#I added details correlating to ever task he had!

[alcettogo]

How'd the guy with no friends win?

[chibimyumi]

Hey! Hope everything's fine (: I wanna ask about the following: what do you think will happen to r!Ciel? I just can't see o!Ciel, Sebastian, the Undertaker etc killing r!Ciel... He might decide to leave the scene for his brother's sake. It would be quite ironic if r!Ciel will choose to sacrifice himself after UT's hard work to bring him back to "life", given the fact that he's an ex-human who committed suicide.

Dear Anon,

First of all, thank you very much, I am doing great. I hope you’re doing great as well! Secondly, I am so sorry for the late reply.

What I think will happen to R!Ciel.

I definitely think that Undertaker will do anything in his power to make sure that R!Ciel does not get killed again; we have seen Undertaker’s obsession with the Phantomhive family, after all.

Sebastian is the titular character of this series, and right now he is incredibly scared of the reaper. Functionally, Undertaker is designed as the main villain and foil to Sebastian. Therefore, storytelling-wise, I think the logical proceeding would be for Sebas to thwart Undertaker when it comes to R!Ciel. Both of them would share the same reason to oppose each other, namely that they are each other’s greatest obstacle in achieving their respective goals. For Sebastian, it is to fulfil his contract and devour O!Ciel, which Undertaker is trying to prevent. For Undertaker, it is for Sebas to NOT fulfil his contract, as he wishes to reunite the Phantomhive family as much as possible. As such, though R!Ciel is of course a character of his own, he does also function as a plot-device for Sebas’ character arc to bear fruit.

Unpacking ‘Need vs Want’

Any good character arc should contain a good ‘need vs want’ correlation. The part above ⇈ and the greatest part of the manga so far, addresses only the ‘need’ in the ‘need vs want’ in Sebastian’s character arc. The ‘want’ is mostly left untouched. Sure, we could say that Sebastian ‘wants’ to fulfil his contract in order to have O!Ciel’s soul, but there has never been any explicit explanation as to whether Sebas had a choice in the matter to begin with. He did not seem to have any say in whether he gets summoned or not, as was suggested by him telling O!Ciel to dismiss him if he required no service of him. Here, we learned that Sebas can’t just leave on his own accord; i.e. he is chained. From this, we may conclude that sacrificing R!Ciel was the fee to get Sebastian to travel to the human world. If we do accept that he had no say in whether he wanted to come or not, we could say that by ‘paying’ with R!Ciel, Sebas was put in a magic-parcel and sent to O!Ciel, with the included promise to enter a bond of servitude. In order to dismiss him, the same postage fee would have been required to repack him and send him back.

If we accept Sebas’ condition of entering the contract as being involuntary, all the ‘want’ in him that is left so far is:

wanting his meal to be delicious

to not be a speechless slave.

Out of these two ‘wants’ however, only number 1 counts as the correlation with the ‘need’ which befits a character arc.  Number 2 is more of a coping mechanism, or a means to an end, if anything. Whether or not he acts like a speechless slave will not really change the way he fulfils his contract. For number 1 however, Sebas does need to act differently depending on how he wishes to manipulate the flavour of O!Ciel’s soul. Sure, so far in the manga, Sebastian has done quite a few things already to influence the flavour of his meal, e.g. letting the snakes attack the boy in Snake’s tent in the circus arc, or not allowing him to continue simpering due to trauma in the werewolf arc. (But one could even argue that shocking him out of trauma has more to do with the ‘need’…)

The current development in regards to Undertaker is probably the first time where Sebas’ ‘want’ arc can finally shine. I shall explain below:

R!Ciel and O!Ciel’s bond.

One of the most important things the flashbacks were telling us is that O!Ciel and R!Ciel have an incredibly strong bond, and that O!Ciel used to be hyper dependent on his older sibling. After R!Ciel died, O!Ciel had to rapidly grow up in order to fill the shoes his brother left behind, as well as to establish his own identity, or arguably, his brother’s identity according to the almost idealistic standard to which the younger twin held him.

O!Ciel is no longer dependent on his twin, but if we read this spread page from the werewolf arc as the order of guilt-level O!Ciel feels towards people, we see R!Ciel being in position number 1.

So the arc for O!Ciel here is to decide whether his sentiments play a role in his decision making.

Will he show that he has entirely let go of his sentiments and see R!Ciel for the zombie he is, and continue his revenge arc in a bee-line?

Or will lingering sentiments flow into a mini personal-redemption arc now that the main object of O!Ciel’s guilt is back?

Considering O!Ciel’s personality, I personally am more willing to bank on a route 2, where the sentiments might threaten to influence O!Ciel, but him having to smack these feelings down even more harshly. If anything O!Ciel has learned in the past almost-4 years, is that the dead stay dead. Back in chapter 19, O!Ciel even lectured Soma on the stupidity of wishing things back that are gone at one point.

O!Ciel realises very well that R!Ciel is not his brother anymore. We have seen his shock upon seeing his brother’s corpse talking to him, yes, but afterwards, the first spoken reaction we see of him is utter outrage. That scene was so full of spontaneity and catharsis, it is hard to believe that he used all those long, looong moments of absolute silence to come up with a script to give people a ‘show’ of how he wants his zombie brother deader. If anything, the long period of silence was probably him considering what the return of ‘the real first born’ means to him, and how it will influence his future. And of course O!Ciel is not happy to find out that the one adversary even his demon seems unable to overcome, has become their adversary again in a major problem that O!Ciel cannot afford to hand-wave. During the Campania- and the Boarding School Arc, O!Ciel could say: “Oh, Undertaker is up to no good, he has to be stopped. If not, then it sucks for others.” But now, if Undertaker doesn’t get stopped FOR GOOD, well… it will become: “That sucks a lot for me!”

Returning to Sebastian’s ‘want’

So, what does all this rant about O!Ciel have to do with Sebastian’s ‘want’ arc? If O!Ciel goes for route 1 (bee-line to revenge), then Sebastian and O!Ciel’s ‘want’ arc will overlap, and the two of them can head towards the same goal (albeit with different motivations).Here above however, I said that I am more likely to vouch for route 2.

If O!Ciel opts for route 2, then O!Ciel’s ‘want’ and Sebastian’s  ‘want’ will contradict, as surely Sebastian is not waiting for a soul with ‘too-many-sentiments-to-kill-a-corpse’ flavour. In that case, however reluctant Sebastian might be to fight Undertaker again, he will at least make sure that O!Ciel’s resolve to kill the zombie won’t wither. This task however, will require a much greater effort and determination on Sebastian’s part than anything he has done so far in terms of ‘seasoning his meal’. The snake-stunt in the Circus Arc was adding some salt and pepper perhaps, but this time, playing a hand in whether or not O!Ciel has the guts to kill R!Ciel will be as flavour-changing as choosing between boiling or stir-frying a meal.

Hence, with clashing interests between demon and boy, Sebastian must see to it that his ‘want’ won’t be hindered by O!Ciel’s ‘want’. So,  ladies and gentlemen, and other respectable individuals, here is where we might see Sebastian’s first ‘want’ arc where he acts solely out of personal desire. Regardless of whether O!Ciel would initially choose route 1 or 2, the final result (if Sebas has any say in the matter) will still result in them going after R!Ciel.

R!Ciel Leaving Baby Brother?

As for R!Ciel leaving the scene for his brother’s sake… I personally find it quite hard to believe so. As explained in the Boarding School Arc, Bizarre Dolls – however well they are made – are in essence the embodiment of a person’s strongest emotions and fixations in life. R!Ciel’s fixation is probably his regret that he could not stay by his baby brother’s side to protect him and planning every detail out in their ‘glorious shared future’. Remember how R!Ciel could not handle O!Ciel saying he is going to live his own life and become a toy maker? Yikes.

The possessiveness of R!Ciel that was unfiltered due to his young age became the essence of his current being; a baby-bro-con zombie. Instead of “braaains”, it is “baby-brooooo”. In short, I do not think there is any chance R!Ciel will be able to physically and mentally let go of O!Ciel. As touched upon in this post, I think Undertaker’s and O!Ciel’s shared objective is to force O!Ciel to live a ‘happy life’ together with his twin.

If anything, R!Ciel’s (artificial) intentions fit the theme of Kuroshitsuji perfectly; humans are too greedy to let go and will submit to their greed ever after death.

If we consider this, then the Bizarre Dolls tell us that: “what makes humans human is their greed and fixation. In order to make a corpse human again, the main and only way to make this possible is to restore this greed and fixation.

[idealistic-imaginings]

(Pictures: 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9)

Your Friendly Neighbourhood, Wizard. (Alex Russo/Justin Russo Fanfiction)

Prologue

Pairing: Superhero! Alex Russo x Justin Russo, Slowburn.

Genre: Action, Humour,  Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Romance

Warnings: mild/explicit language, Injuries, sisterxbrother.

Set: After Season 4x10 "Wizards Vs. Angels" (Which is somewhat heavily involved in both Alex and Justin’s separate storylines.) + “Back to Max”.

Est. Length: 8 Chapters.

Summary: After defeating the dark angels, Justin continues to teach his delinquent class unconsciously suppressing his guilt over the ramifications of the moral compass. Simultaneously, Alex unconventionally stumbles into a superhero gig. Inept and unprepared, great power and an even greater burden is placed on her shoulders. Bothered by his sisters reoccurring absence, Justin determinedly investigates her distant behaviour. Meanwhile, Alex is forced to face a truth she’d always buried, discovering it unwillingly from a formidable powerful being she will have to defeat.

Disclaimer/Author's Note: I’ve been brainstorming this fic probably since quarantine started. It’s mostly inspired by Spiderman! Into the Spiderverse, Holland! Spiderman and Garfield! Spiderman. As well as the looks and feel of DC Comic’s Raven and Marvel’s Scarlet Witch. Other inspirations include music from Birds of Prey, On My Block, Euphoria. All of which I do not own. In addition, I sadly do not own Wizards of Waverly Place.

However, Alex’s origin story is wholly my own that I personally thought up myself (so let’s hope it���s believable) and if it correlates with any other superhero storyline it’s purely coincidental. The OC’s are also obviously my own creation.

“Do you know why you’re here, Alex Russo?”

“Ummm…” Alex backed up at the man's intense stare. She was pretty sure he was going for intimidation, but it fell short landing right on uncomfortable. “Not really…”

“Well, young lady,” His words were layered thick with haughtiness. Alex had just met the man today and she already knew she disliked him. “It seems you were part of a riot in central park.”

“No…” She narrowed her eyes at him, shook her head, even elongated the word in an attempt to get it through his thick skull. “I was trying to get home.”

She was actually trying to find her wand, but he didn’t need to know that. The wand that Rosie and Gorog decided to fling off the dark realm tower.  The detailed image of it glowing magic in the night sky as it twirled to its doom stayed seared to the front of her mind. She could even hear her own cry for it as everyone watched it go. My wand.

“So what were you doing in Central Park?” Right after returning the moral compass she searched Central Park assuming it had landed there. Key word: assuming. It was hard to calculate where objects falling off towers landed. For her, it was hard to calculate in general.

“A girl can’t go to one of New York City's finest parks just for the fuc- fun of it.” She replied with a smile, catching herself before she swore. It was just her luck to get the arrogant, novice, goody-two-shoes, by-the-book cop. They didn’t enjoy it when she did that.

“And you just happened to be hanging out with an enraged mob?” He asked mockingly. Okay so...she did get mixed up in a riot. Which wasn’t her fault. She was too focused at the task at hand to pay any attention to the crowd of screaming people she had walked through. What was more concerning was that one of those fuckers was stepping all over her wand, or worse one of them had already snapped its cherry redness in two.

