Google has undergone a number of major changes over the years, not the least of which is the two founders stepping down from their roles. Many of those changes have caused the company to be virtually “unrecognizable” to many Google veterans, according to CNBC.
For many workers who spoke with CNBC, 2018 was a pivotal year that showed how much things had changed. Project Dragonfly became public knowledge, exposing Google’s attempt to build a censored search engine for China. In a company that had long treasured a reputation for open communication with its employees, the project had been kept on a need-to-know basis.
Despite ending the project when employees expressed concern about the ethics of it, for many the damage had already been done.
“There’s no way a few years before, they would have had a secret project with these kinds of ethical concerns,” Raph Levien, a former level 6 engineer who left Google after 11 years, told CNBC. “It crossed the line and felt misleading. It definitely felt like this was Google changing.”
Another factor that has hurt the company’s reputation internally is how it has handled sexual abuse allegations, paying executives millions in severance packages despite allegations. The size of the company has also played a role, as it is much harder for a company of “more than 100,000 workers, many of whom are contractors instead of full-time employees,” to maintain the culture it started with.
One thing is clear, based on CNBC’s report: For a company that is already in the spotlight for privacy issues and antitrust concerns, an internal breakdown of the very culture that made Google what it is, is the last thing the company needs.
Bloomberg is reporting that Brazil has levied a $1.6 million fine on Facebook for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The fine is the result of an investigation that began in April 2018, finding that Facebook illegally shared data for some 443,000 users.
“It’s evident that the data of about 443,000 users of the platform were made available by the developers of the app ‘thisisyourdigitallife’ for reasons that are at least questionable,” Brazil’s justice ministry said in a statement.
Facebook has said there is no evidence the data from Brazilian users was transferred to Cambridge Analytica, but the justice ministry said Facebook and its local unit failed to prove that less users were impacted.
As Bloomberg points out, Facebook agreed in July to pay a $5 billion fine to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It is not clear if Facebook will immediately pay the Brazilian fine or fight it, however. The company simply said “we are currently evaluating our legal options in this case.”
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced an agreement with Free File, Inc. (FFI) designed to make tax season a little easier.
Taxpayers earning less than $69,000 a year have the option of filing their taxes for free. Unfortunately, many tax preparation companies hide their free options, making it difficult for customers to find them.
“This updated agreement is part of a larger effort by the IRS to help taxpayers meet their tax obligations,” said Chuck Rettig, IRS Commissioner. “It continues to show the partnership we enjoy with the Free File partners and the commitment we both share in helping taxpayers since the program’s creation 18 years ago. The improved process will make Free File stronger and give taxpayers another reason to consider this valuable software option.”
“The IRS and FFI will also continue to work together to identify and explore ways to better help low- to moderate-income taxpayers and to pursue meaningful opportunities to enhance taxpayer awareness and use of the Free File Program beyond the 2020 filing season,” Rettig continued.
As part of the agreement, Free File partners will not obscure their Free File options from search results, as Intuit has been accused of doing in the past. As part of the agreement, the IRS will begin offering its own Free File alternatives, something it was previously prohibited from doing.
Former Walmart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon sees technology, such as virtual reality, having a big impact on traditional brick-and-mortar retail, according to CNBC.
Simon served as President and CEO of Walmart U.S. from 2010 to 2014, giving him a unique perspective on the retail industry. Rather than predicting doom-and-gloom for traditional retail, Simon believe technology has the ability to transform the industry and open all new possibilities.
Even something as simple as trying on clothes may be revolutionized by technology, such as virtual reality.
“Could we have virtual changing rooms so that you can just scan an item in a store with your phone and try it on yourself without actually having to go try it on?” Simon said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”
Simon believes successful retailers will combine online sales with a brick-and-mortar presence, and cites Target and Amazon as two examples of companies that are making it work.
According to Reuters, Google’s parent Alphabet will stop using a tax strategy known as the “Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich” to minimize U.S. taxes.
The tax practice involved using a subsidiary in the Netherlands “to shift revenue from royalties earned outside the United States to Google Ireland Holdings, an affiliate based in Bermuda, where companies pay no income tax.” As a result of the practice, Google was able to pay taxes in the single digits on non-U.S. profits. This is roughly a quarter of the average rate for overseas markets.
While legal, the practice was highly controversial, causing Ireland to eliminate the loophole in 2014, with it taking effect in 2020. According to a Dutch filing, Google has not confirmed a termination date for the practice, but says it will take place by the end of 2019 or in 2020.
Another motivation for ending the practice is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by the Trump administration in January 2018. Under the law, “profits that have been made and taxed abroad are not subject to taxation when returned to the U.S.”
With the Irish loophole closing and motivation to look for other loopholes no longer a factor, it’s likely Google will be joined by a number of other U.S. companies.
TikTok has been under increasing scrutiny, with allegations it represents a national security threat. Following guidance from the Pentagon, the U.S. Army has officially banned the app, according to Military.com.
TikTok has surged in popularity in the U.S., and military personnel are no exception. In fact, as Military.com points out, Army recruiters have been using the app to help reach Generation Z.
The Department of Defense (DoD) recently issued guidance on mobile phone security, mentioning TikTok specifically. The DoD guidance tells employees to “be wary of applications you download, monitor your phones for unusual and unsolicited texts etc., and delete them immediately and uninstall TikTok to circumvent any exposure of personal information.”
Following that guidance, the U.S. Army has officially banned the app from personnel phones.
“It is considered a cyber threat,” Army spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Robin Ochoa, told Military.com. “We do not allow it on government phones.”
