Google has proposed an official internet standard for the rules included in robots.txt files. Those rules, outlined in the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP), have been an unofficial standard for the past 25 years. While the REP has been adopted by search engines it’s still not official, which means it’s open to interpretation by developers. Further,…
Content marketing: it’s on everyone’s agenda, but it’s rarely done right. Now you’re likely thinking: “That’s not true! I did it right! I put together the world’s best piece of content on topic X!” And sure, you really may have created the best piece of content on that topic, but what did it result in?…
ADVERTISEMENT LinkedIn is changing how posts are ranked in users’ feeds, tailoring content to their professional interests. Rather than giving more weight to viral content, posts will show up higher in the feed if a user is more likely to join in the conversation. LinkedIn’s algorithm follows the company’s new framework: “People You Know, Talking…
In the SEO industry, when you hear the term “link building,” you probably assume the person is talking about external links or backlinks. This makes sense. After all, backlinks from other websites are a strong signal to search engines and a driving force behind organic search rankings. But there is another type of link building…
They say an individual’s digital footprint can never be erased. Companies can harness user data to learn more about an individual than their therapist. User behavior, demographics, and what we’re likely to order on our next purchase are all available to advertisers at the click of a button. If we can uncover this amount of…
Smarter customer journeys start with finding the facts and dispelling the myths. Today’s marketers must decipher fact from fiction as they strive to reach customers in new ways across new channels. Let’s start with a myth that just doesn’t seem to go away: is the desktop truly dead? Is it really losing relevance as increasingly…
ADVERTISEMENT Several years ago, building the perfect pitch to speak was pretty easy. Know your game and explain your way through it. Have a few good contacts and hopefully a few recognizable clients you can use as a reference. Not anymore. Those days are gone. With so much information on the internet including online training, small…
For the past 12 years that I’ve been optimizing websites, there is no question I get asked from clients and prospects more than: “How long will it take me to get ranked in the first page of Google for my targeted keywords?” I’m sure a lot of you have received emails from shady companies stating…
Your help desk is a treasure trove of customer insights that your marketing, sales, and customer service teams can all learn from. Depending on the size of your business and the sophistication of your customer, you likely have a collection of tools to allow customers to: Submit support tickets, search your knowledge base (support articles).…
Google’s Gary Illyes updated his original writeup on crawl budget with clarification about disallowed URLs. The document now includes the following information: “Q: Do URLs I disallowed through robots.txt affect my crawl budget in any way? A: No, disallowed URLs do not affect the crawl budget.” The question refers to the “User-agent: * Disallow: /”…