Eric Enge, Author at Perficient Blogs

Case Study: Driving SEO Results with Wix

Eric Enge — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 15:00:04 +0000

As part of Wix’s ongoing efforts to support their clients’ SEO needs, Wix contacted Perficient to perform an independent third-party assessment of the platform’s SEO capabilities. Rather than simply doing another dry analytical competitive comparison Perficient and Wix agreed that the best approach would be for Perficient to participate in optimizing a site built on the Wix platform and generate a case study.

Prior to starting the work on the case study site we did some research on the types of things being said in the market about Wix. It seemed that there was a perception by some parties that Wix was not a particularly SEO-friendly platform. But what is the truth? Is Wix bad or good for SEO? This is what we set forth to find out.

The approach that we agreed upon with Wix was to have Perficient’s SEO team perform an audit of a small business website currently hosted on the Wix platform, make a set of recommendations on changes to be made to improve their SEO results and then help them make the changes within Wix. This process was designed to get us actively engaged with working with the platform and see what it was like to optimize a site for SEO.

Wix picked Copper & Brass Paper Goods, a solopreneur-owned e-commerce site that sells paper goods and stationery products featuring Black artists and designs, to participate in the project.

About Copper & Brass

Copper & Brass Paper Goods was started by solopreneur Ariel Young in 2017 to continue a family tradition of giving care, detail, and love when creating beautiful gift packages. The company fills a diversity hole in the market, providing paper goods and stationery with products featuring Black people.

Copper & Brass Paper Goods’ style is one of a kind, as its values flow effortlessly through its creations. The brand shines a light on Black culture by promoting positive representation and using gorgeous illustrations that highlight the community’s beauty and power.

Ariel Young has done a great job developing visibility for her business. Copper & Brass has been featured on major TV and news outlets such as Good Morning America, CNN, and Today. It has also been seen in Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Etsy, The Oprah Magazine, Essence, Martha Stewart, Black Southern Belle, Women’s Health, Elite Daily, and Reader’s Digest.

The Plan and Execution

The project kicked off on June 21, 2021. After a call with Copper & Brass CEO Ariel Young, Perficient started its audit, which included many of the basics:

A crawl of the website
A baseline measurement of organic search traffic
A review of Google Search Console (GSC)
A detailed hand analysis by an expert SEO from the Perficient team
Supporting keyword research

We used all of this information to get a read on the current state of the site from an SEO perspective, as well as learn the capabilities of the Wix platform. Over a period of a few weeks we became quite familiar with both and delivered the audit results to Copper & Brass on August 16^th, 2021.

We quickly learned that the site was well-structured. The site architecture was clean and simple and free of any significant problems. We didn’t find any broken links or any excessive or suboptimal redirects. The basic process that Copper & Brass had used to build the site was made easy by the Wix platform which made for a great start.

The reason this is so important is that you need the technical SEO foundation of your site to be rock solid or else you will be hampered in your efforts to earn organic search traffic. However, ultimately, once that foundation is set, the SEO game is won based on the depth, strength and quality of your content, as well as your skill in developing visibility for your business and the site.

From the perspective of Copper & Brass having that tech SEO foundation all set out of the box is huge, as the company does not have easy access to development resources. However, it’s comparatively easy for the company to focus on improving existing content or adding new content to the site. This is, in fact, where our audit found the most room for improvement.

For example, on the home page we updated the title, the H1 header tag, and body copy with a goal of improving keyword targeting. We also updated the meta description to emphasize that the site offers products that focus on positive representations of the Black community, as we felt that this would increase the CTR among relevant potential customers.

We also worked on the home page user experience. This included adding “Paper Goods” to the company logo, moving the contact email and Privacy Policy link to the footer and adding more conversion-oriented copy. While these are not actually SEO considerations, increasing conversion rates can increase ROI from SEO.

We also saw the opportunity to compete for more highly relevant keywords by creating some new category pages. For example, we added pages for Father’s Day Cards, Mother’s Day Cards, Birthday Cards, Valentine’s Day Cards, Graduation Cards, and Thank You Cards.

There were many other similar types of content changes that we did. These included implementing more user-friendly URLs, updating title tags, H1 tags and meta descriptions across numerous other pages, and updating product descriptions to use more descriptive copy. There were a few other pages where we did more extensive optimization of the content to better compete for related keywords. The pages that saw more extensive editing included Notebooks, HBCU Notebooks & Sorority Fraternity Products.

Perficient made most of the site changes, once approved by Copper & Brass. As an exception to this, Copper & Brass took the lead on making recommended updates to product descriptions to include more detailed information.

Many of these changes were made within the first couple weeks of the project. Most of the changes were implemented by August 9, with some product descriptions taking a bit longer to complete. There is more opportunity to keep improving the site by optimizing the product descriptions on an ongoing basis. While a lot of progress was made during this engagement, there is more to be gained by continuing to work on the content.

Organic Search Traffic Growth

We gave these changes a few months to percolate and then did an analysis of how the site responded to the changes. In a November 24 review, we saw substantial gains in organic search presence and traffic for Copper & Brass. This included increases in page one rankings, organic search impressions, and click-generating pages, as shown here:

Looking at the impression data on a YOY basis within GSC for October 2020 and October 2021, we see a consistent increase in overall impressions, indicating that the early changes made in the project already had a significant, sustained impact:

Reviewing the data comparing July 2021 to November 2021 also saw strong positive results. This included an increase in page one rankings and organic search impressions.

The impression growth comparing October 2021 to May 2021 was also impressive:

We also compared traffic to the site using both the built-in Wix Analytics as well as Google Search Console. Here we saw strong traffic growth as well:

In addition to these gains, another important development was the increasing potential for future gains in impressions and traffic. An increasing number of terms moved from completely unranked to showing up in mid-tier rankings (page 2 plus). A small sampling of these are shown here:

On-Page SEO Capabilities of Wix

Wix’s closed-source platform allows the end-user to benefit from the economies of scale related to the external management of a site’s technical framework (e.g., OOTB structured data, lazy loading, image compression, mobile responsiveness). These items are handled in the background to allow site administrators to focus on creating great content.

Overall, the Wix platform allows site administrators to configure the vast majority of on-page elements according to SEO best practices. Implementing these aspects of SEO does not require any plug-in. As a result, critical SEO elements can be configured at page-level or scale to strengthen relevancy signals and enable intended crawling, rendering, and indexing. The on-page SEO capabilities for Wix include:

Meta Robots. The Wix platform allows site authors to enable or disable indexability via the “SEO” tab page setting.
Title Tags & Meta Descriptions. Content authors can adjust each page’s title tag or meta description to a custom value within the “SEO” tab of page settings. In addition, the “SEO Patterns” feature within “SEO Tools” enables users to configure these elements at scale by using database variables.
Heading Tags. The Wix platform allows administrators to customize the default page heading (H1) and subsequent headings (H2-H6) via “Text Settings” within the editor.
URL Structure. Site administrators can simply adjust the URL slug for each page within the “SEO” tab of the page settings section. By default, links use absolute URLs, but these can be changed to relative URLs if desired. Users can also fully customize the URL structure of product pages and blog posts.
Breadcrumbs & Internal Links. While not enabled by default for all content, Wix’s product detail pages (PDPs) include a hierarchical breadcrumb link component to show relationships between certain parent and child pages. This will be especially useful for the future rollout of product category templates. The Wix platform also allows content authors to edit internal links and anchor text within page-specific or global components.
Body Content. Either by adjusting default description fields or inserting text boxes, site authors can draft custom, well-optimized body content on all category and product pages.
Images. Content authors can edit file names, titles, and alt attributes for images used or uploaded to the site.
Structured Data. Most pages allow users to insert custom JSON+LD structured data into the source code via the page setting’s “Advanced SEO” section. This is especially useful for leveraging Local Business markup for the site’s homepage or location pages. Some page templates feature out-of-the-box (OOTB) structured data enhancements (e.g., Products, Events, Video, Blog Posts). These features generate markup that is automatically eligible for rich snippets. Users can edit SD markup presets for pages of the same type, using variables. Wix has told us that more customization of markups will be available in the future.

