Posted by izzismith Google Search Console is by far the most used device in the SEO’s toolkit. Not only does it provide us with the closest understanding we can have of Googlebot’s behavior and perception of our domain properties (in terms of indexability, site usability, and more), but it also allows us to assess the search KPIs that we work so rigorously to improve. GSC is free, secure, easy to implement, and it’s home to the purest form of your search performance KPI data. Sounds perfect, right? However, the lack of capability for analyzing those KPIs on larger scales means we can often miss crucial points that indicate our pages’ true performance. Being limited to 1,000 rows of data per request and restricted filtering makes data refinement and growth discovery tedious (or close to impossible). SEOs love Google Search Console — it has the perfect data — but sadly, it’s …

Here is my complete review of SEMrush . In this post you’ll see: What SEMrush does well What SEMrush doesn’t do well My opinion of SEMrush’s SEO and PPC features Whether SEMrush is worth the monthly fee A whole lot more Let’s get started. Domain Analytics This is a big picture overview of a site’s overall SEO and PPC marketing efforts. And if you want to dig deeper, you can get details on a site’s organic traffic, backlinks , PPC campaigns, engagement metrics (like bounce rate ), the site’s main competitors in Google search, and more. This report is helpful if you want to quickly see how much traffic a site gets from SEO or Google Ads . But the real value here comes from each of the detailed subreports. So let’s break down a few of these right now. Organic Research This feature is simple. Yet super powerful if …

Posted by Portent This blog was written by Tim Mehta, a former Conversion Rate Optimization Strategist with Portent, Inc. Running A/B/n experiments (aka “Split Tests”) to improve your search engine rankings has been in the SEO toolkit for longer than many would think. Moz actually published an article back in 2015 broaching the subject, which is a great summary of how you can run these tests. What I want to cover here is understanding the right times to run an SEO split-test, and not how you should be running them. I run a CRO program at an agency that’s well-known for SEO. The SEO team brings me in when they are preparing to run an SEO split-test to ensure we are following best practices when it comes to experimentation. This has given me the chance to see how SEOs are currently approaching split-testing, and where we can improve upon the …

Posted by Portent This blog was written by Tim Mehta, a former Conversion Rate Optimization Strategist with Portent, Inc. Running A/B/n experiments (aka “Split Tests”) to improve your search engine rankings has been in the SEO toolkit for longer than many would think. Moz actually published an article back in 2015 broaching the subject, which is a great summary of how you can run these tests. What I want to cover here is understanding the right times to run an SEO split-test, and not how you should be running them. I run a CRO program at an agency that’s well-known for SEO. The SEO team brings me in when they are preparing to run an SEO split-test to ensure we are following best practices when it comes to experimentation. This has given me the chance to see how SEOs are currently approaching split-testing, and where we can improve upon the …

The SEO community is always looking for new ranking factors and we have discovered over two hundred of them so far. But there may be hundreds more actually used by Google. Luckily, we don’t have to work on all of them. Most have very little weight in SEO and are often used as tie-breakers rather than ranking signals. Instead, here is the definitive list of Google ranking factors, each of which can make or break your search optimization strategy. 1. Backlinks Even though Google is planning to move away from backlinks in the future, they still remain the most important ranking factor for your pages. Except it is now too risky to use black hat SEO strategies — your links have to come from a variety of high authority websites that are similar to yours. Furthermore, some Google patents say that freshness and traffic may also be important backlink metrics. …

Posted by SamuelMangialavori Content, content, and more content! That’s what SEO is all about nowadays, right? Compared to when I started working in SEO (2014), today, content is consistently one of the most popular topics covered at digital marketing conferences, there are way more tools that focus on content analysis and optimization, and overall it seems to dominate most of SEO news. Don’t believe me? Here’s a nice Google Trends graph that may change your mind: Google Trends screenshot for “content marketing” as a topic, set for worldwide interest. But why is it that content is now dominating the SEO scene? How vital is content for your SEO strategy, actually? And most importantly: how can you be content with your site’s content? Puns aside, this post aims to help you figure out potential causes of your underperforming content and how to improve it. Why content is key in SEO in …

Every SEO tool is different. Some have better keyword data, others have better link data, others give better technical suggestions… in other words, there is no perfect tool. And I really mean that, even though I created Ubersuggest for you. Plus paying for a handful of SEO tools can be expensive and isn’t realistic. But don’t worry, because today, I’m about to make your life a bit easier. Here are 13 free chrome extensions that will help you with your SEO. What’s beautiful is that when you combine them all, you’ll have everything you need. So here goes. Extension #1: Keyword Surfer It doesn’t matter if you use Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, or SEMrush… there is one thing that all of those tools have in common. You as a user have to keep going back to them to get the keyword data you need. Wouldn’t it be easier if you can get …

We recently analyzed 11.8 million Google search results to answer the question: Which factors correlate with first page search engine rankings? We looked at content. We looked at backlinks. We even looked at page speed. With the help of our data partner Ahrefs , we uncovered some interesting findings. And today I’m going to share what we found with you. Here is a Summary of Our Key Findings: 1. Our data shows that a site’s overall link authority (as measured by Ahrefs Domain Rating) strongly correlates with higher rankings. 2. Pages with lots of backlinks rank above pages that don’t have as many backlinks. In fact, the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10. 3. Comprehensive content with a high “Content Grade” (via Clearscope ), significantly outperformed content that didn’t cover a topic in-depth. 4. We found no correlation between page loading speed …

If you want to outrank your competition, what do you do? First off, you need to keep track of everything they are doing. From their rankings to the content they are writing to even the links they are building and the keywords they are targeting, understanding what they are up to is key. And after you figure out their strategy, you need to write more content, build more links, and optimize your site. Or you can hire an SEO agency , but most of us can’t afford that. There must be a better way, right? Well, over the next 60 days, I am going to make life easier for you with a major upgrade to Ubersuggest . Here’s what I am thinking of doing, which would make it easier for you to outrank your competition. Competitor analysis First off, I’ve learned that many people don’t know who their competition really …

Posted by Suganthan-Mohanadasan Without a doubt, it is our job as SEOs to keep an eye on the future and anticipate what Google is planning, testing, or looking to drop on our doorsteps. Over the past 12 months alone, we have seen several changes in Google Search — each impacting how we plan, implement, and report on campaigns. In this article, I will take a look at what is in store for SEO in 2020 and how these factors will change the way we formulate strategies throughout the next year and beyond. Artificial intelligence will continue to evolve Over the past half-decade, artificial intelligence has become a pioneering force in the evolution of SEO. In 2015, for example, we were introduced to RankBrain -- the machine-based search algorithm that helps Google push more relevant results to users. Although RankBrain is coming up on its fifth birthday, we are only now …