SEO value of a 'Most Popular Stories' widget?
-
Hi there,
I work for a theater and live performances publishing site. We write 15-20 quality articles per day on the New York City and national theater community.
We show a "Most Read" stories widget on all of our pages, but click rates for these are really low - 1% of readers click to read a story from this.
As such we're considering replacing this with higher-value content.
My question, however, is this: Is there any SEO value in keeping this widget? I want to make sure we're taking this aspect into consideration.
Thank you!
-
At Moz, we've considered using one to better serve our content. Many allow you to "buy out" the ads and only show your own content.
-
For small brands, most definitely yes. But ESPN uses Outbrain and I don't think it damages their credibility or brand.
-
If you are referring to the "stinky" nature of these ads, then my personal opinion is "yes". Although, I have not seen any formal studies where someone devised tests to determine the impact upon the brand. I don't run them on my site because I think that they can damage the credibility of my content when those types of ads are adjacent to it. So, instead, I promote my own content, hoping to earn additional pageviews and the income from other forms of advertising that will come with those pageviews.
-
Is there any evidence that using Taboola, Outbrain, etc., style ads negatively affect the host brand, causing said host brand to lose future visitors?
-
but click rates for these are really low - 1% of readers click to read a story from this.
"Most popular stories" widgets are usually really valuable. Don't replace the widget until you test a better version.
If you go to some of the big news sites, at the bottom of articles you will see the content marketing ads run by Taboola, Outbrain, ContentAd, Gravity and Adblade. These have big, juicy, provocative images and quite honestly, they are a bit stinky. However, you can learn something from them. Learn their format and try a widget with very attractive images about your articles, with a caption that elicits clicks. I think that you will get more than one percent click rate.
IF "Most popular stories" does not work then try "Related Stories"..... Really nice images are very important for these to succeed, but they can succeed spectacularly if you have the right kind of image and content that catches the visitor's desire for more.
Look at the Gravity ads on the bottom of this Forbes article.
ADDED: Since you are a news site, you might make a "most recent" widget because people are looking for the fresh news.
Something important about running "most popular" and "related stories" widgets. If you have them on a page that is sleepy content or uninspiring the visitor might not be motivated to click your widget because they expect to find "more of the same". Including sleepy or uninspiring content in the widget will assure that it will not be clicked. Good images and spectacular images can perform very differently. Strive to have spectacular images.
Also, the widgets need to be updated frequently. If you have lots of returning visitors, if they have already seen your widget and clicked the interesting items, showing that same widget over and over again will produce worse results. We update our widgets several times per hour with all different content.
-
As the widget is on each page of your site, it is generating a lot of internal links to these articles. If these articles have value for search, it could help them to get better positions.
On the other side, widgets like these are very ofter positioned in the same column as advertising, newsletter subscriptionboxes, ...etc - so I am not sure if Google attributes the same value to these links as to the links which are really embedded/integrated in your content.
If you can replace it by higher value content I would do it - but you'll have to make sure that the new content has indeed a higher value for your visits (try some A/B testing and check vitals stats like bouncerate, avg time on site, pageviews/visit, clickrates,..)
Hope this helps,
Dirk
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there any link building value to design showcase websites?
I am interested to hear people's opinions on this. We are launching a microsite that is for branding purposes only, no real SEO strategy beyond optimizing for branded terms on it. However the design of the site is strong in my opinion. I think it could get picked up by "sites of the day" websites, showcases, galleries, etc. Would there be SEO benefit of in being featured on those sites since they tend to be curated lists of only the best sites and therefore editorial links? Or is there danger of those not being seen as quality links that could get you into trouble?
Link Building | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
Seo for a photographer's website
Hello all, I am a big fan of this site & of SEO. I am a photographer & I do my own SEO (horribly, I must admit), my questions is how to I go about attracting natural links when so much of my content image of weddings & family portraits? How I do get good websites or blogs interested in about my website?
Link Building | | KristopherWho0 -
Linkspamming through references widget?
Dear Mozzers, I have a question concerning a references widget. Im not sure if this should be seen as linkspamming. The reason im asking this is when i check out some linkdata one referring site pops up 100's of times because they've put a widget on their site showing clients they worked with in slideshow form. How is this handled by Google. Do they consider this spamming or do they just see this as one link? Im just curious how damaging this could be or how beneficial and what to hold in mind regarding these situations. Thx! Sander
Link Building | | 5MMedia0 -
How to SEO how-to website?
I've launched the website www.ComoFazer.com.br, which is a Brazilian how-to website (the domain is literally how to in Portuguese). How can I get to the top rankings? My strategy so far: made all the on-page SEO stuff put 4 sidebar links in family websites bought the $90 package in GetLinksPro for 100 dofollow links spent about $100 in Facebook Ads to get 2k followers there I want help regarding SEO and strategy for this kind of sites.
Link Building | | kikocherman0 -
Value of RSS Feed for a website?
What sort of value does an RSS feed provide for a website? If you use an RSS feed on your website, what do you use to keep it updated? Can you recycle mention of content / pages in the feed over time? Any good links on this subject?
Link Building | | Linesides0 -
What is the role of nofollow in SEO backlinking?
I'm checking out my competition on opensiteexplorer, who does quite well for the main keyword. I see that 40% - 60% of the backlinks are ref="nofollow" is there any benefit to such links? if i hire a linkbuilder, should I ever accept nofollow links? can u explain please update 1/18/12 i apologize, i mistyped. i was referring to ref="nofollow"
Link Building | | limens0 -
Backlinks I don't want
Hi all. According to google webmaster tools www.buywatchesin.net made 29,245 links to ONE category to my website. I went to this site and they copied my article with my links without my permission. Its the same one on all sites in that domain. Thats a lot of links and I thinks that bad for my site. I can't find any contact details to that site. What do you think, any advise?? Please help!
Link Building | | menswatchshop0 -
Social Bookmarking as part of an SEO strategy?
Hi all, I was wondering on my commute to work this morning the effectiveness of Social Bookmarking as part of a SEO campaign. The sites I work on generally have the social bookmarking widgets and they do get used by website visitors. In addition to this we also bookmark our sites, new articles and other new content within the top 5 social bookmarking sites. This is all done as part of a wider social strategy. But could I be spending my time better else where? Whats everyones thoughts on Social Bookmarking and do you incorporate it in your SEO campaigns? Cheers Aran UPDATE: I note that SEOmoz Q&A only have Tweet, Like and Stumble...
Link Building | | Entrusteddev0