Welcome to the spring edition, of what is now becoming a monthly roundup of what I consider to be some of the best SEO and internet marketing article. Without much ado, here are some of the most exciting and informative articles I came across during the month of May 2018.
“May 2018 Google Webmaster Report” by Barry Schwartz on SE Round Table. In April Google was very busy, they rolled few algorithm changes and the most important was mobile-first index.
Click the link above to see all the major changes in Google during the past 30 days.
“6 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your Meta Descriptions” by Sergey Grybniak on Search Engine Journal. According to Google:
Good meta descriptions are short blurbs that describe accurately the content of the page. They are like a pitch that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for.
- Mistake 1: Duplicate Meta Descriptions
- Mistake 2: Character Count Obsession
- Mistake 3: Not Using Keywords
- Mistake 4: Not Optimizing for Rich Snippets
- Mistake 5: Avoiding HTML Tables for Direct Answer Queries
- Mistake 6: Writing Boring, Unimpressive Copy
“How We Got a 32% Organic Traffic Boost from 4 On-Page SEO Changes [Case Study]” by Patrick Curtis on Moz blog. This is very detailed case study.
Summary of results from our statistical analysis
- Increasing the length of the articles and adding relevant subtitles (H2s, H3s, and H4s) to help organize the content gives an average boost to organic traffic of 14%
- Improving the title or H1 of the URLs yields a 9% increase on average
- Changing the URL decreased traffic on average by 38% (this was a smaller sample size — we stopped doing this early on for obvious reasons)
- Including a relevant video increases the organic traffic by 4% on average, while putting an image up increases it by 5% on average.
Overall, the boost to organic traffic — should we continue to make these four changes (and avoid changing the URL) — is 32% on average.
“How to Monitor Your Competitors With These 10 Helpful Tools” by Neil Patel on Quick Sprout blog.
- Google Alerts
- Social Mention
- Instapaper
- Monitor Backlinks
- SpyFu
- WhatRunsWhere
- SEMRush
- Alexa
- Woorank
- iSpionage
“5 Important SEO Metrics Which You Should Be Aware Of” by Impulse Digital on Impulse Digital blog.
- Trust Flow
- Dwell Time
- Citation flow
- Returning visitors
- Comments on the blogposts
“7 Lessons Every SEO Practitioner Needs To Learn” by Jayson DeMers on Forbes.
- Don’t try to outsmart Google.
- The same strategy won’t work for everyone.
- You have to change how you talk about SEO.
- People don’t always search the way you expect.
- Only trust what you can measure.
- Audit and reevaluate everything periodically.
- Reading and talking is the only way to stay up-to-date in this fast-moving industry.
“Here Are 5 Tips to Brand Your Business with Images” by Therese Palmere on aumcore blog.
- Brand Your Images
- Post More Videos
- Say It with an Infographic
- Invest in Your Photography
- Use a GIF
“22 of the Best Automated E-commerce Email Template Examples” by Roland Pokornyik on chamaileon blog.
1) The double opt-in e-commerce email
2) Welcome to the club
3) Your inbox smells better already
4) Discount coupon in e-commerce email
5) Related products in one email
6) Flash sales
7) Seasonal offers
8) Countdown email
9) Offer points
10) Yearly wrap-up
11) Give and get referral program
12) Thank you for your purchase
13) Shipping information
14) Your order has arrived
15) E-commerce feedback email template examples
16) Don’t forget about me…
17) Heads up!
18) psst…you’ve left something behind.
19) Cross-sell
20) Up-sell
21) Celebration email
22) Meeow, where have you been?
“5 Tips to Get 195,000 YouTube Views per Month” by Noah Kagan.
- Tip #1: Optimize Your Channel Page
- Tip #2: Focus on quality over quantity
- Tip #3: Get more views from suggested videos
- Tip #4: Avoid rookie video production mistakes
- Tip #5: Get more video embeds
“The 10 SEO ranking factors we know to be true” on kevin-indig blog.
- Ranking signal 1: Content
- Ranking signal 2: External and internal links
- Ranking signal 3: User Intent
- Ranking signal 4: Click-through rate
- Ranking signal 5: User Experience
- Ranking signal 6: Title tag
- Ranking signal 7: Page speed
- Ranking signal 8: Freshness and QDF
- Ranking signal 9: E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness)
- Ranking signal 10: SSL encryption
“25+ Proven Lead Generation Ideas With Case Studies & Screenshots” by Cody Slingerland on fieldboom blog.
Here are some of the ideas:
- Create a Community
- Host a Virtual Summit
- Build a Free Tool
- Send a Survey to Prospects Instead of Traditional Cold Emails
- Partner with Complementary Service Providers
- Go to Local Meetups
- Connect with Leads Who Have Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile
Thank you for reading. Please leave a comment below or contact me through this form or via my Twitter account. Your feedback is most welcomed.