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We believed that rich snippets in SERPs would become more prominent — especially with mobile and voice search on the rise — and that, even without proper attribution, it would benefit our client to appear in these types of search results, especially if we were able to rank in long-tail, question-oriented searches. If we could rank in a featured snippet, where a potential consumer was asking a question about a service that we provide, it would benefit us to answer that question for them. Not only would we achieve the coveted “zero position,” we would position our client as authorities in their vertical, potentially increasing conversions. With this in mind, we began developing the strategy that would ultimately lead us to ranking in featured snippet searches. Q&A content Question and answer content on websites is fairly standard. Many companies will place Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) content on their sites to help users with any questions they may have instead of answering them directly. Noting the prevalence of featured snippets in SERPs, we used the Q&A format to create new content to find out: a) could we rank for these queries? and b) would it benefit our client to rank in these queries?...
In the U.S. alone, we conduct an average of 12 billion web searches each month. Some of these searches are conducted by your ideal customers.
Whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, the good news is that 70% of the linkssearch users click on are organic results.
To truly sustain your search rankings, you need to respond to changes in search by focusing on industry trends. After all, whenever Google releases an algorithm update, the face of search changes.
You may not actually see these changes, but they’re there. That’s why you must always stay updated and align your content to user’s needs, in accordance with the then-current algorithm....
Earlier this year, I published a Moz post that aimed to introduce the basic principles of public relations that SEOs and digital marketers, I argued, need to know. (Specifically, the post was on media relations and story-pitching as a means of getting coverage and “earning” good links.)
Following the positive response to the post, Moz invited me to host a recent Mozinar on the integration of PR and SEO. ( You can listen to it and download the slides here for free!) As a former print journalist who later became a digital marketer, I love to discuss this niche because I am very passionate about the topic....
With Panda, Penguin and all the other Google updates, SEO has changed over the years. What used to work doesn’t anymore.
So, how do you know what you should be avoiding and what you should be doing now? Well, I’ve created an infographic that breaks down the old and the new in SEO and explains how you need to adjust your SEO strategy today.
Some businesses might not need to take local SEO as seriously as others because they have global audiences that make purchases regardless of geographical location. However, enterprises with a physical storefront definitely need local SEO.,
While it is fair to say that everyday SEO techniques are enough to improve your organic search engine ranking, adding some local elements has a few additional benefits, including the all-important map pack.
But how do you go about implementing local SEO I hear you say? Never fear, as the most effective, successful and fruitful techniques are here...
Back in September, Google launched a brand-new Panda update, which according to Pierre Far will impact on 3-5% of online queries and results. It has been specifically designed to target thin and inconsequential content more precisely, while also increasing the already sizable chasm between low and high quality websites.
As if this is not enough for webmasters to contend with, Google also plan to roll out a brand new Penguin update in the weeks ahead. Penguin 3.0 is also expected to be driven by more intricate and precise algorithms, while it will also work in conjunction with Panda to create more clearly defined and transparent lines between websites.
What Should Webmasters Expect?
In practical terms, it is the Penguin 3.0 update that will arguably have the biggest impact on webmasters. This is because of the ongoing work with disavow, where Google’s search team have worked alongside thousands of industry experts and previously penalized webmasters to leverage the best possible examples of poor quality links. This trend will continue throughout the current update, as Google utilize an ever wider range of user distributed data to streamline their results and deliver a more concise strategy....
It’s amazing the difference a good tool can make – and the extra time it takes to get work done without a helpful tool.
Fast-forward to online marketing. How can you work smarter and faster with SEO? It starts with having the right tools.
I’ve collected a big sampling of the best free SEO tools on the market—tools with a wide variety of uses and covering a number of common needs. These tools are fast, free, and easy-to-use. I hope you find one or two (or twenty) you can put to good use, today....
Yelp and a coalition of like-minded travel and shopping websites have created an elegant demonstration of the way they say Google biases search results in favor of Google's pages.
It's a Chrome browser extension that Yelp says strips Google+ pages from Google's search results, forcing the search engine to display only the "organic" results Yelp says Google would serve if it wasn't biased in favor of Google's own sites and links.
The device lets you compare Google's results with and without interference from Google+, the anti-Google coalition says. (We have a couple of screengrabs below demonstrating the difference.)...
