#extremely niche ben content

[bencan-t]

I left my phone in a Lyft and now I have a personal crusade against mobile-only applications.

When I realized I'd left my phone in the Lyft I thought, "well, I'll log into Lyft on my computer and I can call the driver from my laptop." I logged into Lyft on my laptop, and my profile loaded for a hot second...before Lyft gave me a message that their website doesn't work anymore, I have to use the app. Is the app available to download on my computer? No it is not. So I have to call my spouse from my laptop, have em log into my Lyft account on eir phone, and contact the driver.

While I'm waiting for the driver to get the message and return my phone, I think, "okay, at least I'll get some work done while I wait." WRONG. My 2FA app I need to get into the database at work? Also mobile-only!

I am begging tech companies to have a working web-based app in addition to mobile apps for exactly this kind of scenario. If I didn't have my spouse to call I would be stuck hoping the driver finds my phone.

[sunriseseance]

HECK YEAH alrighty here we go then! 1. Broadly: what do you predict we'll see from Klaus in s3? I know you've mentioned him snapping a bit- what're your thoughts on what that might entail? (1/?)

I think that Klaus is experiencing his first full moment of independence, especially power independence, at the same time he is experiencing extreme emotional turmoil. They’ve told us that alcohol (at east) does jack shit to prevent his powers. I think that he has spent a long, long time with people who (IMO) do care about him, but don’t think about him all that often. “Klaus is still Klau” as a modus operandi for the entire family, at least at default. Now he no longer has a Powerful or Moral (although I have my problems with this interpretation) Ben to lean on, I think we’re gonna see a Klaus who is coming into his own, who is hurting deeply in ways the sibling do not (and possibly cannot, Klaus lies and masks A LOT) know, and who feels that the turmoil inside of him belongs outside. 

2. Do you expect to see Klaus’ powers expanded on in s3, and if so, how do you think they’ll go about that? I think levitation and telekinesis would be amazing but seeing as they’ve already given those away to his siblings, I don’t think it’s all that likely. I love your clairvoyance theory (more on that shortly), and I've been playing with the idea of a telepath or empath Klaus, something akin to his "channeling" powers from the comics. (2/?)

I think that probably the primary thing in store for Klaus is commanding ghosts and being possessed. These play together interestingly and are both extremely powerful. He can command an army without a second thought, and they listen to him, but also if he slips up they can jump in his body, he’s gone and they’re in charge. It’s an interesting and fruitful dichotomy and power structure. Also I think he can make ghosts possess other people. They made a big point of showing that Klaus was conscious before Ben entered Vanya’s mind. If he can command spirits, and spirits can possess other people that is a great deal of power. (Also, like, Klaus is able to make Ben not possess him. Neither of them may know it, but he DOES command spirits. He does.)

As to his comic powers, I think we may very well get them!! They’ve teased levitation multiple times in s2 alone, and I think this idea that a show about shitty superheroes would care if their powers were redundant does not quite vibe with me. Like, what’s the point of Luther if Vanya can stop bullets and lift a tank with sound waves. Klaus’s version of TK could EASILY have its own niche (no need for a trajectory or sound waves). I don’t want to promise that it’s coming because, like, focusing on his psychic related powers is more cohesive, but I don’t think that the option is in any way off the board. 

3. If they go ahead and give him clairvoyance, how would you like to see that play out? 4. Similarly, do you think his possession powers will be explored further in s3? (3/?)

I think that giving him clairvoyance would be a very handy plot device on top of being interesting for the character. Klaus’s powers have pushed him to the extremes of apathy. Imagine what that would look like if he has the capacity to know everything? He is a person who deals with the hurt of others by denying everything. He has had too much asked of his empathy and compassion. Giving him clairvoyance gives him access to all the hurt in the world. I would love to see that. I would love to see his brain forcing him to care about people because in this particular regard he CAN 100% help. 

Yes absolutely I think his possession powers will be explored further. I know this is a controversial subject, but I think the show took care to make it clear that is is awful and terrifying for him (however it was for Ben) and that it plays interestingly with his ability to summon and command spirits. It serves as a way to even the playing field, almost. He command them, they can take him over. That’s scary for everyone. I don’t think this is one and done at all. 

4. I would LOVE to hear more about your thoughts on Hotel Oblivion's influence on TUA s3- disclaimer, I haven't read the comics (yet). (4/?)

YES OKAY. Based on my own personal desires and my knowledge of the comics (Sparrows locked up) and also the Sparrow crest, I think s3 is going to include at least some of Team Zero locked in the hotel. It could EASILY be all of them, but I could see Reg deciding to keep Five, and even Vanya. This would be interesting because it allows Five to age, allows Five to rest, allows Vanya to see the horrors of actually BEING on a super hero team, and requires 1-4 to save themselves, and in my IDEAL world, save Five from Reg, as well. It would be so fun to watch 1-4 escape the hotel and rescue Five. IMO the hotel is going to be the best if it is treated as a piece of horror. Not something they can understand, something simultaneously enticing and hostile, and something that they have to fight their individual Bullshits to escape. Whoever is in it. I think that would be beautiful. 

5. How would you like to see Klaus' character develop this season? Seeing as s2 has left him unprecedentedly broken, I think this will lead to an AMAZING pay off in s3, esp when it comes to him being without Ben. His powers have so much potential (even w/o the comic book expansion pack) but they have all have come back to Ben's help. This is true of his choices too- Ben is constantly supporting/criticizing him. I'm so excited to see him alone and newly independent. (5/?)

YES SO MUCH. We watch Klaus shatter and regress completely in s2. I know a lot of people feel he wasn’t treated with respect by the narrative, and I respect that, but my general thinking is that this is a part of the whole, and everything we saw of him is in line with a) intense hurt b) the act he puts on. I think that Klaus shattered in s2. He killed the love of his life, he relapsed, and he did his best to make sure nobody cares about him. Ben turned into more of a harmful figure in his life than ever before, and now he’s lost him completely, left with only guilt, resentment, and complicated feelings. 

I think Klaus is going to actually have to DEAL with himself. He’s been able to deflect or hide or bury his hurt and his power and everything else. Like you said, he relied on Ben for a lot, and now it is only him. I think he is going to externalize the chaos he feels inside (and so does Sheehan), and I think he is going to have to confront who Klaus REALLY is, whatever that means. I think he will admit he is powerful, he is hurt, and he is angry. Ultimately, I think this will lead to him with more balance, and he will have a better understanding of himself. But I think he MUST snap a bit first. Nobody takes him seriously, not even himself. He has to change that before he can move on. 

6. How would you like to see Klaus' relationships with his siblings grow this season? I am wondering how him mourning Ben will be received by his siblings. I am also thinking a lot about whether him hitting rock bottom & truly alone for the first time will push him to be more vulnerable and open with his siblings OR if it'll be his breaking point where he shutters out everything he can, emotions and more OR a mix of both. (6/?)

This is a really good question. I’m not at all sure I have a definitive answer, but here I am typing anyway. I think the obvious setup of the first 2 seasons is that everyone thinks Klaus is fine, and that he can Manage, whatever that looks like. This includes Klaus. So my Most Fruitful Idea is to show that he isn’t fine, in a way he cannot hide. I feel like possession could be a good start to this, but so could him diminishing in his ability to respect ghosts, or many other things. Basically, I want the siblings to see through Klaus’s act. None of them, fucking none of them, ever have. He’s done his best to make that the case. I want the act to spread thin in s3, which I think is supported by how the act looks in s2, and I want the sibs to see through it finally, and I want it to be almost too late because he’s lost and angry and goddamn POWERFUL and he knows them in ways they have never known him. 

Also, I like the idea of Klaus and Allison snapping together. They are the two who lack hope, the two who accept as a blanket the end of the world, the two who enable each other, and also the two who bonded with Vanya. Seeing them go down a dark path, and seeing Vanya recognize it and help them stray away from it? Amazing. 

7. Any songs you would love to see in s3? (7/7) Sorry for the IMMENSE amount of questions, comments, and concerns, I have been pondering these things for weeks and since I always adore your tua content, I would love to hear your thoughts and any input from others!!

YES SO SO SO MUCH

I would love “Be True To Your School” by the Beach Boys because of the 60s and the irony factor. Any Bob Dylan song would send me to an early grave due to joy, but I’m gonna say especially “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall” which is an incredible song about futility and trying and hurt. I also love the idea of ANY Masseduction by St. Vincent song, but I would especially nominate Masseduction, Young Lover, and Happy Birthday Johnny. 

ALSO NO NO NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE AT ALL THIS WAS SOOOOOOOOOO FUN OH MY GOD do this any time (or come off anon and into my DMs I promise I’m friendly). Thank you so so much!!!

[hollow-dweller]

happy ffwf! if you could write a remix of any fic you’ve written (aka, fic of your fic), which would you choose and what would you write? -ambivalentmarvel

happy ffwf @ambivalentmarvel!!! thank you so much for the ask <3 <3 <3 

i actually HAVE written bits and pieces of a remix of all the wonders i have seen (i will see a second time) (or for those who don't know, what i call the "irondad platonic soulmates au that is actually about pepper and may being awesome")

it's basically an au where Ben doesn't die and he & May & Pepper are dating, because i decided to max out on self-indulgent nonsense. it's silly and fun and is largely centered on Peter being a little shit to Tony while my extremely niche favourite throuple lives out their domestic bliss in the background

i may eventually post it once the main fic is done, we'll see. in the meantime, if anyone is interested, an excerpt below the cut

"Okay then, Nancy Drew," Mr. Stark says, getting up from behind his desk to walk over to the sideboard, in a voice so even and steady it has to be forced. "Why are you here, and why now?" 

Peter takes a deep breath, bracing himself, then says, as fast as he can, "Well, my Aunt and Uncle are renewing their vows and want to include Pepper since they've been dating for so long, but if they do that then the press will find out, which means eventually they'll find out about me, and you, so I figured we should at least meet." 

There's a crashing noise from the sideboard and the sharp sting of alcohol fills the air, and Peter twists in his seat. Mr. Stark is staring at him, one hand clutched around a glass, an ornate crystal bottle of some kind of liquor- was he pouring himself a drink? Jesus Christ, it's like three in the afternoon- lying on its side, spilling its contents all over the carpet and Mr. Stark's shoes. 

Mr. Stark's mouth opens and closes a few times, staring at Peter for several long moments. "I- wh- Pepper what?" 

Peter can't help but roll his eyes a little. Everyone knows about Mr. Stark's reputation- you'd think he'd be a little more open-minded. 

"She's dating my Aunt and Uncle," he says again, slowly, like he's explaining this concept to a child. "Has been for years. And they won't do anything to make it more official because of the press, since they'll find out we're soulmates and be, you know, gross about it." 

He raises his eyebrows at Mr. Stark. When all he does is continue to stare at Peter, now looking a little shell-shocked, Peter holds back a sigh. "So," he continues, patiently, "I figure you and I have a few things to figure out before that can happen."

[affiloram51525plja-blog]

affiloblueprint

What Is It?

It is a membership site devised to help you understand affiliate marketing.

Short Review

An honest site, good training, mostly legit info, and they have way more value than most internet marketing products. Plus, their basic membership does not cost anything!

However, when you begin buying their packages, it gets pretty expensive, especially when you buy everything they've to offer. When you conider that the community is not a whole lot active, and support is a very small amount in comparison with alternatives.

Before making a decision, have a look inside their affiliates area and then judge if extremely effective best bet you have for you.

==> Enroll For Your FREE Affilorama Account!

Before You Buy

The very first thing we want to know is how Affilorama is actually structured. It's passed through numerous changes lately, and above current reviews don't reflect these changes.

The website is set using these a rather confusing way, dividing features into different packages, forcing it a little obscure the one that we would like to buy to get going making money. It's possible to try to break it down for you therefore's a little easier to understand.

An everyday (free) membership Affilorama should get you access some training videos, a members forum, and also their blog. These items are updated frequently, and there's a ton of information there. I wrote my original directory for Affilorama in 2014, but as of 2017, it's still active with questions, after, as updates. They are building for your long haul!

affilorama updated post

Update 2018

There was once four packages, raise paid, recurring membership fee. Now there is just a without charge organization, plus two other items you can buy. Is without question basically the "DIY" version, that is definitely $197. This is simply not DIY since you acquire the help of the running and community, but it's not "in serious trouble you", as while using the upgraded versions which is certainly an $997.

affilorama packages available

Affilorama has updated their package offers since I wrote my original review

Affilorama Premium is $67/month and is the same thing that I consider to be the "main feature" with this company. There'may be a 7 day trial for $1. Free membership is available nowadays

Affilotheme the help that people seek a premium WordPress theme used to be intended for $97, but these days is usually to often be available through the Affiloblueprint package.

AffiloBlueprint is $197 for lifetime access that is definitely the step-by-step system for newbies.

Affilojetpack are pre-made niche websites with content included, email swipes, likewise ready-made material. It's $997.

AffiloTools is a one-stop shop to track issues like competitors, rankings, keywords, and a number of other things. It's included along with your free membership.

Pricing Updates 2018

Ok, so what I've figured out is that there is three prices of membership. You join the FREE membership, that steadily the ability to access some features, and is often free. Then there may be the PREMIUM membership, with which has a $1 trial, and it's $67/month after that.

affilorama membership levels and pricing

What I Liked

Though I exist of criticisms of this particular program which I'll discuss below, overall, I believe this can be a legit program. Mark Ling really lays everything out before you join, the fact is that sets him other than 99% for all your serious "gurus" out there. Ling has a superb reputation with the exceptional affilo-stuff has been around since 2005.

