Getting your site to rank is tricky business. Just when you think you’ve multiplied your chances of ranking by using the right keyword in your content, you realize you haven’t been paying attention to off-page SEO.
 
Wasn’t on-site SEO enough? You sprinkled in keywords throughout your headings and content, added them to the Yoast SEO plugin, and wrote a tight meta description too. Now you’re hearing you’ve got to pay attention to off-page SEO too. What?
 
It’s simple, really. Off-page SEO means attempting to get backlinks from other, already-established sites so those links can signal Google your site is authoritative and get better ranking.
 
Now how do you get the links?
 
Let’s answer this in this post. We’ll talk about 5 off-page SEO techniques, which can help you get backlinks to your site. Before diving into these, however, let’s touch base with what off-page SEO is and some basics of link building.
 
Let’s start, shall we?
 
### What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO involves actions you take to improve your rankings in the search engine. The only thing is, you take these steps outside your website’s realm, much like dining out. On-page SEO is the exact opposite – steps you take on your website to improve your rankings. It’s the eat-at-home version.
 
Notice both off-page SEO, also known as off-site SEO, and on-page SEO share their goal – to get you to rank better on the search engine. A lower ranking reduces your odds of getting better traffic as your page is not very discoverable.
 
Webpages showing up in the first five organic results of Google search <a href="https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/seo-statistics" target="blank">take home 67.60% of the clicks</a>. Besides, people <a href="https://www.conversionguru.co.za/2017/05/29/90-people-dont-go-past-page-1-google-search-results-searching/" target="blank">rarely scroll past the first search results page</a>. So who wants to rank better?

### The basics of link building
It’s settled then – off-site SEO is your bat signal that tells Google you’re trustworthy, therefore, deserve a better positioning in the search results. But are all links created equal?
 
Certain links are trustworthy while others are spam (created through spammy off-page SEO practices). Since we’ll be covering only authentic off-site SEO tactics, you don’t need to worry about those.
 
For now, keep the following in mind:

- The links you’re attempting to get should come from a relevant site. 

If you’re a career coach, it doesn’t make sense to get a link from a food blogger. The link becomes irrelevant. 

- The linking domain and page should have good authority. 

Google’s page authority metric is called PageRank. Unfortunately there is no way to see that metric anymore, but some SEO tools have their own authority metrics, which can give us a good idea. For instance, keep tabs on Moz’s DA (domain authority) and PA (page authority) metrics. Alternatively, Ahrefs’ metrics of DR (Domain Rating) and UR (URL Rating) are also good indicators. A site with low DA or DR doesn’t have the I’ve-stood-the-test-of-time authority to tell Google you deserve better ranking. In short, it doesn’t bring much value to the table.

In a nutshell, you need links from high authority, trustworthy sites that are relevant to your niche. 

What’s next? Getting your hands dirty with off-page SEO. Here we go:


## 1. Build links by guest blogging

Guest blogging involves you writing content for another site in your niche as a “guest” on their page. You either add a link to your page in the content or get one in the author bio that credits you for writing the piece.

![Links in Guest Post Author Bio on GetResponse](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/6pJrw2nhIjEhPsGyWGNNt/66f10015cf9fba5e9a693be13dedcc10/Links_in_Guest_Post_Author_Bio_on_GetResponse.png)

<center><a href="https://www.getresponse.com/blog/emojis-email-subject-line-best-practices" target="blank">Guest post for GetResponse</a></center>

<p>Some say guest blogging has lost its charm. Others, like <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=guest%20blogging%20(from%3AAaronOrendorff)&src=typed_query" target="blank">Aaron Orendorff</a>, promise it works, having guest posted for over <a href="https://copyhackers.com/2019/11/guest-posting/" target="blank">40 leading publications and gotten a job</a> as the editor in chief at Shopify Plus. The correct answer?
 
Done correctly, guest blogging can be a good source of solid backlinks and referral traffic to your site. Just as in the case of any other off-site SEO strategy, there are two ways to build links with guest posting:

❌ __The wrong way__: Writing meh content on every site that can link back to you, never caring if the site is relevant to yours or if its readers are interested in what you have to say.
 
✔ __The right way__: Contributing valuable content to a guest site in your niche on a topic that genuinely interests readers.
 
So how do you go about doing things the right way?

❌ The wrong way: Writing meh content on every site that can link back to you, never caring if the site is relevant to yours or if its readers are interested in what you have to say.
 
✔ The right way: Contributing valuable content to a guest site in your niche on a topic that genuinely interests readers.
 
So how do you go about doing things the right way?

### How to guest post the right way?

The best (and most effective) way to guest post starts with building relationships in your industry. Discover potential target sites by googling:
 
[Your niche] + [write for us] or [guest post] or [contribute to] or [guest writer]
 
For instance:

![SERPs Query - marketing write for us](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/dSMkXT5nvWiSrzO1bXob6/d4df25466c4b3f0c9b73f88fa8a91a2b/SERPs_Query_-_marketing_write_for_us.png)

(On a side note, find several dozen more search operators to use <a href="https://www.iqseo.org/search-operators-for-seo/" target="blank">here</a>.)
 
Next, start networking with editors of publications that are on your to-guest-post list. Eventually, <a href="https://bloggingwizard.com/the-best-guest-post-pitch/" target="blank">pitch</a> your topics.
 
I like to think you need to interact with someone at least 6-7 times before you pitch, it’s something I’ve picked from the <a href="https://www.krusecontrolinc.com/rule-of-7-how-social-media-crushes-old-school-marketing/" target="blank">marketing rule of 7</a>.
 
Pitching this way increases your chances of getting a reply from busy editors. But what confirms your chances of getting your pitch approved? Studying the target site to pitch topics that their audience will enjoy.
 
<a href="https://twitter.com/jennals" target="blank">Jenna Scaglione</a>, the Managing Editor for Foundr magazine <a href="https://foundr.com/how-to-pitch-a-blog" target="blank">shares</a>, “The goal is to show the editor that you did your homework and you understand the blog’s style and audience. You don’t have to even tell editors that you did this research. They will know right away from your pitch email.”

Alternatively, cold pitch editors of your target site. Use a tool like <a href="https://respona.com/" target="blank">Respona</a> to schedule an outreach campaign. However, warm your pitches by personalizing your emails to editors. How? Read about the person who you’ll be emailing to develop a personal connection or share what you liked in one of the pieces you read on the target site.
 
