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14 Universal Digital Marketing Skills You Can’t Ignore

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Social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, marketing automation… the list of digital marketing specializations goes on and on. Of course, they are all different. Yet when you do enough of them in your career, as I have for the past 14 years, you start to identify certain skills that are fundamental to all of those specializations.

The sooner you start to learn those “universal” skills, the better—because those skills act as investments. They will pay off nicely when you work your way toward becoming an expert in a given field or when you switch to another marketing specialization that’s currently trending.

So let me tell you a bit about these universal skills:

  1. Data literacy
  2. Understanding different marketing channels
  3. Copywriting
  4. Getting around essential digital marketing tools
  5. Basic design skills
  6. Assertiveness
  7. Social intelligence
  8. Critical thinking
  9. Curiosity (constant learning)
  10. Adaptability
  11. Strong work ethic
  12. Performing experiments
  13. Coping with pressure
  14. Understanding code

Digital marketers swim in a pool of data all of the time. Insights come from data, decisions are based on data, results are in the form of data, and your reports will be filled with data too.

I’m talking about metrics, graphs, trends, and statistics, not to mention the more advanced stuff like predictive analytics. It’s important to develop an appreciation of these things because marketers are required to do these four things really well:

  1. Report on the past – Example: calculate the conversion rate from trial signups to paid subscriptions
  2. Analyze the present – Example: calculate the lifetime value of customers
  3. Predict the future – Example: what type of message can increase your chances of converting the user 
  4. Compare with competitors – Example: what keywords your competitors target that you do not

And all of those four things are impossible to do without knowing where to look for data and how to work with it.

But let’s make it clear: You don’t need to be a data scientist in this role. You have to be data literate. You must learn how to collect, read, and communicate data.

A good example of the level of data literacy you’ll need is shown in this article on creating SEO reports. This is especially recommended if SEO is the specialization you wish to excel in.

Or take this article on 10 Google Sheets Formulas Every SEO Should Know. Stuff like this is your friend in the digital marketing world. It helps you work more efficiently. It makes your work possible in the first place.

How to get better at it

Certifications and courses. You should work on those even if your future employer doesn’t require you to do so. Despite what other people may say, these don’t help you get your next job. But the true reason for doing these courses is to boost your skills and confidence.

Just think about it. To hone the data skills, you need to practice. And to make your skills actionable (not like learning a new language on totally abstract sentences Duolingo-style), you need to practice on real problems. And then you need to be guided on what to learn. Because how can you know this, right?

Here are a couple of courses to get you started:

2. Understanding different marketing channels

Even if you don’t specialize in a particular marketing channel, you still need to understand how all of them work and what to use them for. That’s because:

  1. There is a high probability you will need to work on the intersection of various digital channels (e.g., in a startup or in a small team).
  2. Your target audience will most likely hang out on different websites and platforms.
  3. You can improve communication with other people on your team.
  4. You will make a better decision on what to specialize in. 

Let’s face it. Brands today need to embrace something called omnichannel marketing. It’s when a brand is present on, ideally, all marketing channels a prospect is likely to use. Plus, the company should ensure all of those channels work together to create a seamless experience for the prospects.

Cycle chart showing store, web, mobile, phone, and social media marketing channels are connected

What this means for digital marketers is that they need to become experts at some of those and understand all of them.

For example, when trying to reach potential customers through search engines, you’re going to think in terms of SEO: search volume, ranking difficulty, SEO content, link building, etc.

But since that same content can be repurposed on other channels, you may want to turn, say,  an article into a Twitter thread. Then you’re thinking in terms of short, zero-click content, post engagements, etc.

In a small team, you do that all alone or with somebody who helps you with some deliverables.

As a manager, you may not have direct contact with any of these channels. But it sure does help you understand what your team is doing.

How to get better at it

Try to develop a new kind of “inquisitive” perspective for what you see every day on the internet. So not only consume content from your favorite creators on the web. Try to analyze how they did what you like so much or what made thousands of people engage.

Some creators directly share the secrets of their workshops. At Ahrefs, we do this quite often. In fact, you can learn from our blog and YouTube channel everything that we do for digital marketing. For example, here’s our very own Sam Oh explaining how to overcome some struggles with video creation:

https://youtu.be/QCgDIhvFkCM?t=547

From that point, it’s all about applying what you have learned and analyzing the results.