Most products in this industry don't last within a year.

The site is member focused, includes a somewhat-active forum, and is constantly changing as time goes on, instead of a static PDF or video series that can stale with time.

I keep in mind the main thing I liked about Affilorama was the way in which lots of the videos were set up, with bulleted overviews, prime quality voice overs, and scripts you may download for each video. I do know loads of they on limited internet connections and video training isn't always essentially the most convenient.

Free Membership

There's greatly present on the free membership. I joined a very long time ago and am still able to use the forum, all the work outs modules, the official blog, and a large array of other things including hour long webinar sessions.

Navigate the lessons dependant upon topic

affilorama website lesson navigation

2. Read The Title Summary of Each Lesson, Organized By Topic

affilorama lesson titles and summaries

3. Watch HD Videos & Read About Each Lesson, Including Step By Step Pictures

affilorama lessons video

Since the original writing of this review, I like the way this script has restructured. Without having the $67 per 30 days membership, you possibly can concentrate on absorbing what they have to offer for free. That gives you the right amount of time to consider upgrading on top of AffiloBlueprint or AffiloJetpack.

By granting them you value rapidly, you will see what kind of company they are! And hey, if they supply like this stuff without cost, the paid stuff have to be healthier for 🙂

Get Your Free Affilorama Membership!

Goodies Included In Premium Offers

If you commit to go together with Blueprint or Jetpack you've got 1-year webhosting for 1 website. That's worth at least $100, and maybe more towards the quality despite hosting. You furthermore may explore owing to their "AffiloTheme' Premium Theme. A premium theme could cost between $20 and $100, in order that'is actually a acceptable too!

What I Didn't Like

"Outdated" Sections of Training

Though there is a lot of wonderful trainings in the gratis group, there are plenty real bombs to watch out for. While appearing for information on how to construct an internet site, I only found a bit about using Adobe Dreamweaver and creating content using HTML. Sure, there are a selection of the way for building website, but the easiest and most popular is WordPress. My #1 recommended product (see below for link) permits you to create WordPress website in about 30 seconds.

Considering you'll be able to select from over 10,000 different WordPress themes, including premium ones with fancy features, plus the normal process to customize your company site with different plugins, I did not why you'll use such as dreamweaver. WordPress is flexible, search result friendly, and highly customizable.

Low Member Activity

Right at the top of the list of appeals of going to a membership site just like a is generating help. There definitely here are a couple of active members, and actually moderators to aid with answering questions.

But from what I possibly could see, there didn't appear to be several activity going on.

affilorama forum

There are numerous instances of posts being replied to in three or four hours, however most activity seems to be over other times, even days or weeks old. I used to be on the website one evening and saw that there were only 16 members on!

Even though this is just my personal opinion, the posts I looked at didn't appear to be too insightful or warranting a discussion. In fact, I'm comparing this to my own end result of Wealthy Affiliate, containing plentiful active members, in conjunction with a live chat scrolling 24/7 a place that you may consider and carry instant answers.

Affilorama has the suitable idea yield members forum, but it only is devoid of numerous active members to get this to a great feature.

That's A Bad Idea #1: Copied Content

An enormous fear the workout that you will see discussed on other reviews of Affilorama is the use of PLR content and backlinking strategies.

Because it feels like an "easy way" that creates an online business, many people preclude stuff of making helpful, interesting content unfortunetly copy it from multiple places. True, there are actually legit ways to repeat content, and they rarely spark a legitimate, long-term business.

Aided by the ways is PLR content. It is a symbol of Private Label Rights and permits you to take content is due to a source tagged PLR, change it of any kind for your information fit, then do it in the own.

The concerns with that is multifaceted. One, everyone permission to access the same content. Two, this product is often written in a really generalized way that is neither interesting nor okay for the reader. Three, because it's not completely unique content, it's very hard to rank.

Many people say which you can "tweak" letting it to cause it to unique and pass Copyscape. My question to the child is, when you're a reader, are you able to detect when someone is BS-ing you online? Do you like along with generalized content or highly specific and insightful content?

Not surprisingly, if you need to spend enough time to research and re-write this stuff so they are unique, interesting, and helpful, you better yet not use PLR or merely write 100% original content.

In our own way to copy content is curation. By curating, you are taking other author's work (that allow you to achieve this), and offering a linkage to the unique source. Normally, mingle an "authority" on a topic by collecting legitimate information on that topic.

However, if you copy achieve article, there may be there's no chance that you're going to get ranked in Google for that content. No rank means no traffic. In the event you copy just a good bit and write your personal commentary for this (as curation must be), you will want to write down user generated content!

The Affilorama training helps it to be sound like that is simple to do and will sustain job as a web-based marketer less difficult. That's removed from the truth. Using content in this manner adds a new level of difficultly versus just writing the damn thing yourself.

That's A Bad Idea #2: Backlinking

Internet marketers can talk before cows arrive home about backlinking strategies but after all, Google explicitly says that artificial link-building is against their TOS and it'll end up at trouble.

Gurus went on and on about the benefits of Private Blog Networks. Countless products were released, revealing the ranking revolution, and the way it was easy attending to the #1 spot with PBNs…until that they will deindexed and anyone that used them was penalized. They've since recovered in popularity, but who knows when the following Google update will kill your PBN.

google deindex backlinks

I actually have personally grown One More Cup of Coffee to five,000 visits per 24 hrs with out a single backlink, so I actually have my own proof that links are not needed to experience a traffic generating website falsified income. It only takes longer, additionally it may also lasts longer too.

And by the age of the training on backlinks in Affilorama, I wouldn't trust it for our particular own website, and may't recommend it for yours!

Extra Fees

Considering what you'll discover, the worth swapped the varied packages you in finding will not be too crazy. However, there are certain considerations!

For only one, you must pay an autoresponder fee in addition to whatever it is that you buy, who can cost $20+ per month. Then, your hosting may not free after for a year of membership. Also, there is some confusion about "Affilorama Premium" and "AffiloTools".

Premium it happens to not be available on the company website, but it surely's listed as an extra feature, specifically that you get a 1-month free trial. The first price for premium was $67, so can we expect a $67 upsell most of us join Blueprint?

Regarding AffiloTools, it clearly says hence it's free for Affilorama Members, that being said we're told that we all experience a no charge study to be a part of Blueprint. So which can be it?

affilo bonus 2

affilo bonus 1

Affilorama Free VS Premium Updated for 2018

It's been quite a while since I wrote my initial review. I wrote this making a return to 2014, togerher with its now December 2018. Affilorama remains to be alive, so they collect new members and perpetuate improving a company. Personally, I are unable to find much activity this review, so I'll just turn the job over as-can possibly be now. I've updated the pricing info, and made an effort of the costless association simply by Winter 2018.

However, if I get sufficient comments within the comment section aiming a review the newer Premium membership in Affilorama, I'll join and test it out. Contribute to the discussion and let me know if you would like me to do this!

Last Note

I in fact wasn't delightful to have email offers from Mark Ling, cross promoting services and products from folks that I would consider scam artists. I've done a lot of reviews for my website, and am aware that lots of the "gurus" hang around the other and run promotions for some another. That's fine. It's how business is done online, and You'll be able to unsubscribe very easily.

Specially me, I used to be just disappointed to find out that the finished products owner was promoting a person who I personally find terrible. This method person often charges thousand of dollars for mentorships and exclusive programs. You familiar with ones - "Join cost-free webinar", after which they try to sell you a $10,000 mentorship package.

Final Review

Affilorama has an incredible no charge registration, and appropriately priced premium offers. They've a helpful community, and a quality product that I am able to proudly recommend.

Thumbs Up

==> Sign Up For Affilorama Here

However, they aren't my #1 recommendation!

Wealthy Affiliate vs Affilorama

Features Wealthy Affiliate Affilorama

Will it be easy to get help?

Private coaching available?

Are you able to Contact the Owners?

Is in fact a live chat?

Is known to be step-by-step training?

Are free websites included?

Is hosting included?

Are you able to try for free?

Definitely is a keyword-research tool?

Exists an affiliate program?

Do I recommend this? Yes No

My Overall Rating 10/10 7/10

Comparing Wealthy Affiliate To Affilorama

I can write a whole in-depth review comparing Wealthy Affiliate to Affilorama, but I'd love to fully things below on why WA remains my #1 recommendation after all these years

They update the workout frequently to bring to attention changes in online marketing, Google, and online marketing

We have no major upsells. The membership costs $49/month. END. OF. STORY

Hosting is offered in your membership price, for the life span whatever the membership

They offer cheap domains. $15 per year (no upsells), including FREE privacy, including FREE SSL

Live chat help for instant support, plus forum support for "slow cooked" answers.

Proprietary website boosting technology

SiteSpeed means no need for installing a caching plugin to purchase one site run fast

SiteComments for starting engagement in the comment small portion your company site

Spam filter without a desire for a plugin (fewer plugins means faster website)

Free weekly webinars on lots of topics (e_mail business, AMP, star ratings, SEO, etc)

Peer Review & Feedback: Get feedback on your service so aren't within the a "newbie bubble"

There are tons more things you can examine inside ourselves full Wealthy Affiliate Review. It's really ridiculous what they offer regarding the flat membership fee, and you cannot find another service has had an opportunity to come back even close.

But what would you say? Have you been connected to both websites? How you imagine they quite a lot of or similar? What sort do you prefer?

Oh, allow's do remember that this kind of page was purported to be an overview of Affilorama, not an evaluation to Wealthy Affiliate.

What on earth of Affilorama?

Various join? Why? Or at least…Why?

Should you tried Jetpack or Blueprint, what did you think that?

I'm really curious to look at what your opinions available the comment section! affiloblueprint

[nerdy-bits]

The Family Hunt for Cooperative Games

It’s extremely easy, after more than two decades playing games, to get into a bit of a pattern. In the last 10 years that pattern is increasingly, for me, built around competitive or cooperative multiplayer. Yet, despite the amount of time that this trend has sustained itself, the experiences that exist all fall into well tread and familiar genres. Overwhelmingly we get shooters. There is, of course, other game types that work in this kind of gameplay. I play a ton of Rocket League and currently my friends and I are really into Wreckfest, but those rarely pop up. It’s even rarer for them to be more than a flash in the pan experience for us. Vermintide, Call of Duty, Destiny, Halo. Those are the games that remain on the quickplay list. 

After a year of playing cooperative games with my family, we have all begun to notice that what we’re looking for, somehow, doesn’t exist. Now this may be a case of just not finding the right game, I will admit that. But that isn’t for lack of searching. In the last year alone we have, like a swarm of locusts, moved through Sea of Thieves, Vermintide, Deep Rock Galactic, some Destiny 2, Human Fall Flat, Overcooked 2, Anthem, Diablo III, Warframe, Star Wars Battlefront II, Astroneer, Darksiders Genesis, Elite Dangerous, Gears 5, Halo, Outriders, Remnant: From the Ashes, Star Wars Squadrons, and Wreckfest. Have we played all the way through all of those games? No, absolutely not. But we have given them all a good week, at least. What we keep encountering is, what I perceive as a few things.

First, and most egregious, there seems to be a shortage of games that incorporate cooperative play AND an in-depth way for players of differing skill levels to contribute. Playing with my mother and grandmother means that for most titles we need to give them space to learn the mechanics, grok the loop, and carve out their own niche in the space. Anthem is perhaps the best potential, but as we all know, lacks the coattails to keep us occupied past the campaign. A campaign that we are rapidly approaching the conclusion of, despite myriad progression issues. But jump into Battlefront for 30 minutes and without failure, the moms are complaining that they feel as if they are just cannon fodder, trampled over time and time again without much space to learn and contribute. 

The second pitfall we are actively trying to cross comes from a lack of persistent worlds and content. Sea of Thieves served us extremely well while we were digging through the stories. But those offerings are meager given our ravenous nature and within a month or so, we were looking for anything else to do. 

I understand that our situation is quite a bit different from what most gamers experience. We have a couple of players who are still in many ways cutting their teeth. That is an immediate roadblock for a lot of titles. But the moms aren’t helpless. More of than not they are full capable of holding their own, it’s just a matter of finding that title with a kind enough on-ramp.

Tutorialization is a huge conversation in games. There are so many different examples of good and bad that pointing to any singular example as best is a feckless gesture at best and just plain dumb at worst. This is most apparent in Anthem, a game with a satisfying enough loop and a great dynamic for team contribution. But try to figure out how exactly you can combo with your teammates and the systems are buried under a pile of text and counterintuitive menus that make even the most seasoned gamer roll their eyes and bury the face in their palm. 

Games like Halo and Destiny benefit from the years of FPS that the community at large has become familiar with. Point your gun, shoot at alien. Rinse wash repeat. But how do you tutorialize the loot cycle of Diablo III with two players who have never encountered a similar process? How do you help them navigate the dense menu system over Xbox chat?

The third and final gripe that my Ben and I have is: Why are there so few co-op offerings? Games are a communal endeavor. Playing with friends is paramount to so many studios. After all, make a game playable by more than one person together and you instantly increase your marketability. Why then are so many games only tow or three player co-op? The easy answer for this comes from the reality that game development is hard as fuck. I get that. I think our whole group gets that. Balancing a game so that four people can simultaneously interact with it is HARD. But there are enough games that do it that you start to wonder if Destiny and Gears limited their player cap to three not because they couldn’t swing it technically, but so players didn’t have to find three other friends to play with, just two. It feels like a strategic decision, not a capability roadblock. 

