There is an interesting conversation on Twitter around SEOs asking and obtaining access log files from their clients. It seems like many SEOs do prefer to have access to the raw log files from the site but many are unable to obtain it.I wanted to open it up to way more SEOs than just those who see that Twitter thread. I assume, I can be wrong, that most SEOs don't even bother asking for the log files. But I suspect many do and many are unable to get what they asked for. So I made a poll asking you anonymously if you ask for it and if you get them.Please take the poll and ask your friends and colleagues to take the poll as well:For SEO Jobs: Do You Get Log Files?Of course, log files can show you a lot more detail about crawling issues than other reports. Plus there are many other gems in the log files that you likely won't get in analytics tools.Forum discussion at Twitter. … [Read more...] about Poll: Do You Request & Get Log Files For Your SEO Jobs?
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
Poll: Black Hat SEO Not Dead Yet
SEOs seem split on the question of is black hat SEO dying. That is a poll we ran in July and we have over 870 responses thus far. It seems like most think black hat SEO is not dying, it is either alive and well or adapting into new forms of black hat SEO - but not dead. Only 25% of those who completed the poll think black hat SEO is dying. While 13% said they really don't know, I assume they have no experience with it.But overall, 62% of SEOs who took this poll think black hat SEO is not dying. Here is the pie chart:Of course with any of our polls, read my poll disclaimer.Forum discussion continued at Black Hat World.This post was scheduled to go live today but was written earlier - I am currently offline today. … [Read more...] about Poll: Black Hat SEO Not Dead Yet
68% Of SEOs Do Their Work Without Log File Analysis
A few weeks ago, I conducted a poll asking SEOs how they do their job with or without log files. I discussed how log files can be an awesome way to uncover SEO issues including crawling, indexing, and even some ranking issues.The poll showed that most SEOs, 68%, are doing their SEO services without looking at log files. We had over 350 responses and even with my poll disclaimer, the results are pretty revealing.Almost 30% of SEOs actually said they do not need log files to do their job and an additional 38% said they would use them if they got them, but they "rarely" are able to get the log files. Only 15% said they always get the log files and 18% said they often get them.Here are the results of the poll:Here are some reactions from the poll:Forum discussion at Twitter.This post was scheduled to go live today but was written earlier - I am currently offline today. … [Read more...] about 68% Of SEOs Do Their Work Without Log File Analysis
Personalized Duplicate Content
Minutes ago, I had someone ask me how they can make their "personalized duplicate content" search engine friendly. How can they SEO their duplicate content that is personalized to users. I found it somewhat funny and wanted to share the term with you.Here is the post on Twitter:This can mean a lot of things, of course, but at the essence - this is what Google does not want you to do.Is this talking about taking someone else's content and changing it slightly to rank? Is it talking about taking your own content and tweaking it slightly for long tail searches? Is it talking about embedding related content under your main content (if so that last case is fine). Anyway, the term "personalized duplicate content" was something too fun, I had to share with you all.Forum discussion at Twitter. … [Read more...] about Personalized Duplicate Content
Mobile & desktop SEO: Different results, different content strategies
Late in 2015, Google confirmed what many of us had already suspected: mobile search had officially surpassed desktop worldwide. Smartphones and tablets have completely disrupted and forever altered what was once a fairly linear buyer’s journey. These days, a consumer might drop into your funnel at any point, from any channel, and it might be after an unknown number of touch points across platforms and devices that you didn’t see happening. They’re reading reviews, are exposed to organic and paid social, are searching for nearby answers for their immediate needs and more. Increasingly, consumers are doing all of these things from a mobile device. Recent research at BrightEdge (my company) shows that 57 percent of all online traffic now comes from mobile and tablet. Pair this consumer insight with the knowledge that Google’s mobile-first algorithm is coming, and we marketers have some work to do. In this column, I’ll share the results of our recent Google … [Read more...] about Mobile & desktop SEO: Different results, different content strategies
Load time, static site generators & SEO: How we lowered our own site’s load time by 74%
