SEO Weekly News April 20, 2019

As an SEO agency in Fort Worth, we are constantly devouring the latest news in addition to being a member of several exclusive Mastermind groups. We even read the Google patents to keep you (and us) ahead of the curve. Here is this week's search engine optimization news.

SEO Agency Versus In-House Team: What's Better For You?

Forbes 3 days ago

To be successful online, companies need to take SEO seriously, and it must be a priority. As the founder of an SEO agency, I have dedicated the last 20 years to helping companies improve their ...

Is link building dead? Depends on who you talk to - Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land|20 hours ago

Sure, link building used to be plagued by a morass of black-hat tactics like link farms, paid link schemes, hidden links and spammy content. Some SEOs argue any form of proactive link building ...

Look Out for These 5 Signs of Black Hat SEO

Entrpreneur|2 days ago

Black hat SEO refers to unethical practices to help a website rank higher in Google. Often times, a website doesn't even know it's suffering from black hat search engine optimization -- and being penalized for it.

Using Python to recover SEO site traffic (Part three)

Search Engine Watch|23 hours ago

When you incorporate machine learning techniques to speed up SEO recovery, the results can be amazing. This is the third and last installment from our series on using Python to speed SEO traffic ...

7 Terrible, No-Good SEO Tactics to Abandon Forever

Search Engine Journal|5 days ago

Despite the evolution of Google and the internet, bad and outdated SEO tactics still proliferate. On April 10, I moderated an SEJ ThinkTank webinar presented by Julia McCoy, CEO of Express Writers ...

Lounge Lizard, Top NYC Web Design Firm, shares Tips for Improving Internal Links for Better UX and SEO

Stamford Advocate|3 days ago

Internal links are important for both SEO and the user experience of a website, however, internal links are not always optimized to maximize their use due to a lack of understanding about the ...

What These SEO Experts Want You to Know About Being Seen As the 'Top Choice' For Your Service

Stamford Advocate|4 days ago

To do that, and simplify the decision-making process overall, consumers are turning to the one place so many of us deem the most credible, trustworthy source in the world: Google. Your job is ...

Navigation Removal Trick Impacting Google Rankings Algorithm?

Search Engine Roundtable|2 days ago

An SEO, I believe his name is Alexander, asked John Mueller of Google in this morning's video hangout if Google is aware of a trick some sites are using to combat any negative impact from the ...

8 Ways You're Wasting Money on SEO Without Knowing It

Search Engine Journal|3 days ago

Because SEO is a longer-term investment than other digital marketing channels, it can have hidden challenges, issues, and costs. The rime and resources invested in SEO were wasted due to specific ...

Yoast SEO Becomes First WordPress Plugin to Offer Proper Schema Implementation - Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Journal|4 days ago

Popular WordPress plugin Yoast is releasing an update which offers complete implementation of Schema.org markup. For example, if a page has five pieces of Schema markup its often unclear to ...

5 SEO Skills That Give You a Huge Advantage on the Internet

WFMJ Youngstown|4 days ago

Originally posted on https://www.bwsocialmarketing.com/5-essential-seo-skillsLike everyone else in 2019, you have a website. Congratulations. You're now one in 1.7 billion.

Seznam SEO: An Interview with Seznam's Search Division Director

Search Engine Journal|3 days ago

There is however another search engine competing with Google - one that, for the most part, a lot of SEO professionals never encounter as it's limited to the Czech market, Seznam. Seznam was ...

Why accessibility works for SEO

The Drum|2 days ago

Website accessibility is about much more than due diligence and 'doing the right thing' - it can seriously boost your bottom line. Viewed from a cold hard business perspective it simply doesn ...

Building and scaling global SEO Centers of Excellence

Search Engine Land|3 days ago

How can you ensure that your SEO is built to scale as you expand into new global markets? Instead, I've long been an advocate for the development of Centers of Excellence inside enterprise brands ...

The Most Epic SEO Guide for Competitive Small Business Owners

WFMJ Youngstown|4 days ago

When Scott Paxton entered a competition to see who could get their new website to the front of Google the fastest, he decided to look at what his competitors were doing. What he learned can ...

