#I also realized while captioning how differently he talks in each era

[beemo-clippin]

Etho talking about his cats over the years

Clipped from "Etho Plays Minecraft - Episode 276: You've Been Etho'd" (26:59-28:26) and "Etho Plays Minecraft - Episode 587: Trial Chambers" (4:38-5:47)

Transcript and video description below cut:

Video description:

Etho's POV in the base of his Let's Play world. The date appears in the bottom corner reading, "2013." Etho holds a book in his hand, the question of the day. While introducing his cats, he stands in a smelting room. As he talks about his one cat Snuckles, he walks across a river and stands near it. After saying how smart she was, he roams his base more, across the river, two bridges, and up a flight of stairs.

Sliding transition to Etho's POV at a swamp in his Let's Play world. The date appears in the bottom corner reading, "2024." Etho watches a black cat floating in the lake before him. After a couple seconds, Etho takes a rocket and flies across the lake, then deeper into the swamp, and the cat teleports next to him as he goes. He wanders the swamp and keeps the cat in his sight as he talks about Shadow and her kittens.

Transcription:

Etho (2013): I had a lot of cats growing up like, uh, outdoor cats. And they were... they were pretty cool, I liked them. They kept to themselves.

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Etho (2013): There was this one... one cat I had, Snuckles. Um. She- Like she was a- she had kittens and stuff. She was a mother. And she was crazy, she would like go in the water, like choose to go in the water herself. Like- and, like, hunt ducks *chuckle* in the water. Catch them and then like bring them back for her- for her kittens, like just crazy cat.

Uh, always looked both ways before crossing the road. Just really, really smart and brave and very friendly to people, you know. She would, like, if she ever had kittens, you could go see them and she would just love to show- show you her kittens. It was pretty cool *laughs* Uh, so that was probably my favorite cat growing up.

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Etho (2024): When I was a little kid, I had a black cat like this named Shadow. Green eyes but it had a bright pink nose and, like, the black coat. Super, super shiny silky smooth black coat on. It was a very nice cat. Super friendly! But it wasn't a needy cat, like it would stay, you know, within four feet of you. But it didn't need to be like at your feet kind of thing. Um, it just liked to be around you kinda. Um.

But it did this interesting thing like it was about to have kittens. And rather than, like, having the kittens at our home, she just vanished on us, and we're like, "oh... oh no" Did she get hit by a car? Did a coyote get her? You know, we assumed the worst.

But then a month later, she comes back to her home like nothing ever happened with her kittens, she had like five kittens. And she was all friendly again and she wanted us to check them out, show them- show us her new kittens. And she was all excited for us to to interact with them, you know. And then we go to pet them and they're like, "RAWR!" *laughs* They're feisty! They had claws already. They did not want to be petted.

[writeforsoreeyes]

BL LookBack - Only the Ring Finger Knows

Welcome to BL LookBack, where I’m rereading some of the oldest BL series still on my shelves to see how well they hold up for me today!

[image description: cover of Only the Ring Finger Knows; two teenage boys in school uniforms pose intimately with rings prominently displayed on their fingers]

story by Satoru Kannagi / art by Hotaru Odagiri originally serialized 2001 - 2002 (Takuma Shoten) English edition: 2004 (Digital Manga Publishing)

Only the Ring Finger Knows was a pioneer in the United States--one of the first BL published here and an early hit. I feel safe in saying that nearly everyone who had an interest in BL in the 2000s at least knew of it, if not read it. Many considered it the ideal “beginner’s BL.”

I recall liking it well enough back when I first read it ~10 years ago. I even remember the plot keenly thanks to its simplicity and unique elements. It felt odd (dare I say queer) to reread it now that I am closer to 30 than 20, out of the closet, and a lot better informed on problematic tropes. Still, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up all these years later (relatively speaking.)

Wataru is an ordinary teenager who, by chance, meets Kazuki, a popular upperclassman. Kazuki is the prince of their high school, with what seems like the entire female student body crushing on him. In fact, even girls at other schools adore Kazuki. He’s handsome, smart, athletic, rich, and-- above all else--known for his kindness.

Wataru, therefore, is shocked when Kazuki treats him rudely during their first encounter. He continues to be a jerk to Wataru during future meetings. Why does he treat me differently? Wataru wonders. As time goes by, his thoughts become more and more preoccupied with Kazuki.

[image description: Kazuki yanks a handkerchief from Wataru’s grip and tells him, “Wash your face at home.”]

I’m sure you can all tell where this is going. It’s an old plot, made popular for centuries by works like Pride and Prejudice. What distinguishes Only the Ring Finger Knows from similar stories is its one quirky plot element: the rings.

At Wataru and Kazuki’s school, rings are popular. Two friends might wear matching rings on their right ring fingers to show off their bond. A student can signal that they are single by wearing a ring on their middle finger. And, most importantly, couples wear matching rings on their left ring fingers.

Wataru isn’t keen on the trend, but he does have a ring that he wear on his middle finger due to his personal attachment to it. And (gasp!) Kazuki happens to have a ring that is the exact same design.

You can probably guess where this is going as well.

[image description: Kazuki says that he had to get his ring back from Wataru because “it’s creepy being paired up with a guy.” After a moment, Wataru says, “Same here!”]

The plot is beat-by-beat predictable, which isn’t necessarily a detriment within the romance genre. What the story does notably well is the character writing. 

Wataru is relatable for readers: aware that he doesn’t stand out and righteously upset at being treated poorly for no reason. He stands up for himself, pushing back against Kazuki’s bad behavior verbally and-- when necessary-- physically. He’s kind to his sister, doing her the favor of delivering a friend’s present to Kazuki even though he’s loathe to talk to Kazuki more. Perhaps most importantly, he’s honest to himself about his feelings, even as they confuse him.

[image description: Wataru presents Kazuki with a large, wrapped gift. Kazuki is taken aback and Wataru notes that Kazuki’s surprise seems genuine even though Wataru thinks Kazuki must get gifts frequently.]

Kazuki, meanwhile, is compelling for readers primarily because they suspect what his true feelings are and wait on bated breath for those feelings to be revealed. It’s always satisfying when a proud character admits something that they view as a vulnerability. However, 

Kazuki as a character ages poorly for me. The “he teases you because he likes you” mindset persists even today, but it’s becoming less tolerable for modern readers and may turn some off this story. 

In addition, Kazuki leans dangerously into the “bully but secretly gay” trope. It doesn’t feel quite accurate to call Kazuki a bully-- he doesn’t purposefully seek Wataru out to harass him or humiliate him in front of peers. But he does nettle Wataru during every interaction. Whenever Kazuki feels the conversation is becoming too intimate or he has exposed too much of himself, he sabotages the conversation by pissing Wataru off.

[image description: Kazuki leans forward so that Wataru is backed into a wall. Wataru looks irritated. With just inches between their faces, Kazuki says, “Thanks for the special delivery.”]

I’ve no doubt that these traits would make him an unacceptable love interest for many readers. However, some people enjoy such characters and Kazuki never does anything to Wataru that absolutely crosses the line into irredeemable. (Your mileage may vary.) 

Furthermore, when Kazuki finally confesses his feelings to Wataru and admits that he had no hope of Wataru ever liking him back, it’s instinctive to respond to that kind of vulnerability. Who among us has never feared that they valued a relationship far more than the object of their affections, whether it be a lover, a crush, a friend, or a family member?

[image description: Wataru tells Kazuki that he threw his ring away. Kazuki is shocked.]

The other element of the story that doesn’t age well is its attitude towards homosexuality. While Only the Ring Finger Knows is not as egregious in this respect as some other BL, it’s still tiring to read things like “It’s creepy being paired up with a guy,” and “You sure you aren’t ‘funny,’ that way?” 

Also, the characters exhibit a prevailing belief that being gay is something a person chooses. Even as Wataru accepts his own unexpected feelings for Kazuki, he thinks to himself, “Someone as popular as Kazuki has no reason to turn to another man for a partner.” (Despite the fact that he himself didn’t “turn” to Kazuki and fell for him quite naturally.) Likewise, Kazuki’s cousin makes a comment to Wataru’s sister that she’s surprised Kazuki didn’t “choose” to fall in love with her instead of Wataru, since Wataru and his sister look so much alike.

In addition, the most chaste displays of romantic affection between two men are treated as borderline obscene. In an epilogue, Wataru and Kazuki kiss briefly in front of Kazuki’s young niece. It’s meant to be a humorous and somewhat shocking moment, captioned with “in front of a child.” There’s nothing scandalous about the moment though, so the “humor” falls flat and ultimately it comes off as prudish at best and homophobic at worst.

As typical of BL from this era, there’s zero discussion of the troubles queer people face in a conservative society. The few people who find out about Wataru and Kazuki’s feelings are supportive. Neither Wataru nor Kazuki seem to think that they might be ostracized at school when people realize they are dating-- they mention that rumors may occur, but nothing nefarious. Indeed, the word “gay” never comes up in the story, nor does any related terminology.

[image description: Kazuki confesses that he found it hard to speak with Wataru because he was struggling with his feelings, adding “I never imagined that I’d find myself in love with a younger... man.”]

Many BL (old and new) have an issue of treating their female characters poorly. While none of the actual female characters in Only the Ring Finger Knows receive bad treatment, it’s troublesome how the manga paints basically every female student as being obsessed with Kazuki. And I do mean obsessed-- a mob of girls show up at Kazuki’s house on his birthday uninvited and end up rioting.

Despite these grievances, I did enjoy my reread of the manga. It’s a classic tale told well, with each scene showing how Wataru and Kazuki circle around each other, slowly drawing closer. The emotional payoff when they get together is satisfying, even if I can’t help but begrudge Kazuki his happiness somewhat.

*final verdict: still recommended with mild disclaimers*

[williamexchange]

TikTok: What Marketers Need to Know

Are you curious about TikTok? Wondering how to use TikTok for your marketing?

To explore what marketers need to know about TikTok, I interview Rachel Pedersen on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

Rachel is an organic social marketing pro and host of the Social Media Secrets podcast. Her new book is called, I Need Attention.

Rachel shares how TikTok works, how marketers can develop content for TikTok, and more.

Getting Started With TikTok

Early Beginnings in Social Media Marketing

Rachel’s experience with social media marketing began when she was a hairstylist. As she was doing highlights on a client 3 years ago, the client asked for Rachel’s help in understanding Twitter on behalf of her husband’s chicken company. At that moment, Rachel realized that she may not be a social media expert, but she was certainly an expert in the client’s eyes.

She knew enough to help the client and her husband figure out Twitter, Facebook, and the world of marketing that had always intrigued her.

Rachel began talking to her client further about the chicken company’s social media game plan. Within a few months, she was invited to continue consulting for the entire franchise, and the company became her first official social media marketing client. According to Rachel, everything just continued to grow from there.

Growing Her Social Media Consulting Business

Rachel now focuses on creating organic social media strategies that drive consistent revenue for renowned clients that do 7, 9, and even 10 figures a year in revenue. She’s helped Fortune 500 companies and famous people go viral on social media. So when she started hearing the buzz about TikTok, she immediately recognized it’s a new avenue that marketers haven’t yet explored.

Rachel began using TikTok in winter 2018. As soon as she joined this new platform, she wanted to understand it as quickly as humanly possible. Although she feels like she came late to the platform, she’s still ahead of the marketing industry and an early adopter among her peers.

Discovering TikTok

TikTok was previously a popular app called Musical.ly, where users mainly posted lip-syncing videos. The first time Rachel scrolled through TikTok, she saw video after video of this type of content. She and her children joined the fun by sharing their own rendition of the song “Baby Shark” on TikTok.

Rachel confesses that it felt awkward putting up her first video on TikTok, but she posted it anyway. In spite of having only six followers, her first video was viewed by 9,400 people by the next day. She immediately saw a big opportunity in TikTok that neither Facebook nor Instagram can deliver.

Hungry to dive into and experiment with TikTok, Rachel created videos almost every day. With very little effort and zero spend, her TikTok following grew to nearly 2,600 within 60 days.

She attributes TikTok’s growth to a number of factors. The app has an unweighted algorithm that organically surfaces videos in the order that they’re shared. It offers hashtags that operate without bans or slowing down the videos.

We’re moving into an era of shorter attention spans. Most people are only interested in things for 15 seconds, like videos you see on TikTok, movie trailers, or ads. Within those 15 seconds, the viewer gets to decide whether they want to binge more content. The trick is finding a way to capture and sustain their attention in that 15 seconds, especially if they’ve never heard of you.

Why Marketers Should Pay Attention to TikTok

TikTok isn’t a new platform; it’s a platform with new energy. It offers so much opportunity for marketers who are looking to be the first of their generation to be on it. Most marketers haven’t moved to TikTok in massive packs yet so it’s still a little isolated and more like the Wild West. It’s gaining traction and being introduced to the masses, though.

Data and demographics for TikTok in 2019 state it’s currently in 154 countries and has about 500 million active users. TikTok has consistently been in the top 10 most downloaded apps in the App Store.

