by Fronetics | Jan 10, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Those writing for SEO need to be conscious of how users are being more conversational in their search queries and how search engines are analyzing phrases over keywords.
This is part two of a four-part series about writing for SEO for supply chain marketers.
Last week, we kicked off our Writing for SEO series by taking a look at how search engines are changing. As we delve further into updated strategies for effective SEO writing for supply chain marketers, today we’ll explore the ways in which people are changing their search behaviors, and what that means for your content.
Search queries are turning conversational
Before we start quoting studies and scholarly research, think for a minute about how you search the web, and how that’s changed over the past several years. Chances are, you do lots of searching on your phone, sometimes using voice search. (“Siri, what’s the fastest pizza delivery in my neighborhood?”) And you’re probably “talking” to the internet more like a friend than an encyclopedia.
The studies back us up. According to HubSpot’s blog, “Amplified by the rise of mobile and voice search, queries have become more and more conversational.” A few years ago people tended to enter a single term into a search engine. Now they’re increasingly asking questions and using full, complex sentences.
Search engines are responding. In order to understand this new type of query better, much of Google’s product development in the past 3-4 years has been about natural language processing. The 2013 introduction of Hummingbird, Google’s search algorithm, is a prime example.
Writing for SEO with topics over keywords
Search algorithms like Hummingbird have begun analyzing phrases rather than relying solely on keywords. This is big news for writing for SEO. As Google and other search engines move from keyword to topic-focused SEO, you need to be adjusting your content strategy to maximize your visibility.
We pointed out last week that keyword rankings aren’t as reliable as they used to be. In summary, search engines have evolved beyond the point that everyone gets the same results from a query (depending on location, search history, etc.). Therefore rank can change drastically depending on context. Now we’re looking at the same issue from the user end.
“The traditional view of ‘keywords’ in search has changed,” according to HubSpot. Traditional writing for SEO technique tells us that there were about 10-20 “big keywords” that were sought after for ranking within a topic. Now, there are hundreds or thousands of “long-tale variations” that people regularly search for within a topic — and change based on location.
To boil it all down, it’s no longer enough to dominate a few words. What’s important is broad visibility across a topic.
Make sure to read the other posts in our series, part 1: Writing for SEO: Search Engines are Changing, part 3: Writing for SEO: Topic Clusters and Pillar Content (NOT Keywords), and part 4: Writing for SEO: Measuring the Success of Your Content.
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by Fronetics | Jan 9, 2018 | Blog, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Facebook is making lots of changes that will affect businesses’ organic reach. Here’s what you need to know and how it may impact your company.
In our most recent social media news post, we mentioned that Facebook was experimenting with an Explore Feed feature. You may or may not have heard about how this might affect businesses’ ability to achieve organic reach on Facebook.
The social media network claims it is trying to create the best user experience possible. But it might come at a high cost to businesses trying to reach new audiences. Could this be the end of organic reach for businesses on Facebook? Let’s take a look.
What is Facebook’s Explore Feed?
Explore Feed is a new tab on your Facebook homepage that will include recommended content that it thinks you might find interesting. This will include posts, articles, photos and videos from users and other Pages you don’t currently follow.
This separate news feed will only appear when you click on the Explore tab, leaving users’ homepage news feed to content from friends and Pages you already follow.
“We’ve heard from people that they want an easy way to explore relevant content from Pages they haven’t connected with yet,” says Facebook in a statement. “Businesses should be optimistic about the potential for users interested in content like theirs to find their pages through the new Explore Feed.”
What does this mean for your business?
In October, Facebook launched Explore Feed as an experiment in six countries — Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia. The results showed a massive decline in businesses’ organic reach. Most countries reported a drop of two-thirds within the first 48 hours after Explore launched.
A user’s feed will now only show their friends’ posts and paid posts and advertisements. This is a huge disadvantage for small businesses with limited budgets that have traditionally relied on the organic reach of their Facebook posts to help attract new audiences.
