Most times, we get to see how rankings fluctuate, traffic drops, and still, we don’t know what to do. What’s more, we always think it’s us who made a mistake and, therefore, got downgraded. This blog post will both prove you’re wrong and agree with you. Plus, we’ll teach you what every change Google made so far in 2018 is doing to your site and how you can improve your marketing and SEO moves.

1. Early 2018 Google Updates
2. Offering a Very Slow Experience Will Get Websites a Downgrade in Rankings
3. A Search Console Year-Plus of Data Adding
4. A Google-Backed Twitter Account Meant Solely for Search News
5. Switching from HTTP to HTTPS Gets Mandatory
6. “People Also Search For” Box
7. Chrome Tidies Up Messy URLs When Shared
8. Search Console Crawl Limits Changed
9. Mobile-First Indexing
10. Multifaceted Featured Snippets
11. The Relevancy Update
12. Google’s Mobile Friendly & Rich Results Tools Now Read JavaScript Sites
13. “Mentioned on Wikipedia” Carousel in Search Results
14. New AdWords Features
15. Conclusion

After a year like 2017 with significant algorithm changes and updates, Google doesn’t seem to want to settle down. Danny Sullivan, the officially-appointed ombudsman from Google, made it clear that they do various minor updates daily plus some more serious ones during the year: We do some type of focused update nearly daily. A broad core algorithm update happens several times per year.

Those would be focused, yes. We also have lots of updates focused on specific little things each day that go into the core algorithm. This is a broader general change to the core algorithm.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 12, 2018

Guess this is how we could explain the hectic fluctuations in various Google algorithm monitoring tools. Webmaster and marketers alike often felt overwhelmed by the density and frequency of these ranking fluctuations and tried to interpret their activity, correlating their analysis and findings, and reaching a conclusion or providing an educated guess until Google would have officially confirmed them.

Screenshot taken from cognitiveseo.com/signals

Google likes messing around with people’s website traffic and site owners’ feelings – it sort of gives people mixed feelings regarding Google: both love and hate.

Many updates or changes in the way Google’s algorithm works is given by an interesting paradigm skillful webmasters know how to read. And that is the one provided by Barry Schwartz, the update guru of our digital marketing world:

When you have both signals, SEO chatter, and tools start lighting up, it is a good sign something major changed in the core ranking algorithm with Google search.
	barry schwartz
	Founder at Search Engine Roundtable @rustybrick / rustybrick.com

1. Early 2018 Google Updates

The 2018 updates pace is pretty aggressive, one might say, while March seems to have been the busiest month in terms of changes and ranking fluctuations. We’re not talking officially announced updates here, but only the SERPs activity as seen in forums and Google algorithm updates tracking tools. 

Talking about Google-confirmed updates, it’s quite seldom for Google to officially confirm updates; it only happens several times a year. As a result, many updates that impacted websites across the world wide web might not be named and talked about as much as those regarded as significant by the Googlers. A fit example would be the March 7 one, widely known as a core algorithm update meant to reward “the under-rewarded sites”, as some webmasters would say. It has greatly impacted traffic and rankings while also needing a longer time span than usual.

The specifics of Google’s algorithm will always remain under wraps.
	sam gowing
	Writer at Fifty Five and Five @_SamGowing / fiftyfiveandfive.com

However, even when Google does give official statements about one update or another, they are quite evasive when it comes to confirming or guide users through. Maybe that’s why Barry Schwartz often says: “The answer, according to Google, is really nothing”.

Whenever site owners or fellow marketers want to dig more into what it looks like being an algorithm change, they turn to Barry Schwartz, as the go-to high-quality source regarding monitoring, researching, analyzing, and dissecting Google both confirmed and unconfirmed updates. Even though Barry’s posts often start as being speculative, they’re nonetheless worth checking them out and following him as they usually get confirmed later on either by fellow webmasters or by the Google team itself.

Either way, be the update Google-confirmed or unconfirmed, bearing a name or not, impacting websites over a shorter or longer period of time, it’s clear that there are fluctuations and while some sites might see drops in traffic, others might notice gains. As a consequence, both the lucky and the unfortunate sites should neither rub their gain in, nor lose confidence, but stick to building great content that makes searcher want to return to your page.

There’s no “fix” for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 12, 2018

Without further ado, we shall talk about the 2018 Google updates that happened so far, focusing on those that were Google or webmasters-backed and already influenced the traffic and ranking flow of many websites.

2. Offering a Very Slow Experience Will Get Websites a Downgrade in Rankings

This update happened in the first month of 2018. Usually, December comes with a good share of inactivity, but this last December 2017 proved to be quite busy, were we to look at all the updates that have rambled on the Google streets: the Google-confirmed Maccabees updates that made a target out of some celebrity sites as well, knowledge graph updates, SEO starter guide update, extended meta description space, rich results testing tool new release and many more.

Mobile Page Speed as a Ranking Factor
source: seroundtable,com

Getting back to our sheep, January 18 was marked by a Google-official announcement that regarded a page speed update scheduled to come into effect this July (we’d better hurry and make the right changes to our site, don’t we?). Google said this is a new ranking algorithm designed to lower the SERP position of some mobile pages that deliver a really slow experience to the end user. 

Therefore, here we have it: a brand new, officially-announced Google ranking algorithm: page speed. Starting July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for all mobile searches.

Slow mobile pages that will get hit by this update will most likely not be notified in the Google Search Console given that this is an algorithmic thing, not a manual action. The good news, though, is that Google forecasted their actions to hit only a small percentage of pages presenting the slowest loading time and therefore a handful of queries. Schwartz, too, thinks this update is not very disruptive given that a page would have to be super slow to really get hit by this major update.

To be clear, there is no ranking boost for being fast, just a downgrade for being really slow.
	berry schwartz
	Founder at Search Engine Roundtable @rustybrick / rustybrick.com

How this Google update impacts you

Apart from what we’ve previously said above – that it won’t impact the traffic and rankings lest you provide (at least) a reasonably satisfactory and fast experience to your users (which comes pretty obvious),- some webmasters raised a question: what comes first – canonical URL or AMP URL? This comes after many started worrying on how big of an impact will this update cause on their sites.

If a page’s canonical page is very slow but the AMP URL is very fast, will Google use the AMP or the mobile URL for measuring speed and ranking the page? Although, in theory, Google uses the canonical URL regardless whether there’s a desktop or mobile page involved and they have an AMP URL, Google confirmed that since the AMP URL is provided and is mega-fast, then no downgrade in rankings will take place. Berry’s answer is this:

The answer is AMP for speed will be what Google uses for this algorithm, not your canonical URL because that is what is being served. But for other signals, like content, links, etc, Google will use the canonical mobile URL. Confused? Yeah, thought so.”
	berry schwartz
	Founder at Search Engine Roundtable @rustybrick / rustybrick.com

What’s more, many Google users confuse this new speed ranking update with the Mobile-First Indexing update – they’re independent from one another, so don’t mingle them.

Last but not least, this January/July major ranking update will not boost the rankings of those pages that are fast, but only downgrade those that are extremely slow.

3. A Search Console Year-Plus of Data Adding

This update seemed to drive people crazy after Google: digital marketers and webmasters alike were very happy to learn that starting on January 8, the search giant released a new version of their Search Console with 16 months of stored data. 

It's here! Google officially announces the new Google Search Console: "We are now starting to release this beta version to all users of Search Console" with many updates including 16 months of data in Search Performance – Thanks @googlewmc ???‍? https://t.co/W0DNDFexxu pic.twitter.com/mCPV8EvaMz

— Aleyda Solis (@aleyda) January 8, 2018

Today's Search Console launch is the start in the biggest revamp of this tool in 12+ years. Excited to get your feedback on it! https://t.co/2VS8faUHLl

— Elliott Ng (@elliottng) January 8, 2018

Besides Google Search Console Beta getting live for everyone with 16 months of stored data in the Search Performance report, Google also added various enticing new features to this version, such as an updated Index Coverage report (alerting you when bumping into new issues and helping you monitor their behavior), and a changed AMP status and Job Posting report.

How this Google update impacts you

Everybody can now understand how to optimize their site for Google, given how simple everything is (or at least it seems). In addition, having an extended period of data storage, you can now deploy more in-depth analysis of long-term trends that might impact more than one year. You will be able to work with really actionable data and make a wiser decision regarding your website and the overall user experience.

source: webmasters.googleblog.com

Also very important is the fact that the Google team intends to make this Google Search Console updating process a long-term one, hence they will continue adding new features and changes to their version. As a consequence, the Google team is asking for continued feedback – after all, how do you think the new GSC version got launched?

4. A Google-Backed Twitter Account Meant Solely for Search News

Danny Sullivan, Google’s public search liaison, decided to create a brand new Twitter profile meant to inform, guide, explain, and be in contact with all Googlers and users and announced it on January 26. Most of us already got those from following Danny’s profile but he found it more suitable to deliver messages regarding Google search on an entirely new profile and spare his following of Star Wars and Star Trek tweets, should they be interested mostly in the search side.

How this Google update impacts you

While this isn’t really a Google algorithm or ranking update, it still counts as a smart move meant to benefit all of the Google fans out there. I myself am quite thankful for this twist of events and seek to follow the Google SearchLiaison profile as closely as possible.

Why, you might wonder. Well, simply put, as Berry Schwartz is the primary source to check when it comes to Google updates in general, such is the new Google SearchLiaison profile the go-to source of information when it comes to every search-related thing, explanation, debate, or piece of news. 

5. Switching from HTTP to HTTPS gets mandatory

This security-centric turn comes to prove once again the Google really cares about the user experience and trust websites provide to their visitors. Similar to the page speed update mentioned earlier, Google announced on February 9 that starting July 2018, websites should have an SSL addition to their site and provide an HTTPS-backed experience to their users, or else they’ll be punished.

source: searchenginejournal.com

How this Google update impacts you

This HTTP-to-HTTPS issue is twofold: first, it’s for your own good and safety to use HTTPS instead of HTTP (“S” actually comes from “security”), two, Google will straightforwardly warn your visitors that your website is not safe browsing, leading to a pretty high bounce rate.

source: searchenginejournal.com

Given that Chrome holds a good browser version market share of 50% worldwide, we can say this update will impact many web owners. Therefore having a protruding notice in the Omnibox warning users that your website is “Not secure”, might increase bounce rate and take a toll on advertising impressions, affiliate links, and e-commerce overall sales. Here’s a list pointing out how many Chrome users there are and the impact level this update might have on various regions and countries, should website not switch to HTPPS.

source: searchenginejournal.com

Switching to HTTPS might be a bit difficult but it pays off. Most web hosting providers already provide this service for free or manage to give you HTTPS certificates at a rather low cost. So you have no excuse postponing this as money shouldn’t really be a problem.

6. “People Also Search For” Box

 This Google change got live on February 13 and got fully implemented on desktop search already. Somehow, it’s similar to “people also ask” section except that this one directs people to other SERPs.

Anyone else seeing this behavior in #Google‘s serps? Different look than before and they appear after clicking on the link then coming back to the serps. @rustybrick @jenstar #SEO pic.twitter.com/YVMbCsMHio

— Sean Van Guilder (@seanvanguilder) February 13, 2018

How this Google update impacts you

The new look is one search refinement meant to benefit organic results. Should you not qualify for a keyword entered in a search query, Google could lead visitors to your site when offering them variations of the first query. Or the other way around: if you focused on optimizing your page content and used both short and long keywords that might answer to a vast array of queries, you might appear twice in SERPs.

Google showing 'People also search for' suggestions when we click through to a result and then go back. @JohnMu has said before that click data doesn't affect rankings, but this suggests it's at least monitored. Seen this before @rustybrick @randfish? #SEO pic.twitter.com/65hwz6jIxI

— Glass Digital (@GlassDigitalLTD) February 13, 2018

7. Chrome Tidies Up Messy URLs When Shared

Starting February 19 this year, Chrome v64 cuts off unnecessary tails and the end of an URL when sharing it using the URL streaming “Share” in Chrome. 

Berry Schwartz had a feeling that this new feature is tied to the canonical page URL. AMP has similar sharing features in order to deliver an easy-to-use and relevant URL. 

 How this Google update impacts you

Besides the impact we’ve mentioned above, the one with using and delivering a usable URL, there are two more consequences to this update. 

On one hand, having the original URL trimmed when shared could be a little annoying, given that when it opens the page, it would load only the top of the page and lose the specific location it had when attached to, say, the anchor text.

On the other hand, who knows, maybe this feature will become really useful at some point in the future.

8. Search Console Crawl Limits Changed

One major update from Google happened on February 19 when the giant search engine radically changed the Search Console crawl limits due to spam and abuse.

Although there’s only a small percent who could abuse the system, it happened nonetheless and the team had to take action.

The Search Console limits per option changed:

• Before: Crawl only this URL submits only the selected URL to the Google for re-crawling. You can submit up to 500 individual URLs in this way within a 30 day period.
• After: Crawl only this URL submits only the selected URL to the Google for re-crawling. You can submit up to 10 individual URLs per day.

Google Search Console also changed numbers here:

• Before: Select Crawl this URL and its direct links to submit the URL as well as all the other pages that URL links to directly for re-crawling. You can submit up to 10 requests of this kind within a 30 day period.
• After: Select & Crawl this URL and its direct links to submit the URL as well as all the other pages that URL links to directly for re-crawling. You can submit up to 2 of these site recrawl requests per day.

How this Google update impacts you

Barry Schwartz thinks this update might not be such a big deal to white-hat SEOs who don’t use this tool so often, given that a submission for indexation normally happens on a limited basis. But it might block some spam and unnatural activity from black-hat users.

9. Mobile-First Indexing

This Google update birth story is quite a soap opera. Once upon a February 22 day, webmasters and digital marketers alike gave a shoutout to a big announcement Google made at PubCon regarding a new ranking algorithm. Gary Illyes from Google announced onstage that the search engine webmaster team intends to roll the mobile-first index for more sites in the following weeks. 

Announcement – In the next month and a half or so, Google is moving a LOT of sites to mobile first.@methode #Pubcon

— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) February 21, 2018

The mobile-first indexing update didn’t come into effect until around March 26, as John Mueller didn’t give an exact date regarding the full start. Those monitoring fluctuations in Google rankings and traffic couldn’t tell either when exactly this updated started given the quite lengthy period of activity. What’s more, it almost gone completely unnoticed as there were few to no sites to signal their new ranking position from which to determine whether they were hit by this update or not.

How this Google update impacts you

To best explain this update and what it does to your site,  we could say that mobile-first indexing points out to Google’s attempt at indexing and ranking your website from a mobile point-of-view, when applicable. That is, should you have a mobile-friendly website, Google would index and rank your mobile version first. When I said “when applicable” it meant that Google will treat the world wide web this way only when bumping into sites that follow the best practices required by mobile-first indexing, therefore wouldn’t impact the other websites that didn’t check this aspect on their list. At least for now.

We evaluate each site individually on its readiness for mobile-first indexing based on the best practices and transition the site when the site is ready.
	google search
	developers.google.com

This update is a global and multilingual rollout, thus it’s meeant for everyone and will impact everyone.

It's global – across countries & languages.

— ? John ? (@JohnMu) March 27, 2018

Regardless if your website is ready from a mobile-friendliness standpoint or not, optimizing and having mobile-friendly content is still relevant in marketing strategies that seek to make the website perform better in SERPs. Given there is a vast array of ranking signals that may influence your position in search, you might deliver content that is not necessarily mobile-friendly or is slow-loading. Having said this, optimizing your website for mobile would set your marketing strategy on fire, so you should definitely not postpone it. 

N.B.: This update is mobile-first indexing, not mobile first index, where the primary index is still the desktop one, this one only being added to the core one.

10. Multifaceted Featured Snippets

A new form of featured snippets was released on March 1 and it’s meant to answer queries that might be driven by more than one need and search intent.

Last month, we shared how Google would be displaying more than one featured snippet, when deemed useful. This is now rolling out live on mobile and will eventually come to desktop over time. More here: https://t.co/b2u4T9RvUW pic.twitter.com/ENJFa8ppkE

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 28, 2018

Google said they intend to provide more than one featured snippet for queries that might serve or have several potential intentions or purposes associated. This is one more step forward in what Google is trying to better understand the users and update it’s AI algorithm to deliver the best and the most satisfactory result possible. 

How this Google update impacts you

Having a Google update such as multifaceted featured snippets is great news for both site owners and content marketers. This means that more sites will get the chance to be featured on position 0 in SERPs. 

Site owners will have a double shot at ranking high in search while content marketers’ efforts of optimizing their content in order to be featured up there, will finally be rewarded. 

On the other hand though, I sense this update might be a bit nagging to the user, given that this will only get the page more crowded than it already is. 

11. The Relevancy Update

On March 9, there were some unnamed updates, yet online marketers knew how to interpret them and realize how big it was. while inquiring Google webmasters. John Mueller from Google confirmed in a Webmasters Hangout that these updates had to relevancy:

The updates that we made are more about relevance where we’re trying to figure out which sites relevant for certain queries and and not so much quality overall. It doesn’t means its a bad sign, we may just be finding that your site isn’t relevant for these particular queries.
	john mueller
	Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google @JohnMu

How this Google update impacts you

Marie Haynes and her team investigates several site that got hit on March 9 and noticed similarities among most of them. Many of the victims were relatively big brand who lost rankings on their articles, which , on a closer look, showed signs of duplicate content in regard to other sites’ content. This clearly pointed out the fact that Google intends to sift sites that don’t raise up to the standard of providing helpful, useful, and unique content on their pages.

This is not an update pointing to who is bad and who is good – but they rather seek to refine their answers to people’s queries – hence, they want to give the good answer not just the one that ranks for it.
	MARIE HAYNES
	Blogger @Marie_Haynes / hiswebmarketing.com

Seeing a drop around March 9 might show you were hit by this relevancy update. Getting downgraded doesn’t necessarily mean that your content is awful, but because Google saw one or more of your competitors being more qualitative than you.

Should you start optimizing your content and trying to fix everything so to see results as soon as possible won’t help you on the spot. When refining your marketing strategy, start with a site audit, read the Quality Raters’ Guidelines very carefully, and ask someone who’s close to you but unfamilliar with your website to compare you with your competitors and tell you what they see, and last but not least, cut off from duplicate content.

12. Google’s Mobile Friendly & Rich Results Tools Now Read JavaScript Sites

If Google has a hard time reading JavaScript Sites, then this update comes as a great surprise and a piece of great newson March 10. Tom Greenaway from Google, at Google I/O 2018 said that Google approaches indexing and ranking of JavaScript pages very differently than non-JavaScript ones.

In more human words, the Googlebot might have issues indexing and rendering the contents of a JavaScript page and might need to do it in more than one wave. Hence, Javascript powered website in Google are deferred until the fit resources to process that content.

And yet, Google worked their mobile-friendly and rich results rendering tools to be able to work with sites built in JavaScript language. In more technical words: 

Those tools can now both show the screenshots for JS-based sites, rendered DOM, show JavaScript errors and stack traces as seen by the Googlebot’s web render service. The tools will show rendered HTML, the console log, exceptions, and stack traces.
	berry Schwartz
	Founder at Search Engine Roundtable @rustybrick / rustybrick.com

How this Google update impacts you

Well, from now on, websites built in JavaScript will be readable from a mobile-friendly standpoint, while also appearing in rich snippets when somebody would enter a query from the mobile phone. Websites will double, if not triple their visibility, rank higher, and get increased traffic to their sites. This update is pretty much self-explanatory. 

13. “Mentioned on Wikipedia” Carousel in Search Results

Many website owners complained about Google not mentioning where the carousel info was taken from so the switch is quite significant. Google added on April 11 a new featured to their carousel and is visible to both mobile and desktop end users. 

source: seroundtable.com

When clicking on the carousel, it leads you not to the brand site but to the actual Wikipedia page of that brand or product.

How this Google update impacts you

It’s still not clear to what kind of searcher this carousel appears or in what country, yet one thing is clear. Big brands or websites that got featured in Wikipedia doubled their chances of appearing in Google SERPs. 

What’s more, some searches trigger a featured snippet instead of a carousel, hence this is quite an intricate update. 

14. New AdWords Features

Starting early this year, Google added new AdWords features almost every month: January, March, April, and May. In January, Google started allowing advertisers to add, edit, or remove keywords while they’re busy doing something else. Also, users have now the chance to quickly identify and name Display ads issues from the Overview page and find out more about every impression shift in search results. March had its fair share of new features, while April and May showed low activity with only one update each, April promising the chance of getting an insider look into keywords that aren’t showing ads together with an explanation, plus “get more done in less time”.

source: support.google.com

How this Google update impacts you

All these AdWords updates are meant to positively impact your advertising efforts and help you learn more from an environment you’re so much expecting results. Google’s aim is to allow you get deeper insight from your data in order to make the right selling decisions.

Conclusion

The updates that got launched so far in 2018 had to do a lot with user experience:

Google wanted pages to load fast (page speed), not have intrusive ads, lacking mobile optimization, and be relevant.

Even though, as Schwartz names them, many ranking fluctuations didn’t point out to a heavy or core update and were more some sort of “hiccups”, one thing is sure: Google is set to make their search engine as human as possible and as smart and cunning as a human being. 

Every month, there has been a lot of chatter, debate, educated guesses in forums such as WebmasterWorld, Black Hat Forums, Google forums, as proved by the tools that monitor Google’s changes that mainly affect traffic and rankings (cognitiveSEO, SERPmetrics, Mozcast, Advanced Web Ranking, Accuranker, Algaroo, RankRanger, SEMRush). 

Overall, we can expect more from Google as the time passes. Should you want to be ready for the upcoming updates or just fix your websites as much as you can for the ones that come into effect this July – page speed update and switching from HTTP to HTPPS -, make sure you read this post. 

Google has one love and one heart: their users, and that’s why they’ll continue focusing on mobile that’s on the rise lately, improved user experience (UX), and richer and more relevant content experiences. 

User experience will continue to be in the spotlight and more specifically will be driving users to spend less time in the search results and more time on websites with the richest content experiences.
	victoria doherty
	Digital Marketing Executive at blubolt / Victoria Doherty

The post Google’s 2018 Updates So Far And How They Already Impact Your Website appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Given that we don’t lean on rumor, we figured out it’s best to check ourselves what’s there that makes Bing a smart target to marketers of all kinds.  

In a world full of Google-first mindsets, it’s wise to take a step back and reconsider our choices. Is Google the only medium worth investing into? We gathered 31 facts that prove that Bing might just be that missing piece in your overall online marketing strategy. Be ready to be amazed by statistics, testimonials, and webmaster-backed tips about Bing.

1. Bing Traffic Might Have a Lower Bounce Rate
2. Yahoo and Bing Own a Third of the U.S. Search Market
3. Most Google SEO Practices Apply to Bing As Well
4. Bing Has Lower Competition
5. Bing Currently Powers Yahoo and the Majority of Voice Search
6. Bing Is More Open About Their Ranking Factors Than Google
7. Content Is Not a #1 Ranking Signal
8. On-Page SEO Matters More Than Off-page SEO
9. Bing Has a Taste For the Good Old Practices
10. Better Multimedia User Experience
11. Social Signals Are a Vital Ranking Factor
12. Bing Has a Stunning Array of Free Analysis Tools
13. Content Needs to Be Top-Notch
14. Backlinks: Numbers Talk
15. Bing Teams Up With Google Against Shady SEO Practices
16. Bing Prefers Older Websites to Newer Ones
17. Meta Description and Keywords Impact CTR and Ranking
18. EMDs Rank Higher on Bing SERPs Than on Google’s 
19. Bing Can Interpret Flash Websites
20. Small Local Businesses Get a Boost in Bing’s Local Search Area
21. Bing Is Gentler When It Comes to Mobile-Friendliness 
22. CTR Is a Turn-Point Ranking Factor
23. Bing Is Very Secure For Authors
24. Bing Puts Less Importance on Links Than Google
25. HTTPS Is Not a Ranking Factor
26. Bing Has a Simpler Penalty System
27. Most of the Bing Audience Is Exclusive and Doesn’t Visit Google
28. Bing Promises Increased ROI
29. Bing Is a Much Cheaper Advertising Alternative to Google
30. Bing Prefers 301 Redirects
31. Microsoft’s Success Is One of the Finest Coups in History

Bonus: How to Optimize Your Website for Bing

How Can Microsoft’s Bing Change Your SEO Game?

