Photos. Texts. Emails. Video. Digital is a pivotal part of our daily lives.

So what if we stopped using it?

Brian Solis, the author of Lifescale: How to live a more creative, productive and happy life, wants us to think hard about our digital distractions and drop them from our habitual behavior. As digital marketers, this notion sounds antithetical to our mission. But Brian promises that disconnecting is beneficial to marketers as well.

Below, I share Brian’s thoughts on digital distraction and business from his session at Social Media Marketing World 2019.

Focus Is Elusive

“My ability to be creative, to dive deep, to focus, to give myself time away from my device, was not only difficult but impossible,” Brian said.

In fact, this inability to tune out the noise and focus prevented Brian from finishing his eighth book.

Now, Brian isn’t suggesting that we stop using technology. He’s just suggesting we use it in a different way. Instead of using it for productivity, Brian suggests using our devices for the purpose of creativity.

If we’re able to put our devices down and truly ignore the notifications, we can focus on the tasks that are important. It will improve our output in quality and quantity.

Disconnection Improves Our Health

How we currently use digital devices isn’t healthy for us.

Brian pointed out that an astonishing 41% of people have had an accident relating to our smartphones. There’s a new health concern called “selfie wrist.” Plus, depression and anxiety are on the rise among teenagers, the world’s most avid social media users.

“As with cigarettes in the early days, we didn’t understand that our digital indulgences were made to be addictive, and we didn’t have information about the health effects on our bodies, emotions, and psyches,” Brian said.

He then added: “Living our best life isn’t really living at all.” It’s just posturing.

These distractions weigh down our cognitive load, robbing us of creative moments and pulling us out of focus, and this has a real business impact and we need to change:

• The average person spends 2 hours on our smartphones each day – and it’s not work related
• Humans used to shift attention every 3 minutes – it’s now 45 seconds

How to Disconnect

Be Aware

Getting over our digital distractions boils down to one thing: Awareness. If we’re aware of our dependency on the digital world, we’re more empowered to do something about it. We can make more intentional choices about how to avoid these distractions and stay focused.

Measure Your Distractions

Check how many times a day you:

• Reach for a device
• Check messages
• Check your feeds for updates
• Share a picture

Knowing how often you’re taken away from your work is a good indicator of how much creativity you’re losing. This also allows you to make more noticeable improvements in your work, life, and mental health.

Dedicate Time for Creativity

Write. Draw. Paint. Play guitar. Sing. Creativity is like a muscle that needs to be worked. So just like you workout at the gym, you need to make time to be creative.

And it’s not about talent, it’s just about expressing yourself. It’s about being happy, mindful, present, and intentional about how you spend your time. Block off time to be creative and block off time to check email, respond to tweets, etc. Just make sure you don’t mesh the two.

Dropping Our Dependencies

To do our best work, we need to be our best selves. And digital distractions take us away from the creative activities and ideas that make us happy. As a result, digital distractions make it impossible for us to focus on the things that really matter in life and instead take us out of the moments we’re living.

So, take some advice from Brian: “Allow yourself to color outside the lines and do something absolutely silly.”

Hear more of Brian’s thoughts on creativity and digital distraction by reading our full interview with him.

The post Dropping Digital Distractions With Brian Solis appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

Does a bear poop in the woods? With javascript and SEO, the answer is just as clear, if a little more complicated.

Javascript-driven sites aren’t bad for indexation. Google can crawl a site that populates content client-side.

Javascript-driven client-side content is bad for SEO. Javascript-driven sites make Google work harder. At the very least, Google renders them more slowly. In the SERPs, that’s a competitive disadvantage.

To demonstrate (Ian rubs his hands together) I get to use quadrant diagrams.

If you already know how javascript works, what client-side rendering is, and how Google handles client-side rendering, print this, stick it to your forehead, and move on:

For us mere mortals, here’s a fuller explanation:

Two Types Of Javascript

There are two ways client-side javascript—javascript executed by a web browser—can interact with web content:

UI enhancement changes the way the browser interacts with content rendered on the server. Examples include tabbed, drop down navigation, and (sigh) carousels.

