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
-
How to create a dynamic visual sitemap using Google sheets?
Does anyone have a solution where you can use a listing of page names with tiers in a Google spreadsheet and have it dynamically appear in a visual sitemap architecture format within in a Google document? Thanks in advance Moz community!
Content Development | | peteboyd0 -
Google won't index my website because "certain conditions" weren't met
I found the answer on this -- interestingly, I had changed registrars and they didn't pull over the DNS information correctly. This caused the above issues. Once I identified this, I updated the DNS correctly -- at registrar and server -- and things worked fine.
Content Development | | newbyguy0 -
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 -
2 blogs and authorship
Hi all, I run a blog from my WP site, and also a seperate one on blogger.com which has authorship linked to it. I'm noticing that if I put up a WP blog (from my site) on my G+, this will pop up on listings presented the same as the authorship (image shown). My question is, although I make sure that I do not duplicate content between the two blogs, will this kind of mixing up of things (incorporating G+) actually be counter-productive? Thanks in advance.... tom
Content Development | | T-J-I0 -
Writing on 2 Very Separate Topics. Will Authorship Be Affected?
Hi guys, During the day I'm a PPC and SEO associate at a software company that provides merchant accounts and payment processing for small business owners. Think PayPal meets Quickbooks. For this job, I write lots of content on payment processing, merchant accounts, the benefits of ACH transfers, etc. However, during the evenings, I work on my side-business, which is a fitness marketing company. For this site I'm doing lots of content production based on increasing gym membership, crossfit marketing, etc. I'm getting authorship for all of the posts I'm writing (my image is showing up in SERPs). Do you guys think there is any adverse effects to having authorship on content that is so drastically different? Will Google punish us for having 50% of my posts are about merchant accounts and the other 50% are about fitness marketing? Thanks!
Content Development | | SmallBizSmarts0 -
Google+ Authorship Penalties for Past Posts?
Our blog has recently been updated to allocate past posts from 2011 and on to link to one of our recent writers who just came on board in 2013. Our writer set up a new Google+ profile for our blog last month, and has tagged all of the past posts with his Google+ authorship code. Is there a possibility that this could actually hurt our writer's authorship authority and our blog's authority, since the blog posts and the Google+ profile activation dates will not match up?
Content Development | | eugeneku0 -
FAQ page to target "long tail keywords".
I'm wondering if there is any benefit to creating a FAQ section on a website for the purpose of ranking for long tail keywords. If so, are there best practices in the way that the page is structured? Also, would doing this just help me rank the FAQ page for these terms or would it also help more critical pages on my website, such as homepage, contact, about, etc... which do not contain these keywords.
Content Development | | pharcydeabc0 -
Using own domain for Google blog
Is it worth the effort using your own domain for a Google blog? After adding my own domain to a blog I see a boost in ranking, maybe the url has more value without the blogspot extension, or that Google might treat the (max.10) pages you produce under your own domain as "independent" thus giving you the chance of building your own domain trust...?
Content Development | | vibelingo0