Evidence suggests all individuals, not just military personnel, should be wary of the social media app. A recent lawsuit in California accuses the app of secretly analyzing videos and images without consent, and uploading them to servers in China.
If you’ve been following my life philosophies for a while, you will know that I speak a lot about creativity.
I talk about creativity, not only as a ‘nice way to spend your time,’ or in making art, but as a way of being.
Creating, or being creative is in direct opposition to being reactive.
Interestingly they are words composed of the same letters.
When we are reactive, we see life happening to us. It is life in victim-mode; it is a life of worry, self-protection, judgement and self-indulgence.
When we are reactive, we don’t see that we are creating what we don’t want.
The tragedy is this is the default for many when we allow the weeds of our mind to flourish.
In this way, we create it all, no matter whether we are actively creative or actively reactive.
Active creativity is a life in motion, in the body, in observation, out of mind, and in service.
And with it, sprouts intelligence, flow, and insight.
We can create unconsciously and suffer the consequences of our disconnectedness, or we can create what we want and what is in harmony with a massive and delightful vision.
We create everything.
Fear is reactivity.
Joy is creativity.
Judging the competition is reactivity.
Creating new things regardless, is creativity.
You cannot have both.
Choose.
I now do more in creative-mode because I know that I have the power to create everything.
I have less time to ruminate and react.
Spend more time in creativity. You will bring a kind of bliss into your life because you are present and you are tending to what is in front of you.
If it has been dwindling, renew your love for your own ability to create.
What remarkable things will you create?
—
If these ideas stirred something in you, I’d love to read your comment below. I read them all.
If you would like to have a conversation with me, connect here.
Around 2.05 billion people made online purchases in 2019. That means 21.55% of the global population shops on the Internet – a number that will hit 2.14 billion in 2021. That’s a massive pool of prospective customers!
But more online shoppers means more e-commerce platforms, which has created a competitive and fierce marketplace. To stand out from the competition, you need new ways to promote your products and services – and that requires you to stay on top of the latest e-commerce trends.
“Social commerce is the use of networking websites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as vehicles to promote and sell products and services.”
Campaign metrics include user engagement such as liking, sharing and retweeting. According to eMarketer, social commerce rose from 23% in December 2018 to 31% in October 2019 among U.S. Internet users:
Popular platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest are perfect venues because they deliver rich visual content, which helps buyers discover, research and shop for different products online.
Social referrals to retail websites have risen 110% in just two years. This outpaces every other referral channel, and with good reason: Users prefer a social environment over external websites when searching for or purchasing something.
Social commerce is so popular because it provides a seamless, frictionless sales experience. Click To Tweet
Here are some ways to capitalize on social commerce:
Make your brand relatable and authentic.
Focus on visuals, otherwise your brand might get lost in customers’ busy, fast-scrolling social feeds.
Keep an eye on users' purchase intent and make your move when enthusiasm for your product is at its peak.
Adopt a mobile-first outlook.
Draw attention by using social content and encourage customers to click to learn more.
Offer fast, informative responses to build trust among your audience.
Creating an easy and pleasant social e-commerce experience will encourage users to finish their purchase. Keep in mind that the traditional sales funnel has been replaced by the consumer engagement engine, one of the newest trends in digital marketing:
E-commerce brands can create and post interactive ads that allow users to click and shop with ease, which will help reduce the risk that customers will abandon their purchase because they have to switch apps or sign in to an unknown store.
Brands like Missguided use Instagram Shoppable posts for a smooth customer journey, which is social commerce in action:
The brand combines eye-catching visuals with seamless checkout through its mobile website. The entire process occurs within Instagram’s social environment and many users don’t even realize they’ve been redirected to Missguided’s online store.
Trend #2: AR and VR Experiences Will Influence E-commerce Success
Product visualization boosts sales and diminishes returns. That’s why almost 90% of businesses with annual revenues between $100 million and $1 billion now use Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality technology.
According to Gartner, 100 million shoppers will use AR online and in-store by 2020. The technology serves as an extension of the brand experience as it engages customers in immersive environments and increases revenue.
For example, the Yamaha My Garage app lets customers accessorize official 3D motorcycle models. They can connect to a special VR headset to inspect a bike’s mechanics and virtual renders are available of the engine status, sensors and fuel mixture. In this way, the customer’s interaction with the product is emotionalized. The high-resolution graphics allow users to see machine components that are otherwise hidden.
You can send custom changes and fittings from the app to your local Yamaha dealership and they can build a new ride based on those specs:
Here’s how can your business make the most of Augmented and Virtual Reality in 2020:
Develop AR-ready products and add them to your website for an intuitive shopping experience.
Improve the product discovery process. Combine customer insights and VR to highlight unique products that appeal to your target audience.
Stress the novelty aspect. Most shoppers have never experienced VR or AR. People who have, especially Millennials, enjoy the experience, and with their purchasing power soaring to $1.4 trillion by 2020, now’s the perfect time to cash in on this opportunity.
Try before you buy.58% of consumers are more likely to buy a product after testing it first. Use AR and VR technology so audiences can “test drive” various items from your site inventory.
Explore AR and VR as storytelling mediums. Deliver memorable and immersive shopping experiences. Take users through your brand narrative in first-person for a lasting impression.
Host live events to market your products to a wider audience without concern for travel/distance.
Trend #3: Chatbots Will Empower Revenue Maximization
According to Business Insider,80% of enterprises will use chatbots by 2020. This Artificial Intelligence software is more than a new channel for consumers to find e-commerce deals and buy products – consumers can use chatbots to identify products they want and need.
