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Jumping on the Google AMP Train? The CMO’s Guide to Accelerated Mobile Pages

Jumping on the Google AMP Train? The CMO’s Guide to Accelerated Mobile Pages was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

If you care about the ROI of your website, you know the importance of mobile page speed.

Google has pushed its major speed initiative, Accelerated Mobile Pages — AMP for short — hard over the last year. As AMP features and specifications evolve, marketers can capitalize on improved UX and ranking opportunities by staying up to date on AMP.

Here’s your primer on the AMP opportunity. We outline:

What AMP is
Who AMP is for
The problems AMP solves
And the SEO’s toolbox for page speed optimization

What Is Google AMP?

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP) is an open source project geared toward enabling content to load instantly for mobile readers.

AMP’s lightning fast loading of content on a mobile device is accomplished by:

Pre-rendering the content while limiting the use of JavaScript that publisher sites can use
And caching content so Google doesn’t have to fetch page content from the publisher’s server

AMP pages can be fast and highly interactive with AMP components like carousel, video and light box. Pages can be customized with amp-iframe to embed components not yet supported by AMP.

To sweeten the attraction of AMP, we know that mobile-friendly pages get an organic ranking boost in Google. Within Google’s mobile search results, AMP pages are indicated with a small grey circle with a white lightning bolt.

There is an AMP report within Google Search Console that shows webmasters and SEOs the AMP pages of a site that have been successfully indexed or caused errors (reported by type) when crawled.

Who Is Google AMP For?

There are more than 650,000 domains publishing AMP pages today, according to Google.

Google AMP is for:

News sites
Recipes
Travel guides
Entertainment sites
Ecommerce sites
Advertisers

… with more applicable content types sure to be added over time.

“Gary Illyes from Google revealed what the next big thing for 2016 would be (…) AMP, also known as Accelerated Mobile Pages. And he said they will be pushing it aggressively in 2016.” —Jennifer Slegg, TheSEMPost.com (emphasis added)

Typically, when Google says “this is important and you should do this,” the SEO community jumps to it – especially with today’s focus on mobile SEO.

The Problems AMP Solves
AMP Is Google’s Answer to Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News

Mobile users are used to the fast-loading content experience like that delivered by Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. Those platforms often exclude the ability to embed advertisements, however, an issue that Google is keen on solving. AMP is a response to search traffic getting left out of the mobile conversation.

With Instant Articles, publishers’ content on Facebook loads really quickly because all those pages are prerendered. You click and it’s there.

People are getting used to that experience, but Google obviously doesn’t have control over the speed of a publisher’s page load from the SERP, and it’s very important for them to make sure that people are still using Google and visiting some of the more than 2 million websites that are part of Googles Display Network.

When a SERP click leads to a site that’s incredibly slow and gives a bad user experience, it’s almost like people are going to associate that poor experience with Google.

With AMP, webmasters have a solution for speedy loading content served to searchers that doesn’t exclude Google’s advertisements. And advertisers have a framework for developing fast-loading landing pages which brings us to our second problem solved.

AMP Is Google’s Answer to Ad Blockers

AMP is also a response to the proliferation of ad blockers. Ad blockers are a serious problem for Google AdSense and the publishers that serve AdSense ads.

Neither Google nor publishers make money on ads when web users block ads. According to the latest study, 16% of U.S. Internet users block ads. The latest Apple mobile operating system, iOS 9, supports ad blocking in the Safari browser.

Apple’s move to block ads including AdSense is intended to speed up the Internet on phones, and it leaves Google out in the cold. AMP is a response to this.

Google knows it needs to give mobile web users a fast experience or they’re going to stop trusting the search engine as a content discovery engine.

As ad blockers are a symptom of a degraded mobile user experience caused by advertising, it’s no coincidence that Google reps first announced the AMP Project to the assembled webmaster/publisher community at the Google AdSense keynote at Pubcon Las Vegas in October 2015.

Placing ads on AMP pages is easier than ever with support of ad platforms. Outbrain, AOL, OpenX, DoubleClick and AdSense are advertising platforms that work within the AMP framework.

The SEO’s Toolbox for Page Speed Optimization

There are many ways to optimize the speed of a website, and all should be examined by the technical side of the house.

The starting place for AMP is the AMP Project’s Get Started tutorial. Included in the tutorial is everything you need to create an AMP page, how to configure analytics, how to include media and iframes and third-party content, guidance on making your page discoverable and how to validate (test) your AMP pages.

SEOs also have a number of effective tools for cranking up site speed apart from AMP, which you can get started with using the Mobile SEO & Design Checklist. This guide takes you through selecting a mobile platform (responsive, dynamic and mobile site), optiming for crawling and indexing, mobile UX optimization and testing and tracking.

This post was originally published on Feb. 4, 2016. It has been updated to reflect the current AMP platform specifications and SEO advantages.

Why You Don’t Need that Link to Get the SEO Benefit from an Online Name Drop: The Power of Linkless Mentions

Why You Don’t Need that Link to Get the SEO Benefit from an Online Name Drop: The Power of Linkless Mentions was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

We talk a lot about links in the SEO industry.

Here we’re going to talk about the absence of links.

How a mention without a link is good for SEO.

What is linkless attribution?

Linkless attribution is the mention of your business or brand without a hyperlink. An instance of linkless attribution is sometimes called a linkless mention.

Links have proven an easy target for spammers. Search engines have made efforts to break the dependence on links as a ranking signal.

The diverse set of clues the engines use to determine a site’s E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust) and relevance include a lot more than links:

Links
Domain/page age
Freshness
Relevancy
Social signals
Traffic volume
Usefulness
History
Internal linking
Mentions

Examples of linkless mentions include:

A brand or business named in a news story without a link
A brand or business mentioned in a review
Consumers in forums or blog comments
Podcast and video transcripts

Mentions of your business or brand, even mentions without links, can send signals to search engines. If the mention is positive, good for you. If it is negative, pay attention in case you have an issue to clean up.

And let’s be clear here. I’m not talking about spam mentions. None of that shady stuff. Comment spam is not transferring credibility to your business. Search engines likely use the same quality assessment filters on linkless mentions as they do hyperlinks.

