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In this episode, we discuss FTC warnings and what they may mean for medical sites, another possible algorithm update, SEMrush going public and what it means for their SEO, some great link building advice and more!

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The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

• Another possible significant Google update – March 29, 2021
• New structured data will show in the SERPs for education sites
• Can an FTC warning lead to poor rankings for medical sites?
• Finding opportunities in Google’s autocomplete feature
• Gary Illyes quizzes webmasters on the robots.txt testing tool
• Was going public good for SEMrush’s SEO?
• A reminder about the relation between robots.txt and noindex directives
• Differing your tactics may allow you to better compete in the SERPs
• Useful tidbit related to Screaming Frog’s configuration
• A quick way to check for JavaScript accessibility issues
• Insight into the relationship between the disavow tool and Google Search Console
• The bar for quality is set higher if you want to rank in Discover
• How’s this for link building?
• Link building tip – get your content in front of journalists on Facebook
• If you get a sudden onslaught of spammy links, should you disavow?
• John discusses E-A-T and suggested reading materials for site owners, especially for health/medical topics
• John’s advice for planning a gradual site move
• Suggested usage of geotargeting versus hreflang
• Google’s possible recent testing may be causing you headaches
• Need to know item if you’re using the GMB messaging feature
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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Tips on onboarding new staff remotely

We’re so excited to say that we have two new members of the MHC team joining us on Monday! We thought we’d reach out to the Twitter community to see if they had an insight to onboarding remotely as this is our first time doing this. 

Here is the thread for some great tips if you’re also started to bring in new staff completely remote: 

We're officially a week away from having two new MHC team members.

What are the biggest takeaways or tips you have when bringing on new team members in a remote environment?

— Marie Haynes Consulting (@mhc_inc) March 29, 2021

A reporting issue has been reported in Google Search Console

The Crawl Stats Report in Google Search Console had an internal reporting issue between March 10 – 23, 2021.  For some people, they may have seen what appeared to be a significant drop in page fetches during this time, however, Google have said there was no issue with actual performance — it was solely the reporting of page fetches that was impacted.

Glenn Gabe shared on Twitter a screenshot of one of the properties he has GSC access for which was impacted by this data issue:

I didn't see any drop for a number of properties… and then I saw this. Wow, glad Google explained it's just a reporting issue. Would have raised red flags for sure 🙂 -> Google Crawl Stats Report Internal Data Issues March 10-23, 2021 https://t.co/7eyamh1Yk1 via @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/U3Kb6aZ73t

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 25, 2021

Are you sure you know how Google sees your website? (sponsored)

What you see in your source code, and even crawls, could be completely different to what Google sees.

JavaScript has the potential to modify important page elements like links and page titles, without you even knowing.

Sitebulb’s recently released ‘Response vs Render’ report lets you compare each of your page’s response and rendering.

If you’d like to give Sitebulb a try for free, you can get a special, extended trial licence with ‘Search News You Can Use’. Just go to: Sitebulb.com/SearchNews

Can Google tell the difference between hyphenated and non-hyphenated keywords?

Let’s slap this with a good old “it depends”. Google is able to understand words with hyphens just as much as they understand words without. However, it can change the meaning of words and is something to keep in mind. 

Google on how hyphens matter or not matter in your content for search ranking purposes https://t.co/kN35U8N8vn (it depends) pic.twitter.com/CD2mmsjrnJ

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 25, 2021

The definitive guide to copywriting

Brian Dean has published a great guide to copywriting that may help content writers out there before you decide to hire topical experts. He includes templates, case studies and strategies that you can implement to help you generate more leads and increase traffic. 

Copywriting: The Definitive Guide

-Actionable copywriting techniques (that work in 2021)

-Proven templates for sales pages, social media posts, and more

-Dozens of case studies and examples

-Lots morehttps://t.co/NKCFYvjhTQ

— Brian Dean (@Backlinko) March 23, 2021

Google unveils ‘best of’ products in Google Shopping

Google Shopping has compiled the top 1000 products on the web (based on public reviews) and has packaged these as a microsite identified as the ‘Best Things for Everything Guide’. These top-rated products are broken down into a diverse range of product categories and give you, the user, the ability to discover top products and the best places to purchase them.