The big question is: Are chatbots worth investing in for your e-commerce site? In a word, yes!
Here's how you can take advantage of chatbots:
Use chatbots to engage customers on the landing page itself. Help them find the right product, because quick navigation increases conversion possibility and saves time.
94% of online shoppers base purchasing decisions on product information, so program your chatbot to answer common product questions. Even if it does not resolve the full query, the technology can handle initial discovery. This will save your employees’ time.
Allow chatbots to direct customers to customer service professionals for highly specialized products.
The average bounce rate for e-commerce stores is up to45%. Leverage chatbots to reduce bounce rates by following up with buyers. Get actionable insights on how to improve your e-commerce platform and their shopping experience.
Provide customers 24X7 access to your company or customer service with chatbots.
Use chatbots to collect customer data efficiently. Monitor their behavior, including purchase history and preferences, and update your business accordingly.
A great example is eBay’s ShopBot. This unique chatbot doubles as a virtual personal assistant to help buyers find the items they want. Enter some product details and ShopBot will ask relevant questions to find the right color, fit and style on eBay:
eBay found that their ShopBot received three times as many queries as eBay’s regular inventory search function. In this way, chatbots can expand the limits of what e-commerce sites offer as a shopping experience, improving retention, engagement and sales.
Voice search is growing rapidly, thanks to the popularity of digital assistants.
As of 2019, China has 85.5 million smart speaker users, the U.S. has 74.2 million, and the UK has 12.6 million:
According to marketing analyst firm Canalys, there were about 100 million smart speakers in use last year, a number that is predicted to hit 225 million by 2020. In the U.S., 22% of smart speaker owners have already bought something through their devices:
“Smart speaker devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo pair with intelligent personal assistants such as Google Assistant and Alexa to carry out commands, search the web and control other smart devices.”
In fact,60% of virtual assistant owners have made voice command purchases. Because of the immense popularity of this technology, it's expected that by 2021 many brands will redesign their websites to support voice search features – and that voice search will increase digital commerce revenue by 30%.
Developed by Speech recognition company Nuance, the technology integrates with the business’ daily operations – and within three months of launch, 500,000 orders were placed.
Here’s how your e-commerce store can benefit from voice commerce:
Treat your search strategy as a conversation. Design content with long-tail keywords as a searchable conversation with the customer.
Focus on expected queries and suitable keywords. Make use of trigger words for voice searches.
Do not limit yourself to exact words. Instead, consider the possible context of the customer’s queries and offer valuable content that answers the question.
Blend multiple terminologies to create variable sets of keywords and phrases. They should naturally cover all the relevant data of questions.
Come up with catchy product descriptions that sound great when read aloud. Write naturally to align with regular speech patterns.
Optimize your e-commerce site for speed to appear in mobile SERPs for voice searches.
Invest in a smooth, AI-driven voice search function. This improves user experience and shows customers that you genuinely wish to provide the best on-site experience.
Trend #5: Mobile Shopping and Mobile Payments Will Continue to Rise
About 2 billion people around the world use smartphones for Internet access. That is about six times the size of the U.S. population!
So it’s not surprising that 60% of e-commerce traffic comes from mobile consumers. This indicates a huge impact that mobile devices have in the sale of online products. That’s why platforms like Amazon Pay and PayPal are a boon for shoppers.
What contributes to the rise of mobile shopping and payments? Here are a few points:
Better customer experience. Most e-commerce websites have responsive designs that adapt to the needs of mobile users. These devices provide superior navigation that are attractive to shoppers.
Use mobile payments. Registration data gets stored on the mobile device itself, which helps to reduce wait times.
Make good use of the space. Feature important elements on the upper section of your home page and ensure that the search window is visible.
Make the call-to-action big enough to easily tap on with your finger and bright to attract the attention of online shoppers.
Tailor the online experience to your target audience so they have a reason to keep coming back.
Remove all distractions from the checkout process so that customers near the “finish line” can easily cross it.
Provide access to different digital wallets while keeping everything on your website secure.
Mobile shopping has a bright future in 2020: 66% of Americans believe that mobile payments will replace card payments and 61% claim the same for cash. And that’s not all; mobile will dominate online sales by 2021, driving 54% of sales.
As always, Amazon is at the forefront of mobile shopping and payments. The online retail giant prides itself on a customer-focused mobile experience: The app combines the best that mobile platforms have to offer, including intuitive navigation, data-driven recommendations and easy, one-click payments:
The brand also personalizes offerings by implementing the Amazon Prime loyalty program, which solved one of the major pain points of online shoppers: delivery. With Prime, buyers get free two-day shipping without a minimum purchase.
Amazon even launched Amazon Pay, its own online payment processing service. This eases checkout friction. Merchants also get easy access to millions of Prime members with this service., which is why they have added Amazon Pay as a payment vehicle to increase sales.
The world of e-commerce is constantly changing, so e-tailers and online vendors must evolve, too. As the purchasing power of consumers increases worldwide and social media blurs the line between content and commerce, businesses must identify future e-commerce trends to stay ahead of the curve. As technology and infrastructure progress further, the future of e-commerce glows brighter than ever in 2020 and beyond.
Whether you're researching keywords, reviewing lead sources, or analyzing customer attributes from a CRM export, Google Sheets' COUNTIF and COUNTIFS formulas can help. Recently, a multichannel retailer wanted to analyze five years' worth of lead and conversion data.
