After a year and a half of testing, Google has finally started migrating websites over to mobile-first indexing. Yes, friends, it is here. But don't panic. The sky is not falling and search will go on. So what is mobile-first indexing? In Google's latest release they define it as the following: To recap, our crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have typically used the desktop version of a page's content, which may cause issues for mobile searchers when that version is vastly different ... Read More
Google Search Console
The Ultimate Website Redesign SEO Checklist
This week I had a call with a small business owner who is launching a website redesign in WordPress. He asked me how can we best preserve his existing SEO and makes sure he doesn’t lose any search ranking in the transition. Right away I replied that this was a fabulous question. We then chatted about common mistakes that occur and how we can prevent them from happening with this website redesign project. Here is the scary part about this conversation: I rarely am asked about this until the ... Read More
A Week of SEO Blunders
SEO blunders can happen to even the most well intentioned companies. This last week I encountered two cases of multiple SEO mistakes that happened to companies I know well. Seeing it happen to people I like is hard. Having a Come to Jesus SEO moment with people I'm professionally and emotionally invested in is even harder for me. It isn't something I enjoy, but it is a necessary part of my job. I'd like to turn this last week into a learning lesson for the readers of our blog. Don't think ... Read More
The What and Why of Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a must have account for owners of blogs and websites. It is critical for SEO because it helps webmasters understand Google’s view of their website or blog. And the great tools inside Google Search Console don’t stop at reporting. Google also provides multiple data points and suggestions for resolving issues you may not have even known existed. When I first discovered Google Search Console I was thrilled. I was fascinated by the data it provided and it has only gotten ... Read More
What Google’s Mobile-First Indexing Means to You and Your Website
This month Google made a major announcement on the future of search and stated it would break away from the traditional desktop search index (aka database of websites and blogs) and move to a mobile-first search index. Google indicated this shift was coming at industry conferences, but made the change official with an article on the Google Webmaster Central Blog on November 4th. In the announcement Google stated: To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index ... Read More
Technical SEO for WordPress: What Webmasters Need to Know
Basics of Technical SEO Technical SEO can sound really intimidating. But don’t worry, because it doesn’t have to be scary at all! Technical SEO simply refers to “things” that are related to code, settings, and servers. It includes things you can see and things you can’t see. Today I'm going to primarily focus on those items you can discover and fix, which means you can "see" them online. What I like about technical SEO is it focuses on discovering issues and fixing these problems. All ... Read More
What Matters in Today’s SEO
Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about SEO lies and misconceptions. As a follow up to that post, I recently visited WP Tavern's WordPress Weekly podcast and chatted with Jeff Chandler and Marcus Couch. We discuss a number of topics surrounding SEO including what’s changed in the past five years, the purpose of SEO plugins, common misconceptions about search engine optimization, and the amount of effort involved in obtaining real, long-term results. As Jeff stated, I was on fire and ... Read More
Free SEO Tools and Software
I use a variety of free SEO tools and software each business day. And in a few rare cases, I subscribe to premium SEO software. But guess what? The best tools are ones that require a little work and investigation by you. You don’t have to be rich to have great SEO data. You just need to do a little research and investigation on your own. Today I want to share my favorite SEO tools with you. While all the below links will have free versions available, a few will also have premium upgrades for ... Read More
Perfecting WordPress Multisite SEO
A few weeks ago I had someone tweet me while I was at WordCamp Ann Arbor. The gentleman wanted to chat about WordPress multisite SEO and was hoping I was still at the venue so I could answer some questions he had about his university website. This week another gentlemen messaged me on Quora asking the very same questions. It appears WordPress users are fearful of multisite and the implications it has on SEO. Fear not my friends! WordPress multisite SEO isn’t that different then regular ... Read More
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