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pyre-prism · 6 years ago

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Pyre’s Tips for ‘One Piece’ OCs...!

Complete with a sample character bio template, at that! (*A*) Just remove all of my rambling, and you should be nice and peachy. If anyone wants to discuss things on the topic of 'One Piece' characters (fan-made or otherwise), then I'd be happy to oblige. This series is my happy place, more often than not... well, one of them. Also, I'm open to doing this for other fandoms as well... so long as I know enough about it... Any suggestions for me to consider? In short... I'd love for people to talk to me about this kind of thing. (T^T) I don't bite, I promise...! You can even do it privately, if you want~? Righty, one last thing before getting into this properly... I do use rather... 'colourful' words with topics I'm invested in, and there are potential spoilers in what I say, if you've only been following the English release. (^u^'') I couldn't stick to the English release if it killed me, I love this stuff too much. Anyhoo, onto the actual meat of this thing~!

Name: Any name will do, really… ‘One Piece’ takes place in a world where both perfectly ‘normal’ names and completely ridiculous ones coexist in harmony. The only caveat is that you should be very restrictive with middle initials, as they aren’t a particularly common thing… and you should be especially careful with ‘D.’ as a middle initial, as it means something special and carries a selection of traits alongside it. It is possible to create a character who bears the ‘D.’ initial in a way that fits the world, but you certainly shouldn’t overload your personal cast with them. On a side note, I find that it’s a real help to also note how the name is meant to be pronounced, as best as you can. It saves some potential confusion later down the line. Nickname: So long as there is a reason behind the nickname, and you don’t give them… say… ten completely separate ones, anything goes. It also helps to put down not only who calls them that, but also why. Again, pronunciation notes also helps. Epithet: An epithet in the ‘One Piece’ world is usually given by someone who does not like the character, and so you should be careful to make sure that it doesn’t sound too flattering for no real reason. Epithets are generally meant to describe either the character’s physical traits, something about their history, or something about their abilities. Often, they are meant to inspire some sort of fear, so as to urge civilians to stay out of their way. However, it should be noted that even Marines can get epithets, and even theirs aren’t generally particularly flattering. All that being said, it is possible to have a fancy or even ‘pretty’ epithet, but there needs to be a really good reason for it. It helps to explain what prompted that particular epithet to be given to them, as well. Also, almost every character who gains an epithet will only get the one, so make sure you don’t overload them onto the one character. Bounty: One thing that many people seem to forget about bounties in the ‘One Piece’ world is that they are not a ‘one-for-one’ indication of the character’s strength, or even how dangerous they are to the general public. What they are, however, is an indication of how badly the World Government wants them to be taken down. Each part of the world also has certain ranges that are ‘typical’ for a starting bounty, but unfortunately we don’t have proper examples for what these are, in most cases. What we do know is that a starting bounty of 30 million in the East Blue is astonishing, while a (presumably early) bounty of 85 million in the first half of the Grand Line is… negligible, really… and bounties in the range of 300 million to half a billion seem to be fairly normal in the second half of the Grand Line. When putting together what sort of price is on your character’s head (assuming that they are a pirate or other such kind of criminal), it helps to list out what they’ve done or been accused of that actually earned them that sort of infamy. It also helps to bear in mind any increases they’ve gotten over the course of their ‘career’. Oh, and… despite what many people seem to believe, a rookie pirate with a bounty of 100 million or more is not necessarily a Supernova! They will be part of ‘the Worst Generation’, but the Supernovas were a specific group for a very particular reason; they were the rookies with a minimum of 100 million on their heads, who were at the Archipelago at that particular time. Nothing else. There is nothing wrong with having your character have a bounty that is ‘Supernova level’, so long as there is a valid reason for it. Heck, if you can explain it well enough, you could even have your character be a Supernova… as in, the legit was-actually-at-the-Archipelago-at-the-time type. The ‘number limit’ on Supernova is nowhere near as important as the number of Warlords or Emperors, after all. Rank: For a pirate, bear in mind what they do on the crew. It helps to have some knowledge of what roles would be legitimately-needed on a sailing vessel when making this decision, as well. Age requirements are less strict for pirate characters than they are for many other subsets of your cast, so one of the best things to say here is ‘have fun but do your research’. As for Marines, age starts to become a primary point of concern. There is a limit to how young a character can be when they join the Marines, and there is also a certain air of ‘the old guard’ when you start to look at the higher ranking characters in the canon material. A Marine Captain who is in their teens or early twenties had better have an extremely mind-bogglingly-good record or power to have that rank, and when you start getting towards the rank of Vice-Admiral, then it would be best for them to be at least in their late thirties… While I’m on the topic of Marine ranks, it’s a good idea to look up the ranks used in the Japanese Navy, as that is what is used in the series. Age: The only advice I can give on this topic is to be sensible. Consider what you have in mind for them to know, what skills they possess, and (for a Marine) what rank they have. No adult or teenager is going to take a preteen captain seriously, even on a pirate crew, and those who are particularly elderly will be faced with some issues as well. On a side note, if you plan for the character’s storyline to have any correlation to the canon events, then you should probably make sure to note how old they are at the beginning of the story, and at the beginning of the two-year timeskip. Gender: I use ‘gender’ as the primary question here, and I always make certain to note when there is any form of disconnect between the character’s gender identity and their biological sex. Although, to help other people take your character more seriously, please don’t use phrases like “Female, duh”. Race: There are so many options for what race your character can be, that there’s very little reason to even try coming up with your own race ideas. That being said, however, that’s not to say that you cannot create your own race… just make sure that it makes sense in the world and has both upsides and downsides ‘built in’ to the race, and you should be good. However, it may be better to refrain from doing this until you’re reasonably practiced with not only coming up with races, but also until you’re very familiar with the world you’re putting it into. If you do choose to create a new race, you will need to explain it fairly thoroughly to other people, as well. As for the canonical races, it’s best to be aware of the types of interactions between them as much as you can, as this will help to make the character feel more ‘complete’. Humans are very common, but there’s also Fishfolk (Fishmen and Merfolk, I combine them due to their exceedingly-negligible differences), Skyfolk (the three races of Sky Islanders with wings), Giants, Dwarves, Longarms, Longlegs, Snakenecks, Minkmen, Triclopes (what I currently call the three-eyed race), and even Birdfolk (what I currently call the race Morgans belongs to)…! Heck, even hybrids are an option, but don’t go too overboard with piling on the fractions for this, else it will come across as nothing other than ridiculous. Eyes: One of the things that, as an artistic OC-creator, I really love about ‘One Piece’ is the fact that they can look like almost anything, and still have a chance of fitting in, just fine. There are no restrictions on what your character’s eyes can look like other than two points… Number one, be extremely sparing about the sclera (the white of the eye) being a different colour, as we don’t actually have a canon example of this as-yet. Number two, if your character’s eyes are yellow, then you shouldn’t have them be described as being ‘hawk-like’ as well, because that’s a trait that is so-far unique to Dracule Mihawk. It might be wise to be sparing on rainbow-coloured eyes, as well, for ‘safety’s sake’… Other than that, however, go wild! I personally don’t even care if your character has heterochromia, in any format or arrangement. Hair: Literally any colour is a possibility in the world of ‘One Piece’, and I love it. White or silver for someone from a very young age, canon compliant. Purple or blue or green or pink, canon compliant. It is so liberating to be able to apply any colour you want to something that is so frequently restricted in other universes, and, unlike what many people may try to tell you, even naturally-bicoloured hair is plausible. We have yet to see naturally-tricoloured or more, so it may be best to limit it to two colours at most. As for length, however, it is best to bear in mind what they do, although significantly-longer hair is still viable for a fighter if they either have an ability that uses it in battle or if they tie it up somehow. Or, you know, they’re a ranged-fighter. Skin: In the world of ‘One Piece’, even humans can have some pretty weird skin colours, so it is possible to go a little ‘nuts’ on this topic. So long as there is either canonical proof for that sort of colour for their race, or a viable explanation, then there is literally no rules on this. This category is also where I like to list out any notable scarring or tattoos that they may have. Build: Other than the basic descriptions of what type of build they have, you should also be certain to mention their height… and remember that even humans can be ludicrously-tall in this universe. If they aren’t finished growing yet, it may be useful to note how tall they are ‘at the moment’ as well as how tall they’ll be when they’ve finished growing. Typical Clothing: This is more for keeping in mind the sorts of outfits they might wear at various points throughout their story. Do they like bold patterns, or are they a more plain-clothes kind of person? You should also be aware that, despite taking place in a world that mirrors a lot of things from the early 1700s of our world, there are many much more modern pieces of clothing that we see throughout canon, so don’t feel the need to restrict yourself to ‘classic pirate getup’, although there’s also nothing saying that you can’t choose to do just that. Oh, and… if there’s any traces of a uniform or ‘theme’ with the people your character is associated with… stick with it. Marines will wear the uniform, in some way. Themed pirate crews will have certain ‘looks’. This is inescapable and inexcusable if your character breaks it, especially for no damned reason. Personality: This is one of the categories where the bulk of your character will shine through. While a dot-point list will work for the initial idea, eventually you will need to expand upon it. Make your character feel like a real person, in and of their own right, and you won’t generally have any issues. A character’s personality will be about half ‘ingrained’ and half ‘learned’, and these two things must not contradict each other without extremely careful and detailed reasoning… and an acknowledgement that the character is not mentally-stable. It is infinitely-important that you bear in mind what they went through up until the point you’re starting their story, because that will influence how they turned out. Don’t be afraid to give your character ‘undesirable’ traits, either, because that will actually make them seem more ‘real’ and generally more entertaining to deal with from a writing or roleplaying perspective… in fact, some of the most fun characters in my own cast actually have more ‘undesirable’ traits than they have ‘desirable’ ones! Also, it should be said… there seems to be some unspoken ‘rule’ about those to take to the seas in the world of ‘One Piece’… and that is that, to survive in that universe, you need to have some traits that would be considered ‘crazy’ in our world. So have fun! That is, after all, the primary point behind making an OC in the first place, isn’t it? Abilities: Each race, other than Human, has its own inbuilt capabilities, and you should list them out, along with any learned skills that your character has. Haki can be learned by any race, but you should be aware of the requirements for having unlocked it… some form of immense physical or emotional trauma seems to be the universal checkbox. If your character is a hybrid, then you can get a bit more creative, as well, although while it is viable for a hybrid to carry traits and abilities from each source, they shouldn’t have the full range of everything, and they must have at least some of the built-in caveats as well. Back on the topic of Haki, however… while I have no issue with having OCs with the incredibly-limited Haoushoku Haki, you should be careful to not overload your cast with those who have it… and there seems to be a potential connection between having that form of Haki and being a ‘D.’, as well. It helps to mention whether or not your character has eaten a Devil Fruit, as well, and how long they’ve had it for… more details on the Fruit in question can come in the next category… Devil Fruit: For starters, you need to know what the Fruit is. Is it a Paramecian, a Zoan, or a Logian…? Canon has introduced some Fruits in the most recent arcs (as of September 2018) that appear to blur the lines, but it’s best to try to stay away from such things until we’re told more about it. That being said, the Fruit’s ability will influence what its name is, as well… You should do your utmost to make the name suit the naming system that is presented in canon; the English name is short and to the point, and the Japanese name is always two syllables and tend to be onomatopoeias (‘sound words’). Also, and this is very, very, very important… unless you are dealing with an alternative version of the universe or a substantially-different time-frame, do not use a Devil Fruit that is in use by a canon character, with the only possible exceptions being those who are known to be dead at the time. Characters who show up in filler arcs or extra material, however, as far as I’m concerned, are fair game unless the storyline they appear in has been directly influenced by Oda for more than just character designs… Even SMILEs, until we know more about how they operate, should not be ‘doubled-up’ between canon and your character. There are also some abilities that appear in other universes that should be avoided in ‘One Piece’… Any ability that, by its very nature, requires the input of another person is treading on incredibly-thin ice, if not an outright no-go. Same with any ability that manipulates reality… although probability is a slightly different story… and is in-use in canon, so… yeah. Illusions are viable, truly warping reality is not. There is also another thing that should be avoided as much as possible… don’t make a Fruit that enables transformation into any kind of explicitly-water-based creature. No Devil Fruit user can swim… not even Fishfolk who have eaten one. However, even with that, it is possible to create a water Fruit, even a Logian, so long as you are extremely careful about how it works. With that out of the way, I have only one other ability-related note to make… If you create a Mythical Zoan Fruit, you can give it an additional ability, but make certain that it makes sense for that mythical creature to have that ability. Do your research on the stories about the creature, and you’re bound to be able to come up with something. You should also remember that every single Devil Fruit, even the ‘joke’ ones, have battle capabilities if you’re imaginative enough… And, last but not least… no Devil Fruit is without weaknesses. None… At all. At the very least, being submerged beyond a certain point will sap your character of their strength, seastone will nullify their ability and do something of the same, and it’s always wise to have at least one other thing that the Fruit power itself interacts poorly with. The key here is ‘balance’. Notable Attacks: ‘One Piece’ is one of the universes that seems to use the rule of ‘named attacks are more powerful’, if only as a focusing technique… as such, you can have fun with this. Make certain to have at least two or three things listed if they’re a combatant, as that guarantees that they have some variety… and, don’t have everything be the equivalent of a ‘one-hit-K.O.’ sort of thing, as that’s not only unrealistic in so many ways, but also generally lazy and boring. You shouldn’t just list the names, either, but make certain to describe how the move takes place and functions. It helps to note down any effect radius, additional effect, or extra requirements for using it, as well. From: Where in the world are they from? Where were they born? Where did they grow up? It’s best to make certain that you list the island and where in the world that island is, at the very least, but it also helps to include the settlement as well. Making up your own islands is fine, too… Heck, you can even have characters from Mary Geoise, if you want… so long as you make it make sense. Family: Unless there is something special about generations further back than your character’s grandparents, there’s little reason to bother listing them… unless you really like genealogy, I suppose. Grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, and any offspring is about the furthest you’d likely need to put down. Include any details about how these family members may have died (if they’re dead), or maybe even how their relationship with your character is. You can even include ‘found-family’, if you like… And heck, I for one don’t give a damn if your character is related to (or in love with) a canon character, so long as you make it make sense and you don’t warp the canon character into something that they are not… especially without a fucking good reason. Relationships: It helps to also figure out at least the basics of relationships your character has with those who aren’t in their family. Who are their friends, where friends and family are actually separated in your character’s views? Who are their acquaintances, friendly, neutral, and otherwise? Who are their rivals or their enemies? And, most importantly, why? Everything of that sort needs a reason, and it can’t just be ‘such-and-such person doesn’t like my character because they’re jealous of their beauty or skills’. Give both your character and the other character some depth to their relationship. You can even mention any specific love interests, so long as there’s a valid reason behind why they’re an item. I hope you’re seeing a basic trend, here…? Sexual Orientation & Details: Don’t be afraid to play around with various orientations in your cast… it can make for some intriguing character interactions when there’s some tension in the air, to say the least. That being said, there’s no real rules on what your character should like, but it definitely helps to have some idea of it, even if you don’t decide to share. It also helps to know what sort of thing your character likes in a partner… Are they a butt person? Do they like boobs? Big dicks? Do they have a particular fetish? What about how they go about making their interest known? Do they want just one person, or are they hoping to have multiple partners at once? Are they prone to cheating? You know, all that prime-time soap opera shit. Dream: Everyone who sets out for a journey must have some reason to have left their home… even if it’s because they have no home. These don’t need to be deep, or complicated, and sometimes the most simple and plaintive goals are the most heart-wrenching. History: Here is the other primary part of any character’s information where they really shine… A character’s history will guide and shape at least half of who they are as a person, so you should make certain to do a decent job. As with personality, a list of dot points is fine to start with, but you’ll need to go more in-depth eventually. Something about their childhood, something about their adolescence, and so on. Whether or not you share a character’s history, you need to know it… Even if they have complete amnesia, it will still shape them. One thing that you may find liberating is that almost any type of backstory is plausible in that universe, even the really traumatic and ��angsty’ ones. Despite the cheery and colourful veneer of the art-style, the world is actually incredibly-dark, just below the surface. It is advisable to try to avoid giving your character the exact same backstory as a canon character, though, especially a prominent one, but there are actually ways to make them work regardless… so long as you’re willing to put in the amounts of effort required to make it personalised to your character. Be reasonable, but have fun at the same time, basically. Colour: A representative colour can be an interesting way to say without so many words what your character is all about… and it makes for a fun artistic exercise, as well. Try to either make it their ‘most prominent’ colour, or a colour which has meanings and symbolism that suit your character’s personality. Real-World Nationality: As Oda has listed some of these, I think it’s only right to include it with my character sheets… While it may be easy to go with stereotypes, I find it rather interesting to really dig in to the culture of the place when answering this part. It also helps to explain why your character would be that particular nationality. Animal: Being an artist who sometimes draws animals more than humanoids, and who loves making comparisons between my characters and animals (and other people’s characters, while I’m at it), this is something that I really love to do. Behaviours and even physical traits that are in-common can be a good place to start… and be honest. Not every character is going to be comparable to something cute or ‘cool’. Smells Like: If a person spends a lot of time around something with a particular scent, it tends to ‘sink into’ their bodies. What a person smells like can even be used to make a comment about them as an individual, as well… If your character smells like sweat, then they either don’t bathe very often or they spend a lot of time working out. If they smell like soap, they are probably rather fastidious about their personal hygiene or are quite well-off… Stuff like that. Theme Song: Some people will tell you “never give your character a theme song, it’s stupid and cliché and obnoxious”… I say fuck ‘em, do it if you want to. It can be a really fun way to give just that little bit of extra flair to your character, and don’t be afraid to go with instrumental pieces, as well. Some of my cast have been conceptualised while I was listening to a particular piece of music, and it just makes sense to have that be their theme song… doesn’t it? Although, one thing that is good to bear in mind is that you shouldn’t have all of your cast have their theme being music by a singular person or group… vary it up a bit, and it will help your cast feel more alive than ever before. Oh, and be sure to specify who did the piece you’re thinking of, too, because there are a whole heap of pieces that have the same name but are entirely different. That goes for any specific cover or remix, too. Laughter Style: In the world of ‘One Piece’, there is a trend… Most of the cast have a particular way of laughing, a specific sound that indicates them even when they’re off-screen. To help make your character ‘fit in’ even further, it may be a good idea to give them something of the same. You should also remember that you can have a different sound to your character’s ‘full belly-laugh’ and their ‘chuckle or giggle’. Voice Actor/Seiyu: Another thing that many people may say to not bother with is an ideal voice actor, but I find it helps to set how my character sounds down in writing. This goes for both an English voice actor and a Japanese seiyu. It’s really up to you as to whether you want to go the full way and do both, but I highly recommend doing it for one, at least. Be sure to note down what role and source you’re referencing for the sound, as well… Many of the best voice actors have immensely-versatile voices, after all. Favourite/Least Favourite Food: Something that I find to be an interesting tidbit to include is what my characters particularly like to eat, and conversely, what they try to avoid eating. Maybe your character has an allergy to carrots? The possibilities are endless, really. Japanese Pronouns/Manner of Speech: Another thing that I like to put down is how my characters refer to themselves and to others… In Japanese, it can give really useful and subtle insights into how they think, as each of the forms of address lend themselves to a particular ‘flavour’ of person. If you don’t know enough about the pronouns used in Japanese, then try putting down how they speak to others… Are they arrogant and crass, or are they more reserved and polite? Do they hide any hostility behind a mask of polite words? Do they speak in a way that is geared to spark a fight, or do they prefer to avoid arguments wherever possible? Is there any difference between how they speak or refer to various types of people, such as a pirate speaking to another pirate or a Marine? If there is any ‘type’ of person your character particularly dislikes, it really helps to know whether they’ll make it clear or not, and if they do… how. Trivia/Other: Is there anything that doesn’t fit in any of the previous categories? Make sure to list it in one like this. Because of the ambiguity of a category like this, there aren’t really any rules for it… just… make it fit the universe, and make sure it doesn’t completely contradict what you’ve already put down.

