Mastering Search

Could Google+ Play a Role in the Upcoming Penguin Update?

2013-05-14T19:05:00Z

On Friday morning, Matt Cutts, the person in charge of Google’s webspam team, announced via Twitter that the search engine would be rolling out the next generation, version 2.0, of its Penguin update (originally released in April of last year). This update will likely have considerable ramifications on the way that Google sorts and ranks pages on its search engine results pages (SERPs), as these types of overhauls entail altering the search algorithm, as opposed to just an index refresh. Penguin...(read more)

Bing Makes it Easier to Find People

2013-05-14T18:45:00Z

According to Bing, people are the second most searched for category on its search engine, and represent nearly 10 percent of all searches. Because of this, the company has launched a new feature to its search engine called People Autosuggest, which enables users to find people faster from the search box. For example, if you leverage Bing to search for a celebrity, politician, athlete or professional with a publicly available LinkedIn profile, Bing will provide a snapshot of information about that...(read more)

Session-Based Keyword Research

2013-05-13T19:15:00Z

Bing suggested a rather unique approach to keyword research that search engine optimizaiton professionals may seriously want to consider. Keyword research is clearly important to the success of an SEO campaign as you need to know what content will attract users. But users aren't static (they don't search the same things over and over) - they're dynamic and your approach to keyword research, as well as content development strategies, should match. Bing's suggestion is to supplement...(read more)

Bing’s Social Sidebar Gets Interactive

2013-05-13T17:47:00Z

Microsoft is making its search engine even more social, by allowing its users to comment and like stuff on Facebook directly from Bing. The search engine’s social sidebar, which was launched last year, now allows users to view comments on relevant Facebook posts within the sidebar, as well as allows users to add their own comments or like posts without leaving Bing. This enables users to see what their Facebook connections might know about the topic that they are searching for and engage with...(read more)

Is there a POC in Your SEO Audit?

2013-05-07T19:05:00Z

SEO is becoming increasingly difficult by the day. To truly excel with the digital marketing tactic, it's essential to periodically audit the various elements of a website that may influence its ultimate success on the search results - particularly for those highly sought-after keywords (you know, the ones that your prospective visitors would actually use to find your website). There's been a rise over the past few years of agencies offering their clients audits of those clients existing...(read more)

5 Reasons Your Search Traffic is Declining

2013-05-07T18:27:00Z

Maybe it’s been happening over the past few weeks, or even months. Slowly, but surely, you’ve been watching your traffic numbers decline, despite not having changed much of anything about the way you publish content or optimize your website for the search engines. Naturally, you’ll want to know exactly what’s going on and what’s causing this continual dip in traffic. For some problems, you may be able to look at your analytics platform to determine what content is seeing...(read more)

BrightLocal Puts SEO Industry In Focus

2013-05-07T18:14:00Z

BrightLocal has released results from a survey which examines the health and nature of the local search engine optimization industry, revealing just what life's like for SEO's on the ground. This is BrightLocal's second such survey of the industry (the first was released in July of 2011). Just over 1,400 SEO's responded to the survey, the majority of whom are SEO freelancers, small digital agencies and Web designers. The survey explore the size and turnover (revenue) of respondents...(read more)

Don’t Let Your Social Media & SEO Take a Vacation

2013-05-03T12:39:00Z

:: By Chris Marentis, CEO of Surefire Social :: While summer (or any off-season for a business) might represent a downtime, don’t send your SEO strategy on a short-term vacation. Instead, take some of the downtime in your own business to re-evaluate your approach and determine what is and isn’t driving new quality customers to your website and creating increased sales leads. Review Site Performance By using tools like Google Analytics and your CRM system you can identify trends, issues...(read more)

6 SEO Game Changers to Know

2013-05-01T05:05:00Z

By Michael Marshall, Search Engine Academy of North Carolina Important Developments in the History of Search and Where It’s Headed When I started working in SEO, the Web was the Wild West of marketing. Twelve years ago, the most popular search engine was AltaVista, and most optimization work was made up of on-page factors. Paid search was ridiculously inexpensive, and websites had the power to dominate pages of organic search using fairly straightforward techniques. A page manager could watch...(read more)

3 Tips to Get Started on Mobile SEO

2013-04-30T19:30:00Z

Optimizing your site for mobile search engines should certainly move to the top of your to-do list, if it hasn’t already. After all, it’s an easy and enticing activity for on-the-go consumers who may have a question about a product or service they're looking for, or need to find specific information about a business. However, trying to meet mobile users where they’re searching is a bit trickier than your average run-of-the-mill desktop search engine optimization. Mobile searches...(read more)

SEO for China from GinzaMetrics

2013-04-30T16:35:00Z

Enterprsise SEO and content marketing platform GinzaMetrics is going global, extending support to Chinese search engines Baidu and Sogou. Baidu, Sogou and Google are now the default search engines for users selecting China as their website’s target country. GinzaMetrics users are now able to track organic search, social, and content for their websites in any country, with the platform suggesting relevant search engines. By providing companies access to organic search, social, and content marketing...(read more)

Big List of Link Building No-Nos

2013-04-26T19:30:00Z

Link building is one of the most basic methods that Web professionals use to grow their businesses online. It’s a pretty great system because there are so many different ways to build links on the Internet, but it’s also really difficult because there are so many ways to build links, meaning there are a lot of ways to screw it up. So, while getting links is an essential task for website owners, they should also make sure that they’re doing it the right way. Otherwise, their brand...(read more)

SEO Mechanics - Anchor Text

2013-04-23T19:25:00Z

The Internet has done a lot to make it easier to spread and digest information at a faster pace than ever before, but the really great thing that Web content is able to do is insert supplementary information right into the text on a page in the form of a hyperlink. However, what many up-and-coming Web pros don’t realize is that these hyperlinks, when paired with the right anchor text, can actually play a significant role in improving their SEO efforts, as well. Quite simply, “anchor text”...(read more)

4 Writing Resources for Content Marketers

2013-04-22T18:02:00Z

Not all of us our Web Hemingways, and not all of us try to be either. But when we’re responsible for our company’s marketing initiatives, we must not only put together coherent sentences, but we must also drive consumers/users/readers to take action (e.g. click through, sign up, read more, etc.). With that in mind, let’s review a handful of resources on writing and style that can help turn a perpetually blank page into content marketing at its finest. The Associated Press Stylebook...(read more)

Google to Start Sharing Space?

2013-04-11T21:17:00Z

In an effort to make Google more transparent when presenting specialized, or “vertical,” search results, at least in Europe. The European Commission is about to rule on a two-year-long investigation into the search giant’s practices, and they’re expected to make Google change the way it presents results to improve visibility for other specialized search engines. In other words, Google has to start sharing space with its competitors. Primarily, the EC is concerned about specific...(read more)