Quality Content Will Help You Survive Another Google Algorithm Apocalypse

Quality Content Will Help You Survive Another Google Algorithm Apocalypse

It’s happening again, June will herald the beginning of another significant change to the Google Search algorithm. News of this broke in November 2020, in which Google announced that the ‘page experience update’ would roll out as early as May 2021, but a recent post on April 19 has walked that release back to mid-June.

Algorithm changes like the page experience update are always spun as the literal end of the world by every single SEO blogger. The lynchpin of this update is to improve the user’s experience on the page they are visiting. It applies pressure to website owners to improve three Core Web Vitals scores: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

While a constant algorithm would make for a predictable playing field, it would ignore shifts in search trends, device usage, network infrastructure and software/hardware improvements. Take a moment to examine what search would look like if we were still using ranking strategies from 2005, when only 56% of the Australian population had internet access, and 16% had broadband. Nearly all of that internet access would have occurred on a desktop device at that time, as opposed to being primarily mobile in recent years.

In this piece, I’ll cover what you need to know about the newest update, and give you one simple tip to keep your head above water.

 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Largest Contentful Paint is the time taken for the largest object above the fold (be it an image or text box) to be fully rendered within the device’s viewport. Google say that this is reflective of the time taken until the user can actually decide whether the page they are loading is useful or relevant to the reason they are on the page in the first place. LCP shouldn’t be confused with a 90s clown-themed horrorcore hip-hop duo that somehow still exists today.

We’re all guilty of leaving a slow-loading page before the LCP. You’d probably be surprised at how many people do the same thing; or are more impatient than you! A page load time of up to 10 seconds increases the probability of a bounce by 123% – scary stuff.

 

Where is the LCP in relation to a page’s fully-loaded time? On a handful of websites I analysed it often occurred around 1 second after the First Contentful Paint, and 2-3 seconds before the fully-loaded time.

On a less-optimised page, it occurred much later than the (already slow) FCP, 1 second before the fully-loaded time.

There are a few reasons why it would occur so late, on a WordPress website with a third-party page builder, bloated theme, Google fonts and plugins aplenty, it has to download a lot of different scripts, stylesheets and images. By default, those assets are downloaded one-by-one in a queue, with each asset relying on the successful completion of the last.

Google’s ideal LCP score: 2.5 seconds or less.

 

First Input Delay (FID)

How many times have you been on a website, clicked a button, and it just hasn’t done anything. So you click it again, and again, until it responds like you’ve just dropped a whole sleeve of Mentos into a Diet Coke bottle.

Unlike LCP, First Input Delay is a measure of user experience when interacting with an element on your page after you’re able to interact with it. FID is the time delay between when a user clicks a button, link or JavaScript control, and when the browser begins to process the event as a response.

Casual gamers will draw an immediate parallel to lag, the leading cause of broken controllers worldwide. This input delay can mean the difference between a game-winning headshot and a being on the receiving end of an impromptu tea leaf infusion.

The biggest cause of increased FID lag is other processes holding up the main thread queue. Think of it like when your boss tells you that he’s got a quick 5 minute job for you and doesn’t realise you’ve got a backlog of 89 other 5 minute jobs already – something just has to wait!

This is exacerbated if you’re trying to click something before the page has fully loaded, the main thread is busy doing other things like trying to get that page served, but you’re here trying to speedrun the website like a sub-5 minute 36 second playthrough of Doom. Because you’re interrupting the browser while it’s busy, it will only respond AFTER it finishes the task it’s currently working on. That delay/lag is the FID for this page.

Google’s ideal FID score: 100ms or less.

 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

How nice is it when you load a website, and all the elements show up in the right place without unfolding like some sort of demonic digital origami in front of you. This is Cumulative Layout Shift, and Google thinks that it is just as annoying as you do, and will now start penalising offenders.

If your CLS score is higher than you’d like, then the first place you should look is your images. If they don’t have defined height and width values then they will contribute to your CLS score when they load and push elements out of the way, or expands the size of their parent container. The more elements you have on the page that contribute to the shift, the worse your score will be.

I’ve found ad placeholders are especially bad for this, particularly if you’re using the Google Publisher Tag (GPT) script for your banner ads with collapseEmptyDivs set to true. I found this setting grossly inflated the CLS on two of our websites, resulting in a CLS score of around 0.63 on one. What it appeared to be doing was collapsing the ad slot divs prematurely, before it had a chance to load the ad creative. The div had a minimum height of 90px, which would then collapse and shift all content up by 90px. It would then shift it back down by the same amount once the GPT script realised the div wasn’t actually empty.

Setting collapseEmptyDivs to false resulted in the CLS dropping to 0.2 – while still not the best score, it represented a huge improvement. Leaving it set to true was ultimately useless, as we’re always serving ads, so there is no point in having that functionality, particularly if it affected a major Google ranking factor so significantly. Easy wins are the best kind.