Over the last year, nearly every month, we find ourselves in the same place, asking the same questions. Where is OUR game? Where is the title that will fit us like a glove. I am holding out for the Ascent, the slick isometric shooter destined for Game Pass this summer. It looks like a blast, seems to allow four players to play, and appears to have a scalability in terms of difficulty that our group can mesh with easily. But who knows?

Imagine if Overcooked allowed you to lock in a difficulty setting, but still mix-up the menu. Allowing players to find their comfort zone and live in that pocket. Imagine if Diablo, one of the biggest (at least most recognizable) games in the world, allowed you to set it on beginner mode, allowing you to not worry about the grind and swap loot cycle (This is where I point out that I know that you can set gear to auto-equip, but that only slightly makes things better, especially in a game so dependent on builds). 

Our group is unique, three generations of family scrounging the bins for a game we can all play and enjoy, but the time is rapidly approaching that games are encountered by more and more players with differing skill levels and knowledge bases. 2020 was evidence of this. The adoption rate of games by a public suddenly out of this to do outside of the house was steep. We are only going to see more and more people come to games for release, entertainment and fellowship. Let’s start making games that build in a more comprehensive level of introduction and maintain a more persistent system of making sure differently skilled players have a way to contribute to their groups. 

[bencan-t]

Last night we went to a play with my mother-in-law in NYC. Small theater, 100-150 people. MIL likes getting front-row seats; everyone sitting behind us has to walk in front of us to get to their seats.

This older woman walks by. I don't really notice. This older man walks by. I think, "wow, that dude really looks like Bill Clinton."

Older man is followed by some dudes with earpieces. I turn around to where they're walking. I see the guy who looks like Bill Clinton and the older woman standing together. He doesn't look like Bill Clinton, he IS Bill Clinton, and Hillary.

Patrick Page talks about Shakespeare villains. He talks about Angelo from Measure for Measure. Recites his monologue where he tells Isabella that no one will believe her if she says he solicited sex from her (in exchange for her brother's life).

I wonder, is Bill thinking, reflecting on anything back there, or is he just vibing?

Patrick Page talks about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Are Bill and Hillary thinking fondly on their time as the nation's Power-Couple-in-Chief?

[bartrharvard-blog]

From Around The Web: 20 Awesome Photos Of Concrete Floors Houston

They increase energy to the existing slab due to pressure applied when hooked up. This results in a slab that is more powerful plus much more proof against cracking.

Retaining Wall Cost Tutorial Learn the way A great deal it costs to create a retaining wall. Cost is often determined by the dimensions of the wall, the selected elements, and the amount of labor needed.

An uneven wood floor may be a result of issues along with your subfloor or floor joist, generally indicated by sagging floorboards. These can be harmed whether or not hidden beneath your flooring content, as most are made of plywood that could become warped or unfastened over time.

Use dried manure. Position it over the burn, then damp it. Hold out 24 hours, then peel the manure off the concrete as well as the burn up need to feature it.

Sealing: The Achilles' Heel of concrete floors, particularly in the kitchen, is its porous surface, which is very vulnerable to stains if it's not sealed effectively.

Spray the concrete. Open your garage door if relevant. Start at the end closest into the house and get the job done your way towards the garage doorway or lawn.

Ben has actually been a freelance writer for your previous eight a long time. But ahead of getting a writer, he labored as components engineer and consultant for 20-furthermore many years establishing, testing, and investigating failures of flooring elements.

Due to this, there'll be a niche in between the best in the submit plus the girders. This could bring about them sagging.

Do-it-yourself stained concrete is incredibly reasonably priced. We put in under $200 for a significant area. Test getting tile that affordable! 

Unless of course you want to do that as you need to train yourself so you can be much better, it will make superior perception to only use an expert to help you count on superior effects.

Concrete is extremely challenging and robust — no wonder it’s utilized for streets and driveways! As being a flooring materials, it's got every one of the energy and sturdiness of a highway. You'll be able to’t scratch or dent a concrete floor.

In case you utilised a higher-build coating for gloss or security, then you'll want to be expecting some scratching and have on from the coating, particularly when you might have pets or drag things about the floor. You might even need to interchange a transparent concrete floor coating periodically.

Victoria Redshaw, forecaster and MD of the business, suggests: “Concrete shakes off its unattractive standing due to outstanding improvements and courageous apps by Item Designers. Stay with gentle-to-mid shades (which has a matt complete) and easily think of it as you'd any other neutral

50 to $three.75 for labor. DIY do the job will likely mean repurchasing the resources every time you make a blunder, so your cost for every square foot winds up currently being larger than that of knowledgeable installation, especially if you keep adding layers with the compound to attempt to repair it.

[thesocialbooms-blog]

How To Access Social Media Automation Like An Expert?

You may overhear the very famous quote of the film Spiderman said by Uncle Ben to Peter Parker that “with power comes great responsibility”. Each word of this quote wholly applies to social media automation. Because it is no less than an extreme power that is making people do things with ease and much effortless flow. Agree? But there is a parody though about automation i.e. you succeed in maintaining a genuine vibe online even if you used it recklessly. That’s completely wrong guys!!

Automation is a powerful weapon that can make your business see the light of stardom in completely less time whereas it can also mock your business realness, if not get handled with alertness. So, in this article, we will talk about stuff and things that can guide you to use automation carefully and intelligently for your social media endeavors.

Make use of great automation tools:

This is the foundation and the initial step you should take in order to get everything right in relation to social media automation. Because, if you end-up selecting any random automation tool then would face harsh consequences of it. There is software like Socinator available online that can help you in a biggish way to get everything hunky-dory with respect to your business online. There are tips which you can follow to choose the best tool amongst the stock of numerous. Here are they-

Go with your instinct but be aware of the reality:

It is true that we are living in an era of influencers where we can easily get convinced if somebody says something to use or in short get carried away without much effort. But in case of selecting automation tool, you have to maintain self-perspective because one tool might work for your contemporary businessman but not for yours. As there may be a lot of differences between your business facets and others. Some of them are-

Niche.

Brand equity.

Customer nature.

Targeted audience.

So, things are different for different businesses. Therefore, choose best according to your business, not others. Check whether a tool fulfilling the demands of your business or not then only take the final word.

Price and financial attributes:

Some tools might not get adjusted as per the financial limitation of your business. They may be very expensive for you to afford. So, don’t ever select an automation tool which is not your financial bucket as it can harp your various marketing strategies.

Nature and range of tool:

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many to utter are the most popular social media platforms of today’s times. Not all automation tool work for each of them. Some provide automation aspects for Instagram and some for Facebook and some for others. So, before choosing any software, you have to make sure whether you want to buy a tool like Socinator which is Omni-accessible for multiple social media platforms or someone who is dedicated to single social networking site.

How to automate your social media posts with a human touch?

It is a most trending question of the 21st century as people don’t know how to balance automation facets with human manual touch. Having said that, you can automate social media posting by making use of these worthy methods-

5-3-2 rule:

5 - posts of your social media landscape must be created for your targeted audience but come from other merchants.

3 - posts should be a mainstream idea or reflection of your business. However, not give a feeling of over marketing and advertising.

2 - posts should belong to funny and light-hearted content. So, people can feel deeply connected to your business.

RSS:

As a marker or advertisers or blogger, you definitely have a desire to get great applause and feedback for your content on social media platforms. Right!! You can get it but for that, it is necessary that your content should live on multiple social networking sites. For this, you can make use of this software. It also helps you to maintain a manual vibe while making your content viral.

These are some of the best tips you can follow and make your social media presence look real and not over automated in essence. Social media automation is a boon if get used with all these welfare tactics.

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

Viral Vidly Review And Bonus

Viral Vidly Review - Are you looking for even more knowledge about Viral Vidly? Please read through my straightforward evaluation about it prior to choosing, to evaluate the weak points and also strengths of it. Can it deserve your time and effort and also cash?

Introducing Viral Vidly

Can viral video clips drive targeted website traffic to your website? (Part 2)

BOTTOM LINE: By the end of 2006 it is approximated that greater than 6 billion individuals will certainly be making use of the internet. It took greater than 50 years for tv to get to this factor.

The majority of readers have probably read about the YouTube purchase. After one year in business, they were obtained for $1.65 billion by Google. Starting from no regarding a year earlier, YouTube is now getting more web traffic than MySpace, CNN.com, as well as Ebay.com. This is a testament to the development of Viral Vidly video and also its viral nature.

UTILIZING VIDEO CLIPS TO CREATE CLICKTHROUGHS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

We created a total amount of 28 videos varying in size from 15 seconds to 8 minutes. Each video had a 3-5 second promo at the end of it, specifying a LINK which indicated that there was a web site that might be intriguing or pertinent to the audience.

Videos where put on YouTube and also Google Video Clip, and also where feasible, a link was supplied on the exact same page as the video, which drove web traffic back to the primary web site.

Each of the video clips remained in among these categories:

-- Personal Blog site (worldwide problems, spirituality, present occasions). -- Funny (satires, skits, celeb apology).

All of the video clips we fired were intentionally "inexperienced" in their technique as well as production.

We acquired off-the-shelf video-editing software for a COMPUTER, started shooting, as well as modified all of the videos ourselves. The complete approximated investment for this project (all 28 video clips) was $9,600.

Our intent was not to evaluate the performance of the glossy, high-production videos you might anticipate from an advertising agency. What we intended to comprehend the viral potential of video clips of the kind created by people online.

To provide you a sense of what we did, right here are two of the Viral Vidly videos.

The MEC Qualification Video Clip.

The Ben Harper Apology Video Clip.

Both videos were amusing, as well as more importantly, neither was advertising. There was no sales message, no product placement, no clever segue to a sales pitch on a landing page.

We ran the videos throughout August as well as September of this year and tracked the number of times each video clip was viewed, in addition to clickthroughs to the sites and also membership sign-ups.

What you require to understand: Although the video clips had no promotional message or web content, 1.49% of viewers went on to end up being newsletter clients. In Just 60 Days, our videos were viewed over 324,000 times at no charge to us.

KEY POINT: With no added work or cash spent, we are forecasted to generate 382,444 sights for October, which is greater than we produced in the previous 2 months combined.

To develop a context for these video results, we constructed a contrast chart to see how much it would certainly cost to accomplish the exact same results utilizing Pay Per Click marketing.

These numbers are based upon the very same variety of views, the very same clickthrough rates and the same conversion to customers. When it come to set you back per click, we thought a mid-range price of 30 cents.

What you need to understand: Had we utilized Pay Per Click advertising and marketing to acquire the same variety of brand-new clients, based on a cost-per-click of 30 cents, it would have cost us over $20 per customer.

I'm excited to allow you find out about a brand-new, cloud-based software application'

It's called Viral Vidly, and it's going to make it simpler than ever before for you to get 100% no cost viral traffic.

If you're like the majority of marketing professionals, getting website traffic is less complicated stated than done and also among the biggest reasons you're not making the sort of money you wish to make online ...

... however Viral Vidly will certainly end that trouble for you ... permanently.

This new, cloud-based device leverages Google's love for Live video and puts YOUR video clips on top of the internet search engine and YouTube for viral website traffic that converts ...

... and the web traffic you get is 100% FREE!

... and also do not stress, you do not need to recognize anything regarding live streams, and you don't even need to reveal your face on video camera if you don't wish to.

Viral Vidly Testimonial & Review

Developer: Ali G.

Item: ViralVidly

Launch Day: 2019-Mar-31

Introduce Time: 9:00 EDT

Front-End Rate: $27

Sales Web page: https://www.socialleadfreak.com/viral-vidly-review-from-a-real-user/

Particular niche: Software program

What Is Viral Vidly?

Viral Vidly Is the Very first app that lets You include 100% FREE ads in HIGH web traffic videos with simply a couple of clicks of your mouse.

This will allow you to get viral web traffic, leads and commissions from videos without ever before creating any kind of video yourself and above all - it's 100% FREE.

Viral Vidly Features & Conveniences

Viral Vidly offers you cost-free Viral web traffic

Viral Vidly is 100% novice pleasant

Viral Vidly enables you to function smarter by constructing viral social media sites accounts to break out targeted traffic and transform that traffic into leads and sales

Viral Vidly allows you to obtain all advantages of video traffic, without ever before developing a video on your own or paying for a single advertisement

Viral Vidly provides you a side on the competitors and puts you in a position of authority on YouTube and also in your particular niche.

How Does Viral Vidly Job?

It operates in 3 simple:

Step 1: Locate top videos from YouTube

Enter the keyword phrases and search for YouTube videos currently choose one of the video clips from the listing.

Step 2: Put your heads.

Go into a title, place the video ad or an image include an account with your picture and put some text for audio, pick the amount of times you desire the tab coming inside your video clip brand your video clip at the call-to-action at the watermark.

Action 3: Make a share.

As soon as your video prepares you can upload it from social networks and also obtain all the tape download and also erase your video straight from your dashboard.

My Viral Vidly Experience

I have actually constantly been challenged in making an existence in this extremely affordable affiliate advertising and marketing field. In time it comes to be apparent that video web content has actually come to be a game changer. Among the obstacles with video is that it can commonly be quite costly. A friend informed me about Viral Vidly, I determined to take this program to job.

I took possession of the info consisted of in advertising and marketing this system. It was quite intriguing to note that the programmers guaranteed that the whole system was totally free. According to individuals promoting the system, it would certainly offer me accessibility to high web traffic video clip material. One of the various other advantages was that it would certainly allow me to place complimentary ads to these video clips.

After carrying out the system, my associate advertising cash funnels enhanced at an incredible rate. All of this was feasible because I had the devices to add my associate advertising and marketing web content to high website traffic videos. I took pleasure in the reality that it did not cost me a solitary cent. When there were times that the system was a bit complex, I likewise had the benefit of calling the 24/7 support group.

