Chris Marentis says, “On May 18, Google brought hundreds of developers together for Google I/O, its annual developer conference. Hot topics included artificial intelligence, natural language processing, voice recognition, translation and new product announcements — Google Home, Google assistant and Allo. Maybe you’ve heard about some of these, but I’m going to share thoughts on how you should adapt your local marketing to these developments. But first, a brief recap of some of these announcements. Google Home is Google’s answer to Amazon’s Echo. It’s a voice-activated speaker-like... [...]

Jodi Harris says, “Search engine optimization (SEO) should be a linchpin in any successful content marketing plan. But with search engines updating algorithms and ranking factors on a frequent basis, how is a mortal content marketer supposed to keep up? Tracy Gold wrote an invaluable Ultimate SEO Checklist in 2014, which did a fantastic job of covering SEO fundamentals from a content marketing perspective. However, considering how much search has evolved in just the last few years, I thought it would be useful to revisit the key points from Tracy’s original discussion and update them with... [...]

Brandon Turner says, “Why don’t planes crash more often from mechanical failure? With all the moving parts inside a plane, it seems that something would break fairly easily. So, why doesn’t that happen? One primary reason: checklists. Before pilots push the button for taxiing and take-off, they perform an extensive pre-flight checklist to make sure everything is functioning exactly as it should be. Entrepreneurs hoping for strong SEO (search engine optimization) rankings might take a lesson here. They can create a checklist of their own to make sure everything is perfect for their next... [...]

Larry Kim says, “What is the most important ranking factor? Ask 1,000 SEOs, and you’ll get a wide variety of answers. Getting links and creating great content would definitely be two of the more popular answers, and for good reason. After all, that’s what Google says are the two most important ranking factors. But there’s one other factor you can — and should be — focusing on. It’s something that could double your traffic. Yet so many people are overlooking it. Your organic click-through rate”. 5 brilliant headline hacks for crazy high organic click-through rates Marketing... [...]

Bridget Randolph says, “Mobile search as a topic has changed a lot over the past few years. When I first started looking at this, back in 2012, there was already a lot of discussion happening around the topic of mobile. And back then, the big question everyone was asking was, “what should my mobile strategy be?” Even then, things were shifting. At one of my early conference presentations on the topic, I made the point that we should stop thinking about a “mobile strategy” as different from our web strategy, because mobile technology was becoming simply another way to access the Internet.... [...]

Miriam Ellis says, “Right now, a customer is trying to find your local business. How quickly are you delivering the NAP, directions and other details he needs, on the go? Volumes of excellent free advice have been written for small businesses about creating quality, optimized local landing pages, but today, I’d like to talk about a topic that has received much less attention: helping customers discover locations when you’ve got a ton of them. This article is for the medium-to-large business with 20, 100, 500 physical locations and a pressing goal to have each one be found by the customers... [...]

Tom Anthony says, “App search is growing and changing, and there’s more opportunity than ever to both draw customers in at the top of the funnel and retain them at the bottom. In today’s special British Whiteboard Friday, Tom Anthony and Will Critchlow of Distilled dig into everything app search and highlight a future where Google may have some competition as the search engine giant. Video Transcription Tom: Howdy, and welcome to another British Whiteboard Friday. I’m Tom Anthony, head of the R&D Department here at Distilled. This is Will Critchlow, founder and CEO.... [...]

Daniel Faggella says, “Generating a consistent source of website traffic is the foundation of every online business. If you don’t have visitors coming to your website, it’s impossible to convert them into prospects and loyal, long-term customers. When you establish yourself as an authority through the lens of Google, it will increase your visibility in search engine queries. But what happens after you’ve earned yourself a top spot in Google search results pages? Contrary to popular belief, ranking for particular keywords is only half the battle. The core tenets of SEO are constantly... [...]

Laura Lippay says, “Markup on a page helps both search engines and assisitive technologies (AT) like screen readers to understand what elements are in a page. For SEO, different elements like title tags, headings, or some schema markup can have more weight or value than other markup. People using assistive technologies are reliant on these structural elements to navigate through the page without being able to see it or without being able to use a mouse. We’ll start with some easy SEO + accessibility overlaps: structural elements that you might deal with in your every day coding or optimization.... [...]

Corey Barnett says, “When it comes to local content marketing, too many businesses fall into the trap of self-promotion, writing solely or primarily about their products and services. Or worse, their blog is rarely updated, or it’s full of filler content that only serves to boost search rankings. Rarely does this approach translate into engaged visitors or traction on social media. Instead, it’s worth writing about what your audience cares about: your local community! Where you sell and who you sell to are more important than what you’re selling. The local long-tail opportunity Here’s... [...]