Much like mailmen, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” can stop us from delivering the most up-to-date content marketing news and features. Even this lingering cold weather is no match for the resilience of the Content Marketing Weekly. Speaking of which, the groundhog was right all those months ago. Just look how smug he is in the light of winter:
Anyway. On the docket this week we have Facebook, mobile-first indexing, a whole lot of algorithms and more. Here it is, signed, sealed, delivered:
Facebook Discusses How Feed Algorithm Works
Facebook stepped away from the hot seat for a minute this week to discuss the secret sauce behind its news feed algorithm. Search Engine Journal highlighted some key takeaways, starting with the four aspects of Facebook’s “Ranking” process that helps predict the content users care about. At a very high level, these are:
- Inventory: “Stories that you have not seen from your friends and from the publishers that you have decided to follow.”
- Signals: “Things like how old a given story is and who posted it.”
- Predictions: “Things like how likely are you to comment or share a given story. How likely are you to hide or report a story?”
- Relevancy Scores: “A number that represents how interested we think you are in any given story in your inventory.”
For more specific details about Facebook’s Ranking process and information on how social strategists can use this knowledge to their advantage, read the full post here.
How Mobile-First Indexing Disrupts the Link Graph
The folks over at Moz posted an enlightening article about how Google’s shift to mobile-first indexing fundamentally affects the “link structure of the web as a whole.”
Links are often culled from the mobile version of a site to optimize UX, which is kind of a big deal when you consider the critical role that linking has in SEO. Granted, it’s not yet clear how “mobile-first” Google’s indexing will become. But in a mobile-only scenario (where only mobile bots crawl the web), Moz found that the number of external links could experience a 75 percent reduction in the mobile version of a site.
One promising find was that link placement within content typically survived the “mobile cull,” most likely because Google deems them more trustworthy and clickable than sidebar links. In other words, content-based external linking is a gold standard for SEO on mobile, too.
Google Is Officially Testing ‘More Results’ Button to Load More Search Results
Google has made a subtle but significant change to its mobile interface. Rather than generating paginated search results, users can instead tap the new “More Results” button at the bottom of the page to populate additional SERPs.
So how exactly will this affect search experience? Browsing past the first page of results may feel like less of a chore than it used to. Meaning, SERPs on the second page may get a bit more love on mobile.
But that’s just speculation, and whether Google chooses to apply the “More Results” button to desktop search is anyone’s guess.
We’ll hold our breath, but in the meantime, check out the full news story at Search Engine Land.
New Google AdWords Tool Can Forecast Reach of YouTube Ads
Google has a brand new AdWords tool in beta called Reach Planner that helps businesses forecast the reach of their YouTube Ads.
The new tool functions in three core steps:
- Choose your audience: Pinpoint your target users and identify the best way to reach them on YouTube.
- Find the right product mix: Select the right mix of YouTube ad products based on your ad campaign objectives.
- See your reach: Display your projected reach for your defined audience.
The curious can start tinkering with the Reach Planner here. Read more from Search Engine Journal here.
7 Powerful Tools to Automate Tedious Content Marketing Tasks
We close out the week with not one, but seven cool content marketing tools that make your life easier, courtesy of the Content Marketing Institute.
From streamlining social media monitoring and automating responses to likes with Social Report, to automatically identifying influencers with Influence.co, there’s a little something for everyone in this post. Not to mention, you’ll find plenty of starter tips in case you’re already using one or more of these.
But just in case that list doesn’t hit the spot for you, check out this one to get 20-plus new ideas for content marketing resources. (You’re welcome, and happy Friday.)
