This week’s special guest is Bill Sebald, Managing Partner of Greenlane Marketing. He has always approached SEO work like a detective trying to solve a complex mystery. He’s been doing this since 1996, so you can count on some incredible insights he has gained over the years. During episode 353 of EDGE of the Web we deep dive into how SEO agencies have been responding to the changes within the digital marketing industry from COVID-19. Whether you are an SEO agency or a client of an SEO agency, gain some knowledge of what you need to be doing during this time to keep business flowing. Key topics discussed during the show: SEO Agencies During COVID19 Key SEO Tips During This Time First 50 Days of Quarantine: What We've Learned SEO Reporting During COVID19

Work from Home Content Engagement Spikes on LinkedIn The biggest rise in people engaging with remote working content on LinkedIn is in the US, but not just any content. What’s resonating is an emphasis on support, care, and community. By: Matt SouthernFrom: Search Engine Journal Facebook Expands Video Chat Capabilities with Messenger Rooms The sudden huge rise in Zoom users is prompting Facebook to up its game with Messenger Rooms that can handle up to 50 participants, and doubling WhatsApp video chats to 8 people. By: Casey NewtonFrom: The Verge When Search Results are Disappointing, Google will Offer Query Tips The new feature in Google Search will be triggered when the search engine can’t find good results for a query and will include suggestions for how to rephrase a search.By: Barry SchwartzFrom: Search Engine Land

When Google does core updates, there are inevitably winners and losers, and it often doesn’t feel fair for sites that did nothing to intentionally violate and rules! Devaluations from Google updates and manual actions can feel like the end of the world but Kristine Schachinger of Sites Without Walls has advice.  Kristine has spent years helping companies through the post-update recovery process. She also has 17 years of digital experience including a focus on website design and implementation, accessibility standards, and all aspects of website visibility involving SEO, social media, and strategic planning. Deep dive into the solutions of Google core updates during EDGE of the Web’s episode 352.   Key topics discussed during the show: Timeline of Google Core Updates Updates do NOT mean Google is penalizing you Google is rolling out updates daily Key recovery tips Everything E-A-T; expertise, authority, and trust

Will the Pandemic Change SERP Permanently? Google’s coronavirus search results now has a “sticky” menu (it follows you as you scroll down) to give a pandemic-related set of topic categories. Will this approach become permanent for greater personalization?By: Mordy ObersteinFrom: Search Engine Land Google Gives a Break to News Publishers by Waiving Ad Serving Fees Google’s latest way to help during the pandemic focuses on journalism and news sites that rely on Google ad placements for revenue. For five months, those publishers will not pay ad serving fees.By: Susan WenogradFrom: Search Engine Journal Was There a Google Algorithm Update in Mid-April? There’s a lot of chatter out there about this one and people describing impacts they saw, but if there was an update, it was pretty minor. As we like to say, take a breath and check your data. By: Barry SchwartzFrom: SEO Round Table

Search behavior is something that has always been changing over time, but there have been unprecedented shifts caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Google continues its focus on E-A-T and page quality, but how a global pandemic impacts search behavior also has to be factored in. This week’s special guest Lily Ray, SEO Director at Path Interactive, will shed some light on how digital marketing should respond to changes in search behavior. Tune in to episode 351 of EDGE of the Web to get ahead of your competitors by being smart with your SEO strategy during this time. Key topics discussed during the show: Higher degree of online use during Coronavirus How has the Google search engine results page changed? Who has been the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’? SEO tactics to leverage

Both Apple and Google are Mapping Social Distancing Performance Without a vaccine, the best weapon to battle the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 is social distancing. So how well are we doing? Google and Apple weigh in with mapping data. Need work? Amazon is Hiring Amazon is having a hard time keeping up with orders and has had to hit pause on new signups for its grocery service. And it wants to hire 75,000 more people, even amidst criticism from many that it’s not doing enough to protect workers. How the Pandemic is Affecting Search Behavior It’s fascinating to see Google dig into what people are searching for during the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic, as well as provide bits of advice for how to respond to these emerging trends.