In many ways, Bing is similar to Google. It provides a variety of search services, including web, video, image, and map search. As you’ve probably already seen in the table of contents, many optimization steps meant for Google also fit into the Bing world. And yet, we’re here to talk about what’s Bing offering to businesses and marketers that Google is not. 

First things first, you should know why the Bing name. One idea struck me the other day and made me wonder whether the Microsoft team watched and worshiped the renowned sitcom tv-show “Friends” like everybody else on this Planet (well, almost everybody!). It would’ve been funny though if they got inspired by Chandler Bing’s name, especially when everybody in the show made fun of it.

However, let’s get back to our sheep and let you know that the Bing name was brainstormed and picked through focus groups. The proposed name pleased Microsoft for a number of reasons: it was easy to remember and spell, short, and friendly. It also reminded people the sound made when discovering something or deciding upon an idea. Qi Lu, president of Microsoft Online Services also said that Bing meant “very certain to respond/answer” in Chinese. Hey, I’m already sold!

Should you be craving for some more proof regarding Bing’s performance and charm besides our 31-fact list, you should also check what people say about it and why they prefer Bing to Google. Here are some interviews deployed by TechRadar where working-class people explain how Bing’s a step forward for them when it comes to search engines.

Long story short, it’s time we listened to the founder and CEO of Market Domination Media, Jonathan Long’s advice and move forward and check what Bing has to offer to the SEO world.

Stop treating the Yahoo Bing Network like the red-headed stepchild.
	jonathan long
	Founder of Market Domination Media /  @long

1. Bing Traffic Might Have a Lower Bounce Rate

Matthew Woodward’s experience with the Google and Bing traffic is very interesting. Although many say Bing doesn’t bring too many leads, Woodward experienced something else: this search engine provides lower bounce rate, more page visits, visitors spend more time on site, and there are more subscribers in general. 

source: matthewwoodward.co.uk

Strong user engagement is very important for Bing and usually penalizes anything that’s not aligned with this requirement. There’s something similar to bounce rate but with an uglier truth – pogo-sticking. While bounce rates don’t always mean something bad, pogo-sticking always does. It occurs when somebody, after having shortly landed on your site, quickly hits the “back” button, returns to search results, and clicks on another website.

Another guess for the small bounce rate would be that, given the very precise search results aligned with Bing’s Webmaster Guidelines, people do get what they want most times they enter a query and spend enough time on site to satisfy their needs.

2. Yahoo and Bing Own a Third of the U.S. Search Market

The 2018 comScore stats revealed the new Bing search market status at both a global and country level. We’ll generally treat Yahoo as being an integral part of the Bing traffic, as they’re powered by the latter. Therefore, the combined strength of Bing and Yahoo nails around a third of the market share for search in the US.

Did we mention Bing is bigger than you think ?? #SEM #PPC #bingadswebcast pic.twitter.com/jeJxJGcxl5

— Bing Ads (@BingAds) August 17, 2017

Although Google’s traffic is double, we’re still talking big numbers and users that are active on a search engine that surprisingly is other than Google. Given the ton of search done on Bing, it’s very important for digital marketers to know what they’re missing out when struggling to rank on the first Google pages. This way you’ll know where to start optimizing your website, preferably with as little effort as possible.

source: link-assistant.com

We all know that most times, numbers talk.

Imagine that you could be missing 143 million unique searchers each month and 5.2 billion searches a month probably don’t display your website in SERPs.

Pretty tough, isn’t it? To rub some more salt into the wound, financial and automotive queries on Bing and Yahoo is triple to that of Google, counting up to 11 million out of a 14 million total. 

source: searchenginewatch.com

3. Most Google SEO Practices Apply to Bing As Well

There are two sides when it comes to the theory that says if you rank high on Google, you rank well pretty well on Bing too. Most agree with this, although with a critical eye, but others are reluctant and argue that search algorithms are different, hence searching for the same query won’t provide you the same SERPs but a quite different one. 

Either way, we can’t deny the fact that Google and Bing share many similarities, while most guidelines provided from webmasters working for the former are listed as important by webmasters from the latter as well. Nobody says that if you’re on page 1 on Google you MUST be ranking on the same page for the same query on Bing as well.

It’s just that you actually don’t need to reinvent the wheel with Bing but only consider some retouches.

Again, although their algorithms are somehow different, you can easily target Bing for ranking your website high. SEO for Bing is not so different from Google – you could easily get the best of both worlds. What’s more, most SEO efforts meant for Google will also translate well with Bing and Yahoo as well, given that the latter is powered by the former. 

Both Google and Bing value relevant content, look for well-placed keywords, place big brands higher, ask for mobile-friendliness and unique user experience, correlate social signals with quality content and better rankings, consider backlinks very important for websites, require the on-page SEO to be up-to-date, and have similar search layouts. Moreover, all three major search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, allied and signed an agreement to make search listings richer and more accurate through structured data. 

Should you decide to start optimizing for Bing, it would be wise if you checked what impact those tactics might have on your Google ranking, so that you’ll avoid losing popularity and the lead for a search engine with the biggest market share of all.

4. Bing Has Lower Competition

Reading various comments on this Bing topic, I noticed there are very few to no people doing SEO for Bing, mostly because they already rank pretty high inside the search engine or simply have no interest in it. Truth be told, the majority of websites focus only on optimizing for Google, leaving the other search engines behind, hence unconsciously allowing Bing develop a fertile search environment where there’s not much of a competition and brands could easily rank high. 

Bing is second in line after Google when it comes to marketer’s best practices given that everybody struggles to please the bigger master, but it could really add some value to your strategy. 

Moreover, taking the nearly two decades into account in which SEOs have purely focused all their efforts on ranking high on Google, it’s hard for newcomers to compete with people who already forged their skills for years in a row. But now there’s a new land for people to sow their brands into and see them grow and thrive. Targeting Google is the right move and there’s nothing to blame, as Sherry Bonelli would say. But you should at least be aware of what Bing might do for you.

If you’re guilty of “Google-first”, it’s not without reason.
	sherry Bonelli
	Digital Marketing Guru at Early Bird Digital Marketing / @sherrybonelli

5. Bing Currently Powers Yahoo and the Majority of Voice Search

For many years now, beginning July 2009, to be exact, Yahoo search has been powered by Bing meaning that the former’s searches are backed by Bing’s index and ranking algorithm. Should you doubt, just do a test search and see for yourself that search results are very similar. Hence, optimizing for one should please the other as well, at least when looking at the bigger picture.

Furthermore, should be a little behind with news, Oath is the new name for the Yahoo+AOL mix that came into effect after Yahoo was purchased by Verizon in 2017, including TechCrunch, hence you’ll often see this name in the charts that will follow shortly.

One of my biggest surprises was to find out that Bing also powers the Siri voice search feature on people’s iPhones. To all the Siri users and aficionados out there – you are using Bing and have no clue about it yet.

6. Bing Is More Open About Their Ranking Factors Than Google

Although Bing offers users guidelines as to how they should optimize their websites, Bing specifies that this is not going to guarantee higher rankings or more traffic from the search engine, although it’s wise to tick them on your list nevertheless. This shows you should expect contingencies but they’re ready to guide you through and, when necessary, tell you the naked truth.

Bing is much more transparent about ranking factors; just check their Bing Webmaster Guidelines and case studies and you’ll agree. Plus, they give you the tools to beautify your website to their taste, hence little to no hidden strings.

Interesting enough, there’s yet no evidence as to what Bing values most when it comes to ranking – links, content or anything else. They do value quality content but they don’t specifically say links or content play a major role as Google uses to.

7. Content is Not a #1 Ranking Signal

As previously said, content is rendered neither as #1 ranking signal on Bing nor as a part of the privileged few that are part of the top. As long as it has the three pillars of content quality, they’re happy.

source: Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Bing knows how they like their content in order to rank it high, but there’s one element that might make your page contents more appealing: multimedia files.

Bing looks for rich and engaging content, one that uses spot-on images, video, audio, so on and so forth.

8. On-Page SEO Matters More Than Off-page SEO

On-page SEO is king on Bing. This is what reigns the Bing lands, while off-page follows next. Although digital marketers invest time, money, and effort into both, it’s a universally known fact that successful off-page SEO only follows good on-page SEO.

source: searchmetrics.com

Therefore, Bing is not cherry-picking the best one out of two but only gives on-site SEO its well-deserved tribute. To some extent, it’s a chicken-or-the-egg type of debate.

9. Bing Has a Taste For the Good Old Practices

Unlike Google who’s always updating everything, Bing is more into the classic. Generally speaking, what’s new-school for Bing is somehow old-school for Google.

Bing has a rather tangled search algorithm, one that is focused on things such as exact-match domains and keywords in headings, titles, copy or meta description (although Google dismissed them as a ranking factor, Bing relies on them), or high-quality content – authority, display, multimedia, relevance. Those who are fond of the old Google interface and ranking factors could easily feel at home when using Bing.

As we optimized specifically for Bing and Yahoo, I felt like I was optimizing for Google a few years ago. Tactics and tasks that were significant to me years ago, were now a factor again, just on different search engines.
	william kammer
	Director of SEO at Levy Online / @williamkammer

10. Better Multimedia User Experience

Bing has a better entity understanding in regard to multimedia and considers it a big plus if added to text content. Therefore, the Microsoft search engine uses it as a ranking factor which they also signal in their Bing Webmaster Guidelines. 

Another good thing would be that Bing is more user-friendly when queries ask for images. The search engine gives exact search results without related searches or suggestions of this kind, as Google visitors are used to. 

So you can get Bing’s favorite should you provide nice and tidy, unique, high-quality, and relevant images.

11. Social Signals Are a Vital Ranking Factor

According to Neil Patel, Bing 

Bing says social signals pass on influence at alll levels, especially to brands’ social channels and to search engines.

Their impact should really mean that marketers should put an emphasis on increasing their social media audience and receive some feedback.

source: searchmetrics.com

As expected, Bing too is against fake social media followers and engagement, such as it is against keyword stuffing when it comes to relevant content. 

Although Google doesn’t say anything regarding the power of social signals, they greatly influence your rankings and many experts and SEO gurus vouched for them, so it’s wise to use them and benefit from both search engines, Google and Bing.

12. Bing Has a Stunning Array of Free Analysis Tools

Be it on the link level, the site structure level, or the page level, Bing has it all. Plus, Bing Webmaster Tools are free and provide actionable insight and tips on how to optimize your website for them.

Matthew Woodward thinks they’re superb and encourages marketers to use it right away.  It’s like Bing has concentrated all marketing superpowers in one toolset and now lends it for free for people to learn what’s worth and what’s not in Bing’s eyes.

source: matthewwoodward.co.uk

Bing is definitely SEO-friendly. One look at their in-depth structured Webmaster Guidelines, Tools, and case-studies, all there in order to make the search engine a better and easier-to-live-in place.

Bing provides the right means to sign up your website for analysis – be they backlinks, keywords, link profile etc -, mobile friendliness -, find out whether you’re penalized or not, even get your SEO reports that point out the flaws they see when crawling your site.

13. Content Needs to Be Top-Notch

As previously said, content is not a ranking content per se but it’s still important how it looks and “displays itself” on the internet. They prefer unique content, content written by professionals from well-known sources or people with field expertise instead of recycled content which is widely available everywhere on the web. 

The Bing Webmaster Guidelines defines optimized content as: “clear, easy to understand and scan, deep, without ads, without affiliate links or redirecting readers to other links shortly after they landed on their page, should be friendly, easy to navigate, engaging, information-rich”.

Content should be multimedia-rich, with graphs, images, and videos meant to engage and offer all the necessary information to the reader. Generally, Bing places a higher value on in-depth, unique, long and engaging content rather than on shorter content. Bing is pretty simple to understand and follow – all you need is to know what you need and the search engine will provide it for you.

14. Backlinks: Numbers Talk

The number is so important that it can even beat the link quality.

Although it’s possible for Bing to look more to quantity than to quality, to some extent, it does prefer the ones coming from highly-authoritative websites, usually ranking .edu, .gov, .org sites higher.

This might be one explanation as to why Bing ranks older, hence richer in links and social activity, websites. Similar to Google, the search engine from Microsoft prefers organic links from relevant, trustworthy websites that vouch for the traffic they lead to your page and old – as age is a sign of trust and influence. Should the backlinks be do-follow and with exact match anchor text (contain your target keywords), you win the jackpot. 

The Bing team says on their Webmaster Guidelines page that links are necessary to help them spot new pages on your site, as they don’t crawl all your pages, but only the 10 most influential ones. Links show you’re popular, trustworthy, and relevant to real users who eventually generate organic and continuously increasing traffic. 

15. Bing Teams Up With Google Against Shady SEO Practices

Link schemes, cloaking, social media schemes, reciprocal or paid links, duplicate content, overly advertised pages, quality over quantity content, misleading markup, link farms, and excessive link manipulation, in general, are not welcomed on Bing. 

source: Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Therefore, all the white hat SEOs out there searching for a safe place to develop their brand in the online market, Bing is one of the places-to-be.

16. Bing Prefers Older Websites to Newer Ones

I know this one tells a different tale compared to what Google values most, but Bing is old-school and likes to deal with websites that have aged beautifully and you can easily put your trust in. 

This is genuinely because Bing looks at site authority when checking backlinks or websites, in general. Having a “vintage” (old) domains helps. Older websites have a story to tell, and more often than not they engage in healthy digital marketing practices and have build a trustworthy name in their niche.

Bing though everything through, isn’t it?

17. Meta Description and Keywords Impact CTR and Ranking

This is an old debate where search engine officials state they don’t use metadata as a ranking factor, however, when optimizing your website with meta keywords and description, brands seem to send another vibe to both search engines and readers.

Although Duane Forrester from Bing Webmaster Outreach announced they don’t take metadata (keywords and descriptions) into account when ranking websites, quality research (testing and experience) show something else. 

A client came to us with good Google ranks, but very poor Yahoo and Bing. This caused us to look deeply into specific optimization techniques for Bing and Yahoo. One of the first things we noticed was the lack of meta keywords and descriptions. Once we completed filling these out, we saw noticeable increases across the SERPs (except Google).
	william kammer
	Director of SEO at Levy Online / @williamkammer

Either way, Bing needs meta keywords and description to position you higher and understand your content better, while it also helps Google users have a better understanding of your provided info, if not the search engine. Although Google say they don’t use metadata for ranking, it’s still important to optimize your pages with them given the overall impact on CTR.

18. EMDs Rank Higher on Bing SERPs Than on Google’s 

Bing is not very good at grasping the meaning from the context, it needs the stuff to be already chewed. As a consequence, Bing puts more emphasis on the exact match anchor text as compared to Google.

Although Google is somehow against exact-match settings knowing that many spammy websites use exact-match domains, it’s a bit risky to optimize your website this way, should you want to rank high on both search engines. Think of all those online movie websites that wear a domain name matching the very query – “watchmoviesfree”, “tvmovies”, “freemoviescinema” etc. 

However, given that in the Bing world exact match keywords in your domain name matter, you should try to incorporate it naturally. This is one of the perks of optimizing your website for Bing – exact-match domains get lucky here.

Bing has lots of EMD sites ranking before some legit sites for many keywords.
	william kammer
	Director of SEO at Levy Online / @williamkammer

Should you want to have yet another shot at ranking higher on Bing, you should focus on exact-match domains in the title, description, HTML, headings, and copy. 

19. Bing Can Interpret Flash Websites

Long story short, Bing can interpret flash websites, while Google Chrome has a rather difficult time with them.

20. Small Local Businesses Get a Boost in Bing’s Local Search Area

Local businesses will rejoice when hearing this: it’s easier to get increased local visibility with Bing.

The issue is twofold: first, Google generally favors the bigger local businesses when compared to Bing, secondly, the former often times misses the point when delivering results to a query because it uses contextual clues to figure out what you’re really searching for, whereas Bing will show your local results first.

Moreover, brick-and-mortar businesses have a better shot at being visible on Bing than on Google with the Bing Places for Business.

All you need for Bing’s free local listing service is your physical address, contact info, opening hours, your website link, and nice photos of your business. In addition, Bing provides users a feature Google is missing at the moment: an agency dashboard feature to help users run local search campaigns easier and at a quicker pace.

21. Bing Is Gentler When It Comes to Mobile-Friendliness 

Bing values mobile-friendliness set-ups but has a different approach to it. They consider mobile-optimization a plus in ranking higher in SERPs, while Google made it rather mandatory, saying they will start ranking you based on your mobile website first.

22. CTR Is a Turn-Point Ranking Factor

This is a simple calculus. As you probably figured out already, Bing likes things easy and tidy. Imagine two websites ranking on #1 position and #2, respectively. They’re both performing exquisitely, yet #1 position has lower CTR compared to the one on the second place. Guess what: there’s going to be a switch.

23. Bing Is Very Secure For Authors

We already talked about Bing preferring authoritative websites with some history on the web. They’re willing to offer the same sense of security to content authors as well.

With Google providing people with the chance of claiming content they have written, Bing also had a “Klout-orship” program which provided author details such as Linkedin summary, social profiles, Klout score, 2 most popular posts from Twitter in the last 7 days and 2 most engaging posts from Instagram in the past 90 days. However, not until recently we have learned that Klout has unfortunately reached an end on May 25, 2018, Lithium announcing that “Klout is now kaput“. Wonder what Bing will do next…

Anyways, Bing is quite strict when it comes to website authority and trust, hence they will continue taking into account a variety of factors such as social signals, name recognition, cited sources, the author’s identity and more.

24. Bing Puts Less Importance on Links Than Google

Matthew Woodward said that Bing puts less importance on links when compared to Google, although it does favor editorial links coming from websites with high-quality content and top-notch marketing tactics. 

It’s the same debate as the one with content: content is very important, as links are too, but they are not rendered as a top ranking factor with Bing.

25. HTTPS Is Not a Ranking Factor

This fact is backed by Bing Lead Program Manager Vincent Wehren.  Whilst for Google it is a ranking factor, Bing considers it irrelevant for website positioning and they are not going to give it any credit.

26. Bing Has a Simpler Penalty System

Besides being quite transparent about it’s ranking algorithm, Bing also doesn’t name a vast array of penalties, except the one where they delist a website when shady SEO practices are noticed in their behalf. And it’s very easy to find out whether you’ve been penalized in their Webmaster Tools area.

We don’t know a whole lot about Bing’s penalties but what we do know for sure is they are a much friendlier beast than Google.
	matthew woodward
	Award Winning Blogger matthewwoodward.co.uk / @MattWoodwardUK

27. Most of the Bing Audience Is Exclusive and Doesn’t Visit Google

In 2014, comScore published some statistics that might surprise you. In addition, they will help you draw a better picture of these unknown figures who seem to slip through your fingers. 

According to the stats, the Bing searchers seem to be college graduates and graduate school students and mature people fitting the 35+ age group. Women represent a slightly bigger figure than men, most of them managing households with children. What’s more, these households have incomes more than $75.000.

Bing’s demographic is more mature in age and affords to spend more money.

72% finance and business searches happening on Bing and Yahoo are not to be found on Google’s ground. This is almost 21 million people you might be missing in finance, and that’s tough, as they are the ones holding the biggest share of the money, aren’t they?

Curious though why they keep their searches exclusive and don’t check all search engines for what they’re interested in. Could it be that Bing focuses on older and more authoritative and trustworthy brand websites?

28. Bing Promises Increased ROI

ROI is vital to digital marketing and Bing can double it or even more. According to comScore, Yahoo Bing Network traffic converts better, spending 6.8% more money online than the one searching on Google.

Source: link-assistant.com

Given that usually on Google it can take up to 12 months in order to get your payoff from your SEO efforts on their site, you should also consider Bing. Thanks to the lower competition for page one, it takes less time to see results on your investment. And this is splendid news especially for smaller companies who have a more fragile budget plan and smaller chances of seeing some decent ROI on their SEO efforts. All in one, Bing might have a better conversion rate than Google.

Source: matthewwoodward.co.uk

29. Bing Is a Much Cheaper Advertising Alternative to Google

Thanks to the lower competition available on Bing, it is cheaper for PPC advertisers to place their mobile and desktop ads. You can check the exact 2017 paid search trends on iProspect.

With Bing, you can afford both to advertise on and optimize for it.

30. Bing Prefers 301 Redirects

Bing prefers to use 301 redirects (sending people to a permanent location) instead of 302 ones. Their latest Bing Webmasters Guidelines update tells 302 redirects are fine, although, in reality, they still don’t work as they should. Normally, they wouldn’t recognize a 302 eredirect but after the crawlers would hit it multiple time, Bing would turn it into a 301.

Canonical tags instad of a proper redirect are not welcome either. Same with meta refresh redirects.

31. Microsoft’s Success Is One of the Finest Coups in History

Experts call it the Big Bing. In 2014 Mozilla released version 34 of their Firefox browser and made a move that changed the history: they removed Google as the default search engine and changed it to Yahoo! For North America, also replacing it with other search engines for Russia and other neighboring countries.

And boom! search traffic numbers changed for good in only 24 hours. Is this bad or good luck? It depends whom we’re looking at. Plus, imagine that many people (especially the older ones) don’t really care what search engine they’re using as long as they get answers to their queries, hence still use Bing from the day they purchased their laptop up till today. Here is the search engine’s success story in a nutshell, told by Tom McKay. 

source: gizmodo.com

Either way, Bing is bigger than most of us think. On August 17, 2017, Bing tweeted their search market share across major countries around the globe and the statistics are stunning.

Bing is bigger than you think! #SEM #PPC #bingadswebcast pic.twitter.com/fFtEDvM634

— Bing Ads (@BingAds) August 17, 2017

How to Optimize Your Website for Bing

1. Make a Strategy for Building Non-Spammy Links

Links are a trust signal in Bing’s eyes as well, so getting links is a good way to gain popularity. Bing supports the idea of quantity, so the more links you have, the more authority you’ll get. Websites that link to you mean that your content is good, and send signals to the search engines that your website should be trusted. But that doesn’t mean quality should be ignored. Both quality and quantity are important in this case.

Bing rewards links that have grown organically, that is, that have been added over time by content creators on other trusted, relevant websites made to drive real users from their site to your site.
	Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Bing encourages websites to build links while respecting the Bing Webmaster Guidelines. Abusive tactics for getting spammy links, such as links buying, participating in link schemes (link farms, link spamming and excessive link manipulation) can exclude your website from Bing’s index.

When deciding on the right strategy and the steps for building links on Bing focus more on the following tactics:

• target high authority domains and well-established sites to build links.
• links on .gov, .edu, and .org domains weigh more.
• select older domains, because Bing places greater emphasis on domain age.
• drive social media links. According to a Searchmetrics, social signals have a strong correlation with better rankings in Bing.
• set a limit of 20 backlinks a month.
• use keywords as anchor texts.

Even though Bing’s ranking factors are different and acquiring links can be done easily, we shouldn’t forget that every change we make can influence the rankings on the other search engines. That’s why creating link-worthy content is the best type of link building. Which points us to another way to optimize your website for Bing.

2. Focus on Optimizing Your Content for Bing

When we talk about optimized content for Bing, we talk about quality. The gold rule is that you provide clean, free-of ads content to have a chance to get indexed and Bing shows your website in search results. Don’t block your main content, avoid having spammy poping ads and just make your content easy to find.

Another important metric or information that you need to keep in mind and follow rigorously is the length of blog posts. A research on content length from Buffer shows that each blog post should have approximately 1,600 words of quality content to maximize your chances to rank on Bing and Yahoo.

The average total seconds rises for longer posts, peaks at 7 minutes, and then declines.
	MEDIUM

Fresh and unique content makes Bing crawlers love your website even more so make sure you have a content marketing plan that allows you to publish articles regularly.

3. Use Relevant Keywords in Proper Context

Bing recommends content writers to use relevant keywords and perform quality keyword research for every piece of content. Numerous studies on the topic showed that using relevant keywords is an important search ranking factor in SERP, including Bing.

Same as in Google, relevant and contextual keywords are vital in Bing. Below you can see a comparison between Google and Bing when it comes to keywords:

Add proximity keywords in your post, if possible. They can increase your chances to get traffic for local SEO. Keywords are extracted from context. Make sure you don’t get spammy.

4. Tag Your Website

Using tags and categories is your key for getting your website discovered and indexed by any search engine. There are a lot of content management systems, like WordPress, that allow you to easily manage tags and categories on your website.

By tagging your content you let Bing crawlers, as well as manual or robotic Bing algorithms know what to expect from the post and what it is about. More than that, similar blog posts can be tagged using similar words and placed automatically in the same category. 