Among TikTok’s users, about 66% are younger than 30 and there seem to be plenty of teen and college-age users on the site. Yet, in Rachel’s experience, hashtags like #MomLife, #MomOfThree, and #WorkingMom are active and constantly pull video content from Millennials between ages 20 and 30. There are a lot of younger moms and others who seem young, which means TikTok is an ideal platform for any brand wanting to get in front of this valuable audience.

I add that fitness influencer Chalene Johnson is active on TikTok and she attracts the 50+ crowd. Zach King, who’s known for having 20 million Instagram followers and is super-famous on YouTube as well, is also active on TikTok and he’s a fairly young guy. At a high level, there’s a wide range of ages and people on TikTok.

Rachel also notes users are spending $50 million on virtual gifting on TikTok and the platform is in the early stages of testing a self-serve ads program. She goes into detail about both of these programs later in the interview.

How Does TikTok Work?

The User Experience on TikTok

TikTok features two side-by-side feeds. The main or default feed on the right features a seemingly endless stream of content that’s been tailored “For You.” As you swipe through these videos, you can follow the accounts, engage with the content, and more. The feed on the left features content from accounts you already follow. You can easily toggle back and forth between the two feeds.

When you open the app for the first time, you’re presented with a clear news feed. It doesn’t know your preferences so what shows up in the For You feed will be totally random until you start engaging with content. It typically features users you don’t follow and content you haven’t seen. Once you start following and interacting with other users, the app will begin surfacing similar content and creators in the For You feed.

TikTok offers a wide variety of content. Much of it is quite entertaining but Rachel warns that some of it is inappropriate and shocking.

Video Formats on TikTok

All videos in TikTok are vertical and take up your entire phone screen. A majority of the content is typically 15 seconds or shorter, but the video clips have since been expanded to up to 60 seconds. All TikTok videos are looping.

I note that TikTok is very similar to Vine, a Twitter-owned video platform that was once very popular and suddenly shut down.

Verified Accounts on TikTok

Like other social media platforms, TikTok has its own version of verified status once an individual reaches a certain level of notoriety and popularity on the platform. TikTok bestows this recognition and it essentially elevates the person’s status among other users.

Rachel notes that TikTok seems to do a really good job of identifying quality creators who are consistently producing great content. Verification is another way in which TikTok supports the creators who are helping to grow and improve the platform.

Live Streaming and Monetization on TikTok

Live video streaming is available on TikTok, but only once you’ve reached 1,000 followers. While that seems like a low follower count compared to other social media platforms, it’s very difficult to achieve on TikTok without an intentional strategy for gaining and keeping an audience’s attention. It’s easy to get people to watch your videos, but not to get them to subscribe and follow you.

When you go live on TikTok, your video will be shown to all of your followers in their feeds. The alert that you’ve gone live is clearly displayed at the top of their feed and on their notification bar. People can then share your live stream with all of their followers, resulting in the potential for exponential growth on TikTok. Once your live video is done, it disappears completely and is gone forever.

Once the ability to record live video is unlocked on your TikTok account, you’ll find it’s similar to YouTube’s live-streaming product. People can purchase virtual gifts within TikTok using one of several in-app currencies. The most common one is coins, which are obtained in different bundles with actual money.

The virtual gifts, which are essentially emoji stickers with funny names like Concert, Cowboy, and Drama Queen, can be used to reward creators for having great content. The gifts come in a range of values and sizes between $0.50 and $50 and can be converted back into real money, of which the creators keep some portion of.

If your live stream attracts hundreds or thousands of people, you have the potential to earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars if each of them contributes as you broadcast.

Captions and Hashtags on TikTok

TikTok has a phenomenal hashtag system, but hashtags are limited by the short 140 characters allowed for each video caption. This caption must include not only the entire video description but also needs to have all of the hashtags that you want to rank for.

Rachel adopted a practice of adding a combination of niched-down hashtags, as well as very general ones to her TikTok videos. The hope is that your video will be found in the smaller hashtags and then will continue to rank as you move up into the bigger hashtags. The more users engage with your video, the further up it will rank within the different hashtags.

Captions on TikTok appear on top of the videos as they play and remain for the duration of the video like they do on Instagram Stories. According to Rachel, captions can be placed anywhere on the screen and are graphic-based text rather than true text.

Adding Bio and Links to TikTok

Although the platform currently doesn’t support clickable links within the videos or a swipe-up option, users can include a link in their TikTok bios. Rachel noticed a recognizable jump in her website traffic when another user visited her profile and read the URL in her bio during a live broadcast on TikTok. It wasn’t a significant jump, but it was enough to make other people go and search for her website.

Like video captions, the bios on TikTok are also limited to 140 characters of plain text and emojis. The 140 characters can include a link to your website; however, the URL isn’t clickable. You can upload one profile photo and your previous ones aren’t saved in an album as they are on Facebook.

Tracking Analytics on TikTok

Rachel admits that analytics in TikTok are lacking. Creators can currently only see how many people have watched their videos and how many have reacted to them. You can also see who has viewed your profile. That’s about it.

TikTok doesn’t provide demographic data on your followers or users who’ve engaged with your content on the platform.

What Marketers Need to Know About TikTok

Users Are Turned Off by Sales

When it comes to TikTok, videos that are overproduced, too corporate, or overtly promotional tend to spark outrage. Rachel has witnessed people go crazy in the comments when they sense a regular user is trying to sell them something or sneak in an ad.

Rachel suggests taking the time to research what the content on TikTok feels like and create videos that naturally blend within this environment. Watch other people’s content and start to identify and adopt the trends you see.

Learn More About the TikTok Ads Program

As more people are becoming “TikTok-famous,” the platform is beginning to explore how to natively integrate advertising. TikTok recently began experimenting with a new self-serve ad platform as major brands clamor to reach the younger demographic on the platform.

I mention that Macy’s recently used TikTok to run a back-to-school campaign targeting high school and college kids. Rachel recalls alcohol brands, concerts, big parties, and musicians being promoted on TikTok too.

Once TikTok’s ad program is fully rolled out, marketers will be able to diversify their clients and offer something beyond Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all of the other trusted platforms we’ve relied upon until this point. You’ll begin seeing more ads throughout the feed and notifications in the future.

What Content Can You Create for TikTok?

When you open the TikTok app to create content, there are several different options for getting started. Similar to Instagram Stories, you can hold down the button for the entire duration of the video to natively record. You can set up a self-timer and record from a distance. You can also create a series of short segments that come together to form a longer video.

TikTok encourages users to create native content within the app but allows pre-edited videos to be uploaded too. Users can then add awesome effects and text throughout different parts of their videos to make them interesting and fun. TikTok videos can also be downloaded and repurposed for other platforms like Facebook or Instagram.

Identify Trends

Videos on TikTok are a combination of lip-syncing to original and uploaded music, sound effects and audio clips, rants, and anything else the imagination can create.

TikTok’s roots are in music content but Rachel observed that users are moving away from singing along to music and going more towards creating their own snarky renditions of songs. The user will sing new lyrics to a song and create a video with a funny take, creative interpretation, or double meaning of the words.

Look for Inspiration Everywhere

Start by observing funny things that happen throughout your life and look for inspiration everywhere. Rachel’s standbys for inspiration are Reddit and Twitter. If she goes there and discovers that other people like her or people in her target audience are intensifying or reacting to a certain thing, she’ll make a funny video about it.

For example, Rachel identifies as a working mom. She sees that other women online in her age group are sharing their frustrations with being a working mom too. So she thinks that it might be funny to create a video where she wears a blazer on top and pajamas on the bottom and calls it the “conference call look” as a way to reach this audience.

If Rachel is in an airport, she looks for airport hashtags on TikTok and other platforms. She takes note of the different things others have done and that she can adopt for her TikTok videos. She looks for things she can do in her particular location or while she waits.

Add a Plot Twist

Rachel notices that many videos have a plot twist midway, at approximately 7 to 10 seconds. Things will appear to be going a certain way in the beginning and then take a totally different direction that shocks everyone.

The initial shock makes people want to see it again with a fresh perspective. They get hooked into watching it over and over. Then they come back to leave comments or tag their friends to share it with them. This is the goal.

In one of Rachel’s videos, she puts uncooked macaroni noodles between her teeth and asks her eight-year-old daughter to walk on her back. As her daughter walks on her back, Rachel crunched the noodles in her mouth. Not realizing it was just a prank nor that Rachel was recording a video, her daughter started crying instantly.

Rachel thought it was so funny that she couldn’t stop laughing. With 10,000 views in just 48 hours, her audience apparently loved it too.

Create Your Own Audio Clips

When you create and upload a video using your own voice or sound effects on TikTok, you get attribution for that sound forever. This means that any video that reuses your audio clips will ultimately be directed back to your account. Uploading your own sounds is another way to grow and lend some positivity toward your brand on TikTok.

To illustrate, Arnold Schwarzenegger uploaded some incredibly interesting native audio clips to TikTok and instantly went viral with everyone looking to reshare just one of his videos. TikTok users are so excited about creating their own videos around Arnold Schwarzenegger’s audio clips that Rachel can’t look through her TikTok feed without seeing someone using his native sounds.

In fact, people were so enthusiastic about it that when the next video in his feed is an ad for his protein shake, which he also uses the platform to promote, people had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it.

Nurture a Younger Audience

Rachel shares that she plans to use TikTok for exposure and growth over the next year. She’ll do this by nurturing a younger following on the platform and preparing this audience to know who she is in the next 10 or 20 years.

Develop Training and Drive Business Goals

Most people haven’t realized that TikTok video offers the ability to pitch or create trainings. Most creators hop on and just create videos about their regular life—putting on makeup, practicing an instrument, or playing a video game as people do on Twitch.

Rachel plans to launch live videos that train people how to become social media managers and strategists. Her strategy is to use these live trainings to drive traffic to her lead magnets and grow her email list.

Discovery of the Week

TLDR This is a browser extension that automatically summarizes any articles, web pages, or other big blocks of text into five succinct bullet points. TLDR typically stands for “too long, didn’t read” on the Internet and the tool solves this problem.

You drop a URL for a web-based article, or copy and paste the text into TLDR This. It skims the article and highlights the important points in a format that can be read in mere seconds. The summaries are written in full sentences that are grammatically correct, accurate, and straightforward.

TLDR This is available online as a web page and as a Chrome or Firefox browser extension.

As a client of this Web Hosting Company, business owners find comfort in knowing that their website is maintained and monitored by Advanced Digital Media Services.

[terrordave1]

The Follow highlights were“transcrammed” from the 2019 Flashback Weekend panel celebrating 40 years of Rich Koz’s Svengoolie. The event began with a video presentation narrated by the original Svengoolie – the late Jerry G. Bishop. The panel was moderated by WGN Radio’s Nick Digilio and proved an entertaining 90 minutes – with a few surprises! 

Nick Digilio: You started working with Jerry G. Bishop when you were just a kid.

Svengoolie: (laughs) It was that long ago, wasn’t it? I’d just graduated from high school and was about to go to college. Jerry was a live announcer back when they used to have live staff announcers on all the TV stations. He happened to be on Friday nights when they were running these horror movies and started to do the voice (Transylvanian accent) and more schtick before later expanding it out with old sound effects…many that are now my sound effects. I was a fan of his radio and television work and he used to run jokes that people would send in. So I started sending some and he used a lot of them. I told him I was a broadcasting major and he volunteered to come on my show at the college station. Then he said, ‘Would you mind writing song parodies, parodies of commercials, and such?” Eventually, I started working with him and when his show was canceled he was nice enough to bring me with him to WMAQ Radio. Back then you weren’t a sidekick, you were a producer, so I was doing that while also playing 80% of the people who called him on the phone. (Sven discusses some of the skits they did) Later when the opportunity came along for him to reprise the role of Svengoolie he wasn’t interested but suggested I take over as the Son of Svengoolie with his blessing. I shopped the idea around to various stations and one program director laughed and hung up on me. Eventually, I called WFLD-TV (Channel 32) which was the station Jerry’s Svengoolie had originally run on and they said, “That sounds really interesting…let’s have a bake-off!” and open it up to anyone to compete for the role. Here I’d created full scripts, had all these ideas, and everything else but had to audition with other people doing different things. Eventually, I did get the job. So in 1979, forty years ago, I hit the air as Son of Svengoolie.

The original Svengoolie – Jerry G. Bishop

Nick: And what was the first movie you presented?

Svengoolie: In the Year 2889 (1967) and boy was it terrible.

Nick: Let’s talk about the makeup changes over the years. You look a lot different than when you first started.

Svengoolie: Actually, I did more shading back then, more subtle and not with the straight lines you see here. I used a real crepe mustache…crepe was real hair…and for the little beard. I used this stuff called spirit gum as an adhesive. Spirit gum is absolutely awful stuff and I remember going to my dentist and he said, “Wow, your gums are in really bad shape” and we couldn’t figure out why. Finally, we realized that it was the spirit gum because I was constantly touching the area to adjust it and getting some in my mouth. That was when I decided it was better to just paint on the mustache. I figured if Groucho Marx could paint his on, that was good enough for me.

