We asked you to help us analyze the March 12 core update and after over 500 results we wanted to share that overall the results came out pretty inconclusive. We did not find any significant patterns with this update that stood out as obvious or a clear sign that this update was related to a specific tactic, category of website, or another obvious pattern.

In short, it seems like Google’s overall guidance around these Google core updates correlates to the data in this survey – that there is no specific fix for Google core updates and overall, just try to make your site better in general.

The data. Like we said, we had over 500 results to-date and to be clear, we posted the survey on this site and my personal blog. There is a clear bias there alone by asking SEOs to post their data. Additionally, I emailed over 300 people who took my Medic update survey to take this survey as well, which adds in even more bias and can skew the data.

Not all recovered. One of the more interesting data points was asking if those who were impacted by the March 12 update saw recoveries from previous core updates. About 56 percent of those who responded to that question said yes, they saw a recovery, while 44 percent said no, they did not.

But more saw lower rankings. But when we asked if you were negatively or positively impacted, most said they saw a negative impact from the March 12th Google core update. About 58 percent said they saw a negative impact, 33 percent said they saw a positive impact and 9 percent said they saw no change:

What fixes worked? We also asked what changes did you make to see any recoveries or improvements. Again, the answers were all over the place, from people saying they did nothing and just waited it out, to those who made technical SEO changes, removed links, added links, improved user experience, added better quality content and more. The tactics used, that SEOs felt made a difference, was all over the board:

Again, this shows that these core updates are not targeting a specific type of issue or tactic but a broader range of quality issues.

The categories of sites. The more surprising outcome of the results were the category of sites. Because we asked those who filled out the Medic update survey to fill out this survey, I was expecting more sites in the health and medical space to report issues here. But there was a 10 percentage point drop in the percentage of health-related sites reporting issues compared to the last site. Showing this update was much broader than just the health/medical/wellness space. Here is the breakdown on categories of sites impacted.

Other analysis. We posted data analysis around this Google update last week from some other data providers including Sistrix, Search Metrics, RankRanger and others. Marie Haynes posted stories around recoveries she professionally saw. Glenn Gabe posted his analysis of the update as well. And Google answered some FAQs on this update for us.

What you should do now. If you were impacted, you should probably take a more holistic and unbiased view of your website. Ask others to review your site for ways to improve it. It might need technical SEO changes, it might require better quality content, a site restructure, better user experience or link analysis. Ask colleagues to give you their raw feedback on your site. Pay for an SEO audit or usability audit from a firm. Look for any way to make your site better.

Source – https://searchengineland.com/seos-show-mixed-results-following-google-march-2019-core-update-314600

The post SEOs show mixed results following Google March 2019 core update first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

How to protect your WordPress site from attack and keep it safe and secure.

WordPress powers an astonishing one-third of all websites these days. It has been the CMS platform of choice for our community since the mid-aughts when many of WordPress’s SEO features were implemented. It is therefore relentlessly attacked, largely for SEO spam reasons, but attacks can escalate to much worse.

Here’s a look at some WordPress fundamentals and ways to ensure your WordPress site stays safe.

Is WordPress safe?

The latest version of WordPress is very safe out of the box. Neglecting to update it, however, among other things, can make it unsafe. This is why many security professionals and developers aren’t WordPress fans. WordPress also resembles PHP spaghetti code which is inherently insecure, where WordPress itself warns that vulnerabilities “stem from the platform’s extensible parts, specifically plugins and themes.”

WordPress updates

There is no such thing as a 100 percent secure system. WordPress needs security updates to operate safely, and those updates shouldn’t negatively affect you. Turn on automatic security updates. Updating the WordPress core, however, does require that you make sure everything is compatible. Update plugins and themes as soon as compatible versions are available.

Open source

WordPress is open source, which entails risks as well as benefits. The project benefits from a developer community that contributes code for the core, the core team patches security flaws found by the community, while hooligans discover ways to pry things open. Vulnerabilities are scripted into scans by exploit applications which can detect what versions of things are running to match known flaws to your versions.

Protect yourself first

There are things you can do to protect yourself even when you don’t have an administrator role. Make sure you’re working on a secure network with a regularly scanned workstation. Block ads to prevent sophisticated attacks that masquerade as images. Use VPN for end-to-end encryption whenever you’re working at public WiFi hotspots to prevent session hijacking and MITM attacks.

Secure passwords

Securely managing passwords is important no matter what role you have. Make sure your password is unique and long enough. Combinations of numbers and letters are not safe enough, even with punctuation, when passwords aren’t long enough. You need long passwords. Use phrases of four or five words strung together if you need to memorize but it’s better to use a password manager that generates passwords for you.

Password length

Why is length so important? Put it this way, eight character passwords crack in less than 2.5 hours using a free and open source utility called HashCat. It doesn’t matter how unintelligible your password is, it only takes hours to crack short passwords. Starting at 13+ characters, cracking begins to get insurmountable, at least for now.

Administrators

If you have an admin user role, create a new user for yourself that’s limited to an editor role. Begin using the new profile instead of admin. That way, wide area net attacks will be centered on attacking your editor role credentials, and if your session gets hijacked you have the admin capacity to change passwords and wrest control away from the intruders. Compel everyone, perhaps through the use of a plugin, to follow a strong password policy.

Security policy

If you have security experience, perform code audits of your plugins and themes (obviously). Establish the principle of least privilege for all the users. You then are forcing hackers to perform shell popping tricks and privilege escalation which involves attacking targets other than WordPress credentials.

Change file permissions

If you control the host, provide yourself with a SFTP account through the use of the Control Panel if you have one, or try what administrator user interface you have access to. It may have the side effect of configuring credentials to open a secure shell terminal window (SSH). That way you can perform additional security measures using system utilities and more.