Technical SEO

Overall, the Wix platform allows users to configure site settings to adhere to technical SEO best practices. These SEO capabilities ensure that administrators have the opportunity to remove any obstacles to proper crawling, rendering, and indexing by search engines. One distinct advantage of the Wix platform is the centralized location and OOTB nature of these SEO features. Additionally, users require minimal applications or plug-ins to configure these settings (e.g., Wix Multilingual). The technical SEO capabilities for Wix include:

Crawl & Indexation Efficiency. All page types feature templates that allow search engines to effectively crawl, render, and index content. Search engines do not have to rely solely on XML sitemaps to discover content efficiently.
Canonicalization. The Wix platform includes self-referencing canonical tags for each page by default. Additionally, users can edit this field to declare a canonical for duplicate content via the page setting’s “Advanced SEO” tab.
XML Sitemaps. Site administrators can rely on the Wix platform to auto-generate a clean, valid sitemap index. The sitemap index lists individual XML sitemaps conveniently organized by page type (e.g.. store pages). These settings can be accessed via the “SEO Tools” section. The platform also automatically removes any page marked as “noindex” from XML sitemaps. One minor drawback for XML sitemaps is that redirected pages must be marked as “noindex” or deleted to be excluded from the listings.
Robots.txt. The Wix platform allows site administrators to edit the robots.txt file with custom disallows, sitemap locations, etc. These settings can be accessed via the “SEO Tools” section.
JS + HTML. While users cannot edit the base HTML or JS, they can add or overlay JS snippets in global or page-specific files via Velo “Dev Mode” settings. This is especially useful in the realm of structured data enhancements. Additionally, administrators can insert custom HTML or JS into the head, body, and footer of specific page templates.
Redirects. By default, the platform enables rule-based 301-redirects for protocol and subdomain variants (e.g., HTTP to HTTPS). Content authors can create individual or pattern-based 301-redirects for archived pages via the “URL Redirect Manager” in the “SEO Tools” section.
404 page. Wix’s default 404 pages generate the correct status code and include a homepage for users to continue their site experience. Site authors were recently given the ability to create a customized 404 page with unique messaging and navigable links.
Mobile-Friendliness. Wix’s platform features an OOTB responsive design for mobile users — without creating inconsistencies between the standard desktop content and UX. Site authors can rely on Wix’s platform to generate a “mobile-friendly” validation from Google’s testing tools.
Site Speed. The platform leverages advanced CSS, global CDN, caching, and JS compression by default. Images are optimized via lazy load settings and auto-formatting. Additionally, images are automatically converted to Webp format and videos are set up for preloading by default.
HTTPS. Wix’s platform loads all pages and assets under the latest HTTPS secure protocols, generating a valid certificate and connection.
Analytics Integrations. Site administrators can verify and connect their domain to various web analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console via the “SEO Tools” section. Administrators can also add custom HTML or JS to global components for tracking and other purposes.
AMP. Although this feature does not extend to other page types, content authors can enable AMP versions of blog pages via the “Blog Settings” section.
Videos. By default, Wix allows users to upload unique video content in an SEO-friendly format (e.g., MP4, preloaded). Users can also manage their video content’s meta title and description information.
Multilingual. While there are limitations in terms of auto-translated content and page type restrictions (e.g., bookings), Wix’s own “multilingual” app allows users to create language variants of their site. Additionally, the platform automatically generates the appropriate href lang tags to aid search engines in displaying the right content language to the right users.

Perficient’s Experience Working with the Wix Platform

The Wix platform offers a well-organized experience allowing individuals in various roles within an organization to effectively develop well-optimized websites for search engines. The SEO tools are comparable to those that you find in WordPress. In addition, no special plug-ins are required to implement most on-page and technical SEO best practices.

Content authors can set up critical page elements such as title tags, heading tags, and meta descriptions in an easy, straightforward manner. In addition, administrators can configure technical settings to mitigate any obstacles to proper crawling, rendering, and indexing by search engines.

Wix offers e-commerce support as well. The Wix e-commerce platform is comparatively easier to implement than some other options, such as Shopify, and is well suited to smaller businesses who (a) have simpler product catalogs to promote and sell, and (b) would find it more challenging to work with a more complex platform.

Analytics integration is also straightforward and easy to implement. In addition, Wix provides tracking for e-commerce sites that includes sales and revenue data.

Areas for Improvement

We also found some disadvantages to the Wix platform. For example, users are currently unable to edit base platform code and the .htaccess file. While Wix does provide a redirect tool, users that want to implement more advanced .htaccess file functionality, such as blocking specific IP addresses from crawling your site, currently can’t do so.

Another shortcoming for Wix was the lack of dedicated e-commerce subcategory page templates (called Collections within the Wix platform). However, additional page templates will be released in the near future. E-commerce is one of the areas where Wix may not be the best fit for enterprise-level applications or medium-sized businesses.

For out-of-the-box (“OOTB”) structured data (e.g., PDPs), the ability to edit these enhancements at the page level would be especially useful for advanced SEO professionals. Wix has confirmed that this functionality will be available in Q1 2022. For page types that don’t include breadcrumb components, we couldn’t embed a “breadcrumb” element. We also found ourselves wanting to have the ability to leverage JSON+LD for breadcrumbs.

In addition, we’ve seen situations where the out-of-the-box Page Speed Insights (PSI) scores showed poorly, specifically with respect to Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). While the platform provides competitive solutions to achieve better Core Web Vitals scores, speed improvements are handled primarily by Wix. Customers lack the option to do their own tuning of the Wix platform code. Wix does work with a variety of CDN providers and manages those on your behalf. As shown in the chart below, this is an area that Wix has been improving for some time, and Wix tells us they are constantly working on more improvements.

Platform Performance Over Time in The U.S.

Source: http archive Core Web Vitals Technology Report

A summary of the planned improvements to the Wix platform that we’re aware of:

Structured Data Overrides that will address the concerns that we outlined above
Support for Image and Video Sitemaps
Category URLs
Site Speed Enhancements

Reassessing Common Beliefs About Wix Limitations

Let’s go back and reassess how Wix stands up against the general perception among users we discussed in the introduction to this study:

Additional Comments on Wix

To supplement our own research, we sought out the opinions of two other parties with respect to their experience with the platform.

Here is what Copper & Brass Paper Goods CEO Ariel Young had to say about the Wix platform:

“Building my website using the Wix Platform was a great experience. I lack website building knowledge; however, the templates provided by Wix and the ease of use helped me build a great website to showcase our products. The templates allow customization and creative liberty with the design process.

“Many of the tools are self-explanatory, which eased my mind while developing the website. I would recommend the Wix platform to anyone interested in selling their products online. Wix is a great value for the money you have to invest, and as a small business owner having control over my website and saving money are important.”

For more context about Wix as a platform, we also spoke with Blake Woolwine, creative marketing director for How 2 Media. He has built more than 30 sites on the Wix platform across a broad array of applications, such as e-commerce sites, religious organizations, nonprofits, best-selling authors, and actors. Here is what he had to say about Wix:

“Wix is a powerful all-in-one platform for business. It allows business owners, freelancers, and marketing agencies to synchronize roles and responsibilities with CRM, email marketing, social ads, website design, SEO, analytics, invoicing, mobile app, automation, business line, member platform, blogs, e-commerce, and more. Through the Wix owner app, users can manage their business on the go and anywhere in the world.”

Summary

What we learned during this project is that Wix provides a robust set of SEO capabilities. As noted earlier in our work with Copper & Brass we did not encounter any significant technical SEO issues. This enables site owners to focus on the value-added aspects of SEO such as providing superior content or products to their users and customers.

Note: that our agreement with Wix explicitly states that it is both our right and obligation to publish our experiences and findings with the platform.

Looking for an expert to evaluate your site or platform with a Technical SEO Audit? Contact our team today to discuss how we can partner to provide you the solid foundation you can use to grow in organic search.

Why Digital Marketing Considerations Play a Big Role in Commerce Platform Selection- Here’s Why #271

Eric Enge — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 07:00:34 +0000

There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a commerce platform for your business.

In the first part of this two-part series, Eric Enge and Justin Racine, Senior Commerce Consultant at Perficient, discussed the technology considerations.

Now, in this video, they dive into the business and digital marketing factors you need to evaluate before deciding on an e-commerce platform.

This video is the second in a two-part series on choosing a commerce platform. If you missed the previous video, watch it here: Why Technology is One of the Big Keys to Picking the Right Commerce Platform.

Don’t miss a single episode of Here’s Why. Click the subscribe button below to be notified via email each time a new video is published.

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Transcript

Eric: Hey, everybody. Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit here at Perficient, and welcome to another episode of “Here’s Why.” Back with me again for this episode is Justin Racine. Justin is a Senior Commerce Consultant at Perficient, and he works with clients to figure out how to leverage their technologies to deliver awesome digital experiences. He’s just a great wealth of knowledge around all things about commerce platforms. And we’re going to do the second part of a two-part series discussing how to pick the right ecommerce platform. In the first part, we covered the technology considerations, but in this one, we’re going to cover the business and digital marketing considerations.

So, looking forward to doing this again with you today, Justin. Say, hello.

Justin: Thanks, Eric. Glad to be back. Definitely looking forward to diving into part two of this series and exploring some interesting topics here with you today. So, thanks for having me again.

Eric: No, absolutely. Let’s get to it.

Eric: So, I always urge people to think about the digital marketing side of things when they’re going through these kinds of transitions. So, the obvious one is SEO, where you need to look at and consider whether or not you’re doing the right things through the implementation process, and really, in your plan for the overall process to at least preserve your SEO, and then also, set the stage for growth going into the future.

But it gets a little broader than that, too. It gets into the analytics and CRO side of things. And there’s a lot of opportunities you have once you’re doing some sort of migration or re-platform because the patient is basically open at that point. It’s going to be far more cost-effective to do some of those other changes at the same time that you’re making a larger-scale change, and you just don’t want to miss that opportunity when you have it. But, with that in mind, what’s next?

Justin: Well, you brought up some interesting points there, Eric, so I think I’d like to kind of stay with some of those. And I think you definitely know SEO very well, right, and digital marketing, so you know the importance of getting the right type of customer to your site. And there’s two sides to that coin.

The one side is you want to attract the right type of customer through SEO and digital marketing, that’s relevant to what your business or what your e-commerce instance is trying to do. That’s half the battle.

Once you get them there, you have to get them to convert, right? So, that’s the other side of the coin is, how is this commerce platform going to allow you to do that? And also, as I was alluding to prior, how is this commerce platform going to allow you to iterate and grow as customer expectations change? You know, 2020 was a crazy year, right? COVID, everyone knows that story there. But one of the biggest things that changed is that there were new types of customers that were using e-commerce capabilities and buying new categories of products that they never purchased online before. And what that did is it changed the experience or the expectations of those customers in new categories of product.

