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In 2021, privacy issues will probably dominate marketing practices and customs. Everybody expects its major influence on the data gathering, storing and usage process, and the new regulations are frequent. The eCommerce companies as well as their tech partners brace themselves to meet the consequences of this trend. But is privacy a thing the consumers really want, and, if so, can CDPs provide the companies with adequate solutions?

 

Ambiguous expectations

 

The number of privacy legislations risen in recent years in many countries, privacy is on everybody’s lips, the consumers demand it to the point, that 30% of consumers said a brand had become “too personal”—and 69% of these consumers would stop doing business with a brand or reconsider their relationship to the brand because of this.

 

We can also observe Data Privacy related moves from the tech giants, like Apple.The recent introduction of Mail Privacy Protection feature is not the first, nor will it be the last change, forced by their clients in order to better protect their Data and/or Information Privacy.

 

On the other hand, 90% of the consumers willing to share behavioural data for an easier shopping experience, and 72% say they only engage with personalized messaging. 

 

This may create some cognitive dissonance, unless we just want to acknowledge that the consumers want to have the cake and eat a cake. In this article we will briefly introduce some basic, privacy-related definitions, speculate on how the privacy trend will affect CDPs development and explain how CDPs can help privacy right now.

 

Finally, we will try to find an answer to the title question finer than just  “The consumers want it all”.

 

Tightening regulations. Data Privacy, Information Privacy and Data Sovereignty Definitions

 

Data Privacy is the set of practices ensuring that the data shared by the customers is only used for its intended purpose. The practices focus on proper handling of sensitive data, like:

 

personal data
confidential data (i.eg. financial)
intellectual property 

 

The goal of these practices are to ensure meeting regulatory requirements as well as protecting the confidentiality and immutability of the data.

 

Information Privacy is the right of individuals to have control over the process of collecting and using their personal or confidential data.

 

Finally, there is Data Sovereignty. The term refers to the data as the subject of the laws of the country in which it is located.

 

As the adoption of cloud data services rises, many countries introduce legislations requiring data to be kept within the country in which the customer resides. In most countries, Data Privacy is a legal concept, not technology. In the European Union, data privacy is recognized as a fundamental right. On the other hand, in some countries, privacy is seen as an element of liberty, free from intrusion from the state.

 

Some examples of Data Privacy legislations:

 

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) gives consumers more control over the personal information that businesses collect about them and the CCPA regulations provide guidance on how to implement the law. It gives the consumer i.eg. the “Right to be forgotten” or the right to opt-out of the sale of their personal information. 
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives EU citizens new control over their data and their interactions with companies.
US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the legislation extends government restrictions on wiretaps to include transmissions of electronic data.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) gives parents control over what information websites can collect from their kids.

 

How the privacy trend will influence CDPs further development

 

The regulations concerning Data Privacy as well as Information Privacy are tightening all around the world. Many sources place Data Privacy and compliance related topics among the most important trends in CDPs development as well as the digital transformation as a whole.

 

The trend for privacy is obvious, the symptoms occur everywhere, from legislation to technological solutions.

 

As the CDPs became much more common in recent years, they are now the essential part of many companies’ tech stack. The privacy trend will not only influence further development of the platforms, it will even be beneficial for CDPs. 

 

From the technological perspective, you should expect further development of even more sophisticated data governance around data privacy and customer communication preferences, provided by modern CDPs.

 

From a market perspective, the inherent traits of CDPs make them a great tool and natural choice for efficient Data Privacy practices, so you should expect even greater growth of the platforms’ market share.

 

What inherent traits make CDPs such an efficient tool for providing Data Privacy, and how can you use them to your advantage in this area right now?

 

3 inherent CDPs traits to leverage for Privacy

 

CDPs are consolidating data into a single customer record. This enables better control over customer data and enhances consumer experience at the same time. CDPs however are not designed to be privacy platforms. You don’t just get Data Privacy solutions as functionalities out-of-the-box. Used in the right way however, they help substantially.

