Ben Davis says, “The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project seems to be progressing nicely. Google has recently revealed integrations with Tag Manager, A/B testing in Analytics, long-awaited form elements are now possible (e.g. email fields), and there’s a continuing roadmap of features. For the uninitiated, here is a digested list of AMP’s pros and cons. Oh, and if you want a very quick intro beforehand, I wrote one earlier this year. Cons Wringing value out of AMP ads could be a slow process The Wall Street Journal recently reported grumblings from some anonyomous figures... [...]

Russ Jones says, “Existential threats to SEO Rand called “Not Provided” the First Existential Threat to SEO in 2013. While 100% Not Providedwas certainly one of the largest and most egregious data grabs by Google, it was part of a long and continued history of Google pulling data sources which benefit search engine optimizers. I don’t intend to say that Google made any of these decisions specifically to harm SEOs, but that the decisions did harm SEO is inarguable. In our industry, like many others, data is power. Without access to SERP, keyword, and analytics data, our... [...]

Lydia Jorder says, “During the holidays, we often let a fair part of ourselves go: diet, exercise, budgets and more. But for local search engine optimization (SEO) professionals, there is something very impactful that can get away from us little by little, until it is completely out of control: Rankings. During the holiday season, we sometimes neglect a variety of strategies that help our businesses maintain positioning within the local pack during a high-traffic time. If you find yourself experiencing a case of holiday ranking drops, you may want to avoid a Scrooge-like boss muttering... [...]

Joy Hawkins says, “In the local SEO community, Google’s recent Possum update was a very big deal. To those of us who regularly track the search results for local businesses, it was obvious there were massive changes on September 1. The SEO community as a whole has been relatively quiet about this huge update, and I believe this is because this update primarily impacted the Local/Maps search results and not organic. SERP trackers like MozCast and Algoroo do a fabulous job of tracking changes in the search results, but this algorithm update didn’t seem to make any massive impact in... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google has begun testing its mobile-first index, which will primarily look at the mobile version of your website for its ranking signals and fall back on the desktop version when there is no mobile version. We expected this was coming and even heard about it over a year ago, but this is the first time Google has posted details about the mobile-first index on their own blog. Most of Google searches are mobile, but Google’s index is desktop Google explained that it sees more mobile searches than desktop searches on a daily basis. But when Google looks to evaluate a page’s... [...]

MOZ team says, “It may seem like an impossible uphill battle to compete with big sites in the SERPs, but there are benefits to running a smaller site that can make a tremendous difference to your SEO. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains how small businesses and websites can target opportunities the big sites can’t, in spite of their natural advantages”. How Can Small Businesses/Websites Compete with Big Players in SEO? MOZ  [...]

Brett Patterson says, “When it comes to promoted app ads, Google changed things in a big way a few weeks ago. We know that it is always trying to appease both the developer and the Android consumer and these changes are another push in that direction. The first big change is the addition of a second ad placement for non-branded searches in the Play Store (see below). Before the change, there was only one promoted ad at the top of the search and now two appear in the results. This gives advertisers more inventory in the Play Store and mirrors the number of placements advertisers have on Google.com. This... [...]

Danny Sullivan says, “Think of the new Google Home assistant as a voice-only search engine. You ask it questions by voice; it gives back answers by voice. If you’re a search marketer, that immediately raises a big concern: How do I get traffic and visitors from this thing, if they can’t click to me? Turns out, they can. The key is the Google Home companion app for iOS or Android. For certain questions, especially those that are drawn from web-based sources rather than Google’s Knowledge Graph facts database or Wikipedia, Google Home will give a voice answer and send a link to the... [...]

AJ Wicox says, “All too often, I hear two complaints about LinkedIn Ads: It’s too expensive. It doesn’t work. Generally, when I hear this feedback, it’s from those who don’t have the right business to be advertising on LinkedIn. So I thought I’d share what types of businesses should be using LinkedIn, as well as those that should avoid the platform. Who should advertise on LinkedIn The three verticals that tend to work best are: high-value B2B products & services; recruiting efforts; and higher education. High-value B2B products & services Subscription services (like... [...]

Jo Cameron says, “Welcome to the sixth installment of our educational Next Level series! In our last episode, Jo took you on an adventure diving for treasure in the long tail of search. This time around we’re answering the call for help when you feel like you’ve done all you can, but you’re still not ranking. Read on and level up! You’ve optimized your pages, written delightful title tags, concocted a gorgeous description to entice clicks, used your target keyword in your copy with similar words, and your content is good, like really good. As far as you’re concerned... [...]