Joe Goers says, “Every SEO has heard these four words: “I need more traffic!” It seems that websites are becoming less focused on top-of-funnel content (general informational and educational materials) and more focused on bottom-of-funnel lead generation offers. In my opinion, this is a short-sighted strategy, and one that will not drive a high volume of qualified traffic. Successful SEO programs require website content designed to reach prospects across the entire buy cycle. Excuses, excuses When bringing up the idea of having more informational content on a website to better support... [...]

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... [...]

Julian Connors says, “The world of e-commerce optimization is vast and complex, and it demands a particular level of attention in order to function and perform correctly. Over the last 10 years, I have had the opportunity to manage a variety of enterprise-level e-commerce websites that offer everything from athletic gear to office supplies. Regardless of the intended audience, most e-commerce sites suffer from similar optimization issues. These issues prevent them from maximizing their exposure to qualified traffic and the related revenue. Usually, these problems are connected to how business... [...]

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  [...]

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... [...]

Andreas Reiffen says, “In search marketing, we’re always trying to get that little bit of extra performance out of our paid campaigns. But what do you do when you’ve optimized your bids, tested (and improved) your ad copy and refined your target URLs? To uncover the hidden potential in your campaigns, you need to identify and assess anomalies — those areas which perform well in general, but not in your paid search campaigns. For example, if a particular top-selling product category is doing poorly in your paid search campaign, something has probably gone wrong. Identifying and fixing... [...]

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... [...]