MARKETING
New Competitive Research Suite: Actionable Data to Drive Real Results
I once compared keyword research to an avalanche – it’s loud, exciting, and you’re likely to end up buried alive. Over the years, as I’ve tested new product ideas (even with enterprise SEOs), I’ve found that people don’t really want all the data. They want the right data.
I’m thrilled to announce Moz’s Competitive Research Suite, built from the ground up to drive targeted data and actionable insights about your competitors, your competitive keyword gap, and your content gap. Instead of telling you, though, let us show you.
Your keyword gap, reinvented
I recently bought some sunglasses from Goodr. Let’s pretend I’m analyzing their competitive SEO landscape, and I’ve picked three targeted competitors in the online sunglasses market that specialize in active customers and sports sunglasses. I’d first enter the sites in the mini-wizard:
You can choose your market and either Domain or Subdomain for the target site and each competitor. After some summary statistics about the sites, you’ll see the “Keywords to Improve” section, which looks something like this:
Scroll horizontally to see our all-new Traffic Lift metric, Keyword Volume, Keyword Difficulty, your current ranking, and the ranking of each of your chosen competitors.
More signal = actionable results
If you did a traditional keyword gap analysis, you might look at each competitor individually and manually dig through the intersections. Let’s say we put SportEyes.com into our own Keyword Explorer. The first few results look something like this:
This is perfectly useful data about one competitor’s rankings, except for one problem — Goodr doesn’t sell swim goggles or ski goggles. Even intersecting a couple of competitors could easily produce irrelevant results, competitors’ branded terms, or keywords where your site already outranks competitors and has very little to gain. Put simply, there’s a lot of noise.
Keywords to Improve is a new way of thinking about the competitive keyword gap. We focus on keywords where your site ranks in the top 20 (you can easily expand this in the filters), but is outranked by one or more competitors. We also attempt — by analyzing on-SERP signals — to filter out branded and brand-like terms.
We cut through the noise, boost your SEO signal, and surface actionable results.
Lift your traffic, lift your ROI
We SEOs love big keyword volume numbers, but here’s the hard truth — even if we could perfectly accurately estimate volume, it’s a bit of a fantasy. If you create a competitive keyword research spreadsheet with 10,000 keywords with an average volume of 1,000, are you going to guarantee your boss those 10 Million visitors? Of course not.
What if you have no capacity to rank for that keyword? What if sites like yours (including your competitors) have a realistic ranking cap? SEO isn’t a process of going from no ranking to #1 on every keyword imaginable, and even #1 doesn’t get all the clicks.
All of this is why we’re introducing Traffic Lift. The Traffic Lift column looks at what we think you could gain by moving from your current ranking to your competitors’ best current ranking. In part, it’s tough love. Living in a fantasy isn’t good for business. More importantly, it’s a way to prioritize. See the sample results below:
Unlike swimming goggles, a product Goodr doesn’t even sell, cycling and running sunglasses are product categories that are very relevant and where they’re outranked by similar competitors. There is ample room for improvement here and real ROI. Traffic Lift finds the wins.
Your competitors’ top content
A little more tough love — keywords aren’t action. Keywords are potential. A mountain of keywords is more likely to bury you than benefit you. We can help you find the best keywords, but ultimately, we want to understand how those keywords are shaped into content.
Our first-generation (and there’s much more to come) Top Competing Content report shows you how your keyword gap is being served by your competitors. Let’s look at the Goodr data:
The “Top Ranking Keywords” are just a sampling, but here we can see, for example, how one competitor’s page is capturing multiple keywords related to “cycling sunglasses”. Now, you can start to see how those keywords function as a concept and you’ve got specific competitor pages to target.
This is the next step of competitive keyword research — going beyond a pile of individual, unrelated, and even irrelevant keywords to a plan of action that includes targeted, high-lift keywords, targeted content, and a top-level view of the competitive landscape.
