Google Authorship and the "Fishkin" Outburst! Sorry Rand ;)
-
Should companies now shift away from creating great content and invest the time and money into something else?
After Rand tweeted his frustration at @JohnMu in relation to "Authorship CTR's", it got me thinking - should we really be blogging as much as we should?
https://twitter.com/randfish/status/481948721031024641
I'm certain Google ditched author profile images to improve "mobile UX" and "CTR's" for "paid advertisers".
So what I would really like to know is - should small businesses continue to focus on developing great content? How has your marketing strategy changed?
-
Thanks for the comment Rand.
When I asked the question "Should companies now shift away from creating great content..", this was a little tongue in cheek. I wanted to stir up some dialogue within our community. Sure, well written informative content is fantastic, we all know this is truly valuable as part of any sustainable marketing strategy, but has this now lost "some" value? I have my own opinion, what's yours?
I thought Joel Klettke wrote a fantastic piece http://www.iacquire.com/blog/authorship-photos-removed
-
I think it really is a one way street with Google. As SEO professionals they really don't care about us until we do something wrong, then they will penalize us or our assets. Kind of akin to how I have heard paypal is with the sellers. They have bad policies and support for the sellers, since they have a huge pool of buyers, sellers are pretty much roped into their terms and have to play their game.
-
Great discussion here already, and I agree with what's been posted - content marketing and content strategy continue to be incredibly valuable for SEO and for many other marketing channels. The shift away from author pics is no reason to change course.
On a sidenote, I thought Ammon Johns' reply to my tweet was a very smart one: https://twitter.com/Ammon_Johns/status/486854967165480960 I should have considered that before sending my tweet (though I do wish Google would just be transparent about this stuff - it would help us to build a lot more trust and less suspicion of them).
-
Lots of guys have pretty faces too.
I think that Rand would get a pretty good CTR if he made some content about women's fashion.... putting his face in the SERPs where women are looking. He should do A/B tests between the bearded manly look and the shaven young pup presentation.
I think that Rand looks like Jeremy Piven in Mr. Selfridge.
-
I found it interesting that "pretty face" more so women were getting a higher CTR
-
I am actually glad that they took the photos down because I am not as pretty as my competitors.
But, I hope that they are using it to determine who is producing a good mass of credible work and then allowing reputation to influence the rankings of "next item published". Before this "authorship" I was not adding my name to any of my content. I just wanted it to be viewed as property of the domain. But I felt forced into using authorship because it became a potential part of the "arms race".
-
"One does not simply have one SEO strategy!"
-
ONE SEO STRATEGY TO RULE THEM ALL
-
Thanks for all your feedback. I'm certainly not questioning the value of creating content, or your approach to SEO. Ultimately authorship CTR's have taken a "drop" since Google kindly removed profile images., so it's great to hear your thoughts.
-
So what I would really like to know is - should small businesses continue to focus on developing great content? How has your marketing strategy changed?
The last time I changed my SEO strategy was in 2005.
-
Content is and always will be king. If it doesnt exist, people cant search for it.
Google doing things to force people into adwords is nothing new. You don't get to be a $40 billion company by not playing smart. By removing the authorship images, it makes the links stand out less. Less easy ways to stand out in SERPs + less business for companies = more advertising dollars spent.
I think the larger area to focus on is LINKS. With panda 4.0 and hummingbird, it seems like Google is looking for ways to find out who the "true authority" is in any given market. What easier way to do that then to look at the links to a site? Yes buying links was easy. It was easy for the smaller guys to buy links and catch up to the "authority" sites that had been promoting content for a long time. When they started hammering paid links, they were able to see more clearly who had good links without paying for them.
The only way our focus has changed is that we spend less time on the smaller impact items, and dedicate more time and effort into the big ticket links (SEO roundtable, search engine land, moz, etc for our site). This is repeated for our clients for their industry. Makes more sense to spend more time up front on a few powerful links, then a lot of time spread out over smaller links. Content gets links though, and you have to always fall back to "good content gets linked to"
-
I don't see a reason to shift away from content personally. I would just do what drives traffic. I make content people want to read, it drives traffic. It might not drive up or down my author rank, but people search for it, find it, and I get traffic from it. So I keep on doing it.
-
My marketing strategy has not changed, for several reasons.
1. "Content" is nothing new. "Content" has always been the "stuff" that you put in the hands of potential customers. Yesterday, it was product catalogues, sales brochures, and more. Today, it's blog posts, videos, and more. Both types of content target people at different points in the sales cycle. It's just that one of the bonuses today, among many, is that this "content" can also get found in search results.