Only video marketing and podcast marketing don’t utilize text as the main medium. However, even videos and podcasts start as text.

If you like writing, that’s great. This is because you will have a chance to get better at it, as there’s a lot of that in digital marketing. If you don’t like to write but are still serious about digital marketing, try some writing courses—maybe they’ll change your mind.

Sentence on Ahrefs' homepage summarizing what our toolset is all about Sentence on Ahrefs' homepage summarizing what our toolset is all about

Believe it or not, we have debated what our tagline should be like for quite some time. How to convey what an all-in-one tool does in one short sentence?

How to get better at it

First, we need to reiterate something: Everyone can learn to write well. Sure, some people may possess a “natural talent” for writing, but this job isn’t about creating the next blockbuster novel or film script. It’s about developing a workshop on writing clearly and convincingly.

On top of that, the web is quite specific when it comes to marketing communications because:

  • You can write with the help of writing assistants, so grammar is not so scary anymore.
  • Things don’t need to be perfect, as the web is used to imperfection. Plus, you will often have that “edit” button.
  • Utility trumps creativity. 

To get you started, here’s a great, free guide on writing by Julian Shapiro

4. Getting around essential digital marketing tools

Marketing technology, or martech, is what makes the job of digital marketing possible in the first place.

Moreover, better tools can make you a more effective marketer. Some tools just allow you to work faster, share your work easier, and get better results.

Try this: skim through some job boards in a specialization that’s interesting to you. You will start to see the expectations employers have of digital marketers are connected with certain tools.

Job post indicating candidates must have expert knowledge on Ahrefs Job post indicating candidates must have expert knowledge on Ahrefs

For example, last time I checked, Ahrefs is a required tool for some 900 jobs in the U.S. (jobs posted on LinkedIn).

How to get better at it

A lot of the essential marketing tools have free trials or even free versions. On top of that, they often have certification programs and other types of educational materials.

For example, if you want to start doing SEO with zero budget, you can get Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free and hone your skills using educational materials on our site (as I said, you can literally learn everything we do from there).

One path you can take is to start with this introduction to AWT and learn more about Ahrefs and SEO for free in the Ahrefs Academy.

In some instances, you won’t even need a website. For example, Google Analytics has a demo account with prefilled data. On top of that, it has a free certification program.

Generally, there are a ton of different marketing tools out there. But if there’s one tool you definitely need to be acquainted with, it’s Google Sheets (or Excel, if you prefer). But eventually, all roads lead to Sheets. Just browse through Sheets for Marketers to see what kinds of reports you can build with this free tool.

If some tools you want to train with are out of reach, it’s still a good idea to start with the free ones. First off, tools in their respective categories are fairly similar when it comes to structure and core functionality. Second, it’s still a valid way to develop skills relevant to your specialization.

If you think that design is about colors and pretty pictures, digital marketing will challenge that belief time and again.

Design is a language.

With design, you can show the user where to click. With design, you can convey what your brand is about.

In smaller teams, you will need to design stuff on your own. In bigger teams, you will need to communicate with your design team through wireframing and design terminology.

Also, having an eye for detail and a taste for this craft really helps. This is because, as a digital marketer, you’re going to decide on that stuff a lot.

How to get better at it

You should:

  • Understand the basic web design principles.
  • Learn how you can create better experiences for your users with UX design.
  • Follow web design trends.  
  • Start experimenting with design software. What do marketers design? Usually, those are graphics for content, ads, infographics, presentations, wireframes and, sometimes, entire landing pages. The general rule is that you will be able to design almost anything using professional tools for graphic designers (Photoshop, Illustrator, Gimp). But there’s a steep learning curve, and the process may take some time. I believe marketers generally prefer streamlined tools (Canva, Genially) and tools dedicated to creating digital products (UXPin, Figma, Webflow).

Assertiveness is the ability to express your opinions and stand up for your own beliefs without being hostile or aggressive.

It’s the art of saying “no” in the workplace. It’s the art of firmly admitting to a mistake in the workplace. And it’s the art of confidently expressing appreciation for others in an environment that is competitive by design.

How to get better at it

Practice saying “no” and saying what you really want to say.

Now I’m no psychologist, but I agree with this article from Healthline. It’s a good idea to start practicing assertiveness in some typical, everyday life situations. You can try to:

  • Speak up when you’d rather watch a movie at home instead of going out.
  • Let your partner know you won’t be able to do a specific errand; don’t be tempted to offer a full backstory.
  • Visit a new restaurant and ask for a table that’s in a quieter area or near a window.