Client-side rendering delivers pages and content separately. Your web browser uses javascript to merge the two.

This post talks about client-side javascript rendering and why it’s bad for SEO.

Client vs. Server-Side

Every web page is an interaction between a client (a browser, like Chrome, or a bot, like Google) and a server.

Generating a web page involves three steps:

1. Fetch the page template (the layout)
2. Fetch the content
3. Merge the content with the template

Server- and client-side rendering perform these three steps differently.

Server-side rendering does all three steps on the server, then sends the result to the client. The client has everything it needs, renders the full page, and goes on its merry way.

Client-side rendering uses javascript to split the labor: It sends the template to the browser or bot, then sends the content separately. The browser uses javascript to merge the content and the template. Client-side rendering has advantages: It’s speedy (if you do it right). It’s a great way to build interactive applications. But it requires more work by the client.

Here’s our quadrant diagram so far:

Static Content vs. Dynamic Interface

Some pages are just stuff: Words and pictures and links and buttons. Clicking those links and buttons send me to another page or display a form. They don’t profoundly modify the page itself. That’s static content, and it’s what you browse 90% of the time: Articles, product pages, blog posts, news, etc.

Other pages change a lot depending on my actions: A text editor, a multi-faceted search, or a page where content continually updates. A page like this is a dynamic interface. The Portent Title Generator, built by some incredible agency (cough) is an example:

Hopefully, your SEO strategy doesn’t hinge on dynamic content. If you’re going to succeed in SEO, you need to get your static content indexed and optimized.

Static vs. dynamic is the next part of the quadrant diagram:

When you combine static/dynamic and server-side/client-side, you get a feel for where and how javascript can make SEO more difficult.

When Javascript Hurts SEO

Javascript is terrible for SEO when you use client-side rendering for static content:

Here’s why:

Static content is what you need indexed. If you can’t get a key product into the rankings, if your blog post is invisible, you’re hosed. Fortunately, Google crawls and indexes javascript-driven static content. All good.

You also need static content optimized: You need higher rankings, and that content is how you’ll get there. The trouble starts here. Google uses two-stage rendering on javascript-powered websites: It crawls the site now, renders content later. Here’s how Google’s engineers put it:

“The rendering of JavaScript powered websites in Google Search is deferred until Googlebot has resources available to process that content.”

That’s in Google’s own words at io2018. Check the video at 14:11.

Two learnings:

• Google needs extra resources to fully crawl, render and index javascript-powered, client-side rendered pages
• Google felt it necessary to point out that fact

Client-side rendering doesn’t hurt indexation. It hurts SEO. There’s a difference. As I said, Google can crawl javascript content, and it does. But two-step rendering puts client-side content at a competitive disadvantage. All these quadrant diagrams are making me giddy:

If you’re doing SEO, you can’t afford to end up in the bottom-right box.

If you must use client-side rendering on static content, here are two ways to reduce the damage:

Mitigation

If you must use javascript, mitigate it using prerendering or hybrid rendering.

Prerendering and user-agent detection

Prerendering works like this:

1. Render a server-side version of each page on your site
2. Store that
3. When a client visits, check the user agent
4. If the client is a search bot, deliver the prerendered content instead of the javascript-rendered content

The logic is licking-your-own-eyeball-from-the-inside tortured: If you can deliver prerendered content, why not just do that from the start? But, if you must, try Puppeteer to do prerendering, or a service like prerender.io, which does all the work for you.

Hybrid rendering

Hybrid rendering generates the first page/content server-side, then delivers remaining content client-side. Sort of. Most javascript libraries, such as Angular, support this. I think.

If you search for “hybrid rendering,” you’ll find seven million pages, each with a slightly different definition of “hybrid rendering.” For our purposes, assume it means “Deliver the most important content, then the other stuff.”