How to Set up Your Local Business Listing for Success

WFMJ Youngstown|2 days ago

A local business listing can be one of the best ways to gain authority in your area and get an influx of local clients, and the more listings you have the better for the SEO (search engine optimisation ...

Boost Your Website's Visibility With This SEO Course

The New Canaan News|5 days ago

Anyone who works in marketing knows: unless your website reaches the first page of the search results for your desired keywords, it's highly unlikely you'll get the traction you need to reach ...

Why You Must Stop Obsessing About These 5 Things in SEO

Search Engine Journal|6 days ago

As SEO professionals, we tend to obsess over every detail. Really, though, not everything in SEO is worth our full time and attention. What follows is a list of trends that many in SEObelieve ...

Responsive Web Design: What is it?

TG Daily|4 days ago

Responsive web design is a term that SEO experts use regularly. Responsive web design is directly responsible for resizing websites so that they fit in the display for viewing. Large desktop ...

Fake Amazon reviews handing unknown brands an SEO bump, says Which?

The Drum|4 days ago

An investigation revealed tens of thousands of suspicious reviews appearing on the platform every day, handing unknown brands an unwarranted SEO bump in the process as consumers unwittingly ...

The following article SEO Weekly News April 20, 2019 is republished from: Moon and Owl Marketing Blog

SEO Weekly News March 22, 2019

As an SEO Fort Worth agency, we bring you this week's search engine optimization news.

Council Post: Law Firm SEO: Six Tactics Attorneys Can Use To Start Seeing Results

Forbes|4 days ago

Lawyers in private practice face an extremely competitive environment in Google search. This post boils down some of the most basic law firm SEO tactics — specifically those that are most likely ...

Council Post: Industrial SEO For B2B Companies: New Application, Same Strategy

Forbes|2 days ago

Marketing Strategist. In your quest to master business-to-consumer (B2C) digital marketing strategies, you may be overlooking some important business-to-business (B2B) opportunities. Industrial ...

The Rise of On-Page SEO Tools: Pushing the Frontiers of SEO & Content

Search Engine Journal|4 hours ago

Let's talk about cutting-edge SEO research that can truly transform your ranking success. While they are surely a part of the equation (and I am a deep believer of content quality, avoiding ...

Robots.txt best practice guide + examples

Search Engine Watch|1 day ago

The robots.txt file is an often overlooked and sometimes forgotten part of a website and SEO. What is a robots.txt file? A robots.txt file can be used for for a variety of things, from letting ...

If it's Not Just Keywords, How Does SEO Work?

WFMJ Youngstown|2 hours ago

Continued Google updates have all but eliminated any benefit gained from relying solely on keywords to rank well. Keyword stuffing for the purpose of ranking does nothing to enhance user experience ...

Patent suggests how CTR, time on page could be used in search rankings (if Google did that sort of thing) - Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land|1 day ago

Earlier this month, Google was granted a patent for utilizing click-through rates as a potential ranking factor. As Google SEO patent expert Bill Slawski, the president of SEO by the Sea who ...

SiteGuru improves your website with a detailed SEO audit

Android Authority|4 days ago

Building a website in this day and age is incredibly easy. No matter how much time you spend perfecting your website's appearance, if it ranks low on search engines, nobody will see it. SiteGuru ...

Excel Fuzzy Lookup for SEO: Effortless 404 and site migration redirects

Search Engine Watch|7 days ago

In recent years, the nature of SEO has become more and more data-driven, paving the way for innovative trends such as AI or natural language processing. This has also created opportunities for ...

Search Buzz Video Recap: More On Google March 2019 Core Update, Google Drops Rel Next & Prev & Neural Matching vs RankBrain

Search Engine Roundtable|3 hours ago

What a fun week in the SEO space - we had Google do some explaining or myth busting around the March 2019 core algorithm update, no - it wasn't a reversal. Google just noticed that they have not sup

Why bother with user experience: UX tips for SEO experts and business owners

Search Engine Watch|3 days ago

The times when ranking high in search results as the final goal have passed. As search algorithms are improving and there's no place for keyword stuffing anymore, SEO experts should adopt for ...

