Learn how HubSpot helps keep your team in sync

Hi Sandipan, You and your co-workers are busy, we get it. That's why we've built features into your HubSpot account to make communication and information sharing easier for both you and your team.        Email logging. When your inbox is connected you can easily choose to BCC an email to your HubSpot account or simply send it from the contact record within HubSpot.          @ mentions. Easily comment on any contact, company, or deal and use the @ to mention a colleague at which point they'll receive an email to indicating you mentioned them on a record.          Pinning notes. If you have an important note that you'd like all your colleagues to see if they view a particular contact, company or deal, simply pin the note so it's always visible.          Tasks board. Easily manage your tasks within your HubSpot account and view your colleagues upcoming tasks as well. Questions?   If you have questions getting setup or are looking for best practice advice, stop by the HubSpot community which is staffed by HubSpot users, employees and partners. Visit the Community HubSpot   25 1st St.    Cambridge,  MA   02141   USA You received this email because you are subscribed to HubSpot Products from HubSpot. Update your email preferences to choose the types of emails you receive.  Unsubscribe from all future emails

Google Search Console Techniques for Bloggers

As a blogger, if you are not using Google Search Console (GSC), you are missing out on an important tool that can help you improve the performance of your articles and blog posts. Previously called Google Webmaster Tools, this free tool gives website owners insight into how Google's search bots index their sites and provides a lot of information that can help you improve search engine optimization (SEO) and search performance. Also, you can also keep tabs on any malware or spam that might affect your site. And SEMrush integration with GSC helps you get an advantage of the On Page SEO Checker — a set of search optimization ideas based on the performance of your pages.

Getting Started with Google Search Console

Ok, let’s quickly get the basics. You will need to add and validate your site on GSC to get started, then link your Google Analytics account (to get richer search data). Finally, add a sitemap and submit it to Google from within GSC to complete the process.

The main sections of the GSC interface are:

·         Search Appearance, which shows you how your site looks in search results.

·         Search Traffic, which shows how your site performs in search results.

·         Google Index, which gives you information on individual URLs within your site.

·         Crawl, which shows you exactly what search bots find when they crawl your site.

There is also a section on security issues (such as malware) and a message section which gives alerts of any issues Google finds as its bots crawl your site. For an in-depth look at the interface, see the Crazy Egg Guide to Google Search Console.

But now let's look at how this tool can help bloggers with content optimization. Not only can GSC help bloggers improve their clickthrough rate (CTR) but it can also help boost search ranking for individual pages.

Find and Improve Underperforming Pages

First of all, you need to identify what pages to optimize. Though you might have an idea of what content deserves special attention first, it makes sense to promote those pages that have the most potential of getting to the top.

GSC can help you find the pages that need a helping hand. Go to Search Traffic - Search Analytics and click on Pages and Positions. You will get a list of pages with their average search position. Research shows that the top six positions in search results get the most clicks, so anything with a position between 7 and 15 is a good target for quick improvements.

Go through your content optimization checklist (try this one from Brian Dean or this one from SEMrush for a starting point). Check that content is relevant to what people are searching for. If necessary, update it by fine-tuning the content and adding images, media, and resources.

You can also check the specific URL by clicking on it. Click Queries, and you will get data on keyword rankings, CTR, and position - with this information it is easy to detect what keywords you should focus on in order to improve positions and impressions.

When you are done, share the content again via social media, your email newsletter, and any other key marketing channels. Also, go to GSC again to ask Google to recrawl the URL.

Improve Your CTR with Google Search Console

One factor that affects how your pages rank in search results is the clickthrough rate, and GSC can help with this. People click on your link when it is relevant to what they are searching for. So the more people that click on your site when they find it in search, the more relevant Google thinks it is. Since relevancy is an important Google ranking factor; a good CTR is good for your page rank.

In addition to CTR, engagement is important. You want to avoid pogo-sticking (people bouncing back off your page immediately after visiting it) as this will signal that the page is less relevant to searchers than it originally seemed. The more engaging your content is, the better its search position will be.

