2017
Jun
16
How to Measure Performance with Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics https://t.co/nmNpsVgkeb By @tomcbennet pic.twitter.com/ZAIehTiKDi
— Moz (@Moz) June 15, 2017
2015
Dec
16
Three Google Search Console Tips for Better SEO
Three Google Search Console Tips for Better SEO
This is a post I wrote geared towards WordPress.com users. However, the tips are great for any site, no matter the platform, and are the very first things I do after verifying a site on Google Search Console.
2015
Jul
28
Help! Googlebot Cannot Access CSS And JS files On My WordPress Site!
If you received this message this morning from Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools), you’re not alone. Google has recently been pushing harder for webmasters to allow crawlers full access to all Javascript and CSS so that they can render a site to determine whether or not it meets mobile standards (among other things). Many WordPress sites (along with the other major CMSs) received an ominous warning that their site was blocking assets, and it could affect rankings. While technically true, many of the sites were only blocking /wp-admin/, where absolutely no public-facing assets should live. For those of you that are in that situation, relax.
2013
Feb
25
Google Rewrites Page Titles To Push Brand Over Keywords
The Google+ expert, Mark Traphagen tweeted a link to an article that talked about how Google seemed to be testing yet another method of rewriting the page title, or that somehow, colons in the title could be a new ranking factor. Other Twitter people reported seeing it as early as Friday.
2013
Feb
18
90% of Webmaster Tools Alerts Are Black Hat Related
(originally posted on DesignBigger)
In the thousands of Google Webmaster Tools alerts and messages that are sent each month, about 90% of those are estimated to be black hat related. Another stat that’s interesting is about 3% are notifications of a hacked site; chances are, you’ve seen pharma spam in the SERP results that lead to a normal-looking page. That same 3% covers malware-infected sites, too. Check out the video for Matt Cutts’ take on these alerts.
2013
Jan
08
7 Steps to Google Places Phone Verification
This article has since been outdated by changes to Google Places, but left for “historical value”.
(originally posted on DesignBigger)
Stop the presses, and get ready to clean up your business listings in Google Places! It appears that a new year has brought a few new things along with it, and one of those is phone support for local verification issues in Google Places. If you are like me then you probably have a few local listings that are still pending verification, and you have probably sent out those pesky postcards at least 3 or 4 times with no success. Maybe it’s Google’s fault or maybe it’s just the postman’s fault, but one things for sure, they aren’t making it to their destination!
2011
Jul
26
Three SEO Metrics You Should Monitor, or, “PageRank Is Still Mostly Useless”
It’s been pretty commonly agreed for quite a while that PageRank (in the form that’s publically viewable) is a number that just doesn’t match up to the real authority of a particular site. The latest post from the Webmaster Tools blog solidifies that fact that this just isn’t something to base your success metrics on.
The key phrase of the article?
…PageRank comes in a number. Relevance doesn’t.
Anybody with any marked SEM experience would agree that conversions are the ultimate goal. Beyond the obvious (conversion rates, bounce rate, number of conversions), there are a few numerical metrics that I like to keep tabs on.
2010
Jan
12
Backlinking: High PR vs Relevancy
In my most recent research, I’ve come to discover that the high PR versus relevancy debate is less important than most think.
The typical procedure for creating backlinks (from high PR sites) usually goes as follows: pick a keyword or a couple of keywords, start linking from high PR sites, and then wait for the traffic to come in on those keywords via boosted SERP rankings.
The relevant linking is much more drawn out. Join some sort of community, build a relationship, and people will naturally link to you, but most likely from low-PR sites that are usually, in the end, NOT relevant.