An Update from Bill Hartzer, June 2016 Edition

This is an example of the newsletter that I send out on a regular basis. Here’s the latest edition, for June 2016. If you’d like to subscribe, you can do so at the end of this post.

I truly has been a few months since I have sent out my newsletter, and I have a lot to share this time. It’s certainly getting hot here in Texas, and we’ve had a lot of Spring storms and rain. It’s been heating up in the marketing world, as well.

I’ve Recently Left Globe Runner, Now at Advice Interactive
As you may or may not be aware, I recently left my Senior SEO Strategist position at Globe Runner in Dallas to take on an even more exciting role, Senior Vice President of Agency Services at Advice Interactive. We’re reviving the Advice Interactive brand and providing a full suite of digital marketing services, such as SEO, Paid Search, Social Media Marketing, and Content Marketing. Not only can we provide local SEO services to businesses through Advice Local, we’re expanding our services. I’m heading up the agency.

We’re still working on launching the new website, but it will be at www.AdviceInteractive.com.

The New gTLDs and SEO Debate is Heating Up
Ever since I wrote the Jacksonville.Attorney and STL.Cars case studies, the debate as to how the new domain name extensions are helping SEO efforts has been heating up. I wrote an article about the case studies I’ve done in the past:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/moving-new-gtld-domain-name-help-rankings/163098/

That SEJ piece outlines various studies where I’ve looked at the impact these new keyword rich domain names have on PPC and SEO. It kind of started there, then heated up even more when Rightside did this sponsored post over at Search Engine Land, referring to my study:
http://searchengineland.com/can-moving-new-tld-boost-search-rankings-250666

Then John Mueller, a Google rep, posted this:
http://domainnamewire.com/2016/06/13/google-coughs-new-tlds-seo-boost-claims/

We then had yet another Search Engine Land post here on the same subject, yet again:
http://searchengineland.com/google-says-keywords-tld-part-url-ignored-ranking-purposes-251971

Google saying that they ignore keywords in the TLD part really is interesting… because many have taken it to mean that they just don’t count at all, that you shouldn’t use a keyword rich domain name. But honestly, we can’t ignore the fact that when you have a keyword rich domain name, people tend to link to you with those keywords in the links, in the anchor text that points to your site. And anchor text, the links, are still a search engine ranking factor. So Google may “ignore” some part of New gTLDs, but frankly it doesn’t matter, because using a keyword rich domain name helps branding, linking, and your rankings anyway, regardless.

A few other noteworthy news items:
I’m speaking at the Rocks Digital Marketing Conference at the end of June in Dallas. If you haven’t yet signed up to attend, let me know and I can get you 50 percent off the ticket. www.Rocks.Digital is the site.

Even those sending spam are not aware of the new gTLD domain names

Building Trust is really important for Local SEO

That’s it for now, enjoy your Summer… until next time!

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