Yoast, the leading SEO plugin for WordPress, is taking another bold step forward in the digital landscape with the release of its new AI-powered feature, Yoast AI Optimize. Owned by Newfold Digital, Yoast has long been a trusted tool for over 13 million WordPress sites, and now it’s empowering small businesses, freelancers, and marketers to maximize their online visibility through cutting-edge AI technology. [Read more…]

Written by Guillaume Jouvencel.

There are literally millions of articles discussing the benefits of having editorially earned, in-industry, non reciprocal links for your website’s SEO. Unfortunately, there are far fewer that lay out a practical plan for actually getting those links. [Read more…]

In an exciting development for the SEO industry, All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the leading SEO plugin for WordPress, has announced its acquisition of LowFruits, a groundbreaking keyword research tool. Backed by the renowned tech company Awesome Motive, AIOSEO aims to enhance its capabilities, making SEO more accessible and effective for small businesses. [Read more…]

Skyword, a global leader in enterprise content marketing, has just unveiled a groundbreaking update to its Accelerator360™ tool that promises to revolutionize SEO for businesses. This powerful new feature leverages AI to optimize existing website content, ensuring brands can maximize their online presence without starting from scratch. [Read more…]

Optimizely, a leading provider of digital experience platforms (DXP), has once again been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Content Marketing Platforms for 2024. This marks the seventh consecutive year that Optimizely has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant, this time scoring the highest for ‘Ability to Execute’. [Read more…]

 

In a significant move that promises to reshape the landscape of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), San Francisco-based company Graphite has unveiled its cutting-edge AI-driven topical SEO platform. This technology, previously available only to select high-growth clients such as MasterClass and BetterUp, is now accessible as a self-service Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, aiming to empower organizations to elevate their SEO strategies efficiently. [Read more…]

In a revelation that’s stirring the business community, Pineapple SEO, a leading SEO agency based in Toronto, has uncovered a startling gap in knowledge about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) among the city’s business elite. According to a recent survey conducted by the agency, a whopping 44% of business leaders in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) confessed to having never even heard of SEO, shedding light on a significant disconnect in the adoption of digital marketing strategies. [Read more…]

Linkok.com has launched a groundbreaking service designed to address one of the most persistent challenges in website management and search engine optimization (SEO): the dreaded broken link. With its state-of-the-art technology, Linkok.com is setting a new standard in website maintenance, providing a seamless solution to enhance user experience and boost SEO efforts. [Read more…]

In the aftermath of MozCon 2023, the digital marketing world is buzzing with the age-old question: Is SEO on its deathbed, thriving, or more resilient than ever? AdCellerant, a trailblazer in making quality digital marketing accessible to businesses of all sizes, dives deep into the debate and uncovers some surprising insights. [Read more…]

BrightEdge, a global trailblazer in organic search, content, and digital marketing automation, is set to disrupt the digital landscape with its latest innovation: the BrightEdge Generative Parser™ (BGP). This cutting-edge technology is poised to redefine how marketers navigate the evolving world of search engines, particularly Google’s Search Generative Experiences (SGE). BrightEdge has also published the Ultimate Guide to SGE, which is worth reading. [Read more…]

BrightEdge, a global juggernaut in organic search, content, and digital marketing automation, has officially launched Copilot for Content Advisor. The game-changing platform promises to elevate content performance by seamlessly integrating Generative AI with the industry’s highest fidelity data. [Read more…]

In the fast-paced world of online visibility, the struggle to get your website noticed by Google is real. Every website owner knows the pain of waiting for those elusive Google bots to crawl and index pages, and the battle against the dreaded “discovered-currently not indexed” and “crawled-currently not indexed” errors has been long and arduous. Actual SEO Media has apparently uncovered the holy grail of getting your website pages indexed by Google fast. We’re talking a matter of days, not months. [Read more…]

In a groundbreaking move, Yoast, the global SEO leader, has unveiled a major upgrade to its WordPress SEO plugin, incorporating the power of artificial intelligence (AI). The move aims to simplify and supercharge the process of creating impactful titles and meta descriptions for web pages. [Read more…]

Wix.com has made a significant announcement with the unveiling of its innovative AI Meta Tag Creator, a new addition to its suite of SEO tools. This groundbreaking tool is designed to help Wix users enhance their online presence by simplifying the process of creating search-optimized title tags and meta descriptions. [Read more…]

In a pioneering move within the world of AI-driven SEO innovations for enterprises, seoClarity has unveiled its latest AI development, the Keyword Difficulty score—an invaluable tool for SEO professionals seeking to gauge the ranking difficulty of any given keyword. [Read more…]

