Publicly traded companies (like Apple and Snapchat) have a responsibility to their investors to disclose information about their financial performance and business operations. Within these financial statements, there is plenty of great information that SEO practitioners can incorporate to better serve clients.…
The post 3 Ways to Utilize Financial Statements for SEO appeared first on Seer Interactive.
SEO is an ever-changing landscape with new tools being developed and released all the time. We use tools to check and track rankings, QA when our clients implement recommendations, find new opportunities, pivot strategy, and the list goes on. I don’t know a single person in the SEO field who doesn’t use tools, so we wanted to share our favorite tools with you.…
The post SEO Tool Round-Up: 16 Tools We Love appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Although all of Google’s solution products are good on their own, they become even better when paired together with the premium version of Google Analytics – Analytics 360 (GA 360).
Part of the Google Marketing Platform (GMP), these integrations allow you to connect different sources of data and analyze them together, driving a seamless approach to efficient analyses.…
The post Analytics 360 Integrations We Love appeared first on Seer Interactive.
At Seer, we’re always hiring. As one of our hiring managers, I spend a lot of my time in panel interviews and final conversations with candidates, deciding who will be a great fit for the team and who is not a match.…
The post How To Get Hired as an SEO Associate at Seer appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Google Data Studio is an extremely powerful reporting tool for SEOs to report on organic traffic performance and performance towards goals. It can provide extra layers of analysis and insights, but it can take time to identify these types of findings.…
The post 3 Quick-Win Google Data Studio Tips for SEO Reporting appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Dear Fellow Traveler:
So, you’re visiting for Seerfest. We know the drill, you land in a city you’re unfamiliar with, end up eating at the recognizable chains for breakfast (if you eat at all), then after a full day of speakers and networking, you head down to the hotel bar for dinner.…
The post All Things Philly Guide: Seerfest 2019 appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Any manager or direct report knows the power of a great one-on-one meeting, or the monotony of a dull one. Whether you’re a manager a support associate, or any other type of team member, you can supercharge your next one-on-one meeting with a simple exercise: the Johari Window.…
The post The Johari Window: A Simple Exercise to Improve Your One-on-One Meetings appeared first on Seer Interactive.
AMResorts® (AMR) is North America’s fastest growing luxury leisure resort company. It is part of the brand portfolio for Apple Leisure Group, North America’s only vertically-integrated travel, hospitality, and leisure management group. AMR provides sales, marketing and brand management services to its collection of resorts, which offer high-quality Endless Privileges®, Unlimited-Luxury® and Unlimited-Fun® vacations to the luxury leisure market.…
The post Seer Solves It: PPC & SEO Analysis Leads to $43K in Savings appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Have you ever received an email from a client or POC with “URGENT” in the subject line and your heart skips a beat or two?
Or, have you ever managed a Google Ads Account account where conversion tracking drops off all of a sudden?…
The post How Automated Rules Can Help Prevent a Client Nightmare appeared first on Seer Interactive.
One of the top questions we get as PPC marketers is, “what are our competitors doing?” It’s an important question, but one that can be difficult to answer.
There is no sneak peek into a competitor’s AdWords account, no unblinded benchmarks, or quick plug-in formulas.…
The post Prepare For Battle: A Paid Search Competitive Guide appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Written by: Emmilly Best, Jennifer Hester
By now you’ve heard of the General Data Protection Regulation also know as “GDPR” that passed in the European Union in 2016 and went into effect in 2018. GDPR compliance applies to any company that does business with online users in the European Union, whether or not they are EU residents.…
The post What is the California Consumer Privacy Act? (& How to Prepare for It) appeared first on Seer Interactive.
We’re all human, and as humans, we are imperfect. That means that we all will, at some point, make mistakes on clients we work on.
We can take steps to ensure these mistakes don’t happen, but ultimately, each mistake should teach us a lesson, and show us a way to improve in the future.…
The post We All Make Mistakes – Here’s How to Prevent & Own Them appeared first on Seer Interactive.
As advertisers prepare for the holiday season, Google has announced a new Smart Bidding feature that will give advertisers a way to adjust for seasonality.
Smart bidding strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS use machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value.…
The post How to Make Seasonality Adjustments in Smart Bidding Campaigns appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Written By: Emily Pollock & Rebecca Carey
Yet ANOTHER big change happening in the world of Google ads. Google recently stated that “Starting September 17, 2019, Standard delivery will be the only ad delivery method for Search campaigns, Shopping campaigns, and shared budgets.…
The post Google Ads Sunsets Accelerated Delivery appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Google released Smart Display campaigns in 2017 to help lighten the workload for digital advertisers and exercise the power of machine learning on the Google Display Network (GDN). Despite investing millions of dollars into machine learning initiatives, Google’s smart display targeting is plagued by the same downfall as standard (dumb?) display campaigns: poor quality placements (placements are locations on the display network where your ad can appear).…
The post Why Google Smart Display Campaigns Are Not So Smart appeared first on Seer Interactive.
Is there any topic more exciting than 404 errors?
