Google often provides useful information to the SEO community, but columnist Nate Dame argues that ultimately, the click here company's advice is in their best interest, not yours -- so make sure you understand the nuances.
The advice in the video is useful, but it’s biased and incomplete — like so much of the information the company distributes. For example, Ohye states that valid recommendations from an SEO must be corroborated by official Google statements, but the search giant frequently declines to comment on algorithm updates, and they have also been known to advise what they want SEOs to do — not necessarily what works.
Reputable SEO companies seriously consider all official statements that Google makes about its ranking factors. But if Google is an SEO company’s only source of data and best practice information click here, the results of the SEO’s work are likely to be suboptimal.
Whether you’re trying to hire an SEO company or improve your own SEO strategy in general, remember a few things about Google: their word is not always their bond, their data is deliberately incomplete https://www.harvardseo.com/ and they are a for-profit company.
1. Google’s word is not gospel
In 2011, Google released an authorship feature in search. By using Schema.org markup, web content could be attributed to a specific author. Authors with multiple high-quality, published pieces would become their own positive ranking factor for content attributed to them. It was an exciting change for both SEOs and writers, and Google expressed a long-term commitment to the feature on info multiple occasions.
But in mid-2014, authorship was discontinued. Google cited low adoption rates and low value to searchers as its reasons for discontinuing the feature. It is a notable example of the problem with following Google’s advice to the letter, and it is only one of dozens of discontinued Google services.
Is it wrong for Google to discontinue a feature that offers low value? Absolutely not. But it does demonstrate that SEO company Miamijust because Google recommends something, it doesn’t mean it’s a valuable task to invest time and money into.
Another example is Google’s assertion late last year that a penalty was coming for sites with intrusive interstitials. They announced the change and forewarned SEOs and webmasters so that they’d have time to remove offending interstitials from their sites. In January, the change was rolled out, but sites who had ignored the warnings don’t seem to have been penalized.
Google’s inconsistencies mean two things:
The recommendations in Google’s latest video aren’t set in stone either. When user behavior and/or their business priorities change, so will Google’s advice.
If you actually are trying to hire an SEO company, don’t hire someone who is afraid to throw stones at Goliath. The most effective SEO companies consider a variety of data sources when prioritizing SEO work.
2. Google’s data is incomplete
Google is also known for distilling limited information when it comes to the data provided in its tools. Google Analytics and Search Console are valuable sources of data for engagement SEO tasks and keyword and user intent research, but the data provided by these tools is incomplete.
For example, in 2013, Google SEO Services Miami moved to SSL encrypted search for all users. This removed keyword data that was formerly accessible through Google Analytics, replacing it with instances of “not provided” data. SEOs were forced to turn to the only other viable source of discovering keywords a site is currently ranking for: Google Search Console.
But in a study published by Moz early this year, researchers found that the numbers in Search Console do not match tests performed in search or Google Analytics data. The researchers ultimately concluded that webmasters should be skeptical of the data in Google Search Console and must validate the data retrieved to avoid reaching unreliable conclusions.
Data provided by Google is rounded, estimated, sampled and incomplete. If you’re hiring an SEO company, be sure to SEO Services Miami ask what tools they use. Analytics and Search Console should be on the list, but they should be paired with third-party tools as well.
And it’s not just numerical or keyword data. Google has a long history of getting SEOs to work for them by only distributing information that promotes its own agenda. Remember to take Google’s official advice — whether it’s about hiring an SEO or specific SEO strategies — with a grain of salt.
3. Google is a for-profit company, not a public service
When an algorithm update is released or a change is made, the reasoning Google provides almost always points back to providing an excellent user experience. This makes it easy to imagine that their decisions are grounded in public service: provide excellent search results so people can find what they need quickly and easily.
But Google is not a public service, it’s a for-profit company. A 2015 report, “Beyond the FTC Memorandum: Comparing Google’s SEO Services Miami Discussions with Its Public Claims,” compared Google’s internal policies and practices to their public statements about those policies and practices and found several inconsistencies. The FTC found evidence to question whether Google’s search results:
are designed to benefit users or Google.
de-prioritize bad sites or Google competitors.
use unbiased algorithms or human decisions.
Because Google’s empire is built on paid ads.
In the first quarter of 2015 Google took in $17.3 billion in revenue, up 12% year over year. Nearly all of it — $15.5 billion — came from advertising sales. About $12 million of that came on the company’s own sites with the rest being derived from its network.
The value of that digital real estate depends on users preferring their service and spending time on their SERPs, which is why paid ad space is growing. In 2016, Google added a fourth ad slot above organic search results and expanded the amount of text that can appear in ads. While these changes have driven increased ad growth, they’ve harmed organic search growth, which is arguably not in the user’s best interest. Further:
“Ad” labels continue to slowly disappear on SERPs, making paid ads look more like earned, organically ranked results.
