Alan Coleman says, “Hey Moz Blog readers. I’m delighted to share with you a big body of work the Wolfgang team has just completed. It’s our E-commerce Benchmarks 2016 study. We dove into Google Analytics insights from over 80 million website sessions and over one-quarter of a billion dollars in online revenue for travel and retail websites, calculating average e-commerce website key performance indicators (KPIs) for you to use as benchmarks. I hope these findings help you benchmark your KPIs and gain deeper insights into what you can do to boost conversion“. A Dozen Digestible... [...]

Miriam Ellis says, “Albuquerque’s locals and tourists agree, you can’t find a more authentic breakfast in town than at Perea’s New Mexican Restaurant. Yelp reviewers exclaim, “Best green chile ever!!”, “Soft, chewy, thick-style homemade flour tortillas soak up all the extra green chili,” “My go-to for great huevos rancheros,” and “Carne was awesome! Tender, flavorful, HOT!” The descriptions alone are enough to make one salivate, but the Yelp reviews for this gem of an eatery also tell another story — one so heavily spiced with the potential... [...]

MOZ team says, “The rules of link building aren’t always black and white, and getting it wrong can sometimes result in frustrating consequences. But where’s the benefit in following rules that don’t actually exist? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand addresses eight of the big link building myths making their rounds across the web“. Weird, Crazy Myths About Link Building in SEO You Should Probably Ignore MOZ  [...]

MOZ team says, “At first glance, local links and local citations might seem unnecessary for non-local websites. On a closer look, however, there are strong underlying benefits to gaining those local votes of confidence that could prove invaluable for everyone. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains why all sites should consider chasing local links and citations, suggesting a few different ways to discover opportunities in your areas of focus“. Why Every Website (Not Just Local Sites) Should Invest in Local Links and Citations MOZ  [...]

Josh Denning says, “It’s no secret: If you want to rank high on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), you need to make backlinking a priority. The more backlinks you receive from authoritative websites, the more trust you’ll have in the eyes of Google, the more traffic it will send you and the more more high-quality leads you’ll generate for your business. The problem, though, is most link research and backlink checker tools are costly, and when you’re bootstrapping a startup, you money is best allocated elsewhere. While much has been written on backlinking, little has been... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “I’m sure that your email inbox is full of unsolicited mail, much of it spammy follow-ups. Mine sure is! I recently had the chance to test those pesky follow-up skills when my response rate on a recent campaign was zero percent. Since we do our targeting and research upfront, we usually get at least a few responses to any outreach we do, but nope! Not this time. I knew I should follow up, but I took the very lazy approach of simply finding my sent emails and re-sending them. Naturally, I still got no responses. This situation reminded me of a recent conversation I... [...]

Brian Harnish says, “As most SEOs know, links are still extremely important to ranking highly in the Google search results. In fact, a recent study performed by Backlinko showed that “the number of domains linking to a page correlated with rankings more than any other factor.” Thus, it makes sense for most all large companies with a significant website presence to implement a regular link pruning schedule. At ymarketing, we call our process of link pruning “link remediation.” The normal way most sites handle a penalty is reactionary in nature. The SEO wakes up one day and finds the... [...]

Andrew Dennis says, “There is no formal education or pathway into link building. Most professional link builders are self-taught or learned from a mentor who taught themselves — so if you want to enter into the SEO field (or need to bolster your own site’s link profile), it often means trial and error. Due to the lack of formal education available, it’s vital that SEOs share their experience and expertise so we can learn and improve as an industry. Today, I’ll share my own experience to (hopefully) help you improve your link prospecting so you can find better sites that translate... [...]

Andrew Dennis says, “Link acquisition is hard. There are a number of unique challenges in link building, which are made even more difficult since most SEO programs only allocate a small portion of their budget to link building. Links are still not guaranteed, even when you have incredible, compelling content to share. According to a study conducted by BuzzSumo and Moz: When we looked at a bigger sample of 757,317 well shared posts we found over 50% of these posts still had zero external links. Thus (sic) suggests while many posts acquire shares, they find it far harder to acquire links. So... [...]

Anand Srinivasan says, “Digital PR and link-building is an evolving industry, so what worked a few years back may not necessarily work today. Last year, I wrote a piece, “7 Creative Link-Building Techniques To Improve Your Website SEO” where I detailed techniques such as building helpful tools for your industry, targeting journalists through Facebook ads and turning copyright violations into linking opportunities. Although many of these techniques remain applicable today, I recently queried entrepreneurs about the other strategies they’ve been using to build high-authority... [...]