There is one last thing I have to say… Don’t just take what people online (let alone the wiki) say at face value, and remember that even the characters in canon can give the reader/watcher false information… Use your brain, basically.

#One Piece #OP #OCs #OC Tips #Don't trust the wiki it's biased as fuuuuuu--

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saezutte · 5 years ago

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Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Happy end-of-the-year season! Thank you for writing for me!

This is my first time signing up for Yuletide, though I’ve been reading Yuletide fic for 14-15 years and it’s one of my favorite yearly traditions. Now I’m turning over a new leaf of active participation in my old age! I guarantee you I am much more worried about what I’m writing than what you’re writing—I’m pretty easy-going about the fic I read and I am going to try to help you out as best I can with this letter. If there’s something you’re unclear about, feel free to contact the mods or stalk me to find my preferences.

My AO3: saezutte

My public twitter: juncassis

My tumblr: here but I do not use tumblr much anymore, sorry.

Do Not Wants

[note: I have no actual triggers, nothing you can write for me will make me any more depressed or anxious than I already am]

Death (of major/important/beloved characters)

Suicide attempts

Rape

Angst without a happy ending, really too much angst at all

University/college settings

Established relationship

Cheating

Actual Unrequited Feelings

Pregnancy (the actual process; breeding kink is fine)

Scat or watersports

Hard BDSM or any kink complicated enough that the characters would have to discuss it ahead of time

Non-canon cisswapping or gender change (it’s ok if they do it in canon, e.g. HX/SQX)

Homophobia as a plot device

Excessive attention to sexual identity or queer politics

Note on AUs: I am ok with the usual popular AU tropes (except, see above, university settings) but I do not want them combined, e.g. A/B/O is fine and coffeeshop is fine, but I don’t want an omega barista getting his scent all over the lattes he makes for some alpha lawyer who comes in every morning. (Ridiculous example, but you get the point.) For AU/modern settings of fandoms with magic, I often like it when the magic is still there in the AU setting. I also like AUs which maintain the general outlines of the character’s relationships, like if the characters are childhood friends in canon, I like to keep that intact.

General preferences:

I am a pretty basic bitch when it comes to fanfic: I like it when two clueless boys pine for each other through some shenanigans and then lock eyes/lips/dicks.

If you fed a neural net every fanfic written in Stargate Atlantis fandom between 2005 and 2010, the result would probably be some nonsense I’d enjoy.

I love many tropes. Tropes! Bed-sharing. Sharing an umbrella. WASHING EACH OTHER’S HAIR? Confessions where they are having an argument and then one of them yells “Because I love you!”

I love situations where characters are forced to spend time in close proximity and find themselves with feelings.

I love fakeness: fake dating, fake marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, fake lust induced by sex pollen or heats, aliens make them have sex, whatever.

I’d prefer story/romance/build-up to PWP but you are welcome to write porn

Tian Guan Ci Fu

Requested characters: He Xuan, Shi Qingxuan

Note: If you don’t want to write those two, I would be happy with Hualian! There are other pairings I like as well, like Fengqing. I requested these two because they are the ones I want the most, but I like almost all of the characters in TGCF so if you want to write me something that sells me on your pet pairing, go for it. Caveat is that I don’t like Qi Rong (sorry cousin)—he makes me anxious, haha.

Why I like the canon: Tian Guan Ci Fu is my favorite of MXTX’s novels, which took over my life this summer. What I love about it is the gods/mythology angle. The different story arcs remind me of reading myths about gods going out on adventures—I love folklore and myths! I love Xie Lian, I respect him so much, and I love Hua Cheng. I love how dark the story gets and I love that I could read it while being relatively assured of a happy ending. But with MXTX, you only ever get that happy ending for the main pair, hence why I requested my side pair.

Why I like these characters: I was in love with these two when He Xuan was pretending to be a grouchy Earth Master who reluctantly goes along with whatever Shi Qingxuan wants. When it turned out to be ABOUT REVENGE and they have FATES WHICH ARE ENTANGLED TOGETHER, I promptly lost my mind. I like the contrast in personalities.

I love Shi Qingxuan as a happy gossip god who is friends with everyone and yet also still pretty good at his job (unlike a lot of the gods around). I like his struggle with realizing he wasn’t meant to be a god and I honestly like where he ends up at the end of the novel—but personally I’d like it better if he re-qualified as a god, haha. I love his sex switching and you are welcome to play with that, though I would prefer if it weren’t a straightforward switch where he (she) settles as a woman. With He Xuan… I love that he’s on this dark completely-justified vengeance quest but he is also kind of a mess? How in debt is he to Hua Cheng? Has he totally neglected his ghostly duties to play Earth Master in heaven? How did he feel starting to be friends with SQX when he’s still planning on ruining his life?

What I would like for these two is something between pure fluff / all the issues are solved / “decapitated brother who?” and angst. I think they mirror Hualian in a lot of ways and I wish they had a chance together!

Prompts:

Them meeting again post-canon: He Xuan not knowing what to do with his (after)life now that he’s got his revenge and not being totally sure what’s keeping him around now that his business is over. SQX living his happy beggar life and HX not sure how he’s still so energetic.

A canon divergent AU where He Xuan doesn’t pull off his revenge plot ? Instead something else happens?

A soulmate AU would work well for these two IMO

Modern AU where HX is infiltrating the company that destroyed his family business and falls in love with the heir to the company president

SQX reascending to godhood as a beggar god and HX suspecting he will come for him in revenge but he just wants to be friends again

The Untamed (RPF)

Requested characters: Wang Yibo, Xiao Zhan

Why I like the canon: Uh, it took over my stupid life this summer. I haven’t liked an idol in years. I have frequently said I don’t like RPF because the canon is too diffuse to keep up with! And yet look at my twitter. I’m living in a hell of my own making.

