One of Google’s biggest-impact algorithm updates was implemented for the sake of local search results, and local businesses typically saw the effects of the update in their website’s analytics data.

Google users certainly saw the impact, too, and that typically meant a different, and eventually better, search experience in terms of local businesses and the information pertaining to those businesses.

Believed to have launched on or around July 24, 2014 — and deemed the “Pigeon”…

In  like yoga, with every pose, we bring our mind, body, and breath in alignment to stretch out of our comfort zones.

The process of continuous improvement in yoga is rooted in objective introspection rather than a focus on the external.

The focus is on finding purpose, staying positive, building empathy, and expanding perspective.

The same principles can be applied to excel in digital marketing.

Pratyahara empowers us to find purpose by…

In time for the holiday shopping season, Facebook is rolling out new tools to assist advertisers with analyzing campaign performance.

Facebook is making it easier for advertisers to measure ad performance across accounts, channels, and publishers.

With this data, advertisers can better understand how ads are performing, which demographics they’re reaching, and where the most conversions are coming from. Here’s more about the new ad reporting tools.

Conversion…

Recently I took over another agency’s client, where they ran YouTube. The client is in the sports nutrition vertical.

I sat through the onboarding meeting with them and they shared their YouTube completion rates of skippable ads of 60%+.

All I could say to myself was “either their videos are the most amazing commercials ever, or someone doesn’t know what the skip button is.”

Turns out it was the latter.

Having reviewed the brands Where Ads…

The data can be found in a new Search Appearance in the Search Console performance report, which captures stats such as total clicks, impressions, average click-through rate, and average position.

Websites that are eligible to appear in Google’s product search results will find a new Search Appearance type called “Product results.”

Data can be segmented to discover, for example, how shopping traffic changes over time and which search queries product results show…

2019 far exceeded my expectations in terms of Python adoption within the SEO community.

As we start a new year and I hear more SEO professionals wanting to join in the fun, but frustrated by the initial learning curve, I decided to write this introductory piece with the goal of getting more people involved and contributing.

Most SEO work involves working with spreadsheets which you have to redo manually when working with multiple brands or repeating the same analysis over…

It’s great to have your brand mentioned.

But the question is: Did the publisher link back to you?

When the answer is no, you might be disappointed about missing out on that link equity (a.k.a., SEO value).

But you still have a shot at getting a direct link to your content added to the coverage.

That is exactly what a link conversion is: making online coverage you have earned more valuable by having a direct link to your content added to the page.

The way…

Google’s Chrome version 80 will begin blocking website push notifications. While Chrome will allow users to opt-in to the push blocking, some sites will be automatically enrolled into the blocking feature. Publishers and developers are urged to read Google’s best practices to avoid having their push notifications blocked.

Automatic Push Notification Blocking

There are two situation in which Chrome will blog push notifications.

The first scenario is…

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about what to do to optimize for the BERT algorithm. Google has maintained that there is “nothing to optimize for.” Mueller offered a more nuanced answer that offered a little more information to publishers who are concerned about BERT.

BERT Algorithm

The BERT algorithm is a way to understand text. So rather than analyzing text in the sense of matching keywords, BERT helps Google understand the topics and concepts behind sentences,…

For 2019 I endeavoured to write link building articles that were suitable for introductory, intermediate and advanced levels of knowledge.

Link building is more than just tactics and strategies. There is a great deal of background information that helps explain why it’s best to do things a certain way for maximum success.

The articles this year includes background information surrounding links, including the history of link building practices and how Google might score and rank…

Google published an article detailing a conversion metric called the Relative Mobile Conversion Rate. It’s a ratio of desktop versus mobile conversion rates. This metric, first discussed  in 2018, has now received an official introduction. It reveals gaps in mobile performance and provides an accurate reflection of conversion rates over time. The metric is referred to as Rel mCvR.

Google’s official blog post suggests it’s an important metric to monitor because it may indicate there…

SEO platforms have evolved from glorified ranking tools to full-scale platforms that manage SEO end to end.

But it can’t stop there.

Meanwhile, Google’s free  (GSC) service has come a long way by incorporating additional data and displaying changes in month-over-month traffic and organic performance.

In fact, the new GSC provides:

• 16 months of search traffic data.
• Detailed information about a specific page – including index…

More traffic, more links, more conversions – the trifecta of search engine optimization (SEO).

Whether you’re an SEO expert or a website owner looking to increase your presence online, you know that engaging, SEO-friendly content is the key to attracting high-quality links and organic traffic.

However, you may feel like you are fresh out of ideas or even that you are in a “boring” niche that makes it difficult to think up interesting content topics.

Fortunately, by…

If the way to get organic search traffic to our content is to answer questions clearly and with a high degree of expertise, where do keywords come into play?

How should we be using them, if at all?

Keywords: Input vs. Output

Remember those circa-2010 SEO content rules I opened this article with?

We all did it at the time, right?

It’s easy to look back at examples of that and laugh, but sometimes our search writing today isn’t much better.

This…

Google is rolling out an updated look for paid and organic search results on desktop, bringing it more inline with the look of mobile search results.

The updated design includes a more prominent “Ad” label for paid results, at least in Google’s estimation, as well as favicons next to organic results.

Here’s a mockup shared by Google:

Google’s search ads on desktop now have a bolded “Ad” label in black text. Google says the label is more prominent, but early…

Google Ads is rolling outbid simulator support for the Target ROAS (return on ad spend) bid strategy, as well as a new budget simulator.

This marks the first time bid simulator support has been available for a smart bidding campaign. Previously, bid simulators have only been available for campaigns using manual bidding or Target CPA.

Bid simulators help advertisers understand their potential performance at different ad levels. The Target ROAS bid simulator shows the…

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, clarifies that structured data is optional and does not impact search rankings.

While this has always been the case, Sullivan reiterated his fact after some controversy was caused over a misunderstanding that structured data is required to rank well in Google Search.

This week, a food blogger tweeted that she received a notice from Google which stated structured data for calorie counts had to be added to recipes. The blogger was…

It’s 2020, and SEO professionals who’ve been at it for a while will know just how much has changed in the past decade.

In 2010, we still hadn’t been hit with Panda or Hummingbird or RankBrain or BERT, and many of us still thought “SEO content” was a matter of:

Adding our target keyword and its close variants in the content X times.

Making sure to add that keyword to all the magic places like your title tag, meta description, H1, etc.

Writing at least X words because…

The North American cannabis industry is expected to reach $16 billion by the end of 2019.

CBD is one of the most profitable product categories in the industry and is projected to bring in total revenue of $1.6 billion in the U.S. within the next couple of years.

As one of the fastest-growing trends in consumer goods, it’s difficult to ignore the growing presence of cannabidiol (CBD).

Despite this, almost all major online advertising channels including Facebook,…

Data science comes closer to SEO every day.

Data science, and more exactly artificial intelligence, isn’t new, but it has become trendy in our industry over the past few years.

In this article, I will briefly introduce the main concepts of data science through machine learning and also answer the following questions:

• When can data science be used in SEO?
• Is data science just a buzzword in the industry?
• How and why should it be…