“I wasn’t hanging out with them-”

“Yeah, instead you were disturbing the peace and provoking assaults.” Alex had to stay low to the ground for any sign of her wand which perhaps caused a few people to accidentally trip over her. There was also a minor possibility that her assertive bumping into others unintentionally started some fights. This all lead to Richard here (according to his desk tag), cuffing her and bringing her to the NYPD Central Park precinct. Meaning her wand had been left behind, defenceless against the grimy boots of crabby New Yorkers...if it was even there to begin with.

“How do you disturb the peace in a riot?” Alex fired back.

“Ms. Russo, you’ve had a record since you were twelve.” He said, abruptly switching topics and ignoring her. Rude much. To prove his point he made a show of flailing her folder around. It was a decent size for her age, Alex inwardly complimented herself. The first crime listed there was in summer 2004, when she sold those fake broadway tickets to unsuspecting tourists. That summer was a blast: hundreds of ice cream sandwiches and magazines.

“This behaviour is to be expected.” He finished. Alex suppressed an eye roll, this dude was getting on her nerves. Yes, she had a few run ins with the cops, but that didn’t mean she was always guilty of doing something vaguely illegal. Ever since she became a wizard, she'd barely caused any trouble with the mortals, Alex commended herself. Her last record was a good year ago, with a little vandalism and conning going under the radar but that was it. In their eyes, she could have set herself straight since then. Which she did.

What happened to the benefit of the doubt, what happened to believing people could change. Screw him and his patterns. And screw her wand for not being in Central Park. Now she’d have to buy a new one she sulked, slouching lower in the hard chair.

“I don’t like your attitude, Missy.” He said, noting her behaviour. ”Kids these days, not respecting the police.”

Oh my gosh, I just wanna go home. Richard Owens (what a lame name) continued typing at his computer, probably adding ‘riot starter’ to her record. He’d been holding her here for an hour now, still trying to gather evidence and witness accounts to file in her record. So far he had zero, zip, nada, not a single thing. Since everyone's memory seemed to be fuzzy, which she guessed was due to the moral compass.

Alex was annoyed at him and his cockiness. Annoyed at this hard chair that was making her butt fall asleep. Annoyed at the amount of people in this room, and how overly hot it. Would it kill them to crack open a window or turn up the air conditioning.

“Is that you, Alex Russo?” A woman said, approaching the desk. Oh finally her saviour.

“Wassup, June!” Alex grinned up at Song Namjoo, or June, as Alex called her. Much to Namjoo's displeasure. Not so much the name as it was Alex being an annoying little shit.

“What’d you do now?” She asked, placing a hand behind Alex’s chair, leaning forward to scan over the computer. The woman had her hair pulled down into its signature low bun, not a hair out of place. Her pristine police sergeant uniform was pressed to perfection with not a single crease, something Justin would greatly admire.

“No way, June you passed your Police Sergeant Exam!” Alex exclaimed. “You look dope.” She nodded in approval.

“Yeah.” June modeled for a second, before straightening her posture. “Passed about six months ago.”

“Well congratulations.” Alex smiled, genuinely proud. June was her life saver, and lowkey pain in her ass. Wherever she caused a ruckus (exclusively non magical) June would shortly be there. June had stopped a lot of unwanted things from going on her record, and also had a way of calming down Jerry and Theresa when they threatened to send her to the military. On the other hand, it's like she had some sort of Alex specific third eyes always managing to catch her in the act. Plus, her lectures were lengthy and boring and she didn't even allow Alex the option to sleep through them. In a way, she was Justin, if he were in the police force and was, you know, a Korean woman.

She shivered at the thought. Sure, Justin saved her a few too many times but that was because he was her brother. June was altruistic, she held herself with poise and grace. Like a cool aunt who'd let you off the hook halfway then let you decide for yourself the rest of the way. Besides, June was high-key a badass and Justin still cried over 'Mantooth'.

She felt a light pinch on her arm, automatically ready to shout 'POLICE BRUTALITY!' catching herself as she connected eyes with June.

June subtly raised an eyebrow in question towards Alex as if to say ‘What did you do now?’ Alex shrugged in response, her face saying ‘I’m innocent I swear’. June in turn gave her a half believing/ half disbelieving expression, before rolling her eyes. Which was always code for ‘Fine, I believe you’. After knowing June for a good 5 years they'd learned to read each others facial expressions pretty well. It helped with her record, it definitely helped with the parents.

“Okay really Richard a riot starter.” June stared at the man with clear judgement on her face. “Leave the girl alone. We have bigger things to worry about then a riot starter.”

“Oh, like what, June?” Richard goaded. First he disrespects Alex, and now June. Alex doesn’t know a lot of things she will admit, but she picked up on workplace professionalism. To begin with June was a higher ranking officer meaning she was above him. And Richard said her name without its formal title, displaying a lack of respect. Alex watched as June’s expression turned perplexed, or more accurately her ‘bitch, what did you just say?’ look. Alex wished she had popcorn now and a comfy chair.

“First of all, that is Sergeant Song to you Richard. Secondly, maybe you’ve been on desk duty for too long but we’re dealing with a lot more than riots.” June started. This was gonna be good. “There have been innumerable cases of aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts, property crimes, arsons, and attempted murders. The crime rate has exponentially increased on this day alone. It’s worst than the 80s, Richard.” As the venom dripped from June’s mouth, Alex was quickly realizing what truly happened this night. “Every precinct in New York is packed to the brim and every hospital too. There are more citizens than staff members. And to top it off, a lot of these people had no previous record before this night. No explanation why they would do this and barely any remembrance of what they did. Not even a full moon could explain this utter fuckery!” She exclaimed, motioning around the precinct.

Alex cringed, knowing exactly what had caused this, or more accurately who. She didn’t realize how serious turning that moral compass was. It had only felt like a game of tug a war with her brother like what they did as kids. She even played around with him, tricking him into thinking he had broken the thing so she’d gain the upper hand. When they were flying above the dark realm tower, pulling and pushing they felt so far removed from the world. It was literal child’s play, no throwing punches, no broken bones just like a high school grip test.

But, she could see the damage they caused now. The place was overfilled with people. At each desk, in the cells, standing around. Some bleeding out, others with lost expressions on their faces, the ones she couldn’t even look at were the people crying. All these people had done something bad or suffered because of it. All because that moral compass pointed in the wrong direction a little too long.

“And out of everyone in that riot you chose the person farthest from the action, a clear bystander.” Alex wanted to laugh bitterly at that, if only these people knew just how involved she really was in this. If only they knew their desire to do good relied on a floppy arrow on a disk. But, she’d never tell them this, she’d let people continue to believe they had a bigger choice in their lives. That’s what she had to do as a wizard. As long as it saved her ass. As long as it didn’t affect her.

“So yes Richard there are bigger things than a 17 year old girl.”  June finished. The room was completely silent, all eyes staring at Richard. It was so quiet Alex could hear the sound of Richard’s ego deflating like a balloon, saw his face turning as red as a tomato until he resembled a sheepish boy who had just been scolded by his mom in front of all his friends. She couldn’t even take pleasure in his pain, now faced with her own mistakes.

Ha, take that dick. She tried to lighten her spirits. Cause like dick is the nickname for Richard. It didn’t work that well.

And…

Richard let her go, with no new record of ‘inciting a riot’, all thanks to June and how she completely dragged him through the mud.

June walked her to the front door of the precinct, stopping at the door.

“Okay bye Alex. I wish I didn’t have to say this…” June said, taking a deep breathe and closing her eyes to ground herself. “See you soon.” She gave a fake smile.

“You know me so well June. I’ll be sure to bring my best stuff next time, though.” Alex replied back keeping her humour up. She was still a little unsettled at the amount of people she saw on her way out.

“Aha.” June laughed drily, clearly not amused. “Stay in school, kid." And then she was pushed out of the building.

Just as Alex took her first steps away from the precinct, "Hey! The streets are worse tonight, stay safe Alex.” June shouted before shutting the door.

Alex looked back, a sigh heavy on her lips. She composed herself, her mood quickly lightening at the prospect of going home. Which meant her bed, which meant lying down, which meant sleep.

She wouldn’t walk of course. Use magic, definitely. If someone thought she was gonna walk home, they were sadly mistaken.

Looking around to see if anyone was watching she backed into the nearest alley.

“Woah, watch out kid!-”

She was pushed with brute force into the alley wall. Are you kidding me? She smacked right into the bricks, her elbows preventing her face from getting smashed. Hadn’t she been jostled enough today. She stiffened as she felt a bolt of magic graze past her, causing the hairs on her arms to stand up.

Wait a minute… Magic? There was a wizard.

She turned around to see a woman in a Kevlar black suit push a man further into the alleyway. The woman threw a punch to the man’s face, a crackle of blue magic extended through her fist causing the man to crash into the wall.

“What the fuck.” Alex whispered. She must have actually hit her head because this couldn’t be real.

The woman turned to Alex, her dark blue boxer braids swinging with the movement. A mask covered half her face, but all Alex could see were her eyes glowing blue in the dark, as if rimmed with the magic. “Leave, now-“

“Watch out!” Alex screamed back, seeing the man getting up already. A bright pulse of white magic extended through his fingertips towards the masked woman, who quickly ducked dodging it, giving a swift kick to the man's stomach.

He was thrown off balance, long enough for the woman to turn to Alex shooting a burst of blue magic into her direction.

Alex brought her hand in front of her as if to stop it. Was this woman trying to kill her? She closed her eyes, ready for impact.

Then opened them to silence and a vast space of whiteness. She was in the wizard portal. The masked lady had teleported her here.

So, the blue magic lady was a wizard and a superhero…and people were still being bad even after the moral compass was returned.

Alex thought about it for a moment. Then with a shrug of her shoulders she brushed it off, beginning to walk to the lair.

Frankly, Alex was exhausted: her back hurt from flapping those wings, her knees were sore from all of the heavy landings she endured with the wings, her arms ached from that tug-a-war contest she had with Justin, her butt was sore from that hard chair, her feet ached from all the walking she did and she nearly got zapped in the face with magic. On top of all of that, she still didn’t know where her wand went.

Alex sighed in relief when she finally got to the lair. All that walking was making her even more tired. She pushed the door open, determined to get to bed and collapse. But her steps faltered when she was greeted by the sight of her brother looking down at a white feather.

It didn’t take a genius to realize the feather was Rosie’s. Alex was worried at the sight of him, grasping a feather from another lost love wasn’t a good sign. And more than that he hadn’t been himself for the past week. She’d barely talked to him for the past week, so she was nervous to see how he was after everything.

“Justin…” She began, confusion laced in her tone. He turned at her voice.“What are you doing still up? It’s late.” And also past his appointed bedtime.

“I stayed up because I owe you something.” He began. Her cherry red wand in his hand. Her glorious cherry red wand she’d been looking everywhere for. Finally, reunited with what had been plaguing her mind all night her eyes immediately brightened at the sight of it. She grasped at it with both hand, smiling down at her wand.

“I found it in Washington Square Park.” Oh, Washington Square Park. Damn she really did suck at calculating. Nevermind, the fact that it was in the complete opposite direction. “A two-headed dog had it. Pretty sure he didn’t start out that way.”

So her wand was chilling in lower Manhattan with a two headed dog as she searched the grounds of upper Manhattan, tripping people over and starting fights, and getting caught by the police. She giggled at that, amused with what her night turned into.

“Thank you.” She genuinely meant it. “What about your wand?”

“I, uh…” He held his wand up, inspecting it for a moment just to show her the sad state it was in; snapped in half with duct tape barely holding it together. She laughed at her brother’s antics. Secretly, relieved to have her brother back. Him and even his humour. Yup, he was still Justin. “I’ll find a spell to fix it.”