Tags and categories also improve user experience by allowing visitors to quickly find the content they’re searching for and make it easier for you to manage all of your website content
	Kristen Baker
	Content Strategist at HubSpot /@KBakes2226

Some of the studies made along the years show that 5% of the visitors are referred to by tag pages listed in search engines, out of the 250,000 unique visitors per month. That is something! You can attract even a slight slice of that audience if you grasp the category and tagging opportunity when blogging.

5. Optimize Your On-Site SEO Elements

On-site SEO should be the top priority for any webmaster and it is even more important than off-site SEO for Bing. Two of the most important elements of on-site are internal links and sitemap.

The easiest way to find out if your site has any on-site issues is to use a Site Audit tool. This way, you’ll find out all your website’s issues, prioritized by importance and you’ll also get recommendations on how to fix them. 

Having a good linking architecture and adding XML Sitemaps can increase your search traffic from Bing, and not only. An experiment made by NinjaOutreach helped them boost their organic traffic by 40% with clever use of internal links. They started doing internal linking from the pages that were doing well to the lowest-performing pages.

If you fix your website’s errors, you can get about 1k visits from organic search each month, just like Greg Kristan from TM Blast. After fixing and optimizing the on-site elements, he got about 30% of my organic clicks from Bing.

6. Claim & Optimize Your Business’ Bing Local Listing

Every business owner wants more and more visitors, on the website, at the store, on the social platform, generating engagement and on every possible platform where the brand is available.

When we’re talking about optimization for local SEO, you need to visit Bing Places for Business and claim ownership for your business listing. Once you go to the site, you can follow the same steps as in Google My Business, and import the data or add your business information from scratch.

Local content that is optimized correctly can bring online purchases. A research on “Local Search Unleashing Opportunities for National Advertisers” by IDC and YP showed that:

Nearly half (49%) of consumers looking locally for national products and services conducted four or more search activities, and nearly one in four (24%) did six or more.

The information needs to be on sight and that’s because, according to the same study, people are taking the decision to buy in less than an hour. 63% of the survey respondents completed their searches in under an hour.

On top of that, more and more users are using not just one device, but several of them. Which, in terms of local SEO, can trigger lots of benefits if you have your business listed on Bing places. It will be easier to find your website since all the local results are above Bing search results.

Device Usage Among Local Searchers
Source: IDC (2016)

How Can Microsoft’s Bing Change Your SEO Game?

It was high time we shedded some light on Bing. Even our blog craved for some words of wisdom regarding this search engine few (or so many, it depends on the perspective) turn to. 

Let’s apply Dan Petrovic’s technique of ending a talk on a topic: “When you do a talk, tell them what you’re gonna tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you told them“. Remember that Bing:

• has lower competition
• has lower bounce rate, more page visits,  more time-on-site, more subscribers
• is much friendlier than Google in terms of ranking signals and penalties
• has no top ranking signal 
• considers social signals a ranking signal
• has great free analysis tools
• needs meta data to rank you high
• EMDs rank higher than on Google
• it hasnearly a third of the search market share (US) together with Yahoo
• powers Yahoo and Siri web search
• increases local businesses visibility
• has a bigger ROI
• is a cheaper advertising alternative to Google

As Dan Petrovic said in one of our cognitiveSEO Talks: On Search and Traffic podcasts, we need to see a third search engine come up with something different, not just be a few years behind Google, and act as a fully revolutionary search engine.

What I would love to see is one proper competitor to Google, whether it’d be Amazon, or eBay, or a new search engine, or even Facebook. I’d love to see a proper competitor in terms of information retrieval and presentation to users. […] I think there needs to be good competition, and that’s a good thing for Google and a good thing for users if there’s proper competition to Google, so they’re not driven just by their shareholders but by pure competition.
	dan petrovic
	Search Marketer dejanseo.com.au / @dejanseo

Bing is one of the three search engines that rule the world wide web (www). Many know it for having surpassed Yahoo in both traffic numbers and success, most of them assuming that Bing’s younger than Yahoo on the search market.

However, even to my own surprise, Bing is a search engine created and operated by Microsoft, one that has replaced in 2009 the former Live Search (2007), Windows Live Search (2006), and MSN Search (1998) Microsoft engines. It seems like Bing’s the Big Brother who’s been always here watching us without us knowing it. 

Hopefully, you have a better picture as to why you should let Bing play an important role in your SEO strategy.

source: searchenginejournal.com

Bing is a rich source of data and you should not overlook it. Otherwise, you’ll be losing almost 25% of new incoming traffic and potential clients. So use it as an additional source of traffic to what you’re already targeting.

The post 31 Reasons to Start Doing SEO for Bing appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Most user searches are made because of two reasons: to find information (informational query), or to find information and buy (commercial query). You need both types of users – the ones who seek information, and the ones who want to buy – because either case is a win-win situation: you’ll either convert them into customers, or you’ll win yourself some long-term subscribers.

It’s time you knew the off-site SEO tactics by their name, hence we crafted and put together a complete checklist of everything you should aim at in your SEO endeavors:

1. Link Building is King
2. Harness that Social Media Power
3. Add an RSS Feed Subscription Box 
4. Don’t Shy from Blog Commenting
5. Guest Posting is Still Hot
6. Forums Posting Is a Thing
7. Build Trust 
8. Incorporate Videos and Images
9. Build Relationships with Webmasters/Influencers
10. Be Present On the Web
11. Craft a Sparkling Brand Image
12. Document Sharing Is Good for You
13. PR Promo Game

First, let’s take an off-site SEO tour

Before we could even talk about off-page SEO, we should revise our knowledge on what SEO is in the first place. Although this might sound redundant (after all, this is how you landed on our blog, already knowing what SEO is and its very workings), we shall draw a quick picture of what SEO means today. Search engine optimization (SEO) stands for the entire cumulus of search marketing efforts meant to make websites and online presence stand out both in search engines’ and users’ eyes. SEO should make your brand shine in a sea of other brands, all fighting to get among the first position in SERPs. Furthermore, it seeks to satisfy users’ thirst for fresh, high-quality, relevant, and useful information.

You can’t just ‘SEO’ your website and be done. It’s a forever moving goal post.
	Stoney degeyter
	Digital Marketer @StoneyD / polepositionmarketing.com

SEO is an entirely different and exclusive language used by marketers and webmasters to communicate with the search engines. It’s a language bridge between humans and robots if you will. SEO rhymes with friendliness, credibility, authenticity, quality, transparency, fairness, optimization, variety and more. Also, SEO is divided into two main categories: on-page and off-page SEO. What Google asks, SEO strives to deliver.

What’s more, search engines, in general, take into account many factors when ranking a website: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and other important Google-backed factors.

Source: copyblogger.com

On-page SEO techniques can refer to loads of things and practices, and it includes optimized titles and snippets, search-friendly URL structures, friendly navigation – breadcrumbs, user sitemaps -, internal links, text formatting – h1, h2, bold, etc -, user-friendly 404 pages, accelerated pages in terms of loading, mobile-optimized pages, high-quality fresh content, image optimization – image size, proper image names, ALT tag -, external links to relevant sites (not broken) etc. 

Off-page SEO refers to optimization activities you can do outside the boundaries of your website. Anything taking place outside of your website and contributing to your ranking is considered off-site SEO: social media marketing, influencer marketing, mentions (direct or indirect), guest blogging (sometimes black-hat), so on, so forth.

Also called off-site SEO, this type of search engine optimization gives search engines a glimpse as to how people and digital entities across the Globe and Internet read your website’s overall features. Off-page SEO rhymes with words like link building or promotion activities, yet the whole thing isn’t just about links, but about a whole lot more. We’ll expand on it a bit later on.

By deploying better off-page SEO techniques means you are trying to prove to your readers and search engines that your site is trustworthy, authentic, relevant, and could very well be popular in your industry. The benefits triggered by good off-page SEO tactics are multiple, but let’s name a few: increase in rankings, increase in PageRank, more visits, more social media mentions, and more visibility.

On-page is active doing, while off-page is somehow passive, as it comes AFTER you’ve worked hard to deliver quality and uniqueness. In terms of outcome, what happens off-page is more important and valuable than what’s on-page. Having a truly rich fresh content and a user-friendly website but no following, likes, share, mentions, or links across the web, is nonsense and futile.
However, the on-page SEO greatly influences the future of the off-page SEO. That’s why the end result has to be considered before starting an activity, not after you’ve already done it. Start with on-page first, and then jump to off-page SEO.

Search engines might change the way their algorithms work, or ranking factors might shift to new ones or follow a new order, but off-site SEO will still matter. Because businesses need thumbs up from readers, as well as linking fellows. The user perception of your own site worthiness and quality is of paramount importance to you. The key to winning them is to build the best product out there, not just another one on the market, and consequently, the off-page SEO would naturally do the work – people would talk about you because they are already converted or drawn to you.

Without further ado, let’s get to the ultimate off-page SEO techniques checklist and learn some lessons for future marketing strategies.

1. Link Building is King

Build and chase quality links. That’s the first and most important thing to remember about links. According to our SEO terms glossary, “NoFollow is an attribute webmasters can use when linking to a website that tells search engines to essentially ignore the link. Social networks are notorious for using NoFollow links when linking to external websites. Links without the NoFollow attribute are referred to as DoFollow”. If you’re wondering actually what impact do NoFollow links have on your website, here are some actionable data and tips, all backed up by case studies and Google’s position in this matter.

Link building is the most popular marketing technique deployed by professionals all over the world. It’s the most desired outcome of all – ok, to some extent.  It is so important that, even though Google suggests that content is the #1 ranking factor, it’s often preferred by the masses over the principle of crafting and providing quality fresh content. Yet, content is still contributing a lot to your linking strategy.

To attract links naturally, you’ll need extraordinary content—truly the best of the best—and a heck of a good promotion plan to make that content visible to the right people.
	Jason Demers
	Forbes and HuffPost Writer @jaysondemers / audiencebloom.com

Links are translated as votes or applause to your website, an overall appreciation of your brand. The same link building effort contributed to the rise of what’s known today as black hat SEO. Sometimes, people are so desperate to gather links that they start playing with fire and perform the following: forum signatures, enroll your website in content directories, link exchange schemes, link networks, blog directories, comment link (a.k.a. comment signature), article directories, and so on.

There are things that make a referring domain, hence a link, valuable (or not), and this are: popularity, topic match between the two domains tied by a link (is the link relevant?), anchor text, link freshness, website trustworthiness, domain authority (DA) and/or page authority (PA), and no. of links used by the “sender” page. Hence, pay attention to whom you’re linking to and how you’re doing it.

Three main types of links populate the web:

• natural links: a user/customer/reader knows the content on your page and has a positive view over your services, and links to your business as a sign of trust, appreciation, and endorsement;
• manually build links: gained through direct link building efforts; wilfully asking customers to link to your product, or influencers to share your content;
• self-created links: when posting your website link in comments a.k.a. comment signature, or in web directories, forums, press releases etc (most of them enter in the black hat category)

The wisest move would be to practice natural link building. The best way to do this is to make your content worthy of links, and links will come naturally. Guest blogging is also a good idea but be careful not to overlink your website and make your contribution more spammy than useful. Also, build your links at a normal, traditional pace, if you will, which is gradually, or else Google will think you’re doing some black-hat magic.

Link building should be about quality, not quantity. Many digital marketers or businesses tend to forget that. Go for the high-quality links. But don’t let this stop you from linking to and getting links from smaller or younger brands and professionals, as long as the domains are good and are related to your niche. They have to meet the further requirements: quality, proper text and keywords, inbound numbers, and others I’ve already mentioned before. In the end, you should have the best of both worlds. And you should target it, even when you think your business is in a boring niche and there’s not much you can do.

The best links are those who pass the most link juice. That’s what your brand needs, and it doesn’t even have to be thirsty. Also, page authority (and general domain trust) is a very clear indicator of a site’s status and overall SEO tactics. And that is because Google is not necessarily and solely interested in links, but in their impact on the online environment and on your website as well.

Huge domains such as Wikipedia do wonders for your brand when gaining an inbound link from them. Today’s lesson: try getting links in and from huge link aggregators like Wikipedia – this is definitely a white hat SEO move. On that same note, inbound links from non-profit (.org) and education (.edu), or official (.gov) sites are especially powerful. These are huge domains that provide extremely high-quality links and also pass some sexy link juice and authority to your page. To check your inbound links, you should try a link analysis tool like Site Explorer and see what, from where, and what type of links you have from “abroad”. Analyze your link profile and see what pages provide the most link juice.

Familiarize yourself with broken link building. Revive those pages or create a smashing 404 page with links to other internal pages. Also, whenever analyzing your link profile, check your website for harmful links, like adult sites referring to you or malware domains sending a link to your website. You can check this by using the aforementioned tool – Site Explorer. Also, check the anchor texts. Many times they happen to not be very relevant to your page topic and can easily mislead Google in “forming an opinion” about your content. Not until recently, I myself realized that anchor texts truly matter and they’re a clear indicator of the relation between your page and the linked one. Hence, I started to pay more attention to the words I add the outbound link on.

Neil Patel teaches us what to do when we spot a broken link:

If you find a broken link on a website, you can contact the owner. Since you did him/her a small favor of pointing out a broken link, they might do you the favor of including a link to your website. You can even offer a replacement link when appropriate.
	Neil patel
	Entrepreneur & Forbes Columnist @neilpatel / neilpatel.com

Never underestimate the magic and power of competitor backlink research. See where your competitors get links from and target the same sources too. This is easy to find when you have any SEO tool at hand, one that does backlink analysis. If you want to master this art of white hat espionage, then you could read this blog post providing a complete framework to analyze your competition, learn their best-kept secrets, and take action like a pro.

Last but not least, it is extremely important that not just standard links should be pursued and taken into consideration, but the linkless ones as well, also known as (brand) mentions. For example, only 9% of tweets mentioning companies start with @. Which basically means that 91% of people are talking about you, not to you (attaching a link to their reference). And this is a pretty strong and sound reason to start using a brand mention monitoring tool. You wouldn’t want to miss anything tasty or, well, sour in regard to your brand.

Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, made it clear that links are one of the most important Google ranking factors. Hence, you should make sure you know your mentions (as they also count as links) and, if possible, turn them into backlinks (by contacting the webmaster or content editor). 

2. Harness that Social Media Power

Social signals might matter to Google when ranking a page. You need to win your audience in order to make Google (or any other search engine) like you and rank you high. Especially when mentions of your brand can count as links, as we previously mentioned.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram are the buzzwords of the day. They’ve never been so successful and strong in their entire existence. They surely know how to engage people, provide them with the means to be inspired and cheered up, serve them the friends they need (although, most of the times, available only in the virtual world), serve them the share and likes they so much crave for. However, brands and online marketers seized the moment and saw in these social platforms the best playground for brand advocacy and promo. 

Shares and likes are the social media magic tricks. They make your business grow and spread like wildfire. Whenever sharing relevant, fresh, and engaging content with your community of users, you win new subscribers, fans, or leads. 

Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.
	jay baer
	Keynote speaker @jaybaer / JayBaer.com

There are three things we’d recommend you consider when activating on social media:

1. Be responsive – people are bound to talk about you either when they’re satisfied with your services, when someone asks for a recommendation or feedback from friends, or when they’re unhappy with your product. Either way, be sensitive and engage with your following. Customer support can be performed across all channels, be they online or offline, on your support page or on social media channels.
2. Befriend the Big Brothers – there’s a multitude of thought leaders, influencers, renowned professionals, or just skillful group admins that could lend you a very helpful hand in spreading the word about your brand. One, by sharing your content or mentioning you, two, by following you, or three, by simply influencing your self-development as a businessman or marketer in the field. Build connections with social media gurus and let them shape you by taking what’s good from them, and learning what’s better to avoid. Birds of a feather flock together, they say. Stick with the good guys and results will follow.
3. Monitor your online reputation – brand mentions are a precious asset to your business, so treat them accordingly. As already emphasized before, brand mentions do count as links in Google’s search algorithms. Fetch a trustworthy brand monitoring tool and see who mentioned you across social media channels (and not only), what exactly they say about you, and use that chance to get in touch and win them as your customers or further clients.

3. Add an RSS Feed Subscription Box 

It’s better to have fewer subscribers that visit your site on a regular basis, than a multitude of one-time visitors. This is why all more or less reputable blogs and brands provide an RSS subscription box on their walls. RSS is short for Rich Site Summary. And I think that says it all. RSS boxes/stream RSS/channel RSS, or better known as subscription boxes, make page information available in XML format. People are drawn to the trigger-word “subscribe” and leave their email address to receive information without having to proactively search it on the web. 

By using this type of contact form, you not only enrich your contact and subscriber agenda but also have an intrigued recipient whom you can send and communicate your company updates, news, blog post etc. You can opt for this Google Feedburner.

Many times, users are happy to benefit from continuous rich info, data, and news without having to manually look them up, and rather satisfied when receiving them by email in the comfort of their home or work offices. And since you might be also looking for some high-quality marketing newsletters to subscribe to, we crafted one already, so you won’t have to mind it.

4. Don’t Shy from Blog Commenting

There are minds who argue that it’s a bit delicate to recommend as it can easily turn into a black hat practice. Blog commenting is an excellent off-site SEO activity that drives organic traffic to your website and SERP ranking.

There are loads of article on the web on how to correctly do blog commenting and everything you need to know is one click away. But the general tone is that you should definitely do it “white-hatly”, and leave any miscellaneous tactics aside.

Give your insight on topics, and attract attention to you, but don’t exercise comment signature.  Just mention your brand inside the body of relevant and useful tips, and make its appearance relevant there.

5. Guest Posting is Still Hot

Similar to blog commenting, you should define your reasons for contributing in such a way from the very beginning. Most guest blogs come to advertise their business or product and can sometimes turn into some spammy and annoying reading. Be fair, and make giving actionable, fresh, and relevant info your first concern. Not the links to your website.

By writing guest posts from time to time, not only help you build quality backlinks (duh!) and trigger more organic traffic to your website, but also something else. Yes, you display a professional conduct by writing not only on your personal blog but contributing to others too. There are brands who like to flirt with knowledge coming from other professionals in the field, although that happens quite seldom. And that’s one of those times when you have to choose your men wisely.

6. Forums Posting Is a Thing

Forums are a great place to promote your website and that’s obviously part of off-page SEO techniques. Quora, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, eHow are the most important hubs from where one can gain a lot of actionable info and authentic answers to their questions. Forums are a great playground to get to meet your peers and have a chat with them on topics of interest to you.

Similar to blog commenting or guest blogging, it’s good to mention your brand, but avoid to do it bluntly. First provide some actionable info on the specific topic and then, if relevant, fit your brand between the lines. These Q&A platforms are true gold mines but they have to be won first, by using the right words, tone, and style when posting a contribution. Make it relevant and transparent. Especially when these mediums can bring you a lot of organic traffic to your website, and if lucky, conversions.

7. Build Trust

It’s natural that off-site SEO includes trust as well. After all, that’s how you get your social media or customer votes. Transparency is one of the must-haves in helping trust be build. Post useful content and don’t try to deceive your readers with catchy titles and zero quality content. That’s definitely not how you build organic traffic!

Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.
	Wendy Piersall
	Blogger and author @emom / wendypiersall.com

Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) are two important indicators of how search engines see your website. It’s like having your whole life in front of your eyes. You should check your PA and DA, and also your inbound links’ ones with a site explorer tool.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is that setup that makes your website’s relationship with the user be safe. This type of link is making sure that the data passed between the web server and the browsers stay private and unharmed. Users trust a site more when they see that their data is secured by this encrypted link when entering private data such as credit card numbers, usernames, and passwords, or any other sensitive information.

One way to build and check your users’ trust is to make sure you get business reviews. You can start by asking your present customers to check your rating section and leave a contribution there. It’s important to let them know how and why it’s important that you need their opinion on your services, all expressed and posted publicly. The more customers you’ll have, the more reviews you should get. Especially if you’re having a Facebook page where people can stay up-to-da about and connected to your business, and leave reviews.

Yet reviews ask for quick answers from you, however positive or negative they’d be. Commit to visit your review section often and leave comments. Your users need to see you’re a live person, one that doesn’t shy from treating their customers with respect and appreciation.

8. Incorporate Videos and Images

People like to play and experiment, even if it means to play something else and they just witness it. That’s why augmented reality is a massive hit nowadays, with Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook incorporation motion visuals projected onto the real world and driving people crazy with fascination. And all this AR is connected to video and image. 

Video and images are viral nowadays, so you should bet in them. How else do you think platforms like YouTube, Vimeo (video), Flickr, Pinterest, Photobucket (photo), Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat (video & image) have reached this far with their success story?

Source: ama.org

Off-site SEO is about getting attention to your website thanks to outbound activities, unrelated to your page contents. Hence promote your business through videos, podcasts, infographics, quotes etc. Just take the example of Tasty by Buzzfeed or Tastemade. They’re rolling out videos like crazy and people love it, love it, love it. I bet they get more likes, shares, and bookmarks than some blog post published by someone really good at SEO and digital marketing.

Getting back to our sheep, hub pages like Pinterest, Youtube and so on, have massive PageRank and trust, hence you should join them and associate your business with them, by using their platform to post stuff about your products. Given their sharing and like/thumbs up/upvote system, you’ll gain brand awareness through shares and likes. 

In addition, the links that you get from YouTube videos and their meta description are extremely valuable and they help you improve your off page SEO.

Last but not least, don’t forget about optimizing your uploaded file titles, file names, description sections, size, and links. SEO works in these niches too. 

9. Build Relationships with Webmasters/Influencers

Although already mentioned this before, you should make friends among those you admire and whose steps you wish to follow in your career. Although with quite a busy schedule, they’re usually willing to guide, inspire, and help. Rand Fishkin had the same message when speaking at Inbound, in 2013.

Don’t build links. Build relationships.
	rand fishkin
	Founder of SparkTorro @randfish / sparktoro.com

Start connecting with them, impress them enough to make them share your content and you’ve won yourself some quality relationships. But beware, you have to make sure you don’t overlook them in time, but always make sure to keep in touch with them, ask for their advice and feature them in your pieces of content. This way, your content is more bound to being shared across their own personal social channels, than random content on your blog. 

Last year, I wrote an article called Exclusive 20 Digital Marketing Tips from 20 Top Amazing Women Marketers. And not only was the experience of gathering insights truly unique, but also rewarding. Why? Because a) I got to do the outreach to more than 70 successful women marketers (oh, the honor!) and get to talk with them, and b) we managed to win them on our side, to promote our content, and collaborate on other projects as well. It was a win-win situation. Not to mention the shares we got thanks to their audience.

10.  Be Present On the Web

McDonald, Coca-Cola, and Bic are everywhere. There more people who might’ve heard about them than who’ve heard of a camera, let’s say.  And that’s because their marketing strategies are unbeatable. They know how to address all customer segments, satisfy all fans, and deliver tasty and cheap food, or useful tools.

source: entrepreneur.com

Seth Godin believes fans come only with hard work and care.

“Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “built it”, nurture it, engage them, and they may come and stay.
	Seth godin
	Author & blogger @ThisIsSethsBlog / sethgodin.typepad.com

Well-done off-page SEO techniques increase brand reputation and authority. Be present, live this very moment to make your brand heard. Think of easy-to-understand ways to communicate your brand to your customers and attract them with quality services. Make them feel special. Learn how to talk to all customer segments or, at least, define your target audience, instead of floating around in the marketing space with no clue whatsoever.

11. Craft a Sparkling Brand Image

Nobody wants more of the same thing. Think what people need most and don’t get, seize the opportunity, and deliver. This is how you’ll leave customers a memory of you, of your uniqueness and utility, and someday, of your greatness.

Just look at Buzzfeed (I’m a huge fan, please pardon my enthusiasm). They get ten times more attention when posting something than a random marketing brand does. Because they knew how to shine their way in a world full of tips, recipes, and did-you-knows, and stand out, even though the market was already saturated. Plus, they knew how to address various and different customer segments.

Or Neil Patel. He’s known all over the marketing industry and probably even farther. It’s because he knew how to stand out, be original, deliver easy-to-understand messages and content, one that suits all masses, not just the ones with advanced knowledge in the field of marketing.

12. Document Sharing Is Good for You

By sharing content about your brand on other platforms you’ll be able to rank for keywords your site wouldn’t otherwise be able to compete for, for various reasons like the competition is too strong. If you think your piece of content would serve others’ interest as well, upload documents to doc sharing sites like Scribd, Academia, and SlideShare.

Treat the documents like a traditional piece of content – do keyword research and fully optimize them: titles, file name, transcripts. Place effective call-to-action and links back to your website whenever relevant and possible. 

