Latest Questions
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How important are 'anchor' text links now
Hi, I have to agree with the previous responses. Anchor text is important because it gives web site visitors (and search engines) a hint about the web page or web site they are about to visit (if they click the link). This is why you DON’T want to use common calls to action like, “click here” or “our website.” Instead, you want to use keyword rich anchor text. But you don't want it to become very spammy sounding—so keep this in mind when creating content. Anchor text helps search engines understand what the page is about and it also helps establish site architecture. And depending on the anchor text of the link, it might even increase your rankings for certain keywords! As an example, if you’re having a contest to give away a free website makeover for the HVAC industry, make free HVAC website the anchor text! If thousands of web sites link to your site using the anchor text ‘leading residential furnace installers‘ there’s a good chance that you’re in the residential HVAC business and you install furnaces! I hope this helped! But if you're looking for more information check out our blog that discusses if you need links to rank on Google.
Link Building | | BlueCorona0 -
Increase ad spend when call centre is quiet
If you know what time of which days are typically low, then you can set automated rules within the AdWords interface to boost bids and spend. You'll want to look at time of day reports and analyze trends to make sure your actions line up with substantiated data. Like Nick mentioned, set up custom ad scheduling to help boost spend in slow times. Either way, there will be a level of manual intervention here. I don't think there's any API that could do this for you. It's possible to create a script which could run if you set a trigger... maybe. It might be easy enough to set up custom rules and have someone enable it when calls are lower.
Online Marketing Tools | | Eric_Rohrback0 -
What the best way is to find keywords for my local website
Hey Dougie! So far, you've received a lot of great suggestions for tools. I'm going to make one additional really down-to-Earth suggestion about this topic. Survey your staff (any member of your team who communicates directly with your customers) to find out exactly what words they hear/see your customers using when asking about your products and services. This is an important task for 2 reasons: Corporate lingo and consumer lingo are not always the same. You may call that thing a Craftmatic Adjustable Lazyboy Model 23-T4D. I may call it a recliner. Be sure you're using the customers' language, including synonyms, in your optimization, writing and marketing. Regional language difference matter. If you sell pop but I drink soda or cola, we're missing each other. Pull your staff findings into a keyword focus spreadsheet to expand the way you write and speak about your products. Hope this helps!
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis2 -
Drop in Rankings
Making sure that the https pages are canonicalized to https pages should be relatively easy and within your control. I would get that done right away. If the canonicalization wasn't done right in the migration, it makes me wonder what else may not be right with the move to https. You might want to look here https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl, especially the links under "best practices" and double check all that. The unnatural link clean up and reconsideration request will be more work intensive and take a lot more time and is on some level not entirely within your control, as you are left at Google's mercy. Both need to be done, but they seem like very different sized problems with very different timelines to payoff. Best of luck! ... Mike
Technical SEO Issues | | 945010 -
Google Maps - ranking our head office over smaller offices
Thanks, I had wondered if it was location based but it wasn't making much sense - the computers used to check were all much nearer the head office than the satellite office that showed up top - in fact the satellite office is a long way away. We used three different machines and each time we got the same result. The smaller office is in Leicester (UK) and the head office in in Christchurch which is where where 2 checks were done, and another was done in Blandford, all getting Leicester come up top. Our head office address is the only one listed on Facebook etc so it's a bit odd. I've just tried it again and got a more local office showing, but it's still not head office. Thanks for the links to other posts and thanks for the suggestions: Verify all info is correct and the same business name is being used on major data providers such as Yellow Pages, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yahoo Local, etc. And be sure they are linking to your website. Here is the full list: https://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us - **all the info on Google places is correct and the head office. Will see if there are other places we can list it though ** Make sure your full address is mentioned on your website contact page. - this is already the case Get quality backlinks from related websites and include the city(s) name in the anchor text.- will try this Use a local phone number area code and keep it consistent - we use a central call centre for most places although the local Leicester office that was showing above head offce uses a local number so even more strange that is should show as it's miles away Possibly have your smaller offices identify themselves with a specific location in their name - will look into Get more positive Google reviews for your office - will look in to but Leicester has no reviews so bit odd Include location and business keywords in your Google Maps description - already doing Thanks both
Local Strategy | | Houses0 -
Localizing URLs Path - Hreflang
Hreflang markup specifies which pages belong in a cluster. In the section of your HTML, you use tags to specify which URLs belong in the same cluster. The same set of tags should be on each page in the cluster. If your pages are passing the Hreflang validation then you already have this markup on your page.
Technical SEO Issues | | NickJasuja1 -
Can I use the keyword explorer to find negative keywords?We focus on a few things in our business that we focus on but the feedback that I get from the tool is not helpful
Thanks my friend. I suppose that the more that I mess with it the more it will fall in to place. So far I have been able to remove some of the thing's that we do not use from our path. thanks
Link Explorer | | sliceofhome0 -
Is this organic search sketchiness worth unwinding?
I agree with the two methods that both you and Gaston have pointed out. The downside to reversing those links is that the domain authority could drop a bit—which could impact their rankings on the SERPs. If this happens, the client might think you are doing something wrong and causing their rankings to rank when, in theory, you were trying to help get rid of any sketchy links. In my opinion, I’d keep them. They’ll make your work perform better. Disavowing them could yield worse results than what their former SEO provided. If that happens, you're playing defense and blaming. Hope this helps!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BlueCorona0 -
Canonical home page references - logo link
No worries, read it a while back here on Search Engine Land. I haven't encountered the transparent logo problem before but have several industry friends that experienced this issue. Cheers, B search?q=white+transparent+logo&espv=2&biw=2204&bih=1278&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj1opy0vP3NAhUC8GMKHcnFBKwQ_AUIBigB
On-Page / Site Optimization | | BMullz1 -
Why Isn't Product Schema Showing Up for my Ecom Site?
I suspected that those related products being marked up might not have been good. Good to know. We'll for sure test that out. Thanks for the recommendation on the blog post and for your help!
Reviews and Ratings | | OfficeFurn0 -
Copyright Theft and Google Rankings
To extend EGOL's excellent advice... these guys are using totally automated methods to scrape and post your content. So to fight back, you're also going to need to effectively automate as much of your discovery and takedown process as possible. You'll never beat enough of their automated volume processes with your own resource-intensive (i.e. fully manual) responses. Good luck - I hate these assclowns with a fiery passion too. (Former pro photographer here.) Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThompsonPaul0 -
Keyword in Domain AND Title. Yes or No?
I was writing about URLs. I think it's fine to have your brand name in most or all title tags, though I'm not sure I'd apply that to an exact-match domain like yours without adding the .com too (as in " - IceSurfing.com" not "- Ice Surfing".
On-Page / Site Optimization | | Everett0 -
International Website Targeting
Thank you for your response. It appears the best way to go about this is to make the main site amazing and optimize it around what they sell, correct? This is what I had in mind, but just wanted to check with the community to be sure.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley0 -
What would cause these ⠃︲蝞韤諫䴴SPপ� emblems in my urls?
They are encoded URLs. For example, Google will turn all " into %22 and all spaces in the URL to %20. You can learn more about them here http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp . And here is a useful tool for encoding and decoding URLs: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ . What you need to do is have the developer "escape out" or "rewrite" all non-alphanumeric characters in the URL. You'll also have to 301 redirect the old URLs to these new, search-engine friendly ones without the characters that get automatically encoded, like parentheses, commas, tildas and plus signs.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Everett0 -
Can Google shopping listings affect SEO rankings?
That's what I thought, I wanted just to have confirmation about that. Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | fablau0