### Where should you guest post?

Go for sites with:

- High DA and PA
- Active presence on social
- Engaged audience (hint: look at the comments or, at least, the social shares)

### Best practices:

- Never pitch a site before first studying it.
- Pitch 3-5 topics to give the editor a choice.
- Don’t just pitch a topic. Pitch a short outline to show the angle the piece will take.
- Establish your credibility in your pitch, for instance, by sharing links to what you’ve written.


## 2. Tap into off-page SEO with HARO

<a href="https://www.helpareporter.com/" target="blank">HARO or Help A Reporter Out</a> is a platform where journalists get sources (aka quotes) from experts for their content. You can benefit by signing up as a source that offers valuable insights to pitches shared. For instance, Nozzle <a href="https://nozzle.io/blog/haro-link-building-success-story" target="blank">acquired a link from a DA 53 (DR 75) site via HARO</a>.
 
Two ways to go about using HARO:
 
❌ __The wrong way__: Replying to every pitch with poor quality answers that lack depth and clarity.
 
✔ __The right way__: Replying to selected but highly relevant pitches where your expertise matters. Moreover, giving an in-depth answer that is clear, focused, and meets all requirements listed in a pitch.


### How to build backlinks with HARO?

Every pitch that accepts you as a source links back to your site. That’s a backlink. Bingo! So you need to kick things off by signing up for HARO and keeping an eye on the pitches pouring into your inbox. Once you spot a relevant pitch, hit reply.
 
### Where and how should you respond on HARO?

Respond to relevant pitches where you understand you can add value. For instance, I can best offer my opinion on writing, blogging, and content marketing. I can never offer advice on pet matters.

### Best practices:

- Take your time to craft your response. Journalists reject thin responses right away.
- Provide unique insights, an answer that you think others wouldn’t have covered.
- Read through the pitch to see if you meet the journalist’s requirements and answer everything they ask for.
- Wait. Don’t expect backlinks to roll in with your first reply to a HARO request itself.


## 3. Use Quora to build links

<a href="https://www.quora.com/" target="blank">Quora</a> is a Q&A platform where people connect to ask and answer questions in areas where they’re experts in.
 
But here’s the catch – Quora doesn’t offer do-follow links. Instead, it offers no-follow links which don’t pass on link juice..
 
So why should you chase Quora in the first place? Because you need no-follow links too. A link portfolio that includes no follow links looks more natural. Moreover, your answers on Quora increase your content’s exposure to niche-specific audiences, who can link back to you. That’s mission accomplished, except, indirectly.
 
So, what’s wrong, what’s right here?
 
❌ __The wrong way__: Responding to whatever questions you see in your stream with half-baked answers immediately linking to your content.
 
✔ __The right way__: Engaging with community members by adding to others’ answers and pairing this with answering relevant questions that link to your page.

![Imran Esmail on Quora](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/6dnbvqp1XVxxqUF8mC18XE/75b68dce292799ea969bf46010922571/Imran_Esmail_on_Quora.png)
<center><a href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Imran-Esmail" target="blank">Imran Esmail on Quora</a></center>

### How to build backlinks with Quora?

You need to start with engaging on the platform just like you do on social media. Read responses and add your take to them. Eventually, start answering questions yourself. But the trick is in making your answer valuable enough for the viewer to click your link.
 
You have two options for this:
 
One, write a solid introduction that hooks the reader and gets him to click on your link.
Two, share pointers answering the question, but tell readers to get more details on your page.
 
### Which questions should you answer on Quora?

Answer questions with good followers. This shows several people are interested in the answer. You’ll also need to pick a question with as few answers as possible, so your response has a better chance of getting the exposure it deserves. Lastly, answer recently asked questions. Check the last asked date to learn how fresh or stale a question is.

### Best practices:

- Use a friendly, professional tone.
- Add visuals that supplement your answer. Not many people include visuals so it’s a good way to standout in the crowd.
- Don’t just write an answer, humanize it – share your experience, what you’ve learned, and so on.


## 4. Build backlinks on social media

Sure social media is a good place to promote your content, but it’s an equally good place for building backlinks. You only need to be good at making useful connections and become part of active communities.
 
Check out the wrong and right ways in this case:
 
❌ __The wrong way__: Spamming social media, for instance, joining Facebook groups and sharing your links there without context.
 
✔ __The right way__: Engaging with people, offering value, making meaningful connections, and building links when the opportunity arises.


### How to build backlinks on social?

Ready to get backlinks from social media? Let’s dig into networks individually. But remember, it all starts with engagement.
 
<a href="https://twitter.com/boydnorwood/status/1222956358535761920?s=20" target="blank">https://twitter.com/boydnorwood/status/1222956358535761920?s=20</a>
 
<h4>Facebook</h4>
Join niche-relevant groups. Certain groups offer PR opportunities. Others, put up collaboration threads where you can connect with people to guest post or exchange links. Still others, ask for contributions like in the example below:

![Contribution links Via Quuu Promote Facebook Group](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/3LVVzf6HdKYZcj78mfb7tM/898231a8c412e3048cfd0ad8274f198d/Contribution_links_Via_Quuu_Promote_Facebook_Group.png)
<center><a href="https://www.facebook.com/quuuco/" target="blank">Via Quuu Promote Facebook Group</a></center>

<p><h4>Twitter</h4>
Connect with journalists and writers who are always on the lookout for contributors. Looking for a shortcut? Track the #journorequest #PRrequest #bloggerrequest hashtags. These are dedicated to connecting experts and writers.
 
<a href="https://twitter.com/inkandcopy/status/1207406658344882176" target="blank">https://twitter.com/inkandcopy/status/1207406658344882176</a>
 
<h4>Pinterest</h4>
<a href="https://venngage.com/blog/visual-content-marketing-statistics/" target="blank">42% of marketers</a> confirm infographics and original graphics are the most engaging. Naturally, putting them on a visual platform like Pinterest opens doors for backlinks for these infographics and images.
 
What’s more, you can also get links if your visual content ends up in a “best from Pinterest” article such as “<a href="https://www.translationroyale.com/top-content-marketing-pinterest-accounts/" target="blank">8 pinterest accounts every content marketer should follow</a>”.

