Today in Digital Marketing - Do Outbound Links Actually Do Anything for Your SEO Any More?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, metaverse, try MetaYon. at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. more. TikTok shares new data on the value of influencer marketing campaigns. Will the new video tweet reply feature boost your brand's Twitter engagement? And on the premium podcast with more stories, no ads and expert deep dive episodes, marketing agency owners beware, your safest accounts may be considering leaving you. It's Monday, January 10th, 2022. Happy Plow Monday, United Kingdom. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 536.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Do you remember when cable packages were all bundled, and we all thought, why can't I just pick and choose the channel I want? Like, if I only want CBS, can't I just buy that? Well, now we have that, in the form of streaming platforms, and now each channel costs $5.99. Yay, we checkmated ourselves. But now the overall market seems to also be feeling the same nickel and diming pain, and those streaming platform losses may be your marketing gains.

Starting point is 00:01:41 New research from GroupM has found that 73% of consumers polled said they would watch more commercials if it would lower their monthly streaming service bills. While that sounds like good news for we marketers and media buyers, that number is actually down three points from those who said the same last year. Quoting the report, this highlights the challenges that marketers will face in using TV for reach and frequency-based goals in the future. It will be increasingly important for marketers to either more directly manage TV budgets alongside their spending on user-generated content-based platforms such as YouTube, or to look at the use of TV differently, managing budgets for related campaigns more directly alongside those intended for sports, culture, music, or other event sponsorships. Unquote. So where does the digital marketer turn? Not, apparently, to the metaverse.

Starting point is 00:02:35 Only 32% own an augmented or virtual reality device, and 51% of respondents said their household needed the newest digital bells and whistles. That's down from 54 percent in 2020. If a site links to you, we know it'll help your search rankings. But what happens when your site links to another site? Are outbound links a ranking factor? Search Engine Journal has been slowly releasing chunks of its big study on all things SEO the last few months, and today's release examines the evidence of whether or not adding more outbound links to your content helps you rank higher in Google's algorithm.

Starting point is 00:03:18 The short answer? Probably, but it's a little complicated. First, the evidence that outbound links do influence rankings. According to Google search advocate John Mueller, quote, linking to other websites is a great way to provide value to your users, unquote. Now, he didn't specifically say ranking there, but we know that user experience and value provided to site visitors is Google's top priority. Mueller also pointed out that the reason behind the link matters. Your outbound links should indicate that you think the page you're linking to

Starting point is 00:03:49 is a good match for users. Then again, here's the evidence that outbound links don't have any impact on rankings. That same John Mueller was asked on Twitter a while back whether sites linking to authoritative content may count more than those that do not. Mueller replied, no. Additionally, in an Office Hours Hangout from 2016,

Starting point is 00:04:12 he was asked if, quote, external links from your pages to other sites, is that a ranking factor? What if there are no follow, unquote? And he responded, quote, from our point of view, external links to other sites, so links from your site to other people's sites, is not specifically a ranking factor. But it can bring value to your content and, in turn, can be relevant for us in search. Whether or not they're nofollow doesn't really matter to us, unquote. Now, 2016 was many core updates ago, and we do know that Google isn't always forthcoming exactly

Starting point is 00:04:48 with what goes into the search algorithm. They can't be, because we filthy digital marketers would exploit it. And that's where Search Engine Journal came in and tested it for themselves. I'll point you to the full piece on their site if you care deeply about this, because they go into all the nitty-gritty. But overall, they believe, regardless of what Google may be signaling, outbound links do matter. According to the article, the most effective strategy is to use outbound links the way Google intended, quote, to cite sources, improve user experience, and as endorsements for high-quality content.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Some new numbers from TikTok may help you understand more about the potential there in the influencer space. The company today releasing the results of two studies, actually. First, on the value of collaborating with influencers, which they call creators, here's what their report found. Ads created for TikTok in partnership with creators saw a 27% higher recall and longer view rates. TikTok-specific branded content is watched 13% longer than non-specific content. And repurposed content that was not created for TikTok specifically performed the worst. Again, these are studies from TikTok itself, so, you know, grain of salt, yada yada. The analysis shows that creating TikTok-specific ads or partnering with creators may not be enough to guarantee lift in all metrics.