For example, you could use it for filtering. Coursera lets you filter courses without javascript:

But the interface gets speedier, and the results richer, if your browser supports javascript:

That’s not the best example. TRUST ME that hybrid rendering mixes javascript-driven and static content, delivering static content first.

When To Use Which

For static content, use server-side rendering or, if you must, prerendering. If you want to optimize content that’s in a dynamic interface (like Coursera’s course list), use hybrid rendering.

ONE LAST QUADRANT DIAGRAM:

Why Mitigation Sucks

My rule: If Google gives you ways to mitigate a thing, don’t do that thing at all.

You know your doctor can set a bone. That doesn’t mean you go out of your way to break your leg for giggles.

Google can handle javascript-driven sites. That doesn’t mean you go out of your way to render content using javascript.

If nothing else, remember that Google changes their mind.

But I am not a javascript hater. In some cases, javascript-driven pages make a ton of sense.

When You Should Use Javascript Rendering

Build a client-side javascript-driven website when interactivity is more important than rankings. Apps and app-like websites, aggregators, and filters require client-side javascript rendering. Then use hybrid rendering to deliver critical content to Google.

When You Shouldn’t Use Javascript Rendering

Don’t use javascript for static content. If content isn’t interactive—a basic product page, a blog post, news articles, and any other content that doesn’t have to instantly respond to user input—it doesn’t need client-side javascript.

That doesn’t include carousels and other stuff. That’s UI enhancement, not content delivery. Done right, it’s perfectly OK.

Testing

This will bunch up the undergarments of many SEOs, developers, search scientists, and engineers: Don’t test.

Tests make you feel better. They show you that Google can indeed render the content. Great! Hooray for you!

No. Boo for you! Because testing verifies indexing and rendering. It does not verify that you’re competitive.

If you’re using client-side javascript to deliver static content you’ve failed the test. Stop. Change it.

Ask Yourself Why

There are two lessons here:

1. Javascript can be bad for SEO
2. There’s a difference between SEO and indexation

If you want to compete in the rankings, don’t use client-side rendering to deliver static content, or any content for which you want to rank. Use javascript to drive app-like experiences. When you’re considering using javascript to deliver content, do a very honest assessment of the pluses and minuses.

Then remember this handy quadrant diagram. I put a lot of time into this:

The post Is Javascript Bad For SEO? appeared first on Portent.

In this video I walk you through how to leverage concierge onboarding. I used it to increase Narrow.io conversion rate by 190% and figure out the right …

Blogging is a part of our origin story here at TopRank Marketing. In fact, we just celebrated the TopRank Marketing Blog’s 15^th birthday this past December. But despite our blogging longevity, we’re always refining and optimizing, too.

That’s why I attended Chris Brogan’s session on creating a fast blogging framework at Social Media Marketing World 2019. While there, I learned this bestselling author’s approach to writing blog content (and had a few laughs along the way).

Be Fast

The key to Chris’ framework? The word “fast.”

Being fast matters to Chris, informing the audience that “the average human only read 19 minutes a day. That includes texts, emails, and BuzzFeed articles. They’re not going to read your 2,000-word missive.”

So, be quick. Get to the point. Don’t complicate things. Don’t write a white paper when it’s supposed to be a blog post.

Follow the Great Blogging Checklist

Chris is able to be a fast blogger because he has a list of what every blog post needs:

• A great title
• A relevant graphic
• A “strong+story” first paragraph
• A great first example
• A second and/or third example
• A list of action items
• A call to action

To create blogs, Chris starts at the top of the list and works his way down, checking things off as he goes. But just like most lists, there are items on there that are prioritized.

According to Chris, a great title is at the top of the framework because in today’s world “the subject line is the blog post.” Your title or subject line is what gets read the most by your audience. And if it doesn’t pull people in, convey the story you want to tell, and convince them to read, you’ve already failed.

But what comes after that? How can you keep people on your blog once they’ve agreed to read it?

Chris suggests reflecting on your own experience:

“Think about when you read blog posts. You rarely ever read the whole thing. You can’t write your story like it’s a murder mystery and reveal the butler did it on the last page. Get the story into the first paragraph.”

