How AI is changing #SEO

How AI is changing SEO SEO is a results business. So imagine if you have access to data that tells you precisely what you need to do in order to optimise your website and improve visibility in search engines. Well, you don't have to imagine, the technology is already available. read moreHow Voice Search Is Changing SEO it is going to change SEO. Voice search is young, but we better speculate on some of the implications of this budding technology now, otherwise our search strategies are going to be left in the dust. In this post, we look at how voice search is changing ... read moreHow Will AI Change SEO in 2017? [Video] How will improvements in artificial intelligence change SEO? In this new episode of Real Smart Marketing, we've asked this big question to 4 of our favorite influencers. Here are their responses: If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind ... read more

Artificial Intelligence Is Changing SEO: Get Ahead Or Fall Behind The AI revolution ... SEO has been following suit in a big way. Not only are things like keywords, metrics, and targeted ads going to become increasingly automated, but the possibilities of real-time data aggregation solutions are going to change the ... read moreArtificial intelligence is changing SEO faster than you think What many of you might not realize, however, is just how fast the SEO industry is changing because of it ... Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI): This is like AI for one particular thing (e.g. beating the world champion in chess). Artificial General ... read more7 Ways to Get More People to Trust Your Content But . . . "How AI Is Changing the Fashion Industry" is probably going to gain ... While producing a high volume of content might be a good strategy to up your SEO results, it can damage the trust people place in your blog. Believe it or not, people tend ... read moreThe evolution of digital marketing with voice control But now, voice-enabled AI tools stand to disrupt the digital space once again. SEO company HigherVisibility recently polled 2,000 mobile phone users and determined that 27% of respondents now use voice assistants daily. With language recognition accuracy ... read moreKeys to SEO Success in 2017 Remain Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E.A.T.) Each year, in the SEO industry, there seems to be at least one ranking study ... Marketers Failing to Unlock Full Potential of AI and Voice Search Survey: Marketers are Seeing the Revenue Potential in Video Content Report: High-Performing Marketers ... read moreHow Will AI Change SEO in 2017? [Video] How will improvements in artificial intelligence change SEO? In a new episode of Real Smart Marketing, we asked four key influencers for their thoughts: Artificial intelligence is changing the face of SEO, with advancing algorithms which enable machines to ... read moreHow Will AI Change SEO in 2017? [Video] If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind when you hear AI might be this: But as I've come to realize, what we're talking about is a lot less creepy. AI is changing the face of SEO, but not like that. We're talking about algorithms that ... read more

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Did Google Just Update Their Algorithm? Sources say yes.

Earned Media, SEO

If you've seen your Google Search ranking drop recently, you're not alone. Despite the European Union breathing down their neck after issuing a $2.7 billion anti-trust fine, Google may have released an algorithm update. This move is classic Google, as they closely guard their corporate secrets and often issue updates unannounced. SEO industry leaders speculate this update occurred around June 25th.

An unofficial statement from Google's John Mueller responded to a user on Twitter who asked him directly about the possible update affecting their rankings. The Webmaster Trends Analyst tweeted back "Yep! We make updates all the time."

Despite this, Google has not officially confirmed nor denied.

Here is some of the evidence presented by analysts using SERP monitors this week

:

The SEO community has lit up over twitter, with countless users experiencing fluctuating rankings in SERP's. Unfortunately, most of the chatter cites pages appearing lower in rank. Analysts deduce that Google is opting to prioritize older, quality content.

What we're seeing in the past few days is similar to Google's Penguin update, which declared war on spammers who bought links in order to boost rankings. SEO professionals should be aware of this update, as any black hat (or even gray hat for that matter) practices are being taken on by the search engine.

If you're looking to use SEO to improve your online presence, this is a perfect example of why you should consult someone with extensive experience in the field. If Google sees your SEO as "spammy", you can say goodbye to your page one rankings on the SERPS.

Source: Did Google Just Update Their Algorithm? Sources say yes.

Parsing #Google Fred and Other Quality Updates: How to Prepare or Recover

Parsing Google Fred and Other Quality Updates: How to Prepare or Recover Just when you think you have everything under control, Google makes another change. If you are involved in any form of SEO, you know how daunting it can be to keep up with Google algorithm updates. Your heart stops every time you read a headline that says ... read moreGoogle's Fred Algo is a New Type of Quality Algo The latest so-called "Fred" update ... quality algo identifying various aspects of sites that make a page or site low quality, and then demoting accordingly. In other words, sites that are created to benefit the site owner and created for Google ... read moreHas Google's 'Fred' Update Left Your Rankings Dead? Every site I have looked at that suffered a rankings drop on March 8/9 had other quality issues. Fred, itself, is a name coined by Google ... To recover your webpage's rankings, and to protect it from future algorithm updates, keep a few things in ... read more

How to stop worrying about Google updates As for all the other unidentified changes SEOs notice, but that Google ... "Fred" update did or didn't do. The algorithms are going to target links and/or site quality. They want to eliminate spam and poor usability from their results. So make ... read moreSearch Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Updates, Fred Actions, Search Analytics, Mobile Changes & More This week in search, I covered a potential Google search algorithm update that I doubt Google will confirm as they said they will only confirm really big updates. Google said if you think you were hit by the Fred update, check the quality section of their ... read moreMarch 2016 Google Algorithm Updates – Was it Panda, More Quality Updates, or Something Else? I have access to a lot of data across sites dealing with quality problems (Panda, Phantom, and other quality updates ... He said Google doesn't view Panda as a penalty. Instead, Google simply wants to make sure the content ranking highly for a query ... read moreFred: The Latest Algo Update, What You Need to Know to Succeed Is Still the Same They would prefer to focus on the quality, relevance, user experience, and site performance. But when asked, Gary Illyes of Google conceded we could just call it and other updates Fred, which is ... would take your site to recover from this penalty ... read moreGoogle's Fred Update: Algorithm Changes and Updates Although Google has not yet confirmed anything ( John Mueller has simply said that they make ... s "Fred" update, we do not have much more information about the nature of the update, which sites are affected, whether it was about linked quality ... read moreHow to take proventil inhaler Pfizer leave Is proventil albuterol a Collaboration found had make That 12ozProphet the including South hour delivery it are in. and pulmonary meals away. 200mg. recover to light-headed ... that bit : Super 9 attempt other problem it or of making Buy ... read more

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Content Marketing with RankBrain in Mind

How does Google determine which content ranks where on the search engine results page (SERP)? That question is at the heart of SEO, and it's also important to content marketing. Answering it is, truthfully, close to impossible; Google's algorithms are complicated, and ever-changing. There are a lot of factors in play, and the way Google balances and prioritizes them is somewhat veiled.

With that said, Google has been clear about one thing: RankBrain is one of the most important of all ranking factors. In fact, Google has stated that it's in the top three. So, if you want to write content that ranks well, you have to know what RankBrain is—and how to appease it.