Starting point is 00:06:12 In addition to brand awareness and click-through rate, there are other factors that influence their performance, of course, like calls to action and messaging. The second study looked at how TikTok drives offline sales for advertisers. The report found that TikTok ads drive ROI for consumer packaged goods brands, as well as better sales efficiency. That's how long it takes to see an in-store return from your campaigns. According to the company, the U.S., for example, saw a 14% higher paid media ROAS versus all digital media measured in the models, and two times the offline sales efficiency, while the numbers for Europe and Southeast Asia were even higher, unquote. The report also found that in-feed video, of course,

Starting point is 00:06:58 was the most efficient ad type for driving audience response. And finally, TikTok commissioned NC Solutions to conduct a series of sales lift studies to find out what the numbers could look like for real in-market campaign sales lift. 14 of the 16 commissioned studies resulted in sales increases. TikTok called them significant increases, by the way. Based on these studies, the ROAS average was two times the NCS median campaign performance benchmark. Now, aside from the TikTok studies, which, let's face it, are done to generate PR, the anecdotal evidence that I see among DTC media buyers out there

Starting point is 00:07:32 is that TikTok is not performing as well as it used to in terms of the pricing metrics, primarily. In other words, the cheap ride is probably over, but it's still generating pretty solid results. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first.

Starting point is 00:08:11 Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. 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 Twitter with the company testing four new features. Features include new ways to react to tweets and compose tweets.

Starting point is 00:08:57 So first, something they call tweet reaction videos. These are referred to as tweet takes and can be used as an alternative to quote tweeting. Feature is basically the same as TikTok's video replies. Second, the new Tweet Composer bar will make it easier to tweet, they say. It will appear directly above the bottom navigation menu and replaces the big blue button with the plus sign. Three, a new Topics Tag bar that will allow users to jump directly into the topics that interest them. And four, users will be able to navigate to the community page and tap share. That's if you are running a community page, which itself is still in testing. It'll be able to be shared with a wider audience or individuals can be invited directly. You may or may not be seeing this

Starting point is 00:09:40 in your app, of course. First of all, it's iOS only. And second, it is a small group that is getting the test. However, it should be rolling out to everyone fairly soon. And finally, today, Google has released a really nice tool for Google ads that can flag and delete your policy violating ads. However, there's a catch. You will need your office nerd or an outsourced developer to take advantage of it. That's because it's a backend tool that uses Python, the BigQuery API, the Google Ads API, and OAuth 2.0. So what does it do? It will let advertisers review at scale all disapproved ads across their Google accounts. This will let you proactively audit your accounts, analyze the ad disapprovals holistically,

Starting point is 00:10:27 and hopefully reduce how many potentially policy-violating ads you're submitting. You can grab the code on GitHub. Google says it should take about two hours to drop into your own systems. This past weekend, we pushed out a deep dive episode all about what 2022 has in store for Facebook ads. Veteran advertiser Andrew Foxwell joined me for that. You can find that on our premium feed, which you can subscribe to right now at todayindigital.com slash premium feed. You get more stories in each episode, no ads. It comes out earlier than the free feed and a couple of times a month, exclusive access to deep dive

Starting point is 00:11:01 episodes with industry experts. Later this month, we'll be doing one such episode all about local SEO. The link again, todayindigital.com slash premium feed or tap the link in the show notes. Well, I'm ready for the snow to go away. It has been record snowfall here. I know I'm in Canada. We don't actually get that much snow where I live,

Starting point is 00:11:20 but we got a ton. And now it looks like temperatures are going to be above freezing, seven, eight degrees even Celsius, which means more flooding on the way. Hooray. I'm ready for this to all be over. Talk to you tomorrow. You take it back, tell you that I'm fed up Stalking you online

Starting point is 00:11:45 Why won't you tell me that it's over It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

Starting point is 00:12:19 Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.

Today in Digital Marketing - Do Outbound Links Actually Do Anything for Your SEO Any More?

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