SEO News

Because an increasing chunk of your target audience may well be heading to DDG in the coming years.

Don’t believe me? Rand Fishkin of Moz fame said it will be “the fastest growing search engine of 2016.”

If you’re still not convinced, here are some enlightening stats about DDG that might make you pay attention. 

1) It averages 10m queries a day

According to its own traffic stats, DDG averages around 10m queries a day.

This might not be up there with the likes of Google, but it means DDG is definitely a significant player in the search market. 

2) 12m queries in a single day last December

While average search queries are at 10m, DDG managed a 12m-query day back in December. 

3) 350m queries last month

DDG achieved an impressive 350m search queries for December 2015.

4) 3.41bn queries last year

For the whole of 2015, DDG achieved 3.41bn search queries. 

Again, this might not seem much next to Google, but for a relatively young search engine it’s pretty significant. 

5) 73% growth in 2015 

Part of the reason these numbers are so significant is the pace at which DDG is growing. 

The 3.41bn 2015 number was up from 1.97bn in 2014 – a 73% YoY increase in search queries.

6) 22% increase in traffic from January to December 2015

Over the course of 2015, DDG’s monthly traffic grew by 22%.

In December the site had 108m visits. 

7) Tech fans love it

DDG users show a strong affinity toward tech news sites, according to a report by SimilarWeb.

Comparatively, Bing users show affinity to typical websites you would expect of average internet browser (Reddit, Amazon, Google, etc). 

8) Average bounce rate is 31%

The average bounce rate for DDG users is 31%, according to the same SimilarWeb report. 

This is significantly better than Bing users’ average bounce rate of 43%.

9) Average time on site is 9.5 minutes

DDG users spend an average of 9.5 minutes on sites they visit through the search engine. 

By contrast, Bing users spend an average of just 7.5 minutes on each site. 

10) It offers people what Google can’t (and won’t): true privacy

This infographic from Tech.co and Optilocal has a pretty good run-down of the privacy differences between DDG and Google, along with a load of other interesting facts and stats.

Click to see the full version

11) It does other things that Google can’t

But privacy is just one feature DDG has over Google. 

DDG also offers functions such as the ability to view someone’s social media profile without leaving the search engine, the ability to easily expand shortened links or check whether websites are down, and there’s even a password generator. 

These little UX tweaks could be key to DDG attracting an increasing number of users away from Google, not just relying on the privacy issue but actually providing an even better user experience.  

12) It’s the default search engine in the new Adblock Browser for mobile

Ad blockers are here to stay. Let’s not kid ourselves about that. And there’s the old saying: ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’

If DDG is the default search engine for arguably the most popular ad blocking app of them all, brands should take that very seriously. 

Failure to optimise for DDG on mobile could lead to brands missing out on an increasingly large mobile ad blocking audience.  

13) It has signed the Acceptable Ads Manifesto

This one is less about ad blocking but more about a clear commitment to creating a user experience that benefits people rather than brands. 

The Acceptable Ads Manifesto was created by Adblock Plus as a way to encourage brands to stop ruining the online user experience with crappy ads like the ones in the screenshot below. 

Here are the key points of the manifesto:

It might be a PR move  – in fact it almost certainly is – but it also suggests DDG is taking UX seriously and this can only have a positive impact on people wanting to use it. 

14) It makes money without tracking people

In short: DDG is not going anywhere. It isn’t just a political flash in the pan. It is a profitable business. 

In an ask-me-anything session on YCombinator’s Hacker News site last year, founder and CEO Gabriell Weinberg said:  

DuckDuckGo is actually profitable. It is a myth you need to track people to make money in Web search.

Most of the money is still made without tracking people by showing you ads based on your keyword, i.e. type in car and get a car ad. These ads are lucrative because people have buying intent. 

All that tracking is for the rest of the Internet without this search intent, and that’s why you’re tracked across the Internet with those same ads. 

I will be writing a post about how to optimise for DDG in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled!

Posted by dudleycarr

Today we’re excited to remove the Beta label on Moz Local Insights! This feature has been in beta since November when David first announced it. This release of Insights continues the push to provide our customers with a holistic understanding of local search presence.

First, a tremendous thank you to all of our customers who gave us feedback about what works and what doesn’t work.

In the two months that Insights has been active for all 60K+ listings in Moz Local, we’ve collected 2.5 billion individual metrics! Insights is tracking 220K search keywords, traffic for 13K locations in Google Analytics, and 1.1M reviews.

Now, with the addition of Google My Business data and Google/Facebook reviews, Moz Local Insights is ready to have organizations large and small depend on it to deliver value for customers investing in local search.