Remember when the excitement over an email notification prompted a movie with Tom Hanks and Megan Ryan? Now, email notifications get routinely ignored and funneled into spam folders. And yet, we just can’t quit email. Continue reading →
Tesla owners looking for the perfect alcoholic compliment to their vehicles (not while in them of course) may not have long to wait, according to the International Business Times (IBT).
What began as an April Fool’s joke in 2018 seems on the verge of becoming a reality. According to Teslarati, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s April Fool’s prank in 2018 was a tweet saying the company had gone bankrupt and showing a picture of Musk passed out surrounded by Teslaquilla bottles. The prank was an instant hit, with individuals clamoring for the company to actually make the tequila, and Musk promising they would.
Months later, TechCrunch reported that Tesla had filed an “intent to use” trademark for the tequila, with Musk once again confirming it was “coming soon.”
According to IBT, a Tesla Model 3 owner reached out to Musk via Twitter to find out the latest about the distilled pure agave liquor.
“Slight tweak to the glass needed & then it should be good to go,” Musk tweeted in reply on Sunday.
Reuters is reporting that Uber and Postmates have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block a California law that would have severe ramifications for both companies.
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that makes it more difficult for companies to classify gig workers as independent contractors. Keeping workers classified as contractors saves companies money in both taxes and benefits. Labor groups, however, have argued the law was necessary to properly protect workers’ rights.
Uber and Postmates’ lawsuit alleges that the law “compromises the flexibility prized by their workforce, and that fewer workers would be hired were they considered employees.” They also argue that the law violates the equal protection guaranteed by the U.S. and California constitutions, by singling out app-based workers.
“It irreparably harms network companies and app-based independent service providers by denying their constitutional rights to be treated the same as others to whom they are similarly situated,” the lawsuit alleges.
Given the size of California’s economy, other states with similar concerns will be closely watching to see if the law holds up or is ultimately overturned.
According to a report by the Economic Daily News, Apple may be releasing a gaming Mac at next year’s WWDC event.
As BGR comments, the Economic Daily News has a pretty spotty track record when it comes to predicting Apple’s next moves. Even so, this rumor is not outside the realm of possibility. Apple has been making moves into a number of industries, including TV programming, that are well outside its traditional business. As BGR points out, even Apple Arcade represents a significant step into this arena.
For years, Mac users who are serious gamers have had to purchase Windows-based PCs to have the best gaming experience. Most gaming companies primarily develop for Windows and the best graphics and sounds cards often have drivers that are optimized for Microsoft’s operating system.
A Mac gaming platform would help Apple fill a relatively large hole in their ecosystem, not to mention help the company take advantage of a lucrative and growing industry that shows no sign of slowing down. Such a move won’t be without its challenges, however, as Apple would still need to convince developers to target the Mac as a platform, both with games and with the best drivers.
If the report is to be believed, the gaming Mac could cost up to $5,000. Sources reportedly told the Economic Daily News the model may be an all-in-one computer or some type of large-screen rig.
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the next battleground technology, but Samsung is taking it a step further with the planned unveiling of an artificial human.
According to the Korea Herald, Samsung has been teasing a project called “Neon.” Its official website says very little, other than a countdown to the unveiling at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The Korean Herald says Neon is an AI platform that was developed by Samsung and Advanced Research Lab.
As the Korean Herald reports, “a recent tweet on the unit’s official Twitter account said, ‘Neon = Artificial Human.’ Artificial human is a new AI concept referring to hardware or software designed for companionship, including robots and digital pets.”
Some have speculated that Neon is a replacement for Bixby, Samsung’s current AI platform. The company has indicated, however, that Neon has nothing to do with Bixby and is unlike anything anyone has ever seen.
Whatever Neon is, there will be plenty of attention on Samsung during CES 2020, with all eyes on the big unveiling.
AT&T has been expanding its 5G network, adding coverage in both its low-band and millimeter wave (mmWave) flavors, according to CNET.
Like Verizon and T-Mobile, AT&T has been racing to deploy its 5G network. The carrier has adopted a similar strategy as T-Mobile, deploying both low-band 5G and mmWave simultaneously. Low-band 5G offers speeds only marginally faster than 4G LTE—in T-Mobile’s case, a maximum of four times faster—but has the advantage of long range and excellent building penetration. mmWave, on the other hand, offers terrible range and building penetration, but provides speeds measured in gigabits instead of megabits.
In addition to the 10 cities AT&T initially launched low-band in, the company has added nine new ones. The cities include, Baltimore, Buffalo, Bridgeport, Detroit, Las Vegas, Louisville, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington DC. Boston is also listed on the company’s coverage maps, although no announcement has yet been made.
Similarly, AT&T has added mmWave service in Baltimore, Detroit, King of Prussia and West Hollywood, bringing the total to 25 cities.
In both cases, however, AT&T lags well behind its competitors. T-Mobile has launched its low-band network nationwide, covering 200 million people, rather than a mere 19 cities. Similarly, Verizon has been pushing to deploy mmWave as quickly as possible, recently passing its 30 city goal for 2019, well beyond AT&T’s 25.
It’s almost 2020 and a brand-new decade is right around the corner! A decade ago, Yoast didn’t even exist yet. A lot has changed in the past 10 years. In this blog post, I would like to look back at (almost) 10 years of Yoast. And, I’ll look at our plans for next year! 2020 is going to be a great year!
