Messy SEO is a column covering the nitty-gritty, unpolished tasks involved in the auditing, planning, and optimization of websites, using MarTech’s new domain as a case study.
Walking into any new SEO project presents marketing strategists with unique challenges. Different website properties need solutions tailored to their specific issues. And with so many things to consider—branding, business goals, site setup, etc.—your project requires particular deliberation.
Search professionals have found themselves cleaning up issues following site consolidation migrations. This is the exact situation I walked into for the MarTech brand.
It was nothing short of what I call an “SEO mess,” or a collection of issues affecting search visibility in need of intricate solutions.
I recently joined the Third Door Media team to help clean up these issues arising from the consolidation of Marketing Land and MarTech Today. The new site needed someone to jump into the thick of things and chart a path forward. Here’s how the process unfolded:
Issues arising from site consolidation
Many organizations find their sites in need of heavy-duty clean-up after consolidation. But, unfortunately, they don’t always have time to undergo continual optimization and maintenance.
In MarTech’s case, the issues arose from a necessary business decision for the brand.
Rather than continuing to split their audience between the brands Marketing Land and MarTech Today, we chose to lean into MarTech. Using our resources to help marketers find their place in the new marketing landscape made sense.
Yet, significant website changes often come with significant issues, no matter how necessary the work. And there’s no one magic strategy to fix the mess. Instead, this situation requires a multifaceted, nitty-gritty solution.
The messy side of SEO
Before the site consolidation, the team took the content published on one platform and repurposed it for the other. For example, MarTech Today produced content for professionals researching marketing technology and automation, while Marketing Land focused on a broader marketing audience. Each would tailor their content pieces to their market, making slight changes where applicable.
The expected duplicate content issues arose following the consolidation, and the required fixes were far from a one-time fix.
The new site now has at least two versions of over 1,000 articles. What’s more, their copy is close enough to target the same topic and keywords. To solve this issue, we put together redirects from the content on Marketing Land to its counterpart on MarTech Today. Most of these contained the “-2” in their URL that WordPress adds to duplicate slugs.
The redirects were a needed short-term solution to prevent user experience and duplicate content issues. But with the new site being as large as it is, not all the redirects were set up, leaving many near-identical pieces waiting to be indexed.
Many other problems were also affecting the site, including many relevant non-indexed pages, broken links, mixed content, and site speed problems. However, we decided to tackle the duplicate pages first because they related to our site’s primary offering; marketing strategy, news, and insights. Fixing the problems affecting content visibility and quality is thus the priority.
Considerations and solutions
Working on these crucial issues after a site migration and consolidation isn’t glamorous by any means. However, when engaging with any messy optimization project, you need to ensure your expectations align with the likely outcomes.
The fact is, you won’t see the results of your efforts for some time. And that’s OK.
Google and other search engines need time to analyze the site for these changes, and we want them to be thorough. Fortunately, setting up the redirects directs visitors to the correct pages immediately, preventing UX problems until the consolidated pages are indexed and ranked.
Redirecting our focus
Because the content on each duplicate page in question is targeted toward separate audiences, there are a few factors to consider to determine what will appear on the consolidated page. These include the following:
How is the page performing?
How are people interacting with the page?
Which content is best suited for the target audience?
Using data available from Google Search Console and Analytics, I reviewed clicks, impressions, average page views and time spent on them, and a whole host of other valuable data. This data helped me answer considerations #1 and #2.
But, since the site has only been live since May, more data was required to determine which content aligned with MarTech’s audience interests.
Speaking with our talented writers and reviewing keyword data helped me determine which pieces of duplicated content were best suited for MarTech’s audience. It allowed me to begin the process of placing the best content on our new consolidated pages. And by redirecting the duplicated URLs, I’m able to point people and search engines to the most appropriate destination.
Wrapping up
That’s it for this first installment of “Messy SEO.” Next, we’ll continue to go through the steps taken toward cleaning up the mess post-site consolidation.
Have you worked on a site consolidation project for your business or clients? What tactics and tools did you use? Email me at cpatterson@thirddoormedia with the subject line Messy SEO Part 1 to let me know.