This release includes a large number of small improvements and tweaks. However, the following are the big changes since we first announced Insights:

First up: Google My Business data

The release of the Google My Business API has been a welcome change for everyone doing local listing management. We have big plans in the near future to make extensive use of the API to help with distribution by eliminating the need for downloading and uploading CSVs every time listing information changes.

Moz Local Insights helps clients with many US/UK locations see what their performance looks like in aggregate across all your Google My Business locations. We’re using the API to help collect Google My Business data currently locked away in the dashboard and accessible only a single location at a time.

Here’s how Google My Business data looks like within Moz Local for a medium-sized client:

The screenshot shows 35 listings aggregated in a graph with the same data that’s available in GMB. Insights will also break out locations by best performing, worst performing, and top gains and losses. The same data is available for the click data.

Google My Business makes up to 90 days of data available. With Insights, we’ll track this data over time, starting with the initial 90 days of data available in GMB at the time we’re given authorization.

Second: PDF reports

From the beginning, Moz Local Insights has aimed to focus on the data and the visualizations that are the most meaningful to you and your client. The missing link has been making that data available via PDFs so that they can easily be shared with others.

We provide a single PDF, organized in sections containing the following Insights sections:

• Distribution Insights (Accuracy, Listing Score, and Reach)
• Performance (Google My Business and Google Analytics)
• Visibility (Local pack and organic)
• Reputation

Our focus for this feature was to make the PDFs easy to set up, compelling, and beautiful. Here’s a peek at what the PDF report looks like for Moz.com:

You can check out the full sample PDF report here.

Starting today

With Moz Local Insights coming out of Beta, we’re starting our normal 2-week trial for listings. During the 2-week trial, you’re free to try out all of the functionality — including the newly announced features. You can purchase the listings at any point during the trial. Pricing is only $120 for self-serve locations and $99 for enterprise locations per year.

What’s next?

We’re happy to get all of the improvements out, but there’s more goodness along the way — and shortly! Here’s the list of things we’ll tackle next for Search Insights:

• Exporting via CSV
• Omniture support
• Keyword suggestions
• On-demand PDF exports
• More review sites including Instagram

Even though the beta period is over, we’re just as eager to hear from you about what works or could be better with Moz Local Insights. Please feel free to reach out to me or send feedback here.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

As an SEO, my work with these agencies has increased in line with this development.

Why have PR agencies started to embrace advanced SEO?

The Google algorithm development rewards websites securing high quality links and mentions from dominant websites, giving PR agencies a new advantage over traditional SEO agencies.

PR agencies already maintain relationships with media organisations and industry influencers, making it possible to utilise these relationships to the clients’ advantage.

This is particularly the case when compared to traditional SEO agencies that have built their business around lower quality links from blogs and such to improve their clients’ ranking ability.

Closing the knowledge gap

The gap between current, and required, SEO campaign knowledge is a challenge for PR specialists looking to provide SEO as a client service.

In my experience, the expertise of in-house PR agencies is generally limited to understanding that keywords, meta titles and external links help with improving search rankings,

There tends to be a shortfall when it comes to the detail of these and other, more complex, ranking factors.

In the rest of this article I’ll cover some of these more advanced ranking factors that an effective SEO in a PR environment should know about.

Let’s start with an overview:

SEO: An Overview

Search Engine Optimisation is a process that aims to improve website organic search rankings. SEO covers a range of activities, and these fall into three main categories:

1. On-page SEO

On-page SEO refers the content on your website’s pages, including what keywords you are targeting, and how much and what type of content is on the page. 

2. Off-page SEO

This refers to ranking factors which are usually outside of your direct control, and include external websites that link back to your content.  

For an in-depth look at this topic, book yourself onto Econsultancy’s Building Backlinks Workshop. 

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO covers the coding and build of the website, the hosting and the download speed. The majority of technical SEO work is carried out by website developers.

I’ll cover these three areas (and how they relate to PR) in more detail below. 

Off-page SEO factors: Links (and mentions)

Let’s start off with something that’s understood by most people who have a basic knowledge of SEO: external links help websites rank.

Link building is the name for getting other websites to link back to your site. In general, the more links you have, the greater chance of ranking for the target keywords. Think of each link as a vote for the site.

Links and mentions are a PR agency’s best opportunity to utilise its core expertise, incorporating SEO indicators to an outreach program. Here’s what you need to know…

What is a link?

A link (also known as a backlink) is where one website inserts a hyperlink to another website. Generally, these links are contextual, and point from one of their webpages to one of your client’s webpages that is relevant to the linking page. 

While links are key to improving search rankings for client websites, not all links are made equal – some links carry significantly more ranking power than others. A good SEO practitioner can prioritise potential target websites. 

To evaluate these websites, you need to understand how Google evaluates links.

