Tell Google to Back Off

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No-Index Pages to Improve Search Rankings

We just saw a tweet from Rand Fishkin that said Moz no-indexed a bunch of pages to increase organic traffic by 13%.

If you’re not familiar, no-indexing a page simply means that you block Google from ranking that specific page. But that tweet got us thinking, what other pages should we consider no-indexing? If no-indexing pages can improve search traffic, we definitely want more of that.

So, we started searching. And of course, Neil Patel & Eric Siu had the answer.

Their suggestions for pages to no-index:

1. Low-quality content – Look at pages that get barely any search traffic each month and remove those from Google.
2. Tag pages – If you have a blog with tons of posts, you likely also have tag pages that help people navigate through your posts. These pages are unlikely to rank. No-index them.
3. Duplicate content – Sometimes you might have pages that are similar or exactly the same. No-index the less popular ones.
4. Paginated results – Similar to number 2, if you have a blog with many posts, you’re going to have multiple pages listing your blog posts. Pages 2 through whatever are unlikely to rank highly. No-index them.

This podcast is only 4-minutes long. Definitely worth your time if you want to improve search traffic.

Like what you’re reading? Get more here and become the smartest marketer in the room.

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Engage Your Customers Without Annoying Them

As marketers, it’s easy to be annoying. It’s something we’re always fighting against. Sometimes you’re just too close to your own marketing to realize that you’re being annoying.

Time to take a step back and examine your marketing. Kissmetrics is dropping the knowledge today with 5 strategies you can take to stop annoying your customers and prospects.

1. Prioritize Your Customers’ Needs. Your customers are more important than your own agenda. Without customers, you don’t have a company to market. (Bonus read: 5 Myths About Customer Needs)
2. Stay Away from Information Overload. Sometimes you need to educate your customers, but don’t blast them with so much information that they can’t handle. (Wait, are we guilty of this one?)
3. Convey Every Message Differently. Sending 10 emails with the same message, even if it’s phrased differently, isn’t helpful. If your message didn’t hit home the first time, try a different approach.
4. Avoid Inconvenient Surprises. What’s the one thing everyone hates about Ticketmaster? All those added fees at checkout. Be as transparent as possible with everything from pricing to customer support response times.
5. Engage in a Timely Manner. Rather than shoving everyone into the same email list, use if-then logic that engages customers based on actions they take.

TL;DR

When interacting with customers, ask yourself if what you’re doing is actually helping them or just selling to them.

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Honda Dream Makers

We know what you’re thinking, “The Daily Carnage is featuring another ad today? Really?” Well, you know the saying: Ads Rule Everythi…nah we won’t make that joke again. Sometimes we just find incredible ads that we know will inspire other marketers, and this week seems to be full of them.

Where were we? Oh yeah, today’s Watch. It’s an ad from Honda that is a love letter to filmmaking.

They suggest the labor of love within filmmaking is similar to the process of designing a Honda. You might agree after watching this ad. The agency behind the ad, Wieden & Kennedy, perfectly tied together the creativity behind filmmaking & car design.

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