Author: synapse

2016’s Top Search Engine Marketing Trends

2016 will be a revolutionary year for the digital marketing industry.  After a historic 2015, a year in which we saw mobile searches overtake desktop searches, industry analysts are projecting that digital media spend will overtake traditional channels like TV for the first time.  Apart from these macro changes, there are more technical developments that will be also be affecting digital marketers in the new-year.  We share details on 5 critical trends that should be on your radar for 2016:

• Google Penguin Update – Google Penguin is not a new name to search engine optimization professionals. For those less familiar, Google Penguin is a layer to Google’s organic algorithmic that specifically evaluates link quality.  Penguin is designed to discount or even penalize disreputable and manually engineered external followed links.  Penguin was originally released in April 2012 and since then it has been refreshed around a half dozen times.  This forthcoming release of Penguin, slated to launch in early 2016, marks a major change for the algorithmic layer.  Instead of releasing periodic updates, the new release of Penguin will be run in real-time.  This is both good and bad for advertisers.  For websites suffering from historically spam-rich linking profiles, the benefits of any link cleansing work and disavowals will be felt quicker.  In contrast, for websites who aggressively push the envelope on their link-building strategies, penalties and ranking drops will also be assessed and felt faster.  The updates coming to Penguin underscore the importance of what has already been a link acquisition best practice for several years.  Instead of building links, marketers should instead be focused on cultivating links—organically generating link backs by promoting unique, engaging content.

• Real-Time Personalization – Real time personalization is a growing technology that allows content management systems and advertising platforms to dynamically serve customized content for different cohorts of users. The technology, which is offered through marketing automation solutions like Marketo and CMS platforms like Sitefinity, works by integrating with an organization’s CRM system.  A website visitor will get cookied and then the marketer can define different personas or user groups.  One persona, say a C-Level executive, can then be served a different website experience (different messaging, calls-to-action, etc.) than, say, a specialist-level user.  The same type of personalization can be embedded into paid pay-per-click ad copy and landing pages.  This is invaluable technology than can lead to significant improvements in conversion rate and online revenue.  If you’re a retailer, you can customize Branded paid search ads to be focused on the previous purchases on repeat customers.  If you’re a B2B organization, you can tailor your website experience to the role of your visitor.  A researcher may be prompted to download white papers and industry reports, while a decision- maker like an executive could be served deep-funnel calls to action like a demo request.

• RLSA – In mid-2015 Google AdWords expanded their RLSA or “Remarketing Lists for Search Ads” technology so that campaigns can leverage Google Analytics remarketing lists. RLSA allows marketers to integrate retargeting lists with their Search Network pay-per-click ads.  Marketers can specifically target (or exclude) past website visitors, based on the pages they visited, or their on-site behavior.  Past website visitors are typically more qualified users, so marketers can take a broader approach with their keyword set, and a more aggressive approach with their bidding strategy.  As an example, if you’re an online retailer that sells luxury watches, a keyword like “gifts for my husband” would likely yield highly irrelevant/unconvertible traffic.  However, with an RLSA campaign, we can aggressively bid on a keyword like “gifts for my husband” because we know the user has already expressed interest in our website/product.  Similarly, RLSA can be used to improve traffic quality on traditional Search Network campaigns.  For example, B2B SaaS websites often field significant traffic from existing customers who log in to the product through the website.  As a marketer you might be running a Branded search campaign aimed at demand generation.  Unfortunately, major amounts of your ad spend are likely being wasted on these existing customers who are simply trying to login to their account.  With RLSA, we can create a remarketing list of all users who have reached a website’s login page.  We can then exclude that list from seeing our Branded ads in our AdWords campaign.

• Mobile Conversion Optimization – Mobile users overtook desktop users for the first time in 2015. With mobile traffic becoming a bigger and bigger percentage of total traffic each year, it’s critical that marketers implement a mobile-specific conversion strategy on their website.  In addition to ensuring that your website is fully responsive, marketers can use device detection scripts to serve customized content.  For example, a marketer could setup a page to display consolidated messaging, shorter forms (less fields), or different navigation links when a user browses from a device with a smaller screen size like a smart phone or tablet.  These types of adjustments can be implemented at the page level and they can have a profound impact on your mobile conversion rates.

