Joe Robison says, “For almost two years (707 days, to be precise), one question has dominated the SEO conversation: “When will Google update Penguin?” Today, we finally have the answer. Google announced that a Penguin update is rolling out and that Penguin is now operating in real-time.In a normal month, a temperature of 82°F would be slightly interesting, but it’s hardly what many people were expecting, and September 2016 has been anything but a normal month. It takes time to refresh the entire index, though, so it’s likely Penguin volatility will continue for a few days.... [...]

Trond Lyngbø says, “Have you ever watched in awe as a juggler effortlessly keeps multiple balls in the air? Dexterous and agile, he tosses them high, flicks them around, even does fancy stuff with them… and still, not one of them bounces on the ground!You come home and decide to try it.But even with two balls, it doesn’t work the same way. You fail. And fail again. “Juggling is tough,” you tell yourself. But it isn’t. Not if you learn how to do it. And then practice doing it.Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is like that, too. Without knowing how it works, you’ll fail. Often... [...]

MOZ team says, “Featured snippets are the name of the rankings game. Often eclipsing organic results at the top of the SERPs, “ranking zero” or capturing an answer box in Google can mean increased clicks and traffic to your site. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains the three types of featured snippets and how you can best position yourself to grab those coveted spots in the SERPs”.How to Appear in Google’s Answer BoxesMOZ [...]

Garenne Bigby says, “Websites that contain on-page search engine optimization are making active progress to gain higher rankings within search results through improved content.This process is done through editing different components of the on-page content as well as the metadata. Sitemaps are a very beneficial tactic for on-page SEO, but they are generally overlooked.A sitemap makes for quicker and more frequent process of website indexing. Sitemaps weren’t always seen as a must for SEO, but as more webmasters began implementing them, the more their benefits were recognized.Sitemaps... [...]

Derek Edmond says, “We’ve been in “sprint mode” with one of our clients throughout the quarter. Our key point of contact with this client has been fielding communication from all angles, with respect to a site redesign, international campaign initiatives and on communicating performance to senior leadership.Sometimes it seems like our entire week is spent executing on behalf of this organization (even though I know we’re tackling so much more).But the real win is when this client refers new prospects to us because of the dedication we put in. The real win is when we know our... [...]

Joe Robison says, “A lot has changed in the five years since I first wrote about what was Google Webmaster Tools, now named Google Search Console. Google has unleashed significantly more data that promises to be extremely useful for SEOs. Since we’ve long since lost sufficient keyword data in Google Analytics, we’ve come to rely on Search Console more than ever. The “Search Analytics” and “Links to Your Site” sections are two of the top features that did not exist in the old Webmaster Tools.While we may never be completely satisfied with Google’s tools and may occasionally... [...]

John Doherty says, “I remember when I first started in SEO back in 2010 full-time. It feels like forever ago and yesterday at the same time.I was constantly plugged into the SEO Twitter firehose of information. I subscribed to the popular SEO blogs of the day, soaking up information about SEO that wasn’t even relevant to my day job at the time building links. While I read plenty of content about link acquisition, I also went deep into the geeky sides of technical SEO because it appealed to my web developer background.Every week or two, Google was announcing something new. Some new feature,... [...]

Assaf Dudai says, “Reams of articles and blog posts have been written about how to create the perfect landing page. Is there anything more to say? Absolutely! Would you tell Stephen King that enough horror stories have been written already? No, you wouldn’t.So until the Perfect Landing Page is created—an imaginary creature, no doubt—we will continue tweaking and testing, sharing and arguing the merits and faults of every element of the landing page.In that spirit, here are three ways you can improve landing pages.1. Start nurturing right away in the ‘thank you’ screenWe’ll... [...]

Ben Davis says, “We’re getting to the part of the year where people start to moan about tinsel appearingalready in stores.Retail was ever this way – preparation is everything.Here are five search marketing tips for the holiday season, to get ahead of the game.1. Prepare landing pages early like Currys, and keep them year-roundMany retailers make mistakes with their seasonal landing pages, whether for Christmas, Hannukah or Black Friday.When we looked at UK Black Friday retailers in mid-November 2015, Littlewoods and Richer Sounds were making basic errors.Richer Sounds had... [...]

JR Oakes says, “Today, the SEO world is abuzz with the term “relevancy.” Google has gone well past keywords and their frequency to looking at the meaning imparted by the words and how they relate to the query at hand.In fact, for years, the common term used for working with text and language had been natural language processing (NLP). The new focus, though, is natural language understanding (NLU). In the following paragraphs, we want to introduce you to a machine-learning product that has been very helpful in quantifying and enhancing relevancy of content.Earlier this year, we started... [...]