6 Actions You Must Take After an SEO Audit

Search Engine Journal|2 days ago

Step one is commonly an SEO audit. An SEO audit can produce valuable insights. When investing time, energy, and actual dollars in an SEO audit, you are probably doing it with the goal of taking action afterward. The list of SEO items audited.

Tips to identify a solid SEO agency

TG Daily|4 days ago

It is a digital world. There are many ways in which you can enhance your search engine rankings and develop a good SEO strategy. One of them is to hire an SEO agency. There are many SEO agencies out there serving customers in multiple ways.

SEO Weekly News March 22, 2019 is available on: Moon and Owl Marketing

What is the Google March 2019 Core Update? (aka Florida 2 algorithm update)

You might be experiencing a drastic change in site traffic and/or rankings (positive or negative) in the next few weeks because of the newest Google Core Update.

What is a Google Algorithm Update?

Users want the answer to their question or problem quickly. Google ranks billions of webpages in what they call their Search index to provide searchers the most beneficial and relevant search results.

To do this they use an algorithm. In it's simplest terms, an algorithm is a set of instructions telling an entity what to do. A food recipe, is in a sense, an algorithm. It tells you the ingredients, the amount needed of each ingredient, then how to assemble those ingredients to result in a dish.

In the case of a Google algorithm, it is gathering information from a bot that crawls sites on the internet, giving each piece of information a certain of importance, and then combining the ingredients into a search ranking result. At times they change the "recipe."

Google is always tweaking their algorithm which affects how your site ranks for certain keywords. Usually, these are minor tweaks. On March 12-ish, however, a major update was made. We saw radical swings in keyword rankings on client sites. This major update has been called March 2019 Core Algorithm Update or more popularly, Florida 2.0.

Google even confirmed this update. Something they don't always do.

We understand it can be useful to some for updates to have names. Our name for this update is "March 2019 Core Update." We think this helps avoid confusion; it tells you the type of update it was and when it happened.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 15, 2019

How did the March 2019 Core Update change the results?

Some are calling this a softening of the Medic Update aka Query Intent Update. The Medic update was largely seen to affect health and medical sites. Sometimes you'll see these referred to as YMYL (you money or your life) sites. Medic caused major ranking changes. We are hearing some in our Master Mind groups saying they think Florida might be a slight reduction in some of the heavy weighting that Medic gave to a sites E.A.T. score. E.A.T. stands for expertise, authority and trust.

Medic was thought to heavily rely not just on the content on a page for ranking, but the sites overall perceived authority. A site with strongly established credentials (good reviews and lots of parallel sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, even BBB solid ratings), citations on other expert sites (example: academic sites, high authority sites), and other means of trust were heavily rewarded. Some sites that had great content but weren't as strong in the E.A.T department lost rankings.

Others are saying this is more Penguin or Panda related. A few are claiming the volatility is link quantity and quality related.

One SEO tweeted “Smaller sites who were seemingly ranking pretty much only based on content got smacked hard, while brand pages with 100 words got a boost. I count 25 brands entered the top 60 on one SERP after this update. Almost all with far inferior content” says SEOwner via twitter handle @tehseowner

Here is the simple truth. It's TOO EARLY TO KNOW. Don't believe anything you are reading quite yet. No one knows exactly what the algorithm rewards or punishes directly.

Over time, broad SEO agencies, like Moon and Owl, will have enough client data and specialized tools can reverse engineer the algorithm to see what triggered increases and decreases.

We do this by looking at the 6,000+ keywords we are tracking for a diverse portfolio of clients and the pages that each keyword refers to in its ranking. Then we can see which pages rose and which fell, looking for commonalities. We can also A/B a page that fell against a competitor page that rose to see the differences in the pages in every aspect including things like:

• content length and other on-page elements
• schema types used
• keyword density in body copy and headers
• site siloing
• page crawl depth
• backlinks to page and to site as a whole (quantity and quality)
• site load speed
• and many other factors

What can I do to improve my sites ranking and traffic in light of Florida 2.0?