The factors that Google uses include:

• Relevancy of the linking domain and article to the link target.
• Strength of the linking domain and article.
• Whether the link was paid for or editorially driven.
• The location of the link on the page.
• Whether the link uses a ‘nofollow’ HTML tag.
• How many links there are on the linking page.
• Is the article positive or negative?
• The link’s anchor text.

That’s a lot of information to evaluate, and you need a fair amount of specialist SEO knowledge to be able accurately prioritise your shortlisted websites for outreach. 

What is a mention?

A mention is very similar to a link except that there is no actual link between sites. Usually mentions are made in the context of a quote and citation, and the citation consists of the name, role and organisation of the person quoted. 

Google gives credit to the citations as many powerful websites have an editorial policy not to link externally. Without being able to measure mentions, there would be a big hole in Google’s ranking algorithm. 

While a mention doesn’t give you as much credit as a link, they should not be ignored. Mentions on large media websites carry weight.

Just like links, Google uses multiple factors to evaluate the quality of a mention, and it is very important to ensure that the organisation brand and niche is clearly noted or the Google algorithm may not give your client the credit that they deserve.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO consists of the words and images on each webpage that Google uses to evaluate the purpose and quality of a page.

Google also evaluates all pages on a domain in total to identify the main purpose of a website, so pages outside of the main topic of the website are less likely to rank.

On-page SEO is really important to get right. I regard it, along with technical SEO, as permission to play with the big boys in search.

The principles are pretty straightforward to grasp and once you are used to implementing them you will quickly find yourself automatically writing optimised SEO content with a greater ability to rank in search.

Keywords

When looking at on-page SEO it is important to remember that it all starts with using the keywords (and synonyms of these keywords) that users are searching with.

The easiest way to search for the most relevant keywords is with Google Keyword Planner (you need to sign in, but it is free).

Information from Google’s Keyword Planner on search term ‘London PR agency’

Once you have identified your primary keywords, find a range of close synonyms for each keyword to give yourself the chance to rank for a range of search terms (and avoid being penalised for overuse of your primary keyword).

Competition

Once you have identified the keywords you want to rank for, do a Google search for these keywords and evaluate the top three results.

As a minimum you want to aim to match the quality of these results with your page. 

It’s important to remember that Google wants to give searchers the best answer to their query. 

Titles, URLs and headings

Once you have decided on your primary keywords and synonyms you should put some thought into the structure of your page. 

It is important to use your primary keywords in the title, URL and main heading, but once this is done you only need to use your primary keyword a couple of times in your sub-headings and main content to get the job done, and synonyms elsewhere. 

Main content

It is important to break up your content into logical sections using headings and sub-headings, and I recommend that all lists are bulleted.

This makes content easy for users to scan quickly to find what they are after. Make sure you use a few instances of your keywords in the main body and headings, but don’t overdo it.

Make sure you incorporate synonyms of your primary keywords as well to help you rank for related search queries.

It’s important to keep in mind that, on average, top three search results are over 2,000 words in length.  

Images

It is important to optimise your images for SEO – Google can’t see what an image is yet, and large images can slow down your website and affect your rankings.

• Use relevant, descriptive words in the image filename.
• Use alt text to describe the image.
• Optimise the image size and quality for web (i.e. make sure the file isn’t too big)

Technical SEO  

As the title suggests, this covers the technical aspects of a website’s performance, some of which are obvious to the user, some of which aren’t.

These factors include:

• Website load speed.
• Website page size.
• The number of page calls and redirects.
• The number of pages indexed in Google.
• Sitemap(s).
• robots.txt file.
• 404 pages.
• 301 pages.
• Navigation design.
• URL structure.

Technical SEO really needs to be undertaken by a specialist – it can get quite complicated.

The good news in that once a technical SEO audit has been carried out and recommendations have been implemented, technical aspects of SEO usually only need to be monitored.

There shouldn’t be any changes to your technical website performance unless significant technical changes are made to the website.  

Summary

To summarise, I believe that there is a huge opportunity for PR agencies to incorporate advanced SEO into their day to day client activities.

Google has introduced search algorithm changes recently which have created opportunities for PR agencies to embrace SEO and expand their client offering.

I believe that the PR agencies who do this will differentiate themselves from their competition by creating additional value for their clients.

This additional value will help secure their long term client relationships, and also make it easier to win new business.

For more information

Econsultancy has a range of Search Marketing Training Courses to suit all levels and requirements.

And to get it all from the horse’s mouth, Google’s Webmaster Guidelines is the first step to developing a good understanding of SEO.

You could also check out Google’s Search Quality Rating Guidelines. Just released, Google’s previously confidential internal guidelines are used by the company’s website raters to manually analyse and rate sites for quality.