• Dark Traffic – As mobile traffic continues to grow, so too does untrackable (not set) or “dark” traffic in our analytics platforms.  Dark traffic typically originates from mobile social media and messaging apps.  Many of these mobile apps trigger new windows when referral links are clicked.  From Google Analytics’ perspective, the user is direct navigating to your website; in reality, the user is arriving vis-à-vis a referral source.  For some B2C retail websites, dark traffic is becoming incredibly problematic, and in some extreme cases, it’s comprising over 50% of total website traffic.  Many firms are trying to get around this issue by running landing page reports and making educated guesses on the original traffic source of the user.  That approach is imprecise at best.  Our firm has developed a sleeker solution.  The apps engendering dark traffic kill the original traffic source of the user by opening up new browser windows.  The majority of these apps also prevent marketers from manually tagging website links with UTM parameters.  There is, however, a workaround that can be employed with an interstitial redirect.  For example, let’s say a company includes a link to their website in their Instagram profile. The marketer can link to a unique URL that has a delayed interstitial redirect on it that points to a URL (e.g. the homepage) tagged with UTM parameters that communicate the user’s original traffic source.  In this example the redirected URL could point to www.acme.com/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=Instagram&utm_campaign=InstagramProfileLinkClick.  This will tell Google analytics that the user came from the Referral medium, from the Instagram app/site, and from an Instagram profile link click.

Oscar Predictions 2015 Recap

Last night’s Oscars proved to be quite the spectacle, with Neil Patrick Harris walking around in his underwear and everyone finding out who John Legend’s and Common’s real names are.  The results were interesting as well, with only a handful of upsets.  Having taken it all in, there are a few things I noticed regarding the selections made by some of the sites I polled, and the effectiveness of various winner-choosing methods.

First, how did I perform?  Well, I ended up winning 20 out of the 24 categories (or 83%).  This fared pretty well against the sites that I polled; only one of the nine sites beat me, I tied with one other site and the other sites all won fewer categories than I, with Hollywood Reporter performing the worst with only 13 wins.

When I took a closer look at which sites performed well and which ones did not, one thing became immediately clear; the individuals or sites that used statistics vastly outperformed the sites that did not.  For example, Ben Zauzmer won 21 categories (beat me by 1) and GoldDerby’s predictions led to 20 category wins (tied me).  The other sites I polled averaged roughly 16.5 wins, which is about 18% worse than the stats-based sites.

As I mentioned in my original article, the film that wins Best Film also wins Best Director about 72% of the time.  Interestingly, 4 of the sites I polled actually chose two different films for Best Film and Best Director, which strongly indicates they were making decisions with their gut rather than with calculated probabilities.

I made the mistake of going with my gut when I chose “Joanna” for Best Documentary Short Subject, even though “Crisis Hotline” was a decisive favorite.  I chose “Joanna” because I saw both films and simply felt it was a better film than “Crisis Hotline.”  Unfortunately, there is no correlation between who I feel will win and who actually wins, so it was a poor decision on my part.  Ironically, at the Oscar party I attended I ended up tying for first instead of winning first because of the one pick where I strayed from the probabilistic approach.  I’ve learned my lesson as it pertains to selecting Oscar winners, and as a search engine marketer I was reminded that we cannot ignore what the data is telling us.  A probabilistic approach can provide huge advantages when making key optimization decisions within your digital marketing campaigns.

One last thing I’ll mention is that Ben Zauzmer, whom I mentioned earlier, made a very astute observation regarding the Best Original Screenplay category.  He noticed that the WGA correctly forecasts the Oscar winner for this category 70% of the time, which would have meant that “The Grand Budapest Hotel” was the favorite to win.  However, “Birdman” was ruled ineligible by the WGA so it didn’t have an opportunity to win this award.  Instead of blindly believing the numbers, he adjusted the model to account for the likelihood that “Birdman” would have won if it had been eligible, which resulted in predicting that “Birdman” would win Best Original Screenplay, which it did.  As marketers, we are required to constantly synthesize, and sometimes question, the data to ensure we’re making decisions based on signals rather than noise (shout out to Nate Silver).  This approach has shaped our campaign management strategies, and I’m hoping it will also help you make better marketing decisions moving forward.