Description text may be set to expand again, making the paid ads larger and more enticing than content ranking well SEO Service Miami because of quality, user preference and so on.
Between additional top-of-page and bottom-of-page ads, featured snippets, carousels, Google tools and “people also ask” boxes, organic search results on page one have been reduced from 10 links to an average of 8.5. For many queries, organic results do not appear until well below the fold.
In some cases — particularly for content in featured snippets — these changes have helped sites grow incoming organic traffic. In other cases, these changes have served Google in overtaking its competitors:
Organic travel and shopping site results both appear below tools like Google Flights and Google Shopping.
Newly implemented carousels info feature Google Analytics in the first spot for queries like “best marketing software.” When clicking on a carousel result, Google doesn’t take you to the home page of the company listed; it performs a secondary search.
These changes to SERPs result in users spending more time on Google and seeing more ads. A recent study by Moz and Jumpshot proved that on mobile search, which Google is favoring moving forward, more than half of all searches result in zero clicks.
Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from the world of search marketing and beyond.
This week, the mysterious “Google Posts” feature has made another return to the SERP, this time with GIFs and videos – could it be here to stay?
Plus, why marketers aren’t investing in the hottest new technologies as much as you might think; and Google announces a new type of search click here product with “shortcuts in search”, which could mean big changes for SEO and paid search.
Google Posts return – with GIFs and videos
Google launched its “Posts” initiative during the US presidential election last year to relatively little fanfare.
Dubbed an “experimental new info podium”, Google Posts has since come and gone from the SERP several times, each with as little explanation as the first. Now it has reappeared in searches for several US sports teams, including the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees – complete with GIFs and videos.
Clark Boyd took a look at the new incarnation of Google Posts this week and considered what Google could be seeking to accomplish with the feature.
Google’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ ad could be the future of paid voice search
Google sparked a small firestorm SEO company Miami last week when reports surfaced that its intelligent assistant device Google Home had delivered what appeared to be an unsolicited advertisement to unsuspecting owners: a plug for the new ‘Beauty and the Beast’ live-action film.
Al Roberts took a look at the reactions to what Google denies was an ad, and considered whether this could potentially be the future of “voice PPC”.
Google announces “shortcuts in search” – can it get users on board?
Google announced this week the launch of “shortcuts in search“, a new means of discovering quick answers to information via a set of tappable shortcuts within its Android app.
But will this initiative take off, what will it mean for SEO, and how will Google manage to integrate paid ads into this new search experience? Clark Boyd examined the new feature on Search Engine Watch and considered how it could impact https://www.harvardseo.com/ search rankings, what paid placements might look like, and whether Google can get users on board.
Despite the hype, most marketers not investing in hot new technologies
Fear of missing out, or FOMO, apparently isn’t a concern for marketers when it comes to new marketing technologies.
According to a survey conducted as part of OnBrand Magazine’s State of Branding Report 2017, marketers are well aware of the new technologies that are expected to be important to their brands in coming years, but the majority aren’t Professional SEO New York rushing to invest in them before they’re fully-baked.
Of the more than 550 marketing executives and brand managers OnBrand Magazine surveyed, 65% have no plans to invest in new technologies like 360-degree video, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), chatbots and beacons in 2017.
So why aren’t marketers interested in these new technologies just yet? Al Roberts looked into the reasons why marketers are holding back from investing in newer innovations at the moment – and what it is they’re spending their money on instead.
Google to wind down Site Search by the end of 2017
Search Engine Land reported this week on the news that Google is due to sunset its Site Search product by the end of 2017.
Google Site Search, as it says on the tin, is an internal site search product which is powered by Google’s search technology, and is charged by monthly query volume.
Site owners who have been using Site https://www.harvardseo.com/ Search up until now will be encouraged to move onto either Google’s ad-powered Custom Search product, or its new Cloud Search.
With Google sunsetting its site search product, many companies are wondering where to turn for this functionality. Columnist Paul Shapiro provides some alternatives.
Spring has sprung, and Google has started off the season with some spring cleaning of its service lineup. They’ve recently announced that Google Site Search is on the way out. Come April 1, 2017, Google will discontinue sales and new renewals of the service, and a year later click here, April 1, 2018, the service will be completely shut down.
So, what’s the big deal? Search is search, right? The short answer: no. The longer answer is a little more complex, but still easy enough to understand from an end user’s point of view info. While not everyone utilizes website search features, those who do are looking for something specific and expect to find answers quickly and easily. If people are on your website and using the search feature, they are obviously interested in what you have to say or in what you’re selling, so catering to them is important. If your search function is weak, users may leave your site, meaning you’re losing a fan, a lead and a customer — and in 2017, that is simply unacceptable info.
Google Site Search was an easy-to-implement, safe bet that provided Google-level search within your website. Website owners knew what they were getting, and users felt comfortable using the feature. Now what?
