Rand Fishkin says, “We all know that keywords and links alone no longer cut it as a holistic SEO strategy. But there’s still plenty outside our field who try to “boil SEO down” to a naively simplistic practice – one that isn’t representative of what SEOs need to do to succeed. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand champions the art and science of SEO and offers insight into how very broad the field really is“.Does SEO Boil Down to Site Crawlability and Content Quality?MOZ Blog [...]

Maria Mincey says, “How long have you been relying on Facebook to deliver the digital goods for your business? How has it worked so far for you? Are you any more able to get as many clicks from your postings in Facebook groups as you used to, let’s say, two years back? Probably not. The reason is simple enough – Facebook has altered its algorithms.Just like Google launches its updates (like Panda and Hummingbird) much to the displeasure of the blogging audience, Facebook’s updates are also not so passionately viewed by the digital marketers of the world”.Organic Reach... [...]

Matthew Whitehead says, “Local marketers now have many tools to consider when using paid search that go beyond simply bidding on keywords for ads to appear. Google and Bing have built out advanced functionality in their platforms over the last few years that can help search engine marketers drive engagement with consumers at a local level.Yet even the more experienced local marketers are not making use of all of the available options.I’ve grouped together seven of the most useful paid search features below”.Seven paid search features local marketers should be using‘Econsultancy’... [...]

Greg Gifford says, “If you work in the SEO industry, you need to understand how to do Local SEO. Seriously.. I’m not kidding here… If you’re sitting there thinking “Um, no… not really” – then you’re exactly the person I’m writing this post for.If you haven’t already, I can pretty much guarantee you that at some point in your SEO career, you’re going to do some SEO for a business that has a physical storefront. BOOM – that means Local SEO. Sure, you’ve still got to do all the traditional SEO things that you do every... [...]

Christopher Ratcliff says, “With a playing field increasingly dominated with paid search advertising and local SEO boosted listings, the search engine results pages (SERPS) are becoming a meaner territory for more traditional organic links.Of course one of the key ways to increase your chances of ranking above the competition is through a comprehensive SEO strategy.However, just because your webpage has clawed its way closer to the all important first SERP, through a focused and technically proficient adhering to good SEO standards, it doesn’t necessarily mean that searchers are... [...]

Casey Meraz says, “Did you know that having consistent and correct citations is mandatory for any successful local SEO Campaign? If you’ve read the 2013 Moz Local Ranking Factors survey or you’ve been in the local SEO game for a while, it’s no secret how important citations are to ranking locally in Google. In fact, citations and external location signals are the 3rd most important ranking factor according to the Moz local search ranking factors survey. This is why it’s essential that you have your correct NAP listed across the major citation sources“.Advanced... [...]

Website Magazine is hosting a webinar on Thursday, July 31 at 2.00 pm EDT. The topic of the webinar is “Did Google just penalize me?”.The WM team says, “That’s the first question everyone asks when their traffic drops. The mystique of search engines, and how they do what they do, lends itself to sensationalism. Mainstream media fans the flames with reporting about websites violating terms of service, with results ranging from penalties to page rank downgrades. The truth is, today few businesses are immune to traffic drops spurred by Google’s seemingly continuous algorithm... [...]

Christopher Ratcliff says, “Before we begin to understand what ‘off-page SEO’ means and the various methods that relate to it, let’s have a quick recap at what ‘on-page SEO’ means.On-page SEO (or on-site SEO) refers to all the elements on your web page that you can control in order to make it visible to search engines.For instance: internal linking, using a clear navigation with a naturally flowing hierarchy, search engine friendly URLs that have relevancy to the content, fast loading pages, submitting regularly updated XML sitemaps or remembering to tag your images and videos... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “According to a new forecast from eMarketer, total media spending in the US will see its largest increase in a decade reaching $180.1 billion. The firm says that the growth will be lead by TV and mobile.Overall digital ad spending will represent almost 30 percent of all US ad spending this year according to eMarketer, which bases its forecasts on a wide range of third party data including other firms’ media spending forecasts.The eMarketer forecast predicts that mobile advertising will represent roughly 10 percent of all media ad spending. That would mean it would... [...]

John Tackett says, “I’m sure most of you have heard the old proverb: The road to ruin is paved with the best of intentions.In fact, if you have a different version of it, feel free to share it in the comments below.The proverb is a great example of the subtle dangers in optimizing a process with no perspective on how the big picture is potentially impacted by those changes.In this MarketingExperiments Blog post, I wanted to take a close look at a checkout process experiment and what we can all learn from this company when it comes to identifying the subtle dangers in optimization that often... [...]