Right this second (March 15 2019)...

DO NOTHING!

Let the algorithm do its thing and see where you rank once things settle.

One of the worst things you can is to make wholesale changes while your site does the Google ranking dance. Use a SERP tracker that shows you rank increases and decreases, and once things aren't jumping around like a kid on a new pogo stick, then you can begin to make changes.

Of course, we are glad to help you in dealing with Florida 2 recovery or any search engine optimization endeavor.

 

Read More Here:
https://searchengineland.com/lets-clear-things-up-googles-florida-2-algorithm-update-is-not-related-to-original-florida-update-313981

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-3-12-broad-core-ranking-update-florida-2-27254.html

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-update-florida-2/297973/

 

 

The blog post What is the Google March 2019 Core Update? (aka Florida 2 algorithm update) is republished from: https://www.moonandowl.com

SEO Weekly News Mar 11, 2019

This bundle covers affiliate marketing, SEO techniques, and more

Boing Boing|5 days ago

You can learn how to optimize both the presentation and placement of ads on Facebook, Google AdWords, and MailChimp. Several courses touch on the invaluable skill of search engine optimization ...

5 free online marketing tools to grow your influence

The Arab Tribune|6 days ago

Check out the following top 5 free online marketing tools and how to use them to grow your business online. The HOTH has a substantial number of free tools for SEO (Search Engine Optimization ...

Storage in Big Data Market 2019 Global Industry Analysis by Size, Share, Emerging Trends, Sales Revenue, Development Status, Opportunities...

Market Watch|14 hours ago

The potential applications of big data technologies include price optimization, search engine optimization (SEO), business forecasting, business intelligence, better sample selection for analytics ...

Henderson Chamber to hold businesses workshops

Las Vegas Business Press|7 days ago

Water St. in Downtown Henderson. During the workshop, Kautzman will discuss how to market a business with cutting-edge Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media and pay per click techniques ...

2

The Death of the Internet

The American Conservative|4 days ago

In the early 1960s, Paul Baran was an engineer at the RAND Corporation when he began thinking about the need for a communications network that could withstand a nuclear strike. It was supposed ...

American Marketing Association's Atlanta Chapter Announces the 2019 Amy Awards Finalists

Market Watch|6 days ago

...-Current Pixel Paid Search Optimization ATLANTA RISING STAR AWARD Amber Fawlkes-BrightWave SEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION AIS Media -AIS Media's SEO Program Helps THRIVE Secure New High PR Captivate-Current Pixel ...

Report: 51% of web site hacks related to SEO spam - Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land|7 days ago

A report released by Sucuri states that over half of sites hacked in 2018 were done so for SEO reasons. The report shows that 51.3 percent of all infection cases in 2018 were related to SEO ...

Event to aid small businesses with online presence

Rome Sentinel|7 days ago

The event, to be held by the Mohawk Valley Small Business Development Center (SBDC), is geared to help local businesses learn about search engine optimization and best practices for creating ...

SEO Weekly News Mar 11, 2019 is republished from: http://moonandowl.com

SEO Weekly News March 1, 2019

Stop the silo madness! Effective site architecture for SEO and findability - Search Engine Land

The search engine optimization (SEO) industry is full of jargon. To many SEO pros, a sitemap is an XML sitemap. The whole SEOjargon thing can become a usability and user experience (UX) nightmare ...

Search Engine Land|3 days ago

There are fundamental problems with relying only on Domain Authority metrics - Search Engine Land

The metrics which come from various SEO tools - be it Ahrefs, Moz, MajesticSEO or others - have been a hot topic ever since their conception. Metrics, like Domain Authority (DA) from the Moz ...

Search Engine Land|21 hours ago

Content structure and structured data: Will they impact featured snippets? - Search Engine Land

In this article, I explore the difference between Structured Data and content structure as a continuation of John Mueller's response in the Hangout. As an SEO who is in Google's trenches day ...

