Twitter Reveals How it Ranks Tweets in Search Results by @MattGSouthern

Twitter has addressed recent accusations regarding shadow banning accounts by explaining how it ranks tweets in search results.

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Google Adds a Breathing Exercise to Search Results by @MattGSouthern

A new easter egg has been found in Google search results, which guides users through a 1-minute breathing exercise.

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Google to Add Q&A, FAQ, and How-To Features in Search Results by @MattGSouthern

Google recently previewed three new features coming to search results dedicated to Q&A, FAQ, and how-to content.

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Google Rolls Out New Markup for Displaying Data Tables in Search Results by @MattGSouthern

Google has introduced a new type of schema markup for displaying data tables directly in search results. This markup is intended to be utilized in news articles by data journalists. Although it can be used on any dataset, regardless of the publisher. Some examples of what qualifies as a dataset, according to Google, are: A table or a CSV file with some data An organized collection of tables A file in a proprietary format that contains data A collection of files that together constitute some meaningful dataset A structured object with data in some other format that you might want […]

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Bing Webmaster Tools Now Supports JSON-LD by @MattGSouthern

Users can now validate their JSON-LD implementation by logging into Bing Webmaster Tools and using the Markup Validator.

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Bing Ads Rolls Out Advanced Bidding Strategies: Target CPA & Maximize Conversions by @MattGSouthern

Bing Ads has two new advanced bidding strategies, one of which is the most user-requested feature so far this year.

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50+ Social Sharing Sites That Boost SEO & Drive Traffic by @jonleeclark

Here are 55 social bookmarking sites that you can leverage in your SEO strategy.

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How to Use Header Tags: SEO Best Practices by @amelioratethis

Start using and optimizing header tags properly. Here are seven SEO best practices to follow.

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A Manual Bidding Process for an Automated World by @PPCKirk

Here's what you need to know about PPC bidding practices in an automated world.

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Google on Ranking Power of Keyword Domains by @martinibuster

John Mueller talks about the ranking power of keyword domains.

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YouTube on Desktop Now Plays Vertical Videos Without Black Bars by @MattGSouthern

YouTube now plays vertical videos in their native aspect ratio on desktops, which means no black bars on the sides.

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Yext Begins Submitting Local Business Listings to Amazon Alexa by @MattGSouthern

Yext has integrated with Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa, giving it the ability to deliver local business listings to users.

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Google’s ‘Speed Update’ Has Minimal Impact on Search Results by @MattGSouthern

Google’s latest mobile search algorithm update, called the “Speed Update,” has reportedly had little-to-no impact on search results.

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How to Improve Your SEO with a Topic-Driven Content Marketing Approach by @krisjonescom

This guide will help you boost your SEO performance through a topic-driven content strategy.

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Top 11 WordPress Plugins for Agencies by @SEOBrock

Here are some of the top WordPress plugins you can use on your (or your clients') websites.

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Best Practices for Choosing Effective and Captivating Social Media Visuals

For both B2B and B2C brands, social media marketing has become an age-old tactic by now. And it’s no surprise. Despite working 8 hours a day and sleeping (hopefully) 8 hours, the average person still spends nearly two hours each day on social media, according to a study by Mediakix. But the social media landscape is changing—alot. Organic reach on Facebook is declining with changes to the Newsfeed, some of which are still rolling out. Twitter is struggling to retain their active users. Instagram is experimenting with long-form video content. LinkedIn is also investing in more video. Given these changes and regular updates, the best practices for each platform are constantly evolving. But what's one thing that isn't poised to change anytime soon? The importance of using eye-catching, compelling visual content to draw people in. Whether it’s YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, or another social media platform, we know audiences consume content on those channels for a significant amount of time—they crave it. And if you want to make a positive impression, you have to go beyond ensuring proper image dimensions. You need make sure you're sharing the right visual content on the right platform. To help you paint your content in the best light on social media and help create a positive experience for your audience, we asked our own Social Strategist, Meg McDougall, to share some best practices for selecting the right social images and video for some of the major platforms. Here’s what she had to say.

LinkedIn Social Image and Video Best Practices

Think About Your Audience

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 562 million members and growing. But even though LinkedIn has a large audience of professionals, that doesn’t mean they exclusively want to engage in buttoned-up, stiff content. To make sure your pages, profiles, and articles are interesting and engaging for your audience, you need to know your audience really well. Do they like it when you show a little personality? Do they like more formal language or slang? Take a look at your LinkedIn Company Page analytics to see what types of content and messages your audience is engaging with to come up with a direction for your page.

