Isn’t it cool that we’ve come so far in technology that we’re able to not only fly from one side of the globe to the other in a matter of hours but track the airplane that does it from the ground? It may seem like a tall order, but there’s a tool out there that makes it possible. Aviationstack is a free, real-time flight status and global aviation data API. But how does it work and what...
I think it’s safe to say that there are many benefits to geocoding. But it’s not always easy to find a tool that allows you to geocode easily and reliably. That is, of course, until now. Positionstack is the world’s best forward and reverse geocoding API. I know that’s a big claim, but let’s talk about this a little bit.[1] What is geocoding used for? At its core, geocoding is simply a list of coordinates. But, it’s what you...
Even web designers who prefer to design websites from scratch eventually look for frameworks, past work, or shortcuts. That way they speed up their workflow. And there are also those times when it’s hard to find the right template. You need help to create a special page and you feel compelled to build it from scratch. It only makes sense to take full advantage of drag and drop, front-end editing, design modules, customizable demos, and other shortcuts. They...
About The Author Sarah Drasner is an award-winning Speaker, Head of Developer Experience at Netlify, Vue core team member, and Staff Writer at CSS-Tricks. Sarah is formerly … More about Sarah …[1] WordPress adoption is massive. So why would a WordPress site consider moving to JAMstack? In this technical case study, we’ll cover what an actual WordPress migration looks like, using Smashing Magazine itself! We’ll talk through the gains and losses, the things we wish we knew earlier,...
About The Author Drew is a director at edgeofmyseat.com, co-founder of Notist and lead developer for small content management system Perch. Prior to this, he was a Web Developer … More about Drew McLellan …[1][2][3] We’re taking a look at the brand new version of Microsoft Edge and its Chromium-based rendering engine. What does that change mean for web developers, and how does the death of Microsoft’s own rendering engine impact the web? Drew McLellan talks to Microsoft’s...
About The Author Suzanne Scacca is a former WordPress implementer, trainer and agency manager who now works as a freelance copywriter. She specializes in crafting marketing, web … More about Suzanne Scacca …[1] Want to build a website or PWA that attracts a large audience and then converts as much of that audience into paying customers as possible? If that’s the case, what you need to do is use storytelling in your design — and there are a...
The internet has transformed the way we view and experience the world. Nowadays, we use it for virtually everything, from making a phone call to paying off our credit card bill. Smartphones have revolutionized how we shop and do business. With them, we can interact and socialize with people from around the world using Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and so on. From personal experience, I can tell you that I would have never guessed that my smartphone...
Tragedy strikes from nowhere, and it’s devastating both emotionally, and financially. It might be a motorcycle accident with a long, expensive hospital stay; being fired, or laid off from a long time staff position; a client going out of business owing you money; a messy divorce; a sick child needing intensive medical care; dying parents; or mounting debt that makes you think very bad thoughts. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!...
Google has posted a job opening to hire an SEO. Google does this from time to time[1] and yes, Google has its own SEOs to work on Google products such as Gmail, Search, Maps, Chrome, Android, Google Ads, AdSense, Google Marketing Platform, Analytics and others. Team effort. What is nice to see from the job description[2] is that Google shows the importance of the SEO not working by himself or herself in a silo but working collaboratively...
Thom Craver, the Lead SEO Analyst at CBS Interactive, invited me to the studio to sit down and talk SEO. Besides his office being really fun and exciting to be in, the SEO topics we talked about were also pretty entertaining. Thom Craver, who can be followed @thomcraver[1] on Twitter, has a very rich history in SEO. He has been doing SEO for two decades and has worked in-house, done agency work, had his own company and...
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News[1] site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past...
Google announced[1] today on Twitter that it will begin testing more variations and changes to the desktop search results based on early feedback from users around the favicon and black ad label rollout on desktop[2]. Positive results. Google told Search Engine Land with the mobile rollout[3] that happened several months ago, that “design has been well received by users on mobile screens, as it helps people more quickly see where information is coming from and they can see...
The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to build a new content strategy for your business. One of the easiest tactics to generate new traffic is also one of the most overlooked: Updating and expanding your old content. The benefits of content upgrades Unlike fine wine, the content on your site doesn’t necessarily age well, with some pieces degrading as time goes on. Creating new content is not always needed when you have a body...