Anyway, I got into the RPF side for The Untamed initially because the fictional canon here was very overloaded with its status as an adaptation of a novel where the characters are already together and where there aren’t many points for a writer to jump in and add to it. So I got more interested in the actors’ dynamic particularly because it’s different from Wangxian—WYB is a gremlin! Xiao Zhan is the serious professional one! And then I fell in love with them and now this is my life.

Why I like these characters: I just love their stupid handsome faces, I can’t help it. Don’t look at me. I am more of a Xiao Zhan fan but I want to be Wang Yibo’s best friend and bully him.

With Xiao Zhan, I love his smile and I love that he can write a whole essay on Wei Wuxian’s character and I love that he was a regular person who worked in an office before deciding to join one of wjjw’s basically-a-scam idol raising shows and then accidentally becoming the most famous man in China. He’s so professional and serious in interviews and it’s a great contrast to how we see him goofing around with WYB and the others on set.

With Wang Yibo, I like that he’s a wild boy who will run off to race motorcycles at any minute. I would like to shove him a little bit, in an affectionate manner. I love that he’s always looking at XZ and smiling and doesn’t seem to care if anyone notices.

Prompts:

Fooling around on set leads to love? The most basic of basic

AUs with different settings/meetings—maybe XZ is still a designer and his company ends up working with WYB (who is still an idol)? Or WYB is a pro motorcycle racer and XZ is a sports photographer?

They drift apart now but meet again in 10 years with Regrets

Porn star AU

Having to share a bed

WYB is scared of something! XZ comforts him!

Any dumb AU you want but I would like to veto ABO for this, it’s too weird for me when they’re real people.

The Untamed (TV)

Requested characters: Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian

Note: There are other CQL/MDZS pairings I like, namely Jiang Cheng/Nie Huaisang. I also like the junior trio (as OT3 or as various twosomes.) Also, one night I read a Jiang Cheng/Lan Sizhui fic and suddenly I got all these ideas for inappropriate uncle pairings JC/LSZ and LXC/JL. If any of that speaks to your heart instead, go wild.

Why I like the canon: So obviously I read the novel and plunged into this MXTX abyss for 100 years. With this adaptation, there are a few things I don’t like versus the novel but I’m happy to ignore them because I love what they did with the visuals and music and the acting choices. Some of the changes I also do love—I love how WWX seems to be so much more into LWJ from the beginning! I love seeing them goof around, I love drunk!WYB in the drama.

I also don’t like established relationship fic for the most part, so the censorship in this adaptation means I have more to play with in fanfic!

Why I like the characters: They invented love!!! They did. I particularly like them both as kind of messes… It’s easy to forget with how great Hanguang-jun is but he’s also bad at expressing himself and it gets him into trouble. Then you have WWX the deviant genius troublemaker with a heart of gold (even when he doesn’t have his golden core). They’re immature kids who can’t figure their shit out before things get serious and then 16 years later, they are emotionally stunted 30-somethings and (tbh) I feel that. These two are meant for each other and meant to wander the country following the chaos and getting into adventures together while fucking a lot.

Prompts:

How do Wangxian get together in this universe? Was it as teens? During the war? Did they split up? Did LWJ give in to temptation earlier than in the novel? When did WWX realize his feelings?

Fix-it for the ending where they separate!! Duh! Does anyone think them being apart is going to last?

Star Trek AU with the Lans as Vulcans

Uh, I really like A/B/O fic for these two.

MAGIC SEX CURSES. Fuck or die! Sex pollen! Particularly if they’re not a couple yet and this leads to awkwardness and getting together.

Nirvana in Fire (TV)

Requested characters: Mei Changsu, Xiao Jingyan

Note: I also love Lin Chen so if you want to write some MCS/LC or LC/Fei Liu or LC/MCS/JINGYAN OT3??? go for it. I am also a Nihuang/Xia Dong shipper so if you want to put that in… somehow… my gay little heart would be happy. I also like Nihuang/MCS/XJY or MNH/MCS + MCS/XJY but I’d like the focus on the men in that case!

Why I like the canon: I watched this show because someone recommended this show to me as, like, Chinese Game of Thrones but good. I think it’s genuinely one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. I love plots and revenge and good people doing bad things for justice. Even the ending is good for me though obviously it left me unsatisfied on several points.

Why I like the characters: I am deeply into sickly doomed genius MCS and every time he got even more deeply ill, I fell deeper in love. Every time he coughs up blood, my heart would race. I love his terrible schemes and stupid self-sacrificing choices. I find watching this show very soothing because I knew he would always come out on top in his schemes. I trust him. I love handsome clueless Jingyan and how he’s just so good (it’s terrible.) I love his mom and how much he cares for her. I love him but he is useless, he needs his Xiao Shu and I need fanfic to restore him to him.

Note: So my limited research on this says that male/male sex practices were accepted and well-known in this time period in history, so I really don’t want them thinking “oh no what are these weird gay feelings.” There are other barriers to them being together, like a ruler or official being overly attached to one person was considered very bad. I am also a big supporter of the socially-approved polygamy of this time period, so I don’t need Jingyan to refuse to sleep with his wife or something out of loyalty to MCS—he has to do it! Or all their plans are ruined! And he can enjoy spending time with her or the concubines without affecting his feelings for MCS—you could explore that complexity in fic if you like.

Prompts:

Mei Changsu isn’t dead, he’s hiding again, Jingyan searches for him

They start having sex during the series, the ending is averted [somehow]

Post-canon, MCS is alive and Jingyan hides him in the palace with his consort/concubines to keep him on as an advisor without anyone objecting

AU where male/male marriage is customary (maybe aristocratic men are expected to have one male and one female consort?) and so MCS decides the best way to influence and help Jingyan in the capital is by becoming his wife or one of his concubines

anything just get them together and happy.

Promare

Requested characters: Galo, Lio

Why I like the canon: I love this film but I also find it to be… not enough? I wanted more character development, I wanted more plot, I wanted the goddamn Burnish to stay burning things. So I requested it because I want more! Please help me.

Why I like the characters: I love freedom fighter idealist Lio who will kick everyone’s ass for what is right. I love idiot idealist Galo who wants to fight all fires and learns to love exactly one fire. I think now that they aren’t saving the world by punching global warming, they should have a nice romance. I also like they points where they clash in the film, so I’d love to see them adjusting to “normal life” and having to deal with not having the crisis to make sure they get along.

Prompts:

Galo and Lio rebuilding the world together

Lio regaining Burnish powers?

AU where the Burnish are still a thing but it’s not a big crisis/battle and they just have normal jobs and there are integration programs and Lio is an angry Burnish teen and Galo volunteers at a community center helping Burnish control their powers. Like a world that’s more everyday X-Men than X-men in full adventure war mode.

This is the one request where I’d probably enjoy gen fic with lots of worldbuilding.

I would also enjoy lots of horny porn, preference for Galo topping with his giant stupid dick? I’m sorry I’m like this.

I do want to note ahead of time that I might be traveling (as in, possibly literally on a plane) when fics go live, so please do not be upset if I do not comment on the fic right away! But I definitely will! I know this can be a sore spot for authors so I wanted to give some warning.

I think that is all! Thank you very much and I’ll see you at the end of all this.

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deltaengineering · 7 years ago

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Fall Anime 2017 Part 4: Screenshots don’t lie

Saturday’s a very busy day this season, and all the sequels are hitting too. Time to get to work!

Previously:

• Part 1: Maximum Something

• Part 2: The snooze cruise

• Part 3: Fooled again

Burendo Esu (Cat Balls the Animation)

Blend S is the story of schoolgirl Maika that has “mean eyes” (basically, she has tsurime in a tareme world), which prevents her from getting a job other than the one in a moe gimmick-themed café, where her duty is to make “mean eyes” at the customers. The other waitresses play a tsundere, an imouto, an idol and an onee-san. So yeah, that’s one way to get your standard moe show cast together. But wait! The twist here is that Maika is not actually mean! Quite the opposite actually! And that goes for all the other waitresses too! While girls getting forced into moe archetypes is a pretty amusing/scary concept, this is of course a Kirara manga, so they’re just different moe archetypes underneath. In short, the concept doesn’t amount to much. As far as Kiraralikes go, this isn’t a bad one though. It’s colorful, cute and a little funny, and splits the difference between a pure moefest like Knohana Kitan and the more structured comedy of a Working (obviously). Only the pervy Italian manager and his obsession with his blob underlings gets old pretty fast. If you’re down for a show like this, this is probably the one to watch, because unlike Konohana Kitan I didn’t wish for it to end.

Code: Realize - Sousei no Himegimi

While we’re on the topic of “best of the breed”, Code: Realize is an upmarket otome harem. I know, right. The setting is a basic steampunk universe, the bishounens are Arsène Lupin, Victor Frankenstein &c, and our bland heroine’s super special trait turns out to be killing everything she touches due to some jewels in “her heart”. I mean, who hasn’t been there. So everyone wants to “steal her heart” and Code: Realize is very keen to point out the double meaning of this constantly. Hey, we kinda did it in Katawa Shoujo so I can’t really complain. The thing is that Code: Realize is very obvious, but it’s also not all that bad – the fact that is has more going on than nothing at all already makes it the best otome harem since Akatsuki no Yona: It looks fairly pleasant, none of the main characters are tremendous assholes, and there seems to be some sort of story to go with the pretty boys. But it’s also not as hammy and ostentatious as, for example, Dance with Devils, so it’s caught in a middle ground where I can appreciate it not sucking tremendously, but I also don’t feel like watching it – because it’s too respectable.

Dynamic Chord

Dynamic Chord is another otome VN, this time about rock bands. Since this is 2017, apparently the production committee thought they could cut out the middleman, leave out the bland girl and just make a boyband anime instead, because those are all the rage right now. So it’s Tsukipro, apart from the bit where Tsukipro looks like a Ghibli movie next to this. Dynamic Chord is a production catastrophe that looks closer to a no-budget gag short of the Pikotarou Lullaby type (note: I mean “catastrophe” in the absolute sense, for all I know this could all be calculated perfectly and the producers are laughing all the way to the bank). The show consists almost entirely of two things: Long, quiet zooms and pans over stills, and montages, mostly of “performances”. Those performance themselves are really something else too. What if I told you that this is a show in 2017 that does not seem to feature ANY 3DCG? Turns out 3DCG actually costs money too, so when the band plays, they do paperdoll tweens of 2D artwork. Oh, and outside the performances lack of CG means you get the worst animated car since the QUALITYVAN. There’s also just baffling stuff like walk loops that don’t loop. Given that these montages are all endlessly long, you might think there’s not much space for a story. And you’d be right. Basically nothing happens, the singer of a band gets a bad case of the broods so some guy from another band has to substitute for him. That’s it. Would have easily fit into 3 minutes, but I have to say that by the end of this show’s 24 minutes, I was straight up laughing my ass off when the next montage of bad stills started right after the last one ended. That’s something, right?

Garo - Vanishing Line

I’ve seen Garo before, but last time I didn’t know it was a tokusatsu meta-franchise, the anime versions of which really only share that there’s a gothick looking motherfucker fighting horrors called Horrors. So this has little to do with the last ones: different crew, different studio, different setting. Because this version of Garo is most definitely set IN AMERICA: The main character is a gothick looking motherfucker called "Sword” that charitably resembles Hellboy, and less charitably resembles a Leifeld original. He rides a big hawg around a Big Apple, eats big bloody steaks and looks at big boobies a lot because you know, setting. It’s charming in its idiocy, and this is MAPPA so you get a lot of fights with very nice animation too. I could watch this simply for the action, but I won’t because there’s a Murrica-sized caveat here: The fights take place at night, are edited very rapidly and most importantly their idea of an impact frame is to do an extreme camera shake effect with intense motion blur. And there is a lot of impact frames – believe me, that might have been the easiest screenshot to find for an article yet, and I highly suspect I could have found worse ones if this wouldn’t bring the point across already. I simply can’t tell what the fuck is going on because everything is an incomprehensible mess, no matter how nice the frames beneath the effects are. It’s pretty infuriating because this show is one mouse click away from being a good time, simply disable your After Effects layer with the shake on it. But I can’t do that for them, so Vanishing Line ends up being a bad time instead. And even if you are interested in some big, zany action in the ol’ Gotham, there’s a little something that makes Vanishing Line instantly obsolete:

Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront) & Beyond

Yeah boiiiiiiii, Kekkai Sensen is back. I had forgotten how fun this show can be, and we’ll discuss the reasons shortly. A lot has happened since 2015, and I have a good reference point for it now: Kekkai Sensen is basically One-Punch Man without The Joke. It’s an universe full of all sorts of crazy nonsense and a bunch of cool dudes that try to keep thing under control, usually in an explosive manner. The one really important thing that Beyond changes is that it’s not directed by Rie Matsumoto. Shigehito Takayanagi is taking over, and while that guy is a noted jobber of little distinction (previous credits: TWGOK, Dagashi Kashi and uh... Toyko ESP...), he’s at least enough of a craftsman to imitate Matsumoto’s style very well. I only found out about this after the fact, and wouldn’t have noticed the difference otherwise. It is noticeable if you look for it though: this episode has all of the stylish action antics, but none of the more moody content that Matsumoto’s original character (do not steal) White brought to the show. I liked most of White’s scenes with Leo and they gave season 1 some welcome emotional grounding, but to be quite honest, it’s not what I watched Kekkai Sensen for. I can definitely accept losing it if this time the show isn’t consumed by White’s subplot and doesn’t culminate in an ending that not only is all about her, but also comes out a season after everyone stopped caring because auteurs can’t manage a production. With Kyousougiga and Kekkai Sensen S1, Matsumoto has shown a 100% track record of donking her endings, so I’m not complaining she got replaced with someone who just gets the job done. Especially if it’s still Bones relying on Yutapon for action cuts; when shit hits the fan, it looks straight up incredible and makes me question why I slummed it with My Hero Academia for three seasons when I can get the same amount of awesome fights in a single episode of this. And hey, White is still in the ending, so maybe we will get the less crazy end of it covered as well. Just keep the priorities straight this time around, please.

Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous)

Houseki no Kuni is a manga about gijinka gems of indeterminate gender that takes the amusing step of Mohs hardness directly translating into Shounen Powerlevel™. Apart from that, there’s not much content in this episode 1: We get to know the characters and a glimpse and how a society of a bunch of brittle gems in makeup works. What makes this interesting is that the setting is intriguingly vague and very pretty (think: Haibane Renmei), and the characters seem to be fairly strong and likeable. Not exciting, but I could see myself watching this just for the atmosphere. The big downside of it is that it’s a 3DCG show, and not one of those fancy mocapped ones either. The animation is, in a word, bad: robotic and clumsy, as usual. I’ll readily admit that in screencaps it looks great, especially the crystal shaders that would be difficult to pull off in 2D animation. Houseki no Kuni seems very okay, but it has a hard time on this crowded Saturday so I don’t think I’ll bother with it right now. If it delivers in the long run, I’ll readily admit it to my backlog though.

Love Live! Sunshine!! S2!!!

Sunshine’s back as well, and finds itself in an awkward spot right away. This first episode has a lot of things to get out of the way: Tying up the last season properly because the final episode of S1 fumbled that, reminding the audience of the characters, and setting up a new drama arc. In practice, that means it ends up feeling a lot more like the lost E1S13 than the S2E1 it is, because the other two aspects are pretty pointless: Reintroducing the characters just means they all shoot off their catchphrase in turn, and the brand new conflict is (hold on to your seats for this one) that the school is getting closed and there’s a new Love Live. With all these things going on and none of them being all that interesting, the episode feels very rushed and just accomplishes establishing that yes, it’s a Love Live show. I guess that is exactly what it was meant to do and I can say that at least they have it out of the way now. Well, the last time I said Sunshine had gotten something out of the way, it was the obsession with µ’s in episode 1, the getting out of the way of which ended up lasting 10 episodes. It’s gone now (thankfully), but maybe I shouldn’t assume too much here. So yeah, fairly weak first episode, but it’s not like I wasn’t going to watch this to the end and even at its most rushed and pointless it’s still Love Live: a polished Five Guys hamburger of a show that doesn’t exactly need to be great to be a joy to watch.

Two Car

I expected Two Car to be That Show: the one where a schoolgirl discovers her sudden love for Thing and goes on to experience Thing with the help of her friends. Two Car isn’t in the K-ON/Bakuon/etc mould however, it’s much more similar to the sports show style of Girls und Panzer, wacky sport with themed teams of contenders in a world where everyone seems to care about it a little too much. It helps that real sidecar racing is already weird as hell (looking forward to the breathless Anime Now article about how it’s a thing that actually exists) and is less motorcycle racing and more Twister on a fast-moving platform. Quite coincidentally, Two Car is also tremendously gay, as you’d expect from a show about two-girl teams in very tight leather crawling over each other competitively. The main girls aren’t even so blatant (and shown to have a crush on their male instructor, who has taken off to the aptly named Isle of Man), but the opponents are all some sort of standard yuri pairing. So yeah, the setting is a goofy blast, but I’m sad to report that episode 1 has tremendous structural problems. All the team introductions are very clumsy and intercut with an equally clumsy introduction of the setting, the sport and the main girl’s extensive backstory. I will give this more chances because the setup has a lot of potential, but I really hope this shapes up on the storytelling front or I won’t make it very far in.

#Love Live! Sunshine!!#Blend S #Code Realize #Dynamic Chord #Vanishing Line #garo #Kekkai Sensen #Houseki no Kuni #Two Car #blood blockade battlefront #anime #impressions #fall2017

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Every parent should read this important article regarding how we mistakenly indoctrinate our young men in society.

The Miseducation of the American Boy

Why boys crack up at rape jokes, think having a girlfriend is “gay,” and still can’t cry—and why we need to give them new and better models of masculinity

Story by Peggy Orenstein | Published January/February 2020 Issue | The Atlantic | Posted December 26, 2019 |

Updated at 9:30 p.m. ET on December 20, 2019.

I knew nothing about Cole before meeting him; he was just a name on a list of boys at a private school outside Boston who had volunteered to talk with me (or perhaps had had their arm twisted a bit by a counselor). The afternoon of our first interview, I was running late. As I rushed down a hallway at the school, I noticed a boy sitting outside the library, waiting—it had to be him. He was staring impassively ahead, both feet planted on the floor, hands resting loosely on his thighs.

My first reaction was Oh no.

It was totally unfair, a scarlet letter of personal bias. Cole would later describe himself to me as a “typical tall white athlete” guy, and that is exactly what I saw. At 18, he stood more than 6 feet tall, with broad shoulders and short-clipped hair. His neck was so thick that it seemed to merge into his jawline, and he was planning to enter a military academy for college the following fall. His friends were “the jock group,” he’d tell me. “They’re what you’d expect, I guess. Let’s leave it at that.” If I had closed my eyes and described the boy I imagined would never open up to me, it would have been him.

But Cole surprised me. He pulled up a picture on his phone of his girlfriend, whom he’d been dating for the past 18 months, describing her proudly as “way smarter than I am,” a feminist, and a bedrock of emotional support. He also confided how he’d worried four years earlier, during his first weeks as a freshman on a scholarship at a new school, that he wouldn’t know how to act with other guys, wouldn’t be able to make friends. “I could talk to girls platonically,” he said. “That was easy. But being around guys was different. I needed to be a ‘bro,’ and I didn’t know how to do that.”

Whenever Cole uttered the word bro, he shifted his weight to take up more space, rocking back in his chair, and spoke from low in his throat, like he’d inhaled a lungful of weed. He grinned when I pointed that out. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s part of it: seeming relaxed and never intrusive, yet somehow bringing out that aggression on the sports field. Because a ‘bro’ ”—he rocked back again—“is always, always an athlete.”

The definition of masculinity seems to be contracting. When asked what traits society values most in boys, only 2 percent of male survey respondents said honesty and morality.

Cole eventually found his people on the crew team, but it wasn’t a smooth fit at first. He recalled an incident two years prior when a senior was bragging in the locker room about how he’d convinced one of Cole’s female classmates—a young sophomore, Cole emphasized—that they were an item, then started hooking up with other girls behind her back. And the guy wasn’t shy about sharing the details. Cole and a friend of his, another sophomore, told him to knock it off. “I started to explain why it wasn’t appropriate,” Cole said, “but he just laughed.”

The next day, a second senior started talking about “getting back at” a “bitch” who’d dumped him. Cole’s friend spoke up again, but this time Cole stayed silent. “And as I continued to step back” and the other sophomore “continued to step up, you could tell that the guys on the team stopped liking him as much. They stopped listening to him, too. It’s almost as if he spent all his social currency” trying to get them to stop making sexist jokes. “Meanwhile, I was sitting there”—Cole thumped his chest—“too afraid to spend any of mine, and I just had buckets left.

“I don’t know what to do,” he continued earnestly. “Once I’m in the military, and I’m a part of that culture, I don’t want to have to choose between my own dignity and my relationship with others I’m serving with. But …” He looked me in the eye. “How do I make it so I don’t have to choose?”

I’ve spent two years talking with boys across America—more than 100 of them between the ages of 16 and 21—about masculinity, sex, and love: about the forces, seen and unseen, that shape them as men. Though I spoke with boys of all races and ethnicities, I stuck to those who were in college or college-bound, because like it or not, they’re the ones most likely to set cultural norms. Nearly every guy I interviewed held relatively egalitarian views about girls, at least their role in the public sphere. They considered their female classmates to be smart and competent, entitled to their place on the athletic field and in school leadership, deserving of their admission to college and of professional opportunities. They all had female friends; most had gay male friends as well. That was a huge shift from what you might have seen 50, 40, maybe even 20 years ago. They could also easily reel off the excesses of masculinity. They’d seen the headlines about mass shootings, domestic violence, sexual harassment, campus rape, presidential Twitter tantrums, and Supreme Court confirmation hearings. A Big Ten football player I interviewed bandied about the term toxic masculinity. “Everyone knows what that is,” he said, when I seemed surprised.

Yet when asked to describe the attributes of “the ideal guy,” those same boys appeared to be harking back to 1955. Dominance. Aggression. Rugged good looks (with an emphasis on height). Sexual prowess. Stoicism. Athleticism. Wealth (at least some day). It’s not that all of these qualities, properly channeled, are bad. But while a 2018 national survey of more than 1,000 10-to-19-year-olds commissioned by Plan International USA and conducted by the polling firm PerryUndem found that young women believed there were many ways to be a girl—they could shine in math, sports, music, leadership (the big caveat being that they still felt valued primarily for their appearance)—young men described just one narrow route to successful masculinity.* One-third said they felt compelled to suppress their feelings, to “suck it up” or “be a man” when they were sad or scared, and more than 40 percent said that when they were angry, society expected them to be combative. In another survey, which compared young men from the U.S., the U.K., and Mexico, Americans reported more social pressure to be ever-ready for sex and to get with as many women as possible; they also acknowledged more stigma against homosexuality, and they received more messages that they should control their female partners, as in: Men “deserve to know” the whereabouts of their girlfriends or wives at all times.

Feminism may have provided girls with a powerful alternative to conventional femininity, and a language with which to express the myriad problems-that-have-no-name, but there have been no credible equivalents for boys. Quite the contrary: The definition of masculinity seems to be in some respects contracting. When asked what traits society values most in boys, only 2 percent of male respondents in the PerryUndem survey said honesty and morality, and only 8 percent said leadership skills—traits that are, of course, admirable in anyone but have traditionally been considered masculine. When I asked my subjects, as I always did, what they liked about being a boy, most of them drew a blank. “Huh,” mused Josh, a college sophomore at Washington State. (All the teenagers I spoke with are identified by pseudonyms.) “That’s interesting. I never really thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys.”

While following the conventional script may still bring social and professional rewards to boys and men, research shows that those who rigidly adhere to certain masculine norms are not only more likely to harass and bully others but to themselves be victims of verbal or physical violence. They’re more prone to binge-drinking, risky sexual behavior, and getting in car accidents. They are also less happy than other guys, with higher depression rates and fewer friends in whom they can confide.

It wasn’t always thus. According to Andrew Smiler, a psychologist who has studied the history of Western masculinity, the ideal late-19th-century man was compassionate, a caretaker, but such qualities lost favor as paid labor moved from homes to factories during industrialization. In fact, the Boy Scouts, whose creed urges its members to be loyal, friendly, courteous, and kind, was founded in 1910 in part to counter that dehumanizing trend. Smiler attributes further distortions in masculinity to a century-long backlash against women’s rights. During World War I, women proved that they could keep the economy humming on their own, and soon afterward they secured the vote. Instead of embracing gender equality, he says, the country’s leaders “doubled down” on the inalienable male right to power, emphasizing men’s supposedly more logical and less emotional nature as a prerequisite for leadership.

Then, during the second half of the 20th century, traditional paths to manhood—early marriage, breadwinning—began to close, along with the positive traits associated with them. Today many parents are unsure of how to raise a boy, what sort of masculinity to encourage in their sons. But as I learned from talking with boys themselves, the culture of adolescence, which fuses hyperrationality with domination, sexual conquest, and a glorification of male violence, fills the void.

