A vast majority of customers find Google reviews posted by strangers just as trustworthy as personal recommendations. So how can businesses encourage customers to leave a review for them on Google?

A staggering 97 percent of customers depend on online reviews to make a purchase decision. Google reviews build and insulate brand reputation, thereby helping customers to make a decision in your favor. In fact, a new research study reveals that Google review stars form social proof for your brand, boosting your site’s CTR by over 35 percent.

No wonder, reviews are among the top in Google’s ranking factors 2019 list. Google’s algorithm gives a thumbs-up to sites having maximum reviews. In Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors review signals (review quantity, review velocity, and review diversity) make up 13 percent of Google’s local 3 pack or finder ranking factors.

Source 

Google is the fastest-growing review site gaining the highest number of reviews compared to other platforms. Hence, businesses cannot afford to ignore the role of genuine and regular Google reviews in building a strong online reputation. Further, reviews offer valuable insights and measurable information about the target audience.

Read on to learn a few tested Google review-generating more tips to improve your search engine rankings and positively influence customer purchase decisions.

1. First things first: Provide kick-ass service

The importance of customer service in the business world cannot be understated. A McKinsey study reveals that 70 percent of buying experiences are dictated by how customers feel they are being treated. Delivering excellent customer service will not only make you stand out from the crowd but also encourage people to be your online brand advocates, writing reviews and recommendations for you. Do your job right! Make sure your staff has a good understanding of the product and is adept at treating customers well. Amazon is leading the way in delivering awesome customer service. The ecommerce giant is known to have the most customer-friendly return policies in the industry. Amazon protects its customers with its A-to-Z guarantee and takes full responsibility for damaged products or delayed delivery, even for third-party sellers.

2. Simply ask for it

One of the easiest ways to procure Google reviews is to ask for it. Train your staff, especially the client-facing roles to request customers for their views and feedback. Further, simplify the process by giving clear bullet-point instructions with links, encouraging customers to leave a review. Notice how Anker, the global leader in electronic goods uses these Happy/Not Happy cards to encourage its customers to review its products. The card addresses both satisfied and unhappy customers, telling them what to do next.

 Source 

Here are a few ways you can encourage your customers to review your business on Google.

Conversing with a satisfied customer in your store? Just addressed a customer’s concern on a support call? Use these pleasant interactions with clients as an opportunity to request for Google reviews.

A personalized email campaign is an effective way to get more Google reviews. Keep the language in the email simple and specific. You can also use review-management tools like TrustPilot and ReviewTrackers that help automate product review invitations. These automated services send timely email reminders to your customers, urging them to write a review.

• Leave-behind cards

Leave-behind cards attached to products can remind customers to give a written review on Google. Better still, add a QR code to simplify the process of posting a review. Consider using business cards, leave-us-a-review cards, counter cards, window clings, and door hangers to generate reviews for your business.

• CTA or pop-ups

Customers often tend to procrastinate or miss out on posting reviews. Nudge such customers by including CTAs and pop-ups on your business page and mobile app. Typically, a pop-up like, “Hey, looks like you’re enjoying the read. Leave us a review!” can remind them to contribute a positive word. You can also add a CTA to your email signature in the form of a shortened link, taking them directly to the Google reviews page. For optimal results, make sure you solicit reviews at the right time of the customer journey. Ask for reviews when your customers have –

• Used or experienced the product or service
• Placed a repeat order
• Tagged you on social media
• Referred a new customer
• Are spending a lot of time on your website or app

3. Encourage your customer service team to collect reviews

Your customer service team is the face of your business. They interact with customers on a daily basis, addressing queries and solving product or service-related issues. Hence, it’s critical to motivate them to get reviews for your business.

•  Give them a script

Give your team a few examples of how they can invite reviews from customers. In an interview with Forbes, Daniel Vivarelli, the founder of Starloop, shares that it’s important to use the right phrases to remove the ‘sleaze’ factor and elevate your review request to a classy and sincere level.

Simply saying, “Will you please leave us a review on Google?” sounds obvious and awkward. Instead, train your employees to say something like,

“Thanks so much, Mr. Dorris! I am happy to learn that you are pleased with our services. I want to invite you to give an online feedback on Google. This will help us serve you even better.”

Sharing a few examples of such opening dialogues will help your staff speak the right language, making the process easier for them.

• Offer an incentive

Use an incentive system to reward employees based on the number of Google reviews they have secured. This can be a big motivator for them to make asking for reviews a part of their routine.

Offer extra incentives if their name is mentioned in the Google review. Not all customer service personnel get mentioned in reviews. But those who do, have definitely lived up to the customer expectations. It is important to reward such employees.

4. Create a custom Google review link on your site or app

Merely pasting Google reviews on your website can hamper the authenticity and legitimacy of your site. In other words, if you control the review content customers are bound to doubt its genuineness. Adding a link to your Google reviews form on your business page can help potential customers quickly access what others have to say about your brand. Add a graphic or button on your page like “Read our Google reviews” and link it using your Places ID.

