By Jason McClain | July 13, 2016 | 0 Comment
It’s that time of the month again to talk about all the latest search engine optimization news, or highlights at least. To cover it all would be a full-time job. There are always tons for search engine optimization updates to sort through each month. I never have to worry if I’ll be able to find topics for you. With that said, let’s round it up!
Search engine optimization is a $65 billion a year industry and it’s still growing. Since the beginning soon after the appearance of search engines, search engine optimization was referred to as a passing phase. It was predicted that it would be a fad that would soon die out. Even in recent months, there have been “SEO is dead” articles on the Internet. However, what I’m finding is that it’s very much alive and experiencing consistent growth. In fact, let’s look at some numbers.
Borrell Associates, a company that reports on marketing costs and spending, conducted a recent study that contains some interesting statistics about search engine optimization:
Such predictions can be exaggerated, but the take-away here is that search engine optimization is alive and will remain a huge industry into the foreseeable future.
When Google killed the Keyword Tool in 2013, it set the SEO world on end. Everyone doing search engine optimization at the time used the free tool to perform keyword research and it returned accurate data straight from Google for potential search terms. It was wonderful, and then it was gone.
In it’s place, Google left us with the Keyword Planner. I guess it’s better than nothing, but it’s just not the same. Many other well-meaning people have tried to provide keyword tools to help fill that empty space, and Moz has come forward with the latest effort. Keyword research is crazy complicated, so it will be interesting to see how this latest tool does in the marketplace.
Of all the strange things to try, Google is split testing the replacement of the blue title links in the SERPs with black. The change isn’t being received very well by Internet users and some have already developed ways to bring the blue links back with plugins. A Google spokesperson confirmed the test, but it doesn’t appear they are considering making it a permanent change any time soon.
Actually, Tweets have been appearing in Bing SERPs since 2009, but it was just not very useful. This is actually an update to the previous partnership between Bing and Twitter. This update should make searches containing hashtags to pull in results from Twitter making it much easier for users to track the people and topics they care about. That could make this interesting for search engine optimization purposes as a whole too.
It seems that Google is toying with the idea of generating a separate report in the Search Console for voice search. They are currently looking for a way to separate voice search from keyed searches, but they are finding it difficult since voice searches seem to be the the godzilla of long-tail keywords. It seems they are particularly interested in knowing ways this type of report could help webmasters make better websites. Whatever the outcome, I think it would be interesting to have access to these reports.
As always, I would love to hear from you in the comments. Did you come across any interesting search engine optimization news this month? Did I miss something you feel is worthy of note? Leave me a comment.
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