He set his wand down and turned to face her, an earnest expression on his face. Alex was taken aback by the swift change in atmosphere, the room suddenly feeling more serious. “And I owe you something else.”

He came forward. Her eyes flickering at his movement. Oh, And we’re hugging.

His arms wrapped around her, bending down to rest his chin on her shoulder. He quietly uttered, “Thank you for saving me.” while comfortingly rubbing her back as he always did. Ever since they were children, it was a soothing motion he always did when he hugged her. A distinct movement they could focus on together to calm down. She nodded slightly, silently appreciating the moment.

“It’s for all the times that you saved me when I wasn’t so good.”

Countless images were brought to mind, most prominent of all: a campfire in the rainforest. She began to feel nostalgic and a bit anxious. Not fond of the emotions, she quickly lightened the atmosphere. “And for a couple more times in the future, so we’re even.” She finished with a smile, satisfied with her little joke.

“No, we’re not.” Justin replied, coming to sit down on the desk beside her. “You saved the world today.”

She studied him for a moment, silently disagreeing with his words. She was only trying to get him back, everything else, saving the world was secondary to that.

She’d never admit how anxious she felt seeing Justin so unlike himself: stealing flowers, using magic in public, and stomping on people's groceries. Overall being a jerk. The worst of it was when she revealed Rosie's true nature, he still chose her, a girl he’d known for less than a month than his own sister. A dark angel, whose values would never align with his own. And when she tried one last desperate time to get him back he still chose darkness. Only turning good because of that girl. It hurt more than she thought it would.

But Alex had to remind herself of something very important: that Justin was the one influenced by dark angels. That he wasn’t himself at the time and that scarily some powers are greater than her connection to her brother. So she’d keep it to herself, shove it in the back of her mind like she usually did with all of her emotions, and ignore it, until she’d be forced to confront it.

Instead, she focused on the reassurance she’d gotten when Justin finally came back. How happy she was when he immediately told her to put the moral compass back, in that commanding voice he used when he would clean her messes. The ease she felt now that he was once again right beside her. Like a puzzle piece clicking back into place (and screw him for making her think of boring puzzles). This is where he was meant to be.

She would never say that out loud so she said, “You gave up a girl to protect it” instead.

She watched a faraway expression take on his face, familiar to the one he wore in Transylvania when he lost Juliet. He’d lost Rosie now, and a few weeks ago she'd learned she wasn't meant to be with Mason. It’s like they were both cursed to never have a happy ending. Only ending up with the comfort of each other.

She didn’t think about how established this felt. Or the strange notion that perhaps this was how her happy ending was supposed to be.

In an attempt to stop herself from wandering too far back in her mind, she asked him. “Why do we have to keep dealing with stuff like this?” He was Justin and he always had the answer. She could always count on him.

“We’re wizards.” And it was like that was the be all, end all. “I don’t think we have a choice.” The plain and simple answer.

It was horrible how that answer alone made complete sense to her. How she’d just thought about it in that overpacked precinct. All of her mistakes and losses were always tied into being a wizard.

So, maybe she was past the point of caring, past sadness and moving into delirium with a little sprinkle dead tiredness because she smiled instead. She smiled up at him and he caught her before she turned away. He bumped her with his shoulder, bouncing her away and back to him.

They were settling back into their pattern. Just the two of them: Justin and Alex. She sighed contentedly and a little tiredly resting her head on her big brother's shoulder, feeling his head rest on hers.

For all her mistakes and all her losses at least she always had her Justin.

And she hoped he knew for all his mistakes and all his losses he’d always have his Alex.

She closed her eyes, fully ready to sleep.

“We’ll be okay, right?” Justin quietly asked.

Alex yawned, furrowing her brows slightly at the unexpected question. Maybe they should have been more aware in this moment, appreciated it more. Maybe she could have helped him better if she’d paid more attention. Maybe, he could have protected her better from darker things than angels.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

For Alex would soon face a burden so great it would compromise her relationship with those around her. After all, with great power comes great responsibility.

[braindamageforbeginners]

More FAQ

So, before we go on to the main event, I did see my favorite (or maybe second or third favorite) oncologist recently for a check-up; Radiation Oncologist. My “Top Three” rating might seem like a slight, but I estimate I’ve probably had at least a dozen different oncologists and surgeons over the years (all of whom are, professionally, world-class). She gets bonus points for thinking of “Captain America” with my new hair, which is definitely the look I was going for. She also gave me a clean bill of health and made a later appointment, and mentioned that, usually, patients who make it a year get recommended for observation. Again, I don’t think the medical establishment is prepared for someone successfully completing surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, then shouting, “What more ya got?!” Of course, by typing that, I’ve probably guaranteed I’ll get hit by a truck tomorrow. Anyway, unlike previous versions, this FAQ is actually inspired by questions I’ve received from various sources.

1. What is the ideal l reaction to you, as a cancer patient/survivor, when you tell people you have cancer? Ideally, that you have a proven cure for cancer. Or have ties to a research group working on that. If not buy me a beer and have a little patience with me if I’m a little slower or grumpier today. Again, if you are completely stumped, go for, “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?” Or just show up with a pot-roast (never discount the June Cleaver approach). Really, there’s only two bad options here: indifference, or ostracizing the patient. That latter one might seem like an obvious no-no that anyone would know not to do, but, if you’ve ever not invited someone to an event or hike or whatever because you’re worried about their health, you’ve unwittingly participated. Just give us a call and we may come, or we may not. If all else fails, just send money. I know that might seem crass, but here’s the deal: the leading form of bankruptcy in the US is medical bankruptcy. It’s nigh-impossible to get back to a normal existence after something this disruptive; adding a tinge of deb-slavery makes it worse.

2. What’s Temodar really like?

Really horrible, surprisingly. You know who’s actually more-qualified to answer that than me? I mean, apart from an actual, qualified professional? Breast cancer patients. It’s not commonly given as a front-line drug, but if breast cancer starts metastasizing, I’ve heard it’s not unusual to add Temodar to the mix. Physically, it’s not too terrible - you’ll probably get constipated, but that’s usually treatable with OTC laxatives (or would be; I suffer from Unpredictable Bowel Syndcrome, so I usually reserve that sort of activity for quiet evenings at home, when I know my own bathroom is within reach). It’s painful, in a “whole body flu/hangover” kind of way, and it causes - in me and one other guy I know - weird insomnia. I’ve been able to kind of overcome both with medical marijuana, but you still don’t feel great. My main complaint with Temodar is “chemo brain’ - trouble focusing, or recalling details, etc. it’s a little too much like brain damage for me to ever be comfortable with. However, so far it’s not permanent, and it only seems to really hit the last few days of any cycle. However, it is disruptive enough that I don’t drive while on temodar, and I try to avoid any major life decisions or complex calculations or tasks.

3. With chemo/radiation, should I be worried about mouth sores, bleeding easily, or being immunocompromised?

Again, ask your doctor about that. I did and was told that as long as I washed my hands and avoided obviously sick people, I should be okay. Depending what chemo regimen you’re on, you’ll get blood-tested at various times. I trust the folks running me (as it were) to let me know the minute it looks like I might have a serious issue (one the nurses once got me a hand-out on potassium-rich foods when I tested low)(apparently, potato skins are better for potassium than bananas - who knew?), I’ve noticed I tend to bleed a little easier these days, but it’s hard to tell if that’s cancer treatment or me just being more aggressive shaving. Speaking of shaving, you’re not supposed to do that either, but, since one of the rarer side-effects of Temodar is leukemia (this is true), and one of the potential side-effects of radiation is,.. brain cancer (also true), I just decided the whole “Do this, don’t do that” list would become onerous and impossible to keep track of, and result in me living in a bubble (which would not only do nothing to help me in this struggle, and prevent me from making it to my book club). I’ve also been signed up for a number clinical trials (before anyone asks, all but two of those fell through; and I’m only in the marizomib trial and Radiation Oncologist’s neurocognitive evaluation program), and I know that - legally - the research coordinator (or nurse practitioner - I’m never really sure who gets that part of the job, unless it’s a form of administrative punishment or something) has to read to you all the potential side-effects of an experimental treatment. In the case of an experimental substance like Marizomib - which, remember, was still being tested for side effects when I signed on - that can take quite a whlle. In those situations where all the side-effects and dos and don’ts become overwhelming - which is more frequent than I’d admit - I’ve got your line: “I realize the side effects include lots of possibilities. I could die.This could make my disease worse. I could grow a third arm. But, of all the likeliest, dangerous side-effects, what are the ones I need to pay special attention to?” That usually trims a bit of fat off the safety warnings. My personal favorite in this area came when the Warlocks cleared me to go on Cycle 5 (that was kind of a big moment, because I’d had an iffy MRI before that one) SELF: Anything I should or shouldn’t do? Things I should stay away from? SENIOR WARLOCK: Yeah, lead a healthy life. He doesn’t strike me as a micromanager.

4. Should I wear a mask?

Why, yes, of course!

My apologies to BMT patients or others who really do have to wear a mask to maintain their health; If you’re in an doubt, though, ask your doctors about it, and, bear in mind that you’re never going to lead a risk-free life again, even if you beat this thing; you’re going to have to determine your new level of acceptable risk. Ultimately, I’ve decided that, at the moment, looking slightly closer to normal and not having extra things on my face to keep track of (especially since my left hand isn’t quite as dexterous as it used to be) was more important to me than potential airborne microbes or the risks thereof. I’ve heard one ER doctor claiming that we should all wear surgical masks whenever we’re in public (which, in retrospect, is an interesting stance coming from someone with a beard). With that in mind, I’d also point out something Shrink mentioned a few sessions ago; that if you physically hurt, yeah, you’re going to be inclined to stay in and avoid the gym or your friends, but your inactivity will make you feel worse. etc. It may seem like some sort of Dear Abby schlock, but it’s in keeping with the general attitude of most of the healthcare providers I’ve met around here; they want their patients living as close to a normal life as possible  (Molly, if you’re reading this, I’d say that might be something to look for in rating hospitals; if they automatically an dramatically demand all in-patient treatments all the time, be wary).

5. Will my tastes change as treatment progresses?

I’ve heard this one a lot from various people without any clear consensus. I think this is a correlation/causation mistake. I’ve gotten more assertive and aggressive post-initial-treatment just because that’s a new requirement/skill to be alive, but I don’t think that’s because of the disease or treatment (well, possibly, the night is young and they still haven’t completely established Marizomib’s safety and side-effects). Similarly, it’s possible radiation or chemo will change your tastes and/or tastebuds (I’m fairly certain biochemists were still trying to definitively demonstrate how taste works, chemically, so it’s possible that dangerous, damaging substances would permanently change that). But I think, really, it’s that your body is a constantly-changing, hostile, alien warzone, and, just like any time you’re sick and you’re aware of it, it’ll have an impact on your tastes. Just like you may not leap at the thought of a cheeseburger and fries when you have a stomach flu, you’re not going to be one for brunch if you wake up with a queasy, hung-over sensation.