According to Indigo’s recent FY24 First Quarter Results, a ransomware attack that occurred in Q4 2023, “impacted Indigo’s search engine optimization, which led to a weaker online presence and a decrease in online traffic…” [Read more…]

On Twitter, I recently asked my followers for SEO Advice. I said, “Give me some SEO advice. A tip, a trick, or just plain old fashioned “SEO best practices”. I’d love to hear your advice, I’m sure me (and others) could benefit from it.” Of course, many responded with fabulous SEO tips, some short and some longer. I compiled all of the responses below, not necessarily in any order of importance. [Read more…]

This blog post about search engine optimization and ranking in the top search engine results pages at Google was written by ChatGPT. Given the recent launch of ChatGPT, I thought I’d take a look at the quality of the content that it writes.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website in order to improve its ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is done through a combination of on-page and off-page factors, such as keyword research, link building, and content optimization. By improving the visibility of a website on SERPs, businesses can increase their organic traffic and drive more qualified leads to their website. [Read more…]

I recently asked a bunch of SEOs about SEO (search engine optimization). I wanted to know what doing SEO is better than, and asked them to finish the sentence. Doing SEO is better than —– (fill in the blank). Here is what they said. [Read more…]

There is a reason why you generally should not hire anyone representing themselves as an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) professional if they send you an unsolicited email. In other words, if they send you an email saying that they can improve your search engine rankings of your website, mark it as spam and then delete it. There are, of course, exceptions to this. For example, if you’ve personally met the person sending the email to you or if you’ve spoken with them in the past or visited their website previously then it might be okay. But in any case, you need evaluate everything that they’re telling you, what services they will provide, and understand everything that they’re going to do. If you do not understand any of it, ask them to explain it to you. [Read more…]

According to a report released by Research and Markets, the worldwide SEO market will reach $122.11 million in 2028. This represents a 9.6% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). The SEO market growth is expected to be driven by the emergence of digital marketing and the increased use of the internet. [Read more…]

 

RankSense, a company founded in 2015 by the late Hamlet Batista, has been acquired by SEOClarity. SEOClarity is an enterprise SEO platform that combines world-class data, AI insights, and execution. [Read more…]

SE Ranking has launched SE Ranking Academy, an online learning platform for everyone who wants to learn about search engine optimization. Currently they have two courses available for digital marketers and everyone else: SEO Basics, which is an 8 module course, and Content SEO, which has 7 modules. The SEO Basics course is expected to take 6 hours to complete, while the Content SEO course is expected to take 3 hours to complete. [Read more…]

In this episode of the Digital Marketing with Bill Hartzer podcast, I talked about Disavow and Disavowing links to your website. I believe disavow is still a valid practice–and should be done. However, it’s a small part of the reviewing of all the links to your website, which is a part of regular website maintenance for SEO purposes. I go into this a bit further in the podcast. I also show you my unique process for using a combination of data from Google Search Console, ahrefs, and Majestic to review all the links after crawling them with Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider tool. [Read more…]

Recently, I discovered a technique for reclaiming RSS feeds for link building purposes. Many RSS feed usernames on Feedburner, for example, are available to be claimed. Claiming an old username and attaching it to the RSS feed, there’s a good likelihood of you being able to take advantage of links pointing to the feeds. Some RSS Feeds also have traffic and clicks associated with them, which is a bonus. I have been testing this on a few websites, and it seems to be a promising new SEO technique for those who are looking for something new and who understand the risks. [Read more…]

By Bill Hartzer, March 5, 2020 at 9:33am CST.

Google Webmasters produced a video about hiring an SEO specialist. In the video, they give some good tips about what you should look for when hiring an SEO. For example, they suggest that you shouldn’t hire an SEO that give you bad advice or recommends bad shortcuts, and SEOs that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. That’s all great. But in the video, they seem to suggest that companies looking to hire an SEO should ask them to provide a technical audit of the website. Even before they’re hired. Should an SEO provide a technical audit, for free, to a website even before they’re hired? Absolutely not. Here’s why. [Read more…]

A while back I uncovered a new type of undetectable negative SEO, which involved the canonical tag. Search Engine Journal covered it in a post here. I thought that as a result of bringing it out in the open that Google would somehow fix the problem. However, based on a conversation I had today with a victim of canonical tag negative SEO, it appears that recent changes that Google’s made may have further exacerbated the problem. [Read more…]

