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... [...]

Isla McKetta says, “True life confession: Although I’ve worked with some of the smartest SEOs, architects, and CPAs in the business, you couldn’t always tell from their writing. Which is a problem. Because while some of them are client-facing (so the client gets to know their smarts firsthand—either in person or on the phone), some are only known by the lackluster reports they turn in. This is a post about how anyone (whether you’re an expert in SEO, PPC, social media, or even… content marketing) can write a clearer, more persuasive report. And the lessons contained... [...]

Travis Bliffen says, “Many of you are familiar with the positive impact that SEO can have on your website and more importantly, on your ability to generate leads and sales online. While you can’t deny the importance, many of you never get around to taking advantage of this great profit driver for one primary reason, you don’t have time. While keeping up with the latest happenings in SEO can be pretty time consuming and running a full-scale SEO campaign will definitely leave you short on time, here is a simple strategy you can implement right away, so you can improve your site’s... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “Y’all remember how last October, we launched a new section in Open Site Explorer called “Link Opportunities?” While I was proud of that work, there was one section that really disappointed me at the time (and I said as much in my comments on the post). Well, today, that disappointment is over, because we’re stepping up the Link Intersect tool inside OSE big time”. Announcing the New & Improved Link Intersect Tool MOZ Blog  [...]

Beverley Distilled says, “As part of the promotions and online PR team at Distilled, I spend the majority of my time trying to get the attention of journalists. If you’ve ever worked in PR you’ll know that this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Journalists are busy. They’re on a deadline, they’re knee-deep in an article that’s exponentially more timely than whatever you’re pitching to get coverage for. That email you spent half an hour perfecting? It’s getting scanned for something newsworthy, for surprising facts, for data that’s going... [...]

Nikhil Jain says, “With the constant changes in the SEO industry and more frequent Google updates, it is extremely important for webmasters to follow the latest changes and adapt their websites according to them. We have all heard it countless times and still I will repeat it – adapt or die. It is not a secret that since all these updates, your on-page optimization is more important than it ever was. Before even starting an offsite optimization campaign, you should make sure your website is fully prepared for it. As we move into 2015, let us have a look at 15 of most important on-page SEO... [...]