywords”, our paid search ad is the only ad displayed. This eliminates any possible ambiguity resulting from the variance in CTR based on ad position. You’ll also notice that two articles authored by me are included prominently in the SERP, as well as another article authored by Darian Schouten over at TechWyse. These three results would have been accompanied by author photos prior to their removal on June 25.

We examined the CTR of the ad above both before and after Google’s announcement. We found hard evidence that the CTR of the ad improved significantly when author photos were no longer being displayed in the SERP.

Obviously, the peaks and valleys shown in the figure above are normal. CTR varies from one day to the next, so these fluctuations should come as no surprise.

As is clearly evident from this data, the CTR of the ad after the removal of author photos from the SERPs is much higher. In fact, the CTR of the ad is 44.8% higher than beforehand within this ad group. We tested this data rigorously, and the difference we observed is statistically significant with 99% confidence due to the high number of daily ad impressions (thousands) for this keyword.

We would love to test this theory with other keywords, but finding suitable terms that both meet the criteria and for which we have data for, is challenging.

However, it’s clear to us that based on this data, it’s not realistic to say the deletion of Google authorship photos has no impact on the CTR of other elements on the SERP.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Google's Matt Cutts announced July 3 that he is taking a few months' leave of absence from his position as head of web spam to spend more time with his wife. He assured webmasters and SEOs that there are still a ton of resources people can use to keep up to speed and contact Google while he's away.

Even so, some couldn't resist cracking jokes in the comments on his post about the black-hat mice playing while the web spam cat is away.

No, you shouldn't run out and buy some links now. What you can do is take this time as an opportunity to give your online presence and SEO strategy an overhaul. When Matt gets back, he'll be so proud of all the hard work you've done! (And in the meantime, this is really something you should stop and do once in a while – it's good for your business. People get busy though and forget.)

So what can you do while Matt Cutts is away? Start here:

Keyword Research

How do you manage your keyword strategy? We found that keyword optimization was one of the top 5 places SMBs could improve their paid search strategy in 2014 and suspect that many could use a keyword refresh for organic, as well.

Search is constantly evolving and your keywords should, too – it's definitely not a place to "set it and forget it." If you aren't using the keywords people are actually looking for now, you're selling yourself short.

Check out Johnathan Dane's recommendations on 8 different keyword research tools, some free and some paid, to find a tool that works for you. Megan Marrs also offers a great resource for those struggling with a lack of internal keyword data in 9 Ways to Steal Your "Not Provided" Keyword Data Back.

We all know how much Matt Cutts loves relevance. Keep your keyword research up to date and update your site content as needed to stay relevant to searchers! 

Get to Know Schema

Schema is a type of microdata that makes it easier for search engines to parse and interpret the information on your website. It helps the search engine understand what's on your pages and how it should be treated. Its use is not a ranking signal, so adding markup to your site won't instantly boost your rankings. However, it is a best practice to help the engines better understand your site content, enabling them to show your content for more relevant queries.

If you're not using microdata yet, you're not alone. It can seem intimidating, but it's not overly complicated. Dan Shewan wrote a comprehensive guide to Schema Markup for SEO– start there and show Matt Cutts you learned something new while he was gone!

Get Sticky and Improve Your User Experience

Your internal linking strategy should be a priority, if it isn't already. Webmasters used to think of this as PageRank sculpting, but it's really just good user experience and helps people navigate to other relevant information on your site.

Elisa Gabbert wrote a good explanation of how internal linking works, with a helpful example, in her tips for non-SEOs article.

Wherever you're mentioning an idea or concept you've expanded on elsewhere, or referring to a person or entity you have more content on, or referencing previously published material, you have an opportunity to link. Don't make people search out more information – just give them easy access to keep perusing your site with a logical internal linking strategy you employ every time you create new content.

Matt Cutts will thank you.

Get Up to Speed with the Declining Value of Backlinks

Links may not continue their reign as the international currency of SEO. Early in 2014, Matt Cutts confirmed that Google had been internally testing versions of their search algorithm that would work entirely without links.

What are you going to do when the algorithm no longer relies on the link graph?

13 SEO experts shared with WordStream readers their opinions on the dwindling value of backlinks.  Aaron Wall, Rae Hoffman, Brett Tabke and others all shared their recommendations for SEOs who want to get ahead of the game and prepare.

Check it out. Don't let Matt catch you off guard. He warned you and will be pleased that you listened!

Revisit Your SEO Strategy Often to Stay in Matt's Good Graces

SEO is constantly evolving and you have to, as well. While we don't believe it's open season because the boss is away, the next few months would be a good time to go over each facet of your online presence with a fine-tooth comb and make sure your in adherence with current best practices.

If you're not motivated by the common fear of the iron fist of Matt Cutts, think of what it will do for your business!

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

In this latest in our series of the best tips from Inbound.org’s AMAs (Ask Me Anythings), we've rounded up the top social media marketing wisdom shared by expert marketers.

Justin Isaf, Dharmesh Shah, Paul May, Oli Gardner and many others have given us all a chance to pick their brains in the Q&A-style threads on Inbound. Here, you'll find the top social media marketing tips from the AMAs, organized by:

• Content promotion via social media
• Social media marketing tools and tactics
• Social media measurement & ROI
• The business of social media marketing

Be sure to check out our first two posts in this series, 21 Content Marketing Tips from the Best Inbound.org AMAs and Best of the Inbound.org AMAs: SEO Edition.

Image via New Old Stock Photos

Promoting Content via Social Media

On creating content people will share:

Beyond your day to day content, you've got to do something "big" to get attention. I call these content events. As I mentioned above, during the first three months of Copyblogger, I tried three of these, and finally succeeded with a free report on gaining traffic with content (a hot topic at the time and always). But I also reached out to every popular blogger around to get the word out. Remember, at the time I was completely unknown. At first, producing great content is not enough. You've got to hustle to get it seen. But, at a certain point you'll have enough of an audience (what I call a minimum viable audience) and they will begin spreading the word for you via social media, links, and other forms of sharing like email forwarding. That's when all your hard work starts to really pay off.

- Brian Clark, CEO of Copyblogger Media

On the basics of content promotion:

If you're an impressive brand, why aren't you well known? If you have a really awesome product or service and a great business model but no one knows about it, you really need to start back at PR 101 and get the word out. If you're putting out good content that resonates with your targets AND you have a killer business, the only reason I can imagine that you wouldn't be known is that you aren't promoting your content. You're not taking advantage of social relationships, you're not asking for reviews, you're not optimizing your content, you're not inspiring media coverage. Start there.

- Larry Kim, founder and CTO of WordStream

On promoting a new piece of content:

For Twitter: I Tweet the article right away and then Buffer it another 2-3 times for the coming days. Here I often use different titles to see if I might be able to come up with a headline that spreads more. 

For Facebook: I always add it to our Buffer as an image. (I've learnt this technique from SEOmoz's Jennita). This way it spreads a lot further. Also, it gives me an opportunity to share the same article multiple times to FB each time with a different image and different focus. 

For G+: I almost always post it straight after we publish, I've not seen any "optimal timing" differences yet for G+.

For LinkedIn: I add it to the Buffer at the same time as I post it the first time to Twitter. I tend to only do it once.

Hacker News + Reddit + Inbound: I rarely submit articles myself, but I keep an eye on these sites, in case someone else does and I will give it an upvote.

- Leo Widrich, co-founder of Buffer

On differentiating content for various social channels:

At a minimum, we differentiate by audience. We know the Twitter audience (until recently) wouldn't expect a video or photo embedded in their news stream, and that Facebook audiences respond far better to photos. On Reddit we might be far more detailed. 

- Ian Lurie, CEO at Portent

Social Media Marketing Tools & Tactics

Image via SALTOnline

On community building for a brand new website/business:

Go to followerwonk and look at the word cloud of the all the followers of the biggest player in your space and then use those keywords to build co-relevant content ideas. Push the content at their followers through outreach and ads. Build the site so that it rewards profile creation, newsletter signups and follows. Keep the conversation going through the relevant social channels and continue to push out shareworthy content. Your community will grow.

- Mike King, Digital Marketing Consultant

On the ethics of using sharewalls to boost social shares:

If you're giving something of value I don't think you can really go wrong. Yes you get some tweet and delete, but that's okay. The end result will still be that if the content delivers value, you will get further referrals down the road (either social or other word of mouth). If you offer both options (email and tweet) then you're not forcing it and I don't think there's room to complain about that practice. Here's an example page so people can see what we're talking about. Note the two payment options, and also the preview (in the form of a slide deck) which can lift conversions.

- Oli Gardner, co-founder and creative director at Unbounce

On social media strategy for start-ups:

If I had it to do over again, I'd focus almost all of my early efforts on social engagement and incorporating early customers into the development of the product. Provide amazing customer service. Not only does it turn customers into advocates, it drives you to build better products and it invigorates you. Your odds of loving what you're doing go way up if you happen to love the people you're building your products for. Sounds a bit trite, but it's absolutely true.