Wix.com recently spent a lot of money on a Super Bowl ad during Super Bowl LIII to promote how easy it is to use Wix to create a website. While I appreciate them mentioning SEO and getting good search results, the way it’s being promoted is deceiving. Furthermore, the showcase website in the ad is a horrible example of an optimized website. [Read more…]

The search marketing industry, providing search engine ranking or search engine marketing or digital marketing type services to website owners, is, give or take a year or two, about 20 years old now. It has certainly changed over the years, and in my experience as an SEO since the 1990s, I’ve seen all the changes. SEO ethics is an issue SEOs have wrestled with over the years. It’s still time for an SEO code of ethics. But we certainly don’t need the SEO Police. [Read more…]

One of the jobs of a technical SEO or tech SEO is to dig into a site’s code and find issues that are causing ranking or other types of search engine related issues. A good technical SEO understands code and SEO enough that they can help diagnose most search engine ranking issues that are self-inflicted. Some issues are related to search engine rankings but there are issues that are unrelated to search engine rankings. For example, typically date issues aren’t related to actual search engine rankings–it’s just how your blog post, for example, shows up in the search engine result pages (SERPs). [Read more…]

We all know that links are a must if you’re going to get good search engine rankings. Google’s algorithm has been centered around links to websites for years. In fact, since the beginning, links for ranking in Google have been important. And as Gary Illyes once admitted, they tried testing the Google organic search engine algorithm without links. And apparently that didn’t work out so well. So, you still need links to rank well in Google’s natural search results. [Read more…]

There is a new type of virtually undetectable type of negative SEO attack that I discovered. This type of negative SEO attack is a particularly nasty type of attack, as it’s virtually undetectable by you (if you are a victim of the negative SEO). It takes advantage of a fairly new tag (the canonical tag) that search engines like Google and Bing support–but uses it in a very mischievous way. In fact, as a technical SEO myself, having practiced organic SEO for 20 years, I normally wouldn’t have been able to spot this type of negative SEO attack on my client’s web site. But, just like a lot of criminals out there, they can be sloppy, which ultimately lead to this negative SEO attack being discovered. [Read more…]

There is a lot of really, really bad SEO (search engine optimization) advice out there, some worse than others. Luckily we have Googlers like John Mueller and Danny Sullivan that take the time to dispell some of the rumors out there. For example, John Mueller recently did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit, which was great. But then again, there are places where people give SEO advice and they have absolutely no business giving that advice. In fact, they can even spread the rumors further, making it even worse SEO advice. Here’s a perfect example. [Read more…]

As you might recall, I made a strategic decision last month to split this website into two separate websites. This website will continue to be my blog, here on BillHartzer.com, while my other website will have mostly services pages. I’ve owned Hartzer.com since July 1999, and now it’s Hartzer Consulting’s home. [Read more…]

Google has always been adamant about the fact that paying for Google AdWords ads will not boost your site’s organic search engine rankings. Google’s AdWords database is not shared with their organic search algorithm or any of the databases connected to it. So, I do believe Google when they say that paying for Google AdWords ads won’t boost your organic search engine rankings. But what about paying for other promotions, paying for traffic in other ways? Will that boost organic search engine rankings? Yes, it will, you can actually pay for organic search engine rankings. [Read more…]

Performing a full SEO Audit of your website on a regular basis, perhaps at least once every six months, is key to maintaining your web presence and maintaining your organic search engine rankings. It has been a while since I personally performed a highly technical SEO Audit of my own web site, which I just completed. There were several things that I checked, and each of these are detailed here. [Read more…]

This year I had a great time speaking about on-page and off-page SEO at the Rocks Digital Marketing Conference here in Dallas. I’ve spoken before at this conference, and it’s always a great to be able to present to a hometown crowd. [Read more…]

Ignite Visibility and John Lincoln produced one of the first SEO Movies, a documentary about the SEO industry. Well, since I stared doing SEO back in 1996, well before SEO was called “SEO”, I certainly was interested in seeing this SEO movie. I have a bunch of comments after seeing it. It’s certainly one of the first SEO movies, and I commend the producer for putting it together. [Read more…]

If you remove a URL from a disavow file it could take some time before you see actual results in the search results. I asked John Mueller and Gary Illyes from Google about removing a URL from your disavow file, and whether or not we need to wait until the URL is crawled again. [Read more…]

Internal linking on your own website is powerful. When you link to another relevant page on your website, your giving your readers and website visitors a chance to click on over to another page. Another page on your website that they might be interested in. Because it’s relevant to what they’re reading, what you’re talking about. Internal linking, in context, is powerful. And, so much so, that Facebook is encouraging internal linking to other Facebook pages. [Read more…]