Lock down critical files

There are a few files that should never be accessed except by the PHP process running WordPress. You can change file permissions and edit the .htaccess file to further lock these files down. To change file permissions, either use your SFTP client (if it has the option), or open a terminal shell window and run the chmod utility command.

$ chmod 400 .wp-config
$ ls -la

This means that only the PHP process running WordPress will be able to read the file, and nothing else. The file should never have the “execute bit” set, like with chmod 700. You should always have zeros in the second and third place — that’s what really locks it down. Verify your changes running the ls utility with -la options and have a look.

Having strict file permission settings means nothing can be written to the file, even by WordPress. You’ll want to grant write permissions back with $ chmod 600 .wp-config when there is a major WordPress update wherein the config file has modifications. That should happen extremely rarely, if ever.

WordPress login file

I like to lock down the wp-login.php file using .htaccess rules. Limiting access to only my IP addresses is great for when I work from one statically assigned IP, or a small handful of addresses for myself and some users. It’s not difficult to change the setting if you’re logging in from another location as long as you can obtain a shell on the host. Simply comment out the deny directive, login with your browser, and uncomment it afterwards.

XSS and SQL injection

By far the scariest attacks that you’ll encounter will be cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. There are .htaccess query string rewrite rules you can use to stop some of these, and you might be best off using a plugin that will manage this for you. Some security plugins will scan your installation looking for signs of compromise. If you know how to use rewrites, redirect or block query string signatures for attacks you read about or see in your logs.

Security plugins

Some security plugins will scan your installation looking for signs of compromise. Wordfense is a popular security plugin, and it gets regularly updated. Sucuri Scanner has a paid option that will scan your installation. Ninja Firewall is going to try and limit request-base attacks, blocking them before they reach WordPress core. You can also write an application utilizing Google’s new Web Risk API to scan your site’s pages.

The post A WordPress safety plan for SEOs and developers first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

Being able to quickly and efficiently one-line our skills and the focus of our professional life has a lot of value. The title that we use can effectively tell others what we do, and where our career is heading. Despite this importance, titles are something many of us have trouble with.

It’s definitely hard to find a title that clearly explains our skills and limitations as a professional. Understanding the full-stack terminology isn’t only beneficial to help give ourselves a title though. It’s also immensely valuable to become that team member who can step in at any phase of a project to help out. Or just to use the skills in planning ahead of what our main job focus may be (It’s common knowledge that designers who understand code, produce more realistic mockups). So, how do we get started?

What is a full-stack designer?

In the “old” days, it was fairly straightforward. There was very clear separation between the design and development groups, with very few people doing both. Now though, it’s fairly uncommon to find a web designer that doesn’t also do some sort of development or UX work as well. With many of us branching into more skills within our industry, we’re becoming increasingly more resourceful. The problem is that now a “web designer” could mean someone who only does design, does design and some code, or may even handle the full design to development process! We’ve become an industry of renaissance workers not content with learning just what we need to get by, and that’s a great thing.

Enter the full-stack designer. Being full-stack simply refers to someone who is cross-disciplinary and able to take a project through to completion. In this case, it’s referring to an individual who has the skills to carry a project through the first few major project phases. Full-stack developers have been around for years now, handling everything from front-end dev, back-end dev, back-end server management, and more.

I know what you’re thinking: “Great, another marketing phrase is just what this industry needs!” But I can assure you this one is sticking around, and it has more value than a hip moniker. Take a look at a large selection of job openings and you’ll undoubtedly find many “Product Designer” and “Full-Stack Designer” listings.

Fringe benefits of being full-stack

The benefits of expanding our skill sets are quite nice. Full-stack designers often end up with a more thorough understanding of their work, making it more consistent from research to production phases. Knowing the limitations and what to expect in development, while planning UX/UI wireframes, can keep concepts realistic. So not only are full-stack designers more knowledgeable about what can and cannot work elegantly in design, but they also have more realistic expectations before we even start pushing pixels or coding.

Having an expansive skill set is exceedingly beneficial to the people who employ us as well! Our employers are afforded a team member who can jump in and help even outside their area of focus. This means keeping teams lean and diversified with less people, and everyone having more of a grasp of the whole-picture.

There are countless good qualities about having such an expansive skill set, but the most important being you just learn more. Even having a basic foundation in development or another skill can increase the likelihood of learning more in that area. With that small nugget of knowledge already in place, pursuing further education is made easier as the content is already slightly more relatable. So next time you see that article about the skill you’ve been meaning to learn for ages, just go for it. You don’t have to be an expert by the end of it, you just have to remember enough to make next time easier.

The pitfalls of expansive skill sets

It’s taken us quite a while to even get where we are today in terms of education. Being able to instantly look something up and “accidentally” spend the next four hours learning about it is the fantastic future we live in. But, when you have dozens of technologies, practices, and skills to keep up to date, that process can easily result in a long “to-read” list. With so much to keep up with, it’s easy to simply not have enough time. That doesn’t mean we lose lose the skill altogether, it merely means that skill isn’t one of our highlights, so to speak. It’s very common that someone could be an expert with CSS/HTML, yet only have a basic working knowledge of JavaScript.

It’s not only hard to keep up with everything, but it’s also hard to pinpoint which technologies to invest our time with as well. With the industry growing at such a fast rate, there’s a new language, library, and use pattern by the end of each day. Anyone remember the days of jQuery vs MooTools vs JavaScript debates? Pinpointing which skills to learn, and which are merely passing fads can easily make or break a time investment.

Employers aren’t exempt from these pitfalls either. Being a much more skilled team member typically comes along with a higher salary. While most full-stack designers won’t cost the same as multiple designers and developers, they certainly cost a premium to be just as skillful.