Change is the name of the game in digital marketing, and while many times the changes can be good, sometimes they’re not. Change has been especially rapid during the pandemic, and that includes PPC and paid social. Episode 350 of EDGE of the Web's featured guest Amy Bishop, Owner of Cultivative Marketing has been seeing a lot of change happening in PPC and paid social during the pandemic, including shifts in Google Ads Benchmarks by industry and Google PPC Credits. If you don't know Amy yet, you need to! Amy has built and implemented multichannel digital strategies for a variety of companies of all sizes ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 and global organizations spanning several industry verticals. Her expertise includes e-commerce, lead generation, and localized site-to-store strategies. She regularly speaks at industry conferences across the United States and internationally, including HeroConf and the SMX circuit among others. Amy is the local chair for SEMPO-Louisville. Amy also writes for leading industry publications Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. Learn about the impact COVID-19 has on PPC across the digital marketing industry by tuning in to episode 350 of EDGE of the web! Key topics discussed during the show: Effective top-of-funnel search campaigns The Impact of COVID-19 on the PPC Industry benchmarks changing per industry Google PPC Credits during COVID-19

The Economic Slowdown Hits Yelp Hard The coronavirus pandemic’s economic impact has forced Yelp to lay off 1,000 of its workers and furlough another 1,100. Yelp is all about local business reviews, which has declined sharply with shut-downs and social distancing. During a Recession, SEO More Important than Ever Although the novel coronavirus outbreak has brought the overall economy to a screeching halt, a survey reveals SEO can and should be maintained as a high priority moving forward through the recession. New Google Blog Series on SEO Value with Case Studies A surprising number of businesses still look at SEO with skepticism, questioning its value as an investment among competing priorities for scarce resources. Google’s aim is to convince them SEO is worth it.

Nearly 17 million have filed for unemployment in the past three weeks. The economy has come to an abrupt hard stop. What should digital marketing professionals focus on during an unprecedented crisis like the one we’re now experiencing? This week’s featured guest Jon Henshaw, Founder of Coywolf, has been in the SEO space for a long time now! He joins the show to share his knowledge of what digital marketers should be doing to help their clients during this time.  A few questions we get answered by Jon: Should I continue advertising during a crisis? Statistics with social media during COVID19 eCommerce sites statistics What tactics should I be focusing on during this time? During an economic downturn, you will find you have less competition Consumer behavior trends during a crisis?

Finally, New Smart Speaker Integrations for Google Podcasts Compared to other podcast platforms out there, Google has been behind the curve on podcast integrations, but is finally catching up with queues, auto-downloads, and more.  2020 Ad Spend Projections on the Decline as Pandemic Rises Projections for worldwide ad spending has been reduced by 3% thanks to the new coronavirus and COVID-19 global pandemic, which leaves room for an overall increase on this year, but it’s too soon to tell. In COVID-19 Crisis, Google My Business Stops Reviews Since many businesses are supposed to be closed, Google decided to remove the ability for users to post reviews, along with the ability for businesses to respond to reviews.

Too many companies have SEM strategies entirely focused on keywords or what's “most likely to convert” according to Google, as opposed to what makes the most sense to the real customers on the other side of the marketing equation. Especially in a time of crisis, it makes even more sense to use smart automation and data analytics in your SEM work. This week’s special guest Aaron Levy, Group Director of SEM at Tinuiti, will share his insights for making it happen. If you haven’t had the opportunity to know Aaron then this is the perfect time to. He's an internationally recognized speaker, Search Engine Land/Search Engine Journal author and a 7-time member of PPC Hero's Most Influential list. In addition to his roles at Tinuiti, Aaron’s also an adjunct at Drexel & University of Vermont as well as a student mentor at Villanova, working to grow the next generation of marketers. He knows his stuff and we were excited to be able to get him on episode 348 of EDGE of the Web!