I performed the same change on another website using an identical GPT snippet, and it yielded a similar result, 0.67 down to 0.37. Worth noting that while that website is similar in structure (WordPress, same theme, same GPT snippet) it does have different elements that I’ve discovered are contributing toward a higher CLS score.

Google’s ideal CLS score: 0.10 or less.

 

SEO Talk Is Un-bear-able

As you can see, Google are trying to reward businesses who actually care about user experience. Simply put, this update is about prioritising how quick a page loads something of value, how quick a site can respond to a user input, and how well structured the page being loaded is. COVID has taught businesses that they need to readily adapt to change, and an algorithm update is no different.

I’ve covered a lot about performance metrics above, but the one constant that will get you through any significant Google algorithm change will always be good quality content. You might have a lightning-fast website with incredible metrics, but if your content isn’t up to par you’re not going to rank for anything.

The perfect example of this is the speed test I did on the RGC website in the CLS section above. Despite being slow as hell, my McDonalds Monopoly Gamification story I wrote over a year ago consistently ranks number 1 for several search term variants based on it’s title. This little SEO engine that could rakes in hundreds of pageviews every month. I’m lovin’ it.

The sooner you realise that SEO is like running from a bear, the better. Remember, you just have to be faster than the guy behind you to avoid getting eaten.

eCommerce: Pandemic Panacea?

eCommerce: Pandemic Panacea?

If the GFC, SARS, Swine Flu and Zika were condensed into a single movie, it would be akin to The Terminator – a film dwarfed by it’s successor in every way. The COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, or Judgement Day in this metaphor, is already laying waste to the global economy in a spectacular fashion as we all grapple with our ‘new normal’.

 

 

Long-lasting economic impacts of the pandemic pale in comparison to the immediate, public health disaster that we are faced with as we all battle to flatten the curve and collectively grieve for the fallen. If you feel extremely uncertain about the future, you’re not alone – 39% of people feel the same way, plus another 52% of people feel somewhat uncertain. You’ll also be forgiven if you feel anxious, as nearly half the population share your existential dread, with only a quarter feeling somewhat optimistic according to a report by McCrindle this month (April 2020).

 

 

As most of us stay home for the greater good, we look toward online delivery of essential items like groceries and food. Our thirst for online retail is now more significant and necessary than ever, and we’re now seeing significant spikes in search traffic to terms that reflect grocery store shortages instead.

 


 

As I’ve written about previously, the first to disappear from grocery stores was toilet paper, followed swiftly by hand sanitiser and pasta. A surprising item to sell out nationwide was flour, which I later discovered was predominately being used by housebound Australians to make banana bread. I know one of the first symptoms of Coronavirus is losing your taste; but banana bread, seriously?

 

 

The Pandemic Pyramid

eCommerce analytics firm Profitero have crafted a Maslowian pyramid based on prolific search terms on Amazon. Comprised of 7 need states arranged into 3 groups, this is a great insight into consumer behaviour thus far.

 

 

As you can see, the Survival tier, responsible for consumers emptying supermarket shelves of essentials is predictably responsible for the largest increases in consumer spending.

Marketplace Pulse have been tracking the popularity of items that we’d consider Coronavirus essentials (face masks, wipes, gloves, soap, hand sanitisers, toilet paper and emergency food) since December 2019. Their findings are represented as the Amazon Coronavirus Index:

 

 

Hot on it’s heels is the Embracing Quarantine tier, where those of us lucky enough to work from home begin to splash out on improving the home office, kitchen and investing in puzzles which haven’t seen this kind of demand since the information era began.

 

 

With gyms shut down and fitness equipment now being worth it’s weight in gold (literally, rusty weight sets are now $300+ on Gumtree if you’re lucky) – the urge to improve our health, is nearly 5 times as popular as improving our homes in the top tier.

 

 

Marketers in the fitness sphere have capitalised on this trend, Pattern89 have reported that headlines and body copy featuring sport and fitness topics increasing four times from 5.7% to 21% of all digital ads – talk about those gains.

Aside from fitness bulking up, we’re also seeing a shift in imagery in general being used, with a substantial 27.4% decrease in ad creatives that feature human contact, and a six-fold increase in cleaning/hygiene practices. I know I’m not alone when I feel the urge to shout at the TV screen to tell characters to social distance.

 

Drop Dropshipping

As my colleagues have written about this month (links below) the importance of your tone of voice when it comes to marketing your business in a time of crisis is paramount. You shouldn’t feel afraid to continue to do business, but you should feel compelled to shy away from opportunistic and predatory messaging.

 

READ MORE: Brand Marketing More Important Than Ever

READ MORE: Communicating In The Age Of Coronavirus

 

Now is not the time to prey upon the less fortunate or the digitally naive, particularly with the elderly being one of the largest cohorts being forced to utilise eCommerce and likely lacking the digital cynicism that most of us (hopefully) possess.

