Martin Link says, “Remember when the meta keyword tag was popular? Or when a good SEO strategy was to put keywords in everything (URL, title, description, headings, images ALT text, side nav, main nav, footer nav, in the keywords and 231 times in the body content)? Welcome to 2015, where the world of search is a completely different game. In fact, in 2015 you need to check site pages to be certain keywords aren’t overused in key elements. So why are so many SEOs still recommending that webpages include the “targeted keyword” in the URL, title, headings, and corpus? Can you... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “It’s easy to become bamboozled when thinking about SEO, but there’s a lot you can do without any expert knowledge.  Here I’ve compiled 30+ tips to help small businesses improve on their SEO efforts. These are all simple and free to implement, it’s just a case of allocating the time to put them into practice. Think content We rank well thanks to the content we produce. It’s the best way to make your site relevant to the terms people are searching for and to give people a reason to visit your site. This means making sure the content on every... [...]

Ruth Burr Reedy says, “SEO is a seller’s market. The supply of people with SEO experience is currently no match for the demand for search engine marketing services, as anyone who has spent months searching for the right SEO candidate can tell you. Even in a big city with a booming tech scene (like Seattle, LA, New York, or Austin), experienced SEOs are thin on the ground. In a local market where the economy is less tech-driven (like, say, Oklahoma City, where I work), finding an experienced SEO (even one with just a year or two of experience) is like finding a unicorn“. Hiring... [...]

Lyndon Antcliff says, “It’s useful to remind ourselves that the act of publishing is a methodology that has been developed over thousands of years, and has used the most efficient technology of the day in which to deliver the message. We see that whilst technology constantly changes over time, it’s still the message that is the primary objective of publishing, the act of communication goes from one to many, from many to many. Communication that influences, persuades, angers, motivates… etc. But what is this to an SEO? The objective of an SEO is to efficiently get as many people as possible... [...]

Sam Carulso says, “It’s common knowledge that search engine optimization (SEO) often plays a major role in how companies group their key terms, whether they be in the headline or in the bottom of a page. This practice can also lead some companies to avoid testing certain areas of their site in order to maintain page rank. However, there is one area where company value can easily utilized without risking online ranking. Here’s a recent experiment where we tested one minor change in an SEO headline and achieved a significant lift in conversion. The MECLABS’ Research Partner wanted to concentrate... [...]

Ann Smarty says, “A hashtag is the wonder of the past decade. It was born to address the need to organize and make sense of the overwhelming social media buzz. Thanks to active and creative user adoption, hashtag support has been added to most popular social media platforms. This article shows how different social media sites make use of hashtags. Most importantly, it shares some insight into how you can make the most effective use of hashtags for your brand”. How Hashtags Work on Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, and Flickr MOZ Blog  [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we’re going to chat about advertising investments and how paying for advertising can actually yield positive results for SEO, for links, for social shares, for content investments, for email marketing, for all of these organic channels. I know this seems weird, but it actually can work. Google has some guidelines around this. They say, “Look, if you’re over here and you’re saying like, “Hey, man, I’ll give you 500 bucks for a link on your site, a live, followed... [...]

Ellie Wilkinson says, “Dealing with duplicate content can feel a bit like doing battle with your site’s evil doppelgänger—confusing and tricky to defeat! But identifying and resolving duplicates is a necessary part of helping search engines decide on relevant results. In this short video, learn about how duplicate content happens, why it’s important to fix, and a bit about how you can uncover it.“. How to Defeat Duplicate Content – Next Level MOZ Blog  [...]

Bernadette Coleman says, “It may come as a surprise to you to read that companies are still using press releases as a tool in their SEO campaigns. Many SEOs believe the notion of press releases having any direct impact on ranking is dated. With press releases still occupying a portion of the SEO budget in many marketing models, it begs the question: Is there any value in publishing press releases for SEO purposes? We still publish them at Advice Interactive Group, but sparingly. (See here) 1. Don’t Publish Press Releases to Be Publishing  The biggest pitfall for companies who use press... [...]

Ben Potter says, “A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for Econsultancy stressing the importance ofwriting a brief when looking to appoint a search agency. This was in response to the fact that, in my experience, so few businesses seem to do so. A brief plays an absolutely vital role on a number of levels: To encourage the business to ask challenging questions of itself. To help establish if the business is even ready to engage an agency (and indeed the type of agency that should be approached). To provide the necessary information and context for an agency to recommend the most appropriate... [...]