Another month passes and the SEOmoz blog continues to provide a wealth of excellent information. This month we’re highlighting; reaction to Google’s continued changes and how they’re affecting the SEO world, some excellent tips and tools that you can apply immediately to your day-to-day work and some great infographics that give you golden ammunition when talking to clients. As ever we’ve hand-picked the information we found most valuable and easy to digest.
A Letter to Google from Inbound Marketers
Josh Braaten’s open letter is an accurate summary of the reaction of a lot of SEO’s to the recent ‘not found’ SSL search controversy and other recent changes. More interesting than the article is the below the line comment this has stimulated, with the comments covering the range of feeling about Google’s current direction.
Wake Up SEOs, the New Google is Here
Rather than just give reaction to the changes Gianluca Fiorelli takes a constructive approach and gives us his view on how SEO will have to adapt to the new Google model. The ultimate message as always is ‘evolve or die’ .
Freshness Factor: 10 Illustrations on How Fresh Content Can Influence Rankings
Back in November Google announced it’s “Freshness Update” which essentially meant that it placed greater emphasis on returning fresher web content for certain queries. As with most algorithmic changes there have been wildly different interpretations of the implications. Here Cyrus Shepard gives a clear overview of some complex issues with some very nice graphics to boot.
Advanced On-Page Optimization – Whiteboard Friday
In another instalment of the always brilliant ‘Whiteboard Fridays’, Kenny Martin and Rand Fishkin take us through some factors beyond the standard meta data that you should consider when applying on-page optimisation.
Search Engine Algorithm Basics
Search algorithms are ultimately what dictates everything we do as SEOs, we spend countless hours attempting to analyse and interpret how they work and adapt to them – but do you have any idea how they work? This article is an interesting look at the building blocks of search and explains some complex looking ideas really well.
A One-Stop SEO Bookmarklet to Quickly Review On-Site SEO
This is a great little free tool for quickly analysing the on-page SEO of any site you’re browsing, particularly handy if you are preparing basic audits for potential clients. This should have a home on every SEO’s bookmark bar, thanks Troy Meyer!
Proving Trust on the Web
Rand Fishkin presents the factors that ever more savvy internet searchers use to decide the trustworthiness of a site when they first arrive, the factors presented here are more good ammunition to present to clients.
A Tale Of Two Studies: Google vs. Bing Click-Through Rate
Slingshot SEO provide some interesting facts and figures on CTR and wider usage stats from their own study using some cool infographics. Though quite US-centric they make for interesting reading none the less.