Read: Today’s masculinity is stifling

For Cole, as for many boys, this stunted masculinity is a yardstick against which all choices, even those seemingly irrelevant to male identity, are measured. When he had a choice, he would team up with girls on school projects, to avoid the possibility of appearing subordinate to another guy. “With a girl, it feels safer to talk and ask questions, to work together or to admit that I did something wrong and want help,” Cole said. During his junior year, he briefly suggested to his crew teammates that they go vegan for a while, just to show that athletes could. “And everybody was like, ‘Cole, that is the dumbest idea ever. We’d be the slowest in any race.’ That’s somewhat true—we do need protein. We do need fats and salts and carbs that we get from meat. But another reason they all thought it was stupid is because being vegans would make us pussies.”

LEARNING TO “MAN UP”

There is no difference between the sexes’ need for connection in infancy, nor between their capacity for empathy—there’s actually some evidence that male infants are more expressive than females. Yet, from the get-go, boys are relegated to an impoverished emotional landscape. In a classic study, adults shown a video of an infant startled by a jack-in-the-box were more likely to presume the baby was “angry” if they were first told the child was male. Mothers of young children have repeatedly been found to talk more to their girls and to employ a broader, richer emotional vocabulary with them; with their sons, again, they tend to linger on anger. As for fathers, they speak with less emotional nuance than mothers regardless of their child’s sex. Despite that, according to Judy Y. Chu, a human-biology lecturer at Stanford who conducted a study of boys from pre-K through first grade, little boys have a keen understanding of emotions and a desire for close relationships. But by age 5 or 6, they’ve learned to knock that stuff off, at least in public: to disconnect from feelings of weakness, reject friendships with girls (or take them underground, outside of school), and become more hierarchical in their behavior.

By adolescence, says the Harvard psychologist William Pollack, boys become “shame-phobic,” convinced that peers will lose respect for them if they discuss their personal problems. My conversations bore this out. Boys routinely confided that they felt denied—by male peers, girlfriends, the media, teachers, coaches, and especially their fathers—the full spectrum of human expression. Cole, for instance, spent most of his childhood with his mother, grandmother, and sister—his parents split up when he was 10 and his dad, who was in the military, was often away. Cole spoke of his mom with unbridled love and respect. His father was another matter. “He’s a nice guy,” Cole said—caring and involved, even after the divorce—“but I can’t be myself around him. I feel like I need to keep everything that’s in here”—Cole tapped his chest again—“behind a wall, where he can’t see it. It’s a taboo—like, not as bad as incest, but …”

Rob, an 18-year-old from New Jersey in his freshman year at a North Carolina college, said his father would tell him to “man up” when he was struggling in school or with baseball. “That’s why I never talk to anybody about my problems.” He’d always think, If you can’t handle this on your own, then you aren’t a man; you aren’t trying hard enough. Other boys also pointed to their fathers as the chief of the gender police, though in a less obvious way. “It’s not like my dad is some alcoholic, emotionally unavailable asshole with a pulse,” said a college sophomore in Southern California. “He’s a normal, loving, charismatic guy who’s not at all intimidating.” But “there’s a block there. There’s a hesitation, even though I don’t like to admit that. A hesitation to talk about … anything, really. We learn to confide in nobody. You sort of train yourself not to feel.”

I met Rob about four months after he’d broken up with his high-school girlfriend. The two had dated for more than three years—“I really did love her,” he said—and although their colleges were far apart, they’d decided to try to stay together. Then, a few weeks into freshman year, Rob heard from a friend that she was cheating on him. “So I cut her off,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I stopped talking to her and forgot about her completely.” Only … not really. Although he didn’t use the word, Rob became depressed. The excitement he’d felt about leaving home, starting college, and rushing a fraternity all drained away, and, as the semester wore on, it didn’t come back.

When I asked whom he talked to during that time, he shrugged. If he had told his friends he was “hung up” on a girl, “they’d be like, ‘Stop being a bitch.’ ” Rob looked glum. The only person with whom he had been able to drop his guard was his girlfriend, but that was no longer an option.

Girlfriends, mothers, and in some cases sisters were the most common confidants of the boys I met. While it’s wonderful to know they have someone to talk to—and I’m sure mothers, in particular, savor the role—teaching boys that women are responsible for emotional labor, for processing men’s emotional lives in ways that would be emasculating for them to do themselves, comes at a price for both sexes. Among other things, that dependence can leave men unable to identify or express their own emotions, and ill-equipped to form caring, lasting adult relationships.

By Thanksgiving break, Rob was so distraught that he had what he called a “mental breakdown” one night while chatting in the kitchen with his mom. “I was so stressed out,” he said. “Classes. The thing with my girlfriend.” He couldn’t describe what that “breakdown” felt like (though he did say it “scared the crap” out of his mom, who immediately demanded, “Tell me everything”). All he could say definitively was that he didn’t cry. “Never,” he insisted. “I don’t cry, ever.”

I paid close attention when boys mentioned crying—doing it, not doing it, wanting to do it, not being able to do it. For most, it was a rare and humiliating event—a dangerous crack in a carefully constructed edifice. A college sophomore in Chicago told me that he hadn’t been able to cry when his parents divorced. “I really wanted to,” he said. “I needed to cry.” His solution: He streamed three movies about the Holocaust over the weekend. That worked.

As someone who, by virtue of my sex, has always had permission to weep, I didn’t initially understand this. Only after multiple interviews did I realize that when boys confided in me about crying—or, even more so, when they teared up right in front of me—they were taking a risk, trusting me with something private and precious: evidence of vulnerability, or a desire for it. Or, as with Rob, an inability to acknowledge any human frailty that was so poignant, it made me want to, well, cry.

BRO CULTURE

While my interview subjects struggled when I asked what they liked about being a boy, the most frequent response was sports. They recalled their early days on the playing field with almost romantic warmth. But I was struck by how many had dropped athletics they’d enjoyed because they couldn’t stand the Lord of the Flies mentality of teammates or coaches. Perhaps the most extreme example was Ethan, a kid from the Bay Area who had been recruited by a small liberal-arts college in New England to play lacrosse. He said he’d expected to encounter the East Coast “ ‘lax bro’ culture,” but he’d underestimated its intensity. “It was all about sex” and bragging about hooking up, and even the coaches endorsed victim-blaming, Ethan told me. “They weren’t like that in class or around other people; it was a super-liberal school. But once you got them in the locker room …” He shook his head. “It was one of the most jarring experiences of my life.”

As a freshman, Ethan didn’t feel he could challenge his older teammates, especially without support from the coaches. So he quit the team; not only that, he transferred. “If I’d stayed, there would’ve been a lot of pressure on me to play, a lot of resentment, and I would’ve run into those guys all the time. This way I didn’t really have to explain anything.” At his new school, Ethan didn’t play lacrosse, or anything else.

What the longtime sportswriter Robert Lipsyte calls “jock culture” (or what the boys I talked with more often referred to as “bro culture”) is the dark underbelly of male-dominated enclaves, whether or not they formally involve athletics: all-boys’ schools, fraternity houses, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the military. Even as such groups promote bonding, even as they preach honor, pride, and integrity, they tend to condition young men to treat anyone who is not “on the team” as the enemy (the only women who ordinarily make the cut are blood relatives— bros before hos!), justifying any hostility toward them. Loyalty is paramount, and masculinity is habitually established through misogynist language and homophobia.

As a senior in high school, Cole was made captain of the crew team. He relished being part of a unit, a band of brothers. When he raced, he imagined pulling each stroke for the guy in front of him, for the guy behind him—never for himself alone. But not everyone could muster such higher purpose. “Crew demands you push yourself to a threshold of pain and keep yourself there,” Cole said. “And it’s hard to find something to motivate you to do that other than anger and aggression.”

I asked him about how his teammates talked in the locker room. That question always made these young men squirm. They’d rather talk about looking at porn, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation—anything else. Cole cut his eyes to the side, shifted in his seat, and sighed deeply. “Okay,” he finally said, “so here’s my best shot: We definitely say fuck a lot; fuckin’ can go anywhere in a sentence. And we call each other pussies, bitches. We never say the N-word, though. That’s going too far.”

“What about fag?” I asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head firmly.

“So why can’t you say fag or the N-word but you can say pussy and bitch? Aren’t those just as offensive?”

“One of my friends said we probably shouldn’t say those words anymore either, but what would we replace them with? We couldn’t think of anything that bites as much.”

“Bites?”

“Yeah. It’s like … for some reason pussy just works. When someone calls me a pussy—‘Don’t be a pussy! Come on! Fuckin’ go! Pull! Pull! Pull!’—it just flows. If someone said, ‘Come on, Cole, don’t be weak! Be tough! Pull! Pull! Pull!,’ it just wouldn’t get inside my head the same way. I don’t know why that is.” He paused. “Well,” he said, “maybe I do. Maybe I just try not to dig too deeply.”

Although losing ground in more progressive circles, like the one Cole runs in, fag remained pervasive in the language of the boys I interviewed—including those who insisted that they would never use the word in reference to an actual homosexual. Fag has become less a comment on a boy’s sexuality, says the University of Oregon sociology professor C. J. Pascoe, than a referendum on his manhood. It can be used to mock anything, she told me, even something as random as a guy “dropping the meat out of his sandwich.” (Perhaps oddest to me, Pascoe found that one of the more common reasons boys get tagged with fag is for acting romantically with a girl. That’s seen as heterosexual in the “wrong” way, which explains why one high-school junior told me that having a girlfriend was “gay.”) That fluidity, the elusiveness of the word’s definition, only intensifies its power, much like slut for girls.

Recently, Pascoe turned her attention to no homo, a phrase that gained traction in the 1990s. She sifted through more than 1,000 tweets, primarily by young men, that included the phrase. Most were expressing a positive emotion, sometimes as innocuous as “I love chocolate ice cream, #nohomo” or “I loved the movie The Day After Tomorrow, #nohomo.” “A lot of times they were saying things like ‘I miss you’ to a friend or ‘We should hang out soon,’ ” she said. “Just normal expressions of joy or connection.” No homo is a form of inoculation against insults from other guys, Pascoe concluded, a “shield that allows boys to be fully human.”

Just because some young men now draw the line at referring to someone who is openly gay as a fag doesn’t mean, by the way, that gay men (or men with traits that read as gay) are suddenly safe. If anything, the gay guys I met were more conscious of the rules of manhood than their straight peers were. They had to be—and because of that, they were like spies in the house of hypermasculinity.

Mateo, 17, attended the same Boston-area high school as Cole, also on a scholarship, but the two could not have presented more differently. Mateo, whose father is Salvadoran, was slim and tan, with an animated expression and a tendency to wave his arms as he spoke. Where Cole sat straight and still, Mateo crossed his legs at the knee and swung his foot, propping his chin on one hand.

This was Mateo’s second private high school. The oldest of six children, he had been identified as academically gifted and encouraged by an eighth-grade teacher to apply to an all-boys prep school for his freshman year. When he arrived, he discovered that his classmates were nearly all white, athletic, affluent, and, as far as he could tell, straight. Mateo—Latino and gay, the son of a janitor—was none of those things. He felt immediately conscious of how he held himself, of how he sat, and especially of the pitch of his voice. He tried lowering it, but that felt unnatural, so he withdrew from conversation altogether. He changed the way he walked as well, to avoid being targeted as “girly.” “One of my only friends there was gay too,” he said, “and he was a lot more outward about it. He just got destroyed.”

Guys who identify as straight but aren’t athletic, or are involved in the arts, or have a lot of female friends, all risk having their masculinity impugned. What has changed for this generation, though, is that some young men, particularly if they grew up around LGBTQ people, don’t rise to the bait. “I don’t mind when people mistake me for being gay,” said Luke, a high-school senior from New York City. “It’s more of an annoyance than anything, because I want people to believe me when I say I’m straight.” The way he described himself did, indeed, tick every stereotypical box. “I’m a very thin person,” he said. “I like clothing. I care about my appearance in maybe a more delicate way. I’m very in touch with my sensitive side. So when people think I’m gay?” He shrugged. “It can feel like more of a compliment. Like, ‘Oh, you like the way I dress? Thank you! ’ ”

One of Luke’s friends, who was labeled “the faggot frosh” in ninth grade, is not so philosophical. “He treats everything as a test of his masculinity,” Luke told me. “Like, once when I was wearing red pants, I heard him say to other people, ‘He looks like such a faggot.’ I didn’t care, and maybe in that situation no one was really harmed, but when you apply that attitude to whole populations, you end up with Donald Trump as president.”

W’s AND L’s

Sexual conquest—or perhaps more specifically, bragging about your experiences to other boys—is, arguably, the most crucial aspect of toxic masculinity. Nate, who attended a public high school in the Bay Area, knew this well. At a party held near the beginning of his junior year of high school, he sank deep into the couch, trying to look chill. Kids were doing shots and smoking weed. Some were Juuling. Nate didn’t drink much himself and never got high. He wasn’t morally opposed to it; he just didn’t like the feeling of being out of control.

At 16, reputation meant everything to Nate, and certain things could cement your status. “The whole goal of going to a party is to hook up with girls and then tell your guys about it,” he said. And there’s this “race for experience,” because if you get behind, by the time you do hook up with a girl “she’ll have hit it with, like, five guys already. Then she’s going to know how to do things” you don’t—and that’s a problem, if she tells people “you’ve got floppy lips” or “don’t know how to get her bra off.”