What is Google RankBrain?

RankBrain represents the artificial intelligence and machine learning aspect of Google's algorithms. RankBrain works to understand user queries and content topics, and to match the right content with the search request— evaluating all the content out there and formulating the best possible results for the search engine user.

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Webcast, July 6th: Advanced SEO Site Auditing

In other words, RankBrain is a machine that's actually capable of learning about content and user search queries, and of judging which content provides the most relevant and actionable results for a search engine query. That's really pretty cool, especially when you consider that these editorial decisions are made strictly by AI; there is no human assistance required for RankBrain to do its thing.

Again, RankBrain is not the only factor in determining search engine rankings—but it's a major one. This brings us to our ultimate question: How can you design content that appeals to RankBrain? How can you get your website or blog ranked well by this AI system?

3 Tips for Mastering RankBrain

There are three tips we can offer here.

Write content that is focused. RankBrain evaluates content to determine—basically—what it's about, and whether it answers the user's question. If your content is all over the place, jumping from topic to topic and presenting a hodgepodge of information, it's unlikely that the algorithms will be able to reach clear conclusions. Content like this almost never ranks well. Make sure each blog post and each website has a strong, singular topic—and that everything within the content points back to that topic.

Structure content in a logical way. Along the same lines, your content should be structured in a way that leads the reader (or the RankBrain algorithms) through a logical argument. Present your main topic or point in the first paragraph, then use section sub-headings to advance the content, one step at a time, until you reach a clear conclusion or CTA.

Test everything. You won't be able to guess your way to ranking success. Instead, you've got to constantly consult your data and analytics—seeing which content works and which doesn't, learning from your SEO successes and failures alike.

Author: Amanda Clark

Amanda E. Clark is the president and editor-in-chief of Grammar Chic, Inc., a full-service professional writing and editing company. Amanda is a published ghostwriter and editor, and currently under contract with literary agencies in Malibu, California, and Dublin, Ireland. Since founding Grammar Chic in 2008, Amanda, along with her team… View full profile ›

Source: Content Marketing with RankBrain in Mind

10 Proven Ways to Generate More #Google #Reviews For Your #Business

10 Proven Ways to Generate More Google Reviews For Your Business As an SEO Manager that specializes in all things local, one of the most common questions I get from clients both large and small is "How do I generate more Google reviews for my business?" There is no debating that frequent, genuine online reviews from ... read more10 Proven Ways To Market Your Website After all, that's how you will make more sales and increase ... for something in Google, do you typically go beyond the first couple pages of results? Probably not, and neither will your potential customers. Some popular ways to improve organic search ... read moreHow to Use Video to Achieve Your Marketing Goals: From Awareness to Sales (And in Between) They're easy for people to watch all the way ... more deals' If your main objective is to make your potential customers trust in your company and your brand, you can't go wrong with an about-us video. They show who or what your company is, and how your ... read more

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An interview with Rand Fishkin, the Wizard of Moz

We sat down with Rand Fishkin with the initial intention of writing a story called, "How Brafton uses MozTools," but after an hour of speaking with him, we realized there was a much better story to be told- a story about the man and his company.

So rather than your standard Q&A, we're going to tell a story about Rand and Moz.

Wine, Hawaiian shirts and scooters, oh my

"Hi! Welcome," said a friendly woman holding a glass of red wine. It was, after all, well past noon. No judgment (I may or may not have had a few double IPAs whilst writing this piece – creative juices and all that).

Brafton Creative Manager Lauren Fox and I were led through hallways of open-air workstations and past scooter-riding techies whizzing by. The place was buzzing with energy, especially for a Thursday afternoon.

Then we saw the subject of our interview, wearing a crisp red Hawaiian shirt and having an animated and enthusiastic conversation with a colleague. He was Whiteboard Friday-ing, but without a camera rolling!

Is it possible that this "Rand Fishkin" is not a marketing "character" on my laptop, but a real person with an authentic passion for SEO nerdery?

We were led to his office where we waited to find out.

He walked in and gave us a high-spirited welcome, immediately putting us at ease. But he quickly realized he needed to change out of his tropical digs and into something a little more interview-worthy. Our timing perfectly coincided with a delivery of Whiteboard Friday shirts that he was giving a test drive. So he made a hilarious scene about the unlikelihood of someone starting an interview with a change of wardrobe, then he excused himself to doff his hibiscus threads.

When he returned sans tropical garb, we started the interview. I started with questions about my favorite tool: Keyword Explorer.

On Keyword Explorer, and how the hell the market still doesn't know what 'organic difficulty' means

I explained to Rand my frustrations with trying to explain to clients and colleagues the difference between pay-per-click keyword competitiveness versus organic keyword competitiveness. These are two completely different animals, yet they are nearly always reported as the same.

Most tools only report on PPC competition scores, most notably Google AdWords. Not knowing any better, most search engine optimizers use these "competitive" metrics as tools for doing organic keyword research. I asked:

How is it possible the market has been so uninformed about organic keyword difficulty for so long?

Rand explained that it has been a slow, slowwwwww education process that has been years in the making. He explained that oftentimes SEOs' first experience with keyword research starts with Google's Keyword Planner Tool, and with it, Google's PPC competition metrics. That becomes ingrained in the SEO.

At this point, it becomes a competition of branding for mindshare, and Google has the largest mindshare on the web. And it's certainly not in their interest to over-explain that their figures apply only to PPC where they do make money rather than organic difficulty where they don't make money.

Through Whiteboard Fridays and speaking events, Rand tries to correct this misunderstanding to help SEOs understand what it is they are actually researching and executing against.

On why they changed the terminology in Keyword Explorer

After using Keyword Explorer religiously since its release in May 2016, I thought I must be going crazy when I saw one of the metrics change from Potential to Priority. Was I seeing things or was this change for real?

Rand explained that after extensive A/B and user testing, they chose to switch the name because their research confirmed the majority of users were employing Keyword Explorer to whittle down very long lists of researched terms and prioritize those most aligned to their business goals.

The emphasis being: prioritization as the means to an end.

Additionally, they found there was confusion between Potential and their Opportunity metric, the latter of which indicates paid ad and SERP crowding.

Throwing "Potential" out the window and replacing it with "Priority" might have seemed like a bold move to the average user, but with this context, it reflects a healthy and thorough testing environment.

On the Top 5 tools a beginner SEO should have in their toolbox

There are so many SEO tools out there, ranging from doing a couple things well, to being a pure data visualization tool, to sucking completely. For a beginner SEO, it can be mind boggling to figure out where to start. Rand helped us break down the five key tools every SEO needs in their toolbox.