With every one of my marketing experiences I know if the relevance of producing web content which users locate captivating. This type of product is needed to lure site visitors to click via. It was great to utilize the material which is included with Viral Vidly. The outcomes bore witness that the video clip duplicate was produced by an expert copywriter. This enabled me to develop an efficient cash funnel which brought unexpected monetary rewards in a short area of time.

Come as well as enjoy the benefits of Viral Vidly. It is a system which allows you to insert high-grade affiliate advertising and marketing material in video clips which obtain leading rankings on the major online search engine. You will certainly be able to produce terrific cash money funnels with no cost.

That Should Purchase Viral Vidly?

Anyone who wishes to break out 'viral' traffic while doing the least quantity of work

Any individual fed up with not being able to find out just how to get web traffic, direct exposure, clicks & sales

Anybody that wishes to market or promote anything

Associate marketers and also Certified Public Accountant online marketers

Digital entrepreneur and on the internet marketers

Local consultants as well as offline online marketers

Anyone with a YouTube Channel

Anyone who is ready to start obtaining results with cost-free website traffic as well as videos ... without EVER needing to do any kind of job

Anybody that wants a successful traffic solution handed to them on a silver plate

As well as A LOT MORE ...

Final thought

"It's A Large amount. Should I Spend Today?"

Not just are you obtaining access to Viral Vidly for the best price ever provided, however likewise You're spending entirely without threat. Viral Vidly include a 30-day Money Back Assurance Policy. When you pick Viral Vidly, your complete satisfaction is ensured. If you are not completely satisfied with it for any type of reason within the first 1 month, you're qualified to a complete refund - no question asked. You have actually obtained nothing to lose! What Are You Awaiting? Try It today as well as get The Complying with Incentive Currently!

[degerbils]

Agents of disinformation use anonymous online spaces to seed rumors and fabricated content, hoping to eventually reach professional news outlets. How can journalists protect themselves from being manipulated?

By Claire Wardle

Despite endless headlines, reports and conferences on the topic of information disorder, the global news industry remains woefully unprepared to tackle the increasingly effective and dangerous tactics deployed by those intent on disrupting the public sphere. Journalists often write about the phenomenon at arm’s length, rarely considering how the current environment requires newsrooms to integrate new skills and adapt their routines, standards and ethics in order to prevent deliberate falsehoods and coordinated conspiracy from creeping into the mainstream.

From our work at First Draft over the past few years, our most important takeaway is understanding that many agents of disinformation see coverage by established news outlets as the end-goal. Their tactics center around polluting the information ecosystem by seeding misleading or fabricated content, hoping to catch out journalists who now regularly turn to online sources to inform their newsgathering. Having their deliberate hoax or manufactured rumor featured and amplified by an influential news organization is considered a serious win, but so is finding their work the focus of a debunk. It all amounts to coverage. As Ryan Broderick reported in the aftermath of the ‘MacronLeaks’ data dump on the eve of the French election in May 2017, users on 4chan celebrated when mainstream news outlets began fact-checking the controversy surrounding Macron’s financial affairs, boasting that the debunks were a “form of engagement”. Over the past year we have seen these tactics play out in various regional contexts around the world. The platforms might be different but the techniques are the same.

Drawing on a ‘Platform Migration’ diagram that was first created by Ben Decker, as well as the excellent work of Whitney Philips in her report, Oxygen of Amplification, I am sharing this ‘Trumpet of Amplification’. It is a simplified diagram showing the journey that disinformation often takes, as a way of kick-starting conversations in newsrooms. Disinformation often starts on the anonymous web (platforms like 4chan and Discord), moves into closed or semi-closed groups (Twitter DM groups, Facebook or WhatsApp groups), onto conspiracy communities on Reddit Forums or YouTube channels, and then onto open social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Unfortunately at this point, it often moves into the professional media. This might be when a false piece of information or content is embedded in an article or quoted in a story without adequate verification. But it might also be when a newsroom decides to publish a debunk or expose the primary source of a conspiracy. Either way, the agents of disinformation have won. Amplification, in any form, was their goal in the first place.

Efforts to undermine and explain deliberate falsehoods can be extremely valuable and are almost always in the public interest, but they must be handled with care. All journalists and their editors should now understand the risks of legitimizing a rumor and spreading it further than it might have otherwise traveled, particularly in newsrooms developing misinformation as a ‘beat’ in its own right.

Most newsrooms now have dedicated social media monitoring teams, looking for tips, sources and eyewitness content. The problem is that not all of those teams have had the training to deep dive into the provenance of the posts, images or videos they find online. Where did they originate? What was the motivation of the publisher? Unless journalists are taught to really interrogate a source, they could miss how details first appeared on Discord two weeks previously, or were part of a coordinated campaign on 4chan to amplify certain messages, or emerged as a result of tactics designed in a WhatsApp group, or a narrative honed in conspiracy communities on YouTube.

The news industry is incredibly vulnerable. There are thousands of journalists globally, many of them independently monitoring and posting on social networks every day. Convince one journalist to publish the falsehood or fabricated content, and it gets pushed almost immediately across the wider community (many newsrooms do not check reporting by other journalists or outlets with the same rigor, assuming that thorough vetting has already been completed). This is all happening just as newsrooms are being stripped of resources, but competition for clicks is fiercer than ever. And when many journalists haven’t received the necessary training in the forensic analysis of digital sources or content, it’s easier than ever to be fooled.

The flipside is also becoming increasingly easy. As an agent of disinformation, if you don’t manage to succeed in tricking journalists to reference or link to false information, try getting them to debunk it instead. A debunk is better than nothing. It provides oxygen, and oxygen means more people searching for your strategically crafted keywords online, and more people searching means more people discovering your extended networks, all pushing your ideas, narratives or beliefs. When your audience is connected, simply driving search behavior can open up your world to thousands of new eyeballs.

Doing journalism in an age of disinformation is incredibly hard, and I simply don’t think the news industry has even started grappling with the difficult questions being raised in the current environment. Here are five lessons that I hope can at least act as conversation starters in newsrooms.

1. Be prepared: train your newsrooms in disinformation tactics & techniques

In 2019, make sure your training plans include sessions on digital verification skills, but ensure they’re not just focused on assessing whether something is true or not. Make sure the participants are trained on digital provenance, so they can track where a piece of content originated. Similarly, ensure that your journalists understand how to do this type of work safely. Have they been trained in carrying out work in anonymous spaces online? Do they have high levels of personal digital security, in terms of their privacy settings, use of VPNs, etc.? Does your newsroom have ethics guidelines about sourcing information from closed or anonymous spaces online? Be responsible: Don’t give disinformation additional oxygen. First Draft is expanding its existing verification curriculum to cover more of this information and training in Spring 2019.

2. Be responsible: Don’t give disinformation additional oxygen

Our work suggests that there is a tipping point when it comes to reporting on disinformation. Reporting too early gives unnecessary oxygen to rumors or misleading content that might otherwise fade away. Reporting too late means the falsehood takes hold and there’s really nothing to do to stop it (it becomes a zombie rumor — those that just won’t die).

There is no one tipping point. The tipping point differs by country but is measured when content moves out of a niche community, starts moving at velocity on one platform or crosses onto other platforms. The more time you spend monitoring disinformation, the more the tipping point becomes clearer, which is another reason for newsrooms to take disinformation seriously. It is also a reason to create informal collaborations so newsrooms can compare concerns about coverage decisions. Too often newsrooms report on rumors or campaigns, for fear that they will be “scooped” by other newsrooms, when again, this is exactly what the agents of disinformation are hoping for. Having every newsroom publish a QAnon explainer back in August after people turned up at Trump rallies with Q signs and t-shirts was exactly what the Q community had hoped would happen.

3. Be aware: Understand the implications of a networked audience

This is connected to the point above. Debunking or explaining these conspiracies, falsehoods or rumors, gives them not only legitimacy, but a set of keywords for your audiences to use to search for more information. Even relatively small, disparate communities can appear significant online. Before the internet, such remote communities struggled to connect because it was so difficult to meet face to face. Now such communities can flourish. (For an excellent report into the power of keywords to shape reality, read Francesca Tripodi’s Searching for Alternative Facts).

4. Explain: Don’t act as stenographer

When so many people get their news from just tweets, Facebook posts, as headlines on Google News, or push notifications, the responsibility for how headlines are worded is more important that ever. It doesn’t matter if the 850 word article provides all the context and explanation to debunk or explain why a narrative or claim is false, if the 80 character version of that context is misleading, it’s all for nothing. Academic research shows that simply repeating the falsehood in the headline is problematic. Finding alternative ways to word a headline is difficult. We face this problem frequently at First Draft, but we have to be smarter about the ways we word headlines, tweets and posts.

5. Inoculate: Do more reporting that helps explain the issues that are often subjects of disinformation campaigns.

Rather than simply reacting to the falsehoods when they appear, any reporting that preempts some of the most common and powerful narratives might help inoculate some of the disinformation. From our analysis of information in the lead up to the Brazilian and U.S. midterm elections, we know that the following topics are most common: attempts to undermine the integrity of the election system; attempts to sow hate and division based on misogyny, anti-semitism, islamophobia, and homosexuality; attempts to demonize immigrants; conspiracies about global networks of power.

Reporting in age of disinformation is difficult. Academic research on best practices for writing headlines is still being published and we have yet to reach firm conclusions. Newsrooms are struggling to find money for training. Most senior editors, many of whom developed their journalistic skills before digital, have no idea of the risks faced by their journalists every day. But the decisions being made by newsrooms around the world impact how disinformation spreads. The professional media is a critical part of the information ecosystem, and currently it is vulnerable and being used to spread false and misleading information.

I hope 2019 is the year when newsrooms start discussing how to take concrete actions to fight back, whether that is rolling out a new training course, writing new ethics and standards documents, or simply including a discussion in editorial meetings of the potential impact on the audience of reporting on disinformation.

[seomiamiseo]

How to Optimize for Google's Featured Snippets to Build More Traffic

Posted by AnnSmarty

Have you noticed it's getting harder and harder to build referral traffic from Google?

And it's not just that the competition has got tougher (which it certainly has!).

It's also that Google has moved past its ten blue links and its organic search results are no longer generating as much traffic they used to.

How do you adapt? This article teaches you to optimize your content to one of Google's more recent changes: featured snippets.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box.

Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results.

Here are two studies confirming the claim:

Ben Goodsell reports that the click-through rate (CTR) on a featured page increased from two percent to eight percent once it's placed in an answer box, with revenue from organic traffic increasing by 677%.

Eric Enge highlights a 20–30% increase in traffic for ConfluentForms.com while they held the featured snippet for the query.

Types of featured snippets

There are three major types of featured snippets:

Paragraph (an answer is given in text). It can be a box with text inside or a box with both text and an image inside.

List (an answer is given in a form of a list)

Table (an answer is given in a table)

Here’s an example of paragraph snippet with an image:

According to Getstat, the most popular featured snippet is "paragraph" type:

Featured snippets or answer boxes?

Since we're dealing with a pretty new phenomenon, the terminology is pretty loose. Many people (including myself) are inclined to refer to featured snippets as "answer boxes," obviously because there's an answer presented in a box.

While there's nothing wrong with this terminology, it creates a certain confusion because Google often gives a "quick answer" (a definition, an estimate, etc.) on top without linking to the source:

To avoid confusion, let's stick to the "featured snippet" term whenever there's a URL featured in the box, because these present an extra exposure to the linked site (hence they're important for content publishers):

Do I have a chance to get featured?

According to research by Ahrefs, 99.58% of featured pages already rank in top 10 of Google. So if you are already ranking high for related search queries, you have very good chances to get featured.

On the other hand, Getstat claims that 70% of snippets came from sites outside of the first organic position. So it's required that the page is ranked in top 10, but it's not required to be #1 to be featured.

Unsurprisingly, the most featured site is Wikipedia.org. If there's Wikipedia featured for your search query, it may be extremely hard to beat that — but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Finally, according to the analysis performed in a study, the following types of search queries get featured results most often:

DIY processes

Health

Financial

Mathematical

Requirements

Status

Transitional

Ahrefs' study expands the list of popular topics with their most frequently words that appear in featured snippets:

The following types of search queries usually don't have answer boxes:

Images and videos

Local

Shopping

To sum up the above studies:

You have chances to get featured for the terms your pages are already ranking in top 10. Thus, a big part of being featured is to improve your overall rankings (especially for long-tail informational queries, which are your lower-hanging fruit)

If your niche is DIY, health or finance, you have the highest probability of getting featured

Identify all kinds of opportunities to be featured

Start with good old keyword research

Multiple studies confirm that the majority of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords. In fact, the more words that are typed into a search box, the higher the probability there will be a featured snippet.

It's always a good idea to start with researching your keywords. This case study gives a good step by step keyword research strategy for a blogger, and this one lists major keyword research tools as suggested by experts.

When performing keyword research with featured snippets in mind, note that:

Start with question-type search queries (those containing question words, like “what,” “why,” “how,” etc.) because these are the easiest to identify, but don’t stop there...

Target informational intent, not just questions. While featured snippets aim at answering the user’s question immediately, question-type queries are not the only types that trigger those featured results. According to the aforementioned Ahrefs study, the vast majority of keywords that trigger featured snippets were long-tail queries with no question words in them.