Take Advantage of Video

Announced in 2017, LinkedIn added the ability for members and brands to create and share video content. This gives content creators, publishers, and brands more opportunities to engage and connect with their audiences. Plus, LinkedIn video has autoplay enabled, making it easy for your audience to watch your content. Speaking of video, all of your motion graphics should be published as a video .mp4 file, not a .GIF. Many browsers and social media platforms are disabling autoplay for GIFs and are instead converting them into click-to-play videos. Instead of relying on the social platform to convert the GIF for you, take control of how your motion graphic will appear by creating the graphic as a video file from the start.   Who’s doing it right? GE. Just take a look at one of their most recent posts (below). Their video on GE turbines has received 1,841 likes and 29 comments in less than 24 hours. As of July 10, just four days after posting, that count was up to 3,656 likes and 58 comments. The video also takes advantage of captioning to ensure that even with the audio off, audiences can still engage with and learn from their video.

LinkedIn Image Specifications

• Company Page Direct Uploads: 1200 x 627
• Image Previews From Link Posts: 436 x 228
• Personal Page Direct Uploads: 552 x 368
• Personal Page Cover Photo: 646 x 220
• Personal Page Image Previews From Link Posts: 520 x 272
• Article Featured Image: 520 x 272
• Article Cover Photo: 744 x 400
• Video: 16:9 or 1:1

Twitter Social Image and Video Best Practices

Keep Site Traffic in Mind

Eighty percent of Twitter’s traffic comes from mobile devices. However, check your audience data in Google Analytics to see if mobile or desktop is your top traffic source for Twitter. Whichever device comes out on top, you should tailor your social imagery accordingly.

Consider the Number of Images

Depending on how many images you upload and attach to a post and which device its viewed on, Twitter will display them in different sizes and orientations. As a result, it’s important to remember how many images you want to share and how they will be seen on mobile versus desktop as they look very different. Here’s how multiple images look on mobile from Buffer’s guide to social media image sizes: Image credit: Buffer And here’s how multiple images look on desktop: Image credit: Buffer

Stand Out With Something Creative

A single day’s worth of Tweets could fill a 10 million page book—there are a lot of tweets out there that are saturating feeds. Make sure your content stands out with a creative image, graphic, video, or motion graphic. For example, try making a custom image to add additional context to the image and capture more attention. Tools like Canva or Venngage make those custom images easy—just remember to make them the correct size or your design may get cropped off. Who’s doing it right? Wendy’s. Already killing the game with their witty brand voice on Twitter, they also make sure they stand out in news feeds with custom images, memes, video, and other media. For example, in the tweet below, Wendy’s makes a timely reference to Avengers: Infinity War while also taking a fun shot at their competition (McDonald’s). The end result is a tweet with viral potential and over 230,000 likes.

Twitter Image Specifications

Mobile Images: 1200 x 675 (16:9) Mobile Multiple Image Upload

• One Image, 2:1
• Two Images, 7:8
• Three Images, 7:8 & 4:7
• Four Images, 2:1

Desktop Images: 506 x 506 (1:1) Desktop Multiple Image Upload

• Two Images, 252 x 252 (1:1)
• Three Images, 337 x 337 (1:1)
• Four Images, 379 x 379 (1:1)

Video: 16:9 or 1:1

Facebook Social Image and Video Best Practices

Keep Videos Short and Sweet

More and more brands are creating more Facebook video as an average of 100 million hours of video are watched each day on the platform. Browsing through your own Facebook accounts, you’ll likely notice videos have taken over. Your eyes might be drawn to a video recipe from Tasty or a video from TechCrunch on the latest technology news. To create Facebook videos that drive the best results, create videos that are between 60 and 90 seconds long. In a study that analyzed 100 million Facebook videos, Buzzsumo found that videos between 60 and 90 seconds had the most engagement on Facebook. Image credit: Buzzsumo When it comes to Facebook video, it’s also worth noting that 85% of Facebook users watch videos without sound. Any narration or audio you include in the clip might not make it to a majority of your audience. To ensure that your message is communicated to your viewers who prefer silence, add captions or copy onto your Facebook videos. This way both types of viewers get the full impact of your content.