Google Search Console helps by allowing you to easily see the CTR for any page. In fact, you can compare the CTR for multiple pages in a handy table. To access this data, navigate to Search Traffic - Search Analytics, then select Pages and CTR from the available checkboxes. This will give you the average CTR for your whole site as well as the CTR of individual pages. It's a good way to see which pages are performing the best and which have a low CTR.

Once you have identified under-performing pages with GSC, there are several areas you can tweak to improve CTR.

1. Optimize Titles

I will start with the example. I recently achieved a 31% increase in click-through rate in two weeks by changing the page title from this:

SEMrush Study: 11 Most Common On-site SEO Issues

to this:

11 Most Common On-site SEO Issues - SEMrush Study

Conclusions? The change puts the information most people are searching for at the beginning of the page title, rather than in the middle to end. This gives them the most relevant information immediately and makes it more likely they will click. Plus, on mobile devices, where titles may be truncated, people will still know what information the link will give them, which I am sure is a factor in the improved CTR.

Some ways to improve headlines and titles include:

·         Using numbers to stop eyes from wandering away from your content.

·         Making sure that the headline is simple and descriptive so that readers know exactly what they are getting.

·         Including "how", "why" or "what" in the title as these words make people click.

·         Using the right trigger words and creating urgency.

Check out our guide to writing perfect headlines for more help with this tip.

2. Optimize Descriptions

As well as optimizing page titles, it is important to look at other metadata. Go to Search Analytics and scroll down to the list of queries. Click on the external link symbol at the end of each query to see how the results appear in search.

Pay attention to the page descriptions that appear under the titles in search results. As well as the titles, the descriptions give searchers context so they can decide what to click on. Our previous research found that 30% of sites have duplicate meta descriptions and 25% have no description at all, which is a problem not just for SEO but for CTR. Creating the right meta description will improve CTR, as Brian Dean of Backlinko found: one site increased organic traffic by 48.7% simply by improving titles and descriptions.

3. Optimize URLs

While you are looking at the descriptions, take a look at the URLs that appear under the titles. Is it easy to tell what the content is about from the URL? If not, there is some work to do. As Moz points out when people can read and understand your URLs, they are more likely to click. So, replace incomprehensible strings of numbers with relevant keywords instead. (And if you change URLs, remember to avoid the redirect issues in tip #13 here.)

4. Add Schema Markup

Schema markup is another way to improve your site's performance in search. Schema markup uses microdata tags to generate rich snippets in search results. This helps Google to answer readers' queries better, rather than simply to provid links. Again, if your site has markup that makes it more relevant to a search query, it is more likely to be displayed.

Google Search Console can also help with this. To get started, go to Search Appearance - Structured Data and see what the data for your site looks like. If you get a message that there is no structured data, use the Data Highlighter tool to get the ball rolling.

Click on Start Highlighting, then input a URL that's typical of your site content (such as your latest blog post). Use the tool to:

·         Choose a content type, such as article, reviews, video or others

·         Highlight the publication date and author

·         Highlight the title

·         Indicate any images

Then GSC will try to tag the rest of your content the same way, using a sample batch of pages. Check all of them, and make sure the content is highlighted appropriate. Click done, and GSC will apply the same markup to the rest of your pages. Use Synup's Schema Scanner to see if everything looks right.

Utilizing Organic Traffic Insights

Lucky for any blogger you can utilize more than just Google Search Console data to see how what is happening with your blog post traffic. You can now sync your GSC with the Organic Traffic Insights to get a complete view of your keyword traffic, including those “not provided” keywords.

Not only can you analyze these not provided keywords but you can now find potential traffic growth points and correct your SEO accordingly.

Utilizing your Google Search Console with Organic Traffic Insights brings you all of your traffic data in one place. This will save you time as you will no longer need to switch back in forth between tabs in order to get a look at how a page is performing organically.

