Welcome to the winter edition of Evgeniy’s monthly roundup . Each month, I bring #Marcheshour readers a flavor of information, articles and tools I consider to be some of the best SEO and Internet marketing resources.  Without much ado, here are some of the most exciting and informative resources I came across during the month of January 2017.

 

“Google Algorithm Updates and Changes History” by By Saba K on Nirmal blog. This is a rather well illustrated infographic. It presents all the major Google updates and changes from 1998 to 201.

Here is a sample of Google updates featured in the infographic:

  • Local SEO update
  • Mobile friendly update
  • Pigeon
  • Hummingbird
  • Penguin
  • Panda
  • Google instant
  • Real time search
  • Google Suggest
  • Etc

 

“Keyword Research : The Beginner’s Way To Successful SEO” by Afraz Ul Haque on Blogrex.

As indicted in the title, this article is targeted at webmasters who are new to SEO. After reading it, I think even seasoned; SEO gurus may still find a few useful information in this article. I will recommend it to both beginners and advanced search engine marketing practitioners.

Questions the author explored in the article includes some of the following:

  • What Is Keyword Research?
  • How Can I Do That?
  • Selected Some Keywords, But Still Not Confident If I Should Work On These Or Not?
  • Why Do I Have Low CPC (Cost Per Click) On My Blog Or Website?
  • Can I Find Low Competition Keywords Without Using Any Paid Tools?
  • Should I Target High Competition Keywords As I am Newbie?
  • Do My Keywords Have Any $$$$ Value?
  • I am Very New In The Online Field And Everybody Is Doing SEO, Can I Win?

 

“103 Useful SEO Interview Questions & Answers: A Beginner’s Guide to SEO” by Bhaswati Chakrabarti on My Tasker blog. There is really nothing much to say about this blog, the title speaks for itself. It raises all the important SEO questions and provides a comprehensive answer. Here is a small flavor of some of the questions it raises:

  • What is the definition of keyword?
  • What are meta descriptions?
  • What is robots.txt?
  • What are doorway pages?
  • What is Google Analytics?
  • What is 301 Redirect?

 

“25+ Common SEO Mistakes That Are Killing Your Website (Infographic)” on Rswebsols. Another infographic in this roundup edition.

It is quite interesting that the author of this article listed page load speed as number 1 item that affects you site ranking. There are loads of other SEO mistakes listed, while I am not sure about how the mistakes are ranked, they are all however valid SEO mistakes that should be remedied.

 

“Google Intrusive Interstitials Mobile Penalty Does Hurt” by Barry Schwartz on SE Round Table. The Google mobile interstitial penalty started tolling out last week. Some sites seems to have been impacted negatively:

https://twitter.com/glenngabe/status/819884725410131968

https://twitter.com/glenngabe/status/819884891898777601

 

 

“10 Ways to Get Ready for Google’s Mobile Interstitials Penalty on January 10th” by Matt Southern on Search Engine Journal. It seems that this update will be quite big. Here are 10 ways to get ready according to Matt:
Be Honest With Yourself: Do Your Pop-Ups Serve a Purpose?

  • Hiding Content With Ads is Now Against Google Guidelines
  • Ad Publishers Need to Adapt and Look Into New Strategies
  • Develop a Content Marketing Strategy for Generating Revenue
  • Mobile-Friendly Label is Being Removed for All Sites, But Being Mobile-Friendly Still Matters
  • Intrusive Interstitials Not Allowed on Mobile, But Desktop is Still OK
  • Check Your WordPress Plugins
  • Interstitials Triggered by Exit Intent Are Still Allowed
  • Page-to-Page Interstitials Will Not Be Penalized

 

https://twitter.com/schachin/status/816723726058262528

 

“8 Predictions for SEO in 2017” by Rand Fishkin on Moz blog. It is quite interesting to read such predictions from one of the most well-known SEO guru in the world.

#1: Data will reveal Google organic results to have <70% CTR

#2: Mobile will barely cut in to desktop’s usage and its growth rate in developed countries will slow

#3: Twitter will figure out how to grow again

#4: Social content engines will become a force

#5: Yext will IPO, prompting even more interest in the world of local listings

#6: The death of normal distributions will hit both publishing and search results hard

#7: The rise of adblocking is going to trigger attempts at legislation and incite more sites to restrict adblocking users

#8: DuckDuckGo will be the fastest-growing search engine of 2016

 

“PPC in 2017, Death of the Ad” by Ed Leake on Midasmedia blog.

With the growth of Windows 10, after Microsoft rolled out free Windows 10 upgrade. Bing, Microsoft answer to Google saw a 21.6% growth in use in the US.  This should make more people look at PPC on Bing with a fresh pair of eyes. Here are some of the benefits Bing offers over Google PPC:

  • Cheaper per click
  • Growing audience
  • Converts just as well as Google traffic
  • Higher age demographic

 

“What Ecommerce Marketers Need to Know About Mobile SEO in 2017” by Everett Sizemore on bigcommerce. Here are the five generations of mobile website development according to the author:

First Generation: Subdirectories and subdomains, with or without forced redirects.

Second Generation: Responsive design based on a fluid / stackable grid pattern.

Third Generation: Responsive web design with Adaptive Logic

Fourth Generation: Fully dynamic web design

Fifth Generation: Single Page Application (SPA) websites

 

“The Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Hashtags” by Ana Gotter on Snappa.io. Instagram is probably one of the most popular social networks among teenagers. Hashtags are very important on Instagram especially if you are promoting an event.

Choosing relevant hashtags that fit your audience’s interests significantly expands your reach. You can create a brand hashtag and promote it. Here are some amazing hashtags that can boost visibility:

  • #love
  • #instagood
  • #tbt (Throwback Thursday)
  • #wcw (Woman crush Wednesday)
  • #mcm (Man crush Monday)
  • #photooftheday / #picoftheday
  • #instalike
  • #food (who doesn’t like food?) / #instafood / #foodporn
  • #family
  • #nofilter
  • #blackandwhite
  • #motivation

 

Thank you for reading. Please leave a comment below or contact me through this form or via my Twitter account. Your feedback is most welcomed.