Planning can be both exciting and exhausting, as I’m sure many of you have already found out at the start of January. New years come with new opportunities and a whole lot of planning. Throughout my 8-plus years at Google, I’ve actually come to enjoy prognostication a good deal. Despite how much I may enjoy the act of planning, all of that estimation takes time. And that may be a time you don’t even have – like...
The success of any given campaign can depend on your team’s ability to get buy-in from the right individuals. Sometimes, it’s upper management and other times it’s your web developer counterparts who are likely juggling their own set of priorities. “The ultimate goal is the same,” said Jenny Jiang, SEO developer for design and engineering software creator Autodesk, “we want to drive revenue.” Ideally, a common goal would be enough to get the development team on board...
Google announced[1] today it has graduated Google Dataset Search[2] from a beta product and is now fully live. With that, Google also added new features to the speciality search engine. What is Google Dataset search. Google Dataset Search enables searchers to find datasets stored across the web through keyword searches. “The tool surfaces information about datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the web, making these datasets universally accessible and useful,” Google explains. The service launched as a...
In a move that taps into the default effect[1], Microsoft’s Office 365 ProPlus (version 2002+) has coupled up with Bing to make Bing the default search engine[2] for Google Chrome web browser for devices in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, United Kingdom, and the United States. Why would they do this? Microsoft Search comes with tie-ins where results include references to information from data sources across an organization. This will supplement Chrome search in a business context with...
It’s been 15 years since their first interview, but Search Engine Land’s contributing editor Barry Schwartz recently had the honor to talk with search industry pioneer Mike Grehan once again. As Barry puts it, “Mike has been in the industry before there was an industry.” The two discussed the early days of search, how far the industry has come since Mike opened his internet marketing agency in 1995, and the ways technologies like AI and machine learning...
Google says that this month it will “no longer charge partners for referral links on Google Flights.” As a result, the company is removing the “ads” and “sponsored” labels from Google Flights and the flights unit in Google search results. Results ranked according to price and convenience. A Google spokesperson said in email that flight search results have been and will continue to be ranked on the basis of price and convenience (i.e., flight duration, number of...
About The Author Dave Cunningham is a veteran designer, turned DesignOps Manager for Co-op Digital. Currenly on a mission to support designers to do their best work. Dave loves … More about Dave …[1][2] How do we know if we are truly impactful as a design team? Are we seen as a vehicle to deliver a solution that moves a needle? It’s time to empower our design teams and give them one voice to show how and when...
It’s a fact. Today, every business needs a strong social media presence. No matter whether you run a small local shop or a multinational company, social media should be an essential part of your marketing strategy. Not only a social media platform helps you connect with your target audience, increase awareness about your brand, but it also boosts your leads and sales to a great extent. Since around 2.96 billion people use social media platforms worldwide, it’s no...
Currently somewhere in the region of 34% of websites[1] are built with WordPress, it’s the most utilized CMS (Content Management System) in the world. Part of that popularity stems from its underlying technologies—PHP and MySQL—which allows for dynamic content in posts, but also enables a rich ecosystem of plugins. One of the trickiest aspects of launching a website is its digital marketing, and so naturally there are a plethora of WordPress plugins that aim to take care...
Last year, we surveyed our readers to find out where marketers were prioritizing spend on Amazon’s growing list of offerings, as compared to spend on Google Shopping and other platforms geared toward retailers. We found that 80% of those advertising on platforms that support digital commerce campaigns planned to increase spending on Amazon in 2019[1]. And nearly half said they planned to increase it by more than 25%. Has that actually occurred? Have results met with expectations? We’re eager...
A conversion onslaught. The issue that some businesses can only dream of, while for others it’s a nightmare made real. Having more leads than you can qualify or orders than you can fulfill is a recipe for disaster as your overstretched staff try to deal with under-serviced (and inevitably unhappy) customers. What’s more, if you continue to run PPC ads after you’ve hit capacity, you’re basically throwing your money down the drain. Trying to fine-tune your performance...
Google has updated its mobile-first indexing developers guide, the company announced[1] on Wednesday. New guidelines were added in a number of areas, including crawling, structured data, visual content, and best practices. Below, you’ll find a summary of the additions. The document[2] was updated on Jan. 21, 2020, with the previous version[3] having been updated on Oct. 9, 2019. Crawling. A section titled “Make sure that Googlebot can access and render your content” has been added. In it, developers...