Why are full-stack designers important?

Becoming a full-stack anything is special in and of itself. It’s investing quite a lot of time and effort into oneself professionally, most often outside the workplace. So what makes full-stack designers so important? Primarily, it’s the skills in their spectrum. Typically, designers are the ones organizing research, creating wireframes, checking out UX patterns, organizing UI design, and generally making sure we aren’t ending up with stunningly beautiful websites and apps that simply don’t have a purpose.

Being more than just a cog in the machine is what being full-stack is all about. When it comes to design, that means defining what a project’s purpose and goals are in the planning phases while also keeping design and development limitations and goals in mind. Someone who can thoroughly manage and understand a project from its conception all the way to its first steps into development makes for a much more consistent experience. Some of the best websites, apps, and even products you’ve used were likely created or overseen by a manager with such a vast skill set to ensure such high quality.

The making of a renaissance worker

Expanding our skills and knowledge to become full-stack can be invaluable on a team, and an absolute necessity as a lone freelancer. With quality education becoming exceptionally easy to find, it’s become an enjoyable experience to learn more these days. The hard part it seems, comes with understanding which skills we should learn. Each person’s skill set is unique, and that’s what makes everyone uniquely valuable.

A few years ago, for example, having a hobbyist’s interest in social media almost instantly became an exceptionally valuable asset when the social media boom took off. Companies and agencies were looking left and right for people to help them manage their presence on such platforms. So how do we maximize our value by choosing the right skills?

The best way to pursue education is to always ask yourself what would make you more valuable at what you already do. For most designers, that means learning to code or pursuing a deeper understanding of the science and psychology behind UX design. But for other designers, the answer may mean focusing on print and branding design. It’s really hard to say which particular languages, assets, and skills are critical to have, especially in an industry as fast paced and diverse as ours. If you’re still stumped, take a look at job openings in positions you would enjoy filling. See what they’re requiring and, more importantly hoping for, in a candidate.

Conclusion

Titles are important, there’s no doubt about it. But only because they represent (albeit, poorly) the skills we possess. When it comes down to it, investing the time to further ourselves professionally by expanding those skills only benefits everyone involved. Continued education has always been a part of our fast paced industry, so let’s use that to our advantage and become the best full-stack workers out there.

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The post Latest Google SEO Updates & Algorithm Changes first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

Google’s heavily investing to be the best. SEOs are trying to adapt to changes that follow. That’s how SEO trends are born. Let’s view what trends will make a difference in 2019.

To be atop the waves, think about your SEO strategy in advance. A shortcut to success: get to know the upcoming trends and work out an action plan for each.

This year, Google’s shaken the world with its mobile- and speed-related efforts. As a result, most of next year’s SEO efforts are expected in this direction. However, some “non-Google” game-changers will also influence how we build our SEO campaigns. Let’s explore these trends and ways to embrace them.

Mobile-first indexing

In a nutshell, mobile-first indexing means that Google uses the mobile version of your page for indexing and ranking. Since March 2018, Google’s started the process of migrating sites to mobile-first index. It might happen that Search Console has already notified you about it.
Bear in mind, a mobile-first index does not mean “mobile-only.” There’s still a single index with both mobile and desktop versions. However, the whole “mobile-first” buzz means that Google will be using the mobile versions for ranking once the site’s migrated.

You get it, right? With your mobile version being the primary one for ranking, there’s no excuse to procrastinate with mobile-friendliness.

Action plan:

• Any mobile version type is fine. Just take into account a few moments. Google’s Trends Analyst John Mueller mentioned: “If you want to go responsive, better do it before the mobile-first launch”. So, if your site hasn’t migrated yet, and you’ve been thinking about switching, do it now. Plus, Google strongly recommends against m-dot and responsive for the same page, as it confuses crawlers.
• To understand how search engine spiders see your mobile pages, crawl them with a mobile bot. For example, WebSite Auditor can do it for you:

• Track your mobile pages’ loading speed. It’s easy with PageSpeed Insights.
• Regularly check whether your pages deliver impeccable user experience. You can use WebSite Auditor and its mobile performance section for this task.

Page speed

Google’s nuts about delivering the best UX and delivering it fast. Desktop page loading time has been a ranking factor for a while. In July, it got a twin sibling – mobile page speed’s become a ranking factor for mobile.

This crucial change calls for understanding which metrics matter for Google in terms of page speed evaluation.

Historically, when analyzed in PageSpeed Insights, a site was evaluated just on the basis of technical parameters. Now, both for desktop and mobile, it’s graded according to two different metrics: Optimization and, a new one, Speed.

The game-changing part here is how Speed score is generated. The data for the metric’s taken from Chrome User Experience report, the real users’ performance database. It reflects how your site loads for each visitor. It’s obviously hard to measure how fast each visitor’s device loads your site. As a result, the metric’s impossible to get through local tests.

As for Optimization score, you can totally control it by fixing all the issues preventing your site from loading fast.

So, which metric has the strongest influence on rankings? According to the mobile page speed experiment by SEO PowerSuite, the correlation between the page’s Optimization score and its position in SERPs is strong (0.97). And there is no correlation between the page’s position and its Speed score. In other words, now Google can rate your site as slow, but your rankings stay the same.

However, Speed metric is something new, so it’s clear Google’s testing it. With time, those correlations may change.

Action plan:

Optimization score is what matters now for rankings. Luckily, site optimization and result tracking are totally in your hands. Google’s nicely provided a handy list of recommendations. You may also refer to the even more detailed guide on improving the Optimization score

Brand as a ranking signal

Gary Illyes, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, has stated at Pubcon that Google uses online brand mentions in its search algo. There’re two ways it can use a brand as a ranking signal.