With all the talk about optimizing content for search engines, you'd think we'd know by now exactly what Google's ranking algorithm considers when crawling pages on the internet. But we don't, and we can't -- mainly because Google has never publicly listed all of the factors they take into account.
What Google has confirmed is that they use about 200 ranking signals when determining organic search page rankings. There are domain factors, page-level factors, site-level factors, backlink factors, user interaction, special algorithm rules, social signals, brand signals, on-site web spam factors, off-page web spam factors ...
Whew! That's quite a list. How are we supposed to remember all of those? Thanks to Single Grain and Backlinko, we don't have to....
SEO can become second nature for you. Since SEO is one of the most important components of an online business, you need to be doing SEO automatically, reflexively, and instinctively. All the time. So how do you get there? How can you start doing SEO automatically? How can you develop SEO reflexes? What habits and knowledge do you need?
Here’s your handbook to becoming an SEO expert without even thinking about it....
What do penguins, pandas and hummingbirds remind you of? If you own a blog or a website, these are the “animal” updates to Google’s algorithm that help mold the state of content you see online today. So much can be said in regards to SEO that you’d probably be able to fill countless books with the information available.
IDF Marketing has produced an infographic that touches briefly on the ever-evolving state ofSEO today. Check out the influence On Site Factors, the strength of your Content, Outreachand Social Signals have on your site’s SEO. Should you go with video instead of articles? What about infographics instead of blog posts to secure high ranking and/or higher traffic? Find out about this and a lot more from the infographic below....
...A user asked Cutts how algorithms parse the differences between popularity (high pageview totals) and actual subject matter authority. The question was framed in the context of social media: If social signals affect search algorithms, does Google trust the traffic coming from Facebook or Twitter as an indicator of expertise? The video response was, while it’s a work in progress, search crawlers are getting better at assessing credibility. One of the ways they do this is the old reliable method – links. However, they don’t bestwo authority in a vacuum. Basically, a website with a lot of inbound links from relevant (and well-known) sites will build authority on that topic. A website with a lot of inbound links from relevant (and well-known) sites will build authority on that topic. This is a call for subject-matter consistency. If a business reliably provides resources and valuable information about a certain topic, it will accumulate inbound links that contribute to page authority....
CMO of DigitalRelevance Kevin Bailey talks about the importance of earned media links and content.Today’s digitally savvy PR professionals are adding organic search to their repertoire. This makes good sense because organic rankings are just another form of earned media—just acquired in a new way. For over a decade it’s been well known that search engine rankings are influenced mainly by two things: what a brand says about itself on its own website and what others say about it off of its site. The latter is often called off-site SEO and it’s the most heavily-weighted component of Google’s algorithm....
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The way we build links has changed quite a lot over the past decade, but links themselves are no less valuable. Like me, you may remember the early days of online marketing, when generating backlinks to a website was as simple as requesting links from link farms and other sketchy sources. Google put a stop to that, so generating backlinks for a brand-new website is a bit trickier these days. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, though. The sooner your site has a decent number of backlinks from authoritative, high-quality websites, the sooner its performance on the major search engines will improve. Although this is largely a waiting game, there are things you can do right now to generatefirst-rate backlinks to your new site. Follow the advice here, and you can easily generate upwards of 100 authoritative andrelevant backlinks to your new site in just 30 days....
URL structure has been debated within the SEO industry for years. From the number of subdirectories to the placement of keywords in URLs, SEOs have tried many optimization techniques to improve their sites’ rankings.
The real question is, does your URL structure even help with your overall traffic? To answer this question, I decided to do a bit of research to help you make a data-informed decision....
The year is almost over, and many businesses are starting to look forward to 2015 and discuss their marketing plans. Luckily, David Mihm, the local search guru at Moz, just released his annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which helps give us local marketers more insight into which ranking factors matter the most.
The survey shows a definite shift toward more traditional web ranking factors. Last year’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey had Google Places and Citations weighted heavily, but this year’s study shows that on-site signals and links are the most powerful factors.
This shift is consistent with Google’s recent local ranking algorithm update, Pigeon. Many Local SEOs claimed they weren’t hit by Pigeon – but it’s more likely that, because they took a more wholesome approach to local SEO, their sites simply had more authority to begin with.
Analytics platforms are essential for merchants to glean insight into what drives their traffic. Google Analytics is the popular choice, but there are many other analytics tools available.
