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How to Effectively Disavow Links & Protect Organic Ranking

Technical SEO
June 11, 2021/by
How to Effectively Disavow Links & Protect Organic Ranking If you're confused about when, why, and how to disavow links — you aren't alone. We all know that backlinks are critical to your SEO success, but the quality of those backlinks can make all the difference in that success. This post will help you understand when and how to submit a Google disavow file, which is important for protecting your domain. Let's dive in — but first, what is the disavow tool? What is the disavow tool? The disavow tool gives you the opportunity to ask Google to ignore low-quality backlinks to your website. When you submit a disavow file to Google, you are asking them to ignore certain links that are pointing to your domain. There is no obligation for them to respect your request, but if they do, those links won't be used in determining your ranking in search results. It's important to understand, however, that disavowing backlinks doesn't remove them from your backlink profile. Do you actually need to use the disavow tool? Google has made it clear that they only want you to use the disavow tool if you need to. They recommend using it if you have a manual spam penalty, or if you knowingly took part in link-building practices that might be harming you. In 2019, Google Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller talked about the disavow tool during Google Webmaster Central office hours. He says, "I think for most websites out there, pretty...
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25 Google Search Statistics to Bookmark ASAP

Marketing Data
June 10, 2021/by
25 Google Search Statistics to Bookmark ASAP In many ways, marketing is a game of trend watching. The marketer who’s best at spotting and using trends earns their business market share, brand recognition, and ultimately, revenue. But how do you search for trends? And where do you start? Well, since it owns more than 92% of the global search engine market, the answer to both of these questions is, Google. Google’s nearest competitor, Bing, only holds 2.5% of market share, while Yahoo accounts for 1.5%. The distribution has remained relatively stable over the past few years with Google consistently claiming competitive victory thanks to detailed search results, in-depth analytics, and evolving service offerings. Consider the rapid uptake of "Google" as a verb meaning, "to search" — "I’ll just Google it," "can’t you Google that?" "isn’t it on Google?" It’s not an exaggeration to say that when it comes to searching for information online, Google is — by far — the digital frontrunner. Google also makes efforts to personalize search results, in turn, increasing the chances that users will opt for Google the next time they have a question. For users that aren’t logged into a Gmail or another Google account, the company uses anonymously stored browser cookies to get a sense of search histories and preferences. For users signed into their Google account, Chrome’s browser history provides the data necessary for Google to construct a profile based on age, language preference, gender and search preferences, which informs the...
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The Modern, Inside Scoop on Google PageRank In 2021

Technical SEO
June 10, 2021/by
The Modern, Inside Scoop on Google PageRank In 2021 If you have been in SEO for a while, you may remember the days of working hard to increase the PageRank of websites — it was the metric every SEO cared about and wanted to improve. Improving PageRank meant improving your authority (usually with backlinks), which in turn could result in higher rankings and more traffic.  But what happened to PageRank? It's rarely talked about anymore.  Believe it or not, PageRank is still used as a ranking signal for Google, even if you haven't heard it mentioned in a while. Here, we'll explore what you need to know about Google PageRank in 2021. What is Google PageRank? Google PageRank is a very complex concept, but we are going to try and break it down to make it easy to understand. PageRank uses a mathematical formula to score the value of a page based on the quality and quantity of the pages linking it to it.  The PageRank formula will look at the number of inbound links, external links, and the PageRank of those links to determine authority. The formula will create a score using a logarithmic scale with values ranging from 0-10.  The higher the PageRank score of a page, the more authoritative that page is. You can get more in-depth information about the PageRank formula in the original paper that was published back in 1997. The PageRank Toolbar Years ago, there used to be a toolbar that could show...
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How to Grow Your YouTube Channel [New Data]