### Best practices:

- Offer free value to establish yourself as a subject matter authority.
- Solve people’s problems by answering questions they have on social.
- Use hashtag tracking tools to keep tabs on important hashtags.


## 5. Get links by blog commenting

Although blog commenting became notorious some time back, Google’s former head of search spam, <a href="https://twitter.com/mattcutts" target="blank">Matt Cutts</a>, disclosed that even he built links with blog commenting in a video explaining the right way to do it:
 
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDRlVSWTRY&feature=youtu.be" target="blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDRlVSWTRY&feature=youtu.be</a>
 
Here’s a summary of the wrong and right way of blog commenting:
 
❌ __The wrong way__: Leaving a large number of meaningless comments with your link.
 
✔ __The right way__: Making comments that add value on relevant sites with high engagement.



### How to build backlinks by blog commenting?
 
The first rule is to always comment on niche-relevant sites. And the second is to read the post before commenting. Take a point and expand on it by adding your experience to it.
 
Make sure your <a href="https://smartblogger.com/blog-comments/" target="blank">comment is offering value</a> and isn’t a mere “great post” or “excellent article.” See that you comment on an engaged, high-DA site where comments are common. For instance, this site:

![Example of blog with regular commenters](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/zlzWoBXwf2VMGWPXSBoqZ/301bfb4bde37d26c3ad0ed6ff71753b3/Example_of_blog_with_regular_commenters.png)

<center><a href="https://dispatch.m.io/" target="blank">source</a></center>

<p>
Don’t overdo comments though. If all the links to your site come from comments without any natural links, Google will sniff that as a link scheme.
 
Anna Crowe, Content Strategy Lead at Leadfeeder <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/link-building-guide/blog-comments/" target="blank">shares a solution</a> to this end, “If you take the time to comment on two blog posts per day, with a backlink back to your website (even if the links are nofollowed), the end result will be roughly 60 backlinks per month, or 720 per year.”

### Best practices:
 
Make highly relevant comments on posts that are relevant to your niche.
Comment with your profile and image rather than a keyword or anchor text.
Avoid sending spam signals to Google by limiting the number of blog comments.

## Ready to make some backlinks?
  
Off-page SEO takes time, but reaps sweet fruit. Get to building links with these five proven strategies. But remember – in all instances, building relationships and basing those relationships on offering free value takes home the trophy. Now, go crush those off-site SEO goals. 🙌
  
__Author Bio:__
<img src='//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/2X2qqtOXwCpujNnSSwZTTv/a0f8b3b3f8ff8fbc4ba7e8ad41037993/Masooma_Memon_headshot.png' style='float: left; margin: 1rem;' />
<a href="https://inkandcopy.com/" target="blank">Masooma Memon</a> is a pizza-loving freelance writer by day and a novel nerd by night. She crafts research-backed, actionable blog posts for SaaS and marketing brands that aim to employ quality content to educate and engage with their audience.

Twitter profile: <a href="https://twitter.com/inkandcopy" target="blank">@inkandcopy</a>




5 Proven Off-page SEO Tactics to Help You Build Powerful Links in No Time

# A New Player Enters the Game: 
## 9 Features to Love About the Rank Math SEO Plugin

Released in November 2018, the Rank Math SEO plugin for WordPress is fast becoming the favorite among SEOs. It was created by Suraj Vibhute and Bhanu Ahluwalia, who developed the plugin for their personal websites because they weren’t getting everything they needed from any of the SEO plugins that were already available. 

The best part about this new plugin is that it does everything that Yoast Pro, Yoast Local, and WooCommerce does but for free. There is no pro version of the plugin and though one may be available in the future, the developers have promised that the current free version will continue to include all of the features it does now. Vibhute and Ahluwalia have offered this powerful SEO tool for free as a way to compete with the heavyweight titleholder, Yoast SEO, which boasts more than five million active installations -- and it’s working. As of January 2020, Rank Math SEO has 100,000+ installs and counting. 

SEOs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzN1qMagTEw" target="blank">Matthew Woodward</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/rankmathseo/status/1138288141947695104" target="blank">Cyrus Shepard</a> are singing its praises for being faster, easier, and more intuitive than Yoast. It’s also 66% lighter than Yoast, which means it’s more efficient with fewer PHP requests. When you’re ready to convert, Rank Math SEO will walk you through an easy to follow setup wizard and will import existing data from your site’s current SEO plugin before deactivating it. 

![Yoast v Rank Math SEO Overview](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/1eKQlKi1k3EUdmHkvikHOK/1f32cfd67486a05c90391092d3b15a4e/Yoast-SEO-Rank-Math-Comparison.jpg)

#### Key features that set it apart from other plugins:

__Better Rich Snippet & Schema Markup Support__
Rank Math SEO allows users to easily add the right metadata for Schema markup so that search engine bots can get an accurate read of the content. It allows you to choose the Rich Snippet Type, such as article, recipe, product, service, etc., and then add relevant information such as title, description, and post robots meta. Users can also select a default category and taxonomies. The layout is very straightforward and examples are provided to help with clarity.

![Rank Math Rich Snippet Image](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/4vffOaZg1Tb9D7IB3RLkK6/8e28d652c4433e923a9e127f3aa0d4b8/09-Rank-Math-Rich-Snippet-Support.jpg)


__404 Error Monitor & Broken Link Detection__
Rank Math SEO has two 404 monitor modes, simple and advanced. The simple mode captures 404 errors while the advanced mode tracks the error page, the referring page, the time of the error, and the user agent. Yoast doesn’t offer 404 support with the current free version of their plugin. Rank Math allows you to sort and redirect or fix the errors.

![404 Error Monitor and Broken Link Detection Image](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/2OHfWy9fPmVowJ2g0h6gG3/a250b0374d5c7f64e6da1136295a49f4/404_Detection_Rank_Math_SEO.PNG)

![Rank Math SEO 404 Monitor](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/5Ctsxc6eS4P3bKCIk6I71u/6a1a8b940a207b4a2c1eeac5a954aa46/all-options-in-the-404-monitor.jpg)
__Redirections__
Users can set up custom 301, 302, 307, 410, or 451 redirections and create automatic behaviors like a default 404 redirection to the Homepage. The plugin also allows for choice of redirection type, like a 301 (permanent) or 302 (temporary). 

