How to learn SEO competition research or in fact anything at all? Well, there’s actually doing it, of course. But doing it without knowing what to aim for and what’s actually working doesn’t do you much good. There’s, of course, reading about it. But as far as I’m concerned, the most effective way to learn to do something is to watch somebody do it well. A large part of SEO[1] efforts is about monitoring what actually works for other...
About The Author As Mailchimp’s Chief Product Officer, John Foreman owns Mailchimp’s product strategy and oversees the execution of the product roadmap. Before coming to … More about John Foreman …[1] How do you move faster when adding folks to a project supposedly slows it down? Mailchimp’s CPO takes the reader through some considerations for preserving momentum while scaling up. As a product leader at a tech company, I am a bottomless pit of need. My job as the...
SEO plays a role in the success of most online businesses, but it’s kept in a silo. SEO focuses on organic traffic online, while other strategies operate independently around it. What happens when you break down the silos and start working SEO into other[1] company functions? The ‘Rule of 7[2]‘ suggests that people need to see your messages at least seven times before they start to take notice of your brand. By combining your SEO efforts with...
Tempting it may be to skip the consultation process, but a ‘first principles’ approach is not going to cut it with the majority of your clients. The principles of design exist for a reason, but knowing when and how to break them is what separates great designers from good ones. Heart-warming or not, co-creation with a client—the utopian ideal of shared vision—has its drawbacks. There are only so many times you can hear the words “brand strategy”...
Businessfinancing.co.uk, a financial publisher based in the UK, created an infographic guide aimed at helping small businesses get started with advertising on Amazon. The infographic, A Small Business Guide to Amazon Advertising[1], presents a visual summary of advertising options available on the platform and includes some tips that small business can use to get started with launching a campaign. In this post, we’ll summarize some of the key insights from the guide, including a list of next steps...
Anchor text variation is one of the best ways to tell Google what a specific web page is about. It is used to help readers find more information about a topic and also factors into ranking your web pages. While it is a great tool, it can be the downfall of your SEO efforts if not used correctly. Many people have tried (and are still trying) to manipulate search results. One way to do this is to...
One of the best things about the Internet is that it (mostly) doesn’t care where you are. The person you’re interacting with might be in Rio or Rhode Island, Bahrain or Birmingham. The Internet opens up the world. But opening up the world doesn’t mean removing it. The geographic independence loved by users can be a real headache for businesses, because nearly all businesses are constrained by geography. For business, having an accurate picture of where your...
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] In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re taking a look at the UK Government’s design system. How are design systems used within government? Is it any different to how we might work in the commercial sector? Drew McLellan talks to design systems...
As inbound marketing continues to be a dominant force, you’ve likely heard the phrase “content is king” more times than you can count. But getting the right message to the right person is not an easy task in a society that’s tangled in a web of digital content, and it requires a top-notch content strategy. A solid content strategy can help create meaningful, cohesive, engaging and sustainable content that attracts new customers and retains existing ones. Despite...
In this article, you will learn how to use React’s Context API which allows you to manage global application states in your React apps without resorting to props drilling. For this tutorial, you should have a fair understanding of hooks. Still, before we begin, I’ll briefly discuss what they are and the hooks we’ll be using in this article. According to the React Docs[1]: “Hooks are a new addition in React 16.8. They let you use state and other...
Google announced[1] on the @SearchLiaison[2] Twitter handle Monday morning that it is rolling out a new core update later today — the first core update for 2020. Google generally now rolls out these algorithmic updates[3] every few months or so. The announcement. Google said, “Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the January 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve...
One of the problems with coining a term like “user experience” or its acronym counterpart “UX” is that it opens up the floodgates for other trendy experience-related acronyms to enter the web design lexicon. CX, DX, EX, HX, JX, PX, UX, (U)XD… Is all of this really necessary though? While I don’t think you need to go adding EX or JX to your vocabulary anytime soon, it’s still a good idea to educate yourself on what these X acronyms...