Before you start scrambling to find a https://www.harvardseo.com/ suitable replacement, let’s talk a bit about what led us to this point and where you can feasibly go from here. What are current customers losing, and what other options are available for website search functions? Trust us, it’s not as bad as it seems.
Let’s talk a bit about what Google Site Search (GSS) accomplished before going into viable alternatives.
Google Site Search was essentially Google for your personal website. With some tweaking and the use of XML, you could have all of the power of Google, with none of the Google branding or traditional ads normally associated with Google, all integrated into your website. Ease of implementation has been one of the great features of GSS; with just a couple SEO company Miami of lines of code, websites had the power of Google in their search bar.
GSS also included options for multilingual searches and date biasing, meaning the most relevant results were always at the top. That being said, GSS used Google’s same crawling feature, meaning that updates to your website weren’t always updated in search right away, but instead could take several days.
oogle Custom Search
If you’re dead-set on staying with Google, options are still available, but those options may not suit your needs SEO company Miami, depending on the size and scope of your business. With Google Custom Search, your customers can search from a group of websites of your choosing or search the entire web, at the great cost of free.
With that free price tag come some stipulations, however. For one, ads are required, unless you are a non-profit or a school, but you can connect your AdSense account to monetize the ads. Also, the Google branding is required; nothing you can do about it. There are also monthly search query limits, so if you’re running a high-traffic website, there’s a good chance your Google Custom Search will stop working due to SEO Services Miami hitting search limits.
Simply put, Google Custom Search is a great solution for small blogs, and maybe even local businesses, but if you’re already scaling on a large level — or plan on advertising at state, country or global level — Google Custom Search will not fit all of your needs. If you fall into this group, you need to start looking at third-party solutions for search.
Third-party solutions
You’re not limited to Google when it comes to search services for your website. A lot of companies care about SEO Services New York, but the key is also finding ones that understand that the user experience also has to be top-notch if you want to keep people using your search features and, in turn, your website.
That’s where third-party solutions like Algolia, Cludo and Swiftype come into play. All three of these companies do a great job of maximizing the search experience for your website’s visitors. Check out more details about each (as well as other solutions) below.
AddSearch: Finland-based startup AddSearch is one option for your website search needs. Offering easy installation and mobile support, your search will be up and running in no time and working smoothly on any device. AddSearch also offers search statistics and result SEO Services New York control, allowing webmasters to choose and prioritize which results are most important.
Algolia: A well-funded SaaS search company that is already working with major names like Medium, Product Hunt, Twitch and Birchbox, Algolia can integrate into almost any website to offer seamless, fast search. With keystroke forgiveness, find-as-you-type live search and geolocation options, your users will be able to find exactly what they’re looking for click here, regardless of device or location.
Is your website fast enough for Google to index as much of your web pages as possible? Is it quick enough to avoid pogo-sticking issues?
Websites should be fast enough for users with the poorest web connection to have a nice User https://www.harvardseo.com Experience (UX). Doing so will allow them to discover your content, your services, products, and offers without any frustration.
The very first thing you need to do is to run a website speed test with Dareboost. You’ll get realistic results, as speed tests are conducted with real browsers (Chrome), and with real life click here bandwidth conditions. You can choose between mobile and desktop contexts, the location from where the test will be performed, and use numerous advanced settings (such as testing your website with the Google Bot User Agent, for example).
Dareboost is way more than just a speed test tool. It’s an all-in-one service to manage your website performance: analysis, monitoring, and benchmarking – all without any installation. Dareboost offers a simple yet powerful environment to fit the needs of any SEO company Miami kind of organization. It is fit for SEO managers, web developers, as well as e-commerce managers.
A Complete Report about Website Speed
Your analysis report will aggregate dozens of metrics about your website. Of course, you will find usual data such as load time, page weight, time to first byte, and a waterfall. Dareboost goes way further than others, providing you with metrics directly related to UX. Thanks to video analysis with features such as Start Render, Visually Complete, and Speed Index.
Furthermore, the service helps more info you to analyze and understand your results, with insights and documentations related to Google’s recommendations or observed averages.
Website Audit with Detailed Optimization Guidelines
The online service also checks more than 100 best practices and common mistakes on your web page, delivering a comprehensive audit about performance, SEO, accessibility source, security, and more. Dareboost also detects the technologies used on the web pages, then each of the checkpoints are highly contextualized and include step-by-step guides to help you to improve your website.
You can share the report URL at any time, or even export it as a PDF file. If you’re a professional, a white-label option is also available!
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results—often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site news appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers.SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML, and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO this content tactic. By May 2015, mobile search had surpassed desktop search.Google is developing and pushing mobile search as the future in all of its products. In response, many brands are beginning to take a different approach to their internet strategies
search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engine, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Altavista and Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.