![Rank Math SEO Plugin Redirections](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/4tyOpfUc2NEvBFldZCJnvE/701a768f119b6cccf27928542c4d393f/Rank_Math_SEO_Plugin_Redirections_Screen.PNG)

__1-Click SEO Audit__
Accessed from the the SEO Analysis menu, it provides a fast and comprehensive analysis and tells you how to fix the issues. 

![Rank Math SEO Site-Wide Analysis](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/4TNz4bVD31VKgVQ2uTiPjX/816ed61a8c379fb9616a69bf173d2e2a/Rank_Math_SEO_Plugin_Site-Wide_Analysis.PNG)

__Robots.txt Editing__

Rank Math SEO allows you to edit the virtual robots.txt file. It's automatically added to help a site index better.

![Rank Math SEO Robots Edit](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/4RoeFlurE95n1sCH9rwZg9/e8fb2a1f95d40908c0bb28d0d7d0c7c2/Robots_Editing.png)

__Automatic Image ALT and TITLE Optimization__
Rank Math SEO allows users to choose whether to automatically add missing ALT attributes and missing TITLE attributes. If a screen reader is used, the site visitors may experience accessibility issues, but it’s ideal for when a post has only one image. Though WordPress does add an image name by default, this feature gives people the option to add title attributes for all images without a title.   

![Rank Math SEO Images](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/66ZCqhtBOgddNlncR8bQcQ/56bb63f1a9674b5cb568f2c7e19f120f/general-settings-images-corrected.png)

__Google Keyword Suggestions, Keyword Integration, and Click-Through Rank Tracking__
With Rank Math, you can choose up to five focus keywords for each post and rank multiple keywords. It tracks how they are ranking in SERPs. The plugin also integrates Google keyword suggestions and provides rank tracking info within the Google Search Console in the WordPress admin dashboard. 

![Rank Math SEO Rank and CTR Tracking](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/1bFlDqgwF781dLc7tU1yNi/81bd23133604da9a0a987d38271136d4/Rank_Math_SEO_CTR_Tracking.PNG)

Though the keyword tracker is still in beta, when its launched, it will integrate with the Google Trends Tool to help users check keyword search trends. Currently, Rank Math provides an overview and detailed information about keyword search analytics including clicks, impressions, and click-through-rates for your site’s top-performing keywords. The Search Analytics tab in the Search Console provides an overview of data sets, search analytics for keywords, sitemaps, crawl errors, and the keyword tracker. 

![Rank Math SEO Keyword Search Analytics](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/GOUz68ZWsevKICAqKHkJM/ee08b912008f49ff0d0743c46448c946/Rank-Math-Search-Console-Full.jpg)

Shameless plug: While Rank Math SEO lets you track hundreds of keywords, if you want to track tens of thousands of phrases, you should start a [free trial with Nozzle](https://nozzle.io/trial). 

__Breadcrumbs__
If your WordPress theme doesn’t already include Breadcrumbs, this tool is very helpful not only for making your site easily navigable, but also for helping search engine bots read your content classifications. Once you’ve enabled the Breadcrumbs function, you can dial in the settings, like separator characters and homepage links. 

![Rank Math SEO Breadcrumbs](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/6kh7jWtQRNCAyXQqL5FF9S/2d8daf8df7ed8981971e8fcee8be44ae/Rank_Math_SEO_Breadcrumbs.PNG)

So far, Rank Math SEO not only passes muster but crushes Yoast SEO in offerings and performance and it does so at the very good price of free. Rank Math SEO provides features that even Yoast SEO’s paid upgrade does not. This plugin also makes website data easily digestible and more accessible to amateurs and pros alike.  



Rank Math SEO Featured Image

The Rank Math SEO plugin for WordPress offers the same functionality of Yoast Pro, Yoast Local, and WooCommerce for FREE.

9 Features to Love About the Rank Math SEO Plugin

In 2018, Google launched 3,234 improvements to Search. That is an average of 8.86 changes a day. Yowza! Google engineers are busy.

For the curious, I've compiled some videos and quotes from Google engineers that explain very well how an update goes from new idea, to approved, to launched.

If you're short on time and just want a quick summary, watch Video 1 below. It's just under 4 minutes.

But for those of you who are SEO geeks like me and have more time, I present to you a few more videos. Below the videos, I have pulled out snippets from the videos and an article from Google, where I attempt to come up with a more in depth flow of the process behind how SERP and algorithm changes get approved at Google.
<br />

__Video 1: *How Google makes improvements to its search algorithm*__
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J5RZOU6vK4Q" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />

__Video 2: *SMX West 2016 - How Google Works: A Google Ranking Engineer's Story*__
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iJPu4vHETXw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />

__Video 3: *The Evolution of Search*__
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mTBShTwCnD4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />

__Video 4: *Search Quality Meeting: Spelling for Long Queries*__
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JtRJXnXgE-A" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

## Goal
Video 3 at 00:08-00:26 —
> "Our goal is actually to make improvements to Search that just answer the user's information need. Get them to their answer faster and faster. So that there's almost a seamless connection between their thoughts and their information needs and the search results that they find."

## Ideas

Video 1 at 00:34-00:37 —
> "The first step in improving Google Search is coming up with an idea."

Video 1 at 00:43-00:50 —
> "Ranking engineers then come up with a hypothesis about what signal, what data, could we integrate into our algorithm."

Video 2 at 25:30-25:42 —
> "[Google has] a team of a few hundred software engineers. They are focused on [the] metrics and signals. They run lots and lots of experiments and they make a lot of changes." And they come up with a lot of ideas.

## Search Quality Tests

Video 1 at 00:50-00:58 —
> "We test all these reasonable ideas through rigorous scientific testing. The first is with raters."

Rigorous Testing Article —
> "We work with external Search Quality Raters to measure the quality of search results on an ongoing basis. Raters assess how well a website gives people who click on it what they are looking for, and evaluate the quality of results based on the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of the content."

Video 2 at 16:34-16:56 —
> "We published our human rater guidelines last year (in 2015). There are about 160 pages (168 pages in 2019) of great detail about how we think about what's good for users. If you're wondering why Google is doing something, often the answer is to make it look more like what the rater guidelines say.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[You can find the rater guidelines <a href="https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf" target=blank>here</a>.]