Need Support for Google Ads or Google My Business? Be Prepared to Wait You’d think much of digital marketing wouldn’t really be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but you’d be wrong. Google has said users seeking support will experience delays. How Much Will Digital Marketing Suffer from the COVID-19 Pandemic? There’s enough anxiety about the pandemic pushing the economy into recession that many businesses are putting the brakes on all kinds of spending, including digital marketing. What are Marketers Doing to Deal with the COVID-19 Pandemic? The pandemic is changing consumer behaviors in real-time, and marketers must look at how they can pivot strategies quickly to adapt to the rapidly-evolving situation.

A lot of companies are responding to the health concerns happening worldwide by sending employees home to work remotely. The digital marketing industry is lucky that a lot of work can be done via computer, video conference, etc. Some individuals have experienced working remotely in the past and others, this is their first time. It can be quite challenging to work at home with distractions causing workers to not be as productive as they are in office. This week's featured guest is JD Prater: Quora Evangelist at Quora, is very knowledgeable in this space since he’s been working remotely for the past 5 years! He shares his tips and tricks on how to stay motivated and work hard from home. We also deep dive into his experience from Quora about paid ads. You won’t want to miss episode 347 filled with helpful information for remote work and paid ads!

Update Your Local Listings if Affected by COVID-19 For companies with a Google My Business listing, Google is asking everyone to make sure their open hours and other information is accurate if COVID-19/coronavirus is impacting operations. One of Trump’s Retweets Gets a “Manipulated Media” Label Twitter’s new policy to label some content as “manipulated media” (significantly and deceptively altered or fabricated) has been applied to a video President Trump retweeted. Marketing Conferences Cancelled or Postponed The latest search marketing conference to be postponed is Pubcon Florida 2020. More event cancellations and postponements are expected as COVID-19 concerns are on the rise.

This week’s featured guest is Britney Muller, Senior SEO Scientist at Moz, here to EDGEucate  you on the specifics within SEO that you need to focus on throughout 2020. Britney continuously researches SEO concepts, creates educational content, helps educate people about SEO (internally and at conferences around the world), and communicates SEO trends and desires to the product teams at Moz. She is an SEO scientist people… she knows what she’s talking about! Britney wrote a great blog, SEO for 2020 - Whiteboard Friday, to help you determine what SEO factors to focus on as we take on the year 2020 head first! Some key points discussed during the show: Foundational SEO: titles, metas, alts, and basic SEO 101 Linking internally between website landing pages Schema markup: FAQs, bread crumbs, and business info Research about your industry, competitors, and rankings What to STOP doing with SEO in 2020

Are Your WordPress Plugins Being Hacked? There has been an uptick in hacker attacks against WordPress sites, and the common thread running through them is the exploitation of security flaws in at least eight different popular plugins. Protect your sites!  New Nofollow Link Policy Launched. Guest Post Penalties? Nofollow keeps Google algorithms from learning about linking context, it is now being treated as a hint, not a command. Also, some websites are receiving manual actions for paid outbound links in guest posts.  Big Tech Cancelling Events Due to COVID-19 Coronavirus Google just cancelled its huge developer conference (Google I/O), following suite with other tech giants: Facebook cancelled its similar F8 event, and Amazon is not sending anyone to SXSW and other events.

This week’s featured guest is Chuck Fields, President and Founder of SpaceTech, has been teaching businesses better ways to work, especially getting more done faster. He works with mid-size companies to streamline business processes, reduce data errors, and eliminate bottlenecks which helps businesses improve their bottom line rapidly by getting things done faster and more efficiently. He has also developed not one but two podcasts; Online Coffee Break and Your Space Journey. We deep dive into creating podcasts about topics you are passionate about. You won’t want to miss this episode of EDGE of the Web! Some key points discussed during the show: How to help your business eliminate redundancy Teach employees to be more efficient Discussed what  Rapid Application Development (RAD) is Everything about developing and promoting personal podcasts

New Image License Metadata at Google Beta testing is now underway at Google on new ways to display licensing information for material appearing in Google Images. 75 Million Google Maps Reviews GONE via AI and Human Moderation This was an effort by Google to identify and remove content that violates its policies by leveraging the power of machine learning and automatic detection with people helping out. Do Keywords in Descriptions Affect Google My Business Rankings? Google’s response to the question feels like a big “maybe.” There’s no guarantee the practice will improve rankings, but it could depend on a variety of other factors.