The benefit of having documents posted on such platforms is that PDFs and PowerPoint files can’t be crawled by search engines but these sites make them readable. In addition, you borrow some link juice for your website, which is again, awesome. 

Similar to written docs, craft podcasts and videos on your to brand topic and then upload them to SoundCloud, YouTube etc with a transcript. The transcript is where you can help search engine crawlers to bump into your content way easier. That’s SEO, baby!

13. PR Promo Game

The more you go out in the world, the more you know and the more you’ll get known. PRactise the habit of attracting the public eye, give and host interviews, gain your influencers’ audience for your brand too. Get visible, and you’ll get noticed.

The reality is SEO can benefit from PR best practices and PR can benefit from SEO best practices.
	dave lloyd
	Digital Strategist @davelloyd1

Whenever deploying product updates or having something important to communicate, do press releases. By contacting and maintaining a good relationship with journalists and outlets in the field, you’ll help your brand reach out to more customer segments and get your message heard.

PRess releases, interviews, and all these kinds of contributions are a new chance to exercise your SEO and content marketing skills and optimize the content so that search engine would rank it high in SERPs. 

Conclusion

For a long time now, search marketing is slightly second after email in terms of top online activities. Hence, you ought to appear in SERPs when users deploy queries. 

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

One way is to write exquisite content, make your website super-friendly and eye-catchy, promote it properly, and links together with traffic will follow naturally. Another one would be to build a reader-focused online presence and concentrate on the searcher’s intent. This stuff is part of on-page SEO but do you remember what we’ve previously said about on-page and off-page SEO? It was that successful off-page SEO follows good on-page SEO. So make sure to have good on-page SEO – here’s a guide from Brian Dean on how to do it.

And remember that people only refer to, share, like, and talk about content they like or have a remembrance of. So act accordingly.

Last but not least, avoid playing with fire and practice black hat off-page SEO techniques. You can turn both search engines, visitors, and subscribers to enemies. You can get penalties from Google, get blocked by visitors, or blacklisted by subscribers. And nobody wants that.

To end on a happy note, just be your good self and everything will be just fine. Off-site SEO is here to help.

The post 13 Off-Page SEO Techniques To Drive Organic Traffic & Raise Brand Awareness appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

We gathered a list of 22 must-dos, things that Google said you should be doing in order to rank high in SERPs. 

How to rank high on Google fast. That’s everyone’s concern. After all, Google (and search engines in general) is the sole playground where our websites and their whole activity take place. We display, play, fight, and sell online. The offline environment is another story. But most people forget something. It’s that success doesn’t come for granted, but it’s rather built. To better there’s bitter, said someone once.  

Speaking of which, here’s a list of pieces of advice coming directly from Google, one that will help you boost your traffic and rankings. All get big thumbs-up from Google. Check for yourself:

1. Craft Smart Titles and Snippets in Search Results
2. Use the “Description” Meta Tag
3. Avoid Displaying Important Names, Content, or Links in Images
4. Add Structured Data Markup
5. Create a Custom 404 Page
6. Use the Right Mix of Keyword Phrases
7. Give Visitors What They’re Looking For 
8. Consider Implementing AMP
9. Create Search-Friendly URLs
10. Google Ads Don’t Guarantee Top Position in SERPs
11. Optimise Your Twitter Page for Google Ranks
12. Pay Attention to Page Speed
13. Give Googlebot Access to the Code Data
14. Get a Listing on Google My Business
15. Optimize for Answer Boxes
16. Manage Internal Linking
17. Be Mobile-Optimized
18. Use Synonyms in Content
19. Do Image Optimization 
20. Switch to HTTPS
21. Make Sure to Use Correct Redirects
22. Debug Your Pages

Google is smart – they know how they like their food. Google is a fully automated search engine set to explore the web on a daily basis and find those websites that deserve to be on the first pages. Many ask themselves what’s the best way to make Google like them in order to rank high in SERPs. You’ve got great content, rich and good link profile, yet Google doesn’t place you in top positions. So what should you do? We gathered all the things Google encourages their users to apply in order to rank on top positions and compiled them.

We wanted to see if Google really has the answer to all questions and if yes, we would’ve easily declared our quest ended. So we typed a query into the search bar: How to make Google like you? And this is what we got:

Apparently, we didn’t find an answer to our question. So we decided to take the research a little step further and search related phrases and ranking pages of this long tail keyword. We looked it up on Keyword Tool & Content Assistant and, again, we had a lot of fun on the returning results. 

Things are simple. The truth is there’s no thorough and comprehensive list of everything Google says you should do to get a top position.

There are tops and lists, but there’s little clear-cut answer to what’s there to be done in order for Google to like you and lift you high in SERPs. 

Before setting out to discuss what Google says you should check if you’re hunting for first positions in search results, remember this. You should make sure to get your website Google-friendly in all aspects, avoid implementing shady practices on your website, hence taking care to not be that person who gives a black eye to the industry of SEO and marketing when trying to rank high. 

Among many others, Neil Patel summarizes what we know so far and tells us the most important things of getting up in SERPs. Neil himself points out the fact that getting a top Google ranking is hard and takes a lot of work, resources, and time. He shares 3 ways you can rank #1 on Google, and you should definitely know them.

The following 24 steps Google listed as paramount to rank high in SERPs are the baby steps to a greater tomorrow.

It’s good to know the overall picture of what you should do to get your website on the very top of Google search. However, you should definitely check all the things Google promised will make you attractive to the search engine algorithms.

Find all missed marketing tactics and use them for your very benefit. Just like in this meme, find the ingredients used in your (apparently) unattractive-to-Google website, and “googlize” them. Your website ranking story will be different. 

1. Craft Smart Titles and Snippets in Search Results

source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

As always, content is king. And the king must be served right in order to be happy and thrive. It’s important to pay attention to page content, but to other aspects too. You should add keywords within URLs, titles, and headers not only to content. We’ve underlined the most important things for which you should optimize your content.

There are thousands of instances across the web where pages and websites use and display unrelated and dull titles. This prevents them from being targeted by Google algorithms and be ranked higher in SERPs. Here’s one example:

2. Use the “Description” Meta Tag

The description meta tag provides the search engine a concise yet comprehensive explanation of the page content. In addition, Google might use them as snippets for your page when popping out in search results. Often times, people are drawn to click through a page when, after skimming the SERPs and reading the titles, to check the text in the meta description. This both helps Google’s algorithms to better understand your page contents, and the user, who’d be more likely to land on your page if the words do the work. 

However, it’s possible for Google to skip your meta description text and instead select something more relevant for the query from the page contents. In case Google cannot find something worth mentioning from your page content, it’ll turn to your description meta tag – hence, it’s always useful to have one, just in case they’ll need it.

These are the do’s when talking about successful description meta tags:

• write a clear, accurate, and relevant summary of your page content;
• make sure it’s long enough to fit the display in search engines;
• write information that both informs and raises interest;
• similarly to title tags, use different descriptions for each page.

If you want to rank high both in Google and in the users’ eyes, avoid doing the following:

• write irrelevant descriptions, unrelated to the page content;
• opt for broad descriptions such as “This is a web page” or “Page about football equipment”;
• do keyword stuffing;
• take a snippet from your text with copy-paste, instead of writing something truly catchy and relevant;
• use one description for all or the majority of your pages.

3. Avoid Displaying Important Names, Content, or Links in Images

Whenever you want to convey a message containing names, content, or links, use text instead of images. This way you make sure the search engine can crawl your content, given that the crawlers can’t recognize text comprised of graphics. However, if you still want to display words in an image and not do it again in the page content, you can use ALT attributes. Make sure that the ALT attribute is short yet descriptive, faithfully describing the meaning of the photo as it can be easier both for Google bots to index it and for users to find the image bearing it in their SERPs.

4. Add Structured Data Markup

Structured markup data is a code used by your website to make Google better understand the content on a page. This data can improve your position and page display on search. The main role of the structured markup data is to offer a thorough search experience to the user and turn them into a possible customer. Google Search also uses structured data to show rich and complex result display, providing more information within narrower borders and in more eye-catchy ways. 

source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

Simply put, structured data is a systemized format for giving information about a page and hence better and more efficiently classifying the page content. By helping Google understand your page content, you convince them to place you higher in SERPs. 

Structured markup data is of great use to businesses. For example, you can provide significant key business details such as physical location, contact info, prices or price range, and marketing details like official name, logo, social profiles and many more. Your business information will get more exposure in search results, Knowledge Graph cards, and Google Maps. 

Google My Business is a great way to start getting your website in front of potential customers. Claim or create a new business, verify yourself as the owner of that listing, and provide/edit details such as address, contact info, business type, photos, reviews, feedback, social links, comments. This way you’ll definitely pop with the right info back to user queries. 

Google developed a Structured Data Testing Tool which is free and extremely easy to use. It’s meant to test your markup and verify the accuracy of your data.

Another smart move would be to enable breadcrumbs. They trail the page’s position in the site hierarchy, ultimately forming a chain. Users can easily track pages, one level at a time, by starting from the last breadcrumb up to the first one. Google Search is interested in displaying breadcrumbs in markup format, hence better guiding users through.

Users can fill in different queries, and even if their search might return the same webpage, the breadcrumbs will know how to categorize the content in accordance with the Google Search query – example: Books › Authors › Ann Leckie › Ancillary Justice or Books › Science Fiction › Award Winners.

To find out more about structured markup data and the penalties for deploying spammy markup, go read this other article we’ve posted not long ago. 

5. Create a Custom 404 Page

It’s often happening that users bump into a page that doesn’t exist on your site anymore, for various reasons: they follow a broken link or a mistyped URL. Setting a 404 page that nicely informs users that the page isn’t working and redirects them to relevant ones can greatly influence users’ experience, hence click-through rate and ratings. Here’s Google’s reasoning behind why custom 404 pages are so important.

404 pages usually contain a message guiding users to their root page. One twist would be to provide some extra links besides the homepage one, links to popular or related content on your site. This way you’re more likely to retain and eventually convert them. Google says you can also use Search Console to find the sources of URLs responsible for “not found” error status. 

As for what you should avoid, here’s what Google tells us to do: 

6. Use the Right Mix of Keyword Phrases

Content comes in a variety of forms, all meant to entertain and satisfy as many of the human senses as possible. We are witnesses to the competition blogs, websites, outlets, and every possible business is in. The best thing is to know what your readers want and feed them that. 

source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

Google recommends us to create a powerful and useful mix of keywords, one that would leave your competitors far behind and will make your content more likely to be found by user searches. Remember that you serve a wide variety of user types, both new and experienced ones. Hence those with a heavier load of knowledge will know how to refine their search and introduce more specific keywords in order to get the results they’re looking for. Anticipating the different and various search behavior can really benefit your piece of content when writing it. Google provides two tools that can help you fit your content for the competition ahead: Google AdWords with their Keyword Planner and Google Search Console (find the top searched queries your page ranks for and what are the ones who drew the most readers).

Consider providing interesting, useful, and unique content. You can write news stories, user case studies, original pieces of research. Furthermore, write easy-to-read, grammatically correct and attractive text and organize your topics clearly (you can use headings and break up the content in divisions) as these score a lot when speaking of text readability. 

Your content should be the means to make your reader come back. Make it new, exciting, fresh. When using keywords and answering to users’ questions (you can find many with auto-complete in the Google search bar) make sure you’re not doing keyword stuffing and the text stays relevant and natural. Don’t (only) optimize for search engines, but for your readers. In the end, they’re your customers.

7. Give Visitors What They’re Looking For 

Chocolate is intoxicatingly attractive to those with a sweet tooth. The same mechanism works for quality content. The more high-quality page content on your website, the more visitors, conversions, fans, mentions, positive sentiment, and credits to you, says Google. Quality content will also appeal more to webmasters, driving them to link to you more and more often. 

Whenever crafting content for your web pages, think of what words will most likely attract readers to your content. In addition, scan the web, the competition, and your own page to see what concerns people most. Take extra care of your homepage – that one might be the most important landing site for users.

8. Consider Implementing AMP

A study from DoubleClick by Google conducted an analysis on more than 10,000 mobile web domains and stated: “We found that the average load time for mobile sites is 19 seconds over 3G connections. That’s about as long as it takes to sing the entire alphabet song!”.

source: www.doubleclickbygoogle.com

Although not yet an official ranking factor, AMP is paramount for site quality and user experience, a fact backed up by well-known webmasters.

More than 50% of mobile users decide to abandon a webpage if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Therefore it’s high time you considered implementing it on your mobile if willing to rank better in Google Search. He’s a how-to guide on how to use Google AMP to make your website rank higher on Google. 

9. Use Search-Friendly URLs 

Similar to creating fit and appropriate title tags and snippets, so it goes for URLs too. Creating descriptive yet concise URLs can truly help your fans and fellow marketers link to you. Extremely cryptic links that contain various characters, letters and numbers are chaotic an irrelevant. Easy, SEO-friendly and user-friendly texts in the URL will encourage people to link to you more, make your site better organized, and provide potential users an appropriate text for their anchor texts when linking to you. 

Moreover, simple text URLs provides both Google crawlers and users with more information than a highly coded and messy parameter would. Here’s an in-depth study on how the title and URL influence rankings.

10. Google Ads Don’t Guarantee Top Position in SERPs

Advertising with Google won’t have any effect on your site’s presence in our search results. Instead of paying for your position in Google, try to deploy transparent, relevant, organic, in a word natural means to get your page up in SERPs.

There’s nothing more powerful than listening to and obeying the common sense rules of doing your job first, and maybe only after paying for some boost. True, lasting fame doesn’t come with money, but with working hard. And this will eventually pay off and make you stand among the first search result in Google.

More so, it’s usually nagging the user, as your paid ad featuring your web page doesn’t always really deliver an answer to the query, but rather sticks among the first results without being of any use (it contains 1-2-3 keywords). It’s not relevant to the query.

11. Optimise Your Twitter Page for Google Ranks

Tweets are now indexed on SERPs. For a second time in a row, Google partnered with Twitter in 2015 to get full access to the so-called Twitter firehose of thousands of tweets spread every second on the web. 

Most users are not satisfied with the information a couple of hours old, hence they want the freshest piece of news they can get. No need to emphasize that you should start optimizing your tweets with fit keywords and length so to serve both your interest – of attracting readers – and users’ interest – of finding the piece of content they’re after. 

12. Pay Attention to Page Speed

Having previously talked about AMP, it’s time for you to know that the common belief indicating that speed is sometimes everything has now become a regulated fact. Folks wish their questions to be answered fast; in fact, as fast as possible. 

53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. That’s a big problem.
	Daniel an
	Global Product Lead, Mobile Web at Google

Page speed has been used as a ranking signal for some time now, says Google, but this year it comes with a twist – starting July 2018, page speed will not only address desktop searches but mobile searches as well. In terms of being a ranking signal, of course.

Besides, page speed primarily influences how people experience your site services, and they easily bounce off when having to wait for too much time for the page to load. 

source: www.thinkwithgoogle.com

This update will mainly affect the sites offering the slowest user experience. However, the page speed ranking signal will not weigh heavier than that of great, relevant, popular content. Hence, the page can still rank high if the content is a big asset in the game.

13. Give Googlebot Access to the Code Data

Unlike in the old times, the web is now filled with a gazillion rich, complex, great websites that roll heavily on JavaScript. Google needs access to your JavaScript, CSS, and image files on your website in order to be able to see and display the page the natural way a user would see. This will help index your content better. Moreover, they say this permission benefits your context in the sense that it’s better indexed, while the pages are better rendered. Especially on mobile.

source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

Google recommends you to use their tool Fetch as Google to allow the Googlebot to crawl your JavaScript, CSS, and image files. The cool thing is that you can see exactly the way Google renders your page and will help you know beforehand what indexing errors to avoid. Moreover, you can analyze and test your robots.txt files using Google Search Console. More on this type of files and the mistakes you should avoid lest your rankings would drop, you can find in our article. 

14. Get a Listing on Google My Business

As previously said, if willing to benefit from structured data markup in Google Search or Maps, hence gain extra visibility, you should definitely use Google My Business service too.

According to Google, there are multiple benefits when opting to create a listing in Google My Business: it’s free, your business gets in the spotlight in searches, easily attract customers by simply sharing helpful information which otherwise is already on your website but not visible enough, take charge of what people (should) see when searching for your business, update your info when needed, use enticing snapshots of your business, engage online and display ratings, and build popularity and loyalty.

Google My Business mostly benefits local businesses, hence listing your brand this way should be part of your local SEO strategy. 

15. Optimize for Answer Boxes

Everybody dreams of being up there, ranking no. 0 (which is higher than 1) in SERPs.  The answer box is a snippet powered by Knowledge Graph, and usually offers the answer to your query often sparing you from flickering, looking for, and opening another search result. It’s like popping two times in search results – that surely must be a blessing. Results range from product information, nutritional facts, answer boxes, all-time music hits, to recipes, various uses, how-to guides, and blockbuster movies. You can even check how to optimize your content for answer boxes.

Researchers in Canada found out the average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds. Hence, if you want to really catch users’ attention and get higher rankings, target the search boxes using well-crafted content.

16. Manage Internal Linking

Even if your website isn’t quite new and Google already crawled your pages, it would be wise to check your internal links from time to time. Google comes to rescue you and lets you do a check and report on your internal links pointing to the other pages on your site using Search Console.

Linking to a certain page is vouching for their relevance, utility, and importance. It’s like a certificate of quality given to it. Hence, if a less important page on your website has more links than a more important and truly helpful one, than you should really reassess your internal linking.

17. Be Mobile-Optimized

Smartphone usage is overwhelmingly popular nowadays; the mobile searches have long overrun the desktop ones. There’s this trend now of “mobile-first” designs and updates, yet the truth lies elsewhere. You shouldn’t fit into one category or another, give to one more importance than to the other, but actually go multi-platform.  That’s where the great audiences come from. 

source: www.smartinsights.com

Hence, given that the web is accessed more and more on the mobile devices, it’s needless to say that you should have your website designed mobile-friendly. And here’s how Google can help you – with a mobile-friendly test tool.

Furthermore, make sure you design your site for all device types and sizes, including tablets, not only desktops and smartphones.

18. Use Synonyms in Content

This one is way simple. Google encourages us to use synonyms when writing and making a piece of content live on our pages because this serves to the greater good of having your website found in response to queries.

Synonyms are variants of the same word or phrase. Google Search is smart enough to return results that not only include the very word typed in the search bar, but also content that means the same thing as the typed-in term. It’s because Google tries hard to guess the keyword intent and users’ needs. For example, if you write “professor” and one synonym for that could be “teacher”, the search engine might return results for both “professor” and its synonym “teacher”. 

Google tries to understand language, not only terms in general. That’s why synonyms stand very high in Google’s eyes. They help the search engine to better sense the world surrounding users’ words and, hence, what they’d wish to receive in response to their queries. Synonyms are the bridge between users and Google bots.

It very much has to do with the fact that content has been overrun in importance by context and search experienced a facelift, now being more of a topical search than the regular one. Context makes it easier for crawlers to return relevant results to queries (or not; it depends). Here‘s where you can set to add synonyms to queries.

Knowing how Google uses context and semantically related phrases can improve the content you create and how well you optimize pages for particular queries”
	bill slawski
	Director of SEO Research at Go Fish Digital / @bill_slawski

19. Do Image Optimization

Images often occupy the most visual space on the page and justify the most of the downloaded material and bytes on the web. That is why Google recommends starting optimizing images, which most of the times is seen as both art and science. Plus, users can lose their patience waiting to download something from the web that simply wouldn’t load and have to wait for many seconds to minutes. It’s all about page speed.

The many formats available out there – GIF, PNG, JPG – ask for separate optimizations. There are multiple techniques to do that and here’s where Google comes to rescue us.

20. Switch to HTTPS 

Users nowadays want and expect a secure online environment. Preventing unauthorized access to the interactions between the user and your website and encrypting it is a good practice for communication on the web. And that’s why you should secure your website with HTTPS. 

If that’s not an argument enough, then maybe you listened to Google, that, starting August 6, 2014, made HTTPS as a ranking signal official. And you know why? Because another top priority to Google besides quality is security. They want to keep their users satisfied and happy, yet secure at the same time. Anyways, this ranking signal doesn’t, of course, weigh that much s high-quality content does, but it’s very important.

HTTPS is a way stronger encryption than the former one, HTTP. The former one can now prevent breaches on websites, hence Google called for HTTPS everywhere. 

21. Make Sure to Use Correct Redirects

Make sure you’re using correct redirects, and those would be 301 redirects, not 302s. This is the fittest way sure to provide a clear path to correct pages for users. While a 302 redirect conveys the message of a page content “moved temporarily”, the 301 one means that a page has been permanently moved to a new place. Here’s why 301 redirects are considered (more) useful:

If you want to know how to implement a 301 redirect for your website, here‘s what Google says you should do.

22. Debug Your Pages

In order for your pages to appear in SERPs, you need to have your website crawled by Google. Many times, when doing content optimization, redirects, or content pruning, Google doesn’t immediately crawl it after you make the fix live. Yes, there are times when you can request an accelerated crawl but most times it takes a couple of days for your new content to be live.

Therefore, if you wish to rank as high as possible in search results and be sure you provide the high-quality content you know you have on your website, debug your pages. You can find here how to do that and what tools you can use – some of them having been previously mentioned in our article: Search Console, Fetch as Google, Robots.txt Tester, AMP report, and so on.

Conclusion

And that’s a wrap, boys and gals! Try implementing the above-listed tips coming right from Google’s mouth and there’s no way you won’t benefit from them. This is definitely not a success recipe, but it’s the path to experimenting, experiencing, and eventually getting to know what’s bringing success or not.

We believe we should first do our job, and then expect miracles to happen. By following these steps, you make sure you abide by Google’s wisdom and rules and make them to like you and rank you higher in search results.

But that’s not all. You now know what Google likes, yet we haven’t told you what they don’t like at all. Avoid doing the following and you’ll surely stay out of trouble:

• Take part in link schemes
• Creating pages with little or no authentic content
• Cloaking
• Covert links and text
• Auto-generated content
• Underhanded redirects
• Doorway pages
• Scraping
• Abusing rich snippets markup
• Partner with affiliate websites and have no added value
• Loading pages with irrelevant, stuffed keywords
• Intentionally (or mistakingly) hosting pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other (duh!)
• Badware
• Deliver automated queries to Google

Mic drop. But please lift it yourselves and tell us your opinion and maybe other tips you know they’re extremely important in order to make Google like you.

The post How To Rank High On Google | 22 Google-Backed Tips To Get Atop Of The Search Results appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Yet, with Google’s latest changes and algorithm updates, it’s becoming harder and harder to do keyword tracking accurately. There are even voices saying that rank tracking is obsolete and makes no sense in tracking your keywords anymore.  But is it really so?

Despite all the restless pessimistic thoughts and nagging questions, we believe that things have changed indeed but rank tracking is far from dead.  Hence, we gathered 6 reasons why you might think you shouldn’t do rank tracking anymore and 6 solutions to fight the worries back and still monitor your rankings. 

Take a deep breath and face the giants. Here are the 6 most important Google updates that make rank tracking look dead, but also the counter-arguments, and the tips on how to do rank tracking despite all these changes.

1. Google Lets You See Results For Your Location Only
2. Keywords Don’t Matter Anymore
3. Ranking On Top Positions Is Not Enough Any Longer
4. The Ranking Data Delivered By Google Is Enough
5. Google Obstructs You From Knowing Exact Keyword Traffic
6. You Don’t Even Know What Keyword You’re Ranking For

1. Google Lets You See Results For Your Location Only

It’s been a while now since Google no longer lets you change domains to search and see results from countries others than your own. Yes, the incognito mode doesn’t do the work in this area anymore, nor does it when setting the no country recognition feature (as in google.com/ncr ). And this is a problem. 

Starting October 27, 2017, Google shut off the possibility of getting results from a global point of view, in the pursuit of making search results even more local and relevant. 

As always, Google played their best yet (sometimes) uncomfortable card: delivering the best results possible.

Many hope things are not lost for good and run right to Settings aiming to select a country service they’re most interested in. We did it too. Yet results still come from your country IP, leaving us with the question of “what’s there to be done in order to get the ranking data we need?”.

This change doesn’t only affect the desktop version, but it also applies to mobile searches, as well as to Google Maps and the iOS Google app. The action of manually checking your rankings is not what it used to be anymore.

Similarly to the above-mentioned update, Google launched a couple of other major updates in the past that paved the way for today’s reform in search engine results. Chronologically speaking, these two are known as the Pigeon Update and the Possum Update.

