Ronald Dod says, “PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, is a complex digital marketing strategy that is composed of many working parts. A lot of the parts are very technical and require extensive knowledge and expertise. Those generally fall on the back end of PPC, and many people who are working with PPC ads can forget about the ad itself. The biggest part of what your audience is going to see and connect with is the ad copy, and you need to make sure you are putting enough time and effort into making your copy the best it can be. With that being said, writing copy for PPC ads can be very... [...]

Andrew Dennis says, “Link campaigns need strategy. Link building is a difficult, time-consuming process that doesn’t produce results overnight. However, strategic link acquisition is necessary to achieve long-term improvements in organic search. It’s possible to grab “quick win” links here and there (and I’d encourage pursuing these opportunities), but you will need an ongoing campaign to achieve sustainable results. A campaign model ensures research, strategy development and ongoing review and analysis as a project progresses. Whether you’re planning to pursue links in 2017... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google has announced they’ve upgraded the AMP reports within the Google Search Console to “clearly differentiate between the critical issues that would prevent your page from being shown in the search results, and the other non-critical issues that would be good to fix.” So those errors labeled as “critical” would mean Google cannot index that AMP content, and thus it won’t rank in the search results. The non-critical issues are more likely around richer results that do not prevent the content from being indexed but prevent it being enhanced in the search... [...]

Ronald Dod says, “Local SEO is one of the hardest SEO campaigns to run for a variety of reasons. The reasons vary, but here are some main reasons local SEO is so difficult: The local search pack is integrated with the search results. The local search pack is very difficult to influence positively. Results are very hard to track. Google changes local results a lot with algorithm changes. Search behavior changes You get the point. There are a lot of reasons and variables which can influence a local SEO campaign. However, even though it is difficult, you can see a great impact from a well-executed... [...]

Andrew Shotland says, “It was bad enough that Prince, Leonard Cohen and Mrs. Brady checked out in 2016, but then I had to go and read David Mihm’s excellent 2017 Local Marketing Predictions, and I couldn’t find a cocktail fast enough to drown my misery. Mihm’s piece is a sober look at how Google has been leading us all down the path to a single result and how SEO is going to get even tougher over the next year as Google culls the SERPs in favor of entities (aka Knowledge Panels, Local Packs and so on) and voice results. Kind of reminded me of this old sunshine and rainbows post. Thing... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “You’ve been hearing a lot about featured snippets from us at Moz lately, including how they power answers on the latest technology wish-list item, Google Home. I hope by now that you understand the value of ranking “#0,” but you might be left wondering where to start. How do you find questions, determine if they have featured snippets, and track them over time? I’m happy to say that, between Keyword Explorer and Moz Pro, we now have all of the tools you need to practically tackle featured snippets in a way that will be familiar for almost... [...]

Gianluca Fiorelli says, “2016 is, finally, close to its end. It was an intense year, especially when it came to SEO and Google in particular. Because I’m deeply convinced that we cannot attempt any preview of the future without considering what happened in the past, I invite you to look back at the events that have marked the evolution of Google in the past 10 months. It is important to note that, contrary to more classic Google timelines, I prefer to see all Google-related events in the same place. I believe it’s the only way we can escape from a too-narrow vision of where Google... [...]

MOZ team says, “This week, Whiteboard Friday is hosted by the amazing Tara Reed who’ll walk us through how to use social media broadly and Twitter in particular not only to earn engagement and a following, but to drive visitors directly to our websites and to the content that converts. Let’s dive in!”. Twitter Deep Dive: How to Use Social Media to 10x Your Website Traffic MOZ  [...]

Eric Enge says, “When you first start out with content marketing, you often have a very basic challenge: you have to build an audience for your content. Even if you’re a large brand with lots of people who are passionate about you, they’re not yet conditioned to see you as a publisher of valuable content. In other words, either way, you’ve got work to do. In today’s post, I’m going to outline why you should focus on reach and influence, and how to do it so that your content marketing efforts can deliver the maximum ROI. Map your marketplace The first thing to... [...]

Stephan Spencer says, “I have a theory: the best SEO practitioners in the world are not consultants helping their clients get rich. Rather, they are their own clients. Or, if they do have clients, they’ve figured out a way to have them on a performance pricing model in order to share in the client’s upside. How are these rock-star SEOs their own clients, you ask? It could be a range of things — they could be affiliates, “infoproduct” sellers or lead generators who are leveraging SEO expertise. Or a combination of the above. One thing is certain: they use their SEO knowledge and... [...]