This week BrightLocal’s tool has spotted an influx in the local rankings. It only started the 30th, and we’ll report back next week to see if anything has come of it. They’re reporting an increase with tradesmen and catering categories, as well as SABs. If you’re one of these, it may be worth looking at your rankings.

Today’s #LocalRankFlux score is back in the orange after a fairly long period of low flux. Tradesmen and Catering are up, as well as SABs. Sit tight and keep an eye on your rankings while we watch this play out 📈https://t.co/OyHuoeeX52

— BrightLocal (@brightlocal) March 30, 2021

A Guide to Optimizing for Google News, Top Stories, and Discover – Lily Ray
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-news-top-stories-discover/393182/
March 24, 2021

Regular newsletter readers will be well aware how much the MHC team loves content posted by Lily Ray, and this guide is no exception. In this article in SEJ, Lily shared a number of insights regarding optimizing content to appear in Google News, Top Stories, and Google Discover. We highly recommend all news publishers take a closer look at this guide, as there are a lot more helpful tips in there which could give you an edge! 

JavaScript SEO: Best Practices and Debugging Tools – Kristina Azarenko
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/javascript-seo-debugging-tools/398965/
March 23, 2021

This is a great overview of how to undertake a debugging process for JavaScript SEO-related issues, including the crawl-ability of links, content, images, and more.

🚨 Brilliant job alert 🚨

We’re looking for SEO journalists to join our audience team ⁦@thetimes⁩ & ⁦@thesundaytimes⁩ If you love digital journalism and SEO, we’d love to hear from you https://t.co/orZTEMtLh9 #journojobs

— Alice Foster (@Alice__Foster) March 24, 2021

A few weeks ago I created a careers page on the website.
Our perks are listed, too.
Later this week, I'll be adding a new role we are looking to hire for.

You'll get to work with @howdydoughty, @poppupwriter, myself, and the rest of our great team!https://t.co/5WhBK1q4bo

— Blake Denman (@blakedenman) March 29, 2021

We're looking for experienced marketers to join our team at @Ahrefs 🤓

– Lots of autonomy to research all sorts of marketing ideas;
– Plenty of resources to leverage;
– Petabytes of SEO data to study.

Are you interested?

Or do you know anyone who might be?

Plz RT to help! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/NVOsy5kub7

— Tim Soulo (@timsoulo) March 30, 2021

Premium members also get the following:

It’s well worth the $18 per month!

The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

• Another possible significant Google update – March 29, 2021
• New structured data will show in the SERPs for education sites
• Can an FTC warning lead to poor rankings for medical sites?
• Finding opportunities in Google’s autocomplete feature
• Gary Illyes quizzes webmasters on the robots.txt testing tool
• Was going public good for SEMrush’s SEO?
• A reminder about the relation between robots.txt and noindex directives
• Differing your tactics may allow you to better compete in the SERPs
• Useful tidbit related to Screaming Frog’s configuration
• A quick way to check for JavaScript accessibility issues
• Insight into the relationship between the disavow tool and Google Search Console
• The bar for quality is set higher if you want to rank in Discover
• How’s this for link building?
• Link building tip – get your content in front of journalists on Facebook
• If you get a sudden onslaught of spammy links, should you disavow?
• John discusses E-A-T and suggested reading materials for site owners, especially for health/medical topics
• John’s advice for planning a gradual site move
• Suggested usage of geotargeting versus hreflang
• Google’s possible recent testing may be causing you headaches
• Need to know item if you’re using the GMB messaging feature
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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Part of the challenge of SEO is staying on top of industry news, trends, and techniques There is so much information out there that it is easy to get bogged down in information overload and trying to disseminate what’s truly important from all that noise can be really time-consuming and challenging.

Marie’s newsletter is a game changer because it manages to cut through the fluff and deliver high-quality information that is not only really important for those that do SEO, but it is presented in a format that is really easy to absorb.

If you are looking for a trusted information related to search that is highly actionable I would strongly recommend Marie’s newsletter.

– Paul Macnamara – Offers SEO Consulting at PaulMacnamara.com