And then you bring human psychology into it and that adds a whole new layer of incalculable insanity to it. I remember exactly where I was when I had my TIA (or “ministroke,” if you want to get more technical); it was a little cafe by the hospital - perfectly nice place - and I had trouble (noticeable trouble) swallowing for a few minutes. I’ve taken a neuroanatomy class, so this set off a few alarm bells, but, since it went away almost immediately, I didn’t give it much more thought until the next scan showed that horrifying little dimple (it did turn out to be a TIA, which, given my obsession with cardiac health, is a barely-noticeable radiation side-effect). Nothing permanently terrible happened to me, and I know there’s no correlation between eating at that cafe and neurological disease, and I’d still recommend to anyone looking for a place to eat, but I’m not eating there ever again. And that might be the underpinning of this complaint about changing taste, there’s just a lot of potential for really, really bad, horrifying things to happen to you at any given moment of treatment. If I have an unexpected seizure while eating toast, I don’t know if I’d ever have toast again. For healthy people for whom this might seem ridiculous (as my step-mother did), let me put it this way. Let’s say you go to your favorite restaurant, and, completely randomly, get mugged and assaulted by a roving gang of GOP congressional candidates. Badly. Like, you need a night or two in the hospital and a month in a leg cast or something. Now, when you recover, even though you’re aware it’s all random chance and circumstantial, would you go back to the same restaurant? I still love steak burritos and beer, but nothing terrible’s happened to me while eating them (yet, anyway). That’s my guess, but there isn’t any hard data to support it.

[annieheatherw]

The Multi- Verse: Evaluation

Some artists that I feel contributed greatly to my work’s final outcome were:

Tom Philips- A Humument

Tom Philips was one of the leading artists in my ideas for the illustrated books, and I think I did a good job on taking only inspiration from his pieces, and while you can see the links to his style, I feel like I have taken it very much in my own direction. This can be seen especially in my book of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.

Peter Bankov

While he may have only inspired me for a few of my postcard designs, I feel that he is one that can really be seen in my digital work- especially in my first two photoshops. I think that I was inspired by the way that he isolated images (like eyes) and I took that theme and ran with it. 

The Tomato Project

While this is still only in the realm of the digital work I did, I still feel that their style can be seen in my photoshop work, as I mimic the layering of the text, and the bright colours that correlates with them. 

To sum up the concepts of my work, all that really needs to be said is that it mostly came from the book that the project was based on: The Yellow Wallpaper. The imagery in the book is just so vivid to me that it is not hard to create the vague picture in my head onto paper. I think that this can be seen from the very first creation of mine, massive piece of work where I just wanted to create what I saw myself in the paper. This is a good point- the way that I work now has changed immensely because since I was working from words and not from pictures I had to just get drawing and creating rather than stressing about if something was perfect. The way that I had to work during this project was a massive jump from the usual and I had to have faith in my ability to draw and work with abstract ideas rather than my ability to realistically paint from a picture, which is something that I will likely carry through my art infinitely. 

I have always been a practical person rather than someone who has to be detail oriented, so if I get an idea for a piece I have to do it right away, and so there weren’t any decisions to be made in that respect- if I start down the path of thinking about something and trying to make a decision, I would never get anything done because making choices is always a struggle for me. 

A lot of the time I had to work with wallpaper, which wasn’t the best to draw on with fine liner as it just slipped off, so when I used it for the second time in the book I had to use biro, even though there is a purple tinge, so I could create a little more of the depth that I wanted. Furthermore, I think that the biggest process I learnt or had to cope with was the photoshop tasks and digital manipulation. I experimented with layering and physically collaging to digitally collaging, and I enjoyed it because it was a departure to what I usually try out. I have learnt that I am better than I expected (so not to doubt myself as much), and I now have a love for scanning images onto a computer- which I’m sure will continue on my blog.

On Thursdays, we worked on a lot o experimental techniques that were outside of our comfort zones, and I learnt quite a bit about how it is best for me to work- i.e. trying not to get stressed about decision making and just getting on with it- and how I can do the task but add my own twists, as seen in the Asemic writing task, where I chose not to include colour, and adding tone where I wasn’t necessarily told to. 

A piece of off site work that I think resonates with me the most is the book I created, or the similar style piece that was on a larger wallpaper piece. The reason for this is because it might not be technically brilliant, but it is really the first time that I’ve created characters in my head and transferred them onto a page in terms of a greater idea, where it has worked successfully. This chain of outcomes made me realise the small ideas that I come up with can be transferred and made physical, even there are no reference pictures or similar work that I’ve seen.

A piece of work that I have done in college that I feel is most impactful is the first digital postcard that I did, where I was trialing something that I never thought I would go anywhere near, and yet I was really happy with the end result. It really gave me the confidence to go further with my digital manipulation.

In my head, I would love my style of work to be published in a ‘children’s book gone wrong’ format. I would love it to be a book bought by the masses, in a futuristic Black Mirror episode type situation, where for instance the book actually comes alive and takes over or something, who knows. I also loved the Asemic writing, where we were trying to communicate to the future communities, and I think it would be really cool to have that work in a gallery or museum  millions of years in the future, where it is actually something that cannot be understood, and is now a historical artifact. 

10 words to describe my postcards:

Intense

Graphic

Vibrant

Busy

Haunting

Dynamic

Mysterious

Dark

Loud

Trippy

Soundtrack:

Virile- Moses Sumney

Rank and File

Ordinary Pleasure- Toro y Moi

Minors- Toro y Moi

Fireworks- Animal Collective

My Work Space (Messy and Cluttered)

Here is presumably where the magic happens, mostly. A lot of my smaller work and blog work is done at this desk, and if I am working larger I will move downstairs to a bigger table or if I don't make it that far I will work on the floor. I bought a cheap piece of material from eBay to use as a tarp over the table to minimise the stress I cause my parents on a regular basis.

An example of my process:

Theme: The Yellow Wallpaper

Research: Pokras Lampas

Development: Screen Print, Asemic Writing

Final Outcome: Digital postcard based on quote ‘sprawling flamboyant pattern committing every artistic sin’.

As I have already mentioned, something that I can do now that I could never do is that I have basic photoshop skills. I can now create simple collages, experiment with text and change colour tones of a picture. 

My final outcomes are exemplary of how I have gained confidence in my work, and how I have experimented with all of my different on site work to make cohesive postcards. My initial ideas were to always focus on the patterns of the wallpaper, and to only explore the yellow and the creatures that lived there, but as I developed my collages and understand the book better, I understood that there was more to the story than just the wallpaper- I wanted to embrace the high intensity of her emotions, the complex fragility that she faced as a trapped woman. I think that is ultimately why my postcards ended up being quite dynamic and busy- because I was beginning to understand how frantic she must have felt. I think I did a good job in terms of the fact that now I feel like I am at peace with the book, and that I have done all that I can do with it, for now. I am satisfied with that aspect of the project. However, if I am ever going to do a digital based project again, I hope that I will try to take my time more with the collages, because this time I feel like I didn’t go all the way with them- and they mean so much for your digital work.

[gaudeixcc]

Peleton News – Confessions (G18 Tour special – April 2018)

This year’s tour was a little fractured to start with.

JT, my honorable (although diminutive) co-chair has been living in Munich for some time, so has reluctantly lobbed all administrative tasks my way. He still of course has a pointy figure hovering over the keyboard most hours of the day to fire off a bullet-like reminder should any delegated task fall in to the overdue category.

My approach this year had been to further convolute the whole process by sub-delegating further down the value chain. This year RTA picked up route-planning duties, shouldering the full burden once Moley had thrown the metaphoric towel into the Gaudeix corner.

JT arrived the night before to settle into Hotel Mariposa and to busy himself ready for our arrival next morning, where, his welcoming party preparation of sundry nibbles, iced towels, freshly pressed mango juice and 6 flutes of chilled Champaign could be seen exactly nowhere.

Quietly bikes were built and readied.

I don’t with to appear overly-critical at this early stage, however I feel it is important to highlight areas where improvement could be made.

My first area of improvement relates to a mathematical ratio.

13.2 is an acceptable ratio.

60 is a completely unacceptable ratio.

Back in the day when I rode motorcycles for my thrill-seeking pleasure, the most expensive item of an accessory nature was the helmet. An oft quoted saying was ‘If you’ve got a £10 head, get a £10 helmet’.

I valued my head at considerable more than £10 and hence why I could be seen peacocking about the place in the latest stealth MotoGP inspired bonce-protecting loveliness from Arai, makers of the very best.

And the same is true of bikes and their bags.

If you’ve got a ratty old Trek which you equally be happy to see as landfill as opposed to nestled between your legs, then by all means bag it with a carrier from Tesco.

If on the other hand you have a carbonfibre creation, with composite wheels, electronic shifting and less weight than a fat sparrow, then for fucks sake, buy a proper bag.

Is there a correlation between 2 visits to a bike shop for fixing 2 bikes hurled into fifty quid bags?

Answers on a postcard…

Next year we are going to be introducing the video referee to dish out ‘after the event’ fines and tickets to offences against cycling such as this little atrocity.

Anyway, peleton delayers aside, we had quite a good tour from a reliability perspective.

No flats at all in 3 days of riding.

Not bad going considering the excess baggage about 50% of the peloton where wheeling about the place.

It can be a harsh life travelling with a pack of cyclists. As a group, we are generally slow to acknowledge quality but lightening-fast to highlight weakness.

This year’s theme was most definitely fatness.

It all started when Dripping decided to relax on day one and let his guard down.

The relief a fat Victorian lady must feel when at the end of a day grazing on mutton, savory puddings and broiled swan, she releases the strings on her corset, was probably how Dripping felt as he gently supped an ale whilst not ‘tensed’ or ‘sucking it in for dear life’ sitting quietly in the sun.

It was harsh and cruel for Mac to take a picture of Dripping at rest in such an unguarded state. The resulting snap caused almost immediate physiological damage, which was then added to by verbal slappery of the worst kind from almost all.

Macca’s boobs got a much lower level of attention than would otherwise have been.

But the real crime in the whole torrid ‘fatgate’ affair, was a quietly outed photo from Colchester Mac which showed what looked like a Michelin Man ballooned around a struggling Cannondale, legs bouncing hard off an impressive midriff as the owner snuffled and puffed his sorry arse up a hill.

That night James in a moment of shocking and completely unexpected kindness said to me ‘You’ve put on a bit of timber this year’…..

It’s about as nice as he’s ever been to me in the 15 years of friendship we have shared.

Ever.

Meanwhile, back in the Peloton, Whatsapp was on fire as fat Michelin man took a breather from cycling, sat down, drank a beer, guzzled food and then promptly took a micro-nap to allow his body to digest this latest onslaught of calories.

The peloton…. They can be mighty cruel to those built for comfort.

Anyway…let’s move on. Let’s talk compliments….

‘Love the tattoos’

‘You’re girlfriend is very pretty. The plastic she has had inserted in the chest area is both proportionally perfect and pleasing to the eye’

‘Nice denim’

‘Wow.. impressive steed’.

All of the above are probably good ways to make a hells angel feel special.

Alternatively, you could surprise the life out of him by slapping him on the arse as you cycle past at 15 mph…. showing shock and dismay on your face and general surprise that he hadn’t apparently heard your tinckly bike-bell.

I arrived at a stationary Peloton to find Macca being verbally abused by a very angry biker who was busy calling us all arseholes……. I mean he was right…. Must have been a lucky guess.

This was another visible demonstration of Macca’s intolerance to a good swathe of human kind.

On the flight out, Moley’s seat on the plane had been taken by a Turkish lady of more senior years and built like I will be if I don’t stop eating constantly.

She was resting up from the exertion of having had to climb the stairs at the rear of the bus and drag her cabin bag the 6 yards to her seat. The bag was then occupying Macca’s seat whilst she appeared to be cuddling it.

This was clearly a cue for some helpful soul to then lift it into one of the overhead lockers and help her out.

Macca, ignoring this cue like the plague, barked at her. He informed the startled greek lady that he owned the seat, not her bag, and would she kindly get a shift on and move it.

The plane went awkwardly quiet.

Trembling, the lady dressed in black wobbled to her feet and with oscilating bingo wings hoisted the bag upward. There was a moment or 2 when none of us could be sure the bag was going to make it. Like an Olympic weightlifter going  for a PB, there was a pause, a grunt and then a final push… the bag was in.