Rigorous Testing Article —
> 595,429 Search quality tests with raters (2018)

## Side-by-Side Experiments

![Panda Comparison Side by Side](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/4G0YAbhna2iBZBTMACSLjG/02518f0e695bf8b85cf4420e0e6b21cb/Panda_Comparison_Side_by_Side.jpg)

Video 1 at 01:01-01:07 —
> "We [show] these raters side-by-side [experiments] for queries that the engineer's experiment might be affecting.

Rigorous Testing Article —
> In a side-by-side experiment, we show Raters two different sets of search results: one with the proposed change already implemented and one without.

Rigorous Testing Article —
> 44,155 Side-by-side experiments (2018)

## Live Traffic Experiments

Video 1 at 01:11-1:25 —
> "We also confirm these changes with live experiments on real users. And we do this in something that's called a Sandbox. We send a very small fraction of actual Google traffic to the Sandbox. We compute lots of different metrics."

Rigorous Testing Article —
> "We enable the feature in question to just a small percentage of people, usually starting at 0.1%."

Video 2 at 12:48-13:26 —
> "We do A/B experiments on real traffic. And then we look for changes in click patterns. And I should just mention that we run a lot of experiments. It is very rare, if you do a search on Google and you're not in at least one experiment. Now not all of these are ranking experiments. [Famously](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/business/01marissa.html) Google tested the color blue that we use for links and other blue highlighting with 41 different blues and came to the conclusion what was the perfect blue."

Video 2 at 28:36-28:48 —
> "By and large, [Google engineers] try to move results with good human ratings and live experiment ratings up. And move results with bad ratings down."

Rigorous Testing Article —
> 15,096 Live traffic experiments (2018)

## Launch Reports by Quantitative Analysts
Video 2 at 26:31-26:42 —
> "A launch report is written by a quantitative analyst who is basically a statistician and someone who's an expert at analyzing our experiments."

Video 1 at 01:34-01:41 —
> "For each project, it's usually one analyst assigned from the moment that we're talking to the engineers trying to learn about their change.

Video 1 at 01:51-01:58 —
> "Ultimately, the goal of the search eval analyst team is just to provide an informed, data-driven decision and present an unbiased view."

## Launch Reviews

Video 2 at 27:54-28:00 —
> He mentions a video Google created of one of their weekly Search Quality meetings. I'm pretty sure Video 4 above is the one he is referencing.

Video 4 in video description —
> "We hold the meeting almost every Thursday to discuss possible algorithmic improvements and make decisions about what to launch."

Just look how many people are at that meeting. After looking at all the angles, I count at least 37 people crammed into that conference room but I think I'm missing a few more that are behind the cameras angle of vision. That is one expensive meeting!

Video 2 at 27:29-27:41 —
> "We try to debate ... is this good for the users, is this good for the system architecture, are we going to be able to keep improving the system after one of the these changes is made."

Rigorous Testing Article —
> "Of the proposed changes this past year (2018), many never went live, because unless we can show a change actually makes things better for people, we don’t launch it."

## Launch

Video 1 at 2:03-2:10 —
> "If our scientific testing says this is a good idea for Google users, we will launch it on Google."

Video 5 at 0:31-0:48 —
> "We might batch [algorithm changes] up and go to a meeting once a week where we talk about 8 or 10 or 12 or 6 different things that we would want to launch, but then after those get approved ... those will roll out as we can get them into production."

Video 2 at 28:07-28:36 —
> "[Once] approved, getting into production can be an easy thing. Some teams will ship it the same week. Sometimes you have to rewrite your code to actually make it suitable for our production architecture. Making things fast enough, making things clean enough. That can take awhile. I've known it to take months. In the worst case I know about, it took just shy of two years between approval and actually launching."

Rigorous Testing Article —
> 3,234 Launches (2018)

## Issues With The Process and How Google Engineers Fix It

Video 2 at 28:51-32:35 —
This is a great 4 minute segment showing two cases that illustrate where the raters and the metrics weren't cutting it and how the engineers fixed the problem.

Two kinds of problems at the core of everything engineers see:

- Systematically bad ratings
- Metrics don't capture things they care about

Video 2 at 32:28-32:35 —
> "[W]hen the metrics miss something, what ranking engineers need to do is fix the guidelines or develop new metrics."

## Summary

Video 3 at 04:24-04:40 —
> "Our goal is to make it so that the improvement we make is so much what you wanted and fits so cleanly into the flow of what you are looking for that you almost don't notice that it's happened. And looking back at it, it seems obvious that that's the way it should have always been in the first place."

Video 1 at 03:24-03:29 —
> "We've put a huge investment into understanding what works for users."

Video 1 at 03:36-03:41 —
> "I think we get excited when we feel like we've hit on an idea that really helps a lot of users."

As you can see, Google engineers are modern day superheroes. They work very hard to improve Search for all of us. And it's obviously working since Google has been the number one search engine for just under two decades now.

### Appendix A: Videos and Content Quoted
Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q
Video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPu4vHETXw
Video 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTBShTwCnD4
Video 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtRJXnXgE-A
Video 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_jm_isupFY
Rigorous Testing Article: https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/users/

Other interesting and related articles you'll enjoy:

- [How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?](https://moz.com/blog/how-often-does-google-update-its-algorithm)
- [Complex Search-Results Pages Change Search Behavior: The Pinball Pattern](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/pinball-pattern-search-behavior/)


Panda Comparison Side by Side

Google engineers have an important and difficult job. Learn how they work to improve the search algorithm.

How Google Engineers Decide What Changes to Make to the Algorithm

We decided to join in on the fun of this time of year and make an SEO christmas song.

We came up with "The 12 Years of Google Updates" which is sung to the tune of the popular (and slightly annoying, I might add) 12 Days of Christmas.

Some Nozzlers were reluctant to participate but in the end everyone did great and we had a lot of fun putting it together. We did practice singing several times to work out some bugs but we decided to only do one video take to keep it a little bit more raw.

