Aleyda Solis says, “Although many of us in the industry pay hundreds or even thousands for SEO software that helps to automate and simplify our everyday work, we already have one of the most handy free SEO tool sets in the market with Google Chrome’s DevTools. Built into Google Chrome, this set of web authoring and debugging tools allows us to validate some of the most fundamental and critical SEO aspects of any page. In most cases, using DevTools is pretty straightforward. But there are a few very handy and not so obvious applications for SEO analysis. Let’s go through them now. Start... [...]

Adam Feldstein says, “Another year has slipped by, and while we had our ups and downs, returning to our SEO roots has given us greater focus and renewed purpose. We’ve redoubled our efforts with the goal of building the best SEO product in the industry. We know it’s a lofty goal with so many great competitors out there, but this is the target that served as our north star in 2016 and continues to get us out of bed each morning. Our increased focus on SEO translated to a big increase in the number of new features and improvements we were able to add to Moz Pro in 2016. In fact,... [...]

Ronald Dod says, “It’s hard to believe that it’s time to start looking towards 2017, but this year is almost over. Now is the time to see what is going to be big in the search marketing industry in the coming months. We saw some big changes in 2016, and they are likely to carry over into 2017. We’ve compiled our top 4 SEO trends that we think will dominate the industry in the new year. This isn’t to say that these are all new – you’ve probably already about most of these and even started working on optimizing for them. But whether or not these trends are new or not is beside the... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “Back in 2014, I had 14 link resolutions. For 2017, I have 17 for you. Maybe you’re doing some or all of the following already; congratulations if that’s true, as you’re much more proactive than most. If you aren’t doing any, start with just a couple — but please, please, please make sure you do the first one. That’s the biggest first step you can take if you’re not clued in to what’s involved with your link development. 1. Check out your backlink profile This one is really never going to change, as far as I’m concerned. It’s definitely not earth-shatteringly... [...]

Greg Gifford says, “Welcome to my first Local SEO column of the year on Search Engine Land! While most other sites are publishing roundups or predictions for 2017, there’s really only one way to kick off the beginning of a new year: a new installment of Greg’s Soapbox! As you faithful readers know, my posts are almost always influenced by recent conversations with clients or near-clients, and this one’s no different. A few weeks ago, one of the auto dealers on our website platform called our support department with a question about inbound links. Our support team forwarded the call... [...]

Jason Decker says, “You’re a savvy digital marketer. You follow Google best practices and read “all the SEO blogs.” You sound like a zookeeper with your extensive knowledge of Pandas, Penguins, Possums and Pigeons. You’re always looking for ways to improve organic search rankings. Instead of investing your time researching some of those gray (or even black) hat tactics that are oh so tempting, I suggest you take a step back and look at the basics of your organic SERP listing. An area that often gets overlooked by digital marketers is engagement and the click-through rate (CTR) associated... [...]

Lydia Jorden says, “Millennial travelers have been yearning for genuine, local experiences that deliver a special and unique taste of authenticity. They don’t want to merely cross an experience, city or place off a bucket list. These travelers and searchers would like to experience life, while accidentally encountering experiences worthy of Snapchat stories, Instagram images and other forms of bragging, which are usually motivated by an honest urge to foster curiosity and cultural learning — or at least appear that way. For millennials, there are a variety of options to satiate this type... [...]

Chris Silver Smith says, “A number of attorneys who specialize in online defamation/libel cases have reported to me that Google has recently suspended its longstanding, informal policy of removing URLs from US search results that are specified in duly executed court orders. This poses a major paradigm shift for many victims of online reputation attacks. Beginning around August or September of this year, a number of attorneys from across the US began receiving blanket denials after submitting requests to remove defamatory content from Google’s search results. Since at least 2009, Google... [...]

Miriam Ellis says, “When America’s first star TV chef, Julia Child, demonstrated the use of a wire whisk on her 1960’s cooking show, the city of Pittsburgh sold out of them. Pennsylvanians may well have owned a few of these implements prior to the show’s air date, but probably didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about them. After the show, however, wire whisks were on everyone’s mind and they simply had to have one. Call it a retro micro-moment, and imagine consumers jamming the lines of rotary phones or hoofing it around town in quest of this gleaming gadget … then zoom up to... [...]

Zee Hoffmann Jones says, “Whether you’re the only SEO at your company, work within a larger team, or even manage others, you still have to stay on top of your projects. Project management skills aren’t and shouldn’t be exclusive to someone (or some tool) with the title “project manager.” I believe that having good project manager skills is essential to getting work done at all, let alone delivering high-quality work in a timely and efficient way. In defense of management Freakonomics Radio released this podcast episode in October called In Praise of Maintenance. The TL;DR (or TL;DL,... [...]