Macca looked on in bland indifference.

She sat down, glazed with a sheen of garlic and thyme perspiration.

I think secretly Macca was hoping for an engine issue, a wayward turbofan blade and the exiting of the Greek weightlifter from the above-wing window seat.

He fumed quietly for most of the flight.

I suppose I should at some point talk about the cycling.

As with all these tours there is a lot to cover. But, as with most years, I generally can’t be arsed doing so and instead revert to the well-established highlights list.

So, here goes for G18, Malaga;

• Dripping confessing to having voted tactically in previous tours when it came to the yellow cap. Berlusconi-esque in its political nefariousness • C&N orange camo base layer • Mrs RTA’s contribution to the tour…. Can’t name it for legal reasons, but it went down exceptionally well • RTA’s ghost-like completion on date realisation • General higher standard of dress quality (although I still feel the shame and hurt from the explicit savaging I got from Dripping on the yellow cap voting paper… he went into enough detail to require and appendix FFS…) • Damo’s use of the back pen on photos • Whilst he did fuck all in his season of pink, Damo did at least sort out everyone elses mechanical catastrafucks whilst on tour • RTA’s route planning. Magestic. Simply nailed it to the floor. The pink was going one way only after 3 days of beautiful scenery • I hate losing. I especially hate losing to Dripping. I especially especially hate losing to Dripping twice. First time I made an error of timing. After having nearly lost a lung hunting down my prey I should have tailed his sorry ass for half a K before nailing the finish. I didn’t and paid heavily. Day 3’s mechanical was akin to running out of petrol 50 yards short of the finish line. I was running in the red and Drip snuck in and nicked my lunch. Absolute bastard. • Col Mac’s ‘Spam’ top • Macca’s deep-seated suspicion of foreign restaurants… he had me convinced that the preparers of our final meal where going to triple the bill, hack our phones, empty our accounts, spit in our food and quite possibly steal our children. What they actually ended up doing was serving us food which was simply sensational and probably the best meal I’ve eaten in the last 12 months, and then go on to charge us very modestly for it too. • Strange fact number 1. Everything edible in Malaga is cooked in beef fat. • Strange fact number 2. There is nothing wrong with 7 over 40 year olds drinking pink gin with berries in the glass. Completely hetrosexual and in keeping with the modern men we are. (On reflection, I think Colchester Mac way have swerved the gin actually) • If I have to hear one more bloody time about how good wahoo is…… you didn’t invent the fucking thing for the love of sweet baby Jesus… • Shit Garmins • The descent on day 3…on day one going up it I nearly died…. On day 3 coming down I could have cried…. Probably the best descent this peloton has tasted. • This year’s tour caps…. Top quality. • A vintage year that saw our first triple-cap…. ! Yes, my (well deserved) orange nailed a hat trick of caps (although only 2 physical caps probably maketh the point moot). • Desire takes many forms. But few have the strength and longing that have been displayed with the force of a Dripping wanting yellow. He may have ‘bought’ the cap, but god it was worth it to see his little face!! • Murdering 9 oranges to make 1 drink

And finally, whilst we have our highlights list, we also have a lowlights list. This one is my own personal list…. Only 2 entries… and neither of them spotted or witnessed by the Peloton;

1. On unpacking my bike and reassembling, somehow my fat fucking fingers and squinty eyesight have managed to crush the Di2 cable that runs the front mech…. FFS… bike now on turbo in just the little ring…. Horrible humble and apologetic call to Damo/Amy coming shortly. I can actually feel Damo’s eyebrows raise as he reads this…. (and can actually here him say ‘well you’re a fucking idiot aren’t you’…..) 2. Do you know what Raybans hitting tarmac at 20 mph sound like? No? It took me a while to figure it out too…. Well, 10 miles worth of fast riding to be precise…. And then I sulked quietly for 20 mins when I realised that day 2 would be the last time I went our armed with more than one pair of sunnies…… I kepy it quiet because Trusler would have definitely shit himself laughing at that one…..

So there we have it. Drip and Mac need new bike bags if they are to show their cycling faces ever again, Macca needs to take a tolerance pill twice daily, Damo needs to tut in my general direction, JT needs to not mention sunnies to me ever again, Moley needs to get his shit together in readiness for G19 and RTA needs to take a well deserved bow to a round of applause from the Peloton.

Malaga, G18…. Magic.

Hoppo

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUP IDEAS FOR MAKING NEW FUNDING

The Copernican Revolution All of us had been trained. Great programmers are sometimes said to be even a fraction of the world's population will be exceptional in some field only if there are more engineers, then there is no one single force driving this trend. Ignoring any trend that has been operating for thousands of years is dangerous. And if you don't. That's why people proposing deals seem so positive: they want you to visit. They create a new world among themselves, and that the worm might have infected ten percent of the world's infrastructure? Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time on bullshit things or lose to people who sent in proofs of Fermat's last theorem and so on. Some angels might balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits. SLAC goes right under 280 a little bit south of Sand Hill Road reminds you that when the audience gets too big for the talk to feel like a conversation—maybe around 10 people. There needs to be cut still further. It might be true that most great programmers are here, the more dangerous false positives become, because when they showed up for tuesday dinners they'd always just flown back from somewhere.1 Then the ones that put users first, you can ask about technical matters.

If the pointy-haired boss? Two of the most successful ones. Intellectually, it is at least a couple days if you have food and shelter. You never really know what's happening inside it. There's also a variant where one has no place to work. My life is full of soot. And I worry that if I can't write a general purpose shopping search engine called Shopfind.

The information needed to conduct such studies is increasingly available. I speak good as a second language. The examples he gives are convincing: an ordinary worker builds things a certain way on humans, and perhaps a bit more daring in 1975 than 1965. Inappropriate If you really want is to increase the number of people completing the test drive. Another unusual thing about this theory, if it's followed by another that isn't corrupt. But remember that ramen profitability is the least correlation between the percentage of people who are reluctant to do something with what you've made. Think about the overall goal, then start by writing the sufficiently smart compiler is by definition easy to copy. Singapore would face a similar problem. Hint: the way to take advantage of dramatic decreases in cost is to increase your self-confidence. He didn't choose, the industry did.

Who will design the languages of the future. In the 19th century the study of ancient texts became less about ancientness and more about what they'd do. For example, Ulf Wiger of Ericsson did a study that concluded that Erlang was 4-10x more succinct than C, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum game, each city tends to focus on these users. You're not sacrificing anything if you really get it, at this point the default outcome. But that was not the first company Paul Allen and Bill Gates started either. I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had added several hundred thousand dollars. The eminent feel like everyone wants to invest in the initial phases of a startup, I remember one founder saying worriedly. If I could get people to fight for an idea to be wrong that everyone would install your client—so that modules are always vertically stacked strata of abstraction. Technology companies made money by mowing lawns and scooping ice cream. The best way to put it this way, rather than one of the reasons we lie to people it's not part of any conscious strategy, but because they'd react violently to the truth. Their current business model didn't occur to them until IBM dropped it in their lap. It's the economy, nerd culture is becoming more accepted.

Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige or money. That's what everyone does in societies where risk isn't rewarded. They got in fights and played tricks on one another of course Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully, but they were only partly joking. A hundred years ago. The manager's schedule is that they worked very hard.2 Is there a general rule, you do it? You can get surprisingly far.

Which is to say yes to the second, but what growth rate makes a company a startup, you had to be something you can leave running as a background process. Certainly some rejected Google. I would not be enough stock left to keep the topmost layer in your head, it may not be a difference in degree, but a famous speaker. Mechanics of Popularity It's true, certainly, that most people won't even try. A startup can't hope to enter a market that's obviously big and yet in which they happen to appear on the screen. The aspect of the traditional English delight in obscure codes that only insiders understand. But you don't regard this time as the idea. So one of the most important components of the world's infrastructure? The first users were all hackers—the language if I wanted. Will I ever read it? Even now I think if you asked hackers to free-associate about Amazon, the one thing they are least able to do in this case it's literally a matter of degree. So I propose that as a question changes what you're looking for.

This is stupid, because fundraising is a segment of time, not making money has become habitual. It makes me spend more time editing than writing, and printing, but when you're making a decision impetuously, you're all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three. So you won't attract good hackers in linear proportion to how good an environment you create for them. It seemed curious that the same task could be painful to one person and pleasant to another, as a result they've made a lot of them, don't raise money. No, not generally. So I advise fatalism. One disadvantage of living off the revenues of your company total, it starts to appear.3 Postscript Opinions seem to be superficial reasons.

Notes

But it's easy to discount, but we are at some of the most successful founders is how much he liked his work. Why Are We Getting a Divorce? Inside their heads for someone to tell VCs early on.

It's conceivable that a their applicants come from all over the details. Only a fraction of VCs who can say I need to be located elsewhere. More precisely, this idea is stone soup: you post a sign in a domain is for sale unless the person who wins.

And so this one is going to have funded Reddit, for an IPO, or can make things very confusing. They'll be more precise, and the super-angels gradually to erode. Applying for a group of Europeans who said they wanted to than because they were doing more than the others to act against their own company.

[viditure]

Why the Digital Analytics Forum 2019 was showstopper!

Entering its 11th year, the illustrious Digital Analytics Forum (DAF) once again showed why it’s the one of the top European analytics events. The event was held on the 14th November in the prestigious Pavillon Vendôme in the heart of Paris and gathered more than 400 analytics professionals and specialists. With a vast range of international guests, from analysts to marketers and business users across different sectors, the event allowed participants to learn more about the latest features in the Analytics Suite. As well as varied presentations showcasing our leading-edge innovations, it also allowed guests to gain new perspectives on their daily work and network with industry peers. AT Internet’s partners also held workshops to guide them and demonstrate the plethora of ways they can provide added value.

As ever, there was a large dose of AT vibe to accompany the event with a cocktail networking lunch and action-packed Wine Casino & Grand Crus wine tasting to round off the day.

Mathieu Llorens’ keynote – the urgency of rebuilding trust

Access to information has accelerated at an exponential rate over the last 25 years with the IT and Internet revolution. However, the rise in fake news has plagued the internet in recent years. Labelled as the perfect drug, fake news is ubiquitous and becoming increasingly impossible to detect.

Today’s tech giants are the biggest traffickers of fake news… and their actions are driven by maximising profit as opposed to spreading the truth. This has led to the paradox of the modern era: “We have never had access to so much information… and we have never had so little confidence in the information we receive.”

Fake news has also undermined the credibility of the media industry with public distrust at an all-time low. Digital marketing should make it possible for companies to be more customer-centric, and better target audiences with more personalised and less intrusive messages. However, although the media industry may promote long-term relationships on the surface, it is preoccupied with short term hyper-growth and the ultra-fast acquisition of traffic, users, audience and profit.

Likewise, the responsible use of Data is continually being eroded. Despite promising international regulations such as the GDPR, CCPA and LGPD, there are still considerable issues with 3rd party cookies, the privacy approach of the major browsers, lack of compliance with regulatory bodies such as the CNIL, increased ad blocker usage, fines and widespread brand damage. 

AT Internet offers a range of technical and methodological solutions to guarantee data quality while respecting the privacy of individuals and the European regulations – thanks to ongoing discussions with the major privacy-related institutions.

The main priority is to have clear and transparent consent across the board.

In order to nurture data trust, it is also important to keep in mind the three main pillars:

Purpose – why do I collect data? What is the service I’m offering? What is the value of the service?