First of all, through unlinked brand mentions, the search engine learns that your brand’s an entity. By further analyzing all the properties mentioning it, Google gets a better picture of your authority in a particular field.

Second, each component’s sentiment and context matters: reputation, trust, advertising, complaint-solving, etc. Through context, Google learns to tell the good from the bad. For example, its Search Quality Guidelines state that reputation matters for rankings. Consequently, the sentiment around brand mentions can affect the site’s rankings.

Action plan:

• Backlinks are still a strong ranking signal. However, building links fast is rarely a white-hat business. Use the power of linkless backlinks then. Mention your brand name online whenever you have a natural opportunity.
• Cater to your reputation. Try to address the customers’ pains with your brand. Engage with happy clients as well. For that, track mentions of your brand online. Try the monitoring tool Awario for finding such linkless mentions all across the Web.

• Find influencers ready to talk about you (but who haven’t realized it yet) or who are already talking about your brand. Awario tool has everything to help you here as well.
• Look at your competitors. By reverse-engineering their strategies, you will look at your own SEO efforts holistically, not single-pointedly. For that, look at the competitors’ brand mentions to see how they grow awareness. Or go for a deep analysis of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

GDPR

Let’s bet you got annoyed this spring when your inbox got filled with GDPR and Privacy Policy mails. What’s this thing?

GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation passed in the European Union. It regulates a very nagging issue – who owns the data created by users’ interactions online. From now on, it’s users who do, not corporations which collect it. Consequently, users can now request to see what personal data the company has about them and ask for its correction or export. If a company doesn’t comply with the regulations, it can be hit with severe fines (€20 mln or 4% of the company’s annual profit).

This regulation affects the EU companies and customers. However, international companies should also comply with GDPR. As a result, Google’s decided to introduce changes into its Analytics. Now all personal user data expires after 26 months since it was collected. Such data includes demographic and affinity data (earlier kept perpetually) and doesn’t include sessions and goal completions. However, each site owner can change this data collection default period. Plus, it’s now possible to delete the data of individual users upon their request.

Action plan:

If you have no European customers:

• You can switch to the “do not automatically expire” option in Google Analytics. Beware that this way Google shakes off the user data protection responsibility on you. Plus, these user data control efforts can extend well outside the EU. Just wait for it.

If you have European customers or plan to:

• Review all the sources collecting user data on your site. Make sure you don’t accidentally send some private data to Google Analytics;
• Update your Privacy policy file by GDPR requirements;
• Revise your cookie consent form. It should have the following content: what information you collect, why you do it, where you store it, affirm the info’s protected;
• If you use Google Tag Manager, activate IP anonymization. Don’t worry, you will still have a general idea where your traffic comes from. It just will be a bit less precise.

Amazon searc

First things first, Amazon’s not a universal search engine. It’s an algo similar to Google’s, but used for internal search within Amazon pages. What’s the fuss about then? Well, more and more people go straight to Amazon to do shopping. According to a study, 56% of consumers visit Amazon first if they have shopping in mind. 51% check with Amazon after finding something elsewhere.

These figures tell us that Amazon’s becoming Google of e-commerce. It means that if you sell something and you’re not on Amazon, you are missing out on all those 56% of potential customers.

Thus, if you’re a seller of books, music, electronics, etc., include optimization for Amazon into your SEO strategy.

Action plan:

1. Run keyword research. To be more industry-wise, use Amazon itself. Rank Tracker, for example, has Amazon Autocomplete keyword research tool:

2. Make item’s title&description efficient and user-friendly (+ smart use of keywords);
3. Provide high-quality images;
4. Cater to “backend keywords” (or meta tags, if in Google’s terms). They tell Amazon algo that a specific item targets a specific keyword on the site;
5. Track customers’ reviews and address complaints.

Looking at the year ahead…

Few trends, but big changes. While all things mobile are going far, we still have to keep an eye on Amazon and GDPR’s consequences. This list’s still a prediction, we’ll surely have zillions of things to discuss in 2019. What are your thoughts on an SEO landscape for the next year?

Source – https://searchengineland.com/5-seo-trends-that-will-matter-most-in-2019-307641

The post 5 SEO trends that will matter most in 2019 first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

There’s a common misconception that the financial benefits of SEO are not as clear as say, social media or PPC. But anyone familiar with SEO knows that it is highly measurable and in most cases even better value for money than both social media and PPC.

And, many businesses seem to have realized this: In 2016, Borrell and Associates predicted that the SEO industry would reach $80 billion a year in revenue by 2020.

A well thought-out SEO strategy will bring more qualified traffic to your website. Quality content tailored to the needs of your customers will bring a higher conversion rate. These things are well known. But ignoring SEO altogether doesn’t just mean losing a few sales here and there: it can be risky or potentially disastrous financially.

Here are five ways that it could affect your bottom line…

1. Using PPC as a replacement for SEO

Many people have attempted to settle the SEO vs. PPC debate by trying to calculate a definitive conversion rate for both. While many of these studies provide valuable insight into both paid and organic traffic, there are a number of variables that cannot be captured by a simple percentage.

Take, for example, the fact that a site optimized for SEO might target keywords for people at different stages of the sales funnel, from educational articles through to product pages. PPC campaigns, on the other hand, tend to send leads directly to a sales page.

Many of the people who convert via PPC may have been primed by content they accessed organically: according to Ipsos, 44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine. The same could also be true of phone or brick and mortar customers: according to Acquisio, there will be 73 million phone calls generated by mobile search alone by the end of 2018.