Want to become a manager? Start with social intelligence skills. Want to work more efficiently with various contractors? Start with social intelligence skills.

Once you understand how little you differ from other people, you’ll start to speak their language and get work done together more efficiently—without hating your workplace.

How to get better at it

Work on these skills:

  • Active listening – This involves being open-minded and empathetic toward others and recognizing their intentions (not everyone is a skilled communicator).
  • Fostering positive feelings – A number of studies have shown that this is crucial to effective leadership.
  • Observe managers in your workplace and try to identify how their actions and words affected others (if possible) – Did they inspire people to do better work? Do people feel comfortable sharing opinions around them? Or maybe they do things that cause totally unexpected reactions? What would you do differently?

The world of digital marketing is flooded with advice. Some good, and some not so good.

The thing is that you won’t know the difference if you don’t apply critical thinking to what you read, hear, or watch. Including this article.

Sometimes, critical thinking can be the very thing that saves you and your brand from bad marketing ideas. Experimentation is one thing, but some ideas are bad right off the gate:

Person dressed in white grabs another person dressed in black by the chin. Next to them are the words "PlayStation. Portable White is coming" Person dressed in white grabs another person dressed in black by the chin. Next to them are the words "PlayStation. Portable White is coming"

How to get better at it

You can think of critical thinking as healthy skepticism. I’m not saying, “Don’t trust anyone.” I’m talking about not accepting things at face value, especially when they lead to important decisions.

This requires you to question ideas to uncover two things: a) the kind of argument or evidence that supports an idea and b) what a given idea leads to.

Based on that, you can develop your own objective, independent opinion.

9. Curiosity (constant learning)

There’s always something new to learn in digital marketing. New technologies, new tactics, new philosophies, Google’s algorithm updates, industry regulations, etc. You’d want to stay on top of that.

If you like to learn new things on a day-to-day basis, digital marketing is definitely for you.

How to get better at it

Well, I guess things related to digital marketing will either be interesting to you or not. I doubt there is some “hack” to make uninteresting things suddenly interesting without fooling yourself.

What you can consider is optimizing information gathering. Trying to read every interesting article or book on all things digital marketing will make you frustrated, as you likely won’t find enough time to consume all of that information.

Solution: try following content curations, e.g., newsletters curated by industry pros like SEOFOMO

The market and your goals—those things frequently change in marketing.

One day, you may be working on a blog post; on another, you may be doing some conversion optimization experiments.

On Friday, your company may be the leader in your niche; but after the weekend, some other company may start fighting for the same customers.

How to get better at it

I think it’s all about mindset. You need to acknowledge the fact things can change quite fast in this type of work. And this is not necessarily anyone’s “fault.”

Reacting to change is part of the game. If you’re a perfectionist, this may be tough to deal with. When you start in digital marketing, you may be extrapolating your experience from other areas of life. You may have taught yourself to “finish what you started” each and every time. But when conditions change rapidly, there is no virtue in perfection.

If you’re not reliable, honest, and respectful of others, no one will want to work with you. Seriously.

You may get away with some things every now and then, but this shouldn’t be your norm because this “tendency” will only hinder your capability to work in smarter organizations.

How to get better at it

I believe ethics is an area where a person should make conscious decisions. There’s not much advice I can/should give you here.

But if you ask me, one thing that really matters is understanding what consequences your actions will bring in the long term. Ethics is a marathon:

And don’t forget about critical thinking when seeking advice on the matter of work ethic.

Title with the words "How to Develop an INSANE Work Ethic" Title with the words "How to Develop an INSANE Work Ethic"

12. Performing experiments

This involves devising hypotheses and designing experiments to validate them. It’s important because, oftentimes, it’s the only way to get an objective answer.

Here’s another reason: the recent popularity of growth marketing. It’s a type of marketing that is characterized mainly by prioritizing data over opinions. And as you may have already guessed, the source of that data is often experimentation.