- Paul May, co-founder and CEO of BuzzStream

On competitive analysis for social media marketing:

As far as reporting goes, this may sound a bit morbid, but I really take a bit of a sharp shooter approach to competitive analysis. For example, I had a client who provided [ridiculously delicious] fine chocolates. But they were having a hard time competing against the likes of Ghiradelli and Godiva. But when I pulled a host of social media metrics from their top five competitors, we found all kinds of kinks in their competitors' armors. So, although they couldn't compete with them on Facebook, they had HUGE opportunities with YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. Their competitors were asleep at the wheel with these networks. 

- Annie Cushing, Annielytics

On the future of the social graph:

Social graph is used a little, but it can do much, much more. I think we've seen that with Google+ and a little w/ Facebook graph search (too early to really say there). The social proof element of social graph + search is the most powerful, IMO. I don't totally subscribe to the idea that people only want to see what their friends recommend when they do websearch, but I do believe they may be swayed by knowing that their friends liked/shared something that showed up in the SERPs.

- Rand Fishkin, Moz founder

Social Media Measurement & ROI

On goal setting and benchmarking:

At WordStream, we define awesome content as content that has generated 5000+ visits in the first month, has an average time on site of 10+ minutes, has generated over 250 shares on social media, has gotten over 10 comments, and has been cited by at least one other major publication. The goal of the content team is to hit 1 article per week that meets these “awesome” criteria every month, and we periodically revise upwards the definition of awesome content. The types of content that generate these kinds of outcomes for us are described here.

- Larry Kim, founder and CTO of WordStream

On measuring engagement from social traffic:

The longer we can keep people engaged, the more likely it is they will discover a talk or an idea that resonates with them and sparks their curiosity. We also look at bounce rates and compare that to how people arrive on the site. The assumption is that if a user clicks through FB or Twitter or some social media channel, that their interest in the topic is already piqued (and the content probably validated by a friend or other respected source) and they are more likely to watch the full talk. If they are just wandering through the site the abandonment rate is a bit higher. One other things we are eager to measure is when people share talks. Most of our talks are pretty long (up to 18 minutes). That is a long time to keep people engaged online for any type of content. So we're interested in when people share the talk (within the first minute? at the end?).

- Aaron Weyenberg, UX Lead at TED

On measuring an audience's "listening":

It's hard to measure true listening. The best we can do is measure the degree to which people are acting based on their listening, and extrapolate that they're listening based on that action. For example, let's say a company is "listening" on Twitter for support issues related to their product. We can't really tell how well they're listening. What we do instead is measure how well they're responding. The assumption here is that if they're responding quickly and well, chances are, they're listening. And, there are a variety of "listening" tools out there. Things like Radian6 (now part of Salesforce.com) come to mind.

- Dharmesh Shah, founder & CTO of HubSpot

On "dark social" traffic misattributed to direct:

You can 100% control if your social actions will end up in the dark bucket (especially traffic from mobile and desktop apps). Be brave, use campaign tracking parameters on 100% of your own social shares. See what I do in a comment somewhere in this AMA (search for UTM). You can't control what others do when they link to you. Your browser-based traffic (mobile or desktop) will have a referrer so you are all set. No darkness. The app-based traffic will be dark. But not for Twitter. Twitter you see is a very smart company. It wraps 100% of its links in t.co. So no matter what people use (apps or browsers) it is never "dark." If you don't add tracking parameters, it is sitting in referrals under t.co. So our problem is mobile and desktop app traffic only for Facebook etc. where other people link to you but don't use campaign tracking. 

- Avinash Kaushik, Google Evangelist

The Business of Social Media Marketing

On future career opportunities in social media marketing:

There are a few "buckets" of use cases that I think will create new career opportunities:

1. Community engagement/management
2. Support (related to the above)
3. Marketing

One of the challenges with career opportunities in social is that it's such a new discipline and the bar is so low that there are too many would-be social media consultants/gurus out there. Hard for people to separate the stars from the chumps.

So, instead of focusing on social, what I'd do is look at opportunities that cut across social into other areas:

1. Analytics. Measuring what matters and figuring how best to apply resources.
2. Content Creation. There's still a massive opportunity to create great content. Anyone that can do that really, really well will have great career opportunities.
3. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Taking the traffic that is already coming into a website and figuring out how to make the most of it.

- Dharmesh Shah, founder & CTO at HubSpot

On social networking vs. community building:

A community is a web of people, a network is a hub-and-spoke. Communities revolve around interests and passions (think forums like this) and networks revolve around individuals and personalities (think Twitter followers). Both are needed for good community building and ongoing engagement. Networks bring new people in while communities keep people there.

- Justin Isaf, Community Manager formerly at Change.org and Huffington Post

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Love it or hate it, clickbait has become yet another weapon in the content marketer’s arsenal. These days, it seems as though no site is above resorting to dastardly tricks to get you to click on their content, and these techniques have become so familiar, some experts have questioned whether clickbait has a future.

Image credit: Slate

Table of Contents

• What is Clickbait?
• The Benefits of Clickbait
• The Dark Side of Clickbait

What Is Clickbait?

As its name implies, clickbait is content that is written specifically to attract as many clicks as possible. Just about any type of content can be considered clickbait. News stories, blog posts, interviews, infographics, videos – packaged in a certain way, you can make any web content clickbait. However, clickbait typically has several of the following characteristics:

• An eye-catching and compelling headline
• Easily skimmable
• Funny or memorable images/video
• Humorous tone, or appeals strongly to a specific emotion (more on this shortly)
• Intended to encourage social sharing

Not all clickbait has all of these hallmarks, but most of it tends to have at least two or three.

Over time, content marketers in virtually all industries have decided to try and manufacture their own viral successes by imitating the style and format of clickbait web content popularized by sites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy, the two biggest and best clickbait producers on the web.

Image credit: xkcd

A Brief History of Clickbait

Although clickbait as we know it is a relatively new phenomenon, the practice of enticing users to click on web content actually grew out of the much older technique of linkbaiting.

Just as linkbait was (and is) content designed to entice other sites to link to it, thus boosting the link profile of the site that published it, clickbait is content intended to attract as many clickthroughs – and pageviews – as possible. More pageviews typically means higher ad revenues, which means bigger profits for the site’s publishers.

Of course, the traditional newspaper industry is no stranger to many of the concepts of clickbait, and has been using them expertly to sell papers for more than one hundred years. Despite being almost universally reviled for their lack of journalistic integrity, British tabloids are famous for their use of many of the techniques common to clickbait in an attempt to boost their circulations.

Hard-hitting British journalism at its finest.

As the rules of ethical SEO have developed and evolved, linkbaiting has become less common (though great content will always attract a healthy amount of external links). For now, though, clickbait is still very much in vogue.

The Benefits of Clickbait

So, thinking about creating some clickbait content but not sure how you could benefit? Let’s take a look at some of the pros of clickbait.

1. More Pageviews

As the singular goal of creating clickbait, it should come as no surprise that more pageviews is the first pro of this type of content. If pageviews are your only goal, then clickbait is an excellent way to get them.

Clickbait can generate more pageviews whether you use it on your own blog or elsewhere, such as social media posts or guest columns for other publications. Obviously, to gauge the effectiveness of clickbait posted to your own site, you’ll need to pay close attention to the sources of your traffic using an analytics platform such as Google Analytics.

2. Greater Potential for Social Shares

Good (or effective) clickbait is almost as irresistible to share on social networks as it is to click in the first place. However, people won’t share just anything, as perceptions of their personality are often closely tied to the type of content they share among their social networks.

To encourage social sharing of clickbait, it pays to appeal to people’s emotions. The stronger the emotional response, the more likely they are to share the content. Although nailing down precisely which emotional triggers to target is difficult, many social media experts agree that there are six primary emotions associated with social-friendly content. They are:

• Fear
• Anger
• Sadness
• Disgust
• Joy
• Surprise

This list, based on the work of renowned psychologist Paul Ekman (who served as the inspiration for Tim Roth’s character in the hit TV show “Lie to Me”), is widely considered to be the definitive checklist for content creators seeking to manipulate their audience’s emotions into sharing content.

Combine a strong appeal to one of these emotions with an enticing headline and well-structured content, and you could have the next viral hit on your hands.

3. Increased Brand Awareness

The third benefit of clickbait is brand awareness. If clickbait results in more pageviews and social shares, it follows that more people will be exposed to your brand as your content spreads across the web.

Increasing brand awareness is vital to content marketing, and creating compelling clickbait is a great way to do it. If we think of content marketing as a perpetual cycle, brand awareness plays a crucial role in many of the cycle’s stages, particularly when it comes to helping visitors remember your content (and thus, your brand) and establishing trust.
 

