Marketing Land team says, “But time is running out! We’re only two weeks away from Search Engine Land’s SMX West, THE search marketing conference for search-obsessed professionals! SMX West is the premier search show, and this year, it’s bigger and better than ever! We’re so confident, we’ll even guarantee that you’ll get the search marketing tactics and solutions you need to exceed your goals. But don’t take it from us, listen to our amazing, talented A-list attendees: “There was a great mix of excellent takeaways for both the advanced search marketer as well as beginners,... [...]

Brian Hughes says, “Local search drives more clicks and calls than any other marketing channel, making it the most effective marketing technique for small business. Not convinced? Just ask the BrightLocal team, which found that local search delivers a greater ROI than other digital marketing channels, according to its September 2015 survey. Further underscoring this finding: 34 percent of small business owners told BrightLocal that if they could only choose one marketing channel, they’d pick local search. Is your company feeling equally bullish about local search? If not, that’s understandable.... [...]

Shannon Evans says, “What’s the meaning of life searches? While some people chase the meaning of life, digital marketers search (pun intended) for the meaning behind customer searches. This is where your SEO team comes in. They have the tools to decipher why and how people search certain keywords or phrases. They have a better understanding of how to create content, and make sites more visible within the search engines. What Does a Keyword Mean? Search has evolved over the years, both from a searcher and search engine perspective. In the infancy of search (some argue it is still in its... [...]

Glenn Gabe says, “There you are. A big redesign or CMS migration is looming, and you’re ready to unleash a crawl on the new site in a test environment. You fire up your favorite crawling tool and trigger the crawl… and it lasts all of three seconds. Yes, there’s an obvious problem. The staging server is protected and behind some type of security measure that inhibits you from freely crawling it. Sweat begins to form on your brow as you wonder how you will get the crawl completed. At this point, you could choose to manually check all the pages, but you might end up in a padded room whispering... [...]

MOZ team says, “It’s probably crossed your mind before. Should you optimize for your competitors’ branded keywords? How would you even go about it effectively? Well, in today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains some carefully strategic and smart ways to optimize for the keywords of a competitor — from determining their worthiness, to properly targeting your funnel, to using third-party hosted content for maximum amplification”. How to Optimize for Competitors’ Branded Keywords MOZ Blog  [...]

Daniel Faggella says, “Whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, there is ample opportunity to boost your search engine rankings through blogging. However, you can’t implement a short-term approach to build a long-term source of organic traffic. When you’re doing SEO, you need to be cautious. Some of the strategies that worked in the past will now get you penalized. On the contrary, some strategies that formerly weren’t worth your time are now essential. If you want to build a sustainable web presence, then you need to adapt to the changes of Google’s algorithm. Whether you see these... [...]

Clay Cazier says, “No doubt you have run across articles detailing the SEO benefits of structured data and how algorithms focused on things not strings are turning search engines into answer engines. A quick example: search for “George Clooney’s wife,” and Google immediately tells you Amal Clooney is his current spouse (married in 2014) and Talia Balsam is his former wife, married and then divorced in 1989 and 1993 respectively. In 2005, it is likely the top result would have been an organic listing featuring a website optimized for that particular query. Today, Google’s ability... [...]

Jeffrey L. Cohen says, “Did you know that 82% of local searchers will follow up by either calling the retailer, visiting the store, or making a purchase? Local search plays an important role in driving more foot traffic to your store. (highlight to tweet) But as of August 2015, Google made some significant changes. Now, only three businesses are listed in local search rather than seven, meaning competition is tough to get your business seen. So how do you make sure you’re doing everything you can to master your local search ranking? 1. Verify Your Business on Local Directories Make sure you’ve... [...]

Clint Evans says, “There are three big lies in SEO right now. SEO remains and has been the buzzword in small-business circles for about 10 years now. But there’s a seedy underbelly. I’ve talked with many business owners misfortunate enough to have suffered and been suckered by members of this underbelly. SEO is a technical and ever-changing discipline. If you’re busy running a $2 million to $20 million per year small business, how can you ever hope to keep up? If you’ve been burned, how do you know when to dip your toe back into the water? Who’s got your back? Lie #1: SEO is right... [...]

Nick Chowdrey says, “Anyone who knows anything about content marketing understands that a successful blog post or other piece of content is not just a case of “build it and they will come.” You can spend hours writing the most interesting and engaging post, or spend thousands on creating interactive/video content or e-book, but if you don’t have a strategy from the start for getting it in front of eyeballs… nobody’s going to see it. All that time and money—wasted. Here are my surefire, tried-and-tested suggestions for getting high ranking on search engines... [...]