Claiming your Google My Business is a great way to start optimizing a FREE listing Google provides a lot of companies. If your business has a location address and a phone number then you might already have a GMB without even realizing it… but someone else may be running it or at least updating your content for you. You don’t want that! It’s time to take ownership of your company’s GMB and optimize it so that you are ranking in the local 3-pack! This week’s featured guest Sherry Bonelli, Owner of Early Bird Digital Marketing and Google My Business Silver Product Expert, shares her insights on the 7 steps to optimize your GMB! She lives and breathes learning all things about GMB, hence why she was recently named as a GMB Silver Product Expert! You won’t want to miss getting EDGEucated by Sherry during episode 344 of EDGE of the Web! Some key points discussed during the show: The importance of claiming & optimizing GMB listings Steps of GMB optimization How to set up and verify GMB listing Tracking & destinations Generate, monitor, & respond to reviews Investigating GMB features specific to your industry

YouTube is Beta-Testing New Viewer Applause Feature For now creators have to be invited by YouTube to test the new content monetization product, but it lets users support a video by paying $2 to put a clapping animation to appear over videos they like.  Editing and Uploading Instagram Stories May Get Even Easier This new option would provide a video slider trimming tool built into Stories. If it works, then users wouldn’t need third-party editing apps to trim their content before uploading. New Google Ads Partner Requirements Leave SEMs Frustrated SEMs are complaining about new requirements such as doubling the ad spend, upping certifications, and bowing to Google’s recommendations over what SEMs think is best for their clients.

When it comes to ad success, it’s important to know who is active on the various social channel platforms. The divide of ages between the social platforms is an important attribute to your success that many people don’t know about. That is why we brought in Susan Wenograd, CMO of Aimclear, as our featured guest for the THIRD time to discuss not only mastering Instagram story ads but how they can work better than other social platforms. If you don’t know Susan in the digital marketing world, we have to assume you’ve been living under a rock! She is a speaker and columnist who speaks at industry events and company events including SMX, Pubcon, Digital Summit series, brightonSEO, PPC HeroConf, State of Search and other events. She also contributes a lot of her knowledge on industry web sites like Marketing Land, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal and much more. It is not just limited to paid search topics but also social media paid ads, including Facebook ads. Trust us when we say, she knows her stuff! You won’t want to miss getting EDGEucated by Susan on episode 343. Some key takeaways from this show: The demographics of who exactly is active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Why Instagram story ads can bring your company more success The various CTAs that you can use on Instagram

Google Shopping Ads are Coming to Gmail Beginning on March 4, 2020, Shopping Ads will be eligible for placement in Gmail. Advertisers must opt-in their campaigns to YouTube, Gmail, and Discover. Data will be reported under the Google Display Network. SEOs Complaining About Google Post Rejections Based on Image Guidelines Google appears to be cracking down on enforcing its image guidelines, which include not using stock photos. There are other image guidelines that are vague and confusing. Over is a Content Creation App Recently Acquired by GoDaddy The mobile app for small and medium-sized businesses is for rapid content creation for websites, email, and social media platforms. It will soon be part of GoDaddy’s Website + Marketing platform.

