Joe Robison says, “A lot has changed in the five years since I first wrote about what was Google Webmaster Tools, now named Google Search Console. Google has unleashed significantly more data that promises to be extremely useful for SEOs. Since we’ve long since lost sufficient keyword data in Google Analytics, we’ve come to rely on Search Console more than ever. The “Search Analytics” and “Links to Your Site” sections are two of the top features that did not exist in the old Webmaster Tools. While we may never be completely satisfied with Google’s tools and may occasionally... [...]

John Doherty says, “I remember when I first started in SEO back in 2010 full-time. It feels like forever ago and yesterday at the same time. I was constantly plugged into the SEO Twitter firehose of information. I subscribed to the popular SEO blogs of the day, soaking up information about SEO that wasn’t even relevant to my day job at the time building links. While I read plenty of content about link acquisition, I also went deep into the geeky sides of technical SEO because it appealed to my web developer background. Every week or two, Google was announcing something new. Some new feature,... [...]

JR Oakes says, “Today, the SEO world is abuzz with the term “relevancy.” Google has gone well past keywords and their frequency to looking at the meaning imparted by the words and how they relate to the query at hand. In fact, for years, the common term used for working with text and language had been natural language processing (NLP). The new focus, though, is natural language understanding (NLU). In the following paragraphs, we want to introduce you to a machine-learning product that has been very helpful in quantifying and enhancing relevancy of content. Earlier this year, we started... [...]

Sam Nemzer says, “As of June this year, Google is now grouping keyword volumes for similar keywords in Keyword Planner. I wanted to investigate whether or not this is having an impact on the pages that rank for these similar, grouped keywords. My hypothesis is that, given that Google is associating keywords closely enough to group their volumes, we should expect that the search results would be very similar too. What has Google changed and why does it matter? The grouping of keyword volumes is a problem for anyone working in search because Keyword Planner is the primary source for volume... [...]

Brian Childs says, “Coming up with blog titles and topics can be a struggle. Most small businesses aim to publish blogs 3-10 times a month and then use these blog articles to populate everything from newsletters to conversion funnels. When you publish content on a regular basis it’s easy to burn through your initial list of blog titles in a few months. Coming up with good titles also takes a lot of time, and when you work on a team defining what’s “good” becomes subjective. Because regular blogging has such a positive impact on inbound traffic, the process of coming... [...]

Holly Miller says, “SEO moves fast. So have the past six months. It’s already the end of July and we’re heading into the second part of the year. This article will give you an overview of the most important SEO industry news articles from January to July within these three primary categories: Official Google Announcements Evolving SERP Landscape Continuous Algorithm Changes Official Google Announcements It’s important to take note of any official announcements as made by Google on their blog or by spokespeople of the search giant which include engineers and/or designated employees... [...]

MOZ team says, “With all the data that today’s marketers can access, there’s often still no substitute for the quality of information you can get from interviewing real people. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, we welcome Rebekah Cancino — a partner at Phoenix-based Onward and #MozCon 2016 speaker — to teach us the whys and hows of great interviews”. How To Support Data with Real-Life Interviews – Whiteboard Friday MOZ  [...]

Jerry Low says, “Writing content, or copywriting, is as much an art form as it is a skill. While you want to engage readers with snappy imagery, it’s also important that you publish content that is packed with elements that will help you improve your website’s ranking. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and these three letters are responsible for a world of stress and confusion among online businesses, especially those who don’t have a tech guru on staff. Whether writing for your website, blog, or social media page, there are some basic fundamentals which will help... [...]

Pete Wailes says, “Progressive Web Apps. Ah yes, those things that Google would have you believe are a combination of Ghandi and Dumbledore, come to save the world from the terror that is the Painfully Slow WebsiteTM. But what actually makes a PWA? Should you have one? And if you create one, how will you make sure it ranks? Well, read on to find out… What’s a PWA? Given as that Google came up with the term, I thought we’d kick off with their definition: “A Progressive Web App uses modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like user experience.” – Progressive... [...]

Matthew Barby says, “Content marketing delivers results when it addresses what potential customers are searching for and sharing on social media. Content marketing delivers great results when it addresses what a large number of customers are searching for that your competitors are not covering. So, how do you find out exactly what customers are looking for in search and social and identify potential competitive gaps? In this article, I will show you how to: analyze SEO data for your topics, and uncover winning content ideas; validate your content ideas with social engagement metrics;... [...]