It’s important to note that clickbait content doesn’t have to go viral in order to build brand awareness. If content drives pageviews and encourages social sharing, it’s already accomplishing this. Of course, the farther your content’s reach (say, if it does go viral), the greater the chances that more people will remember your brand.

The Dark Side of Clickbait

It almost goes without saying that no content marketing technique, including clickbait, is without its drawbacks. Although great clickbait can be a valuable tool to content marketers, there are several pitfalls you should bear in mind.

1. Sensationalism Is Getting Old

Back in 2006 when BuzzFeed first launched, it was easy for the site to become very popular, very quickly. This is largely due to the fact that the rest of the web had not yet caught on to BuzzFeed’s tactics of baiting audiences with irresistible headlines. Now, however, everyone and their grandmother is using clickbait to try and exploit the benefits listed above, resulting in waning interest among audiences.

Apparently, we simply won’t believe what happens next, every reaction to regular everyday occurrences is priceless, and you can do just about everything with one weird trick.

Frankly, it’s getting old.

Saturation of sensationalist clickbait is rapidly approaching its apex, and even supposedly trustworthy news sources such as CNN can’t help themselves from publishing highly offensive clickbait in a misguided attempt to drive pageviews. The signal-to-noise ratio has become so skewed that publishers are resorting to increasingly desperate measures to make themselves heard – a situation that simply isn’t tenable in the long run.

2. Misleading Clickbait Damages Brands and Erodes Trust

Few things will irritate your audience and erode their trust faster than purposefully misleading them. When people click on a piece of content, they expect to be taken to content that aligns with that expectation.

If you intentionally deceive them for the sake of a pageview, not only will they probably bounce away almost immediately, but they may also perceive your brand in a negative way as a result. Case in point, a recent post over at Search Engine Journal.

Aside from the fact that the author and all but handful of commenters don’t seem to know the difference between clickbait and linkbait, many of the comments left on this article were from angry readers who felt mislead for the sake of proving a point.

The post attracted a healthy amount of social shares, but if you’re tempted to employ similar tactics to accomplish similar results, it’s worth pausing to consider whether the potential brand damage is worth it.

3. Pageviews Aren’t Even That Important

Many content marketers are jumping firmly on the clickbait bandwagon and creating mediocre content disguised as something interesting in the hopes of boosting their pageview count. However, these efforts may be misplace, as some experts believe that pageviews aren’t even that important any more.

In an article in Time magazine, Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile wrote that many publishers are moving away from the so-called “click web,” in which clickthroughs and pageviews are the dominant metrics, to what he refers to as the “attention web,” in which audience attention and engagement are becoming the defining measurements of content success.

Haile points to several prominent sites that are transitioning away from the click metric model, including blog platform Medium and BuzzFeed rival Upworthy. Medium measures the success of content using what it calls “the only metric that matters,” which is Total Time Reading.

You may have noticed that posts submitted to Medium are accompanied by an estimation of how long the piece will take to read in its entirety. This is calculated based on periodic readings of scroll depth and position, with absences and pauses caused by reader inattention or switching to another tab taken into account.

This provides Medium with a reasonably accurate measurement of how long a reader takes to digest a piece of content. Using this data, Medium can then determine which posts were truly the most engaging – a far more reliable indicator than pageviews or social shares.

Similarly, Upworthy is moving away from the traditional click/pageview model to focus on a metric that it calls attention minutes. The data scientists at Upworthy calculate attention minutes by measuring two distinct individual metrics:

• Total Attention on Site (per hour/day/week/month etc.) – this tells them which topics are receiving the most interest across the site, much in the same way as unique views or total pageviews do.
• Total Attention per Piece– this is calculated based on a combination of how many people view something on the site and how much of it they actually watch/read. Remember – a page viewed does not necessarily equal an entire page read.

Based on its attention minutes metric, compare how three sample pieces of content performed compared to the traditional pageview model in the figure below. See the difference?

More and more publishers are moving away from pageviews as a defining metric. As audiences become increasingly fickle, and the amount of content produced continues to increase, an attention-based model may soon become the norm.

To Click, Or Not to Click?

Let’s face it – clickbait can be a lot of fun for content marketers. Coming up with witty, sensationalist headlines is a skill that can be valuable to content producers, and it’s always nice to see those spikes in pageviews and social shares when clickbait content performs well. However, as we’ve seen, there are pros and cons to using clickbait in your content marketing strategy – and only you can decide whether the potential gains are worth the risks.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

It’s easy to let headlines take the back seat in your writing process. Headlines can wind up as a quick afterthought, but really should be treated with much more consideration. In fact, your headline is arguably more important than the article itself. After all, who cares how great your blog post is if no one even reads it?

Headline writing rules have changed quite a bit since the great online migration

Out of all the folks who read your headline, only 20% will read the article copy. Whether it’s for email subject lines, blog posts, ebooks, or webinars, you need a powerful, sexy headline to make readers swoon.

Modern online article headlines are tricky – they need to be SEO keyword friendly, but also should be unique and creative. The end result needs to be super clickable, irresistible headlines.

If you’re like me, your eyeballs encounter nearly a hundred headlines before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee. What makes you read one story over another? It’s all about the headline – that magical string of words that allures and excites.

What makes a killer captivating headline? We’re dishing out 19 headline writing tips to help.

1. Numbers, digits, & lists

We’ve talked before about how much readers are mesmerized by lists. Starting your headline with a number helps the headline stand out. Just as the human eye is drawn to contrasting colors, we’re also naturally drawn to the juxtaposition of digits resting beside text. A list also gives readers a clearer idea of what to expect in your post, as well as promising a quick, scan-friendly read.

Some great list words to get you started:

• Reasons
• Ways
• Tips
• Tricks
• Secrets
• Ideas
• Techniques
• Strategies
• Facts
• Methods
• Statistics

2. Define What the Article is About

While there’s much to be said for mystery and intrigue, you can’t leave readers hanging without a clue of what to expect from your blog post. Your blog post headline needs to clearly articulate what you’ll be covering in the article. No one is going to click a vague headline.

• Bad Headline: Write a Song
• Good Headline: How to Compose Your Own Song: Songwriting 101

3. Demonstrate Your Value

In our post about social media landing pages, we talk a lot about pushing your value proposition – explaining to visitors why your offer is valuable. In a way, your article headline needs to do the same, although more subtly. You want to explain to readers, in so many words, why your article is worth reading.

Ex. Create an Eye-Catching Infographic in Minutes

The headline above promises a fast (and therefore, probably also easy) way to crate high-quality infographics. Sounds like it’s worth reading more about! Promising a desired result (eye-catching infographics) within a set time period (minutes) is a classic winning headline writing strategy.

They key is to prove that you are useful and that you are providing essential info!

4. Breed Distrust

Us humans can be a cynical bunch, and we’ll often jump at the chance to read about how we are being manipulated, deceived, or given the run around.

Headline writing examples:

• 6 Lies Your Car Dealer Will Try to Tell You
• Is Your Doctor Telling the Truth About Prescribing Your Kids Ritalin?
• Sun Damage is Bad, But is Sunscreen Even Worse?

5. Educate the Masses

People often search online to educate themselves or learn more about a particular concept. They want to learn how to build a fire pit, where to see an off-Broadway musical, how to eat an apple core (hey, I don’t know, people are wacky!)

Image from Team Treehouse Blog

Many successful headlines use the “how to” concept with some extra embellishment. Starting all your articles with “how to…” gets really boring really quickly, so think of creative ways to present a “how to” educational article, for example….

• 3 Best Methods for Peeling a Mango
• 6 Strategies for Deterring Burglars
• Build Your Own Firepit: A Beginner’s Guide
• Teaching Your Dog to Fetch: Canine Training 101

Hot headline writing keywords like “101” and “Complete/Beginners Guide” are great to include in educational posts. Using words like these reassures readers that your article will be in layman terms that they can understand, marketed towards beginners.  

6. Readers Should be EXCITED to Read Your Article

It’s your job to get reader psyched about reading your post. They should feel like a couple of kids at the entrance of Disney World.

OMG, the momentous fantasy magic. [photo by Chris Harrison]

People aren’t going to read your boring, dry drivel. You are not on their summer reading list. If a 7^th grader gets to choose between reading Great Expectations or Harry Potter, you can be sure as hell they won’t need to sleep on the decision. You’re going head to head with other snappy headlines, so you best bring your A game.

Where would you spend your summer? The waterpark or the shovel museum?

7. Don’t be Afraid to Embellish

The best blog post headlines aren’t afraid to sell themselves. Embellish. Exaggerate. Entice.

Is substituting carrot sticks for potato chips a “secret” to losing weight? Not really, but you can act like it is in an article entitled “The Ultimate Diet Secrets for Shedding Serious Pounds.” Don’t be afraid to take a few liberties in headline writing.