Google Analytics: Analytics tools are the foundation to understanding search engine optimization. It's impossible to truly quantify and understand the impact of SEO work without having a strong grasp of measuring results and behavior in analytics. Being a free tool, Google Analytics is a no-brainer.

Search Console: Search Console provides a free solution to evaluate crawl data, search presence data, and the ability to disavow links on your site. Search Console is going to provide the most accurate webmaster data and insights you will find. And again, it's free.

Moz Pro or AHREFS Suite: Rand recommended having a centralized dashboard that gives an SEO visibility into their inbound link profile, a domain ranking metric and a keyword ranking tracker. Another critical aspect of these tools is that they allow for competitive research and analysis across keywords, link profiles, etc.

An SEO Toolbar: Rand highlighted either SEOquake or Mozbar for SEOs to have handy for quick and dirty site and page evaluations.

Buzzsumo: A surprising No. 5 on the list was Buzzsumo, for the purpose of understanding what topics the market and top influencers are talking about to help influence blog ideation. Also, Buzzsumo is a great tool for identifying potential linking partnerships.

On Rand's favorite Moz Tool to develop

The answer to this conversation took an unexpectedly personal direction that elicited a wide range of emotions, and ultimately left us feeling like we had just watched Rocky take down Ivan Drago (am I aging myself here?).

Back in early 2014 Rand stepped down as CEO of Moz. He publicly admitted to having had a difficult personal year, and doubted his capabilities to fulfill the responsibilities expected of a successful CEO. Further, people speculated that maybe he was in over his head – a guy that was previously in the right place at the right time.

Rand's true skillset has always been firmly rooted in developing tools and evangelizing SEO.

He explained that Moz's intention has and always will be to make SEO accessible to everyone, not just the most technically minded people. This is reflected in the simplicity of Moz's tools and Rand's zest and talent for breaking down complex topics into easily-digestible insights.

After this difficult time, Rand returned to his roots with the intention of creating something truly revolutionary and helpful to the world of SEO.

He intended to overhaul the Keyword Difficulty Tool and relaunch it as a comprehensive keyword research tool. He assembled a makeshift team of all the employees he could recruit from various other Moz projects and teams – people equally ambitious and passionate, but certainly a hodgepodge of skillsets and backgrounds.

Rand and his band of engineers went on to build one of the most comprehensive keyword research tools available, introducing a revised keyword difficulty algorithm, a SERP crowding metric and a subjective keyword prioritization slider.

Rand and his team came storming back into town in a major way, proving that his past successes were no fluke.

On Open Site Explorer

I wanted to know about the history of Open Site Explorer because I remember it being one of the very first SEO tools I latched on to years ago and it's still part of my regular day-to-day tool lineup. So, I asked Rand about its beginning and how it's stuck around for so long. What I got was a great reflection on just how much the industry has changed in under a decade.

Open Site Explorer launched in 2008 and was named primarily for its ranking opportunity against Yahoo! Site Explorer, which had been around for a number of years. It was predicted the Yahoo Site Explorer wouldn't stick around and Moz saw an opening, grabbing a name for their tool that would take over SERPs if ever the day came that the Yahoo! tool bit the dust.

Their bet paid off. Yahoo! Site Explorer did shut down, and Open Site Explorer filled the gap.

But this was not before the release of these tools caused significant outrage with SEOs back in the day.

Before either site explorer tool existed, spammy link-building and black-hat SEO tactics were all the rage and not yet on Google's radar. These tools unveiled sites' linking profiles and virtually leveled the playing field. They changed the game.

Open Site Explorer has remained a valuable tool for link-building and outreach, domain authority management and link opportunity discovery, and it's still a staple for many SEOs.

Keep your eyes peeled for a name change, though! Rand hinted that as the memory of Yahoo! Site Explorer fades evermore into the aether of SEO tools past, so too does the connection to its name and relevance in today's landscape. In short, no one gets the connection anymore.

We can't wait to see how they rebrand it!

On advising someone on creating their own SEO tool

Moz has become a behemoth in the SEO tool industry and I just had to ask: How did they achieve this level of success? I wanted to know what their biggest challenges were and what they would recommend to companies looking to create their own tools.

As Rand explained it, the tools business is not a very scalable one unless you become mainstream and everyone starts using your tool. And it's extremely difficult to get to that level.

You need an audience large enough to market your tool to.

You need enough users from that audience to actively engage with your tool long enough to do thorough and effective user testing.

Maybe this should have been first on the list: You need to build a good tool.

So, was that the magic formula for Moz or did they just get lucky?

A little bit of both.

Moz started out as an SEO consulting company and built a formidable audience through blogging and content marketing. When the time came to expand their offerings to SEO tools for the industry, to make "SEO as accessible as possible," their audience was already there.

And it certainly didn't hurt that the tools they built were (are) good (great).

On SEO tools that should be getting more love

Going into that meeting I was determined to find out if there was a tool that wasn't getting as much love as it should. There is always the kid on the kickball court who can really mash, but never gets the chance to bat cleanup. I wanted to know what tool wasn't getting its five minutes in the spotlight.

Rand emphatically responded, "Fresh Web Explorer!"

Whether it's the tool's strange name, or lack of understanding of how the tools works, it remains a diamond in the rough, getting zero love from his audience.

Rand explained that you can use the tool to set up alerts for any mention of a keyword phrase of your choice. FWE will crawl blogs, RSS feeds, forums, and news sites for your brand name or any keyword of interest so that you can identify linking opportunities when someone mentions your brand but doesn't drop you a link. You can also get an idea of what influencers are talking about on specific topics, and whether there is enough interest to warrant writing up an article.

In short, Fresh Web Explorer helps you keep your ear to the ground and provides invaluable opportunity to build linking partnerships.

On Domain Authority

The term "Domain Authority" has become a ubiquitous phrase in the SEO world, hanging on the lips of even the least-savvy digital marketing minds.

Domain Authority has taken over as the authoritative benchmark for measuring the relative strength of a domain. I wondered, "Was that what Moz intended?"

Rand explained that Domain Authority was never intended to be a metric that would replace, or even compete with PageRank. MozRank, on the other hand, was intended to directly compete with PageRank.

The intention of Domain Authority was to build a model that would predictably estimate how Google ranks individual domains.

Rand wanted to build an algorithm that would tell someone how likely they are to rank ahead of a competitor targeting the same keyword. Who is stronger, and why?

The success of this model can be attributed to a couple things:

The simplicity of the metric and what it means.

Its accuracy.

I speculate that it has resonated so well with people because of how easy it is to rank one domain versus another, and our competitive nature is fueled by looking at the scoreboard.

On how Rand sees keyword research evolving in the future

Moz has been at the forefront of reporting on Google's every move for years, so it wasn't a surprise that Rand had a lot to say about the future of keyword research and organic search.