Google has updated the How Google Search Works website portal today and with that informed us that the search company made 4,500 “improvements” to search in 2020. “There have been 4,500 such improvements in 2020 alone,” the company said.
4,500 changes. Google said in the year 2020, Google made 4,500 updates to Google Search. These changes can be ranking changes, user interface changes and much more. By comparison, in 2019, Google made 3,200 changes to Google Search. Looking further back, in 2010, we covered that Google had about one change per day. Google said in 2019 it made about 350-400 changes in 2009.
Clearly, Google has expedited those changes over the years and is increasing the rate at which it updates Google Search.
Updated How Search Works site. Google also launched a “fully-redesigned How Search Works website that explains the ins and outs of Search.”
In 2013, Google first launched its How Search Works site with an explanatory infographic. The site has some pretty cool features, including showing examples of pages Google took down because of spam. Google took down that spam feature and relaunched the portal in 2016 with more details on how normal people want to know how Google Search Works.
Google said in the 2021 version it has “updated the site with fresh information, made it easier to navigate and bookmark sections and added links to additional resources that share how Search works and answer common questions.” “The website gives you a window into what happens from the moment you start typing in the search bar to the moment you get your search results. It gives an overview of the technology and work that goes into organizing the world’s information, understanding what you’re looking for and then connecting you with the most relevant, helpful information,” Google added.
Why we care. It is nice to see Google document how many changes it makes from year to year in Google Search. It is also good for search marketers to review how Google Search works and do a deep dive into the language Google uses to describe how the search engine functions. Dig into the new portal and let us know if you find anything exciting.
These days, there is a lot going on at the top of the SERP. New features, different configurations, variations for devices and challenges for specific verticals pop up every day. Seasoned SEOs will tell you that this is ‘not new’, but the pace of change can sometimes pose a challenge for clients and webmasters alike.
So how do you get ahead of the curve? How do you make your site better prepared for possible new SERP enhancements and make better use of what’s available now? I’ve outlined 4 potential strategies for SERP resilience in my session at SMX Advanced:
1. Prepare to share (more)
From Featured Snippets and Google for Jobs to Recipe Cards and Knowledge Graphs, Google is unceasing in its efforts to create more dynamic user-pleasing SERPs. This is great for users because Google can serve lighting fast results that are full of eye-catching information that is easy to navigate even on the smallest mobile screen. And with the range of search services available for a query – Google Lens, Google Maps, Google Shopping to name but a few – the granularity of Google’s ability to provide information at the most crucial point of need is immense.
For SEOs, this means that it’s becoming increasingly rare to rank exclusively in the top spot of a given query. Even without ads, and even with the Featured Snippet, the top results can often include a mix of links, videos, and/or images from different domains.
Have a look at this Featured Snippet for the query “What is a Featured Snippet”.
Here, the main paragraph and blue link come from Backlinko site, but there are four linked images in the carousel before you get to the text. And only two of them are from Backlinko’s page, the others are from pages ranking 9th and 2nd on the main SERP page. So, while some tools would report the paragraph snippet result as ranking “first”, from a user perspective the text result is the fifth clickable link.
And while this scenario is not new, it does illustrate something that we are seeing more regularly and in more complex configurations.
For instance, in the query for 50 Books to Read Before You Die, Google is serving a host of results ‘From sources across the web’ in an accordion. Then within each drop-down is a carousel of results that includes web pages and bookmarked YouTube videos.
That means that plain blue links aren’t visible until after a row of ads and then after 20+ links from the accordion carousel.
This presents both challenges and opportunities for SEOs.
Strategic challenges from mixed SERPs
For those who are looking to protect traffic, the challenge is to ensure that you are offering users a means of connecting with your content via multiple forms of media and mediums. Relying on a single content type (written blog without images for instance) could leave your traffic vulnerable to changes in the SERP. So, a strategic approach to your most important SERPs should include a mix of written, video and/or image content. This will ensure that you are optimized for how users are searching, as well as what they are searching for.
