This week, as every week, our experts researched and analyzed trends, updates, new tools, and new features in the world of digital marketing. What are the key takeaways from last week’s news? Index deciphers them for you here.

SEO NEWS 

The Lazy Writer’s Guide to 30-Minute Keyword Research

first, roll up your sleeves. Ready? Let’s go! To facilitate and optimize your search, here are the steps to follow according to this blog from Moz:

1. Create your list of 5 to 10 blogs or relevant websites depending on your field of activity
2. Select relevant keywords using reputable bloggers and bloggers within your area of activity
3. Identify keywords using the ‘site:’ method and enter your subject to find pages related to that particular topic
4. Take advantage of Google Suggest and take note of the suggestions that appear when you type a keyword into the Google search bar
5. Use the Google Keyword Planner or Moz Keyword Explorer tool

https://moz.com/blog/30-minute-keyword-research  

Competition Analysis: Who Are my Biggest Competitors?

Knowing your competitors and what they offer can help you stand out from the rest. You will be able to implement strategies that use their weaknesses to your advantage and emphasize your skills. In this article, the author explains how to analyze your competitors and their products and services, and then shows what to do with the information you gather. Analyzing your competitors involves identifying your most important competitors in the market and then upcoming competition. Rest assured that you can master this strategy and bring an innovative vision to your market. Now, go for it!

http://resources.spyfu.com/competition-analysis-find-competitors/  

New from Google!

Have you ever heard of Google MyBusiness? It’s a Google tool that presents company listings in an eye catching way during a Google search (just look top right). You can include information on how to reach you, how to find you, and even your business opening hours. Not bad, right? Well, a few days ago, Google added a new feature: a Q&A on MyBusiness listings. This feature allows users to ask questions related to the company they are looking for and to get answers from other users. This will prove to be very practical on a daily basis. So what do we say? We say, Thanks Google!

Read all about it on this French language blog: http://etienne-lesaffre.fr/questions-reponses-fiches-mybusiness

Natural Language Understanding by Machines: Is it Possible?

It seems that the machines are now able to understand us and to analyze our language. This process is called “Natural Language Understanding.” It calls on APIs to function. API stands for “application programming interface,” which is a protocol allowing connections between several software components in order to exchange data. Several APIs grouped together allow for analyzing text to help you understand its concepts, its entities, its keywords, its sentiment, and more. Awesome, right? More information here:

https://natural-language-understanding-demo.mybluemix.net/

How to Find Out Where Direct Traffic to Your Site Comes From

In this article, you will learn what the direct traffic to your website represents. Here is a short list (yes, I said short so don’t worry!) detailing where direct traffic comes from. Traffic may come from several sources, such as:

• Clicking on a link in a secure HTTPS page that leads to a non-secure HTTP page
• Clicking on a link in various mobile apps
• Clicking on a link in an email program
• Clicking on a link shared in Instant Messenger, Hangout, Video Chat, and more
• Clicking on certain image searches or a mobile searches
• Deliberately concealed traffic
• Clicking on a link in a PDF or other document
• Clicking on a shortened, untagged URL
• Clicking on a link in any type of installed software

To avoid what’s called “Dark Traffic” (unattributed traffic), follow these three tips:

1. Use campaign tags
2. Create new filters
3. Create user cohorts

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/direct-traffic-is-dark-traffic-and-thats-ok/

Did You Say Position 0?

Position 0 is not a sporting stance for working your abs! Position zero means the first result Google shows for certain searches – to directly answer a user question with an content extract. This information comes from organic search results. Why, then, did Google implement position zero? In fact, Google developed this technique for the following reasons:

1. It is a fast, efficient, and ideal format for fully or partially answering a user question without navigating out of Google.
2. Currently, most searches are done using voice search. As a result, keyword searches have new competition: question-based voice searches! For, example, using voice search to ask a question is a widely used technique on mobile.

Read more in this French article: https://clustaar.com/blog/position-0-seo-de-demain/

How to Optimize for Google’s Organic Quality Score

Digital marketing friends, you surely already follow Whiteboard Friday from Moz. If you don’t, one try and you’ll be a fan forever! Every week, Moz co-founder Rand Fishkin tackles different SEO issues through simple, clear videos – always with a touch of humor. This week he’s offering up his organic quality score theory, which is more or less similar to the Quality Score from AdWords. For this, he presents 3 hypotheses about organic quality scoring:

1. It would be based on the type of data that includes queries, clicks, engagements, and visit data
2. This score would apply at three levels: domain, subdomain, and subfolder
3. A greater number of good scores than bad can mean many good things

Similarly, Rand presents 3 ways to boost your organic quality score:

1. Add more high-performing pages
2. Improve the QS of existing pages
3. Delete non-performing pages

For more information and insights on this new tool, watch Rand’s Whiteboard Friday here: https://moz.com/blog/organic-quality-score

WEB & TECH NEWS

Google Reveals Most Popular “How To” Searches

The title is provocative … You have always dreamed of entering the Google database and spying on the most popular searches by internet users. Google, a step ahead as always, brings them to you on a silver platter. Here’s a rundown direct from Search Engine Journal. The first 5 will make you smile:

1. How to tie a tie
2. How to kiss
3. How to get pregnant
4. How to lose weight
5. How to draw

If those five already have you smirking, then the rest will make you laugh out loud. Without further ado, go to the blog where your special surprise awaits: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-reveals-popular-searches/213648/

Tutorial: How Marketers Can Deal With Data Over A Million Rows

The digital marketing agency iPullRank presents on its blog a tutorial explaining how to use MySQL to analyze a long list of data. It’s quite common for our marketing experts to end up with an Excel page of 34,500 columns and 12,387 lines to analyze and make sense of. To avoid headaches, this post provides a series of clear and precise instructions to take you through the process, from setup to execution, with a complete set of formulas at your disposal. So jump right in and make everyone jealous of your analytical powers! http://ipullrank.com/how-marketers-can-deal-with-data-over-a-million-rows/  

http://ipullrank.com/

Stay connected for next week’s digital marketing hot topics!