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In this episode, we discuss how Google is making Search more safe for youth, how to measure and improve your Core Web Vitals, the latest from SEOs about the algorithm changes, some great recommended readings and more!

Podcast will return this fall

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Ask Marie an SEO Question

Have a question that you want to ask Marie? You can ask them on our Q&A with Marie Haynes Consulting page and Marie will answer some of the best questions each week in podcast!

It’s well worth the $18 per month. Want to see a sample premium newsletter episode? View it here.

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

• Full algorithm update news
• Google is introducing more changes to make Search safer for youth
• John Mueller approved guide for measuring and improving Core Web Vitals
• Insight on the new structured data
• How does linking to a site with a low Domain Rating (DR) impact you?
• First steps to getting a great Page Experience
• Advice on spammy links
• Will too many internal links impact ranking?
• What to do if you have PDFs or docs being indexed
• A guide for website migration
• Schema markup for Shopify
• A thread of great insight from John Mueller
• Google hasn’t shifted all sites to mobile-first indexing
• Another handy tool for keyword research
• New Core Web Vitals validation tool
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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Over the past week there has been a fair amount of chatter regarding fluctuations as the July update finished rolling out and the Link Spam update continues to roll out. 

A quick reminder, the Link Spam update has not yet finished rolling out, so there could be more changes to come! Premium members can look at what we have been seeing for this week.

Let’s talk intent

This week’s podcast throwback discusses how great Google is becoming at understanding intent. This is something Marie has explored heavily before her summer break, so it’s definitely interesting to hear her thoughts. Have a listen! 

🎙️Today's podcast throwback is a personal favourite from MHC team member @SukhjitSMatharu!@Marie_Haynes discusses Google's improving ability to understand intent, how to analyze pre and post-update SERPs for clues, and lots more!

Have a listen here: https://t.co/irnk6Op0Bd

— Marie Haynes Consulting (@mhc_inc) August 17, 2021

Episode 200 is coming soon!

Can you believe that in only three weeks we’ll be celebrating our 200th episode of SNYCU? We can’t either! But don’t worry, we have a ton of fun planned including some great giveaways. Stay tuned for more news on this next week. 

Google’s reporting channel for Indexing bugs in the US is now available

Google Search Central just announced that a support channel for indexing bugs is now live for all Search Console users in the US. Google Search Central reminds users to check community forums and support documentation prior to submitting a report of indexing issues.

This will certainly be convenient for GSC users but do remember to use your resources before using the tool.

Before reporting an Indexing issue, always consult our community forums and check our support documentation, which highlights some additional helpful tools: https://t.co/zAnLObe41yhttps://t.co/IVZUc0hxPB

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) August 16, 2021

Focus on the bigger picture — individual metrics don’t tell the whole story

Great reminder from John to not get caught up on the metrics from various tools. Similar to what we mentioned above, Google doesn’t look at a site’s DR or count the amount of links a site has. It’s important to focus on the overall quality of your website rather than specific metrics. 

Well, we don't use any of those metrics in search (links might be closest, but we definitely don't count them) – I'm certain no search engines use them. So my guess is you're focusing on a tool, rather than on the bigger picture.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 16, 2021

Improving your author bio pages

We’ve expressed the importance of author bio pages for E-A-T before, but here’s a great reminder. If you want to have a great author bio page (which should be a priority for both Google and users to understand your expertise) adding links or references where the author has spoken, or showcased their expertise is important. 

Author bio pages can and should include more than just text and a picture.

Are there videos of the author speaking? PDFs? Podcast interviews? Links to published works? A photo gallery?

These pages often rank for the author’s name; treat them as a personal microsite 🤓 pic.twitter.com/cXRUviZBl1

— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 12, 2021

Is there a benefit to moving links around on your pages?

If you’ve moved links around on your page, it will not give you an edge ranking wise. This might be useful for usability or relevance for users, but ultimately John says it won’t do anything for your SEO. Internal linking is a powerful tool when used properly so we recommend making the links as relevant as possible, easy to use, and easily findable/noticeable for your users. If you’re reading something and thinking, ‘hey I have a great article that’s related to this’, link to it and help your users out! 

Unique interview questions when hiring digital marketing talent

If you’re currently hiring and putting together interview questions, this is for you. There are a ton of great questions in here that outshine generic interview questions by adding a digital marketing spin. We always like to add a question that helps gauge personality when we interview, so don’t be afraid to add something fun or silly if that’s the type of person you’re looking for. 

Fed up of those unhelpful '10 most common #JobInterview questions' listicles?

So are we!🤦‍♀️

We've put together some REAL questions digital marketing experts like @CarrieRosePR, @areej_abuali and @iamdanrice love to ask 👇https://t.co/acWBbLDXeJ

— clockworkTalent. (@clockworkTalent) August 10, 2021

We’re definitely seeing some volatility over the weekend that now appears to have settled. We haven’t heard much from the local experts about any updates, so we assume this isn’t much to be concerned about. As always, if something should change, we’ll let you know!

How to Optimize Your FAQ Schema to Maximize Positive Outcomes – Matt Green
https://jurisdigital.com/more-clicks-conversions-faqpage-schema/
August 5, 2021

Implementing FAQPage schema to your pages is a great way to increase visibility in the SERPs, driving more clicks and conversions. Matt Green from Juris Digital has published a helpful 3-step process to show how to best optimize your FAQ content and how to strategically implement your schema for maximized outcomes.

The New Moz SEO Q&A: 100K URL Migration Case Study – Cyrus Shepard
https://moz.com/blog/moz-qa-migration-case-study
August 16, 2021

Moz has a great Q&A platform filled with great insightful discussions – but that wasn’t always the case! In this great case study, Cyrus walks us through how Moz took a page with an abundance of technical issues, poorly performing page speed, issues with spam, outdated tools, and migrated it to the great Q&A resource page it is today.

Google My Business ‘Photo Updates’: A New Way to Get Customer Pics – Claire Carlile
https://www.brightlocal.com/blog/google-my-business-photo-updates/
August 11, 2021

We don’t know about you, but here at MHC, our employees love checking GMB photos when researching local businesses. How else will we know which coffee shop has the most aesthetically pleasing interior? If this is a pain point for your business or a client of yours, we suggest giving this blog post a full read!

🚨UPDATE 🚨

We are looking for a digital PR manager to join the Rise at Seven team in the US – REMOTE

Preferably east coast for time zones

If you fancy a chat, get in touch https://t.co/KxiBPx3vqC

— Carrie Rose (@CarrieRosePR) August 13, 2021

Hi everybody

2 jobs filled last week leaving just one lonely vacancy – and it’s a cool role so we were surprised this was the last to be filled ;(

**REMOTE JOB ALERT**

We are on the lookout for experienced content marketing people – The job description…https://t.co/FhKuy0yaKn

— Gareth Hoyle (@search_magician) August 16, 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:

• Full algorithm update news
• Google is introducing more changes to make Search safer for youth
• John Mueller approved guide for measuring and improving Core Web Vitals
• Insight on the new structured data
• How does linking to a site with a low Domain Rating (DR) impact you?
• First steps to getting a great Page Experience
• Advice on spammy links
• Will too many internal links impact ranking?
• What to do if you have PDFs or docs being indexed
• A guide for website migration
• Schema markup for Shopify
• A thread of great insight from John Mueller
• Google hasn’t shifted all sites to mobile-first indexing
• Another handy tool for keyword research
• New Core Web Vitals validation tool
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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