Strategic opportunities from mixed SERPs
For sites looking to gain traffic from established rivals, top SERPs with multiple site links present an opportunity to gain precious ground by optimizing for search services that your rivals are ignoring. So as well as looking for keyword gaps, make sure your content plan is looking for gaps in media formats.
Use a good technical SEO framework
In both cases, the multi-media content you develop should be underpinned by sound technical infrastructure, like a good CDN, image sitemaps for unique images, structured data, and well-formatted on-page SEO.
2. Invest in knowledge hubs
In Nov 2020 and Jan 2021, Google Tested Featured Snippet Contextual Links which added reference links to other websites from within the Featured Snippets. Then May 21 Google “bug” showed Featured Snippets that included links to further searches in Google.
While Google has yet to outline any specific plans to roll this out as standard, they have been known to test new SERP features on live results in the past. For instance, they were testing image carousels with Featured Snippets in 2018 before the wider rollout in 2020.
Not only that, but rivals at Bing are already using these techniques extensively. Their SERPs are bursting with contextual links pulling images, copy, and clickable links into the SERPs from Wikipedia.
This suggests to me that contextual links are likely to become a Google thing in the near future.
How might you be able to optimize for this possible feature development? In my humble opinion, it is worth spending some time investing in knowledge hub-style content. Hubs to enable you to become a reference for users on your own site and the wider web. While it is likely that much of the traffic for potential contextual links would go to reference sites like Wikipedia, it is also the case that not every niche term or topic will have a wiki page. So, if you start building now, you could be adding value for current users and future needs of Google’s bots.
Example of a simple knowledge hub
A knowledge hub can be technically simple, or complex, but should be underpinned with good on-page SEO and unique content that is written in natural language.
3. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready (with structured data)
At the top of the SERP plain blue links are becoming increasingly rare and today your search results are likely to include a mix of links and information from Google managed channels like:
Google for Jobs
Video snippets, predominantly from Google-owned YouTube
Structured Data enabled Rich Results as we see the recipe cards and/or Google Ads
These features are generated using Google APIs, YouTube, services liked Google Ads, and also largely through Structured Data specifications. This serves them well because they deliver the information with a more consistent user experience which is particularly crucial in the constraints of a mobile-first web.
I bring this up in a discussion about SERP resilience because, as these new and shiny features are added, they take the place of plain blue links and, historically, they have been seen to replace Featured Snippets.
During this time, one of the most prominent Featured Snippet category types was for recipes. But Google soon found a more user-friendly way to display this content via mobile-friendly Rich Results.
Now, you might say, Well 2017 was a long time ago, but we’ve seen similar activity this year in February when Moz reported that as the number of Featured Snippets temporarily dropped to historic lows, we also saw a rise in rich results for video at the same time.
And though many of the Featured Snippets returned, the phenomena of SERPs neither being created or destroyed, but simply changing form is a regular occurrence. Even this Summer, it is the case that the prevalence of People Also Ask is steadily declining as Videos increase.
June/July 2021 SERP feature changes as reported by Semrush Sensor
This means that Google SERP developments can cause traffic disruption for pages that are optimized for a single type of search result.
The TLDR of this is, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
If you have a page that performs well as a top-ranking link, Feature Snippet or other feature, don’t expect that to be the case forever because the SERP itself, could completely change.
Protect your traffic by optimizing your pages for relevant APIs and strategic structured data for your niche, alongside your on-page optimizations.
Gain traffic byidentifying competitors who are not using structured data and target your efforts accordingly.
Monitor your niche for changes to Rich Results and Google features, plan accordingly. This will include many of your regular tools, but also manually reviewing the SERP to understand new and emerging elements.
4. Dig into core topics for passage ranking
Google’s commitment to natural language processing within its algorithms gained pace in the last 12 months when Google introduced Passage Ranking at autumn’s Search On 2020 and MUM at Google I/O in Spring 2021.
Often confused with jump to text links, Google has explained that Passage Ranking is intended to help them to understand content more intelligently. Specifically to enable them to find ‘needle in a haystack’ passages that answer queries more accurately, even if the page as a whole is not particularly well-formatted.
