Hannah Smith says, “Most frequently, the content we create at Distilled is designed to attract press coverage, social shares, and exposure (and links) on sites our clients’ target audience reads. That’s a tall order. Over the years we’ve had our hits and misses, and through this we’ve recognised the value of learning about what makes a piece of content successful. Coming up with a great idea is difficult, and it can be tough to figure out where to begin. Today, rather than leaping headlong into brainstorming sessions, we start with creative content research“. Simple... [...]

MOZ team says, “We all know by now that not just any old content is going to help us rank in competitive SERPs. We often hear people talking about how it takes “good, unique content.” That’s the wrong bar. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about where we should be aiming, and how to get there“. Why Good Unique Content Needs to Die – Whiteboard Friday MOZ Blog  [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Search and social are frequently seen as two distinct marketing channels, but that could be changing.   The world’s largest search engine, Google, and one of the world’s most prominent social platforms, Twitter, have announced a new partnership that will integrate social content more deeply within the search experience. Thanks to the partnership between the two companies, today, mobile users in the United States may see tweets highlighted in search results. In the coming months, tweets will make their way to SERPs in other languages and on desktop“. Google... [...]

Joshua Zamora has just released his new software, SocialRobot. This new tool, under your guidance, automates setting up accounts on social media sites with one click.Then you use it to automatically create high-quality social bookmarks to any URL of your choosing, using your accounts. Since it supports over 500 social media sites, this can be a major part of your SEO campaigns. It is easy to use; it works quickly; and once you set it up, it requires very little time from you. Here are some of the specifics: ■ You select the social sites you want to use in just a few clicks ■ You can have multiple... [...]

Bill Slawski says, “I often explore and read patents and papers from the search engines to try to get a sense of how they may approach different issues, and learn about the assumptions they make about search, searchers, and the Web. Lately, I’ve been keeping an eye open for papers and patents from the search engines where they talk about a metric known as the “long click.” A recently granted Google patent uses the metric of a “Long Click” as the center of a process Google may use to track results for queries that were selected by searchers for long visits in... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “With the help of some SEO experts, I’ve compiled a list of useful tools to help with on-site optimisation, link analysis and more.  While some of these tools are paid, the majority are free to use, or at least offer a limited service for free users. Thanks to Kevin Gibbons, Irish Wonder, Nick Chowdrey and Pete Handley for their suggestions.  Keyword research and content planning Google’s Keyword Planner. Used as described in this article, the keyword planner can be a valuable tool for identifying opportunities and finding ideas for content“. 30+... [...]

Jacob McMillen says, “Conventional wisdom is usually the safe play. Why take risks when there’s an established “right way” to do things? In marketing, however, success often falls to those willing to buck trends and experiment. When it comes to optimizing your landing pages, complacency and assumption are your worst enemies. It’s far too easy to defer to best practices instead of discovering what makes your unique audience click. Proven landing page techniques are commonly practiced for a reason, but what works for 90% of websites won’t automatically work for yours. The genius... [...]

Cyrus Shepard says, “Today we’re excited to make freely available the new Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 3.0. Ever since the indelible Danny Dover created the original version in 2008, the SEO Cheat Sheet has been downloaded tens of thousands of times by developers and marketers alike. Countless beginner and advanced SEOs have printed it out, laminated it, and hung it on their walls as a quick reference to the most impactful best practices in search engine optimization. Web developers and software engineers also find it handy to easily reference SEO technical standards. New... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Earlier this month, Google announced that it was giving mobile users the ability to order food directly from its search results, signaling the possibility that the next phase of search’s evolution will be transactionalization. As I wrote at the time, “it’s not hard to imagine Google applying transactional functionality to other types of search,” and product search seemed like one of the most obvious search categories ripe for transactional features. Not more than two weeks later come reports that Google is about to add buttons to search engine... [...]

Matt Gratt says, “User behavior and customer purchase journeys are more complex today than they’ve ever been before. Modern consumers – especially those purchasing high-consideration or B2B products – look across a variety of media and conduct a lot of searches. Google reports that the average B2B researcherdoes 12 searches before they engage on a specific brand’s site. They are seeking reinforcement and comfort not just from the information about the product, but also from the opinions of other customers. How SEOs and marketers approach keyword research has to evolve, along... [...]