[bctt tweet= »You can’t write your blog like it’s a murder mystery and reveal the butler did it on the last page. Get the story into the first paragraph.” – @chrisbrogan » username= »toprank »]

Brevity Is Your Friend

As Chris said, people only read an average of 19 minutes each day. They don’t have the time to read a long, run-on sentence or a paragraph that refuses to end.

Once you’ve finished your blog post, go back and see where you can make it more simple and get to the point faster. Your audience will appreciate the time you’re saving them in the long-run.

For us, this doesn’t mean long-form content is out. It means be concise, deliberate, and intentional with your language. If there’s a sentence that isn’t needed, cut it.

Connect on a Human Level

When it comes to the nitty gritty part of actually writing your blog post, Chris suggests letting go of your stuffy corporate identity and instead be human. Don’t be the brand. Be the person that represents the brand. Show your audience that you have feelings, opinions, jokes, and more.

Be a Guide

Chris’ last blogging tip is probably the most important: be a guide. Sure, a cool story is fun to read. But is a story really valuable if it doesn’t teach you something? Your blogs need answers to important questions. They need to solve problems. And one of the best ways to do that is to be a guide for your audience, helping them avoid disaster and reach their destination.

Blog Like Brogan

Content is everywhere—and so is our audience’s attention. As Chris said, we need to strive to create blog post that people actually want to read. For Chris, that means eloquently getting to the point early on to hook readers, and then delivering on your promise in an intentional way. You’re not trying to fill a web page. You’re trying to fill your reader’s mind with information they truly care about.

Experiencing FOMO when it comes to Social Media Marketing World? Subscribe to TopRank blog or follow me on Twitter to stay up to date.

The post Chris Brogan’s Guide to Building a Fast Blogging Framework appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

In this video I go through a few reasons content marketing wouldn’t be working. Here are a few links references in the videos: …

Recently, the US Congress has made moves enable widespread data collection from Internet users in the United States. Internet service providers (ISPs) see …

Attribution seems like the deep end of the pool in which no digital marketers want to swim. Mostly because it’s hard to know where to start, and we’ve built our collective lives around analyzing last click data.

If you can muster the courage to choose an attribution model in Google Analytics (besides the default last click), it can reward your business in many ways, including:

• Better budget allocation for paid media initiatives
• Better prioritization of content projects
• Better utilization of house lists, email and social alike

It would help if you began somewhere. Usually, that means moving away from the last click. Literally, any other attribution model tells a more complete story about your marketing efforts than last click attribution, because it takes away credit from the “Direct” channel.

Direct is notorious for swooping in when a customer has already been sold on your product or service by other marketing work and stealing credit for the conversion at the last stage of their journey.

So where do you go from the last click? Depends on what you sell and how long your sales cycle is.

Short on time? Skip ahead to the best models for:

• Subscription Services
• Short Sales Cycle Lead Gen (< 30 Days)
• Long Sales Cycle Lead Gen (> 30 Days)
• Impulse Buy E-Commerce (< $100 AOV)
• Big-Ticket E-Commerce (> $100 AOV)

Choosing an Attribution Model in Google Analytics

Instead of going through the models themselves, we’re going to start with your business type and back out to a model.

NOTE: This post assumes knowledge of Google Analytics’ Model Comparison Tool and a basic understanding of digital attribution models. Brush up on those concepts here before diving into our recommended models for each business type.

Subscription Service

If you’re running a subscription service business that depends on recurring revenue and ongoing engagement with your product, you might be one of the only companies fit for a straight-up Linear attribution model.

Think about it: A model that treats all touches equally rewards the first click for driving awareness, middle clicks for driving repeat visits and continued engagement, and last clicks for driving sign-ups after a free trial.

We surveyed the data on subscription service clients and found that, on average, Linear model applications boosted all channels except for Direct and Email (probably because subscription email lists are primarily people who have already subscribed):

Linear models work best in these verticals: Audio and Video Streaming Services, Gaming, Freemium Apps.