Oscar Predictions 2015: Beat My Ballot and Win a Free PPC Audit

The Oscars are right around the corner.  If you’re like me, you’re jittery with anticipation.  After all, how many other nights of the year provide such an amazing opportunity to put probabilistic theory to work?

Now I know what you’re asking yourself: why on Earth is a search engine marketer writing about the Oscars?  Well, for one, choosing Oscar winners is a lot like choosing which landing page to use, or which ad copy to run; informed decisions require statistical insights and we use stats-based Bayesian models to help us make better marketing decisions for our clients on a regular basis.  We’re applying those same principles to help us choose Oscar winners.  Second (and the real motivator), I filled out an Oscar ballot last year for the first time and have been fascinated with the selection process ever since.

So before I reveal this year’s winners (or at least those that are favored to win), let’s lay the foundation for the logic behind choosing the winners.

First, I considered the popular opinion of top critics (GoldDerby does a great job of consolidating this information).  The greater the consensus was among these critics, the more confident I felt in my decision.  Second, I looked at previous winners to see if there are any trends or consistencies that could be applied to this year’s nominees.  For example, of the 86 films that have been awarded Best Picture, 62 (or 72%) have also been awarded Best Director.  So, if you think a film is going to win Best Picture, you should almost always pick the director of that film to win Best Director.  Also, the number and types of awards a film has already won are the strongest indicators of its success at the Oscars.  For example, most critics have chosen Birdman as the favorite to win Best Picture because it won the Directors Guild Award (among other awards), which is the strongest predictor of Oscar success for this category (over the last 15 years, the Best Picture winner in the Oscars also won the Directors Guild Award 80% of the time).

With these insights, I have carefully chosen this year’s Oscar winners for each category.  If you send me your predictions ahead of time and win more categories than I do, Synapse will provide you with a free PPC audit.  In the unlikely event that more than one ballot beats mine, the PPC audit will go to the lucky one who won the most categories.  So, without further ado, here are my predictions:

• Best Picture: “Birdman” (it’s a slight favorite over “Boyhood”, but statistically it’s very close)
• Best Director: “Birdman,” Alejandro Gonzalez (going with the 72% stat here, plus the fact that Gonzalez has already won the Directors Guild Award, which is the strongest predictor of who will win best director at the Oscars)
• Best Lead Actor: Eddie Redmayne in “The Theory of Everything” (he’s nearly a 3:1 favorite over Michael Keaton, since he’s already won the SAGs, the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes)
• Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash” (he’s over a 90% favorite to win)
• Best Lead Actress: Julianne Moore in “Still Alice” (she swept the Golden Globes, the SAGs and the BAFTAs)
• Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette in “Boyhood” (is anyone voting for anyone else?)
• Best Animated Feature: “How to Train Your Dragon 2” (it’s a sizable favorite, although some critics believe Big Hero 6 will win)
• Best Documentary Feature: “Citizenfour” (all nine sites I polled chose Citizenfour)
• Best Foreign-Language Film: “Ida,” Poland (“Ida” is a huge favorite)
• Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Imitation Game” (its WGA victory puts it slightly ahead of the pack)
• Best Original Screenplay: “Birdman” (this one is quite tricky because “Birdman” was ruled ineligible for WGA, but the WGA winner is typically a 70% favorite to win this category. Without this insight, the numbers would say “The Grand Budapest Hotel” should win, but Golden Globe and Critics Choice wins make “Birdman” the slight favorite)
• Best Cinematography: “Birdman” (this is a slight favorite)
• Best Costume Design: “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (heavy favorite over “Into The Woods”)
• Best Film Editing: “Boyhood” (its win at the American Cinema Editors guild makes it the favorite)
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling: “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (this is a heavy favorite based on its BAFTA and guild wins)
• Best Original Score: “Theory of Everything,” Johann Johannsson (about a 2:1 favorite over “The Grand Budapest Hotel”)
• Best Original Song: “Glory” (it won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice)
• Best Production Design: “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (it won the BAFTA and the Art Directors Guild award, which make it a heavy favorite)
• Best Sound Editing: “American Sniper” (one of the tightest races of this year’s Oscars, but “American Sniper” is a slight favorite)
• Best Sound Mixing: “Whiplash” (this one is tight, but its BAFTA victory puts “Whiplash” slightly ahead of “American Sniper”)
• Best Visual Effects: “Interstellar” (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” could upset, but “Interstellar” is the only film with more than two nominations in this category)
• Best Animated Short Film: “Feast” (last year the favorite lost, so watch out for “The Dam Keeper”)
• Best Live-Action Short Film: “The Phone Call” (heavily favored, although both Entertainment Weekly and IndieWire have predicted that “Boogaloo and Graham” will win)
• Best Documentary Short Subject: “Joanna” (I’m going against the stats on this one because I saw this film and it was amazing, and in my opinion, better than “Crisis Hotline”)