Is your company putting enough time and attention into the strategies behind your content writing? Are you even using a specific strategy when it comes to blogs and landing pages on your company website? 2020 is the year to follow the content operational model and provide your target audience with knowledgeable content! This week’s EDGE of the Web featured guest, Robert Rose, Chief Troublemaker (yes that is his title) at The Content Advisory! He helps us bring awareness and understanding to the importance of content creation in a tactical way, not just to get content out the door! Robert is a content marketing strategist, advisor and storyteller. He has spent his career helping fellow marketers tell their story more effectively through digital media. His bestselling book, Killing Marketing, which he co-wrote with Joe Pulizzi is considered to have rewritten the rules for marketing.Some key points we discussed during the show: The struggles of getting content out the door Investing in good quality content The Content Operational Model Social corporate responsibility when it comes to journalist

Lazy-Loading for All Images in WordPress 5.4 The impact of this change means publishers who use WordPress will no longer have to rely on third-party plugins or JavaScript for lazy-loading of images. Google Search Console Adds New Version of Removals Report The new version allows site owners to temporarily hide a page from appearing in Google search results. Other features in the new version include outdated content and SafeSearch filtering requests. Surprises in Super Bowl 54 Commercials Although most critics weren’t overly impressed with this year’s Super Bowl commercials, Google managed to produce a real tear-jerker of a spot.

Many people in the work space have a hard time with providing feedback without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings. Other times, superiors have a hard time providing feedback in a respectable manner. What if we told you there was a way to challenge your coworkers while also caring personally? When you want to transform your workplace culture for the better, then you need to meet Kim Scott, Co-Founder of Candor Inc., who happens to be our featured guest on episode 341! Kim is the author of the book, “Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity”. She shares her insight on her book and how it actually works in the workplace!   Some key points we discussed during the show: What exactly Radical Candor is Candor with the peers Candor with the boss

Wondering what you really need to know about BERT and natural language SEO? Our listeners get the perspective of an international SEO and digital strategy consultant speaker, trainer, and lecturer this week to dive deeper into what NLP, natural language processing, and how you can optimize your content for NLP. This week’s featured guest Dawn Anderson, Managing Director at Bertey, shares her knowledge about BERT and natural language SEO.  Some key topics discussed during this show include: What natural language SEO entails Challenges in optimizing for NLP Steps for optimizing content for NLP

The Next SEO Obsession: Dwell Time When searchers click on a SERP link to check it out, may or may not then return to the SERP to look at other results. SEOs are now becoming obsessed with how much time users spend on a webpage for going back to the SERP. Legal Woes Continue for Facebook Four little-known tech companies are mounting an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social media giant maintains a brazen anticompetitive scheme, including the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. No More Double-Dipping on Page 1 of Google SERPs As of today, Danny Sullivan confirms that webpages with a Featured Snippet will not get a repeat listing in the organic listings on page one. Some were enjoying taking up two coveted page 1 of SERP real estate.

The marketers who will win in today’s environment are those who understand it’s all about providing a great experience. It’s no longer about GRABBING attention, it’s about HOLDING attention. Although a surprising number of professional marketers aren’t as good as you’d think they would be at marketing themselves to get more clients. That leaves a big question, how do professional marketers who need clients market themselves?    This week’s featured guest, Jay Acunzo, Founder of Marketing Showrunners, has been helping marketers do exactly that through podcasts and video series. Learn more about how he does that successfully on episode 339 of EDGE of the Web!   Some key topics discussed during this show include: Following the best practices Components of running a show Holding ATTENTION, not just GRABBING it

Google Chrome to Phase Out Third-Party Cookies The digital media industry has two years to plan how it will identify audiences online when “cookie-pocalypse” descends. It’s a big deal given Chrome accounts for more than half of all installed web browsers. Fallout from Google’s January 2020 Core Update This classic broad core update rolled out January 13-16. YMYL (your money, your life) sites with thin content were among the biggest losers, which means many solid YMYL saw big gains.  New Podcast Ad Tech from Spotify Spotify has begun rolling out the ability to embed interactive targeted ads into podcasts based on real-time data analysis. SAI (streaming ad insertion) for now is only in Spotify’s original and exclusive podcasts.