Short Sales Cycle Lead Gen

For businesses reliant on fills of a lead form and calls that lead to revenue in less than a month, a Time Decay model with a 30-day look back and 15-day half-life does the trick.

For all lead gen, ramp models are useful because they give increasing credit to educational touches that lead up to a conversion. However, with a tighter look back and half-life, you’ll ensure your model rewards folks that are serious about buying soon and not just poking around for consideration in the future.

We looked at a handful of clients that meet the short sales cycle description and, on average, Time Decay models boosted nearly all channels except Direct and Social.

Time Decay models with short lookback windows work best in these verticals: Catering, HVAC, Home & Garden, Insurance.

Long Sales Cycle Lead Gen

For lead generation businesses where a purchase decision may not happen for several months, and multiple stakeholders are involved in the buying process, a Time Decay model with a 90-day look back and a 30-day half-life is what you need.

Downloading whitepapers, fact sheets, and dodging retargeting ads is hard work for a potential customer, but if they keep coming back to the site and discovering more about your service on each trip, you should handily reward the touches as they move closer to getting that all-important lead form fill.

Similarly, we looked across a list of clients in the tech B2B space, with pretty high-end SaaS products and we found the holy grail. A model that only robs credit from Direct. Every other legitimate marketing effort gets a boost.

Time Decay models with long lookback windows work best in these verticals: SaaS Software, Law Offices, Advertising Agencies.

Impulse Buy E-Commerce

For retail businesses with most products under $100, a Position-Based model with a look back window under 15 days is ideal. It limits the impact of flighty comparison shopping clicks that occur in the middle of the funnel when visitors are double-checking for the best price elsewhere.

After reviewing client data from this sector under the U-curve model, we found small-ticket items benefit from interruption-based marketing like Display ads and email campaigns, especially in situations where your business model thrives on repeat purchases.

Again, only a few losers under this setup, Direct and “Other,” which in this case represents the dying world of Affiliate marketing. Bringing people back to the site at the last second with an Affiliate link no longer pays like it used to and cannibalizes profits for brands that do a great job promoting themselves via other means.

Position-Based models with short look back windows work best in these verticals: Health & Beauty, Apparel, CPG.

Big-Ticket E-Commerce

For retailers with products well over $100, that require more than just a passing thought to buy, and potentially consultation with your significant other, Position-Based models with a 45-day look back window are the way to go.

This model gives even customers who only get paid bi-weekly up to three pay periods to decide if your product is right for them. That’s also enough time to plan a decent vacation.

When we ran this model on several clients with higher end purchases on their site, we found Direct lost big along with Display while organic search and partner channel strategies received a boost.

Position-Based models with long look back windows work best in these verticals: Auto, Hospitality, Travel, Electronics.

You’re already doing attribution

If you’re worried at the data you see when you start to apply an attribution model and are tempted to go back to the last click, or if you encounter naysayers who talk down your model for not including offline marketing, remember this:

You’re already doing attribution if you’re using last click. Just because it’s the default model in Google Analytics and most other platforms doesn’t make it the best for how you should measure your performance.

Pick a new model, or even compare a few models, use them to make some marketing decisions and see if they drive incremental revenue for your business. Show your bosses the money, and you’ll build the trust to invest in more sophisticated tools and strategies.

The post How to Choose the Right Attribution Model appeared first on Portent.

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• Contents
• Log File Contents
• Breaking Down A Log Entry
• Getting The Logs
• What You Can Learn (And What You Can’t)
• My Favorite Log Analysis Tools

If you already know what a log file is, and want to learn how to analyze them for SEO, check out Log File Analysis For SEO.

Server log files are a raw, unfiltered look at traffic to your site. They’re text files stored on your web server. Every time any browser or user-agent, Google included, requests any resource—pages, images, javascript file, whatever—from your server, the server adds a line in the log.

That makes log files giant piles of juicy data.

If you already know how they work and want to analyze them, read my post about log file analysis for SEO. If you know that, too, get a cup of coffee and take care of all those emails in your inbox. You don’t need to read this.