A sense of urgency doesn’t hurt either:

• Make the Most of Holiday Shoppers – Don’t Miss Out!
• Don’t Buy a Home Without Reading Asking Your Real-Estate Agent These 8 Questions

8. Create an Eye-Catching, Unique Title

Captivating headlines are the ones that stand apart from the rest. Great headlines aren’t afraid to be a little weird. While it’s difficult to achieve, the best headline writing straddles the line between clarity and uniqueness.

9. Think About Your Audience and What Matters to Them

You know your audience. You understand their dreams and pain points. Make use of that knowledge in your web headline writing so that your posts truly speak to readers.

Knowing your audience lets you develop some smart, strategic headlines that capitalize on your audience’s wishes or fears.

Ex. 5 Practices That Make You Look Like a Blogging Newb

This headline would certainly have bloggers interested.

10. Remember the 5Ws

In grammar school you probably remember learning the 5Ws:

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why

These engaging, interrogative words are used to gather information. By using them in your headlines, you articulate to readers the kind of information you intend to provide.

11. Address Readers in 2^nd Person

While writing prose in 2^nd person is infamously awkward, it’s the perfect form for headline writing, grabbing the attention of readers by calling them out.

• You Think You Know Game of Thrones? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!
• 3 Ice Cream Recipes You’ll Drool Over This Summer
• 5 Emergency Tools You Should Never Leave Home Without

12. Break Conventions

Headlines that elicit controversy draw in curious readers.

Headline examples:

• Why the iPhone 5 is a Piece of Crap
• Why Your CTR Doesn’t Matter as Much as You Think

13. Brainstorm Lots of Different Headlines

Some experts suggest that writers should devote 80% of their time writing headlines– put your effort into the most important element. Set aside time to brainstorm a healthy smorgasbord of headlines. For a headline writing exercise, try writing at least 10 headlines, each with a different structure or with verb and adjective variations. See which feels the most appealing and ask coworkers for their opinions.

You really need to sit down and brainstorm to get those snappy headline juices flowing. You might not hit that headline writing sweet spot until you’re a few headlines in – chances are the first headline you come up with will never be your best.

14. Use Strong Adjectives and Verbs

As Startup Moon notes, there’s a morbid fascination that seems to hang over us. Readers are often drawn to dark and violent wording. Some dark headline power words include:

• Kill
• Fear
• Dark
• Bleeding
• War  

But it’s not just ominous words that allure readers – other viral headline words that appear in popular headlines include:

• Smart
• Surprising
• History
• Hacks
• Big/Huge
• Shocking

15. Ask Questions

Asking the reader a question helps draw them in, and punctuation helps catch the eye, similar to the way numbers and digits do.

• Think You Know SEO? Quiz Yourself and Find Out!
• Do You Want to Build a Snowman? Read This Guide First.

16. Use Keywords

Be sure to use topic keywords in your headline – it will help your blog post rank better on Google, as well as make clear to readers what you’ll be discussing in your post.

17. Keep Headlines Under 70 Characters

If you want your headlines to look good in Google and prevent them from being cut off, make sure your headlines stay under 70 characters.

We don’t get a full understanding of what this article is about due to the chopped headline.

18. Don’t Forget to A/B Test

Buffer did a great study showing folks how to easily A/B test headlines. How? It’s pretty simple:

• Take two headlines that could potentially perform well.
• Schedule two tweets to be sent out with the two different headlines.
• Send the tweets one hour apart (keeping both tweets well within in the AM/PM period – 9am and 10am for example).
• Whichever tweet performs better earns a place as the permanent blog post headline.

19. Use Images to Compliment Headlines

Headlines are a big deal, and in many cases on the web, they are the one and only way to introduce your article to the world. However, many social sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pintetrest, and, more recently, Twitter, make it easy to add images alongside your link headlines. This is awesome news because images are insanely powerful and can do a lot to boost the success of your headline.

As Buffer notes, you can’t just use any old image to compliment your headline. The image you should provide a strong visual clue to the topic of the article.

Some image headline examples:

The image accompanying this post by Mashable is an excellent choice – it visually illustrates that the article is about Facebook and political partisanship.  

This Wildfire image is simple but effective – it singles out one powerful statistic from the article in a visual asset, sparking our attention and encouraging us to read more.

This image by Intel is an excellent example of how a picture can serve as a perfect visual headline. Without reading any text, we get the message.

Overlaying a relevant image with the main headline or message of your post is an excellent strategy to make the most of a social media photo post. (Full disclosure, this is an article I wrote about buying Twitter followers.)  

Be sure to set aside time to focus on good headline writing. Don’t rush through it – choose a few favorites and consider which will work best. A headline can make or break your article, so give it the time and attention it deserves!

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Google’s latest earnings call was a bit mixed – while Google saw a 22% increase in revenue over last year, bringing earnings to $15.96 billion in the second quarter of 2014, and the search giant narrowly beat analyst projections of $15.6 billion in revenue, their ad sales in the US and the UK, their two major markets, have slowed. Non-US revenue (excluding the UK) of $7.7 billion accounted for 48% of total revenue. Their earnings per share were considered a miss as well, at $6.08.

The proliferation of ads in emerging markets worldwide drove profits to $3.42 billion for the period, up from $3.23 billion in Q2 2013. More people are clicking on Google ads – a lot more. Total paid ad clicks were up 25% over last year and up 2% over the first quarter of 2014.

However, the average cost per click is falling; CPC is down 6% from the same period last year (click graph to enlarge).

This is a continuation of a two-year trend – if you’ll remember, most of the PPC industry believed Enhanced Campaigns would drive up average cost per click, but that hasn’t panned out.

The fact that CPC’s continue to fall is great news for advertisers! But is it good news for Google? They’re showing impressive growth, but it’s still an earnings miss, so you can bet that they’re going to continue aggressive monetization of the SERP:

• Sponsored results, AKA paid search ads, no longer have a colored background, but rather a small label. When ads are less obviously ads, they can take up more of the SERP without users noticing. Again, this is actually beneficial for advertisers – good for you if they think your ad is a natural result.
• The recent deletion of authorship photos from the SERP, followed closely by the loss of video snippets might point to a larger trend: Is Google going to remove all visual elements from the organic results, so that only the paid ads have eye-grabbing images? If so, that sucks for SEOs.

That yellow background stood out more than the yellow label, wouldn't you say?

Since greater mobile adoption and increased penetration into international markets are continuing to drive average CPC down, Google has no choice but to look for growth in increased overall impressions and clicks. You know what that means: more ads everywhere.

You can read the rest of the earnings results straight from Google here (PDF).

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

By Sean Ellis, Founder and CEO of Qualaroo and GrowthHackers.com

Search marketing is the ultimate in mature channels, dominated by best-practice marketers who have honed their programs to the point of near-perfection. In particular, Google AdWords is ultra-competitive and there seem to be little to no low-hanging fruit, making it difficult to find positive ROI without a sizable marketing budget and a lot of SEM expertise. Taken together, these factors combine to make search engine marketing one of the most crowded, competitive acquisition channels out there—and for good reason, because all that active commercial intent can lead to quick conversions.

While it might not be readily apparent on the surface, growth hackers and search marketers share a lot of the same DNA. I should know. I coined the term growth hacking and have managed seven-figure search marketing budgets. In my experience, both rely on data-driven decision making, A/B testing, and more. However, the growth hacking philosophy goes beyond channel-specific tactics to a general approach in finding new wins.

Growth hacking, at its core, is about building and leveraging competitive edges. Just as landing page optimization improves your ability to make more competitive bids, a referral program also adds lift to your search marketing results, allowing higher profitable bids. Whenever I’m asked whether search marketers should pay attention to growth hacking, I answer with a resounding yes.

In my experience, search marketers stand to gain as much from growth hacking as anyone else in the marketing world. Larry Kim, the founder of WordStream, agrees – which is why we’re doing a webinar together on Wednesday, July 23 to show how leveraging growth hacking principles can drive new search wins.

Here is a preview of some of the key growth hacking concepts we’ll dive into. 

Creativity

Growth hacking is about using creativity and curiosity to find an edge on the competition. Google’s Hummingbird update in November of last year changed the world of search engine optimization. By applying a growth hacking mindset, semantic search becomes the perfect opening to outsmart your competition through new, untapped opportunities—like semantic keyword grouping.

Data

Growth hacking is by definition data-driven, and detailed analytics and competitor analysis are invaluable in finding new opportunities for improving search campaigns. Search marketers spend their days in reports too, yet thinking like a growth hacker takes you beyond AdWords analytics to deeper conversion metrics to find real winners—which can often look like losers in an AdWords report.

Cohort reports can show you which groups of customers perform better over time (via LinkedIn)

By going deeper in your funnel to look at cohort retention and activation metrics, you may find that the conversions that AdWords reports as winners are actually people who churn quickly with a lower lifetime value than those who cost more on the initial conversion but are much loyal and higher-value customers in the long run.

Science

Growth hacking embraces the scientific process of defining and testing hypotheses. This scientific approach is universally beneficial in marketing, but it’s a particularly great way to see better results from your search marketing campaigns.

