Stephan Spencer says, “When you aren’t marrying your SEO efforts with your content marketing, you aren’t going to get the best results. As an optimization geek, I’m all about getting the most bang for my buck (and effort). Because of this, it pains me to see other content marketers making these simple and easy-to-fix mistakes in their campaigns. Last month, I looked at five common SEO mistakes that content marketers make. Today, in part two, I explore five more costly SEO mistakes to avoid so that you can take your content marketing farther than ever before. 1. No systematic outreach In... [...]

Simon Penson says, “On-page content is certainly not one of the sexier topics in digital marketing. Lost in the flashing lights of “cool digital marketing trends” and things to be seen talking about, it’s become the poor relative of many a hyped “game-changer.” I’m here to argue that, in being distracted by the topics that may be more “cutting-edge,” we’re leaving our most valuable assets unloved and at the mercy of underperformance. This post is designed not only to make it clear what good on-page content looks like, but also how you should... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “Keywords are essential to every aspect of your SEO campaign, from on-site placement and usage to link prospecting and acquisition. Knowing which terms to target and how to target them can either produce great results or end in a huge flop. Defining and categorizing your keywords will help in your link outreach and community building online, both of which are essential in order to drive relevant traffic to your site. While there are a number of schools of thought when it comes to the types of keywords we should use, I want to walk you through the seven types we use at my... [...]

Emily Smith says, “As anyone who’s contributed to business development at an agency knows, it can be challenging to establish exactly what a given prospect needs. What projects, services, or campaigns would actually move the needle for this organization? While some clients come to an agency with specific requests, others are looking for guidance — help establishing where to focus resources. This can be especially difficult, as answering these questions often requires large amounts of information to be analyzed in a small period of time. To address the challenge of evaluating prospective... [...]

Cyrus Shepard says, “How fresh is this article? Through patent filings over the years, Google has explored many ways that it might use “freshness” as a ranking signal. Back in 2011, we published a popular Moz Blog post about these “Freshness Factors” for SEO. Following our own advice, this is a brand new update of that article. In 2003, Google engineers filed a patent named Information retrieval based on historical data that shook the SEO world. The patent not only offered insight into the mind of Google engineers at the time, but also seemingly provided a roadmap for Google’s algorithm... [...]

Tony Edward says, “Spammy link building practices, which Google refers to as “link schemes,” may seem tempting, but they can ultimately result in a loss of search engine rankings. Google considers link schemes to be an attempt to fool the search engine algorithms. If lower-quality content can rank high just because it has amassed a high quantity of backlinks, that is not a great experience for the user. So Google strives to rank quality content that will meet user needs. I am actually surprised that this type of activity is still happening, given how many Penguin algorithm updates have... [...]

Myles Anderson says, “Is selling SEO services getting harder, or are SEOs just not that good at it? I ask this question this because I’ve recently had a number of conversations with SEOs — freelance and at agencies — and almost all complained about difficulties in pitching and converting SMBs. It’s well-documented that business owners get bombarded with calls and emails from SEOs trying to convince them that they need their services and that they can deliver the moon-on-a-stick. From our 2014 SMB internet marketing survey, we found that 35 percent of SMBs are contacted every day by... [...]

Aleh Barysevich says, “In our fast-paced, digital world, few things help small businesses the way a local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy can. Search engines keep getting smarter, but that doesn’t mean SEO is no longer necessary. Your business will lose out to competitors if you’re not working to keep it in the public eye. Although all SEO hinges on great content and a responsive website, local SEO has its own practices and requirements that influence how you rank locally. There are literally hundreds of local SEO ranking factors to consider, but what I’ve detailed... [...]

MOZ team says, “As SEOs, we often find ourselves facing new changes implemented by search engines that impact how our clients’ websites perform in the SERPs. With each change, it’s important that we look beyond its immediate impact and think about its future implications so that we can try to answer this question: “If I were Google, why would I do that?” Recently, Google implemented a series of manual penalties that affected sites deemed to have unnatural outbound links. Webmasters of affected sites received messages like this in Google Search Console: Google Outbound... [...]

MOZ team says, “The long tail of search can be a mysterious place to explore, often lacking the volume data that we usually rely on to guide us. But the keyword phrases you can uncover there are worth their weight in gold, often driving highly valuable traffic to your site. In this edition of Whiteboard Friday, Rand delves into core strategies you can use to make long tail keywords work in your favor, from niche-specific SEO to a bigger content strategy that catches many long tail searches in its net”. Long Tail SEO: When & How to Target Low-Volume Keywords MOZ  [...]