So how can a blogger use this information to leverage their visibility in search? Well, the first thing you can do is analyze which keywords are bringing traffic to your page. If your blog post is within the top 50 landing pages on your site, you can simply look for a blog post you want to analyze under the landing pages section and click on the corresponding keywords. This can be done for both SEMrush keywords, as well as those found in GSC.

After you spend some time analyzing these keywords, you will be able to get a better idea of which of these keywords are going to be best suited in increasing the presence of specific page. You could shift your focus to the keywords that are getting a large number of impressions but a lower number of clicks. This shows that these keywords are being seen by a large number of users but aren’t resulting in clicks to your page.

You can then filter out your SEMrush or GSC keywords by specific data sets such as traffic share to find the keywords that are driving the highest percentage of traffic to your blog. This can help show you what users are searching for directly before they find your posts.

Sync your Google Search Console

with SEMrush Organic Traffic Insights 

How to Automate the Process with On Page SEO Checker

Bloggers who use SEMrush have an additional advantage. SEMrush On Page SEO Checker provides a structured list of prospective improvements you need to improve your web pages rankings — for every URL-Keyword pair, it provides suggestions for content, backlinks, and technical SEO.

You will be able to export pages URL-Keyword pairs from GSC. All pairs can be sorted by keywords with the highest number of clicks, Impressions, CTR, and Positions. Also, you can use filters by country; include or exclude keywords, containing certain words.

So, whenever you import all these pairs into On Page SEO Checker, a big amount of URLs will be checked for different SEO elements within a couple of minutes. As a result, you will get a list of actionable tips from various areas of search optimization which you can use right away. After importing these URL and Keywords from GSC into On Page SEO Checker, you will get the following ideas:

1.      Strategy Ideas — this section provides you with insights on your overall SEO strategy and shows whether there are pages that require your attention before others. It also checks for the signs of keyword cannibalization; if there are pages that have higher rankings for the same keywords, you will see them on the list.

2.      Backlinks Ideas — by analyzing your top-10 Google rivals, this section shows where your competition gets their best-performing backlinks and suggests to obtain it on the same referring domains.

3.      Technical SEO Ideas — here you can find a list of all the tech SEO issues that make your page underperform: missing <title> and <meta> tags, duplicated content, missing internal links and page crawling issues.

4.      UX Ideas — provides insights on how the users interact with your website and notify if the bounce rate and time spent on site differ from the expected values. Here you can also see how long the page loads and whether it influences the user experience negatively.

5.      SERP Features Ideas — if some of your analyzed pages have a chance of getting into a featured snippet or should get a star rating, you will see a notification here.

6.      Semantic Ideas — here you will see ideas on how to enrich your content with semantically related words that are used by your competition who rank for the same keywords.

7.      Content Ideas — here you will see suggestions regarding the length and readability of your texts, keyword density insights, and correct usage of keywords in <h1>, <title>, <meta> and <body> tags.

Bring your content to the next level

with SEMrush On Page SEO Checker

Conclusion

“Don’t think that your content is ‘done’ whenever you hit publish button” - I am a longtime supporter of this statement. Publishing is just the beginning. Google Search Console is a great (and free!) source of important data bloggers can use to identify underperforming content and fix it. Please share your techniques for improving your content performance!

Check your site status by entering your website URL.

The end of the DoubleClick name - Google rebrands its products | Resolution Digital Australia | Digital Marketing Specialists

The end of the DoubleClick name - Google rebrands its products | Resolution Digital Australia | Digital Marketing Specialists

On June 27, Google announced a change to their product branding that will go into effect in mid-July1, rebranding their ad business products into 3 groups:  Google Marketing Platform, Google Ads and Google Ad Manager.

They will be phasing out the DoubleClick name, along with familiar acronyms like DBM, DCM, DFP, and other terms like AdWords.  Google is communicating this as a direct response to marketer feedback, as a way to simplify their own ecosystem; however, it is also speculated that the change is more directly related to a similar branding of integrated tools released by competing for stack solutions like Adobe and Oracle2.