The analogy that I often use is that, if we imagine that the SERP was a playlist of songs, then previously, the whole song would have to be strong to make it on to list. Passage Ranking is essentially saying that if the rest of the song is so-so, but the guitar solo is really, really good, then it’s still worth adding that song to the playlist.
On 10 Feb 2021, this update went live and Google said that it would affect 7% of searches and SEOs had a lot of questions:
Will Passage Ranking affect what the SERPs look like?
Will Passage Ranking affect what Featured Snippets look like?
Will Passage Ranking affect Featured Snippets exclusively or only Feature Snippets?
So why am I bringing this up in a discussion about SERPs?
Well, since Passage Ranking is now a contributing factor for ranking, and Featured Snippets are elevated from the top-ranking SERP results, in my opinion, we are likely to see more variation in the kinds of pages that achieve Featured Snippet status. So alongside pages that follow all of the content formatting best practices to the letter, we are likely to see more pages that are offering query satisfying information in a less polished way.
“The goal of this entire endeavor is to help pages that have great information kind of accidentally buried in bad content structure to potentially get seen by users that are looking for this piece of information” – Martin Splitt
Confronted with these results, SEOs who love an If X, Then Y approach may be perplexed but my research has led me to believe that one of the contributing factors is user intent.
Ranking shifts directly following the Passage Ranking update suggest that the content that was boosted sought to answer both the what and why behind the user queries. Case in point, a website that was traditionally optimized for the query different colors of ladybirds owned the Featured Snippet in January.
This page is optimized using many of the established SEO techniques
Literally optimized for the search query
Includes significant formatting optimizations
Covers keyword topic directly to answer What are the different colors of Ladybirds
Core Copy is around 500 words
But after the Passage Ranking update, the same query returned a page that was less literally optimized but provided better contextualization. This usurper showed a better understanding of why ladybirds were different colors and jumped from 5th to 1st position during February.
Reviewing the page itself, we see that in contrast to the earlier snippet, on this page
Core Copy is over 1000 words
Includes limited formatting
Covers intent-based topic, in general, to answer Why
Other examples and other big movers during this time showed a similar correlation with intent-focused search results.
Possible example of Passage Ranking in impact on InvestopediaPossible example of Passage Ranking impact on National Zoo
In each case, it seems that Google is attempting to think ahead about user intent replying to queries with less literal results to better satisfy the thought process behind the query. Their machine learning tools now allow Google to better understand topics as well as keywords.
So, what does this mean for SEOs?
Passage ranking looks like good news for long-form content
Well, where you have a genuine, unique perspective on a topic, Passage Ranking could be an incentive to create more thorough and in-depth content centered around users’ needs rather than search volume alone.
Protect your traffic by optimizing your content for longtail keywords and intent.
Gain snippet traffic by creating intent-focused content. Answer the so what and don’t be afraid of detail.
Consider topics as well as keywords in content, navigation and customer journey.
From a technical SEO perspective, top tactics include solid internal link architecture optimized with long-form content templates with tables of contents.
How can you build SEO resilience for a dynamic SERP?
The same way you dress for a pumpkin spiced autumn day, with layers.
In this blog, I’ve discussed tactics for
Optimizing content for mixed media Featured Snippet panel results
Creating knowledge hubs for potential contextual linking developments
Building structured data into your website before rich results arise
Using Intent Focused Long Form content to potentially benefit from Passage Ranking
There is no single tactic that works in isolation. The SERP is so highly dynamic at the moment, that aiming for, or banking on a single part of the SERP is likely to leave you vulnerable to traffic disruption if/when things evolve. Think about how you can use these tactics to build upon and level up your existing SEO foundations. Change is the only constant, plan accordingly.
Of all the technologies that have changed the mortgage industry in recent years, AI has by far made the biggest impact. Artificial intelligence is allowing loan officers to go far beyond basic automation. In fact, it is revolutionizing every aspect of the mortgage processing experience.
If you want to meet the demands of the modern consumer, then AI must be a part of your loan processing strategy.