If you want broader data or a different viewpoint, there’s a full range of filters and sorts to let you adjust our default settings. Of course, you can also export both Keywords to Improve and Top Content Competitors to carve through the pile as you please.
True competitors, truer results
In September of 2021, we launched True Competitor, and I promised that it was a first step in Moz’s new approach to competitive analysis. True Competitor is now more than a stand-alone tool — it’s a starting point to understanding your keyword and content gaps:
From True Competitor, you can now easily select up to three competitors and run your Keyword Gap analysis. As you can see, this is how I kicked off my Goodr example, even though I had almost no knowledge of their competitive landscape. Imagine what you could do with your actual knowledge of your site, your customers, and even your prospects.
Even for Goodr, this journey I took is just one possible journey. I chose to focus on sports sunglasses, but there are dozens of niches that they could explore, even as a relatively small site. Competitive analysis isn’t one and done — it’s a process of surfacing opportunities, acting on those opportunities, and re-evaluating as your competitors evolve.
The Competitive Analysis Suite is now available to all Moz Pro customers, and we’d love to hear your feedback via the ‘Make a Suggestion’ button in the app.
Sign up for a free trial to access the Competitive Research Suite!
MARKETING
18 Events and Conferences for Black Entrepreneurs in 2024
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.
It can feel isolating if you’re the only one in the room who looks like you.
MARKETING
IAB Podcast Upfront highlights rebounding audiences and increased innovation
Podcasts are bouncing back from last year’s slowdown with digital audio publishers, tech partners and brands innovating to build deep relationships with listeners.
At the IAB Podcast Upfront in New York this week, hit shows and successful brand placements were lauded. In addition to the excitement generated by stars like Jon Stewart and Charlamagne tha God, the numbers gauging the industry also showed promise.
U.S. podcast revenue is expected to grow 12% to reach $2 billion — up from 5% growth last year — according to a new IAB/PwC study. Podcasts are projected to reach $2.6 billion by 2026.
The growth is fueled by engaging content and the ability to measure its impact. Adtech is stepping in to measure, prove return on spend and manage brand safety in gripping, sometimes contentious, environments.
“As audio continues to evolve and gain traction, you can expect to hear new innovations around data, measurement, attribution and, crucially, about the ability to assess podcasting’s contribution to KPIs in comparison to other channels in the media mix,” said IAB CEO David Cohen, in his opening remarks.
Comedy and sports leading the way
Podcasting’s slowed growth in 2023 was indicative of lower ad budgets overall as advertisers braced for economic headwinds, according to Matt Shapo, director, Media Center for IAB, in his keynote. The drought is largely over. Data from media analytics firm Guideline found podcast gross media spend up 21.7% in Q1 2024 over Q1 2023. Monthly U.S. podcast listeners now number 135 million, averaging 8.3 podcast episodes per week, according to Edison Research.
Comedy overtook sports and news to become the top podcast category, according to the new IAB report, “U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study: 2023 Revenue & 2024-2026 Growth Projects.” Comedy podcasts gained nearly 300 new advertisers in Q4 2023.
Sports defended second place among popular genres in the report. Announcements from the stage largely followed these preferences.
Jon Stewart, who recently returned to “The Daily Show” to host Mondays, announced a new podcast, “The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart,” via video message at the Upfront. The podcast will start next month and is part of Paramount Audio’s roster, which has a strong sports lineup thanks to its association with CBS Sports.
Reaching underserved groups and tastes
IHeartMedia toasted its partnership with radio and TV host Charlamagne tha God. Charlamagne’s The Black Effect is the largest podcast network in the U.S. for and by black creators. Comedian Jess Hilarious spoke about becoming the newest co-host of the long-running “The Breakfast Club” earlier this year, and doing it while pregnant.
The company also announced a new partnership with Hello Sunshine, a media company founded by Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon. One resulting podcast, “The Bright Side,” is hosted by journalists Danielle Robay and Simone Boyce. The inspiration for the show was to tell positive stories as a counterweight to negativity in the culture.