Search Engine Land|4 days ago

UPI|3 days ago

Search marketing company Botify raises $20M - TechCrunch

Co-founder and CEO Adrien Menard said that the opportunity in SEO is "even bigger now than in the past," and that the problem is much broader problem than many realize. Over time, Botify has ...

TechCrunch|3 days ago

John Mueller's Greatest SEO Success Story Was...

A Reddit thread is asking folks to share their greatest SEO success story and there are some good ones. John said "Told someone to remove the setting that added the noindex to all pages. A fortune ...

Search Engine Roundtable|1 day ago

How to Calculate the ROI of Your SEO Campaigns Using Google Analytics

A successful SEO marketing strategy typically results in more search traffic and better rankings, and those things are what lead to more money in sales. It's important to understand that tracking ...

Search Engine Journal|2 days ago

Top Nine SEO Tools Reviewed by Pearl Lemon Reviews

When it comes to SEO, the tools are as important as the processes and knowledge!But every year the SEO game becomes more complicated, more refined and challenging, even for SEOwhizzes.We need ...

TG Daily|2 days ago

John Mueller Gives a Lesson on Competitor Research - Search Engine Journal

There was a discussion Twitter about competitor research and duplicating the SEO strategy. John Mueller entered the discussion and gave an answer that gave a profound insight into competitor research.

Search Engine Journal|1 day ago

How does a WordPress SEO malware injection work and how can enterprises prevent it?

Open source publishing software WordPress was again hit by an SEO malware injection attack in late 2018. Security expert Nick Lewis talks about how to protect the enterprise against WordPress malware injections both before and after an attack.

SearchSecurity.com|4 days ago

The Importance of Local SEO Services and Why You Should Invest in Local SEO

One of the most powerful tools for small businesses and retailers is local search. Be it doctor information, new cafes or handyman services, local search is increasingly driving customers to ...

TG Daily|3 days ago

Binary Fountain and Rio SEO to Co-Host "How to Implement Reputation Management Strategies at the Enterprise-Level" Webinar

Presented by Binary Fountain, Rio SEO and Tidewater Physicians Multispecialty Group, the webinar will address strategies for implementing reputation management in enterprise healthcare organizations ...

Stamford Advocate|3 days ago

5 On-Site SEO Factors That Matter Most

Here are the top five on-site SEO factors that you should always keep in mind when designing and auditing your website.

Search Engine Journal|1 day ago

The Super Bowl of Unrealistic SEO Expectations

On Super Bowl Sunday, many in the SEO community had the opportunity to agree or disagree with this sentiment. For those that missed it, the infamous site builder Wix returned to the Super Bowl ...

Search Engine Journal|4 days ago

How important are featured snippets and how can you get them?

Despite the fact that featured snippets are a vital part of contemporary marketing and SEO success, however, many still struggle when it comes to properly leveraging featured snippets to the ...S

The post SEO Weekly News March 1, 2019 is republished from: https://www.moonandowl.com/

Snappetizers: A Fort Worth Company’s Web Design Project

Searching for "Web Designer Fort Worth?"

Snappetizers is a food brand located near "Cowtown" and sought a Fort Worth web designer to complete a project for a new product line. They didn’t have to look far. Having worked with Moon and Owl on two parent company projects,  Vice President Lee Keller knew just who to call. We answered and the project was scoped, estimated and launched rapidly.

What are Snappetizers Toppers?

Snappetizers current product line includes four delicious flavors of toppers which can be used over cream cheese and as glazes. These include a raspberry chipotle, sweet pepper, candied jalapeno, and peach habanero toppers.

The product is used on cream cheese, appetizers, snacks, entrees, desserts and more.

Product Chief Value Proposition

Convenience - Single Use Packaging

The glaze toppers feature the convenience of single-use packaging. The user simply has to grab a single packet, open the lid, use the glaze, and then throw the packaging in the recycle bin. This is in stark contrast to traditional glaze bottles that customers buy. These typically sit after first use unattended in the refrigerator, sticky and spoiling.

Affordable

Whereas the bottle of glaze often costs $10+, a party serving of Snappetizers Toppers costs less than $1.

This well-known competitor costs $17 a bottle.