  Nick: You mentioned the sound effects that you shared with Jerry G. Bishop. My favorite is “Ow Ow OWWW!”  

Svengoolie: A lot of people ask where they came from and, with most of them, we aren’t sure. They were taken from old comedy records, commercials, and stuff Jerry had recorded with his colleagues. We’ve also added to our collection and now have over a 1,000 different ones. They’re all numbered and we try and keep track of them. All of the ones you hear I’ve scripted but in-between filming Chas (Ailing) will often play a few and it’s a lot of fun.

Speaking of Chas, he was filming this panel

Nick: I’ve been at the station many times and one thing I’ve noticed is how much work you put in. I’ve seen your scripts and it’s hours and hours and hours of work for each show.

Svengoolie: Well we have a very small staff. People think TV shows have huge staffs of people and in many cases they do. With ours, it’s just me, my producer (Jim Roche), my director/editor (Chris Faulkner), and our video guy (Chas Ailing) and then whomever they assign to be floor supervisor while we’re taping.

SEE this photo in glorious black & white in the upcoming Scary Monsters Magazine #114!

Nick: How different is your current set compared to the one at WFLD?

Svengoolie: Well it’s a whole different feel to it. For the WFLD stuff, they put up a few walls with a door. And then they found some flats that had been stored upstairs which were used back in the ‘50s for “Shock Theater” featuring the horror host, Terry Bennett a.k.a. Marvin. After I started up again at WCIU in 1995, I’d been told they gave them over to Columbia College but when I called them they said, “Oh, we repainted those and took them apart a long time ago.” So we had to start over with just some black curtains and then we finally got some walls. Eventually, we got a brand new set built for us by Acme Design of Elgin. They built the coffin first and then all the great sci-fi features like what one of our fans calls the “Clux Capacitor.” There is a new door and gargoyles that are designed after Boris Karloff and Vincent Price. It’s great stuff and has such a great look to it. Now, with all the additional lighting, it really stands out.

Nick:  I watch you every week and love your parody commercials. One of my favorites is the one for “Die Pillow” (parody of “My Pillow). Let’s play that for the audience.

Svengoolie: Okay, and after you see it, I’ll tell you the story of why I don’t like him. (audience laughs)

Nick: Well I’m sure we each have a story as to why we don’t like him. Anyway, let’s roll the commercial…

Svengoolie: Are you familiar with the local radio station that comes from MeTV, MeTV FM? They play various eras of music and it’s a lot of fun. Like most radio stations they do commercials and “line reads.” So they were going to do line reads for “My Pillow” and the boss came to me and said, “Well, you’re our main live person on MeTV, so do you want to do these commercials?” and I said, “Sure, that will be fun.” Suddenly Mr. ‘hug the pillow’ over there says, “Oh, no! He hosts horror movies and that’s terrible! I don’t want him doing my commercials!” (While Sven is quoting him, he’s using a hilarious voice impersonation that Nick sites as Dr. Smith from “Lost in Space”).

Nick: So what are your favorite skits from the earlier years?

Svengoolie: We did one at WFLD called “Mr. Robbers Neighborhood” that was done before Eddie Murphy did his “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” on “Saturday Night Live.” It was a Mister Rogers parody about him going into people’s homes and stealing things. He changes his shoes to sneakers so people won’t hear him and when he has trouble opening things he had his friend “Mr. Crowbar” to help him out. I always liked that one. We also did one that would not have been politically correct today called “Gandhi and Dagwood” based on the Blondie and Dagwood movies.

Nick: How do you come up with the ideas for your parodies?

Svengoolie: Basically, you have to keep your mind open all the time. You’ll notice something and that’s when things happen…and I’m not sure how quite honestly. I’ve learned to pay attention to everything, even if you aren’t really focusing on it.

Nick: We have to talk about this…Revenge of the Creature (1955) in 3D. It was 1984 and people are still upset about it.

Svengoolie: Well, at that time somebody held the rights to Revenge of the Creature in 3D and it was played around the country at various local stations with 3D glasses being sold at select stores. We shot promos for it all over the place like Lincoln Park Zoo, the Chicago lakefront, and Shedd Aquarium. I even played an announcer during the show who would say “Put your glasses on” and “Take your glasses off.”  I guess they were afraid the Empire Carpet man (commercial personality on ‘70s/’80s Chicago TV) was going to pop out at them during breaks (audience laughs).

Here’s the thing…first of all, there weren’t a whole lot of big things that popped out at you during the film. You had the electrifying thing, the creature falling forward, and always fish in the foreground. Meanwhile, the station was worried because they had a lot of big sponsors who paid a lot of money for their spots and didn’t want any mistakes. So they dubbed everything��the movie and my bits…all onto one tape. If you know anything about videotape, when you make a dub the quality won’t be as good as the original. Secondly, I’ve heard rumors that the transmitter for the station was not at full power. I don’t know if that would affect it or not but here’s the main thing; remember those old TV’s, the adjustments for a lot of their features were in the back. So you’d have to be behind the set to adjust them for the 3D. The way they did it was show a screen with two different sides to it and then adjust one of the controls until you saw (with your glasses on) both sides looking the same. So you couldn’t see anything but had to yell to your friends, “How bout’ now? Nope? Okay, how about now?” – And you only had a minute to get things set up. So some people had problems with that and were unable to get the 3D effect.  7-11 (local convenience store that was one of the two locations selling the glasses) had to give out coupons as restitution and someone even did a Class Action Suit. From then on I’d get people yelling at me at appearances, “Hey, I want my 89 cents back!” So some people won’t let me forget while others ask if I’ll ever do it again. That would be rather difficult on a national level and, to be honest, I’d be happy NOT to do it. (audience laughs)

What I would not give to still have my 3D glasses from that night!

Nick: So how are movies chosen?

Svengoolie: Getting movies is a lot harder now than it was back on WFLD because you have so many streaming services and cable channels that get all the rights. Before, you’d have distributors knocking at your door trying to sell packages to you. It just doesn’t work that way anymore. We have to seek them out and there’s a lot of competition. My boss, Neal Sabin, managed to get the Universal movies which have been the cornerstone of our show. And now we’ve managed to get some from other distributors including Warner Bros and Sony/Columbia which help to widen things out but the Universal films are our main stock and trade. People love them though occasionally I’ll get people saying, “Oh no, another Frankenstein movie…” And I’m thinking, “It’s Frankenstein, c’mon!”

Svengoolie keeps the original Frankenstein monster alive on MeTV!

Nick: And people complain you show the Abbott & Costello movies all the time but Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) is your most requested movie.

Svengoolie: Yes, and they’ll request Munster, Go Home! (1966) and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966). We ran The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) recently and it had over a million viewers.

Nick: On that note, I have a surprise guest here. Ladies and Gentlemen, Virginia Madsen…(Cheers)

Svengoolie: This is so cool! Nick and I were just talking on the radio and I said, “Boy, I’d love to meet Virginia Madsen” and now here you are!

Virginia Madsen: Yes, where’s your rubber chicken? See, now you know I did watch you.

Photo courtesy of Jim Roche

Svengoolie: Was that back in the Son of Svengoolie days? (NOTE: Madsen grew up in Evanston, Illinois)

Virginia: I just know it was a long time ago

Svengoolie: I read an article that said you and your son would watch horror movies, is that true?

Virginia: Well, he was little and I was showing him the classic originals, even silent ones like The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 ), and he just loved all those Creature Features. But then I traumatized him. I was very tired one day and thought he’d be fine watching The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945 ). He was like five or six and there’s this moment when the portrait of Dorian Gray is revealed and there’s this burst of color in an otherwise black and white movie. So he’s getting nice and sleepy then that scene comes and he about levitates off the floor. Needless to say, we watched a lot of cartoons after that. He’s 25 now and still a big horror fan.

Nick (to Virginia): Are you a fan of horror movies yourself? I mean, you’re in Candyman (1992) obviously.

Virginia: Oh my god, ever since I was little. I would stay up late and watch you (points to Sven) and “Creature Features” on a little black and white TV.

Nick (to Virginia): So did you enjoy filming Candyman?

Virginia: Oh, it was great. We really genuinely had an excellent time. The Director (Bernard Rose) wanted me more “real,” as he said. So he was bringing me pizzas every day because he wanted me to fill out a little bit. And I loved that because this was a time in Hollywood where they always wanted you to be skeletal which was just not my frame. So every day I had pizza.

Nick: At least it was Chicago pizza.

Virginia: Well actually it was in LA. We only shot four days in Chicago. The rest was shot in the same studio they filmed Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). The only time it became disturbing was close to Christmas and it seemed like every day had to do with blood. There was the dog head scene, me screaming and bloody, it was someone getting disemboweled, the doctor getting disemboweled.

Svengoolie: That sounds like every day here in Chicago (laughter)

Svengoolie: You know I heard a story of when you were shooting Sideways (2004) that there was someone with a crossbow watching you?

Virginia (at first looks confused as I shift in my seat having been the one who told him this story): Oh…yes…that’s true. They had rented his house to film scenes at night and at first, he was really amiable but when all the filming trucks showed up he went up in the hills and was very upset about it. He went riding off on one of those gator tractors with a crossbow and we’d hear him screaming up in the woods. But nothing happened, he was just aggravated.

Nick: That so weird because I watch that movie monthly, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time and your monologue in it destroys me. Now I’m going to be thinking about a crossbow every time I watch it.

Virginia: He might be somewhere out there in the darkness but that was the only…I mean that valley was so beautiful and everybody knew him and was like, “Don’t worry about it, he likes to go off with his crossbow.”

Nick: Where did you hear that story, Rich?

Svengoolie: Somebody that I know here (which would be me) told me she has a great story about a guy with a crossbow. Was I not supposed to share that?

Virginia: Well I just don’t want to make anyone feel bad.

Svengoolie: Especially someone with a crossbow.

Nick: Well, it was so nice having you, Ms. Madsen!

Virginia leaves the stage and, for the record, the “man in the woods” story came from Paul Giamatti’s commentary on the Sideways Special Edition Blu-ray. The “crossbow” part I heard from Madsen, herself, earlier that day.

Nick: Your appearance itself has altered over the years. I remember you telling me this story where you made this fantastic decision to start wearing a turtle-neck.

Svengoolie (with turtleneck) posing with my kids 15 years ago

Svengoolie: When I was at WFLD I wore the official red, Son of Svengoolie T-shirt with the green, disco scarf – which was so slippery it kept getting untied. The whole costume was awkward. I had a chain I’d wear that was actually part of a wall clock I owned that was supposed to look like a pocket watch. When I went to WCIU I thought, “Let’s do something different. I know! I’ll wear a red turtle-neck.” A red turtle-neck under hot television lights. This was not the smartest decision I ever made. After a while, I decided to go with the red tuxedo shirt which was more comfortable

Nick: Let’s talk about you going national. That’s gotta be really amazing, right?

Svengoolie: It is and I’m stunned to be hearing from people all over the country. It’s nice because many have grown up with a local horror host and I always equate your favorite horror host like Dr. WHO…you always prefer the one you grew up with. I’ve been very fortunate that these people like what I do and tell me how happy they are that I’m keeping horror hosting alive.

Nick: How about the fan letters which is one of my favorite segments. What kind of stuff do you get?

Svengoolie: We get so much stuff. A lot of framed artwork people send…we should open a branch at The Art Institute and put them all up. We have a bust of me someone carved out of a tree trunk that must weigh 200 pounds. People take so much time and effort on these things and from all over the country.

Nick: Holy smokes, Ted Raimi’s in the house!

Ted Raimi: The great Svengoolie! How nice to see you! (looks out at the audience) And look at all you civilized horror people sitting out there. These things legitimize shit you wouldn’t show your own mother!. I mean, I love horror so much – and I know all of you do, too, and can’t get enough of it…but it’s hilarious to think they have conventions for it. I mean, have you ever stopped to think about that? Yes, it’s a legitimate thing, we all need to be scared but it’s a little like porno conventions. To what end are you having a convention…what do you talk about? Watching heads fly?

Nick (reeling him in): So, uh, did you have a local horror host growing up?

Ted: We did have a local horror host…Sir Graves Ghastly. He’s one of the reasons I love horror so much. (Raimi then proceeds to do a dramatic impersonation of him) . “Close the shades…turn out the lights…you’re about to be TERRIFIED!”

Nick: Do you have a favorite horror movie?

Ted: Yes, depending on what day of the week it is. There are ones I watch over and over. At the top of that list is David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986). First of all, it’s a Canadian film so it looks rather Canadian with its own unique style. So that gives it a weird look anyway. Then you have Cronenberg who’s a weirdo and a movie that’s a love story at its heart. It’s the classic story of “boy meets girl, then boy turns into a fly and tries to eat girl” which we’ve seen a thousand times (audience laughs). But it’s a very powerful film because like any romantic story it has to end with someone breaking off the relationship which, in this case, is done so dramatically. Jeff Goldblum’s character begs Gina Davis’ to kill him which is so powerful. It’s so emotional and yet so grisly. It has all of the elements that make a really lasting picture.