With such a large population listening to podcasts, advertisers can now benefit from reaching specific groups catered to by fine-tuned creators and topics. As the top U.S. audio network, iHeartMedia touted its reach of 276 million broadcast listeners.
Connecting advertisers with the right audience
Through its acquisition of technology, including audio adtech company Triton Digital in 2021, as well as data partnerships, iHeartMedia claims a targetable audience of 34 million podcast listeners through its podcast network, and a broader audio audience of 226 million for advertisers, using first- and third-party data.
“A more diverse audience is tuning in, creating more opportunities for more genres to reach consumers — from true crime to business to history to science and culture, there is content for everyone,” Cohen said.
The IAB study found that the top individual advertiser categories in 2023 were Arts, Entertainment and Media (14%), Financial Services (13%), CPG (12%) and Retail (11%). The largest segment of advertisers was Other (27%), which means many podcast advertisers have distinct products and services and are looking to connect with similarly personalized content.
Acast, the top global podcast network, founded in Stockholm a decade ago, boasts 125,000 shows and 400 million monthly listeners. The company acquired podcast database Podchaser in 2022 to gain insights on 4.5 million podcasts (at the time) with over 1.7 billion data points.
Measurement and brand safety
Technology is catching up to the sheer volume of content in the digital audio space. Measurement company Adelaide developed its standard unit of attention, the AU, to predict how effective ad placements will be in an “apples to apples” way across channels. This method is used by The Coca-Cola Company, NBA and AB InBev, among other big advertisers.
In a study with National Public Media, which includes NPR radio and popular podcasts like the “Tiny Desk” concert series, Adelaide found that NPR, on average, scored 10% higher than Adelaide’s Podcast AU Benchmarks, correlating to full-funnel outcomes. NPR listeners weren’t just clicking through to advertisers’ sites, they were considering making a purchase.
Advertisers can also get deep insights on ad effectiveness through Wondery’s premium podcasts — the company was acquired by Amazon in 2020. Ads on its podcasts can now be managed through the Amazon DSP, and measurement of purchases resulting from ads will soon be available.
The podcast landscape is growing rapidly, and advertisers are understandably concerned about involving their brands with potentially controversial content. AI company Seekr develops large language models (LLMs) to analyze online content, including the context around what’s being said on a podcast. It offers a civility rating that determines if a podcast mentioning “shootings,” for instance, is speaking responsibly and civilly about the topic. In doing so, Seekr adds a layer of confidence for advertisers who would otherwise pass over an opportunity to reach an engaged audience on a topic that means a lot to them. Seekr recently partnered with ad agency Oxford Road to bring more confidence to clients.
“When we move beyond the top 100 podcasts, it becomes infinitely more challenging for these long tails of podcasts to be discovered and monetized,” said Pat LaCroix, EVP, strategic partnerships at Seekr. “Media has a trust problem. We’re living in a time of content fragmentation, political polarization and misinformation. This is all leading to a complex and challenging environment for brands to navigate, especially in a channel where brand safety tools have been in the infancy stage.”
Dig deeper: 10 top marketing podcasts for 2024
MARKETING
Foundations of Agency Success: Simplifying Operations for Growth
Why do we read books like Traction, Scaling Up, and the E-Myth and still struggle with implementing systems, defining processes, and training people in our agency?
Those are incredibly comprehensive methodologies. And yet digital agencies still suffer from feast or famine months, inconsistent results and timelines on projects, quality control, revisions, and much more. It’s not because they aren’t excellent at what they do. I
t’s not because there isn’t value in their service. It’s often because they haven’t defined the three most important elements of delivery: the how, the when, and the why.
Complicating our operations early on can lead to a ton of failure in implementing them. Business owners overcomplicate their own processes, hesitate to write things down, and then there’s a ton of operational drag in the company.
Couple that with split attention and paper-thin resources and you have yourself an agency that spends most of its time putting out fires, reacting to problems with clients, and generally building a culture of “the Founder/Creative Director/Leader will fix it” mentality.