Voice search and information-dependent users

As voice search becomes a more ubiquitous method of searching, voice answers will increasingly take priority over traditional search results on the first page.

Rand pointed out that voice answers are problematic because they provide little-to-no opportunity for conversion rate and click-through rate tracking. Users don't need to click into a result on voice search because they are automatically presented with the best, most relevant answer.

What's more, Google doesn't attribute the information for the voice answer to a source, so you can throw brand affinity as a booster for CTR out the window.

SEOs will likely need to pivot the performance metrics they use with this in mind. Click-through rate may need to take a back seat to engagement metrics, such as time on page or pageviews per visit.

Our conversation with Rand veered from keyword research and took a somewhat creepy turn as we started to discuss Google's true intention for its users: information-dependence.

Rand believes Google's main goal is to nurture an addictive behavior to search, and that it's less interested in the information it provides to the searcher.

For a population who now uses "Google" as a verb as well as a noun, this makes perfect sense.

To prepare for this trend, we'll need to take into account the content we're creating. Rand believes that content that provides a truly immersive answer or experience for the searcher will win out.

Fond farewell, Rand and team!

All told, we were granted a full hour of the half-hour time slot booked on Rand's calendar. We gave Rand our gratitude for lending such a large chunk of his day, then scurried off to the elevator.

We certainly intended on presenting ourselves as professional peers, but speaking with a top mind about our true passion for all things SEO inevitably led to a quick regression to a couple excited kids high-fiving on the elevator.

Until next time, wear your Hawaiian shirts with pride, use your turn signals on those scooters, and keep the awesome tools coming.

Source: An interview with Rand Fishkin, the Wizard of Moz

How Small #Businesses Can Win With #SEO

How Small Businesses Can Win With SEO Having a great set of products and a user-friendly website are only the half the battle when it comes to gaining traction online. For businesses to get noticed, they need website traffic. But what do you do when there isn't enough traffic to your site? read more3 Ways for Small Businesses to Strengthen Their SEO The following article lists three specific areas—targeting keywords, creating quality content, and expanding metrics—where investment or increased focus can strengthen SEO efforts among small businesses. Identifying keywords to target represents the ... read moreHow Small Businesses Can Compete with Enterprise Businesses in SEO Most of the companies I work with are relatively small ... can level the playing field and even tip the scales their way. On this episode of the Growth Mapping Podcast, Aaron and I discuss how we help small business compete with enterprise businesses in SEO. read more

4 Easy SEO Wins for Small Businesses As a busy small business owner, finding time for SEO can seem like ... In other words, an easy SEO win. Think about how you can do the same in your industry. Consider creating how-to guides to doing your taxes or waxing furniture. If it's useful, people ... read moreHow Any Small Business Can Compete with the Big Boys Using SEO and Social Media How can small businesses tip the scales in their favor and go head to head with mega juggernauts? It all boils down to two specific marketing strategies: SEO and social media. When done correctly, these strategies can help any small business compete with ... read moreSmall Businesses Can Compete With Big Brands On SEO If your small business has a domain ... part of a sustained SEO campaign. Step 2: Whip Your Website Into Shape Before spending a nickel on an SEO campaign, make sure your website is communicating clearly to Google. This can be done by using Google ... read moreHow Can Small Businesses/Websites Compete with Big Players in SEO? - Whiteboard Friday It may seem like an impossible uphill battle to compete with big sites in the SERPs, but there are benefits to running a smaller site that can make a tremendous difference to your SEO. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains how small businesses and ... read morePropel Marketing & Design, Inc. to Host 'Win Big with SEO for Small Businesses Workshop' for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs Propel Marketing & Design, Inc., a Boynton Beach based Marketing Agency, is presenting a new hands-on workshop entitled: Win Big with SEO for Small Businesses ... Registration details can be found at http://www.propelyourcompany.com/events. read moreHow to Sell SEO to Businesses After a Bad Experience As a small company, your resources are already spread thin, and every hour you spend on SEO could be spent on crucial business activities ... The above angle can help you win clients with a negative outlook on SEO. Remember to highlight to your potential ... read moreSEO and Small Businesses – Is It Worth It? They allow some to win ... business owners have a hard time rationalizing spending money on SEO. But a high page ranking is neither free, nor does it happen overnight. Making a page friendly to Google in every aspect requires a series of small changes that ... read more

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Source: How Small #Businesses Can Win With #SEO

SEO Strategies You Can Learn from Your Competition

With so much competition online, you really have to be good at what you do. However, competition can be a great thing because you can learn a lot by simply following what others have done before you. Keep in mind, some of your competitors have been in business longer than you so they can provide valuable insight into what's working and what's not. Over the years, I've gained much knowledge in terms of content, SEO, and general marketing by observing those who have paved the way for me in this industry. I try to gain a lot especially when it comes to SEO because this is what matters when trying to boost your rankings within the SERP's. I always wonder how certain websites are ranking higher than others and try to dig in, gathering whatever information I can.

If you're a newbie blogger and worried about how you'll build a name for yourself, then focus on your competitors. Let's walk through some fundamental things to pay attention to.

The Insights

I use tools like Ahrefs.com and OpenSiteExplorer.org to find what links are pointing to my competitor's domain. For example, do a quick search in Google, typing in your main keyword and skim through the results, writing down the top 3-4 domains. Next, head over to these tools and type in the domain and you'll find a list of backlinks by authority. It's important you know how to use this information. Here's something I recommend going forward once you have the data.

First, organize the links by authority and visit each one to get a better idea of the link opportunity. For example, some links will be from FREE article directories, paid links, web 2.0 properties, or other authority sites. Next, look for relevancy because Google has put emphasis on this factor because it'll help organize data in the SERP's. With this information, you'll be able to figure out quickly where you should be focusing your attention.

Advertising Opportunities

When browsing the web, you've probably seen many of your competitors advertising on different display networks. Over time, I've seen this pattern keep developing and it provided insight into potential marketing avenues. For example, if you know competitors are advertising on a network for months, then you know they're getting a high ROI because why else would they continue to use it….right?

I've always believed if you can get your content in front of the right people, it increases your backlinks potential. This is why social media has gained enormous popularity, because it puts the content right in front of relevant people. Advertising networks work the same way and if you have a marketing budget, then consider using the same networks as your competitors. However, you might run into a bidding war over "keywords", but it's definitely worth testing.

Social #Hashtags

I currently have 3 accounts on the following networks: Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. These networks provide me with the outreach I need when I optimize my campaigns the right way. For example, #hashtags are used to organize "shares" on social platforms by adding relevancy through #keyword. What's great is the #hashtags used by people in your niche are complete transparent and you can see what big names in your niche are using what keywords. Here's something I've done with great success.