Ted Raimi leaves and Nick continues his interview with Svengoolie. He mentions his favorite parody commercials and they play one of his modern classics – “Boa Brace” which mocks the infamous Health Hotline commercial with terrible animation.

As it happens, my friends Ron and Angela Urban (“Don and Bunny”) were guest stars in this commercial and sitting in the first row. Svengoolie has them stand for applause.

Nick: Hey, I don’t see him wearing his “Boa Brace” out there.

Svengoolie: Well, that’s because he’s all better now. See, it works!

 Nick: Let’s talk about Doug.

Svengoolie: I’d be happy too. Doug Scharf, who plays “Doug Graves,” has been a friend since high school. We played in high school band together, hung out, and used to make 8mm films for fun. I think he’s been a part of every TV show I ever did. He’s an incredible musician who taught himself to play the piano after he’d broken his leg. He’s a trumpet player who can play so many other instruments. He does the complete music tracks for the songs we do every week. So I’ll say, “Here’s the song we’re going to do” and then he produces the whole track while I write the words. Then he’ll show up at the studio and we’ll film the segment. I love his deadpan humor.

Nick: He’s hilarious and the vibe between the two of you is just great. All the songs are so funny and, for me, it’s a highlight of the show (audience applauds in agreement).

Svengoolie: And this brings us to another song. You’ve heard me mention Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, a famous icon of the ‘60s. Just out of nowhere one day he sent me an email saying he loves my show and wrote a song for me. And I’m thinking, “He wrote a song for me? The guy who sang ‘Palisades Park?” And he sends it to us and we were blown away by it, it was such a great song. And we ended up meeting him and he was just the nicest guy. He told us so many great stories about hanging out with Elvis and various celebrities. The fact that he wrote this without my even knowing about it was just so cool and it was produced on a 45 record and is available on iTunes. And I think it might even be available right here…

Nick: What were some of the worst movies you’ve shown?

Svengoolie: Oh, man…well, when we were on WFLD, we presented a movie called Track of the Vampire (a.k.a. Blood Bath 1966). Part of it was made in Yugoslavia and part of it was made in Los Angeles and neither side knew what the other was doing. It was truly awful and there was this one scene with this girl named Dorean (Lori Saunders) who dances. Her big number is like 4-5 minutes long and they use this kaleidoscope lens so you see multiples of her as if you were a fly. It was so awful. The late film editor I used to work with had a great sense of humor and did a couple things with it that made it really funny. There’s this one scene with no dialogue where the vampire is chasing this girl into the ocean. So we added dialogue to make it sound like it was her swim coach and she didn’t want to get in the water. And there was this bald lifeguard whom we dubbed as Curly Howard. Then there was another part where we patched a whole bunch of film clips from different movies along with clips of dialogue from celebrities like Liberace and Dean Martin. This went on for like three minutes. I’m sure if management had seen it, we would have both been fired but, fortunately, I don’t think management ever watched my show. It was such an awful movie that made no sense.

Nick: You have to watch every single one of these movies because you have to do all your bits and time everything out…

Svengoolie: Yes, I have to watch them and as I’m doing this I’m breaking them down for the different segments – if it needs to be edited for time or content. I take copious notes so when I get down to writing the bits I can go back and read them.

Sven’s handwritten script for “The Leech Woman”

Nick: I love Sven-Surround. Like you just did recently with Village of the Giants (1965).

Svengoolie: I think that one needed some help.

Nick: I think it’s hilarious and when did that start happening?

Svengoolie: Actually it goes back to when Jerry was doing his Svengoolie show. He was the announcer on duty back then and he’d get bored. So he and the engineers would take his sound effect parts and add them into the movies. Sometimes it was so funny because it would be so incongruous. So you might see some guy walking through the jungle and then all of a sudden hear a phone ringing. When I first started at WCIU, we would do one segment of every movie in “Sven-Surround” which we can’t really do now with the Universal classics. We do it sometimes as a separate part so we don’t interfere with the movie. Coming up this fall we’ll be re-running a show that had a Commando Cody (old movie serial) episode in it, so we redubbed all of that. People seem to enjoy those.

Nick: Let’s talk about Kerwyn. When did Kerwyn come into existence?

Svengoolie: At first when we started at WCIU, Doug would read the mail with me. Since he couldn’t always stay around we had various characters do it. There was “Ed the Bat” who had an electronically raised voice that my boss, Neil Saban, hated so much he said, “You gotta get rid of that character!” So we actually shot a bit where he fires Ed and hits him with a club. And then we used a Godzilla (Tri-Star 1998) figure and the Wacky Dactyl DJ (made with a Hasbro Jurassic Park III pterodactyl toy) and then finally as a surprise to me, my Director (Chris Faulkner) and Jessica Carlton who worked at the station for a kids’ show, created the prehistoric rubber chicken, Kerwyn. We were trying to come up with a voice for him and we looked at those eyes and goofy teeth and thought Jerry Lewis would be the best inspiration. He’s become very popular and it’s quite possible a special limited-edition T-shirt featuring him will be coming out in the future.

Nick: So what’s going on for your future. It’s your 40th year…how long are you going to do this?

Svengoolie: I’m now old enough to retire but we’ve just become so popular all over the country that I can’t see giving that all up right now, especially when I’m having such a good time with it. The fact that people like it and have made it so popular – I’ll keep doing it for a while. (audience applauds).

Nick: I saw a guy around the convention with a Svengoolie tattoo.

Svengoolie: Yes, we saw him yesterday (and so did YOU in my last Flashback post)

Nick: It’s gotta be weird seeing your face on somebody.

Svengoolie: It is. My own family would never put a tattoo of me on them. I’d have to say I’ve seen about thirty different ones out there and the artwork is often really incredible.

Nick: You guys tape just about every week, right?

Svengoolie: We tape about four days every month. After my heart attack, we decided not to shoot two days in a row but to break them up. It’s hard to say how long it takes to put a show together because pre-production with some movies often overlaps with the post-production of others.

Nick: And you’re still doing public appearances, obviously, because you’re here. Your busy season is coming up, right?

Svengoolie: They used to only be in October but now my appearances go all year long. The demand is high and we want to do as many as we can but, again, I have to stay healthy and don’t want to overdo it. Now we’re getting a lot of requests to do appearances outside of Illinois at various conventions. We’re talking about doing that and recently went to Phoenix, Arizona for a private Dish TV event and that was fun.

Svengoolie greeting a fan at one of his numerous public appearances

As the interview winds down, a young girl dressed as Svengoolie is brought on stage to say ‘hello.’

The show wraps with a montage of celebrities visiting the Svengoolie set.

Svengoolie: When I started, I never imagined I’d be doing it for forty years – back then I was just grateful I had a job on TV. It’s only possible with the support of everybody out there and it means a lot to me.

Coming up…Svengoolie greets his fans!

Dave

  “An Evening with Rich Koz – 40 Years of Svengoolie” at Flashback Weekend! The Follow highlights were“transcrammed” from the 2019 Flashback Weekend panel celebrating 40 years of Rich Koz’s Svengoolie.

[wereikonics]

The Hidden Leader: Song Yunhyeong - Appreciation Thread

@/bianxstan on Twitter - 5:20 PM - 17 Dec 2018

The Hidden Leader: Song Yunhyeong 

I've always felt that #SongYunhyeong is underappreciated. Today, I remember back in WIN when even I didn't give him much attention. And I thought, if I did so back then, it is no doubt that a lot of people did the same.

*Note contains scenes from Mix and Match and iKON TV so spoiler warning I guess?

This is a thread that delves on why Song Yunhyeong will always be #iKON's center in my perspective.

~

Many of you, mostly new iKONICS, may not know that Yoyo never intended to be an idol. He auditioned in YG to be an actor. He became a singer because he didn't want to leave the iKON members who became dear to his heart.

Photo Caption:

180213 iKON with Ji Sukjin's 2 O'Clock Date Radio

 25:47

Bobby: [Yunhyeong at the time during trainee said] “My path is not to be a singer”

IDK who said this they’re all talking over each other - That’s right 

Bobby: I should become an actor instead

Host: He overcame that and that’s why he’s in iKON today

Yunhyeong: That’s right, but...

Yunhyeong: The kids warmly stopped me from leaving

~

At the beginning, he didn't know how to dance, to sing, or to perform. He relied on the members to get him through his trainee life. This is why when he lost the mock elimination in M&M, he didn't feel sorry for himself but for the members who helped him. He even apologized.

Photo Captions:

Yunhyeong during Mix and Match

“I’m Sorry”

“and I felt bad that I wasn’t able to do it”

“I am going to be a proud member”

“I will not lose again ever”

~

Maybe it was gratitude towards the members that pushed him harder. Maybe it was self greed. But what I love most about Yoyo is that he threw his ego away in order to improve. He acknowledged his shortcomings. He didn't let any hierarchy to get in the way of his improvement.

~

Dongi once said that he finds YOYO really cool. Bec for someone who is older, it'll be hard for them to ask help from their dongsaengs. Yoyo threw that away & would always learn how to dance from Dongi. He would stay behind to practice in order to not ruin their perfect stage.

~

Remember during WIN when GD said "it's the responsibility of those in the centre to grab the attention of the audience." -not per verbatim-  Look at him on this stage a year after. Watch him own his stage. (1:30 timestamp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=90&v=50I0oTg-hgU

~

Sometimes, it makes me sad when he acknowledges the fact that he's not one of the popular members of the group. What makes me proud is that instead of being grumpy abt it, he made it as a goal to make himself more known not only for himself but for Chanwoo and Dongie too.

Photo Caption: 

During iKON - ‘자체제작 iKON TV’ EP.1-2

“Some in iKON have yet to see the light of success.”

[SELF-DESTRUCTION]

“Chan and DK”

“I’ll make sure to shine with the guys.”

What I love about Yunhyeong is his genuine love for people. You can observe this through his gratitude towards their staff & those who work w/ them. If you watch awesome feed, he'll always emphasize that he is nothing w/o the help of the staff that supports him. 

~

Yoyo would always try his best not to be a burden. He's always been the reliable hyung who steps up to the plate when he knows that his team is falling apart. He's the force that pulls all the members back to its equilibrium & one of the bigger roots that keep this team grounded.

Photo Caption:

Jinhwan during  M-ON!LIVE iKON

*Let this tumblr know if you find a link to M-ON!Live iKON

Jinhwan: When our unity or concentration is being cut down

Jinhwan: Yunhyeong is the center that makes us one again 

Hanbin during Mix and Match

Hanbin: But Yun Hyeong filled in for me well while I was away

Hanbin: Yun Hyeong is the leader of our little team

~

Yunhyeong becomes really emotional when it comes to his family. That's why whenever his members are going through a hard time, he's always there crying for them at times when the members themselves can't cry for themselves.

Photo Caption:

Yunhyeong during Mix and Match (talking to and about Hanbin)

You must have had a hard time. Don’t worry. No harm done.

He must have been out for about 4 hours thinking alone.

And it helped him

I don't ever want to think of what ifs & think about a scenario wherein Yoyo isn't in iKON. This guy have acted as one of the 3 major moral compasses that made iKON who they are today. He worries for them, feeds them and reprimands them like one blood to another.

Photo Caption:

Yunhyeong on iKON TV:

B.I. said he didn’t eat

[COME TO THINK OF IT, SONG COOKS FOR THE GUYS]

[MOM SONG WORRIES FOR HIS TEAM] Where is BOBBY?

~

The members might love to tease him a lot. But you can always feel that certain fondness they have for Yunhyeong. They've always admired how good natured he is.

~

Pre-debut era, imho, was probably the hardest. There were fans who were eager for Yunhyeong to leave the group because he wasn't at par to the standards of the other members. I beg to differ. These people just don't see the potential he has.

~

This guy had no musical background when he started. In only 2+ yrs of training, he was able to hit high notes that even Jinhwan struggled with. Some argues that his voice isn't unique but they don't realize that his clear tone is the glue that unites all vocal tones in iKON.

~

When they released Wait for Me, he had only been training in YG for a little less than 3 years. Just listen to the notes he's capable of in the short span of time. Just listen. (3:05 timestamp)

Mix and Match Episode 1 3:05

~

I want everyone to know that someone like him didn't come this far just because of mere luck. Yunhyeong was able to come this far because of his very own perseverance. There was no silver spoon. There was no favouritism. As a matter of fact, YG finds him quite lacking.

~

But in all the years I've watched iKON, there was never a moment when he lost hope even at the time that his own position was questioned. He even found it in himself to comfort Dongie, who was younger than him, instead of worrying about himself when he was in the same predicament.

Photo Caption:

During iKON TV Jinhwan Episode - MBTI Test

[THE PSYCHOLOGIST SUMS IT UP] SONG’s relationship with iKON

[HE WANTS TO PROTECT iKON] is what matters more to him

than his own personal stardom.

