Bob’s Weekly Reading Picks

2019.6.23 volume 24

Content

1.How to Write a Blog Post: The Definitive Guide (2019)
2.Voice Search Study: Factors Influencing Search Engine Rankings in 2019
3.Beyond BuzzFeed’s Juicy Headlines
4.Business services like Zoom and Slack make for better listing
5.ThinkTank 2019 Network Awards Winners
6.Good or Bad? A Deep Dive into Traditional Media Partnerships and the Voucher Coupon Space
7.The Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Pinterest

1.How to Write a Blog Post: The Definitive Guide (2019)

CHAPTER 1: Find a (Proven) Topic

• Udemy Courses
• Amazon Table of Contents
• Ahrefs “Top Pages”
• BuzzSumo’s “Evergreen Score”
• Conference Agendas （Pro Tip: Pop the conference agenda page into the Google Keyword Planner.）

CHAPTER 2: Blog Post Templates

• The Branded Strategy Case Study
• Tools of the Trade
• The Ultimate Guide
• The Complete List

CHAPTER 3: Create an Awesome Headline

BuzzSumo Research

CHAPTER 4: Craft a Compelling Intro

• 4-7 Sentences
• PPP Formula (Preview,Proof, Preview)
• Transition

CHAPTER 5: Write Your Post

• Short Paragraphs
• Section Subheaders
• Active Voice
• 15-17px Font
• Write Like You Talk
• Lots of Visuals

CHAPTER 6:Add a Conclusion

CHAPTER 7: Optimize for SEO

• Short URLs
• Meta Description
• Keyword In  Title Tag
• Keyword In Intro
• Internal Links

2. Voice Search Study: Factors Influencing Search Engine Rankings in 2019

The Importance of Voice Search

• 118 million smart speakers now operating in US homes
• two in five adults now use voice search at least once per day
• Google revealed that 20% of searches through the Android Google App are now voice searches
• voice search recognition is now at a point of 95% accuracy

The Key Findings

• Close to 80% of the answers returned were from the top three organic results (for Android Phones, 72%)

• 70% of all answers returned from voice searches occupied a SERP feature (with 60% of those returning a Featured Snippet result)
• When analyzing backlinks, Page Score and Trust Score were slightly higher for answers’ URLs regardless of the device.
• Backlink anchors and keywords within a title matching the voice search query are present in over half of answer URLs for Google Home and Home Mini.
• Text length of the answers returned was nearly the same for every device (around 41 words on average).
• Text complexity needs to be simple and understandable for the average reader (ranking around 8 on the Flesch Kincaid Grade.
• Pagespeed is very important for all devices — for a majority of questions, the answer chosen by Google loads faster than the average page speed for all other results in the same SERP.
• Well-linked pages (internally and externally) are favored within Google Home and Home Mini searches.
• Over a third of the answers do not use schema. Different schemas are used, with Article and Organization being the most popular, with low percentages. In non-answers, the use of schema is more prominent, but still no single type dominates.
• HTTPS and URL depth seem to be irrelevant for Google Assistant’s selection (because there was no tangible variance between answers and non-answers).

3. Beyond BuzzFeed’s Juicy Headlines

 

Takeways:

• Article titles that include numbers—commonly known as “listicles”—are the most common category by far, with almost half of all BuzzFeed article titles incorporating a number in some form.
• BuzzFeed’s highest priority has not historically been hard-hitting content; instead, they have found success with topics like food, animals, celebrity gossip, pop culture, and social media commentary.
• Less than 3% of the top articles we explored earned more than 50,000 shares.

4. Business services like Zoom and Slack make for better listings

5. ThinkTank 2019 Network Awards Winners

Advertiser of the Year
Winner: Jane
Honorable Mention: Deluxe, SimpleTire

Publisher of the Year
Winner: BuzzFeed
Honorable Mention: Ziff Davis, Giving Assistant

Agency Team of the Year
Winner: Acceleration Partners
Honorable Mention: DMi Partners, Snow Consulting, apogee

Blogger of the Year
Winner: Urban Tastebud
Honorable Mention: Money Saving Mom, passionate penny pincher

Most Original Performance Marketing Campaign
Winner: decluttr + RevLifter
Honorable Mention: Booking.com + Honey, SkinStore + 55haitao, HP Canada + NMPi

Campaign Strategy of the Year
Winner: allbirds + American Media, LLC
Honorable Mention: HP + Digital Trends, Etsy + BuzzFeed

Global Campaign of the Year
Winner: Viator, A TripAdvisor Company
Honorable Mention: Etsy, Under Armour, lookfantastic

Industry Disruptor
Winner: Global Savings Group
Honorable Mention: Button, Increasingly, Monotote

Attendee’s Choice
Advertiser Choice of Publisher: RevLifter
Honorable Mention: 55Haitao, BuzzFeed, Global Savings Group, ShopStyle

Publisher Choice of Advertiser: HP
Honorable Mention: Booking.com, lookfantastic, Myprotein, Under Armou

ThinkTank 2019 recap

6. Good or Bad? A Deep Dive into Traditional Media Partnerships and the Voucher Coupon Space

Background
Traditional media publishers have monetised online ad revenue to combat the decline in subscriptions and print ad revenue.

Traditional media publishers are partnering with affiliate coupon/voucher sites as a means to diversify their digital revenue streams. 

Example
Independent in the UK, have created a subsection of their site called indybest where they create and monetise curated “top lists” and recommendations with affiliate tracking links directly from networks like Awin or CJ, or subnetworks such as Digidip and Skimlinks.

Content+ Coupon
Commerce content, such as product reviews and recommendation pieces, predominantly targets shoppers that are in the awareness stage of their buyer’s journey, at the top of the sales funnel. (CR 1-2%)

One such effort has been to partner with service providers offering “content adjacent coupon solutions” (CR 10-15%)

https://discountcode.dailymail.co.uk
https://coupons.cnn.com
http://gutscheine.bild.de

7. The Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Pinterest

For US
Facebook and Twitter both see high engagement at 9:00 AM,  Instagram is 5:00 PM,
LinkedIn caters to B2B audiences, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM,
Pinterest sees high engagement as late as 4:00 AM.

Best Time to Post on Instagram
1:00 PM and 5:00 PM
Friday

(B2B 12:00 – 1:00 PM, 5:00 – 6:00 PM, and even as late as 8:00 – 9:00 PM)

Best Time to Post on Facebook
9:00 AM, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM (CTR ↑）, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Thursday to Sunday

Best Time to Post on Twitter
8:00 – 10:00 AM, 6:00 – 9:00 PM,   5–6 p.m  (CTR ↑）
B2C weekends;  B2B weekdays

Best Time to Post on LinkedIn
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
B2C 12:00 PM , media 8:00 AM, and higher-ed organizations 10:00 AM
Wednesday

Best Time to Post on Pinterest
8:00 – 11:00 PM and 2:00 – 4:00 AM