It helps if you use a keyword research tool that shows immediately whether a query triggers featured results. I use Serpstat for my keyword research because it combines keyword research with featured snippet research and lets me see which of my keywords trigger answer boxes:

You can run your competitor in Serpstat and then filter their best-performing queries by the presence of answer boxes:

This is a great overview of your future competition, enabling you to see your competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

Browse Google for more questions

To further explore the topic, be sure to browse Google's own "People also ask" sections whenever you see one in the search results. It provides a huge insight into which questions Google deems related to each topic.

Once you start expanding the questions to see the answers, more and more questions will be added to the bottom of the box:

Identify search queries where you already rank high

Your lowest-hanging fruit is to identify which phrases you already rank highly for. These will be the easiest to get featured for after you optimize for answer boxes (more on this below).

Google Search Console shows which search queries send you clicks. To find that report, click "Search Traffic" and then "Search Analytics."

Check the box to show the position your pages hold for each one and you'll have the ability to see which queries are your top-performing ones:

You can then use the filters to find some question-type queries among those:

Go beyond traditional keyword research tools: Ask people

All the above methods (albeit great) tackle already discovered opportunities: those for which you or your competitors are already ranking high. But how about venturing beyond that? Ask your readers, customers, and followers how they search and which questions they ask.

MyBlogU: Ask people outside your immediate reach

Move away from your target audience and ask random people what questions they have on a specific topic and what would be their concerns. Looking out of the box can always give a fresh perspective.

MyBlogU (disclaimer: I am the founder) is a great way to do that. Just post a new project in the "Brainstorm" section and ask members to contribute their thoughts.

Seed Keywords: Ask your friends and followers

Seed Keywords is a simple tool that allows you to discover related keywords with help from your friends and followers. Simply create a search scenario, share it on social media, and ask your followers to type in the keywords they would use to solve it.

Try not to be too leading with your search scenario. Avoid guiding people to the search phrase you think they should be using.

Here's an example of a scenario:

And here are the suggestions from real people:

Obviously, you can create similar surveys with SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, too.

Monitor questions people ask on Twitter

Another way to discover untapped opportunities is to monitor questions on Twitter. Its search supports the ? search operator that will filter results to those containing a question. Just make sure to put a space between your search term and ?.

I use Cyfe to monitor and archive Twitter results because it provides a minimal dashboard which I can use to monitor an unlimited number of Twitter searches.

Once you lack article ideas, simply log in to Cyfe to view the archive and then proceed to the above keyword research tools to expand on any idea.

I use spreadsheets to organize questions and keyword phrases I discover (see more on this below). Some of these questions may become a whole piece of content, while others will be subsections of broader articles:

I don’t try to analyze search volume to decide whether any of those questions deserve to be covered in a separate article or a subsection. (Based on the Ahrefs research and my own observations, there is no direct correlation between the popularity of the term and whether it will trigger a featured snippet).

Instead, I use my best judgement (based on my niche knowledge and research) as to how much I will be able to tell to answer each particular question. If it’s a lot, I’ll probably turn into a separate article and use keyword research to identify subsections of the future piece.

Optimizing for featured snippets

Start with on-page SEO

There is no magic button or special markup which will make sure your site gets featured. Of course, it's a good idea to start with non-specific SEO best practices, simply because being featured is only possible when you rank high for the query.

Randy Milanovic did a good overview of tactics of making your content findable. Eric Brantner over at Coschedule has put together a very useful SEO checklist, and of course never forget to go through Moz’s SEO guide.

How about structured markup?

Many people would suggest using Schema.org (simply because it's been a "thing" to recommend adding schema for anything and everything) but the aforementioned Ahrefs study shows that there's no correlation between featured results and structured markup.

That being said, the best way to get featured is to provide a better answer. Here are a few actionable tips:

1. Aim at answering each question concisely

My own observation of answer boxes has led me to think that Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph.

The study by AJ Ghergich cites that the average length of a paragraph snippet is 45 words (the maximum is 97 words), so let it be your guideline as to how long each answer should be in order to get featured:

This doesn't mean your articles need to be one paragraph long. On the contrary, these days Google seems to give preference to long-form content (also known as "cornerstone content," which is obviously a better way to describe it because it's not just about length) that's broken into logical subsections and features attention-grabbing images. Even if you don’t believe that cornerstone content receives any special treatment in SERPs, focusing on long articles will help you to cover more related questions within one piece (more on that below).

All you need to do is to adjust your blogging style just a bit:

Ask the question in your article (that may be a subheading)

Immediately follow the question with a one-paragraph answer

Elaborate further in the article

This tactic may also result in higher user retention because it makes any article better structured and thus a much easier read. To quote AJ Ghergich,

When you use data to fuel topic ideation, content creation becomes more about resources and less about brainstorming.

2. Be factual and organize well

Google loves numbers, steps and lists. We've seen this again and again: More often than not, answer boxes will list the actual ingredients, number of steps, time to cook, year and city of birth, etc.

In your paragraph introducing the answer to the question, make sure to list useful numbers and names. Get very factual.

In fact, the aforementioned study by AJ Ghergich concluded that comparison charts and lists are an easier way to get featured because Google loves structured content. In fact, even for branded queries (where a user is obviously researching a particular brand), Google would pick up a table from another site (not the answer from the brand itself) if that other site has a table:

This only shows how much Google loves well-structured, factual, and number-driven content.

There's no specific markup to structure your content. Google seems to pick up <table>, <ol>, and <ul> well and doesn't need any other pointers.

3. Make sure one article answers many similar questions

In their research of featured snippets, Ahrefs found that once a page gets featured, it's likely to get featured in lots of similar queries. This means it should be structured and worded the way it addresses a lot of related questions.

Google is very good at determining synonymic and closely related questions, so should be you. There's no point in creating a separate page answering each specific question.

Creating one solid article addressing many related questions is a much smarter strategy if you aim at getting featured in answer boxes. This leads us to the next tactic:

4. Organize your questions properly

To combine many closely related questions in one article, you need to organize your queries properly. This will also help you structure your content well.

I have a multi-level keyword organization strategy that can be applied here as well:

A generic keyword makes a section or a category of the blog

A more specific search query becomes the title of the article

Even more specific queries determine the subheadings of the article and thus define its structure

There will be multiple queries that are so closely related that they will all go under a single subheading

For example:

Serpstat helps me a lot when it comes to both discovering an article idea and then breaking it into subtopics. Check out its "Questions" section. It will provide hundreds of questions containing your core term and then generate a tag cloud of other popular terms that come up in those questions:

Clicking any word in the tag cloud will filter results down to those questions that only have that word in them. These are subsections for your article:

Here's a good example of how related questions can help you structure the article:

5. Make sure to use eye-grabbing images

Paragraph featured snippets with images are ridiculously eye-catching, even more so than regular featured featured snippets. Honestly, I wasn't able to identify how to add an image so that it's featured. I tried naming it differently and I tried marking it as "featured" in the Wordpress editor. Google seems to pick up a random image from the page without me being able to point it to a better version.

That being said, the only way to influence that is to make sure ALL your in-article images are eye-catching, branded, and annotated well, so that no matter which one Google ends up featuring, it will look nice. Here’s a great selection of Wordpress plugins that will allow you to easily visualize your content (put together graphs, tables, charts, etc.) while working on a piece.

You can use Bannersnack to create eye-catching branded images; I love their image editing functionality. You can quickly create graphics there, then resize them to reuse as banners and social media images and organize all your creatives in folders:

6. Update and re-upload the images (Wordpress)

Wordpress adds dates to image URLs, so even if you update an article with newer information the images can be considered kind of old. I managed to snatch a couple of paragraph featured snippets with images once I started updating my images, too:

7. Monitor how you are doing

Ahrefs lets you monitor which queries your domain is featured for, so keep an eye on these as they grow and new ones appear:

Conclusion

It takes a lot of research and planning and you cannot be sure when you'll see the results (especially if you don't have too many top 10 rankings just yet) but think about this way: Being featured in Google search results is your incentive to work harder on your content. You'll achieve other important goals on your way there:

You'll discover hundreds of new content ideas (and thus will rank for a wider variety of various long-tail keywords)

You'll learn to research each topic more thoroughly (and thus will build more incoming links because people tend to link to indepth articles)

You'll learn to structure your articles better (and thus achieve a lower bounce rate because it will be easier to read your articles)

Have you been featured in Google search results yet? Please share your tips and tricks 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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[localbizlift]

How to Optimize for Google's Featured Snippets to Build More Traffic

Posted by AnnSmarty

Have you noticed it's getting harder and harder to build referral traffic from Google?

And it's not just that the competition has got tougher (which it certainly has!).

It's also that Google has moved past its ten blue links and its organic search results are no longer generating as much traffic they used to.

How do you adapt? This article teaches you to optimize your content to one of Google's more recent changes: featured snippets.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box.

Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results.

Here are two studies confirming the claim:

Ben Goodsell reports that the click-through rate (CTR) on a featured page increased from two percent to eight percent once it's placed in an answer box, with revenue from organic traffic increasing by 677%.

Eric Enge highlights a 20–30% increase in traffic for ConfluentForms.com while they held the featured snippet for the query.

Types of featured snippets

There are three major types of featured snippets:

Paragraph (an answer is given in text). It can be a box with text inside or a box with both text and an image inside.

List (an answer is given in a form of a list)

Table (an answer is given in a table)

Here’s an example of paragraph snippet with an image:

According to Getstat, the most popular featured snippet is "paragraph" type:

Featured snippets or answer boxes?

Since we're dealing with a pretty new phenomenon, the terminology is pretty loose. Many people (including myself) are inclined to refer to featured snippets as "answer boxes," obviously because there's an answer presented in a box.

While there's nothing wrong with this terminology, it creates a certain confusion because Google often gives a "quick answer" (a definition, an estimate, etc.) on top without linking to the source:

To avoid confusion, let's stick to the "featured snippet" term whenever there's a URL featured in the box, because these present an extra exposure to the linked site (hence they're important for content publishers):

Do I have a chance to get featured?

According to research by Ahrefs, 99.58% of featured pages already rank in top 10 of Google. So if you are already ranking high for related search queries, you have very good chances to get featured.

On the other hand, Getstat claims that 70% of snippets came from sites outside of the first organic position. So it's required that the page is ranked in top 10, but it's not required to be #1 to be featured.

Unsurprisingly, the most featured site is Wikipedia.org. If there's Wikipedia featured for your search query, it may be extremely hard to beat that — but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Finally, according to the analysis performed in a study, the following types of search queries get featured results most often:

DIY processes

Health

Financial

Mathematical

Requirements

Status

Transitional

Ahrefs' study expands the list of popular topics with their most frequently words that appear in featured snippets:

The following types of search queries usually don't have answer boxes:

Images and videos

Local

Shopping

To sum up the above studies:

You have chances to get featured for the terms your pages are already ranking in top 10. Thus, a big part of being featured is to improve your overall rankings (especially for long-tail informational queries, which are your lower-hanging fruit)

If your niche is DIY, health or finance, you have the highest probability of getting featured

Identify all kinds of opportunities to be featured

Start with good old keyword research

Multiple studies confirm that the majority of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords. In fact, the more words that are typed into a search box, the higher the probability there will be a featured snippet.

It's always a good idea to start with researching your keywords. This case study gives a good step by step keyword research strategy for a blogger, and this one lists major keyword research tools as suggested by experts.

When performing keyword research with featured snippets in mind, note that:

Start with question-type search queries (those containing question words, like “what,” “why,” “how,” etc.) because these are the easiest to identify, but don’t stop there...

Target informational intent, not just questions. While featured snippets aim at answering the user’s question immediately, question-type queries are not the only types that trigger those featured results. According to the aforementioned Ahrefs study, the vast majority of keywords that trigger featured snippets were long-tail queries with no question words in them.

It helps if you use a keyword research tool that shows immediately whether a query triggers featured results. I use Serpstat for my keyword research because it combines keyword research with featured snippet research and lets me see which of my keywords trigger answer boxes:

You can run your competitor in Serpstat and then filter their best-performing queries by the presence of answer boxes:

This is a great overview of your future competition, enabling you to see your competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

Browse Google for more questions

To further explore the topic, be sure to browse Google's own "People also ask" sections whenever you see one in the search results. It provides a huge insight into which questions Google deems related to each topic.

Once you start expanding the questions to see the answers, more and more questions will be added to the bottom of the box:

Identify search queries where you already rank high

Your lowest-hanging fruit is to identify which phrases you already rank highly for. These will be the easiest to get featured for after you optimize for answer boxes (more on this below).

Google Search Console shows which search queries send you clicks. To find that report, click "Search Traffic" and then "Search Analytics."

Check the box to show the position your pages hold for each one and you'll have the ability to see which queries are your top-performing ones:

You can then use the filters to find some question-type queries among those:

Go beyond traditional keyword research tools: Ask people

All the above methods (albeit great) tackle already discovered opportunities: those for which you or your competitors are already ranking high. But how about venturing beyond that? Ask your readers, customers, and followers how they search and which questions they ask.

MyBlogU: Ask people outside your immediate reach

Move away from your target audience and ask random people what questions they have on a specific topic and what would be their concerns. Looking out of the box can always give a fresh perspective.

MyBlogU (disclaimer: I am the founder) is a great way to do that. Just post a new project in the "Brainstorm" section and ask members to contribute their thoughts.

Seed Keywords: Ask your friends and followers

Seed Keywords is a simple tool that allows you to discover related keywords with help from your friends and followers. Simply create a search scenario, share it on social media, and ask your followers to type in the keywords they would use to solve it.

Try not to be too leading with your search scenario. Avoid guiding people to the search phrase you think they should be using.

Here's an example of a scenario:

And here are the suggestions from real people:

Obviously, you can create similar surveys with SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, too.