So I’m going with a completely probabilistic approach, with the exception of the last category.  Based on the probabilities for each category, I am expected to win roughly 17-19 categories.  Think you can beat me?  Reply to this post or email me your selections at

pa**@sy********.com











.  Let the best probabilistic mind win!

Sources

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-en-oscars-2015-ballot-predictions-20150211-column.html#page=1

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/oscar-contenders/oscar-predictions/

http://www.theguardian.com/film/series/oscar-predictions-2015

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/02/18/oscarharvard-side/a24fmMCYN0ot5pZ8ZwAyYP/story.html

http://www.goldderby.com/odds/experts/200/

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/02/13/oscars-predictions-2015-who-will-win

http://www.indiewire.com/article/2015-oscar-predictions

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/awards/predictions/oscars/2015/oscars-2112015

http://www.awardscircuit.com/oscar-predictions/

Are All Impressions Created Equally?

Cracking the Mystery Behind Budget-Limited Impression Distribution

Over the course of my career I’ve learned that the vast majority of paid search accounts will at some point be affected by budget limitations.  There are numerous reasons why budgets may become capped.  You may need to temporarily pull-back spend to adhere to internal budgets. Maybe you add a new campaign to your account which leaves existing campaigns fighting for fixed resources.  Or, an aggressive bid escalation strategy could make historical daily budgets insufficient.  Whatever the reason might be, limited daily budgets affect most accounts at some point or another.

For most marketers, campaign level budget adjustments have become the go-to budget management strategy.  You need to drop you spend by 25%?  Sure, I’ll knock down your daily budget by 25%.  Problem solved!  It’s easy to understand why we’re so quick to change campaign budgets.  It’s a simple, reliable method of controlling spend, and in an industry where time is at a premium, it’s a change that takes just a couple of seconds to implement.  But do we really understand how we’re influencing performance when we change campaign budgets?

Interestingly, Google does not have much to say about the matter.  They explain that when budgets are capped “ads in the campaign can still appear, but [they] might not appear as often as they could.”  Talk about an exhaustive scientific conclusion!  Unfortunately, we too often assume that this impression rotation is going to occur on a pro rata basis.  In the past, I have aggressively dropped budgets with the expectation that I am going to see a linear drop-off in performance.  For example, if I drop by budget by 50%, then I would expect my impressions, clicks and conversions to all drop by the same 50%.  Click-through-rate and conversion rate shouldn’t be affected if Google is reducing my impression share at random and on a pro rata basis.  Although this logic makes perfect sense, the data we’ve collected after limiting budgets has told a different story.

When we cap campaign budgets the more important question we should be asking is “which impressions am I limiting?”  Let’s go back to our hypothetical budget cut.  If we drop campaigns budgets by 50%, we said we would expect impressions to drop by 50%.  Stop right there.  While it’s true that a 50% reduction in budget will likely lead to a 50% drop in campaign level impressions, we need to stop and consider which impressions are going to be affected.  The obvious first consideration is whether impressions will decline equally across the entire keyword set.  But there are also less tangible and less measurable dynamics to consider.  How will budget limitations impact the time of day my ads get served, the geography they get served in, and the devices on which my ads are showing? Google basically has free reign to decide where and how they are going to rotate our impressions.