Google has raised the bar on site load times consistently over the last decade, and the upcoming transition to mobile-first indexing, combined with its rising expectations of mobile site performance, should be a clear warning sign to site owners. Site owners generally, however, seem not to be listening. Unfortunately, based on our analysis of 10,000+ mobile web domains, we found that most mobile sites don’t meet this bar: The average load time for mobile sites is 19 seconds over 3G connections.DoubleClick research published in September 2016 At our company, we have been experimenting over the last year with static site generation. Our tests on our own site are aimed at allowing us to assess the challenges facing site owners, to understand the scope of opportunity and potential for performance improvement, and also to explore the practical limitations in content management — one of the key criticisms of static site generation. Our site, QueryClick.com, was a small, … [Read more...] about Load time, static site generators & SEO: How we lowered our own site’s load time by 74%
Optimized store landing pages: An important part of local search strategy
If you’re a business which has brick-and-mortar store locations, you may know that having a local search strategy is crucial to your business. Most business owners are aware that building a local search presence requires having profiles on Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, Yellow Pages, etc., so that you may show up for local search queries and build local search relevance. Having a presence on these local directory/profile sites is definitely a core part of local search marketing. Just as important is listing each of your business locations on your website. However, I’ve noticed that many businesses do not have landing pages for each of their store locations, which is a missed opportunity to further build local search relevance and rankings. Each brick-and-mortar location presents an opportunity to highlight information that is specific to the store and its surrounding area. It also gives you the potential to outrank other local directory/profile sites such as Yelp, … [Read more...] about Optimized store landing pages: An important part of local search strategy
How to get developers to implement SEO recommendations
The hardest problem in doing SEO isn’t the algorithm updates. It isn’t having access to the enterprise tools. It’s not even whether or not you have the experience to determine where to focus your efforts. No, the hardest problem in SEO is getting developers to actually execute recommendations. We all walk into projects hoping to discover an internal champion that can take the developers to lunch and buy them beers in hopes that our suggestions get turned into actions, but sometimes that champion doesn’t show up. In some cases, getting things done may require social engineering. In other cases, it just requires a degree in engineering. Let’s talk about how you can be better prepared to get developers to act on your recommendations and drive some results. First, let’s meet the players. I like to think there are two opposite extremes in web developers, and I use two of my favorite characters to personify them. One is Thomas Anderson, whom you may … [Read more...] about How to get developers to implement SEO recommendations
How to generate ideas when competitive analysis shows you nothing
I’ve recently softened my stance on competitive analysis. I once thought that it was not worth my time; usually, what I saw was that people were simply using it to copy another site’s link profile. I found it useful to look at how industries linked, of course, but it really wasn’t that high on my list of things to do for a new client. I do see the benefit now — more so than I did previously. But recently, I’ve been privileged enough to work on a few campaigns for industries where an analysis of competitors’ link profiles really told me… nothing. In case you don’t know, there are still these tiny niches where sites can rank without great links or any decent optimization efforts. Working on these types of campaigns can be incredibly fun, but it’s tough to get started because it’s almost impossible to get a blueprint. When you’re looking at how the top 10 spots in Google are occupied by sites that have 20 linking domains or … [Read more...] about How to generate ideas when competitive analysis shows you nothing
5 mindset mistakes you may be making when it comes to SEO
Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about different approaches to page speed optimization. During this process, I stumbled onto some older posts on the topic, including an old blog post on the topic from Matt Cutts, Google’s former head of webspam. As I got to the comment section, I remembered how intently SEOs used to read Matt Cutts’s blog. The comments on those posts always revealed a lot about how people thought about Google and SEO. As with most areas of life, lots of people had reasonable questions like this: Or this: Other people were pretty positive and went the flattery route: And, of course, as with virtually every internet discussion, some people had strongly worded, multi-paragraph hot takes: And still others had a (justifiably) difficult time keeping different components of Google’s ranking factors and information for webmasters straight: Such is the nature of internet commenters (though as comment sections, go this one was actully fairly … [Read more...] about 5 mindset mistakes you may be making when it comes to SEO