Over the weekend Darren Shaw pointed out and Mike Blumenthal posted[1] about the new Google My Business Provider program[2] (MBP) being rolled out. It supplants the now shuttered Google Trusted Verifier Program. Both programs have the same goal: simplify verification of local business listings at scale for Google My Business by allowing third parties to expedite the process. According to several studies over the past few years, a substantial number of GMB profiles remain unclaimed (e.g., 56%...
Google has posted[1] an update informing us that the Google rich result testing tool[2] can now report on unloadable embedded resources. Google rich results test. This tool tests to see if your pages have the necessary markup to show rich results in Google search. It can also show you what those rich results may look like directly in the Google search results. The tool does not tell you if your rich results will display in search but...
William Álvarez, the Director of Organic Search at Catalyst[1], invited me to his office, 3 World Trade Center, to chat about SEO. We spoke mostly about his thoughts on why structured data is not just important today for getting richer results in Google but his thoughts on why it will be important in the future. William believes that in the future, Google will reward sites using structured data with added user interface features in search. Not just...
There’s no need to continue to stress yourself out plowing through a host of themes in hopes of finding something that just might suit your immediate needs. “Just might” is not a very good description to hang your hat on. If you narrow your search down to 15 or so of the top WordPress themes going into 2020 you should easily find what you need. Better yet, we’ve already narrowed the search for you. Add the fact that...
Google Image Search has millions of users. In fact, nearly a quarter of all Google search queries return an image. Visual search on multiple online channels will also continue to grow.[1] Just look at how social media has shifted from text to images and videos. Using more images is a very clear call to action for businesses looking to drive more traffic to their websites. “Images play an important role in your website design,” Garry Grant, CEO of a global...
Welcome to the new year, people! Are you ready to make 2020 your year? Without proper planning, all the best and most enthusiastic ideas can come to a complete halt, or never even begin at all. Proper planning and productivity tools can be life-changing and can help you and your career thrive this year. If you’ve found yourself in a creative rut, then you’re in luck. We just shared our 5 tips and tricks on how to get and stay...
New year, new me. Or for me, as a graphic designer, new year, new designs. Just like writers, sometimes we get a major creativity block. It’s hard to be creativity 24/7, especially when your job depends on it. Sometimes the ideas will just come to you out of the blue, and other times, it comes down to discipline and trial + error. Today we’re going to go over 5 different ways you can boost your creativity and thrive as a graphic...
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...
Retail has become a significant focus of Microsoft’s efforts to support companies’ digital transformation. It bolstered the promotion and advertising segment of its tech stack for retail with the acquisition of vendor marketing platform PromoteIQ in August[1]. Now, the awaited integration with Microsoft Advertising is in beta, Microsoft announced[2] Thursday. The company is also starting to make its new on-site search product Microsoft Bing for Commerce available to retailers. Microsoft PromoteIQ. The commerce marketing platform, now dubbed...
SEO technology firm Conductor is out with a new marketplace in its Searchlight platform. Agency and corporate customers can request managed services directly within the platform interface. The goal is to help alleviate some of the work for SEOs and make SEO tasks more accessible for marketers juggling SEO as just one of the channels they’re tasked with running. Marketplace. With the new Marketplace solution, marketers can request analyses, educational materials, content briefs and more from Conductor’s...
I was recently helping one of my team members diagnose a new prospective customer site to find some low hanging fruit to share with them. When I checked their home page with our Chrome extension[1], I found a misplaced canonical tag. We added this type of detection a long time ago when I first encountered the issue. What is a misplaced SEO tag, you might ask? Most SEO tags like the title, meta description, canonical, etc. belong in the...
When you’re interested in learning more about a brand, it is very likely that the first thing you do is type that company’s name into Google. What you see on page one of the search results for that brand plays a critically important role in defining the company’s online reputation. If a searcher finds positive content when querying a company name, that’s a great first step in the brand/consumer relationship. If negative content ranks, well… you don’t...
Google’s John Mueller said that when you get a manual action in Google Search Console and then submit that reconsideration request[1] that Google will likely go through those requests in batches, group them into categories either by language or by type. What are reconsideration requests. A reconsideration request is a request to have Google review your site after you fix problems identified in a manual action or security issues notification. You would be notified of a manual...