When pay-per-click campaigns don’t perform, look past the natural instinct, which is to turn them off. Instead follow the growth hacker’s logic that every setback is an opportunity, and create new hypotheses that can lead to improved results. This constant, iterative testing approach not only improves results, but can also unlock new opportunities for growth by challenging conventional thinking around what is “supposed to work” for your audience.

Growth hackers don’t just tweak things on their tests. They go for moonshot revamps of pages and campaigns which have the chance to create massive swings in results in an effort of find new upside.

Big tests result in more dramatic conversion rate changes that call winners faster(via Conversion Rate Experts)

New Channels

Finally, growth hacking is about finding new channels. Even when channels are performing well, the growth hacker is not satisfied with “well enough,” and is always looking for ways to get more out of paid search. This is important, since Google is constantly changing the algorithm used to determine AdWords Ad Rank. For example, last October Ad Rank was updated to favor ad extensions, as Larry explains via Search Engine Watch:

“If you’re using ad extensions, you might expect to see better ad placement and lower costs per click. If you’re not…well, that’s not a very attractive option anymore. If you aren’t using ad extensions, you’d better start.”

Growth hackers love to be first to new channels, and new products within AdWords are great new opportunities to get a leg up on your competitors.

Maybe you’ve nodded your head through this whole post, saying, this is just good search marketing. Congratulations—fly the search marketer growth hacker flag. If you now have a couple of new ideas on how to expand positive ROI from your search campaigns, you’re on your way to putting the growth-hacking mindset to work for you.  

We’ve only just scratched the surface on what it means to apply the growth hacker mentality to search marketing. I invite you to join WordStream Founder & CTO Larry Kim and me, Sean Ellis, for an exclusive, hour-long webinar on the growth hacker’s approach to paid search, including 10 innovative growth-hacking principles you can apply immediately to take your search marketing to the next level.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Long gone are the days when clickthroughs and time-on-page were the most important content marketing metrics. Today, many publishers are changing their approach to shifts in audience behavior to focus on attention and engagement as the defining measurements of success.

Although pageviews and unique visitors are still relatively valuable metrics to marketers, they don’t paint a complete picture of how people are interacting with your content.

In today’s post, we’re going to examine the trend of analyzing how visitors are engaging with your site, not just how many, and look at some examples of this shift and how you can start measuring audience attention.

What is the Attention Web?

Firstly, while the so-called “attention web” is a genuine shift in how marketers and publishers assess the success of their content, the term itself is far from definitive. First coined by Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile, “the attention web” refers to changing attitudes in the online publishing industry and a growing focus on how people actually engage with content, rather than merely measuring pageviews or clicks.

Various publishers refer to their attention and engagement metrics differently. Upworthy, for example, refers to one of its most important metrics as “attention minutes.” This is calculated by analyzing two separate metrics – total views within a given period, and the total amount of time a user actually reads or watches the content. As you can see in the figure below, the difference between attention minutes and pageviews is considerable.

Similarly, blog platform Medium has what it calls “the only metric that matters,” which is Total Time Reading. While Upworthy tends to utilize clickbait to not only attract but sustain audience interest, Medium utilizes metrics such as scroll depth and word count to gauge how long a piece of content takes to read, and then serves it up to its audience. This not only serves as a reliable indicator of audience engagement, but it also makes it easier for readers to choose articles that match their available time or attention span.

Audience Attention and the Future of Content Marketing Metrics

If publishers are so concerned about how to measure the success of their content, what does that mean for advertisers? Well, content marketers aren’t the only ones making the transition from clicks to engagement. Major publications are moving gradually toward new pricing models for advertising inventory based on audience attention, including the Financial Times.

Earlier this year, The Drum recently reported that bosses at the FT decided to move away from the traditional CPM advertising model and focus on selling ads based on audience engagement.

“We can now report back to a client and say ‘we served you a thousand ads, and of those, 500 were seen for one second, 250 were seen for 10 seconds and 250 were seen for 30 seconds,” said Jon Slade, commercial director of digital advertising at the FT. “The next obvious step is to sell blocks of time.”

Although adoption of these advertising and content marketing metrics is still in its nascent stages, the FT remains confident that in time, many publishers will transition to this model. Based on its own research data, the FT claims that 40% of advertisers who had trialed the system gave it “a double thumbs-up,” and that 90% of media buyers expect that viewability and attention metrics will soon become the currency of the online advertising space – at least for display ads.

The FT isn’t the only publisher that thinks attention metrics could be the future of online advertising. Upworthy is also mulling the idea of incorporating audience attention into its advertising packages. Ed Urgola, head of marketing at Upworthy, told Mashable that while the site doesn’t currently charge advertisers based on time viewed, it may do so in the future if advertisers embrace the idea.

How to Focus on Attention in Content Marketing Metrics

So, now that we’ve established that attention and engagement are the content marketing metrics you should be focusing on, how do you go about it?

Measuring Engagement in Google Analytics

Before we dive into the specifics of measuring audience engagement in Google Analytics, let’s take a moment for a quick refresher on how Analytics calculates time measurements.

There are five types of what Google refers to as “engagement hits” (courtesy of Justin Cutroni):

• Ecommerce transaction hits
• Ecommerce transaction item hits
• Interactive event hits
• Pageview hits
• Social plugin hits

As we covered in a previous blog post about dwell time, content marketing metrics such as Time on Page are calculated based on user actions, like second clicks or multiple pageviews. This is represented in the figure below:

Image credit: Justin Cutroni

However, as we can see, calculating the Time on Page for the third pageview is impossible, as there is no second action to provide Google Analytics with both the first and last actions to calculate the Time on Page accurately. This is why measuring audience engagement in pageviews alone can be problematic. An alternative approach is to measure engagement hits on single pages, as shown in the figure below.

Image credit: Justin Cutroni

As you can see, this technique provides greater insight into how people are interacting with the content on a page, but it still isn’t ideal, as there is no way to accurately determine the point at which the visitor exits the page. So what can you do?

Advanced Content Tracking in Google Analytics

Advanced Content Tracking, or ACT, reports on actions taken by the user when certain events are triggered. This data can then be viewed in Google Analytics, providing you with the invaluable insight into user behavior we’ve been talking about.

ACT can be used to measure the following actions:

• How many users scroll through a page
• When a user starts to scroll
• When a user reaches the end of a post (not the end of the page)
• When a user reaches the bottom of a page
• How quickly a user is scrolling (useful data that can ascertain whether someone is really reading or just scanning an article)

Using ACT, you can specify certain variables depending on the type of content you typically produce. For example, you can state that if a user scrolls through a page at a certain speed, then they are most likely scanning the post rather than reading it.

Setting Up ACT in Google Analytics

First, your site will need jQuery. This can be done by linking to Google’s servers, and embedding the jQuery source in the <head> tags of your site’s pages. The code looks like this:

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Next, you’ll need to copy the ACT JavaScript code from JSFiddle, and copy this into your <head> tags, too. If you’re not sure how to do this, be sure to ask your site administrator!

Once you’ve got ACT set up and running correctly, you’ll notice that it will impact both your bounce rate and average time on site. This is because ACT will classify readers who spend a specified period of time on the page as “engaged,” which will disqualify them as bouncing visitors. You’ll also notice that the average time on site will probably increase as a result of this flow.

The technical details of implementing and manipulating this code are way beyond the scope of this post, but for a detailed write-up on what the code does, check out this post by Google’s Justin Cutroni.

Pay Attention

Pageviews are still a useful content marketing metric, but as publishers find themselves competing in an increasingly crowded space, it will become even more important to truly understand how your visitors are engaging with your content. How the attention web will impact the world of paid search remains to be seen, but for now, there is little doubt that engagement is definitely shaping the world of content marketing.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

I know for most of the year I’ve been telling you that links are going to lose value– and I still think it’s true. However, I’ve been careful to point out that for now, links are still pretty powerful stuff in SEO.

Further, even if links eventually lost all their (direct) power to move your rankings, they’d still have value for you as a marketer, because links are great for exposure and branding.

But the ultimate link is not just good for SEO and branding, it also sends referral traffic.

What’s so great about referral traffic? Do you really have to ask?! Referral traffic is great because it gets your content in front of new audiences, creating new opportunities for audience engagement and conversions.

A recent survey of MozCon attendees showed that after organic search, referral traffic is the channel marketers most want to grab more of (social media is a form of referral traffic too):

Image via LinkedIn

But do all links naturally lead to referral traffic?

I Got a Sweet Link! That Means I’ll Get Referral Traffic Too, Right?

Sorry, dude. The fact is, not all editorial links – even links from big domains that gets tons of traffic – translate into referral traffic. That’s because people aren’t necessarily going to follow every link they see in an article.

Sometimes a link is just there as a kind of hat tip (as in, this is where we got this information) but there’s no need to actually follow the link, because the site you’re on provides all the context you really need. Similarly, some links are there only if you’re looking for more information (as in, “Hey, if you’re unclear on this concept I just mentioned, you can read more about it here”), and a lot of readers won’t be in “further research” mode.