PPC often has a higher conversion rate than SEO, but it casts a narrow net. SEO allows you to broaden that net and reach potential customers at the very start of their purchase research. Without it, you’re leaving leads and sales on the table and missing an opportunity to build your brand’s authority.

Anyone who has tried to make the case for investing in Search Engine Optimization to a client, boss, or colleague, will be all too familiar with the common objections: it’s too unpredictable, PPC is better, it takes too long, etc.

There’s a common misconception that the financial benefits of SEO are not as clear as say, social media or PPC. But anyone familiar with SEO knows that it is highly measurable and in most cases even better value for money than both social media and PPC.

And, many businesses seem to have realized this: In 2016, Borrell and Associates predicted that the SEO industry would reach $80 billion a year in revenue by 2020.

A well thought-out SEO strategy will bring more qualified traffic to your website. Quality content tailored to the needs of your customers will bring a higher conversion rate. These things are well known. But ignoring SEO altogether doesn’t just mean losing a few sales here and there: it can be risky or potentially disastrous financially.

Here are five ways that it could affect your bottom line…

1. Using PPC as a replacement for SEO

Many people have attempted to settle the SEO vs. PPC debate by trying to calculate a definitive conversion rate for both. While many of these studies provide valuable insight into both paid and organic traffic, there are a number of variables that cannot be captured by a simple percentage.

Take, for example, the fact that a site optimized for SEO might target keywords for people at different stages of the sales funnel, from educational articles through to product pages. PPC campaigns, on the other hand, tend to send leads directly to a sales page.

Many of the people who convert via PPC may have been primed by content they accessed organically: according to Ipsos, 44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine. The same could also be true of phone or brick and mortar customers: according to Acquisio, there will be 73 million phone calls generated by mobile search alone by the end of 2018.

PPC often has a higher conversion rate than SEO, but it casts a narrow net. SEO allows you to broaden that net and reach potential customers at the very start of their purchase research. Without it, you’re leaving leads and sales on the table and missing an opportunity to build your brand’s authority.

2. Missing out on, or misunderstanding, lucrative niches

You might think that optimizing for a few high-traffic terms in your niche is enough. But one of the most valuable parts of SEO is gaining access to the thought processes of your customers.

Recently, a colleague of mine optimized a site for an RV dealership in Oregon. Initially, the dealership wanted to create a page for people searching for RVs in Portland. Some basic keyword research revealed that there was little to no traffic around Portland-specific terms. Instead, the high-traffic terms were all state-based.

It seems like a minor distinction, but without that small but valuable insight, the company would have been missing out on a potentially huge pot of revenue.

4. Being unprepared for Google updates

After Google updated its core algorithm in August 2018  (known as the “Medic” update) there were widespread reports of devastating traffic losses, particularly in the health and wellness sector. Some webmasters even claimed that the update had destroyed their businesses.

While it’s impossible to predict exactly how updates in Google’s algorithms will play out in the rankings, adhering to SEO best practices can mitigate the risk of being adversely impacted by an update.

For example, once the smoke had cleared from the initial damage of the Medic update, it was obvious that the sites that had been impacted the most were lacking in “E-A-T”, e.g. they were lacking expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. By focusing on creating quality content and building trust and authority with their audience, sites with a robust SEO strategy in place had minimized their risk of a traffic and sales drop.

5. Ill-advised site redesigns

It may be shocking in 2018, but many businesses still employ agencies or developers with little or no knowledge of SEO to redesign their sites.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called in at the last minute on a redesign only to find that a company has gone ahead and built their site completely in JavaScript, or made some serious technical error that will almost certainly result in a Google demotion. Then, they expect me to sprinkle a few keywords into their content and get them rankings immediately!

Going ahead with a redesign without bringing on an experienced SEO consultant at the beginning of the process is simply asking Google to take away your rankings — and your online income streams!

6. Lack of credibility and trust

While there is obviously a direct relationship between organic traffic and sales, if you ignore SEO you will also be missing out on many other benefits. For example, it is well known that organic listings have far more credibility with consumers than paid listings. If you dominate the first page of Google across your industry, it’s great PR and will reinforce the perception that your company has authority and expertise.

If you ignore SEO and your site appears rarely or not at all in organic listings, it may make consumers more suspicious of your credentials and even affect the conversion rate of your PPC ads.

Conclusion

It’s certainly possible to run a business without an SEO strategy, and you may even achieve success. However, by ignoring SEO, you’re holding yourself back from even greater sales and success by leaving opportunities sitting on the table for your competitors to snatch up.

A solid SEO strategy allows you to minimize the risks of a drop in sales, while also maximizing your online footprint and leveraging the most lucrative opportunities to your advantage.

Believe me, your bottom line will thank you!

Source – https://searchengineland.com/5-ways-ignoring-seo-could-affect-your-bottom-line-306780

The post 5 ways ignoring SEO could affect your bottom line first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

The reason I am covering it is because after about five days of hearing this chatter, it is still going on. Most of the tools show normal volatility but some are a bit off the charts. It can be that a lot of people are already taking it easy before the holidays and are not noticing the changes on their site, thus not chatting about it in the SEO communities. Or it can also mean that very few sites are impacted by whatever is going on.

Generally, Google doesn’t make huge changes to their ranking algorithms before the holidays. But that is not always the case.

In any event, here are some comments from WebmasterWorld, Black Hat World and Local Search Forums:

• There could have been another update over the weekend, possibly links based, I’ve seen a bit of chatter.
• Saw an huge drop off in conversions yesterday. Wondering whether it was the Christmas break or the lead up to more roll outs. Normal Traffic and SERPs positions.
• Something very fishy is going on now. Today we have experienced a fall in good amount of traffic.
• Me too, after 12 hours I was only at 15% of average but at this time of year this is normal for me however I wasn’t expecting it to happen until this weekend … People’s Xmas works holidays seem to be getting longer!
• I am witnessing a 15-20% drop across all my sites since Friday. Still continuing. There goes December too.
• I have also observed the same but can’t find exactly what is the update. Searched a lot on Google and found some broad core algorithm is there.

