Today in Digital Marketing - Did You Just Hack Your Brand's Own Website for SEO Juice?

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

The market for backlinks is getting criminal... Marketers are unimpressed by the third-party cookie replacements... Has Google finally solved the biggest problem with local SEO? And YouTube's updates are a welcome addition for brand managers on the go.Go Premium! No ads, more stories, and extended deep-dive weekend episodes — https://todayindigital.com/premiumADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/adsShowcase your marketing tool for free! https://todayindigital.com/showcase  JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and more) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today,

starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, the market for backlinks is getting criminal. at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. on the go. It's Monday, December 18th, 2021. Happy International Human Solidarity Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageHU Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 530. Google has made links a hot commodity. Link building can be an effective way to help your website rank better. I mean, less so these days than in the past, but it's still a ranking factor. We've also known for quite a while now that some black hat SEO companies will hack other websites to put links on them so they can funnel traffic to their client's website instead of paying for them.

In many cases, the compromised site is completely unaware that they were hacked. Link hacking is nothing new, but this might be a first. In a Reddit post, a user reports that after using a link building service, they received a report detailing the links the company acquired. It so happened that one of the links came from a website that the person who hired the company also managed, but they didn't sell the links. So the niche edit service hacked the other website. Well, that's awkward and an unfortunate coincidence, but also a reminder to marketers to watch who you hire. Some link services do hack sites to provide links and make sure you check your content regularly to make sure that your site hasn't been hacked. Your search ranking can be affected by link hackers,

especially if the links lead to scam, porn, or low-quality sites. As Google's 2023 deadline of the removal of third-party cookies approaches, you might be wondering how the alternatives are doing. And the answer is... not great. According to research from Digiday, in which they asked 76 news publishers how their businesses are adapting, more than 40% polled believe these emerging products will reach less than half of their audience or none of them. And actually, when you

subtract those people who answered, I don't know, that share rises to 60%. Most of the people who answered, by the way, are working directly on these alternate plans. It's a little peculiar to me that there's not a huge priority, nay panic about this. Google's idea for the new world, which it calls Flock, already seems to be dead in the water. Hopefully you've got build out more first party data in your 2022 marketing plan. Google has confirmed changes to its local search algorithm. This update seemed to focus on proximity and distance and may have also fixed one of the worst, cheapest and most irritating exploits in local SEO, keyword stuffing a business name.

The Sterling Sky Agency examined the update to find out who has been impacted most by Google's biggest local algorithm change. According to the article, lawyers, home services, insurance, and dentists are among the highest impacted. So, here is what businesses that have ranked higher in this update have in common. First, they don't use keywords in their business names, but their competitors do. And prominent businesses seem to also have secondary locations. On the other hand, here's what businesses that have ranked lower in this update have in common. Their geotracked location is located far from their listed office. And they have keyword-rich business names. This is great news for most businesses, to be honest. A plumber in, say, Chicago would frequently find herself ranking lower than a fake business called Chicago Plumbing, Best Chicago Plumbing Services.

What I find more incredulous is that people, like consumers, were falling for this. At the end of that click would be a basic template website that was essentially a lead funnel, where the person who set it up turns around and sells the lead to real plumbers in the area. So if this update has indeed fixed this, and you have jammed keywords into your business name, now is the time to take those out. And if you have secondary locations, add them.

Do you have secondary locations, add them. from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. YouTube is making it easier for marketers to work from the beach. The company has announced new updates to its YouTube Studio mobile app. These updates bring the app more in line with the desktop version, giving you more flexibility to manage your channels and monitor performance on the go. Here's a look at what you can expect, quoting the announcement. New search filters for comments.

The available filter options are now, have I responded to this comment? Does the comment contain a question? Does the commenter have at least a certain number of subs? Is the commenter publicly subscribed to me? Is the commenter a channel member? And do any comments contain a specific word I want to search for? I suspect that latter one, of course, is going to be very helpful.

Also, new analytics in the Studio app. Features available that are on desktop will now be available in the mobile app, including insights into returning viewers, comparative view counts, and so on. YouTube says the goal is to have the same analytics features on desktop and the mobile app moving forward. And also they've added the ability to appeal video monetization decisions through the

mobile app. There's also a new bottom navigation bar. You'll find that dashboard content, analytics, comments, and playlists have been moved to the new bottom bar so you can more easily switch between things that you want to see on the app. These updates are now available on the YouTube Studio app for iOS and Android. And finally, short episode today, YouTube is giving marketers more reasons to repurpose short-form video content on the platform as the company tries to remain competitive with TikTok and Reels. The company's announced new analytics and tools for Shorts,

as well as a new but very familiar-looking profile grid. With the new Shorts analytics, you'll see how many of your Shorts have been remixed, as well as your most popular clips. As for the tools, the platform has added the Align tool on Android, which was previously only available for iOS. And finally, YouTube has introduced a new Shorts grid view on channel pages, which looks very similar to a user's profile on TikTok. It even has the view counts in the same spot on each clip.

Although with YouTube's grid, users can choose how their grid is displayed by changing the order of the shelves in YouTube Studio. TikTok's pinned option is a similar idea, but this feature allows you to customize your feed, which of course is a great way for marketers to promote the most successful videos at the top of their feed. Well, I don't know why or how, but I got back into Overwatch over the weekend. I took about a two month break from it and I've decided that I'm going to start playing DPS. I'm a support main, which means that I mostly heal my team. I have 1,800 hours on it. That's a lot of time, 1,200 of which are on Mercy. But let me tell you, I've decided that I'm going to be full-hammered Torb main, which is mostly for the memes.

I'm going to piss off a lot of people, but I'm going to have fun doing it. So, wish me luck. Talk to you tomorrow.