Enjoy!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XeIUKSgiZQU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

## Lyrics:
For the last 12 years of updates, Google gave to us,
{2008} - Google Suggest 
{2009} - Rel Canonical Tags and Vince
{2010} - May Day and Caffeine Rollout
{2011} - Hordes and hordes of Pandas
{2012} - Penguins with more Pandas
{2013} - Hummingbird, Penguins and Pandas
{2014} - SSL is a ranking factor--and another Penguin and some Pandas
{2015} - Mobilegeddon and Rank Brain (with a sign adding "And the last of the Pandas")
{2016} - Penguin 4.0
{2017} - Fred
{2018} - A Broad Core Algo update (with a sign stating "boring")
{2019} - And a BERT... for everyone

I'm realizing now that the lyrics for 2018 would have been better as "Core Updates Unnamed" since there were a handful of them.

## Quick Algo History Lesson:
As all SEO's know, Google updates their algorithm hundreds, even thousands of times a year. In 2018, for example, Google announced that they made [launched 3,234 changes.](https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/users/)

In May, 2019, Dr. Pete from Moz, wrote in depth about [how often Google updates its algorithm](https://moz.com/blog/how-often-does-google-update-its-algorithm). It's interesting to see the increase in changes over the last decade.

## Monitoring the SERPs
With the constant changes happening in the SERPs everyday you need [keyword rank tracker](https://nozzle.io/) to monitor your website rankings. [Sign up for a Nozzle trial today.](https://nozzle.io/trial)



The last 12 years of updates Christmas SEO Song Performers

An SEO version of The 12 Days of Christmas Song.

The 12 Years of Google Updates Christmas Song

TechSEO Boost was the place to be on the 4th and 5th of December if you love SEO. Let me tell you about it. But if you'd rather just watch it, you can find videos of each session [over here](https://www.catalystdigital.com/techseoboost-2019-session-recordings/).

![Meghan, Paul and Derek](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/3nQiHc0loQie5nMx7BcVjQ/7d0f87389ea5b1f3f42c41a0cc0df088/Meghan__Paul_and_Derek.JPG)

## NHL Refs. Who us?

The fun began when we arrived late at night at our hotel located just across from the Boston Garden when a happy drunk man asked if we were NHL refs. The Boston Bruins had apparently just won their game 2-0 across the street and this stranger was convinced we looked just like NHL referees. It took us 10-15 minutes to convince him otherwise.

## Perfectly Organized Event
Anywho, we were happy to sponsor such a great conference. It's a super organized and well run conference. The two day event went very well and never felt rushed. There were great speakers and great food. We truly appreciate all the hard work by all the event coordinators. Meghan Lavin, Paul Shapiro and the rest of the [Catalyst Digital](https://www.catalystdigital.com/) team deserve all the credit.


## The Venue and Fun
The venue was perfect. It was held at the [City Winery](https://citywinery.com/boston/). 

![Welcom to City Winery Mat](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/5q0DxDjsg6oSF3X93P2NgL/2f7bc7a68f69e66140231484ac324509/Welcom_to_City_Winery_Mat.JPG)
![IMG 3476 (1)](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/2XpywlLX9umfWWhNCRgA1D/23fdbc7312177b4718f40bf62e39ab38/IMG_3476__1_.JPG) 

Here is a quick video showing the main areas where us SEO nerds hung out for two days.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w-Mn5wOzE6E" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


There were also some fun props to use for taking pictures with old and new friends alike.

![TechSEO Boost Props for photo shoots](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/6K6qlMJJujz8pGLcjpn4ZA/28e2d47cdf16da8570556eb28debfeb4/TechSEO_Boost_Props_for_photo_shoots.JPG)


## The Knowledge Disbursed
TechSEO Boost is such a great SEO conference because there is only one track and it's all about technical SEO. There were sessions about a whole bunch of cool topics including:

  - Technical Link Building
  - Crawl Budget
  - Google Apps Script
  - NLP for SEO
  - Googlebot & Javascript
  - Crawling & Rendering
  - Faceted Nav
  - Pagination for SEO

Below is a quick twitter recap of my favorite moments and takeaways from the event:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Nice! <a href="https://twitter.com/SeekerDigital?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SeekerDigital</a> is running titles of contacts that <a href="https://twitter.com/PitchboxApp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PitchboxApp</a> is pulling back through <a href="https://twitter.com/monkeylearn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@monkeylearn</a> and helping to automate the choosing of contacts to reach out to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/techseoboost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#techseoboost</a></p>&mdash; MyCool King (@iPullRank) <a href="https://twitter.com/iPullRank/status/1202709546625568769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

    
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/SimpsonGareth?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simpsongareth</a> is automatically classifying email responses in <a href="https://twitter.com/monkeylearn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@monkeylearn</a> by intent, sentiment and urgency and custom tagging them in <a href="https://twitter.com/PitchboxApp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PitchboxApp</a> to help them quickly filter their emails so the team can focus emails that are worth responding to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/techseoboost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#techseoboost</a></p>&mdash; MyCool King (@iPullRank) <a href="https://twitter.com/iPullRank/status/1202710104690307076?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Am I the only one who looks at Googlers in the audience to see their reactions when a speaker says Google does X? In this case I am looking at <a href="https://twitter.com/g33konaut?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@g33konaut</a> during <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechSEOBoost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TechSEOBoost</a></p>&mdash; Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustybrick/status/1202633907981758466?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;It&#39;s not that we have short attention spans, we are good at filter things that aren&#39;t important. It&#39;s about moderating cognitive load.&quot; -<a href="https://twitter.com/dawnieando?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dawnieando</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechSEOBoost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TechSEOBoost</a></p>&mdash; Jairus Mitchell (@AnInternetRobot) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnInternetRobot/status/1202632199759118337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Humans are informavores. -<a href="https://twitter.com/dawnieando?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dawnieando</a> at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechSEOBoost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TechSEOBoost</a> (Totally putting that one in my pocket for later.) <a href="https://t.co/Ksuv35m5Sj">pic.twitter.com/Ksuv35m5Sj</a></p>&mdash; Jessica Levenson (@guerillagirl) <a href="https://twitter.com/guerillagirl/status/1202632041810079746?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BERT needs stop words because if you take out the stop words you remove a lot of contextual information -<a href="https://twitter.com/jroakes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jroakes</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechSEOBoost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TechSEOBoost</a></p>&mdash; Tyler Reardon (@TylerReardon) <a href="https://twitter.com/TylerReardon/status/1202602988969365504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">If you think ‘Self, there is no way <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechSEOBoost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TechSEOBoost</a> could be as good as the hype.’<br><br>Let me tell you, as a majorly curmudgeonly person, it’s better then that!<br><br>The presentations are top tier, but the networking is s-tier. Any question can get answered. Congrats &amp; thanks <a href="https://twitter.com/fighto?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fighto</a></p>&mdash; Dan Leibson (@DanLeibson) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanLeibson/status/1202383839949152257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;25% of queries can be answered with less than 1% of URL&#39;s.&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/techseoboost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#techseoboost</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/PolarBearby?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PolarBearby</a><br><br>This stat is both interesting and depressing at the same time.</p>&mdash; Boyd Norwood  (@boydnorwood) <a href="https://twitter.com/boydnorwood/status/1202339394725789697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/techSEOBoost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#techSEOBoost</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaudiaFaceoff?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ClaudiaFaceoff</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Derek_Perkins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Derek_Perkins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jsilton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jsilton</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jroakes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jroakes</a> /5<br><br>key takeaways /2: 🗝️<br> - build things, don&#39;t stress about your self image😅<br> - when you want to build something &gt;&gt; wait!🛑<br> - sometimes the best solution is simple 🔵<br> - understand the problem scope 🧮</p>&mdash; Alexis Sanders (@AlexisKSanders) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexisKSanders/status/1202330714752126976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" tw-align-center><p lang="en" dir="ltr">SEO + Google Sheets + JavaScript + Free Code Examples<br><br>Endorsed 💯💯💯<br><br>Thank you <a href="https://twitter.com/dsottimano?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dsottimano</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/techSEOboost?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#techSEOboost</a> <a href="https://t.co/E12gtvzVjY">https://t.co/E12gtvzVjY</a></p>&mdash; Cyrus (@CyrusShepard) <a href="https://twitter.com/CyrusShepard/status/1202457804226740224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The slides by [David Sottimano](https://davidsottimano.com/) that are mentioned in the last tweet and that were a huge favorite [can be found here.](https://www.slideshare.net/dsottimano/techseo-boost-apps-script-for-seos) 