So, if you were a business who sold certain types of items that typically weren’t purchased by one demographic, but because everything was closed down, you’re now in that space, then the experience on your platform probably needs to be changed, because you had previously designed it for a different set of customers.

So, the next phase here, if the technology and business align, is looking at a platform that’s going to allow you to grow and change those experiences when unfortunate events like COVID arise. And COVID isn’t the only thing. There’s constantly things that are occurring within the market, within business, that are creating these demand changes for customers and their expectations.

You have to pick a platform that has a roadmap that aligns with your business, aligns with your technology, but also is constantly creating new features and workflows and enhancements that allow you to extend that platform, to really meet and exceed those ever-changing customer expectations, because they’re constantly changing. And you need to keep up with it, otherwise, your competitors will slide in and take your customers right from you.

Eric: Right. Well, at the end of the day, too, you’re making the platform switch for a reason or maybe many reasons, and you really need to take the time at the very beginning of the process. And then, really, the various stages through the process to ensure that you’re actually meeting the goals or the things you were trying to accomplish with making the switch. So, let’s keep going. What else you got for me?

Justin: I think there’s two other key things that I think we could probably touch on here, and one of which I alluded to earlier is that, once you have the business, the technology, and alignment, and you have the platform piece as well as far as the vision of the future, you really want to start to look at your key performance indicators.

And the KPIs, the best way that I can describe them is, it’s like when you were in school and you got a grade on a test. So, if you got an A+, that’s a key performance indicator of how well you knew the information, whereas if you got a D, you really didn’t know the information that well. And within e-commerce, there’s tons of key performance indicators that are out there that can be leveraged to determine success.

So, will the platform help you meet or exceed these KPIs from day one? What other KPIs would you need to potentially build as you’re upgrading this platform, to realize and determine what success looks like, and to continuously track those as time goes on? If we’re looking at conversion rate, or we’re looking at bounce rate, all of these play into that. And Eric, I’m sure you as well, from the digital marketing side, there’s probably a ton of key performance indicators that you look at from an SEO side of things that are extremely important to the success of digital marketing platforms, that are probably in alignment here as well, right?

Eric: No, absolutely. And, you know, I think everybody needs to remember, as they go through this process, that the website exists for a variety of reasons. But, generally speaking, to attract, engage, and convert customers, right? And you just need to be mindful of that through the whole process. People are unable to discover your website, for example, and it’ll be an empty store, right? And a poorly executed migration can be a digital marketing disaster.

In all of this, it’s also important to have the right expectations. So, it’s common when you make some sort of major platform change or site migration where you will see some short-term loss in organic search traffic. And you just have to prepare for that and know that. And maybe what you want to do is for the few weeks while that’s taking place, before Google understands the new site and gets you back hopefully to where you were, just put a little more money into your paid media budgets to keep your customer acquisition rates at the levels that you want them to be. But, with that in mind, let’s bring it home. Any other considerations, Justin?

Justin: Well, I think the last one that I would call out here, and you alluded to it as well, is total cost of ownership, right? So, how much is it going to cost you to choose this platform and to implement it versus what you have today, and what other considerations go around that?

I mean, Eric, you were just talking about the power of SEO and losing two-thirds of your traffic because they didn’t follow certain SEO recommendations through this site migration process. So, perfect example, you have a site today, you’re putting it on a different platform. It’s not just getting the integrations built out, it’s all of the SEO work that you’ve paid and done prior to get that good organic ranking. And if you don’t take certain things into consideration, your total cost of ownership might look okay from just the platform-to-platform basis, but if you don’t account for things like SEO, or CRO, and customer experience, then that total cost of ownership will increase above what your expectations are today.

So, the final thing I’d really touch on is that when you’re migrating to a new platform, yes, you want to make sure that the cost of ownership is in alignment with what your budget allows for, but that you’re also looking outside of the scope of what is really the platform cost and the implementation fees and the licensing, and looking at other areas that could potentially be negatively affected by not taking into account the right steps through this migration process.

And obviously, that all aligns back to the return on your investment and how can you drive more revenue through this platform? How can you create a better customer experience? And how can you set the foundation, again, for the future of your business, that will be successful for you, for your employees, and for the customers who are shopping on this platform? So, that would be the final piece that I’d say, as you’re looking at all of this, making sure that you really understand the total cost of what you’re looking to achieve.

Eric: This has been great, Justin. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Justin: Absolutely, Eric. Thanks for the time.

Eric: Absolutely. And thank you all for watching this episode of “Here’s Why.” Hopefully you enjoyed it. If you did, please click the button below to subscribe to our channels, so you won’t have to miss any future episodes.

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Why Technology is One of the Big Keys to Picking the Right Commerce Platform – Here’s Why #270

Eric Enge — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 07:00:56 +0000

Your e-commerce platform sets the foundation for the future success of your business, so it’s crucial that you choose one that fits your current needs and allows room to grow.

In this episode, Justin Racine, Senior Commerce Consultant at Perficient, joins Eric Enge to highlight the key technology considerations you need to examine before deciding on an e-commerce platform.

This video is the first in a two-part series on choosing a commerce platform.

Don’t miss a single episode of Here’s Why. Click the subscribe button below to be notified via email each time a new video is published.

Subscribe to Here’s Why

Resources

See all of our Here’s Why Videos | Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Transcript

Eric: Hey, everybody. Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit here at Perficient, and welcome to another episode of “Here’s Why.” Today, please help me welcome Justin Racine. Justin is the Senior Commerce Consultant here at Perficient. He works with clients to help leverage their technologies to deliver digital commerce experiences that exceed customer expectations. And so, just to unravel that a little bit, he’s an awesome wealth of information and knowledge about everything you ever wanted to know about commerce platforms. And we’re going to be discussing the considerations in picking the right commerce platform for you. And this is the first in a two-part series. In this one, we’re going to focus on technology considerations.

So, I’m looking forward to having this conversation with you today, Justin. Say, hello.

Justin: Hey, Eric. Thanks for having me on. Definitely looking forward to discussing a little bit further around commerce platforms and why picking the right one is so important to the success of your business. So, very interested to have this conversation with you, and to kick things off here.

Eric: Well, so let’s just start right there since you said it’s important. Why is picking the right platform important to your overall success?

Justin: It’s extremely important. It’s almost like picking the right car for you, right, to drive every day. So, you have to have certain things within the car that you might want to purchase that are important to what your lifestyle is. And the same thing kind of goes here with an e-commerce platform. There’s different elements that are going to make sense for your business that won’t necessarily make sense for your competitor, even though you might be in the same space. So, you have to look at things like technology stacks, and what’s important for your business and your employees and your customers. What some of the key performance indicators are that you might have within your business today that you’re trying to exceed, or maybe you’ve plateaued with them and you need to get to that next level up. So, having the right commerce platform will not only allow you to achieve all of those pieces, but it really sets the foundation for the future of success of your business. And looking at some of these different elements will be critical to making sure that you can actually actualize and achieve that success.

Eric: Well, cool. So, you mentioned several interesting things there, but let’s start digging a little deeper. Let’s start with the technology topic.

Justin: Yeah. So, I mean, one big thing that we always work with our clients on, and what you should always look at, is what technology stack that you currently have today. So, if you’re a Microsoft shop versus some other technology, are there certain platforms from a commerce standpoint that align to what your information technology department is used to working with internally? There might be an internal team of developers or support staff that can actually work on the platform, and having something that aligns to what their skill set is is definitely important in making sure that the platform is going to work well for you.

Another piece of that as well, that I’d actually add, is that you probably, in your business, have other integrations, whether it’s an ERP system or a CRM or an email service provider, a third party that you’re leveraging to do dynamic email remarketing. All of those pieces are going to play into how a platform will work into that technology stack, and make sure that the integration and build is as seamless as possible, while also being able to allow you to maximize and extend those third parties, like your ERP and CRM and email service providers, even further for success for your business. So, starting with technology is always the first area that we tell people to look at, to make sure that the IT folks have buy-in to the specific platform or platforms that you might be looking at.

Eric: Right. If the new platform you’re picking is going to completely disrupt your existing technology stack, I mean, you might want to think twice before going down that path. Right? And understanding the total scope of that impact is really a cornerstone piece of the cost-benefits analysis. But, after considering that, what’s next?

Justin: Well, if the technology makes sense and it’s going to work within your current infrastructure today, or maybe even what the future state of your infrastructure is, too. I mean, we work with folks who have a certain infrastructure setup today, but they’re saying, “Hey, Justin, this is how, this is what it looks like today, but we’re throwing out our current CRM and putting a new one in in the future. And we’re removing our ERP system and putting in a new ERP six months from now. So, we need to connect to all of that.” Which really translates into the next piece that you should look at is, if the technology is going to work, how is it going to also fit into what your business is, and what business alignment that you’re looking to have within your organization?

So, if you’re changing things like your ERP or CRM, or even if you’re not, you have employees who are used to working with different systems internally, and have skill sets aligned to that. So, how is the technology going to fit and integrate within your CSRs, or how is it going to fit within your sales team? How is it going to help them do a better job and potentially remove some of the manual tasks that they’re doing today, and have them be more focused in on the customer and the customer’s experience, and not having them in the weeds on the day-to-day?