Why Linkless Mentions Are New-Era SEO #Goals: It’s about the Customer Touchpoint

Since the search engines’ crackdown on manipulative link spam, SEOs have adjusted strategy.

Links have always been the means to an end. When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin published “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine,” they cited links as providing “a lot of information for making relevance judgments and quality filtering.” Calculating link popularity via PageRank, they argued, “corresponds well with people’s subjective idea of importance.”

That’s a long way to say: The end goal of the search engine is to accurately judge the pages people think are important.

Linking to a business is just one thing people do when we think a business is important. Primarily we talk about the business. Enter mentions.

Gary Illyes’s top piece of simple SEO advice is to get people talking about your business:

“You want to make sure that people know about your website. You want to talk to people about your website. (…) The more people start talking about your business, the more visitors you get and potentially more customers. And they’ll also be more targeted.”

He’s talking about the value of people mentioning you in reviews and in social media.

Here’s another quotable. David Amerland sums it up when he says that people’s comments “help create validation independent of your own website.” Yes and yes.

In similar realms, linkless mentions share a border with the land of nofollow links; neither counts for link juice, and they have similar benefits. A mention is just more subtle than a nofollow link.

Here’s a snip from The Blogger’s Guide to Nofollow Links:

It’s no secret: Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most important forms of marketing there is.

And the majority of word-of-mouth marketing on the internet is done through nofollow links.

I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to fear the nofollow link or the linkless mention.

The True Value of PR for SEO & Customer Reach

Years ago, using press releases to drive links and boost rankings became a popular SEO work item. Its merit is debated even today. Businesses were built around providing press releases for link building and SEO boost, and the practice still has a dedicated following today.

Search engines devalued links in press releases, but the value of PR is still huge.

Done correctly, a well-designed and executed PR program can yield the exact results you think you seek.

But what if, after all your care and diligence, that article doesn’t drop a link? What if the publisher only links to paying sites (a common practice with the popular big names these days)? What if they just mentioned your name once or twice in the article? No URL, no domain and no link … Was it all for naught?

Relax. There’s still plenty of value in a linkless mention.

All that effort you put into crafting the plan, executing it, reaching out to the right people, answering the questions and so on … it all still helps you.

The next step for anyone reading about you in an article, when there is no link, is to search for you. If they are interested, they’ll search.

Now brand search comes into play for you. How well you rank for your products plays a role at this stage. All those past efforts to improve rank now come into play to secure that new visitor.

Then your UX plays a role to converting them into a customer.

Then your email program steps in to help keep them coming back for more over time.

All of that because you got the mention in an article.

But the benefits don’t end there. If the brand is searched enough, it can become an addition to the predictive search drop-down, potentially furthering engagement.

If the product is new or unique, the same action can happen. These can work to cement your position in rankings if searchers are finding you and clicking through to you.

When you take off the link blinders, you remember to pay attention to marking up your content or products, allowing the engines to start using your content in knowledge panels, including rating data and so on.

The truth is that with repeated, non-linked mentions across multiple trustworthy sources, your business can see benefits.

You might not see direct traffic from sources mentioning you, but the longer term benefits can easily outweigh the short-term traffic bumps.

Linkless mentions are a long-term investment that spreads your name far and wide. The engines can see this happening, and they’ll wonder why your brand or product is becoming more important. Then they start testing you in results to see if you please searchers.

That’s the ultimate goal. Pleasing the consumer. The engine wins and so does the business.

Want to explore how our experts can help with your SEO goals? Request a conversation or call us today.

 

10 Steps to Take Before You Hit Publish: SEO Crash Course for CMS Content Publishing

10 Steps to Take Before You Hit Publish: SEO Crash Course for CMS Content Publishing was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

How to Improve Your SEO with a Web CMS from DNN

This week Bruce gave a crash course to those writers, editors, bloggers, and marketing managers who rely on a content management system. The presentation was an SEO crash course — 10 points to help writers and publishers see search engine ranking success for their content.

Are you a writer or someone involved in the publishing process of your business? Do you consider keywords before you hit publish? If you haven’t taken a moment to understand SEO best practices, this webinar is for you.

“Most people don’t know how to do SEO. Most people don’t understand what is important, what isn’t important, and how to set your priorities,” Bruce explains in this webinar. “The priority of SEO is to get you visitors. Search engines rank results based on expertise, authority and trust. The CMS is how you get the right ranking factors in the right place for the search engines to understand that you’re an expert.”

Replay the webinar webcast 10 SEO Tips to Improve Your SEO with a Web CMS from DNN Software.

How to Properly Implement a 301 Redirect

How to Properly Implement a 301 Redirect was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

What is a 301 redirect?

A 301 redirect is a command used to tell the search engines that a page has permanently moved, and that you want them to index the new page and drop the old one from their index.

Think of it as a change of address card for the web. As long as everything is done correctly, a 301 redirect will ensure that you keep the rankings earned by the old page and prevent duplicate content that could arise if the engines were to index both versions of your site.

Read on for information about:

How to implement a 301 redirect using .htaccess for Apache
How to implement a 301 redirect using IIS on a Microsoft Windows Server
Alternative methods to implement a 301 redirect
Why you might need to implement a 301 redirect

How to Implement 301 Redirects Using .htaccess for Apache

Make sure you have access to your server and your Apache configuration file, and that you can use your .htaccess files. The ability to use .htaccess files will reside in a command called “Allow Override” in the Apache config file. If you do not have this access, you’ll have to first call your hosting company and get access.

Once you know that you have access to this file, your next step is to locate it. The .htaccess file is a control file that allows server configuration changes on a per-directory basis. It controls that directory and all of the subdirectories contained within. In most cases, this file will be placed in the root web folder for your site. If there’s no .htaccess file present, create one.

To begin using the .htaccess file to redirect page(s) on your site, open up your FTP and log in to your site. Work your way into in the root web folder in order to access your .htaccess file.

(Note: The dot in .htaccess makes it a hidden file, so make sure your FTP browser is enabled to view hidden files.)

When you start editing the file, use a UNIX style text editor rather than Notepad. Typically, an HTML editor or code editor such as TextPad works just fine. To 301 redirect pages using the .htaccess file, you will add a line to the file that tells the server what to do.