To drive real referral traffic, there has to be a compelling reason for the reader to click through to your site. And if that traffic is going to be ongoing for you, the linking page also needs its own source of ongoing traffic – for example, if it ranks highly in a high-volume keyword search, it will continue to get evergreen traffic, so the link will drive evergreen traffic your way as well.

With this in mind, here are three types of links that will cause a noticeable bump in your referral traffic numbers.

#1: Links from news aggregators

News aggregators like Reddit, Hacker News, Inbound.org, Growth Hackers etc. usually use a submission and upvoting system where users can submit cool links and vote on their favorites. Other times, a single editor or editorial board is making the call on what's worth sharing (see the Boing Boing model). When a link makes its way to the top of the front page, it has high visibility and attention, since the assumption is that it’s already been vetted as high-quality by other users in the community or by a trusted source.

Why these links drive referral traffic

The aggregators just aggregate links, they don’t reproduce the content. So you have to actually visit the site to get the value and see what all the fuss is about. Hence, the incentive to click through is extremely high.

Example of a news aggregator link

Back in May, Larry wrote an article analyzing why eBay got slammed so hard by Panda 4.0. The stars aligned and we got a ton of pickups, including great placement on several major news aggregators (including Inbound.org and Hacker News). But the biggest spike in referrals was driven by Ars Technica – they gave us a link in the “Editor’s Picks” box on the home page, real estate we shared with the New York Times and National Geographic. Not bad, right?

Plenty of other sites (Search Engine Land, Forbes, etc.) wrote up the story and gave us credit and a link, but most of those sites wrote a summary of our findings, so the incentive to click the link was low. Incentive to click an “Editor’s Pick” link is high.

That Ars Technica link was responsible for a lot of this huge spike in referrals

Note: The downside to this kind of traffic is that it is a spike, not an ongoing stream. News aggregators are constantly refreshing, so your link isn’t likely to stay on top for long. (It was lonely up there anyway, right?)

Similarly, a share on a social network from someone with a huge following will drive a spike of social referrals, but once your link falls away from the top of the stream, that traffic will die off. C’est la vie.

Since these traffic spikes aren’t evergreen, it’s awesome if you’ve already got something in place to capture some of those visitors and turn them into return traffic – for example a prominent blog or newsletter signup prompt.

How to get news aggregator links

Create awesome content and then promote the shit out of it. It’s helpful if you’re already active on some of these communities, because then it’s more likely that other users are already reading and interested in your stuff. Also, check out these data-driven tips on how to get more upvotes on Inbound.org:

#2: Links in lists of resources

Getting a link like the one on Ars Technica is a major win for an SEO; you’ll feel that link buzz all day. But it’s potentially even more valuable to your business to score a link in a list of resources. That’s because the incentive to click through to your site is equally strong – and you have the added bonus of evergreen value.

Why these links drive referral traffic

Let’s say a user googles “best keyword tools” and finds a list from a reputable site, ranking near the top of the SERP. They are obviously looking for a keyword tool, so intent is really high. They don’t just want the list of tools, they want to check out the tools themselves. If your keyword tool is on that list, they’re highly likely to click through. And “best keyword tools” is an evergreen keyword with steady traffic month over month, so as long as that list maintains its ranking, it’s going to keep sending clicks your way.

Example of a resource list link

We get thousands of page views every monthfrom this one link:

As of today it’s the #4 organic result in Google for the keyword “SEO tools,” so no wonder!

(And can't hurt that we're #1 on the list.)

How to get resource list links

Create link-worthy resources, of course! These could be tools or high-quality learning guides, like Moz’s SEO Beginner’s Guide or our own PPC University.

#3: Links in third-party reviews

This is a pretty similar scenario to the one above, but if you’re lucky, instead of a spot on a list, you’ve got a whole article dedicated to a review of your offering alone.

Why these links drive referral traffic

Again, the process works like this:

Step 1: Person who is curious about products like yours searches for more information

Step 2: Person finds positive review and clicks through to your site to try it or learn more

Once again intent is high, and a third-party endorsement increases trust, so they’re all the more likely to click to your site and hopefully take the next step (i.e. buying your stuff or signing up for a free trial).

Example of a review link

Another solid source of month-over-month referral traffic is this review in Search Engine Land of our AdWords Performance Grader.

How to get review links

First you need something reviewable, but if you’re a business you should already have this (duh). If the reviews aren’t coming naturally, look for sites that review similar products or services, then create a pitch list. Offer free demos or a free extended trial (if it’s a software product) or send out samples if it’s a physical product – if you get a review and it sends referral traffic, the giveaway should pay for itself. But make sure you wait until you have a stellar product before you do outreach. Negative reviews aren't going to help you much.

What Kinds of Links DON’T Send Referrals?

There are plenty of other kinds of links that won’t be referral traffic goldmines. Here are a few types that generally don’t send much referral traffic:

• Links in guest posts and contributed articles– Contextual links in contributed articles can send traffic – if there’s a really good reason for the user to leave the article they’re currently reading and if it’s a blog with a big readership, but they won’t always. Likewise bio links are a best practice (see Rand’s “Mad Scientist” slides for the reasons why) but they probably won’t send you much actual traffic.
• Image credit links– Again, nice to have for branding and a few people will click through. This is why “linkable assets” are, well, an asset. The vast majority won’t care, won’t click.
• Blog comment links – Just DUH. It’s 2014. You’ve gotta have a better link building strategy than this. We went ahead and killed all the links in our comments, in fact. They were always no-follow, but we decided recently that spammers don’t even deserve a no-follow link. (The exception: You're a proven, respected member of a community and you share a truly relevant link; we got quite a bit of referral traffic when Gianluca Fiorelli, a Moz regular, left a link to our blog in a comment on a Whiteboard Friday post.)

I’m not saying links that don’t get clicked are worthless, of course – links from authoritative domains are still influential in the ranking algorithm and they can still be great for branding. But if your manager is on you to increase referral traffic – not just links – focus on the types of links that actually get clicked.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

They say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when it comes to bad clients, are you in better shape if you avoid the lemons altogether?

We consult for a number of small AdWords agencies. One emerging trend that we have noticed among newer agencies is that they jump at the prospect of bringing on new accounts, regardless of whether or not these clients are a good fit for them. These relationships quickly take a turn for the worse and the agencies find themselves in hot water. In many cases, the time and energy spent obtaining and onboarding these clients’ accounts outweighs the actual price they’ve paid to the agency.

Here at WordStream, our agency team does an in-depth account assessment for every prospect who is interested in our paid search services. Not only do we consider whether we can achieve their goals, we also keep an eye out for “red flags” that indicate they may not be successful, long-term clients.

We came to the realization that we needed a formal RFP process the hard way; when we first started offering management services, we encountered our fair share of nightmare accounts. In an attempt to prevent these clients from churning, we poured our hearts and souls into these accounts, only to later realize that our efforts were futile. As a result, we implemented an RFP checklist outlining all requirements for new accounts. If a prospect does not meet these standards, we walk away from the sale, regardless of how lucrative it may be.

Most successful AdWords agencies can sniff out “problem clients” from a mile away. In an effort to help new agencies develop this sixth sense early on, I asked agency experts to share their wisdom on the subject.

I was lucky to connect with a number of agency owners, veteran account managers and PPC sales executives who were willing to share their thoughts on the subject. Participants included Aaron Levy, Andrew Miller, Bryant Garvin, Heather Cooan, Julie Bacchini, Kirk Williams, Mark Kennedy, Sakis Rizos and WordStreamers Rich Griffin and Elliott Reid. We devised a list of the top warning signs that you’re getting involved with a nightmare client. Save yourself a headache and think twice before taking on clients that exhibit any of these traits!

Red Flag #1: They have a history of bad behavior in AdWords.

If an account has received multiple warnings for policy violations, or has been fully suspended in the past, it’s likely that it is teetering on the edge of a permanent suspension. One small misstep—a disapproved ad, missing disclaimers on the landing page, etc.—could trigger the account termination, which is nearly impossible to bounce back from. Urge prospective clients to be crystal clear about their account history, so you know exactly where they stand in Google’s eyes. If you’re considering bringing on someone whose account does have a bit of a sordid past, take extra precautions when working in their campaigns. Also, steer clear of working with businesses that advertise restricted products and services, such as gambling, political campaigns, fireworks, etc. While their ads may have gotten through Google bots in the past, the moment you start making mass changes to their accounts, they are likely to get nabbed by the Google Policy police.

Red Flag #2: They don’t trust you.

This was, by far, the most popular response I got from the PPC community on this topic. Since clients are relinquishing control of a sizable portion of their advertising budget to you, it is important that they are confident with your skill set and respectful of your expertise. Kirk Williams, founder of ZATO, encourages new agencies to beware of clients who constantly second guess everything you say about PPC. In these cases, you often have to spend so much time defending your actions that you can’t focus on making optimal decisions for the account.