So, the employees are one area to start with, to make sure that there’s alignment. But, there’s also the piece around how this platform, this e-commerce platform, will help take your business from where it’s at today to the next phase. So, how can you grow your revenues? How can you increase your customer lifetime value? How can you make that customer experience exceed the expectations that have been set today, but also the fact that the customer experience is ever-changing? So, does the platform allow you to have the flexibility to continue to iterate on it as time goes by? So, those are key things within the business you have to think about, if there’s alignment from technology, and then there’s also alignment from the business. Those are the two foundational pieces to start with.

Eric: Right. Agreed. I think you also need to think about some of the other factors that go into selecting a platform too. But, we’re going to cover that in the second episode in this series. And hopefully you’ve enjoyed watching this one, and if you have, please consider clicking the subscribe button below so you don’t have to miss any future episodes of “Here’s Why.”

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Why CX and UX Are Critical to Meeting User Intent – Here’s Why #269

Eric Enge — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 07:00:43 +0000

In this series, Eric Enge and Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insights at Yext, have demonstrated why and how user intent impacts search. So, what should you do to ensure success? How and what should you prioritize?

Eric and Duane walk through how to identify if you’re providing a great customer and user experience today and where to focus your time and efforts to be successful long-term.

This video is the fourth in a four-part series on the impact of user intent on search. If you missed the previous videos, watch them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

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Eric: Hey, everybody. Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit here at Perficient. This is the fourth and final part of a four-part series that Duane and I have been doing on the impact of user intent on search.

In part one, we discussed broad core algorithm updates that Google has been doing since March of 2018. In part two, we talked about the implication of all these things, both the user intent and those algorithm updates on the rest of us that publish websites. In part three, we talked about how important it was to create really the best and broadest content and the most comprehensive answers.

And in this one, the fourth and final part, we’re going to start talking about where you should focus your time and effort to be successful with all of this.

And to start us off, I want to introduce Duane Forrester. If you don’t know who he is and you’re in the search industry, then you’ve been seriously living under a rock because he’s out there just about everywhere. But thanks so much for joining me again, Duane, and let’s go.

Duane: Absolutely, Eric. Again, thanks for having me on the show. I’m so grateful we got to do this four-part series. This is awesome. For those who don’t know, Eric and I have a very long relationship and we’re good friends. We spend a lot of time talking outside of this environment. So, it’s always nice to get things on the record and actually share this with you.

And, you know, it’s funny because out of everything we’ve kind of talked to, you know, as I go down through the notes that we’ve had on the show and the different topics, like, you know, the one thing that really kind of gets me is at some point we have to have this conversation that we’re having right now is, what do you do? You know, where is the rubber meeting the road, where is it at, and what do you focus on? You get up in the morning. You have your coffee. You go to your computer. What are you focused on? How are you prioritizing and what are you prioritizing? And, I think a really good way to look at this is take a look at dominant players. So, let’s call out Google in the world of search, right? That’s pretty easy. What have they been focused on over the last five years? Because when you see what Google is focused on, it suddenly starts to become important. And you suddenly understand what you should classify as important.

So, look, I’m not saying the keyword research you were going to do today isn’t important because at some point you have to do that. But really for me, for my money, I see what Google’s investing in. They’re investing in the core user experience and the customer experience. That’s what they’re looking at.

I want you guys to go look up a whitepaper that Google did last summer called “The Messy Middle.” It’s going to talk about the new customer journey. And I know we’re all burnt out on customer journey, but bear with me. The customer journey has always been here. It will always be here, whether we’re bored with the phrase or not. It is your funnel. You know, that path to conversion, the money you want. So, you’re never getting away from it.

Go take a look at what they had to say in that whitepaper because it’s not linear. It’s more like a ball of yarn. It’s a bit of a mess. You have to understand where your value is throughout that process so that you will own the customer journey.

And if you look at investments Google has made, if you look at the technologies, if you look at the improvements in search, if you look at the new features that we’ve seen, all of these things generally align that way.

And take it a step deeper. Go look up the Wikipedia page that shows the acquisitions that Google and Alphabet make as a company. And you’ll see that the technologies and the other businesses, the companies they buy are designed to support these experiences in a certain dimension.

You don’t believe me? Take a look at Google Maps recently. You look at the last three years of the new features we’ve gotten in Google Maps, and you look at the pace at which we’ve gotten them, and you will see that all came because those are the popular things in Waze. Everybody knows that Waze is only used by a small percentage compared to Google Maps. So, the reality is, if you want Google Maps to be better, you give them Waze-like features in Google Maps. And that’s what we have today. It makes that difference. So, I want you guys thinking about that in terms of your business and your customers. Eric, what do you, on this topic, where’s your head at with this?

Eric: So, I think those are great points, and I’m totally down with CX and UX being incredibly important. And, actually, Google has weighed in on this in another regard when they gave us the page experience signal, right?

Duane: Yeah. A hundred percent.

Eric: The reality is that isn’t the beginning of when Google began to think about things that related to customer experience and user experience from the point of view of sending messages out to those of us who publish websites.

So, just to be clear, even basic things like making sure your website is secure, that really is a customer experience kind of issue or someone clicks on the search results, they don’t want an interstitial interfering where they’re getting at least at the initial content that they were looking for, right? So, that’s just another one of those things. And that your site hasn’t been hacked. Well, that’s kind of an obvious one, right, that you don’t get a worm when you visit somebody’s website.

So, these are all examples of addressing customer experience. And it’s also the way they think about page speed. So, you know, we have the three metrics that they’re looking at there, Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. Those are all about, what is it like for the user? And these are really, really good things for us to think about and take our clues from, right?

Duane: Right.

Eric: So, especially on the page speed side of things, it’s like Google, who has more data than anybody, has given us what they think the three most important aspects of page speed are right there.

Duane: Exactly.

Eric: So, you know, okay, I’ll stop worrying about time to first byte, right, and you know, first contentful paint. I won’t worry about those things. You know, I mean, they matter. They’re part of the gateway to those other metrics, but they’re not sufficient. So, we should just take advantage of those things.

And, in addition, we really should be looking at what our competitors are doing, both from the point of view of the whole page experience signal, but really other aspects of what they’re doing with customer experience and user experience. So, that’s sort of my immediate thoughts on it, but Duane, why don’t you share?

Duane: Yeah. You know what? I’m really glad you brought up things like the colloquial core web vitals, that whole area of data that we now have, because, look, you got to fight a battle, right? Just pick the right ones. Don’t go after those ones that they don’t mean anything. If Google is calling something out, there’s a reason they’re calling it out. It’s because their data testing shows them that that has the biggest impact on core customer satisfaction. So, just line up with that.

Look, you’ll be able to fight the other battles later when you have time. Trust me. And you’ll never get to them because they’re never going to matter. But hey, look, if you’re struggling with mobile-first, I can’t tell you enough how important it is that you fix that. That is a critical step today, right? And Eric mentioned it. Page speeds. We’re talking about secure. These are table stakes now. These aren’t optionals. These aren’t the, “Oh way, hopefully, one day I’ll get there.” No, these are the, if someone in your competitive set is already there and you’re not, they look better to Google than you do. So, you have no choice but to step up the ladder to that rung. That’s the reality today. It’s very complex and it does take a lot of levers and a lot of knobs. You have to move these things.

And the mix is a little bit different today. Hopefully, over the last four videos here, we’ve given you guys some clear guidance, some good ideas, at the very least. A lot of these topics, you know, you hear people talking about them, and you want to think maybe they’re cliched. They’ve been talked about for a while. No, they’re talked about because they’re fundamentally important. That’s kind of where my head is, Eric.

Eric: I couldn’t agree more. So, I mean, all of these things matter, you know, from the beginning to the end, because it really gets down to, how are you matching up with user intent in creating that great user experience and customer experience.

Duane: Oh, I thought of one other thing. I want people to make sure they keep this in mind. When you’re using the tools and you’re looking at your core web vital score, you get this nice graph. It’s a circle, and it’s going to give you a number and it’s going to be color-coded. Don’t panic. Jeez, don’t panic, right? Like, if you score a 30 and you’re in the red, take the time to run your competition through this thing. If everybody’s in the red and scoring a 30, then you’re no better or worse than your competition. That’s a good place to be because it gives you the opportunity to step forward and look better than them. If you’re scoring a 30 and they’re scoring an 80, you might want to grab some panic sauce at that point and get moving, but just keep that in mind, right? That’s my final thought.

Eric: Absolutely. No, thanks for adding that in there, Duane. And I think that’s a really great place to leave it. So, hopefully, you’ve all enjoyed this particular episode, as well as the whole four-part series that Duane and I have done on user intent and its impact on search. And if you’ve enjoyed these episodes, please click on the subscribe now button below. And you won’t have to miss any future episodes of “Here’s Why.”

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The Powerful Link Between Accessibility, SEO, and Google

Eric Enge — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 15:00:41 +0000

It’s long known that good accessibility is good for search engine optimization (SEO). However, most people think of this connection as being specific to implementing alt attributes on their images when the truth is far more involved and complex. In fact, a core measure of the quality of a website and its content is how accessible that content is to its users. This includes people with disabilities, as at least 1 in 4 adults in the United States have some sort of disability.