Our experience has shown us that budget limitations (and even minor <15% limitations) can significantly impact the quality of our campaigns’ impressions.  Our hypothesis is that when excessive impressions are available, Google will serve your ads across segments (times of day, geographies, devices, etc.) that offer the lowest competition.  In other words, Google is not rotating impressions at random.  It’s in Google’s best financial interest to take this approach as they’re now creating a bigger market (with higher bids) when and/or where there was previously less activity.  Unfortunately, the lower competition segments are often less active because they relate to lower quality impressions that produce lower conversion rates.

So where’s the proof of this impression variability?  Let’s look at three real-life data sets from our client base:

• Example One: One of our non-profit clients ran state-level campaigns across the nation. They did not have the budget to support this effort, but they wanted some visibility in every state. Most campaigns had impression shares (due to budget) limited by 25-40%.  After explaining the risks of this strategy we were able to get the client to agree to experimentally increase our monthly budget so that we could run the campaigns with completely uncapped budgets.  Very few changes (optimizations, testing, etc.) were made to the campaigns during this time, and the client is not significantly impacted by seasonality.  Before and after results are shared below:

• Example 2: One of our B2B software clients was reluctant to significantly invest in a Branded advertising campaign. After a full year of running a campaign with a lost IS of 31%, the client decided to maximize branded spend.  It is worth noting that 95% of the traffic and impressions from this campaign originated from the exact match iteration of its brand name.  Again, very few changes were made to the campaigns during this time, and the client is not significantly impacted by seasonality.  Before and after results are shared below:

• Example 3: Another one of our B2B software clients introduced several new campaigns related to an expanding product line.  This required us to limit one of our existing campaign’s impressions by 15%.  Once again, very few changes were made to the campaigns during this time, and the client is not significantly impacted by seasonality.  Before and after results are shared below:

This data clearly suggests that there is an inverse relationship between lost impression share and impression quality and efficiency.  It is critical that we consider the ramifications that campaign-level budget changes may have on performance.  Before dropping budgets, dive deeper into your accounts and ‘cut-the-fat’ at the most granular level possible.  Even better, when building out new accounts, consider how your campaign structure might influence budget management.  Are there keywords that you will never want capped because they are exceptional performers?  If there are, they should be broken out at the campaign level.  Even if you didn’t structure your account like this when you launched, it’s not too late.  Scan your account for your top performing keywords and consider moving those terms to a new “high priority” campaign that you can ensure receives sufficient daily budget.

All impressions are not created equal.  Google has far too much autonomy in their impression rotation methodology to simply assume you can linearly scale performance up or down with budget.  When facing budget limitations, take the time to cut unproductive spend by optimizing targeting settings and/or by pruning keywords.  Break out top performers into separate uncapped campaigns.  Campaign level budget reductions should be reserved as a last-resort optimization.

Synapse SEM Introduces New Website and Revamped Service Offering

Synapse SEM, a Leader in Statistical Optimization, Enhances its SEO and PPC Service Offerings and Launches New Website.

BOSTON, MA – September 22, 2014 – Synapse SEM™, a full-service search engine marketing firm with offices in Massachusetts and Connecticut, today announced it will be launching new services and a new website on October 1, 2014.  The new service offerings are aimed at better servicing its clients’ evolving needs, and the new website will serve to better communicate those services and the Synapse brand to prospective clients and partners.

Synapse co-founder Paul Benson says “It’s clear that the SEO space has changed dramatically over the last twelve months.  We’ve enhanced our service offering to ensure our clients get the best ROI on their marketing dollars.  This includes adding content marketing services, building out our Link Quality Review capabilities and putting additional resources behind the development of our statistical tools.  We are constantly improving our service offering, but this is the biggest advancement in our services since our inception nearly four years ago.”

Since making these changes, Synapse’s client base has benefited significantly.  “Given our financial roots, clients tend to think of us as a data-centric agency.  While this is certainly true, we’ve achieved large-scale organic rankings improvements for our clients by first focusing on technical SEO and inbound link quality.  Companies are underestimating the impact algorithmic updates are having on their website’s visibility, and we’ve been very successful in helping companies identify and resolve this issue.  This has led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in recovered revenue for our clients” says Synapse co-founder Mark Casali.