Support Multiple Traffic Objectives With Carousels

Oftentimes, social messages contain one link or call to action (CTA). However, Facebook is changing that with their new carousel page posts that can showcase multiple images, links, and headlines. As a collection of links and images, your Facebook followers can browse through your post to click on the link that’s most relevant to them. This makes carousels a great tool if you have a campaign with multiple landing pages or traffic objectives. Who’s doing it right? Skype. While carousels make a natural fit for promoting several or even one product, Skype went in a different direction. Instead of promoting one of their software products, Skype is using carousels to share and generate awareness for their work with The Young Actors Project.

Facebook Image Specifications

• Image Uploads: 476-wide
• Vertical Uploads: 476 x 714
• Video: 1:1 or 2:3
• Image Previews From Link Post: 476 x 249
• Carousel Images: 300 x 300
• Cover Photo: 820 x 312
• Link-less Image Ratio (Paid): 16:9 or 9:16
• Linked Image Ratio (Paid): 1200 x 628

Instagram Social Image and Video Best Practices

Don’t Be a Square

Instagram used to only allow images with a square, 1:1 aspect ratio. However, they now allow for both horizontal and vertical image content. This can be done in regular image uploads, but also in Instagram Stories. So, don’t feel like you have to keep your images in those tight, perfect boxes. Use whatever orientation and ratio works best for the image you want to share. Here's a great example courtesy of Buffer: Image credit: Buffer

Drive Conversions With Stories

Instagram has been known to marketers for making it a little harder to share links. On Instagram, URLs and links don’t work in the description of traditional image uploads. As a result, many brands use their profile bio to add in a URL and update it for each campaign. This is a good workaround, however, it requires a lot of additional clicks and steps from both audiences and social media marketers. Instagram Stories, however, offer a better solution. Through stories, accounts with over 10,000 followers can attach a link to your post that audiences can visit by swiping up. This makes it easy to drive traffic to your target pages and drive more conversions. Plus, your audience doesn’t have to leave the Instagram platform to view the link—they can stay directly within the Instagram interface. Don’t have 10,000 followers on Instagram? Getting your account verified will also do the trick. Who’s doing it right? Apple. Using Instagram Stories to tease their brand videos are captivating and engaging pieces of content. Taking advantage of both image and video, Apple knows how to pull people in and get them invested in a good story. To drive traffic to their objective pages, they’re also utilizing Instagram’s swipe up feature.

Instagram Image Specifications

• Square Image Upload: 1080 x 1080
• Vertical Image Upload: 1080 x 1350
• Horizontal Image Upload: 1080 x 566
• Video: 1:1 or 2:3
• Instagram Story: 1080 x 192

Size Up Your Social Campaigns

Social media is an important piece of any content distribution or promotion strategy. With each platform having a unique voice, purpose, and target audience for your brand, it’s important that you customize your social images and videos for each one. Whether that means customizing the image size, picking individual images for each platform, or creating a special video, the more you tailor your social imagery, the better. Need help finding the perfect image for your content? Read our guide on how to find and choose dynamic images.If you’re ready to dive into the world of video, make sure you’re creating the right videos with our guide to the different types video for B2B marketing and when to use them.

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Demystifying Amazon’s Search Engine Ranking Algorithm [Webinar] by @A_Ninofranco

Join this live webinar to learn practical Amazon SEO tips for ecommerce success.

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Google’s John Mueller on Penalty Recovery by @martinibuster

John Mueller offered insights into the different kinds of manual actions and what to do to recover from the penalties. John Mueller’s comments are compared to how Google used to communicate penalties and some interesting correlations are discovered. Two Kinds of Manual Actions John Mueller describes two kinds of manual actions, one more severe than the other. Complete removal of a site from search and from indexing Partial removal from search John Mueller’s description helps clarify that manual actions differ. Complete Removal From Google The first kind of penalty that John Mueller discussed is the harshest. It results in the […]

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A Guide to Link Building via Blog Comments by @annaleacrowe

Blog commenting offers benefits beyond just SEO. Here are some tips to help you use blog commenting more effectively.

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Reduced Link Graph – A Way to Rank Links by @martinibuster

Is the Reduced Link Graph algo affecting your ranking?

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Google Assistant is More Accurate Than Alexa, Siri, and Cortana by @MattGSouthern

Google Assistant is the most accurate smartphone digital assistant, beating Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft Cortana.

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Appearance of Google’s Related Questions Box up by 34% by @MattGSouthern

The rate at which Google shows its “People Also Ask” search suggestions, aka “Related Questions”, jumped by 34% this week.

