Posts

After Google: Should SEOs Jump Ship?

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There was a pre-search-engine age. It’s hard to conceive of now, but there was. Even in the early days of search engines, when Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, and Excite still competed for the crown, I can remember web portals. Pages that I’d start at, in the “computer room” at school, to navigate and explore the web not by searching, but by clicking on organized links. In the beginning, there were web portals. The internet was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. These were already the death throes of a previous internet age. Search engine dominance, and specifically Google dominance, has been the norm for this kind of journey for decades now. It’s all that many SEOs have ever known. But what comes next? People have talked for a long time about existential threats to Google's dominance, and often, implicitly, by extension, SEO. You’ll have heard the claims that Amazon or YouTube are now preferred engines for certain kinds of search, or that Google is going t...

How to Align Your Blog with Your Organic Search Conversion Funnel

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Business blogging is an interesting concept. Many businesses have a blog, and yet, in most cases, there isn’t much planning going into how those blogs fit into larger business goals. Someone on the team is just assigned to publish content regularly, and that’s what they do. A business blog is usually an island within a company: There’s likely, not much measuring, so no one has any idea if it is generating any traffic, sales, or rankings. And yet, despite a lack of planning or measuring, there may be some good traffic coming. Blogging is a good way to achieve “aссidental rankings” (those you didn’t necessarily plan for) and discover more search-driven sales channels. But many business owners or marketing managers have no idea what their blogs are ranking for. Consequently, there’s no buying journey set up for someone who lands on a blog post. Clicks may come, but a blog remains an island. So, how can you include your blog in your overall marketing strategy to convert those clicks? ...

Three Ways to Evolve Your Link Building in 2023 — Whiteboard Friday

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Welcome to 2023! In the first Whiteboard Friday of the new year, Paddy walks through three methods to evolve your link building efforts — not reinventing the wheel, but by improving what you currently do. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hi, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Paddy Moogan. I'm the CEO of Aira. Today, we're going to talk about link building and how to evolve your link building to its next phase and to improve what you do at the moment. So we're going to talk through three methods to improve your link building and evolve it and improve the results you get for clients.  1. Use the customer journey to generate ideas So firstly, number one, there is a bit of an issue sometimes with link building and the relevance of the content that we produce for link building. So one way we can actually improve that and make our content as relevant as possible is...

5 Times ChatGPT Steered Me Wrong in Local SEO

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If it looks like a cat and sits like a cat, it must be… OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a novelty that most SEOs are exploring right now for its ability to have a conversation with us about complex questions. It may be a major search disruptor and a threat to Google , a useful tool , a source of inspiration , and a societal ill, all rolled into one, but what I want to highlight today is that there is a very good reason the content generated by this system comes with lots of disclaimers . Over the past twenty years, I’ve probably answered tens of thousands of questions relating to local search marketing. I’m sure I’ve gotten it wrong lots of times, but one thing that’s never happened is that the people requesting my consultation have mistaken me for an omniscient entity. Local business owners and marketers in fora, email, DM, and on the phone understand that I am just a person doing my best to give them good advice. Concerns arise when I consider what applications like ChatGPT may be mistake...

How to Repair and Improve Local Business Reputation via Google Star Ratings and Reviews

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Six in ten consumers require a minimum 4+ star rating in order to consider patronizing a local business and over ⅓ say it’s the star rating that is the key differentiator between local brands. If you’re marketing a company that is just starting out or an established business that has hit a reputational rough patch and your overall ratings fall below this magic threshold, revenue is being lost. But hope is not lost! In today’s column, you will find a set of sensible, actionable steps you can take to raise your Google Business Profile star ratings, improve your reviews, and begin developing the good online reputation you need in order to realize the full profit potential of the local businesses you market. Defining local business reputation In this context, a local business has both an offline reputation that resides in the word-of-mouth sentiments expressed by members of the community it serves and an online reputation that is most visible within the rating and review systems of pl...

2023 Local SEO Success: Human Power in a Year of Change

They're Simply the Best: The Top 25 Moz Blogs of 2022

We published 156 posts on the Moz Blog this year, and as is tradition, it's time to look back at the most popular ones! You’ll find blogs on new findings in social media search, tips for e-commerce SEO, trends in technical and local SEO, and so much more. Have a safe and happy new year, Moz friends! See you in 2023. *The top 25 written posts published between January 1 - December 26, 2022, in order by pageviews generated during that timeframe. 1. How to Win Potential Consumers with Customer Journey Mapping on Google By Christopher Hofman Laursen | April 20, 2022 If your website is like most others, there is likely a mismatch between the content you provide, and what your prospective customers search for on Google. This article is about understanding those potential customers and their conversation with Google by using the customer journey mapping method to provide them with the best content. 2. TikTok SEO: Understanding the TikTok Algorithm By Lidia Infante | October 26, 20...