Here’s how you can find your Place ID.

The complete link can then be used to direct your customers to the existing reviews page, encouraging them to add their own reviews.

Source 

5. Negative or positive: Remember to respond to reviews

Online reviews are social proof of your credibility and online reputation. Whether positive or negative, it’s important to respond to reviews to let your customers know that you are all ears and willing to assist them. In fact, a study published by Harvard Business Review found that responding to customer reviews yields better ratings. Find time to respond to reviews, making your potential reviewers feel that it’s worth their time to write a review for you.

• Positive reviews

Positive reviews are great for your online reputation. Be specific and thankful when responding to such reviews. Notice how Hard Rock Cafe, New York uses this positive review as an opportunity to reinforce the brand’s strengths and convert its customers into a repeat customer.

• Neutral reviews

Reviews that are three-star ones lack details as the reviewer doesn’t strongly like or dislike your product or service. These reviews often carry negative and positive comments. Hence, you need to reinforce the positive and address the concern, to show your prospective reviewer that you care.

Check out how the owner of Flowers of Dreams responds to a neutral comment posted by one of their customers. The response clearly shows that the business takes responsibility for an uncommon instance and desires to make things right for their customers.

• Negative reviews

Here’s the good news: Negative reviews can boost conversions and brand loyalty. This is because too many positive reviews seem fake to customers. Negative reviews make your brand seem authentic and offer customers the worst-case scenario. Remember: Writers of negative reviews want you to fix their issue and convert them into happy customers. Follow these basic rules when responding to a negative query.

• Be polite and empathetic.
• Do not respond in a defensive manner.
• Apologize and request to connect offline so you can address the customer’s concerns.

Notice how California Cuts responds to an unhappy customer by apologizing for the poor experience and taking the necessary steps to repair the damage.

When prospective reviewers see that you care to monitor and respond to customer reviews (even bad ones!), they will be encouraged to leave a Google review for you.

6. Address the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)

Sadly, most businesses only focus on managing immediate product-related queries or following up with customers for reviews, laying little emphasis on building long-term relationships. Customers are more likely to take the time to write a word for you when you tell them how their review will be used or add value to them. It is critical to use the right words when asking your customers to review your product. For instance, in this customer review invitation Nest uses less compelling words like ‘make our ideas better,’ offering little motivation for its customers to leave a review.

Source: Thumbtack

On the other hand, Thumbtack uses powerful phrases like, “create a better experience for you”, putting customers in the position of a beneficiary and making them feel rewarded.

Source: Thumbtack

Secondly, offer incentives to customers for writing a review. That way, you are encouraging them to leave a review (good, bad, or neutral) and that doesn’t amount to bribing.

Source

Notice how this Kentucky-based chiropractic and wellness center doesn’t ask its patients to necessarily leave a positive review. They are offering a free adjustment for customers who leave “a review” not “a positive review”.

Addressing the “What’s in it for me?” will help your users see the direct benefit of spreading a positive word about you, motivating them to take the time to do so.

7. Host experiential events

Hosting a user conference or an industry event can help create a strong bond between your customers and the brand, creating conditions where they are likely to leave a review. That’s what experiential marketing is all about. Experiences don’t just sell products, they help your target audience connect with your brand’s core values. When customers are emotionally engaged, they will go out of their way to leave a review for you.

Source: YouTube

Check out how Oreo, one of the most popular cookies in the world, has used the 3D printing technology to allow customers to enjoy the cookie-making experience and receive uniquely flavored Oreo cookies. Such brand experiences coupled with a strong post-event feedback process can encourage people to leave reviews about the product.

Conclusion

Most customers read Google reviews to make a purchase decision. Reviews are a powerful marketing tool that should be used by marketers to improve online credibility, boost SEO, and drive conversions. The time-tested tips shared in this post will help you generate more Google reviews for your business, thereby strengthening your authority and online reputation.

George Konidis is the co-founder of Growing Search, a Canadian based digital marketing agency providing optimal SEO and link building services worldwide. He can be found on Twitter @georgekonidis.

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I’m noticing a trend among some email speakers lately – when they want to promote a new idea, they smack down the best practice that relates to it.

This bothers me because many of today’s best practices evolved from a yearning for innovation and guidelines in email’s Wild West early days, when we were writing and rewriting the rules almost every day as technology and expectations evolved.

Here we are, 25 years later, and we’re rethinking many of the practices that, for better or worse, helped us build email into the machine it is today. I agree that some best practices have either outlived their usefulness or didn’t stand the test of time, but I wish we wouldn’t be in such a hurry to move past the ones that still hold true.

Best practices grew out of email’s early days

Here’s why I’m not ready to discard everything we’ve built up.

Out of email’s early no-holds-barred environment, we began to see repercussions, like pushback from customers and subscribers, spammers and fraudsters polluting the space, ISPs and blacklists keeping us out of the inbox.

We also saw customers respond positively when we worked them with to show them how to use this new digital world.

