SMT team says, “Plain and simple, SEO isn’t dying; it’s only changing. This means that you still need SEO, local business or not, you just have to make sure your strategy is up to par with the latest best practices. When it comes to your local business, however, this is even more crucial. Remember that the way you create a plan for local SEO is slightly different than if you were focusing on a global audience because there are different factors at play. It should be easier to get rankings and see success, but it won’t come to you without a little bit of strategy on your part. If you’re... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Should SME owners employ an agency to carry out SEO? Of all the questions we get asked at Econsultancy, this is the one that always jumps out at me. We get asked by SMEs that are using an agency and not seeing great results, as well as those who haven’t yet attempted anything in earnest, either in-house or with a partner. I have had some experience (admittedly only a year) working with a search agency, as well as a dabbling in practical SEO triage myself. Here are some points to bear in mind. If you’re an agency or an SME, feel free to comment. Do you know your... [...]

Marcus Miller says, “If you run a small or local business, there is a good chance that your site is built in WordPress. In fact, statistics from BuiltWith.com would indicate that WordPress powers about 50 percent of the entire internet. The exact numbers vary, with other statistics showing WordPress powering 22 percent of new active sites or 58.9 percent of sites where CMS is known. Whatever way you look at it, that’s a lot of WordPress websites. WordPress is not just used for the likes of food blogs and local businesses, though — brands and huge websites use the platform. Further stats... [...]

Meghan Keaney Anderson says, “As marketers, we’ve gotten quite good at evolving our playbooks when it comes to SEO. But the changes we’ve seen to this point are nothing compared to what’s coming next. We are in the early stages of a new era of search — an era tied closely to more sophisticated patterns such as mobile, social, and voice search, among other things. And for the first time this isn’t just a matter of adding a new chapter to our SEO strategy, it’s a matter of creating entire new playbooks. To this point, SEO has predominantly revolved... [...]

MOZ team says, “From search ads and SEO to display ads, content, and your social efforts, there’s a lot to consider when creating the correct marketing concoction. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand goes over advice on how and why you should be auditing your funnel to ensure you have a balanced, effective marketing mix“. Creating the Right Marketing Mix – Whiteboard Friday MOZ Blog  [...]

Aaron Friedman says, “Thinking in templates We all judge people on first impressions. When we see someone for the first time, we’re quick to decide what type of person they are — based on the clothes they wear, how they style their hair, and anything else we notice that immediately puts them in a group. It’s certainly not fair, but it’s human nature. And I’d like to keep my faith in humanity and argue that lots of us try NOT to prejudge others. Google is judging you Believe it or not, Google is the same. It judges, too. Some might disagree with this theory, but our internal... [...]

Brian Wood says, “At Wayfair.com, we conduct a lot of SEO tests. We’re constantly measuring and evaluating our strategies, some of which were shared in our last post for YouMoz, Accidental SEO Tests: When On-Page Optimization Ceases to Matter. Sometimes, however, we stumble across what we call “accidental SEO tests.” This typically happens when a bad code deploy unintentionally hurts our SEO, and we end up learning something useful from our mistake. Tens of thousands of 301 redirects One of our accidental tests involved regularly 301-redirecting large batches (i.e., tens... [...]

Kelsey Libert says, “Did it feel like everyone you knew was watching “Making a Murderer” at the same time? It may have just been an illusion, thanks to a few key members of your social network. Researchers at the University of Southern California recently uncovered that when something appears more popular than it actually is, it can create the right conditions for it to be widely spread. They named this social network phenomenon the majority illusion, which happens due to highly-connected individuals within a social network skewing the group’s perception. These findings explain something... [...]

Tom Anthony says, “SEOs traditionally say that a specific search query can be classified as either navigational,informational, or transactional. The categories were originally published in 2002 in a peer-reviewed paper by Andrei Broder who worked for Altavista (remember them?!) at the time. The categories that Broder came up with have been invaluable to SEOs for many years, helping many of us explain the different types of search query that we should consider. However, it’s time to revisit these categories to see if we can improve their usefulness in a world of direct answers, apps,... [...]

MOZ team says, “B2B companies face different challenges than B2C companies. From which stages you target in the funnel to how you measure your success to the team you end up selling to, content marketing can be a horse of a different color when you’re business-to-business. In this week’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares his tips for successful content marketing when you’re a B2B“. Content Marketing Tips for B2B Organizations – Whiteboard Friday MOZ Blog  [...]