To 301 Redirect a Page:

RedirectPermanent /old-file.html http://www.domain.com/new-file.html

To 301 Redirect an Entire Domain:

RedirectPermanent / http://www.new-domain.com/

Once you have inserted the commands to 301 redirect your pages, you need to make sure that there is a blank line at the end of the file. Your server will read the .htaccess file line by line, which means at some point you’ll need to throw it an “endline” character to signify that you’re finished. An easy way to do this is to put a blank line at the bottom of the file.

How to Do a 301 Redirect Using IIS on a Microsoft Windows Server

Navigate your way to Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, which is found with Administrative Tools within the Start menu. From there, you will find a panel on the left-hand side that lists all your sites. Choose the site you want to work on.

Once you select it, several modules come up. Verify the URL Rewrite module is present. If it is not, you can install it here.

Once you have it, double-click to open the module. On the right-hand side, you will see an option to Add Rules. Click it and then select Blank Rule under the Inbound Rules section. Hit OK. This will take you to an Edit Inbound Rule page. Type a name for the rule, such as Old Domain Redirect or Old Page Redirect.

Go to the Match URL Panel. Set the requested URL at “Matches the Pattern” and then Using as Regular Expressions. Now you will specify if you’re redirecting a single page, a group of pages, or an entire domain:

To redirect a single page, type in the page name under Pattern. For example, if we were redirecting this blog post, we would input blog/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/ in the Pattern field.
To redirect the entire site, we would input (.*) in the Pattern field.
To redirect all the pages on BruceClay.com within the SEO folder, we would input seo/(.*)

Make sure “ignore case” is checked.

Skip down to the action panel and select Redirect within the Action Type drop-down menu. In the Action Properties, type in the new URL. If it’s a single page, input the single page. If it’s the entire domain or a group of pages, type the new destination with a back reference, which is {R:0}. The back reference will keep all page URLs intact with the new domain.

For example, if we were changing BruceClay.com to BCI.com, we would input http://www.bci.com/{R:0}

If you use tracking parameters and you want them to carry through, check Append Query String.

In the Redirect type field, select Permanent (301).

Click Apply at the top right in the Actions column to save the redirect.

(If you want to review the redirect, hit back to rules in the Actions column.)

After you save this redirect, the rules you created are saved into the web.config file, which you can edit in the future.

Alternative Methods to Implement a 301 Redirect

If you don’t have access to your .htaccess file or your Windows Server Administration Panel, you can still implement 301 redirects with code on your old pages. If your pages are in PHP, ASP, Java, or any other language that allows you to modify response headers, simply place code at the top of each page to do the permanent redirect.

Redirecting pages is just ONE skill an SEO needs. At BCI, we help clients with not just the how-tos, but also the strategy questions they need to optimize their online revenue. Want to explore how we can help you? Request a conversation or call us today.

Why You Might Need to Implement a 301 Redirect

There are many times a 301 redirect makes sense. Here are a few of the most common:

You’re changing your entire root domain.
You want to reorganize pages by changing or removing a directory.
Let’s say CNN posted a link to this blog post, but the URL was incorrect. We’d still want to capture the traffic that is going to a 404 page. So we’d put in a 301 redirect to direct users from the bad link to the right URL.
You want a vanity URL.

Note: If you’re concerned you might lose PageRank through a redirect, know that any fluctuations will be temporary. Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes recently gave this assurance:

30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore.

— Gary Illyes (@methode) July 26, 2016

Have any questions about implementing a 301 redirect? Ask us in the comments and we’ll be happy to help you.

This post, originally written in 2007 by Lisa Barone, is among our most-visited blog posts of all time, so we keep it up-to-date and accurate. Thanks for visiting, and hope it helps!

The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist

The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

In Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEO training course, we offer students an SEO checklist as one of the many take-home materials. Use this excerpt as an in-hand to-do list or basic audit outline.

While this checklist isn’t exhaustive (although it’s constantly updated and growing!) many people find this list to be a helpful reminder of the many items to check during their SEO projects.

Mobile Optimization

Mobile internet use isn’t a fad. It’s just our way of life. More searches happen on mobile than desktop. And Google says that 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches.

For businesses, people’s growing penchant for mobile search and browsing is an opportunity to outshine and outperform the competition.

Digital marketers talk about a mobile-first world. This means positioning a business’s website to fit the mobile browsing experience. Here are basic but important things to check related to a website’s optimization for a mobile visitor.

1. Mobile Usability

Search engines are invested in providing users a great mobile experience. See how your site is performing on mobile devices with the Mobile Usability Report, located within the Search Traffic section of Google Search Console. This report lets you know if your touch elements are too close, if your content is sized to the viewport, your Flash usage, font size and more.

You can also use Fetch as Google within the Crawl section of Google Search Console to render your site the way Google sees it on different mobile devices. Lastly, you can run important URLs through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test for developers here. Similarly, Bing offers a Mobile Friendliness Test Tool.

Page load speed is also a ranking factor, especially for mobile. Skip down to Point 37 in this checklist for the tools to check page speed.

2. Mobile and Voice-Related Keywords

When was the last time you tried a voice search of your keywords? Try to find your business and competitors as your customer would with a voice search. Are you optimizing for relevant voice search terms like “near me”? Are you accounting for searches formed as questions and in sentence structure, more and more common with the advance of voice queries?

For a deeper look at mobile and voice search optimization, our SEO Tutorial’s step on mobile SEO provides a starting place.

3. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Accelerated Mobile Pages, AMP for is an open source project that enables web pages to load instantly for mobile users.

Google intends to broaden the scope of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to extend to all web pages, and as of this writing, AMP is available for news publishers, ecommerce, entertainment, travel and recipe sites.

AMP pages get a ranking boost in the mobile search results. If a business aligns with AMP requirements, create an AMP version of content. At the very least, become familiar with AMP technology so you can implement and be ahead of the curve as Google prioritizes AMP further.

On-Page Optimization

Review each important page, from the home page to a high-priority product page, with an eye to these issues.

4. Head Section Order

BCI’s best practices is to ensure your web pages’ meta tags are in the right order: title, description, keywords. Remember, the information you put in these tags is often used to render the title and description in the search engine results pages, and could likely be what searchers see in the search results.