In short, the Pigeon Update was meant to help the engine provide a more useful, on-point, and true search results to such extent that it changed the way SEO practitioners do business locally.

Launched on July 24, 2014, the Pigeon workings were meant to filter all local results, remove inorganic ballast, and deliver you the closest businesses to your location. By improving their parameters in terms of distance and location, Google was set to make the local SERPs experience a better one. Thus, we could say that Google had a thing for local results since a long time ago, slowly but surely moving towards today’s bulletproof algorithm and search environment.

Although an unconfirmed update, Possum was documented by major SEO professionals in the industry who confirmed that Google rolled out an algorithm change, one that significantly impacted local results and local listings. The massive local update happened on September 1, 2016, changing the way local search rankings worked. 

Possum is one more evidence that Google was slowly steering to better the local search results experience, eventually getting to today’s environment where you’re bound to manually monitor rankings at a local level only. 

Solution: Start Using Rank Checker Tools

How many of you noticed that we’ve repeatedly used the term “manually” when talking about rank monitoring? It’s because yes, all these Google updates launched over the years turned our manual rank checking upside down. Yet, there’s hope. 

In hard times like this, you still wish to rank on the first SERPs of every country. Maybe you have a business in Ireland, but you have the offices in the UK; therefore, it would be impossible to accurately check your ranks. To answer the needs, many rank tracking tools have emerged on the market and lend a helping hand to professionals in their fight of monitoring their activity across the Internet.

Should you check keyword ranking on a particular market, the Rank Tracking section available in the cognitiveSEO allows you gain deep insight into it by taking simple steps. All you need to do is to go to Add Keywords, select your desired location and search engine, decide whether you need local rank tracking and new keyword suggestions to track, and then hit the Track Keyword Now tab.

You can also do it by going to Site Explorer, enter your or your competitor’s website, run the Rankings section and select the desired country. That’s it, now you can see what are your top 20 keywords in that particular location, what pages target those keywords, and the position that page sits on in SERPs.

2. Keywords Don’t Matter Anymore

The Google Hummingbird search algorithm is meant to bring more accuracy to Google searches and since the launch date on September 26, 2013, it systematically sought to understand the intent of the user.

Many times, one can type the word, say, “horse” in the search bar and hit enter, waiting to be fed with the information one needs. 

Google will always approximate the intent behind your search, no matter how short or long the word you entered is, and therefore deliver results which, sometimes, will not cater to your needs.

By striving to deliver more relevant results, Google is often missing the point of the query. Targeting the intent of the user and offering them results based on intent and not the exact keywords means rewriting the users’ keywords. 

For instance, when searching for “brown sugar”, you’d expect to find basic information about it such as definition, product specificities, how it’s made, origins, you know, the Wikipedia kind of stuff. However, you’ll get a variety of information all reading “Google is trying their best to guess what exactly you need to know about it, what exactly you’re searching for”. Results range from product information, nutritional facts, answer boxes, all-time music hits, to recipes, various uses, how-to guides, and blockbuster movies.

The Hummingbird algorithm also overhauled both Knowledge Graph and Semantic Search, in response to the concern they didn’t really address the query, and searching still required a lot of hard work by the user. Hence, both Knowledge Graph and Semantic Search joined their forces to one, find the right things in response to a query, go deeper and broader, and deliver more information than you asked, and two, know what results to deliver based on the context of the searched keywords. To this extent, many say that keywords are long forgotten and now context is king. Is it true, though? Either way, here’s a backstage view of how search is run, simplified by Matt Cutts:

Solution: Monitor Long Tail Keywords and Learn From the Best

Keywords are not dead yet; no, not in the least. And you can still build your rank tracking strategy on them, oh yes!

One smart move would be to monitor long tail keywords or queries. This way you’ll make sure you filter out all the irrelevant stuff that might occur when you’re doing rank monitoring. Google will feel compelled to deliver you straightforward results instead of guessing your intent and then displaying possible results back at you.

For example, if you’re in the football equipment industry, besides the main keyword “football equipment”, you could also check long tail keywords such as  “what is the best football equipment”, “how to choose football equipment”, “football equipment for sale”, so on and so forth. Go for tracking keywords that users would normally search for.

But how to do this? Simply use the Keyword Tool & Content Assistant and get all the keyword research you need. 

All keyword listings and suggestions come from search engine historical data, plus Google suggestions and autocomplete. Basically, we should all be working with the set of keywords that users are actually typing in search engines and use them in our content by crafting something that would answer all their needs.

Source: johnjohnston.info

Bonus card: spy on your competitors, look at their status with a keyword ranking checker, see what they failed to deliver or where they didn’t satisfy the users, and bring something valuable yourself. This will definitely draw them to you.

3. Ranking On Top Positions Is Not Enough Any Longer

Rumor has it that ranking on top position is not relevant or good enough any longer. How come? Well, this happens with all the additional elements Google adds in response to a query. Local carousel, local knowledge panel, advertising and paid results, Knowledge Graph features, vertical organic results, mark-up data, and many others strive to give just a bit more information to the user and trigger their interest on a particular topic, many times in addition to the targeted results. 

The below-displayed image is somewhat apocalyptical and presents an augmented and exaggerated reality, and yet, this is the true face of Google, despite that now we’re spoonfed small portions only. If one would fit all the SERP features in one image, this would be it:

If we were to take into consideration the multitude of things displayed on SERPs when hitting a search, we definitely wouldn’t score top 10 on the first page. This is how a SERP usually looks like.

It’s true – we can widen our knowledge with loads of information at a time and yet, the multiple data display can defocus and annoy users, making their search even more sinuous.

Simultaneously, important web pages drop on the second result page, although being in top 10.

Solution: Granular Keyword Monitoring, Optimize for Answer Boxes, Mobile Ranking, Voice Search

In-Depth Keyword Research

As Matt Cutts said in the aforementioned YouTube video, search engines will pick up the web page or site that has the most relevant, frequent and smart-placed keywords in their content.

We all know that keyword stuffing is a big no-no in the SEO game, therefore it doesn’t mean you should fit as many keywords as possible into your bodies of text, but rather do a more granular and detailed research.

You can hit the best-performing keyword by simply using the same Keyword Tool. You can do your research in two ways:

1. One is by using the keyword ideas available in the Keyword Explorer section, applying the “relevancy” filter or any other filter is most interesting you (such as no. of words, containing or excluding certain terms, volume of search, or CPC). 
2. The other one is by taking a peek at your competition, track competitors in the niche, and look at top 20/ 50/ 100 organic results in Google and see what keywords they ranked on. You know, all you need is know how to learn.

Learning is the mother of all progress. And well-placed keywords can make you register progress within your content.

What’s more, you should start monitoring at a local level. Google is returning search results as personalized and local as possible, remember? Therefore, keep in mind that you should make friends from among your closest ones. Also, start optimizing your content and monitoring your website ranking for the local market.

Target Answer Boxes

I’m sure you once daydreamt how it is to be immortal. Or at least live a really long life. Ok, at least how it is to be in the spotlight, the queen or king of the ball. Anyways, getting back to our sheep, there’s a point I want to make here. And that is – drumrolls- you should target answer boxes, duh! Of course, as long as it is possible. 

Being on the Google’s answer box will do you a big favor, making you appear on Google’s first page not once, but twice.

Therefore, it’s somewhat getting to know how it is to be really popular. Given that the percentage of search results with answer boxes out of the total number of search results is fairly small, you should definitely use this information to your own benefit and take action. 

cognitiveSEO study from 2015

We’ve even written a couple of articles on the answer box topic, and tried to decode the Google answer boxes algorithm by conducting a SERP research on 10.353 keywords. If you want to know how to get up there, in the answer boxes, you should definitely read them. 

Mobile Rank Tracking

Did you know that mobile results differ from the desktop ones? Hence rankings differ. Just give it a go, search for a restaurant, or anything that comes to your mind, on both mobile and desktop, and you’ll witness a slight difference. Hence, whom should we believe? 

The below-displayed screenshots are here to demonstrate the fact that rankings do differ from one another, although the entered keyword is just the same.

Voice Search Is Another Big Player in the Game

Similar to the answer box targeting tip, you should also optimize content for today’s big child star – voice search. Voice search is worth taking into consideration when talking about rank tracking because it can get the first option for the voice search bot when delivering an answer to user queries. In other words, use smart, well-performing keywords, simple language when giving tips or providing definitions, to such extent that the Google bot would return your content to questions made verbally. For more on the voice search phenomenon and whether it has any impact on the SEO world, check this article.

4. The Ranking Data Delivered By Google Is Enough

Many ask themselves: “If Google’s free tools – such as Search Console,  or Google Analytics – provide all the ranking data you need, what’s the point in using a rank tracker?”. Especially one that we should pay for. 

Especially now, when Google Analytics made an update and is offering a nice amount of highlight over your data. If until recently you could analyze your keyword performance and the impact of your marketing activities across all channels by taking a look 3 months behind, now you’re entitled to gain insight from the last to 12 months. 

Solution: Accept That Google Delivers Ranking Data, But Not Quite On-Point

Despite the previously mentioned rumors, are we really and fully satisfied with the ranking data we get from Google? Why is it that so many digital marketers tend to use one additional rank checker tool besides Google Analytics or Google Search Console?

It’s because many Google tools fail at delivering accurate and fresh results. Many times they raise question marks over them. The truth is that Google Analytics, for instance, doesn’t offer complete data, but a rather extremely segmented, and therefore unreliable data. 

To exemplify, the keyword positions are only shown on average and not on their true spot. In addition, it looks like it’s always missing something when displaying the data; many times, it doesn’t fit with the page statistics and social media activity. Below it’s a set of screenshot meant to demonstrate the statement. The keyword we chose is “SEO myths”. We had to analyze a third result in order to decide what tool is the winner.

5. Google Obstructs You From Knowing The Exact Keyword Traffic

Google is smart and cunning. They know what exact information is OK to be shared, and what’s wiser to keep for themselves. Just look at the many algorithm changes they’ve made in the course of years, many still officially unconfirmed, but tackled by many SEO practitioners – like Fred and Possum. 

Therefore, if Google doesn’t let you know how much traffic you are getting for each keyword; is it worth the bother to monitor them?

Solution: Check the Pages With the Highest Traffic

Indeed, Google doesn’t give you access to all the data.  But this shouldn’t stop you from playing the detective and do rank checking and keyword monitoring. What you can do is to check the pages with the highest traffic from your site and see the top ranking keywords for those pages. This way, you’ll know what keywords to focus on in the future.

For instance, if we were to analyze Nestle’s website, by using Google Analytics we cannot find the keyword data that we need. Yet, we can do a bit of reverse engineering: we could easily analyze its top ranking pages and find what keyword are those pages ranking on. 

6. You Don’t Even Know What Keyword You’re Ranking For

Following the previous idea that Google is penny-wise when deciding what information to convey, we can hardly know what keyword we’re actually ranking for. Hence, how should we monitor them?

Besides, pages often rank for keywords that they aren’t specifically targeting. It is because Google has gotten way better with user intent, remember? So instead of ranking high for the very words you bet they’d bring you fame, you can often reach first positions for other keywords. It can be hard or even impossible to track those rankings because sometimes you don’t know what to look for.

Solution: Site Explorer Shows You Those Keywords

Nothing we think and said above is false. Yet, there’s a way out. Yes, you can rank for keywords you didn’t target but you can get to know which ones are those ones. For instance, with Site Explorer you can see the top ranking keywords for any site, from any country service. 

Don’t Forget About the Other Search Engines

Everybody talks about Google, but Bing and Yahoo are certainly worth taking into account. It is wise that you track and increase keyword ranking across all major search engines, such as Yahoo and Bing. Even though Google is king.

Within your own cognitiveSEO account, you can add keywords on all 3 search engines and draw some valuable conclusions from there. 

Conclusion

Is rank tracking dead already, with us not knowing it yet? Is it worth engaging in keyword ranking analysis anymore? Does it pay to invest time and resources in tracking your website position in today’s major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing? Should we still bother creating rank tracking reports and building entire marketing strategies meant to place us higher in SERPs?

These were the questions I woke up this morning with. I concluded we had to find the answers to these questions. Perhaps the drive comes from the fact that rank tracking is all digital marketing efforts in a nutshell. In fact, everything digital strategists, SEO analysts, content writers, copywriters, and everyone else in the online marketing environments strive to achieve is comprised inside the walls of getting up there as the first results in search engines.

I hope the scenarios given in this article are worth considering and that they’ll make a difference to you. Should you have knowledge of other rank tracking myths or solutions to the above-mentioned ones, don’t hesitate to contribute in the comments section. I’d love to discuss this matter, as it is of the utmost importance to each and every one of us.

The post Rank Tracking is DEAD! 6 Big Keyword Tracking Myths That Need to Disappear appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Digital marketing influencers, be they men or women, are sizzling in this world of continuous change and wonder, and they have thousands, if not millions of followers who sip from their cup of knowledge while craving to be like them one day.  We all have our favorite professionals, and they’re both women and men, but today it’s gonna be all about women in marketing. 

We interviewed 20 influential women marketers and, boy, all the stuff they told us is exclusive! Needless to say, the lessons we’ve learned from them are, and undoubtedly will be, career-changing.

Learning is a never-ending process and us humans need to be in a constant development of both mind and way of living. Learning from others’ failures and success stories is what helps us take heart, be inspired, keep up the good work, and beat all odds until we reach for the stars.

Now, how many times did you think “Oh, I wish I knew all the hidden secrets that make a business work, especially now that I’m a beginner or I need it in my strategy. I need some guidance on X, Y, Z”. Now your wishes have come true, and the outcome is true gold.

We started off by sending emails to influential female digital marketers across the globe, and asked them:

If you were to recommend one digital marketing technique, what would that be? 

And the feedback was awesome! Amazing marketers, such as Marie Forleo, Gabriella Sannino, and Julie Joyce were the first ones to accept our invitation and share their knowledge and expertise with the whole world.

We thought of sharing with you the people who influenced and inspired us along our way as digital marketers. A few months ago, we published an article focusing on awesome workspaces that belong to great digital marketers. And given that we loved the experience, we decided to roll up our sleeves and do it all again, this time with a twist. 

So be it digital marketing, content marketing, or social media marketing, search engine optimization, and conversion optimization, it’s all here. And they’re all exclusive tips. *Please do note this list is not following a specific order; all these female marketers are equally inspiring and a massive asset to the global digital ecosystem.

1. Make Your Customer the Hero by Talia Wolf
2. Is It Obvious Your Site Is the Best? by Marie Haynes
3. Featured Snippets Are Paramount When Prospecting for Links by Debra Mastaler
4. Listen to Your Customers by Jenny Halasz
5. Make It Easy for Brand Advocates to Connect with You by Gabriella Sannino
6. Write Less, Promote More by Alexandra Tachalova
   
7. Identify Your Competitors’ Missed Opportunity by Ana Matei
8. The Consumer Is What Matters Most by Susan Borst
9. Providing an Omnichannel Experience Means Power by Ann Handley 
10. SEO Is Both Art and Science by Julie Joyce
11. Brand Management Should Be the Core of Marketing by Gabriela Lungu
12. Nail a Sale by Getting Your customer Open Their Hearts by Marie Forleo
13. You Have to Know Exactly What You Want by Adel de Meyer
14. Provide Your Audience with Quality Content by Lilach Bullock
15. Video Is a Great Way to Connect with People by Madalyn Sklar
16. Be a Voracious Learner by Rebekah Radice
17. Write Less and Write Better by Melissa Fach
18. Listen to the Client and the Digital Environment by Jaitrali Jhanjharya
19. Share Your Ideas by Dorie Clark
20. Pay Attention to Your Customer by Maia Novolan 

1. Make Your Customer the Hero by Talia Wolf

Voted one of the most influential voices in conversion optimization and with over 10 years of expertise, Talia Wolf not only has a name full of charm and mystery but also is the go-to expert to help your business grow and stand out from the crowd. She’s most known for her growth marketing, conversion optimization, and marketing leadership activity. Talia loves optimizing websites, create better user journeys and online experiences, and puts the customer first in every aspect. 

Thanks to her customer-centric approach and her vast knowledge of emotional targeting, landing page optimization, mobile optimization, persona marketing, and E-commerce optimization, she’s often invited to teach and coach on stages such as Google, MozCon, Opticon, Unbounce, GMIC, Search Love, ConversionXL, Learn Inbound, Conversion Conference, and a whole lot more. 

Besides being a trainer, speaker, and conversion optimization specialist and consultant, Talia Wolf also runs GetUplift, an agency that offers conversion optimization services, in-house training, workshops, and online courses. 

Talia’s Exclusive Tip

When asked to share a tip with us, she immediately agreed and here’s what she said:

If you make your customer the hero of the story and build experiences around what she really wants and needs, you’ll grow your company 10X.
	Talia wolf
	Conversion Optimization specialist / @TaliaGw

“While most of the world might tell you to be data-driven, the only way to truly succeed and grow your business is to be data-informed and customer-driven. 

Behind those screens are people, not browsers, devices or geographical locations. If you make your customer the hero of the story and build experiences around what she really wants and needs you’ll grow your company 10X”. 

2. Is It Obvious Your Site Is the Best? by Marie Haynes

A true digital marketing goddess, Marie Haynes has loads of experience as a Google penalty expert and algorithm analyst. Author of Unnatural Links – The Complete Guide to Recovery and a regular contributor to Moz and Search Engine Watch on topics such as Google Penalties and algorithm changes, Marie Haynes definitely knows her stuff and offers consultancy on her website mariehaynes.com. 

Marie is frequently speaking at Pubcon, SMX, and other conferences. She’s obsessed about Penguin, Panda, Unnatural Links and analyzing the reason for a site’s traffic drop. She enjoys sharing her wisdom with others, and she’s doing it wholeheartedly. 

When browsing her LinkedIn profile, a particular recommendation caught my eye and for good reason: “Google is hard. Marie is awesome. She knows her stuff, she works the details and you can take her deliverables deadlines to the bank”.

Marie’s Exclusive Tip

And here’s the proof:

Is it super obvious that your site is the best experience for users? If the answer to that is ‘no’, then what can you add that would make the answer ‘yes’?
	MARIE HAYNES
	Google Penalty Expert / @Marie_Haynes

“I feel that Google is getting better and better at determining the usefulness of a site. If you’re having trouble ranking well, take a good honest look at your competitors’ pages. Or, better yet, have an unbiased source look at your pages as well as theirs. What we want to ask is, “Is it super obvious that your site is the best experience for users?” If the answer to that is no, then what can you add that would make the answer yes?

In the past, for many people, the majority of SEO was about tweaking keywords and getting links. While on-page optimization and link acquisition is still really important, they are not the only factors to consider.

I find that so many site owners have a hard time seeing that their site is not the best of its kind. If you can find ways to make your site as helpful as possible, and more helpful than everyone else’s on the same subject, then over time, you should see some good wins”.

3. Featured Snippets Are Paramount When Prospecting for Links by Debra Mastaler

Debra Mastaler is impressive! Her marketing experience spans over 28 years and the expertise she holds makes her a link guru. She is one of the most well-known link builders in the world, helping Fortune 500 companies and a number of top search engine optimization firms in the USA, UK, and Canada achieve the best in their link building, SEO, and digital marketing strategies. 

Debra is a corporate speaker for SEMrush, link building consultant, and President of Alliance-Link, a company offering customers three unique marketing services: content marketing research, custom link building, and in-house link building training. Operating the company since late 2000, Debra Mastaler had previously worked with Anheuser-Busch in the marketing department for 15 years. Before that, she activated for four years in the Civil Service. 

Her agenda must be quite busy as she’s often guest blogging for Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and Search Engine Guide, guest speaking at Search Engine Strategies Conference (SES) and Search Engine Land and numerous training sessions and seminars on link building. Debra is also the Link Building Moderator on the exclusive SEOBook Community Forums. 

Debra’s Exclusive Tip

Both Debra’s career path and approach make her irresistible and authentic. After having once already benefitted from her vast knowledge, now she accepted the challenge again. 

Make featured snippets a primary target when prospecting for links.
	Debra Mastaler
	Corporate Speaker & SEMrush Link Building Strategist / @debramastaler

“Make featured snippets a primary target when prospecting for links. Backlink the sources linking to the featured snippet URL and do everything in your power to secure a link from the same sources.

Study the business featured in the snippet carefully, is there a way to partner with this site and benefit from their exposure? We can’t always influence how and where a search engine ranks a page but we can always try to capitalize on their results.”

Source: ducttapemarketing.com

4. Listen to Your Customers by Jenny Halasz

Professionals in the digital marketing industry call Jenny Halasz a visionary, and right they are! Having a wealth of knowledge and experience in SEO and PPC, copywriting, conversion optimization, social marketing, affiliate marketing, analytics, and digital marketing, no wonder Jenny’s so charming. 

With over 15 years of digital marketing experience, Jenny is at ease when teaching others long-term strategies, intuitive UX, and successful customer acquisition tactics. When she’s not writing, speaking, or engaging in strategies, tactics, and ethics in search, you can find her indulging in (who’d have guessed?) geeky stuff and politics. 

Jenny Halasz is the President and Founder of JLH Marketing, a firm where customers can benefit from hourly and monthly consultancy services on search engine optimization, PPC, Analytics, and other niches in digital marketing. The search support she offers, along with her blog posts, contribute considerably to Jenny’s customers’ and followers’ growth. In addition, she’s also a speaker and a signed-in contributor to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal (#AsktheSEO), and Marketing Land on SEO and SEM topics. 

Jenny’s Exclusive Tip

Jenny seems to always be there when fellow marketers reach out to her to get those craved-for answers to their questions. It’s exactly what we’ve experienced as well. 

If you take the time to understand what questions your customers and prospective customers have about your product or service, you will set the foundation necessary for great digital success.
	Jenny Halasz
	President of JLH Marketing / @jennyhalasz

“Answer your customers’ questions in an accessible way. If you take the time to understand what questions your customers and prospective customers have about your product or service, you will set the foundation necessary for great digital success. If you make sure those answers are accessible on your website to users and search engines alike, you’ll create quality content that can be used to rank your site, which can be shared on social, and which will increase the conversion rate of the customers you do have.

By simply answering questions, you’ll have the opportunity to appear in answer boxes on Google result pages (SERPs), to rank for informational keywords, and to be known as an authority in the industry”.

5. Make It Easy for Brand Advocates to Connect with You by Gabriella Sannino

Gabriella is a proud Napoletana, a digital marketer like none other. Stepping into the world of marketing and advertising in the early ’90s, Gabriella’s expertise is definitely authentic and note-worthy. Known as an international organic SEO Content Strategist, global marketing analyst, speaker and project management ninja, Sannino has a strong reputation in the SEO industry.

Since “being ordinary was never an option for Gabriella Sannino”, as she’d say, she has also co-founded and owns Level343, an international marketing and SEO company based in San Francisco, California.

Gabriella Sannino is quite inspirational, thanks to both her career path and her life(style). Holding an Italian citizenship, she traveled the world from a young age to South USA, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. But when she set foot in San Francisco, she fell in love, both with the city and the marketing powers the city possessed. Given this information, we can definitely say that conventional is not quite her style. 

When she’s off-duty, she enjoys sailing, playing with her loved ones, and of course, living la dolce vita to bits. When time allows it, she whole-heartedly shares her knowledge with fellow marketers. Her favorite quote is: “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line”.

Gabriella’s Exclusive Tip

When asked what was her marketing tip to share with the world, she wrote to us:

Don’t make your potential brand advocates hunt for ways to communicate! Keep the avenues open and the pathways easily defined.
	Gabriella Sannino
	International Marketing & SEO Consultant / @SEOcopy

“Connect the dots. Always, always connect the dots of the strategy you will implement. By that I mean, making sure that your website is tied into your blog and social accounts, which are tied to each other and so on. Again depending on your strategy, make sure you have the follow through and step-by-step to accomplish connecting the dots.

Why go to all the trouble to create a blog and then not link to it from your main site? The same for your social accounts. Why make them if you aren’t going to tell people about them? Why communicate with your readers, if you don’t have a strategy of what you are communicating and how you will capture those leads?

This may sound like a “duh” sort of tip, but if I had a dollar… we have so many new clients come to us that say, “oh, yes, we use Twitter,” or “yes, we have a blog,” but you wouldn’t know it unless they told you.

Don’t make your potential brand advocates hunt for ways to communicate! Keep the avenues open and the pathways easily defined”.