A lanky boy with dark, liquid eyes and curly hair that resisted all attempts at taming, Nate put himself in the middle of his school’s social hierarchy: friends with both the “popular” and “lower” kids. Still, he’d hooked up with only three girls since ninth grade—kissing, getting under their shirts—but none had wanted a repeat. That left him worried about his skills. He is afraid of intimacy, he told me sincerely. “It’s a huge self-esteem suck.”

It would probably be more accurate to say that Nate was afraid of having drunken sexual interactions with a girl he did not know or trust. But it was all about credentialing. “Guys need to prove themselves to their guys,” Nate said. To do that, “they’re going to be dominating.” They’re going to “push.” Because the girl is just there “as a means for him to get off and to brag.”

Before the start of this school year, Nate’s “dry spell” had seemed to be ending. He’d been in a relationship with a girl that lasted a full two weeks, until other guys told him she was “slutty”—their word, he hastened to add, not his. Although any hookup is marginally better than none, Nate said, you only truly earn points for getting sexual with the right kind of girl. “If you hook up with a girl below your status, it’s an ‘L,’ ” he explained. “A loss. Like, a bad move.” So he stopped talking to the girl, which was too bad. He’d really liked her.

After a short trip to the kitchen to watch his friend Kyle stand on a table and drunkenly try to pour Sprite from a can into a shot glass, Nate returned to the couch, starting to relax as people swirled around him. Suddenly Nicole, the party’s host and a senior, plopped onto his lap, handing him a shot of vodka. Nate was impressed, if a little confused. Usually, if a girl wanted to hook up with you, there were texts and Snapchats, and if you said yes, it was on; everyone would be anticipating it, and expecting a postmortem.

Nate thought Nicole was “pretty hot”—she had a great body, he said—though he’d never been especially interested in her before this moment. Still, he knew that hooking up with her would be a “W.” A big one. He glanced around the room subtly, wanting to make sure, without appearing to care, that everyone who mattered—everyone “relevant”—saw what was going down. A couple of guys gave him little nods. One winked. Another slapped him on the shoulder. Nate feigned nonchalance. Meanwhile, he told me, “I was just trying not to pop a boner.”

Nicole took Nate’s hand and led him to an empty bedroom. He got through the inevitable, cringey moments when you actually have to talk to your partner, then, finally, they started kissing. In his anxiety, Nate bit Nicole’s lip. Hard. “I was thinking, Oh God! What do I do now?” But he kept going. He took off her top and undid her bra. He took off his own shirt. Then she took off her pants. “And that,” he said, “was the first time I ever saw a vagina. I did not know what to do with it.” He recalled that his friends had said girls go crazy if you stick your fingers up there and make the “come here” motion, so he tried it, but Nicole just lay there. He didn’t ask what might feel better to her, because that would have been admitting ignorance.

After a few more agonizing minutes, Nicole announced that she wanted to see what was going on upstairs, and left, Nate trailing behind. A friend handed him a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Another high-fived him. A third said, “Dude, you hit that!” Maybe the hookup hadn’t been a disaster after all: He still had bragging rights.

Then he heard a senior, a guy Nate considered kind of a friend, loudly ask Nicole, “Why would you hook up with Nate?”

She giggled. “Oh, I was drunk!” she said. “I was so drunk!”

They were calling him an “L.”

By Monday morning, Nicole had spread the word that Nate was bad at hooking up: that he’d bit her lip, that he didn’t know how to finger a girl. That his nails were ragged. “The stereotype is that guys go into gory detail,” Nate said, but “it’s the other way around.” Guys will brag, but they’re not specific. Girls will go into “what his penis looked like,” every single thing he did.

Nate said he felt “completely emasculated,” so mortified that he told his mom he was sick and stayed home from school the next day. “I was basically crying,” he said. “I was like, Shit! I fucked up.”

No question, gossip about poor “performance” can destroy a guy’s reputation almost as surely as being called a “slut” or a “prude” can destroy a girl’s. As a result, the boys I talked with were concerned with female satisfaction during a hookup; they just didn’t typically define it as the girl having an orgasm. They believed it to be a function of their own endurance and, to a lesser extent, penis size. A college freshman in Los Angeles recalled a high-school classmate who’d had sex with a girl who told everyone he’d ejaculated really quickly: “He got the nickname Second Sam. That basically scared the crap out of all the other guys.” A college senior in Boston recounted how he would glance at the clock when he started penetration. “I’d think, I have to last five minutes, minimum,” he said. “And once I could do that, I’d think, I need to get to double digits. I don’t know if it’s necessarily about your partner’s enjoyment. It’s more about getting beyond the point where you’d be embarrassed, maintaining your pride. It turns sex into a task—one I enjoy to a certain degree, but one where you’re monitoring your performance rather than living in the moment.”

Eventually, Nate decided that he had to take a stand, if only to make returning to school bearable. He texted Nicole and said, “ ‘I’m sorry that you didn’t enjoy it, [but] I would never roast you. Why are you doing this?’ ” She felt “really bad,” he said. “She stopped telling people, but it took me until the next semester to recover.”

HOW MISOGYNY BECOMES “HILARIOUS”

No matter how often I heard it, the brutal language that even a conscientious young man like Nate used to describe sexual contact—you hit that!—always unnerved me. In mixed-sex groups, teenagers may talk about hooking up (already impersonal), but when guys are on their own, they nail, they pound, they bang, they smash, they hammer. They tap that ass, they tear her up. It can be hard to tell whether they have engaged in an intimate act or just returned from a construction site.

It’s not like I imagined boys would gush about making sweet, sweet love to the ladies, but why was their language so weaponized ? The answer, I came to believe, was that locker-room talk isn’t about sex at all, which is why guys were ashamed to discuss it openly with me. The (often clearly exaggerated) stories boys tell are really about power: using aggression toward women to connect and to validate one another as heterosexual, or to claim top spots in the adolescent sexual hierarchy. Dismissing that as “banter” denies the ways that language can desensitize—abrade boys’ ability to see girls as people deserving of respect and dignity in sexual encounters.

For evidence, look no further than the scandals that keep popping up at the country’s top colleges: Harvard, Amherst, Columbia, Yale (the scene of an especially notorious 2010 fraternity chant, “No means yes; yes means anal”). Most recently, in the spring of 2019, at the politically progressive Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania, two fraternities disbanded after student-run publications released more than 100 pages of “minutes” from house meetings a few years earlier that included, among other things, jokes about a “rape attic” and the acquiring of roofies, “finger blasting” a member’s 10-year-old sister, and vomiting on women during sex.

When called out, boys typically claim that they thought they were just being “funny.” And in a way that makes sense—when left unexamined, such “humor” may seem like an extension of the gross-out comedy of childhood. Little boys are famous for their fart jokes, booger jokes, poop jokes. It’s how they test boundaries, understand the human body, gain a little cred among their peers. But, as can happen with sports, their glee in that can both enable and camouflage sexism. The boy who, at age 10, asks his friends the difference between a dead baby and a bowling ball may or may not find it equally uproarious, at 16, to share what a woman and a bowling ball have in common (you can Google it). He may or may not post ever-escalating “jokes” about women, or African Americans, or homosexuals, or disabled people on a group Snapchat. He may or may not send “funny” texts to friends about “girls who need to be raped,” or think it’s hysterical to surprise a buddy with a meme in which a woman is being gagged by a penis, her mascara mixed with her tears. He may or may not, at 18, scrawl the names of his hookups on a wall in his all-male dorm, as part of a year-long competition to see who can “pull” the most. Perfectly nice, bright, polite boys I interviewed had done one or another of these things.

How does that happen? I talked with a 15-year-old from the East Coast who had been among a group of boys suspended from school for posting more than 100 racist and sexist “jokes” about classmates on a group Finsta (a secondary, or “fake,” Instagram account that is in many cases more genuine than a “Rinsta,” or “real” account).“The Finsta became very competitive,” he said. “You wanted to make your friends laugh, but when you’re not face-to-face,” you can’t tell whether you’ll get a reaction, “so you go one step beyond.” It was “that combination of competitiveness and that … disconnect that triggered it to get worse and worse.”

At the most disturbing end of the continuum, “funny” and “hilarious” become a defense against charges of sexual harassment or assault. To cite just one example, a boy from Steubenville, Ohio, was captured on video joking about the repeated violation of an unconscious girl at a party by a couple of high-school football players. “She is so raped,” he said, laughing. “They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson.” When someone off camera suggested that rape wasn’t funny, he retorted, “It isn’t funny—it’s hilarious!”

“Hilarious” is another way, under the pretext of horseplay or group bonding, that boys learn to disregard others’ feelings as well as their own. “Hilarious” is a haven, offering distance when something is inappropriate, confusing, depressing, unnerving, or horrifying; when something defies boys’ ethics. It allows them to subvert a more compassionate response that could be read as unmasculine—and makes sexism and misogyny feel transgressive rather than supportive of an age-old status quo. Boys may know when something is wrong; they may even know that true manhood—or maybe just common decency—compels them to speak up. Yet, too often, they fear that if they do, they’ll be marginalized or, worse, themselves become the target of derision from other boys. Masculinity, then, becomes not only about what boys do say, but about what they don’t—or won’t, or can’t—say, even when they wish they could. The psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, the authors of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, have pointed out that silence in the face of cruelty or sexism is how too many boys become men. Charis Denison, a sex educator in the Bay Area, puts it another way: “At one time or another, every young man will get a letter of admission to ‘dick school.’ The question is, will he drop out, graduate, or go for an advanced degree?”

Midway through Cole’s freshman year in military college, I FaceTimed him to see how he’d resolved the conflict between his personal values and those of the culture in which he found himself. As he’d expected, most of his classmates were male, and he said there was a lot of what passed for friendly ribbing: giving one another “love taps” on the back of the head; blocking one another’s paths, then pretending to pick a fight; grabbing one another’s asses; pretending to lean in for a kiss. Giving someone a hard time, Cole said, was always “easy humor,” but it could spiral into something more troubling pretty quickly. When one of his dorm mates joked to another, “I’m going to piss on you in your sleep,” for instance, the other boy shot back, “If you do, I’ll fucking rape you.” For better or worse, Cole said, that sort of comment no longer rattled him.

Although he had been adamantly against the epithet fag when we met, Cole found himself using it, reasoning, as other boys did, that it was “more like ‘You suck’ or ‘You’re lame.’ ” However, at least one of his friends had revealed himself to be legitimately homophobic, declaring that being gay was un-American (“I didn’t know that about him until after we became friends,” Cole insisted). And Cole had not met a single openly LGBTQ student at the school. He certainly wouldn’t want to be out in this environment if he were gay. Nor, he said, would he want to be Asian—the two Asian American boys in his dorm were ostracized and treated like foreigners; both seemed miserable.

“I do feel kind of like a cop-out for letting all the little things slide,” Cole said. “It’s a cop-out to not fight the good fight. But, you know, there was that thing I tried sophomore year … It just didn’t work. I could be a social-justice warrior here, but I don’t think anyone would listen to me. And I’d have no friends.”

The #MeToo movement has created an opportunity, a mandate not only to discuss sexual violence but to engage young men in authentic, long-overdue conversations about gender and intimacy. I don’t want to suggest that this is easy. Back in the early 1990s, when I began writing about how girls’ confidence drops during adolescence, parents would privately tell me that they were afraid to raise outspoken daughters, girls who stood up for themselves and their rights, because they might be excluded by peers and called “bossy” (or worse). Although there is still much work to be done, things are different for young women today. Now it’s time to rethink assumptions about how we raise boys. That will require models of manhood that are neither ashamed nor regressive, and that emphasize emotional flexibility—a hallmark of mental health. Stoicism is valuable sometimes, as is free expression; toughness and tenderness can coexist in one human. In the right context, physical aggression is fun, satisfying, even thrilling. If your response to all of this is Obviously, I’d say: Sure, but it’s a mistake to underestimate the strength and durability of the cultural machinery at work on adolescent boys. Real change will require a sustained, collective effort on the part of fathers, mothers, teachers, coaches. (A study of 2,000 male high-school athletes found significantly reduced rates of dating violence and a greater likelihood of intervening to stop other boys’ abusive conduct among those who participated in weekly coach-led discussions about consent, personal responsibility, and respectful behavior.)

We have to purposefully and repeatedly broaden the masculine repertoire for dealing with disappointment, anger, desire. We have to say not just what we don’t want from boys but what we do want from them. Instructing them to “respect women” and to “not get anyone pregnant” isn’t enough. As one college sophomore told me, “That’s kind of like telling someone who’s learning to drive not to run over any little old ladies and then handing him the car keys. Well, of course you think you’re not going to run over an old lady. But you still don’t know how to drive.” By staying quiet, we leave many boys in a state of confusion—or worse, push them into a defensive crouch, primed to display their manhood in the one way that is definitely on offer: by being a dick.