Besides, here's how I personally describe communications theory (in the context of marketing or anything else):
Sender --> Message --> Content --> Channel --> Receiver
Basically, the content is what contains a message that is delivered via a channel to a receiver. So, yes, you should still produce content.
2. These essays here and here are great arguments for still keeping and using Google+ authorship.
3. When I was at SMX West, I heard a Google executive imply that Google was looking into some type of "Author Rank" in the future. I can't find a link, but you can Google it. Just because one's picture won't be in the search results anymore does not mean the markup will not help your content in the SERPs.
-
What i never really got is why not just removed authorship for mobile results? As anyone who has had a penalty frustration and Google go hand in hand.
You have to look at this another way, Why should the user come to your website? If you've got great content then without the search engine you would find users come to your site regardless of Google. Google wants to bring up the best results for the user so make the best results for user which is normally blogs etc. I'll admit its a bit mundane and most blogs or content i see is far from good but in the current stat its very difficult to proactively do SEO which is still considered "white hat" and content is it.
I'll admit I've had to move some focus away from working on my authorship (with publishing) to focus on other things as there isn't as much of an obvious return for that but we'll see I'm sure something else will crop up sooner or later.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Any Idea who i can contact at Google Finance?
Hi Everyone, I run a popular news site and we are already working with Yahoo Finance, CNN, USA Today, CNBC, etc...
Content Development | | fattestcat
The one site we really also want to start working with is Google Finance - but there is no way as far as i can see of getting in touch with them. Our content is the best in our sector and every news site we pitch we almost always start a relationship with - i just need an in. Does anyone know who to contact or how to get in touch with them? Thanks for any advice. James0 -
Does aggregating content hurt your moz / google rank?
I have a news section on my site that I aggregate from multiple RSS feeds. They are stored on my site and I have sitemap that links to them. Is this a negative thing to do? Since its overall duplicate content to another site, it may be a strike against me. Should I just leave it as an updating feed and not keep the articles visible on my site?
Content Development | | BrickPicker0 -
Google + Content Strategies
Hello, We are currently promoting a website and are considering promoting content via google + We have technical issues that prevent us from promoting content via the company blog. Our question is how beneficial is it to write original articles and post them directly on a company google + page. Is it good to post articles on google + and write original content directly to the google + page? is a technical option to integrate the goole+ content to the website? Do you have any advice as far as the length of original google + articles or any other practical advice? Thanks! Guy
Content Development | | ciznerguy0 -
Can I share share my content with other sites either as a individual post or RSS or will I be encourage duplicate content on the web and upset Google
Hi, I have a new site http://www.homeforbusiness.co.uk. I want to encourage traffic to the site by sharing some of my content with other related websites which have a higher PR ranking and traffic for a link to my site. Is this going to upset Google re-duplicate content and devalue my site and stop any organic rankings in the future? Equally some high PR sites which have a good synergy with mine such as http://thewomensbusinessclubs.com/ allow me to add my RSS feed with their blog network. Is this a good thing to do or not for the same reasons as above? Or can I only do the above my creating fresh content? Thanks, Elizabeth Conley
Content Development | | econley0 -
Is this a good website design for attracting google and readers
hi, we are looking at re-doing our website and would like to know if this site is a good example of attracting traffic and google. what i mean is, they only have the title of stories and not much content, please take a look and let me know if we can learn any lessons from this site or if they should be adding more content http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Best Alternatives to Google Knol
We have some Google Knols that have done well but now they have to be moved (Google closing). The popular alternatives are: Annotum (new, based on Wordpress and containing scholarly articles) Wordpress.com Blogger Although those could work I am seeking out other viable alternatives. Any suggestions? Squidoo is spammy but has anyone had any good things to say about it? Thanks!
Content Development | | geteducated0 -
Please Explain "Rel Canonical"
I have a travel blog that ranks well for lots of keywords. In my "Notices" section of this site, I found that every page has a rel canonical issue sort of flagged. What does this mean? How can it be fixed? It doesn't seem to bother my traffic, but it'd be nice to have it tidied up. Thanks! The site is www.journeybeyondtravel.com/news
Content Development | | journeybeyondtravel0 -
Our blog is indexed by "google web" but does not show up in "google blogs". Why not and how can I fix this?
We have a pretty simple blog http://www.aviawest.com/blog I've noticed our articles arn't showing up in Google blogs on "web", we've submitted to http://blogsearch.google.com/ping a month ago. Anyone have some insight here?
Content Development | | Aviawest0