Hristina Nikolovska
Happy Tuesday, friends!
My favorite autumn activity involves sorting through the latest news in the SEO and SEM world while having a big cup of tea. So here’s my monthly selection of the best reads for September!
Enjoy!
Google Tag Manager: What Is It & Why Do You Need It?
Google Analytics is the most popular tool for tracking and reporting website traffic. On the other hand, when it comes to tracking management, many companies choose its sister product Google Tag Manager, also known as GTM. But what exactly is GTM, and what are its advantages and disadvantages? Find out in Sarah Berry’s article.
Google Ads Copy Best Practices
Whenever someone uses Google to search for a business, product, or service, there are ads that appear at the top of the SERPs. These ads are perfect for targeting customers who’ve shown buying intent. This strategy can only succeed if you use creative ad copy that’s relevant to them. Besides an increased CTR, good ad copy is crucial to your Google Quality Score, which determines the overall success of your campaigns, including how much you will pay per click. Although there’s no magic formula for writing successful Google ad copy, Kyra Kuik shares some of the best practices.
The Top Google Chrome Extensions for SEO
As a marketer, you probably juggle dozens of tasks on a daily basis. Streamlining these processes will help you maximize your time. The best way to do so is by leveraging Google Chrome extensions. Kayla Carmicheal shares the best options along with price details and feature specifications.
Google’s Nofollow, Sponsored, and UGC Links, and Their Impact
Not long ago, Google introduced changes to the way publishers mark nofollow links. Undoubtedly, these changes are beneficial to Google, but they’ve created major confusion out here. So to provide you with answers to some burning questions, Cyrus Shepard shares a comprehensive piece on how nofollow, sponsored, and UGC links influence SEO.
The 5 Top Lead Generation Strategies for Local Businesses
Local businesses struggle to compete against giants like Amazon and Walmart. You can stand a chance only with an effective local lead generation strategy. This type of strategy is more targeted and aims to connect you with the right market for you. Brad Smith reveals the most affordable and impactful lead generation strategies for local businesses to help you get the competitive edge you need.
SEO Reports Benchmarks
Since SEO agencies don’t share their reports, it isn’t easy to get insight into the SEO report writing or to create benchmarks. To help you learn how SEO professionals write their reports, the team at Onely has conducted a survey. Christian A. Dumais covers the key findings, starting with the quality of your SEO reports.
Building an Effective Content Marketing Calendar
A solid marketing plan is an absolute must if you strive for success. Having a content calendar can help you with that. Organizing your content and coming up with new, efficient content ideas aren’t easy tasks, yet they are essential. Michelene Maguire shares some useful tips on how to create a diverse content marketing calendar that will make your life easier in the long run.
SEO Tips for Artists
You might think that art and SEO don’t go well together. Wrong! Pushing search engine optimization to the bottom of your to-do list will do more harm than good for sure. The reason behind this is simple: no matter how quality your work is, you won’t be able to present it in front of your ideal art collector if you don’t have a search engine optimized presence. To get you started with it, Artwork Archive’s team has created a list of the ultimate SEO tips for artists.
A Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO for Small Businesses
You already know how important local SEO is for your business. What you might not know is how to make the most out of it. Luckily, Team Linchpin has compiled a comprehensive guide to local SEO for small businesses that will help you drive customers to your door and improve your overall bottom line.
Google Shopping Best Practices
September is gone and you know what that means—you need to start preparing yourself for the holiday season. As a digital marketer, paid advertising is for sure your holy grail. I’m positive you’ve already leveraged Amazon’s advertising services, but you shouldn’t neglect Google Shopping, which still reigns supreme. Daniel Gilbert provides a list of Google Shopping best practices and essential tricks you need to take into consideration for the upcoming season.
How to Check That Your Site Loads Fast Enough
Should we even start talking about the importance of a website’s loading speed? Not only does Google favor pages that load fast, but they’re also more convenient to use, meaning a reduced bounce rate and better UX. But how can you ensure your site loads fast enough? Karolina from Delante has the answer.
Pitching Infographics Successfully 101
Infographics remain the most popular medium to deliver information to a targeted audience and generate traffic while getting more links, brand mentions, and shares. Yes, an infographic is an indispensable content marketing tool, but the success of it depends largely on your ability to pitch the infographic the right way. Vincent Nero shares some valuable tips on the topic.
The Biggest Link Building Myths
When it comes to link building, there’s a lot of speculation and false information regarding what’s best and what isn’t. Prince Kapoor has taken it upon himself to clear the air by outlining the biggest link building myths you need to stop believing if you strive for long-term success.
A Guide to Marketing Service-Based Businesses
A company’s success is the combination of creating a high-quality product or service and marketing it. However, marketing a product can be quite different than marketing a service, meaning the practices that work for a product might not be so efficient when advertising a service. Linchpin’s team has compiled a comprehensive guide to marketing a service-based business that helps you drive growth.
Changing Domains: How This Practice Affects Your SEO
Search engines determine rankings through both domain and page levels. If for some reason you decide to change your domain name, you should be aware of how that will influence your search engine rankings. Essentially, you’ll be resetting all the domain metrics you’ve built. Zeeshan Khalid provides some tricks you can use to minimize the damage of moving to a new domain.
Why Native Advertising Is the Next Big Thing
Native ads are the fastest-growing part of display ad spend, making up 61% of its market. Native advertising is essentially paid advertising that uses written content. Interested in learning more? Check John Lincoln’s guide and learn everything you need to get started with native advertising.
The Power of Experimentation
If you’re a small marketer, you might be afraid to experiment. But experimentation is what generates data that can be turned into actionable insights. This, in turn, paves the way to better marketing decisions and drives innovation. Ning Supharek shares some tips to get you started on experimenting and stay on top of your game.
Demand Generation: What Is It & What Are Its Benefits?
Demand generation involves marketing and sales enablement drives that only occur when there’s a demand for your offerings. Demand generation also addresses non-visible points of interaction before leads enter the funnel, as well as through customer retention. Amanda Nielsen shares more demand-generation fundamentals and gives insight into its importance in optimizing your marketing funnel.
Content Marketing Trends for 2020
Content is an indispensable part of any effective marketing strategy. Factors like the expectations of your target audience and the nature of your business will determine your content strategy. The best place to start sorting through these factors is by going back to the content marketing basics and learning what’s poised to be relevant in 2020, as shared by Ken C.
The Ultimate Google Top Stories Carousel Checklist
Getting picked up for the Google Top Stories Carousel will have an immediate impact on your traffic and CTR. However, getting featured is a complex process with several modern SEO requirements that must be met. Andrea Volpini helps you get on track with his ultimate checklist to rank in the Google Top Stories Carousel.
That’s it for now. Don’t forget to check back for more news on the last Tuesday of October.
Until then, good luck ranking!