During our first conversation, Cole had told me that he’d decided to join the military after learning in high-school history class about the My Lai massacre—the infamous 1968 slaughter by U.S. troops of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians along with the mass rape of girls as young as 10. “I want to be able to be in the same position as someone like that commanding officer and not order people to do something like that,” he’d said. I’d been impressed. Given that noble goal, was a single failure to call out sexism a reason to stop trying? I understood that the personal cost might be greater than the impact. I also understood that, developmentally, adolescents want and need to feel a strong sense of belonging. But if Cole didn’t practice standing up, if he didn’t figure out a way to assert his values and find others who shared them, who was he?

“I knew you were going to ask me something like that,” he said. “I don’t know. In this hyper-masculine culture where you call guys ‘pussies’ and ‘bitches’ and ‘maggots’—”

“Did you say ‘maggots,’ or ‘faggots?’ ” I interrupted.

“Maggots. Like worms. So you’re equating maggots to women and to women’s body parts to convince young men like me that we’re strong. To go up against that, to convince people that we don’t need to put others down to lift ourselves up … I don’t know. I would need to be some sort of superman.” Cole fell silent.

“Maybe the best I can do is to just be a decent guy,” he continued. “The best I can do is lead by example.” He paused again, furrowed his brow, then added, “I really hope that will make a difference.”

_______

Peggy Orenstein is the author of Boys & Sex, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, and Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother. Her website is peggyorenstein.com.

#us politics #parenting #toxic relationship #toxic masculinity #toxic man #toxic marriage #relationship #education #u.s. news #u.s. military #top stories google news #top news #news #social news

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weekendwarriorblog · 7 years ago

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ED’s Tribeca Film Festival Diary Part 3 – Wrapping Things Up (Very Late)

The Tribeca Film Festival has been over for weeks now, and it was a moderately decent year, although I was sidetracked by other things to post the last part of my diary. If nothing else, not having a job allowed me to spend a lot more time seeing a variety of movies than I normally do when I have to work on other things for theatrical release.

I saw a bunch of movies, mostly in Chelsea at the Cinepolis Cinemas and SVA Theater because going to Tribeca is still a pain in the butt even though I live downtown. It requires a crosstown bus that only runs certain hours, as I found out when I was left stranded in Battery Park on a Saturday night after the only premiere I went there to see.

Before I get into my final capsule reviews, I want to give a big, big thanks to the wonderful Tammie Rosen, who once again gifted me with a Hudson Pass, which allowed me to get into a lot more public screenings and therefore, see more movies. I probably saw about half press and half public screenings, but I was shocked to not see many press people at the latter, especially with so many of them getting similar access as me. It’s kind of a shame, because you can’t really judge a festival in any given year without making an attempt to see a variety of movies in different sections and especially catch some of the awards winners on the final Sunday. I just don’t see many of the local press taking advantage of this opportunity, so they end up missing many really strong films, even once they finally get theatrical release.

I always have to explain to publicists that I don’t generally cover documentaries at film festivals, and there’s a number of good reasons for this. First of all, few outlets care about doc coverage, mainly because they’re not sexy enough to get the required clicks/traffic that’s so important for a site’s income. I get it. The other reason is that I’m such a fan of the doc genre that very often, almost always actually, docs end up being my favorite thing out of festivals, so it’s rare for me to make a festival “Best of” list that’s NOT topped by a doc. Not exactly fair, but them’s the breaks.

With that caveat, I present two of the best movies I saw at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival…and they’re both documentaries…

It’s a Hard Truth, Ain’t It?

I mentioned this in my capsule review of Madeleine Sackler’s O.G. as a companion doc, but it’s a lot more than that. Frankly, I think this is up there with some of the best docs I’ve seen, which is amazing since it’s essentially a “school project.” Basically, Sackler was teaching a documentary program at the Pendleton maximum security prison in Indiana, allowing a select group of inmates to talk about their stories and what led them to end up in Pendleton for murder, as other inmates filmed them. I’m going to make a confession here, knowing that few people bother to read my blog, but I have a friend in jail who has become my ersatz pen pal over the past few years. I know his story and how he got there, but I also know that he’s not a bad person and he just did something stupid. Hearing the ups and downs of his experience has made me far more in tune with the experience of inmates and ex-cons trying to get back into society. This is an incredibly emotional film, one that nearly had me in tears hearing all the bad things that happened to some of these guys before they eventually lashed out and ended up killing someone. It’s a fair cop and they rightfully deserve to be in jail, but they all seem to have found redemption, and the fact that they were able to make this doc and get it out to the public makes It’s a Hard Truth, Ain’t It one of the best docs I’ve seen this year and many years, in fact, and it deserves your time and attention, as does…

United Skates

Just as I’d settled into the idea of Sackler’s doc being the best of the fest, I was able to catch this documentary, which won the Audience Award and blew me away just as much. Directed by Dyanna Winkler and Tina Brown, it looks at the rise and fall of the skating rink as a place that brought together the African-American communities in various American cities. I’ll admit that I never really knew much about rollerskating, because I’ve never gone myself, but I found the phenomenon intriguing after seeing it depicted in Malcolm Lee’s Roll Bounce. This doc really gets into the nationwide appeal and tragic death of the roller rink as a community meeting space. The filmmakers spent a number of years with a number of rollerskating enthusiasts in North Carolina and California, as well as an independent rink owner in Chicago, showing how the resistance to “adult nights” – essentially when African-Americans can go to the rink to show off their fashion and moves to the music they liked – as well as the re-zoning of existing rink locations that have made them a dying breed. This is a very entertaining doc, regardless of your own personal interest in rollerskating. What was interesting about the screening I saw this at was that there was not an inordinate amount of African-Americans in the audience, which probably is more because many moviegoers probably bought their tickets to the screening before knowing which documentary won. Still, this doc probably has a lot of potential for the right distributor, and I hope it finds one soon.

The Fourth Estate

Tribeca’s closing night film was also a doc, and that was Liz Garbus’ look at the New York Timesduring the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency, the first of a four-part series for Showtime docs that will air later this month. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not particularly political, nor am I an avid reader of the Times. In fact, I prefer plenty of other New York papers to it, because it always came off to be as high-falutin’ and overly-expensive, and yet, it’s still the best newspaper in the world in terms of quality of content, writing and reporting. I don’t have a ton to say about the movie, as it basically covers similar ground as other docs about the Times, although it’s certainly TIMElier (ha ha) by dealing with the paper’s recent political coverage and how the Washington desk works with (or sometimes against) the higher ups in New York. I’ll definitely be curious to watch the other three parts, though I don’t have Showtime, so hopefully they’ll send me a screener.

To Dust

The narrative Audience Award went to Shawn Snyder’s dark dramedy about a Hassidic man whose wife died and who turns to a science teacher to help him understand what’s happening since her body was buried. It’s a fairly grim and morbid premise but one with enough heart and humor that I can totally understand why it played so well with audiences. It wasn’t my personal favorite movie of the festival, but considering that it premiered out of competition as a Special Screening (possibly to avoid favoritism of it having come out of the Tribeca Institute, maybe?), it was good that it got love from the Tribeca audiences, because I might have missed it otherwise. The film stars Géza Röhrig, who played the title character in the Oscar-winning Son of Saul, as Shmuel, a Hassidic cantor whose wife passed away recently, but he’s been having nightmares about her not resting peacefully after her burial. Unsure of what she must be going through as her body decomposes in the ground, he turns to a science teacher played by Matthew Broderick, to figure out what exactly is happening with his wife’s body. It’s a very dark buddy comedy of sorts as these two men from different backgrounds trying to understand death and decomposition, yet the movie does work.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda

Another Tribeca doc I was interested in, mainly due to my own experiences and passion for music, was this spotlight on the Japanese composer and musician, whose career began with Yellow Magic Orchestra and David Sylvain’s band Japan, which is from where I know him best. Sure, he’s done a ton of soundtrack work and that’s mainly the focus of this film, but it’s by no means a typical “history of” doc, as much as it covers some of his more recent years. It begins with his trip to the Fukushima area where a nuclear power plant exploded in 2011 following an earthquake and monsoon. He was there looking for sound sources but also because he was a frequent ecological warrior in terms of trying to save the earth from the destruction being caused by Godzilla… I mean… man. A few years later, Sakamoto is diagnosed with throat cancer, although it skips over most of his treatment to pick up in 2014 when he’s trying to find direction for his next record. If you’re a musician or into film scores, this doc from Stephen Schible offers enough of Sakomoto’s process for making music to keep you invested, although it’s definitely a movie for music nerds more than anything else. MUBI will release this doc theatrically and On Demand in July sometime.

Egg

I was mostly interested in this film because it was directed by Mariana Palka, whose last movie Bitch, while not perfect, was an interesting commentary on gender roles in the family. (And it starred Jason Ritter, who is one of my favorite underrated actors.) This is a very different movie, written by Risa Mickenberg, and it reminded me very much of God of Carnage, not the play, because I never saw that, but the movie by Roman Polanski that had an all-star cast. This is a similar movie about two couples who get together with issues arising the more time they spend together. The first couple is played by David Alan Basche and Christina Hendricks, who are pregnant with their first child, while Alysia Reiner and Gbenga Akinnagbe play their friends Tina and Wayne, who living in a bohemian Brooklyn loft and are having their own baby through a surrogate. The movie kind of grew on me but really, the best part was when Anna Camp shows up as the notorious surrogate who they’ve been talking about for the last 45 minutes. She brings a much-needed level of humor as the somewhat ditzy but oddly-logical blonde Kiki who really stirs things up. Honestly, this might have worked better as a stageplay, because there’s nothing about it that makes it feel like it necessarily needed to be a movie. I’m sure mileage will vary depending on whether you have had kids or plan to, but it’s not the strongest follow-up for Palka.

Diane

Kent Jones’ narrative feature debut stars Mary Kay Place as the title character, and she’s very good in the role of a middle-aged woman trying to deal with a lot of things at once, including a son with addiction issues, a cousin dying from cancer and more. Jones’ movie reminds me of the work of Kenneth Lonergan, who I’m really not that big a fan of (especially not the much-ballyhooed Margaret), and it’s essentially a character piece that never really goes anywhere. There’s lots of scenes of driving and lots of talking but not really much in terms of plot, as we follow Diane trying to deal with these various things, and quite a bit of time passes over the course of the film. And yet, Jones’ film won the main jury prize as well as awards for screenplay and cinematography. Go figure. I had seen much worthier offerings. (It also became abundantly clear what was missing from Jones’ film when I watched the similarly-paced but far superior First Reformed from Paul Schrader, although to be fair, Schrader has four decades more experience making films than Jones.)

That should be all for now, as the Tribeca Film Festival is over for another year. I’m not sure if I’ll have a job or somewhere to cover Tribeca for next year, but I think I’ve found a happy medium on coverage in terms of seeing as many movies as possible and writing about all of them. Would love to hear your thoughts on my reviews or other movies, if you get a chance.

#TribecaFilmFestival UnitedSkates Egg RyuichiSakamotoCoda ToDust #movie

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ormlacom · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Something every woman should know - WHY MEN LIE!

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Never having set foot in the kitchen until the grand old age of 22, my husband (then boyfriend) — a former chef — said he’d teach me some simple recipes. I somewhat enjoyed the process but very much enjoyed the lavish praise he’d bestow upon me when eating whatever I whipped up.

Highly encouraged that I seemingly had an innate culinary genius, I looked to grow my repertoire of recipes. As a novice, I found recipe books inspiring but confusing. For example, a recipe that called for cooked chicken made me wonder how on Earth I was meant to cook the chicken to get cooked chicken.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

Empowered by the clear direction they provided, I conquered cuisine after cuisine and have since turned into a confident cook. It took me only a few months to realize all that praise was simply a ruse to have me do most of the cooking. But by then I was hooked.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Today I’ll share with you an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to empower you to create your own voice search test. It’s sure to become one of your favorite recipes in coming months as conversational interfaces continue their rapid adoption rate.

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

With Cortana being integrated into Windows 10, what we’re seeing is that age range demographics are now comparable to what eMarketer is reporting for overall smartphone usage. What this means: Using digital assistants is becoming more and more common. It’s no longer an edge case.

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Since the search engines do not currently provide separate detailed reporting on voice queries, we can instead use the core characteristics of these queries to identify them. The subtle difference between keyboard search and voice search is "whom" people think they are interacting with.

In the case of keyboard search, the search box clearly ties to a machine. Searchers input logical keywords they think will give them the best search results. They generally leave out filler words, such as "the," "of," "a," and "and." They also tend not to use question words; for example, "bicycle store," rather than "what is a bicycle store?"

But when a searcher uses voice search, he is not using a keyboard. It’s more like he's talking to an actual human. You wouldn’t say to a person "bicycle store." You might say: "Hey Cortana, what is the best place to buy a bicycle near me?"