The very beginning
Yoast was founded by Joost de Valk. Until 2010, Joost had been working as an SEO consultant. He was doing consultancy at major companies like eBay and KLM. In 2010, Joost decided to give up his job as an SEO consultant. He took a leap of faith and began a company. Back then, he was pretty sure he would never hire any employees. So, he named his one-man-company after himself and his blog: Yoast.
Joost was mainly doing consultancy and website reviews at the very beginning of Yoast. In his free time and basically as a hobby, he was developing lots of little WordPress-plugins that improved the SEO of a site. He never thought he could make money with these plugins though. In October 2010, Joost finally made one plugin of all these little ones: WordPress SEO (now Yoast SEO) was born.
Up until 2012, Yoast did not make any money with WordPress-plugins. But, WordPress SEO had over a million active installs. In the early days, Joost did all of the support on these plugins himself. That became a bit too much. In September 2012, Yoast launched Video SEO, the first premium add-on.
In the mean-time, Joost had hired some people. It became clear that this wasn’t going to remain a one-man-company after all. In 2012, Michiel became the first Yoast employee. That year, Erwin (our illustrator) and Mijke (our designer) also joined our team. Branding and design have been at the heart of the company throughout our entire journey.
After Video SEO, Yoast released more premium add-ons: News SEO, Local SEO. In 2014, we released a premium variant of the free version of our plugin. Nowadays, this is the most popular of all our plugins. By that time, Yoast was still doing site reviews as well.
Growth, changes & failed projects
Since Yoast started, a lot of things have changed. Nowadays, we’re not doing site reviews anymore, while that was our main source of income in the very early years. The growth of our company was mainly driven by our plugins. At one point, it makes sense to focus all your energy on that, which made us decide to stop doing site reviews. And of course, we have tried some projects that just did not work as we planned. Did you know we have once tried to build and sell WordPress themes? Let’s just say that that wasn’t the success we hoped it to be :-).
After 5 years of Yoast: Major rebranding
In 2015 – after 5 years of Yoast – the company underwent a major redesign. Up until then, our design team made a lot of avatars of Joost de Valk. His face featured on every page on our site. Our design team replaced the many avatars featuring Joost with new colorful illustrations. The logo was no longer orange but became green and purple. The change in design reflected the shift in the business. Yoast was no longer a synonym for Joost de Valk.
Joost’s avatars as they were on the site before the redesign.
Yoast SEO academy
Also in 2015, we launched Yoast SEO academy. In the years before that, I (Marieke) was getting more and more involved in the company. Yoast SEO academy was my personal Yoast-baby (FYI: I also have four real babies with the person Joost). We had written some eBooks before that helped people to do SEO themselves. The next step was the development of an online course. The first online SEO course – Basic SEO – appeared in 2015. Since then, we have made many online courses about SEO. Yoast SEO academy grew to be an online course platform with courses on every aspect of SEO. This year, we also released a free course about WordPress.
Growth of Yoast – the company
Yoast SEO started out as a hobby. Although we still love it, It is not a hobby anymore. When software is running on 10 million sites, you need a professional company. And we’ve grown into a professional company (albeit a bit crazy).
In 2011, Yoast was Joost. At the end of 2012, Yoast consisted of Joost and another four employees. At the end of 2013, Yoast consisted of ten employees. And at the end of 2015, Yoast employed a total of 25 people. At the end of 2017, there were more than 50 people and now, at the end of 2019, there are more than 90 people working in the Wijchen offices. Also, more than a dozen people are working for Yoast in countries around the world.
Team Yoast in 2012
Team Yoast in 2016
Team Yoast in 2019
Nowadays, product ideas still mainly come from Joost de Valk. Next to Joost, we have a big team of developers and a kick-ass testing team. Our software has to work on so many sites, with so many different configurations of plugins. That’s a lot of work and needs extensive testing.
Besides that, we keep close relationships with both Google and Bing. At the same time, WordPress and open-source remain very important to us. Giving back to the community that got Yoast to where it is today is crucial to the company.
Features in Yoast SEO (Premium)
Since the birth of Yoast SEO, we’ve added and improved upon many features. Most of our features are available for both our free and premium users. Some features were only rolled out in premium though.
We’ve added a redirect manager with which people can easily manage their redirects. In 2016, we added our readability analysis, which helps people to write texts that are understandable for both their audience and Google. We’ve also created an internal linking tool, which helps people to manage their site’s structure. In 2018, we did a recalibration of our SEO analysis, which also lead to the introduction of Word forms. Our Premium SEO analysis is now able to recognize plurals, past tense and synonyms.
In 2019: Schema!
In 2019, with Yoast SEO 11.0, we released a major Schema update. Yoast SEO 11.0 featured a completely rewritten Schema.org implementation — one that is destined to give search engines all your connections on a silver platter. This is a great development, not only for you and for search engines, but, more importantly, for the web in general.
Also in 2019, I (Marieke) took over the role of CEO from Joost, which was kind of a big deal for me personally. Joost now is our Chief Product Officer. We both enjoy our new roles!
What to expect from Yoast SEO in 2020?
You can expect great things for Yoast SEO in 2020! We have a lot of awesome features that’ll be rolled out in 2020. We’re very excited about our ‘indexables’ update. Indexables is a pretty awesome rebuild of how we store and generate our metadata. Instead of re-generating robots, canonical and other tags on every page load, we’ll store them in our own table. This makes loads of our processes much much faster.
On top of that data, we’ll add an enhancement to our premium internal linking suggestions functionality, which we’re dramatically improving the quality of. Some real nice applied computer science stuff there in how we’ve applied information retrieval algorithms within WordPress without external storage.
