Ben Davis says, “If you are a low spender on AdWords, Google Keyword Planner now shows only very broad traffic ranges for suggested search terms. This is inconvenient for the many writers out there who like to use this tool to plan their content. Here’s a really quick roundup of five genuinely useful and fun alternatives if you are looking for content ideas. They don’t all show traffic figures either, but are easy to use and will hopefully provide inspiration. NB click on the images to visit each of the sites. 1. KW Finder A very impressive tool that gives a wide range of data,... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “From Featured Snippets to In-depth Articles to Knowledge Panels, Google SERP features have remade the search marketing landscape. After three years of planning and many months of work, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of advanced SERP feature tracking in Moz Pro, available immediately to all customers! Using the most comprehensive data set on the market, Moz Pro now provides advanced analysis of the 16 features listed below“. NEW: Rank Beyond 10 Blue Links with SERP Feature Tracking in Moz Pro MOZ  [...]

MOZ team says, “Google is constantly testing new design elements, but over the past few months they’ve been testing a change that, while it might seem small on the surface, represents a major philosophical shift. The screenshots in this post were all captured on live SERPs but appear to be tests and have not rolled out permanently. Here’s an example of the basic change. Notice how each result (ads and organic) is wrapped in a container and visually separated on a gray background. These containers are called “cards” in Google’s vernacular, and they’re important,... [...]

Jacob Baadsgaard says, “On the surface, paid search management software has all the glitz and glam of a new-age technological marvel. It’s sleek, it’s chic, and it takes the guesswork out of your account management. After all, humans make mistakes — computers don’t. Right? Well… maybe that’s giving them too much credit. Automated account managers are often sold as more intelligent than they really are. Unfortunately, when you buy paid search management software you’re not getting Iron Man’s “Jarvis””. Paid search management software: Is it right for your business? Search... [...]

MOZ team says, “When Google says jump, it’s hard not to jump. Often we take the words of Google representatives as edict and law, but it’s important to understand subtleties and to allow for clarification with time. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses some angles to consider that will help you stay grounded when the “Big G” makes a statement about SEO”. When and How to Listen to Google’s Public Statements About SEO – Whiteboard Friday MOZ  [...]

George Freitag says, “Last week, Casey Meraz did a great breakdown on the state of local, showing where you should be heading with your strategy and answering some tough questions about the future of local search. Today, let’s look at all the recent changes that Google itself has been making to its own local product and examine how that will help you understand where they’re heading. This has been a big year for local search, with Google launching a ton of changes related to local, including several changes directly to their local platform, Google My Business. Marketers and brands are... [...]

Talia Wolf says, “Allow me to start with a quick summary of this article: There’s a 270% gap in conversions between desktop and mobile, because mobile websites suck and we’re all doing it wrong. (Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll explain why and what needs to be done to fix this.) At its essence, responsive design is supposed to make a cross-device world a more seamless experience by adapting your desktop design to a smaller mobile screen. Unfortunately, condensing all that desktop content into such a small screen has the exact opposite effect — it’s actually... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Bing Ads has launched its first bid strategy, Enhanced CPC, aimed at automatically optimizing bids for conversions. Enhanced CPC is powered by machine learning that analyzes various signals that indicate whether a searcher is more likely to convert based on past conversions. “When you enable Enhanced CPC for your campaign, Bing Ads will automatically adjust your bids in real time so that you bid up to 30% higher on users that are more likely to convert and bid up to 100% less on users less likely to convert,” according to the blog post. Bing Ads says that with... [...]

Joy Hawkins says, “Earlier this year, I wrote an article on Moz that talked about one of the issues big brands run into with SEO. Brands with tons of locations sometimes have a hard time coming up with unique content for each of their locations and often use a template format that gets the majority of them filtered. So, what can multi-location businesses do to help improve their location pages and avoid the filter? Following are four tips for putting together rich, unique location page content. 1. Use testimonials I came across a great example of this with insurance companies. Currently... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “I’m sure that your email inbox is full of unsolicited mail, much of it spammy follow-ups. Mine sure is! I recently had the chance to test those pesky follow-up skills when my response rate on a recent campaign was zero percent. Since we do our targeting and research upfront, we usually get at least a few responses to any outreach we do, but nope! Not this time. I knew I should follow up, but I took the very lazy approach of simply finding my sent emails and re-sending them. Naturally, I still got no responses. This situation reminded me of a recent conversation I... [...]