5. Title Tag

In general, title tags should be about nine words. You want to make sure the most important information, including top keywords, shows up before the cutoff in the SERP in Google around 600 pixels, which translates to approximately 70 characters including spaces.

6. Description Tag

The description tag should also include the most important information and keywords before the SERP cutoff, which translates to approximately 24 words or 156 characters including spaces.

The title and description text can assists in conversions. Don’t forget to craft compelling tags. You don’t want to waste your prime real estate in the SERP with boring copy. Read more about the ins and outs of meta data.

 7.  Keywords Tag

The meta keywords tag is not a ranking consideration for Google, but our SEOs use it for basic optimization guidance and tracking over time.

If a page has an SEO keyword target, record a primary and secondary keyword in the meta keywords tag. This way, the target is contained on the page and can translate even when a page changes hands between teams and over generations.

List keywords in order from longest in length to shortest in length, separated by commas. Never keyword stuff this tag to steer clear of trouble with search engines.

8. Heading Tags

Headings serve the purpose of allowing a reader to see the main sections and points of a page. They are a visual cue for a reader of what topics are covered on a page. They’re also a signal to search engines about the topics on a page.

As a technical point, make sure the first heading tag within the body of a page is an . The following heading tags can be , , , etc., and should be used like a page’s table of contents. Navigation elements and other global text should be styled with CSS and not heading tags.

9. Word Count

The amount of words you have on a web page will vary by topic, keyword, competition and user intent (read about the three types of user intent to the right).

To determine the number of words needed on a page, count the number of body words on the top ranking pages for a keyword you’re targeting. That will give you a ballpark for what a search engine considers the normal word count for that topic. It’s safe to say that informational web pages almost always warrant a minimum of 450 words.

Quality content is key. Since the Google Panda Update penalizing low-quality content, avoid duplicate content and thin content and focus on robust coverage of your website topics that prove your subject matter expertise.

3 Types of User Intent

1. Transactional

These queries happen when a user has an intention to buy something now. For example, the exact brand and model of a product suggest the intention to buy.

2. Informational

These are research-oriented queries. Sometimes research is done in advance of a future transaction. For example, if someone searches for the best electric toothbrushes, there’s a good chance that a purchase in the near future.

3. Navigational

These are queries done to help a searcher get somewhere, whether online or in the physical world. Searching for the name of a restaurant will get the user to that restaurant’s web presence or physical address.

10. Call to Action (CTA)

It is important that your key pages all make it clear what primary action a visitor should take. On a product page, the CTA to “buy” or “call” or “get a quote” should be prominent, clear, and easy to select.

On the home page, it should be easy for the visitor to take the next step in the conversion funnel. The actual language of the call to action should be active and the placement and design of the CTA should draw the visitor’s attention.

Note: A page doesn’t have to be transactional in nature (in contrast to an informational page) to warrant a call to action. If an informational page is a top-performing traffic driver, for example a blog post that answers a common question or a FAQ page, include a CTA to encourage the visitor to further their engagement or enter the conversion funnel.

 11.  Image Optimization

An image is an engagement object that adds visual excitement to any page. Images are important to include on a page to break up text elements and keep a reader interested in the content.

Images provide additional ranking opportunities through image search and they do pose some additional optimization considerations.

Images can slow down the load of a page. To reduce file size and to increase speed as much as possible, include width and height attributes in image tags. Also, resize images to the display size rather than uploading the original file and asking the browser to shrink it.

Image file names should be descriptive and include keywords.

Also, make sure to include an ALT attribute with images. The American with Disabilities Act says you should always describe the image on the page for the vision impaired. Ensure your images have proper descriptions associated with them, and if appropriate, keywords for the page. ALT attributes are also required of validated HTML code.

As a general rule, avoid including text in images. Search engine spiders can’t read all the text in an image, and so a search engine can’t index and understand the content of an image.

12. Structured Data Markup

Structured data clarifies for the search engine what content on your page is about. Specifically, it helps the search engines understand what type of information you’re presenting.

On your company’s About page, for example, use structured data markup to indicate your street address and phone number so it has the potential to show up on a SERP.

Along with a location and phone number, other common data types you can use mark up are reviews and ratings, such as on a services page or product page, and events.

There are various structured data markup languages: microdata, microformat and RFDa, and the most often discussed Schema. For more on how to implement structured data on your site, check out How to Use Schema Markup to Improve Your Website Visibility in Search.

 15.  Social Markup

Social markup, or social meta tags, refers to the code used to enhance content on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

Facebook Open Graph tags, Twitter Card markup and Pinterest Rich Pins are the major social markup tags. Content in these tags dictate what image and text will show up on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest when someone posts your content on social networks.

By specifying social markup in your HTML, you can ensure you look your best on social media.

There are six types of Rich Pins: app, movie, recipe, article, product and place.

The Twitter Card types are: Summary Card (with or without a large image), Photo Card, Gallery Card, App Card, Player Card and Product Card.

The basic Open Graph tags are title, image, and description; Google+ will use the Open Graph tag content to generate a preview, and Twitter will fall back on Open Graph tags if no Twitter Card markup is specified.

14. URL Optimization

Use dashes rather than underscores for URLs. Underscores are alpha characters and do not separate words. Dashes (or rather, hyphens) are word separators, but should not appear too many times or it could look spammy. For more on this topic, check out this post by Google’s Matt Cutts.

You also want URLs to be descriptive and contain keywords, without being spammy. And shorter URLs are preferable to long URLs.

15. Fully Qualified Links

If you make your internal links fully qualified, there’s no question by search engine spiders, browsers, etc., as to where the file is located and what it’s about. If your link looks something like “../../pagename” (a relative link), then it may result in crawl issues for some search engines.

Rather than relative URLs, use fully qualified links (http://www.domain.com). The sitemap should always have fully qualified URLs.

16. Content Freshness

Make sure to periodically review your content (web pages and blog posts) to make sure that it is up to date.

For example, this very checklist is continually refreshed as SEO best practices evolve with search engine guidelines.

From Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines: “unmaintained/abandoned ‘old’ websites or unmaintained and inaccurate/misleading content is a reason for a low E-A-T (expertise, authority and trust) rating.”

What’s on your site that needs a refresh? Update it.

17. Make JavaScript and CSS External

You want to be sure the most important code is the first thing the search engine bots crawl. Work to ensure there aren’t unnecessary lines of code above the body text by externalizing JavaScript and CSS code that gets in the way of keyword-rich content.

Sitewide Optimization

In March 2014, a document called the Google Quality Rating Guidelines introduced the terminology E-A-T to the SEO community. A shorthand way of referring to expertise, authority and trust, E-A-T is now a pillar of search engine optimization.

A site as a whole should signal expertise, authority and trust while conveying subject relevance and optimizing for search engine accessibility. The following items address this.

18. Contact Information

An explicit E-A-T signal, the search engines expect that a trustworthy site will clearly and visibly include contact information, such as a phone number and address.

19. Testimonials

Another E-A-T signal, testimonials located on your site supports your authority as a business and your value to your customer base. Testimonials are great for signaling your value to your human visitors, too!

20. Privacy Statement

Having a privacy statement on your site is considered a trust signal for the search engines. In addition to bolstering your trust with Google and Bing, it’s a best practice to include one. A privacy statement lets site visitors know what you’re doing with any data you collect about them.

21. Text Navigation

Verify there is text navigation, not JavaScript or Flash navigation that spiders can’t see. Make sure you at least have text navigation on the bottom of the page if there aren’t any spiderable navigation links in the top nav. This is a search engine accessibility issue.

22. Sitemaps

Your site should have an HTML sitemap, and every page should link to that sitemap, probably in the footer. You should also have an XML sitemap you submit to search engines. If you already have sitemaps, check them regularly to make sure they’re current.

You can learn how to create a sitemap for users and search engines to easily access all areas of your site in our SEO Tutorial.

23. Robots.txt File

The Robots.txt file tells the search engine spiders what not to index. It’s important this file exists, even if it’s empty. Also make sure the file doesn’t accidentally exclude important files, directories or the entire site. (This has been known to happen!)

24. Keyword Strategy and Research

The keyword strategy development and research is an ongoing process that essentially never ends. It starts with extensive keyword research and iterates with extensive research. One could write novels about this topic; just know it’s part of any solid SEO checklist.

Our SEO Tutorial will get you started and includes a free version of the SEOToolSet Keyword Suggestion Tool.

25. Linking Strategy

This section warrants way more than just a few sentences, but it should be noted as part of the SEO checklist. Your internal linking structure typically stems from your siloing strategy. Your inbound/outbound links should be part of an organic, natural strategy in compliance with search engine guidelines, and be monitored regularly.

27. Server Configuration

Regularly check your server, looking for 404 errors, 301 redirects and other errors.

Here’s a free tool, no sign in required, and instructions on how to use the Check Server Page Tool to monitor your web server for errors.

28. Static Pages

Complex, dynamic URLs could be a problem. If your URLs have more than two query string parameters and/or dynamic pages aren’t getting indexed and/or you have a lot of duplicate content, consider converting them to static pages.

You can also use mod_rewrite or ISAPI_rewrite, as appropriate, to simplify URLs. Rewritten URLs will appear to be static pages. This tends to be a lot of work, but is a surefire way to address this issue. You can also use the canonical tag to tell search engines that the current page is intended to be indexed as the canonical page.

29. Static Content on Home Page

If you have a home page with content that constantly changes, it can result in diluting the theme of your site and cause poor rankings for key terms. Try to maintain sections of consistent text on the home page.

30. No SPAM Tactics

Make sure your SEO strategy is following Google Webmaster Guidelines and Bing Webmaster Guidelines. If ever in doubt about any of your tactics, you can also refer to what Google accepts for SEO.

31. Duplicate Content

Do a search to see if your content exists elsewhere on the World Wide Web. You may want to check out CopyScape.com and use it regularly.

Duplicate content is a problem because it’s a low-quality signal to search engines and can cause your site to rank lower. If you, for example, have three pages on your site with the same content, a search engine will then choose on its own which one to rank for relevant queries — and the page they choose might not be the page you wanted to rank.

Webmaster Tools

What’s an SEO without their tools to surface data that leads to analysis? Just remember, there’s a difference between data and wisdom.

32. Web Analytics

There’s much you could say about web analytics in your SEO strategy. The important thing is to make sure you have it. Ensure your analytics are properly set up and monitor them regularly to find out of if the keywords that are generating traffic are in your keyword list, and that your site is optimized for them.

Per usual, our SEO Tutorial unpacks the role of analytics in the step How to Monitor Your SEO Progress.

33. Webmaster Tools Accounts

Webmaster tools accounts for Google and Bing give site owners insight into how search engines view their sites with reports on issues like crawl errors and penalties. If you haven’t already set up a Google Search Console account, this article will walk you through it. For help setting up a Bing Webmaster Tools account, view the Bing Webmaster Help & How-To Getting Started Checklist.

34. Crawl Errors Report

When a page has a crawl error, it means the search engine is unable to access the page. The first place to begin troubleshooting this issue for Google is the Crawl Errors Report, which can be found in the Crawl section of Google Search Console. In Bing Webmaster Tools, go to the Crawl Information Report in the Reports & Data section. Read more about crawl errors here.

35. Manual Penalty Review

If a manual penalty has been levied against you, Google will report it to you within Google Webmaster Tools. Check the Manual Actions Report within Search Traffic. Read more about the Manual Actions Report here.

You can also find out if you’ve suffered a penalty from Bing. Review the Index Summary chart with the dashboard of Bing Webmaster Tools — if the number of pages for a given site is set at zero, you have been hit with a penalty.

36. Algorithm Updates

If your site is running Google Analytics, use the Panguin Tool to check your traffic levels against known algorithmic updates. If you see any drops or rises in search referrer traffic at a time that coincides with Penguin, Panda and other known algorithm updates, you may be affected by a penalty. Read more about penalty assessment here.

Google is changing its algorithm all the time. The most recent buzz in the industry has been around RankBrain, machine learning — and how new artificial intelligence technology is changing the search results. While optimization for AI is not as straightforward as checking for traffic drops, familiarize yourself with how SEOs should approach RankBrain in our recent podcast episode.