We’re finishing up a brand new update for our internal linking tool. Also, you can expect some cool new schema-blocks! And that’s only half of it! We’re very excited: we decided that 2020 is going to be the ‘new features in Yoast SEO-year’.
YoastCon 2020
In 2020, Yoast will celebrate its 10th birthday! And we’re going to host a huge birthday party: YoastCon 2020 It’s going to be a very special edition. YoastCon 2020 will take place on 24 April 2020 and tickets are completely free. If you want to find out more about YoastCon (and how to apply for tickets) check out the YoastCon page.
According to a post on the company’s website, “Verizon is seeking to be the first carrier to connect one million drone flights to the 5G network.”
Verizon has had its sights set on the market for some time, acquiring drone company Skyward in early 2017, just a few months after offering wireless plans aimed at drone makers. The company sees far more potential, however, especially for companies looking to operate fleets of drones, which cost significantly less than helicopters or planes.
Verizon is counting on the speed of its 5G Ultra Wideband network, along with mobile edge computing (MEC) to provide the missing ingredient necessary for widespread drone deployment. With MEC “more complex functions can be performed nearer to the user and away from centralized servers. By shortening the distance data has to travel, drones will be able to perform more latency-sensitive tasks. As a knock-on benefit, because bulky processors can be offloaded, drones have the potential to get smaller and faster, with extended battery life, so they can stay in the air and on the job longer.”
Verizon sees tremendous opportunity in the field, as a mere “10% of major enterprises have a drone program, and none of them are connected to a wireless network,” says Mariah Scott, president of Skyward. “We knew early on that connectivity would be critical for drones to truly transform our world. And now 5G Ultra Wideband will usher in a new era in aviation, where we connect and integrate drones into the national airspace.”
The two companies are working closely to overcome the remaining hurdles for widespread adoption. Verizon’s network will allow operators to pilot drones from thousands of miles away, while its MEC capabilities will make drones viable for a wider range of industries. In the meantime, “Skyward recently unveiled advanced airspace intelligence for drone pilots, including essential ground intelligence and 3D views of more than one million vertical obstacles.”
The timing is definitely right for Verizon’s ambitions, as the Federal Aviation Administration recently proposed rules that would allow it to identify and track the majority of active drones. This is seen as a major step in integrating drones into the national airspace alongside existing aerial vehicles.
According to a support FAQ on the company’s website, WhatsApp is ending support for a number of older operating systems (OS), including Windows Phone.
The post recommends using Android 4.0.3 or later and iOS 9 or later. Some phones running KaiOS are supported, with 2.5.1 being the oldest version recommended. Notably, WhatsApp on Android 2.3.7 and older cannot create or reverify accounts, although it can still be used until February 1, 2020. The same applies to iOS 8 and older.
Windows Phone users will not be able to use WhatsApp at all, effective December 31, 2019, as the company is completely ending support for the OS.
As the post points out, there is no option to transfer chat history from one platform to another. Users who want to keep their history for reference, however, can export it as an email attachment. Any Windows Phone users, in particular, should take advantage of that feature in the little time they have left.
Security camera manufacturer Wyze is the latest company to experience a data breach, exposing sensitive data of 2.4 million users.
According to Twelve Security, the cybersecurity firm that first discovered the leak, two production databases were left completely open to the internet. These databases contained email addresses of individuals who purchased cameras, emails for anyone who was given access, list of cameras in use and their nicknames, WiFi SSIDs and more.
Wyze eventually confirmed the breach, although disagreed with some details about the information that was exposed. Wyze also denies the databases were production databases, according to a post on the company’s forums.
“To help manage the extremely fast growth of Wyze, we recently initiated a new internal project to find better ways to measure basic business metrics like device activations, failed connection rates, etc.,” the post reads.
“We copied some data from our main production servers and put it into a more flexible database that is easier to query. This new data table was protected when it was originally created. However, a mistake was made by a Wyze employee on December 4th when they were using this database and the previous security protocols for this data were removed. We are still looking into this event to figure out why and how this happened.”
The company did confirm many other details of the breach, however, stating: “It did not contain user passwords or government-regulated personal or financial information. It did contain customer emails along with camera nicknames, WiFi SSIDs, Wyze device information, body metrics for a small number of product beta testers, and limited tokens associated with Alexa integrations.”
The company has taken measures to address the breach and restore security. However, as Twelve Security’s author Ghost says: “Personally, in my ten years of sysadmin and cloud engineering, I never encountered a breach of this magnitude.”
Breaches like this continue to be both shocking and unacceptable. As IoT devices become increasingly common in both corporate and personal use, security should be the number one concern—not an afterthought.
According to Consumer Reports, the House and Senate have passed a bill that would limit how cable companies charge hidden fees and phantom rentals to jack up bills.
Customers have chafed for years at hidden fees and add-ons that take their low-priced, promotional cable bill and double or triple it. Cable companies will advertise a low-priced package, or tout the fact they have not raised prices in so many months, and then use hidden fees to circumvent the advertised price.
As a result, Consumer Reports has been lobbying for laws that would limit how the cable companies operate and the fees they can charge.
“People across the country are fed up with all of the extra fees they pay each month that keep growing more costly year after year,” said Jonathan Schwantes, Consumer Reports’ senior policy counsel. “Cable companies shouldn’t be allowed to disguise the true cost of service by charging a long list of add-on fees that aren’t clearly disclosed when customers sign up for service. These reforms will bring fairness and clarity to pay-TV billing, so we can find a plan that fits our budget without having to worry about getting stuck paying hidden fees.”