Dropshipping stores that rely on wholesale marketplaces like Alibaba/Aliexpress are opportunistic models at the best of times, and Shopify have recorded registrations of over 500 Coronavirus-related digital storefronts since the outbreak.  Not only are they seeking to profit off a global public health crisis and are offering a sub-standard (potentially lethal) product, they will likely be unable to fulfil orders in a timely fashion anyway.

 

 

More worrying still, I’ve noticed an increase in ‘successful entrepreneurs’ marketing their own dropshipping training courses to potentially vulnerable people on social media. These (surprisingly expensive) ‘courses’ offer extravagant promises of outrageous success through creating your own dropshipping eCommerce store by leveraging ‘winning products’ and somehow equating revenue to gross profit. Stranger still, they all seem to pose next to the exact same AMG G-Wagon in the exact same location (a used luxury car dealership).

eCommerce is a fruitful endeavour when you can offer a genuine product, delivered in a timely manner which creates actual value for the customer. Self-isolation is a wonderful time to consider forging yourself a sustainable and scalable digital income, but be wary enough to do it in a way that benefits your customers as much as it benefits you financially.

Keep your wits about you, keep your messaging clean, and spread hope – not Coronavirus.

Sherpa Property Group Re-Brands $60 Million Pipeline

Sherpa Property Group Re-Brands $60 Million Pipeline

Southern Gold Coast and Tweed Coast developer Sherpa Property Group has unveiled a new name and brand – Freedom Beach Homes – for its $60 million pipeline of luxury home developments.

The new brand will be applied to the company’s existing Bilinga and Rainbow Bay projects, as well as a new project at Cabarita in northern New South Wales which is expected to be unveiled within months.

The company’s Scenic Ridge project at Bilambil Heights, which is expected to be finished in mid-2020, will not be re-branded.

Sherpa Property Group Managing Director Christie Leet said the new umbrella brand had been designed to provide clear differentiation for the company’s unique product.

“We build high-quality beach homes, not cookie cutter apartment buildings, and we think there is a real and growing market for the product,” he said.

“It is a product type that has been woefully neglected for decades on the Gold Coast where developers have only been interested in delivering a slightly different version of the building next door with smaller apartments and a higher yield.”

Sherpa launched the $10 million The Golden Four luxury beachfront housing development at Bilinga late last year and is preparing to launch a new $30 million, 16-home project at Rainbow Bay next month.

The company has also recently acquired a new development site at Cabarita where it is planning a new $20 million housing project.

The Golden Four project, the first of its kind on the Gold Coast for 30 years, received final approval earlier this month (March) with preliminary civil works due to commence shortly.

Sherpa has focussed on the identification of development sites suitable for traditional subdivision, with stand-alone homes on individually titled lots with no body corporate.

Projects are structured to allow buyers to complete the purchase of the land and then work with a builder to customise pre-approved home designs. The structure of the purchase contract means buyers can save hundreds of thousands of dollars on GST and Stamp Duty.

Mr Leet said that in many instances’ buyers can get a new home on their own land for roughly the same cost per sqm as an apartment which has huge ongoing Body Corporate expenses.

“Body Corporate living is not for everyone,” Mr Leet said. “We want to make sure people have the Freedom to choose how they live and are not forced into apartment living for no other reason than lack of choice.”

For more information visit thegoldenfour.com.au or call 0420 653 722.

Stall Wars: A New Hype - COVID-19

Stall Wars: A New Hype – The Great Australian Coronavirus Toilet Paper Panic

Australia’s lack of toilet paper has made headlines this week thanks to the COVID-19 Coronavirus, with frenzied shoppers fighting (literally) for the last remaining packs of dunny rolls in some sort of feverish, dystopian battle royale.

Coronavirus refers to a family of virus that contain the common cold, bronchitis and other respiratory infections including SARS. What makes COVID-19 hazardous is it’s ability to transfer from animals to humans, it’s ability to mutate rapidly, and that no vaccine exists for it at present.

What COVID-19 doesn’t do is cause spectacular, prolonged bouts of diarrhoea that would necessitate the need for the entire country to go out and buy their bodyweight in toilet paper.

 

 

Why are people stocking up on toilet paper?

Due to our reliance on overseas production of literally everything, pandemic lockdowns have had significant impacts on supply chains worldwide. Uninformed masses picked up on a Hong Kong based political journalist that reported that toilet paper supply would be affected. Now we all get to experience the absolute depths of human depravity in an aisle designed to clean up our undesirable actions.

 

Should you stock up on toilet paper too?

No. Obviously if you’ve run out at home, you’re probably 💩 out of luck now, but there is no point in committing to a selfish bulk buy. Only 40% of our toilet paper is imported from overseas, but for those of us who care about what we wipe our bums with, Kimberly-Clark (Kleenex) has Australian manufacturing facility with ample supply and 24-hour manufacturing.

Kleenex Employees
Selfie from a Kimberly-Clark worker in their warehouse.

 

Why all the hype?