It’s brutally boring, BUT I’ve decided to spice things up a little.
In this article, I’m going to analyze 404 error page designs from the 100 most popular websites in the world.
I’ll also show you how to fix 404 errors at the end.
Let’s jump in.
A 404 error occurs when you land on a page that doesn’t exist on the host website.
It can be frustrating when you’re a user and that’s why it’s important for SEO. What’s important for users is important for your SEO campaign.
This doesn’t mean you need to “fix” all the 404 pages on your website either.
More on this in a second. There is one universal truth that applies to every website:
Your 404 page design and UX needs to be effective.
Model the some of the terrific 404 pages I found from the most popular websites in the world. Take a look:
I’ve ranked these 404 error pages based on effectiveness. Not how clever they are. Here we go:
eBay’s 404 page is perfect. It’s helpful for users and it’s also built to convert.
Healthline’s 404 page works well because it’s on-brand. It also directs users back to the important parts of their website.
RetailMeNot uses a nice conversion-focused 404 page. You should consider testing this model if you’re running a coupon site.
Go.com combines creativity (which is on-brand for Disney) and effectiveness by offering a search function on their 404 pages. Great job!
CNET has a clever and effective 404 error page. It’s effective because of the display ads placed in strategic locations. I also love the “All-Time Favorites” content section.
This is an effective way to send users back into their website’s rabbit hole. They know more dwell time equals more ad revenue.
Facebook’s 404 page design is on-brand and simple. It gives users enough options to find what they need. Well done.
YouTube’s 404 error page is simple and effective. You only have one option and that’s to search.
It would make sense for Google.com to model YouTube’s 404 page. Not sure why they wouldn’t when search is their bread and butter.
Amazon’s 404 page caught me off guard. Marketers study Amazon because of its conversion-focused mindset. So what’s going on here? Why are they pushing the “Meet the dogs of Amazon”? agenda on a 404 page?
I understand if they’re trying to make their company more relatable and “human” and that’s fine. The timing is a little strange.
Let’s step into the mind of the user for a second.
They were looking for something specific and now they’re presented with a distraction. A percentage of people will click to learn more about “the dogs of Amazon”. Then a small percentage of those people will forget what they were even doing on Amazon in the first place.
So, if we’re examining this from a pure conversion perspective, it’s an odd strategy.
The good news is Amazon still shows a prominent search function. It’s not a “bad” 404 error page. It’s just a weird strategy.
Surprisingly, Google has a bad 404 page. The page isn’t helpful for users at all. It informs them that they tried to reach a page that doesn’t exist, but what happens next?
The only option is to hit the back button on their browser or exit. You would think the biggest search engine in the world would have a search function on their 404 error page.
The funny part is another division of their company (YouTube) has a better 404 page. See above.
I don’t know if Reddit’s team is trying to be clever or this isn’t intentional. It’s a bad 404 error page regardless. It doesn’t direct users anywhere and it gives no guidance.
My only assumption is the Reddit team has concluded their user base is intelligent enough to find what they need on their own.
Here’s an interesting fact about my research:
13 of the 100 most popular websites have 404 error pages like Reddit.
Spotify’s 404 page looks okay on the surface, but there are some issues with the links. It’s a common UX best practice to underline links initially or on a hover. Spotify doesn’t do either.
This makes the links to their “FAQ” and “Community” pages almost invisible. The other issue is the “Go Back” link doesn’t work because they’re using Javascript. Not sure why.
The best way to find and fix 404 errors is to use Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
But before you dig in, when should you fix a 404 error?
The answer is sometimes.
Here’s a simple criteria to follow:
If a 404 page doesn’t have any positive KPIs, then let it be a 404. Google will crawl it and remove it from the index. I recommend going into Google Search Console and marking the 404s as “fixed”.
It’s not necessary, but it doesn’t hurt.
Open up Screaming Frog SEO Spider, enter your target domain and start the analysis.
Click on the “Response Codes” tab. Then click on the “Filter” dropdown and select “Client Error (4xx)”.
Export all the 404 errors.
The next step is to take all of your 404 pages and analyze them using Ahrefs. Go to Ahrefs, click on “More” in the navigation and click “Batch analysis”.
Enter your URLs and start the analysis.
Click on the “Domains” column and you’ll see what 404 pages have existing backlinks.
Now 301 redirect the 404 pages (with existing backlinks) to a relevant page.
Here are a few 404 page qualities to emulate based on my analysis of the top websites in the world:
Landing on a 404 page can be frustrating. Help the user as much as you can.
The best 404 pages stayed on-brand and were creative. Especially Disney:
Attention to detail goes a long way.
Don’t overwhelm the user more than they already are. Give them exactly they need to find what they were looking for.
UX 101 right here. Your links should always look like links.
Not every website can try to make sales on a 404 page. But if it makes sense in your situation, test it.
Optimizing 404 pages won’t have a huge impact on SEO performance, but it can’t be overlooked. Design a quality 404 page and 301 redirect pages that are worth redirecting (based on KPIs and relevance).
Enjoy this post? Please share it. Thanks!
