On the heels of a recent Semrush study on the importance of reviews for local rankings, I wanted to update this post on local ranking factors. It is now more important than ever to bake reviews into your process. I recommend digging into the study but it shows that the median top-ranking business had 16% [...]
This post is updated, but holding true to much in SEO, the main idea holds true over the years, while the details change a little over time. This post was originally posted in August 2018, but updated in 2021. I have had a number of people recently tell me about frustrations with SEO tools like [...]
In the world of SEO and the Google algorithm, there are always hot tips and tactics that help you advance with the latest Google adjustment. In most cases over the years, tactics that are initially good ideas and meant to help, eventually get abused to the point of becoming a negative for you and your [...]
I recently did a post on the importance of understanding how to use SEO tools. Though there are a lot of helpful tools out there, many position themselves as the answer to your SEO needs, but a tool is only as good as the person using it, and if you don't have SEO knowledge, they [...]
With the latest Google algorithm update, much has been said about content audits and figuring out which old content is valuable to you and what is dragging you down or hurting your site. In these days of "crawl budget" worries, site owners need to make sure Google comes to the right pages and ignores those [...]
Have you seen your site take a turn in traffic in recent weeks? Was it a reversal of what happened last fall? Google just had yet another major algorithm update on March 12. Rumors around the industry are that this update is a bit of a rollback from some of the big changes that were [...]
In recent years the industry will buzz after each algorithm update about specific measures that have changed regarding the BBB rating or the number of reviews, etc. Often Google will come out and say that certain items are not specifically part of the algorithm, even when much of the data would say otherwise. In many [...]
In the second of my posts on growing SEO Ranking Factors in 2019, I want to touch on Google's Lighthouse tool. As Google tries to turn more and more of your user experiences into specific metrics, the Lighthouse tool is an open window into much of the data that they are using to determine UX. [...]
I posted earlier in the week about the latest local search ranking factors study that came out. With that post, I discussed which factors seemed to carry the most weight and some of the things a business owner could do at lower levels of effort to improve their positioning and exposure. With this post, I [...]
I recently finished my now annual exams to qualify as a Google Certified Partner, and it always brings to mind the question many ask or want to ask about what that means and why it is important. The short answer is it doesn't mean all that much and it isn't overly important. However, the title [...]