As Mashable says: “That means Facebook’s main feed is no longer a free playing field for publishers. Instead, it’s a battlefield of ‘pay to play’, where publishers have to pony up the dough to get back into the News Feed.”
What now?
Facebook insists these changes are in direct response to requests from users for an easier way to discover new Pages they aren’t already following. But it means a lot of changes for businesses running a Facebook business page. Companies need to ensure their content is high quality, unique and highly relevant. And more and more companies will have to start dipping into their budgets to boost posts and buy ads.
Important to note
Facebook is also tightening the reigns on Pages and individuals that use engagement bait to attract new followers. What is engagement bait?
“Engagement bait is a tactic to create Facebook posts that goad people into interacting through likes, shares, comments, and other actions in order to artificially boost engagement and get greater reach on News Feed,” says Facebook’s Newsfeed Guidelines. The social network’s new algorithm will demote any posts by individuals or Pages that promote their content through engagement bait.
Fronetics’ takeaway
Despite all of these new changes and their accompanying challenges, we’re not ready to write off Facebook for businesses just yet. The key will be for companies to continue to provide the best content possible through the social media platform to organically engage followers.
What do you think of Facebook’s new Explore Feed?
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by Fronetics | Jan 8, 2018 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Talent
LinkedIn, with almost 500 million users, is the #1 networking site for professionals. Here are 7 supply chain and logistics professionals to follow for top posts and articles in your industry.
With 94% of B2B marketers using LinkedIn to distribute content, it’s now the premier social media site for businesses. More and more users — including supply chain and logistics professionals — are turning to LinkedIn to keep up with industry news and to understand larger trends affecting their businesses. In fact, LinkedIn gains two new users every second.
With LinkedIn Publishing, users are able to create long-form posts and articles to communicate their subject-matter expertise and interests. Following LinkedIn members gives you access to their profiles, as well as any original or third-party posts they publish on their newsfeeds. So your newsfeed becomes populated with the content the users you follow are publishing and sharing — meaning, if you follow the right people, you get invaluable insight into industry leaders’ thoughts and trends. So what are you waiting for? Here are some of our favorite supply chain and logistics professionals to follow on LinkedIn.
7 top supply chain and logistics professionals to follow on LinkedIn
Kelli Saunders, President of Morai Logistics Inc. at Mode Transportation Associates
Kelli Saunders was recently named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women – Top 100 for her superior work in the Women’s Executive Network. She was also named Women Exporter of the Year in 2016 and received Canada’s Doing Business Award in 2015. Saunders is a high-achieving entrepreneur with over 30 years of outstanding performance in the supply chain and logistics industries. She understands the complexities and nuances involved in long-term sustainability in the transportation industry.
Sean Griffey, CEO and Co-Founder at Industry Dive
Awarded the Digital Hall of Fame Media News Award in 2015, Sean Griffey is co-founder and CEO of Industry Dive, a digital media company that publishes business news and original analysis for 4.5 million executives in 12 vertical markets. Griffey also runs the Logistics and Supply Chain Professionals group on LinkedIn with almost 270,000 members.
Tim Debus, President & CEO of Reusable Packaging Association
Tim Debus has 20+ years of experience in bringing to market new technologies and leading industry initiatives to improve the production and supply of agricultural commodities, including the development of reusable plastic containers. His group, the Reusable Packaging Association (RPA), leverages its collective voice of industry-leading knowledge to advance the adoption of reusable packaging by clearly demonstrating supply chain efficiencies, environmental benefits, ergonomic improvements, and cost advantages to end users in all industries.
Patrick Bian, Director of Supply Chain Management at Watts Water Technologies
Patrick Bian is a supply chain executive with a consistent track record developing supply chain strategic roadmaps and leading multi-national teams to support the business vision for global companies. His work at Watts Water Technology provides outstanding solutions used to safely convey, conserve and manage water. Standing president of the French American Chamber of Commerce, New England for the past four years, Bian is also a lecturer at Northeastern University for the Masters Program in Business and Engineering.
Steve Norall, Co-Owner/Founder and Vice President of New Development at Cerasis, Inc.