This rapid development wasn’t all bad in those days before CAN-SPAM, CASL and the other state and national laws began regulating email. In case you haven’t been in the industry all that long, here’s what it was like:

• We were crazy. People tried whatever they could, emailing or even over-mailing. We developed send-time optimization because we were locked into emailing between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. That’s when people checked their email more often, from their work desktop computers where they had faster, more reliable internet connections.

• Testing was minimal because most email platforms didn’t allow it or limited you to simple A/B testing with long wait times to get results.

• We didn’t have widely accessible platforms for sharing ideas, like blogs or email-specific conferences, organizations or meet-ups. So, we innovated separately and aggressively.

Knowledge base begins to form

The email space began to formalize in the late 1990s. Enterprise-level and mid-market ESPs began to pop up. People who had been early leaders in the space signed on with the ESPs as strategists and account directors and began sharing their experiences and advice.

They aggressively implemented strategies and tactics that drove email innovation on a scale unmatched today. We were literally testing every new idea on hundreds of clients at a time  across verticals.

Industry newsletters, blogs, conferences, white papers – all of the things we rely on today for education and thought leadership bloomed rapidly after that. We began to build up a knowledge base of acceptable and unacceptable practices and shared our wins and losses.

Our customers and subscribers were learning at the same rapid pace. We were teaching as well as learning on an immense scale.

Best practices evolved as a starting point

Brand marketers, agency specialists and clients were looking for help with email in those early days. That’s how best practices evolved – from personal experiences refined over a short time. Best practices gave us a leg up, not as the only way to execute on acquisition, engagement, development or retention.

These helped us move into the second age of email development. For example, we knew enough that if we emailed customers who abandoned shopping carts, we stood a good chance of getting them to come back and buy.

A best practice developed – when you get your nightly file of abandoners’ email addresses from your web analytics provider, you shoot out an abandoned-cart reminder email.

Then, a CRM company challenged this belief. The strategy is right, the company said, but the timing is off. The platform had the technology to send the email within an hour after abandonment and research showing that sending as soon as possible after the abandonment would get better returns.

Voila! A new best practice.

Best practices like this and others covered welcome emails, opt-down pages to mitigate the opt-out page, permission in acquisition, managing inactives and other needs. They helped give everybody – newcomers as well as veterans transferring their direct-marketing backgrounds to digital – a leg up.

Best practices are a template, not the last word

As useful as best practices can be, they’re not supposed to be the final word. Instead, they’re something you use to launch a program, and then you develop the practice that works best for your brand, company and customers.

Take the win-back program. The best practice that evolved over several years of trial, error and testing is sending a three-email program spaced at different intervals with escalating offers, all geared to bring inactive customers back.

That’s the ideal. But your brand might need only one or two emails. A B2B company, especially one with long consideration cycles, might need five or more.

The best practice is your template. It gives you a place to start planning. Then, you adapt that template to your needs.

Why I’m not rushing to abandon best practices

In every vertical, space and aspect of marketing, we know certain things work, whether through our own experiences or what we’ve learned and adapted from our peers. We spent a lot of time testing to see what works and what doesn’t on a scale that’s hard to match today.

Should we revisit and revise this body of generally accepted best practices? You bet. We do that every time we get together to discuss, debate, educate and experiment. What worked 10 or 15 years ago – anybody want to revive the pre-checked boxes debate? – might not work today thanks to changes in laws, regulations, technology and customer expectations.

We’ve also been able to establish track records for long-term analysis of results. To advocate discarding 20 years’ worth of that work seems more like a quick way to make a name for yourself, not something that’s necessarily in the best interest of your clients or company.

What this means for marketers

Email is one of the only channels in which you can do a web search and find answers to your toughest questions from the top minds in our industry. And your voice is just as important when you have information to share that comes from your own testing and experience.

Write a white paper. Come up with a guest post in which you share the results of a new testing program, a case study or something else that attests to your success. Ask questions on blog posts, during webinars and at professional conferences. Pretty soon it will be your turn to speak up and share your knowledge. And that will help shape the new generation of best practices.

It’s the responsibility of marketing people like you – yes, you. Really. You. – to share the knowledge that leads to better-informed best practice and advancing our collective knowledge base. The best way to do that is through collaboration.

That yearning for knowledge and innovation is just as strong today as it was 20 years ago. What can you do to respond?

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

June 19 saw Alphabet’s annual shareholder meeting take place in Sunnyvale, California.

With protestors on the streets outside and a number of progressive policies being tabled and ultimately voted down by the board, the meeting was the latest moment in a storied 12+ months of internal issues and public criticism leveled at the search giant.

While pressure on Google to change continues to be on an upward trajectory, it was also something of a disappointing day for advocates of transparency, fairness, and equality both inside and outside of the company.

Let’s take a look at what happened and how this fits into the ongoing narrative of discord at Google and Alphabet.