By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. This meant moving away from heavy reliance on term density to a more holistic process for scoring semantic signals. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to navigate here any given search, poor quality or irrelevant search results could lead users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.
In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web was created to bring together practitioners and researchers concerned with search engine optimization and related topics.
Companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients. Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients https://www.harvardseo.com/ Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization. Google has a Sitemaps program to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website.Bing Webmaster Tools provides a way for webmasters to submit a sitemap and web feeds, allows users to determine the crawl rate, and track the web info pages index status.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday rubber-stamped an internal rule change to extend the maximum SEO Services Miami tenure of its president from the current six years to nine, paving the way for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to run for a third term that would last through 2021.
The revision, adopted at the party’s annual convention, represented a crucial step toward the prospect of Abe SEO Services Miami becoming the nation’s longest-serving prime minister.
What was supposed to be a triumphant moment for Abe, however, was somewhat marred by an ever-spiraling SEO Services Miami scandal that has dogged him and his wife, Akie.
The couple is now grappling with mounting allegations surrounding their links to an ultranationalist kindergarten in Osaka and its operator, which is at the center of a murky land deal that a veteran SEO Services Miami LDP lawmaker may have been involved in.
Opposition parties have pounced on the scandal, which has dominated domestic headlines, in what many in their SEO Services Miami ranks see as a golden opportunity to deal a crushing blow to the near-impervious Abe administration.
Standing in front of the podium Sunday, Abe, however, appeared undeterred, trumpeting the success of Abenomics, which he claims has boosted employment, curbed child poverty and helped Japan SEO Services Miami regain gross national income worth ¥50 trillion.
“I will give you my word that I will do my best to create a Japan that can shine at the center of the global stage,” a confident Abe told fellow LDP members attending the convention in an address SEO Services Miami
Abe also took the opportunity to emphasize his successful summit talks with new U.S. President Donald Trump last month SEO company Miami
“We were able to demonstrate to the world that the Japan-U.S. alliance is not in the slightest bit shaken” by a Trump presidency SEO company Miami, Abe told the audience.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the enactment of Japan’s pacifist Constitution, which, since it took effect in SEO company Miami May 1947, has remained unaltered. That has irked right-wingers who regard the U.S.-drafted supreme law as a remnant of the nation’s postwar subordination to the United States.
Abe said his party will “spearhead a concrete debate” on its revision.
The prime minister, who took office in December 2012 SEO company Miami, was originally supposed to bow out in September next year, when his current second term expires. But Sunday’s move to extend the maximum tenure of the LDP presidency from six years over two terms SEO company Miami to nine years over three terms will enable him to run for a third term in the party’s next leadership election slated for next year.
If he is re-elected, he could theoretically remain as prime minister until September 2021, allowing him to host the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. In Japan, the leader of the ruling party normally becomes SEO company Miami prime minister.
So far, Abe, in stark contrast to what has often been called a revolving door of hapless predecessors who often lasted for only a year or so, has proved so popular that he won the previous leadership SEO Services Miami election unopposed in 2015.
According to an opinion poll jointly conducted last week by the influential Nikkei business daily and TV Tokyo, the Abe Cabinet approval rating was hovering near 60 percent SEO Services Miami
Among the few possible contenders who could challenge Abe is Shigeru Ishiba, an LDP heavyweight who lost to him in the 2012 leadership election. Although Ishiba hasn’t said he will throw his hat in the ring the next time around, he has nonetheless hinted that he will SEO Services Miami remain a vocal critic of the Abe administration.
Letting Abe win unopposed in the next LDP presidential race, with no real deliberation over his policy, is “certainly not a good thing for the LDP,” Ishiba told reporters after the convention wrapped up SEO Services Miami
“If you have a difference in opinion than your party, you need to speak out and seek judgment from your fellow party members. That’s the way you should behave as an LDP lawmaker,” Ishiba said SEO Services Miami
Another possible challenger, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, took a more reserved stance.
“The extension of the presidency is something we debated thoroughly and approved unanimously. … All I will do at the moment is dedicate myself to the role as a member of the Abe Cabinet,” Kishida said Professional SEO Miami
Neither of the “post-Abe” candidates, however, appear able to deal a heavier blow to the Abe administration than the ongoing scandal regarding Moritomo Gakuen, which operates the ultranationalist Tsukamoto Kindergarten in the city of Osaka. It is also slated to open the Mizuho no Kuni elementary school, in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, in April Professional SEO Miami
First lady Akie Abe had been the honorary principal of the new elementary school until Feb. 23. However, she quit after allegations surfaced over the operator’s discounted land deal that some say may have been manipulated by politicians with cozy ties to Moritomo Gakuen President Yasunori Kagoike.