Log File Contents

Here’s a line from Portent’s server log. I edited it to simplify a bit:

11.222.333.44 - - [11/Dec/2018:11:01:28 –0600] “GET /blog/page-address.htm HTTP/1.1” 200 182 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 Chrome/60.0.3112.113”

If you want to know the basics, you can read about the Common Log Format here.

The last bit that starts with “Mozilla” is the user agent. It’s important if you’re analyzing the log file for SEO, or to see what software is accessing your site, or to troubleshoot a specific server problem. The user agent is the type of browser or other software that’s accessing your site. If Googlebot requests a resource, you’ll see a user agent string that includes “GoogleBot.” If Bingbot hits your site, you’ll see a user agent string that includes “BingBot.”

Breaking Down A Log Entry

Here’s the example again:

11.222.333.44 - - [11/Dec/2018:11:01:28 –0600] “GET /blog/page-address.htm HTTP/1.1” 200 182 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 Chrome/60.0.3112.113”

On December 11, 2018, someone using Google Chrome tried to load https://www.portent.com/blog/page-address.htm. The ‘200’ means the server found the file (yay!). Page-address.htm is teeny, weighing in at 182 bytes.

The IP address of the client—the software that requested the file was—11.222.333.44. I put that last because for many reasons it’s not terribly helpful to us marketers.

Again: Every request from every user agent is a line in the log file. Every request. Every. Single. One.

Getting The Logs

That’s the rub. Some technical teams cling to log files, citing security concerns. Some site platforms hide log files so deep in their twisted innards finding them requires an electronic colonoscopy.

But the log files are there. They’re not a security risk. The site developer can zip them up and send them to you. Buy beers, bring chocolate, do whatever you need to do to make friends. Then ask.

If the files are gigantic, ask for a snapshot. A few days or even a few hours is a good start.

What You Can Learn And What You Don’t Need

Log files are data lasagna. They’re yummy. They’re substantial. And they’ll put you to sleep if you overindulge.

I use them to find:

• Spider traps. Log files give you a great look at how search bots are crawling your site.
• Spam content. If some hacker dumped a bunch of pages listing porn links on your site, any clicks to those pages appear in the log files.
• Broken external links. Google eventually gives up crawling broken links from other sites. But people still click them. Track down those busted external links and reclaim some authority.
• Incorrect server responses. Google Search Console can show some soft 404 errors, but the log file shows you all of them.

You can’t use them to:

• Get keyword data. Keyword data isn’t just an analytics software problem. Not provided means you can’t find search terms here, either.
• Track user sessions (usually). Most user session tracking requires javascript. Use a tool like Google Analytics, instead.
• Track individual user. In theory, you could track visits from Ian Lurie. But it would require much mind-numbing labor.
• Track rendering times. Log files show requests for resources. They don’t track what happens after the request. If a page renders incorrectly or slowly, it won’t show up here.

You don’t need to use them to:

• Track conversions. Conversion tracking in log files is like sitting on your tongue. Feasible, but not recommended.
• Analyze geographic data. You can, but most analytics software shows location data and requires a lot less work.
• Track click paths through your site. Again, possible, but you can get the data more easily from your analytics software.

My Favorite Log Analysis Tools

Screaming Frog Log File Analyser is my number one choice. It’s a great combination of power and usability, and you can merge log file data with crawls and other data sources.

Splunk is so powerful it terrifies me. But it’s great for managing giant log files in near-real-time.

Apache Log Viewer is free. It has a steeper learning curve than Screaming Frog, but, you know, free.

Log files don’t provide conversion data or session data. That kind of tracking requires cookies and a client-side analytics suite, like Google Analytics. They do provide a record of every website resource requested from every browser and user-agent. That makes them very powerful.

Ian, WTF?

I usually write metaphor-stuffed rants. This is more Wikipedia style because I write about log files all the time. This seems more efficient than adding a “what’s a log file?” section to every post.

The post What Is A Server Log File? appeared first on Portent.