SNYCU Ep. 153 - Oct. 7, 2020 - Light Version

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In this episode we discuss the two Google indexing problems that occurred last week, optimizing your page title, useful SaaS strategies, how syndicated content could impact you, and so much more!

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In this episode:

Paid members also get the following:

  • What we are seeing at MHC
  • A study looking into page title length (plus a free tool!)
  • How does Google treat Link to Text fragments when done internally?
  • How to build a ‘defensible flywheel’ that get stronger over time
  • How to solve Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issues caused by sticky headers
  • Useful SaaS strategies to help you stand out and content ideas to help you close sales
  • Google comments on syndicated content and how it could impact you
  • Changes to page layout could impact rankings
  • WordPress now lets you add rel="sponsored" to links
  • Exciting news from Cloudflare
  • Hypothetically, as a new website owner, would you ask for links from friends that might not be highly relevant to your niche?
  • New accessibility feature added to Chrome Dev Tools
  • Clarification from Google surrounding when service area businesses can have multiple listings
  • Could Google be upping their spam fighting game?
  • How to get a review removed
  • Curious to know some of the top mistakes webmasters make related to GMB?
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

Algorithm Updates

Google is currently working on two separate indexing issues (one with mobile-first indexing and one with canonicalization)

Last week there were a ton of reported issues with Google indexing. Marie has covered them on Twitter, but we’ll break down what the issues are and what Google has said. Google first addressed the issues on October first, naming problems with mobile-first indexing and canonicalization that could result in indexing issues. 

In this thread, Google shares more detail including that the canonicalization issues began September 20th while mobile-first was earlier in the month. (Most sites that we have seen affected by these issues seem to have felt the most impact on September 21, 2020.) 

Google shared on Twitter that October 2nd they had fixed the issue, but also that it would take time to be completely resolved. As of October 6th, they declared that 25% of URLs impacted by the canonical issue and 50% of mobile-first issues had been restored. 

MHC Announcements

Our link webinar is happening soon! 

Our webinar is coming up with a planned release date of October 15th. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions, we look forward to answering as many questions as we can! Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter as we’ll share more details like when and where to watch. 

Google Announcements

Google Shopping is going free worldwide by mid-October 

It has recently been announced that Google Shopping will be free worldwide in the coming weeks. What does this mean? Retailers will be featured in Google’s organic shopping SERPs at no cost. Barry over at Search Engine Roundtable has provided some resources for how to get listed in Google Shopping.

SEO Tips

The latest Google Search Console training discusses how developers can benefit from using GSC

Search Console Training is back and on this week’s episode, Daniel Waisberg focuses on the importance of knowing whether Google can find and crawl your pages, and/or if small glitches are preventing that from happening. 

Tips for getting your Web Story shown in Search

Awesome three-list reminder from Brodie as to why your Web Story may not be showing up in Search. If you’re working with Web Stories, you’ll want to double check that you’ve done all of these, or Google may not show it. 

Cold email template subject lines with proven success 

Siege Media analyzed 100 email campaigns with over 10k emails to bring you an incredibly useful cold email subject line resource (great for link building outreach!). You’ll learn about all kinds of subject lines including personalized, ones that ask questions, attention-grabbing, time sensitive emails, follow up, and cold emails. Best of all, there are plenty of examples throughout!

Other Interesting News

Have constructive feedback related to Wix? Now’s your chance to voice it!

Mordy Oberstein recently started working for Wix and has opened up this awesome thread to get feedback from SEOs! If you have constructive comments for him relating to Wix and SEO, add them to the thread below. 

Local SEO

This is an interesting local flux for the past seven days, with medium flux across the board. This likely means something minor is happening on Google’s side in the local sphere. While it isn’t red and indicative of a full blown algo update, it’s worth keeping an eye on.

local flux this week

Local SEO - Google Announcements

Changes coming to GMB Insights (October 2020)

Google has announced upcoming changes to their GMB Insights data that will mimic that of Search and Maps. To see these new metrics, visit your Business Profile and then Performance reporting. The metrics include how often people have contacted you, with reports about searches and how many people saw your profile coming in the future. Check out Google’s full blog post for more information. 