Abe said he would resign if either he or his wife were ever found to have had anything to do with the shady deal Professional SEO Miami
The kindergarten run by Kagoike has instructed children that attend it to worship Abe as a hero who protects Japan from regional rivals such as China and South Korea, urging them to recite a 19th-century imperial decree on education. The first lady, in September 2015, also gave a lecture at the preschool, according to a posting to her personal Facebook page Professional SEO Miami
On Friday night, a crowd of protesters gathered in front of the Diet building calling for the “resignation” of Abe and chanting, among other things: “Don’t destroy our children!” Organizers SEO Company New York estimated the turnout at 1,200.
“A month ago, few even knew what Moritomo Gakuen was, but now it’s all over the news. What was unthinkable a month ago is now hitting the Abe government hard,” Yoshifu Arita, a lawmaker SEO Company New York from the main opposition Democratic Party, told the crowd.
“I’d say it’s possible that we’re about to see the demise of Abe-led politics,” he added.
An elementary school at the center of an ongoing scandal being built on land acquired through a questionable deal with the central government will not open next month as scheduled unless additional documents are submitted by March 14, Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui has said SEO Services New York.
The school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, has been asked to submit to the prefectural government its plans for removing a large volume of earth containing old garbage at the school construction site in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, as well as on how it will finance the school SEO Services New York
The school project has drawn intense scrutiny in the Diet following the disclosure that Moritomo Gakuen purchased the land for the school from the government at a fraction of its appraisal price SEO Services New York
The school, which on its website calls itself the nation’s first Shinto elementary school, has also attracted attention for its ties to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
His wife, Akie, was the school’s honorary principal until stepping down recently. The school operator had sought donations by naming the school after Abe, although the name was eventually dropped SEO Services New York
Given the apparent links to the prime minister, the opposition has raised questions over possible involvement by Abe in the cut-price land deal, which he has denied Professional SEO New York
Amid the controversy, the head of a council of experts that advises the governor on private schools in the prefecture indicated in late February that the local government would grant permission for the school to open in late March unless something untoward happened Professional SEO New York
But since then, environmental concerns have mounted after a subcontractor said garbage unearthed from the site had been dumped into a hole at the same site during construction Professional SEO New York
Matsui, the governor, has alluded to the possibility that the prefectural government may not grant permission for the school to open due to the potential health effects the garbage-tainted soil could have on pupils Professional SEO New York
On Friday, prefectural officials interviewed Yasunori Kagoike, the top official of Moritomo Gakuen, and his wife, and decided that the school operator must submit the additional paperwork to the local government, including information about the number of pupils planning to attend SEO company New York
Speaking to reporters in the city of Osaka on Saturday, Matsui said that unless the documents are submitted by the March 14 date, the school “won’t open on schedule.” SEO company New York
The prefecture’s advisory council is scheduled to convene March 23 to make a final decision on whether to allow the school to open in April.
The prefectural government said earlier that 40 children were expected to enroll at the school as first graders and five children SEO company New York as second graders.
If Moritomo Gakuen cannot secure permission to open, the children will likely go to public schools in their communities from April. But such arrangements must be made no later than March 28, according to the head of the prefectural board of education.
Moritomo Gakuen has obtained conditional permission to open the school.
The educational entity, based in the city of Osaka, has also faced criticism in connection with the kindergarten it operates in the city.
In January, prefectural officials questioned Kagoike and his wife, who are the principal and vice principal of the preschool, for suspected hate speech after it distributed to parents material disparaging Korean residents of Japan and Chinese people.
The opposition is calling for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to agree to summon Kagoike to face questions in the Diet over the land deal, but senior officials of the LDP and government have so far been reluctant.
“It’s practically illegal,” Democratic Party senior lawmaker Toshio Ogawa said Sunday during a TV program. “I’m suspecting the involvement of lawmakers.”
LDP lawmaker Masaharu Nakagawa, however, dismissed the allegation, saying the price tag for the land deal was appropriate.
For retail, the revolution is being televised, as it’s increasingly being delivered online through computer and phone video screens.
The growth of digital SEO Services Miami shopping was the central point of “Future Retail,” a presentation and panel discussion held at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) on Wednesday evening, as both marketing professionals and academics discussed the ramifications of this revolution and where it’s likely headed next SEO Services Miami
Opening the session in Piper Hall, GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, said the discussion would outline “the status of shopping and its relationship to design practice,” which allowed for a SEO Services Miami of topics, from futuristic clothing to restructuring of old-fashioned brick-and-mortar stores.
“We were wrong” about the impact of the internet on retail, said Rajiv Lal, referring to his own essays that predicted a considerably more modest digital marketplace. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
In SEO Services Miami the first presentation, Rajiv Lal, the Stanley Roth Sr. Professor of Retailing at Harvard Business School, looked ahead, saying that retailers must assume that technology will continue to change their field. Developments like the Amazon Go store, which automates checkout and streamlines shopping, and spray-on clothing SEO Services Miami customized to the individual, are two promising frontiers. Both incorporate old-school, in-person shopping, but in innovative ways. “Technology will allow us to live more imaginative lives,” he predicted.
