Reading Time: 2 min You’ll find hashtags on almost every social media platform, and occasionally on some websites. While they can be very helpful in certain cases, they tend to be wildly overused. First, they almost never help with rankings. If you include the hashtag “#DigitalMarketing” in a post of yours, the only value that brings is if other […]
SEO
AI is going to kill SEO
Reading Time: 2 min It may take quite a while, but peak SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is behind us, and the relevance of it will only go down from here. That’s not to say that SEO isn’t important, as it still can be a major source of traffic for many sites, but the value will slowly erode over the […]
Keyword-rich domain names can cause problems
Reading Time: < 1 min It’s long been known that keyword-rich domain names don’t really help with search rankings. If your site is “www.cheap-used-cars.com”, you’re not going to rank better for “cheap used cars” simply due to the domain name. That said, I never really saw much downside to them. They don’t help, but they don’t hurt. However, Google’s John […]
Who can see your website right now?
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve come across two very different website visibility-related situations in the last few weeks, and I thought they were interesting cases on how Google is able to see your site. They’re both related to “the magic checkbox” being misused. The first is with a friend of mine. They’re building a new site with another company, […]
Precise attribution is nearly impossible, and that’s ok
Reading Time: 2 min When we’re helping a company with their marketing efforts, we have a variety of tools that we employ to help track data and understand how things are performing. Starting with tools like Google Analytics, we set up data scorecards, heatmaps, trackable phone numbers, and a variety of excellent tools to help with our efforts. At […]
The secret to Google search: Reddit
Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve been doing something on Google quite a lot lately, and I’ve come to find out it’s part of a larger trend. When I search for something, say “best electric lawnmower”, I’ll stick the word “reddit” at the end of it and search for “best electric lawnmower reddit” instead. The results are tremendously better. You […]
Google extracts “near me” from search phrases
Reading Time: < 1 min I mentioned a few months ago that using the words “near me” on your website (or even in the name of your business) was unlikely to help improve your search rankings, and now there is some more data to support that. To be clear, people search for things “near me” all the time, myself included. […]
Anchor and twist
Reading Time: < 1 min This term has been around for a long time, but I hadn’t noticed it until very recently. It has to do with sharing new ideas, and “anchoring” them to something people are familiar with and then “twisting” into how the new product is different. It’s similar to Seth Godin’s concept of putting your new product […]
Does accessibility help your website rank higher?
Reading Time: < 1 min Online accessibility has become an important topic over the past few years. I’ve shared some tips on how you can improve accessibility on your site, and this short podcast offers a few more bits of advice. The question is — does Google reward your site for being accessible? The short answer is “no”, but the […]
User engagement doesn’t impact your search rankings
Reading Time: 2 min Keeping users engaged on your website is vitally important, but Google says it doesn’t affect your rankings. I suspect they want it to, but they don’t have a good way to tie your site engagement to the rankings. The problem for Google is two-fold: If you have Google Analytics on your website, which captures many […]