Kevin Hart Blog

SEO community offers candid feedback on advice given by Google's John Mueller. A discussion on Reddit asked members if they blindly followed the advice given by Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller. John Mueller started a poll on Twitter. The SEO community offered candid feedback on how they felt about Mueller’s advice. Reddit Discussion About Mueller’s Advice The person starting the discussion seemed to not be satisfied with Mueller’s Office Hours videos on YouTube. Is John Mueller Contradictory? I’ve seen many people say that. In cases where the person making the assertion linked to contradictory statements, it’s always been the case that Mueller’s words were being taken out of context or spun. For example, Mueller has been consistent that publishers do not need to file disavow links . But for some reason, his words keep getting twisted out of context to make it seem like he’s encouraging disavows. Here’s a good example of that happening, which I documented here. The con...

How would an SEO agency be built today? This was the challenging question behind our three-part analysis on the state of SEO agencies in an uncertain 2020. Our team at SEOmonitor designed this strategic experiment to support agency leaders think about the forces influencing their business and where the opportunities lie in optimizing or evolving their agencies. Firstly, we explored consumer and business trends since the pandemic started, to understand how the markets and behaviors shifted. Then, we analyzed about 36,000 SEO and Local Seo Services India to highlight their current business models, using Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas (BMC) tool. To end our strategic thought experiment, we’re asking: What’s next for the SEO industry? How can SEO agencies evolve in the new context? We’ll explore the answer by looking at business trends with a high impact on the SEO industry, making sense of the Business Model Canvas – your agency’s current state and what you can change – and then ...

Ready to analyze Google's search algorithms and learn all the secrets of ranking? Here's what you will need to do it correctly. “Do you want to spend money on ads or solve this black box?” That (rough) question helped to determine the path of my career 10+ years ago into becoming the SEO I am today. I chose this path because I love working at challenges and looking under the hood for what causes something to happen. Seeking to solve the answer to life, the universe, and everything given with the help of Google Deep Thought as 42 and then double-checking that I had the right question (spoiler: it’s six times nine) is what excites me with SEO. And what got me to work on this article was a great discussion on Jeff Ferguson‘s post about whether we had the math to decode Google’s algorithm , and if so, what was it that the industry needed? The Two Things Needed So, for those that know me, you won’t be surprised to see that I stand against the view that a basic correlation analysis,...

Google's John Mueller gives a general answer about why sites may lose rankings. Someone asked Google’s John Mueller why their site, successful for seven years, has lost keyword rankings. Mueller responded with four reasons why sites lose rankings . I believe it will be a mistake to assume this is a comprehensive list of why sites lose rankings. It’s probably best to understand them in the context in which the information was given, in an impromptu question and answer. His explanation was a general overview and not necessarily a complete listing of reasons. That said, the answers provide insights into why a site may have lost rankings and help start the process of formulating a recovery plan. Nothing Wrong with the Site Yet Loses Rankings The publisher asking the question related that they had ranked well for seven or eight years. They evaluated their inbound and outbound links and couldn’t find a problem. Three sites were impacted. All three sites used the same keywords because th...

Google is adding new options for retailers to control how product information appears in search results. Retailers have new ways to control how their products appear in Google search results through the use of robots meta tags and an HTML attribute . These new methods of marking up product pages allow retailers to customize search snippets according to their preferences. Retailers can already use schema.org markup or Google Merchant Center to specify how they want their product to appear in search results. However, Google may choose to display other on-page content it finds through regular crawling. That’s why some retailers may want greater control over how their product information appears. Here are some ways retailers implement controls to limit products and product data from being displayed on Google. Display No Snippet For Products Retailers can now utilize the “nosnippet” robots meta tag on product pages. This will prevent any snippet from being shown for the page in search re...

John Mueller provides reasons why Google might decide to show less FAQ rich results in the search results In a recent Google Webmaster Central hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question about FAQ rich results showing up less in the search results (SERPs). Mueller explained why Google might show less FAQ rich results in the SERPs. FAQ Rich Results Rich Results are a type of search result that takes up extra space in the SERPs. Publishers who add an FAQ to their page and also mark up it up with structured data become eligible for showing in Google’s search results with these FAQs. Note how much space the rich results takes up. Each FAQ rich result can cause one or two search results to be pushed down to the second page of the SERPs. Publisher Asks Why FAQ Rich Results are Missing The person asking the question explained that Google stopped displaying their FAQs in the search results. They tried troubleshooting the issue to find out what was wrong with their site. The publishe...