We are social creatures, and a crisis like this (perpetuated by the media and the government’s insistence on multiple daily press conferences) is prompting the most anti-social behaviour in recent memory. Fear of missing out (FOMO) due to a supply:demand imbalance is a key motivator for any kind of hype. After all, nobody wants to resort to using a sock or ice-cold bidet.

It goes without saying that we have a herd mentality when it comes to objects or concepts that we as a community deem desirable, from necessities like toilet paper, to novelty or luxury items like handbags or shiny precious metals, even intangible things like intellectual property or cryptocurrency (or fiat currency for that matter).

 

Tulip Mania

Hype doesn’t stop – or start – with toilet paper, the earliest noteworthy instance of baseless stock shortfall triggering this kind of panic was “Tulip Mania”. Tulip Mania was a dark time in 17th Century Holland where the humble tulip flower was the must-have item to prove your social status – or what the kids nowadays call clout.

Tulip bulbs fetched nearly 10 times a person’s annual salary at their peak, and due to scarcity the resale market was the primary cause of skyrocketing prices. Tulips take nearly a decade to flower from a seed, so bulbs naturally fetched a premium.

The tulip bubble lasted less than half a year, with Dutch investors wallowing in a pit of worthless tulip bulbs they paid so much for.

 

Tulip Mania

A Satire of Tulip Mania (Jan Brueghel the Younger (1640)) depicts tulip maniacs as brainless monkeys.

 

Sick Shoes, Bro

In more recent times, Bitcoin was proclaimed by many to be the modern equivalent of Tulip Mania, which has been covered ad nauseam by nearly every blog on the internet.

I’m a big sneaker fan, so I am at the coalface of the sneaker hype ecosystem in my spare time. The sneaker resale game is a US$2 billion dollar market that is projected to reach US$6 billion by 2025.

 

Nike SB Pigeons

Jeff Staple’s Nike SB Dunk “Pigeon” release sparked riots in New York in 2005.

 

Jeff Staple made headlines in 2005 when he released his Nike SB Dunk “Pigeon” with sneakerheads lining up around the block for a chance to buy a pair of these limited edition shoes. Riots were reported over these pigeon-emblazoned kicks which now sell for over AU$20,000 on sneaker resale marketplaces like StockX.

In the 15 years since, the demand for limited edition shoes has only increased, with heavyweight collaborators like Michael Jordan (Basketball the legendary Nike Air Jordan), Virgil Abloh (Off-White and Louis Vuitton Creative Director), Kanye West (Rapper turned reality TV husband), Travis Scott (Rapper and owner of giant inflatable version of his own head) and the late Kobe Bryant all carving out a significant chunk of the industry with their own signature shoe lines.

 

Michael Jordan Flu Game

A very sick Michael Jordan during the legendary Game 5 comeback victory in 1997. His Airness wears a pair of “Flu Game” Jordan 12’s which maintain a cult following. Sick shoes indeed.

 

Stop, Collaborate and Listen

Hype transcends the shoe and personal hygiene industries, retailers worldwide have taken the collaborative bull by the horns and successfully leveraged it for products as mundane as homewares. Flat-pack furniture and sales maze juggernaught IKEA frequently collaborate with creatives worldwide. Most recently was a collaboration with Off-White’s Virgil Abloh in November.

IKEA x Virgil Abloh MARKERAD

IKEA x Virgil Abloh MARKERAD collection featuring a wet grass rug, giant IKEA receipt, paper bags and a broken mirror.

 

I attended the launch of the MARKERAD collection for three reasons:

  1. Observe how IKEA would handle the scale of a launch like this
  2. Investigate the extent that the devoted customer would go to secure a limited edition piece
  3. I wanted a clock.

 

IKEA Virgil Abloh MARKERAD Launch

IKEA’s foodcourt was packed, and it wasn’t for $1 hot dogs.

 

The turnout was huge, I got there half an hour before the launch was due to start and IKEA had already allocated all of the tickets they had allocated for the products an hour before I got there. More than 20 people had camped out overnight to get their hands on furniture, which featured a backlit Mona Lisa, a chair with a doorstop on one leg, and a green shag pile rug with “WET GRASS” written on it.

 

IKEA Virgil Abloh MARKERAD Launch

Gordon, a hype reseller who does this full time.

 

I met up with Gordon, a reseller who quit his day job to attend releases like this as his primary source of income. Gordon has a contract with a sneaker resale store in Brisbane and has been lining up for things professionally for over 18 months.

Before the first half of the allocated numbers had been called, the Mona Lisa had already sold out. By the end of the day, the only items remaining were a small IKEA toolkit with a “HOMEWORK” embellishment on the lid. Clearly hypebeasts aren’t the DIY type.

You’ll be pleased to know that Gordon got me my clock, which I’m not too proud to admit that I paid a premium on over RRP – but that’s par for the course when it comes to the resale market.

 

IKEA Virgil Abloh MARKERAD Launch

My MARKERAD clock, featuring Virgil Abloh’s trademark quotation marks which are both fashionable and incredibly difficult to use as an actual clock.