Experiments will come in all shapes and sizes. Here’s an example where we devised an experiment to find out if it’s possible to build links with Google Ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2bGhdnJN0&list=PLvJ_dXFSpd2u_ABxIRO6RVK3ucKyzn96Y

How to get better at it

Here’s a framework you can use to perform your marketing experiments:

Growth hacking cycle: analyze, ideate, prioritize, testGrowth hacking cycle: analyze, ideate, prioritize, test
  • Analyze – Uncover areas of growth opportunities, e.g., look at the events or pages that cause a user to churn or leave the product
  • Ideate – Generate ideas on how to improve the focus area and turn them into an idea pipeline
  • Prioritize – Prioritize ideas by using the ICE scoring model (impact, confidence, and ease of execution)
  • Test – Conduct the experiment and analyze the results

But before you do, you can dip your toes in growth marketing by seeing the video below—years of growth experiments at HubSpot distilled into a beginner-friendly presentation spanning just ~30 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luNpm9ueFDA&t=672s

Results. This is what digital marketers are hired for.

In marketing, there is always pressure to get results. Because to a lot of companies, there is no such thing as “enough traffic” or “enough sales.”

Having a bad year? Work harder. Having a great year? Great, let’s double that. That’s what you’re going to hear all of the time.

Speaking about time… marketers are always racing against time. Planning ahead and well really helps, but you won’t always be the one in charge of planning.

Every type of organization has its own race against time:

  • In agencies, clients demand results ASAP and like to add things at the eleventh hour.
  • In startups (especially VC-backed) and small businesses, the hunger for growth and revenue is legendary. There is a reason why most popular growth metrics have time embedded in them (“monthly growth rate,” “annual recurring revenue,” etc.).
  • Bigger companies and corporations want to be the best. This means achieving better results in a shorter time than the competition. Also, they like to “squeeze” results before the end of a billing cycle.

How to get better at it

Pressure in digital marketing is normal. Since this is an issue directly related to health and psychology, I will only go as far as telling you what worked for me:

  1. Assertiveness (point #6 of this article)
  2. Learning to recognize and enjoy other things in life
  3. Healthy diet
  4. Realizing that perfect is not always better (this helps me move faster)

Too much pressure in digital marketing is normal too. (Or should I say “common”?) But there’s a point where pressure stops being your problem and starts to be the problem of the person putting pressure on you.

Sometimes, the only way to cope with it is to find another job. I know. It’s easier said than done. Just remember that your environment has a tremendous impact on shaping your beliefs and attitude. You may thank yourself later for leaving a toxic environment.

Sooner or later, you will be exposed to some form of programming or markup language. How exposed? It really depends.

Your job may require something basic like inserting a tracking tag or editing some lines in your WordPress template. Other times, it may require you to do data analysis for customer databases with SQL or Python.

Learning this skill can save you a lot of time on redundant tasks, especially when you need to perform them at scale. Check out the video below to see an example of how understanding code can make you super efficient at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMk2iaJGpSA

That said, I feel that the no-code movement will make us marketers less reliant on coding and more reliant on martech. But there’s no point in waiting for that moment.

Last but not least, learning code really exercises your problem-solving muscles. 

Recommended reading: Excel to SQL: Why You Should Make the Switch 

How to get better at it

As with data literacy, it’s best to acquire knowledge by completing courses. Here are some good ones:

Final thoughts

As you may have noticed, I chose not to include creativity as one of the main skills. So what about all those famous marketing campaigns that permeated popular culture? What about Mad Men?

I think that creativity has its role in digital marketing, but it’s just not as much of a fundamental skill. And I’m talking about outstanding creativity here, not the “typical” connect-the-dots creativity that any human being is capable of.

The former can help your ads or any type of content to stand out in the crowd, but it does not guarantee efficiency. And it seems that this quality matters the most in digital marketing.

In my opinion, digital marketing is more of a craft than an art form. It’s about being able to discover what works and repeating it until it works. Though, you may often repeat someone else’s work (and that’s not very creative).

So I’d say that, however grim this may sound, don’t strive for creativity in digital marketing at all costs. Don’t make it your #1 priority, as it can hinder your ability to perform effectively.

Got questions or comments? Ping me on Twitter.

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GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After ‘Unexpected’ Delays

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GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After 'Unexpected' Delays

OpenAI shares its plans for the GPT Store, enhancements to GPT Builder tools, privacy improvements, and updates coming to ChatGPT.

  • OpenAI has scheduled the launch of the GPT Store for early next year, aligning with its ongoing commitment to developing advanced AI technologies.
  • The GPT Builder tools have received substantial updates, including a more intuitive configuration interface and improved file handling capabilities.
  • Anticipation builds for upcoming updates to ChatGPT, highlighting OpenAI’s responsiveness to community feedback and dedication to AI innovation.

