Author: Guardian Owl

Optimize for voice search by keeping it short and to the point 

Contributor Dave Davies explains the many layers and aspects of Google Voice Search and how to optimize your content for it. OK, Google … how do I optimize for voice search? Ask that question and you’ll discover even Google doesn’t know but is trying to learn. For those of us in the search engine optimization […]

Google Images update: Captions added to images, pulled from the page title tag 

To add more context to image results, Google will now display a caption with images in mobile Images search results. Google Images search results continue to evolve — from the rollout of badgeslast summer to the related searches box this past December and the removal of the “view image” and “search by image” buttons last month. Google has been rapidly […]

10 Common Link Building Questions Answered

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been a historically intriguing and contentious subject, in part because of the misconceptions surrounding the strategy, and in part because of the many ways to approach its execution. One of the most contentious SEO elements I’ve encountered is link building—the process of placing or earning links pointed to your site to […]

How videos generate quick SEO results 

In January 1996, Bill Gates published an essay titled ‘Content is king’. Seeing where content is right now in the online space, you wouldn’t be wrong in calling Bill Gates a soothsayer. But he couldn’t have foreseen the kind of content that would dominate the online space: video. Videos have a hegemonic online presence. But, why video? […]

Overcoming 4 black hat SEO techniques that spammers and scammers use to harm your search rankings

This might come as an utter shock, but not everyone on the web plays by the rules. The dark side of SEO can be particularly crippling to a business if they aren’t aware of how to fight back. All those algorithms Google and other search engines use to identify sites that demonstrate genuine value to […]

How Search Engines Use Machine Learning: 9 Things We Know for Sure

Here are nine ways we know that search engines are currently using machine learning and how it relates to SEO or digital marketing. When we first started hearing about machine learning in the early 2010s, it seemed scary at first. But once it was explained to us (and we realized how technology is already being used to […]

Auditing customer reviews for organic traffic growth without losing speed or attracting penalties 

User-generated content on product or service pages can be key to driving conversions and a fantastic way to add unique content to a page. If you don’t have the resources to write good content yourself, user-generated content can be especially helpful. However, if your customer review content isn’t optimized for search engines, it can work against […]

Search outpaced social for referral traffic last year, driving 35% of site visits vs social’s 26% share of visits 

According to a new referral traffic report from Shareaholic, 2017 was the first time since 2014 search owned a larger share of visits over social. After a year fraught with terms like “fake news,” and headlines centering around brand safety issues and extreme content, it appears the actions taken by social sites to curb the influx of […]

6 Growth Marketing Best Practices for Higher SEM Profitability

We’ve all heard of growth marketing. But what does growth marketing actually mean? At the risk of over-simplifying, growth marketing is essentially the path to attracting the right visitors to your business. Not just the low-hanging-fruit, top-of-funnel visitors, but those who are “sticky” and likely to lead to a conversion or sale. Search engine marketing (SEM) is the unsung […]

15 SEO Myths That Just Won’t Die – SEO 101

In digital marketing, and specifically search engine optimization (SEO), there are tidbits of information that in their retelling lose context and become what we call in other circles “Zombie Lies” or in this case “Zombie Myths.” Zombie SEO Myths Zombie SEO myths are myths that, despite being debunked over and over again, never seem to […]