In fact, almost 10% of users are cognitively disabled, making it difficult for them to follow site navigation. In addition, 6.6% are visually impaired and require the use of screen readers to recite aloud the page content to understand. That’s already over 16% of your visitors that need accessible and easy-to-understand site navigation. Are you really only designing your site for 84% of your potential customers? Of course not, and there is so much we need to do to ensure our users can not only find our content on our website but also make it clear to Google that users can find the content they want on our site too.

Let’s find out more about the relationship between accessibility, SEO, and Google, and the impact it has on our users.

Finding and Understanding Content is Key

How important are images to understanding the content on a page? While it varies by type of page, for some pages such as the home page of BBC.com, they’re critical. These types of pages and any page where images represent a core part of the page content are especially challenging for visually impaired users to understand.

To make the imagery more accessible, you can tag images with an Alt Attribute, which is HTML code embedded in the image tag including a description of what’s going on in the picture. This is part of accessibility that most people commonly think of as being the link between accessibility and SEO. This attribute allows the content of the images to be accessible to those who are visually impaired with an assistive tool such as a screen reader, which can read the description of the tag aloud. In addition, Google also uses the Alt Attribute to understand the content of the image, making the content of the images more valuable for SEO and search rankings.

But the connection between accessibility and SEO has far more to it than just alt attributes.

The Deeper Connection of SEO and Accessibility

To understand this deeper connection, it’s useful to understand more about Google’s motivations. Over the years Google’s messaging about what we need to do as publishers of websites has been remarkably consistent. One example of this is shown in this exchange on Twitter involving Google’s Gary Illyes:

Note the focus on “content created with care for the users.” Driving user satisfaction is a core priority for Google because higher levels of satisfaction with the search results help them drive higher usage levels and more revenue. Google further reinforces this focus with the concept they refer to as “EAT.” The components of EAT are:

Expertise: Is the person who creates the content an expert?
Authority: Is that person authoritative?
Trust: Is that person trustworthy?

This is a concept that Google uses with their human search quality raters. As the name suggests, these people systematically review and evaluate the search results to find potential weaknesses in those results. While this information isn’t fed directly into the algorithm, it’s used to find problems with the search results, which is then provided to their engineering teams as feedback that can be used in creating improved search algorithms. The investment that Google makes in continuously improving their algorithms is massive, and it has paid off very well for them.

This is an incredible performance, and it’s all due to staying in touch with the needs of the customer and quickly delivering results that fulfill them.

SEO and Accessibility Make a Great Team

Google wants you to do more than create and publish great content – they want you to make that contains something that is easy for people to access, including those with disabilities. In many areas, the factors that Google measures are the same as those included in the WCAG guidelines, and there are additional areas that Google considers beyond those guidelines as well.

The core reason that Google created the Page Experience signal is that user experience matters a great deal to them. In addition, another factor in creating this signal is that it will make it easier for them to continue to add new user experience signals over time.

Bundling SEO and accessibility benefit your business and users. By designing for accessibility and incorporating important practices such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), you’re not only actively making your website more usable and amenable to your users, but accessible digital experiences also increase organic traffic because of the SEO benefits and increases conversions because more users can effectively access your content and resources. For more information about accessible design, download our guide, Digitally Accessible Experiences: Why It Matters and How to Create Them, stay tuned for the next installation of our UpSkills series, contact us about our Accessibility IQ, and to learn more about SEO, contact our experts today.

Why Comprehensive Answers to User Questions Are Important – Here’s Why #268

Eric Enge — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 07:00:35 +0000

The world of search is massively complex, making it tempting to create content for your website that addresses high-volume topics only. But, that won’t help your users or your ranking.

Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insights at Yext, joins Eric Enge to discuss why you need to provide comprehensive answers to your users’ specific, detailed, and nuanced questions to rank well.

This video is the third in a four-part series on the impact of user intent on search. If you missed the previous videos, watch them here: Part 1, Part 2.

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Eric: Hey, everybody, Eric Enge here. I am the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit here at Perficient. And Duane Forrester and I have been doing a four-part video series on the importance of user intent and its impact on search. In the first part, we talked about Google’s broad core algorithm updates that began in March of 2018 and what we learned from those.

And then in the second part, we really started to talk about the implications of those broad core algorithm updates and this focus on user intent on really the rest of us, those of us publishing websites and trying to promote our businesses and the like.

And this is the third of our four-part series. I’m so thrilled to welcome back for part three, Mr. Duane Forrester, literally an industry legend. He keynotes conferences all over the world. Duane, thanks so much for coming back.

Duane: Eric, always, always. Out of everyone I’ve known in the industry, you’re one of those people. So always happy to be here, always happy to hang out with you. Usually, you and I have really good and deep conversations. And it’s fascinating because we’ve been doing this for years, these kind of behind-the-scenes, little back and forth moments, and it’s always awesome to be able to share some of this with people in real time. So I’m excited. I can’t wait to get into this stuff with you today.

Eric: Absolutely. And, you know, how I want to try to tee this up is really, if you think about how important user intent is, as we tried to establish in the first two videos, you have to start beginning to think about what it is that users really want and what their needs are. And Duane, you and I have talked about this a lot. They’re really complex. It’s tempting, right, if you’re trying to create content for a website, to think about just addressing the really straightforward topics with all the high search volume and things like that. But the reality is the majority and maybe even the great majority of users, in addition to having the big questions, have many little questions. And it’s really important to do the mapping to learn how to understand all those needs in a great deal of detail, don’t you think?

Duane: Listen, I am 100% with you, right? When it comes to the world of search today, it is massively complex. Not just trying to find information, understand if it’s accurate, if it’s trustworthy, but from the search engine side, trying to solve for all of these things, not knowing what the intent is. So uncovering that intent is massive for the search world. And then when they do have an answer for you, of course, Google wants it to be the best experience on their pages, on the results that they send a searcher to. And look, this is why Google’s moving toward the implementation of passages and subtopics, and they’re really looking into this stuff because it’s all about helping the user find the detail and the answer they want. I don’t know if you guys have seen this, I know you’ve seen it, Eric, but if you’re watching YouTube videos on “how to” things. More and more, I’m doing this search, not on YouTube, but on Google because Google will then automatically put me at the moment of “how to” in the video.

So I don’t need to watch a 20-minute video to get a 3-minute overview on how to tie a tie. Google will take me to that spot and put me right where I need to be. And that’s a really, really clever development. From a searcher’s perspective, we love it.

But think about it from your business. Think about that and then if we use that example. If people’s attention spans are short and you’ve got, depending on the reports you’re reading, 5 seconds, 11 seconds to actually get their attention, do you really want to have a 20-minute video where you bury the how to tie a tie at minute 18? Like it just doesn’t work. No one will wait around for it. So it really does help inform how you produce content, what content you produce, what good content looks like, and sometimes that’ll break down norms. There’s just so many things with this, it’s just incredible.

Eric: Yes. And another area that I think is really important to think about here is what does this mean for the depth and breadth of your content, right? So like with the passages update, being able to pull a nugget out of a longer-form article, as you just alluded to, and surface that as an answer for someone, is Google weighing in on what they think.

But from our perspective as publishers of websites, where we’re trying to get organic search traffic, we really need to take this idea that they talked about of mapping those user needs in detail and roll that out into what your content plan looks like. And previously you might’ve thought of producing 10 articles on something, or 10 pages I should say, to cover all the highest volume search terms. And you might have succeeded in covering those highest volume search terms, and you may or may not rank, and have done a really poor job of helping users.

So really now you’ve got to take that same concept, maybe that 10 articles or 10 pages just became 50. And that might not even be enough when you really think about how layered and nuanced people’s needs get.

So this is just an incredibly important shift that started all the way back to March of 2018. We see Google reinforcing it, the passages, the subtopics, as you talked about, and it’s here to stay. This idea of doing a better job of satisfying user intent than anyone else, means having the answers regardless of how specific or very detailed they might be. Think about that and what it means for your overall organic search strategy.

Duane: Absolutely agree, Eric.

Eric: So thank you all for watching this episode of “Here’s Why.” Duane and I have one more to do, and this one we’re going to talk about where you need to focus your time and efforts. So watch for that episode. And if you enjoyed this, please click on the link to subscribe below so you won’t miss any future episodes.

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Why Google’s Focus on User Intent Matters to You – Here’s Why #267

Eric Enge — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 07:00:47 +0000

Search engines, like Google and Bing, are laser-focused on user intent because meeting their users’ needs will keep them coming back. But, what does that mean for the rest of us?

Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insights at Yext, joins Eric Enge to discuss why your SEO strategy must go beyond the areas traditionally classified as SEO and how building a program centered around the needs of your users will help you rank well.

This video is the second in a four-part series on the impact of user intent on search. Watch part 1 here.

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Eric: Hey, everybody. Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit at Perficient. So pleased to have Duane Forrester here with me again for yet another episode of “Here’s Why.” Say hi, Duane.

Duane: Hey, everybody. Happy to be back.

Eric: Duane, as I said in the last video, has been in the industry forever, knows as much about search as really anybody out there, which is why it’s so great to be doing this series on user intent and search together with Duane.

If you saw the first video in this series, we talked about broad core algorithm updates and what was up with Google taking that on. But in this one, having established this theme that Google and Bing both are very focused on user intent and meeting those needs, now I want to talk about what it means for the rest of us. Duane, tell us.

Duane: This is that moment, right, where the obvious question is on the table. Great, that’s awesome, high level. But what does it actually mean for us, right? At this point, we’ve got to start talking about technical SEO is table stakes, not an option anymore and you don’t get to pick and choose. You got to do it all, right?