Before we chat through how truly simple this can all be, let’s first go back to the beginning.
When we start our companies, we’re told to hustle. And hustle hard. We’re coached that it takes a ton of effort to create momentum, close deals, hire people, and manage projects. And that is all true. There is a ton of work that goes into getting a business up and running.
The challenge is that we all adopt this habit of burning the candle at both ends and the middle all for the sake of growing the business. And we bring that habit into the next stage of growth when our business needs… you guessed it… exactly the opposite.
In Mike Michalowitz’s book, Profit First he opens by insisting the reader understand and accept a fundamental truth: our business is a cash-eating monster. The truth is, our business is also a time-eating monster. And it’s only when we realize that as long as we keep feeding it our time and our resources, it’ll gobble everything up leaving you with nothing in your pocket and a ton of confusion around why you can’t grow.
Truth is, financial problems are easy compared to operational problems. Money is everywhere. You can go get a loan or go create more revenue by providing value easily. What’s harder is taking that money and creating systems that produce profitably. Next level is taking that money, creating profit and time freedom.
In my bestselling book, The Sabbatical Method, I teach owners how to fundamentally peel back the time they spend in their company, doing everything, and how it can save owners a lot of money, time, and headaches by professionalizing their operations.
The tough part about being a digital agency owner is that you likely started your business because you were great at something. Building websites, creating Search Engine Optimization strategies, or running paid media campaigns. And then you ended up running a company. Those are two very different things.
How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Create Some Simple Structure for Your Agency…
- Start Working Less
I know this sounds really brash and counterintuitive, but I’ve seen it work wonders for clients and colleagues alike. I often say you can’t see the label from inside the bottle and I’ve found no truer statement when it comes to things like planning, vision, direction, and operations creation.
Owners who stay in the weeds of their business while trying to build the structure are like hunters in the jungle hacking through the brush with a machete, getting nowhere with really sore arms. Instead, define your work day, create those boundaries of involvement, stop working weekends, nights and jumping over people’s heads to solve problems.
It’ll help you get another vantage point on your company and your team can build some autonomy in the meantime.
- Master the Art of Knowledge Transfer
There are two ways to impart knowledge on others: apprenticeship and writing something down. Apprenticeship began as a lifelong relationship and often knowledge was only retained by ONE person who would carry on your method.
Writing things down used to be limited (before the printing press) to whoever held the pages.
We’re fortunate that today, we have many ways of imparting knowledge to our team. And creating this habit early on can save a business from being dependent on any one person who has a bunch of “how” and “when” up in their noggin.
While you’re taking some time to get out of the day-to-day, start writing things down and recording your screen (use a tool like loom.com) while you’re answering questions.
Deposit those teachings into a company knowledge base, a central location for company resources. Some of the most scaleable and sellable companies I’ve ever worked with had this habit down pat.
- Define Your Processes
Lean in. No fancy tool or software is going to save your company. Every team I’ve ever worked with who came to me with a half-built project management tool suffered immensely from not first defining their process. This isn’t easy to do, but it can be simple.
The thing that hangs up most teams to dry is simply making decisions. If you can decide how you do something, when you do it and why it’s happening that way, you’ve already won. I know exactly what you’re thinking: our process changes all the time, per client, per engagement, etc. That’s fine.
Small businesses should be finding better, more efficient ways to do things all the time. Developing your processes and creating a maintenance effort to keep them accurate and updated is going to be a liferaft in choppy seas. You’ll be able to cling to it when the agency gets busy.
“I’m so busy, how can I possibly work less and make time for this?”
You can’t afford not to do this work. Burning the candle at both ends and the middle will catch up eventually and in some form or another. Whether it’s burnout, clients churning out of the company, a team member leaving, some huge, unexpected tax bill.
I’ve heard all the stories and they all suck. It’s easier than ever to start a business and it’s harder than ever to keep one. This work might not be sexy, but it gives us the freedom we craved when we began our companies.
Start small and simple and watch your company become more predictable and your team more efficient.
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