Below, our experts outline the ways that AI has benefitted the mortgage industry. We will also show you how you can incorporate artificial intelligence into your firm.
Impact of AI on the Mortgage Industry
For the mortgage industry, AI algorithms were created to make decisions using consumer data. These algorithms can have a positive impact on every part of the mortgage processing experience.
By bringing AI into mortgage processing, companies can take advantage of a number of benefits, which we’ll explore below.
Go Paperless
Processing mortgages with paper documents can be problematic. Paper is expensive to buy, and store. Worst of all, key documents can get lost in the shuffle. This can diminish the client experience and affect your ability to process mortgages efficiently.
Federal law has allowed electronic document processing for over 20 years. Unfortunately, at the time that many of these regulations were introduced, technology was lagging behind. Requirements could vary drastically based on the type of loan product and jurisdiction you were in. In many cases, this left mortgage teams stuck having to manually manage compliance issues.
Thanks to AI, going paperless is now easier than ever before. Intelligent documents can provide cues to each of the parties as they sign documents electronically. These tech tools can even automate compliance rules so that your team knows which kinds of paperwork must have a “wet” signature.
Ensure Data Accuracy
AI and other modern tech tools have also been instrumental in optimizing operational efficiency. Using artificial intelligence software, you can give a client the correct loan documents that are necessary for their file with the click of a button. AI tools can even check to make sure that client data is accurate. It can also allow your team to import information directly from financial institutions.
Best of all, you no longer need to enter in a ton of data manually. AI can improve your ability to process a high volume of mortgages. Customers won’t have to wait for weeks to get an update on their application, only to find out that a document was rejected due to an error.
Tailor the Consumer Experience
Modern consumers expect instant gratification and easy access to data. By leveraging AI, mortgage brokers can exceed this expectation and create a great user experience.
For instance, loan officers can incorporate automated chatbots into their websites. These programs will carry on conversations with curious consumers. They can provide potential clients with information about various products and services.
The goal of AI chatbots is to draw consumers deeper into the sales funnel and satisfy their need for immediate feedback.
Leveraging AI with BNTouch
Ready to make AI part of your loan processing strategy? If so, then it is time to partner with BNTouch.
Our innovative CRM software uses the latest AI technologies. With our help, you can streamline the mortgage buying experience. We have solutions for independent loan officers, growing companies, and multi-location enterprises. Get in on the revolution andbook your free demo today!
“You can adjust conversion values based on characteristics like location, device, and audience. By applying a rule to these characteristics, you can adjust conversion values to align more closely with your business outcomes,” said Stephen Chang, Product Manager, Google Ads in an announcement.
This added feature means that businesses can use their inherent knowledge of what’s working in their industry to improve their conversion rates in Google Ads. For example, if advertisers know certain audiences or people in certain locations are most likely to convert, they can set a rule to multiply the conversion value for the chosen group by two.
“These rules will also be used by Maximize conversion value and Target ROAS to optimize your bids in real time. Conversion value rules will be available for Smart Bidding across Search, Shopping, and Display over the next few weeks,” wrote Chang.
Source: Google
Why we care. “This is a great feature addition. Love it because it allows businesses to get their intuitive/institutional knowledge into the machine learning to optimize more accurately,” tweeted Robert Brady, PPC expert at Righteous Marketing. Having this available in smart bidding also allows advertisers to tweak campaigns for their individual business goals and adjust as campaigns happen in real-time (like for sales, events, or the like).
Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.
Good morning, Marketers, aren’t you tired of hearing “it depends?”
After moderating so many Overtime Q&A sessions for SMX, I’ve noticed that many professionals formulate their questions something like this: relevant background information, goal, “What should I do?”
“It depends” is the preface I hear most often from our expert speakers. That’s because, while they do possess more strategic knowledge that could benefit you, they aren’t totally familiar with your situation (and that’s due to the short nature of Q&A sessions — Twitter conversations are pretty much the same, too).
