The Stack is a weekly podcast where we share and discuss the latest trends, news, and content from the world of marketing, sales, and tech. In each episode, Sean, Tim, and Ryan sit down to chat about the hard-hitting questions related to sales, marketing, and tech. You can subscribe on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play Music.
In this episode, we share updates on how YouTube has updated their embedding features, how reciprocal links affect your website, and how today’s users feel about outdated websites. We would love to hear your thoughts so make sure to comment or tweet us at @Sylvestrer1, @SeanHenri, and @Tendrecroppes or @PepperlandMKTG.
What Changes to YouTube Video Embeds Means for Your Business
Phil Nottingham for Wistia
YouTube released some changes to embedded YouTube players that now automatically play related videos to viewers once the video has stopped. Even though you can’t stop related videos from showing up, Google made it easy for you to auto-populate your own videos by adding some quick code to your embed code. But Wistia pointed out a little issue with that:
“You can’t control which of your videos come up at the end, so watching a product video may lead viewers to support videos for products they haven’t yet purchased.
And, what’s more, when you click to play those videos, they don’t play within the player on your website, but instead send users off to YouTube.com in a new tab. “
Key Takeaways:
- These new embedded players seem to be built to send more and more people to YouTube instead of keeping them on your site.
- You don’t need to post your videos to Youtube in order to get them ranking in search results.
- Wistia allows you to customize the ending of your video whether you want a CTA, email capture or even some custom HTML.
Reciprocal Links: Will They Hurt Your SEO in 2019 (A Study by Ahrefs)
Tim Soulo for Ahrefs
Reciprocal link building has been against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for some time now. For those who may not know, reciprocal links or trading links, is where you and another website decide to each give each other a link in the hopes that Google won’t notice it and chose to rank you higher for certain keywords. Ahrefs dug a little deeper and conducted a data-based study to find out what the real impact of trading links is.
“By studying how common reciprocal links are among websites getting consistent traffic from Google, we could get some clue as to the toxicity (or not) of such links.
Key Takeaways:
- 73.6% of the domains within this study have overlapping links.
- About half of the top ranking links in a SERP have reciprocal links.
- Reciprocal links are just a symptom of any website living on the web for an extended period of time. So no need to worry if you acquire a few over the years.
Blue Fountain Media UX Trends Survey Finds 81% Think Less of a Brand if Website Is Not Up To Date
Brain Byer for Blue Fountain Media
Blue Fountain Media conducted a study that asked participants to document their satisfaction based on current website experiences. The study consisted of 11 questions positioned to dig up insight into what turns people off of a website whether it be a particular feature or something like page speed.
Key Takeaways:
- 81% of respondents think less of a brand if their website is not updated.
- 41% don’t mind if website stores their personal data to make it more convenient – as long as it doesn’t put their data at risk.
- Close to 40% are concerned about their privacy online.
- 74% of respondent said they would, of course, download their favorite brands mobile app.
App of the Week
Soapbox by Wistia
Soapbox is a chrome extension by Wistia that makes it easy to record videos and screen shares. This software makes it easy to customize your brand, messaging, and calls to action.
We use it all the time to record quick videos for all kinds of uses: Quickly answering client questions without needing to jump on a call, explaining a process to a prospect or lead, you name it. What’s really great about it is how easy the tool makes things like embedding forms, CTAs, etc. right in your video.
Though we’ve been using Soapbox for years, they just released an update that makes the tool even better: If you’ve got a CTA that you want to appear in all of your videos, you can do just that.
Lightning Round
In this section, we quickly run through some other updates that we didn’t have enough time to deep-dive on, but we still felt were noteworthy.
- Facebook Pays Teens To Install VPN That Spies on Them
- Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps
- Nearly 70% of Consumers Say Page Speed Impacts Their Purchasing Decisions
- Zuckerberg Plans To Integrate WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger
Listen or watch for new episodes each Friday, or check out the archives to watch past episodes on-demand. Like what you hear? Leave us a review or let us know in the comments!