Monitor questions people ask on Twitter

Another way to discover untapped opportunities is to monitor questions on Twitter. Its search supports the ? search operator that will filter results to those containing a question. Just make sure to put a space between your search term and ?.

I use Cyfe to monitor and archive Twitter results because it provides a minimal dashboard which I can use to monitor an unlimited number of Twitter searches.

Once you lack article ideas, simply log in to Cyfe to view the archive and then proceed to the above keyword research tools to expand on any idea.

I use spreadsheets to organize questions and keyword phrases I discover (see more on this below). Some of these questions may become a whole piece of content, while others will be subsections of broader articles:

I don’t try to analyze search volume to decide whether any of those questions deserve to be covered in a separate article or a subsection. (Based on the Ahrefs research and my own observations, there is no direct correlation between the popularity of the term and whether it will trigger a featured snippet).

Instead, I use my best judgement (based on my niche knowledge and research) as to how much I will be able to tell to answer each particular question. If it’s a lot, I’ll probably turn into a separate article and use keyword research to identify subsections of the future piece.

Optimizing for featured snippets

Start with on-page SEO

There is no magic button or special markup which will make sure your site gets featured. Of course, it's a good idea to start with non-specific SEO best practices, simply because being featured is only possible when you rank high for the query.

Randy Milanovic did a good overview of tactics of making your content findable. Eric Brantner over at Coschedule has put together a very useful SEO checklist, and of course never forget to go through Moz’s SEO guide.

How about structured markup?

Many people would suggest using Schema.org (simply because it's been a "thing" to recommend adding schema for anything and everything) but the aforementioned Ahrefs study shows that there's no correlation between featured results and structured markup.

That being said, the best way to get featured is to provide a better answer. Here are a few actionable tips:

1. Aim at answering each question concisely

My own observation of answer boxes has led me to think that Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph.

The study by AJ Ghergich cites that the average length of a paragraph snippet is 45 words (the maximum is 97 words), so let it be your guideline as to how long each answer should be in order to get featured:

This doesn't mean your articles need to be one paragraph long. On the contrary, these days Google seems to give preference to long-form content (also known as "cornerstone content," which is obviously a better way to describe it because it's not just about length) that's broken into logical subsections and features attention-grabbing images. Even if you don’t believe that cornerstone content receives any special treatment in SERPs, focusing on long articles will help you to cover more related questions within one piece (more on that below).

All you need to do is to adjust your blogging style just a bit:

Ask the question in your article (that may be a subheading)

Immediately follow the question with a one-paragraph answer

Elaborate further in the article

This tactic may also result in higher user retention because it makes any article better structured and thus a much easier read. To quote AJ Ghergich,

When you use data to fuel topic ideation, content creation becomes more about resources and less about brainstorming.

2. Be factual and organize well

Google loves numbers, steps and lists. We've seen this again and again: More often than not, answer boxes will list the actual ingredients, number of steps, time to cook, year and city of birth, etc.

In your paragraph introducing the answer to the question, make sure to list useful numbers and names. Get very factual.

In fact, the aforementioned study by AJ Ghergich concluded that comparison charts and lists are an easier way to get featured because Google loves structured content. In fact, even for branded queries (where a user is obviously researching a particular brand), Google would pick up a table from another site (not the answer from the brand itself) if that other site has a table:

This only shows how much Google loves well-structured, factual, and number-driven content.

There's no specific markup to structure your content. Google seems to pick up <table>, <ol>, and <ul> well and doesn't need any other pointers.

3. Make sure one article answers many similar questions

In their research of featured snippets, Ahrefs found that once a page gets featured, it's likely to get featured in lots of similar queries. This means it should be structured and worded the way it addresses a lot of related questions.

Google is very good at determining synonymic and closely related questions, so should be you. There's no point in creating a separate page answering each specific question.

Creating one solid article addressing many related questions is a much smarter strategy if you aim at getting featured in answer boxes. This leads us to the next tactic:

4. Organize your questions properly

To combine many closely related questions in one article, you need to organize your queries properly. This will also help you structure your content well.

I have a multi-level keyword organization strategy that can be applied here as well:

A generic keyword makes a section or a category of the blog

A more specific search query becomes the title of the article

Even more specific queries determine the subheadings of the article and thus define its structure

There will be multiple queries that are so closely related that they will all go under a single subheading

For example:

Serpstat helps me a lot when it comes to both discovering an article idea and then breaking it into subtopics. Check out its "Questions" section. It will provide hundreds of questions containing your core term and then generate a tag cloud of other popular terms that come up in those questions:

Clicking any word in the tag cloud will filter results down to those questions that only have that word in them. These are subsections for your article:

Here's a good example of how related questions can help you structure the article:

5. Make sure to use eye-grabbing images

Paragraph featured snippets with images are ridiculously eye-catching, even more so than regular featured featured snippets. Honestly, I wasn't able to identify how to add an image so that it's featured. I tried naming it differently and I tried marking it as "featured" in the Wordpress editor. Google seems to pick up a random image from the page without me being able to point it to a better version.

That being said, the only way to influence that is to make sure ALL your in-article images are eye-catching, branded, and annotated well, so that no matter which one Google ends up featuring, it will look nice. Here’s a great selection of Wordpress plugins that will allow you t

[dentalimplant0]

How to Optimize for Google's Featured Snippets to Build More Traffic

Posted by AnnSmarty

Have you noticed it's getting harder and harder to build referral traffic from Google?

And it's not just that the competition has got tougher (which it certainly has!).

It's also that Google has moved past its ten blue links and its organic search results are no longer generating as much traffic they used to.

How do you adapt? This article teaches you to optimize your content to one of Google's more recent changes: featured snippets.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box.

Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results.

Here are two studies confirming the claim:

Ben Goodsell reports that the click-through rate (CTR) on a featured page increased from two percent to eight percent once it's placed in an answer box, with revenue from organic traffic increasing by 677%.

Eric Enge highlights a 20–30% increase in traffic for ConfluentForms.com while they held the featured snippet for the query.

Types of featured snippets

There are three major types of featured snippets:

Paragraph (an answer is given in text). It can be a box with text inside or a box with both text and an image inside.

List (an answer is given in a form of a list)

Table (an answer is given in a table)

Here’s an example of paragraph snippet with an image:

According to Getstat, the most popular featured snippet is "paragraph" type:

Featured snippets or answer boxes?

Since we're dealing with a pretty new phenomenon, the terminology is pretty loose. Many people (including myself) are inclined to refer to featured snippets as "answer boxes," obviously because there's an answer presented in a box.

While there's nothing wrong with this terminology, it creates a certain confusion because Google often gives a "quick answer" (a definition, an estimate, etc.) on top without linking to the source:

To avoid confusion, let's stick to the "featured snippet" term whenever there's a URL featured in the box, because these present an extra exposure to the linked site (hence they're important for content publishers):

Do I have a chance to get featured?

According to research by Ahrefs, 99.58% of featured pages already rank in top 10 of Google. So if you are already ranking high for related search queries, you have very good chances to get featured.

On the other hand, Getstat claims that 70% of snippets came from sites outside of the first organic position. So it's required that the page is ranked in top 10, but it's not required to be #1 to be featured.

Unsurprisingly, the most featured site is Wikipedia.org. If there's Wikipedia featured for your search query, it may be extremely hard to beat that — but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Finally, according to the analysis performed in a study, the following types of search queries get featured results most often:

DIY processes

Health

Financial

Mathematical

Requirements

Status

Transitional

Ahrefs' study expands the list of popular topics with their most frequently words that appear in featured snippets:

The following types of search queries usually don't have answer boxes:

Images and videos

Local

Shopping

To sum up the above studies:

You have chances to get featured for the terms your pages are already ranking in top 10. Thus, a big part of being featured is to improve your overall rankings (especially for long-tail informational queries, which are your lower-hanging fruit)

If your niche is DIY, health or finance, you have the highest probability of getting featured

Identify all kinds of opportunities to be featured

Start with good old keyword research

Multiple studies confirm that the majority of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords. In fact, the more words that are typed into a search box, the higher the probability there will be a featured snippet.

It's always a good idea to start with researching your keywords. This case study gives a good step by step keyword research strategy for a blogger, and this one lists major keyword research tools as suggested by experts.

When performing keyword research with featured snippets in mind, note that:

Start with question-type search queries (those containing question words, like “what,” “why,” “how,” etc.) because these are the easiest to identify, but don’t stop there...

Target informational intent, not just questions. While featured snippets aim at answering the user’s question immediately, question-type queries are not the only types that trigger those featured results. According to the aforementioned Ahrefs study, the vast majority of keywords that trigger featured snippets were long-tail queries with no question words in them.

It helps if you use a keyword research tool that shows immediately whether a query triggers featured results. I use Serpstat for my keyword research because it combines keyword research with featured snippet research and lets me see which of my keywords trigger answer boxes:

You can run your competitor in Serpstat and then filter their best-performing queries by the presence of answer boxes:

This is a great overview of your future competition, enabling you to see your competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

Browse Google for more questions

To further explore the topic, be sure to browse Google's own "People also ask" sections whenever you see one in the search results. It provides a huge insight into which questions Google deems related to each topic.

Once you start expanding the questions to see the answers, more and more questions will be added to the bottom of the box:

Identify search queries where you already rank high

Your lowest-hanging fruit is to identify which phrases you already rank highly for. These will be the easiest to get featured for after you optimize for answer boxes (more on this below).

Google Search Console shows which search queries send you clicks. To find that report, click "Search Traffic" and then "Search Analytics."

Check the box to show the position your pages hold for each one and you'll have the ability to see which queries are your top-performing ones:

You can then use the filters to find some question-type queries among those:

Go beyond traditional keyword research tools: Ask people

All the above methods (albeit great) tackle already discovered opportunities: those for which you or your competitors are already ranking high. But how about venturing beyond that? Ask your readers, customers, and followers how they search and which questions they ask.

MyBlogU: Ask people outside your immediate reach

Move away from your target audience and ask random people what questions they have on a specific topic and what would be their concerns. Looking out of the box can always give a fresh perspective.

MyBlogU (disclaimer: I am the founder) is a great way to do that. Just post a new project in the "Brainstorm" section and ask members to contribute their thoughts.

Seed Keywords: Ask your friends and followers

Seed Keywords is a simple tool that allows you to discover related keywords with help from your friends and followers. Simply create a search scenario, share it on social media, and ask your followers to type in the keywords they would use to solve it.

Try not to be too leading with your search scenario. Avoid guiding people to the search phrase you think they should be using.

Here's an example of a scenario:

And here are the suggestions from real people:

Obviously, you can create similar surveys with SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, too.

Monitor questions people ask on Twitter

Another way to discover untapped opportunities is to monitor questions on Twitter. Its search supports the ? search operator that will filter results to those containing a question. Just make sure to put a space between your search term and ?.

I use Cyfe to monitor and archive Twitter results because it provides a minimal dashboard which I can use to monitor an unlimited number of Twitter searches.

Once you lack article ideas, simply log in to Cyfe to view the archive and then proceed to the above keyword research tools to expand on any idea.

I use spreadsheets to organize questions and keyword phrases I discover (see more on this below). Some of these questions may become a whole piece of content, while others will be subsections of broader articles:

I don’t try to analyze search volume to decide whether any of those questions deserve to be covered in a separate article or a subsection. (Based on the Ahrefs research and my own observations, there is no direct correlation between the popularity of the term and whether it will trigger a featured snippet).

Instead, I use my best judgement (based on my niche knowledge and research) as to how much I will be able to tell to answer each particular question. If it’s a lot, I’ll probably turn into a separate article and use keyword research to identify subsections of the future piece.

Optimizing for featured snippets

Start with on-page SEO

There is no magic button or special markup which will make sure your site gets featured. Of course, it's a good idea to start with non-specific SEO best practices, simply because being featured is only possible when you rank high for the query.

Randy Milanovic did a good overview of tactics of making your content findable. Eric Brantner over at Coschedule has put together a very useful SEO checklist, and of course never forget to go through Moz’s SEO guide.

How about structured markup?

Many people would suggest using Schema.org (simply because it's been a "thing" to recommend adding schema for anything and everything) but the aforementioned Ahrefs study shows that there's no correlation between featured results and structured markup.

That being said, the best way to get featured is to provide a better answer. Here are a few actionable tips:

1. Aim at answering each question concisely

My own observation of answer boxes has led me to think that Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph.

The study by AJ Ghergich cites that the average length of a paragraph snippet is 45 words (the maximum is 97 words), so let it be your guideline as to how long each answer should be in order to get featured:

This doesn't mean your articles need to be one paragraph long. On the contrary, these days Google seems to give preference to long-form content (also known as "cornerstone content," which is obviously a better way to describe it because it's not just about length) that's broken into logical subsections and features attention-grabbing images. Even if you don’t believe that cornerstone content receives any special treatment in SERPs, focusing on long articles will help you to cover more related questions within one piece (more on that below).

All you need to do is to adjust your blogging style just a bit:

Ask the question in your article (that may be a subheading)

Immediately follow the question with a one-paragraph answer

Elaborate further in the article

This tactic may also result in higher user retention because it makes any article better structured and thus a much easier read. To quote AJ Ghergich,

When you use data to fuel topic ideation, content creation becomes more about resources and less about brainstorming.

2. Be factual and organize well

Google loves numbers, steps and lists. We've seen this again and again: More often than not, answer boxes will list the actual ingredients, number of steps, time to cook, year and city of birth, etc.

In your paragraph introducing the answer to the question, make sure to list useful numbers and names. Get very factual.