 

GDPR and CCPA compliance. Disclosure Requests and the Right to be Forgotten

 

Both GDPR and CCPA grant consumers the right to ask for the information a company is storing about them. In the absence of CDP, the data is gathered and stored in silos across multiple systems, and some of it may go missing. Inherent trait of CDP, that is being a source of single truth for all consumer data, makes the compliance with these regulations a lot easier. This trait also supports “Right to be Forgotten” regulations, making it seamless for companies to purge non-essential customer data.

 

Unified first-party and zero-party data

 

Some marketers show high reliance on third-party data providers in order to create a unified customer identifier across different data sets, in other words identity resolution. Third-party data providers leverage their ability to match customer lists with third-party data and extend it by sending back a unifying customer ID to the brand. 

 

In the Privacy era, combining first-party with third-party customer data from external sources may prove problematic and inconvenient for a brand, as at some point it may violate Data Privacy practices. Qualities inherent to CDPs enable them to perform this same identity resolution process by using first-party and zero-party data, omitting the collision with privacy practices, policies or regulations.

 

Enforcing Cross-channel Preferences

 

Another inherent trait constituting a CDP is consolidating customer records across data sources. They are easily capable of creating a cross-channel standard for customer communication preferences. The standard can be used in segmentation rules across different channels, ensuring that customers who have opted-out for specific communications, never appear in lists that would have otherwise targeted them.

 

What do consumers really want?

 

Both consumers’ expectations and legislations in privacy matter don’t prevent the companies from developing the unique, personalized, customer experiences. The consumers gladly share their data with the brands. They don’t just “want it all” from the companies, without providing the information necessary to personalize the communication. 

 

Consumers seem to expect that we will be as efficient, agile, and willing in the execution of their privacy rights, ensuing from the legislation and given consents, as we are in other aspects of our interactions with them. They want their privacy rights delivered as they want their goods – here and now. They want us to do what we do, only better. And modern CDP can help you substantially to meet their expectations. See SALESmanago demo to learn in detail, how we can support the best of your Data Privacy practices.

Content. Links. RankBrain.
These are the top-ranking factors Google considers when it comes to showing results on the search engine result page (SERP). Given that much of search engine optimization centers around getting lots of good links to and from your website, it’s essential to learn how to make these links work for you.
In this article, we discuss what external linking is and why you should do it. We also reveal seven external linking best practices. At the end of this article, you’ll know how to use external linking to help your content appear higher on the search engine results page.

When should you link to other sites in SEO?
External links are hyperlinks that direct readers to a website other than your own. On the surface, using external links seems counter-intuitive—these links take people away from your website, after all. However, as we shall see later in this article, it’s one of the most essential sources of ranking power you can ever use.

Four Benefits of External Linking
Linking to outside websites, when done right, offers several benefits:
1. External linking improves your credibility.
When you add trustworthy and relevant website links to your content, it improves the credibility of your website. In addition, valuable external links provide your readers with references, which will enhance your website’s authority.
External linking is similar to the way you cite sources in a bibliography for an academic paper—it shows that you’ve created your content based on sound research.
2. External linking improves your SEO.
The external links you add can assist search engines in determining the usefulness and quality of your pages. High-quality pages usually link to other high-quality pages; thus, search engines will look at your content favorably, helping you rank higher.
If you link to an interesting article on a critical topic of interest to your business, Google uses this as one way to know what your website is about.
3. External linking is an easy way to create connections.
Other websites can tell when you’re linking to them. And the chances are that they might return the favor and link back to your website if the opportunity arises, which is great because the more quality backlinks you get, the better.
It’s an easy and positive way to reach out, make connections in your industry, and get your content in front of the right audience.
4. External linking offers readers more value.
Adding external links provides a better user experience for readers. These links lead to related information that adds to the value in your content without duplicating content. When readers see that you consistently link out to resources that’d help them understand a topic better, they’ll begin to associate more value with your website.
External Linking Best Practices
According to Google, linking is one of the most important factors for achieving high rankings, you must understand how to use external linking to your advantage. Here are key external linking best practices to adopt.
1. Make the links relevant.
When adding external links, don’t just add links for the sake of it. Instead, add links that direct readers to relevant content.
Good external links tend to point to related content. Examples of what you might link to include statistics, infographics, videos, etc.
Google and other search engines value users and want to show the most relevant results to their query. Therefore, when external links come from websites in the same niche, Google better understands the relevance of your content and its popularity, leading to a higher SERP ranking.
Example