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96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic From Google. Here’s How to Be in the Other 3.45% [New Research for 2023]

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96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic From Google. Here's How to Be in the Other 3.45% [New Research for 2023]

It’s no secret that the web is growing by millions, if not billions of pages per day.

Our Content Explorer tool discovers 10 million new pages every 24 hours while being very picky about the pages that qualify for inclusion. The “main” Ahrefs web crawler crawls that number of pages every two minutes. 

But how much of this content gets organic traffic from Google?

To find out, we took the entire database from our Content Explorer tool (around 14 billion pages) and studied how many pages get traffic from organic search and why.

How many web pages get organic search traffic?

96.55% of all pages in our index get zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% get between one and ten monthly visits.

Distribution of pages by traffic from Content Explorer

Before we move on to discussing why the vast majority of pages never get any search traffic from Google (and how to avoid being one of them), it’s important to address two discrepancies with the studied data:

  1. ~14 billion pages may seem like a huge number, but it’s not the most accurate representation of the entire web. Even compared to the size of Site Explorer’s index of 340.8 billion pages, our sample size for this study is quite small and somewhat biased towards the “quality side of the web.”
  2. Our search traffic numbers are estimates. Even though our database of ~651 million keywords in Site Explorer (where our estimates come from) is arguably the largest database of its kind, it doesn’t contain every possible thing people search for in Google. There’s a chance that some of these pages get search traffic from super long-tail keywords that are not popular enough to make it into our database.

That said, these two “inaccuracies” don’t change much in the grand scheme of things: the vast majority of published pages never rank in Google and never get any search traffic. 

But why is this, and how can you be a part of the minority that gets organic search traffic from Google?

Well, there are hundreds of SEO issues that may prevent your pages from ranking well in Google. But if we focus only on the most common scenarios, assuming the page is indexed, there are only three of them.

Reason 1: The topic has no search demand

If nobody is searching for your topic, you won’t get any search traffic—even if you rank #1.

For example, I recently Googled “pull sitemap into google sheets” and clicked the top-ranking page (which solved my problem in seconds, by the way). But if you plug that URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, you’ll see that it gets zero estimated organic search traffic:

The top-ranking page for this topic gets no traffic because there's no search demandThe top-ranking page for this topic gets no traffic because there's no search demand

This is because hardly anyone else is searching for this, as data from Keywords Explorer confirms:

Keyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer confirms that this topic has no search demandKeyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer confirms that this topic has no search demand

This is why it’s so important to do keyword research. You can’t just assume that people are searching for whatever you want to talk about. You need to check the data.

Our Traffic Potential (TP) metric in Keywords Explorer can help with this. It estimates how much organic search traffic the current top-ranking page for a keyword gets from all the queries it ranks for. This is a good indicator of the total search demand for a topic.

You’ll see this metric for every keyword in Keywords Explorer, and you can even filter for keywords that meet your minimum criteria (e.g., 500+ monthly traffic potential): 

Filtering for keywords with Traffic Potential (TP) in Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerFiltering for keywords with Traffic Potential (TP) in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

Reason 2: The page has no backlinks

Backlinks are one of Google’s top three ranking factors, so it probably comes as no surprise that there’s a clear correlation between the number of websites linking to a page and its traffic.

Pages with more referring domains get more trafficPages with more referring domains get more traffic
Pages with more referring domains get more traffic

Same goes for the correlation between a page’s traffic and keyword rankings:

Pages with more referring domains rank for more keywordsPages with more referring domains rank for more keywords
Pages with more referring domains rank for more keywords

Does any of this data prove that backlinks help you rank higher in Google?

No, because correlation does not imply causation. However, most SEO professionals will tell you that it’s almost impossible to rank on the first page for competitive keywords without backlinks—an observation that aligns with the data above.

The key word there is “competitive.” Plenty of pages get organic traffic while having no backlinks…

Pages with more referring domains get more trafficPages with more referring domains get more traffic
How much traffic pages with no backlinks get

… but from what I can tell, almost all of them are about low-competition topics.