~

It isn't a surprise that a selfless kind of guy like Yoyo will be acknowledged by their leader himself. Yoyo leads them in all things moral and benevolent. Someone can find him overly eager or EXTRA with his humour and with the way he lives his life.

Photo Caption: 

During iKON TV Jinhwan Episode - MBTI Test

Hanbin: In fact, with how things are now,

[SONG YOU LEAD iKON] You’re our leader. iKON’s leader.

~

But I want you to remember that his humor was probably one of the things that saved #iKON from depression all these years. His optimism was also probably a lifeline to iKON when their future was uncertain and gloomy.

~

Singing abilities can be honed, perfected, and improved; Yoyo's perseverance can attest to that. But an innate goodness in one's being is hard to come by. I hope everyone realizes than yoyo isn't just a pretty face. He's talented and good at what he does.

~

Behind his extra ass, that some of you are annoyed of, is a mask shielding his insecurity. So before you speak ill of someone, I hope you also realize that the Song Yunhyeong who is eager for his screen time is also the same Song Yunhyeong who worked hard for all this while.

~

I want to end this w/ a reminder to all of us. I hope that his kindness isn't taken advantage of. We all know that he's very welcoming to his fans & would do his best to please us. Please respect private boundaries at all times. They're idols we admire but they're also human too.

~

And there you have it, anon! I'm sorry it took so long. I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that you find this satisfactory because tbh, I found trouble looking for words to capture who YOYO really is.

This is an archive of @bianxstan's Twitter threads for easy access and viewing. Please keep in mind these are based on her own perspective and opinions.

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[kadobeclothing]

A Chat With Stella – WWD

“We’re all in this together” — a universal mantra of the coronavirus era. Sometimes that commonality is comforting in its more superficial aspects. Last week, when uncooperative English-country cell service put the kibosh on a no-visuals conversation with Stella McCartney, her p.r. went swiftly to un-planned B: Zoom. We settled in to chat equally undone, granted, with Stella flaunting a much better top, a sweatshirt from her collaboration with “We Are the Weather” author Jonathan Safran Foer. (Full disclosure: Before joining, I switched out of my Clorox-spotted, Bronx County DA sweatshirt, an artifact of a younger brother’s stint on my couch 25 years ago.)

While some people embrace the primp-up-at-home approach to quarantine, that’s not Stella’s thing. “I put makeup on for the first time in a month last week, when I had to do something,” she offers. As with most conversations these days with someone you haven’t spoken with recently, ours starts with “How are you coping?”

“I couldn’t be luckier,” Stella says, ever self-aware. “I’ve got a little bit of help here, which is a massive blessing. I can’t complain.” Like millions of others, she is working through 24-hour household-running, juggling work, meals and homeschooling of her four kids, ages 15 to nine. Her day starts with Stella McCartney brand meetings — more frequent and of broader scope than before lockdown. While the kids are old enough that interruptions aren’t an issue, she goes into “tough-love” mode when it comes to school. Last week, English schools were still on Easter break, so she was anticipating readjustment this week. “They all go to different schools and each school has handled it in a different way. Some are more tech savvy than others,” she says.

As for cooking, Stella is top chef, but lately, she’s getting help. Because her work day starts early, she tries to think through each day’s meals the night before. But on this morning, she woke up to a surprise. “My daughter Bailey had already cooked tomato soup. I have to say, it was delicious,” she boasts. “It’s great, they’re getting into [cooking], I mean, they’re making fun of me because it’s, like, soup every day. I’m such a waste-not, want-not type, it’s at the core of everything in the brand and in my personality. Literally, I’m using everything. It’s great. That’s how I was brought up.” To our primary purpose: a check-in on Stella’s business in the age of COVID-19, and what this particular Earth Day represents to her. I learned after we spoke that even from quarantine, she’s found a way to celebrate its spirit. Stella worked with Ocean Outdoor, the digital advertising company, to host a major screen takeover at London’s Piccadilly Circus. It launched on Tuesday and runs through Sunday at midnight, rotating a series of upbeat messages including “Mother Earth has started healing” and, captioning a photo of the Earth painted on Amber Valletta’s face, “For us, every day is Earth Day.”

Amber Valletta as Mother Earth in Stella McCartney’s Earth Day screen takeover in Piccadilly Circus, on display through April 26.  Courtesy Photo

WWD: I just saw Barry Diller on “Squawk Box” [on April 16]. He was not optimistic. Stella McCartney:  Well, f–king welcome to Stella McCartney, Bridget Foley.

WWD: Thank you. How are you feeling? S.M.: I am very much split. I’m split between my personal emotions, and then obviously, I have a business to run. I’m living two lives right now. I’m the mother of four, I’m a wife. I’m cooking three meals a day and I’m loving it. I’m with my babies, and blessed to be in nature and not in the city. I’ve got my horse. So I’m fine in my solitude. Then, obviously, there is a deep sadness for all of the lives that are lost and for what people are going through. I have a huge respect for the people on the front line here in England in the NHS and all of the emergency workers. That reality, the mindfulness of what other people are going through, and that we’re all connected in all of the same thoughts, which is a really heavy realization, not to be lightly dismissed. I am very aware of that. Then, there’s the side to me that employs hundreds and hundreds of people globally. Obviously, we are affected as a business, like every other business right now. I’m always wanting the business to do well because of what we stand for as much as anything, and also because I’m a businesswoman. But right now you think, “Wow, this is the first time we are all connected in so many ways.” That’s the important thing that sits on my mind. WWD: It’s odd that that connection comes through isolation. S.M.: Yes. I have a large family network so I’m not isolated that much on my own. The first couple of weeks were really interesting for me on a working level because in our industry, we work with teams, and we feed off each other creatively. I was trying to settle into working via device and using my teams in a different way. [Now] all of us are feeling connected. I’m more connected with teams globally than usual — “let’s meet with China; let’s meet with Japan,” bigger meetings with teams. I’ve enjoyed that and I want to carry through. One of the big questions here is how does this impact our lives going forward, when things get back to whatever the new normal will be. I’m looking to my team a lot, also. Holistically, making sure my teams are OK mentally and emotionally. And that, normally, I don’t have time to do; [usually] I’m just getting involved in my day-to-day. But now I’m like OK, we need to have calls every week just to check in on everyone and see how everyone is feeling. I worry about people, just how they’re doing. My teams in Italy, they’re not allowed out, they’re allowed out to go food shopping and that’s it….I’m mindful of that, like how are you all doing emotionally and mentally because that’s hardcore, going out or not going out and looking out and seeing nothing there. That’s quite hard hitting. I’m not sure if any of us really know how that will affect us all. WWD: Nuts and bolts, I’m sure the specifics vary from region to region. S.M.: Yes. there’s one side that’s creative and there’s one side that’s very, very much responding to different regions and who is quarantined, who’s not. Obviously, we’re massively based in Italy, so it’s been a big conversation about what we can make, what we can’t make, what we can have access to. When you do work in a sustainable way, you have to work far in advance to be sustainable. I develop the majority of my fabrics far in advance, and I have such a deep commitment to my suppliers and to where we’re growing the yarn and the process and the entire circle-ness of it all. I try to remain respectful and loyal to X amount of [suppliers] because I know they’re my reliable source points. WWD: Quarantining with family is very different from quarantining alone. But it still puts stress on work. S.M.: I grew up in a creative household. And creatively, it was pretty much isolation. When The Beatles broke up we moved to a farm in Scotland, completely isolated. My mom and dad did an album; my dad did an album of McCartney, and I think it was his best work. It has been a massive impact on my life, that isolation, on how I think and how I live my life through my business, through my family, through my friendships. The majority of my friends are artists or work in the creative fields, and the majority of them work in isolation; it’s just what they do. Name-dropping, I checked in with David Hockney, and he said, “I’m painting more than ever.” The birth [of] creation is a very insular moment. And then [creatives] go into a teamwork frame, if at all. So my dad will write an album on his own. When he has that creative birth, he will then take it to the next step, engineering it, producing it, art-working it, and ultimately it goes on tour in front of hundreds of thousands of people. So it’s sort of this journey….Our industry goes very quickly away from isolation in the creative sense and goes into teamwork. It becomes a production line, if you like. WWD: It sounds as if you prefer a longer solitary creative process. S.M.: I seem to be busier than ever because I’m doing more and more calls. This is taking me away from my creative process and isolation, so I’m trying to find a balance, which is at the core of everything we do at Stella McCartney. Maybe the answer to all of this is trying to find the balance. WWD: Other designers have talked to me about the creative process being teamwork. It sounds as if your process still starts singularly. S.M.: My name is on the door of the brand, so everything that it stands for has come from me at some stage in my thinking, from my belief systems and my creativity. And then the team around me, we all feed off each other and we all create from that starting point. In our industry we all complain about not having time. So I want to be respectful of that right now and [think of] how can we find that balance between teamwork and creating with your team and bouncing off of each other and all that stuff. Even before all of this happened, I was already approaching spring like this. I was like, OK, how can we not buy new fabric for spring? How can we look at everything that we [have already]? I’ve done that for years. It’s the way that I work; it’s the way my mind works. What have we got in stock, how can we repurpose it? How can we give it a re-life or a rebirth? We did all the upcycling two seasons ago on the runway. How can we look at what’s in a warehouse somewhere? So it’s a really interesting moment for our brand.

Vegan leather — it’s not just for the Falabella bag. This coat is from fall 2020.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: What does your sweatshirt say? S.M.: It says We Are the Weather. It’s my Jonathan Safran Foer collaboration. We Are the Weather — it’s very apt. It feels like most of what I’ve done seems apt right now. It seems like everything I’ve done in my career seems to be quite apt right now. WWD: To that point, and going back to what you said a moment ago, do you think you’re a bit ahead of other brands fabric-wise? S.M.: My viscose comes from sustainable managed forests. It took me three years to [develop it]. So once I’ve taken that long and it’s the only source I have, I then commit to it. I [now] have had to look at all the business, which I do anyway, but it’s more magnified. Then that goes into, can we have access to

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our e-commerce if [production] is all in Italy, and da da da. And what markets are opening up more than others, or which ones are going into isolation or coming out of isolation. We’re all doing the same thing I’m sure. WWD: What differences do you find among the various global markets? S.M.: Every single market is reacting differently. But what people are buying is what would be expected, much more home pieces, much more classics. We’re so lucky in that we have real iconic, timeless, staple pieces — the Falabella bag, for example, the Elyse shoe. It’s not dissimilar to what I’m sure a lot of brands are finding. Hopefully people will lean toward a more mindful culture now. To be a more conscious consumer more than ever, I hope, starts to have some kind of resonance with people. And I think that that’s what we represent in the industry. WWD: It surprises me that people are shopping at all for clothes or accessories. You’re finding that people are shopping? S.M.: They’re not shopping as much. I think the whole reality of this is buy less, care more. That’s the highlight for me, but it has always been the case. As I say, before when I was looking at doing spring, I was already thinking, why do we offer so much product? Waste is a big, big, big issue in our industry, and I am a massive fan of trying to reduce waste or do better with the waste that exists. I think we probably waste the least out of all the brands, we’re so mindful and careful. The challenge for me to my teams is how can we be better at our production and how can we be much more efficient. So we’re pretty on it. I think that now more than ever is the time to look at our industry and say, OK, the truck loads of fast fashion that are incinerated or buried. That’s $100 billion worth of waste a year in fibers, in resourcing. It’s crazy. There is just so much we don’t need. And I agree, I don’t think anyone needs to buy anything ever again. It’s how you repurpose. This is what I think all the time; this is not anything new for me. That’s why I’m [looking] to the classics that I’ve created, because they’re timeless. It’s how I approach the birth of design — by starting with, how can I create something that lasts somebody a lifetime, and then another lifetime after that? How can I design something that is so not relying on a trend so that it can be recycled or repurposed or resold or rented? How can I encourage all of that? I am so open-minded to all of that.

