Ginny Marvin says, “First there were the error notices that users have to have an active campaign, not just an AdWords account to access Keyword Planner. Then came combined search volumes for close variants. A Google spokesperson has confirmed with Search Engine Land that users do not have to have an active campaign to use Keyword Planner. On social media, Google told users that the error was the result of a technical issue that was being fixed. When Keyword Planner launched inside AdWords in 2013, replacing the open Keyword Tool, it got a cool reception. So there was alarm when some users... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “Keywords are essential to every aspect of your SEO campaign, from on-site placement and usage to link prospecting and acquisition. Knowing which terms to target and how to target them can either produce great results or end in a huge flop. Defining and categorizing your keywords will help in your link outreach and community building online, both of which are essential in order to drive relevant traffic to your site. While there are a number of schools of thought when it comes to the types of keywords we should use, I want to walk you through the seven types we use at my... [...]

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... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “It’s been 5 weeks since Keyword Explorer’s launch and in that time, more than 75,000 folks have tried out what is, in my opinion, the best keyword research tool on the market. And that’s just a sampling of the many, many kind pieces of feedback we’ve received the last few weeks (OK, there’s even more than that… it just keeps on going). But today, we’re upgrading it further with three of the most requested features since launch. Keyword volume is now international Since launch day, KW Explorer has only had support for US volume,... [...]

MOZ team says, “Picture this: You discover that your site is ranking for a keyword you’ve been targeting. Cause for celebration, right? But what if that ranking page is irrelevant, wrong, or simply not the best choice? This situation is more common than you might think, and results in a good deal of frustration for SEOs. Rand shows you how to cope when you find that your valuable queries are sending traffic to the wrong URLs in today’s Whiteboard Friday”. What to Do When the Wrong Page Ranks for Your Keyword(s) – Whiteboard Friday MOZ  [...]

Ann Smarty says, “It can be easy to get locked into a pattern when it comes to keywords and concepts in marketing. You find what works, and it works for awhile, so you stick to it. The problem is that it won’t work forever. By the time you begin to see results tapering off, you have to scramble to research new ones. You end up losing ground that way, and have to make it up while establishing a new path to exploit. Your best bet is to continuously research both keywords and concepts that are beneficial to your brand. Keeping up to date and experimenting as you go will keep your progress... [...]

Some Amazon affiliates do quite well by specializing on a particular niche and offering a range of products specifically for that niche. The better your niche, the more they earn. Mo Miah and his team have created new software that will help you find niches that are designed to create a good income for you. It’s called: InstaNiche Pro. Your niche should be selected based on keywords that are frequently searched that have low competition from other marketers that target them. Miah’s new software finds keywords like that. And it classifies each keyword it finds as either low competition,... [...]

Dudley Carr says, “At the end of last year, we launched Moz Local Insights, and then I read this comment on Phil Rozek’s blog: “To be honest, we’ve been finding issues in the citation quality — it seems like their directory partners are changing up how they update information and not keeping stuff as consistent as we’d all like. I’d like Moz to focus on that and make that rock solid first — because right now, we really can’t rely on the results we’re getting from InsiderPages and SuperPages (for example). And listings that were “fixed” magically get unfixed weeks later... [...]