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Showing posts from October, 2019

Why website security affects SEO rankings (and what you can do about it)

A few years ago I started a website and to my delight, the SEO efforts I was making to grow it were yielding results. However, one day I checked my rankings, and got the shock of my life. It had fallen, and badly. I was doing my SEO right and I felt that was enough, but I didn’t know there was more. I hadn’t paid attention to my website security, and I didn’t even know that it mattered when it comes to Google and its ranking factors. Also, there were other security concerns I wasn’t paying attention to. As far as I was concerned back then, it didn’t matter since I had good content. Obviously I was wrong, and I now know that if you really want to rank higher and increasing your site’s search traffic, then you need to understand that there is more to it than just building links and churning out more content. Understanding Google’s algorithm and it’s ranking factors are crucial. Currently, Google has over  200 ranking factors  they consider when they want to determine where to...
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Pre-made calendar with over 300 holidays to help plan editorial content

A carefully planned content marketing strategy contains several key ingredients including an understanding of who you’re creating content for (e.g., your persona or personas), how your content will help them, and some key performance indicators to measure success. However, even the most thoughtful and well-planned content strategy can run into roadblocks without a detailed editorial plan. The editorial plan should include what categories and topics you plan to write about, how you intend to amplify your content (e.g., social media , email, etc.) and—the most important bit of all—a list of relevant, highly engaging ideas that incorporates a balance of evergreen and time-sensitive content. Event-specific content can be challenging to create with any consistency, but with some planning and foresight, it is possible to plan out your editorial calendar in advance. One way to do this is to align some of your topics with seasonal holidays, observance days, and themes.  [Image source] ...
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The evolution of Google’s rel “no follow”

Google updated the no-follow attribute on Tuesday 10th September 2019 regarding which they say it aims to help fight comment spam. The Nofollow attribute has remained unchanged for 15 years, but Google has had to make this change as the web evolves. Google also announced two new link attributes to help website owners and webmasters clearly call out what type for link is being used, rel=”sponsored”: Use the sponsored attribute to identify links on your site that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements. rel=”ugc”: UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc attribute value is recommended for links within user-generated content, such as comments and forum posts. rel=”nofollow”: Use this attribute for cases where you want to link to a page but don’t want to imply any type of endorsement, including passing along ranking credit to another page. March 1st, 2020 changes Up until the 1st of March 2020, all of the link attributes will se...
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Transformation of Search Summit 2019: Highlight reel

On Friday we held the Transformation of Search Summit 2019 here in New York City. Huge thank you to all of our speakers, attendees, and sponsors who made the day a success! In this article we’ve compiled some key quotes, stats, and otherwise tweetable highlights from the event. Keynote: The transformation of search First we heard from Carolyn Shelby, SEO Manager, Audience Development at the Walt Disney Company / ESPN. One of the key quotes from her session was “The trick is to understand the psychology of people. Get in front of the consumer. That’s where search engines are going. What is the least amount of thinking that I can make a consumer do? How can I get them what they want the fastest?” "The trick is to understand the psychology of people. Get in front of the consumer. That’s where search engines are going. What is the least amount of thinking that I can make a consumer do? How can I get them what they want the fastest?" @cshel at #TSS2019 — Search Engine Wat...
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Five factors that determine the overall page quality

Google always ranks a web page after determining its overall quality. Page quality is a measure of the importance of a web page in the eyes of Google. In order to determine the overall quality of a web page, Google hires real humans who are known as “ Search Quality Raters “. Page Quality rating or PQ is a grade given by Page Quality raters who have the responsibility of evaluating “how well a page achieves its purpose”. Purpose of the content, author expertise, links, and brand citations all come into play while measuring the quality of a page. In this article, I will discuss the top five factors that directly impact the overall quality of a web page. Let’s start! 1. Purpose of the page The purpose of the page is the real reason behind the creation of the page. A page can be created to serve a particular purpose or multiple purposes, make money or harm the user by inserting malicious code via cookies or download buttons. The first thing that Google does is understanding the p...
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Creating SEO-friendly how-to content

People are constantly craving useful information. Once you show them that you have a lot more to share through something like “how-to” content pages, you will be rewarded by sharing it with others and establish your company’s credibility. Creating SEO-friendly how-to content is a good way to catch your audience’s attention, fuel SEO, foster deeper levels of engagement, and take on the  customer journey  from brand awareness to sales. To understand how important how-to content is to your overall content creation game, let’s take a look at some interesting stats: According to  Think With Google , “how-to” videos get the most attention of any content type on YouTube, even more than video games and music clips. Google has reported that “how-to” searches have increased  by more than 140%  over the last 13 years.  The graphs from  LawRank   reveal more and more how-to searches on Google and YouTube. So, how-to blog posts and articles become some...
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