Big fan of core web vitals testing tools, go use them, do what they tell you to fix. That’s the drumbeat that everybody is following at the search engine, so you should be too. Okay?

You’ve got to look into things like cookie-less environments because, hey, that’s something we’re working into now. How are you using content? Can it be the same content in multiple locations?

Whether reviews are important for you, hint, they’re absolutely important for you. So you’ve got to be on that, right?

It’s really down to this work as tactical in nature, even though a lot of this work does serve a strategic value. And that’s really critical because if you’re having conversations in your company about the SEO strategy, you have to be really on point about this. There is a strategy. Strategy is how you deploy your assets. And within the SEO team, you will have to make decisions around that. But ultimately it serves a larger strategy for the company. So you’ve got to make sure you’re plugged into that and that’s where we’re getting back into these other areas that may not traditionally be SEO, but are definitely having an effect on that user experience. That’s the critical component to this. What do you think here, Eric?

Eric: Well, yeah. And I think it’s really important for people to realize that SEO today is much broader than technical SEO. And like you said, at the beginning here, Duane, that technical SEO is just table stakes. So much of SEO now is understanding the, I’ll call it the user intent space for your market and all the possible intents they have, and making sure that you have a broad and deep strategy from a content perspective to address all those concerns or issues or needs that users have to, whatever it is you do. And that really requires a different approach to how you think about what you’re doing with content. And that’s where a lot of what you were talking about, Duane, with SEO strategy comes into play.

Duane: Absolutely. And honestly, today, first off, there’s no shortcuts. I think we know this, but let’s repeat it. It’s worth keeping top of mind. The SEO game is really won by adding the most value overall. It is about checking off all the boxes for a consumer. When you go to a business website, you’re not looking at it saying, “Hey, wow, these guys are really well optimized. I really appreciate that. You know what? I’ll buy this sweater.” No, you’re thinking, I want a blue sweater and it’s got to look like crap because it’s for a Christmas party that I’m going to and I want to win a contest here. That’s your intent. And you as a business have to align in those directions. Even when you don’t know what the actual intent is, you have to make sure you’re ready for that. And technical SEO is a part of it.

But, then, so is the usability on your website, so is the way content is written. Heck, so is the way you choose to present that content, a video, text, maybe it’s a paragraph, maybe it’s bullet points, whatever, maybe a graphic, a GIF, whatever it is. But all of those things are choice points you have to make along the way. And you have to get that feedback from your consumers. And trust me, Google will give you the feedback in real time, right? Like you’ll know if it’s resonating because you’ll rank well if it is. It’s a really good feedback loop. And I tell companies this all the time, if you’re not ranking well, go look at who’s ranking well, and understand why they’re ranking well, and then be brutally honest about yourself, “Are you doing it as well as them?” The answer to that, at least in Google’s algorithmic estimation is no, you’re not. So there’s more you can do to improve on that.

Eric: Absolutely. Well, this has been great, Duane. Thanks as always.

Duane: Absolutely.

Eric: I really enjoyed chatting with you as I always do. And we will look forward to doing a couple more of these.

Duane: Yes. Always a pleasure, Eric.

Eric: And thank you all for watching. Hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please consider clicking on the subscribe button below so you won’t miss any future episodes.

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Why Google’s Broad Core Algorithm Updates Relate to User Intent – Here’s Why #266

Eric Enge — Mon, 24 May 2021 07:00:56 +0000

Google’s broad core algorithm updates are all about understanding user intent and what queries mean in relation to that intent. If Google knows that, then they can identify which result will give users the best answer.

In this episode, Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insights at Yext, joins Eric Enge to discuss the relationship between Google’s broad core algorithm updates and user intent, and how this leads to a better search experience.

This video is the first in a four-part series on the impact of user intent on search.

Don’t miss a single episode of Here’s Why. Click the subscribe button below to be notified via email each time a new video is published.

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Transcript

Eric: Hey everybody, Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit at Perficient. Thrilled to have with me today, Duane Forrester, long-time industry legend, I dare say. Formerly of Bing, now of Yext, finding himself from one great company to another. So thrilled to have you here with us today, Duane. Say hello.

Duane: Eric, thank you very much for having me on the show. I appreciate your time here.

Eric: No, absolutely. And, we have this idea, Duane, that we want to go through this series of just how important user intent has become in search, and I’m really looking forward to discussing that with you.

Duane: Absolutely. It is critical today.

Eric: And I think what we wanted to do in this episode was really start talking, really going back in time a little bit and talking about the broad, I can’t even say it, broad core algorithm updates that Google started coming out with, in March of 2018. It seemed like a little bit of a shift in what they were doing, or at least how they were communicating with it about things in the market. But what I started to feel happening then in a big way, in a way that we hadn’t seen before, is that they were really applying all that fantastic machine learning technologies they’ve been building for the longest time, to do a much better job of understanding user intent both from the perspective of, “What does that query mean?” and the best content to serve it.

Duane: Yeah. And you know what, this is a really important point, right? I mean, look, core updates existed before 2018, they were just communicated differently. And that was a great moment, though, because it was an agreement that they would explain, that they would tell and communicate. And since then, something has been very, very clear coming out of Google and Bing, is the focus on user experience and how important that is all up. And, look, we can get mired in the conversations of UX and CX, and what that means, and usability, and all of those things.

Here’s the experience from Google’s mind, okay? The bottom line is, if somebody clicks on a link in a Google search result and it’s organic, and Google thinks, “Hey, look, we’re ranking you number one because we believe you’re the right answer,” and the consumer goes and they don’t get the answer to the question and they bounce back, that immediately tells Google that wasn’t the best experience.

So now Google is redoing its calculations and rethinking everything. All of the technical stuff that we’re talking about, core web vitals, all of the UX that you’re going to invest in, all of this comes from those moments around user experience. And it’s all, for Google, about understanding the user’s intent and what that query means in relation to the intent. If they know that, then they can get really good at giving you the best answer, bringing forward the best result, essentially.

Eric: Right. And what most people don’t understand is just how hard this is to do when you’re bringing, relying on search queries that are two and three words long, and how little information there is there, and how nuanced all this is.

Duane: Think about it this way. Think about, you showed up at a friend’s house for a card game and you met three or four new people at the card game. Now, you know you all play poker, and you know that it’s going to be a social event. But when you communicated with these people, you only communicated in keyword phrases to them. You didn’t use full sentences. You didn’t use an inflection at the end, like maybe you might normally, to indicate a question. You simply throw keyword phrases all evening.

What kind of impression do you think that would leave with them, the experience they’re having with you, and more to the point, how much information could they glean about who you are, what you like, what you don’t like, how to approach you in the future, how to have conversations with you about which topics? It’s just not there. There’s a lot of context missing, right? That’s the bottom line.

Eric: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it’s an ecosystem that’s really important for us to all understand just how important it is for Google to do a good job of serving that user intent. Bing as well, of course. The better job you do by answering those user needs, if you’re the search engine, the more usage you get of your search engine, and the more you preserve your market share in the process.

Duane: Right. And, you know, to be completely transparent about this, right, these search engines, these are publicly traded companies with a legal requirement to develop actual returns on investments for shareholders. They are a for-profit business. So, it’s not being done out of a sense of altruism. But, everything is being done to try to further the user experience, because they very clearly understand that that user’s experience, all up, from the moment they start a query until they get the product ultimately that they wanted, it’s reflective on everyone in that chain. Your business, and the search engine, you’re all in that together.

Eric: Absolutely. So, this is just the first, folks, of our series of videos on user intent and search. And it’s part of the “Here’s Why” video series. I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. If you have, please click the subscribe button below, so you won’t miss any future episodes.

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Why Everything You Know about Link Building for Local Search Is Wrong – Here’s Why #265

Eric Enge — Mon, 10 May 2021 07:00:44 +0000

Most of what you read about link building or hear at conferences isn’t helpful. And when you narrow that down to link building for local search, it’s even more challenging to find useful information.

In this episode, Greg Gifford, SearchLabs’ Vice President of Search, joins Eric Enge to share the differences between local link building and national-scale link building, as well as suggestions for succeeding in your local search efforts.

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Eric: Hey, everyone. Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit at Perficient. And welcome to another episode of “Here’s Why.” Today, please help me welcome Greg Gifford. Greg is the Vice President of Search at SearchLab and he’s been working in the search industry since 2002, and he hosts a weekly video series called “Local Search Tuesdays.” You’re going to be challenged to find anyone in the whole industry that knows more about local research than Greg. And it’s great to have you here, Greg.

Greg: Hey, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Eric: Absolutely. So I’m going to just tee us off here with some opening thoughts. We were talking the other day, Greg. And one of the things that you mentioned to me is that really most of what you hear or read about link building, what you see at conferences and the like, is usually not that helpful.

The information tends to be very generalized. It might be these cherry-picked amazing case studies with huge results rather than the basic day-to-day blocking and tackling that a lot of us really have to do. So we really need to create a little bit of a different perspective about how to approach this, I think. And the algorithm is different as well.

So tell us, Greg, how does Google really weigh local links, and think about links differently in local search?

Greg: You know, it’s the same thing you always have to talk about when you look at any sort of presentation at a conference or video online or blog post online or site grader tools. They’re all really general and not specific to any one particular area. And Google does have a separate local algorithm. And the algorithm weights things differently than the traditional algorithm. So Google understands at a high level that an SMB is a different entity than a big, massive, international or national e-commerce type brand.