2. Link to reputable sources.
The external link in the image above has 60% as its anchor text. It leads to a website that contains that statistic and other relevant information.
When linking externally, only link to sites that are authoritative and trustworthy. If you link to websites that promote clickbait content or aren’t professional, you’ll diminish your reader’s trust. And it could negatively affect how search engines rank your content.
If you have no choice but to link to websites where you don’t trust the content, use a no-follow tag. This tag indicates to search engine crawlers that the linked page shouldn’t be associated with your page.
Example
The latest content marketing report compiled by HubSpot is full of external links to reputable sources in the content marketing industry.

Image Source
3. Use anchor text correctly.
Let’s examine a practical example of what makes a good and bad anchor text.
We’ve got an article on HubSpot that talks about how to write a blog post. You can click here to read that article.
See what I did there? The word “here” is what is known as the anchor text for the link. And this anchor text is essential for search engines to read your website. Unfortunately, by using “here” as an anchor text, I’m giving Google very little help or hints about the content of the page I’m linking to.
Instead, here is a much better (and right) way to do this:
The right way: We’ve got a previous article on HubSpot that talks about how to write a blog post.
The second way is much better than the first for multiple reasons.
First, the link is easier for readers to click on (and know that it’s a link). But, more important is the fact that we now have the anchor text as “how to write a blog post.” So, when the search engine spiders “see” this link, they factor in the anchor text when determining what the target page is about.
So, use descriptive keywords in anchor text or keywords the linked page is trying to target. However, don’t shoehorn anchor text into sentences because it can look like spam, and readers might find it annoying.
After including anchor text, read it again. Does it look forced? Does the link look helpful and natural? You want the latter to be true.
Here’s an example where Google gives more information about how to write good link text.
Example
Image Source
4. Add helpful links.
How many external links should you use in your content? There’s no conclusive answer.
However, you shouldn’t overwhelm your reader with too many external or internal links. Your goal when linking should be to provide the best reader experience possible. You might end up losing readers if they feel they’re merely being used as part of your SEO strategy.
Example
This page from Backlinko has at least 150 external links and ranks #1 on the Google SERP for several queries. Therefore, you can have as many external links as you like as long as it makes sense to add them.

Image Source
5. Open external links in a different tab.
Your external links should open in a different tab, and there are various reasons why this is important. However, the most significant reason to have links open in a new tab is that this gives the visitor as much control as possible with their experience on your site.
Example
This article about statistics that prove why link-building is important contains external links that open in a new tab. This lets the reader continue reading the article while also taking a look at the information you linked to without losing one or the other.
6. Don’t link to competing websites.
It’ll be detrimental to link to sites competing for the same keywords. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “Best toys for dogs,” you shouldn’t link to a site that is already ranking #1 for this keyword.
Instead, link to websites that offer value to your content, like pages that contain general information. Using the “Best toys for dogs” example, you can link to a video about a specific dog toy you’re promoting that’s not on a competitor’s website.
Example

In the image above, HubSpot’s article about the best digital marketing tools doesn’t link to a competing article but links to specific tools like Ahrefs that support the article.
7. Conduct a link audit.
Spend some time every quarter (or within regular intervals) to audit your content for any outdated or broken links. Why’s this important?
When readers encounter broken or outdated external links in your content, it diminishes their experience, and they might begin to lose faith in your credibility.
You can use a tool like Check My Links to find broken links on your website.