6. Write Less, Promote More by Alexandra Tachalova

Alexandra Tachalova has her charms. Having previously benefited from her wisdom, we remember how we’ve always appreciated the fresh and young approach she uses when tackling digital marketing and SEO topics. 

Alexandra is a digital marketing consultant from Saint Petersburg, Russia, and the Founder of the Digital Olympus Event conferences. She is a contributing writer at Moz, Entrepreneur, AHREFS, and Search Engine Journal. She has been a brand manager at SEMrush, activating as Head of Marketing Automation and Market Leader in competitive research software. Given she enjoys providing valuable digital marketing tips on how to create killer marketing strategies, you’ll frequently find her speaking at events such as BrightonSEO, SEMdays, Ungagged, SEOzone, SMX, and many others.

Tachalova has activated in the marketing business for more than five years, helping businesses improve their marketing tactics and campaigns, and boost their sales. Her extensive experience spans across many niches, such as customer relationship management, SEO, corporate communication and lead generation.

Alexandra’s Exclusive Tip

When asked to disclose some SEO tips, she told us:

I would recommend writing less and devoting more time to content promotion.
	Alexandra tachalova
	Digital Marketer / @AlexTachalova

“Don’t neglect content promotion. I’ve noticed that nowadays, many companies are extremely focused on content marketing processes. And that’s definitely a good investment! However, a lot of content marketers tend to skip the steps related to the content promotion. That’s a horrible approach since the majority of their work never reaches their targeted audience.

I would recommend writing less and devoting more time to content promotion. My tip is to start your content plan by writing a list of channels and influencers that can help you reach more relevant users, and will allow you to start getting traffic and leads from each published post”.

Source: www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk

7. Identify Your Competitors’ Missed Opportunity by Ana Matei

Judging from Ana’s hobbies and spirit, she’s definitely seeking to live a life that’s not boring, from both a personal and professional point of view. Her life experiences resemble her professional one, as they’re both rich, complex, diverse, and intriguing. A constant traveler, Ana Matei is the go-to digital marketer and SEO&CRO specialist to help online businesses optimize their marketing costs.

Ana plans and implements marketing campaigns with measurable results in both online and mobile marketing, sifting everything through her 11-year expertise in digital marketing, search marketing, and traditional marketing.

She’s also known as an SEO trainer who’s always focused, creative, and in a constant pursuit of self-improvement. Even her digital marketing blog is grounded in the idea of writing for her own benefit or relaxation, not only for others’. Also, she’s an advocate for writing for writing’s sake (this rings a bell regarding a French slogan from the early 19th century – l’art pour l’art).

Ana Matei’s specialties are digital marketing strategies, design strategies with user experience always in mind, optimization and conversion, social media marketing and search advertising, PPC, remarketing and retargeting, and analytics. She often writes on her blog on SEO and digital marketing.

Ana’s Exclusive Tip

No doubt she’s inspirational so she decided on sharing a few snippets of her marketing wisdom:

One of the best SEO techniques is turning in-depth research findings into the best possible landing page out there.
	ana Matei
	Digital Marketer and SEO Consultant / @AnaMatei

“One of the best SEO techniques is turning in-depth research findings into the best possible landing page out there. Finding your buyer personas and studying your competition are good places to start a research. But identifying a missed opportunity by your competitors or a trend before it gets trendy is pure SEO gold.

Once you find your content opportunity, the catch is to be able to put your findings on the best possible landing page. That means it has to be perfect in terms of design, tech, and copy, but also to address the psychological issues the customers are facing.

The mistake every newbie SEO does is creating that seemingly perfect landing page and leaving it as it is. That’s fine when you rank the first, and even then things won’t be fine for long because some competitors will try and maybe succeed at stealing your ranking.

The trick for getting long-term traffic and conversions is to optimize that page over and over again until there’s no better landing page on the web. It sounds simple enough, but it takes so much hard work and marketing research that few people actually put in the effort.

For a money page like this, using ads to get it just right helps with moving forward in the optimization process, especially for businesses offering services. With eCommerce, things are a bit easier because you can use the design part of that perfect product page throughout the site. Also, there’s more CRO than SEO involved in the process of optimizing an eCommerce site”.

8. The Consumer Is What Matters Most by Susan Borst

Susan Borst holds a wealth of wisdom and knowledge to share. She’s known for being intellectually curious about everything related to marketing, interactive, and media, traits that led her to whom she is today: a marketer named in “Top 15 People in NYC that are changing advertising that you need to know” by Alley Watch, a “Top 50 Content Marketing Influencer at CMWorld 2016” plus 2017 by TopRank, and a “Top 50 Marketing Leader over 50” by Brand Quarterly for two years running.

Susan is a Deputy Director and Lead for the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, but that’s not it: she’s also leading the social media, content marketing, native advertising, B2B and games advertising sectors, together with the mobile and local committees. No wonder she’s the bee’s knees in the content marketing industry.

But that’s not all; she’s also part of the judging jury for The Shorty Awards, the Content Marketing Institute Awards, and Native Advertising Institute Awards. Susan’s 20+ years of experience at top NYC creative agencies are undoubtedly a meaningful point of reference.

Susan’s Exclusive Tip

For the curious-hearted souls out there, Susan is half Icelandic, with a love for Swedish fish. When asked to share a nugget of Borst wisdom, she shared this:

It’s easy to get caught in the weeds of digital advertising, the formats, and technology behind it, and lose sight of what really matters: the consumer.
	Susan borst
	Deputy Director of IAB Mobile Marketing / @susanborst

“It’s easy to get caught in the weeds of digital advertising, and the formats, and technology behind it, and lose sight of what really matters…the consumer.

In a “mobile always,” “video everywhere” and “empowered consumer” world, consumer expectations on their devices can provide insights to help marketers develop advertising that breaks through without being annoying, one that is relevant without being creepy, all while balancing the need for more promotional messages vs. storytelling executions designed to reach consumers in more native ways”.

9. Providing an Omnichannel Experience Means Power by Ann Handley

Ann Handley is an exceptional woman marketer. We all know that already, as we’ve all read at least one of her books. She has authored and co-authored two books, namely Everybody Writes, a WSJ bestseller, and Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business, which is also a bestselling book on content marketing translated into nine languages so to please everybody who craved for it.

Speaking of writing, Ann is also a monthly columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, MarketingProfs, and LinkedIn, in the LinkedIn Influencer program. Ann speaks and writes about how you can step up your marketing strategy ways. In addition, it’s important we know that she started her career as a business journalist and editor. 

Besides being an inspirational writer, Ann Handley is Head of Content at MarketingProfs – a training and education company empowering marketers across the globe – keynote speaker at various events, and a digital marketing and content expert. She likes saying that she’s the company’s content bossypants, and this fits like a glove if we’re to think how she’s declared “waging a war on mediocrity on content marketing”. Ann was cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in social media and named by ForbesWoman as one of the Top 20 Women Bloggers.

Ann Handley is often referred to as a pioneer in digital marketing, as she co-founded ClickZ.com, which was one of the first mediums of interactive marketing and commentary. As for Ann’s off-work passions – we’d say it’s her kids, whom she calls “ridiculously amazing children”.

Ann’s Exclusive Tip

The omnichannel experience is everything.
	Ann handley
	Head of Content at MarketingProfs / @MarketingProfs

“The omnichannel experience is everything. In traditional marketing-speak, omnichannel means that we seek to give our customers a seamless and unified shopping experience across all channels.

Today omnichannel isn’t just a technology or shopping play. It’s more broadly the brand experience that a customer has with you across various platforms and channels, at every step of the way. It integrates technology, data, content, and communication across an organization in an effort to deliver a seamless experience to the customer or prospects.

When all those touch points are aligned, it’s a powerful thing. And when they aren’t, your customers and prospects end up feeling uneasy and disappointed at the mismatch between expectations and reality.

These are the three principles to create an aligned omnichannel experience:
1. Physical experience squared perfectly with the digital one.
2. Using voice and tone consistently across all channels and accounts to convey the brand.
3. Nail the bigger story – find the answers to your business’s whys. “

10. SEO Is Both Art and Science by Julie Joyce

Julie Joyce is a sweet fellow marketer, one that anybody would love to work with. Having previously benefitted from her wisdom, we are totally in love with her work and activity as a specialist in the field.

Julie is Owner and Director of Operations for the link-building company Link Fish Media Inc. and Co-founder of the SEO Chicks blog. After starting working in search marketing in 2002, she soon became Head of Search for a small IT firm.

She frequently contributes to Search Engine Land in the Link Week column, along with other note-worthy marketing publications, such as Search Marketing Gurus, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine People, and State of Search. She’s a pro at link building, SEO, SMM, technical project management, PPC, quality assurance testing, technical writing, and ASP programming. Therefore, reaching out to her to grow your buisness and empower your personal brand is the best step possible.

Julie’s Exclusive Tip

Without applying any preferential treatment, we loved her feedback manner the most. She seems very open and available when people ask for her opinion, and that is an asset. 

You have to look at the web as a human user and not just from a search engine point of view.
	julie Joyce
	Owner of Link Fish Media / @JulieJoyce

“I’ve always thought of SEO as being just as much art as it is science.

You have to look at the web as a human user and not just from a search engine point of view. You can get the rankings but that doesn’t always lead to conversions for various reasons. If you are relying solely on information that a computer system spits out, you’re ignoring that fact and leaving good opportunities on the table.

We have people who come to us and who ask for DA 50+ links, in any industry. They don’t care about relevance or traffic. They care about that number. We have clients who will turn down a relevant link on a new site that is getting a lot of social traction because the site doesn’t yet have a good DA. It’s very annoying to me when people can’t see beyond the numbers.”

11. Brand Management Should Be the Core of Marketing by Gabriela Lungu

Public relations veteran and creativity guru, Gabriela Lungu has it all: charms, skills, rich experience, proven results, and public recognition, in other words – she’s a marketing success and model.

Gabriela is a Romanian integrated creative leader, marketing and communications expert, consultant, trainer, speaker and facilitator. Previously a reporter, guest Creative Director at TBWA, CCO at Weber Shandwick, and Creative and Managing Director of Ogilvy PR, and CMO at Notino, Gabriela Lungu is now Founder at WINGS Creative Leadership Lab, a company focusing on working with high-potential creative people in the marketing and media industry while delivering a mix of consultancy, workshops and hands-on training on creativity and leadership.

Given her 20+ years of integrated experience in advertising, PR, digital and social media marketing, including 13 years of senior leadership, you’ll often find Gabriela speaking at international and local industry events. Her specialties are communications, marketing, and leadership, all seasoned with a handful of creativity, diversity, and inclusion.

Her track of proven records includes 150+ awards and nominations, including top international names such as Cannes Lions or Global SABRE. In addition, Gabriela was on the jury for some of the most important global competitions such as D&AD, Effie, SABRE, or Cannes Lions and activated as PR Jury Chair for Clio and Dubai Lynx.

Gabriela’s Exclusive Tip

Fascinated as we are by her expertise, we interviewed her too, and here’s what she told us:

Never forget that digital marketing is still marketing, and brand management should be at the core of it.
	Gabriela lungu
	Integrated Creative Leader / @GabrielaLungu

“Never forget that digital marketing is still marketing, and brand management should be at the core of it.

It’s easy to let ourselves excited by the immediate benefits of technology and data, and lose sight of building a long-term emotional bond with customers. No matter how good they are at using digital techniques, companies or products will always face bigger competitive threat and commoditization without a strong brand”. 

12. Nail a Sale by Getting Your customer Open Their Hearts by Marie Forleo

Often referred to as “the hurricane woman”, Marie Forleo is a marketing and lifestyle expert, bestselling author, motivational speaker, teacher, philanthropist, CEO at Marie Forleo International, her personal brand. Her energy seems to be evergreen and definitely contagious, and it looks like it came naturally for Marie to start educating and helping people become the person they most want to be. An unshakable optimist, she can’t help but inspire people on their way of making a difference and be their happiest, wisest, and most loving self. 

Marie Forleo is the host of MarieTV, a YouTube channel turned into a socially conscious digital empire that touches millions. Besides smashing the competition interviewing a whole array of cool marketing gurus and media influencers such as Sir Richard Branson, Seth Godin, and Oprah, she’s been also interviewed by Tonny Robbins and Oprah and has mentored young business owners at Richard Branson’s Centre of Entrepreneurship in South Africa.

Her website, marieforleo.com, is quite popular, reaching over 190k readers in 191 countries worldwide. A multi-passionate entrepreneur, she’s also leading dynamic training problems guiding individuals on their way to business and personal success. In addition, she’s the author of the bestselling book “Make Every Man Want You: How to Be So Irresistible You’ll Barely Keep from Dating Yourself!”.

Marie Forleo has always been insatiably curious about human potential. For as long as she can remember, Marie was in search of answers regarding what’s that thing that can make people happy, fulfilled and thriving, some succeeding achieving that against all odds. But people with questions as such can’t fit into a conventional box. And Marie refused to do it and set herself to not only get answers to her questions but also share them with and help others too. 

Marie’s Tip
 

Here’s an extract of Marie’s wisdom snipped from one of her MarieTV shows:

The best way to close a sale is by getting your customer to open their heart
	marie forleo
	Entrepreneur / @marieforleo

“I have a question for you: in life, all of us are always selling something, whether you sell a product or a service, or you work within a company, you gotta be selling something, but do you know what you’re really selling?

The fact is we’re rarely ever buying what we think we’re buying. So here’s an example: if I buy a necklace, what I’m thinking about is how that necklace is gonna help me express my own style [or other stuff]. So rather than just a piece of jewelry, I’m buying an expression of my style, I’m buying easy nights out, and I’m buying my future well-being.

Now, whether you sell with words, or images, or copywriting, or whatever, you’re gonna realize you’re gonna sell so much more and have your customers love their purchases if you can convey what they’re actually getting: the feelings, the benefits, the future memories. The best way to close a sale is by getting your customer to open their heart”.

13. You Have to Know Exactly What You Want by Adel de Meyer

This sweet and lively Aussie seems to have found the secret path to happiness. People working with her can easily see she’s an explosion of optimism, authenticity, and charm, both in writing, speaking and way of being. Adel de Meyer is a New Media Specialist, author, brand influencer, live streaming show host, mentor, and speaker. She’s also a contributor to The Next Web, Business2Community on influencer marketing, social media, and digital technology.

Adel de Meyer is an advocate for people’s need to be given a helping hand when willing to cut through the noise, rise above it and get heard. Being a true pro at social media magic, and also a solution-oriented problem solver, she often recorded series of podcasts with note-worthy marketing influencers, hosted online talks and worked with heavy names such as Madalyn Sklar, Peg Fitzgerald, and others. Thanks to her vast knowledge on using social media and technology, she easily captivates her audience’s attention and helps them grow their business.

You could easily say Adel is in a relationship with social media, which she wholeheartedly gives herself to. “I love my life being involved in this always changing world of Social Media because it brings me together with some of the most talented and ambitious people in multiple industries and all walks of life. What drives me in Social Media is the insatiable need to discover and push the boundaries of online interactions”, she confesses.

If you don’t take our word regarding her skill, maybe brands that trust her will make you give in: Adobe, Social Media Examiner, Hootsuite, Brand24, Hard Rock Hotel Group, Huawei, Cisco, Yelp, Marriott Group, and many others. If you dream big, work hard, overcome your limits, strive for excellence and always try to be better than before, you’ll have your life completely changed. No doubt. 

On a side note, Adel has passions many could relate to. She enjoys fashion and travel, tech, bubbles, coffee, and fine wines. Her inspiration derives also from nature, which she cares for deeply. She was born on Christmas Day and was the best present ever to her parents. Although an Aussi now, Adel was actually born in South Africa. 

Adel’s Exclusive Tip

You have to know exactly what you want to achieve, the problem you solve, and how you are going to communicate who you are to a global audience.
	Adel de meyer
	New Media Specialist / @AdeldMeyer

“These are my tips to have success with digital marketing: First of all, it starts with YOUR message, your target audience, and your passions. You have to know exactly what you want to achieve, the problem you solve, and how you are going to communicate who you are to a global audience. Then you need to establish a good brand identity, have a good professional website, and a well branded, active, and consistent social media profiles.

Clear CTAs, good landing pages, mobile optimization, and personalization is everything. Today’s buyer has more choices and options than they did years ago. So listen to them, because understanding their preferences and journey is vital. In addition, generating buzz helps with brand awareness, so that keeps your brand top of mind”.

14. Provide Your Audience with Quality Content by Lilach Bullock

Lilach is the go-to lead conversion expert if you want to step up your conversion game. Officially, she’s a digital marketing consultant and trainer, social media specialist, keynote speaker, and business owner at Lilach Bullock Limited. In a nutshell, she’s an exceptional and highly influential serial entrepreneur, and as a result, she was recognized as The Number 1 Digital Marketing Influencer by Career Experts, won the title of Social Influencer of Europe by  Oracle, and listed as one of the Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers.

Lilach Bullock is highly regarded on the world speaker circuit as the embodiment of Digital Intelligence, and renowned outlets, business publications and marketing magazines such as Forbes, the Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Prima Magazine, Social Media Today, BBC Radio 5 Live, the Guardian, and Wired feature her. Moreover, her books “Images that Influence”, “Twitter your Business”, and “Zero to Targeted Marketing: Talking To the Right People at the Right Time” have won the No.1 place on Amazon for Sales, Marketing, Small Businesses, and Entrepreneurship.

Given Lilach knows how much impact and many benefits social media can provide in launching a career and opening paths which otherwise would never have happened. Now she’s set to teach others the powers and nature of social media so that they’d grow their businesses, too.

She describes herself as an occasional diva and proud mum. When Lilach isn’t working, she loves spending time with her loved ones. In addition, she’s an avid fan of Zumba.

Lilach’s Exclusive Tip

Provide your audience with quality content on the platforms they prefer – this will help you attract more customers for your business.
	Lilach Bullock
	Lead Conversion Expert / @lilachbullock

“If I had to name one digital marketing technique that I recommend using, it would probably have to be content marketing – not only is it a highly effective lead generation tool, but it also helps with brand awareness, driving traffic, building trust, and nurturing leads; basically, all of the good stuff. 

It’s all about the quality – provide your audience with quality content on the platforms they prefer (blog, social media, and so on) and it will help you attract more customers for your business”.

Credits Anca Gavril

15. Video Is a Great Way to Connect with People by Madalyn Sklar

Ranked no.1 Houston Social Media Power Influencer and one of 50 Women Entrepreneurs to follow in 2017 by Huffington Post, Madalyn Sklar is already a social media hit. She’s very well known for her #TwitterSmarter podcasts where she’s interviewing leading social media and marketing experts in an active one-hour discussion mainly revolving around Twitter marketing. Besides hosting the Twitter Smarter chat on Thursdays, she’s also the anchorwoman for the SocialROI chat and co-host for the weekly Communities that Convert podcast with Kami Huyse.

Being a very passionate marketer and lively person, Madalyn’s motto is “Work smarter, not harder”. She wants to teach people the same strategy, help them get the desired results on social media, and make themselves heard on the social media channels. In a nutshell, Masalyn is a true community builder, smashing Twitter marketing expert, and authentic serial entrepreneur.

Madalyn’s Exclusive Tip

Madalyn is a pleasure to both talk and work with, and here’s the secret she disclosed to us about making your brand a success:

Video is a great way to connect with people because they can see you. They get to know you better in this medium.
	madalyn sklar
	Twitter Marketing Expert / @MadalynSklar

“My best digital marketing technique is video. I use video regularly on Twitter and Facebook. It’s a great medium for letting your community see that you are real and transparent. You can’t hide on video!

I host a weekly live stream video after my #TwitterSmarter and #SocialROI Twitter chats. I bring on the guest and we have a conversation that’s expanded from the Twitter chat. It’s what I like to call going beyond the 140 characters by using video.

I’ve become a big proponent of Twitter video, especially replying to tweets with a video. I started an initiative this summer called #VideoReplyDay where I encourage people to take time to reply to tweets with a video. It’s become a movement where a community was started by simply replying to tweets with a video. Video is a great way to connect with people because they can see you. They get to know you better in this medium”.

16. Be a Voracious Learner by Rebekah Radice

Listed one of the “Top 10 Social Media and Content Marketers” by Social Media Examiner and frequently featured on CBS, Onalytica, Social Media Examiner, GetApp, and Buzzsumo, Rebekah Radice is an award-winning marketer and strategist whose entrepreneurial roots, instincts and effervescent energy create a powerful magic blend for strategic business development and growth.

Rebekah is also an author, social media master, keynote speaker, CMO of Post Planner, digital marketing, and social media educator, and founder of Rebekah Radice Media and RadiantLA. Those who use Authority Matrix, the powerful personal brand building tool, should learn that she’s the creator. Many Fortune 500 leaders have used the tool and leveraged the employee influence and advocacy.

A true entrepreneur at heart, Rebekah the go-to person for those who learn the path to success and also the way they can multiply their successes. She’s able to utter that Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo magic spell that attracts leads and converts audiences and communities into clients. Her Social Success Academy training reveals her successful techniques, tools, and strategies for business growth. Her specialty is connecting online marketing with scalable business strategies to get the desired outcome and revenue.

In the early days, Rebekah Radice worked on morning radio, this helping her hone her skills at communicating, engaging, and reaching an audience. Now counting 20+ year marketing experience, she authored “Social Media Mastery: A Comprehensive Guide to Strategic Growth” and spoke to over 200 events including Social Media Marketing World, Inbound, and NATO International Summit.

Rebekah’s Exclusive Tip

No wonder we were quite hyped at the thought of getting a quote from her regarding the secret to digital marketing success:

Be a voracious learner.
	Rebekah Radice
	Digital Marketing Strategist / @RebekahRadice

“Be a voracious learner. Leaders are learners and the only way to stay ahead in the digital marketing world is to consistently innovate. And innovation comes from an open, clear, and creative mind. Make a commitment to add educational time to your calendar every day in 2018.”

17. Write Less and Write Better by Melissa Fach

Melissa Fach is a Community Manager at Pubcon and founder of SEOAware, blog editor at SEMrush and other publications, consultant writer, and keynote speaker at many marketing conferences. She decided to create the consultancy agency, SEO Aware, in 2008, after gaining experience, blogging and creating a name in the online marketing industry. Her substantial experience in community management, social media, and customer service led her to provide training on social policy setting for companies, social media management, and customer service via social.

She helps entrepreneurs and brands alike to create effective content based on well-grounded research, goals, and targeted audiences, all customized to their company’s needs and scope. It’s important to note that her creative marketing ideas come from reading people easily, understanding their wishes, and what triggers them to trust a company enough to buy.

Grand names fill Melissa’s previous experience and make her shine even more: Associate for Community and Editing Teams at Moz, Editor and Community Manager at AuthorityLabs, and Managing Editor at Search Engine Journal. Therefore her expertise is truly worthy of mention, given that she knows how to play with social media, content marketing, search engine optimization, blogging, community building, blog management, and website development.

When she’s not talking about work, she’d tell you she’s a cat slave (we feel her), Star Wars fan, non-cook person, and her hobbies are home decor and reviewing real estate.

Melissa’s Exclusive Tip

Focus on the outstanding. Write less and write better.
	melissa fach
	Social Media and Marketing Consultant / @SEOAware

“I would say one of the biggest problems I see right now and have for years, is fluff content as a whole in this industry. There seems to be very little focus on SEO, audiences, conversions, and how articles/content will be shared in different ways via social media platforms. All of these things should be figured out BEFORE you write anything. It is obvious when something was written strictly for an SEO goal; without value, this kind of content isn’t going to help you even if you rank well for it.

There is no reason to create content just so you have it. You have to plan each piece of content based on which audience(s) you want to reach, what goals you have for each piece of content, how you will use it in social to further your goals, and how you are hoping to rank. This takes a lot of time and effort, but it is better than wasting time and resources on content that brings nothing to your company. Without showing some kind of ROI for your work, your job becomes expendable.

And please run your content through Grammarly and/or the Hemingway App before publishing it. You can’t create trust and sound authoritative and professional without good writing and grammar.

My motto: Focus on the outstanding. Write less and write better.”

18. Listen to the Client and the Digital Environment by Jaitrali Jhanjharya

An all-time remarkable marketer, Jaitrali is a charming specialist and strategist with a name already built both nationally and internationally. She is  Digital Marketing professional with over 16+ years of experience in search engine marketing, digital marketing, movie, and entertainment marketing.