The key difference between text and voice search is that voice queries will be full thoughts, structured the way people speak, i.e. long-tailed queries in natural language. Voice searches tend to be approximately 4.2 words or longer on average, according to research from both Google and Microsoft Cortana.

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Even just eight months ago, things were fairly black and white. Some clients would have assumed voice queries while others didn’t. Lately, however, I’m seeing that most clients I look at have some element of assumed voice queries, indicative of how the market is growing.

Okay, back to step 1

a.) Start by downloading your search term report from within your Bing Ads or Google AdWords account. This is also commonly referred to as the search query report. You want to run this for at least the past 30 or 60 days (depending on volume). If you don’t have a PPC account, you can pull your search term report from Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

c.) Sort the columns to just the essentials. I usually keep only the search term, as well as the impression columns. For larger accounts, you may prefer to leave on the campaign and ad group name columns as well.

d.) Sort by query length to isolate the search queries that are 5+ keywords in length — I’m going with 5 here simply to increase the odds that these would be assumed voice queries. A simple Excel formula — taught to me by my colleague John Gagnon—- can help count the number of words:

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

Now that you can see the assumed voice queries, you’ll have handy insights into your customer's motivation. You know what your audience is searching for, and also important, what they are not searching for.

Next, we need to build upon this list of keywords to find high-value potential queries we should add to our list. There are several helpful tools for this, such as Keyword Explorer and Answer the Public.

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

b.) Next, let’s see what exists in question form. For any given subject area, the customer could have myriad questions along the spectrum of motivation. This output comes from a query on Answer the Public for "buy a bicycle," showing the what, when, where, why, and how questions that actually express motivational intent:

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

Knowing the stage of the process the customer is in can help tailor relevant suggestions, since we can identify core themes and sort by intent. My brilliant colleague Julie Dilleman likes to prepare a chart such as this one, to more effectively visualize the groupings:

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

To get the lay of the land, we need to look at what shows up for these searches in the voice platforms with visual interfaces — i.e., the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and Digital Personal Assistants — to see what type of results show up. Does the search provide map listings and reviews? Where are they pulling the data from? Are ads showing?

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

While Siri pulled up multiple results from a Bing search, both Google and Cortana found what they considered to be the most helpful answer and read them aloud to me while also providing the option for looking at additional results.

b.) Optimize your NAPs. Make sure you have listings that have an accurate name, address, phone number, and open hours on the top business listings such as Apple Maps, Google My Business, and Bing Places for Business.

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

If the search query is "what’s the best waterproof digital camera under $500?" then your ad should only talk about digital cameras that are waterproof and around the $500 range. Doing this helps make it more seamless for the customer since the selections steps along the way are much reduced.

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

b.) For results when the SERPs come up, be sure to use ad extensions to provide additional information to your target audience. Consider location, contact, conversion, and app information that is relevant. They make it easy for customers to find the info they need.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

f.) Video has been getting much attention — and rightly so! Given the increased engagement it can provide, as well as its ability to stand out in the SERPs, consider offering video content (as extensions or regular content) for relevant assumed voice queries.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

The keyword performance report will show you the impressions, clicks, CTR, quality score, conversions, and much more about each individual keyword within your campaigns. Use the keyword report to find out which keywords are triggering your ads, generating clicks, and leading to conversions. You can also identify keywords that are not performing well to determine whether you want to delete them.

Ad performance reports show you the impressions, clicks, spend, and conversions for each ad. Use this report to help you determine which ads are leading to the most clicks and conversions, and which are not performing. Remember, having underperforming ads in your campaigns can pull down the quality of your campaign.

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

It's relatively simple and definitely affordable. Spend four or five hours completing your own voice search test. It can open up worlds of opportunity for your business. It’s best to start testing now while there’s no fire under us and we can test things out in a low-risk environment — an ideal way to get a leg-up over the competition. Bon appétit!

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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0 notes

identityshine · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC posted first on http://ift.tt/2maTWEr

0 notes

lawrenceseitz22 · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nFUSph via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

tracisimpson · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

#The Moz Blog Blogger

0 notes

my-tranhung · 8 years ago

Link

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

#Blogger

0 notes

swunlimitednj · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nhBBcy via SW Unlimited

0 notes

ubizheroes · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start…

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term “assumed voice queries.”

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

In the case of keyboard search, the search box clearly ties to a machine. Searchers input logical keywords they think will give them the best search results. They generally leave out filler words, such as “the,” “of,” “a,” and “and.” They also tend not to use question words; for example, “bicycle store,” rather than “what is a bicycle store?”

But when a searcher uses voice search, he is not using a keyboard. It’s more like he’s talking to an actual human. You wouldn’t say to a person “bicycle store.” You might say: “Hey Cortana, what is the best place to buy a bicycle near me?”

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

Now that you can see the assumed voice queries, you’ll have handy insights into your customer’s motivation. You know what your audience is searching for, and also important, what they are not searching for.

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of “buy (a) bicycle.”

b.) Next, let’s see what exists in question form. For any given subject area, the customer could have myriad questions along the spectrum of motivation. This output comes from a query on Answer the Public for “buy a bicycle,” showing the what, when, where, why, and how questions that actually express motivational intent:

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

If the search query is “what’s the best waterproof digital camera under $500?” then your ad should only talk about digital cameras that are waterproof and around the $500 range. Doing this helps make it more seamless for the customer since the selections steps along the way are much reduced.

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that “more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with.”

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

It’s relatively simple and definitely affordable. Spend four or five hours completing your own voice search test. It can open up worlds of opportunity for your business. It’s best to start testing now while there’s no fire under us and we can test things out in a low-risk environment — an ideal way to get a leg-up over the competition. Bon appétit!

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

from Moz Blog https://moz.com/blog/the-step-by-step-guide-to-testing-voice-search via IFTTT

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from IM Local SEO https://imlocalseo.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/the-step-by-step-guide-to-testing-voice-search-via-ppc/ via IFTTT

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0 notes

daynamartinez22 · 8 years ago

Text

The Step-By-Step Guide to Testing Voice Search Via PPC

Posted by purna_v

I was conned into my love of cooking by my husband.

Luckily, I discovered the life-changing power of fully illustrated, step-by-step recipes.

When it comes to voice search, I’ve talked and written a lot about the subject over the past year. Each time, the question I get asked is “What’s the best way to start?”

Testing voice search? But it’s not monetized.

That’s correct. It’s not monetized as of yet. However, the usage rates have been growing exponentially. Already search engines are reporting that:

One out of ten searches are voice (per Baidu)

Twenty percent of all mobile Android searches are voice (Google)

Usage spans all age ranges, as we discovered at Cortana (which is owned by Microsoft, my employer):

More importantly, voice searches done on the search engines can often have PPC ads in the resultant SERPs — as you’ll see in my examples below.

Why a PPC test?

It’s easier to get started by testing voice search via PPC since you can get more detailed reporting across multiple levels.

I would recommend taking a teeny-tiny budget — even $50 is often good enough — and putting it toward a voice search test. (Don’t fret, SEOs, I do have some tips in here for you as well.)

Before we start...

Here’s a quick reminder of how voice searches differ from text searches:

Voice has longer queries

Natural language means more question phrases

Natural language reveals intent clearly

Voice search has high local value

And greatly impacts third-party listings

You can read about it in more detail in my previous Moz article on the subject.

Let’s get cooking!

Step 1: See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently

Goal: Find out what voice-related activity exists by identifying Assumed Voice Queries.

Estimated time needed: 30 min

Tools needed: Search Query Reports (SQRs) and Excel

A good place to start is by identifying how your audience is currently using voice to interact with you. In order to do this, we’ll need to look for what we can term "assumed voice queries."

Sidebar: What are Assumed Voice Queries?

Thus, assumed voice queries would be keywords that fit in with these types of queries: longer and looking like natural language.

Caveat: This isn’t going to be 100% accurate, of course, but it’s a good place to start for now.

Okay, back to step 1

b.) Open it up in Excel, so we can get sorting.

Replace A1 with the actual cell number of your search term, and then drag that formula down the sheet. Here it becomes C2 instead of A1:

e.) Calculate and sort, first by query length and then by impressions to find the assumed voice search queries with the most impressions. The result? You’ll get your final list — success!

Step 2: Extrapolate, theme, sort

Goal: Find additional keywords that could be missing and organize the list based on intent.

Estimated time needed: 45 min

Tools needed: Keyword tools of choice and Excel

a.) Go to the keyword research tool of your choice. In this example, I’ve used SEMRush. Notice how they provide data on organic and paid search for our subject area of "buy (a) bicycle."

c.) These questions can now be sorted by degree of intent.

Is the searcher asking a fact-based question, looking for background information?

Are they farther along the process, looking at varieties of the product?

Are they approaching making a purchase decision, doing comparison shopping?

Are they ready to buy?

d.) Use a research tool such as Bing Ads Intelligence or your demographic reports in Google Analytics to answer core questions related to these keywords, such as:

What’s the searcher age and gender breakdown for these queries?

Which device is dominating?

Which locations are most popular?

These insights are eminently actionable in terms of bid modifications, as well as in guiding us to create effective ad copy.

Step 3: Start optimizing campaigns

Goal: Review competitive landscape and plan campaign optimizations.

Estimated time needed: 75 min

Tools needed: PPC account, NAP listings, Schema markup

a.) Run searches across multiple platforms. In my example, I am using Siri, Google app and Cortana on my desktop.

Near me-type searches:

These all had map listings in common — Apple maps, Google maps, and Bing maps, respectively.

Research-type queries:

Siri got it wrong and led me to a store, while both Google and Bing Ads provided me with SERPs to answer my question.

Quick answer-type queries:

c.) Ensure you have proper Schema markup on your site. The more information you can provide to the search engines, the more effectively they can rank and display your site. Be sure to add in:

Contact info

Reviews

Articles/Events/Content

d.) Optimize your PPC campaigns.

Choose a small handful of voice search queries from your list across different intents.

Add to new ad groups under existing campaigns. This helps you to take advantage of historical quality score benefits.

Adjust bid modifiers based on your research on age, gender, and device.

Adjust bids based on intent. For example, the following keywords demonstrate completely different levels of purchase intent:

Do I need a hybrid or mountain bike? – More research-based.

Who invented the bicycle? – Zero purchase intent. Add this as a negative keyword.

When does bike store XYZ open today? – High likelihood to purchase. Bid up.

Step 4: Be the best answer

Goal: Serve the right message at the right time in the right place.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Creativity and Excel

Make sure you have the relevant ad for the query. Relevance is critical — the results must be useful or they won’t be used.

Do you have the right extensions to tailor toward the motivational intent noted above and the consumer’s ultimate goal? Make it easy for customers to get what they want without confusion.

Voice searches cover a variety of different intents, so it’s important to ensure the ad in your test will align well with the intent of the query. Let’s consider this example:

A few additional tips and ideas:

a.) Voice searches seem to frequently trigger product listing ads (PLAs) from the search engines, which makes sense since the images make them easier to sort through:

If you can but haven’t already done so, look at setting up Shopping Campaigns within your PPC accounts, even just for your top-selling products.

c.) Check citations and reviews to ensure you’re showing up at your best. If reviews are unfavorable, consider implementing reputation management efforts.

d.) Work to earn more featured snippets, since the search engines often will read them out as the top answer. Dr. Pete has some excellent tips in this Moz article.

e.) Your helpful content will come to excellent use with voice search — share it as a PPC ad for the higher-funnel assumed voice queries to help your test.

Step 5: Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Goal: Review performance and determine next steps.

Estimated time needed: 60 min

Tools needed: Analytics and Excel

Here’s where the power of PPC can shine. We can review reporting across multiple dimensions to gauge how the test is performing.

Quick note: It may take several weeks to gather enough data to run meaningful reports. Remember that voice search volume is small, though significant.

a.) First, determine the right KPIs. For example,

Lower-funnel content will, of course, have the most conversion-specific goals that we’re used to.

Research-type queries will need to be measured by micro-conversions and different KPIs such as form fills, video views, and leads generated.

b.) Pull the right reports. Helpful reports include:

Filter by device and by demographics. This combination telling us what devices are dominating and who is converting can help us to adjust bids and create more effective ad copy.

Create a campaign report looking at your PLA performance. Do tweaks or major overhauls to close gaps versus your expectations.

c.) Determine where you can personalize further. AgilOne research indicates that "more than 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience with the brands they interact with."

Carefully pairing the the most ad messaging with each assumed voice query is incredibly important here.

Let’s recap

Step 1. See what, if any, voice activity exists for you currently.

Step 2. Extrapolate. Theme. Sort.

Step 3. Start optimizing campaigns.

Step 4: Be the best answer.

Step 5. Analyze. Rinse. Repeat.

Pretty do-able, right?

Have you tried some other tests to address voice search queries? Please do share in the comments below.

0 notes