Itai Elizur says, “So, you want to build your brand’s social media following organically right?Who doesn’t?I mean, we’ve all spent too much money on social media ads just to see a slight increase in numbers.Enough of that. You need a sustainable solution, one that you won’t have to keep dumping money into and wondering where it all went.Here’s some good news, growing your social media following organically is easier than you might think. In this post you will find real, actionable steps that will grow your following.Spoiler warning: none of these steps involve entertaining... [...]

Simon Penson says, “What will you learn from this post?How to get lots of Search Console data quickly and easilyHow to run a Python scriptAnd who can do it? Hopefully, it should be accessible to any beginner.Why do we use the API to get Search Console data?At Distilled, we often want to use Google Search Console data, but getting it from the interface is incredibly clunky:You’re limited to the top 1,000 queriesYou have to apply each filter one at a timeThe interface is slowAnd if you want to do this regularly, you have to repeat this process often.We can get around that by... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “Keyword ranking is one of the most overrated and misused metrics in SEO. Yes, tracking your positions is important, but placing too much emphasis on this metric is problematic. When it comes to SEO, what you measure gets managed. That means that focusing on the right metrics will help you generate results that have a business impact, rather than an ego boost.So, let’s talk about the problem with obsessing over rank — and what metrics you’d be better off focusing on.The problem with rank trackingMeasuring keyword ranking is easy to get sucked into because... [...]

Simon Penson says, “Incredible, isn’t it? Despite all the fanfare and pageantry that has followed content marketing over the last few years, fewer than 6% of marketers confidently claim to be executing content marketing strategies properly.It’s just one of a handful of eye-popping stats to come out of the State of Content Marketing Survey, a major new survey of senior UK marketers this month as part of a campaign to help create healthy debate around the misunderstood tactic.With more budget than ever before pouring into the approach (60% of those surveyed said they were opening the... [...]

Stefanie Flaxman says, “Whenever someone questions the importance of proofreading, my go-to response is:“Pubic relations is quite different from public relations.”We all sometimes make a typo that omits or changes a letter in a word. A typo like that is difficult to spot when the mistake is still an actual word (or words). Just last week, I wrote “head lice” instead of “headline.” Again, two completely different things.But I have an effective proofreading process that helps me find and correct errors before they are published. (Except, of course, when the error is a joke.)Do... [...]

Marie Haynes says, “It has now been six months since the launch of Penguin 4.0. In my opinion, Penguin 4.0 was awesome. It took ages for Google to release this update, but when they did, it was much more fair than previous versions of Penguin. Previous versions of Penguin would cause entire sites to be suppressed if the algorithm thought that you’d engaged in manipulative link building. Even if a site did a thorough link cleanup, the suppression would remain present until Google re-ran the Penguin algorithm and recognized your cleanup efforts.I saw many businesses that had looooooong... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Bing has added a chatbot to help users with some of its local search results for restaurants in the Seattle area. After getting a tip from a reader, I was able to reproduce the chatbot option in Bing’s desktop search results, but not in its iOS app nor in the mobile browser search results.The new feature appears at the bottom of the listing for some individual restaurants in the cities of Redmond (where Microsoft is based) and nearby Bellevue, Washington — both are just outside of Seattle. I’ve seen it on about 6-8 different searches for specific restaurants, such... [...]

Eric Enge says, “The recent SMX West conference had many awesome sessions, and today I’m going to provide some compelling insights from “SEO and Social: A Match Made in Marketing Heaven.” One of the great things about this session is that all four speakers took a step back and provided fresh ideas on how to think about the integration of these two disciplines.Let’s dig in!Flexibility and a willingness to failLeading off the session we had Maggie Malek, head of PR and social at MMI agency out of Houston. She walked us through a process for getting search and social to work together.If... [...]

Ronald Dod says, “Search engines help you get new readers, viewers, and listeners for your content, but all too often you yourself are the reason search engines hold your content back from prominent positions in their search results pages.Search engines want to show the world your content, but not if you’ve made mistakes that undermine the user experience and search engines’ guidelines.So give the search engines what they want by avoiding the following common mistakes that content creators make.1. Short ContentGoogle likes long-form content because it gives searchers enough... [...]

Andy Crestodina says, “It’s as if they live in different countries: Searchlandia and Socialstan.Search optimizers and social media marketers don’t get together a whole lot, at least not in the same piece of content. But there’s no reason they can’t peacefully coexist in one article, in one URL.Imagine. One topic, one message, united in quality, but with two separate and equally powerful sources of traffic: search and social.Is it possible? Can one post be optimized for both?Yes. And when it happens, the traffic is greater than the sum of its channels.Um. Actually, the traffic... [...]