Sustainably sourced viscose is a Stella McCartney staple. This dress is from fall 2020.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: When you have that attitude about less is more and less is better, how do you keep on a growth path? S.M.: There’s real growth. We’re not a massive, massive brand. Look, there’s always going to be brands, there’s always going to be products, you’re always going to want a mug for your cup of tea, and when your mug breaks, you’re going to buy another one, or you’re going to get bored of that mug and you’re going to go, “I want a new mug; I deserve a new mug.” That’s OK. It’s allowed, we’re allowed to consume. What we need to do is consume in a better way. And what companies have to do for the customer is make better and source better and be better brands. We are really f–king good at that at Stella McCartney. That’s a nice mug, Bridget. You’re allowed to buy yourself a new one in a week. WWD: Thank you. From a craftsperson in Ireland. S.M.: Exactly! Look, my way of thinking has always been, it’s allowed. You’re allowed to buy s–t, right? No one is going to stop buying s–t, but people are going to, I hope, buy more locally now, they are going to buy better, they are going to buy more online. That will reduce a lot of carbon in the air. For me, I’ve always had this really difficult dilemma where it’s like, if I do things mindfully and ethically and environmentally, [does] that mean I’m not allowed to have a successful business? But I believe now more than ever that my business model should be more people’s business model. When everyone is doing things [mindfully] then fine, then we can have a non-growth conversation. But right now I need to set an example, I need to show people that you can have a healthy business, you can employ people, you can employ mills in Italy, you can work with farmers all over the world. You can create commerce in a more conscious way. WWD: During these massive global quarantines, we’re seeing cleaner air and cleaner water; it’s been measured. But it has taken a total shut down and total isolation. So does that make you optimistic or pessimistic? S.M.: I’ve been really optimistic that we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in a matter of weeks. Pollution — you could see the results really quickly. Obviously I never envisaged a shut down so dramatically. WWD: No one did. S.M.: More than ever now, we need to have these conversations, and we have to learn. [Otherwise] I think it is such a disservice to the suffering. I feel like every single person that has lost their life or lost a loved one from COVID-19, that cost and pain and suffering needs to see something good come of it. If the people in power can respect those lives lost with some kind of environmental respect and management and policymaking, then I feel like it’s not in vain. People have got to stop and ask, “What was the cost, and what can we do in a positive way [to honor] the pain that people have felt?” WWD: Yet some public health protocols seem at odds with environmental protocols. We’re all washing our hands constantly, so we’re using more water than ever. Also, the return to single-use items. In New York State, the plastic-bag ban went into effect only a while ago, and it’s now suspended. And before it closed, Starbucks stopped accepting customers’ containers, at least temporarily. S.M.: The single-use plastics — that’s where tech will come in. I’ve been looking for many, many years at things like that. We’ve been looking at a company making single-use items that are completely biodegradable. It’s now looking at single-purpose spoons and cutlery, because obviously, the world wants disposable spoons and cutlery. Look, water. We’ve done so many things over the years at Stella, just simple things like clever care such as a whole campaign around not dry-cleaning, not washing your clothes so much, turn your washing machine down, doing it less frequently. The amount of water we use just in the fashion industry — the facts are ridiculous. So outside of washing hands, there are ways to reduce water consumption, many, many ways. And that’s just everyday practice in pretty much every industry. WWD: Do you see a dichotomy between the environment and the public health issue or do you think ultimately they come together in the big picture? S.M.: Ultimately, they come together in the big picture. Ultimately, we’ve got to have some kind of respect for animals on the planet and we’ve got to stop the way in which we farm them and kill them and eat them because it’s a hotbed for disease. It’s not an industry that is healthy or pretty. I’m not isolating out a nation because I think the entire globe is guilty of how they farm and kill and manufacture animals. We have seen many diseases come of that. So, you know, it ain’t gonna go away until somebody looks at that predominantly. They are all connected. And I think it’s so interesting that it’s the conversation nobody is really having. WWD: Why not? S.M.: Because people don’t feel good about the fact that they kill billions of animals a year. There is a guilt attached to it. They don’t feel proud of it so they don’t want to talk about it. They know it’s wrong, and it’s hard to face that. We are all part of it. Well, I’m not part of it. But the majority of the planet is part of that conversation, and responsible. Again, I’ll be the glass half-full type where I say, “you don’t have to give it up completely if you can’t, but just reduce it and just buy it better.” Draw a line in how you consume. Set yourself goals, set yourself parameters that are better. Because it comes down to individuals. The individual consumption and demand will dictate what the ceo’s and the businesses invest in, what they buy into. I’ve been working on my mom’s vegetarian food [company] since she passed away 22 years ago on Friday. She started it, what, 30, 40 years ago? She started a vegetarian, alternative food brand, and it is growing year on year. And I have never seen more competitors in a most exciting way. My mom would be so happy. She probably would have closed the business, seeing how many vegetarian alternative competitors there are now. That’s not because KFC loves chickens. It’s because they see that the consumer wants a vegan KFC. The biggest burger selling at Burger King right now is the Impossible Burger. This is due to customer change. This is the reaction to hopefully the new way of life.

Sophisticated fake fur from fall 2019. “I’ve got my own little supply network,” McCartney says.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: Do you oversee your mother’s company? S.M.: Well, the whole family does. We create the products, we create the range, I do the packaging, we look at the marketing. It’s a family brand.. WWD: That’s amazing. How long has it been? S.M.: I don’t know the exact founding year. I need to look at it, actually; this reminds me. I want to put it on the packaging when we re-brand. [Linda McCartney Foods launched in 1991.] WWD: You have stayed faithful to your upbringing, and the tenets you were raised on. Do your kids embrace the lifestyle that you live at home? Has any of them ever questioned it? S.M.: Yes, they do. They are exactly how I was. But I think now there’s more people around [with similar views], although there’s still not a huge amount of vegetarians. Like, surprisingly, not all their friends are veggie. But it’s a much more well-versed conversation now. They are a lot less freakishly alone. But it’s very similar. I remember when I was really young, I’d say to my mom and dad, “why are we vegetarian? Why can’t I eat meat?” And they would say, “Well, you can eat meat because it’s an individual choice. But this is why we choose not to, because we don’t want to eat a dead animal.” My kids have asked me the exact same questions, and I give them the exact same answer. I’m like, “You are totally free to do what you want to do. I really respect your choice, but this is why I do it.” I see it through their eyes. Because when you’re part of a high-profile family that the world knows doesn’t eat animals, you don’t feel like you can go and sneak chicken Kiev on a weekend. But at the end of the day, my kids — I believe very much that children are so beautifully connected to nature and they’re so innocent and they’re so pure and the minute you say to them, “Look, there’s a chicken alive and there’s a chicken deep fried. Do you want to eat it?” I mean, nobody wants to eat stuff if they see how it’s made. I don’t think anyone would eat it if they really saw how it got to their plate.

A fanciful take on boho-cool, knitted from upcycled leftovers, from fall 2019.  WWD/Shutterstock

WWD: What do you think the lasting impact will be of COVID-19 on the industry? S.M.: I don’t know what the lasting impact will be, if any. My biggest fear is that things will just get back to what we consider normal, whatever that is. But I think that the immediate impact will be thinking differently, I hope. I’m always trying to push myself and my teams. They laugh at me. I’m, “OK, so what are we going to do? How are we going to do this differently?” For me, if every single day I didn’t try and figure out how to come at something differently, I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. I think that the entire industry now, and anyone in business now, has had to stop and say, “this is a moment I didn’t see coming. How am I going to be the one to think outside the box?” We are all competitive. We all want to win, and we all want to come up with great ideas. Right now people have got to push themselves and try to guess what might happen next. It’s a breaking of the norm as we have known it. I think if you are in fashion, you need to think that way every single day, regardless of the coronavirus. That’s our job. But there are obvious ways in which things will change. I think people are going to be much more cautious with their money. They’re going to invest more carefully, and they will buy in a different way, physically and emotionally. WWD: Small picture, back to spring, a little more on your thoughts right now. S.M.: We started working on spring, and then we paused. But I feel like at Stella we need to do something to [speak to] this moment and not just say, let’s just cancel everything until it’s over. For me, it feels like creatively we should be more inspired than ever to stand out. So I have been working on this little idea of individual pieces and individual gems, and being mindful of the two ends of the spectrum. I think some people will come back and go, “oh f–k it, I deserve to enjoy fashion for a second. I have been sitting in my flat in my pajamas for three months.” So I think there’s going to be [some people who want to shop]. Again, it comes back to working sustainably. I’m trying not to order new fabrics for [spring]. I’m just like, what have we got? We have fabrics that we buy in bulk because they are sustainably sourced. They are our go-to’s. We’re not like other fashion brands. WWD: No, you’re not. S.M.: I have a relationship with environmentally friendly suppliers. I have even created them in some instances. That’s the core value system of the brand, so that’s what we can go to. We’re lucky in that sense. It’s like saying I know that I can get my organic oat milk from this supplier, that’s not going to change. It’s just then left to me as to what I print on it this season or if I can embroider on it this season, which I probably can’t. I work like that anyway. My upcycled collection [fall 2019], those pieces all become limited editions. My final coat was like five seasons’ worth of prints sitting in a warehouse. So it shows that if you are sustainable as a business in fashion, you’re kind of ahead of the game when something like this happens. I’m not reliant on the same things that other people are reliant on because I am much more reliant on a sustainable source. WWD: Your ethical premise becomes pragmatic business. S.M.: Yes, and it becomes a supply chain conversation. I know there’s only two non-leather suppliers that I want to work with, with whom I’ve developed a soft non-leather or a faux fur. And so they are who I go to. I never start a season with, “let’s see 700 fabrics from Italy.” It’s not how I work. I’ve got my own little supply network. Over 60 percent of our environmental impact happens at the raw material stage, which means that this is where we have the biggest positive impact as well. If I didn’t use a fabric maybe in one season because it didn’t feel right, I don’t then sell it or chuck it away. I go, “OK, maybe I’ll use it next season.” It will sit somewhere and then I’ll reuse it.

A fluid coat crafted out of fabrics from past collections, from fall 2019.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: How will this crisis impact the show system? S.M.: I feel like we’ve been having that conversation for 20 years. Like, ugh. You know?  WWD: Yes. But do you think this is, finally, the essential reset button? S.M.: I think maybe more the conversation is, it’s our job to come up with newness, come up with different ways of grabbing attention and reflecting the feelings, the thoughts of other people. We represent that in what we do. So there’s always got to be a new way of doing it. We all think that fashion shows are medieval. We all question how that works and if it needs to be done that way. It’s just always hard to find an answer on that one. This will [force the issue], for sure. Exciting new ideas will come out of this, for sure. NOTE: On Monday, Stella’s p.r. Arabella Rufino sent word of the screen takeover at Piccadilly Circus. Asked why she planned the initiative at a time when there are so few people on the streets to take it in, Stella sent a thoughtful reply. “For the first time in history, we can truly measure the damage done by human activity,” she wrote. “Will we go back to the norm, or will we give Mother Earth the respect and time she deserves to continue healing — so that these city centers with their huge screens can be seen through unpolluted air? I hope we can learn from this moment of pause and that nature can reclaim its rightful focal place in our lives. My message is a gentle, loving reminder: Every day is Earth Day.”  

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Role-Playing the Progressives of 1912: John Moser’s new Reacting to the Past Game

Professor John Moser is well known in the MAHG program for using carefully designed role-playing games to teach historical events and periods. Moser has co-authored a number of gamebooks in the Reacting to the Past (RTTP) series. These games begin in a pivotal moment of history, when citizen groups contest for power or face critical decisions. Each player assumes the identity of one historical actor, taking on this person’s motives, core beliefs and goals. The game unfolds as players declare their positions and appeal for others’ support.

This summer, Professor Moser will teach the “Progressive Era” course using a Reacting to the Past game he is currently developing with the help of another history professor at Samford University. We asked him how the game will illuminate the Progressive era.

You call this game Progressivism at High Tide, since it takes place during the only presidential election in US history when all of the candidates called themselves progressives. Yet the “historical background” in the gamebook discusses a diversity of progressive views. How do you define Progressivism?

The difficulty of defining progressivism in practice actually inspired this game. I’d been reading Sid Milkis’s book, Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party and the Transformation of American Democracy, and realizing that it’s one thing to talk about progressive ideas in theory and another to talk about transforming those ideas into a political agenda.

[caption id="attachment_38351" align="alignleft" width="407"] Professor John Moser[/caption]

The Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis divides scholars into “Lumpers” and “Splitters.” Lumpers point to commonalities; Splitters draw distinctions. From my perspective, the political theorists who have taught the Progressive Era in MAHG are very much lumpers. They ask, what do thinkers as different as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Jane Addams believe in common? They answer: All these thinkers say that the republic established by the founders was designed for the conditions prevailing in the late 18th century. Now it must be revised to face the challenges of the modern world.

That’s a valid observation. But it glosses over some really huge differences. As a historian, I look at particular individuals, what they believed and did. The measures they proposed responded to galvanizing events. You should not be able to take the AHG 505 Progressive Era course without ever hearing mention of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire!

The question of big business divided the Progressive Party. Some, like Theodore Roosevelt, saw the trusts as an inevitable feature of the modern economy. They would allow the trusts to develop but regulate them in the public interest. Yet many of those who followed Roosevelt out of the Republican party in 1912 were dismayed by this language in the new Progressive Party platform. They agreed with President Taft, who saw US Steel violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and said, “the law is the law!”

Who was the real progressive? Taft, who thought US Steel a combination in restraint of trade and tried to break it up? Or Roosevelt, who would use the Sherman Antitrust Act strictly as a bludgeon, forcing those who act against the public interest to change?

Progressives disagreed on many other things. Some argued for civil rights laws or women’s suffrage; others opposed these reforms. Some supported labor unions and resented mandatory government mediation during strikes; others would improve labor conditions through government regulation.

I don’t see progressivism as one monolithic movement. But the differences between progressive factions can make you wonder if progressivism is even a meaningful term. This diversity leaves room for certain historians to define all the things that we like as progressive, and those we deplore as non-progressive. The truth is, some progressives pushed segregation and the disenfranchisement of blacks on what they saw as progressive grounds. They favored excluding the illiterate or ill-educated from the franchise. Prohibition is another instance. Some opposed it, but many favored it.

