Cyrus Shepard says, “How big is local SEO? Our latest Industry Survey revealed over 67% of online marketers report spending time on local search. We’ve witnessed demand for local SEO expertise grow as Google’s competitive landscape continues to evolve. Last year, Moz introduced the SEO Expert Quiz, which to date over 40,000 people have attempted to conquer. Today, we’re proud to announce the Local Search Expert Quiz. Written by local search expert Miriam Ellis, the quiz contains 40 questions and only takes less than 10 minutes to complete”. Local Search Expert Quiz:... [...]

David Moth says, “While compiling our annual end-of-year round up of search trends I noted that several of our esteemed experts mentioned negative SEO.  This refers to a sneaky tactic where people create a load of spammy links to a competitor’s site so they end up being penalised by Google. It can be seen as a reaction to Google’s success in clamping down on dodgy linkbuilding – it’s now more difficult for spammers to game the system in their own favour so they have to attack the competition instead. One of the contributors to the search trends article was Nick Fettiplace, SEO director... [...]

John Lincoln says, “In online marketing, having the right analytics tools and software can make a major difference. A good program can save you time and help demonstrate the value of your work to supervisors or clients. Over the last couple of months, while preparing the syllabus for my next UC San Diego class and doing research for clients, I compiled and reviewed an extensive list of analytics programs for SEO and social media. I’m sharing what resulted in this column. (Editor’s note: be sure to check out the 2015 Martech landscape for the latest developments in software for marketing.) A... [...]

Sam Lloyd says, “SEO is getting tough. There’s more competition and Google is smarter than ever. So in order to get the edge over your competitors, you’ve got to be doing things right. Below, we’ve identified some toxic habits that might be holding back your SEO efforts. Rid them from your soul and increase your chances at winning top rankings for the keywords that matter most for your business. 1. Optimizing for SEO before user experience This is also known as thin crappy content, or as I call it, “aimless content.” You create a blog post that is the desired amount of words, lets... [...]

Baer says, “Recently, LinkedIn released their top 25 job skills of 2014, based on what recruiters are looking for on the LinkedIn platform. Number one was big data analyst. There were several others in the top 25 specifically related to digital marketing, such as digital marketing campaign specialist, etc. I’ve got to tell you what was not in the top 25 was Amish carpenter. That may not come as a huge surprise. But what did surprise me was that so many of the top 25 jobs such as computer programming, data analysis, and several other highly technical jobs, often tie into marketing, especially... [...]

Casey Meraz says, “Another year in search has passed. It’s now 2015 and we have seen some major changes in local ranking factors since 2014, which I also expect to change greatly throughout 2015. For some a new year means a fresh starting point and yet for others it’s a time of reflection to analyze how successful your campaign has been. Whatever boat you’re in, make sure to sit down and read this guide. In this guide we will cover how you can have a successful local SEO campaign in 2015 starting with the basics and getting down to five action items you should focus on... [...]

Sergio Aicardi says, “No longer are we in a world where building links or a ton of SEO friendly content leads to top rankings. In today’s post penguin, post panda world, one must earn their rankings and it certainly isn’t easy to do so. Fundamentally, it’s obvious that Google is trying its best to combat spammers by identifying what the black/gray hats use to make their web pages show up at the top of the SERP’s in a manipulative way. What most people fail to realize is that Google has a job to do as a search engine and that job can be summed up to “providing users with the best answers... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “Marketers of all stripes are hearing more about providing unique content and value to their audiences, and how that’s what Google wants to show searchers. Unique content is straightforward enough, but what exactly does everyone mean by “unique value?” What does that actually look like? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand illustrates the answer“. How to Provide Unique Value in Your Content – Whiteboard Friday MOZ Blog  [...]

Alan Bleiweiss says, “There are several reasons a reconsideration request might fail. But some of the most common mistakes site owners and inexperienced SEOs make when trying to lift a link-related Google penalty are entirely avoidable. Here’s a list of the top 12 most common mistakes made when submitting reconsideration requests, and how you can prevent them. 1. Insufficient link data This is one of the most common reasons why reconsideration requests fail. This mistake is readily evident each time a reconsideration request gets rejected and the example URLs provided by Google... [...]

Alan Bleiweiss says, “This past March, I was contacted by a prospective client: My site has been up since 2004. I had good traffic growth up to 2012 (doubling each year to around a million page views a month), then suffered a 40% drop in mid Feb 2012. I’ve been working on everything that I can think of since, but the traffic has never recovered. Since my primary business is performing strategic site audits, this is something I hear often. Site appears to be doing quite well, then gets slammed. Site owner struggles for years to fix it, but repeatedly comes up empty”. Case Study:... [...]