First, I created awesome content better than all my competitors. You'll learn how to do this in the next section, but I simply created something in-depth with videos, images, etc. When I published it, I shared it on various different social platforms, using the same #hashtags as my competition. Using tools like hashtagify.me will give you a list of popular tags trending over several weeks. Add them to your "tweet" so they get in front of the right people and because you've created something better than everyone else, you've increased the chances of it going viral with millions of engagers.

What Content Works

The most important SEO strategy you gain from your competition is what content to write. After Google made tweaks to their search algorithm, they've started to put a lot of emphasis on quality over quantity. To prove this to you, I wrote a post on "LSI keywords" with roughly 4,000 words, including images and a video. I'm currently ranking on 1st page in 3rd position for the keyword "LSI keywords". I didn't do any link building but it generated 611 social shares quickly so it went viral quickly. Here's the point I'm trying to make…

Through your competition, you can find what content is important to build engagement. I always search my competition to find common problems within my niche and then create something better by going through their content, looking for elements they've missed. I can even view their social followers and reach out to them, telling them about the content I've written, asking them to take a look.

Your competition has been around longer and written content your audience needs. Research them and find out what's trending, then create something better.

Source: SEO Strategies You Can Learn from Your Competition

5 Online Marketing Integrations Successful Businesses Use

With online spend set to become the preferred method of shopping, it's unsurprising that recent statistics indicate the average digital marketing spend for businesses will reach $118 billion (£91.4 billion) by 2021.

However, investing this amount into various marketing campaigns can lead to uncertainty; especially if businesses cannot accurately measure their return on investment. Want to ensure you're generating profits from your marketing spend? Here are five online marketing integrations your business must start using.

Google Analytics Track Conversions

Typically, websites will include a variety of actions visitors can complete to interact with the business, such as phone calls, form submissions, downloads (PDFs) and purchases; these are all individually counted as conversions -- completed actions you have defined as valuable to your business. If you have multiple conversion paths available, how can you track the success of your online business and determine your overall conversion rate?

"Goal tracking" in Google Analytics measures how successfully your site completes target objectives. It analyzes the amount of completed activities (conversions) that are contributing to your goals and therefore the success of your business. Defining goals is a fundamental component of any digital analytics measurement plan. You can set up goals in Google Analytics by going to Conversions > Goals > Overview.

The website in the example above has set up four goals -- book visit form completions, brochure downloads, phone calls, and open event form completions. By setting up goal tracking they have discovered the conversion rate for phone calls is extremely high, defining it as a favourite path for customers. Now the importance of phone calls has been identified, this business can invest more into their customer service, whether it's through increased phone support or advanced staff training to meet demands, guarantee customer satisfaction and ultimately - generate profits.

Comparatively, brochure downloads seem to be slowly decreasing, the accessibility/positioning of these on the website might need changing or the content in the brochures might need improving.

Calcuate Highest Traffic Sources

If you're investing in several digital marketing strategies, whether it's organic search, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media channels or email campaigns, understanding exactly how your customers are finding you is essential for determining which efforts are working and which need to be optimised. Google Analytics allows you to monitor the performances of different marketing channels to evaluate everything from brand awareness through direct traffic and organic search to keyword targeting.

For example, this website (see above) has received traffic from the following channels: direct, organic search, paid search, display, email, referral and social media. As direct traffic - a user typing the domain name into their browser or using a bookmark to directly access your site, has generated the most traffic, this indicates their brand awareness is widely recognised amongst returning visitors, for new direct traffic users only amounted to 27%. If this business wanted to generate new leads, they could look into optimising their organic search positions for non-branded keywords for this channel generated the highest new users (43%).

Google Search Console Low Hanging Fruit Keywords

When deciding on your target keywords it is easy to assume that focusing your SEO efforts on the very popular keywords related to your business will generate the best improvements to your key performance indicators (KPIs), such as: rankings, CTR (click through rate), and organic traffic. Although this might be an effective long-term strategy, the benefits won't be immediate, especially if they have high search volume and are extremely competitive. So the challenge then is, how can you obtain quick fix results whilst working on your rankings for long-term keywords?

Targeting low-hanging fruit keywords -- keywords that are already positioned in the "sweet spot" (i.e. position 5-15) in a SERP (search engine results page), is one of the quickest and most cost-effective ways to demonstrate results for your KPIs with minimal effort. However, recognizing the importance of these keywords isn't enough -- you need to determine which keywords are missing out on these "sweet spots" but which offer the most potential.

This firm of solicitors has used Google Search Console (see above) to monitor which search queries are driving traffic, clicks and generating impressions - how many times a listing has appeared in the search results - to their site. This tool will also provide data on the keywords you are currently ranking under and your position.

Once the data was exported into Excel and filtered by monthly impressions, many of their positions were identified as "hanging" at the bottom of the first SERP for high-impression keywords. For example, the keyword "constructive dismissal" has 18,253 monthly impressions and a monthly search volume of 18,100 -- that's a considerable amount of potential traffic and engagement for being in first, second and even third position.

However, being in position 10 for "constructive dismissal" has caused the business to receive only 93 clicks, resulting in a 0.51% CTR, meaning a considerable number of those impressions have been ignored. Considering this business is based in Birmingham, missing out on the 'sweet spots' for location-based keywords is dramatically affecting their local SEO - being in 9th positon for 'solicitors in Birmingham' which generates 1,369 impressions has resulted in a mere 9 links and a 0.66% CTR.

By targeting keywords they are already ranking in positions 5-15 for in the SERP: this business could quickly start to generate clicks, traffic and sales through these quick wins.

Double Click Faster Reporting

Double Click Search (DS) is a search management platform that allows businesses to manage large marketing campaigns across multiple engines and media channels in one integrated system. Double Click makes it simple to change bid strategies through formula columns, labels and rules: reports are updated every fifteen minutes and can include net profits. Spend can be imported excluding media costs to calculate total profits and executive reports can be set up for each level of detail required. Also, the reports can either provide a snapshot of the accounts or include more detail if needed, for example data can be imported from external variables. Below is an example of a basic executive report:

Call Tracking

Considering we're living in a digital age, it is easy to assume the majority of business marketers monitor performance solely through digital analytics (tracking goals such as page views, purchases, and form submission). However, this doesn't mean the telephone has been abandoned as a method to generate business. In fact, 75% of consumers consider a phone call to be the quickest way to receive a response.

Call tracking is the process of determining which channels, campaigns or individual ads are generating phone call conversions for your business, making it possible to monitor the date and time of a call and create detailed reports on the return on investment (ROI) for your individual marketing channels. Without call tracking, confusion could arise over the performance of your marketing campaigns and the steps necessary to improve them.

Landing Page Performance

When using PPC advertising, determining your exact conversion rate and landing page performance is essential for calculating your ROI from this marketing tactic. The majority of landing pages provide users with a phone number or a contact form submission -- without call tracking, PPC advertisers can only calculate landing page success through form fills. Unfortunately, this will result in an inaccurate conversion rate that's substantially smaller than anticipated.