Red Flag #3: They have a poor reputation online.

If your clients have a slew of negative reviews online, this can severely hinder your paid search advertising efforts.

Sure, you may be able to generate interest in the business and traffic to their site, but users may be hesitant to convert, given their reputation. We recommend doing a quick background check on the company prior to signing them to ensure they have a good BBB rating and decent Yelp reviews. If their reputation is abysmal, they’re likely to be a challenging account to work with. In some cases, this may also help you to discern whether the company itself is in good financial standing. We’ve seen some failing companies use PPC as a last-ditch attempt to garner new business. Nine times out of ten, these end up being very short-term clients.

Red Flag #4: They’re opposed to testing new strategies on the account.

Prospective clients are coming to you because they aren’t happy with their current PPC management solution, therefore they should be welcome your proposals to explore new techniques within their accounts (provided that your experiments are within reason). If they are super rigid from the get-go, it may be challenging to win their trust and convince them to be more open to testing in the future. Not only will this cramp your management style, but it could prevent you from achieving success within the account and keeping the client for the long-term. A good client understands that not all tests yield great results, but is still receptive to trying new PPC strategies.

Red Flag #5: They’re commitment-phobes.

Julie Bacchini, founder of Neptune Moon, likens the pre-sale process to dating. Now let me tell you, if I went on a date with someone who spent the entire evening complaining about his myriad of past girlfriends AND who couldn’t commit to date #2, I would certainly not pursue a relationship with him. Agencies encounter similar red flags while courting prospective clients through the sales process. Don’t ignore these tell-tale signs. Be on guard if the prospect has worked with numerous agencies in the past and has never been content. In this case, it’s likely that he or she is impatient, temperamental or has unrealistic expectations. If the prospect is reluctant to sign a contract altogether, run for the hills.

Red Flag #6: They refuse to acknowledge that their website is a disaster zone.

We all know this—our PPC efforts are futile if we’re sending searchers to a totally hideous AdWords landing page.

We can find the perfect keyword combinations, entice visitors with irresistible ad text, score a click….and then BOOM, the moment they land on the disastrous website, they high-tail it out of there and back to the SERP to click on your competitors’ ads. If your prospect’s website is poor and they’re willing to make adjustments, they could be a great fit (bonus points if you offer web development/design services), but if they are dead set on sticking with their current site, turn down the sale.

Red Flag #7: They can’t define their goals.

A prospective client with no concrete PPC goals? Sound like a goldmine, right?

Wrong—just because they struggle to give you clear goals doesn’t mean they don’t have expectations as to what they hope to see the PPC account yield. Oftentimes, when prospects don’t provide clear thresholds for success, it means that they need a little coaching on paid search. Take the time to explain KPIs to them and help them to understand exactly what you’ll be able to achieve in their account. If you don’t have this alignment from the start, you may lose the client early on because they don’t understand the value you are bringing to their overall advertising campaigns.

Red Flag #8: Their goals are wildly unreasonable.

AdWords agency experts cited this as a problem that they encounter all too frequently. In some cases, prospects are focused on the wrong metrics and, despite our attempts to shift their perspectives, they are unwilling to budge on these requirements. For example, I’ve seen numerous prospects fixate on their Quality Scores, rather than more concrete measures of success like CPA or conversions. Even more frequently, clients want guaranteed results from the get-go. Anyone in the paid search space knows that this is a ludicrous expectation, as major account changes often take months to implement and optimize. If you cannot reset your prospects’ expectations appropriately in these circumstances, they’re probably more trouble than they are worth.

Red Flag #9: They don’t respect your schedule.

No doubt, it is critical for clients to develop good relationships with their account managers. They should be meeting regularly to discuss changes in the business model, upcoming promotions, account trends and more. However, it is a major red flag when prospective clients do not attend pre-scheduled meetings or call and email incessantly with questions about their accounts. If they don’t respect these boundaries during the sales process, there’s a good chance that things will only get worse as you take ownership of their account. Time spent dealing with the client can impede on the time you set aside to work in their account. Bryant Garvin also urges new agencies to be aware of prospective clients that “want to set expectations of ‘quantity’ of communication (especially by phone/video chat) without solid reasons why.”

Red Flag #10: Your gut says no.

I’ll leave you with these words of wisdom from Julie Bacchini, which I found to be really powerful—if the prospective client just doesn’t feel like the right fit for you, have the courage to walk away from the sale. Even though your reasoning may not be super concrete, if you don’t feel excited to work in the account, turn down the sale. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself dreading spending time in it and feeling as though it is distracting you from other clients. Save your energy for accounts that you enjoy working in!

Erin Sagin is a Customer Success Manager at WordStream. In addition to conducting software training and consulting calls for clients, she also helps to maintain our usability testing program. Originally from Western Maryland, Erin majored in International Studies with a concentration in Latin America at Kenyon College. When she’s able to take a break from PPC, you’ll find her practicing her hula-hooping skills or planning her next trip to the Caribbean. You can follow Erin on Twitter and Google+.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Forrester flat out says Facebook marketing doesn't work. The Atlantic questions whether any Internet advertising is effective at all.

They must be feeling silly right about now. Clearly, someone is clicking those Facebook ads. A whole lot of people, it seems.

Facebook just announced over $5.4 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2014, a whopping 61% percent gain over the same period last year. Advertising accounted for $2.68 billion of their total income, with mobile advertising responsible for 62% of the total advertising take. Over 1.5 million advertisers are now using their service, said Sheryl Sandberg.

The social giant did manage to keep GAAP costs and expenses growth at a lower rate despite their astronomical revenue growth, up just 22% over Q2 2013. Overall, Facebook's GAAP net income was $791 million, up 138% over this quarter last year.

Advertising Revenue Rebounds in North America

Advertising revenue in Canada and the United States had fallen in Q1 2014, but rebounded this quarter.

The skyrocketing average ads price we're seeing – a 123% cost increase – was consistent with more ads appearing in the newsfeed, a Facebook rep said during the call. Facebook is still focused on driving better returns for marketers, he said, citing the recent sidebar ad redesign as one example.

Mobile app ads are growing and remain a "good" source of revenue for Facebook, said Sandberg. However, she cautioned people against thinking of the mobile opportunity only in terms of apps.

Users Flock to Facebook in Record Numbers – and They Prefer Mobile

People are growing tired of Facebook and spending their time elsewhere.

And if you believe that, I have some snow to sell you.

It turns out that Facebook has more active users – daily, monthly, and on mobile devices – than ever before. Mark Zuckerberg opened the earnings call with a few statistics, including this statement: "1.32 billion people are now connecting on Facebook each month, and 63% of them are visiting daily."

Facebook users love mobile, too – 654 million of them use Facebook mobile daily.

Facebook Users Generate More Revenue Per Person Than Ever

Each of those users is worth more than ever before to Facebook, as well. Worldwide, each Facebook users now generates a total of $2.24 in revenue for the network. Unsurprisingly, North American users account for the greatest portion of revenue per user, at $6.44 - $5.79 from advertising and $0.66 from payments.

Facebook is all about helping their advertisers drive business results, Sandberg said, and to that end, they'll continue working on ad measurement and attribution. Connecting offline sales to online ads is going to remain a "very big focus," she said.

Will Facebook Take a Shot at Web-Wide Search?

As of last month, more than one billion search queries occur every day on Facebook. Zuckerberg hinted they will focus heavily on search in the next few years. It's an interesting concept, considering the vast majority of searches on Facebook would be simply navigational – trying to find an event, or a user profile.

Is Facebook planning a run at a piece of Google's search engine pie? Maybe it was just a dig back at Google after they took a swing at Facebook's social ads business with G+ Post Ads this spring. We'll have to wait and see, but it's unlike Zuckerberg to make ambiguous comments about where his company is headed – especially in a scripted call to his investors.

What's Next for Facebook

Internet.org is a big priority for Facebook in the near future, Zuckerberg said. They expect to launch a new set of free internet services later this year in a number of markets. Giving everyone more tools for connecting, like Instagram messenger, is another area of focus, he said.

Don't expect Facebook to play a greater role in e-commerce, said Sandberg. Facebook clearly isn't interested in actually selling products, preferring instead to stay firmly rooted in advertising and helping drive traffic to other sellers.

Facebook is still in the early days of building their Instagram, video and other ad revenue and cautioned investors that revenue should be expected to remain low for the foreseeable future. They're going to "ramp up" the amount of organic video content in the newsfeed; they don't want the only autoplay content to be ads, said Zuckerberg. However, he acknowledged they have to be careful that they aren't overloading users with data usage.

In response to a question near the end of the call, Zuckerberg gushed over Messenger and the potential for users to continue sharing more content with just the people they choose, even using an anonymous login. Privacy allows people to feel safe sharing different types of content, he said, and this goes right back to the reason Facebook was started and why it's grown into the behemoth that it has.