Image Source
Build a Successful External Linking Strategy
Quality external links in your content provide more resources to your readers while building your content and website’s authority. When done right, external linking can even boost your ranking on the SERP.
So now is the time to implement all you’ve learned from this article and make external links work for you.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2007 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you want to grow your business, great search engine optimization (SEO) is a must: Recent survey data found that 53 percent of all trackable website traffic originated from organic search, which means that if you want to get noticed, you need to show up at the top of search rankings.
The challenge? Many small businesses don’t have the time, skills or expertise necessary to handle everything that comes with a solid SEO strategy. From keyword research to content evaluation, from page optimization to internal linking, it’s easy for companies to end up with a generic web presence that doesn’t inspire engagement or drive conversions.

The result? It’s worth considering an SEO consultant or agency to help manage this process and maximize your impact. In this piece, we’ll tackle key outsourcing operations, including how it can benefit your business — and why SEO can’t be entirely outsourced. Then, we’ll break down top SEO pitfalls and offer actionable advice to find an SEO agency that best fits your brand.
Why Outsourcing SEO Can Be a Good Idea
Designing an effective SEO strategy isn’t a simple task. Companies have to consider how search engines are evaluating content, what aspects of SEO offer the most impact, and where they could change their current content to better align with search engine expectations.
This is especially critical as search engines like Google continually refine their ranking process. For example, page loading speed is now a factor in search result rankings. In practice, this expands the role of SEO; it’s not enough to simply weave in popular keywords and deliver high-quality content. Brands also need to consider the entire user experience.
As a result, it’s often worth outsourcing SEO services to ensure that your digital presence is generating maximum impact and capturing the highest volume of prospective customers. In much the same way that companies outsource their marketing efforts to experts, outsourcing SEO provides a way for brands to identify key strategic goals and then leave the complex process of meeting those goals to industry experts.
For small businesses and entrepreneurs, outsourcing offers the big benefit of time: Instead of learning about the ins and outs of SEO, testing new strategies, and refining results, business owners and managers can focus on customer conversions, product improvements, and new ideas.
Why Your Business Can’t Fully Outsource SEO
While it’s possible to outsource much of your SEO strategy to an agency or consultant, there are aspects of the process that still rest within your business. These include:
Your Keywords
Although an SEO expert can help pinpoint specific keywords of opportunity, you’re often the authority on the core keywords that define your business and operations. You know that if you stray too far from these keywords, your brand simply won’t be the same — and customers that do end up on your site may be there looking for something else. As a result, you always have a role to play in choosing ideal keywords.
Your Content
The content on your site is unique to your brand. And while SEO agencies have gotten much better at creating targeted content designed to attract your market, there are some aspects of your onsite content — such as information about the history and mission of your business — that you’re best-suited to create and manage.
Your Relationships
No matter how good your SEO provider may be, they can’t replicate the relationships you have with other businesses, suppliers and partners. This means that while they’re able to provide strategy for your SEO framework, you provide the connective tissue that makes it possible for your content to be posted (and reposted) across your industry network.
Your Brand Perspective
The unique nature of your brand perspective is what’s taken you this far — and it’s what will continue to drive your growth. Even the best SEO agency can’t be in your head; they don’t know what your brand means to you or how you want to communicate your message to the world. As a result, outsourcing SEO is ideal for laying a foundation for conversion and revenue, but it only works when paired with your perspective.
Your Growth Strategy
While you provide general goals to your SEO agency — such as increasing your rankings for a specific keyword by X amount or boosting total website visits — you’re still responsible for your overall growth strategy. Where do you want to be in a month? A year? Five? And how can your SEO partner help you get there?
Five Common Pitfalls to Avoid in SEO
Every business is different, but the principles of SEO remain the same: Rank higher in search engines for popular keywords to drive more traffic to your site. The challenge? Reaching this goal isn’t easy, leading some brands and SEO agencies to make potentially costly mistakes. Here are the top five pitfalls to avoid.
Keyword Stuffing
If there’s a cardinal rule of modern SEO it’s this: Don’t keyword stuff.