Beta Integration with PromoteIQ Now Available in Microsoft Advertising Microsoft Advertising is making changes to support retailers, including an integration with PromoteIQ now in beta mode, along with Microsoft Bing for Commerce.   What Shopping Ad Managers Should Know in 2020 Four things: Smart Shopping Campaign automation with Google, going global with International Shopping Ads, structured markup for feed-free product data, and Microsoft Bing Smart Shopping Ads. Tracking Offline Conversions with Microsoft Advertising When you want to get the full story of revenue attributable beyond website activity, you need to know how to import all kinds of outside data into Microsoft Advertising.

Ready to make your next brilliant digital marketing move in 2020? One thing to consider using is Google Tag Manager to track on-site engagement. Our featured guest on this week’s EDGE of the Web episode 338 is Tim Jenson, Campaign Manager at Clix Marketing, is here to share his wisdom! With over 8 years of experience in the digital marketing industry, Tim has worked with both B2B and B2C accounts in a wide variety of industries. While comfortable managing ads across all major platforms, he’s particularly intrigued with the crossover between analytics and PPC.  Some key topics that we discussed during the show: Conversion tracking for ROI Google Tag Manager Various on-site engagement/behavior tracking Scroll tracking Embedded video view tracking PDF download tracking Phone tracking

Did Google Start the New Year with a Search Algorithm Update?  There are always people complaining about drops in traffic and other people happy about traffic increasing. The chatter itself does not necessarily indicate a significant update occurred. Microsoft Advertisers Could Win Great Prizes Enter the Microsoft Advertising Sweepstakes by completing the MS Advertising Certified Professional certification, adding a new MS Advertising account, or enrolling in the MS Advertising Partner Program. How are Headings Really Supposed to be Used for SEO? Google Speaks! Google’s John Mueller explained how to use H1, H2, and H3 HTML headers in SEO. The different heading levels with keywords don’t affect ranking. Use them to show hierarchical levels of information. 

The digital marketing industry rang in the new year by reviewing everything new 2019 brought us and what is in store for 2020. This week's featured guest, our first guest for the EDGE 2020 Contributor Series, constantly provides analysis and inside information on breaking search news so that the community is always knowledgeable about what is going on. Who is the resourceful individual that we are referencing? It's an Associate Editor at Third Door Media, George Nguyen! Third Door Media produces Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, SMC, Mar Tech Today, AND Digital Marketing Depot. EDGE of the Web always uses these resources to make sure we are on top of the changes happening in the digital marketing world. You may recognize these references from the weekly news segment of our show! You won't want to miss out hearing George dive deep into his knowledge of the industry and especially about his podcasting for Marketing land. If you're interested in attending the conferences we reference throughout the show then check out the following conference dates along with more detailed information: SMX West: February 19-20, 2020 MarTech West: April 15-17, 2020 SMC Advanced: September 2020 MarTech East: October 6-8, 2020

Google Calls for Greater Sensitivity in Search Quality Guidelines The latest update to Google search quality guidelines reminds evaluators to keep in mind the diversity of users and the need for impartiality to avoid ratings based on personal viewpoints. Will Tracking Packages Be Possible in Google Search Results? Google continues to find ways to deliver what users need without ever leaving Google. The search giant is looking to add package tracking in search results to bypass visiting carrier sites. Why Differentiate Your Site? Because Google Wants You To Google’s John Mueller says if your website’s content is too similar to content on competitor sites, you need to do better. He says you’ve got to do better around “commodity content.”

Make 2020 the year you consistently hit CRO home runs, a good starting point is optimizing your landing pages! If you’re looking for ways to get more conversions, then you should know this week’s special guest is one of the foremost experts on conversion optimization: Talia Wolf, Founder and CEO of GetUplift. GetUplift is a CRO consultancy and training space top brands turn to when they want to optimize their funnels and websites and create experience customers love to convert to using customer-centric methods, emotional targeting strategies and in-depth data. Talia was on the show back in Jan of 2017. It’s been a minute... more like close to 3 years! Since then, she has been invited to teach conversion optimization on hundreds of stages such as Google, MozCon, Call To Action Conference, SearchLove, and many more and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization!  Learn from one of the best and get EDGEucated from this week's EDGE of the Web show episode 336!