Lal started the forward-looking discussion by peering back at work, including his own, that inaccurately predicted the impact SEO Services Miami that the internet would have on retail.
“Why focus on the past when I’m supposed to focus on the future?” he asked. “Because we were wrong.” In a few short years, thanks to Amazon and other online retailers, he said, “shopping at stores became a chore.” Price and ease, areas in which the internet easily outpaced stores, quickly became paramount, disrupting the industry. In order to respond effectively, he said, retail outlets must re-engage SEO Services Miami consumers. “Make it entertaining, engaging, and fun,” he suggested, such as the Apple store, where design and personal service combine for an experience that is about more than the product being purchased SEO Services Miami
Illustrating his presentation with National Retail Federation statistics, Eric Symon, vice president of the global retail business unit of the tech company PTC, outlined the extent of the “massive transformation” of retail, noting that e-commerce currently accounts for approximately 10 percent of all sales, but nearly all of the field’s growth. “Retailers are shuttering thousands of stores,” he said SEO Services Miami
But while e-commerce appears to be behind this change, he said, “The real disrupter is the consumer.” Calling the new SEO Services Miami “connected, informed, engaged, and demanding,” he pointed out how the online shopper has enacted a basic power shift “from retailer to consumer.”
Whereas previously manufacturers and retailers determined product availability — by seasonality, for example — the new consumers have become accustomed to products on demand. Shoppers want variety, and Professional SEO Miami they do not want to wait. The winners in such a new world will follow what Symon called the Zara model, “shortening the cycle time.” Citing the success of the Spanish clothing chain, he noted how fashion “used to have four seasons, but Zara does it every two weeks.” He then gave examples of how increased client engagement and customization Professional SEO Miami — such as enhanced shopping experiences that refer to a customer’s previous purchases and spending history — will allow retail outlets to use technology and design to reach and retain consumers.
Neil Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker, then gave an inside perspective on just how these principles can be applied in the real world. Blumenthal, whose budget- and Professional SEO Miami style-conscious eyeglass line has moved Professional SEO Miami the online world to include brick-and-mortar outlets, walked the audience through the development of his business. Starting with a question — “Why aren’t glasses sold online?” — he and his partners came up with a straightforward business plan. They would use their own designs, thus avoiding licensing fees, and a limited palette of materials and styles, which would help reduce costs. They also spent much of their Professional SEO Miami 18 months in development working on their website — the interface with consumers — understanding that this was as important as the product.
The primary concern, however, had to be customer service. Because eyeglasses are such personalized products, said Blumenthal, building trust was paramount. The team came up with the idea of shipping frames to consumers to try on at home, and this, along with free shipping and returns, became the basis of the Professional SEO Miami online business. “We wanted to eliminate every friction point possible and convey confidence,” said Blumenthal.
Warby Parker was also committed to a social mission: The brand distributes a pair of glasses to an underprivileged user for every pair sold, pairing with a non-profit for this purpose. However, Blumenthal said, Warby Parker quickly realized that this would be a lower priority for consumers. Instead, he stressed, the company focused on being “a lifestyle brand, offering value and service,” and only then Professional SEO Miami that it had “a social mission.” The results were immediate: The company hit its first year’s goals in three weeks. It has since gone on to experiment with brick and mortar, first with pop-up stores in Philadelphia and New York, and more recently with permanent outlets, which rely heavily on design, playing up the neighborhood attributes of their urban settings Professional SEO Miami
Craig Robins, CEO and president of the real estate company Dacra, commented on the role of neighborhoods when he joined the speakers for the ensuing panel discussion. Developer of the Miami Design District, Robins spoke of the “intersection between culture and business,” specifically about incorporating historic buildings — “real things” — into a retailer’s vision. In that way, he showed Professional SEO Miami a way forward for the field, using both technology and design, and stressing the need to “invest equally in the culture side of the neighborhood as well as places for people to sell things.”
ver the past 75 years, many Western nations moved steadily toward cooperation and interconnectedness, as their shared economic and political interests converged during this period called globalization Professional SEO Miami But the political winds are shifting, and there are signs of a new age of populism and nationalism emerging in Europe, a development that eventually could undermine post-war security and unity.
Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election in part by promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., of political elites and to “Make America Great Again,” a broad-brush populist slogan that Professional SEO Miami supported a more isolationist, protectionist, “America First” posture toward the wider world. His campaign rhetoric criticizing some Muslims and Mexicans and his recent efforts to limit immigration and trade have left many analysts wondering whether his presidency could effectively move the country toward a period of ethno-nationalism.
Trump’s surprise election has proved a political windfall and an inspirational template to far-right candidates in Europe, as some countries prepare for major elections. These include the Netherlands (March), France Professional SEO Miami (April and May), and Germany (September). These rightist groups predate Trump politically and tie themselves more tightly to nationalism, but they are also happy to ride on the coattails of his victory.