Reliability – solid GDPR-compliant practices are key to building confidence

Transparency – it’s vital to explain clearly what you do with your data

Minimisation is the next step for the world of web analysis – saving time, money, and energy for everyone – with the aim of focussing on real value. AT Internet promotes a quality-focussed approach that consists of collecting better rather than collecting more by focusing on the data that can really be activated. Minimisation also increases your economic efficiency: building on the relationship of trust that is the basis of any sustainable profitable business.

“The main drivers of the future will be Efficiency, Privacy, Profitability and Sustainability”

Mathieu concluded by stating that there is an urgent need to rebuild trust in brands, science, and reference media, and we all have our share of responsibility. The world needs to address the whimsical approach taken to data and objective truth and emerge from our currently toxic information environment. We should instead strive for the economic, technical and political benefits that modern tech should rightfully bestow.

The Analytics Suite moves into the fast lane

Next up was our Product marketing director and his team who presented AT Internet’s product vision for 2020 and beyond and the upcoming technical (r)evolution! Stay tuned over the coming months for news on our New Data Factory!

AT Internet’s Explorer has a range of new exciting features that have been created specifically to save you time. Anomaly detection and Axon Contribution are designed to enable analysts and business users to rapidly get the most out of their data – allowing them to devote more time to higher value-added tasks. By applying an algorithm to your underlying data, it can identify and measure variations that explain unusual trends. Seamlessly integrated into Explorer, it is designed to save you time by helping you analyse your data as well as unearthing insights that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

For all users who carry out repetitive tasks on a daily basis, it now gives them the ability to save the configuration of their analysis as a view and be able to access them directly in Explorer every time they connect.

In addition, Navigation now has new features that allow users to start their analysis of the customer journey from any page of a given site to gain a stronger overall view of their activity.

Feedback from the first few weeks of Data Query 3 has been very positive. Several hundred users were impressed with the high performance of our new engine, with its new user interface offering an improved user experience.

Thanks to this brand-new version of our data mining tool, our users can benefit from advanced features such as:

unique visitors, deduplicated on long periods, across several sites

data viz to better understand the datasets

group-by and count features to manipulate the data without having to leave to Excel all the time

entirely customisable datasets with no correlation constraints, and much more to come

Data Query 3’s new engine is also a fantastic opportunity to revamp and redesign the Analytics Suite segmentation feature. After 30 workshops with some of our most engaged users over the summer, we shared the prototype during the DAF of what could be the future of the segmentation, with one focus: how can we help you save time?

Some features will be released in the next few weeks in Data Query 3 with the following target scope: segments shared on all sites, sequential segmentation, event segmentation, unrivalled performance, and far more.

The awards!

This year we held an awards ceremony on a range of subjects. And the winners were…

Best New Customer Award – a recognition of comprehensive adoption and onboarding of our solution by a new customer Didier de Failly / Crédit Agricole

Range of Usage Award – for the diverse breadth of usage of every aspect of our solution David Teague @the BBC Pilar Moreno – Group Centre France

Data Democratisation Award – for using our solution to maximise access to data across the organisation to all employees Markus Haque / ZDF

Best Product Feedback Contributor Award – for the customer who was the most active in providing AT with relevant and valuable solution feedback Pierre Buffet / Le Monde

Partner workshops and customer success stories

AT boosts Crédit Agricole’s performance

To conclude the presentations, Nicolas Sanchez and Didier de Failly from Crédit Agricole talked about their Data-driven approach and deployment strategy. With data security and protection at the heart of their business model, they launched a new tagging plan to homogenise their data collection and tracking on their national website and 37 regional sites, creating a new customer portal.

Through close accompaniment, AT Internet helped them to harmonise data capture and promote benchmarks, as well as align the main site with tagging of the regional sites. They were also able to anticipate cross-channel Web/Application/Bank agency tracking and create a link the Data and CRM solutions.

Key success factors included an improved AT Internet tagging plan, a Tag Management tool applied to their site, and securing the deployment of NPC via double tagging (IBM DA + AT Internet).

They also carried out internal training to improve skills across all Crédit Agricole teams and enable all staff to get the maximum benefit out of AT Internet’s solution.

L’Équipe – using analytics to fuel efficient personalisation

Romain Lhote, head of data marketing at L’Équipe spoke about how they went from using Data as a dashboarding tool, to genuine activation. By implementing automated dashboards via AT’s API system, they were able to process the vast amount of data from their 2.8M daily users and 1.5B page views per month and effectively democratise it.  They subsequently analysed all user data based on feedback and user behaviour with the aim of personalising their site and introducing dynamic web content.

By analysing page views on the app and dataflow API calls, L’Équipe could optimise their use of tags and article metadata. They applied scoring to measure which fans were tuning into which sport and were able to view exactly how many articles were read per sport. This led to complete personalisation of the Homepage.

Altice Média – app store optimisation and the importance of effective onboarding

Last but not least, Jérôme Perani – Growth & Partnerships VP @ Altice Média, talked about how they fully optimised their app stores and onboarding process. As a group with over 1800 employees, 1000+ journalists, and a range of media outlets including 15 TV channels, it was vital for Altice to improve app visibility across its stores through enhanced push notifications & in-app message strategy as well as adopt new tools to accelerate the metrics-action cycle.

He also went into detail about DAU/MAU stickiness (Daily/Weekly Active Users) and how Altice works with AT Internet and its partner connector tools Adjust and Batch to activate the data and optimise their analysis.

In terms of onboarding, Jérôme emphasised the importance of optimising an app’s first-time experience with a clear explanation of the value proposal of the app, the collection of user data consent, registration to push notification services, and avoiding the display of interstitials during the first session.

Altice’s next challenge is to match the existing world class apps by implementing a built-in app business intelligence platform.

AT Internet’s partners – expert solutions to un-silo your data

AT offers its customers access to our partner ecosystem, and the DAF was a great opportunity to meet them. They are all experts in their respective fields – push notifications (Batch), Data viz (Reeport), Data orchestration (Tealium), traffic identification (Oncrawl), and paywall specialists (Poool) – hosting a range of workshops in the afternoon. AT Internet would like to thank them for their valuable participation.

SEE ALL OUR TECH PARTNERS

Pavillon Vendôme, AT Internet’s prestigious DAF arena!

The 2019 DAF was once again held in the secure vault room of one of the most luxurious events spaces in Paris. The food by Potel & Chabot was a smash hit as was the wine for the Bordeaux Grand Crus tasting held in the evening. Some lucky winners also came away with prizes at our Wine Casino! See you at next year’s event!

 BONUS! 

Best of tweets from the event

Facebook photo album

Speakers videos and presentations

#DAF2019 Aftermovie

Article Why the Digital Analytics Forum 2019 was showstopper! first appeared on Digital Analytics Blog.

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[pastordorry-blog]

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Acts 8:26-40

Summer Series on Acts Week 7

July 21, 2019

         Last Sunday Phil and I worshipped at the Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns, in Tarrytown NY—located along the Hudson River about an hour north of New York City. The town is also known as Sleepy Hollow, as in Ichabad Crane and the headless horseman.  The church is adjacent to the cemetery where the headless horseman is said to have been buried, and one of their ongoing mission projects is their “midnight rides”, where they go into New York City and deliver food and clothing to people in need. If you’ve got a local legend as colorful as the headless horseman, why not capitalize on it?

We didn’t see the headless horseman while we were there, nor did the place feel haunted to me.  But it did feel old.  The building’s construction started in 1685.  That’s right, 1685.  To put that in perspective, that was a good 150 years before anyone was worshipping at Lima.  I think it may have been the oldest American church building I have ever been in.  These days the church has a modern building right in town that is their primary worship space, but in the summer and on Christmas Eve they open up the historic building and hold worship services there. As we waited for the service to begin, I thought about all the people who have come over the years to worship and pray in that space, which got me to thinking about the first people, those that got the church started.  Do you think those pioneering Dutch settlers who started the church had any idea what it would look like 300 years later?

Well I’m sure they didn’t anticipate that eventually wood stoves in churches would be replaced by oil heating systems, and outhouses would be replaced by indoor plumbing, and hymn books would largely be replaced by words projected on to screens!  How could they imagine any of that?  But my guess is, if they had enough faith to build a church building, they were people who understood that God is always at work expanding the Church.  There may be seasons of painful pruning, times of low harvest, and even times of local and regional decline.  But the big picture of God’s work is toward growth. Growth in terms of numbers, growth in terms of geography, and growth in terms of maturity.

We see this in the book of Acts.  First there is growth in numbers.  3,000 people converted on Pentecost!  Day by day the Lord added to the numbers of the very early church.  As we move further into Acts, we begin to see growth in terms of geography.  After the stoning of Stephen, persecution forced many members of the early church to scatter, and as they scattered, they preached the word of God wherever they went.  Jesus himself told his disciples this would be the case.  Acts 1:8 says, “And you will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  

But this growth, in numbers and geography, could only be accomplished by people who were willing to grow in maturity.  It could only be accomplished by people who were willing to let go of the old so they could embrace the new.  The first Christians had to let go of their waiting and embrace Jesus as Messiah.  It takes a lot of courage to make a change like that!  Then they had to let go of their old prejudices.  Earlier in Acts chapter 8, which we didn’t have time to cover in church, Philip was amazingly cooperative and obedient when he followed God’s command to preach the gospel to the Samaritans.  For hundreds of years there had been terrible bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans—and now, in Christ, their division was being healed.  But only because Philip, and then Peter and John, were willing to get over their prejudices.  The gospel grew only because people were willing to change and grow.

Witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria—the book of Acts records for us how Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled.  And now Philip has obeyed God’s call to head south from Jerusalem toward Gaza and shares the gospel with a Gentile.  The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch is the lynchpin, the turning point for the gospel to be spread to the ends of the earth.

Luke doesn’t tell us his name.  But he does tell us he is an important man.  We can tell that by his ride.  Only very important people rode in chariots—most people walked, a few had donkeys, but a chariot?  That’s like having a Ferrari today!  Luke tells us that this man was secretary of the treasury.  He was in charge of all the financial resources of his country.  He most likely had very dark skin, because that was called Ethiopia then is northern Sudan now.  Luke also tells us he was a eunuch, which in scripture is an imprecise term, it can mean a range of things, but Luke includes this detail to show us the man was precluded from fully participating in Judaism.  But his physical issues would not be a problem in terms of the gospel.  He was fully acceptable to God, and was able to become a baptized believer on the spot. We can assume that the Ethiopian eunuch returned to his home a powerful evangelist!

Luke is basically hitting his readers over the head with the gospel message, that the good news of Jesus Christ was never intended for only one particular group of people, for one small subset of the human race. The good news of Jesus Christ was meant for ALL.  Rich and poor.  Dark and light.  Jew and Gentile.  We celebrate this at Christmas—for unto all of us a child is born.  But Jesus told us the good news of God’s love would no longer be conveyed only through him.  It would be conveyed through us.  We get to be his witnesses, his ambassadors, his body.  “And you will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  

We recall these words and don’t give them too much thought, but wow!  Talk about revolutionary!  First, that God would entrust the sharing of the gospel to regular people like us, okay, to me that’s a wow.  Second, that the gospel would be so transforming it would break down barriers and prejudices.  And third, that this work would continue until the ends of the earth are somehow made new.  You WILL BE my witnesses.  Not you were once.  Or you are for a minute or two.  But YOU WILL BE my witnesses eternally.  Even in heaven, we never stop being witnesses.  See what I mean when I say that the big picture of God’s work is always toward growth?

