Felicia Crawford says, “Now that we’ve comfortably settled into the first two weeks of 2017, it’s time to revive an annual Moz Blog tradition: the Best of 2016 is here! I’ve carefully collected data on all the posts, comments, and commenters you remarkable readers liked the most this past year, compiling it all into one big, beautiful blog post. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll rue the day you ever downloaded Pocket. But as we commence our journey into the insights and revelations of yesteryear, my sincere hope is that you’ll feel inspired. That you’ll... [...]

George Freitag says, “This is it. The full agenda for MozCon Local 2017 and LocalU Advanced Workshop on February 27-28. If you’re a brand with a ton of locations or an agency with local clients, you’re going to want to come to MozCon Local 2017. We’ve got an amazing line-up of speakers from some of the top brains in Local Search to help you put together the perfect local marketing strategy and get the most out of local search. Come visit us in Seattle and learn about local search, SEO, citations, reviews, enterprise-level strategy, and so much more. Interact directly with... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “It’s that time again, friends… That time where I grade my 2016 predictions to see whether I’ve got the clout and foresight to get another shot in 2017. This year is gonna be really close, as I was more aggressive last year than in prior ones, so let’s see where we end up, and what I’ve got to say for the next 12 months. s always, my predictions will be graded on the following scale: Nailed It (+2) – When a prediction is right on the money and the primary criteria are fulfilled Partially Accurate (+1) – Predictions that are in the area,... [...]

Joe Robison says, “Who doesn’t love working on low-hanging fruit SEO problems that can dramatically improve your site? Across all businesses and industries, the low-effort, high-reward projects should jump to the top of the list of things to implement. And it’s nowhere more relevant than tackling technical SEO issues on your site. Let’s focus on easy-to-identify, straightforward-to-fix problems. Most of these issues can be uncovered in an afternoon, and it’s possible they can solve months’ worth of traffic problems. While there may not be groundbreaking, complex issues that... [...]

JP Sherman says, “On-site search, also known as internal search, is a critical yet undervalued and underrepresented tactic in the search industry. In 2014,eConsultancy released a report that showed that 15% of companies dedicate resources to optimizing the on-site search experience, 42% fold on-site search into other online measurement responsibilities, and 42% of companies ignore on-site search. This report was released more than two years ago and after some extensive Googling, some Duck Duck Go-ing, and some slight Bing-ing, I couldn’t find any reputable site releasing similar, more... [...]

Laura Forer says, “Even if you’re already familiar with how to optimize your website for local search today, you probably know that the state of local SEO is always changing. Between updating your Google My Business page, understanding schema markup, and setting up the right monitoring tools on your own website, keeping up with local SEO can be a bear, an infographic from On Blast Blog points out. But fear not: The infographic also provide tips on how to succeed with local SEO now and prepares you for some possible upcoming changes. For example, although customer reviews are already... [...]

MOZ team says, “Launching a startup is a huge task all on its own. While it can be a challenge to factor SEO into the mix, it’s an incredibly important consideration. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares a comprehensive plan to kick off your new SEO audit and grab a piece of that organic search pie from the get-go”. How to Kickstart an SEO Audit for Your Startup – Whiteboard Friday MOZ  [...]

Adam Feldstein says, “Another year has slipped by, and while we had our ups and downs, returning to our SEO roots has given us greater focus and renewed purpose. We’ve redoubled our efforts with the goal of building the best SEO product in the industry. We know it’s a lofty goal with so many great competitors out there, but this is the target that served as our north star in 2016 and continues to get us out of bed each morning. Our increased focus on SEO translated to a big increase in the number of new features and improvements we were able to add to Moz Pro in 2016. In fact,... [...]

Miriam Ellis says, “When America’s first star TV chef, Julia Child, demonstrated the use of a wire whisk on her 1960’s cooking show, the city of Pittsburgh sold out of them. Pennsylvanians may well have owned a few of these implements prior to the show’s air date, but probably didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about them. After the show, however, wire whisks were on everyone’s mind and they simply had to have one. Call it a retro micro-moment, and imagine consumers jamming the lines of rotary phones or hoofing it around town in quest of this gleaming gadget … then zoom up to... [...]

Zee Hoffmann Jones says, “Whether you’re the only SEO at your company, work within a larger team, or even manage others, you still have to stay on top of your projects. Project management skills aren’t and shouldn’t be exclusive to someone (or some tool) with the title “project manager.” I believe that having good project manager skills is essential to getting work done at all, let alone delivering high-quality work in a timely and efficient way. In defense of management Freakonomics Radio released this podcast episode in October called In Praise of Maintenance. The TL;DR (or TL;DL,... [...]