Brian Patterson says, “It was my first day at my new gig as a federal government IT consultant in Washington, D.C. I was slogging through the typical onboarding paperwork when a senior partner dropped by, introduced himself, and handed me a paperback book. “Read and implement this,” he said. The cover read The Trusted Advisor by David H. Maister, a book with a sole focus on “the ability to earn the trust and confidence of clients.” “Client management must be important,” I thought. This encounter occurred more than 10 years ago, in my previous profession. Before doing search marketing... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “It’s been almost two years (August 2014) since Google announced that HTTPS was a ranking signal. Speculation ran rampant, as usual, with some suggesting there was little or no benefit to switching (and possibly significant risk) while others rushed to sell customers on making the HTTPS switch. Two years later, I believe the data speaks for itself — Google is fighting, and winning, a long war. What’s happened since? If you only consider the impact of Google’s original HTTPS update, I understand your skepticism. Prior to the update, our 10,000-keyword... [...]

Erica McGillivray says, “That’s right! Please join us in congratulating the four community speakers for MozCon 2016 — September 12–14 in Seattle. This year, we received 140 submissions. And while the overall number of submissions were down, the quality of submissions has gone up. Typically, we’ve been able to eliminate ~100 submissions for not meeting the minimum bar, but this year, it was more like ~20. Which only means competition for these four slots was harder than ever before. For those wondering more about what makes a great MozCon pitch, I’ve included the pitches,... [...]

MOZ team says, “SEOs and executives speak different languages. It’s a simple fact, but it’s one that often acts as a blocker for getting your ideas and investments approved. A simple change in how you communicate your marketing goals, triumphs, and challenges could be what’s standing between you and getting the C-suite buy-in that’s integral to your success. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand helps you translate your marketing jargon into financial metrics and data that the folks in charge will actually care about”. How to Tie Marketing Metrics to the Data... [...]

Simon Penson says, “On-page content is certainly not one of the sexier topics in digital marketing. Lost in the flashing lights of “cool digital marketing trends” and things to be seen talking about, it’s become the poor relative of many a hyped “game-changer.” I’m here to argue that, in being distracted by the topics that may be more “cutting-edge,” we’re leaving our most valuable assets unloved and at the mercy of underperformance. This post is designed not only to make it clear what good on-page content looks like, but also how you should... [...]

Emily Smith says, “As anyone who’s contributed to business development at an agency knows, it can be challenging to establish exactly what a given prospect needs. What projects, services, or campaigns would actually move the needle for this organization? While some clients come to an agency with specific requests, others are looking for guidance — help establishing where to focus resources. This can be especially difficult, as answering these questions often requires large amounts of information to be analyzed in a small period of time. To address the challenge of evaluating prospective... [...]

Cyrus Shepard says, “How fresh is this article? Through patent filings over the years, Google has explored many ways that it might use “freshness” as a ranking signal. Back in 2011, we published a popular Moz Blog post about these “Freshness Factors” for SEO. Following our own advice, this is a brand new update of that article. In 2003, Google engineers filed a patent named Information retrieval based on historical data that shook the SEO world. The patent not only offered insight into the mind of Google engineers at the time, but also seemingly provided a roadmap for Google’s algorithm... [...]

MOZ team says, “As SEOs, we often find ourselves facing new changes implemented by search engines that impact how our clients’ websites perform in the SERPs. With each change, it’s important that we look beyond its immediate impact and think about its future implications so that we can try to answer this question: “If I were Google, why would I do that?” Recently, Google implemented a series of manual penalties that affected sites deemed to have unnatural outbound links. Webmasters of affected sites received messages like this in Google Search Console: Google Outbound... [...]

MOZ team says, “The long tail of search can be a mysterious place to explore, often lacking the volume data that we usually rely on to guide us. But the keyword phrases you can uncover there are worth their weight in gold, often driving highly valuable traffic to your site. In this edition of Whiteboard Friday, Rand delves into core strategies you can use to make long tail keywords work in your favor, from niche-specific SEO to a bigger content strategy that catches many long tail searches in its net”. Long Tail SEO: When & How to Target Low-Volume Keywords MOZ  [...]

Jo Cameron says, “One of the biggest obstacles to driving forward your business online is being able to rank well for keywords that people are searching for. Getting your lovely URLs to show up in those precious top positions — and gaining a good portion of the visitors behind the searches — can feel like an impossible dream. Particularly if you’re working on a newish site on a modest budget within a competitive niche. Well, strap yourself in, because today we’re going to live that dream. I’ll take you through the bronze, silver, and gold levels of finding, assessing, and targeting... [...]