 

Befriend The Bar Keeper

Switching back to grocery store wars for a quick final case study, Bar Keepers’ Friend is a canned abrasive cleaning powder that has been produced since 1882. It had a humble single facing allocation in the cleaning aisle in your local supermarket, but then something strange happened earlier this year.

 

Bar Keepers Friend

Bar Keepers’ Friend, still relevant in 2020 after nearly 140 years.

 

Social media discovered that this humble little can could do the unthinkable: it could obliterate the calcified buildup on your shower screens and brighten the kitchen sink with minimal effort. Consequently, the $8 can has been sold out for months despite assurances from Coles and Woolworths that they will meet demand.

Will Barkeeper’s Friend attract a 4-pack-per-customer limit or will it go the way of the tulip? Either way, retailers are cleaning up on the hype.

If the COVID-19 panic is getting you down, here is an incredible Simpsons mashup to lighten the mood:

 

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A post shared by Rock Bottom 📺 (@rockbottom.ig) on

South East Queensland Land Market Continues To Gather Pace

South East Queensland Land Market Continues To Gather Pace

The South East Queensland (SEQ) land market continues to build momentum with sales volumes for the three months to the end of December coming in at the second highest level in 18 months, according to new research by Oliver Hume.

The data was compiled by Oliver Hume Research by analysing more than 1,300 transactions across more than 150 projects across Brisbane, Gold Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay and Redland local government areas.

Oliver Hume National Head of Research George Bougias said the land market finished the year strongly after tight lending conditions and the Federal election impacted confidence in the first half.

“Although the December sales figures softened after the peak of the September quarter, the three months to December recorded the second highest sales rate for 2019 despite the December quarter typically being a slow period,” he said.

Mr Bougias said developer incentives, low interest rates and government backed buyer incentives continue to underpin the relatively positive market conditions.

“Altogether, these factors are creating a sense of optimism moving into 2020,” he said.

Median Lot Prices

LGA

QIV. ’18

QIII.’19

QIV.’19

5 Year Change

QoQ

YoY

Brisbane (C)

$385,625

$387,000

$387,375

-8.1%

0%

0%

Gold Coast (C)

$339,188

$323,350

$317,850

31.4%

-2%

-6%

Ipswich (C)

$208,113

$220,338

$221,775

19.5%

1%

7%

Logan (C)

$216,688

$221,000

$221,313

22.4%

0%

2%

Moreton Bay (R)

$253,250

$249,500

$250,188

15.5%

0%

-1%

Redland (C)

$303,125

$319,000

$305,000

7.4%

-4%

1%

SEQ

$242,125

$246,000

$258,000

16.2%

5%

7%

 SOURCE: Oliver Hume Research.

The Oliver Hume research showed median prices remained relatively stable over the December quarter, rounding out a year that has delivered average median price growth of 6.6% across all municipalities.

Logan (23% market share) retained its title as the most popular destination for new land buyers in the quarter, followed by Ipswich (22%) and the Gold Coast (18%).

While Logan beat Ipswich for total sales, Ipswich continues to lead the charge for price growth. The median lot price in the Ipswich LGA, at $221,775, grew 1% since September quarter and 7% since December 2018. 

The Gold Coast market continues to be impacted by a shortage of large, quality lots, despite continued strong demand from buyers. The lack of available lots and the intensifying buyer demand will see the remaining lots snapped up quickly with little supply in sight.

Mr Bougias said the SEQ market remained one of the most stable in the country, delivering consistent year on year growth underpinned by Queensland’s steady population growth.

“The land market in the south east corner of Queensland has been relatively stable over the last few years and has avoided much of the extreme highs and lows of the southern markets,” he said.

“While sales volumes were subdued in the first half as a result of the election, the full impact of lower interest rates, developer incentives and increasing demand flowed through in the second half,” he said.

Oliver Hume Chief Operating Officer Julian Coppini said while affordability remained the key driver behind land sales, lot availability played a major role over the quarter.

“There was an increase in lots available above 400sqm over the three months to December, driving up the sales numbers with many buyers seeing the value in greater land size,” he said. “A large portion of the lots sold sit just over 400sqm, most commonly the 420sqm block.”

Lengthy Harley Quinn Film Title Gets SEO Flick

Lengthy Harley Quinn Film Title Gets SEO Flick

Warner Brothers have hit the rename button on their mouthful of a title for the new Harley Quinn film, citing “search expansion for ticket sites” as their motivation.

It’s not often you have a post-release change to anything as large as a feature film, especially for the purposes of SEO.

Without critiquing the movie itself, let’s just get stuck into exactly how critical your title structure is to give your content the best chance of success.

Supervillains Need SEO, Too

The original title is 69 characters and 11 words long including parentheses:

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

The new title is just 28 characters and 5 words long:

Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey

Harley Quinn’s namesake has now been given pride of place, with Birds of Prey taking a back seat, and the rambling 40 character Australian Psychic Expo word vomit is gone.