The progressive label is still used. How would you define progressivism today?

[caption id="attachment_38358" align="alignright" width="323"] Moser moderating the game "Kentucky, 1861: Loyalty, State and Nation"[/caption]

We say the Progressive Era ended around 1920, but by then they had fundamentally changed things. Still, certain social elements of what we call Progressivism today—the importance of personal liberation—only became important in the 1960s and 1970s.

In our last class sessions, after the game ends, we’ll discuss readings from recent history. In many ways, today’s progressives would look back on the progressives of the early 20th century and recoil. Early Progressives spoke of the need to move away from rights, toward duties; away from the interests of the individual toward those of the community. Today, much of the progressive social agenda supports the right of individuals to do pretty much as they please. Contrast that with Theodore Roosevelt. He comes out for women’s suffrage in an article that reminds women of their duty to bear and raise children.

For this game, have you selected many of the same documents you would use in previous seminars on the Progressive era?  

The core texts we use are all ones used in the past: Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech, Wilson’s “Authors and Signers of the Declaration of Independence.” These get to the question of what progressivism is. I added Eugene V. Debs’ acceptance speech, because Debs is a character in the game, and everyone needs to understand that for Debs, socialism is a form of progressivism.

The supplemental documents take up particular issues. All the characters in the game who are not candidates for president are advocating policies on particular issues. For example, the student who plays George Perkins (an ally of Teddy Roosevelt who was a partner at J. P. Morgan and on the board of US Steel) will rely on Perkins’ speech “The Modern Corporation.” The person playing Victor Berger, the first socialist elected to the US Congress, will be able to read Berger’s piece arguing trusts should be nationalized. The readings cover eight issues: direct democracy (should measures like primaries, recall elections, and ballot initiatives be instituted?); big business; immigration; women’s suffrage, racial equality; labor reforms; the tariff; and organized labor.

Each player makes a speech advocating a position on one of these issues. Hence, different players will specialize in different issues and in effect teach them to the rest of the class. Everyone will read every reading, but those focused on a problem will have to know the related reading really solidly.

What other overall lessons does this way of studying history teach?

It helps you understand the calculations politicians and activists must make. No one begins this game as the member of a faction. But players will be listening for presidential candidates to support their particular issues. They’ll endorse candidates who do. Then they are on those candidates’ teams, working to get them elected.

Take the example of racial equality. A candidate who thinks W. E. B. Dubois’s endorsement is important might come out in favor of enforcing voting rights in the South, desegregating the schools, or passing an anti-lynching law. But if the candidate thinks the support of white Southerners is more important, he will not make statements in favor of civil rights. This was a dilemma for Teddy Roosevelt—and for W. E. B. Du Bois, who heard no one supporting his issues. In the game, Du Bois must decide which candidate is least objectionable—or whether to endorse no one at all.

Certainly the game teaches the value of teamwork. This game in particular also emphasizes civility. As American elections go, this was a fairly tame one. The speeches in the course of the game will be more like Chautauquas, with speakers talking about what is near and dear to their hearts.

The game concludes in the election of 1912. Might the candidate who won in history lose in the game?

It’s almost guaranteed the Democrat’s going to win the election. But that person will not necessarily be Wilson.  When the game begins, the Republican Party has already split and Taft and Debs have already gotten their parties’ nominations. The first session covers both the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party conventions. Historically, the candidate favored to get the Democratic nomination was Champ Clark of Missouri. He had a majority on the first ballot, but not the 2/3 majority the party required. So there will be a lot of negotiation during the Democratic Party convention.

I’ve built into the game victory conditions so that Taft, Roosevelt and certainly Debs don’t have to be elected president in order to win the game; they just have to do better than they did historically. If Eugene V. Debs gets any electoral votes at all he wins the game, because historically, Debs’ 200,000 votes gave him no votes in the electoral college. Conversely, Wilson doesn’t win the game just by being elected; he needs to win by a wider margin than was historically the case.

I’ve always found students compete to win. While some professors using RTTP games award a small number of points toward the final grade to the students on the winning team, I’ve never felt I had to do that.

Since you’ve begun using RTTP in the MAHG program, have you heard of teachers using or adapting the games to their classrooms at home?

I know that that there are certain teachers who now use the games, and others who adapt portions of them. They might design a lesson in which teams debate a particular issue, or in which students write editorials advocating a position on an issue of the era.

Every time I use RTTP, teachers ask me, “How do I use this in my class?” I have to be a little careful, because the RTTP consortium does not officially recommend use of the game in high schools. They don’t discourage it either, but they have a very small staff who lack the time to answer teacher questions. When teachers tell me they plan to use a game, I give them pointers if they want them and say that they can contact me later.

The post Role-Playing the Progressives of 1912: John Moser’s new Reacting to the Past Game appeared first on Teaching American History.

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[funface2]

Guy Fieri Knows How to Laugh At Himself. That’s Why He Has Instagram’s Best Meme Account. – Esquire.com

Guy Fieri is many things. A restauranteur, he opened his first venue in 1996. A TV personality, he anchors the Food Network’s Friday evening lineup stalwart, Diner’s, Drive-ins, and Dives. “Triple D,” as he and fans call it, filmed its first episode in 2007 and 12 years and 30-plus seasons later, Fieri is preparing to head out for two weeks of shooting. “We’re getting thousands upon thousands of requests at a time,” he admits. “In the beginning, I’d be calling my friends like, ‘Hey, have any of you ever been to Syracuse?”

On the same network, the star also hosts Guy’s Grocery Games and Guy’s Ranch Kitchen and has appeared in a dizzying amount of one-offs and specials. Fieri has released a handful of books; some of them related to Triple D, others are collections of original cookbooks. And most recently, Fieri—AKA the Mayor of Flavortown— has emerged as must follow on Instagram, where he shares increasingly hilarious memes and leads a fanbase with an unparalleled love for knuckle sandwiches.

Below, Esquire caught up with the Fieri to discuss a decade of Triple D, Diplo, “the food revolution” in America—and how the memes get made.

Esquire: Your Instagram presence brings great joy to the Esquire office. Do you enjoy posting and interacting with fans?

GUY FIERI: I gotta tell you, I love when the fans get so excited and the emojis start coming out [in the comments, where knuckle sandwiches are particularly popular] and people laugh at me. People laugh at me like, how do you do these?! Man, you’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself.

You’ve been super imposed onto a poster for Once Upon a Time … In Flavortown, a tuxedoed member of the Flavortown Abbey Cast, and donned Walter White’s cap for a Breaking Guy series. Do you have a favorite meme you’ve posted?

I loved all of the employees of Flavortown. And, I mean, boy I am bad at the computer. Clip art is about as far as I can go. But my team, we’ll do this back and forth and [coming up with concepts and captions] is this whole game. Everyone is trying to one-up each other. That’s what makes it so fun. And once we started to find our ability to take it even further, it just opened the floodgates. And the fans are having a great time with it. It’s not a meme, but I’m trying to get t-shirts made with the knuckle and the sandwich [emojis]. I’ve had a tattoo on my arm of knuckle sandwich for the last 20 years—so I just want the cartoon knuckle and plain Jane sandwich.

That is just one of very many tattoos you’ve collected. Which means the most to you?

I lost my sister to cancer eight years ago. And I designed a tattoo of her and had it done. My mom was never a big fan of tattoos but I showed up to the burial and had it already done on my forearm, and I had made t-shirts of the tattoo. She’s shrouded in a veil of dragonflies and all the chakras are behind her and it says namaste, which is an important word in our family. It changed my mom’s entire attitude about tattoos. It was probably two or three years later, on the anniversary of my sister’s passing, that my mom went and got her own tattoo of a dragonfly. Never say never.

How old was she when she got that tattoo?

How much do you want me to get my butt kicked by my mom. I think I’m supposed to say she’s 57… [Laughs]

“We’re so congested with so much information, it’s nice to be able to do something on a Friday night that people can sit around together as a family and watch and go, Hey, you know what, next time we go to Vancouver, we’re going to check this out,” Fieri says of why he loves hosting Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

Tony Carrera

You have over a million followers. And while most accounts with that large of a following struggle with some pretty mean comments, your section stays pretty clean.

People know me by now. I’m not a negative energy person—and I’m not into negative. But, how do I handle when people write negative things? I don’t really pay attention to it. And that’s probably because I got into it a little bit later in life. I was set on who I wanted to be as a person, raised by great parents, and [I] have a fantastic wife.

You’ve been the Mayor of Flavortown for a while now. How did that begin?

I never said, Hey, you know what? I’ve got a great idea. Let’s make a mystical place; we’ll call it Flavortown and it will be real funny. There’s no way in hell anyone could be that whacked to make anything up like that! That started as a one liner. [While filming,] I said, ‘This pizza looks like a manhole cover in Flavortown.’ A week later, [director of photography] Anthony Rodriguez holding up a donut and says it looks like a steering wheel, to which I replied, ‘Yeah, in Flavortown!’ After the show aired, we were walking down the boardwalk in Atlantic City and someone goes, ‘I’m on my way to Flavortown!’ I look at Anthony and I’m like, ‘Was that from the show?’ 12 years later, it’s still this growing, developing, funny thing. Now people are residents of Flavortown and people are sending me street signs of Flavortown.

You recently teamed up with another enthusiastic Instagrammer: Diplo. I noticed you were featured in his “So Long” music video for his song with Cam.

He’s the best isn’t he? God. You know what makes him so good? What you see is what you get. And I’ve been around him and there has been just clamoring fans going nuts, and he stands there and talks to them like he’s known them for 25 years and they all decompress. They know he’s not going to walk away. Talk about knowing how to breathe it all in. And then, on the other side, you realize just how masterful he is at the same time. But yea, in the street cred with my kids and my kids’ friends, things went up a notch with that.

Social media wasn’t around when you opened your first restaurant. Does it make the job of a restaurant owner easier?

Maybe people had MySpace—but even that was 10 years [after we opened]. We had to do a lot of TV advertising, radio advertising, and it cost a fortune. Folks now have a much better shot at sharing who they are. Obviously, when you can also be on Triple D or any of the great travel shows that the Food Network does out there, it gives you a chance to touch millions. They can, without question, be life changing.

“When we first started the show, if you would have asked me, I would have said, ‘I’ll do this for a couple of years and then it’ll probably be over,” says Fieri, “because there’s not that many places.’

NBC NewsWire

30-plus seasons into Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, has your team got a pretty strict system in place?

The system is called shoot it, get it done. But I’m very picky. I want to make sure that we have the right place. And as soon as it feels rushed, then it doesn’t feel as good. This is a very fun time for a family or for a restaurant or a community. When Triple D shows up, it means that there is going to be some really great exposure and there’s going to be some great adventure that people are going to get to be a part of. A lot of people are counting on this being done the right way. Have there been locations that I wish we could have shot? Without question. Are there reasons that we can’t? Yes. I mean, I get every heartbreak story in the world of people needing me to go to their location. We try to listen to them all.

It’s a lot of pressure, I imagine.

People thank me all of the time. And I say, well, hang on a second. I appreciate you thanking me, but you are the ones that made your restaurant. You are the ones that are doing this amazing job. You are the ones that are this unique family that have been running this for a hundred years. I thank you. I thank you for letting me come here and talk to you, because this is what we want. We’re so congested with so much information, it’s nice to be able to do something on a Friday night that people can sit around together as a family and watch and go, Hey, you know what, next time we go to Vancouver, we’re going to check this out.

Certainly no one starts a show expecting to go into their 30-something season. Do you love Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives differently than you did when you began filming?

When we first started the show, if you would have asked me, I would have said, ‘I’ll do this for a couple of years and then it’ll probably be over, because there’s not that many places.’ But we’re in the middle of a food revolution, which is awesome. I mean, [my generation] lived through that era of the ’80s and ’90s of mass-produced food. It wasn’t an experience. I lived in France when I was 16—I was an exchange student—and the whole focus at school was what was for lunch. And the whole focus when you went home was what was for dinner; sitting down enjoying dinner. Talking and taking in courses, all this stuff. When I see [that] coming here in this food revolution, I’m thrilled. And to be the guy who gets to chronicle it, I mean, it’s like being on the edge of the big stories.

“We’re in the middle of a food revolution,” says Fieri. “…And to be the guy who gets to chronicle it, I mean, it’s like being on the edge of the big stories.”

Ethan Miller

You film at multiple locations per day. How hard is that one your body?

I’ll give you the little secret: I don’t—I can’t—eat it all. Don’t get me wrong, I want to. They sometimes have to pry it out of my hands. They grab the Pho bowl out of my hands and everybody starts eating it. So I have a real regiment about when I eat, what I eat, how I eat, how much I work out. I bring my gym clothes. I’m no fun on the road! I drink my vegetable juice in the morning. We actually bring the juicer with us. I have my Americano. We shoot a location. As soon as I get back, I go to the gym. I’m in bed by nine o’clock. And I have to do that, because I have a real responsibility. This is their one time that they’re going to be on The Food Network.