For example, this lyrics page for a Neil Young song gets an estimated 162 monthly visits with no backlinks: 

Example of a page with traffic but no backlinks, via Ahrefs' Content ExplorerExample of a page with traffic but no backlinks, via Ahrefs' Content Explorer

But if we check the keywords it ranks for, they almost all have Keyword Difficulty (KD) scores in the single figures:

Some of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks forSome of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks for

It’s the same story for this page selling upholstered headboards:

Some of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks forSome of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks for

You might have noticed two other things about these pages:

  • Neither of them get that much traffic. This is pretty typical. Our index contains ~20 million pages with no referring domains, yet only 2,997 of them get more than 1K search visits per month. That’s roughly 1 in every 6,671 pages with no backlinks.
  • Both of the sites they’re on have high Domain Rating (DR) scores. This metric shows the relative strength of a website’s backlink profile. Stronger sites like these have more PageRank that they can pass to pages with internal links to help them rank. 

Bottom line? If you want your pages to get search traffic, you really only have two options:

  1. Target uncompetitive topics that you can rank for with few or no backlinks.
  2. Target competitive topics and build backlinks to rank.

If you want to find uncompetitive topics, try this:

  1. Enter a topic into Keywords Explorer
  2. Go to the Matching terms report
  3. Set the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to max. 20
  4. Set the Lowest DR filter to your site’s DR (this will show you keywords with at least one of the same or lower DR ranking in the top 5)
Filtering for low-competition keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerFiltering for low-competition keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

(Remember to keep an eye on the TP column to make sure they have traffic potential.)

To rank for more competitive topics, you’ll need to earn or build high-quality backlinks to your page. If you’re not sure how to do that, start with the guides below. Keep in mind that it’ll be practically impossible to get links unless your content adds something to the conversation. 

Reason 3. The page doesn’t match search intent

Google wants to give users the most relevant results for a query. That’s why the top organic results for “best yoga mat” are blog posts with recommendations, not product pages. 

It's obviously what searchers want when they search for "best yoga mats"It's obviously what searchers want when they search for "best yoga mats"

Basically, Google knows that searchers are in research mode, not buying mode.

It’s also why this page selling yoga mats doesn’t show up, despite it having backlinks from more than six times more websites than any of the top-ranking pages:

Page selling yoga mats that has lots of backlinksPage selling yoga mats that has lots of backlinks
Number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages for "best yoga mats"Number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages for "best yoga mats"

Luckily, the page ranks for thousands of other more relevant keywords and gets tens of thousands of monthly organic visits. So it’s not such a big deal that it doesn’t rank for “best yoga mats.”

Number of keyword rankings for the page selling yoga matsNumber of keyword rankings for the page selling yoga mats

However, if you have pages with lots of backlinks but no organic traffic—and they already target a keyword with traffic potential—another quick SEO win is to re-optimize them for search intent.

We did this in 2018 with our free backlink checker.

It was originally nothing but a boring landing page explaining the benefits of our product and offering a 7-day trial: 

Original landing page for our free backlink checkerOriginal landing page for our free backlink checker

After analyzing search intent, we soon realized the issue:

People weren’t looking for a landing page, but rather a free tool they could use right away. 

So, in September 2018, we created a free tool and published it under the same URL. It ranked #1 pretty much overnight, and has remained there ever since. 

Our rankings over time for the keyword "backlink checker." You can see when we changed the pageOur rankings over time for the keyword "backlink checker." You can see when we changed the page

Organic traffic went through the roof, too. From ~14K monthly organic visits pre-optimization to almost ~200K today. 

Estimated search traffic over time to our free backlink checkerEstimated search traffic over time to our free backlink checker

TLDR

96.55% of pages get no organic traffic. 

Keep your pages in the other 3.45% by building backlinks, choosing topics with organic traffic potential, and matching search intent.

Ping me on Twitter if you have any questions. 🙂



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Firefox URL Tracking Removal – Is This A Trend To Watch?

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Firefox URL Tracking Removal - Is This A Trend To Watch?

Firefox recently announced that they are offering users a choice on whether or not to include tracking information from copied URLs, which comes on the on the heels of iOS 17 blocking user tracking via URLs. The momentum of removing tracking information from URLs appears to be gaining speed. Where is this all going and should marketers be concerned?

Is it possible that blocking URL tracking parameters in the name of privacy will become a trend industrywide?

Firefox Announcement

Firefox recently announced that beginning in the Firefox Browser version 120.0, users will be able to select whether or not they want URLs that they copied to contain tracking parameters.