Synapse SEM’s new website will showcase its latest service offerings and promote new content related to the hottest topics in search engine marketing.

About Synapse SEM, LLC

Synapse SEM is a full service online marketing firm that leverages robust data analysis and statistics to provide its clients with deeper insights and uncover otherwise overlooked opportunities.  With core competencies in paid search advertising, search engine optimization, social media marketing, mobile advertising and conversion optimization, the company develops, implements, and executes online marketing strategies focused on maximizing its clients’ ROI.  Leveraging proprietary data analysis techniques and experienced subject matter experts, the agency is committed to achieving unparalleled results and providing the highest quality of service to its clients.  For more information on Synapse SEM, LLC, call 781-591-0752 or visit www.synapsesem.com.

Google Authorship: An Often Overlooked SEO Strategy

In the SEO world, quick and simple opportunities to boost performance are about as common as a cactus in Siberia.  The reality is that successful SEO strategies are dependent on intensive content development efforts, carefully optimized on-page tags, and a thorough attention to detail with your site’s technical health.  Those tasks don’t come easily, so when an opportunity as simple and impactful as Google Authorship comes along, SEO professionals should take notice.

Despite its low-hanging benefits, Google Authorship has surprisingly gone overlooked by many marketers.  In this post we’ll discuss the key benefits of the program and why you should spend the minimal time required to enroll.

The most tangible benefit of Google Authorship is its ability to differentiate your search engine listings and ultimately increase click-through rate.  When content on your site is written by authors enrolled in Google Authorship, the ranking page is eligible to appear with a headshot from the author’s Google Plus profile.  In addition, the listing will appear with a byline giving credit to the individual author.  Consider the results that appear for the Google search on the term “Bid Op Tool:”

These two factors increase the real estate of your listing and add visual appeal, both of which are likely to positively influence your click-through-rate.  Google recently completed an eye tracking study to measure the impact of Authorship Tags on user behavior.  According to their study, they found that users had a “60% chance of fixating on the annotation when placed at the top of the snippet block.”  In plain English, search results with an Authorship tag are likely to get clicked more than standard results.

It is still unconfirmed whether Google Authorship is an active signal in Google’s algorithm, but many SEO professionals feel that strong “Author Rank” will be an important ranking factor in the future.  Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, stated in his book that “information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”  If this is true, we can also suspect that domains are likely to benefit if Google sees “expert” authors regularly publishing on their site.  This would give organizations the incentive to build in-house content development teams focused on creating unique and valuable content.

These are obviously less tangible benefits that are harder to measure, but it is clear that Google values credibility and expertise.  With increasingly more quantifiable metrics to support these qualities, it would be prudent to anticipate their inevitable impact on rankings.

Writers can sign up for Google’s Authorship Program in just a few minutes.  You’ll need to create a Google Plus profile (if you don’t already have one) with a recognizable headshot, and a work email linked to the domain(s) on which you regularly publish.

For such a simple process, Google Authorship can have a strong impact on your SEO strategies.  To learn more about building a Google Authorship strategy visit Google’s Inside Search Feature or contact us today.

Guest Blogging is Alive and Well

Overview
In a recent blog post, Google’s Matt Cutts discusses the pervasiveness of spammy guest blogging activities.  The head of Google’s Webspam team goes so far as to state, “So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy.”  The purpose of this article is to clarify Cutt’s statements and help marketers decide how to leverage guest blogging efforts moving forward.

Clarifying the Details
The main point of clarification is that guest blogging is still alive and well.  Cutt’s article and prior videos on the topic were specifically targeting two audiences: blog owners and companies using guest blogs in ways that violate Google’s quality guidelines.  Best practices related to guest blogging are summarized below for each audience.

