SEO Blog

Today we’re continuing our series of interviews with someone who bends data for a living.

Knowing that “SEO” is a forbidden word to many people, because of all those associations with spam, scam, lack of provable results, algorithm changes, negative attacks, huge costs, frequent SERP changes, anti-trust issues and what not – we wanted an honest discussion with someone who’s passion for SEO, Big Data, and Machine Learning makes her wake up every morning. Our guest is Britney Muller, Moz’s Senior SEO Scientist.

Britney is a model for many young SEOs and she was nominated for this interview and voted as their top choice in a poll we had earlier this year. Thank you for accepting!

Today we’re honored to have someone who might as well have invented the word “SEO”. Ammon Johns doesn’t like to call himself an expert, but he surely knows more about SEO than the vast majority of people about anything.

In fact, it was not too long ago when we used to recommend people who wanted to learn more about SEO to watch every Matt Cutts video on YouTube. Instead – now we tell them to join a few Facebook SEO groups, search for “Ammon Johns” and simply enjoy every comment he has ever made.

Before you start reading further be sure to follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/ammon_johns or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ammon.johns.

Today our guest is someone who started to optimize websites for Google even before Google existed. It’s Bill Slawski, the head of SEO Research at Go Fish Digital and founder of SEO by the Sea.

The SEO community knows him as the guy who deciphers Google Patents, and after almost 15 years of studying search related patents and research – Bill busted more SEO myths than anyone else. He has a vast knowledge of the digital marketing industry, deep understanding of how search engines work, and unique insights into SEO best practices.

Now he’s here to share his expertize, but we also urge you to follow his website and always stay up to date with what happens inside Google’s mind.

Today we’re excited to have Rand Fishkin as our guest and I’d like to thank him for taking the time to answer a few questions, but especially – for his career so far.

Rand, I’ve been waiting to say this for a long time: thank you for what you’ve done to evangelize and grow the SEO industry, while mentoring and inspiring countless SEOs from all around the globe (or from the surface of the Flat Earth, if we’re going to be politically correct).

To folks reading this in 2100 I say: back in the day, in 2018, Rand Fishkin was the most prominent figure in the SEO world. After almost 20 years in SEO – he’s seen it all, done it all, been everywhere, and now he’s here to tell us a bit more about his amazing journey so far, but more importantly – about what’s coming next – his book Lost and Founder and new startup SparkToro.

The SEO in 20xx trilogy might just bear more resemblance to science-fiction though this is based in science-fact! A legend about SEO in the past, an overview of SEO in 2018 and a fantasy describing the future of SEO.

I shall tackle this topic from a historical, theoretical and visionary perspective, as well as a practical standpoint, and there is a list of tasks for optimization at the end.

Before we check how this SEO “science” and profession has evolved, let’s return for a moment to the SEO definition we wrote a few years back – “control and improvement of ranking criteria which are collectively analysed by the search algorithm, and lead to a better positioning on results pages”.

An advertorial combines an editorial with advertising: a well written, interesting and attractive paid article, comprising useful advice, the purpose of which is to advertise a product, service or brand, to generate traffic and enhance/maintain the positions of one’s website in organic searches.

It is a good alternative of advertisements such as commercials or banners since it informs, is useful and less obtrusive. This type of advertising is considered one of the most efficient ways of promotion and is part of a website’s link building process.

This guide outlines a to-do list designed to emphasize relevancy signals that are picked up by search engines. Stay within best practices and use it with creativity, but never trade value for better search rankings, never try to deceive users or search engines – in the long run – your efforts will make it worth your while, as long as you are using your judgment and know when to break the SEO golden rules described below.

Learn how to optimize correctly all internal page elements:

URL adresses;

Page titles and headings;

Meta descriptions and content;

Images and internal links.

Do you want more online sales to promote your brand and see your website on top positions in Google?

An SEO specialist can help you. He is the one who knows how to carry out a successful website, how to operate with search engines and potential customers.

Knowing how flooded is the Internet with information about web optimization , with tempting offers about online promotion (some true, some no), we decided to help you understand who is, in fact, an SEO expert, why you need him and how you know if he is professional or not.

Once they understood what SEO is and what SEO stands for, those who own websites raised a consequent question: can we get good rankings with no optimization effort?

Why we need an SEO expert to promote our sites, if we already have some excellent content?
I tried to explain below, in some simple examples, why optimized websites rank well in search engine results and why SEO white hat is useful when promoting websites.

I am an SEO beginner, but had a handful of jobs until now, some of which in very different domains. I was always looking for something – probably getting ready for a date with search engines :-)
 
I know from my own experience it’s not easy being an SEO beginner and there are a lot of problems you will encounter on your journey to become an expert. In order to be good at SEO, you have to start with:
– examining what SEO is
– understanding how search engines work: Google, Bing, Yandex etc.
– finding your way in all this new information, assemble and apply it in practice…

First of all, I would like to confess – this is the first article published on the SEOlium blog, and the first article about SEO so far. So, you should be aware we realize the fact that we carry a great responsibility, have faith in us and… Wish us luck!   The subject I selected is the result of a brainstorming where the winning idea is the obvious one. Yes, you’re perfectly right – I will talk about what SEO is and what it means for online businesses. I will not refer to how the SEO principles are applied in practice or what the advantages and disadvantages of online marketing are. Since it is a relatively complex notion – I will only refer to what the title speaks about…