Copywriting and Marketing Message

Snappetizers had the company marketing tagline, “We Make Entertaining a Snap.”

We loved that tagline. It embodies the goal of the brand.

We worked on with them on the simple product specific tagline…

Peel. Pour. Enjoy.

This embodies the product's CVP.

We reinforced this message with fun statements throughout the website like:

• Meet Your Rescue Party
• See how easy entertaining can be!
• Mr. OR Mrs. “Last Minute”, Meet Your Match.
• On your mark. Get set. Done!

After all, this is a party in a container.

Photo Shoot Direction

We knew we needed great photography of the product to make site visitors instantly hungry. We contacted Javier Herrera who did a great job capturing a diverse shot list.

We made sure the shot list captured each flavor on each type of food group:

• Appetizer
• Entrée
• Dessert

Here are some the great shots that Javier captured.

Video Shoot Direction

We knew we needed a video that showed exactly how easy the product is to use. We shot this short 15-second usage video to replicate Peel. Pour. Enjoy.

Homepage Wireframe

Hero Section

We had initially placed the video in the header as a backdrop, but upon further consideration, it was important enough to the experience that we didn't want mobile users to miss out. You'll see how it was repositioned on the actual site mockup to allow play on mobile.

Section 1: Product Packaging

We knew that the product packaging needed to occur high on the page to help customers identify Snappetizers Toppers so they could find it in the stores. The four individual products were placed immediately under the hero section.

Section 2: Product Use

The next major section features ways the products can be used. We didn't want to get pigeonholed into a “we are cream cheese only” product. Showing how the product is used on diverse categories of food is vital to the customer's understanding of project usage.

Section 3: Email Capture

An email subscription section was included to allow site visitors to sign up for tips to make entertaining a snap. In the future, a receive-manufacturer-coupons call to action will be added.

Section 4: Store Locator

This store locator section is initially in pause mode as at the time of launch the product was only available in Walmart. As the product expands into other grocers, this section will be populated.

Section 5: Footer

Solid UX includes important navigation features, social media icons and NAP (name, address, phone number) at the bottom of the page.

Design

The site needed to scream, “It’s a party.”

To accomplish this, we used a bright palette. One challenge was complimenting the established brand color of the Snappetizers logo along with the food shots that were to be incorporated. The design team worked to construct the palette which the client approved.

The font choice was informal to lend to the party vibe we desired to create.

We also avoided a lot of square lined boxes. Everywhere you look on the site there is a curved shape in the background, a rough-edged label, etc. Basically, we were going for the opposite of a white-collar-professional site (lawyer, doctor, etc.). Because even if you are a white-collar professional, you still want to unbutton your collar, let your hair down and have some fun.

Site Architecture and Content Access

The site architecture was kept simple.

The header navigation only has four options:
• Home
• Products
• About Us
• Blog
• As future grocers come onboard, a store locator navigation feature will be added.

The product page features a linear scroll of each flavor, presenting its product package, an in-use photo, nutritional information as well as a call to action button on tips for additional uses.

We wanted to make it easy for the client to add recipe ideas and tips on their own in 4 major areas of:

• Appetizers
• Entrees
• Desserts
• Entertaining Tips

At the same time, we knew we needed to be able to sort these posts by product type, so we used a tag system to demarcate which flavor was used in which recipe.

In this way, the callouts on the homepage for the four major areas fetch the appropriate category of the blog archive.

On the products page, each flavor fetches every recipe using that particular flavor regardless of which category in which it falls. We did this via a tags system.

Here is an example of the fetch system.

And here is how a recipe listing appears.

After the Snappetizer Fort Worth Web Design Completion

The site recently launched. Soon Moon and Owl will create paid social media campaigns to educate consumers on the existence of the product. The client loves their website. The site is already drawing inquiries from store reps. The grocers like that a brand is putting skin in the game to promote their products because this helps stores sell.

We are pleased to have another company in the Fort Worth area as satisfied web design clients. Thanks for the opportunity, Snappetizers.

Snappetizers: A Fort Worth Company’s Web Design Project is republished from: https://www.moonandowl.com/