SEO isn't dead. It's never felt more alive.
I'd like to introduce a new rule for marketers everywhere. When something is declared 'dead' by a self-proclaimed 'thought leader' at a marketing conference, right thinking marketers should invariably assume that its prospects have probably never been better.
The rule certainly holds true for SEO as a revenue driver for eCommerce businesses. Although plenty of search conferences this year will have speakers declaring the coming death of SEO, the data shows it's scarcely ever been more critical.
As you can see from the chart below, organic search traffic makes up a massive 43% of all eCommerce traffic, almost double the next biggest driver - Google AdWords, which is also significant. This data comes from a Wolfgang digital study which analysed the traffic of 87 million website sessions, accounting for $230 million in eCommerce revenue. Our other summaries from data from YotPo and Custora tells a similar…
Tools to Monitor Search Engine Positions For Startups
Organic search is a cost-effective channel in marketing departments for most established companies who sell their products online.
For startups, a comprehensive organic acquisition strategy would usually not be the first area to concentrate on, as focussing on paid search and paid social to drive traffic would be a quicker way to test conversion of new products in the market.
With the data and learnings from paid search, it usually can then make dipping the toe into organic search that much easier, as you’ll at least know which search terms are worth the time and investment for both content creation and which pages are the most important for your business.
To monitor current and future positions of keywords, there are a great many SEO tools out there. But which ones out there are reasonably priced for a startup? And what do you get for your money?…
LinkedIn is not as far ahead of the rest as you might think.
HubSpot has launched their yearly State of Inbound 2016 report, providing us with some great insights into the latest trends and growth of inbound marketing.
This year their report is looking to showcase not just the current state of - but also the future of - Inbound Marketing.
One of the charts that caught my eye is the one below. It can be found on page 115 of the report if you're interested. It highlights the preferred channels of communication marketers and business owners like to use for both personal and professional purposes.
It is somewhat unsurprising to see LinkedIn as the preferred choice of professional communications. After all, it is a social network intended to help you build and engage with…
Greater public trust in search engines only reinforces the importance of SEO
It's the morning after the night before. For those political nerds this side of the Atlantic who stayed up well into the early hours to watch the debate between the two candidates to become the leader of the free world, I can only say well done.
Among the barbed questions, infantile bickering and rude interruptions, discerning observers may have noticed one thing missing. Objectively verified facts. Sure the candidates bandied around plenty of statistics, but sometimes what matters more is not the statistic but its source. And even is a statistic is technically correct, it may be incredibly misleading. For example Donald Trump's repeated claim that 52% of African American's are unemployed includes all those who are in school, college, staying home for childcare, volunteering or retired. Hardly everyone's definition of 'unemployed'.
The fact a candidate to be president of the richest, most powerful nation on earth…
How to avoid the common mistakes of programmatic advertising
Access to digital display ad inventory is becoming commoditized. It used to be that marketers and brands worked with publishers independently, leading to “handshake deals” that often left smaller players out in the cold.
Thanks to online trade desks and programmatic ads, this is changing. Most trade desks and platforms cooperate, and with the democratization of ad inventory, marketers and competitors operate on a relatively equal playing field.
It’s great that the playing field is equal, but that doesn’t mean marketers can mix a martini and call it a day just yet. The failure or success of your campaigns is ultimately up to you, and there are plenty of obstacles to pay attention to. And as with most things in life, you as a marketer need to play an active role in your media buying to guarantee you’re getting the best results.
The Hangover
Traditional trading…
After teasing us for many months, Google has finally confirmed Penguin is running again. But this time, as part of the core algorithm.
Importance: [rating=5] For all webmaster and SEO's.
Recommended Link: Google Webmaster Central Blog || SEO Guide
What is Penguin?
First announced way back in April 2012, the update was introduced as a way of tackling black-hat SEO techniques that were being used to artificially boost the rankings of a page. It particularly looked to target companies and agencies who were buying and obtaining links through link networks.
It impacted approximately 3.1% of search queries in English, and resulted in some high profile sites falling down the search engine results page (SERPs), some even dropping off completely.
What's the difference this time around?
This is the seventh incarnation of Penguin and the first in 2 years and it's quite a big one.
Whereas…
It was long thought that having the keyword in your domain name would help you in the SERPs. Is this actually the case?
Ahrefs have done some stellar research into the On-page ranking factors in 2016 and have found many interesting nuggets.
Back in 2012 Google rolled out an updated intended to bring an end to high ranking, low-quality Exact Match Domains (EMDs). Since then, the scurry to find high volume, keyword rich domains has somewhat diminished. But does have an EMD still impact the SERPs?
As evidenced in the data, there is a clear jump between position #1 and #2 which suggests that either the EMD update is no longer in effect, or something different is going on.
First of all, the phrasing used by Matt Cutts himself was "Minor weather report: Small upcoming Google algo change will…
Our interview with Rob Hammond, Head of SEO for publisher Trinity Mirror group
We asked the head of SEO for Trinty Mirror Group (the publisher behind major UK daily newspapers, such as The Mirror) about key SEO trends and how he see SEO changing in future.
What do you regard as the most significant SEO trends (and updates) that have impacted your current SEO strategy?
As a publisher, the growth of mobile is by far the most significant trend in search today. It has disrupted both the way that people search and the way that we produce content.
Google talks about the importance of "micro moments" on mobile - reaching people precisely at the short moment they have an information need. I think it's a really helpful way to think of how search has evolved, and will continue to evolve as we grow accustomed…
3rd party sites can give your content marketing a boost
The industry buzz that greets Content Marketing continues at pace as the tactic that can help brands redefine their proposition and differentiate their position from the competition. Indeed it’s very definition has changed, been re-purposed and continues to be re-interpreted but it’s safe to say Content Marketing provides a foundation for your digital marketing tactics to be used in a more joined up, strategic way to help drive the company objectives and in turn it’s digital strategy.
But what about maximising the reach and engagement of your content and how do you continue to justify budget spent on your content marketing through analytics measures? Distribution of your content efforts is crucial and your branded digital marketing communications channels will be the natural route for engagement to customers and prospects. However, if your own branded channels lack the digital footprint to drive incremental…
What we learned from implementing AMPs
This week's big development here at Smart Insights is the implementation of Accelerated Mobile Pages for our blog. If you are reading this on the standard HTML version (looks the same as normal) visit this post as an AMP to see what we have done.
Over the last year, we have published updates about how Google is implementing and utilising AMPs to improve everybody's mobile web experience.
A timeline of AMP
Let me recap the main developments of AMP:
December 2015
Google announced that it was seeing 16,000 new Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) every single day. This was an impressive rate of adoption and showed the extent to which publisher wanted to attract audiences of mobile devices.
February 2016
Then in February we saw Google has started rolling out Accelerated mobile pages…