Blog owners: Historically, numerous blog owners have accepted guest blog posts from various sources, including businesses with which they had no prior relationship.  Google is simply encouraging these websites to properly scrutinize submissions to ensure they are original and high quality and offer relevant content to their blog readers.  This suggestion is given to website owners to help them avoid damaging the reputation of their blog.  For blog owners the premise is simple: offer your readers high-quality content and we’ll consider your blog high-quality, but offer them low-quality content and we’ll consider your blog low-quality.  Of course, higher quality blogs will rank better than lower quality blogs.
Guest Bloggers violating Google’s quality guidelines: Websites can violate Google’s quality guidelines in several ways.  Cutt’s article specifically brings to attention the following violations:

• Buying links: This one is pretty cut and dry.  You shouldn’t pay for links.
• Requesting followed links: Google doesn’t like it if you specifically ask for a followed link.  Followed links should be a natural result of other efforts, including your content marketing initiatives.
• Spinning articles: Article spinning (the practice of syndicating the same article or similar iterations of the same article to multiple websites) is frowned upon.  After all, how can you provide unique content if you’re syndicating the same content to multiple outlets?

In terms of link building, guest blogging should only be used as a means to acquire high quality links (as opposed to a large quantity of links).  Additionally, companies shouldn’t use guest blogs as a primary, or even secondary, method for acquiring links.  The issue that Google identifies is that many companies realized that they could drive significant inbound link volume by mass producing guest blogs. When you’re after volume, your content development efforts will inevitably yield lower quality, less unique content.  When this effort is multiplied by the thousands of companies engaged in guest blogging, the product is a sea of low quality, or even spammy, content that damages the integrity of search results.  Clearly, this is something Google would like to minimize or stop altogether.

Dos and Don’ts of Future Guest Blogging
To ensure your guest blogging efforts are providing value and are not violating any of Google’s quality guidelines, we recommend you follow the following dos and don’ts of guest blogging.

Dos
Focus on quality, not quantity: This should hold true for all of your content development efforts.  High quality, unique and compelling content is far more valuable than stale, mediocre content.  Strong content helps build links naturally, improves brand equity and can be used more effectively as part of an overall content marketing strategy (see #4 below).
Target the right audience: Your content is only valuable if it’s seen by the right audience: your target market.  Focus on outlets that allow you to gain visibility among your customers.
Build relationships with 3rd party websites: Once you find specific outlets that help you access your customers, build a strong relationship with them so you have the opportunity to promote content with them on an on-going basis.  Frequency is an important metric in the context of content marketing and brand equity.
Think holistically: Your content should be developed as part of an overall content marketing strategy designed to help you generate more business.  Don’t spend your time writing content simply to get a link; the link alone is rarely worth it.
If you’re a blog owner, have a solid review and submission policy for all guest posts: If you’re accepting guest blog post submissions, make sure you review the articles prior to publishing them. You should be looking for high quality, unique content that provides value to your readers.

Don’ts
Don’t pay for links: This is the most obvious violation.  Google has been pretty adamant about this for years.  Never pay for links.
Don’t request followed links: This is almost as obvious as #1.  Followed links should happen naturally, but requesting them is a red flag to Google and should be a red flag to blog owners as well.
Don’t engage in article spinning: Repurposing the same article and submitting to multiple blogs is a clear violation to Google’s quality guidelines.  If you’re even considering doing this, then you should rethink your entire content development strategy.
Don’t overreact: Google does not take kindly to “black hat” SEO practices and guest blogging is no exception.  However, if you are developing and syndicating content the right way (as discussed above), you should have no concerns regarding your guest blogging efforts.  Companies should be able and willing to collaborate with 3rd parties to develop unique, interesting and original content to share with their customers and other interested readers.

Conclusion
Keep in mind that Google’s ultimate goal is to provide the most relevant search results possible.  Over time, guest blogging has been abused so much for ranking purposes by certain marketers (for some that term is far too complimentary) that a shadow has been cast over the entire guest blogging community.  If you’ve been using guest blogging properly as part of an overall content marketing strategy, then you should have nothing to worry about.  If you’ve been using guest blogs in an effort to manipulate search results, then you should stop immediately and rethink your strategy.  Guest blogging isn’t dead; in fact, it’s more alive now than ever for those who choose to utilize it properly.
If you need help developing a comprehensive content marketing strategy, or if you’re interested in learning more about how guest blogging should be leveraged moving forward, please don’t hesitate to contact us.