First, a bit of background

As I reported for Search Engine Watch late last year, there has been growing discontent among Google employees about how the company is operating, with worker’s rights and leaked plans for the company to re-launch a search product (known as Dragonfly) in China both being key concerns.

This came to a head in November when thousands of staff staged a mass walkout from their offices in cities around the globe. The movement sought “to protest sexual harassment, misconduct, lack of transparency, and a workplace that doesn’t work for everyone,” with five demands put in front of directors – only one of which has been implemented so far.

Following the walkout, in late November, staff were moved to speak out publicly once more with an open letter to company leaders to stop the development of the Dragonfly project. More than 500 employees signed the letter which aligned itself with calls by Amnesty International. “We object to technologies that aid the powerful in oppressing the vulnerable, wherever they may be,” it stated.

Workers, community groups, and shareholders are united in demanding #GoogleDoBetter, from human rights to housing. pic.twitter.com/Q4p4AmfCA5

— Google Walkout For Real Change (@GoogleWalkout) June 19, 2019

June 19 protests

The gathering outside the meeting on June 19 included:

• Google employees demonstrating for (among other things) a push to make the search giant abandon non-disclosure agreements and to allow staff more public forms of redress for harassment and discrimination.
• Students For A Free Tibet. In attendance to call upon Google to drop Dragonfly and to take a stand against censorship in China-occupied Tibet.
• Community groups, who were calling upon Google to address the housing shortage in Silicon Valley.

Reports from the shareholder meeting

The resulting protest covered a range of disparate issues. These, too, were reflected inside the shareholder meeting where a number of progressive motions were put forward for the board to consider. These included:

• An end to forced arbitration. Forced arbitration for sexual harassment policy was removed after the walkout in Nov 2018, but it is still imposed for employees seeking to solve other types of disputes.
• A sexual harassment review. Looking at whether the company should adopt and implement additional policies on sexual harassment, and to report its findings.
• Increased equitable employment practices.
• A report on human rights concerns in China.
• Appointing an employee representative to the board of directors.

Ultimately, all of these (and others) were voted down by the board of executives. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin – who collectively have 51% of voting power – didn’t attend the meeting, leaving other board members to face a number of difficult questions in the ensuing Q&A.

CEO Sundar Pichai was in attendance but did not respond to any questions directly.

Any positive outcomes?

While progressive outcomes from these protests and calls were seemingly not forthcoming on June 19, employees at Alphabet/Google, their contractors, and supporters are not being silenced by the board’s inaction.

Google has recently announced it would invest one billion dollars toward affordable housing after years of community and employee activism on the issue. Questions may remain as to whether they could be doing more in this area and what exactly this housing will look like, but persistence on the part of those taking direct action does seem to work, if slowly.

The issue of Dragonfly and whether it has been “dropped” has been handled by Google with just enough vagueness to keep some activists satisfied and others still pushing the issue.

In the days following the meeting, Students For A Free Tibet announced that they were viewing Google’s public confirmation that there are “no plans to offer a search engine in China” as a win after 10 months of campaigning.

However statements like these have been said before and, of course, do not assure critics that Google is not assisting a search player in China in some capacity. Not everyone will be convinced that their work is not supporting (or will not support) the surveillance state, even if only indirectly.

Google employees have a loud voice, but minimal power at board level

Conclusively, it seems to me that the biggest issue on seeing progressive change within Alphabet and Google depends on the make-up of the board. While a concentrated few people have a massive amount of supervoting power, and no employee representative is allowed to sit there, we can fully expect progress on employee rights within the business to improve at a frustratingly slow pace.

As for how long Google continues to be vague about its work in the Chinese search market, I imagine there will be many people inside and outside of Alphabet expecting little movement in this area either – unless we do see some significant changes with the make-up of the board and voter powers there.

Follow the Google Walkout Twitter feed for ongoing information about employee action and related issues.

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June 13 saw the release of a new tool by London-based company Trint which can assist the crawlability and visibility of video content in search engines by automatically attaching transcripts using AI.

In May, Google announced the launch of a new website aimed at explaining how they serve and address news across Google properties and platforms.

This is something I’ve been mulling over for a while. I threw the question out to SEO Twitter, and was surprised and impressed by the volume of responses.

Average position is misinterpreted as a metric that shows the actual position of ads on SERPs. How to accurately gauge the true page position of your ads?

On February 2018, Google implemented ad filtering for “annoying” and intrusive ads in Chrome in North America and Europe. This had been pre-announced in 2017 and was intended to compel publishers to adopt advertising standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads. 

Chrome has 64% of global browser market. The industry group was created in response to the rise of consumer ad-blocking. Now Chrome’s bad-ads filtering is going global, with a rollout to markets beyond North America and Europe on July 8. Google Chrome has a roughly 64% global browser market share.

We previously published an in-depth discussion of Chrome ad blocking and what it means for publishers and marketers (See FAQ: Google Chrome ad blocking is here. Everything you need to know).