In fact, the aforementioned study by AJ Ghergich concluded that comparison charts and lists are an easier way to get featured because Google loves structured content. In fact, even for branded queries (where a user is obviously researching a particular brand), Google would pick up a table from another site (not the answer from the brand itself) if that other site has a table:

This only shows how much Google loves well-structured, factual, and number-driven content.

There's no specific markup to structure your content. Google seems to pick up <table>, <ol>, and <ul> well and doesn't need any other pointers.

3. Make sure one article answers many similar questions

In their research of featured snippets, Ahrefs found that once a page gets featured, it's likely to get featured in lots of similar queries. This means it should be structured and worded the way it addresses a lot of related questions.

Google is very good at determining synonymic and closely related questions, so should be you. There's no point in creating a separate page answering each specific question.

Creating one solid article addressing many related questions is a much smarter strategy if you aim at getting featured in answer boxes. This leads us to the next tactic:

4. Organize your questions properly

To combine many closely related questions in one article, you need to organize your queries properly. This will also help you structure your content well.

I have a multi-level keyword organization strategy that can be applied here as well:

A generic keyword makes a section or a category of the blog

A more specific search query becomes the title of the article

Even more specific queries determine the subheadings of the article and thus define its structure

There will be multiple queries that are so closely related that they will all go under a single subheading

For example:

Serpstat helps me a lot when it comes to both discovering an article idea and then breaking it into subtopics. Check out its "Questions" section. It will provide hundreds of questions containing your core term and then generate a tag cloud of other popular terms that come up in those questions:

Clicking any word in the tag cloud will filter results down to those questions that only have that word in them. These are subsections for your article:

Here's a good example of how related questions can help you structure the article:

5. Make sure to use eye-grabbing images

Paragraph featured snippets with images are ridiculously eye-catching, even more so than regular featured featured snippets. Honestly, I wasn't able to identify how to add an image so that it's featured. I tried naming it differently and I tried marking it as "featured" in the Wordpress editor. Google seems to pick up a random image from the page without me being able to point it to a better version.

That being said, the only way to influence that is to make sure ALL your in-article images are eye-catching, branded, and annotated well, so that no matter which one Google ends up featuring, it will look nice. Here’s a great selection of Wordpress plugins that will allow you to easily visualize your content (put together graphs, tables, charts, etc.) while working on a piece.

You can use Bannersnack to create eye-catching branded images; I love their image editing functionality. You can quickly create graphics there, then resize them to reuse as banners and social media images and organize all your creatives in folders:

6. Update and re-upload the images (Wordpress)

Wordpress adds dates to image URLs, so even if you update an article with newer information the images can be considered kind of old. I managed to snatch a couple of paragraph featured snippets with images once I started updating my images, too:

7. Monitor how you are doing

Ahrefs lets you monitor which queries your domain is featured for, so keep an eye on these as they grow and new ones appear:

Conclusion

It takes a lot of research and planning and you cannot be sure when you'll see the results (especially if you don't have too many top 10 rankings just yet) but think about this way: Being featured in Google search results is your incentive to work harder on your content. You'll achieve other important goals on your way there:

You'll discover hundreds of new content ideas (and thus will rank for a wider variety of various long-tail keywords)

You'll learn to research each topic more thoroughly (and thus will build more incoming links because people tend to link to indepth articles)

You'll learn to structure your articles better (and thus achieve a lower bounce rate because it will be easier to read your articles)

Have you been featured in Google search results yet? Please share your tips and tricks 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 http://dentistry01.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-to-optimize-for-googles-featured.html

[raymondcastleberry]

How to Optimize for Google's Featured Snippets to Build More Traffic

Posted by AnnSmarty

Have you noticed it's getting harder and harder to build referral traffic from Google?

And it's not just that the competition has got tougher (which it certainly has!).

It's also that Google has moved past its ten blue links and its organic search results are no longer generating as much traffic they used to.

How do you adapt? This article teaches you to optimize your content to one of Google's more recent changes: featured snippets.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box.

Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results.

Here are two studies confirming the claim:

Ben Goodsell reports that the click-through rate (CTR) on a featured page increased from two percent to eight percent once it's placed in an answer box, with revenue from organic traffic increasing by 677%.

Eric Enge highlights a 20–30% increase in traffic for ConfluentForms.com while they held the featured snippet for the query.

Types of featured snippets

There are three major types of featured snippets:

Paragraph (an answer is given in text). It can be a box with text inside or a box with both text and an image inside.

List (an answer is given in a form of a list)

Table (an answer is given in a table)

Here’s an example of paragraph snippet with an image:

According to Getstat, the most popular featured snippet is "paragraph" type:

Featured snippets or answer boxes?

Since we're dealing with a pretty new phenomenon, the terminology is pretty loose. Many people (including myself) are inclined to refer to featured snippets as "answer boxes," obviously because there's an answer presented in a box.

While there's nothing wrong with this terminology, it creates a certain confusion because Google often gives a "quick answer" (a definition, an estimate, etc.) on top without linking to the source:

To avoid confusion, let's stick to the "featured snippet" term whenever there's a URL featured in the box, because these present an extra exposure to the linked site (hence they're important for content publishers):

Do I have a chance to get featured?

According to research by Ahrefs, 99.58% of featured pages already rank in top 10 of Google. So if you are already ranking high for related search queries, you have very good chances to get featured.

On the other hand, Getstat claims that 70% of snippets came from sites outside of the first organic position. So it's required that the page is ranked in top 10, but it's not required to be #1 to be featured.

Unsurprisingly, the most featured site is Wikipedia.org. If there's Wikipedia featured for your search query, it may be extremely hard to beat that — but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Finally, according to the analysis performed in a study, the following types of search queries get featured results most often:

DIY processes

Health

Financial

Mathematical

Requirements

Status

Transitional

Ahrefs' study expands the list of popular topics with their most frequently words that appear in featured snippets:

The following types of search queries usually don't have answer boxes:

Images and videos

Local

Shopping

To sum up the above studies:

You have chances to get featured for the terms your pages are already ranking in top 10. Thus, a big part of being featured is to improve your overall rankings (especially for long-tail informational queries, which are your lower-hanging fruit)

If your niche is DIY, health or finance, you have the highest probability of getting featured

Identify all kinds of opportunities to be featured

Start with good old keyword research

Multiple studies confirm that the majority of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords. In fact, the more words that are typed into a search box, the higher the probability there will be a featured snippet.

It's always a good idea to start with researching your keywords. This case study gives a good step by step keyword research strategy for a blogger, and this one lists major keyword research tools as suggested by experts.

When performing keyword research with featured snippets in mind, note that:

Start with question-type search queries (those containing question words, like “what,” “why,” “how,” etc.) because these are the easiest to identify, but don’t stop there...

Target informational intent, not just questions. While featured snippets aim at answering the user’s question immediately, question-type queries are not the only types that trigger those featured results. According to the aforementioned Ahrefs study, the vast majority of keywords that trigger featured snippets were long-tail queries with no question words in them.

It helps if you use a keyword research tool that shows immediately whether a query triggers featured results. I use Serpstat for my keyword research because it combines keyword research with featured snippet research and lets me see which of my keywords trigger answer boxes:

You can run your competitor in Serpstat and then filter their best-performing queries by the presence of answer boxes:

This is a great overview of your future competition, enabling you to see your competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

Browse Google for more questions

To further explore the topic, be sure to browse Google's own "People also ask" sections whenever you see one in the search results. It provides a huge insight into which questions Google deems related to each topic.

Once you start expanding the questions to see the answers, more and more questions will be added to the bottom of the box:

Identify search queries where you already rank high

Your lowest-hanging fruit is to identify which phrases you already rank highly for. These will be the easiest to get featured for after you optimize for answer boxes (more on this below).

Google Search Console shows which search queries send you clicks. To find that report, click "Search Traffic" and then "Search Analytics."

Check the box to show the position your pages hold for each one and you'll have the ability to see which queries are your top-performing ones:

You can then use the filters to find some question-type queries among those:

Go beyond traditional keyword research tools: Ask people

All the above methods (albeit great) tackle already discovered opportunities: those for which you or your competitors are already ranking high. But how about venturing beyond that? Ask your readers, customers, and followers how they search and which questions they ask.

MyBlogU: Ask people outside your immediate reach

Move away from your target audience and ask random people what questions they have on a specific topic and what would be their concerns. Looking out of the box can always give a fresh perspective.

MyBlogU (disclaimer: I am the founder) is a great way to do that. Just post a new project in the "Brainstorm" section and ask members to contribute their thoughts.

Seed Keywords: Ask your friends and followers

Seed Keywords is a simple tool that allows you to discover related keywords with help from your friends and followers. Simply create a search scenario, share it on social media, and ask your followers to type in the keywords they would use to solve it.

Try not to be too leading with your search scenario. Avoid guiding people to the search phrase you think they should be using.

Here's an example of a scenario:

And here are the suggestions from real people:

Obviously, you can create similar surveys with SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, too.

Monitor questions people ask on Twitter

Another way to discover untapped opportunities is to monitor questions on Twitter. Its search supports the ? search operator that will filter results to those containing a question. Just make sure to put a space between your search term and ?.

I use Cyfe to monitor and archive Twitter results because it provides a minimal dashboard which I can use to monitor an unlimited number of Twitter searches.

Once you lack article ideas, simply log in to Cyfe to view the archive and then proceed to the above keyword research tools to expand on any idea.

I use spreadsheets to organize questions and keyword phrases I discover (see more on this below). Some of these questions may become a whole piece of content, while others will be subsections of broader articles:

I don’t try to analyze search volume to decide whether any of those questions deserve to be covered in a separate article or a subsection. (Based on the Ahrefs research and my own observations, there is no direct correlation between the popularity of the term and whether it will trigger a featured snippet).

Instead, I use my best judgement (based on my niche knowledge and research) as to how much I will be able to tell to answer each particular question. If it’s a lot, I’ll probably turn into a separate article and use keyword research to identify subsections of the future piece.

Optimizing for featured snippets

Start with on-page SEO

There is no magic button or special markup which will make sure your site gets featured. Of course, it's a good idea to start with non-specific SEO best practices, simply because being featured is only possible when you rank high for the query.

Randy Milanovic did a good overview of tactics of making your content findable. Eric Brantner over at Coschedule has put together a very useful SEO checklist, and of course never forget to go through Moz’s SEO guide.

How about structured markup?

Many people would suggest using Schema.org (simply because it's been a "thing" to recommend adding schema for anything and everything) but the aforementioned Ahrefs study shows that there's no correlation between featured results and structured markup.

That being said, the best way to get featured is to provide a better answer. Here are a few actionable tips:

1. Aim at answering each question concisely

My own observation of answer boxes has led me to think that Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph.

The study by AJ Ghergich cites that the average length of a paragraph snippet is 45 words (the maximum is 97 words), so let it be your guideline as to how long each answer should be in order to get featured:

This doesn't mean your articles need to be one paragraph long. On the contrary, these days Google seems to give preference to long-form content (also known as "cornerstone content," which is obviously a better way to describe it because it's not just about length) that's broken into logical subsections and features attention-grabbing images. Even if you don’t believe that cornerstone content receives any special treatment in SERPs, focusing on long articles will help you to cover more related questions within one piece (more on that below).

All you need to do is to adjust your blogging style just a bit:

Ask the question in your article (that may be a subheading)

Immediately follow the question with a one-paragraph answer

Elaborate further in the article

This tactic may also result in higher user retention because it makes any article better structured and thus a much easier read. To quote AJ Ghergich,

When you use data to fuel topic ideation, content creation becomes more about resources and less about brainstorming.

2. Be factual and organize well

Google loves numbers, steps and lists. We've seen this again and again: More often than not, answer boxes will list the actual ingredients, number of steps, time to cook, year and city of birth, etc.

In your paragraph introducing the answer to the question, make sure to list useful numbers and names. Get very factual.

In fact, the aforementioned study by AJ Ghergich concluded that comparison charts and lists are an easier way to get featured because Google loves structured content. In fact, even for branded queries (where a user is obviously researching a particular brand), Google would pick up a table from another site (not the answer from the brand itself) if that other site has a table:

This only shows how much Google loves well-structured, factual, and number-driven content.

There's no specific markup to structure your content. Google seems to pick up <table>, <ol>, and <ul> well and doesn't need any other pointers.

3. Make sure one article answers many similar questions

In their research of featured snippets, Ahrefs found that once a page gets featured, it's likely to get featured in lots of similar queries. This means it should be structured and worded the way it addresses a lot of related questions.

Google is very good at determining synonymic and closely related questions, so should be you. There's no point in creating a separate page answering each specific question.

Creating one solid article addressing many related questions is a much smarter strategy if you aim at getting featured in answer boxes. This leads us to the next tactic:

4. Organize your questions properly

To combine many closely related questions in one article, you need to organize your queries properly. This will also help you structure your content well.

I have a multi-level keyword organization strategy that can be applied here as well:

A generic keyword makes a section or a category of the blog

A more specific search query becomes the title of the article

Even more specific queries determine the subheadings of the article and thus define its structure

There will be multiple queries that are so closely related that they will all go under a single subheading

For example:

Serpstat helps me a lot when it comes to both discovering an article idea and then breaking it into subtopics. Check out its "Questions" section. It will provide hundreds of questions containing your core term and then generate a tag cloud of other popular terms that come up in those questions:

Clicking any word in the tag cloud will filter results down to those questions that only have that word in them. These are subsections for your article:

Here's a good example of how related questions can help you structure the article:

5. Make sure to use eye-grabbing images

Paragraph featured snippets with images are ridiculously eye-catching, even more so than regular featured featured snippets. Honestly, I wasn't able to identify how to add an image so that it's featured. I tried naming it differently and I tried marking it as "featured" in the Wordpress editor. Google seems to pick up a random image from the page without me being able to point it to a better version.

