Study Shows No Clear Evidence That Google Plus Drives Ranking
At SMX Advanced, I presented results from a study we had done that convinced me that links in shares from Google Plus and Facebook behave like traditional web-based links. My statements at SMX Advanced were later disputed by Matt Cutts during his keyno…
How Search Engines Work — Really!
For those of us in SEO (or aspiring to be), there are a lot of little details that fill our days. Server architecture, 301 redirects, 404 errors, title tags, and various other things. Sometimes, we forget to sit back and figure out what it all means. A…
SEO Checklist For Startup Websites
Startups have a lot going on. Staffing, outreach, overhead, paperwork, development, testing, financing — and that’s just before lunch. Regardless of the industry, startups are by their nature volatile businesses that are stuck bootstrapping much of the heavy lifting early on in their…
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What It Takes To Create A Winning Mobile SEO Strategy: 5 Questions With Humana’s Mobile Manager
According to a study conducted by Pure Oxygen Labs earlier this year, Humana was one of only six top 100 Fortune 500 companies whose website met Google’s mobile SEO requirements. In light of Google’s focus on mobile, mobile SEO is something all companies should be considering –…
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SEO Ambiguity & Pattern Recognition
As search marketers, we constantly have to deal with ambiguity — whether trying to reverse engineer a Google algorithm or simply prioritize and forecast the impact of the SEO recommendations we’re making. In this article, we’re going to explore what drives SEO ambiguity. Spoiler…
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6 SEO Challenges Every Business Owner & Marketer Must Contend With In 2014
There isn’t much left of this year. Companies that haven’t started planning their marketing strategy and budgeting for 2014 must begin soon. When it comes to online marketing, most businesses rely excessively upon Web analytics to decide what was (or wasn’t) effective. What they…
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9 Things We Should Never Stop Doing in Link Building
A couple of months ago, I went on a little rant. (It happens sometimes; I’m looking into it.) I was overwhelmed by the responses that little column generated, with others picking up my rally cry to eliminate super shady link building practices. But commenters were also quick to point out that…
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How One Brand Switched A Million URLs & Lived To Tell About It: 5 Questions With HomeAdvisor.com
Last year, home improvement company HomeAdvisor.com underwent a monumental rebranding effort that included switching more than 10 million URLS from their previous company name to their new brand. With over $200 million in revenue at risk and thirteen y…
Penalized & Sad: When To Abandon The Sinking Ship
Sometimes the captain can’t afford to go down with the ship, no matter the temptation or emotional investment. Every few weeks, I receive another hopeless phone call from another desperate webmaster. Since Penguin, I’ve seen more ships go down than I care to count. Websites that have delved…
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Demystifying Link Disavowals, Penalties & More
Findings from a recent Google Webmaster Hangout on Air (video) demystify link disavowals, penalties and more. Read on for the official word from John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst from Google and friend to webmasters everywhere. First, Some Background Last month, I introduced Five Steps To…
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The Concept Of Sameness & Why It Should Matter
Long ago and far away, there was a world where there was no Web. Back in those early years (such as the 1960′s through the mid-1990s), there were certain basic concepts that guided the world of marketing. One of the facts of life during those times was that each market space tended to support…
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SEOs Say Links Rule Now, Content & Authorship Will Rule Later, In Moz 2013 Ranking Survey
Matt from Moz (formerly SEOmoz) has released a preview of some of the data from their search ranking factors survey they produce every other year or so. The preview shows us that SEOs still place most value on links and then keywords on the page. But l…
50 Percent Of Companies Struggling With SEO Aren’t Integrating Social Media [Survey]
What’s one key difference between companies that are successful with SEO and those that aren’t? According to a new study from Ascend2, it’s this: Successful companies integrate social media into SEO strategies and tactics more extensively than companies that struggle with SEO. The…
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Are Google’s Results Getting Too Ad Heavy?
Are Google’s search results getting too ad-heavy? A new blog post suggesting that Google’s non-paid listings make up only a tiny fraction of the entire page has sparked some discussion, though the exact percentage actually varies on how you count what’s on the page and from…
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2013 Search Awards Comes To The US With Nominations Open Through July 19
The 2013 US Search Awards are now accepting nominations from organizations, agencies and individuals for search campaigns conducted in the US. The awards include 22 different categories, along with a Grand Prix prize which will be awarded to the best e…
SearchMetrics Releases Their SEO Ranking Factors Post Penguin 2.0
The folks at SearchMetrics have released their SEO ranking factors for 2013. This is their ranking correlation study they worked on for the past 3-months, right after the second-generation Penguin update was pushed out by Google. The key takeaways from…
Only 6% Of Top 100 Fortune 500 Companies Have Sites That Comply With Google’s Mobile Requirements
Last month at the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle, the head of Google’s webspam team Matt Cutts briefed the audience on the importance of mobile SEO. “You really need to be thinking about mobile,” said Cutts during his keynote session, “We’re starting to think a lot…
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Homepage Sliders: Bad For SEO, Bad For Usability
One of the most prevalent design flaws in B2B websites is the use of carousels (or sliders) on the homepage. Carousels are an ineffective way to target user personas, which ends up hurting the site’s SEO and usability. In fact, at the recent Conversion Conference in Chicago, about 25% of the…
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The Content Catalyst: How Content Drives Search & Social Synergy
Today, many a search marketer lives in a world driven by Pandas and Penguins. SEO as we used to know it has changed forever. As Google shifts its focus to quality and relevancy, content marketing adoption has soared. It is no coincidence that the incre…
The Top Five SEO Mistakes According To Google’s Matt Cutts
In a recently published Webmaster video, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, listed off the top five SEO mistakes webmasters make. Matt said these are not the most devastating mistakes, but rather, the most common mistakes. (1) Having a website or having a website that is not crawlable…
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