Lucky number 13 is here. Overstock released some interesting details behind its recent, dramatic SEO success, while YouTube and Pinterest both launched new video marketing features.
The News
Local listing reviews have been disappearing from Google. The Google My Business team is aware of the issue, but they’ve been way behind on communication over last few weeks, so it’s not clear when this bug will be addressed.
According to reports from FreshChalk and SOCi, the majority of local businesses are don't follow basic local SEO best practices. This includes not filling out location pages on Google My Business and Yelp, and not engaging with customers that visits local digital platforms. With sites like GMB, Yelp, and Facebook playing such a large role in the local sales funnel, it’s a no-brainer for all local businesses to at least cover the basics. Claim your profiles, fill out the business information 100%, and build a simple plan to interact with customers (respond to reviews and post regular fresh content). If you do these simple tasks, you’re already ahead of the crowd!
Yoast SEO 11.6 launched this week with a new interface and improved HowTo structured data implementation, which makes it easier to take full advantage of HowTo markup on your site (which can be super useful if you're producing how to articles). The new release also includes schema bug fixes and security updates.
Pinterest launched a ton of new video features, with a new video uploader, video scheduler, and video performance tracking. It's a clear signal for content marketers, time to start testing video on Pinterest (or go harder if you already were). I foresee some crunchy early adopter benefits if you jump in now.
YouTube released a new copyright enforcement feature that forces specific timestamp references in copyright infringement claims. If you’re a YouTube video creator (who isn’t these days), this means it will be easier to understand and address copyright claims. As part of this release, you can remove any content that infringes on copyright with YouTube's own editing tools, instead of taking the whole video down and re-uploading. This is a great move for YouTube video marketing, in the past YouTube creators have suffered from overreaching copyright infringement spam without any tools to fight back.
Voice search is growing, and according to eMarketer, over 30 million Americans will use smart speaker technology to shop this year. That's a lot of people. To get ready for it, SEOs and content marketers need to follow local and mobile SEO best practices. One of the most important things to do is get in Google’s Guaranteed program, which you can do by signing up for Local Services ads, since Google will only support pre-screened providers local voice search results in Google Assistant and Google Home.
Ranking Factors
UX improvements and content refreshes can drive major SEO growth. Overstock saw a 97% year over year increase in organic traffic by refreshing old content and improving site performance. After getting hit with a series of rank drops and penalties, the company prioritized speed, architecture, and usability improvements on the site. One project involved delivering faster, unique image results to specific users (personalization + performance!) Overstock also refreshed content across the domain, both reworking outdated content and consolidating duplicate content.
Domain age is not a ranking factor
You won’t get penalized or hit with manual actions from one or two bad links, it takes a pattern of abuse to attract penalties.