37. Site Speed and Performance

Check PageSpeed Insights in Google Search Console or use tools like GTmetrix.com to analyze and improve a website’s performance. For more on improving page speed, read Page Speed Issues Overview for SEO.

Want more SEO tips? Our online SEO Tutorial teaches you search engine optimization step-by-step, and it’s free!

Ready to Invest in Social Media Software? Comparing Social Media Tools

Ready to Invest in Social Media Software? Comparing Social Media Tools was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Is your company ready to invest in social media tools? Do you want something that monitors fans, followers, shares, mentions and more across every social network, tracked over time? Could you use a platform that tracks clicks to a site and conversion events?

Last year, that was the situation we found ourselves in — looking for social media software that could help us better track our key metrics.

As your business and social media activity grows, what could have once been accomplished manually becomes unmanageable.

At a certain point, it’s time to consider investing in social media software. But there are so many social media marketing tools out there. As our company’s social media editor, I was given the task of researching the marketplace and getting the answers to key questions, including:

How much does social media software cost? (And what features are included?)
Will I have to sign up for a contract?
Is Google Analytics integrated?
What social networks are included?
How many users can access the social media software?
Can I access historical data, i.e. the data that existed before we started using the software?
Is white labeling available?

After doing myriad trials with companies including Sprout Social, Quintly, Simply Measured, Datapine and Nuvi, I’ve rounded up the answers.

I want to share my research with other brands, businesses and agencies so that you’re ahead of the game when you start looking for the social media tools that are right for your company.

How Much Does Social Media Software Cost? (And What Features Are Included?)

Social media marketing tool platforms can range in price from $50 to $1,600 per month. Fifty dollars, however, is on the very low end, and such an account is very limited.

Along with the big variance in cost is a big variance in tool features.

Sprout Social, for example, offers a “deluxe package” for $59 per month that allows for one user with five accounts. Publishing from the platform is available, as is a limited number of reports. Google Analytics is not integrated and white labeling is not available. If you’re a small business or individual looking to track the most basic social media marketing KPIs of follower growth and mentions using a single dashboard, this could be the solution that works for you. No contract is required and you pay monthly.

One user and five accounts, however, is not going to be enough for an agency or larger business. For robust social media software the average price is $500 per month. At this level, the software is apt to include advanced social listening reports, competitive reports, hashtag tracking and research tools. Nuvi, for example, can algorithmically determine (with 82 percent accuracy) whether your brand is being mentioned in positive or negative way. Consider a brand like Coca Cola, for example, with thousands of tweets mentioning them daily. The advanced social listening report is a lifesaver. With Nuvi, the social media manager can set up an alert if the brand’s messages reach a certain threshold of negative mentions. She can set the threshold, and then she can set up a text alert so she’s immediately made aware when this happens.

Looking again at Sprout Social, moving up to the “team package” allows you to monitor 30 social media profiles and have three user logins. The team package also includes a message approval workflow (i.e. an associate could craft messages and later, a manager approve and push them out) and advanced reports. The team package is also integrated with Google Analytics and white labeling is available (a key feature for an agency).

Social Media Software Rates

Nuvi: $600, $900 or $1600 monthly
Sprout Social: $59, $99, or $500 monthly
Quintly: $129, $299 or $479 monthly
SimplyMeasured: $500, $1,000 or $2,000
DataPine: €219, €399, €699 or €799

If your business is a non-profit, you can usually get a discount on these rates.

Will I Have to Sign Up for a Contract?

Most likely. All social media software I researched necessitated a year-long contract, paid monthly, except for Sprout Social.

Is Google Analytics Integrated?

Sometimes. After testing the tools and looking at the reports they generated, the ones that were integrated with Google Analytics provided nothing that I couldn’t obtain in the Google Analytics Social Referrer Report — so the fact that I need to look in two separate data platforms isn’t really a deal breaker.

What Social Networks Are Included?

This varies by tool, but you should at minimum expect Twitter and Facebook. Simply Measured includes Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram and Vine. Sprout Social, on the other hand, only includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+.

How Many Users Can Access the Social Media Tools?

This also varies. At the low end of the price spectrum, there’s only one user allowed access. The more you’re spending, though, the more users you’re allowed.

Can I Access Historical Data, i.e. the Data that Existed before We Started Using the Software?

This isn’t something you should expect. The only social media software I found that offered this was Nuvi, and even then, Nuvi could only provide historical data for Twitter and it costs an extra $300 per month.

Is White Labeling Available?

Sometimes. Again, with accounts on the lower end of the price spectrum, it’s not included. Even at a mid-level account, such as Nuvi’s cheapest package at $600/month, white labeling does not come standard. It costs an extra $300 a month. Quintly and Simply Measured don’t offer white labeling at all.

What’s your preferred social media software? Share your thoughts in the comments.

30 SEO Interview Questions You Must Ask a Prospective SEO Analyst

30 SEO Interview Questions You Must Ask a Prospective SEO Analyst was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

If you’re looking to hire an in-house SEO analyst, we want to help you find the right one. That’s because our most successful SEO consulting happens when there’s a competent SEO manager working in-house.

The right in-house SEO person communicates well with both the CMO and the consultant. He or she follows through on our recommendations and fulfills the plans we’ve jointly made. And a good in-house SEO analyst or manager makes the client-consultant relationship a real partnership — so the client wins.

That’s why we’re sharing 30 of the exact SEO interview questions we use during SEO analyst interviews at Bruce Clay, Inc. Find the right analyst by asking questions that will allow candidates to not only talk about their SEO experience, but also reveal their digital marketing knowledge and strategy.

Ready to let an SEO specialist come alongside your in-house team? Request a quote to find out about our flexible SEO consulting services.