Can't wait for next year's event!


Meghan, Paul and Derek

TechSEO Boost 2019 was full of great speakers, people and food.

We Sponsored TechSEO Boost and Loved Every Minute

Is SEO dead trend on Google coinciding with major updates

Google Trends history for Is SEO Dead 2

A long and a short answer to the question, "Is SEO dead?"

Is SEO Dead?

2020 has finally arrived and since hindsight is 20/20 lets take a look back with perfect vision (still totally subjective, I know) over the last decade and discover what the most impactful change was to the SEO industry.

First of all let me list several big changes that made an impact on me in my career:

- EMD update
- Panda updates
- Penguin updates
- Disavow tools created
- People Also Ask feature in SERPs
- Knowledge Graph - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmQl6VGvX-c
- Mobilegeddon
- RankBrain
- Mobile-First indexing
- SSL became a ranking factor
- Pigeon update
- Pandas and penguins become animals that I have a love/hate relationship with now

Then I started wondering what were some of the big milestones hit or changes made by well known companies and communities in the SEO space. I discovered the following:
- <a href="https://www.bing.com/" target="blank">Bing</a> turned 10
- <a href="https://ahrefs.com/about" target="blank">ahrefs</a> was founded and became a powerhouse
- <a href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/our-story/" target="blank">Screaming Frog</a> was founded and is the go-to crawler for SEOs
- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/" target="blank">The SEO subreddit</a> passed the 100k member mark
- <a href="https://moz.com/blog/new-domain-authority" target="blank">Moz</a> launched Domain Authority 2.0
- <a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/1-year-100-updates-1-000-000-users-what-was-2016-like-for-semrush/" target="blank">SEMRush</a> reached 1,000,000 users in 2016 
- <a href="https://blog.majestic.com/index-updates/majestic-historic-index-update/" target="blank">Majestic</a> crawls over 7 billion URL's

Now to answer the main question, which change to the SEO industry had the biggest impact in the last decade?

Drumroll please...

Hands down, the winner is...__<a href="https://search.googleblog.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html" target="blank">The Penguin update of April 24th, 2012.</a>__

![Emperor Penguin with Crown](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/56hIArgwGTiF0VFVnle8J6/b70e4cbac6099ae74e087ac2427555ba/Emperor_Penguin_with_Crown.jpg)

## Why was the Penguin update the most impactful change of the 2010's?

It forever changed how all SEOs thought about and worked on link building. SEOs to this day have differing opinions on which types of links are acceptable but Penguin moved the bar along the acceptable spectrum for all of us.

It changed how we thought about anchor text and if, and how often, keywords should be used as the anchor text.

It brought about the disavow tools from Bing and Google. (Sidenote: <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-disavow-links-tool-15370.html" target="blank">Bing launched their disavow tool before Google.</a>)

Many blogging link networks were killed. I know some people still use them to this day but it's not even close to how it was before Penguin.

This was a time of massive SEO cleanup efforts and it scared some SEOs from doing any link building for years to come.

Penguin truly caused a huge paradigm shift about link building that you can only fully grasp if you built links before and after April 24th, 2012.

## What are your thoughts?

Let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.

Also, let me know which impactful changes you think I should add to the lists above in the comments section.

### Enjoy these articles as well:

- [How Google Engineers Decide What Changes to Make to the Algorithm](https://nozzle.io/blog/how-google-engineers-decide-what-changes-to-make-to-the-algorithm/)
- [Is SEO Dead?](https://nozzle.io/blog/is-seo-dead/)
- [Nozzle's Keyword Tracking Tool Features](https://nozzle.io/features)


Emperor Penguin with Crown

There have been many changes to the SEO industry in the last 10 years but there can only be one change that created the biggest impact.

The Most Impactful Change to the SEO Industry in the Last Decade

A coworker stumbled upon a tweet yesterday from [@BrittanyZerr](https://twitter.com/BrittanyZerr) which showed a funny featured snippet mistake that the great Google machine made.

![Brittany Zerr Tweet Image of Featured Snippet Gone Wrong](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/6VEnaQ54z7a4keKYC8XfTJ/9631d42512feed28e4a06a6fe4fe1f97/Brittany_Zerr_Tweet_Image_of_Featured_Snippet_Gone_Wrong.JPG)

If you search for "How to make the best risotto", you'll see the featured snippet from the image above at the top of the SERPs. But if you head on over to the [bonappetit article](https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/common-mistakes/article/how-to-make-the-best-risotto-and-avoid-these-8-common-mistakes), you'll see that it's subtitle is, "Here are the 8 most common mistakes people make when cooking the beloved Italian rice dish, so you can avoid them".