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Google Removes Public URL Submission Tool by @MattGSouthern

Google has removed the public version of its URL submission tool, which allowed users to submit pages to Google’s index.

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SEO Best Practices: How to Create Awesome Meta Descriptions by @BrianHarnish

These SEO best practices will help your write better and compelling meta descriptions.

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See, Think, Do, Care: A New Way to Communicate Your SEO Strategy by @chris_hart

Here's how to apply a more strategic framework to website optimization for organic search – one the C-Suite can support.

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6 Remarketing Campaign Mistakes You Must Avoid by @digital_future

As you roll out your remarketing campaigns, make sure to go over these six key considerations.

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Digital Marketing News: Smarty-Pants Speakers Drive Voice Search, YouTube’s Rejiggered Hashtags, & Google’s Word Count Wisdom

Report: Smart speaker ownership driving voice adoption on smartphones The popularity of voice search on smartphones has grown in part due to more Americans owning smart speakers, with a new NPR and Edison Research report revealing 18 percent now own so-called smart audio devices. Marketing Land Report: Facebook takes a back seat to Instagram as ad spend on the Facebook-owned app grows 177% New research data shows that Instagram had ad spending four times Facebook’s rate year-over-year during the second quarter of 2018, while YouTube's ad spend was nearly triple that of last year. Marketing Land Emojis Score With Mobile Users New study data shows that the use of emojis has resulted in a sizable boost of mobile e-mail open rates, with open rates boosted over 80 percent resulting in 363 percent revenue gains, but are digital marketers convinced? MediaPost YouTube Shows Searchable Hashtags Above Video Titles YouTube has begun showing searchable hashtags above the title of each video. The first three hashtags of a video’s description field have gained prominence with the change, offering new opportunities for YouTube marketers looking to optimize video findability. Search Engine Journal Google: Word Count Isn't Indicative Of Quality Google has indicated that written content isn’t ranked solely by word count numbers. Short or not-so-short, good writing is rarely tied to formulaic word counts, Google has hinted. Search Engine Roundtable Google releases AMP Stories v1.0 with new features, including an ads beta for DFP users Google has announced new features for developers using its AMP Stories format, including several monetization features and additional metadata attributes targeting digital marketers. Marketing Land Twitter Releases New 'Playbook for Agencies' Which Includes a Heap of Twitter Promotion Tips Twitter has published a new guide offering ad tips and more, in its agency playbook announced this week. The guide’s insight is applicable to a wide swath of digital marketing professionals. Social Media Today An update to referral source URLs for Google Images Google announced recently that it will soon implement a new referrer URL specific to Google Images. Digital marketers working with country-specific search queries also get specific new guidelines from Google. Google Webmaster Central Snapchat beefs up ad targeting in deal with Nielsen Segmented audience data is finally coming to Snapchat, as the firm recently announced a new partnership with Nielsen that brings some 30,000 segments to marketers using the firm's newest addition. AdAge Inside the Mating Rituals of Brands and Online Stars The New York Times examines influencer morality clauses and the rise of online stars from YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, and others, with newfound brand credibility often following. The New York Times ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at lifestyle brands by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist How Kit Kat managed to turn a viral tweet into a branded proposal — SEO Roundtable This Man Tried to Break the World Record for Paper Airplane Flight — Wired TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — Natural Language Generation: The Future of Content Management — e-Spirit
• Lee Odden — The Top 13 Content Marketing Influencers to follow in 2018 — JBH

What are some of your top influencer marketing news items for this week? Thanks for reading, and we hope you'll return next week for the latest digital marketing news, and in the meantime you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don't miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

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Google Makes Event Structured Data More Useful by @martinibuster

Google makes it easier to drive more sales to almost all local businesses.

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17 Tactics to Create Engaging & SEO-Friendly Content by @ronlieback

Some can create engaging content, others SEO-friendly content. Here's how to do both.

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Link Building for Newbies: 10 Basics You Must Know by @alextachalova

Learn about ten basic principles that are imperative to the link building process.

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The Rise of Visual Search: How Brands Can Adapt by @iambenwood

Here's how brands and marketers can adapt to advancements in visual search.

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Bing Shares 5 Algo Insights by @martinibuster

Bing posts details on how a niche search works. Learn insights into how Bing works.

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Google: Word Count Does Not Equal Quality Content by @MattGSouthern

Google’s John Mueller has revealed that content length is not an indicator of its level of quality.

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