That being said, the only way to influence that is to make sure ALL your in-article images are eye-catching, branded, and annotated well, so that no matter which one Google ends up featuring, it will look nice. Here’s a great selection of Wordpress plugins that will allow you to easily visualize your content (put together graphs, tables, charts, etc.) while working on a piece.

You can use Bannersnack to create eye-catching branded images; I love their image editing functionality. You can quickly create graphics there, then resize them to reuse as banners and social media images and organize all your creatives in folders:

6. Update and re-upload the images (Wordpress)

Wordpress adds dates to image URLs, so even if you update an article with newer information the images can be considered kind of old. I managed to snatch a couple of paragraph featured snippets with images once I started updating my images, too:

7. Monitor how you are doing

Ahrefs lets you monitor which queries your domain is featured for, so keep an eye on these as they grow and new ones appear:

Conclusion

It takes a lot of research and planning and you cannot be sure when you'll see the results (especially if you don't have too many top 10 rankings just yet) but think about this way: Being featured in Google search results is your incentive to work harder on your content. You'll achieve other important goals on your way there:

You'll discover hundreds of new content ideas (and thus will rank for a wider variety of various long-tail keywords)

You'll learn to research each topic more thoroughly (and thus will build more incoming links because people tend to link to indepth articles)

You'll learn to structure your articles better (and thus achieve a lower bounce rate because it will be easier to read your articles)

Have you been featured in Google search results yet? Please share your tips and tricks 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 Raymond Castleberry Blog http://raymondcastleberry.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-to-optimize-for-googles-featured.html via IFTTT

[patrickrandolph33]

How to Optimize for Google's Featured Snippets to Build More Traffic

Posted by AnnSmarty

Have you noticed it's getting harder and harder to build referral traffic from Google?

And it's not just that the competition has got tougher (which it certainly has!).

It's also that Google has moved past its ten blue links and its organic search results are no longer generating as much traffic they used to.

How do you adapt? This article teaches you to optimize your content to one of Google's more recent changes: featured snippets.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box.

Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results.

Here are two studies confirming the claim:

Ben Goodsell reports that the click-through rate (CTR) on a featured page increased from two percent to eight percent once it's placed in an answer box, with revenue from organic traffic increasing by 677%.

Eric Enge highlights a 20–30% increase in traffic for ConfluentForms.com while they held the featured snippet for the query.

Types of featured snippets

There are three major types of featured snippets:

Paragraph (an answer is given in text). It can be a box with text inside or a box with both text and an image inside.

List (an answer is given in a form of a list)

Table (an answer is given in a table)

Here’s an example of paragraph snippet with an image:

According to Getstat, the most popular featured snippet is "paragraph" type:

Featured snippets or answer boxes?

Since we're dealing with a pretty new phenomenon, the terminology is pretty loose. Many people (including myself) are inclined to refer to featured snippets as "answer boxes," obviously because there's an answer presented in a box.

While there's nothing wrong with this terminology, it creates a certain confusion because Google often gives a "quick answer" (a definition, an estimate, etc.) on top without linking to the source:

To avoid confusion, let's stick to the "featured snippet" term whenever there's a URL featured in the box, because these present an extra exposure to the linked site (hence they're important for content publishers):

Do I have a chance to get featured?

According to research by Ahrefs, 99.58% of featured pages already rank in top 10 of Google. So if you are already ranking high for related search queries, you have very good chances to get featured.

On the other hand, Getstat claims that 70% of snippets came from sites outside of the first organic position. So it's required that the page is ranked in top 10, but it's not required to be #1 to be featured.

Unsurprisingly, the most featured site is Wikipedia.org. If there's Wikipedia featured for your search query, it may be extremely hard to beat that — but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Finally, according to the analysis performed in a study, the following types of search queries get featured results most often:

DIY processes

Health

Financial

Mathematical

Requirements

Status

Transitional

Ahrefs' study expands the list of popular topics with their most frequently words that appear in featured snippets:

The following types of search queries usually don't have answer boxes:

Images and videos

Local

Shopping

To sum up the above studies:

You have chances to get featured for the terms your pages are already ranking in top 10. Thus, a big part of being featured is to improve your overall rankings (especially for long-tail informational queries, which are your lower-hanging fruit)

If your niche is DIY, health or finance, you have the highest probability of getting featured

Identify all kinds of opportunities to be featured

Start with good old keyword research

Multiple studies confirm that the majority of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords. In fact, the more words that are typed into a search box, the higher the probability there will be a featured snippet.

It's always a good idea to start with researching your keywords. This case study gives a good step by step keyword research strategy for a blogger, and this one lists major keyword research tools as suggested by experts.

When performing keyword research with featured snippets in mind, note that:

Start with question-type search queries (those containing question words, like “what,” “why,” “how,” etc.) because these are the easiest to identify, but don’t stop there...

Target informational intent, not just questions. While featured snippets aim at answering the user’s question immediately, question-type queries are not the only types that trigger those featured results. According to the aforementioned Ahrefs study, the vast majority of keywords that trigger featured snippets were long-tail queries with no question words in them.

It helps if you use a keyword research tool that shows immediately whether a query triggers featured results. I use Serpstat for my keyword research because it combines keyword research with featured snippet research and lets me see which of my keywords trigger answer boxes:

You can run your competitor in Serpstat and then filter their best-performing queries by the presence of answer boxes:

This is a great overview of your future competition, enabling you to see your competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

Browse Google for more questions

To further explore the topic, be sure to browse Google's own "People also ask" sections whenever you see one in the search results. It provides a huge insight into which questions Google deems related to each topic.

Once you start expanding the questions to see the answers, more and more questions will be added to the bottom of the box:

Identify search queries where you already rank high

Your lowest-hanging fruit is to identify which phrases you already rank highly for. These will be the easiest to get featured for after you optimize for answer boxes (more on this below).

Google Search Console shows which search queries send you clicks. To find that report, click "Search Traffic" and then "Search Analytics."

Check the box to show the position your pages hold for each one and you'll have the ability to see which queries are your top-performing ones:

You can then use the filters to find some question-type queries among those:

Go beyond traditional keyword research tools: Ask people

All the above methods (albeit great) tackle already discovered opportunities: those for which you or your competitors are already ranking high. But how about venturing beyond that? Ask your readers, customers, and followers how they search and which questions they ask.

MyBlogU: Ask people outside your immediate reach

Move away from your target audience and ask random people what questions they have on a specific topic and what would be their concerns. Looking out of the box can always give a fresh perspective.

MyBlogU (disclaimer: I am the founder) is a great way to do that. Just post a new project in the "Brainstorm" section and ask members to contribute their thoughts.

Seed Keywords: Ask your friends and followers

Seed Keywords is a simple tool that allows you to discover related keywords with help from your friends and followers. Simply create a search scenario, share it on social media, and ask your followers to type in the keywords they would use to solve it.

Try not to be too leading with your search scenario. Avoid guiding people to the search phrase you think they should be using.

Here's an example of a scenario:

And here are the suggestions from real people:

Obviously, you can create similar surveys with SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, too.

Monitor questions people ask on Twitter

Another way to discover untapped opportunities is to monitor questions on Twitter. Its search supports the ? search operator that will filter results to those containing a question. Just make sure to put a space between your search term and ?.

I use Cyfe to monitor and archive Twitter results because it provides a minimal dashboard which I can use to monitor an unlimited number of Twitter searches.

Once you lack article ideas, simply log in to Cyfe to view the archive and then proceed to the above keyword research tools to expand on any idea.

I use spreadsheets to organize questions and keyword phrases I discover (see more on this below). Some of these questions may become a whole piece of content, while others will be subsections of broader articles:

I don’t try to analyze search volume to decide whether any of those questions deserve to be covered in a separate article or a subsection. (Based on the Ahrefs research and my own observations, there is no direct correlation between the popularity of the term and whether it will trigger a featured snippet).

Instead, I use my best judgement (based on my niche knowledge and research) as to how much I will be able to tell to answer each particular question. If it’s a lot, I’ll probably turn into a separate article and use keyword research to identify subsections of the future piece.

Optimizing for featured snippets

Start with on-page SEO

There is no magic button or special markup which will make sure your site gets featured. Of course, it's a good idea to start with non-specific SEO best practices, simply because being featured is only possible when you rank high for the query.

Randy Milanovic did a good overview of tactics of making your content findable. Eric Brantner over at Coschedule has put together a very useful SEO checklist, and of course never forget to go through Moz’s SEO guide.

How about structured markup?

Many people would suggest using Schema.org (simply because it's been a "thing" to recommend adding schema for anything and everything) but the aforementioned Ahrefs study shows that there's no correlation between featured results and structured markup.

That being said, the best way to get featured is to provide a better answer. Here are a few actionable tips:

1. Aim at answering each question concisely

My own observation of answer boxes has led me to think that Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph.

The study by AJ Ghergich cites that the average length of a paragraph snippet is 45 words (the maximum is 97 words), so let it be your guideline as to how long each answer should be in order to get featured:

This doesn't mean your articles need to be one paragraph long. On the contrary, these days Google seems to give preference to long-form content (also known as "cornerstone content," which is obviously a better way to describe it because it's not just about length) that's broken into logical subsections and features attention-grabbing images. Even if you don’t believe that cornerstone content receives any special treatment in SERPs, focusing on long articles will help you to cover more related questions within one piece (more on that below).

All you need to do is to adjust your blogging style just a bit:

Ask the question in your article (that may be a subheading)

Immediately follow the question with a one-paragraph answer

Elaborate further in the article

This tactic may also result in higher user retention because it makes any article better structured and thus a much easier read. To quote AJ Ghergich,

When you use data to fuel topic ideation, content creation becomes more about resources and less about brainstorming.

2. Be factual and organize well

Google loves numbers, steps and lists. We've seen this again and again: More often than not, answer boxes will list the actual ingredients, number of steps, time to cook, year and city of birth, etc.

In your paragraph introducing the answer to the question, make sure to list useful numbers and names. Get very factual.

In fact, the aforementioned study by AJ Ghergich concluded that comparison charts and lists are an easier way to get featured because Google loves structured content. In fact, even for branded queries (where a user is obviously researching a particular brand), Google would pick up a table from another site (not the answer from the brand itself) if that other site has a table:

This only shows how much Google loves well-structured, factual, and number-driven content.

There's no specific markup to structure your content. Google seems to pick up <table>, <ol>, and <ul> well and doesn't need any other pointers.

3. Make sure one article answers many similar questions

In their research of featured snippets, Ahrefs found that once a page gets featured, it's likely to get featured in lots of similar queries. This means it should be structured and worded the way it addresses a lot of related questions.

Google is very good at determining synonymic and closely related questions, so should be you. There's no point in creating a separate page answering each specific question.

Creating one solid article addressing many related questions is a much smarter strategy if you aim at getting featured in answer boxes. This leads us to the next tactic:

4. Organize your questions properly

To combine many closely related questions in one article, you need to organize your queries properly. This will also help you structure your content well.

I have a multi-level keyword organization strategy that can be applied here as well:

A generic keyword makes a section or a category of the blog

A more specific search query becomes the title of the article

Even more specific queries determine the subheadings of the article and thus define its structure

There will be multiple queries that are so closely related that they will all go under a single subheading

For example:

Serpstat helps me a lot when it comes to both discovering an article idea and then breaking it into subtopics. Check out its "Questions" section. It will provide hundreds of questions containing your core term and then generate a tag cloud of other popular terms that come up in those questions:

Clicking any word in the tag cloud will filter results down to those questions that only have that word in them. These are subsections for your article:

Here's a good example of how related questions can help you structure the article:

5. Make sure to use eye-grabbing images

Paragraph featured snippets with images are ridiculously eye-catching, even more so than regular featured featured snippets. Honestly, I wasn't able to identify how to add an image so that it's featured. I tried naming it differently and I tried marking it as "featured" in the Wordpress editor. Google seems to pick up a random image from the page without me being able to point it to a better version.

That being said, the only way to influence that is to make sure ALL your in-article images are eye-catching, branded, and annotated well, so that no matter which one Google ends up featuring, it will look nice. Here’s a great selection of Wordpress plugins that will allow you to easily visualize your content (put together graphs, tables, charts, etc.) while working on a piece.

You can use Bannersnack to create eye-catching branded images; I love their image editing functionality. You can quickly create graphics there, then resize them to reuse as banners and social media images and organize all your creatives in folders:

6. Update and re-upload the images (Wordpress)

Wordpress adds dates to image URLs, so even if you update an article with newer information the images can be considered kind of old. I managed to snatch a couple of paragraph featured snippets with images once I started updating my images, too:

7. Monitor how you are doing

Ahrefs lets you monitor which queries your domain is featured for, so keep an eye on these as they grow and new ones appear:

Conclusion

It takes a lot of research and planning and you cannot be sure when you'll see the results (especially if you don't have too many top 10 rankings just yet) but think about this way: Being featured in Google search results is your incentive to work harder on your content. You'll achieve other important goals on your way there:

You'll discover hundreds of new content ideas (and thus will rank for a wider variety of various long-tail keywords)

You'll learn to research each topic more thoroughly (and thus will build more incoming links because people tend to link to indepth articles)

You'll learn to structure your articles better (and thus achieve a lower bounce rate because it will be easier to read your articles)

Have you been featured in Google search results yet? Please share your tips and tricks in the comments below!

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[bencan-t]

@axolotl-footprints and I eloped today!