One of my clients who experienced a huge traffic drop post Medic Update (traffic drop of about 150%!) has had a big uptick in the last 2 days. More importantly, his “money maker” keywords that fell off the first page with Medic, are now back on first page, 3-5 position! We have been doing some work on the website for sure, but I am wondering whether we have just had another Google algorithm event. Anyone else seeing similar recovery for Medic victims?

So there are a nice number of complaints in the SEO forums but again, it is not at the levels of the “bigger” updates.

Here are the tools and what they show:

Mozcast:

SERPMetrics:

Algoroo:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Accuranker:

RankRanger:

SEMRush:

Did you notice changes over the past five days or so?

Forum discussion at Web Master World , Black Hat World and Local Search Forums.

Source – https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-update-chatter-26818.html

The post Limited Chatter: Google Search Algorithm Update This Week first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

NEW: Instagram has now 1 billion users. That is the answer to the question, what will be the next big thing.

Here is the most up to date list of monthly active users for the top social networking sites. If you want the numbers just scroll down. First, you’ll find top social networking sites followed by top 10 apps.

The post Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps [August 2018] first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

Digital and social media frenzy are at an all-time high. If a business wants to grow in the 21^stho can learn Digital Marketing??? … Should I learn Digital Marketing or not??? …. Will I get a job??? … Does DM worth it or not???

Yeh!!! I know you would have a lot of questions related to learning digital marketing and you will be conscious about your career as well.

Many students and aspiring professionals use to ask me these questions. Here are the answer to your questions

Who can learn Digital Marketing?

All the people maybe he is a student, professional, businessman, doctor, lawyer, etc. can learn digital marketing. It is about your willingness to learn and interest in it.

Will I get a job after learning Digital Marketing?

Yes, you will, if you choose the right Digital Marketing Institute for learning and if you work hard you will get a job in this field for sure.

While learning, you will need to dig into every aspect of online marketing plus you should have a habit of self-learning. Self-learning is the best learning practice that will take your career to the next level.

What qualification is required?

Again for marketing, there is no education bar, but the only thing you need to know is the use of the internet.

As any person can do marketing. Marketing is just a skill and online marketing is a weapon.

What is the career growth?

If I talk about career growth, first thing there 60+ disciplines in digital marketing. You can become an expert in SEO, Social media marketing, PPC marketing, content writer, affiliate marketing, guest post outreach program expert, email marketing expert, web analytics, app store marketing and more.

Your career will grow from executive to team leader to the project manager.

Apart from that you can start working as a freelancer or start your own digital marketing company.

In which type of Company I will get the job?

You can get a job in any company; you can work on any vertical, you can work in any business sector. Wherever there is a need for a digital marketing person, you can apply for a job.

What are the salary bars?

Your salary can start from 4 lac to 5 lacs per annum as a fresher and it can be up to 1cr per annum after you have enough experience of 8-9 years. Again it entirely depends on your hard work and dedication.

Should I know English?

Communication in English is an essential requirement for any job in today’s world. So at least you should be able to understand English and should have good writing skills.

Conclusion

If you want to start your career as an Online marketing executive/expert take a quick step to it without any delay. Find the right Digital Marketing Course that can be online, offline or classroom training give your best in this.

The most important tip to be successful in this field is never stop learning, do as many experiments as you can because from the out of all your trial you will learn a lot.

The post Should I learn Digital Marketing first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.

Search engine optimization is a competitive, ever-changing landscape that requires marketers to adapt fast.

Google changes its own algorithm up to 600 times every single year.

And according to Google itself, it has confirmed this in tweets, “each day, Google usually releases one or more changes…”

Keeping up with changes is extremely hard. But it’s also necessary if you want your organic traffic to be consistent and continue to improve.

You can’t be doing what worked five years ago today and expect the results to last forever.

With changes coming daily and significant updates in the works, SEO is, has and will keep changing as consumer behavior changes.

Google’s search engine is designed for the people, not for the marketers.

We can’t keyword stuff anymore and expect to rank number one.

Now meaningful experiences for users play a key role in success. Creating content that solves user problems faster and more efficiently.

As of late, Google has pumped out a few major changes to the way we conduct SEO practices in 2018 and beyond.

The mobile and page speed era is here Just five years ago, mobile optimization was an afterthought.

You’d optimize your website with keyword-rich content, schema markup, and metadata.

Then, you’d dynamically update your mobile site to capture that bit of mobile traffic that needed it.

You know, the mobile-friendly crowd.

And, you’d simply repeat the process and watch the traffic flood in, mainly focusing analysis on desktop reports and rarely reviewing your mobile reports.

But times have changed.

In 2016, mobile traffic started to become a more substantial portion of the overall internet usage worldwide in comparison to desktop.

With mobile traffic continuing to rise, it’s time to shift our perspectives from desktop first to mobile first.

And that’s exactly what Google is doing with the mobile-first index.

Zenith Media predicts that mobile traffic will account for 79% of all Internet traffic by the end of 2018.

Initially announcing the mobile-first index in November 2016, Google made it clear that mobile was dominating the search engine.

Today, most people are searching on Google using a mobile device. However, our ranking systems still typically look at the desktop version of a page’s content to evaluate its relevance to the user. This can cause issues when the mobile page has less content than the desktop page because our algorithms are not evaluating the actual page that is seen by a mobile searcher.