The newly passed bill—which merely needs President Trump’s signature to become law—will force cable companies to provide an itemized list of fees and charges, and give customers a 24-hour window to cancel without penalty. The bill will also ban pay-TV companies from charging customers for equipment they don’t use. For example, many companies who bundle TV and internet service will charge customers rental fees for an internet router even if they’re using their own and never use the company’s.
On the downside, the bill only applies to pay-TV companies, as well as companies and plans that bundle pay-TV with internet service. It does not yet apply to strictly broadband companies with no pay-TV option, who are just as guilty of these practices.
Another provision of the bill would also help alleviate local station blackouts that often occur “when broadcasters and TV service providers can’t agree on terms for carrying local or cable channels. The law will mandate good-faith negotiations between the parties during these so-called retransmission consent negotiations.” The bill will also allow satellite TV providers to offer network programming in markets that do not have local broadcasts.
The legislation is a step in the right direction for reigning in what has become predatory practices by the cable TV industry. Here’s to hoping the legislation catches up with the broadband industry as well.
SEO is important for digital marketers, website owners and brands of all sizes because, in a nutshell, it allows your site to appear in the search results when someone types or speaks a query for which you have an answer or solution. In other words, it increases a website’s visibility in the SERPs which leads to more organic traffic to your website.
Whether you're a business owner who needs an overview of the new changes in SEO or an expert marketer who wants a refresher to your SEO strategy, this post will keep you updated on what to keep an eye on in 2020.
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9 SEO Trends You Can't Ignore in 2020
How is SEO going to change in 2020? Well, for starters, the share of organic search results will continue to gradually decline as more ads rule the SERPs.
Let’s discuss the biggest SEO trends we're going to see in 2020:
Trend #1: The SERPs Will Get More Consolidated
The search engine results pages (SERPs) are not the same as they used to be even a few years ago.
The percentage of ad share has increased, the answer boxes and featured snippets have started getting a lion's share of the clicks, and the “People Also Ask” feature that was launched in 2018 (which combines a few answer boxes together pushing the organic search result down) has grown in importance:
A new carousel for videos has also been added above the text-based organic search results and below the People Also Ask box:
All such features have decreased the share of organic clicks to about 10% – down from around the 50% that it used to be:
The number of zero-click searches (also known as “rank zero snippet” and “position zero”) are going up, meaning that you will get an answer right there on the search results page rather than having to click on a link and visit a web page. This consolidation of the SERPs will make SEO tougher than ever before.
In order to maintain the flow of traffic to your website, you'll need to think outside the answer box and diversify, which includes implementing omnichannel marketing as well as long-tail keywords.
You can use a tool like ClickFlow, which allows you to test the effectiveness of each page (or groups of pages) to increase your organic traffic without the hassle of building links or writing more content:
Trend #2: Keyword Research Will Be Even More Important
Google has evolved from being a search engine to an answer engine. Although the manner in which keywords were used in web pages to improve relevance has changed, the foundation of your SEO strategy still rests on keyword research.
No matter whether searches are made by entering text or using voice, keywords are a primary factor for ranking algorithms. Click To Tweet
Here are some tips you'll need to use in 2020 to upgrade your keyword research strategy:
Think “topics” instead of direct “keywords,” as this will help you map out your secondary keywords from a primary keyword seed. As Brian Dean explains in this article, identify a set of topics and then enter them one by one into Google (to see Google's autosuggest) and into YouTube (to see YouTube's autosuggest):
Find keywords that result in more clicks than searches as discussed in this article by Nick Eubanks. This will help you identify keywords where the searchers click on more than one result:
Trend #3: Influencers Will Improve Your Site's Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics quantify the effectiveness of your content. Although not stated directly by Google, the search engine giant measures the engagement metrics of your site to better evaluate the quality of your content and then rank it in the search results.
The engagement metrics that play an important role in rankings are:
Bounce Rate: Refers to the percentage of visitors who visit your website and then leave without visiting any other pages on your site.
Dwell Time: The time between when a person clicks on a search result and when they leave that page.
Time on Page: The amount of time a visitor spends reading a single page on your website.
Return Visits: The number of visitors who land on your site again after having visited it before.
Click to Call: The number of click-to-call requests that are made to connect with your business.
Comments: The number of comments that people leave about your business or your content.
Social Shares: The number of social shares your content receives.
What is going to change is that influencers will play a key role in boosting the overall SEO strategy for your business.
In 2020, the content or brands that an influencer endorses will receive more social shares and higher engagement in terms of comments and time on page. Click To Tweet
Reaping the power of influencers will have a direct and positive effect on engagement metrics, which means that Google will see your business as trustworthy, thus resulting in higher rankings, traffic and conversions.
Voice-based shopping is expected to jump to $40 billion in 2022.
By 2024, the global voice-based smart speaker market could be worth $30 billion.
60% of smartphone users have tried voice search at least once in the past 12 months.
55% of teenagers are using voice search daily basis.
More than 20% of voice search queries are triggered by a combination of these 25 keywords:
Because of voice-based technology, searches in the form of direct questions will play an even more crucial part of SEO in 2020:
“There is an important relation between semantic search and question keywords. Google can identify the entities present in the question keywords with the help of semantic search.”
The definition of “semantic” simply means “relating to meaning in language or logic,” and uses these criteria:
Direct Answer Questions (DAQ): These question keywords start with What, Which, Where, Who, etc. Example: “What is the name of our galaxy?”