Don't let cheap SEO get your website in trouble . Learn why a low-cost SEO program isn't the way to go even during a recession. We are in a recession. During a recession, companies rethink their budgets. Every organization is looking for ways to spend less money, and to spend the money they have more efficiently. History is repeating itself for many in the search engine marketing industry . As the economy worsens, companies look to search engine marketing as a trackable, efficient, and relatively reliable way to generate revenue. But there is a dark side to the search engine marketing world. Unscrupulous and incompetent practitioners are peddling so-called solutions that can actually do more harm than good. The lure of quick and easy money from unsuspecting business owners who are desperate for leads and sales is too much to resist for many would-be SEO practitioners . And the way to a struggling business owner’s heart is the promise of great results for little money. Some woul...

A lively discussion on Twitter about whether or not a pipe “|” or a dash “-” in the title tag made a difference led to interesting observations. Several members of the search marketing community shared three distinct viewpoints illustrating why there is a difference. Bill Hartzer (@bhartzer) started the discussion by asking what he should use. Bill has been a leader in the search marketing community for decades and is respected by many. As the discussion developed, it quickly became apparent that Bill had his own answer already. Pixel Space in Title Tags Ethan Lazuk (@EthanLazuk) offered the observation that the pipe saves space. Title elements are measured in pixels as well as in characters. Characters are letters, numbers and symbols. A pixel is a the smallest image element in a display, like a dot. That means that if you replace dashes with pipes, you can actually fit more characters into a title tag . That in turn increases the amount of words displayed in the website title that ...

Are your competitors ranking above you in search results? Don’t let them continue to steal business opportunities from you. With search engine optimization (SEO), you can rank higher in Google search results, so you can drive more website traffic, leads, and online sales for your business. In this post, we’ll look at five of the top SEO strategies for improving your search rankings. Just keep reading to learn more — and check out our SEO services to start ranking higher in search results! How to rank higher in search results: 5 on-page SEO strategies for SMBs There are countless ways to improve your keyword rankings.  Here are our top five SEO updates for small and midsized businesses (SMBs): 1. Optimize your title tags and meta descriptions  A big part of increasing rankings and traffic in Google search results is getting searchers to click on your links rather than competitors’. The best way to entice searchers to click through to your page before they arrive on your site ...

Years ago, websites were designed, built and then optimised for search but this divided approach simply doesn’t work in 2020. If you’re planning a new website launch, the go with Best SEO company India advice right from the moment you start thinking about it. Today’s search engines analyse the performance of websites with such scrutiny that every design choice needs to consider the impact on rankings. If you want a website that’s truly competitive in the SERPs, web design and development has to start with SEO. Designing website structure for humans and search engines Website structure allows you to organise your pages and content in a way that makes them navigable for users and search engines. Your first task is to create a site map that logically groups and orders your pages into relevant categories. There are several approaches to this, depending on the nature of your website and how many pages you intend to create. Keep in mind that you’re going to add more pages over time and you...

Google's John Mueller was asked if there is such a thing as having too many outbound links, even if those links are natural. John said "I'm not aware of anything like that." He did add that maybe there is a situation where you are lacking content because you have so many links, i.e. like directories.  But in general, there is no sort of penalty for linking out too much . In fact, outbound links are not a ranking factor. I mean, if you link to a lot of bad places, you can get a manual action from Google but having tons of outbound natural links won't be something Google penalizes you for. I’ve had a number of comments questioning the usefulness of outbound links recently, so I wanted to create an official space for that discussion, and help people understand the uses and benefits of outbound links.  So, do outbound links help SEO?   If you’re looking for a quick answer to the question in the title: Yes. Now let us explain the why and how to get the best out of you...

Want to figure out what questions your buyers are asking online? Of course you do if you care at all about getting found by your ideal buyers and converting them into customers.  When we develop a content strategy for our new clients, one of the first orders of business is to find blog topics that improve SEO. We do this by determining keywords that are relevant to their buyers. We look at their buyers’ questions and how our clients’ products or services solve their buyers’ problems to figure out the keywords their buyers are searching for online.  Creating content that answers your customers’ questions is one of the keys to creating not only a good content marketing strategy but also a solid SEO strategy. Google is becoming increasingly sophisticated at determining searchers’ intent. Creating topics (and headlines) that directly address the questions and concerns of your customers will allow you to take advantage of Google’s algorithm and searchers’ trend toward longer search...