In brief, sites that feature any of the four desktop or eight mobile ad categories banned under the Better Ads Standards (above), could see those units, or potentially all ads on their sites, blocked. Annoying formats include pop-ups, auto-play video ads with sound, prestitial ads, flashing/animated ads, large sticky ads and full-screen scrollover ads, among others.

Ads don’t display on sites with failing grades. When a user visits a site that has failed Better Ad Standards, Chrome’s filter will block ads from rendering on the page. Users will then see a message indicating ads have been blocked but will have the ability to “allow ads on this site.”

The global rollout of Chrome “ad blocking” comes at a time when Google engineers are contemplating controversial changes to browser extension APIs, which could disable most third-party ad blockers and privacy extensions. Google appeared to reverse course, although the status of the changes remains uncertain.

Why we should care. The vast majority of North American and European publisher sites pass the Better Ad Standards test, so the impact on users and publisher ad revenues has been minimal. That’s less certain in other markets, including Asia where consumer ad blocking is currently highest in the world — 50% according to one survey.

Spying on your competitors’ marketing efforts is one of the most efficient ways to come up with your our marketing campaigns, learn new tactics as well as predict the future of your niche.

The powerful driving source of any business is its competition. Competitors force us to move forward, implement changes and evolve.

I am not a big fan of competitive research unless you use the data right away to create your own marketing plan. Furthermore, I like plans that are pretty quickly turned into reality. I like action, so here are three competitive research tools that provide highly actionable insights:

1. Spy on your competitor’s traffic

Haven’t you wanted to know where exactly your competitors’ traffic and sales are coming from. Or how their landing pages convert? Or what are their best-performing keywords?

Nacho Analytics is a unique and innovative tool that will help you find answers to all the above questions and more. It uses its own database of “millions” of people who agreed to share their browsing history with the tool to help you spy on how they find and interact with your competitors’ pages.

Now, the most important part about the tool is that domain monitoring starts only when you add it to the tool. There’s no historical data available until you start monitoring any domain, so the earlier to add your competitors, the more data you’ll end up accumulating, with time.

Now, what sort of data is it?

Nacho Analytics looks exactly as Google Analytics, so you’ll see all the reports there. The difference is, there’s no tracking code to install and that’s not your site you are tracking, which sounds even too good to be true, only it’s both good and real. Some of the competitive insights you’ll be able to obtain include:

• Traffic sources (including conversions, page engagement metrics, etc. for each)
• Lead sources
• Conversion funnel analysis

In essence, you can do the same things with anyone else’s data that you do with your own: You can explore traffic acquisition tactics, see real-time data, identify best-performing CTAs, and more.

You can also share any data with anyone for free, similarly to how it works inside Google Analytics.

Nacho Analytics cheapest package is $39 and it allows you to track one competitor. For $79 a month, you’ll be able to monitor five competitors of yours.

2. Spy on your competitor’s backlinks

Ok, this one isn’t new: Monitoring competitors’ backlink acquisition methods help you create your own link building strategy as well as learn what not to do and how to avoid penalties.

But until now that was a pretty expensive and time-consuming process. Unless it’s your own site you are investigating, you had to pay for link research tools. And if you were dealing with a successful competitor, you had to go through thousands of lines before realizing how to sort and filter them to make sense of the data.

Therefore, I was pretty excited to discover this new backlink checker tool by Neil Patel which is free, available for use without the need to register and extremely usable.

Simply copy-paste your competitor’s domain and the tool will generate the list of backlinks including:

• The referring page title and URL
• The target page URL
• The link anchor text and type (text and image)

Now, there’s also a domain and link scores available but since I am not a fan of any link scoring (to put it mildly), I ignore those for the most part. Yet, if you come to think of those, you can actually use these numbers for sorting purposes. So, unless you miss a good link because of that, they might turn useful.

The advanced filtering is where the tool really shines. They make it so much easier to filter backlinks by identified patterns, including/excluding:

• Keywords in the anchor text
• Domains
• Words in the URL

Finally, you can easily export the whole list in a CSV file to keep playing with the data.

Again, this tool is absolutely free, with no registration required.

3. Spy on your own missed keyword opportunities

This, again, is not such an innovative tactic but it’s the format and the tool that can make all the difference.

The best way to improve and diversify your rankings is to expand the list of keywords you are targeting, and the easiest way to discover new keywords is to see what your competitors are ranking for.

“Keyword gap” tactic is about identifying queries one or more of your competitors’ domains is ranking fairly high, while yours is nowhere to be found.

This Domain vs Domain tool takes this tactic to a new level:

• It suggests competing domains for you to analyze
• It generates a handy venn diagram showing how close the selected competitors are and how many more opportunities you can explore. The venn graphic is clickable allowing you to instantly load the keyword lists based on the overlap:

The tool also shows current rankings of each domain for each query, as well as its recent movement. The latter should be a signal for you to go ahead and check what they possibly did recently to see the ranking change.

The chart also shows Google search volume for each query. However, sadly, you cannot sort results by it. You can export the whole chart to a CSV or Excel file to obtain more sorting and filtering flexibility.