So the algorithm is going to work differently. Because the scale is different, it has to weight things differently. And with links, it doesn’t really pay attention to a lot of the traditional things that you hear about, authority metrics, follow/nofollow doesn’t matter because nofollow links work because most small businesses have a really small number of links. And if it wasn’t going to count nofollow links, then most businesses wouldn’t have links at all. So nofollow links matter.

You really want to get links from local entities. So a link from a dry cleaner up the street, traditionally, you’re not going to go after that because it’s got a low authority metric, it’s an ugly site, it’s a really small site without a lot of traffic. But in local SEO, that’s a great link to get because that really small link is locally focused and getting links from local entities reinforces your local relevance.

It’s all about, you’ve got to understand that Google looks at local businesses differently. So the scale is different, the weights are different, which means you have to take a different approach to link building. As you think about these things, you can’t use all those things that you mentioned earlier you see as the big, ego-piece, cherry-picked thing. So, you know, how is it that typically businesses should approach link building differently?

Eric: Well, I mean, I think you kind of called it out really great with your local dry cleaners example. It’s like, if it’s a local business, I think one of the big, powerful unique assets you have is the fact that you’re, wait for it, local. So the best way to really draw that out is by being an active participant in the local community. Just be a part of that community, be a leader in that community, and develop those relationships.

Maybe it is with the local dry cleaner, or the local law office, or the Chamber of Commerce, or things like that. But by being kind of that leader and active participant in the community, you can stimulate a lot of the things that could potentially lead to links for you. But I want to leave the detail on that to you. After that high-level view, what do you really do in practice to drive those local links?

Greg: Well, one of the most important things to realize is it’s a lot easier to get local links because since you are basing it off of those relationships and the real-world things, you don’t have to go through all the effort and, create a big piece of content and outreach to a bunch of people. You can just do a couple of little things and get links pretty quickly. And it’s almost like marketing has come full circle. All the things that businesses used to do to get exposure in the community and then they kind of stopped doing when the internet came out, that’s now the things that businesses should do because it leads to awesome link opportunity.

So, you know, sponsoring local events. That’s a great one. Sponsor a golf tournament, a 5K, a marathon, anything like that. You know, you mentioned Chamber of Commerce type stuff, the local business associations, join them all. It’s totally worth it. And it reinforces that local relevancy. You can host events, you know, sales events, meetings, local things, even stuff outside of what your business does, community events that you can host at your business or place of business or outside, those are important.

Donating to charities, donating time to support local organizations and volunteer opportunities, and things like that. One of the big things that we came across was neighborhood watch sites because every neighborhood has got some dude in the neighborhood that’s like, “I can make a WordPress site. Let’s have a WordPress site.” And then they need content. So if you can get anything there that’s worthwhile or any sort of neighborhood-specific offer, then that’s great. And that links relevant down to a neighborhood level. So it’s really valuable.

And then helping out other local businesses and your friends. And, giving the local newspaper, the local TV station things to write about because everything’s gone digital, and they’re kind of struggling for things to write about. So if you’ve got anything newsworthy there.

Meetup.com is a great place to go to. You can look for local groups that have regular monthly meetings, throw in a couple of bucks to buy their pizzas and their soft drinks, you get some links there. Like, there’s so many opportunities if you look at real-world activities that lead to awesome local link-building opportunities.

Eric: This has been great, Greg. Thanks for that insight about how local link building is different from that national-scale link building in so many different fundamental ways. And the fun part is, it’s potentially even quite a bit easier because it’s so much simpler as you illustrated. But thanks so much for joining me today.

Greg: Hey, thanks for having me. It was my pleasure.

Eric: And thank you all for watching today’s episode. If you liked it, please consider clicking on the subscribe now button that you see below now, so you won’t have to miss any other future episodes.

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Why User Intent Needs to Be Central to Your SEO Strategy – Here’s Why #264

Eric Enge — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 07:00:07 +0000

As far back as 2011, Google has been giving clear signals about what websites need to do to rank well. Ultimately, it comes down to providing users with high-quality, relevant content that answers their questions, which is more difficult to do than you think.

In this episode of the award-winning Here’s Why digital marketing video series, Eric Enge shares a timeline of the signals Google has provided over the years and discusses why a good SEO strategy centers around user intent.

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Eric: Hey, everybody, Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit at Perficient. In today’s episode, I’m going to focus on why user intent is so important to SEO.

Let me actually start by showing you some tweets by Googlers over the years.

First, most recently of the ones I’m going to share today, Danny Sullivan back in October of 2019, talking about the BERT algorithm by ending his tweet with, “The fundamentals of us seeking to reward great content remain unchanged.”

Or step back a little earlier that year when he’s answering a tweet from somebody else, it’s like, you know, “Want to do better with a broad change? Have great content.”

And then back a little bit further, Gary Illyes being questioned by someone about an affiliate site and why it’s ranking so well, to which Gary says, “Have you seen what @thepointsguy is doing? They create amazing content. And they have sponsored links, but the focus is on the user.”

And then now in response to Marie Haynes’ tweet asking about a site that has a lot of blank pages, and is that harmful? And here’s what Gary says, “What you really need is content created with care for the users, that’s it. Blank pages, we’d just ignore.”

And if that isn’t enough, because now I’m all the way back to 2015 with that tweet, I’m going to go all the way back to 2011. And for those of you who’ve been in the industry a long time, you’ll know this name, Matt Cutts.

“Even if you do brain-dead stupid things and shoot yourself in the foot, but have good content, we still want to return it.”

So, you kind of see a theme in how the central focus of all these tweets and communications from Google have been about great content targeted at users. And this is Google’s central purpose and direction with a great majority of their algorithm updates is to drive increased satisfaction in terms of the way users experience their search engine. And it’s really the big reason why their user satisfaction level has consistently hovered around the 80% level all the way back to 2002.

But it’s more difficult than you think. We can learn a lot from a Think with Google paper called “Decoding Decisions: Making Sense of the Messy Middle.” By the way, thanks to Greg Sterling for giving me a copy of that and making me aware of it. What users want and need is highly complex and shows great variance from user to user. For example, on the screen right now, you’ll see Google’s original rendering of what this is like.

Yes, it looks like a pile of spaghetti. And for users, it is much like this in their experiences of websites. And you can relate it to how things were in primordial times. As a caveman, you would evaluate the effort it was to hunt the food versus the energy gained once you killed it. Was it worth the time and the effort?

In a shopping context, let’s say I’m a user and I have seven aspects I care about in buying a product, how hard is it going to be for me to execute what I’m trying to do on this site, which includes making sure that those seven aspects are all satisfied? And it also wraps back to the concept of EAT, not only how much effort is it going to be to execute this purchase, but how comfortable am I that this is a good place to buy this thing? Will they take care of me as a customer? Will it work when I get it? Will I have any problems? If I need help, will I be able to get customer service? And all of these things matter to me.

Ultimately, what I’m trying to illustrate here with these examples, discussions I’ve had in today’s video, is these are clear signals on the direction in which Google is headed. They should be clear signals to us for the direction we need to head in too.

So, hopefully, you enjoyed today’s episode of “Here’s Why.” If you did, please click on the link below to subscribe so you won’t miss any future episodes.

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Why the Impact of the Mobile Revolution is Still Unfolding – Here’s Why #263

Eric Enge — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 07:00:20 +0000

We’ve been studying the trend of mobile vs desktop traffic usage since 2016. This year, we looked at mobile vs desktop vs tablet traffic and found that mobile’s dominance continues to grow. With the final adoption of Google’s mobile-first indexing now in effect, it’s never been more important to make sure your site is providing a good mobile experience.

In this episode of the award-winning Here’s Why digital marketing video series, Eric Enge shares results from the study and discusses key areas to focus on to provide the best user experience no matter what device your customers are using.

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Eric: Hey, everybody, Eric Enge here. I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit at Perficient. And I’m going to talk to you today about the data from our newest study of mobile versus desktop usage.

We actually first started tracking this in 2016, and the interesting thing is this many years later the growth of mobile’s dominance is just continuing to grow. Particularly interesting to me this year, because in the face of the pandemic, where more people are at home, I had considered the possibility that maybe people would be spending more time with their desktop devices, if they have them, of course, just because they were at home anyway, and they weren’t out and about. But what we, in fact, saw was continued growth. But I’ll get into that in a moment.

First of all, I just want to let you know, this year, we used the Google Benchmarking tool for our analysis. It allowed us to get some really good detailed and comprehensive numbers. But let’s actually take a look.

First of all, as I’m showing you now, in 2020, and in the U.S., 61% of visits to websites came from mobile devices. This is up from 57% in 2019.

And globally, 2020 saw 68% of visits started from mobile devices with 2019 coming in at 63%. So, as has been the case since the beginning of the study, the volume or the percentage of mobile outside the U.S. is greater than it is inside the U.S. just because there are countries where mobile devices are the primary, or even the only way, people access the web.

But, it’s interesting if you look at those levels of growth, 57 to 61 and 63 to 68. That’s still a pretty strong trajectory upwards. And that was a bit of a surprise to me given the past year. But nonetheless, desktop still leads in total aggregate time spent on site by users.

