MOZ team says, “Can a new friend you connect with at a conference be as strong of a ranking signal as a quality backlink? Can it be stronger? The power of indirect ranking signals is something that can often be overlooked or brushed aside in favor of what we know as hard truth from Google, but doing so is a mistake. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about the importance of broadening your perspective and tactics when it comes to considering both direct and indirect ranking signals in your SEO”. Should SEOs Only Care About DIRECT Ranking Signals in Google? – Whiteboard... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “In just a few months, everyone can become a Facebook publisher. The company announced that on April 12, any publisher can host content directly on the social network. The popular program, which was launched nine months ago, gives publishers the ability to create interactive articles directly on Facebook, offering a rich media experience with fast load times. The idea at launch was to give Facebook users the ability to consume content seamlessly, ensuring that publishers still monetized from the experience. The program was initially supported with nine partners, including... [...]

Paul Ruppert says, “Much like scientific experiments, optimization processes are data-driven. Fundamentally, your current website traffic provides data on which you are able to base optimization decisions in order to reach specific goals. Website owners have a great deal of control over fundamental website elements such as content, design, user interaction, and light-boxes that boost conversion rates, but different users often have different reactions to the same stimuli. Especially in the independently driven cultures of Western societies, it should come as no surprise that users appreciate... [...]

Winston Burton says, “As SEOs, our job is to increase the amount of qualified traffic to clients’ brands with the intention of having end users buy something, fill out a form, download a brochure or perform other actions on a site. While improving traffic is great, it doesn’t necessarily result in more sales. So how do we actually get our clients more business through organic search? The answer is quite simple: conversion optimization. Conversion optimization is the most powerful way to improve your clients’ revenue and conversions from end users. We can optimize every element of a... [...]

Marketing Land team says, “But time is running out! We’re only two weeks away from Search Engine Land’s SMX West, THE search marketing conference for search-obsessed professionals! SMX West is the premier search show, and this year, it’s bigger and better than ever! We’re so confident, we’ll even guarantee that you’ll get the search marketing tactics and solutions you need to exceed your goals. But don’t take it from us, listen to our amazing, talented A-list attendees: “There was a great mix of excellent takeaways for both the advanced search marketer as well as beginners,... [...]

Brian Hughes says, “Local search drives more clicks and calls than any other marketing channel, making it the most effective marketing technique for small business. Not convinced? Just ask the BrightLocal team, which found that local search delivers a greater ROI than other digital marketing channels, according to its September 2015 survey. Further underscoring this finding: 34 percent of small business owners told BrightLocal that if they could only choose one marketing channel, they’d pick local search. Is your company feeling equally bullish about local search? If not, that’s understandable.... [...]

Shannon Evans says, “What’s the meaning of life searches? While some people chase the meaning of life, digital marketers search (pun intended) for the meaning behind customer searches. This is where your SEO team comes in. They have the tools to decipher why and how people search certain keywords or phrases. They have a better understanding of how to create content, and make sites more visible within the search engines. What Does a Keyword Mean? Search has evolved over the years, both from a searcher and search engine perspective. In the infancy of search (some argue it is still in its... [...]

Glenn Gabe says, “There you are. A big redesign or CMS migration is looming, and you’re ready to unleash a crawl on the new site in a test environment. You fire up your favorite crawling tool and trigger the crawl… and it lasts all of three seconds. Yes, there’s an obvious problem. The staging server is protected and behind some type of security measure that inhibits you from freely crawling it. Sweat begins to form on your brow as you wonder how you will get the crawl completed. At this point, you could choose to manually check all the pages, but you might end up in a padded room whispering... [...]

Clay Cazier says, “No doubt you have run across articles detailing the SEO benefits of structured data and how algorithms focused on things not strings are turning search engines into answer engines. A quick example: search for “George Clooney’s wife,” and Google immediately tells you Amal Clooney is his current spouse (married in 2014) and Talia Balsam is his former wife, married and then divorced in 1989 and 1993 respectively. In 2005, it is likely the top result would have been an organic listing featuring a website optimized for that particular query. Today, Google’s ability... [...]

Clint Evans says, “There are three big lies in SEO right now. SEO remains and has been the buzzword in small-business circles for about 10 years now. But there’s a seedy underbelly. I’ve talked with many business owners misfortunate enough to have suffered and been suckered by members of this underbelly. SEO is a technical and ever-changing discipline. If you’re busy running a $2 million to $20 million per year small business, how can you ever hope to keep up? If you’ve been burned, how do you know when to dip your toe back into the water? Who’s got your back? Lie #1: SEO is right... [...]