Felicia Crawford says, “All across the Internet, comments sections are disappearing. From your high-profile news sites to those that share the online marketing space, more and more sites are banishing that unassuming little text box at the bottom of a post. And frankly, it’s not hard to understand why. First, you have your good ol’-fashioned spam comments. These are the commenters that hold dear the idea that those nofollowed comment links are valuable”. We Fought the Comment Spam (and the Comment Spam Didn’t Win) MOZ  [...]

Miriam Ellis says, “2017 may well be the year of testimonials and reviews in local SEO. As our industry continues to grow, we have studied surveys indicating that some 92% of consumers now read online reviews and that 68% of these cite positive reviews as a significant trust factor. We’ve gone through a meaningful overhaul of Google’s schema review/testimonial guidelines while finding that major players like Yelp will publicly shame guideline-breakers. We’ve seen a major publication post a controversial piece suggesting that website testimonials pages are useless, drawing thoughtful... [...]

Lydia Jorden says, “The ability to track digital efforts to in-store visits can be the single most difficult challenge a local business conquers. Since the beginning of time (local search time), marketers have been working to find opportunities to understand how digital efforts drive in-store visits. The challenge we marketers face is that if we are not paying for advertising, it is difficult to uncover ROI and make a case for investing in local search optimization. Proving value of local listing optimization efforts for a brick-and-mortar location is really limited to the boundaries that... [...]

Mona Elesseily says, “When it comes to success with paid search, it’s not just about ad copy. You have to pay attention to your ad extensions and your landing pages as well. In this article, I’ll discuss the specific ad features and page elements that searchers/shoppers want when they’re shopping online. I’ll also cover ways to also incorporate the elements using PPC/paid search. At the beginning of every section, I’ve included the percentage of shoppers who want specific elements, so you can prioritize your element efforts. Note: Statistical data in this article is pulled... [...]

MOZ team says, “The dust is finally beginning to settle after the long-awaited rollout of Penguin 4.0. Now that our aquatic avian friend is a real-time part of the core Google algorithm, we’ve got some changes to get used to. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains Penguin’s past, present, and future, offers his analysis of the rollout so far, and gives advice for going forward (hint: never link spam)”. Penguin 4.0: How the Real-Time Penguin-in-the-Core-Alg Model Changes SEO MOZ  [...]

Lydia Jorden says, “The ability to track digital efforts to in-store visits can be the single most difficult challenge a local business conquers. Since the beginning of time (local search time), marketers have been working to find opportunities to understand how digital efforts drive in-store visits. The challenge we marketers face is that if we are not paying for advertising, it is difficult to uncover ROI and make a case for investing in local search optimization. Proving value of local listing optimization efforts for a brick-and-mortar location is really limited to the boundaries that... [...]

Ronell Smith says, “Here I am, seated in a Manhattan, New York restaurant, staring at corned beef hash that looks and tastes like what I imagine dog food to look and taste like. I’m pissed for two reasons: It cost nearly $25 and was entirely inedible I should have known better given the visuals depicted after doing a Google image search to find the dish, which was offered at a nearby restaurant In retrospect, I should have checked A and B on my phone before ordering the $25 plate of Alpo. And though I didn’t do that, other would-be customers will, which means the business owner... [...]

Larry Kim says, “Do you care about your organic click-through rate (CTR)? You should. Why? For one thing, pages that have a higher-than-expected CTR tend to rank higher in search results. Every three-percent increase in CTR beyond the expected for a given organic position will improve your organic rankings, on average, by one position. For another, pages with higher CTRs tend to have higher conversion rates. If you get people excited enough to click on your search listing, that excitement tends to carry through all the way to a conversion, whether it’s capturing a ead or making a sale. Do... [...]

Larry Kim says, “Rand Fishkin posted another brilliant Whiteboard Friday last week on the topic of optimizing for RankBrain. In it, he explained how RankBrain helps Google select and prioritize signals it uses for ranking. One of the most important signals Google takes into account is user engagement. As Rand noted, engagement is a “very, very important signal.” Engagement is a huge but often ignored opportunity. That’s why I’ve been a bit obsessed with improving engagement metrics. My theory has been that RankBrain *and/or other machine learning elements within Google’s... [...]

Ronell Smith says, “Here I am, seated in a Manhattan, New York restaurant, staring at corned beef hash that looks and tastes like what I imagine dog food to look and taste like. I’m pissed for two reasons: It cost nearly $25 and was entirely inedible I should have known better given the visuals depicted after doing a Google image search to find the dish, which was offered at a nearby restaurant In retrospect, I should have checked A and B on my phone before ordering the $25 plate of Alpo. And though I didn’t do that, other would-be customers will, which means the business owner... [...]