What exactly is Google changing?

Google is merging their advertising product suites into 3 ecosystems – focusing on large marketers, small business advertisers, and publishers.

1. Google Marketing Platform – for large marketers

Google Marketing Platform will be the combined suite of Google’s analytics and ad serving platforms, pulling together;

• Google Analytics 360; and
• DoubleClick products, specifically
  • DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM),
  • DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM), and
  • DoubleClick Studio (DS)3.

It will also consist of many re-branded products, consolidated in one place for large marketers.

• Display & Video 360: A consolidated platform, integrating features from:
  • DBM: DoubleClick Bid Manager, the Google DSP
  • DCM: DoubleClick Campaign Manager, the primary advertiser ad server (formerly known as DFA)
  • Studio: Rich media/dynamic ad builder
  • Audience Center: Customer data organizer
• Search Ads 360
  • The new name for DoubleClick Search
• Analytics 360
  • Same name and functionality as before
• Additional products under the Google Marketing Platform:
  • Tag Manager 360
  • Data Studio
  • Surveys 360

Google has not provided any insight yet as to how all these products will flow together.  We will stay tuned to see if Google provides any additional insight here.

2. Google Ads  – for small business advertisers

The new name of Google AdWords. The functionality is not changing, with the exception of what they’re calling Smart Campaigns – which are intended for small business advertisers and are in line with Google’s existing efforts at automating aspects of campaign setup, targeting, and management.

Outside of this, the branding change is primarily a reflection of the shift from AdWords being a platform to buy keywords to a platform that is, in reality, about keywords, videos, banners, and much more.

3. Google Ad Manager – for publishers

Combines DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) and DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdEx), unifying the publisher product experience.

Why is Google making these changes?

The new branding and consolidation are being done both to simplify Google’s offerings, but also as a reflection of how Google sees these products being used in an optimal way, with the brand and ad buying teams working more collaboratively with analytics and measurement teams.

The overall outcome of this consolidation is most likely that the pace and scope of integrations between the many products in the platform will accelerate, as Google aligns internally on this as a more coordinated “stack-level” solution.

As noted in the Google blog: “Google Marketing Platform helps marketers achieve their goals by building on existing integrations between the Google Analytics 360 Suite and DoubleClick Digital Marketing. The platform helps marketers plan, buy, measure and optimize digital media and customer experiences in one place1.”

How do these changes impact a Brand’s media?

Short term: 

At this time, the functionality of these products will stay largely the same.

Long-term: 

The removal of the DoubleClick brand and consolidation under the “Google” umbrella will inevitably make some advertisers increasingly uncomfortable, and potentially only heighten concerns about “buying in” fully to a stack where they both buy and measure a significant portion, if not the majority, of their digital advertising.

This is Google’s attempt to continue to establish themselves as a marketing technology platform and compete with the likes of Adobe and Oracle2.

While the separation between the DoubleClick unit and Google advertising unit at Google has lessened over the past few years, this formal, if only “branded” shift, does seem to put an end to that separation. And to be clear, Google is saying that advertisers will see stronger performance in a more integrated stack.

Lastly, Google is careful to note that the Google Marketing Platform products such as Search Ads 360 will maintain “interoperability” with other networks such as Bing.

Does anything need to be done?

 For the immediate future, there is no action needed from advertisers, as access to individual platforms will remain the same.

Google will be in communication about any future needs, if and when any migration of services will be required.  This change will start sometime in mid-July, so logos and aesthetics of their platform will begin to change in the coming weeks.

Google mentioned in their press release that more additions to each platform will be coming in July, which they will provide more detail about in the coming weeks.

More updates will be announced during their annual Google Marketing Live conference, particularly covering the Display & Video 360 and Google Ads products (note: the conference can be viewed via live stream4).

For more marketing tips, signup here.