Let me summarize this for you in plain English:

Most people are using Google on a mobile device.

Conducting mobile searches is more common than ever. Yet Google was still ranking search results by desktop page content and experience.

The disconnect here is that most are on mobile yet website owners are designing for an audience viewing desktop.

This results in bad experiences for users on unoptimized mobile pages.

And Google is all about providing the best search engine to its user base. Which is the majority of the world:

pasted image 0 339
If Google didn’t make the change to rank mobile pages, there would likely be a drop in mobile users not searching with Google due to slow sites and unoptimized mobile pages.

So, they started testing the mobile-first index in 2016, where Google planned to shift its indexing to mobile pages before desktop, providing better browsing for the majority of users.

As you can imagine, this was a pretty significant shift. And, it left the industry with a lot of unanswered questions.

If your website is not optimized for mobile, you could see a drop in traffic and rankings.

Just recently in March 2018, Google announced that it was “rolling out mobile-first indexing,” giving users messages in their search console to inform them:

• So, what implications does this have for you?
• It means that you need to have a functioning mobile site with content that matches your desktop site.
• This can be achieved with a responsive mobile site that dynamically updates content from desktop to mobile.
• Or, if you’re using an m-dot site, you need to update content from your desktop to mobile manually.
• If you’re using WordPress, I recommend using a plugin like WPtouch to move your site to responsive.

WPtouch allows you to transform your site into a responsive, mobile-friendly site with the click of a button:

• You can instantly edit your mobile site themes, and content will transfer dynamically as you make edits on the desktop version.
• You can even create landing pages specifically for mobile within the plugin, making it great to prepare for mobile-first indexing.
• After you’ve got a responsive site setup, turn your focus to improving page speed and designing a better user experience for mobile users.
• If people are bouncing from your site within seconds, Google knows that.
• And trust me, it isn’t going to keep your page ranking first if the average time on site is five seconds.
• That’s a clear signal that user’s problems aren’t being solved with your content or UX, making it irrelevant.
• On top of that, 85% of online users won’t return to your site if they have a bad experience on mobile.
• Poorly designed UX isn’t the only cause of that bad experience.
• Mobile data collections show that mobile landing pages are dreadfully slow:
• In fact, they take on average 3x the best practice to load.

And these slow load times lead to hugely inflated bounce rates:

• You can’t risk a slow mobile site. Not when page speed is a mobile ranking factor now.
• To keep up, eliminate heavy page elements and keep a simple design. I’ve been testing this on my mobile site with great success so far:
• I have removed big elements and compressed images to create a simple, sleek design that is easy to read and use.
• Try using plain white backgrounds with black text that is big enough for mobile.
• Simplicity is key. Don’t use heavy CTAs and big images that slow your site down.

Simply put:

• Mobile UX and speed are crucial to success in SEO right now.

Since that was a ton of information, let’s recap:

• Mobile-first indexing is rolling out Your content on desktop should match mobile Focus on improving your site speed Make sure that mobile pages are fast and simple in design Follow these steps, and you will be prepared to take on the new mobile-first index.
• The state of SEO is changing, and mobile is becoming king.
• Zero-result SERPs: SERPs are changing fast With changes to Google’s algorithm, we’ve seen massive changes to the search results page over the last decade.

Back in 2010, our search results looked like this:

• These simple results are vastly different than a given search engine results page in 2018.
• Even in 2013, SERPs underwent massive changes, including different snippets, demographic categories, and social mentions:
• But now, our SERPs contain tons of new elements, like answer boxes and frequently asked questions regarding the topic you search for:
• Or detailed knowledge graphs for specific companies, displaying very complex and detailed information directly on the SERP.
• For example, with the Evernote image above, you can find its social media profile, iTunes app, and Google Play link without ever clicking on its website.
• You can even find a detailed product description, screenshots, and software compatibility data directly on the graph.
• There is almost no need to click on actual search results anymore and, we see this because of the rise in voice search and artificial intelligence (AI).
• With voice search and AI, searchers can order goods, make suggestions, and talk about current events. Searchers are now presented with one answer.

This shift has been dramatic and often worries SEOs: will people even click on our links now?

• More recently, in March 2018, Google tested zero-result SERPs, where only a single piece of information was displayed in the form of definitive answers or knowledge cards:
• To see any link-based results, you’d have to click “Show all results.”
• If not, the entire Google SERP is taken up by this simple answer.
• Meaning all of those standard results you’d expect when searching for the time……don’t show up without the extra effort of clicking the results button.
• While only limited to a select grouping of searches, it’s a telling sign that Google is consistently refining the search engine results to be less link-based and more results based.
• It allows users to get answers faster than ever before without the need to read a 5,000-word article.

Instead, the most important bits of information are fetched from top content sites and utilized in the results:

• Data shows that while this test was being conducted, and many experienced the effects for a few days, most current results pages still display with the traditional ten links:

The fact of the matter is:

• SERPs are changing. Fast.
• And we can’t sit back and watch our rankings dwindle down.
• Instead, SEOs have to get ready for the future SERPs and how different they will likely be.
• We need to start focusing on generating better content, even if it means answering the questions before users click.
• Right now, try targeting keywords that don’t have rich results or knowledge cards/graphs.

Conduct simple searches on Google to see what the search results look like:

• If you notice standard results, this is a good sign that you can expect a ton of organic click traffic and these terms are likely great to target while you can.
• SERPs will change over the next few years. Prepare for it while you can.
•  PageRank patent is a game changer for link building Last month, Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea, published an article announcing that Google had made an update to its PageRank patent.
• This update to its patent describes how Google’s algorithm will affect the way websites are ranked.
• The patent goes on to explain how Google will calculate link distances between authoritative websites and spam sites using a web-link graph.
• Essentially, Google is creating a map of your links. Something like this.
• And, within that map, Google is looking for the shortest path to seed spam-free websites.

