Let’s start this post by acknowledging the obvious. In a perfect world, all websites owned by an entity would be consolidated into a single domain. However, in the real world, this simply isn’t feasible. Whether it be different brands or a completely different audience, many SEOs are challenged with accomplishing organic growth across multiple web properties. I want to share a strategy I tested nearly two years ago that still provides a massive increase in organic traffic today. The best part of this case study is that it only highlights a single piece of content. If done correctly, this strategy

Hosting Theme Plugins Images Resources Hosting and TTFB One of the first things I noticed was that the time it took to get the initial response from the server (time to first byte, or TTFB) was pretty high on almost all pages—around 1.5s to almost 2s on any given page—and this was just to get the initial connection to the page, not even start to download and process any resources, build the DOM, etc. Beyond that, there were other factors related to hosting that just weren’t going to help, such as not having HTTP/2 setup/configured (could be done with CDN,

There are few things more exciting than growing your business to the point where you get to add a new team member. Hiring a seasoned SEO will result in an immediate contribution to the team, however, you will pay for this convenience. This isn’t a bad thing but depending on your budget an entry-level position might be a better fit. This guide focuses on training junior team members who have minimal SEO knowledge. I’ll walk you through a proven method that has produced some of the brightest and most productive SEOs that I know. Step 1: Assign a Mentor This

  Let’s start this post off by clearing up a few canonical misconceptions. A canonical tag is a band-aid for when a single URL cannot be used for variations of duplication (or near duplicate) content – think faceted navigation or content hosted across several sites. Canonical tags are also not be used as a substitute 301 redirect. With that said, let’s continue! Why/When To Use Canonical Tags? Google identified five situations in which a user may want to leverage the canonical tag within their website. To specify which URL that you want people to see in search results. To consolidate link signals

I’m excited to announce the release of a new Chrome extension I have been working on.  Introducing Inspect Canonical!  This Chrome extension was created to fill a void in the industry for easily identifying not only a canonical tag on a given URL but anytime a page improperly uses the canonical tag.   Download Inspect Canonical Chrome Extension   Below are the conditions Inspect Canonical tests for, in the order, it tests for:   RED “C” = ERROR, Canonical tag not valid for one of the following reasons Page contains noindex robots meta Message: “Page contains robots ‘noindex’ tag. Canonical

a Rafflecopter giveaway Woah, Cool Giveaway! What’s This For? The #SEOForLunch newsletter is proud to announce It’s 100th issue grand prize giveaway.  The winners of this contest will receive over $1500.00 in various SEO resources. Each of these resources was handpicked and are proven assets in creating and sustaining profitable SEO campaigns. This contest represents a huge THANK YOU to all current and new #SEOForLunch newsletter subscribers.  Without you guys, this newsletter does not exist!   What Prizes Can I Win? The grand prize winner will receive the following: AHREFs toolset subscription for 3 months ($537.00 value) Screaming Frog Web Crawler

Communication. Regardless where you are in your career, enhancing your communication will only make you better at your job and open up opportunities to continue to advance.  This is especially true in SEO where smart consultants might be a dime a dozen but effective SEO communicators are truly diamonds within the rough. There isn’t a single situation that can’t be made better by improving a persons communication skills. This post will cover many phases within a standard SEO engagement.  None of these phases should be new to you but the opportunity to improve on your effective communication can help differentiate you