Suggested Services Now Customizable in Google My Business Service-based business owners can now customize a list of suggested services on their Google My Business listing. Google will automatically select and list services, but users can make additions. Gigantic Database of Text Messages Exposed! TrueDialog, a company that processes two-way text messaging for businesses and higher education providers, had millions of messages exposed, many of which contained highly sensitive data of customers and students. 15 Eye-Popping Online Shopping Stats for 2019 Online shopping continues to grow, with more people doing it, rising sales, and bigger orders. Growth is especially strong for companies with a seriously customer-centric approach.

In honor of Cyber Monday, we wanted to focus on the eCommerce market for this week's EDGE of the Web show! When you want to sell your products through Amazon and Walmart, you’ve got to get a handle on the right advertising techniques and tactics. In today’s highly competitive eCommerce markets, you can’t ignore Amazon as a channel for selling your products, and who better to talk to about strategies and tactics than someone from a company that knows more about the Amazon Marketplace platform than anyone else? We have Elizeabeth Marsten from Tinuiti, which was one of the first digital marketing agencies to roll out strategic and tactical programs to help the seller make the most of participating in the Amazon Marketplace. If you’re involved in selling through Amazon, you’ll love hearing from this week's featured guest, Elizabeth Marsten, Senior Director of Strategic Marketplace Services at Tinuiti!

Listen in while the magic is happening during a live SEO audit. SEO experts Andy Drinkwater and Erin Sparks take on a listener submitted website and throw their collection of tools and audit methods at the site for a full SEO review. Learn as they go, what you might need to look for on your own site.

CCPA Compliance: Google Launches Restricted Data Processing Option To comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), companies can now enable restricted data processing by turning off personalized advertising features in Google Ads and Firebase SDK. Recent Volatility in Google Search Rankings Google said it does updates all the time – at least several per week – but not every update warrants an announcement. Those are reserved for updates with broader impacts and where actionable guidance can be offered. The Legal System’s Issues with Vanishing Messages With several popular “ephemeral” messaging apps where messages self-delete after sending or being accessed, there could be vital missing evidence when such communications aren’t preserved, making judges suspicious. 

Everyone is concerned about privacy and data use more than ever before. Tighter laws are being put in place around the world. If your company’s digital marketing efforts are global, your consent forms have to align with legal requirements that vary by country, and even by states and localities within those countries. It’s major paint point, which is why you must join us for this week’s show with featured special guest Niklas Stephenson, Founder and CEO of Legal Monster, because he’s developed a tool to automatically configure your consent to be legal in each market. A fun fact about Niklas… Legal Monster is not the first, or even the second company Niklas has founded. It is his FOURTH company! Because we believe you don’t want to break the law, you will not want to miss EDGE of the Web episode 334.

Is Google Over-Reaching Into People’s Lives? One of Google’s recent patents appears to be geared towards sending people relevant purchase decision information while they’re in physical stores, including remote help and even sending a store associate to them.  YouTube Cleaning Up Its Act on Children’s Content As part of its $170 FTC settlement for violating the privacy of children under COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), YouTube is now implementing big changes affecting advertisers. Wall Street Journal Accuses Google of Changing Search Results The WSJ’s far-ranging descriptions of how Google is manipulating search results to shape what users see had very little evidence to back it up, and showed a lack of understanding for how search works.

There aren’t very many people who got involved in SEO from the very beginning and then stuck with it all the way to now. When you have the opportunity to book a guest who basically invented SEO and popularized the term itself, you take it, right? We had the opportunity to have the one and only, Father of SEO, Bruce Clay on EDGE of the Web episode 333! If you don't know Bruce, he is the Founder and President of Bruce Clay Incorporate. He speaks at leading industry conferences (over 300) and conducts training courses for students worldwide. He's also been featured in various publications such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, PC Week, and many more. We deep-dived into the recent Wall Street Journal's recent article on November 15th, "How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results: The internet giant uses blacklists, algorithm tweaks and an army of contractors to shape what you see". Learn about the truth and miscommunication between The Wall Street Journal and Google as we break down this lengthy article into sections to analyze the information!