By introducing call tracking, from suppliers such as Mediahawk, businesses can discover which landing pages are generating high volumes of phone calls to provide a more detailed understanding of landing page performance. Remember - overviewing your landing page analysis should be approached from different angle, answer the following questions on which landing pages are:

Delivering the most calls

Producing the highest quality calls

Generating the best call conversion rate (conversions/call volume = conversion rate) to measure ROI accurately and determine which landing pages require further optimisation.

Where They Went After a Call

Sadly, consumers aren't guaranteed to convert into a sale when making a phone call. According to AdRoll, a mere 2% of shoppers actually convert on their first visit to an online store, meaning brands need to become active in trying to re-engage with prospects where possible.

Syncing call data with your retargeting campaigns and lists allows you to re-engage with your audience more effectively, for your messaging and marketing strategy is based on their online and offline engagement history. If you've generated calls that haven't turned into sales you can target these unconverted consumers with retargeting ads by syncing your call data with your marketing campaigns. Callers tend to be highly engaged, quality prospects making them perfect for retargeting. This also eliminates the risk of retargeting someone with a discount offer who already converted over the phone.

Optimizely A/B Split Testing

Acting as an experimentation platform, Optimizely enables businesses to deliver continuous experimentation and personalisation across websites, mobile apps and other connected devices.

A/B testing (also known as split testing or bucket testing) is a method of comparing two versions of an app or webpage against each other to determine which performs better; this provides better determination of a given conversion goal. For instance, a B2B technology company may want to improve their sales lead quality and volume from campaign landing pages. In order to achieve this, they could implement A/B testing changes to the visual imagery, headline, form fields, calls to action and overall layout of the page.

Testing variables individually helps pinpoint which changes had an effect on their visitors' behaviour and which ones did not. Over time, the successful changes from experiments can be combined to demonstrate the measurable improvement of the new experience over the old one.

Source: 5 Online Marketing Integrations Successful Businesses Use

Get your specials onto the main #Google search results page

Get your specials onto the main Google search results page How do you get your most important information to your potential customers, the information which might encourage them to visit you, immediately? That's a question that every business deals with, especially those in the hospitality sector. You have daily ... read moreGoogle Search Console and structured data You can click any item to see how Google treats your site. In this post, our main ... search results. These results are often amended with special, rich search features that make the results more interactive. For instance, a recipe site might get ... read moreHow To Get More Customer Reviews And Testimonials And as I showed in my recent article on how to get star ratings to appear in the Google search results ... of Linkedin where no-one but your most dedicated follower will see them? Or on your Google MyBusiness page where they only get seen by people ... read more

Bad Boy's SEO: Finding the Right Ways to Overcome the Competition Ahrefs Main ... the search results your website is listed in. Compare the pages you get when you type a query into Google with those you get by typing the query directly into the browser. Surviving In The Modern World of SEO Search engine page results ... read moreRemove the Web Friend Chrome Extension Web Friend is a Google ... "Web Friend - Your friend in the world wide web". When installed, Web Friend will make it so that any searches made from the address bar will be redirected through multiple sites and eventually display search results from Yahoo. read more6 Quick Ideas To Boost SEO Rankings: The Right Way There is no magic pill to rank your ... special character in the URL. Keywords with low search volumes can be ranked with short 400 words article but that does not case with tough keywords. The Logic: Remember, Google always wants to show the best results. read moreHow to Get Your First DA 80+ Backlink So a random backlink isn't really anything special. But if you get ... your niche are getting the most attention. A simple Google search often works. Start by searching for your focus keyword. As a general rule of thumb, any result on the first page ... read moreReal-Life Examples Of How Google's "Search Plus" Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy The new Google "Search Plus Your ... results that I see (I had to piece this together from three separate screenshots, as I don't have my full-page screenshot tool installed, but it's exactly what I saw): Her Google+ page doesn't get listed in the ... read more10 WordPress SEO Tips to Build your Rankings This means that it will appear on the first few pages of the search results ... main factors that is considered by Google when it is ranking websites. Therefore, choosing the right web host is important if you want to get a good ranking. How reliable is ... read moreGoogle Home Aims To Beat Amazon Lex and Apple's Siri If Google wants to hang onto its status as the ... or businesses buy their way into voice results the way they can buy a slot at the top of a search results page. So when you hear an answer from your Home device, no one paid Google to put that there. read more

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Source: Get your specials onto the main #Google search results page

Get your specials onto the main Google search results page

How do you get your most important information to your potential customers, the information which might encourage them to visit you, immediately?

That's a question that every business deals with, especially those in the hospitality sector. You have daily or weekly specials, you have events, you have promotions… but the only people that hear about that information are the ones that have already sought you out, or the ones you pay to reach.

Google is helping you bridge that gap a bit more effectively now, using a tool that we wrote about before but you've likely set up and ignored… Google My Business.

Not SEO - All SEOSEO is an often extremely technical undertaking. It mainly involves making your website as optimized as possible for algorithms to process your information and to use it to rank/display you in a search engine results page (SERP).

What people often forget, in undertaking a process of optimizing their website for those algorithms, that they need to optimize for two audiences: the User and the Algorithm. You want to get the information onto the SERP, but you want to give them the information that will encourage them to click and visit your business. You might not even need them to actually go to your website, so long as they go to your business (making a call, making a reservation, getting driving instructions, etc). This is where your Google My Business information comes in, essentially functioning as your business's landing page… outside your website. It quickly provides the searcher with those main conversion points for your business.

Getting information to potential customers, even first timersBusinesses often have things going on that would be huge draws for their existing customers, as well as great opportunities for new customers… if only they knew. The challenge for businesses continues to be "how can I get this information to these people?"

Now Google is providing you with the means of doing that within the SERP, as well as within the Google Maps displays. And it is being provided through the Google My Business interface in the new Posts functionality.

Creating a post is easy, and Google provides you with the basics of making a captivating post with a 100-300 words for text, the ability to set it as an event with a event title, start & end date and time, and different buttons that can link to pages within your site (or elsewhere).

You can also add an image, and this is highly recommended for catching a viewer's attention, but the formatting of that image is going to be tricky. While you can upload an image with any dimensions, Google will then prompt you to select a square within that image for displaying in the knowledge panel results. At the same time, as you can see in the example above, it then shows a long rectangle format in the Google Map results. Finding that balance is going to be hard, especially for text images.