Short Answer Questions (SAQ): These questions start with Why, Can, etc. Example: “Why is the ocean blue?”
Long Answer Questions (LAQ): These questions require a longer, often instructional, answer. Example: “How do you cook pasta?”
Have a look at this video from Eric Su in which he explains how to optimize for voice search and use schema markup to dominate answer boxes in the SERPs:
Trend #5: ‘Entity Popularity’ and ‘Entity Engagement’ Will Be Key to Local SEO
46% of searches on Google already have local intent, and the authority of local businesses will continue to be a key factor for higher rankings in 2020.
For example, if you are searching for pizza in New York, then Joe’s Pizza ranks higher because this local establishment is loved by the people in that city. In other words, if a lot of people love your neighborhood business, then Google will rank it higher on the local search results.
The authority of the business – or entity – is decided on the basis of “entity popularity” and “entity engagement.” A study published by Tidings states that engagement will be the most important factor for local SEO in 2020:
Entity popularity will be determined on the basis of the number of brand mentions that the business receives on social media, forums, articles, videos, etc.
Brand mentions or citations are different from a link. Under brand mentions, your business may or may not receive a link. Obviously a brand mention with a link is always better, but even if you are able to achieve a higher number of brand mentions without a link, it will still be beneficial for local SEO.
Entity engagement will be determined by “signals” on the web, such as:
Do people love your business?
How many positive reviews does your business have on Google My Business?
Are there enough positive recommendations for your business on other review sites?
How many people have saved your business as a contact on their Android phone?
How many people ask for the location of your business using Google Maps?
All these are great signals that impact your local business' popularity, so optimize your GMB listing and keep your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) accurate. Also try to generate as many local brand mentions as possible along with positive business recommendations about your company.
A report from Zenith media predicts that the average online video consumption per person will continue to rise steadily next year and beyond. In 2018, people spent an average of 67 minutes watching online videos each day, and this figure is expected to reach 100 minutes per day by 2021:
96% of people agreed that watching videos helped them learn more about a product or service. Hence, incorporating videos into your SEO strategy is a great way to improve brand engagement.
Trend #7: Content that Focuses on E.A.T. Will Be Rewarded by Google
With the launch of the recent BERT update, Google is getting better and better at understanding the relationship (or context) between words.
BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers and is an update to the core search algorithm that comprehends the intent of the searcher behind a search query. This means that great content that focuses on the E.A.T. principle will rank higher:
Expertise: the page needs to have quality content written by an expert writer
Authority: the site itself needs to have some authority on the subject
Trustworthiness: the site needs to have other authoritative links pointing to it from trusted sites
Out-of-context search results will be removed by Google, so try to create content that accurately answers the user’s query. Here are some effective ways to prepare great content:
Details. Your content should be original and provide detailed information, even if it is brief. It should include all the steps necessary to complete a do-it-yourself task, for example. A partial or “fluff” list will earn a lower ranking.
Value. An article must contain information of value, whether that is news, a new development or comprehensive explanations or instructions. Every page on your site should serve a clear purpose and must help the reader.
Well written. Content should be engaging and well articulated, and the author should have an excellent grasp of the both the topic and the language.
Well edited. All contenton your siteshould be free of typos, misspellings, misused words and punctuation errors. All these things hurt the authority of the content as well as the website and should be avoided, even if that means hiring an editor and/or proofreader for your content creation department.
Good user experience. The key to excellent content is providing a good user experience. The site visitor should not be assaulted with ads or pop ups, and articles should not be excessively spread over a number of pages, forcing your reader to constantly click on “next.”
Schema markup. Add proper schema markup to your content to make it easier for the search engines to understand your content.
The E.A.T. principle measures the trust/authority score of the website where the content is published as well as the expertise of the author who wrote or published it. Both the website and the creator of the content should have a positive reputation.
An analysis of qualitative and quantitative data is crucial for your SEO strategy. Tracking user behavior and using the right tools for keyword research and site optimization are necessary to move your current SEO strategy in the right direction.
To do this, you need to select your data sources carefully and visualize your info by using data science. This will help you identify common issues, like why your customers are buying a particular product or behaving in a particular way after landing on your website.
Data science helps you make concrete decisions by letting you:
Visualize which combinations have the potential to make the biggest impact
Create marketing campaigns aligned with the needs of their audience
Understand buyer’s preferences and identify pain points
Identify referral sources of converting traffic
Verify loading time, indexing, bounce rate, response errors, and redirects
Verify the most and least crawled URLs
Identify pages that crawlers aren’t supposed to index
Trend #9: Mobile Usability Will Be Critical for Higher Rankings
Desktop optimization is starting to go the way of the dinosaurs. Mobile used to be an afterthought, then it was on par with desktops, and now mobile is leading the way. Google is already ranking websites on the basis of their mobile version.
“Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Since the majority of users now access Google Search with a mobile device, Googlebot primarily crawls and indexes pages with thesmartphone agent going forward.”
In 2020, your entire SEO strategy should be mobile driven. If your site serves dynamic content based on the user’s device or has different URLs for desktop and mobile, then you need to follow these best practices to make your site mobile friendly.
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What’s Next?
When it comes to SEO, 2020 will be the year of stiff competition as it will be difficult for site owners to earn a significant share of organic traffic from Google. But you can get an edge over the competition by staying up to date on the SEO trends in this article.
Start revising your SEO strategy now to include VSEO (voice search optimization), zero-click search, interactive video marketing, a more focused use of influencers, entity popularity for your local business, and “topics” instead of direct “keywords.”