 

Why is the title important? Anyone, regardless of their enthusiasm for comic book movies will be able to tell you that this is the Harley Quinn movie. In general, Google show a maximum of 60 characters in Search titles, so by positioning her extremely valuable name 55 characters into the title, listings will exclude her name from appearing at all:


Then there was this headline from Forbes which had a healthy dose of irony:

Forbes Harley Quinn Listing

Whereas the truncated title fits perfectly with 30 characters to spare for the website’s name itself, benefiting local Cinemas and review sites alike, all battling for ticket sales and impressions.

The fact of the matter is, Birds of Prey simply doesn’t hold the same level of brand recognition as Harley Quinn does. It isn’t The Avengers, or X-Men (which suffered a similar blunder with Dark Phoenix). Current trends show that it’s only been as recently as this week that Birds of Prey’s search popularity has started to eclipse that of Harley Quinn’s:

If we compare the original title to the truncated title, the latter is 20 times as popular and trending upward as of writing this:

Even adding ‘Harley Quinn Movie’ to the mix illustrates the link between Harley Quinn and the brand’s success:

Objectively speaking, if this were any other service or product that you were searching for and you were presented with search results that didn’t contain the thing that you actually searched for, you’d probably just keep scrolling. You wouldn’t look for plumbers in your area and click a listing that began with 60 characters describing the van they turn up to a job in.

Admittedly, when I first read the original title for Birds of Prey my mind immediately defaulted to a Troy McClure film of undisclosed popularity:

 

Oddly enough, ‘The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel’ just squeezes in to the 60 character limit, making it slightly more SEO friendly than what I’m writing this article about.

Metatags Aren’t Just For Metahumans

Warner Brothers have been under fire in previous years for strong-arming directors into pre-release title changes, so this could simply just be a change of tact to afford Cathy Yan proper creative control over her film despite the unusually eccentric title raising numerous eyebrows.

Corporate Bean-Counters stepped in to action this unprecedented title change fairly swiftly, speaking volumes about the power of SEO and appropriately structuring your titles to make sure it is seen by as many eyes as possible.

Much like a feature film, your content is a money-making exercise. Business doesn’t run on love alone, you are always investing your time into creating content designed to position you as an expert in your field.

This isn’t saying you can’t be creative with your titles, you just have to be creative in the scope of the platform you’re publishing on. All content delivery methods come with a set of parameters that you must adhere to, which aren’t limited to just movie titles. For example, if you are creating content for TikTok, you wouldn’t use still images. If you are trying to launch a new car model in Portugal, you’d name it the Kauai instead of the Kona. If you were creating a billboard ad for the side of a highway, you wouldn’t use an entire paragraph of text (or would you).

Lyft Billboard

With that said, it’s time for you to start structuring your page titles effectively, they are your ad’s headline in organic search results.

  • Keep them under 60 characters long
  • Use your most important elements at the start
  • Answer a question preemptively (chances are you’re writing the article to answer something anyway)
  • Promote yourself shamelessly

The key takeaway from this scenario is that if the first title you pick doesn’t hit the mark, that’s ok! If Warner Brothers’ can change a movie title, then you can change your blog post’s title (feature image, excerpt or content for that matter) at any time. That in itself is the beauty of creating content for the digital world, you’re only limited by your attachment to what you create.

Gamification McDonalds Monopoly Marketing

Gamification: McDonalds Marketing Monopoly

Ah, Monopoly. Parker Brothers’ accurate prediction of the current Sydney housing market, and perhaps the leading cause of animosity between family members during power outages.

It’s McDonalds Monopoly time, possibly the most obvious example of gamification, where the dynamic duo dangle the veritable deep-fried carrot in front of millions of Australians who are battle-hardened against most marketing efforts of the fast food juggernaught.

Gamification McDonalds Monopoly
Game On

Gamification, simply put – is a marketing campaign masquerading as a game, which serves to bridge the engagement gap between business and customer to improve the likelihood of conversion. This method is proven to increase engagement, loyalty, the consumer experience and above all – move product.

How is gamification profitable? McDonalds simply restrict the quantity of specific pieces of the Monopoly real estate tokens, naturally mitigating any risk associated with too many winners. After all – the game isn’t designed to get you into that brand new Suzuki Vitara, the game is designed to make the business money.

Maccas adds another gamification layer to their marketing in their flashy, yet UX challenged phone app. This provides a modern, yet equally frustrating electronic version on the classic board game, while doubling as a facility to claim and collect your tokens.

But if winning a major prize is statistically improbable, what’s the point? Enter the consolation prize, designed almost entirely to claw you back into the restaurant: ‘Instant Win’ prizes like chips or a small soft drink. When you go to redeem these are they REALLY all you’re going to get? No, you’re likely going to order an entire meal, plus the free fries – because you want those additional tickets. On top of that, Chance Card tokens are also provided as another layer of gamification, unlocking mini-games in the app to win yet more tokens or prizes. Gameception.