Youtube Marketing
June 9, 2021/by
How to Grow Your YouTube Channel Did you know that YouTube currently has 2 billion active users a month and is projected to grow to almost 3 billion active users by 2025? It's one of the fastest-growing and most popular social networks today. Plus, it helps people grow their businesses. In fact, the number of channels earning six figures per year on YouTube grew more than 40% y/y, the number of channels earning five figures per year on YouTube grew more than 50% y/y, and the number of channels with more than one million subscribers grew by more than 65% y/y. Now, all that being said, you might be wondering, "How do I grow my YouTube channel so I can drive more traffic to my website and revenue to my business?" To help marketers and business owners answer this question, we asked 300 consumers why they most commonly subscribe to YouTube channels. After looking into the data, we'll dive into our findings to help you better design effective strategies toward connecting with your audience on YouTube. Let's get started. Why Do Consumers Subscribe to YouTube Channels 30% of respondents said they most commonly subscribe to YouTube channels because the channel publishes how-tos or educational content about their career or industry. 21% of respondents subscribe to channels because the channel publishes how-tos or educational content about their hobbies. And 17% of respondents said they subscribe to YouTube channels because they post funny or entertaining videos. To review the...
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Fewer Women Than Men Asked For Raises During COVID-19, Especially in Marketing [New Research]

Office Culture
June 9, 2021/by
Fewer Women Than Men Asked For Raises During COVID-19, Especially in Marketing Asking for a raise or promotion can be scary, especially when your company is going through shifts related to world events. In early 2021, Fishbowl conducted a survey that shed some light on the gender wage gap, which continued if not grew in 2020. The survey of nearly 17,000 professionals revealed that 63% of respondents have avoided asking for a raise following "changes related to the pandemic." When splitting the whopping number of respondents by gender, 42.4% of them were women, while just 31.79% were men. Image Source When diving into the industries that saw the least raise or promotion requests, marketing was at the top of the list. About 54.5% of marketing professionals did not ask for a raise or promotion in the last year due to the pandemic. While some might be shocked by this data, many aren't. After all, marketing departments have been known to get the least budget, smaller headcounts, and less overall investments. Meanwhile, women have been seen to negotiate less and apply for lower-level roles than men with the same experience. In a recent LinkedIn post, Femme Pallette CEO Lucy Nuemanova shed more light on why women generally don't negotiate as often as men. "Many women avoid having these conversations because they don’t want to be perceived as ungrateful, or greedy, or needy by management, and therefore many times women tend to wait to be rewarded," Nuemanova explained. If you're a woman in the...
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80 Things to Check Before, During, and After Launching a Website

Website Design
June 8, 2021/by
80 Things to Check Before, During, and After Launching a Website Admit it: Launching a new website is stressful — even for the most seasoned digital marketers. Websites are complex. There are so many things that are easily overlooked, like a broken link or a misspelled word. And of course, a handful of things could go very, very wrong. Like what if you forget to test an important data capture form and then lose out on generating a bunch of new leads? Or worse, what if you forget to properly set up site redirects, and those valuable search engine visitors get a page not found message? Instead of worrying about the what ifs, wouldn't it be much easier to have a comprehensive website checklist to run down before every site launch? One that you could use for enterprise websites, microsites, landing pages, and everything in between? Fortunately, we've created just that. Keep reading to learn everything you need to do before, during, and after launching a website.  What You Should Do Before Beginning Your Site Design Whether this is your first website that is being built from scratch or you are doing a website redesign, there are a few steps that you should take before hiring a web designer or diving in yourself. 1. Analyze your previous website (if applicable). In order to make good decisions, you must first understand where you've been. That starts with your existing website if you have one. Ask yourself:  What is the...
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3 Ways to Leverage Brand Champions for Your Business

Branding
June 8, 2021/by
3 Ways to Leverage Brand Champions for Your Business In our personal lives, we all want people who champion us. If we're lucky, that will start with our family and extend to our friends and significant others. In an ideal work environment, our managers will also champion us and help us climb the ladder. There's nothing better than having people cheering for you on the sidelines and advocating for you in the rooms you're not in. As a business owner, you also want that level of support for your brand. That's where a brand champion comes in as someone who promotes your business and helps grow your loyalty base. Let's dive into why you need a brand champion, how to get one, and how to incorporate it into your marketing strategy. Depending on the size of your business, you may have one or several champions. Sometimes, that role is embedded in your staff's responsibilities. For instance, an employer brand specialist is responsible for promoting a company's culture and benefits to outside candidates. That, in itself, is a type of brand champion, as their role is centered around campaigning for your brand. You can say the same for brand ambassadors who partner with businesses to promote them and generate leads. A key difference to note here is that there is typically a contractual obligation for ambassadors to promote your brand. Champions may be incentivized to do so, but they're not required to celebrate your brand. In a small company,...
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