When users select a link to copy and click to raise the contextual menu for it, Firefox is now giving users a choice as to whether to copy the URL with or without the URL tracking parameters that might be attached to the URL.

Screenshot Of Firefox 120 Contextual Menu

Screenshot of Firefox functionality

According to the Firefox 120 announcement:

“Firefox supports a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information.”

Browser Trends For Privacy

All browsers, including Google’s Chrome and Chrome variants, are adding new features that make it harder for websites to track users online through referrer information embedded in a URL when a user clicks from one site and leaves through that click to visit another site.

This trend for privacy has been ongoing for many years but it became more noticeable in 2020 when Chrome made changes to how referrer information was sent when users click links to visit other sites. Firefox and Safari followed with similar referrer behavior.

Whether the current Firefox implementation would be disruptive or if the impact is overblown is kind of besides the point.

What is the point is whether or not what Firefox and Apple did to protect privacy is a trend and if that trend will extend to more blocking of URL parameters that are stronger than what Firefox recently implemented.

I asked Kenny Hyder, CEO of online marketing agency Pixel Main, what his thoughts are about the potential disruptive aspect of what Firefox is doing and whether it’s a trend.

Kenny answered:

“It’s not disruptive from Firefox alone, which only has a 3% market share. If other popular browsers follow suit it could begin to be disruptive to a limited degree, but easily solved from a marketers prospective.

If it became more intrusive and they blocked UTM tags, it would take awhile for them all to catch on if you were to circumvent UTM tags by simply tagging things in a series of sub-directories.. ie. site.com/landing/<tag1>/<tag2> etc.

Also, most savvy marketers are already integrating future proof workarounds for these exact scenarios.

A lot can be done with pixel based integrations rather than cookie based or UTM tracking. When set up properly they can actually provide better and more accurate tracking and attribution. Hence the name of my agency, Pixel Main.”

I think most marketers are aware that privacy is the trend. The good ones have already taken steps to keep it from becoming a problem while still respecting user privacy.”

Some URL Parameters Are Already Affected

For those who are on the periphery of what’s going on with browsers and privacy, it may come as a surprise that some tracking parameters are already affected by actions meant to protect user privacy.

Jonathan Cairo, Lead Solutions Engineer at Elevar shared that there is already a limited amount of tracking related information stripped from URLs.

But he also explained that there are limits to how much information can be stripped from URLs because the resulting negative effects would cause important web browsing functionality to fail.

Jonathan explained:

“So far, we’re seeing a selective trend where some URL parameters, like ‘fbclid’ in Safari’s private browsing, are disappearing, while others, such as TikTok’s ‘ttclid’, remain.

UTM parameters are expected to stay since they focus on user segmentation rather than individual tracking, provided they are used as intended.

The idea of completely removing all URL parameters seems improbable, as it would disrupt key functionalities on numerous websites, including banking services and search capabilities.

Such a drastic move could lead users to switch to alternative browsers.

On the other hand, if only some parameters are eliminated, there’s the possibility of marketers exploiting the remaining ones for tracking purposes.

This raises the question of whether companies like Apple will take it upon themselves to prevent such use.

Regardless, even in a scenario where all parameters are lost, there are still alternative ways to convey click IDs and UTM information to websites.”

Brad Redding of Elevar agreed about the disruptive effect from going too far with removing URL tracking information:

“There is still too much basic internet functionality that relies on query parameters, such as logging in, password resets, etc, which are effectively the same as URL parameters in a full URL path.

So we believe the privacy crackdown is going to continue on known trackers by blocking their tracking scripts, cookies generated from them, and their ability to monitor user’s activity through the browser.

As this grows, the reliance on brands to own their first party data collection and bring consent preferences down to a user-level (vs session based) will be critical so they can backfill gaps in conversion data to their advertising partners outside of the browser or device.”

The Future Of Tracking, Privacy And What Marketers Should Expect

Elevar raises good points about how far browsers can go in terms of how much blocking they can do. Their response that it’s down to brands to own their first party data collection and other strategies to accomplish analytics without compromising user privacy.

Given all the laws governing privacy and Internet tracking that have been enacted around the world it looks like privacy will continue to be a trend.

However, at this point it time, the advice is to keep monitoring how far browsers are going but there is no expectation that things will get out of hand.

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