Can I Play?

If you haven’t already disappeared to make the hunger-fuelled pilgrimage to the Golden Arches, how can you leverage gamification for your business?

Lets explore the three main tenets of Gamification: building Motivation, Ability & Triggers. Motivation is the dangling carrot enticing the player to play, while Ability enables the player to play by means of providing the playing field (which includes actual prizes), and Triggers get the player off the bench and into the game when they are made to feel the most empowered.

Motivation: 

Benefit to You: Breaks down barrier between customer and business, adds another person to the funnel.
Benefit to Player: Instills a feeling of easily-achieved win, promise of dopamine kick and tangible ‘prize’.

Ability: 

Benefit to You: Nothing intrinsically, this is essentially entirely a liability in terms of costs associated with prizes and marketing.
Benefit to Player: Available prizes that people instinctively perceive as goals, while being offered the pathway to achieve that goal by you.

Trigger:

Benefit to You: Customer’s illusion of choice, forced to take action by purchasing product in order to begin the game.
Benefit to Player: Starts the game which they have already imagined winning (for a small fee, this holds the most risk for player).

As you can see, this is a zero-sum game when appropriately managed. Where the motivation step benefits both parties, the ability step benefits the player and the trigger benefits the business. Once you’ve quantified your Ability in terms of the value of your marketing investment (prizes, assets & activation), and the Trigger’s value to you (products purchased, emails collected), it’s game on.

Gamification McDonalds Monopoly

Get Your Head In The Game

Obviously a partnership with an international entertainment company is out of the reach of most businesses, so here’s a few good examples of gamification that you could modify to suit your own purposes:

Facebook – Top Fans


Consistently engage with a page’s posts and you’ll have a shiny badge next to your name to show your loyalty to the business when commenting on their posts. This benefits Facebook by ensuring users stay active, benefits the business by increasing post engagement rates and reach, and benefits the user by rewarding them with bragging rights in the form of a tiny badge.

Google Maps – Local Guides Program


Regularly write quality reviews for businesses you visit to increase your profile’s level, earning badges along the way and ascend quicker by writing more comprehensive reviews, or by posting photos and videos. This benefits Google by increasing the value of it’s Maps listings to the end user by bolstering the quantity of submissions while prioritising quality content. Most importantly though, it benefits the business by means of social proofing, boosting perceived trust in the business and promoting it’s good deeds (and punishing bad customer service). Also benefits the reviewer’s profile by positioning them as an authority in their area, and sometimes, winning tangible prizes like socks.

Linkedin – Profile Completion Awards

Linkedin Gamification
Microsoft want you to complete your Linkedin profile a lot further than your name and a photo, and do so by awarding you a self-esteem boosting award to say you’re using the platform effectively. This little feature benefits Linkedin by improving the average profile completion rate, ensuring they stay competitive in a Facebook-controlled ecosystem and above all, increasing the amount of increasingly-valuable user data available to them. This also benefits businesses advertising on the platform by giving a strong insight into who the humans in their sphere (both employees and clients) are, and what makes them tick. Your willingly-surrendered data isn’t simply cast into the aether, it does benefit you by building your personal brand, and ensuring you stay competitive (ie: employable and relevant) in your own field.

Asana – Task Completion Narwhal


Asana is a project management tool which rewards habitual task-completers with a cheerful flying narwhal that flies across the screen every so-often when tasks are marked as complete. This simple animation benefits Asana by catering to younger professionals with this fun imagery, benefits the business using the platform by incentivising task completion, and benefits the user by offering a monotony-busting, unexpected surprise for doing something as simple as ticking a box.

eCommerce – Spin-To-Win


This appears most notably on Wish, where you’re given an opportunity to spin a wheel to win the chance to unlock an extra discount on a number of products dependent on the result of your spin. On other eCommerce websites, this is often a variable ($/%) discount on advertised products which is awarded in the same manner. This Wheel of Fortune benefits the merchant by potentially moving the price-conscious consumer closer to conversion with a small chance-based discount, and benefits the user by appealing to their FOMO, and saving them a small amount on an item they desire. Bonus round: Add a data capture element to this by asking for an email address to unlock the spin. 

Ace Ventura Monopoly Guy

Interested in learning more about gamification and how it can improve your conversion rates? Get in touch, I’d love to talk about how this strategy can put a fun spin on your next campaign.

ifyouarentfirstyourelast

Google Mobile-First Indexing – If You Aren’t First, You’re Last

You’ve been hearing Google preaching about the mobile experience for some time now. “Make sure your website is mobile friendly!” they say, and while being just ‘friends’ has its benefits, you really need a stronger connection than that.

Google have announced that all new domains will default to mobile-first indexing as of 1st July 2019. This isn’t unexpected, and is a logical step considering that mobile devices account for over 2/3 of internet traffic.