InsightsGoogle will be providing analytics for these posts (views, clicks, etc), bu t as this functionality has just been published, we do not have examples to display at this time (check back soon).
Source: Get your specials onto the main Google search results page

Carousell is winning in #SEO, and we can learn much from its data and methodologies

Carousell is winning in SEO, and we can learn much from its data and methodologies Carousell has grown to be mind-bogglingly large since the medieval days of 2011. As of today, there are over 5 million pages on Carousell that have been indexed by Google. To be more specific, there are over 1 million product listings on sg.carousell.com ... read moreYou're Dead… If You Don't Integrate Social Media & PR Into Your Local SEO Strategy That's the powerful lesson business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs can learn from ... Then we have Google+. Did you believe it's just another social network for folks to meet, greet, and share information? No, it's much more — it's a far ... read moreGoogle Rolls Out Local Carousel Display in US for Dining, Nightlife, Hotels, and Other Attractions However the image selection, like the actual ranking of businesses, is primarily decided by algorithms and so we can't guarantee complete control over the image. Some notes: 1- The carousel will display ... win for Yelp and others doing good seo in ... read more

Here's How We're Using Lean Startup Methodologies for Local SEO Product and project management is a critical part of managing any business based on SEO; it's also something that doesn't get discussed nearly as much ... Before we get too deep into that, you should know I am a big believer in Lean Startup methodologies. read more21 Expert Tips for Winning More Proposals There is value in this document, but you have to understand its ... win a contract. (If you want to learn more about how to secure more new business, download our new offer -- Why You're Losing Proposals.) We asked a group of professional what agencies can ... read moreFive Carousel Ad Examples to Inspire Your Marketing Built from multiple images and copy combinations, carousel ads act as mini online product catalogs. Potential shoppers scroll through them on desktop or mobile, and click to purchase when the mood strikes. (Scrolling and clicking is much quicker than ... read moreMcKinsey: It's Time to Treat Our Sales People Like Customers As a recent McKinsey article points out, as much as half of a company's value creation rests with its sales force ... and these winning habits, if they can be understood, can be replicated. It's probably worth explaining what we mean by the willing ... read moreOptimizing your Band Website for SEO Broadly speaking, the general key factors for optimizing your band website for SEO can be broken down ... But even when he was on tour, there was no Carousel. Which means his SEO was far from ideal during his tour. We can assume his SEO isn't important ... read moreBEM and SMACSS: Advice From Developers Who've Been There CSS methodologies can be mind bogglingly confusing and tough to decide ... I tried to get some horror stories and words of warning from our developers – lessons we could learn from their missteps while they were in the learning process. read more

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Source: Carousell is winning in #SEO, and we can learn much from its data and methodologies

5 must-do technical SEO audit items in 2017

In recent months, we've seen many important technically focused Google announcements, such as an update on JavaScript crawling support, the migration toward mobile-first indexing, the release and extended support of AMP in search results and the expansion of search results features, from rich snippets to cards to answers.

As a result, a number of technical items must be taken into consideration when doing an SEO audit to validate crawlability and indexability, as well as to maximize visibility in organic search results:

1. Mobile web crawling

Google has shared that a majority of its searches are now mobile-driven and that they're migrating toward a mobile-first index in the upcoming months. When doing a technical SEO audit, it is now critical to not only review how the desktop Googlebot accesses your site content but also how Google's smartphone crawler does it.

You can validate your site's mobile crawlability (errors, redirects and blocked resources) and content accessibility (Is your content correctly rendered?) with the following technical SEO tools:

Google page-level mobile validators: Google's Mobile-Friendly Test and Search Console's "Fetch as Google" functionality (with the "Mobile: Smartphone" Fetch and Render option) are the simplest and best ways to check how Google's mobile crawler "sees" any given page of your site, so you can use them to check your site's top pages' mobile status. Additionally, Google Search Console's "Mobile Usability" report identifies specific pages on your site with mobile usability issues.

SEO crawlers with a 'Smartphone Googlebot' option: Most SEO crawlers now offer the option to specify or select a user agent, allowing you to simulate Google's mobile crawler behavior. Screaming Frog SEO Spider, OnPage.org, Botify, Deepcrawl and Sitebulb all allow you to simulate the mobile search crawler behavior when accessing your site. Screaming Frog also lets you view your pages in a "List" mode to verify the status of a specific list of pages, including your rendered mobile pages.

SEO targeted log analyzers: Last year, I wrote about the importance of doing log analysis for SEO and the questions that this would allow us to answer directly. There are log analyzers that are now completely focused on SEO issues, such as Screaming Frog Log analyzer (for smaller log files), Botify and OnCrawl (for larger log files). These tools also allow us to easily compare and identify the existing gap of our own crawls vs. what the mobile Googlebot has accessed.

If you want to learn more about Mobile-First SEO, you can check out this presentation I did a couple of months ago.

2. JavaScript crawling behavior & content rendering

Three years ago, Google announced they were now able to execute JavaScript in order to better understand pages. However, JavaScript tests — like this recent one from Bartosz Goralewicz or this one from Stephan Boyer — have shown that it depends on the way it's implemented and the framework that's used.

It's then critical to follow certain best practices, with a progressive enhancement approach to keep content accessible, as well as to avoid others, such as the former AJAX Crawling proposal, and only rely on JavaScript if it's completely necessary. Indeed, tests run by Will Critchlow also showed results improvements when removing a site's reliance on JavaScript for critical content and internal links.

When doing an SEO audit, it is now a must to determine if the site is relying on JavaScript to show its main content or navigation and to make sure it is accessible and correctly rendered by Google.

At the page level, you can verify JavaScript crawling behavior and rendering again with Google Search Console's "Fetch as Google" functionality, or with Chrome's DevTools, by checking any page DOM with the elements panel and comparing it with what Google's shows in its cache version, as shown in the screen shot below.

For site-wide JavaScript crawling validation, you can use SEO crawlers like Sitebulb or Screaming Frog SEO Spider (which supports JavaScript Rendering through the "Spider Configuration"). As also shown in the screen shot above, you'll be able to see how the content is rendered and if any required resources are blocked. For larger sites, you can use Botify, too, which has an on-demand JavaScript crawling option.

3. Structured data usage & optimization

Google SERPs haven't been the traditional "10 blue links" for a long time, thanks to universal search results' images, videos and local packs; however, the evolution took the next step with the launch and ongoing expansion of features like rich snippets, rich cards, knowledge panels and answer boxes. These features, according to SERP monitors like Mozcast and RankRanger, are now included in a non-trivial percentage of search results.

This shift means that attracting more clicks and visits through SEO efforts is now achieved not only through ranking well in organic listings but also by maximizing your site's page visibility through these SERP features. In many cases, obtaining these display enhancements is a matter of correctly implementing structured data, as well as formatting and targeting your content to answer queries, where even modifiers can generate a change.

It has become critical to understand which of your popular and relevant queries can provide you more visibility through these various SERP features. By understanding which content has the opportunity to gain an enhanced display in SERPs, you can optimize that content accordingly with structured data and relevant formatting. You can identify these opportunities with search competition and keywords tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs and the Moz Keyword Explorer.