You can also select a search engine for the analysis which is a pretty amazing feature. I find it absolutely invaluable when clients are trying to enter a new market, especially the same-language market, like Google.ca or Google.co.uk

Being able which queries your competitors are ranking for in various versions of Google makes international SEO much easier and more predictable. There’s some more info on how to make the most of the feature.

The tool currently costs $19 per month but they are giving up on the cheapest plan this summer.

Which tools are you using to explore your competition and, more importantly, make use of the data? Please share in the comments!

Ann Smarty is the Brand and Community Manager at InternetMarketingNinjas.com. She can be found on Twitter @seosmarty.

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It’s always best to have tools and processes in place. Obviously, you don’t need anything fancy. You could start by setting up Google Alerts.

Facebook announced on Tuesday it has made ranking updates to its News Feed algorithm, aiming to reduce posts that contain exaggerated or sensation health claims, as well as posts that promote or attempt to sell products or services based on health-related claims.

“We know that people don’t like posts that are sensational or spammy, and misleading health content is particularly bad for our community,” wrote Facebook Product Manager Travis Yeh, “Pages should avoid posts about health that exaggerate or mislead people and posts that try to sell products using health-related claims.”

Why we should care

Marketers managing Facebook Pages for healthcare products or services should be mindful of the messaging they are using on the platform. To determine if a post should be downgraded, Facebook gave the following clarification: “We consider if a post promotes a product or service based on health-related claim — for example, promoting a medication or pill claiming to help you lose weight.”

Facebook said it is identifying phases commonly used in these types of posts to predict which may include sensational health-related claims, and then demoting such posts lower in the News Feed.

Facebook’s example offers a pretty broad measuring stick in terms of how its algorithm is downgrading posts with health-related claims. It’s safe to say any posts from Pages that include exaggerated health claims or misleading content will be moved further down the News Feed. The company said the ranking updates fall in line with its previous moves to reduce low-quality content and clickbait headlines.

More on the news

• The algorithm updates were rolled out last month.
• Facebook said it does not anticipate Pages will see any significant changes to their distribution of content within the News Feed because of this update, barring those that may be trying to use exaggerated or misleading content around health-related claims.
• In March, Facebook announced it was reducing the News Feed and Search rankings for groups and Pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations.

Google Sandbox is a commonly believed filter that’s used by Google to prevent new websites from ranking high in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). It’s believed that Google uses this filter to put some restrictions on rankings for new websites.

The main idea behind it is that new websites may not be as relevant as the old ones. Moreover, some of them may even be spam.

While Google has never confirmed the existence of such a system, many SEOs believe that it exists. They claim so because they have seen such effects on websites that they are trying to rank. This is why it is extremely difficult to avoid being placed in the Google Sandbox when your domain is new.

So, does Google Sandbox still exist in 2019? If it still does, how do you avoid getting affected by it? Let’s take a deeper look into it.

The history of Google Sandbox

In 2004, a lot of SEOs found that their new websites weren’t ranking well on Google during their first few months. And this happened in spite of the best of their efforts. While their websites were easily indexed by Google, they weren’t able to rank well for even low-competition keywords. On the flip side, they were ranking well on other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing.

This effect of Google Sandbox lasted for several weeks and months and it varied for each website. The idea of such a system made sense because Google aimed to provide only the most authoritative and quality content to its users. Rand Fishkin from Moz believed that SEOmoz was in Google Sandbox for about nine months. This happened in spite of having a good backlink profile.

“SEOmoz is finally Sandbox free for the first time since our move to this domain nine months ago. We aren’t alone, either. Many folks had sites escape, and I’m happy for all of them. It looks like our 12,000+ all‐natural links (never link built for this site, just link‐baited) finally paid off.”

Rand Fishkin, Co‐founder Moz

In 2014, yet again, Google Sandbox caught the interest of SEOs and marketers when they saw that their new websites weren’t able to rank easily. Now that we know a brief history of Google Sandbox and what it can do, let’s look at how it is working in 2019.

What does Google say about Google Sandbox?

Google pretty much denies the existence of this Sandbox. In fact, you can see it through many tweets by Google’s employees.

Source: Twitter

Even a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google said the same thing –

“With regards to sandbox, we don’t really have this traditional sandbox that a lot of SEOs used to be talking about in the years past. We have a number of algorithms that might look similar, but these are essentially just algorithms trying to understand how the website fits in with the rest of the websites trying to rank for those queries. […] It’s always kind of tricky in the beginning when we have a new website and we don’t quite know where we should put it.”

– John Mueller

However, the former head of webspam at Google did end up giving a few hints about it.

“My answer is not to worry that much. The difference between a domain that’s six months old versus one-year-old is really not that big at all. So as long as you’ve been around for a least a couple months, a few months, you should be able to make sure that you’re able to show up in the search results.”

– Matt Cutts

Why does a new website not rank high on Google?

