SEO

Google strong-armed ecommerce marketers into Performance Max campaigns in 2022 by deprecating Smart Shopping and Local campaigns in favor of fewer levers and more AI-driven results. As I wrote in a column looking back on Google’s biggest 2022 moves, most advanced search marketers begrudged this direction since more controls provide good marketers more room to

Apple recently launched Business Connect to enable businesses to easily claim and optimize their Apple Maps locations. Getting started as a single or multi-location business only takes a few minutes.  Once you have set up and claimed your locations, you will have access to view and edit your Place Cards. This includes: Updating your location

In today’s world, video ads are the most effective way for businesses to reach their target audience and promote their products or services.  During my SMX Next presentation, we reviewed three innovative trends for video, which helped create a deeper conversation around the role that data and analytics play, along with targeting and optimization. Let’s

Checklists are one of the simplest (yet most valuable) content types to create. You probably make checklists all the time without even knowing it. Shopping lists. Grocery lists. Chore lists. To-do lists for completing projects. So it makes sense to take that extremely familiar format, apply it to a common problem or task your audience

Google deduplicates featured snippets In 2020, Google rolled out a global change to featured snippets that resulted in any URL only appearing once on the first page of search results, instead of twice. Google said there would be no change to its overall set of web search results. There would still be 10 unique listings,

Google explains the “core” algorithm In 2016, Google’s Andrey Lipattsev explained the “core” algorithm. This happened following the news about Panda becoming part of Google’s core algorithm. SEOs wanted to better understand what being part of Google’s core algorithm meant. Put simply, it meant that an algorithm is consistent enough that Google doesn’t have to

In December, Google introduced continuous scroll to desktop search results. SEO practitioners immediately anticipated what the move’s impact will be on the industry.  In this article, I’ll share insights on continuous scroll’s relevance today, its potential impact to the search experience, and how SEOs can adapt. The way I see it, continuous scroll signals a

Google’s launch of Performance Max, a campaign type that replaced Smart Shopping, is forcing search marketers to rethink their Google Ads strategy. Performance Max provides a unified buying service to all Google placements by displaying ads across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Maps and Gmail.  This full-funnel advertising of products is what PMax does well, especially

Google blackens its logo, configures Googlebot to crawl at a much lower rate In 2012, when you visited Google, you saw this: That’s how Google voiced its opposition to two bills being discussed in Congress – the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). At the time, many feared the proposed

Google’s Core Web Vitals first became a ranking factor back in 2021. In February 2022, the change was fully rolled out to all mobile and desktop searches. Since then, Google has also worked on delivering new technologies to optimize web performance as well as experimenting with a potential new performance metric. What are the Core

If you want your site to be at the top of search engines, you likely have started researching SEO best practices. Perhaps you have mastered all that you need to know about technical SEO, but your WordPress site still doesn’t seem to be ranking well, and you want to get down to the root of

Facebook Graph Search arrives In 2013, Facebook announced a new experience that it called Graph Search. Facebook Graph Search relied heavily on Likes and other connections to determine what to show as the most relevant search results for each user. At launch, Facebook Graph Search only included people, photos, places and interests. Facebook Graph Search wasn’t a

R.I.P. AMP In 2022, we revealed what happened when Search Engine Land shut off AMP. TL;DR: “We have seen very little disruption to our traffic and have reaped the benefit of having a clearer picture of our audience analytics.” We didn’t see any year-over-year declines in traffic that we could tie to AMP aside from

There are three essential skills you need to develop to progress your SEM career. These critical skills apply to almost any industry, but we will make a specific case for roles within SEM:  Clear communication Effective collaboration Focused productivity Clear communication  Do not underestimate clear, concise communication. Communication is at the core of any role

A successful SEO strategy includes various must-have components, such as SEO best practices, a proper focus and connection with target audiences and competitive factors. Best practices and audience aspects are generalized and personal to your brand. Conducting a competitor analysis is also critical, as you want to learn from brands already well-positioned in the space

With continuous Google algorithm updates and feature changes, paid search marketers live in a world where their efforts to generate clicks or conversions are constantly disrupted. Add the layer of economic uncertainty to the table; now, revenue is at the top of everyone’s list of priorities. Now is the time to power into 2023 the

There are many times during the lifecycle of your website that you will need an expert SEO.  If you don’t enlist the help of a true professional for the following five scenarios, you are risking rankings, traffic and revenue in 2023:  1. Site redesigns This new year, many are planning to refresh their websites. The

Many great articles have exposed the seedy underbelly of Local Services Ads spam and fake reviews. There’s one on Search Engine Roundtable regarding fake reviews and another on Search Engine Land where Len Raleigh talked about location spam, reviews, names and ads.  I recently learned from a client that the dark hole goes a little