Recognized as one of the Top 10 Women in Indian Digital Media Industry and with an extensive know-how of digital and entertainment marketing, Jaitrali Jhanjharya definitely lives by her motto “I set my own goals. I am my own competition”. People who worked with her highly appreciated her for providing the right environment for genuine guidance, nurturing talent and addressing team development needs.

A passionate and noteworthy mentor, Jaitrali’s records encompass strategic planning, creative development, media planning and buying, interactive marketing, research, database/direct marketing, sales promotion, visual merchandising across leading Indian and global brands, and with rich experience in leading cross-functional teams.

Worthy to say that Jaitrali has exclusively invested in the Interactive and Digital space in the last 12 years. She is a passionate digital professional who fell in love with digital marketing, as she’s fascinated about how this industry is in constant evolution and change, day-by-day.

When she’s off work, Jaitrali indulges in listening to music and sipping that magic potion called coffee. Besides that, she feels that sarcasm flows naturally in her case, as it’s usually either white or black for her. She loves to be challenged and this is, again, a true reflection of her following her motto – given that battling with your competition means accepting challenges.

Jaitrali’s Exclusive Tip

Do not assume that just because a particular idea worked for a previous client, it will work wonders for someone else too. In the digital scenario, the landscape changes dramatically and sometimes drastically, therefore in both cases you have to listen to the client as well as the ever-evolving digital environment.
	Jaitrali Jhanjharya
	Digital Marketing Expert / @Jaitrali

“Listen and Don’t Assume – Most times when we meet a potential client for the first time or go and pitch to one on their turf, there is tons of white noise going on in our head. The prospect of adding this client to our list gives us both goosebumps as well as delusions of grandeur. So my tip here is to drop the daydreaming and put the horse before the car, and instead LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, and with experience you will learn to pick out what’s important from what is said and left unsaid. Each brand has its own unique set of expectations and thus it requires a unique mix of solutions and platforms. Do not assume that just because a particular idea will work for an earlier client, it will work wonders for someone else too. In the digital scenario the landscape changes dramatically and sometimes drastically, and in both cases you have to listen to the client as well as the ever-evolving digital environment.

Be Kind and Realistic – Remember, if you are dealing directly with a client and not with his/her digital marketing team, you have to understand and accept that most clients may have the money and a vision but they will know precious little about what they want or what you can actually do for them. All they have is a dream, a hope which they want YOU to give a concrete shape to. So be patient, take it step by step and do not promise the world. The approach there must be to put a regular monitoring system in place and help the client assimilate and understand numeric and data. This will help create trust and consensus.

Content and Innovation Rule – As they always have and always will, we have come a long way from clicks to stickiness and developing OTT and VOD platforms across the globe. Today every person with a smartphone is a universe onto themselves and each one wishes to be chased and wooed. I’m sure I don’t emphasize that to chase and woo you need to be innovative and often create stories that engage and hook. Invest in your own storytelling skills and in developing this aspect amongst your teammates.

The Power Of The Written Word – Throughout my career, I have found the written word to be a very very powerful tool and that is why I cannot stress upon enough for every young and old practitioner of any school of thought or trade to `Put It Down In Writing’, take minutes of meetings, use a Dictaphone if you have to but please document everything. It helps keep professional relationships streamlined and simple.

Get Out, Get Real – Over the years I have realized that we as digital marketers and innovators spend more time surrounding ourselves with AI (Artificial Intelligence) rather than living breathing people who really are the cornerstone of everything we wish to achieve. So go out more often…if it’s the young you are after, then go to coffee shops and go-kart, if the business czars and czarinas are your target audience then socialize with them. Do what it takes to get out there…because the REAL is out there and this means success.”

19. Share Your Ideas by Dorie Clark

Dorie Clark is a perfect instance of the has-it-all marketer. Keynote speaker, marketing consultant, author, Harvard Business Review contributor, strategy consultant, and Business School professor, Dorie has worked with famous brand and companies such as Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Yale University, Fidelity, The World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. She’s a marketer and motivational speaker meant to help others take control of their professional lives and get themselves heard in the world. 

Dorie’s specialties are marketing, branding, strategy, media relations, management consulting, speaking, and management consulting. New York Times described her as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives” and that’s no wonder given her activity in the industry is grand. Her books “Entrepreneurial You”, “Reinventing You”; and “Stand Out” are widely known, having already been translated in many languages such as Russian, Arabic, French, Chinese, Korean, Polish, and Thai. Her 2015 book, “Stand Out”, was named No.1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes.

Clark writes her articles and studies on marketing, business strategy, and branding, often contributing to Forbes and Harvard Business Review publications. Having worked in the past as a journalist and presidential campaign spokesperson, and producer of multiple Grammy-winning jazz album, Dorie is a strong presence in the writing industry.

Besides that, she teaches for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, as well as Babson College Executive Education, Smith College Executive Education, IE Business School in Spain, HEC-Paris, and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business.

Dorie’s Exclusive Tip

If you don’t share your ideas, no one will know if they’re any good.
	dorie clark
	Marketing Strategist & Speaker / @dorieclark

“Develop original content. One of the principles I teach in my Recognized Expert course is a simple but powerful one: if you don’t share your ideas, no one will know if they’re any good. If you want to make an impact beyond the handful of people you work with most closely, you’ll have to start writing and speaking about the ideas that animate you, and that you believe are worth spreading. Whether it’s blogging, podcasting, or sharing thoughts on your company’s internal social network, there are a variety of ways to get the conversation started and ensure your voice is heard”.

20. Pay Attention to Your Customer by Maia Novolan 

Maia Novolan was the one who laid the bases for mobile marketing in Romania back in the ’90s while launching the first interactive mobile apps used by the Media Pro Group in their marketing, search advertising, and social advertising strategies designed for the online audience. Having studied marketing and PR and graduating a Master’s Degree in Economics in Bucharest, today Maia has 15+ years of experience in the industry as an Interactive Marketing Strategist (mobile, online and digital signature.

Novolan is also the Managing Director of Syscom Digital, a noteworthy company on the Romanian digital marketing playground, one she founded in 2009. A good while, she’s been the only woman entrepreneur in the digital marketing world.

Maia’s Exclusive Tip

When asked for a digital marketing strategy worth sharing with other too, she told us so:

You can lose your brand advocate or user in the fraction of a second.
	Maia novolan
	Mobile Marketing Specialist / @MaiaNovolan

“Everything revolves around the customer. 

More than ever, digital marketing is about the consumer (user). You need to step up the game and be up-to-date, be more connected, interactive, and attractive. And this is because you can lose your brand advocate or user in the fraction of a second”.

So why women?

Interviewing people in the industry is our specialty. We love to hear digital marketing tips from renowned professionals and get better at what we do. And women marketers have always seemed to add finesse to this industry – they know how to fight and win, but also how to connect deeply and create art.

Marie Forleo, a true thought leader in the marketing world, said once:

I want to change how women think of and feel about marketing. It not only helps women get the results they want, but marketing brings out our best human attributes: true listening, compassion, honesty, and a spirit of service.
	MARIE Forleo
	Marketer & Host of MarieTV / @marieforleo

Should you have been in for some proper tasty treat, you have now dived deep into the freshest digital marketing tips ever, all coming from note-worthy professionals in the niche.

Truth be told, you’ve reached the Cornucopia of all digital marketing tips and magic spells out there and we’d recommend you make great use of it to boost your online presence and brand marketing.

Now, what female digital marketers inspire you and why? What’s that evergreen content marketing lesson you learned from them? 

The post Exclusive 20 Digital Marketing Tips from 20 Top Amazing Women Marketers appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Plato’s saying is one many writing talents and content gurus hold dear to, and it goes like this: “Those who tell the stories, rule the world”. 

Content has always been a powerful weapon for whatever those who knew how to wield it were after. Kings knew its importance, historians did too, and now content marketers, big and small, mold it in infinite ways to obtain that successful and attractive mix to make them outstanding in the ever-changing marketing ecosystem.

Every Google update, be it Panda or Penguin, drew the digital marketing industry closer to the tipping point where content is now king. If links used to be the first and foremost factor in ranking higher and dictating the success of a brand, now content is.

Today content is more pregnant than ever. It is the one thing that is going to make the difference in a really hectic noisy market place.

Tools come in handy in this type of situations. BrandMentions can provide the information for your content to rank higher in Google, learn from your competitors’ tactics and success strategies, and reveal popular keywords. For moments when things get tougher, we’ve created a personal content assistant.

Our Keyword Tool gives access to keywords and articles written on the topic entered in the search, suggests you techniques in making your content perform better and assists you in delivering that top-notch piece of content. Following Content Assistant recommendations comes in handy for content creation because it shows you the evolution of your content (through the content performance score).

We made some research and here are some tactics to create high-ranking content:

1. How to Identify and Craft Stellar Content (Case Study Release)
   1. Dig into Your Competitor’s Success Strategies
   2. Feed Your Readers with Relevant and Consistent Stories
   3. Gain Insights on Your Competitors’ Content Performance
2. How to Keep Up With the Content Marketing Industry Nowadays
   1. Use Social Amplification Strategies to Outperform Your Content
   2. Implement Various Types of Content to Fit People’s Need
   3. Follow Amazon’s Social Strategy to Create a Community
3. How Content Has Evolved In Time
   1. Before and After the Algorithm Change
   2. Use Tips That Make Content Win the Lottery

1. How to Identify and Craft Stellar Content

Yes, content is eating the world and we all need to adapt and make changes and improvements in our marketing strategies so to hit that big leads we all crave for.

With the proper search engine optimization tools, you can deal with content the way you need, and turn the odds in your favor. BrandMentions and Keyword Tool come with a full set of features and tools meant to change the game once you start using them.

Content marketing doesn’t happen overnight, especially with its continuous reinvention and advancement of technology. To best illustrate how you can improve your content and make it outstanding among so many other pieces of content out there, we will use the formerly mentioned tools, namely BrandMentions and Keyword Tool.

After all this content revelation, three steps we need to follow: 

1.1 Dig into Your Competitor’s Success Strategies

It’s time you stopped making content that nobody engages with. You need to learn two things: 

1. Who’s there to take lessons from?
2. How are my brand and content performing?

1. Deploy a topic search that’s representative to your niche and see who’s out there doing the same thing as you. Using the right tool in digging your competitors’ success strategies is game changing. 

After seeing who the competitors in the niche are, start analyzing each of them. See how many brand mentions they’ve got, the performance score, and social shares of their pieces of content, and try to figure out what strategies they use, and go outrun them, while still being authentic. 

We compared two grand names in the computer industry and we tried to see how their brand and content is performing while being mentioned by other websites. We sought to see the number of mentions, type of webpages – either authoritative or low-quality page – performance score, and social shares. Plus, we wanted to see if mentions and their context were fitting the brands and were confirming their quality. The chosen brands were Apple and Microsoft. 

BrandMentions shows that Apple holds the highest number of mentions. The top results are quite relevant, given the authority of the websites, namely iTunes, New York Times, CNET, or Huffington Post. 

2. Keyword Tools can easily show you monthly search volume for your query, keyword suggestions filtered by relevancy, number of words, CPC and other topic groups.

After seeing Google’s top results for your targeted keyword, see how your content would rank and perform among all the content that’s already there and occupying those first spots in search engine results. It is a real benefit to see relevant content and help you create the best content out there.

Keyword tool comes in handy and proves to be the content assistant your content lacks. After analyzing top used keywords in the niche and entering them in your body of text, enter your article in the semantic content optimization sector and see how your content performs.

1.2 Feed Your Readers with Relevant and Consistent Stories

You need to pull yourself together and sort your content by engagement metrics so to bring all the bits that keep people around your brand the longest to the top. 

As mentioned before, social media holds a great deal of the content available online. Therefore using BrandMentions, see how others perform on social media, and create, provide and feed your readers with relevant and consistent stories. An audience that was previously clearly outlined and given a clear purpose will answer to and engage with your content. 

For the time being, BrandMentions offers you deep insight on social networks such as Twitter and Youtube, planning to extend its action area to other networks as well. The Keyword Tool doesn’t fall short and covers the same social networks as well, apart from the whole wide web. 

1.3 Gain Insights on Your Competitors’ Content Performance

Needless to say this once again, metrics and analyses will do the job. Keyword Tool allows you to gain deep insight on your competitors’ ranking score, used keywords, number of words, and also to check their page and domain performance. Just in case you’ll want to see whom you’re against (the screenshots above are a perfect illustration of what we’re saying here).

Oh, and metrics, metrics, metrics everywhere. In order to make your content a hit, you’ll need to work your piece of content till it’s shinier than a diamond.

The keyword explorer, ranking analysis, and content assistant tools Keyword Tool are working together to accomplish just that. Improving your content marketing approach could not get any easier with the right tools.

And with a good pinch of creativity, things will surely work out. As content marketers, we know that creativity wins over the cost of production. And style as well.

Just look at TechCrunch’s story. TechCrunch is a leading technology media publication, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news. But all started from way less. Michael Arrington created a blog out of a hobby – sharing information about the companies that were making a difference in the world of web. Now it’s the leading online publisher of technology news in the world.

It’s the dream of any entrepreneur to get featured and displayed to the large amount of tech players following TechCrunch. The secret is this: cadence, style, and proper content management. You can find more here.

2. How to Keep Up With the Content Marketing Industry Nowadays

As if content available on the web was not enough, social networks have long started to record considerably higher rates in delivered content compared to that of the web. 

2.1 Use Social Amplification Strategies to Outperform Your Content

We are witnessing a huge leap in technical usage and capabilities. People are increasingly using their phones for everything. Thus, it’s more likely that content should be created there than offline.

What’s more, social networks seem to have taken over every information sector and content-driven institution. Journalism, banking systems, personal histories, political campaigns, leisure industry, retail, and even government and security, all are filtered through social media first.

Interesting enough is that social media was not intended to become the shortest press release or primary marketing ad medium, yet many companies use it this way. 

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and so on, are very powerful in matters of both content and readers. As Jay Baer points out in the video above: “Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.” Social media marketing comes as the amplification player that complements content that it’s already there. It acts as a booster and as an awareness button.

And there’s proof. In-handy, for anybody. Let’s take this instance when you’re searching for brand mentions on the internet. For this experiment, we will use our mentions tool, BrandMentions.

With BrandMentions you can benefit from gaining deep insight not only on publications that mentioned you but also on the medium where that piece of content is posted on. And because numbers talk best, let’s see the search results.

After opting for a preferred language, location, and period of time, BrandMentions displayed a good bunch of mentions, all up to date and on the topic.

The number of mentions is way bigger, as shown in the right upper corner, and you can have full access to the entire set of mentions after a paid subscription. Although the total number of mentions can’t be accessed, this snippet is representative for the total sum. Either way, this is one instance where a social network overcomes the content available on the web.

Social media occupies a significant role in content generation across the globe, and brands need to count it in their marketing strategies, otherwise, they could easily perish.

Judging the latest numbers for social networks, content is king now more than ever. With Facebook scoring 1.71 billion users, Youtube hitting over 1 billion users, WhatsApp having a total of 1.2 billion users, and LinkedIn reporting 450 million users, it’s no wonder where all that social content comes from.

If not yet convinced, statistics show that the top 3 content marketing tactics are blogging (65%), social media (64%), and case studies (64%). It’s a competition all the way down!

2.2 Implement Various Types of Content to Fit People’s Need

Content comes in a variety of forms, all meant to entertain and satisfy as many of the human senses as possible. We are witnesses to the competition social networks of all kinds are in.

Youtube is a video-sharing website, Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr are photo-sharing services, Facebook is a social networking service that combines both text, video, and audio, while Soundcloud and Spotify are music, podcast, and video streaming services with millions of subscribers across the world. 

Be it video, audio, or text, social networks are fighting to exceed users’ expectations and deliver their best content possible, just as Joe Coleman mentioned. 

Your content is a product unto itself and you have to find out where it fits into the broader ecosystem of people’s needs and wants.
	Joe Coleman
	CEO at Contently / @JoeDColeman

Interesting though it’s the way video climbed all the way up and is thought to be the future of online marketing. According to Cisco, starting with 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic.

Video-on-demand traffic alone will be trebled. Wisdom calls for small enterprises and businesses to include this medium in their marketing strategies, if not willing to fall behind trend and expectations. 

One way or the other, video gains ground because it can offer information that is simple to digest, and can provide the entertainment and knowledge people need.

Yet, what goes around, comes around. Video is poised to soon take over the social media content, but one way or another, video will need sharing and promotion from social networks. Shares will raise awareness and make video successful. As Andy Crestodina says it:

It’s not the best content that wins. It’s the best-promoted content that wins.
	Andy Crestodina
	Co-founder of Orbit Media / @crestodina

As a consequence, there is a dependency loop. 

Both BrandMentions and Keyword Tool can crawl videos when entering queries in the search bar. Using the entered query, they browse the web and display results according to your previously selected filters. It is great for keyword research. For now, search engines can crawl videos with the help of video title, description, script and URL. Hopefully, in the rather nearer than farther future, search engines will be able to crawl videos by scanning the audio only.

If you need to get more out of your content, Keyword Tool is a fit aid in learning who are the competitors out there who ranked for the same topic or keyword, and see where their success comes from. You get insight into content performance, which tells you how relevant and optimized that content is for the analyzed keyword. Other important details such as usage of focus keywords, readability score, and number of words on the page are available for both web posts and videos.

2.3 Follow Amazon’s Social Strategy to Create a Community

Did you know that Amazon is actually more of a social network rather than a merchandise website? Here’s why. 

Amazon is by far the no. 1 go-to website when you are looking for insight into the usability and features of a product, brand and so on. According to 2016 statistics, there are 7 million Amazon reviews. This is the place where millions of subscribers connect with each other, share impressions, and act as a community. 

Reviews are not the sole content generator; so are product descriptions. Content is everywhere; just follow the length of a mouse scroll and you’ll see it for yourself. Plus, Amazon actually started as a bookstore, later diversifying and extending the business to other niches. Content, content, content everywhere.

3. How Content Has Evolved in Time

Content is part of that well-known paradigm meant to help web pages rank higher, have better conversion rates, and get the leads they’re after: inbound links, content, and UX interface.

The place content has occupied is not something new to marketers. Yet Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, made it clear that content is one of the most important Google ranking factors.

Contrary to its privilege, content was just a player in the game and not the King Kong it is today, taking over the world.

3.1 Before and After the Algorithm Change

There was a time when companies had to take a break and ask themselves: What are we getting out of content? Is it working the way it should? Big questions in terms of what to write, what to track and of the final objective that came along with the new Google Panda update, in 2011. Why then? Because it impacted big content players the way it hadn’t done before.

Marketers in the content industry know the story of content giant Demand Media and its decline. The company was a leader in the market, created to revolutionize content production in various lifestyle industries such as art, design, health, fitness, and DIY. Everything changed once Google released its Panda algorithm in 2011, which was meant to track down low-quality but highly promoted content. That’s when Demand Media went down.

And this is when things started to swerve and they reconsidered their tactics and priorities. The mentality was the first thing to change. And content metrics were there to be used and help the new processes. 

Joe Coleman, Contently CEO, says that after he witnessed the rise of the company in times of unfavorable odds, creating content marketing material just because you have to, won’t work. 

Too many people were approaching it purely as an art. Now, to succeed, you have to take that art and apply a much more scientific, data-driven framework to it.
	Joe Coleman
	CEO at Contently / @JoeDColeman

3.2 Use Tips That Make Content Win the Lottery

Content called for a massive facelift. In the years that have passed since 2011, multiple tips and tricks have surfaced on the web on how to make your content shine and and increase search rankings.

Among the vast array of suggestions for content optimization, there is a track record of 9 tips, old and new, that can help you create high-quality content and boost it to where it should be – on the top.

1. Set realistic expectations and wait.

• Patience is the root of all long-term success.
• Know yourself.
• Set realistic objectives. Do not haste for immediate outcomes.
• Yet track those set benchmarks, and do follow up.

2. Discover your audience and work towards them.

• Identify the audience that seeks the same thing as you, people you’d want to sell your product to and who would be drawn to your brand.
• Create content on topics they need.
• Make it top-notch.

3. Be consistent, create a plan you can really execute.

• Make a scenario you can actually keep track of and follow closely.
• Set your own post pace.
• Measure traffic.
• Collect email addresses, and email your subscribers, so to create a solid relationship and secure a loyalty loop.

Email is almost always more valuable than social media.
	Joe Coleman
	CEO at Contently / @JoeDColeman

4. Be different.

• Make research and see what’s already there in your industry.
• In order to be a competitor, you need to bring something there’s not already there. Something different, something more.
• Be authentic.
• Find your voice and style and stick to it.

5. Have an audience.

• Learn how to retain people organically.
• There are a series of white-hat techniques to gain traffic. Write blog posts on Medium and LinkedIn, places where you already have a good set of followers.
• Employ ego bait tactics.
• Seek to get links and tweets from influencers in the industry, and shares from investors.
• Opt for syndications – pitch a piece of your content to notable publications.

6. Don’t go for quantity, but for quality.

• Quality content has and will always perform better than quantity content.
• Opt for usefulness.
• Create content that’s well-researched and well-crafted.
• Don’t build fame on pennies, but on diamonds.

7. Track yourself using metrics that matter.

Metrics, metrics, metrics everywhere. Metrics help you to constantly grow and measure development.

• Track unique visitors.
• Register engagement rate as its data is eye-opening and very important.
• Don’t follow just the clicks and impressions.

8. Build your site beautifully, yet make it usable.

• People are attracted to smart engaging design. Make it so! 56% of marketers claim personalized content drives higher engagement.
• Try to stand out, but stay true to yourself, though.
• Usefulness is ever more important than beauty, so optimize your site/blog/publication to its best.
• Turning your site into what readers are looking for shows that you take them and your business seriously.
• Avoid interstitials. 

9. Experiment for the sake of the future.

• Don’t stagnate once you’ve accomplished one content objective. Go to the next one.
• See what your readers digest more and, if possible, try to go beyond your originally set milestone.
• Use A/B testing either for content type, design, post frequency, or contributors. It’s simple math: channels, content, and contributors.
• Don’t forget to stay qualitative.

One way or another, you want to stay safe and yet shine on with your content, so following these simple yet engaging tips on how to improve your content, will surely be to your benefit.

Using the outline above, we shall apply it to a more hands-on experiment on how you can master content in a world already full of it. All with the help of BrandMentions and Keyword Tool.

Conclusion

Seth Godin says that “content marketing is all the marketing that’s left” and to some extent, that’s true. In such times when content of all types and forms battles to be that yummy cherry on the top, it’s almost excrescent to deny it. 

And truth be told, we love content. Good, smart content with a twist, content we can chew on and develop further. That’s why brands struggle to have as few content quality debts as possible. No doubt, content marketing is a full-time marathon.

Digital marketing started long ago to be the big brother of businesses’ success already. Yet content has slowly but steadily started to take ground from inside out and eventually take over the reins of the entire marketing game.

This is an age of information overload; new startups and global giants witness the continuous rise of content and fight to keep up with the trend. Content is eating the world and brands need to create content around them if they want to thrive.

Content grows faster in demand than we’d expect it to. The message is that it’s no longer just a matter of inspiration but one of tight calculus and data.

Content marketers started to create and rethink algorithms and metrics to help their content pop up in the business industry.

Yet social networks hold a great share in the rise of content. They have created such a surplus of content that they considerably surpass web posts and everything in between. And this is just the beginning.

Numbers never lie, some say, so here are some astonishing facts about content provided by social networks.

Every 60 seconds, 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded on Facebook.

Twitter, the king of all instant posts, records on average around 6,000 tweets every second, which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day, and around 200 billion tweets per year. For a live sneak peak, you can visualize them here.

Instagram is trendier than ever, and there’s no sign of stopping. Statistics show 8.95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram per day.

Either way, content is the salt to our marketing industry and we embrace it. For more on content, you can make yourself comfortable, grab some popcorn and your favorite beverage, and watch this short film made by The Marketing Institute: Content – The Rise of the New Marketing.

The post Underused Techniques to Identify and Craft High-Ranking Content appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

So what’s there to be done?

Here is where we come to rescue: We made a curation of the best newsletters in marketing, and we divided them into segments that are specific to the marketing environment.  Therefore, all you need to do is look at the category you are most interested in and check out the must-have newsletters from that segment.

Typically, newsletters fill your inbox based on a previous submission. Nevertheless, how many times did we opt to delete an e-mail only seconds after we opened it or, ‘worse’, marked it as spam and got rid of it? And only a couple of days before we might have thought it would be a great read to have in our inbox.