And the reason for this is the desktop sessions tend to be a bit longer. So, in the U.S., for example, 53% of all time on site was on desktop devices versus 43% for mobile, with the balance going to tablet devices.

As you might expect, therefore, mobile also lags by having the highest bounce rate and the lowest page views per visitor. And that’s not a big surprise. And these numbers fit our, really, our intuitive expectations for behavior because, mobile devices, smaller keyboard, smaller screen. So, if I really have some more in-depth stuff I want to do, then I’m more likely to use a larger screen and keyboard if I have it.

But it’s also fair to say, thinking about all this, the industry is still maturing with respect to its skill and things like mobile design and mobile user experience and mobile customer experience. And to that end, I want to talk a little bit about what this all means.

So, Google is now very close to the final adoption of mobile-first indexing. Most sites are already there, but whoever isn’t there by end of March 2021, Google’s flipping the switch. And then in May, we have the upcoming Core Web Vitals algorithm release. And as I think about what this means is, to me, what it means is that various aspects of consumer experience or customer experience and user experience and design are becoming increasingly critical to your overall digital marketing program and investments.

Some of this influences SEO directly, some influences SEO indirectly, and they all impact conversion rate. And because of that, all these things influence your ROI on your SEO investments, or for that matter, any of your digital marketing investments where sending people to the website is a primary target.

And I still see too many companies that begin their web design projects with a desktop-first mentality. Users and Google both have left that far behind, so it’s essential that you do the same. And that means there are several areas that you need to think about from the point of view of what you’re doing with your mobile experience.

Obviously, ease of navigation, the power and accuracy of your site search, and the comprehensiveness of your content. And it’s interesting. So, when you think about comprehensive content, what I want to get you to think about here is you need to have all the same content that you envision having on your desktop site. And that I see more complicated to put into a mobile design format, but it just means you need to invest the energy to make sure that your navigation and your overall design still gives you that clean, simple feel and look where people feel comfortable, and they can find what they want quickly, but they can still get to comprehensive levels of content. So, there’s a lot for us to learn there as an industry, I think, still.

Site speed is huge too. I can’t tell you, every prospect site that I look at working here at Perficient, it’s like a given, I’m going to go check their site speed, and it’s going to be kind of abysmal. It’s so common. And obviously, I see exceptions, but it’s an area that’s so underinvested in, partly because it’s hard to do and people don’t fully understand how to attack it.

And the other thing that you need to think about is just avoiding things that block users from getting what they want. Interstitial is just an example of that. But ultimately, it’s a new day, right? I mean, this has been coming for a long time. And some people were very aggressive and got out in front of it and they’re reaping the rewards of that. But if you haven’t, it really needs you to bring forth a new focus and realize that it does create new opportunities to get in front of those who are still lagging behind and being slow to react. Take advantage of this opportunity while you still can.

So, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of “Here’s Why.” And if you did, please click on the Subscribe button below so you won’t miss any future episodes.

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Why Google’s SMITH Algorithm Is an Important Event for SEO – Here’s Why #262

Eric Enge — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 07:00:07 +0000

Google has been investing heavily in machine learning and its language processing capabilities for quite some time to help improve overall user experience and satisfaction.

In this episode of the award-winning Here’s Why digital marketing video series, Jessica Peck, Senior Analytics Consultant at CVS, joins Eric to discuss what Google’s SMITH algorithm is and why it is an important event for SEO.

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Eric: Hey, everyone. My name is Eric Enge, and I’m the Principal for the Digital Marketing Solutions business unit here at Perficient. Today, I’m happy to welcome back Jess Peck. She’s been a fixture in the series when she was an employee with us at Perficient as a Marketing Technology Associate. And now she’s a Senior Analytics Consultant at CVS, where she monitors data best practices and QA analytics tagging. Say hi, Jess.

Jess: Hi, everyone.

Eric: It’s been a while, and it’s great to have you back.

Jess: It’s great to be back. I’m really excited to talk to you today about the SMITH Algorithm.

Eric: So, is this another Google algorithm with a person’s name and a clever acronym?

Jess: Yes

Eric: And should marketers, like, drop everything they’re working on to start chasing SMITH?

Jess: No.

Eric: All right. Well, that’s that for this video. Oh, just kidding. So, what is SMITH, and why should we care?

Jess: So, SMITH is a proposed technique model for natural language processing by Google. It’s a lot better at matching longer documents with each other and a lot better at quickly breaking down long texts and understanding how parts of a text relate to itself.

Eric: Yes, it’s a massive jump forward in Google’s language processing capabilities. So, can you explain SMITH?

Jess: Well, I’m going to try and get into it while keeping this video entertaining and not too long. So, let’s see how we do. SMITH stands for Siamese Multi-depth Transformer-based Hierarchical, and that’s the SMITH bit, encoder. And that’s a real mouthful, but it makes sense if we break it down. It’s Siamese, in the sense of two models. It has multiple depths. It’s based on transformers like BERT. And it’s hierarchical, so has different structures basically.

So, let’s talk about the kinds of problems that SMITH is trying to solve. Semantic matching problems can be classified into four different categories based on the length of text, so if one is short, or the other long, or vice versa, or if they’re both short, or both long. So the developers of the SMITH model looked at the work that was being done and found when both texts are long, matching them requires a more thorough understanding of the semantic relationship, like matching patterns between fragments with a long distance between each other.

Eric: Right. And long documents contain internal structures, like sections and passages, as well as sentences. And when you’re a person reading a page, the structure of that page is part of the overall meaning of the text, and the machine learning model has to take document structure information into account for better matching performance.

Jess: And, yeah, that’s true. And most practically, because of all of this, machine learning already takes up a lot of memory. But the processing of long texts is way more likely to trigger practical issues like out of TPU or GPU memories, and other things like that, at least without really careful model design. Recurrent Neural Networks or RNNs are bad at longer and bigger tasks. Models like Transformers and BERT are better at this kind of task. But building a Transformer-based long text encoder is difficult, because dealing with memory is tough, and there’s quadratic computational time, which is exactly what it seems like.

Eric: So what does SMITH do to combat this?

Jess: They split the input document into several blocks containing one or more sentences using what they call a Greedy Sentence method. And then the sentence-level Transformers learn the contextual representations for the input tokens in each sentence block. So they, basically, break down the larger content into blocks and then try and understand the relationships between the sentences in those blocks.

The nice things about SMITH is these document representations can be generated independently of each other and then indexed offline before they get served online. And the hierarchical model captures the document’s internal structural information, things like sentence boundaries. And both of these things really help with memory and the understanding of the whole document.

And then thirdly, compared with directly applying Transformers to the whole document, it’s got a kind of two level hierarchy, which includes both sentence- and document-level Transformers, which reduce the quadratic memory problems that we’ve mentioned before and the amount of time complexity by changing the full self-attention on the whole document to several local self-attentions within each sentence block.

Eric: So the sentence-level Transformers capture interactions between tokens within the sentence block, and then the document-level Transformers look at the global interaction between different sentence blocks looking for long distance dependencies?

Jess: Exactly. Because the attention is split between two models, it can cover more ground quickly, and you get a deeper multi-level understanding of the text. So like BERT, SMITH also adopts the unsupervised pre-training and fine tuning paradigm for model training. So they hide or mask randomly selected words and sentence blocks during the training. So if you’ve ever seen like blackout poetry, imagine giving a computer blackout poetry and telling it to guess the rest of the poem.

Eric: It sounds like SMITH is pretty impressive.

Jess: Yep. And it’s going to have impacts on things like neural matching, self-attention models for long text modeling, transformer models and BERT but for longer text. Self-attention models like Transformers and BERT show promising performance on several tasks in natural language processing and information retrieval. There’s also unsupervised language model pre-training, so if you’ve heard of ELMo, GPT, Word2Vec, or BERT, all of these models can be pre-trained by predicting a word or a text span using other words in the same sentence. And this shows more of how that can be used on a bigger scale.

I’m not going to get into the technical details of any of this any more than I already have. But all of these elements are kind of connected with each other and point to some things about the future of search.

Eric: So Google isn’t currently using SMITH in the algorithm, is it?

Jess: No. But I think looking at SMITH can give us some insights into how information retrieval, particularly in Google Search, is going to evolve in the future. So let’s talk about some concepts from this paper that SEO-savvy marketers should focus on.

Eric: Obviously, this paper shows a continued focus from Google on natural language processing, especially for information retrieval, and a further focus on things, entities, and concepts.

Jess: And, yeah, with that, I think it’s worthwhile for technical SEOs and people interested in machine learning to read about and try and understand attention models. Attention just mimics human attention. It enhances important parts of the input data and fades out the rest. And you can see the effects of it in all sorts of machine learning models, from computer vision to image generation, to text generation, and translation. Transformers are another machine learning concept that invested technical SEOs should look at. They’re like Recurrent Neural Networks, and they are in use in SMITH, BERT, and GPT. And we’ve all seen how powerful these language models can be.

Eric: And I think beyond the machine aspect of NLP, Google has continued to invest in understanding natural language and how people speak and query.

Jess: Yeah, it’s another signal that we’re not only moving beyond just text-matching, but getting the machinery to use machine learning in a faster, better, more eloquent way.

Eric: Yeah, the future of search is making sure your site is top-tier, your content is good or excellent, and that you’re providing what your searchers are looking for no matter how they word their query.

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Why Google’s SMITH Algorithm Is an Important Event for SEO – Here’s Why #262

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