Google’s experts have mentioned that they need enough data to rank a site. A new website must show its expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to Google. Additionally, it should have a good backlink profile. However, it is very unlikely that a new website can win Google’s trust within a very short period of time.

Here are a few reasons why a new website may not rank high on Google.

1. Less content

To understand your website’s relevance to a certain topic, Google needs to go through your website’s pages. If your website doesn’t have enough content on it, Google may not be able to fully understand what your website is meant for.

2. Low on backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most important factors for ranking a website on Google. If your website has a weak backlink profile, Google may not rank it higher up in searches. Moreover, your website should have internal links that can allow link juice to pass through them. You might succeed in building loads of backlinks in a very short period of time but if they are not of high quality, Google may just ignore them.

You must also be very careful as rapidly grown backlink profiles may even give you penalties from Google.

3. Lesser user signals

Google may take time to analyze the behavioral data of your website visitors. For this reason, it may postpone ranking your website higher up in search results for popular keywords. It’ll observe things like click-through rate, dwell time, and bounce rate to see if your website is worthy of ranking higher up.

Now that you know why your website could be in the Google Sandbox, let’s figure out how you can get out of it quickly.

Is Google Sandbox still affecting sites in 2019?

There are many SEOs out there who claim that their website ranks high up in the search results within just a month of launching. On the other hand, there are other SEOs who believe that there is definitely some force that is stopping their websites from ranking in the search results during their first few months.

However, through our study, we found that even a new website can rank higher up in searches within a short time period. We launched our blog website in June 2018 and within just four months we managed to reach the first page of search results. As you can see in the screenshot, there is a huge fluctuation in the average position graph. This was the time when Google started collecting data about our website. You can notice from the chart that after two months, there was a consistent increase in the rankings. We got the 9.5 average position for the whole site in Google Search Console.

We also ranked a few other sites with higher volume keywords in less than six months. So, according to our research, Google Sandbox is a myth. With consistent efforts, you can rank high up in SERPs in a short duration.

What did we find during our study?

My own theory is almost the same as Google says. Google Sandbox doesn’t exist according to me. It could be possible that Google doesn’t prefer to rank new sites but it doesn’t mean that a new site can’t rank higher. Google wants to rank trusted and useful content. But for a new site, Google doesn’t have the required information to rank it. As soon as you are able to show to Google that you are genuine and trustworthy, you will start ranking higher.

I found that the ranking of a new site depends on its niche, competition, and your SEO strategy. These are the most important factors, according to me. For example, one of our sites started ranking with only social signals. It was a modeling niche site. We didn’t focus on link building for that site. We were just sharing its content on social media. In just a few weeks, keywords started ranking on the first page. Some higher competitive keywords were not ranking.

Rest of it depends upon your SEO strategy. Are you focusing on branding or rankings?

Let me explain, if you’re focusing on acquiring more links, it means you want rankings. But if you want links from top-tier high authority sites, means you are trying to build a brand. And Google loves brands. These days, Google is working for the future. SEO-friendly content and more backlinks are not enough to rank your website. You should focus on branding if you want to rank in a short time and for the long term. Try to get exposure, create online buzz, brand searches, and user satisfaction.

How to rank higher quickly?

While Google Sandbox can be annoying for new websites, there are methods you can use to get out of it quickly.

Here are a few things you can do:

1. Get your website indexed quickly

Your website may have already gone live, however, it doesn’t start aging in the eyes of Google unless it is actually indexed by it. To check if your website has been indexed by Google, you simply need to do a Google search. Just type “site:yourdomain.com” to check how many pages of your website have been indexed by Google.

If it has not been indexed yet, you need to get it done as soon as possible. To speed up the process, you can register the domain on Google Search Console and submit your XML sitemap.

2. Traffic

Getting traffic to your website is very important, especially in its early days. It is one factor that can help your website rank higher up and get out of Google Sandbox quickly. To get more visitors to your website, you should consider posting regularly in forums and groups on Facebook.

You can even try guest posting on other popular websites to drive traffic to your website and at the same time build a stronger backlink profile. You may also run ads on Facebook and other social media platforms to drive traffic.

3. Social signals

Social signals are important to gain the trust of Google because they indicate that your website is gaining popularity on social media platforms. A great way of using social signals to your advantage is that of running Facebook ads. You can publish an article on your blog and then run Facebook ads to drive traffic to it.

4. Choose long tail keywords

Google may not give you much traction for popular keywords earlier on when you are in the perceived Sandbox. However, you may be able to rank well for long tail keywords. To do this, you will first need to do keyword research and check the competition for every long tail keyword that you intend to target. You can use tools such as Ubersuggest and SEMrush to do this.

It is also a good idea to conduct competitor research and go after the keywords that they are ranking for. Using tools such as SEMrush, you can conduct competitor research by simply entering the URL of your competitor.

5. Build authority

“Google Shows Popular, Google doesn’t make you popular” – Google

Google wants authoritative, trustworthy, and user-friendly content to rank on top. As a new site, Google doesn’t know much about you because they don’t have enough data about your website.