"At some level, there are only so many photos you're going to want to share with your friends," Zuckerberg said.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Google has given AdWords advertisers a pretty awesome gift: new dynamic sitelinks, free of charge, for the top three ad positions. That means Google will automatically generate sitelinks for certain ads, and clicks on those dynamic sitelinks won’t cost you anything.

In their announcement this morning, Google said, "This is another example, like selling ratings, of AdWords tools adding value to your ads while saving time and simplifying campaign management." As with Enhanced Campaigns, Google is basically catering to smaller businesses who don’t have the time or expertise to set this stuff up themselves.

When Adoption Is Low, Google Forces Adoption

The big idea behind Enhanced Campaigns was to increase adoption of mobile advertising, since so many AdWords advertisers weren’t doing it on their own. The move to EC made all campaigns “mobile-friendly” by default.

This is a similar move – Google already updated the Ad Rank formula, one of the biggest AdWords changes in the past decade, to include expected performance of ad extensions in addition to Quality Score and max bid. Apparently, that wasn’t enough to get advertisers using site extensions in every campaign. So Google is taking matters into its own hands and making sure your ads have sitelinks if they rank at the top of the page. This ensures that they'll benefit from the improved CTR of sitelinks, even if advertisers are too lazy to implement sitelinks on their own.

The Loss Leader Effect: How Dynamic Sitelinks Improve CTR

Here’s the interesting thing about how sitelinks work: People aren't actually clicking very often on the sitelinks themselves; the typical CTR on a sitelink is just 0.1%.

However, the uplift in headline CTR for an ad with sitelinks is around 10%. For example, an ad in the top spot with an expected CTR of 6% would see a boost to 6.6% CTR with sitelinks enabled, simple because the ad takes up more space and is more noticeable.

That’s why Google is able to offer you dynamic sitelinks at no cost per click: Google isn't really losing anything by offering these free, as hardly anyone clicks on them. What they are doing is increasing the expected CTR of the top 3 ads across the board, which means more revenue for Google (and luckily, more clicks for you as well).

We know the use of ad extensions is important for that very reason – the improvement in expected CTR. That’s why they’re now part of the AdRank formula.

We're also finding that the higher CTR from using the sitelinks ad extension raises Quality Score by 10%, on average.

It's a smart move on their part, to make this automatic for all advertisers. We estimate that only 30% of small business advertisers (companies spending less than $5,000/month on AdWords) use sitelinks. It takes more work to set them up and a lot of advertisers still simply don't understand how or why to do it. With dynamic sitelinks, they don't need to understand it.

More Details on Dynamic Sitelinks

Dynamic sitelinks can appear to searchers on desktop, tablets and mobile with full internet browsers and look like this:

Your ads will be eligible for dynamic sitelinks so long as you have your campaign type set to "Search Network with Display" or "Search Network Only." Google adds: "If you've already set up your own sitelinks, those will always show, except for the few instances when the dynamic sitelink can perform better." (That “always” seems like a hedge, since it’s unclear how they’d determine whether your own sitelinks or their dynamic sitelinks perform better without running tests.)

The new dynamic sitelinks rolled out globally today and are available to all advertisers. If you decide to opt out of dynamic sitelinks on your ads, you can do so using this form (it also allows you to reinstate them later). We think chasing low CTRs is silly, though. If you're worried about getting more unqualified clicks, change your messaging and targeting.

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Marketers get by with a little help from their friends – well let us introduce you to 32 new content marketing friends to help make your job a little easier.

Note: The aim was to only list free content marketing tools, but there are a few paid ones in the mix as well (freebies only get you so far). Unless marked as a paid tool, all content tools listed here have at least some kind of free offering.

• Content Curation Tools (finding great stuff to share)
• Content Creation Tools(create your own awesome stuff to share)
• Tools for Finding Content Creators (find folks to make custom content for you)
• Content Promotion and Management (sharing and managing your content)
• Content Analytics & Measuring (analyzing and measuring your content's effectiveness) 
• Other Content Marketing Tools (random content tools we think are neat)

Content Curation Tools

Tools to help you discover great content to read and share across the web

Storify: Storify is a great content curating tool that lets you collect various social media elements on a chosen topic and present them all in one sleek format. Alternatively, you can search a topic on Storify and see what other users have created.

Feedly: Feedly is a great RSS reader that lets you stay updated on the latest and greatest blog content. Feedly is stylish and streamlined, making it easy to add, sort, and organize content.

EverPost: EverPost is another great content curating tool, letting you find new stories based on your pre-selected favorite topics.

Content Creation Tools

Tools to help you create awesome, original content pieces

Visual.ly: Browse their massive collection of infographics for inspiration, then enlist top-notch talent to create your own high-quality, customized infographic content pieces.

Prezi: Elegant visual presentations that can be edited and shared in the cloud. Free version allows for public presentations smaller than 100MB. Paid options allow offer more features and space.

Powtoon: Powtoon is an animated content creation tool to help you make custom animated videos - great for explainer videos. The paid version offers more images to use, HD quality, and the ability to create animations longer than 5 minutes.

SlideShare: View, upload, and share slide deck presentations with audiences across the web.

GoToMeeting: An online meeting/webinar platform with support for most popular desktop and mobile devices. A host of easy-to-use features makes GoToMeeting one of the most popular webinar platforms around. Recording webinars allows users to create and share video resources that can be used as valuable content pieces. [Free Alternative: Google Hangouts] 

PlaceIt: PlaceIt lets you upload images of your product or website and insert them into high-quality photos. Small image downloads are free, larger files will cost you.

Skitch: Skitch is a free markup tool for Evernote. Easily add shapes, highlights, and call outs to your photos to create super sharable content.

Image from AndroidNova

Tawkers: Tawkers lets users host live web chats. Once the live chat is ended, conversations can be embedded and published on websites.

Listly: Create custom lists and have visitors vote on items. Very easy way to create fun, engaging pieces of content that can easily be shared.

Quora: Quora lets users ask questions and receive answers. Content marketers can use it to discover what kind of questions their audiences are asking. Use Quora for blogging inspiration - answer Quora questions through a high-quality blog post and you’ve got yourself some content gold.  

Paper.li: Create your own custom online newspaper featuring articles, photos, and videos from all across the web based on topics of your choosing. Share and promote your online newspaper via social media (sorry paper boy, you’re fired).

ThingLink– ThinkLink lets you create custom interactive images by adding clickable icons to links, video, text, music, other images, you name it!

Tools for Finding Content Creators

Help for finding and hiring content creators

Contently: Contently helps businesses find and collaborate with quality freelance writers.

oDesk: An easy-to-use platform that helps you find the right freelancer for the job. See a freelancer’s work history, portfolio, and reviews before hiring them. oDesk helps you confidently hire content creators, guiding and helping you along the way.

Content Promotion & ManagementTools

Tools for sharing and promoting your content

Buffer: Buffer lets you mark articles you want to share and puts them into your queue. Those articles are then shared across your social media accounts at various times spread throughout the day.

HootSuite: Manage all your social media accounts, track mentions, respond to fan interaction, and schedule posts with this social media management tool.

Tweetdeck: Manage multiple Twitter accounts, schedule Tweets, and track mentions and hashtags. Basically, your number one Twitter hot spot.

Mail Chimp: One of the most popular platforms for email marketing management, Mail Chimp lets you organize contacts, send emails, and track results.

DivvyHQ: An editorial calendar management system to help keep you stay organized and on task while collaborating with team members. [Paid. Free Alternative: Google Drive]

TrackMaven: Track all your content pieces across organic, paid, and social mediums, and easily compare your results to competitors. Plus, their logo is a really, really adorable corgi. [Paid]

Click to Tweet: Click to Tweet lets you easily create clickable, tweetable links with customized text.

PR Newswire: Send out press releases to a global database of over 700,000 journalists and bloggers. [Paid]

Content Analytics & Measuring

Measure and analyze content marketing performance

Google Analytics: Track your website traffic, measure social media efforts, create customized reports, and much more. A free analytics powerhouse.

Buzzsumo: Lets users analyze content performance across social mediums. Just search a keyword or topic and see which articles on the web are getting it right. Observe the successful posts and replicate for your own benefit.

Other Content Marketing Tools

Ubbersuggest: A free keyword suggestion tool that gives you a very healthy assortment of keyword suggestions based on your input.

Addvocate: Measure and track your own employees and how they share your content. Lets you prioritize content you want employees to focus on sharing, and see which of your employees is having the biggest impact on customers. [Paid]

Optimizely: A tool that lets users easily A/B test any number of variables. [Paid]

Creative Commons: Search and discover creative commons licensed media (images, video, etc.) to use for your marketing purposes.

Gravity: Keeps track of what topics are hot on the web, and makes it easy for you to see which articles and topics will resonate with your audience. [Paid]

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.