Here is a list of analytics tools to help you collect and measure your customer data. Some of these applications are general analytics programs, akin to Google Analytics, to quantify traffic. Other applications look at specific aspects of the customer and should be used in conjunction with a general analytics program....
Keyword research is an important piece of the puzzle for anyone who conducts business online. Once an online business has decided on a target market and figured out who its main audience is, it needs to focus on getting targeted people onto its website.
That’s when keyword research becomes crucial.Keywords, also known as search queries, are the terms entered by the users into their search engine of choice, to find things online. Hence, online businesses need to spend some time researching the keywords their target audience is most likely to use, as ranking high for these terms will increase targeted traffic to their website....
The perceived quality of a web page or piece of content isn't based solely upon words. There are a lot of other factors to take into account, like load time, interface design, image quality, formatting, and so on.
Of course, "quality" means different things to different people, but I'd argue that at a basic level, focusing too much on keywords is a bad thing -- it can actually cause quality to suffer.
The goal of creating content shouldn't be to come up with a bunch of great keywords; it should be to come up with great content. Call it whatever you want, but if it's good, it's good -- just like Shakespeare said. The search engines of the future aren't going to punish folks for underusing keywords or failing to have an expertly crafted, keyword-optimized page title ... but they will continue to punish folks for overusing keywords....
Speaking to a client on Friday, I quickly established that her keyword anchor text needed varying for her guest blogging campaigns. She wasn’t sure of what I meant so I decided a post was needed.
What is Anchor Text?
Anchor text or link text are words or a phrase that are clickable. It usually gives the reader an indication of what to expect when you click that link....
Search Engine Optimisation is a constantly expanding and ever-changing field which can seem like a bit of a minefield if you don’t know where to start.
As a business owner it’s vital that you and your team understand the importance SEO plays to your online presence, and how best to stay ahead of the game.
Here is an overview of the white paper recently published by Searchmetrics - The 2014 Rank Correlation Analysis and SEO Ranking Factors for Google U.S.
Don’t be put off by the technical jargon in the title. This report is vital reading if you want to understand what differentiates high-ranking sites, and increase organic visits to your own site. It could be used as a basis for your SEO strategy and to help understand if you are doing the right things....
Since, SEO is not an easy job for many they need some sort of assistance either they seek for professional help or look for some quality SEO tools.
In this compilation, we have listed 35 free to use SEO tools for bloggers....
The thunder clap of Google’s Matt Cutts’s Twitter post could be heard across the web this week with the announcement of the search engine’s latest update, Panda 4.0.
Of course the type of Panda I’m talking about isn’t a cute bear from China. It’s the name of an algorithm used by Google to filter out low quality content from search results.
The first Panda update in Feb, 2011 was fairly aggressive, affecting about 11% of queries on Google and millions of searchers. Panda also had an impact on more than a few website owners who fell from the search results like hail from the sky...
A few months ago I advised and implemented SEO strategies for OkDork. Within 6 months, OkDork’s non-branded organic traffic increased by more than 200%.
What I did was not special just for Noah’s site but strategies and tactics you can do with your own site. I’ve done these strategies at KloutFire for over the past 1.5 years.
The goal of this post is to help people at all levels learn something new, take action and get results with more free traffic from search engines like Google...
Have you ever wondered why certain websites rank higher than others? Or why your website doesn’t rank as high as your competitor’s?
A lot of it has to do with Google’s algorithm. It looks at over 200 ranking factors when determining where to rank a site. As you already know, these ranking factors aren’t easy to understand, which makes it difficult for you to figure out how to adjust your site to maximize your rankings.
In order to help you solve this, I’ve created an infographic that visually breaks down many of the components of Google’s algorithm. I hope it will give you a better understanding of what Google looks at when ranking websites....
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![Optimizing Sites for Featured Snippets with Q&A Content [Case Study] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/gVMu5cP4sC5yDN3I07Ethjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
![An Exhaustive List of Google's Ranking Factors [Infographic] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/4EB_v2WGqng4cGmyl09yNjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
![SEO Ranking Factors For 2014 [REPORT] | Sean Clark | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/Y15dm1efO_RsbexN1T3NETl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Learn how to capture featured snippet opportunities (along with increased traffic and conversions) using question-and-answer format content by emulating this case study from Moz.