Steve Norall has an impressive breadth and depth of expertise in the logistics and transportation management space, most recently as co-owner/founder of Cerasis, a top third-party logistics provider and truckload freight broker. A frequent poster, Norall covers all manner of supply chain management and logistics, but his current focus on LTL freight management.
Adrian Gonzalez, President at Adelante SCM & Founder/Host of Talking Logistics
Adrian Gonzalez is a well-respected, trusted, and influential supply chain and logistics analyst and strategic advisor to high-level executives in manufacturing, retail, third party logistics, and technology companies. He is the founder, host, and creative force behind Talking Logistics, a weekly online video talk show where he interviews thought leaders and newsmakers in the supply chain and logistics industry. And he is the founder and president of Adelante SCM, which is focused on enabling supply chain and logistics young professionals to share knowledge, advice, and best practices with each other in a private, trusted, and solicitation-free environment.
Michael Levans, Group Editorial Director at Peerless Media
Michael Levans is the group editorial director at Peerless Media, which oversees the publications of Logistics Management, Supply Chain Management Review, and Modern Materials Handling. He oversees the Alliance Awards, an annual program designed to recognize how shippers and their service providers work together to overcome challenges to critical components of their unique supply chains.
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by Fronetics | Jan 3, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
In part one of a four-part series on writing for SEO, we address how search engines and the search landscape have changed recently.
Content marketing has seen a lot of changes in the past few years. These changes are largely results of the rapidly evolving search landscape, as well as a seismic shift in the way people are actually discovering content. New, more sophisticated search algorithms, changes in the way people use search engines, and new ways that marketers develop their content are just a few of the contributing factors and outcomes.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing a series of posts examining how marketers should approach writing for SEO in this new landscape. Today, we’re exploring specifically how search engines have evolved — something they are always doing, as they improve to help searchers find the content that best answers their queries.
Are keyword rankings still important?
It’s important to recognize that as search engines change the way they process and evaluate content, older metrics of SEO success aren’t as reliable as they used to be. Take keyword rankings for example. While conventional wisdom tells us that it’s absolutely necessary for content marketers to check their Google keyword rankings for target keywords, debate has swirled recently about the actual reliability of this metric.
Why is this once-standard metric being called into question? The answer is largely about context: Search engines have evolved beyond the point where everyone gets the same results of a query, and therefore rank can change drastically depending on context.
Location-based searches are one of the most obvious and important contextual variables. Simply put, depending on where you’re searching from, you’ll see different search results. This makes it difficult and unreliable to evaluate success based on keyword rankings alone.
Featured snippets
In addition to keyword-ranking problems, search engines are starting to dictate how content should be structured — particularly with the increased appearance of featured snippets. These snippets typically display content from within one of the pages ranking on page one of a question-based query, directly answering the question searched for without the user ever having to visit the actual page.
Fronetics has the featured snippet for Supply Chain Management MBA Programs.
A recent study found that of 1.4 million queries, 30% showed a featured snippet — that’s big growth. This means that content that ranks within the featured snippet section often gets a much greater share of the traffic for the given query. For content creators, this points to a need to restructure content to try to appear within these featured snippets.
Changes to the way search engines work do present a challenge for content creators writing for SEO. But keeping pace with the ever-changing technology is key to keeping your content relevant.
Make sure to check out part 2 in our series, Writing for SEO: People Are Changing How They Search, part 3, Writing for SEO: Topic Clusters and Pillar Content (NOT Keywords), and part 4, Writing for SEO: Measuring the Success of Your Content.
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by Fronetics | Jan 2, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
It’s time to cast your vote for the top logistics and supply chain blogs of 2018!
We love hearing about your favorite logistics and supply chain blogs. We’re conducting our 4th annual survey to uncover the top industry blogs of 2018. Help us by voting for your favorite. Responses will be collected through Friday, January 26, 2018.
All responses are confidential and will be reported in aggregate. No identifiable information (individual or company) will be attached or included. Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
Interested in our past winners? Here they are!
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