Instead of having your peers spitball a few ideas (a fraction of which you’ll reject because you weren’t able to give a comprehensive overview of your predicament), I suggest that we rethink how we ask for help: Ask for what considerations you should take into account as you plan your strategy. This will help you think more critically about your business’ overall goals, how marketing fits into it and the role you, as a search professional, play when it comes to making it all work together.
George Nguyen, Editor
Top stories images not loading in Google Search
Numerous reports of images not loading in Google’s Top stories carousel began surfacing on Twitter yesterday morning. We were able to replicate the issue (shown above) and the carousel shows either blank or blurred featured images, but some of the reports we’ve seen include screenshots of the carousel in which one or two of the images did successfully load. Google has confirmed that it’s a bug and is working on a fix but has not provided a timeline.
Why we care. A blurred featured image may negatively affect your clickthrough rate, so make sure to annotate your reports to reflect this oddity. In search results where just one or two images loaded successfully, the story (or stories) that didn’t load properly may receive fewer clicks. And, since the Top stories carousel is an important source of visibility and traffic for some publishers, this could also impact advertising revenue and other marketing opportunities that depend on getting a user onto your site if the bug goes unresolved for an extended period. Fortunately, Google is already working on it — we’ll continue to provide updates as they come in.
YouTube this week made two big changes to how search works on the video platform:
Timestamps come to video previews: Previously on desktop only, if you hover your mouse over a video, it would play a short preview snippet of the video. This preview capability is now rolling out to mobile. Plus, videos with timestamps will now have chapters available in the search preview.
Auto-translating captions: Along with new preview options, YouTube will begin translating English subtitles to multiple languages (and eventually roll this out to captions in other languages, too).
Why we care. If you want your videos to stand out in YouTube search, adding timestamps will now be critical. The new translation option gives your videos the opportunity to show up for an even wider global audience than before.
Red alert. “What red flags should companies be aware of when choosing an SEO agency?” asked Kim Doughty, and SEO Twitter is responding. It’s worth checking out just to ensure your own agency isn’t accidentally turning off businesses with its messaging. Our own Director of Search Content Carolyn Lyden advises that businesses steer clear of agencies that make guarantees (“Your site will rank for these keywords in X days!”), those that don’t give you admin access to your own analytics and agencies that use fine print to take ownership over your online properties/listings.
“Paid for by” label on political ads. Google is now placing “Paid for by” labels on some political ads. This transparency feature enables users to learn more about who is paying for the ad and even lets them see details such as how much the advertiser has spent. Tip of the hat to Valentin Pletzer for sharing this.
What if the secret sauce wasn’t a secret? “If Google actually gave you a detailed breakdown of exactly how their algorithm works to rank websites, don’t you think the #SEO industry would become a boring industry to work in?” Mark Preston asked. The responses run the gamut from “SEO would become boring” to deeper insights about how companies might shift their emphasis from paid to organic.
Sydney court orders a scorned patient to pay $450,000 over unjust negative reviews and content that damaged a surgeon’s reputation
As those who run a local business may already know, negative reviews don’t even have to come from customers — they can come from people who simply attempted to engage with your business. That’s what happened to Dr. Warwick Nettle, a Sydney-based surgeon who declined a patient after consulting with her former surgeon, who cautioned him about operating on her.
“A federal court judge on Wednesday said the effect of the false posts caused ‘extreme’ damage to both the surgeon’s emotional and mental state and his prior ‘impeccable’ reputation,” The Guardianpublished. “His five-star Google rating dropped to 3.5 stars after the first two posts were published.”
The court fined Catherine Cruse, the scorned patient, $450,000. Unfortunately for Dr. Nettle, Cruse seems to have disappeared — she filed no defense and appeared at no hearings, despite her prolific online smear campaign that spanned eight months and various forms of content, including reviews and defamatory posts on online reputation sites.
The extent of the online abuse here is far-reaching: “A since-removed post on a third website included images falsely claiming to be results of botched surgeries by Nettle. The post also featured headshots of the surgeon with the phrases ‘the devil himself’, ‘inhumane medical care’, ‘abuse of power’ and ‘compulsive liar’ superimposed on them,” the story reads.
