Barry Schwartz says, “Google has begun testing its mobile-first index, which will primarily look at the mobile version of your website for its ranking signals and fall back on the desktop version when there is no mobile version. We expected this was coming and even heard about it over a year ago, but this is the first time Google has posted details about the mobile-first index on their own blog. Most of Google searches are mobile, but Google’s index is desktop Google explained that it sees more mobile searches than desktop searches on a daily basis. But when Google looks to evaluate a page’s... [...]

MOZ team says, “It may seem like an impossible uphill battle to compete with big sites in the SERPs, but there are benefits to running a smaller site that can make a tremendous difference to your SEO. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains how small businesses and websites can target opportunities the big sites can’t, in spite of their natural advantages”. How Can Small Businesses/Websites Compete with Big Players in SEO? MOZ  [...]

Danny Sullivan says, “Think of the new Google Home assistant as a voice-only search engine. You ask it questions by voice; it gives back answers by voice. If you’re a search marketer, that immediately raises a big concern: How do I get traffic and visitors from this thing, if they can’t click to me? Turns out, they can. The key is the Google Home companion app for iOS or Android. For certain questions, especially those that are drawn from web-based sources rather than Google’s Knowledge Graph facts database or Wikipedia, Google Home will give a voice answer and send a link to the... [...]

Andreas Reiffen says, “In search marketing, we’re always trying to get that little bit of extra performance out of our paid campaigns. But what do you do when you’ve optimized your bids, tested (and improved) your ad copy and refined your target URLs? To uncover the hidden potential in your campaigns, you need to identify and assess anomalies — those areas which perform well in general, but not in your paid search campaigns. For example, if a particular top-selling product category is doing poorly in your paid search campaign, something has probably gone wrong. Identifying and fixing... [...]

Jo Cameron says, “Welcome to the sixth installment of our educational Next Level series! In our last episode, Jo took you on an adventure diving for treasure in the long tail of search. This time around we’re answering the call for help when you feel like you’ve done all you can, but you’re still not ranking. Read on and level up! You’ve optimized your pages, written delightful title tags, concocted a gorgeous description to entice clicks, used your target keyword in your copy with similar words, and your content is good, like really good. As far as you’re concerned... [...]

Carson Ward says, “Knowing how to find and effectively use keywords is probably the most important skill for an effective search marketer. Smart keyword planning and tracking should also heavily inform content planning and strategy. Unfortunately, most keyword research is done on the fly as a new page is created. Rather than helping marketers find new opportunities and plan strategically, keywords are usually found and applied to existing posts and in-flight projects. If you’re an SEO or content creator and don’t have a living, regularly referenced keyword map, this post is for you.... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Digital ad revenues in the US reached $32.7 billion for the first half of 2016, according to the IAB’s new Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Overall, search ad revenue (desktop + mobile) represented 50 percent of the total, which was up 19 percent year over year. Mobile advertising as a channel (inclusive of multiple formats) was the single biggest growth driver, up 89 percent since last year, to $15.5 billion. The IAB announced that mobile “surpasse[d] Search as the lead ad format for the first time.” Of course, mobile is not a format; it’s a collection of... [...]

Andrew Shotland says, “Migrating your site to HTTPS is all the rage these days. Google is on the record as saying that using “https” in your URLs can give a site a ranking boost. That said, going HTTPS has its share of SEO challenges. Here are but a few of the HTTPS horror stories we have witnessed over the past year: Sites go HTTPS and don’t redirect or canonicalize the HTTP URLs to their HTTPS versions. Sites go HTTPS without telling the SEO team, who freak out when they check into Google Search Console and see branded traffic has started to tank (Hint: check the HTTPS profile in... [...]

Jayson DeMers says, “Few marketing channels have evolved as quickly or as dramatically as search engine optimization (SEO). In its infancy, SEO was the shady practice of stuffing keywords, tweaking back-end code and spamming links until you started ranking well for the keywords you wanted. Thankfully, Google stamped out those practices pretty quickly, and its search algorithm has never really stopped evolving. Much of Google’s foundation was in place by the mid-2000s, but how has its algorithm — and as a result, our approach to SEO — changed in the past 10 years? 1. The rise of... [...]

Thomas Stern says, “Google introduced the concept of micro-moments over a year ago, and since then, the company has consistently published supporting information as it relates to specific industries and user behavior across content platforms. If you’re unfamiliar with micro-moments, they’re essentially a way of framing a user’s path to purchase or to conversion, with specific focus on mobile and the needs or questions users search on Google along with way. The concept of micro-moments is easily digestible and provides a great way of conducting and organizing keyword research, something... [...]