Bob’s Weekly Reading Picks

2019.9.22 volume 37

Content

1.The 20 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO
2.Great Examples of Commerce Content
3.Everything You Need to Know About Billboard Advertising
4.E-A-T and the Quality Raters’ Guidelines – Whiteboard Friday
5.ITP 2.2: How is the Affiliate Industry Future-Proofing Tracking
6.WeWork sparks worries about Masayoshi Son’s Vision Funds
7.How Juul Hooked Kids and Ignited a Public Health Crisis

1.The 20 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO

2.Great Examples of Commerce Content

Timely Articles
Focused on a particular time-limited promotion or deal or event.
Prices
what the promotion is
when the sale happens
where the reader can buy
what the best product

e.g.
Wired, Watch Samsung unveil the new Galaxy Note 9 smartphone
Huffington Post, Blue Apron Has A Whole30 Meal Plan, But Only Through February
The Verge, The LG G7 ThingQ is now $599 at B&H Photo for Verge Readers

Evergreen Articles
A good way to get started with these is content around particular ecommerce events like Black Friday or Valentine’s Day. Or you could think about timeless items, like jeans, that people buy once and wear forever.

e.g.
Apartment Therapy, 15 Online Sources Perfect for The Art Lover on a Budget
TimeOut, London’s best shops for online flower delivery
Self.com, The Best Meal-Kit Delivery Services to Try in 2018
Esquire, “This Is How Your Jeans Should Fit Right Now”
Huffington Post, “11 Weighted Blankets That Won’t Weigh Down Your Wallet”

Technology & Gadget Articles
These are high consideration purchases because the products – smartphones, laptops, wearables, tablets, TVs and more – are all high price items.

Product comparisons, in-depth reviews of individual products, comparisons of product types, roundups of the top deals around major events like Black Friday.

e.g. Mashable, Which tablet to buy for your kid: These are 5 of the best out right now

Fashion Articles
Fashion is a great opportunity for evergreen content – everything from jeans, to shoes, to sweatshirts that never go out of style.

Fast fashion labels, trending items, brand new collections and fashion week content.

e.g.
Huffington Post, 7 Plus Size Clothing Subscription Boxes For Curvy Women
Cosmopolitan, 8 New Ways to Style Bandanas That’ll Impress All Your Friends
GQ, The Best Jeans for Men Under $100 Are Available At A Shopping Mall Near You
Vogue, Angelina Jolie’s New Go-To Travel Shoe Is Surprisingly Affordable

Dedicated Commerce Brands
Hearst’s BestProducts.com, We put the most iconic liquid foundations to the test
NY Mag’s The Strategist, Best Chef Knife And Cutlery Review

3.Everything You Need to Know About Billboard Advertising

Billboard Advertising
Billboard advertising is the process of using a large-scale print advertisement (a billboard, or a hoarding to those in the UK) to market a company, brand, product, service, or campaign.

Billboard advertising is effective for building brand awareness and broadcasting your business (or product or campaign).

Billboard Advertising Cost
Price factors
the location of your billboard
the total traffic in the area
how many people are estimated to see your advertisement.

Billboard advertising costs are typically charged monthly and range anywhere from $250 on a rural highway to upwards of $22,000 in Times Square.

OOH rating
Billboard advertising is categorized as out-of-home (OOH) advertising. Each OOH advertising opportunity (e.g. individual billboard) is given an OOH rating.

Geopath is a nonprofit organization that uses technology and media research to estimate the weekly impressions of every billboard in the country and give OOH ratings.

According to Geopath, there are up to 10 determining factors that make up an OOH rating and, therefore, the cost of each billboard advertising opportunity.

Billboard Design

Tell a (short) story
Make it bold and simple
Consider its location
Make it interactive
Make it memorable

Billboard Advertising Statistics

Americans spend an annual average of 17,600 minutes in their cars. That’s almost 300 hours each year. (Source)
There are currently 342,306 billboards in the United States. (Source)
Almost 8,000 of these are digital billboards. (Source)
6% of global ad spending is dedicated to OOH advertising. (Source)
71% of people consciously look at billboards when driving. (Source)
Over 50% of people say they’ve been highly engaged by a billboard they’ve seen in the last month. (Source)
OOH advertising is 382% more effective at driving online activity than TV ads. (Source)
OOH advertising, when paired with search engine optimization (SEO), boosts its effectiveness by 40%. (Source)

4.E-A-T and the Quality Raters’ Guidelines – Whiteboard Friday

EAT: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness

The Quality Raters’ Guidelines
So we believe that if something is in the Quality Raters’ Guidelines, either Google is already measuring this algorithmically, or they want to be measuring it, and so we should be paying close attention to everything that is in there.

Download: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

How Google fights disinformation

Information from the quality raters allows them to build algorithms

Ranking systems are designed to ID sites with high expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness

The three parts of E-A-T

a. Expertise

Add author bios
Hire experts to fact-check your content

b. Authoritativeness

Get recommendations from experts

c. Trustworthiness

Reputation via reviews, blog posts, & other online content
Credible, clear contact info on website
Indexable, easy-to-find info on refund policies
Scientific references & scientific consensus
Ad experience

5.ITP 2.2: How is the Affiliate Industry Future-Proofing Tracking

Regulation

ITP 2.2 – limits the tracking window for first-party cookies to 24 hours
UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) privacy–Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations (PECR)
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

What steps have affiliate networks taken?

As ITP 1.0 originally focused on third party cookies, initial solutions have typically been built around the use of first-party cookies. ( a site-wide tag deployed across an advertiser’s entire website)

For the future, networks including Impact, Rakuten Marketing and CJ Affiliate have all referenced “server-to-server” or “server-side” implementations.

6.WeWork sparks worries about Masayoshi Son’s Vision Funds

WeWork will again attempt to list later this year—presumably with a better story about governance and path to profit. Still, an initial public offering (IPO) may prove hard.

7.How Juul Hooked Kids and Ignited a Public Health Crisis

The sharp rise in vaping among teenagers and young adults.
In 2018, 30% of the nation’s 12th-graders reported vaping nicotine at least once in the past year, according to a January 2019 study sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study said the increase in vaping last year was “the largest ever recorded for any substance in the 44 years” that it has tracked adolescent drug use.

Juul
Juul is largely blamed for the vaping explosion and controls about 50% of the market, putting a sharp focus on the company.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The American Lung Association

And while there is a legitimate debate over whether e-cigarettes are safer for adult smokers than traditional cigarettes, and whether they can help addicts quit smoking, critics argue that Juul has assiduously followed Big Tobacco’s playbook: aggressively marketing to youth and making implied health claims a central pillar of its business plan.

Bobz Notes

Weekly Reading Picks| Volume 37