Let’s think for a minute about the ends of the earth. Growing up in a rural area, I was familiar with designations such as “the sticks”, “boondocks”, “East Jabip” and “Timbuktu”.  Turns out Timbuktu is a real place, not just a metaphor!  In Jesus’ day, if you wanted to talk about the ends of the earth, you know what you said?  Ethiopia! It was, in legendary and mythological terms, the way you expressed the ends of the earth.  God commands Philip to go to Gaza, which was in the desert—another place that might feel like the ends of the earth—and on his way he meets who? A eunuch from Ethiopia.  God uses Philip to share the gospel with a man who is, in some way, the end of his family line, who is from the ends of the earth, and who has reached the end of his understanding about God—God uses Philip to take this man who is at the end, and brings about in him a whole new beginning.

And God is still using people to do that work today.  This week we’ve heard a lot about the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.  Did you know that while Neil Armstrong prepared to be the first person to walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin set out elements for communion?  He said, “I poured the wine into the chalice.  In the one-sixth gravity of the moon the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup.  It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon and the very first food eaten there were communion elements.”  Talk about the ends of the earth!  The big picture of God’s work is always toward growth. Not just numerical growth, but also geographic growth.  Human beings are carrying the Spirit of God every place they go. Even to the moon.  

Philip didn’t go to the moon.  Just to Samaria, and the desert, and a few other places listed later that are not familiar to us.  He was an “ends of the earth” kind of guy.  I think Luke spends so much time on this one person’s conversion so we can see the direct correlation between Philip’s willingness to serve, change and grow—and the direct impact that made on other people’s lives.  Earlier in Acts, Philip stepped up as a deacon to help care for the widows in the church.  Then he willingly went to Samaria, where he helped many people encounter God.  He was having quite a run there when God called him to head to the desert.  He wasn’t worried about staying where he could be “successful”.  He followed God to the new frontier, and there used all he had to serve well.  Maybe that is why, almost 54 years ago now, when my in-laws were blessed with a baby boy, they decided to name him Philip with one L, like it is in the Bible.  They wanted him to be a person who uses all he has to serve the Lord, just as they were doing.

About a month ago, I listened to a sermon online by Bishop Latrelle Easterling of the Baltimore Washington Conference.  She was preaching at their ordination service, not only to the newly ordained clergy in her conference, but to all the many lay people in attendance.  She made a distinction between being a volunteer, and being a servant.  Reading about Philip this week made me think more about that. Volunteers help when they feel like it; servants help when God calls them.  Volunteers help to get a certain personal reward; servants are only interested in glorifying God.  Volunteers retain the right to say no to any particular task that is too difficult, too demeaning, too controversial; servants strive to keep their hearts open to saying yes to whatever it is God asks of them.  Volunteers make a difference; servants make a sacrifice.

One of the sacrifices of servanthood is moving on. After his encounter with the Ethiopian official, Luke tells us Philip was suddenly taken away.  I’m sure this was sad for both of them.  The Ethiopian man would have loved more time with Philip, more time to ask him questions and develop a spiritual friendship.  Philip probably would have enjoyed more chariot rides!  But God needed Philip elsewhere.  Next week we will say good-bye to Pastor Brad and his family.  This will be sad for all of us.  But gracefully letting go is at the heart of being a servant.  Letting go of the old so we can embrace the new.  Letting go of the people who explained so much to us and made such a difference for us—so we can deepen our dependence on God.  Growing up means moving on.  And as bittersweet as that is, it is the primary way the gospel spreads.

We cannot imagine what Lima church, or any church, will look like in 300 years.  Our oil heating will no doubt be replaced by something much more efficient and sustainable by then.  I don’t know if indoor plumbing will change much, probably it will also be more efficient and sustainable.  Maybe we will compost all our waste and mow our lawn with goats!  No doubt the church of the future will be employing much different technology than we have today.

We cannot picture the specifics of what church will look like in the future.  But we do know that the big picture of God’s work is always toward growth.  And we can decide to join God in God’s work of expansion. Do you believe God is at work expanding the reach and impact of God’s Church in the world???  It’s true!  It’s not a headless horseman story.  It’s not legend or myth or fiction.  It is our faith.  Will you offer everything you have, in service to the greatest story of all time, the story of God’s love for the whole world as shown in the person and gospel of Jesus Christ?  Amen.

[torentialtribute]

Chelsea News: Frank Lampard aiming high despite finishing 26 points behind Man City

Sitting 68 storeys high above Yokohama Bay, between training sessions with his body clock off kilter, Frank Lampard was recalling how he was a player who liked to keep his distance from the manager's office.

"I would not have gone much," said the new Chelsea boss. 'Only if I was called in or if I went for any reason as vice-captain. I always respected the manager.

'I tried to be low maintenance and that corridor towards the manager's office was somewhere you didn't venture much. But now it's where I'll be, I suppose. "

Frank Lampard took charge of his third pre-season friendly as Chelsea manager on Friday

It is 16 days since Lampard was confirmed in the job, days which have been sped by in a blur of coaching, meetings, friendlies, hotels and flights.

First to Ireland and onto Japan, where Friday's 1-0 defeat at the hands of J-League champions Kawasaki Frontal on humid evening in Yokohama was blamed upon jet lag, sleep loss and weariness in the ranks, with Kepa Arrizabalaga and Tammy Abraham unable to play because they were unwell.

There has been only one win from three games and it has an energy-sapping schedule but the manager made time before leaving for Dublin to visit the training ground, walk down that same corridor, step into his new office and see how it felt to settle into one hottest hot seats.

"It did feel good," he said. "It has felt good to be back.

LAMPARD'S NINE CHELSEA MANAGERS

Claudio Ranieri – signed Lampard in 2001, left in 2004

Jose Mourinho – 2004-2007, 2013-2015

Avram Grant – 2007-2008

Luiz Felipe Scolari – 2008-2009

Guus Hiddink – 2009

Carlo Ancelotti – 2009-2011

Andre Villas-Boas – 2011 -2012

Roberto Di Matteo – 2012

Rafael Benítez – 2012-2013

' It is certainly a benefit to know the building so well and a lot of faces in the building made it not so much or a first-day-of-school feeling. "

As a Chelsea player, he saw nine different managers come and go. Some of them more than once. Some of them genuine greats or modern coaching who have been buzzing his phone with good wishes during the last two weeks. But Lampard is resisting the urge to tap into their wisdom.

He may lack on-the-job experience but he knows Chelsea and its idiosyncrasions and has been determined to do this his own way, toge his own style

"Don't get me wrong, I've had texts with Jose Mourinho and I've had a good relationship with Carlo Ancelotti," Lampard said.

'I spoke about Jose a lot, about when he first came, and the lift he gave me, the self-confidence, more mentally than actually tactically or physically. Guus Hiddink sent me a message this week which was very nice. These are all managers I respect.

"I respect all the managers I had, even those I might not have a close connection to."

Lampard watched on as Chelsea were beaten 1-0 by J.League champions Kawasaki Frontale

Andre Villas-Boas dropped Lampard, and other established stars, as he tried to shake things up while Luiz Felipe Scolari upset senior players by failing to maintain the levels of intensity and fitness which had been set by Mourinho. Neither Villas-Boas nor Scolari survived a full season and the Chelsea dressing room acquired a reputation for dissent which has never quite gone away.

"When you become a manager you realize it is not that simple," said Lampard . 'It's not about close connections with everyone. You can't love every manager and you can't love every player but you have to work together.

"So I haven't gone searching for many words from managers.

" I 'm not picking up the phone because if I rank up Carlo Ancelotti and asked him about a situation, it would be possible to be different from the situation he dealt with.

' I try to learn through myself, by working daily with the players. If I ever felt the need to reach out I would, but I think we all have to find our own way. "

In his twenties Lampard had no desire to get into management. In his thirties he was warming to the notion but the post-Chelsea years have proved crucial.

He had not envisaged playing for another team, until he was released at the end of this contract in June 2014, signed for New York City and quickly moved across the Abu Dhabi football family to join Manchester City on loan. Three months later, he was scoring a late equalizer for City against Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium as the away fans sang his name.

Lampard seen celebrating Chelsea's 2005 Premier League win with Jose Mourinho (center)

"It was a strange time, but it worked out pretty good," said Lampard. 'You never have an idea how those things happen. And I understand now how Chelsea wanted to move on.

'They were striving for another push with some younger and different players. So there were no hard feelings. Once the dust settled I was just very thankful for a long career at Chelsea and a nice little ending with City and New York. In terms of me being Chelsea's manager that year certainly helped. "

Lampard played 38 times for City and scored eight goals as they finished runners-up behind Mourinho's Chelsea.

" City allowed me to see another idea, their plans, the way they wanted to drive, the ground and people training, "he added.

" There was a correlation about what Chelsea did in 2003/04 and what City did.

'They came and changed the landscape. They had slightly different ways of doing it and that's fine. But I did see two clubs hungry to be winners, to change and set standards really high. As I left, Pep Guardiola came along and his on-pitch detail and work has tasks it on.

'We have seen a performance level that rivals any generation, any era or football. We have to realize they are the standards set. Liverpool as well. We're under no illusions. "

Chelsea Legend Lampard worked with Carlo Ancelotti between June 2009 and May 2011

Chelsea finished third last season, 26 points behind City who have strengthened to the tune of £ 75million with Rodri and Angelino. Chelsea have sold Eden Hazard and are under a transfer ban.

"The only way I know to change that gap is through absolute hard work and focus," Lampard said. "Those basics don't change, and with the transfer ban there is even more clarity because we can't bring in players.

" Every day I read City are buying and Manchester United are going to buy. All these teams are going to do business and that's going to strengthen them.

'So we have to be realistic, but then I see quality every day we have here. And Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Willian, Antonio Rudiger and Reece James, and I think we have a competitive squad. I believe in them and there is more because we have a lot of younger players.

'There can be an uplift. That's not me saying I'm going to make the difference. It will be the players who make the difference.

'So there's the challenge. Now, can we win the league? It's going to be a big ask. But we have to set out with that mind-set. "

Lampard usually responds to a challenge and his acumen will be tested in new ways after his first coaching job at Derby.

" I already sensed the size of the club and differences off the pitch, dealing with players with 70 caps. And titles. Pedro has won God-knows-how-many titles. But the basics are the same.

"On the pitch I want to ask for one thing and it's absolutely buying into how I want to do it.

" I don't think you can compromise on that. '

Lampard pictured in conversation with Rafa Benitez during a match at Stamford Bridge in 2013

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[kraussoutene]

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites

Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever

The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” - Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

Technical basics

Excellent usability

On-site optimization

Relevant content publication

Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want

These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components

Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

Sponsorships

Event participation and hosting

Online news

Blogs

Business associations

B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.” - Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2zQqEnK

[fairchildlingpo1]

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites

Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever

The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” - Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

Technical basics

Excellent usability

On-site optimization

Relevant content publication

Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want

These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components

Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

Sponsorships

Event participation and hosting

Online news

Blogs

Business associations

B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.” - Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2zQqEnK

[maryhare96]

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites

Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever

The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” - Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

Technical basics

Excellent usability

On-site optimization

Relevant content publication

Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want

These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components

Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

Sponsorships

Event participation and hosting

Online news

Blogs

Business associations

B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.” - Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2zQqEnK

[conniecogeie]

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites

Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever

The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” - Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

Technical basics

Excellent usability

On-site optimization

Relevant content publication

Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want

These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components

Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

Sponsorships

Event participation and hosting

Online news

Blogs

Business associations

B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.” - Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2zQqEnK

[christinesumpmg]

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites

Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever

The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” - Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

Technical basics

Excellent usability

On-site optimization

Relevant content publication

Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want

These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components

Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

Sponsorships

Event participation and hosting

Online news

Blogs

Business associations

B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.” - Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2zQqEnK

[dainiaolivahm]

Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

...but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites

Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever

The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements

How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing effort was rewarded with a shower of Google gifts in the form of rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Then these generous SERPs shrank to seven spots, and then three, with the mobile sea change thrown into the bargain and consisting of layers and layers of Google-owned interfaces instead of direct-to-website links. In 2018, when we rustle through the wrapping paper, the presents we find from Google look cheaper, smaller, and less magnificent.