That mainly happens because:

1. the newsletter didn’t turn out to be as good as expected,

2. it seemed to be more of a sales newsletter than a marketing one,

3. it started to annoy you already and you could do well without it, too.

Should you have experienced the above-mentioned scenarios, you must know the value of a good proper recommendation coming from fellow marketers as you.

To develop your future marketing strategies, you need inspiration as a marketer. You want to know where the people from your industry get their inspiration from, what made them grow, what tips and tricks they juggle with daily, and what’s there that they know and you don’t. No doubt you’d like to outrun them too, if possible.

All of that and with a little bit more you could have with the right marketing newsletters filling up your inbox.

We have compiled a comprehensive list of 40 hip marketing newsletters you might want to subscribe to. Boom, now there’s nothing more to do than browsing high-quality news and updates, insights and data from important industry websites and blogs around the corner.

1. How Can an Email Newsletter Steal a Marketer’s Heart?
2. All-in-One Digital Marketing
3. Content Marketing
4. SEO + SEM
5. Creative Marketing
6. Inbound Marketing
7. Social Media Marketing
8. Email Marketing
9. Conclusion

How Can an Email Newsletter Steal a Marketer’s Heart?

Good email newsletters, be they on marketing topics or some other, can be really restorative. They can check a lot of stuff within a single body of text: they can educate, inspire, motivate, validate data and theories, inform, entertain, engage, call to action, and revive someone. 

Jumping on the other side of the fence, we thought about how a newsletter from marketing email providers should be. You should check at least one of the above. Focus on delivering high-quality services and information. The best of the best, even when dealing with ordinary stuff. Nobody wants something that’s already there or lacking entertainment. 

But there’s more than content that you should consider. And that’s about how you look. Appearance, interface, design, all of that. You know that visuals impact a human mind the most. Our cognitive memory is visual. 

There’s this saying – love at first sight. That’s right, that applies not only to human relations and love but also to anything surrounding us and struggling to make a good impression.

Lacking quality design won’t kill you but owning the reverse will make you stronger.

And you should integrate it into your brand’s email marketing game.

Mind how you wrap up your marketing newsletter and make it shine. It might be challenging to turn into an asset all the three pillars – content, display, and design – but mastering at least one of them might make you the marketers’ next crush in marketing newsletters.

All in all, we compiled a rich list of marketing newsletters every marketer should get in their inbox and made sure they comply with at least one of the above-mentioned quality ingredients: content, design, or overall appearance. 

All-in-One Digital Marketing

1. Marketing Land

Marketing Land covers multiple categories, such as social media marketing, SEM, SEO, mobile marketing, ad management, display marketing, and analytics.

Marketing Land is a news site, being part of the same family as Search Engine Journal and MarTech, so be ready to receive emails from them, too. We could call it a marketing newspaper with news, insights, how-tos, expert contributions and much more.

The content is very well classified and transparent so that it’s rather easy for the subscriber to choose what they want to read. Additionally, content covers some of the hottest news in the industry, such as latest developments, events, and data in the marketing world.

2. Branded3

Branded3 delivers great content and data on SEO,  content marketing, social media, analytics, PPC, Digital PR, and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization).

This British digital marketing agency provides insights from award-winning thought leaders, videos, and up-to-date information on various exclusive events they also organize. 

Once you go on their page, you’ll find it pleasant that you can sort articles by topic filters on the web page (something not every website uses).

3. Orbit Media

Orbit Media share solid advice on all marketing subjects, namely web design, UX, analytics, digital strategy, SEO, content marketing, and social media.

Writers and contributors are quite active, posting several times a week on the blog. Your inbox will receive a bi-weekly email newsletter though, so to not spam you with every update they bring on the platform.

The blog design is very catchy and bright, while the photos they use are fit and attractive, which makes the newsletter nice and on point.

Orbit Media was founded by content marketing evangelist Andy Crestodina, who also backed up Content Jam, Chicago’s biggest content marketing conference. Contrary to his tight schedule, you’ll be happy to often gain key takeaways as Andy Crestodina himself is frequently publishing on the blog.

4. ClickZ

ClickZ provides an overflowing array of articles meant to suit everybody’s taste on marketing in general, and on local marketing, email marketing, social media, analytics, search marketing, and ecommerce in particular.

Webinars, handpicked news, marketing leaders insights, events – you can find all that and much more on ClickZ. The newsletter also informs you about various analyses on the latest trends, tools, and technology in advertising and digital marketing.

The subscription is a bit tedious, requiring details such as email address, name, job title, company, no. of employees, country, etc. but the newsletter is worth it. You can customize your subscription by opting out/in from/for some topics: ClickZ Daily Newsletter, Research & Intelligence, Live Events, Webinars, Training, or Audience intelligence (B2B marketing tips for agencies).

The standard newsletter has over 200k subscribers already and comes on a daily basis.

5. Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics writes about marketing as a whole, analytics, copywriting, branding, ecommerce, SEO, testing, advertising, blogging, design, and social media marketing. 

Their newsletters provide two types of information: data-driven insights from experts on marketing, social media, copywriting, branding, design, and social networks, and also customer insights, making use of visual information – infographics, charts – about customer behavior and thinking.

Kissmetrics often provide live webinars, infographics, and data so this information-rich library will surely inspire and motivate you in you decision-makings and marketing strategies.

6. ThinkWithGoogle

These guys like to juggle with topics from the digital marketing as a whole. Content can be categorized under industry perspectives, success stories, research, and product reviews. You can find data, insights, inspiration, case studies, helpful advice, input from professionals, and consumer trends articles by also narrowing content to location – Europe, Asia, USA, Brazil, etc. 

Both the newsletter and the web page are really engaging and attractive thanks to the design, interface, and content, of course. In addition, the subscription process is very simple.

7. Digital Doughnut

Digital Doughnut offers you high-quality content on digital marketing, content marketing, ecommerce, social media, UX, abandonment rates, and social platforms.

There’s a whole community of digital leaders and professionals contributing to the platform by sharing their knowledge, ideas, discoveries, and studies on a wide range of subjects, classified according to category (advertising, mobile, technology, social media, etc.) and sector (accounting, banking, cosmetic, etc). This makes Digital Doughnut a contribution platform with abundant information.

If you want to get emailed their newsletter, you need to create an account first. Be ready to provide a lot of details upon sign up, as well.

Content Marketing

8. QuickSprout

QuickSprout is focused on SEO, content marketing, link building, affiliate marketing, blogging, social media, and copywriting.

The platform comes from one of the most influential digital marketing leaders in the industry, Neil Patel, who wanted to make a change. His platform likes to play with real data to support arguments in the articles: website traffic numbers, conversion rates, and growth hacking with infographics.

The newsletter comes with a friendly tone and simple layout, while the content is easy-to-digest and to understand. Usually, they incorporate the entire blog post in the email newsletter. Smart, huh?

9. Problogger

Problogger provides content worth reading on blogging, content marketing, and social media. There’s no better proof to their success other than the number of readers following them – 321k subscribers.

The website is sporting some really cool topic filters to sort your articles, such as building community, blog promotion, being productive, writing content, blog design, blogging tools and services, strategy and planning.

Their posting pace is one article every 2-3 days, so till this date, they have over 8k articles published on the blog.

The subscription process is easy; they need your email address and that’s it. And if you don’t make it in time to catch the weekly newsletter (delivered on Tuesday) they’ll send you a notice informing you on what you can read until the next communication. 

Upon subscription, you’ll be happy to find a gift in your inbox – a collection of 180 blog post ideas.

10. Copyblogger

This website covers niches such as content marketing, digital marketing, and blogging.

You can’t actually subscribe to Copyblogger, but by signing-up to the website you’ll soon get notified about articles, events and all that. This way, you’ll get access to all the high-quality content there is on the website – but first, you need to activate your subscription with a sign-up. Nevertheless, you can check their website from time to time, even without a newsletter in your inbox.

Their motto is “words that work” and you’ll agree once you read some of their articles. You can filter your article feed on the website by opting in for certain topics such as content marketing, digital commerce, entrepreneurship, writing, editing, or content marketing. The content is really catchy.

11. CoSchedule

We really like this one. CoSchedule shares knowledge and expertise on content marketing, blogging, social media, and marketing automation.

You cannot subscribe to it but a 14-day free pass to their marketing calendar and everything else they’ve got in store will suit your taste. If applicable, you can get a licence to their platform, but either ways you’ll get a daily newsletter in your inbox once they have your details. 

The newsletter informs you on webinars, articles, and other events hosted by CoSchedule and sports a really nice and engaging design. 

You can find anything on their blog – a whole rich resource library with articles, podcasts, guides, videos, and product demos. Filter them by selecting one of the top-right tabs: content, social, product, or culture.

12. Content Marketing Institute

Founded by Joe Pulizzi, the Content Marketing Institute blog levels-up your marketing strategies by delivering quality content on topics such as visual content and design, social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, marketing strategy, audience building, industry news, marketing team management, distribution, and tracking.

With 180k subscribers, the blog deals with everything related to content, strategy, tips on hiring and more. Joe Pulizzi writes and publishes a post a day,  besides other guest posts from professionals. The subscription process is simple and easy-to-do.

You get daily articles and also free e-books to change your perspective on content marketing, along with free webinars, podcasts, how-to guides, blog posts, and high-quality insights. You can filter the topic range of your article feed and read what’s of most interest to you.

13. Contently

Contently is a Content Operating Platform but their blog is a must for every marketer. Stay informed with up-to-date marketing tips, trends, and insights on content marketing, SEO, social media, and email marketing. 

Thanks to the easy subscription process, you can immediately indulge in a wide range of topics: accountable content, brands, media, social, voices, UK & Europe, and client stories.

14. MarTech Today

Sporting a rather techy style, MarTech Today delivers comprehensive newsletters on various webinars, reports, articles, and conferences happening in the marketing world. They share content on content marketing, marketing strategy, social media, advertising, and also deliver fresh industry news.

As previously mentioned, MarTech Today shares the same room with Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, so most likely you’ll receive communications from all three.

SEO + SEM

15. Search Engine Land

Subscribe to SEL and enjoy quite solid and noteworthy content and data on SEO, SEM, Google SEO, Bing, Local Search, and social media. They provide a charming array of articles, most of them being SEO oriented.

Their newsletter also includes the Landy Awards Project, which recognizes digital marketers of the year who made a change in the industry.

The newsletter showcases news, data, various information, and guest posts with tips and tricks to improve your marketing skills.

16. cognitiveSEO

Maybe it’s a little self-serving to bring it to you, but numbers and word-of-mouth prove this blog’s worth. On a weekly basis, cognitiveSEO publishes blog posts on trending matters and topics, case studies, SEO insights, social media insights, products launches, in-depth research studies. They provide insight on SEO, content marketing, and digital marketing topics and matters.

Follow the blog and get notified on the latest and trendiest digital marketing insights, get hands-on on impressive case studies and discoveries, either provided by our in-house experts or by widely known marketing leaders. Almost 6k subscribers can confirm its quality content.

The posting pace is 1-2 articles a week, therefore cognitiveSEO newsletters will knock-knock in your inbox at similar times. 

17. Search Engine Journal

This already widely known website provides noteworthy and valuable content on SEO, SEM, search marketing, content marketing, industry news, PPC, social media, and ad marketing. Juicy articles, news, how-to-guides, and surveys will be your daily snack when landing on their blog’s webpage. 

You can also benefit from live webinars and tutorials, all curated by SEJ specialists. 

18. WordStream

Get to know the dynamics of the marketing funnel by subscribing to the WordStream blog. They provide actionable content and data on SEM, PPC, paid search and paid social campaigns.

WordStream is the leading provider of AdWords, Facebook and keyword tools used by more than a million marketers globally. Their tools are specialized in paid search, paid social campaigns, and everything in between. 

They post an article on a daily basis and the content they provide is fit to enrich any marketer’s spectrum.

19. Backlinko 

With 105k subscribers, Backlinko or, better say, Brian Dean’s blog provides best-in-class articles, insights, analytics, and in-depth marketing information on SEO.

With Forbes listing Backlinko as one the “Top 20 blogs to Follow” in 2017 and Inc. calling Brian Dean “a brilliant marketer” definitely worth following, it’s definitely a must-have marketing newsletter you should subscribe to.

Brian Dean shares his knowledge and expertise, providing serious data and eye-opening marketing insights. Topics are given weight and treated thoroughly.

The newsletter comes with a personal touch and vibe, sporting a simple layout, usually just that of a random email. But content is so worth it; if you need next-level SEO training tips and link building strategies, then you should subscribe to Backlinko. 

20. Koozai

Multi-award winning digital marketing agency delivering services in SEO, SEM, content marketing, and paid social ads, Koozai writes thousands of blog posts on SEO, SEM, content marketing, Social Media. 

Subscribe to their newsletter; their content and video insight sessions will definitely help you get better in your marketing endeavors. Sporting really nice UI and content filters (news, SEO, content, paid media, social media, search), getting hands-on with their articles is not at all far-fetched.

21. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog tackles marketing niches such as SEO, PPC, and search marketing, and delivers great information through in-depth articles, insights, and news. 

We’d always have it as a reference when in need of proper and solid data proof on various topics.

To receive their marketing newsletters you should purchase a license and have an account on Screaming Frog. Anyways, you can always pin it in your bookmarks and check their blog from time to time. You won’t regret it!

22. Seth Godin

Everybody knows and is a fan of Seth Godin and his blog. A best-selling author of many books (such as “Small is the New Big”, “All Marketers Are Liars”, etc.) and entrepreneur, Seth supports the belief that “less is more”. 

His blog provides educational, inspirational, and niche articles on marketing in general, and content marketing in particular. With a rich, yet concise writing style, his short articles have a maximum impact on the reader. He shares his wisdom daily, and if willing, you can always browse and read the other 2.500 blog posts he already owns.

23. ViperChill

The ViperChill blog talks about viral marketing, SEO, and blogging and has already gathered more than 70k subscribers, all joining the dance on SEO tips delivered into their inboxes.

The blog is curated by Glen Allsopp and he promises that his marketing newsletters are clean and trustworthy emails, with no ads, no affiliate links or sponsored stuff. Needless to say that this blog content is worth reading every day (and night). Their articles are quite helpful when it comes to improving your marketing skills. 

Jade Craven from Problogger advised professionals to keep an eye on Viperchill blog, so no need for other words.

24. Nick LeRoy

Nick LeRoy calls his weekly newsletter SEOForLunch because people oftentimes read his newsletter around lunchtime every Tuesday. It sort of a tradition.

Nick’s newsletter has personality and highlights some of the most important news and facts about SEO. Every newsletter is packed with “Nick’s Take” where he offers valuable tips and learnings.

Get your dose of wisdom through Nick’s newsletters next to your lunch. Bon appetite!

Creative Marketing (UX, design, video, tech news, inspirational content, ideas)

25. Mashable 

Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture, and entertainment content that many influencers, professionals and marketing aficionados appreciate.

Email newsletters are personalized, therefore content feeds and updates will definitely suit your taste. You can also customize your subscription by selecting what notifications to receive in your inbox: top stories (on a daily/weekly basis), viral news alerts, and/or breaking news alerts.

The content Mashable provides is fresh, viral, and always diverse, dealing with a wide range of topics from various categories. Marketers, techies, business owners, and social media enthusiasts are following their newsletter and stay ahead of the curve with up-to-date content.

Their headlines are attention-grabbing and their topics quite offering and juicy. Talking about something that has already been discussed it’s not characteristic to Mashable; it’s considered second-hand mindset. So, there’s a lot in the game for you: get notified on viral stories and articles and receive the best-in-class Mashable articles and breaking news.

26. Upworthy

Upworthy likes to say their news unite people and make them one. Most news are taken from real-life, and the collections names are eloquent: “caring and doing”, “thanking parents”, etc. At large, their delivered stories are alive, and they’re divided into several sections: “being well”, “culture”, “breakthroughs”, “real life”, and “the conversation”.

Every article and piece of news is a great source of inspiration, both for marketers and for people, in general. The stories are taken from all industries, backgrounds, and topics. Yet, they all follow the same pattern – they talk about humans, not trends or currents.

If you want to be updated with what the world around you is doing, bookmark Upworthy and check it as often as possible (there’s no subscription available yet).

27. Canva

Canva inspires you and creates a boom effect on your imagination with engaging email newsletters on design, image editing, graphic design, infographics, and email templates.

Given that their tool makes design and graphics simple for everyone, their blog posts are informative and educational, helping both beginners and professionals get better in their marketing game.

Their marketing newsletter is colorful, sporting nice design, interface, and integrated animated infographics. Both newsletter and blog are easy to skim and show a lot of transparency, something subscribers will definitely love. Either way, Canva is definitely a go-to design source for creatives out there.

28. Muzli

When in search for loads of creativity tips and tricks, design inspiration, graphic design, UX and UI, try Muzli. 

You’ll receive weekly updates in your inbox. Their newsletters are nicely, neatly, and vividly designed to conquer any marketer’s heart.

29. InVision

InVision is mostly known as a graphic design platform, when in fact you get a diverse and complex array articles from various industries to get inspired from. Their content fits many categories, such as marketing, coding, design, inspiration, InVision updates, and videos.

They deliver a really nice newsletter, sporting a pleasant interface and charming design. If only more newsletters wore this kind of design …

Tip: if you didn’t know, subscribers always appreciate their content, but the cherry-on-top thing is they’re always accepting submissions. Should you have some great contribution to the website, give it a go and let them know.

30. Quora

Quora is an awesome platform to gain better insight and understanding to everything that’s on your mind with SEO, social media marketing, and blogging.

The website looks forum-like while the newsletter is simple and informative. We could even say that the newsletter is more intriguing and catchy than the website itself. It uses bold, attention-grabbing headlines and content previews that make subscribers click on a particular piece of content. 

Once a couple of days Quora send you their newsletter. It’s rich, it’s complex, and always on the tipping point of a great read.

31. The Verge

The Verge covers topics from various industries and environments such as tech, science, art, culture, and everything in between.

If you want to be connected with everything that’s moving this world forward in matters of novelty, updates, creativity, and thinking then you should follow their content closely. There is no subscription available but the in-depth articles and data are already a huge incentive to bookmark it and visit it often.

32. Creative Bloq

Creative Bloq showcases great knowledge on graphic design, web design, branding, digital art, and visual effects.

Sign up to our weekly newsletter to get the best of Creative Bloq direct to your inbox: http://t.co/QKPmuAY86C pic.twitter.com/2hyHvl9GII

— Creative Bloq (@CreativeBloq) November 21, 2014

Every Wednesday, their newsletter is delivered to your inbox with best-in-class art and design tips and inspiration. Whenever you want to narrow the content topics, use their available categories: how-tos, inspiration, advice, news, reviews, and features.

Inbound Marketing

33. Inbound.org

Inbound.org specializes in growth hacking and traffic growth.

The idea for this platform started off with Dharmesh Shah, founder of Hubspot and Rand Fishkin, found of Moz. Two great minds and marketing evangelists uniting their powers to deliver top-notch business and marketing advice either from them, or other founders, SEO specialists, and business professionals.

Inbound.org already has a consistent community of marketers, bloggers, and enthusiasts speaking the same language, that of SEO, content marketing, social media, and conversion rate optimization.

There are two types of newsletters for you to choose from: “awesome community” and “traffic generation”.

34. HubSpot

Dharmesh Shah’s platform writes about inbound marketing, leads conversion, customer behavior, traffic growth, and digital marketing, but marketers can also get actionable content on SEO, content, blogging, social media, email marketing, and analytics.

Their newsletter has a big plus, besides that of top-notch content and professional insight – you can customize your newsletter to bits. Set your newsletter subscription preferences by opting in for one or as many of the following options: marketing blog (inbound marketing tips and tricks, how-tos, best practices), sales blog (sharpen your inbound selling skills), customer Success blog (how to make a customer success strategy that actually works and lives up to the customer challenge), agency newsletter (on building a better agency), and the academy blog (for Hubspot users regarding the Hubspot software).

In addition, you can choose how often you want to receive communications from HubSpot – either daily, or weekly.

35. Growth Hackers

GrowthHackers is a marketing newsletter provider not to be missed. They bring valuable expertise and insight on inbound marketing, traffic growth, SEO, and lead conversion. 

Launched by Sean Ellis from Qualaroo, Growth Hackers’ blog sends a weekly newsletter informing you about top-notch studies on marketing channels, user acquisition, and engagement. The blog is built on Medium, therefore there’s no subscription needed, only to follow them up on the platform and letters will come in your inbox. The posting pace is 1-2 articles a week. 

Social Media Marketing

36. Buffer Social

Buffer Social is about social media tips, tools, and strategies, and already loads of startup culture thinkers follow it and enjoy communications in their inboxes.

The platform has three blogs – Social Media blog, Culture Blog, Engineering blog (about how Buffer works; user education) – choose one or take all three. 13k subscribers already follow their intriguing valuable articles.

Their articles mostly fall into the educational category, as many of them are promoting the brand’s app, while covering topics of interest on how to win with social media.

Marketers will always need mentors and masters to learn from, therefore consuming valuable information will only do them good. And rich, minute, data-driven newsletters like Buffer’s are within arm’s reach. 

37. Sprout Social 

Social media managers (SMMs) could make great use of their content. Sprout Social provides noteworthy articles on social media and marketing automation, articles that any automation platform professional would undoubtedly make use of. 

Rookies and not only would definitely enjoy Sprout Social’s how-to guides, raw data, user education articles, tips, tricks, hacks, videos, pdfs, and free courses that they provide. Quite a rich library to choose from, right?

Marketers can filter their content feed on the Sprout Social blog by applying the available tags: publishing, product updates, #sproutchat, Instagram, agencies, social strategy, enterprise, engagement, Twitter, analytics, Facebook, etc.

38. Social Media Examiner

With a clear focus on social media, traffic growth, brand awareness, sales growth, customer engagement, and brand awareness, Social Media Examiner is, quote, “your guide to the social media jungle”. 

The platform contributors are quite active, posting articles daily. Besides expert insights, Social Media Examiner delivers full breaking news and updates about various conferences and events in the industry, along with free podcasts for you to listen while driving, taking a break and having breakfast. 

39. Social Mediopolis

Social Mediopolis beats them all at posting frequency, with 4 articles a day. Specializing in social media and interactive marketing, this blog delivers in-depth case studies, infographics, and noteworthy content. 

Their headlines are catchy, their content previews are great, and content is qualitative. Social Mediopolis’ subscriber community is huge, counting 2.100.000 followers in total.

Social Mediopolis is not fond of get-rich-quick schemes but wants to educate, share, and inspire fellow marketers across the world in their business endeavors.

Newsletters are rich in information and keep you updated with the latest daily news, events, networking, and even jobs in the industry, and announcing you about free resources (e-books, white papers, webinars, courses, and analytics) at your disposal.

Email Marketing

40. MailChimp

MailChimp is widely known for their email marketing automation platform, and their blog is obviously talking about email marketing and marketing automation.

Their newsletter is friendly, vivid, authentic, and attention-grabbing. Their graphic design skills are top-notch and they seem to be quite into animated infographics. Once you visit their blog you’ll soon notice how nice, clean, and interactive the content feed is.

If you want to get MailChimp letters in your inbox you need to sign up on their blog first. 

41. Campaign Monitor

Simply put, Campaign Monitor is about email marketing. Their marketing newsletter comes once a month so that you’ll have plenty to read without constant spam in your inbox.

Sign up on the blog page and communications will soon follow to fill your inbox. Guides, blog posts, tools, infographics, webinars, and collections are available for you to read, learn from, and use whenever you feel like. By the way, did we say how cool and engaging the newsletter is? And the page layout is pretty nice, too. 

Subscribers can filter their content feed by opting in for one of the categories: new features, email marketing, how-tos, customers (case studies, testimonials, and insights from world-class email marketers and customers), and company (product updates).

Conclusion

When the subscriptions matter is not treated properly, you may often end up like this: loads and loads of messages.

You need to curate your subscriptions. Keep what’s worth reading or useful, and forget the rest. Search for truly meaningful and qualitative marketing value providers and subscribe to those. Fill your inbox with the best marketing newsletters possible, with great content and good visuals, and get to know the dynamics of your industry like the back of your hand.

Moreover, our advice is to not just subscribe to those important marketing platforms, but also to follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram if you want to level up your SEO techniques and digital marketing skills. 

Besides, the good thing about newsletters is that you don’t have to find the content by yourself, but it’s already there, in your inbox, ready to read. So what are you waiting for? 

The post 41 Marketing Newsletters You Will Want in Your Inbox appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.