Google announced plans for mobile-first indexing in 2016, but for a lot of people, 2019 may be the first time they’ve heard of it. Mobile-first indexing is Google’s way of saying they are solely prioritising the mobile experience of a website when assigning organic search rankings, meaning how well your website performs on mobile is now the deciding factor of how well you can rank in organic search results.

“But I already own my domain!” you say. While this announcement specifically mentions new domains, an earlier Google announcement in December 2018 revealed that more than half of websites crawled are already subject to mobile-first indexing.

Look At His Little Socks

Urge to open an eCommerce site for dog socks rising… (Source: Tumblr/hypedogs)

But Why Is Mobile-First Indexing Important?

Access your Google Analytics dashboard and view your traffic sources. There’s a good chance you’re looking at a large slice of pie that illustrates you’re receiving a LOT of traffic from organic search results.

Let’s say you sold customised socks for dogs online. You receive 80,000 visitors per month, 40% of that traffic came from organic search (32,000 visitors), a 2% conversion rate and an average order value of $20.

1,600 visitors bought socks, with $32,000 in revenue.

What if half of that organic search traffic disappeared overnight?

Now only 1,280 visitors bought socks, netting $25,600 in revenue.

You just lost $6,400.

Don’t Panic

By not prioritising mobile-first indexing via improving your website’s mobile experience you run the risk of your hard-earned rankings slipping into the abyss of search results beyond page 1, resulting in valuable organic traffic being lost to competitors.

An eCommerce example was used above, however the same logic can be applied to lead generation websites (especially small business) or informational websites that generate advertising revenue. Leads have a quantifiable dollar value once you’ve determined their weight, but Display advertising is generally paid for by impressions (views), and if you’ve lost a sizeable number of eyeballs viewing because of fingers not clicking, your hip pocket will feel the pinch next.

Google PageSpeed Insights Mobile First Indexing

Ouch. Room for improvement?

So What Can I Do?

This is an important strategy to consider immediately, take the time to create a measured and rational strategy to accommodate mobile-first indexing to preserve (or improve) your organic search rankings.

Try these easy tests first:

  • Check your site’s Page Speed Index here, is the mobile score green? What are the most problematic areas?
  • Or, view your site on your mobile device, is it legible? Do certain items take up too much space on screen? Do you have intrusive popups?

If you’re not seeing promising results using these tools, or if you need a hand navigating the jargon, get in touch with us here at RGC Media & Mktng to discuss the best way for you to navigate 2019.

Feature Image: Talladega Nights (2006) 

Andrew-Thomson-web

CFMG Capital Adds 187 Lots To Pipeline With Three Site Acquisitions

Diversified property group CFMG Capital has completed the acquisition of three parcels of land across Queensland and Victoria that will collectively yield almost 200 lots.

The sites are located at Rochedale and Park Ridge, both of which lie in the Brisbane to Gold Coast growth corridor, and in the Melbourne suburb of Wollert, 26km north of the CBD.

The 4.94-hectare Park Ridge site, which is bordered by Koplick and East Beaumont roads west of the Logan CBD and has already received Development Approval (DA), will feature 89 lots with an average size of 373sqm.

CFMG Capital will develop a further 15 lots with an average size of 439sqm at Gardener Rd, Rochedale, after acquiring 1.33ha of land 17km south-east of the Brisbane CBD in a deal worth $3.375 million.

The company has also lodged a Development Application for 83 lots at Epping Rd, Wollert, a lifestyle suburb popular with older couples and independents.

To be known as Acacia Village, the project will feature average lot sizes of 326sqm and follows CFMG Capitals’s purchase of the 5.86-hecatre site for $6.8 million.

The trio of acquisitions will take CFMG Capitals’s development pipeline to more than 1,000 lots across 10 different projects in Queensland and Victoria.

CFMG Capital General Manager Andrew Thomson said the three sites ticked all the boxes when it came to meeting the demands of both investors and owner-occupiers.

“It can be a challenge finding quality land close to metropolitan centres so these acquisitions are a huge boost for property buyers in both the South-East Queensland and Melbourne markets,” he said.

“As well as being able to create a home to suit their own preferences, all the sites are close to the infrastructure and services that make Brisbane, Logan and Melbourne so attractive.

“The team at CFMG Capital takes great care to identify prime land for our projects and there is no doubt these three investments fit the bill, particularly given the demand for quality affordable projects in strong growth corridors continues to rise.”

Lot prices at the Wollert site will start from $199,000, while the Park Ridge lots will range from $209,000 to $239,000.

Prices at the Rochedale site, with its exclusive release of only 15 lots, will start from $420,000.

The new acquisitions add to a CFMG Capital portfolio that includes Lomandra Park at Bridgeman Downs, Elevate at Ormeau Hills, Creeks Edge and Oakland Pocket at Morayfield, Middleton Park at Logan Reserve and Solander at Park Ridge.

CFMG Capital operates two core divisions; a residential communities development business with a pipeline of more than 1,000 lots and residential funds management business which has raised more than $90 million in third party equity.