Consider these five key developments:

1) Zero-click mobile SERPs

This slide from a recent presentation by Rand Fishkin encapsulateshis findings regarding the growth of no-click SERPs between 2016–2018. Mobile users have experienced a 20% increase in delivery of search engine results that don’t require them to go any deeper than Google’s own interface.

2) The encroachment of paid ads into local packs

When Dr. Peter J. Myers surveyed 11,000 SERPs in 2018, he found that 35% of competitive local packs feature ads.

3) Google becoming a lead gen agency

At last count, Google’s Local Service Ads program via which they interposition themselves as the paid lead gen agent between businesses and consumers has taken over 23 business categories in 77 US cities.

4) Even your branded SERPs don’t belong to you

When a user specifically searches for your brand and your Google Knowledge Panel pops up, you can likely cope with the long-standing “People Also Search For” set of competitors at the bottom of it. But that’s not the same as Google allowing Groupon to advertise at the top of your KP, or putting lead gen from Doordash and GrubHub front and center to nickel and dime you on your own customers’ orders.

5) Google is being called the new “homepage” for local businesses

As highlighted at the beginning of this post, 64% of marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. This concept, coined by Mike Blumenthal, signifies that a user looking at a Google Knowledge Panel can get basic business info, make a phone call, get directions, book something, ask a question, take a virtual tour, read microblog posts, see hours of operation, thumb through photos, see busy times, read and leave reviews. Without ever having to click through to a brand’s domain, the user may be fully satisfied.

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” - Epicurus

There are many more examples we could gather, but they can all be summed up in one way: None of Google’s most recent local initiatives are about driving customers to brands’ own websites. Local SERPs have shrunk and have been re-engineered to keep users within Google’s platforms to generate maximum revenue for Google and their partners.

You may be as philosophical as Epicurus about this and say that Google has every right to be as profitable as they can with their own product, even if they don’t really need to siphon more revenue off local businesses. But if Google’s recent trajectory causes your brand or agency to conclude that websites have become obsolete in this heavily controlled environment, please keep reading.

Your website is your bedrock

“65% of 1,411 surveyed marketers observe strong correlation between organic and local rank.” - Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

What this means is that businesses which rank highly organically are very likely to have high associated local pack rankings. In the following screenshot, if you take away the directory-type platforms, you will see how the brand websites ranking on page 1 for “deli athens ga” are also the two businesses that have made it into Google’s local pack:

How often do the top 3 Google local pack results also have a 1st page organic rankings?

In a small study, we looked at 15 head keywords across 7 US cities and towns. This yielded 315 possible entries in Google’s local pack. Of that 315, 235 of the businesses ranking in the local packs also had page 1 organic rankings. That’s a 75% correlation between organic website rankings and local pack presence.

*It’s worth noting that where local and organic results did not correlate, it was sometimes due the presence of spam GMB listings, or to mystery SERPs that did not make sense at first glance — perhaps as a result of Google testing, in some cases.

Additionally, many local businesses are not making it to the first page of Google anymore in some categories because the organic SERPs are inundated with best-of lists and directories. Often, local business websites were pushed down to the second page of the organic results. In other words, if spam, “best-ofs,” and mysteries were removed, the local-organic correlation would likely be much higher than 75%.

Further, one recent study found that even when Google’s Local Service Ads are present, 43.9% of clicks went to the organic SERPs. Obviously, if you can make it to the top of the organic SERPs, this puts you in very good CTR shape from a purely organic standpoint.

Your takeaway from this

The local businesses you market may not be able to stave off the onslaught of Google’s zero-click SERPs, paid SERPs, and lead gen features, but where “free” local 3-packs still exist, your very best bet for being included in them is to have the strongest possible website. Moreover, organic SERPs remain a substantial source of clicks.

Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.

This calls for an industry-wide doubling down on organic metrics that matter most.

Bridging the local-organic gap

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

A 2017 CNBC survey found that 45% of small businesses have no website, and, while most large enterprises have websites, many local businesses qualify as “small.”

Moreover, a recent audit of 9,392 Google My Business listings found that 27% have no website link.

When asked which one task 1,411 marketers want clients to devote more resources to, it’s no coincidence that 66% listed a website-oriented asset. This includes local content development, on-site optimization, local link building, technical analysis of rankings/traffic/conversions, and website design as shown in the following Moz survey graphic:

In an environment in which websites are table stakes for competitive local pack rankings, virtually all local businesses not only need one, but they need it to be as strong as possible so that it achieves maximum organic rankings.

What makes a website strong?

The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO offers incredibly detailed guidelines for creating the best possible website. While we recommend that everyone marketing a local business read through this in-depth guide, we can sum up its contents here by stating that strong websites combine:

Technical basics

Excellent usability

On-site optimization

Relevant content publication

Publicity

For our present purpose, let’s take a special look at those last three elements.

On-site optimization and relevant content publication

There was a time when on-site SEO and content development were treated almost independently of one another. And while local businesses will need a make a little extra effort to put their basic contact information in prominent places on their websites (such as the footer and Contact Us page), publication and optimization should be viewed as a single topic. A modern strategy takes all of the following into account:

Keyword and real-world research tell a local business what consumers want

These consumer desires are then reflected in what the business publishes on its website, including its homepage, location landing pages, about page, blog and other components

Full reflection of consumer desires includes ensuring that human language (discovered via keyword and real-world research) is implemented in all elements of each page, including its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and in some cases, markup

What we’re describing here isn’t a set of disconnected efforts. It’s a single effort that’s integral to researching, writing, and publishing the website. Far from stuffing keywords into a tag or a page’s content, focus has shifted to building topical authority in the eyes of search engines like Google by building an authoritative resource for a particular consumer demographic. The more closely a business is able to reflect customers’ needs (including the language of their needs), in every possible component of its website, the more relevant it becomes.

A hypothetical example of this would be a large medical clinic in Dallas. Last year, their phone staff was inundated with basic questions about flu shots, like where and when to get them, what they cost, would they cause side effects, what about side effects on people with pre-existing health conditions, etc. This year, the medical center’s marketing team took a look at Moz Keyword Explorer and saw that there’s an enormous volume of questions surrounding flu shots:

This tiny segment of the findings of the free keyword research tool, Answer the Public, further illustrates how many questions people have about flu shots:

The medical clinic need not compete nationally for these topics, but at a local level, a page on the website can answer nearly every question a nearby patient could have about this subject. The page, created properly, will reflect human language in its tags, headings, descriptions, text, and markup. It will tell all patients where to come and when to come for this procedure. It has the potential to cut down on time-consuming phone calls.

And, finally, it will build topical authority in the eyes of Google to strengthen the clinic’s chances of ranking well organically… which can then translate to improved local rankings.

It’s important to note that keyword research tools typically do not reflect location very accurately, so research is typically done at a national level, and then adjusted to reflect regional or local language differences and geographic terms, after the fact. In other words, a keyword tool may not accurately reflect exactly how many local consumers in Dallas are asking “Where do I get a flu shot?”, but keyword and real-world research signals that this type of question is definitely being asked. The local business website can reflect this question while also adding in the necessary geographic terms.

Local link building must be brought to the fore of publicity efforts

Moz’s industry survey found that more than one-third of respondents had no local link building strategy in place. Meanwhile, link building was listed as one of the top three tasks to which marketers want their clients to devote more resources. There’s clearly a disconnect going on here. Given the fundamental role links play in building Domain Authority, organic rankings, and subsequent local rankings, building strong websites means bridging this gap.

First, it might help to examine old prejudices that could cause local business marketers and their clients to feel dubious about link building. These most likely stem from link spam which has gotten so out of hand in the general world of SEO that Google has had to penalize it and filter it to the best of their ability.

Not long ago, many digital-only businesses were having a heyday with paid links, link farms, reciprocal links, abusive link anchor text and the like. An online company might accrue thousands of links from completely irrelevant sources, all in hopes of escalating rank. Clearly, these practices aren’t ones an ethical business can feel good about investing in, but they do serve as an interesting object lesson, especially when a local marketer can point out to a client, that best local links are typically going to result from real-world relationship-building.

Local businesses are truly special because they serve a distinct, physical community made up of their own neighbors. The more involved a local business is in its own community, the more naturally link opportunities arise from things like local:

Sponsorships

Event participation and hosting

Online news

Blogs

Business associations

B2B cross-promotions

There are so many ways a local business can build genuine topical and domain authority in a given community by dint of the relationships it develops with neighbors.

An excellent way to get started on this effort is to look at high-ranking local businesses in the same or similar business categories to discover what work they’ve put in to achieve a supportive backlink profile. Moz Link Intersect is an extremely actionable resource for this, enabling a business to input its top competitors to find who is linking to them.

In the following example, a small B&B in Albuquerque looks up two luxurious Tribal resorts in its city:

Link Intersect then lists out a blueprint of opportunities, showing which links one or both competitors have earned. Drilling down, the B&B finds that Marriott.com is linking to both Tribal resorts on an Albuquerque things-to-do page:

The small B&B can then try to earn a spot on that same page, because it hosts lavish tea parties as a thing-to-do. Outreach could depend on the B&B owner knowing someone who works at the local Marriott personally. It could include meeting with them in person, or on the phone, or even via email. If this outreach succeeds, an excellent, relevant link will have been earned to boost organic rank, underpinning local rank.

Then, repeat the process. Aristotle might well have been speaking of link building when he said we are what we repeatedly do and that excellence is a habit. Good marketers can teach customers to have excellent habits in recognizing a good link opportunity when they see it.

Taken altogether

Without a website, a local business lacks the brand-controlled publishing and link-earning platform that so strongly influences organic rankings. In the absence of this, the chances of ranking well in competitive local packs will be significantly less. Taken altogether, the case is clear for local businesses investing substantially in their websites.

Acting now is actually a strategy for the future

“There is nothing permanent except change.” - Heraclitus

You’ve now determined that strong websites are fundamental to local rankings in competitive markets. You’ve absorbed numerous reasons to encourage local businesses you market to prioritize care of their domains. But there’s one more thing you’ll need to be able to convey, and that’s a sense of urgency.

Right now, every single customer you can still earn from a free local pack listing is immensely valuable for the future.

This isn’t a customer you’ve had to pay Google for, as you very well might six months, a year, or five years from now. Yes, you’ve had to invest plenty in developing the strong website that contributed to the high local ranking, but you haven’t paid a penny directly to Google for this particular lead. Soon, you may be having to fork over commissions to Google for a large portion of your new customers, so acting now is like insurance against future spend.

For this to work out properly, local businesses must take the leads Google is sending them right now for free, and convert them into long-term, loyal customers, with an ultimate value of multiple future transactions without Google as a the middle man. And if these freely won customers can be inspired to act as word-of-mouth advocates for your brand, you will have done something substantial to develop a stream of non-Google-dependent revenue.

This offer may well expire as time goes by. When it comes to the capricious local SERPs, marketers resemble the Greek philosophers who knew that change is the only constant. The Trojan horse has rolled into every US city, and it’s a gift with a questionable shelf life. We can’t predict if or when free packs might become obsolete, but we share your concerns about the way the wind is blowing.

What we can see clearly right now is that websites will be anything but obsolete in 2019. Rather, they are the building blocks of local rankings, precious free leads, and loyal revenue, regardless of how SERPs may alter in future.

For more insights into where local businesses should focus in 2019, be sure to explore the Moz State of Local SEO industry report:

Read the State of Local SEO industry report

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2zQqEnK