As you scroll down you'll see that each numbered item is crossed out as it is something you should avoid if you want to make the best risotto.

![crossed out numbered items as things to avoid-1](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/2Mf4JaPOKI6I93bBFCCuBZ/d24eeb23210a4b51e1e254dceeb22843/crossed_out_numbered_items_as_things_to_avoid-1.JPG)

To be fair, it is a useful list of things that can help you make the best risotto if you avoid doing them but the featured snippet doesn't point out that fact which is where the failure lies. Obviously a human being wouldn't feautre a list of things to avoid doing and present them as things to do. Even the great Google machine can make mistakes and isn't quite human--yet. ;)

__What we can learn from this:__

Google likes to display numbered list snippets when the query implies the searcher is looking for a list of steps to accomplish a specific task.

So if you rank for queries that have this intent, make sure to list the tasks to be performed in an html numbered list.

Furthermore, add a bulleted list to any post or article where it makes sense. People love them because they are skimmable and Google loves them too. 

Your numbered or bulleted lists may not become the featured snippet for a query but they absolutely will not if they do not exist. As they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take--so take them!




Google featured snippet showing opposite results than what was intended.

Brittany Zerr Tweet Image of Featured Snippet Gone Wrong

Funny featured snippet mistake that Google made that implies the exact opposite of what was intended.

Google Featured Snippet Mistake and Lesson

On March 28, 2019, [Kevin Indig](https://twitter.com/Kevin_Indig), VP of SEO & Content at [G2.com](https://www.g2.com/), tweeted a question that sparked some good discussion on how to find the best SEO tools to use.

![How do you choose which SEO tool to use and buy from Kevin Indig's tweet](//images.ctfassets.net/z8uwv83tofbw/7ocntSw64U4MFmrlZiRJ0g/b6813e89d8256486c9dbc856871ace98/How_do_you_choose_which_SEO_tool_to_use_and_buy_from_Kevin_Indig_s_tweet.JPG)

With 45 replies and dozens of sub replies, we were able to compile a great list from a host of digital marketers and SEOs. 

__These are the sources people said they use to find SEO tools:__
- Peers/Network/Co-workers/Mentors (17 mentions) 
- SEO articles, blog reviews and case studies mentioning SEO Tools (13 mentions)
- Twitter (9 mentions)
- Event/Conference speakers and sponsors (5 mentions)
- Google (4 mentions)
- Webinars, youtube videos (3 mentions)
- [@G2CrowdReviews](https://twitter.com/G2CrowdReviews) (2 mentions)
- [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/) (2 mentions)
- Linkedin
- [AppSumo](https://appsumo.com/)
- [Detailed.com](https://detailed.com/)
- [Ahrefs blog](https://ahrefs.com/blog/)
- [Backlinko blog](https://backlinko.com/blog)
- [Moz blog](https://moz.com/blog)
- Google trends
- Forums
- [Search Engine Journal](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/)
- Magazine articles
- Reddit
- Github

__And then this is how they determine whether or not to use/buy the tool they find:__

[David Iwanow (@davidiwanow)](https://twitter.com/davidiwanow) suggested the following:
- CS support and post sales service
- Willingness to improve the product and fix issues/bugs (not shrug them off)
- Aggressively adding to and improving the product
- Proactive support

[Alexandra Tachalova (@AlexTachalova)](https://twitter.com/AlexTachalova) looks to the source:
- Try to understand the {SEO Tools} data source. There are a HUGE number of tools simply reselling someone else's data.

[Arnoldo Cabrera (@spanskseo)](https://twitter.com/spanskseo) looks for the following:
- It is scalable multilingual, geographies, data set
- provides api connectivity not only to your data but to your toolbox
- time saving, e.g. reporting time
- it has good support and product managers listen to the user feedback
- enable cross collaboration outside seo team

[Matt Ramage (@ramagetime)](https://twitter.com/ramagetime)
- Cost and ease of use. And of Course the data.

[Hardik Oza (@Ozaemotion)](https://twitter.com/Ozaemotion) lists the following:
- Freshness of data
- Quality of data rather than quantity
- Number of users
- Support

[Kelly Stanze (@KellyStanze)](https://twitter.com/KellyStanze) offers:
- Similar clientele and their happiness
- The tool features itself, and how data for those tools is supplied/supported
- Support - do we get an account team? What’s included?
- Pricing structure (don’t nickel and dime me)
- Innovation

[Seb Adler (@seoseb)](https://twitter.com/seoseb) advises:
- Does it state to be the all-in-one solution → skip it
- Do a trial, test it on a real life project, check against existing workflows. Does it automate workflows oder provide additional insights? If so:
- Does it integrate well in our data warehousing.

[Damien Anderson (@echwa)](https://twitter.com/echwa) suggests you:
- Understand and document needs
- Ask select vendors to demonstrate to needs

[Willow Colios (@willowcolios)](https://twitter.com/willowcolios) puts forward these thoughts:
- Can you align the tool with team processes and workflow?
- Is it usable for those that use it every day/week?
- Is it a good fit for the organisation
- Right spec at the right price?

[Adam J. Humphreys (@Making8)](https://twitter.com/Making8) offers some great insight:
- Features, UX (time savings, compatibly with other platforms, easily exported reports, actionable data summaries), price compared to others (this really matters as some are 2500 a month per client)
- The best way to engage with us is letting influencers in search test it then blog about it on a main journal.
- One can’t really win over our industry without letting us test it out and given our time constraints we often don’t get to use it right away so capping amount of uses vs time is also best."

__Biggest Takeaway:__
Use your network to find tools that they love and would recommend. If at all possible, sign up for a trial run to find out if it can solve your needs and will be compatible with your processes and workflows. 

It may be cool but is it the right fit?
<div style="width:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:90%;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/6klKY9ggNR744" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe></div>

Kevin Indig's tweet asking how do you choose which SEO tool to use/buy?

How do you choose which SEO tool to use and buy from Kevin Indig's tweet

Learn how dozens of marketers find SEO tools and decide which ones to use/buy.

Blog - SEO