Marine Le Pen, the National Front party leader running for president of France, embraces antiglobalization and anti-immigration Professional SEO Miami policies. Both Le Pen and her father, Jean-Marie, the former party leader, lavishly cheered Trump’s election on Twitter, while other European nationalist party figures in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Greece touted his win as a positive sign of things to come. She has promised to “take back” France by withdrawing from the European Union (EU), a move that Trump has applauded, as he did when Britain voted Professional SEO Miami year to leave that body, rocking the EU to its core. Lately, Le Pen has been rising in the polls as her mainstream electoral opponents have faltered.
Other figures on Europe’s far right, including Geert Wilders, founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom, and Nigel Farage, former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, which spearheaded Britain’s Professional SEO Miami break with the EU, have met with and supported Trump. Farage dined with Trump last week in Washington, appeared at Trump’s inauguration, and also made several appearances with him during the campaign. Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s Northern League, has reportedly offered to help Trump expand his support in Europe.
Indeed, some in the Trump administration have embraced the value of a far-right coalition between the United States and Europe. Leading the way is Trump’s chief White House strategist, Stephen Bannon M.B.A. ’85 , the former chairman of Breitbart Media, a pro-Trump online news outlet. Professional SEO Miami Breitbart has been something of a safe harbor for white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other digitally savvy right-wing fringe groups. It’s an assertion Bannon appears to agree with, once referring to Breitbart as the “home of the alt-right.” Shortly after the election, Breitbart announced it would expand to France and Germany to help bring Trumpism to Professional SEO Miami there. During a rare public appearance last week, Bannon, widely-seen as Trump’s ideological compass, said their victory made clear that there is a political “movement” afoot, one in which the administration’s “economic nationalist agenda” will help galvanize the Republican Party, and the nation, into “a new political order.”
A new salience
Although the words populism and ethno-nationalism are often used interchangeably, they actually are distinctly different Professional SEO Miami
“Populism is a way of making political claims that oppose ostensibly ‘corrupt elites’ with ‘the virtuous people,’” said Bart Bonikowski, a Harvard associate professor of sociology who studies populist and nationalist movements.
The left often labels big business and banking executives as elites, while the right typically targets the state itself and those who keep it running, like civil servants, bureaucrats, and elected officials, along with academics and other intellectuals, “whereas ethno-nationalism is … a definition of the nation that excludes various ethnic, religious, and racial out-groups,” he said.
Because populism is less an Professional SEO Miami ideology than a form of political discourse, it is often attached to a variety of political ideologies, including nationalism.
“It’s basically a strategy for mobilizing political support for whatever politicians’ objectives might be,” said Bonikowski. “It so happens that in Europe and the United States and elsewhere … populism attached to ethno-nationalism has gained traction. But that doesn’t mean the two things are the same or that they only occur with one another.”
Nationalism can be ethnocentric or Professional SEO Miami primarily civic in focus. Some strains are more inclusive than others, often based on political principles and respect for institutions that rest on subjective identification with a nation. Ethnic-driven nationalism is often about a shared ancestry, religion, and language and a common dissent, said Bonikowski, a resident faculty member at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES).
Despite some public perceptions, populism and ethno-nationalism have not suddenly surged in the United States and Europe since Trump’s ascendancy. Many European nationalist parties have been around for decades, with varying levels of success. In 2015, Hungary and Poland installed hard right, antiglobalization governments.
“There’s a good portion of the population that does … have a particular understanding of what America is: a white, Christian America,” says Bart Bonikowski. File photo by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
“I think what’s changed is the salience of these ideas given the … contextual factors: economic crises, persistent inequality stemming out of neoliberalism, demographic change, anxieties associated with terrorism, along with political developments like obstructionism in Washington, [and the] perceived corruption or non-representativeness of the EU governance system,” said Bonikowski. “All of these things have generated some level of anxiety among particularly white, native-born populations and a perceived status loss at the group level among these folks, which then makes both nationalist and populist claims — and, especially, nationalist-populist claims — more resonant and more salient than they had been in the past.”
Indeed, Trump first found his political footing in 2011 after he pushed an unfounded, racially tinged accusation popular on the far right that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and thus was not a legitimately elected president. Trump appeared to stoke divisiveness among his predominantly white supporters and was slow to reject endorsements by white nationalists, including the Ku Klux Klan, critics contended.
Yet Trump was backed by 63 million voters in the presidential election, and the vast majority were hardly extremists, but Americans with traditional values who wanted change.
“There’s a good portion of the population that does … define the nation in ethno-cultural terms. They’re not all members of neo-Nazi groups, by any stretch of the imagination. They just have a particular understanding of what America is: a white, Christian America.”