So, you want your link map to consist of the most authoritative, trusted domains with the shortest way to get back to your website.

• Nothing new, right?
• Guess again.
• This update gives smaller niche websites a chance to outrank more prominent websites.

Why?

• Just because you have more links, doesn’t mean you have the high-quality links.
• For example, if you’re a small website competing against a Buzzfeed or Amazon for a search query, you may outrank them if your link map consists of more niche, trusted sites.
• The goal is to have a reduced link graph with niche, spam-free websites linking to one another.
• This is only the starting point for ranking. Google uses over 200 different factors to rank your website.
• The key to ranking with Google’s PageRank is to provide relevance in links and content.

1.  March 7 algorithm update: “Brackets.”
2. On March 7th, 2018, rankings were shifting for tons of people in the SEO community.
3. Just a few days later, Google confirmed the updates as a “core update” to the algorithm.

Due to the update being live in March, G-Squared Interactive coined the core update as “brackets” to reflect March Madness:

• Over a few days that the update was pushed live, Glenn Gabe from GSQIS started to notice fluctuations in rankings, rich snippets, and more:
• This prompted tweets from Google’s Search Liaison account, confirming the updates:

So, what exactly happened here?

• Websites with little content relevance were primarily affected, sending rankings for companies to either jump high or fall heavily.
• Many SEO marketers suspected this update was targeted at low-quality websites.
• As Glenn speculates on the “brackets” update:

“This was one of the biggest updates I’ve seen in a while. It seems Google once again improved how it assesses quality, and with Google always looking to surface the highest quality content for users, that’s a really big deal.”

• However, John Mueller cleared things up during a Google Webmaster Hangout on April 6th.
• He went on to explain that if your site was affected by the March 7 update, it is not an indication of a low-quality site, but more about content relevance.
• Meaning your website is attempting to rank for specific queries that might not be relevant to the user clicking through to read them.
• Your content has to connect the dots to search queries. Bounce rates must be reduced. Anything and everything you write and publish should be relevant to the reader.
• This update comes out just two months before Google Research’s release of Ask The Right Questions: Active Question Reformulation with Reinforcement Learning (PDF).
• This paper explores the machine learning algorithm that uses the Reinforcement Learning approach.
• Essentially, this algorithm decides what to display in the SERPs using machine learning structured around user intent.
• And, we might see Google create its own content in the SERPs soon.

For example, comb through your latest blog posts and ask yourself the following questions:

Does this provide value to the query?

• Can I include more information that others are probably also searching for?
• Does my content solve the problem with actionable, detailed steps and examples, or does it merely point out the problem and tell (instead of show) the fix?
• If you are struggling with content ideas or ways to improve existing posts, use Google to your advantage.
• Remember those question boxes I showed you earlier? These ones:
• Turn those questions into a long-form post about PPC. Take each question and use them as your H2 headers to structure an outline.
• These topics are all interrelated. People want to find resources online, not a simple post that tells them how great SEO is without teaching them how to do it.
• And, don’t be afraid to ask for input from your visitors. Get feedback from your visitors to gauge how they feel about your website and content.
• Then, expand and improve your current content.

As for website design, you should always be assessing your landing page metrics in Google Analytics:

• Work to improve your time on site and reduce bounce rates by creating engaging content pieces.
• Simplify your blog structure and website design to focus on content and usability.
• And, conduct a quick SEO audit to make sure Google can crawl your content and that your content is being indexed correctly.

With this latest update, one thing is guaranteed:

HTTPS

• The speed update isn’t the only update coming in July this year. Google announced that also in July all sites still using HTTP would be marked non-secure like this.
• And, now Google issues its final warning stating that by October 2018, all sites using HTTP will be marked with a h5 red warning.
• It’s important to note that this will affect all websites that are opened using Chrome.
• While this does not affect your rankings, this will eventually affect your bounce rate and the user experience.
• Which, in turn, affects your rankings.
• Adrienne Porter Felt, software engineer and manager on the Google Chrome Security Team, took to Twitter to share the importance of HTTPS.
• She stated, “HTTPS is a foundational part of web security. It’s a grassroots effort that worked hard to get leadership support.”
• It’s important to note that it’s not just Google pushing for the move to HTTPS.
• Mozilla, inventors of Firefox, are pushing for secure Internet.
• However, Bing is not on board with this…yet.

But, it’s clear, that HTTPS does affect ranking.

• SEMrush proves that in recent research. They discovered that the higher position in the SERPs, the more HTTPS sites existed.
• And, Searchmetrics discovered Google is already placing higher value on HTTPS sites for specific industries.
• Luckily, there’s still time for you to migrate from HTTP to HTTPS before the launch in July.
• However, before migrating, you’ll want to make sure to take the right steps. Otherwise, your organic traffic could end up like this.

To prevent a drop in traffic when switching from HTTP to HTTPS, review the following:

• Make sure that all versions of your site redirect to the correct HTTPS version, including canonical tags.
• Update all internal links pointing from HTTP to HTTPS.
• Submit a new sitemap with the correct HTTPS link.
• I’d recommend running a full SEO audit of your website before going live with HTTPS to ensure you’ve covered all your basics.

Source – https://neilpatel.com/blog/state-of-seo/

The State of SEO: What the Latest Algorithm Updates and Reports Are Telling Us

The post The State of SEO: What the Latest Algorithm Updates and Reports Are Telling Us first appeared on IT Infrastructure Virtualization, Software Development, Digital Marketing Agency & Software Testing.