30 SEO Interview Questions

What makes a website search engine-friendly?
How do you define success when it comes to SEO?
How do you stay updated on industry news and algorithm changes?
What programming languages do you have experience with?
Regarding your previous SEO job, what did an average day look like?
How do you adapt to the needs of different clients?
How often do you communicate with clients?
How did you learn SEO?
How do you approach keyword research?
What is the relationship between SEO, SEM and social media marketing?
What SEO tools do you regularly use?
How do you stay organized when working on an SEO project?
Who are Gary Illyes and John Mueller?
What is your favorite website and why?
What is your opinion on proper link building?
How have you dealt with link penalties?
What’s the ideal speed for a site to load a web page?
What method do you use to redirect a page?
What are your thoughts on accelerated mobile pages (AMP)?
What is your process for helping a local business become more visible in search results?
Are you aware of the latest changes to Google and the latest updates to Panda and Penguin?
How has Hummingbird changed the landscape of search?
What is Google’s preferred method of configuring a mobile site?
What do you know about content building and content marketing?
What has been your experience getting content featured in answer boxes?
How have you utilized structured data to earn featured snippets?
What are the three possible configurations for a mobile site? Which do you prefer and why?
What’s your greatest digital marketing success story?
How do you stay up-to-date on the near-constant search algorithm changes?
What metrics do you use to measure SEO success?

Hiring an in-house SEO analyst is not a replacement for the breadth and depth of industry knowledge that an SEO agency brings. Together, however, an in-house SEO and an SEO agency bring your business the best of both worlds. The consulting agency is able to advise and guide the client’s in-house SEO team to achieve results better and faster. Hiring an SEO in-house is something that our president, Bruce Clay, always recommends if you have the resources to do so.

Are you in need of an SEO agency? Request a free quote from us. We’d love to talk to you about your digital marketing needs!

30 SEO Interview Questions Internet Marketers Should Be Prepared to Answer

30 SEO Interview Questions Internet Marketers Should Be Prepared to Answer was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

When it comes to an SEO interview, questions can range from anything from the tools you use to the latest algorithm updates. In order to help you best prepare for an upcoming SEO interview, I compiled the following 30 SEO interview questions that Bruce Clay asks prospective analysts.

30 SEO Interview Questions

What makes a website search friendly?
How do you define success when it comes to SEO?
How do you stay updated on industry news and algorithm changes?
What programming languages do you have experience with?
Regarding your previous SEO job, what did an average day look like?
How do you adapt to the needs of different clients?
How often do you communicate with clients?
How did you learn SEO?
How do you approach keyword research?
What is the relationship between SEO, SEM and social media marketing?
What SEO tools do you regularly use?
How do you stay organized when working on an SEO project?
Who are Gary Illyes and John Mueller?
What is your favorite website and why?
What is your opinion on proper link building?
How have you dealt with link penalties?
What’s the ideal speed for a site to load a web page?
What method do you use to redirect a page?
What are your thoughts on accelerated mobile pages (AMP)?
What is your process for helping a local business become more visible in search results?
Are you aware of the latest changes to Google and the latest updates to Panda and Penguin?
How has Hummingbird changed the landscape of search?
What is Google’s preferred method of configuring a mobile site?
What do you know about content building and content marketing?
What has been your experience getting content featured in answer boxes?
How have you utilized structured data to earn featured snippets?
What are the three possible configurations for a mobile site? Which do you prefer and why?
What’s your greatest digital marketing success story?
How do you stay up-to-date on the near-constant search algorithm changes?
What metrics do you use to measure SEO success?

Whether you’re applying to Bruce Clay, Inc. or apply to one of the other hundreds of jobs in the SEO industry, we wish luck in finding the right fit and hope these SEO interview questions give you a competitive edge!

Have you been asked other SEO interview questions? Share them in the comments!

Looking for an SEM Analyst? 25 PPC Interview Questions You Need to Ask

Looking for an SEM Analyst? 25 PPC Interview Questions You Need to Ask was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Whether you’re doing the asking or the answering, both sides of the desk can use these 25 PPC interview questions to get ready for an upcoming interview.

Need guidance on what to ask to assess a potential SEM analyst’s experience and expertise? I sat down with our PPC analysts and the person in charge of hiring for pay-per-click services roles here at BCI to get the inside track. So you can prepare using our own PPC interview questions!

Hiring managers: These PPC interview questions will help you ascertain not only a candidate’s expertise and experience, but also how aware they are of the current paid search landscape and how they deal with clients.

SEM analysts: Put your best foot forward by preparing your answers to these questions — they’re literally exactly what we’d want to know if you found yourself in our office for an interview. (BTW, we’re currently looking for an SEM Manager to join our team!)

Without further ado, on to the questions!

PPC Interview Questions

How do you improve the quality of your lead generation?
How are you dealing with the removal of right-side ads?
What bid optimization tools do you use as a PPC analyst?
What’s your strategy for dealing with an ecommerce client?
How do you handle limited budget in high CPC (cost per click) environments, such as legal and medical?
What industries do you have experience managing paid campaigns for?
What’s a micro-moment?


What are the three most important components of a good search ad?
What are the hallmarks of a good PPC landing page?
What do you feel is the most valuable match-type (in Google AdWords or Bing Ads)?
How do you ensure your conversion tracking is working correctly?
How do you continue to drive sales when a client is in non-peak sales periods?
How would you use organic data to improve PPC campaign performance?
Give us examples of how you would use Google Analytics to improve your client’s performance.
What do you consider when writing an ad?
What’s the importance of mobile in today’s PPC advertising arena?
How do you stay up on SEM news?
Share an example of a time you implemented CRO tactics successfully.
Share an example of how you work collaboratively with other digital marketing departments.
Tell me about a time your work or guidance had a positive impact on a coworker or other internal team.
What excites you about PPC?
How do you deal with a client who is not receptive to your recommendations?
Describe your PPC ad campaign optimization workflow.
What do you know about our company?
Why should we hire you?

There you have it — the exact PPC interview questions we’d ask a potential SEM analyst or manager! If you’re gearing up for a PPC interview, we’re sure this will help you prepare.

If you’d like to know more about what being an SEM analyst in 2016 is like, check out Digital Marketing Jobs and Salary Data. You’ll discover how much the average SEM analyst makes, and what skills are necessary for a successful career in SEM.

What other PPC interview questions would you expect to hear? Tell us in the comments!

Looking for a Partner to Improve Your PPC Results?