Stuffing is the practice of adding the same keyword over and over to your content with the intention of ranking higher. The problem? Search engines are now smart enough to detect this practice and will down-rank your site if keyword stuffing is detected. Generally speaking, one instance of your primary keyword per piece of content is enough to get noticed.
Duplicate Content
Next up is duplicate content. While more content on your site with keywords can help you rank higher, simply copying and pasting content — or slightly changing content to include a new keyword — lowers the overall value of your site and in turn your ranking.
Put simply? New content is always better than old.
Low-quality Backlinks
Backlinks can help increase the relevance and authority of your content — but only if they link to high-quality sites. If your content links out to sites that are continually keyword stuffing or don’t receive many visitor views, you won’t enjoy a bump in search rankings. In fact, links to these sites may hurt your overall standing.
Unoptimized Images
Images help capture user interest, but it’s not enough to simply put pictures on your site: You also need to ensure they’re optimized.
This starts with the image itself. Make sure it’s relevant and easy to understand. For example, if you run a construction company, use an image that’s related to the services that you offer and that’s high enough quality that users can immediately tell what it is. If the image is low-resolution or confusing, users won’t bother sticking around.
It’s also a good idea to look at the size of your images. Here’s why: The more images you have on your site, the slower it loads. Optimizing images for size (without losing quality) can help improve the user experience and your search rankings.
Muddled Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are snippets of text that offer a quick description of content on a specific page. Here, clear and concise descriptions are critical. Muddled or vague meta descriptions make it easy for users to overlook your site. Ideally, you want to use your primary keyword and provide a quick overview of the page in question so users know what they’re getting into.
Simply put? Ask questions. Not sure which ones to ask? We’ve got you covered.
Let’s explore each question in more detail.
1. What makes you different?
While the process of SEO is fairly straightforward, approaches differ significantly. Some companies rely solely on specific metrics, while others opt for a more organic approach or a more middle-ground stance. As a result, it’s worth asking agencies and consultants what sets them apart from the competition — what can they offer to boost your rankings and drive traffic?
Quick tip: Listen to what they say and then fact-check it against their own site’s SEO rankings. If they don’t show up near the top of their page for their own targeted keyword, consider looking elsewhere for help.
2. What’s your process?
Your prospective partners should be able to lay out their process in a way that’s clear, concise, and understandable. If you find yourself on the receiving end of too many buzzwords or big promises with no underlying proof, other choices may be a better fit.
3. What are your tools?
From the HubSpot Website Grader to Ahrefs, from SEMRush to Moz Pro, there are a host of SEO tools available. Many agencies will also have their own proprietary tools they use alongside these popular offerings — look for a provider willing to specify what tools they use, why, and how.
4. How long will results take?
Beware any company that promises instant results. SEO rankings don’t increase until search engine “spiders” have crawled the web to assess site changes and their impact. Generally speaking, substantive results start showing up around the 4-to-6 month mark.
5. What are your metrics?
Metrics matter in SEO. These include new referring domains, text readability, keyword rankings, organic search volumes, lead conversions, bounce rate, and click-through rate. All are relevant depending on their context and all measure different aspects of SEO impact. Always ask your potential provider what metrics they use and why, and ask for an explanation of how they impact results.
6. How often do you report data?
Data reporting is key to tracking SEO success. Some companies report results weekly; for others, this frequency is every other week or even monthly. Here, go with whatever you’re comfortable with — while longer reporting periods may show more change, they may also miss key indicators that strategies aren’t working or need to be adjusted.
7. Who have you helped?
Finally, ask for references. If your prospective SEO provider is as good as they say they are, they should have data that shows how they’ve boosted the impact of other brands. If they’re short on specific data and big on promises, tread carefully.
Solving for SEO
A solid SEO strategy can help your brand rank higher in search engine results and drive more traffic to your business. Outsourcing is a great way to jumpstart this process — the right agency can give you the advantage when it comes to getting noticed and capturing customer interest.
But outsourcing alone isn’t enough. Your brand perspective is critical to drive success and avoid common pitfalls. Not sure where to get started learning SEO? HubSpot has you covered.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2008 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.