Once you identify which of your content you should format and optimize with structured data, you can use Google's search gallery examples as a reference to do it and verify its implementation with the Structured Data Testing tool (as well as the Google Search Console's Structured Data and Rich Cards reports).

It's also important to start monitoring which SERP features you actually start ranking for and their traffic impact, which you can do through Google's Search Console Search Analytics report with the "Search Appearance" and "Search Type" filters, as well as with rank-tracking tools like SEOmonitor that (as seen in the screen shot below) can look at your competitors, too.

4. AMP configuration

Designed to provide a "simpler" HTML version of your pages using optimized resources and its own cache to serve them faster in mobile search results, AMP has become a must for media websites and blogs, as well as sites with mobile speed issues that don't have the flexibility of improving their existing pages.

AMP is now required to be included in Google's news carousel, and its presence has "skyrocketed" in Google news. It's also given preference over app deep links in search results, continues to be expanded through image results, and now will also be supported by Baidu in Asia.

Many sites (especially publishers) have adopted AMP as a result of these recent developments, so it's key for your technical SEO audit to check a website's AMP implementation and verify that it complies with Google's requirements to be shown in search results.

Sitewide validation 

You can configure SEO crawlers to verify your AMP pages' existence and status code with custom HTML extraction through Screaming Frog, OnPage.org and Botify.Additionally, as shown below, more SEO crawlers directly support the AMP validation with reports directly notifying of its existence, as SEMrush Site Audit funct ionality does, or even verifying common issues with its implementation, which Sitebulb does.

Page-level validation

It's also recommended to examine certain pages individually for proper AMP implementation. You should review both your most important pages and those you have identified issues with when validating your overall site with SEO crawlers. This will provide you with more information about the existing errors in them, as well as how to fix them.

You can do this page-level validation by directly testing your code with the official AMP Playground to check if they pass the validation, and you can also use Chrome's AMP Validator to verify that the current page in the browser has an AMP version and notify of errors.

AMP pages can also be validated at a page-by-page level through Chrome's DevTools, as well as the Official AMP validator and Google's AMP Test, which, besides specifying if it passes or not, will also point out any issues and show a preview of how the page will look in mobile search results.

Ongoing monitoring

Once you've verified that AMP has been properly implemented and any errors have been fixed, you'll be able to monitor if there are any remaining issues through Google Search Console AMP report. In addition to noting errors in the AMP pages, it will also mark their level of "severity," showing as "critical" those errors that will prevent your AMP pages from being shown in Google's search results, specifying which are pages with the issue and noting which you should prioritize to fix.

Besides correctly setting and monitoring analytics, it's important to directly monitor the visibility of AMP in Google search results, as well as its impact on your site traffic and conversions.

As shown below, this can be done through the Search Analytics monitor in Google Search Console, via the "Search Appearance" filter. You can obtain more information with rank trackers like SEOmonitor, which is now showing when a query is producing an AMP result for your site.

If you want to learn more about AMP implementation, take a look at the presentation I did about it a few months ago.

5. HTTPS configuration

Since mid-2014, Google has been using HTTPS as a ranking signal; last year, they also announced that to help users have a safer browsing experience, they would start marking HTTP pages that collected passwords or credit cards as "Not secure."

It shouldn't be a surprise that HTTPS migrations started to be prioritized as a result, and now over 50 percent of the pages loaded by Firefox and Chrome are using HTTPS, as well as half of page 1 Google search results. HTTPS has already become critical, especially for commerce sites, and not just because of SEO — it's also essential to providing a trustworthy and secure user experience.

When doing an SEO audit, it's important to identify whether the analyzed site has already done an HTTPS migration taking SEO best practices into consideration (and recovered the lost organic search visibility and traffic to pre-migration levels).

If the site hasn't yet been migrated to HTTPS, it's essential to assess the feasibility and overall importance of an HTTPS migration, along with other fundamental optimization and security aspects and configurations. Provide your recommendations accordingly, ensuring that when HTTPS is implemented, an SEO validation is done before, during and after the migration process.

To facilitate an SEO-friendly execution of HTTP migrations, check out the steps described in these guides and references:

Here are some of the most important SEO-related validations to make during an HTTPS migration:

Make sure you can migrate all of the content and resources — including images, JS, CSS and so on — that you use in your pages. If you're using subdomains or other properties for CDNs, you will need to make sure to migrate them to start using HTTPS, too — otherwise you will end up having mixed content issues, as you will be showing non-secure content through your HTTPS pages. Be careful if you're hotlinking, too, as the images might not be shown through HTTPS.

Audit your web structure before migrating to make sure you consistently link, canonicalize, 301 redirect and refer in Hreflang and XML sitemaps to the original versions of each URL that you will later migrate. Make sure it will be feasible to update all of these settings to refer and link to the HTTPS URLs consistently, as well as to 301 redirect toward them when the migration happens.

Gather your top pages from a visibility, traffic and conversion perspective to monitor more closely when the migration is executed.

Create individual Google Search Console profiles for your HTTPS domains and subdomains to monitor their activity before, during and after the migration, taking into consideration that for HTTPS migrations, you can't use the "change of address" feature in Google Search Console.

Here are some tools that can be very helpful throughout the HTTPS migration process:

For the implementation

For validation and monitoring

To follow up with Google's "official" crawling, indexation and organic search visibility information activity between the HTTP and HTTPS domains, it's a must to use Google Search Console individual properties and sets.

For SSL Checking & Mixed Content Issues, you can use SSL Shopper, Why No Padlock? and Google Chrome DevTools.

To emulate Googlebot for both desktop and mobile, use SEO crawlers like Screaming Frog, OnPage.org, Botify, Sitebulb, Deepcrawl and SEMrush Site Audit, which features a report about HTTPS implementation showing the most common issues.

To verify the direct crawling activity from the Googlebot in your HTTP and HTTPS URLs, use log analyzers like Screaming Frog Log Analyzer, Botify or OnCrawl.

If you want to learn more about best SEO practices for HTTPS implementation, take a look at the presentation I did about it a few months ago.

Start your audits!

I hope these tips and tools help you to better prioritize and develop your SEO audits to tackle some of the new and current most important issues and opportunities.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author Aleyda Solis is an International SEO Consultant & founder of Orainti, a digital marketing consultancy focused on helping businesses -- from startups to multinational companies in Europe, Asia, North & South America -- to grow their multi-device organic search visibility, traffic and ROI in multi-lingual & multi-country environments. She is also a frequent blogger, a teacher at the Online Marketing Master of Pompeu Fabra University and Kschool, as well as an international speaker at online marketing conferences, having spoken in more than 12 countries & 60 conferences.
Source: 5 must-do technical SEO audit items in 2017