Advanced Search Operators for Yahoo, Bing and Google

Advanced Search Operators for Yahoo, Bing and Google was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

When you search, do you find exactly what you’re looking for the first time?

Have you ever used advanced search filters to find everything the engine knows about a specific subject or website, efficiently?

If not, it’s time to raise your search skills. Search like a robot ninja with search engine operators.

Advanced Search Engine Operators

Digital and search marketing professionals (aka ninjas) routinely use search operators to filter results from the search engine (aka robots). Search ninja skills are useful for wrangling the robot when:

Researching a site you’re optimizing.
Locating something specific online.
And investigating the competitive field.

What are search operators? A prefix or addition to a query in Google, Bing or Yahoo that limits the results set. One common example: You can put quotation marks around your query to find results with the exact phrase. We use exact match search to find sites that are duplicating our clients’ content, for example.

I use the site: search operator daily to limit results to a specified domain. It helps me find articles published on this site on a topic I’m writing about so I can strategically link internally, or to locate the URL of the exact post I need to answer someone’s question.

Each search engine has its own set of advanced search operators. Here’s the official documentation from today’s three major engines, Yahoo, Bing and Google.

Google search operators
Bing advanced query operators
Yahoo advanced search operators

In the table below you’ll find the search engine operators that we routinely use in SEO research.

(It’s not an all-inclusive list, so if you’re really looking to up your ninja robot search skills, explore those links above to learn about search operators like stocks:, which serves up stock information for ticker symbols.)

When you get comfortable with a few of these commands, you can find what you’re looking for faster. Below the table we explain how we use the advanced operators in our own SEO ninja research to plumb the depths of the search engines’ bots.

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Google
Bing
Yahoo
Result


cache:


Shows the version of the web page from the search engine’s cache.


related:


Finds web pages that are similar to the specified web page.


info:


Presents some information that Google has about a web page, including similar pages, the cached version of the page, and sites linking to the page.


define:
define: or definition:
define: or definition:
Provides a definition of a keyword. You must insert a space between the colon and the query in order for this operator to work in Yahoo and Bing.


site:
site:
site:
Finds pages only within a particular domain and all its subdomains.


allintitle:


Finds pages that include all query words as part of the indexed title tag.


intitle:
intitle:
intitle:
Finds pages that include a specific keyword as part of the indexed title tag. You must include a space between the colon and the query for the operator to work in Bing.


allinurl:


Finds a specific URL in the search engine’s index. You must include http:// in the URL you enter.


inurl:


Finds pages that include a specific keyword as part of their indexed URLs.


link:


Presents a selection of pages that link to the specified page.



meta:

Finds pages that contain the specific keyword in the meta tags.




+
Requires that the word following the plus sign is in the results. An example use is [cats +musical] where there is no space between the plus sign and the keyword that is required in the results.


–
–
–
Removes results that contain the word following the minus sign. This search operator is added on to the keyword or phrase being searched for. It should follow the search query. For example, the query [cats -musical] will give you results about cats without the word musical on the page.


“search term”
“search term”
“search term”
Finds instances of the exact phrase within the quotation marks everywhere it appears within the search engine’s index. Substitute [search term] in the search operator with the exact phrase you’re searching for.

 

How to Use Advanced Search Operators for Marketing Research

Here is how we use the search commands above for SEO research. In the example queries below, the searched phrase is in square brackets.

The cache: command (example query: [cache:http://www.bruceclay.com]) shows you a search engine’s cached version of a page. This is how the search engine actually sees your page. Cache shows what page content the search engine considers relevant to retrieve, making this Google search operator a valuable SEO diagnostic tool.

The related: operator (example query: [related:http://www.bruceclay.com]) gives you a glimpse of competitor content. You’ll see a small selection of what Google considers to be similar content, which you can analyze against SEO metrics — including word count, keyword use, meta data and inbound links — so that you can make your page equal to and then better than its competition.

Using the info: command in Google (example query: [info:http://www.bruceclay.com]) will result in links to a collection of these advanced search operators. It’s a one-stop shop to access the cache:, related:, link:, site:, and quotation mark exact match results.

In cases where you’re using a search engine as a dictionary, you can remove ambiguity and irrelevant search results and get straight to the definition with the define: operator (example query: [define:Boolean]).

Use the site: command (example query: [site:bruceclay.com]  to see how many web pages from a domain and its subdomains the search engine has indexed. Combine the site: operator with a keyword following the domain and you’ll see all pages on that site that are relevant for your search phrase. For example, [site:bruceclay.com 301 redirect] finds all the pages on this site with indexed content about 301 redirects.

With the search operators allintitle: and intitle: (example query: [allintitle: SEO keyword research]) you find who is your competition using your keywords in title tags. Similarly, the commands allinurl: and inurl: let you identify the competition using keywords in URLs.

The Google advanced search operator link: (example query: [link:http://www.bruceclay.com]) shows you the number of pages linking to a URL, whether your client’s or your competitors’ sites. You might devise new linking opportunities from this insight.

The Bing search operator meta: (example query: [meta: personal injury lawyer]) lets you view the pages in Bing’s index with your keywords in the meta description and meta keywords tags, helping you to identify your competition.

In Yahoo, you can use the + sign before a keyword to make sure that a word is in the results. It’s a tool to refine results when a query might otherwise be ambiguous. For example, the query [cats +musical] will help filter out results about cats the animal.

Another refinement tool, the – sign before a keyword will remove results with that word. Again, it’s a tool to help refine results when a query might otherwise be ambiguous. If you’re looking for info about cats the animal, but there’s a showing of Cats the musical in your town, you can search [cats -musical] to remove results about the theater production.

Include a phrase in quotes (example query: [“Here is how we use the search commands above for SEO research”] to find that exact phrase within the search engine’s index. One reason you might search for an exact string of text is to check for duplicate content that may be causing your content to be filtered out of results (i.e., how many pages does Google have in its index containing that exact phrase). Another reason you might search for an exact phrase is to see if the search engine has indexed a page that contains that phrase.

Did You Love This Search Operators Cheat Sheet?

Feel like a robot ninja yet?! We’re full of hacks for digital marketing! (It’s what we do!) Learn more ways to get better rankings, better PPC performance, and better digital ROI by subscribing to our blog.