The maximum file limit for GMB video uploads has changed 

If you’ve been having issues uploading videos and are getting the ‘Maximum file size exceeded’ error, it’s likely because the GMB video guidelines have changed. The new file limit for videos in GMB has been reduced to 75 MB (from the previous limit of 100 MB). 

Local SEO - Google SERP Changes

GMB launches "Preview Call History" for a limited number of businesses

This is an interesting new feature being tested. Preview Call History would allow you to see your recent call history from either Maps or Search. The history would be stored for 45 days, and is currently only being tested in the US. 

Recommended Reading

State of Pagination in eCommerce: Case Study & Analysis of the Top 150 UK Fashion Retailers – Orit Mutznik
https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/best-practice/state-of-pagination-in-ecommerce/
October 2, 2020

We could not agree more with the philosophy outlined throughout this excellent in-depth exploration of SEO and pagination in 2020 (including great case studies!) from Orit Mutznik. All (typically e-commerce) sites need to find their own “sweet spots” when it comes to balancing UX and SEO with their pagination implementation, but there are some ground rules that should always be followed and you'll learn them all in this article! 

 

How to Maximize ‘People Also Ask’ SEO Opportunities [Study] – Olga Andrienko
https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-maximize-people-also-ask-seo-opportunities-study/
September 30, 2020

SEMrush Sensor data has shown that the People Also Ask (PAA) feature boxes have increased dramatically since they were first tested in 2015 -- they now are featured in desktop and mobile SERPs about 40% of the time. In this study by SEMrush, they examined 1 million keywords in US desktop results in order to provide some insights into these PAA boxes. A random dataset was chosen in order to represent general search trends and therefore, keywords were not filtered by volume or length, which should be kept in mind when reading the key findings. Regardless of the small sample size and the lack of control that comes from using a random dataset, we still felt that the conclusions were interesting to be aware of!

There’s a lot of general information about PAA boxes, and some of the results may help give you ideas on how to better satisfy searcher intent and increase your site’s visibility in this SERP feature. 

Recommended Reading (Local SEO)

What Should My Agency Be Charging for Local SEO? – Jamie Pitman
https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/what-should-my-agency-be-charging-for-local-seo/
September 24, 2020

If you are unsure of how much to price your local SEO services, according to this BrightLocal article there are a few things you should consider and pay attention to. 

Knowing how much your competitors charge for a service can give you an edge into understanding how to thrive in the market. On top of that, if you and your competitors offer very similar services, try and focus on something that could put your business above theirs.  

Jobs

Want More?

Paid members also get the following:

  • What we are seeing at MHC
  • A study looking into page title length (plus a free tool!)
  • How does Google treat Link to Text fragments when done internally?
  • How to build a ‘defensible flywheel’ that get stronger over time
  • How to solve Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issues caused by sticky headers
  • Useful SaaS strategies to help you stand out and content ideas to help you close sales
  • Google comments on syndicated content and how it could impact you
  • Changes to page layout could impact rankings
  • WordPress now lets you add rel="sponsored" to links
  • Exciting news from Cloudflare
  • Hypothetically, as a new website owner, would you ask for links from friends that might not be highly relevant to your niche?
  • New accessibility feature added to Chrome Dev Tools
  • Clarification from Google surrounding when service area businesses can have multiple listings
  • Could Google be upping their spam fighting game?
  • How to get a review removed
  • Curious to know some of the top mistakes webmasters make related to GMB?
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

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Paul Macnamara - Offers SEO Consulting at PaulMacnamara.com

That's it for this episode! Stay tuned for our Youtube video (my channel is here). If you want to follow me on Facebook, here is my page.

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