So you should build authority and trust in the eyes of Google and users. Google will trust you if your site has good user-metrics, links, mentions from high-authority and relevant sites, and brand queries for your site. You should build more authority for your site.

6. Don’t be too aggressive

Focus on quality than quantity.

You may want to see your website high up in the SERPs. However, if you become too aggressive in promoting your website and link building, Google may see it as spam. You should try to acquire premium links for your new site. Only a few but premium links can change the picture.

Ideally, you shouldn’t build a huge number of links in a short period of time. Moreover, you should drip-feed the foundational links that you’ve built. Don’t optimize your anchor text too much, it’s preferable to keep it under-optimized. Lastly, make sure that you get good enough social signals.

It’s a good idea to give your website a slow and steady start. This will help it grow and prosper in the long run and will help in building more trust with Google. Once Google trusts you more, you can become slightly more aggressive in your link building methods.

7. Purchase an active website

One of the easiest ways of avoiding Google Sandbox is that of purchasing a website that is already active. You can do so by spending a decent sum of money on a website that has decent traffic and has been online for quite some time but has hardly any income.

Using tools such as Flippa, you can find websites which are already active and then can purchase and repurpose them to fit your requirements. Moreover, purchasing an already active website can help you figure out the power that the domain has by checking which keywords the website already ranks for.

Final thoughts

What do you think about Google Sandbox and what is the best way of getting out of the Google Sandbox? Let us know in the comments.

Harpreet Munjal is the founder of the digital marketing company, LoudGrowth. He can be found on Twitter .

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Last week the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) strongly reasserted a position it articulated last year in favor of national privacy regulation. The trade organization is also calling for preemption of current and pending state privacy laws – especially the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which is set to take effect six months from today. 

National advertisers want one law. The ANA, in a June 27 letter to the FTC stated, “a national privacy law should preempt inconsistent state laws, enhance the development of a competitive level playing field for marketers and other businesses, and assure consumers that their data will be used by business only for approved non-discriminatory purposes.”

Many of the ANA’s arguments have merit (e.g., GDPR and and CCPA tend to favor large incumbents with first-party data), while others are more cynical and appear interested in preserving as much of the status quo as possible (“consumers support the data-driven advertising model that has subsidized and enabled the vast and varied content, products, and services they are able to access at little or no cost to them”). 

No federal privacy law likely before 2020. To date, multiple privacy and consumer data protection bills have been introduced in Congress by both Republicans and Democrats. However, it’s unlikely that there will be any comprehensive federal privacy legislation that gets passed before the 2020 election. That means that CCPA will take effect (the FTC can’t preempt state laws) and companies across the U.S. will be forced to contend with it as the de facto consumer privacy law of the land.

The current state of CCPA preparedness is muddled at best, according to a new survey of 345 privacy and IT professionals by IAPP and TrustArc. This is partly about the confusion surrounding the state of the law and partly exacerbated by the proliferation of vendors. There are also budget challenges and questions about who has control over privacy-related software decision-making.

Privacy vendor ranks swelling. IAPP documented roughly 50 privacy tech vendors across nine product categories in 2017. At the end of 2018, the organization identified 200 vendors across 10 product categories. And the numbers are still growing.

Source: IAPP and TrustArc, n=345 (2019)

The IAPP-TrustArc report identifies three broad categories of businesses in the market: those that are actively testing solutions today, those planning to purchase in the next year, and those not planning to purchase. Above is a chart that shows adoption by privacy product category and region. An earlier TrustArc survey found that fewer than 15% of companies were compliant with CCPA, as of May 2019.

The current IAPP-TrustArc survey identifies “Lack of budget/resources,” “getting approval” and the “immaturity of privacy tech solutions” as the top three barriers to privacy software adoption. The “need to demonstrate compliance” is the top motivator by contrast.

Private contracts, not legal exposure, will drive compliance. One vendor, Cuebiq, argues that “the need to demonstrate compliance” will drive the market. However, regulators and public officials will not be the primary parties demanding evidence of CCPA compliance. According to Cuebiq CEO Antonio Tomarchio, third-party contracts will require compliance. “Indemnification clauses in contracts from brands and agencies will demand the ability to audit data compliance under CCPA.”

Cuebiq, which also provides location analytics, offers a “Consent Management and Data Provenance (CMDP) solution,” based on blockchain. “Because data provenance is captured and easily audited,” says Tomarchio, “it offers protection for brands and agencies buying audiences.” This is only one of many privacy software solutions, as indicated, although Tomarchio says its blockchain-based approach is currently unique.

Why we should care. While there is lots of discussion of privacy compliance these days, many marketers still fantasize the whole issue will go away. It won’t. The right and pragmatic attitude is to take a “privacy forward” approach and start taking the steps outlined in this article to comply.

Even if federal legislation is passed at the 11th hour, preempting CCPA (unlikely), the measures companies have taken toward compliance today will make it that much easier to address any alternative, less strict federal framework tomorrow.