Hey Harry, I've a couple of questions I'd like to hear a little more from you.
1) "So speak to your commercial teams and try to abide by some general advertising guidelines. Don’t compromise the quality of the page. The short-term gain will never be worth it."
How would you set the conversation between you, the commercial team, and the HiPPOs (referring to hippos as described here: https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/seven-steps-to-creating-a-data-driven-decision-making-culture/) to persuade them to stop looking at the next mile only? Maybe it's just me but I've often seen the "Google may scold us" argument percieved as week and somehow lazy over time in discussions.
2) "Investigative journalism, fact-checking, and expert-authored content will be prioritised over low-quality aggregators". Close to the first question, how much time do you think is needed to see the ROI of these activities? Not saying a whole new approach to content publishing, even an MVP of investigative journalism =D.
1) If you're in a position where you think ads are having a negative impact on your UX and they fall outside of the typical guidelines (covering more than 30% of the viewport height on mobile devices, multiple obstructive ads above the fold, 3-5/1000 words etc) but you're coming up against roadblocks, I think all you can do is;
1. Identify the problems
2. Compare to your competition (those ranking in positions 1-3)
3. Test (see if this has an immediate impact on UX on a subset of pages)
You could also run some real life user testing if available. Get people to interact with the ad-laden versions of your pages. Commercial teams are never going to be happy at reducing the number. But I think you need to hold your own if you think there's a real problem. Your job is also to make money for the business. You're trying to balance short and long-term.
You could also model out the value of having these extra ads on the page is vs what the drop in traffic and revenue will be for poor quality UX. Probably not a silver bullet. You just need to make people aware and hold your own.
2) Definitely depends. But unique, investigative journalism drives links and helps you stand out. But it's tough and takes time. AIOs and AI Mode are not going to be a good thing for traditional informational traffic and news related queries. The pie isn't the same size. Or at least won't be soon.
If you're a company who struggles to rank in a competitive space, there' isn't really a quick fix outside of big scale digital PR and link building activities. Which isn't easy. But I think if you create almost no unique content and have no way of standing out your days pretty numbered.
Could be a few months in a less competitive space with a strong brand. Could be longer in a tougher environment with a weaker brand.
Hey Harry, I've a couple of questions I'd like to hear a little more from you.
1) "So speak to your commercial teams and try to abide by some general advertising guidelines. Don’t compromise the quality of the page. The short-term gain will never be worth it."
How would you set the conversation between you, the commercial team, and the HiPPOs (referring to hippos as described here: https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/seven-steps-to-creating-a-data-driven-decision-making-culture/) to persuade them to stop looking at the next mile only? Maybe it's just me but I've often seen the "Google may scold us" argument percieved as week and somehow lazy over time in discussions.
2) "Investigative journalism, fact-checking, and expert-authored content will be prioritised over low-quality aggregators". Close to the first question, how much time do you think is needed to see the ROI of these activities? Not saying a whole new approach to content publishing, even an MVP of investigative journalism =D.
TY!!!!
Hey Alessandro,
1) If you're in a position where you think ads are having a negative impact on your UX and they fall outside of the typical guidelines (covering more than 30% of the viewport height on mobile devices, multiple obstructive ads above the fold, 3-5/1000 words etc) but you're coming up against roadblocks, I think all you can do is;
1. Identify the problems
2. Compare to your competition (those ranking in positions 1-3)
3. Test (see if this has an immediate impact on UX on a subset of pages)
You could also run some real life user testing if available. Get people to interact with the ad-laden versions of your pages. Commercial teams are never going to be happy at reducing the number. But I think you need to hold your own if you think there's a real problem. Your job is also to make money for the business. You're trying to balance short and long-term.
You could also model out the value of having these extra ads on the page is vs what the drop in traffic and revenue will be for poor quality UX. Probably not a silver bullet. You just need to make people aware and hold your own.
2) Definitely depends. But unique, investigative journalism drives links and helps you stand out. But it's tough and takes time. AIOs and AI Mode are not going to be a good thing for traditional informational traffic and news related queries. The pie isn't the same size. Or at least won't be soon.
If you're a company who struggles to rank in a competitive space, there' isn't really a quick fix outside of big scale digital PR and link building activities. Which isn't easy. But I think if you create almost no unique content and have no way of standing out your days pretty numbered.
Could be a few months in a less competitive space with a strong brand. Could be longer in a tougher environment with a weaker brand.
TY