While well-organized fringe groups wishing to remake the country as a white, nationalist state have long existed on the periphery of American politics and society, the Trump campaign’s advancement of an agenda that sometimes aligns with theirs brought some extremist groups into the mainstream. “They’ve been allowed to be part of the conversation, which they hadn’t before, and they have, in Bannon, an advocate pretty close to power.”
Europe emboldened
Trump’s election and Britain’s exit from the EU are “very encouraging” to nationalist groups across Europe, “because for the first time, there’s a shift away from international cooperation, sharing sovereignty, building international relations and organizations, to addressing the sovereign rights of specific countries,” said Grzegorz Ekiert, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government and director of the CES.
Both events represent the biggest victories for the populist-nationalist right in many years.
“They demonstrated that what most people thought was impossible is actually possible,” said Bonikowski.
Rarely have groups on the radical right advanced so far in recent decades.
“They’ve certainly been present, and they have won seats in parliaments in national elections, but they have not been in control of governments, they have not been in control of presidencies, they have not made massive impacts on national policies until Brexit and Trump,” he said. “And so I think that certainly emboldens politicians on the far right across Europe, but also across the world. It also gives them some degree of increased legitimacy among their supporters.”
Politicians on Europe’s radical right are now looking to Trump to see which tactics and messages work for him and then testing those in their home nations, adding to the sense that there’s a broader nationalist wave rippling around the world.
There was enthusiasm in 2004 when the EU opened its doors to 10 additional countries, most from the former Eastern bloc. But it wasn’t long before some in these new member states began stoking an anti-EU, nationalist agenda.
“In every country, you have always had people who didn’t like the European Union,” said Ekiert. “In every country, you had people who worried about traditional values, who worried about national sovereignty, who didn’t like the bureaucrats making some decisions, who didn’t like people in their country cooperating with the European Union. But they were lying low for years because, for them, the impetus of the EU enlargement and this liberal vision for the entire continent seemed invincible.”
But the global economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 laid that notion to waste.
“Now, the crisis for the first time showed that this is not an invincible project, that there is possibility, really, to fight against it. And this was the moment when you saw in many countries in Europe, both West and East, nationalistic, populist forces emerging,” Ekiert said.
The reverberations of Trump’s rise to the presidency have been acutely felt in France, where global attention is now focused on a spring presidential election that has seismic implications for the future of the EU, particularly after the decision by British voters to leave provided its own momentum.
The National Front’s Le Pen has made no secret of her support for Trump and his antiestablishment message. Although they do differ in some areas, Trump and Le Pen share several populist-nationalist impulses. Both are protectionists who want to tighten the borders, both oppose immigration and criticize Islam, and both seek to restore “law and order,” which many analysts take as an embrace of a more authoritarian society, said Nonna Mayer, a French political scientist, a leading authority on the National Front, and an emeritus director of research at CES.
“For her, the victory of a populist leader like Trump is the proof that her ideas are going to win, can win,” she said. “She’s going to use Trump, she’s going to use it as an argument … not only for her own party members, but for the people with whom she wants to make alliances, to say, ‘Look, we are respectable, our ideas have won. They have elected a president of the United States.’ So in that sense, it’s good for her.”
Nationalism in France has been on the rise since the 1980s, when the party’s founder, Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, won a seat in European Parliament in 1984. Since then, the National Front has tried to position itself against globalization and as the champion of those who seem themselves as the movement’s losers.
Le Pen’s growing mainstream success owes much to the affirmative case the party makes to voters, Mayer contends. “At a time where most people don’t believe very much in the capacity of mainstream political parties to do something, they say, ‘Yes, we can. … You just need the guts to do it, and we can do it.’ In a way, they are selling a political dream, wherein all the other parties have failed.”
Populist leaders, including Le Pen, tend to oversimplify issues, mislead and exaggerate and sometimes lie about problems and conditions, like the number of immigrants entering France, in order to justify easy solutions, added Mayer, echoing tactics that have proven useful to the Trump camp.
Additionally, terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice, and elsewhere in Europe, as well as the flowing stream of refugees, particularly from Syria, offer useful pretexts for anti-immigration policies and regressive sentiments. “All of that justifies, legitimizes parties that say, ‘We must erect walls and then everything will be as it was before,’ she said. “They always sell a golden age of a society that never existed. But it’s also their strength.”
“What the French have witnessed, especially since the attacks over the last two years, [has left many feeling] ‘we’re not at home anymore, and these people who are here in our country as guests are totally destroying our quality of life,’” said sociologist Michèle Lamont, the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies.
As with Trump, Le Pen’s constituents are often blue-collar voters who’ve seen their earning power decline and feel threatened by the growing diversity in France. They believe the new arrivals, particularly Muslim immigrants and refugees from the Middle East, are leapfrogging over them economically by “‘coming in and stealing our resources,’” said Lamont.