Triple D is just one of your shows. You also have Guy’s Grocery Games and Guy’s Ranch Kitchen, plus a whole fleet of restaurants and a handful of books. Do you ever miss just cooking?

Oh geez. It’s the thing I still love the most. I’ve told my wife many times that it’s going to end up, at the end of the day, with us going to live down in some country—maybe even in the United States—and on the days that the restaurant is open, I’m going to put the red flag out on the front porch. Food will always be my center.

Madison Vain Madison Vain is a writer and editor living in New York, covering music, books, TV, and movies; prior to Esquire, she worked at Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated.

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MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

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[theinjectlikes2]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

from The Moz Blog https://ift.tt/2GdsmCX via IFTTT

[daynamartinez22]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

[drummcarpentry]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

[noithatotoaz]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

[camerasieunhovn]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

[xaydungtruonggia]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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!

[bfxenon]

MozCon 2019: Day Two Learnings

Posted by KameronJenkins

We had another amazing day here at MozCon — our speakers delivered some incredible expertise for Day two. But there was plenty of moments in-between that was also just as spectacular. 

In no particular order, today also consisted of: 

Areej parading 180 slides-worth of knowledge in 14 minutes — like a boss!

1,000+ attendees singing Marie happy birthday

Dr. Pete bringing the "wizard" in SEO wizard to his talk (and now everyone wants to know which House everyone belongs to)

Dogs DO like birthday cake, thank you for coming to our TED talk

Yogurt parfaits

This tender moment between Wil and Stacy, our live event captioner

Cat puns

And much, much more. Let's get to it! Read on for our top takeaways from day two of MozCon.

Heather Physioc — Building a Discoverability Powerhouse: Lessons From Merging an Organic, Paid, & Content Practice

Heather kicked off day two by making a strong case for un-siloing our search teams. When paid, organic, and content teams join forces, they can reach maximum effectiveness.

“We’re dividing and conquering our organic strategy playbooks across the team [...] because we can cover more ground more quickly, [...] and we can simply deliver a better product.” @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

By using her own team’s experience as an example, Heather helped us see what it takes to build a powerful, cross-functional team:

Start with a mantra to guide your team. Theirs is “Connected brands start with connected teams.”

Rip the bandaid off. Get people involved in the mission and brainstorming as soon as possible.

While you want to start collaborating as soon as possible, make the actual changes in small, incremental steps. Develop committees dedicated to making certain aspects of the change easier.

“No process is precious” means establishing clear, living processes (they use Confluence to document these) that can adapt over time. Check-in regularly and ditch what isn’t serving you.

Commit to cross-team training not so you can do each other’s jobs, but to promote empathy and to start thinking about how your work will affect other people.

Just like we should avoid siloing our departments, we should avoid siloing our reporting. Bring data from the channels together to tell a cohesive story.

Create a culture of feedback so that feedback feels less personal and more about improving the work.

Even if you’re not able to change the org chart, you can still work on un-siloing by collaborating with your counterparts on other teams.

Visit https://mozcon.vmlyrconnect.com/ for even more wisdom from Heather!

Mary Bowling — Brand Is King: How to Rule in the New Era of Local Search 

Mary took the stage next to shed some light on why brand is so critical to success in this latest era of local search.

Prominence: Is the business well-known and well-regarded in its industry? Google looks at what other people say about you. @MaryBowling #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 16, 2019

With so much talk about Google taking clicks away from our websites, Mary posited that Google’s actually giving local businesses a ton of opportunity to increase our conversions on the SERP itself.

According to research from Mike Blumenthal, 70% of local business conversions happen on the SERP with the smaller percentage happening on websites. While both are important, Mary says that local businesses really need to concentrate on owning our branded SERPs.

Google loves brands, and one way we can tell Google we’re a good one is to take control of what other websites say about us.

Want to understand Google’s recent attention on local? They’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.

Control whatever you can on your branded SERPs, whether that’s managing reviews, making sure your GMB is up to date and accurate, and investing in PR to influence news and other mentions that show up on your branded SERP.

Google is giving small businesses a lot of ways to attract customers. Use them to your advantage!

Casie Gillette — Making Memories: Creating Content People Remember 

Casie told us that only 20% of people remember what they read, which means you might not remember this. We’ll try not to take it personally. In the meantime, how do you create something that people will actually remember and come back for again and again?

“We are about ourselves. We care about being seen, and people solving our problems. [...] And as marketers, we need to create content that reflects just that.” @Casieg #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 16, 2019

Here’s some of the advice she offered:

People care about brands that care about them. Make your audience feel seen and you’ll win.

Pay attention to your audience demographics and psychographics! Make your content resonate with your audience by knowing your audience.

Keep your content clear and simple to give your audience the answer to their question as quickly as possible.

Add movement to our images when possible. It grabs attention among a sea of static images.

Choose colors wisely. Color can drastically impact conversions and how people respond in general.

Messages delivered in stories can be 22 percent more effective than pure info alone.

Whatever you do, commit to not being forgettable!

Wil Reynolds — 20 Years in Search & I Don't Trust My Gut or Google  

Wil Reynolds brought the honesty in a continuation of his talk from last year’s MozCon. Massive opportunity is at our fingertips. We just need to leverage the data.

@wilreynolds admits he constantly lives in hypothesis mode. Data-driven is great, but only if you admit that data frequently changes. #mozcon

— Travis Lofley (@TravisLofley) July 16, 2019

Here are some of the best nuggets from his presentation!

There’s power in looking at big data. You can usually find a ton of waste and save a bunch of money that helps fund your other initiatives.

Every client deserves a money-saving analysis. Use big data to help you do this at scale.

Looking at data generically can lead you to the wrong conclusions. Instead of blindly following best practices lists and correlation studies, look at data from your own websites to see what actually moves the needle.

Always stay in hypothesis mode.

Humans are naturally inclined to bring our own bias into decision-making, which is why data is so important. You can’t know everything. Let the data tell you what to do.

Bonus! Go to bit.ly/savingben if you want to stop losing money.

Dr. Marie Haynes — Super-Practical Tips for Improving Your Site's E-A-T

Dr. Marie Haynes serves up incredible tips for how to practically improve your site’s E-A-T — something every SEO and marketer needs.

Critically important, even if not a causal search ranking factor... • Expertise • Authoritativeness • Trust ...as evidenced to Google by links and mentions to your site. By @Marie_Haynes at #MozCon pic.twitter.com/xE03nKRFO3

— Andy Crestodina (@crestodina) July 16, 2019

Those tips included things like:

Using Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to get authoritative mentions in publications

Publishing data — people love to cite original research!

Create articles that answer previously unanswered questions (find those on forums!)

Create original tools that solve common problems

Run a test and publish your results

Sounds a lot like link building, right? That’s intentional! Links to your site from authoritative sources is a huge factor when it comes to E-A-T.

Areej AbuAli — Fixing the Indexability Challenge: A Data-Based Framework 

How do you turn an unwieldy 2.5 million-URL website into a manageable and indexable site of just 20,000 pages? Answer: you catch Areej’s talk. 

If you have a huge site (million+ pages) with no rules for crawlers whatsoever, you're inevitably going to run into technical issues @areej_abuali #MozCon

— At #MozCon (Still, #GreenNewDeal) (@CosperClick) July 16, 2019

When doing an audit, it’s a good idea to include not only what the problem is, but what effect it’s causing and the proposed solution.

The site Areej was working on had no rules in place to direct robots, creating unlimited URLs to crawl. Crawl budget was being wasted and Google was missing what was actually important on their site. Fundamentals like these needed to be fixed first!

She used search volume data to determine what content was important and should be indexed. If a keyword had low search volume but was still needed for usability purposes, it was no-indexed.

Another barrier to Google indexing their important content was the lack of a sitemap. Areej recommended creating and submitting separate sitemaps for the different main sections of their website.

The site also had no core content and its only links were coming from three referring domains.

Despite all of Areej’s recommendations, the client failed to implement many of them and implemented some of them incorrectly. She decided to have a face-to-face meeting to clear things up.

If she were to do this all over again, here’s what she would do differently:

Realize that you can’t force a client to implement your recommendations

Take a targeted approach to the SEO audit and focus on tackling one issue at a time.

At the end of the day, technical problems are people problems. It doesn’t matter how good your SEO audit is if it’s never followed.

Go to bit.ly/mozcon-areej for her full methodology and helpful graphics!

Christi Olson — What Voice Means for Search Marketers: Top Findings from the 2019 Report 

Microsoft’s Christi Olson gave us the down-low on everything you need to know about voice search now and into the future based on findings from a study they ran at Microsoft.

Over half of consumers are expecting digital assistants to help make retail purchases within the next 5 years@ChristiJOlson #mozcon

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 16, 2019

69 percent of respondents said they have used a digital assistant

75 percent of households will have at least one smart speaker by 2020

Over half of consumers expect their voice assistant to help them make retail purchases within five years

Search is moving from answers to actions — not smart actions like “Turn on the light” but “I want to know/go/do” actions

Smartphones, PC, and smart speakers are the main ways people engage with voice

40 percent of spoken responses come from featured snippets. This is how you win at voice search.

To rank in featured snippets: 1) Find queries where you’re already ranking on page one, 2) Ask what questions are related to your query and answer them on your site (hint: even without voice search data, it’s safe to assume that many of the longer and more conversational keywords in your tools were probably spoken queries!), 3) Structure your answer appropriately (paragraph, table, or bullets), however, voice devices don’t usually read tables, 4) Make sure your answers are straightforward and clear, and 5) Don’t forget SEO best practices so it’s easy for search engines to find and understand!

Although speakable schema markup says it’s only available for news articles, she’s seen it used (and working!) on non-news sites.

25 percent of people currently are using voice to make purchases

Main takeaways? Voice is here, use schema that helps voice, and bots/actions will help enable v-commerce (voice shopping) in the future.

Visit aka.ms/moz19 to view the full report Christi based this talk on.

Paul Shapiro — Redefining Technical SEO 

Take your textbook definition of technical SEO and throw it out the window because there’s more to it than crawling, indexing, and rendering. And Paul definitely proves it.

I love this breakdown of technical #SEO by @fighto #MozCon Everyone can know a bit of technical SEO without being a techie. pic.twitter.com/qcNh5Y8Bn1

— Kici (@Kici0835) July 16, 2019

We’re used to thinking of SEO sitting at the center of a Venn diagram where content, links, and website architecture converge. That idea is an oversimplification and doesn’t really capture the full spirit of technical SEO.

If technical SEO is: “Any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent of improving search results” then it broadens the scope beyond just those actions that impact crawl/render/index.

There are four main types of technical SEO: checklist, general, blurred responsibility, and advanced-applied:

Checklist-style tech SEO is essentially an itemized list of technical problems you could answer yes-or-no to.

General technical SEO is similar to a checklist with some additional logic applied.

Blurred responsibility technical SEO are those tasks that lie in uncertain territories, such as items that an SEO checks but a developer would need to implement.

Advanced-applied SEO involves things like SEO testing, adopting new technology, data science for SEO purposes, Natural Language Processing to enhance content development, using Machine Learning for search data, and creating automation. It involves using technology to do better SEO.

Advanced-applied SEO means that all SEO can be technical SEO, including:

Redirect mapping

Meta descriptions

Content ideation

Link building

Keyword research

A/B testing and experimentation

Visit searchwilderness.com/mozcon-2019 for some of Paul’s python scripts he uses to make “traditional” SEO tasks technical.

Dr. Pete Meyers — How Many Words Is a Question Worth? 

Rounding out day 2 was Dr. Pete, asking the important questions: how do we find the best questions, craft content around them, and evaluate success?

Google may be using PAAs not to serve us immediately, but to learn more about searcher-query intent. #mozcon

— Mike Arnesen (@Mike_Arnesen) July 16, 2019

The prevalence of People Also Ask (PAA) features has exploded within the past year! Last year they were on 30 percent of all SERPs Moz tracked and now they’re on 90 percent.

Google is likely using PAA clicks to feed their machine learning and help them better understand query intent.

Since Google is using them so often, how can we take advantage?

Once you know what questions people are asking around your topic, you can vet which opportunities you’ll go after on the basis of credibility (am I credible enough to answer this intelligently?), competition (is this something realistically I can compete on?), and cannibalization (am I already ranking for this with some other piece on my site?)

When you target questions, you’ll often get much more than you bargained for… in a good way! Don’t get discouraged if your keyword research tool shows a low search volume for a query target. Chances are, ranking for that keyword also means you’ll rank well for lots of related queries too.

Dr. Pete also announced that Moz is looking into the possibility of a People Also Ask tool! For now, he’s testing the model with a manual process you can check out today. Just go to moz.com/20q and he’ll send you a personalized list of the top 20 questions for your domain or topic.

Day two — done!

Only one more day left for this year's MozCon! What stood out the most for you on day two? Tell us in the comments below!

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