Don’t miss another digital marketing news roundup on this week’s episode of the award-winning EDGE of the Web podcast where we discuss busting EAT myths in SEO, Google shopping ads in more markets, and key takeaways from the Google Webmaster’s conference!

Getting great SEO results means making sure your audits are strategic, understandable, and actionable! With more than a decade of international SEO consulting under her belt, Aleyda Solis, Founder of Orainti, has learned just how important it is to maximize the growth from SEO audits. Tune in to episode 322 to get EDGEucated from the best of the best, Aleyda! Key discussion points from the show: Aleyda Solis's presentation on SEO Audits that Maximize Growth from SMXL19: https://www.slideshare.net/aleydasolis/seo-audits-that-maximize-growth-smxl19 SEO tools for crawling, link popularity, and rankings How the SEO audit focus will change based on the project goal, business, Website size, and SEO Maturity How to simplify the process of SEO audits

On this week’s EDGE of the Web show we discussed top trending digital marketing news ranging from new WordPress plugins and Facebook video metrics! Check out this week’s trending news:   Finally, Google’s Site Kit for WordPress is Ready After languishing in beta-mode for six months, Google has finally released its Site Kit WordPress Plugin allowing users to access aggregated Google data from multiple sources within the site’s dashboard. Unlike Facebook, Twitter Bans Political Ads Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says social media platforms have a responsibility to protect public discourse from false claims, deep fakes, and misleading info, and he thinks the best option is banning all political ads.  Facebook Shakes Up its Video View Metrics 10-second video optimization and metrics are out, 15-second video optimization and metrics are in via ThruPlay, theoretically because the 15-second approach gets better results. 

When you’re going the extra mile for clients in your SEO work, it should feel like you’re being a detective. Your digital marketing clients need to feel confident about your SEO skills, abilities, and results, and that means sharing SEO reporting with them but it’s got to be the right kind of reporting to be effective. Providing your client with a high-quality and understandable SEO report has become very important when discussing SEO with someone who isn't in the SEO world. This week's EDGE of the Web featured guest Bill Sebald, Managing Partner of Greenlane Marketing, has been creating SEO reports for a wide range of high-profile clients since 2005, and he’s got some incredible insights to share with you. Don't miss the EDGE episode that can help prevent you from digging yourself a hole by providing reports that cannot be understood by your digital marketing clients by getting great advice from Bill!

Love it or Hate it, Another Major Google Algorithm Change is Coming BERT-optimized natural language processing (NLP) means Google will look at more of the words in a search query to better understand context and intent to return better results to users.  Facebook News is Coming The Facebook News feature was created in partnership with the journalism industry. The “Today’s Stories” content will not be auto-selected by FB algorithms. Instead, a dedicated team of journalists will hand-select those stories. Can High Link Velocity Result in a Google Penalty? Are sites penalized if they acquire lots of backlinks quickly? John Mueller says it’s about the quality of the links, not the speed at which they’re acquired. Link velocity is only bad if the links are unnatural.

Too many digital marketing and SEO professionals leave something out of the strategies they present to clients: Robust backlinks are the missing pieces of the puzzle, but they have to be done right in a Google-friendly approach to see success. When Adam White, founder, and CEO of SEOJet, want to get SEO results, one of his main go-to strategies is building great backlinks. But unfortunately, far too many digital marketing professionals don’t actually know how to do it right. Luckily, Adam is this week's featured guest on EDGE of the Web episode 330. He is on a mission to help bring new levels of legitimacy to SEO practices, and he wants you to know that YES, you CAN (and must) build awesome, Google-friendly backlinks that will do wonders for your sites. Check out this episode to get EDGEucated and practice digital marketing tactics correctly