SEO News

Crawling a site isn't necessarily the best first step when auditing a website, because it's hard to quantify and prioritize that data in a way that makes sense to clients. Here's how to use Google site search to identify non-ranking page types. Source: Search Engine Watch

Back in 2013 John Gagnon wrote a very popular post detailing some of his favourite Excel tips and tricks. We thought we’d update the list of classic shortcuts with a few that reflect some new functionality in Excel 2016. New Excel tips for 2016: 1. Navigate ‘The Ribbon’ with ALT In Excel 2016 the ribbon refers to the menu of tabs (File, Home, etc.) at the top of your workbook. Simply hitting ALT will quickly highlight the related keys then used to jump to certain ribbon tabs. For instance, ALT followed by M will take you to the ‘Formulas’ tab. You can easily move between tabs by pressing ALT and using the left and right arrow keys, while CTRL + F1 toggle…

By examining terms that rank close to the first page of search results (for terms with decent search volume) that aren�t showing up in analytics or in your predetermined keyword list, you�ll discover an SEO opportunity waiting to be harvested. Source: Search Engine Watch

YouTube is a very crowded place, so how do you get people to watch YOUR video instead of the millions of others? With video SEO. Here's how to leverage the signals YouTube uses to get more traffic to your videos â and ultimately to your site. Source: Search Engine Watch

Obviously, CTR is important in PPC marketing. A higher CTR means a higher Quality Score, which reduces your CPC and improves your ad rank. But it goes much further than that. A remarkable CTR is not only the most important thing in AdWords, but it is also extremely important for other marketing channels. These include organic search, CRO, social media, and email marketing. Here are five surprising benefits of having a remarkable, unicorn-worthy CTR across all your marketing channels. 1. Much higher ad impression share You get big discounts from having a high CTR. Namely, a lower cost per click, which really adds up as clicks accumulate. This is true not ju…

SEO landing pages must persuade users to take a desired action and rank well and drive organic traffic. No easy task. Here�s a process for creating phenomenal SEO landing pages that are optimized for search and structured to generate conversions. Source: Search Engine Watch

Instead of trying to motivate your prospect to do something hard, why not work the other part of the equation? Next time you're trying to increase your conversion rate, try this: make one thing easier for your prospect. Source: Search Engine Watch

As you’re no doubt aware, Google finally rolled out its Google 4.0 algorithm update at the end of last week. Penguin is now part of Google’s core algorithm, penalising websites that use various black-hat link schemes to manipulate search rankings. Other important changes include: Penguin data is refreshed in real time, so any changes will be made as soon as the affected page has been recrawled and reindexed. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking of the offending page, rather than affecting the whole site. So how do these changes affect actual SEO practitioners? I asked a panel of experts and SEW contributors their views on Penguin 4.0, including: …

Your brand's online presence needs to align around targeted customer intent, not keywords-focused optimization. Focus on tactics that will play to Google�s more complex side: mapping queries to actions, intent research, and aligned content creation. Source: Search Engine Watch

In a recent webmaster help video, Google's Matt Cutts talks about the nuances of 404 vs. 410 status codes. While Google's crawlers treat 404s and 410s nearly identically, Cutts reveals that sometimes Google does treat them a little bit differently. Source: Search Engine Watch

We are living in a video-first world, where moving images are at the heart of all apps and services. Facebook recorded an increase of 800% in video consumption from 2015 to 2016, jumping from 1 billion views to 8 billion views in just a year. During Social Media Week, Ian Crocombe, Regional Head of Facebook’s Creative Shop presented all the opportunities that video content may offer, both for publishers and advertisers on Facebook. Moving from TV to social media Video ads on Facebook are different from the ones we knew on TV, and they also lead to a different behaviour from the audience. Moreover, users have a shorter attention span when using their mobil…

It�s time to fix your quality scores. Many advertisers have hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords, so prioritizing optimization efforts is a must. Here�s how Bing Ads Intelligence can help improve your quality scores and landing page relevancy. Source: Search Engine Watch

Google has revealed profits for the first quarter of 2014 of $3.45 billion, up from $3.35 billion in the same period last year, but its average cost-per-click income has fallen by 9 percent year-over-year. Source: Search Engine Watch

Search traffic is of course vital for online retailers, but a new survey finds that more people use Amazon as the first port of call when looking for products. The second annual State of Amazon study by BloomReach found that 55% of consumers start their online product searches on Amazon, compared to 28% who opt for a search engine. The survey of 2,000 US consumers found that Amazon’s share of the action was up 11% year on year, and the figures down for search engines and other retailers. The retailer’s reputation for price-competitiveness, (as well as the fact that it sells just about everything) means it’s the go-to destination for comparison shopping. 9…

When it comes to marketing on YouTube, advertisers don�t often pursue the video platform�s power to drive direct response leads and sales. These are some of the essential components to consider when creating a direct response funnel in YouTube. Source: Search Engine Watch

Scroogled, Microsoft's anti-Google campaign, has met with mixed results. Derrock Connell, Microsoft Corporate President of the Bing Experiences team, recently indicated that Microsoft might be shutting the door on future Scroogled campaigns. Source: Search Engine Watch

Brand protection is changing. Are you keeping up? If you have a brand worth protecting, competitors are already bidding on your brand name. Some bid directly on your name, while others will bid on obvious brand-plus derivatives, such as when GEICO bids on phrases like “Progressive insurance” (and vice versa). As you can see for the keyword “geico insurance,” AIS, FreeQuotes365 and Mercury Insurance are aggressively buying that keyword, too. If you have a trademark or brand name that drives search volume, it will be one of your more profitable campaigns. Unfortunately, it is one of the important PPC campaigns for your affiliates, resellers and competitors too.…

Izik is a new search experience built specifically with the iPad and Android tablets in mind using Blekko's algorithms, sans-spam thanks to human curating. The goal in creating Izik was to change search to be more touch-friendly on tablets. Source: Search Engine Watch

Searchmetrics has announced a new addition to the Searchmetrics Suite tools, called Page Cockpit, that promises to help marketers "more effectively analyze and optimize the organic search performance of specific landing pages on their sites." Source: Search Engine Watch

For executives, keeping up to date with trends and events in your industry is crucial in order to ensure that your business and its strategy remains relevant. It can be a major challenge however, with constraints on time and so many sources of information to choose from. It’s easy to see why many senior executives simply don’t have the time to perform the detailed research tasks necessary to make sense of all this information. It’s important to overcome this challenge though, as things can move so quickly and being on top of trends is key for executives. It’s also very important to ensure that the whole company is also up to date. For this, executives need to bec…