In the search industry, we typically discuss the cost of fake reviews (and other content that serves a similar purpose) as harming both businesses and consumers, which downplays the damage because it comes off as an abstraction. In this instance, a Sydney court has quantified the harm, and although Dr. Nettle may have a hard time getting what he’s owed, this can be seen as something of a precedent for similar cases. It also highlights the fundamental problem with online reputation sites that extort people and businesses to remove negative content about them.
As a loan officer, know that there’s real value in creating a personal brand. Consider this: if you decide to change to another brokerage or financial institution (or go out on your own), would rather do it building your reputation from square one again, or do it with a reputation you’ve spent years refining?
That’s the value of personal branding –it’s yours, and it follows you your entire career.
Your personal brand also widens opportunities. Every meeting, connection, and happy client that engages with your personal brand is another opportunity added to your career. Building up your personal brand also increases your value as a mortgage professional. A brand that is recognizable and is seen as trustworthy commands more money.
How can you build a personal brand that lasts? That’s what this post is going to show you. Read on and bookmark this page for future reference.
Personal Brand for Mortgage Professionals: It’s More Than Likes and Comments
If you’re on social media, you may think that you’re well on your way to building a personal brand. But if you haven’t taken the time to define your brand and create a foundation for it, all those likes and comments are in vain. Here’s what you need to do instead:
Phase One: Define Your Personal Brand Identity
Be very clear about who you are and who you are not. What are your values? What’s your purpose? Who are you trying to reach? It’s critical that you know precisely what image you want to portray lest the public defines it for you and possibly create one that you never intended.
Phase Two: Create Personal Brand Awareness
Creating brand awareness and associating it with mortgage services is the goal of this next phase. The more your brand becomes well-known, the easier it will be for the consumer to remember and trust it. Here are top ways to build awareness for your brand:
Partner with real estate agents or other industry professionals that have successfully built their personal brand.
Use referrals and build up your online reviews.
Create different forms of content (video, blogs, infographics, podcast)
When we say engage with your followers, we mean doing so purposefully and actively. When someone leaves a comment, don’t just reply with, “Thank you!”. If you’ve noticed a follower liking and commenting on your posts, send a direct message. Did a website visitor fill out your contact form on your mortgage website? Activate a drip email and text campaign. Give them additional opportunities to get familiar with your brand and know what you’re all about.
Phase Four: Create Brand Loyalty
Getting to this phase takes a while –we’re talking about six months to a year. Remember that we’re building a personal brand that will last the life of your career, and that takes time. But that’s okay! In this phase, you want to add more fuel to your authority and trustworthiness. Do this by offering high-quality, high-value products for free, such as ebooks, webinars, and digital mortgage tools like mortgage apps and calculators.
Mortgage Websites Built for Personal Branding
At LenderHomePage, we firmly believe in the power and profitability of your personal brand. That’s why we created websites templates and tools built specifically for showcasing your brand across the web. Check out our three new mortgage templates for personal branding and try it out free for 14 days. Click here to launch one in minutes!
Beginning early this morning, there have been numerous reports of images not loading in Google’s Top stories carousel (as seen below). The issue seems to affect search results globally and Google has confirmed that it’s a bug.
The Top stories carousel, where featured images are not currently loading. Some have also taken screenshots in which only one or two of the stories feature an image that loaded as usual.
A problem on Google’s end. “Yeah, it looks like an issue on our side,” Google’s John Mueller tweeted regarding the issue. The company is currently working to correct the bug, Danny Sullivan, the company’s public search liaison, has confirmed.
Why we care. A blurred featured image may negatively affect your clickthrough rate, so make sure to annotate your reports to reflect this oddity. Some professionals have taken screenshots showing the Top stories carousel with just one or two images that loaded successfully, which could mean fewer clicks for the stories that didn’t show a featured image. And, since the Top stories carousel is an important source of visibility and traffic for some publishers, this could also impact advertising revenue and other marketing opportunities that depend on getting a user onto your site if the bug goes unresolved for an extended period. Fortunately, Google is already aware of the issue — we’ll continue to provide updates as they come in.