It looks like there is a big Google search ranking algorithm rolling out now, on August 10th. This is not a confirmed update by Google, at least not yet. But the chatter since 2pm ET today has been really high within the SEO community. The rank checking tools have not yet updated, but I suspect the tools will show something tomorrow.  UPDATE at 11:55pm ET: Google has told me this was a glitch, a bug, and it should be resolved. There are more details and examples of this being a bug and being fixed over here.  To be honest, this reminds me of the old days of when Google would release Penguin or Panda updates. The chatter in the time period is off the scales. Either this is a massive Google search bug or Google pushed out something serious with its ranking algorithm in search.  This started maybe around 2pm ET but after 5pm ET SEOs began to really notice. Normally with Google updates, it takes time to fully roll out and more and more of you will take notice unless Google...

 Google’s Martin Splitt goes over the most common issues with mobile-first indexing, and how to avoid them, in a new Lightning Talks episode. In the latest installment of Google’s Lightning Talks video series, Martin Splitt identifies the top issues site owners run into with mobile-first indexing . Google Lightning Talks are short presentations that would have otherwise been given at Google Webmaster Conferences. Given that in-person events are cancelled for the foreseeable future, Google is adapting its conference content for the web. In this presentation on mobile-first indexing, Splitt walks site owners through common issues and carefully explains how they can either be fixed or avoided. Common Problems With Mobile-First Indexing The most common problems related to mobile-first indexing can be grouped into two categories. 1. Mobile crawling issues Things can go wrong when Google crawls with the mobile version of Google bot. For example, the request can be treated different by t...

Subdomains and subfolders each offer different features and SEO benefits for your website. But, the age old question between search engine optimizers is which one is better for SEO rankings? Subdomains or subfolders? The answer often depends on the needs of your site, but it is also helpful to have a thorough understanding of each. Let’s break down the definitions of subdomains and subfolders for you and identify the advantages and disadvantages of each distinction. What Is a Subdomain? A subdomain is the section of a domain that is listed before the main domain name and the extension. For example, in the URL blog.bluleadz.com, blog is the subdomain. To begin understanding subdomains, you must understand the structure of a URL. A protocol, such as “https:” is a set of rules that allows data to be sent as requests to the web server. The domain, “bluleadz.com,” is the URL to the website’s main page.  Domains also have two parts, the top level domain (.com, .gov, .net, etc.) and the...

Google today places a big emphasis on web page loading time . The loading speed has even become a ranking factor that impacts how highly your page appears on the SERP. Additionally, customers themselves place a big emphasis on speed, with 40 percent clicking off of a mobile page that does not load within three seconds.  Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) was designed to provide a solution for this desire for speed by giving site owners the chance to greatly amplify their speed, and therefore hopefully increase user engagement and encourage people to interact more with the brand. In the years since AMP was first released , the prevalence of these sites have also increased. They began largely as news sites that appeared in carousels or at the top of the page. Now, however, they have become increasingly widespread as their speed continues to appeal to users online.  When sites are set up with AMP, they consist of stripped-down HTML, with anything ‘extra’ that does not contribute dir...

Page Title tells the user and search engine about the type and the nature of the information available on your page. It also refers to the title tag displayed on the title bar of your browser window. It placed inside the head section under the meta tag in HTML .  The title tag is also known as browser window which is most important in search engine result pages and the title is shown by Google as the title on search result page above URL and tag contain around 50-60 characters to show properly on google and it does not have same as on the page title. Rules for Writing and Optimizing Title Tag  1. Avoid Repetition of a Title Tag  Don’t place the same title on multiple pages. Write a different title for different pages. if you write the same title for different pages you will get less traffic on your website and the user is not much interested and to make good SEO you must treat each web pages as unique one so you should avoid Duplicate title of any web page in your websit...

Good SEO is necessary to rank a website, right? But what do you mean by Good SEO? As we know that numbers of sites of the same context do SEO but only a few of them rank on Google’s SERP.  The reason behind the ranking of those few sites is Best SEO company in India which is leading SEO company and follow all the latest protocols of Google’s SEO. Yes, Google makes hundreds of changes every year in its search ranking algorithm and to get a desirable ranking of your sites in Google’s search results, you must be aware of Latest SEO Updates. Whenever Google introduces a change to its ranking algorithm, it leads to panic in many website owners – especially those who don’t understand how the search engines function and what’s required to optimize the search engine.  It must be noted that SEO is a dynamically changing sector, and you need to keep up-to-date with all the latest trends. The major algorithmic changes made by Google are listed below in reverse chronological order. 1. B...