Rank Ranger Blog

As someone constantly immersed in SEO questions, audits, implementation, and troubleshooting all day, every day, I think many SEO specialists often forget that what seems like basic, general knowledge to us is often completely foreign to small businesses (SMBs).

This is especially true as they’re often juggling many things like running their businesses, managing finances, marketing, hiring, and much more. Here are the top questions that local SEO agencies and consultants should make sure to answer for prospects and clients.

Today we have a UX aficionado for you! Khalid Saleh, CEO of Invesp opens up the world of using psychology to create a UX that converts!

• How to speak to user psychology with your UX in order to boost sales
• How to drill deep into the user mindset and build UX that aligns with it
• What messages do you want your UX to send & how do you send them?

Plus, we take a look at what’s likely competing with your Featured Snippets for user attention!

There's been an abundance of content production on how the Coronavirus changes marketing, content, and SEO practices. Unfortunately, I've found that a lot of it is simply fluff meant to capitalize on fear in the hope of driving clicks. I personally think a topic like this should be addressed in a careful and considerate manner. To this, I've reached out to some of the industry's top marketing and SEO professionals.

I've asked them to share nonsense-free, fluff-free, agenda-free ideas on how COVID-19 is changing the digital marketing industry, both now and moving forward.

These are their thoughts. 

SEO whisperer Colleen Harris of Sincro chats with us about the finer points of your Google My Business listing. We’ll cover:

• Why department listings in the Local Panel are super important and how to set them up without screwing them up
• How to expedite the listing verification process, no pain tips
• How local SEO can show value to a website

Plus, how the COVID-19 SERP is a glimpse at all future SERPS!

Every once in a while, 'rank tracking' will enter the SEO conversation in a serious way. It can be some sort of study that relates to rank position or one of Google's many changes but whatever the catalyst, rank tracking is one of those SEO topics that rears its head with some regularity. The problem with rank tracking is that we tend to relate to it as an entirely automated process. So, leave it to the guy who works for an automated rank tracking tool to show why and how tracking rank properly means looking beyond automation per se.

It's obvious, Google is no longer a search engine. Rather, Google is all about offering answers and guiding users on their search journey. That's why Google has evolved into an "answer" or "discovery" engine, right?

Wrong.

I used to think the same thing. Until I realized Google isn't an answer engine, it's not a discovery engine... or any other catchphrase that focuses on Google offering content directly to the user and discouraging clicks. For Google, it's all about "authority."

Here's why Google is, in reality, an authority engine & why getting this right actually matters!

George Nguyen joins the show to discuss what goes into covering the SEO news.

• Does Google frustrate the news reporting process?
• How to see past the facade and find the SEO truth
• How to balance reader intrigue while not sacrificing your soul - tips on staying SEO objective no matter what!

Plus, 15 days of insane rank fluctuations! We dissect one the weirdest and most bizarre algorithm update patterns we’ve ever seen… and of course… tie it all back to COVID-19.

As a result of COVID-19 there are a significant number of changes to the SERP, to Google My Business listings, to Google Ads, etc., that arise from the current pandemic. So we'll get to that.

At the same time, Google has made other serious changes to the SERP including the migration of right-side Featured Snippets and the release of stricter FAQ markup guidelines. So we'll get to that as well.

This is the April 2020 edition of the SERP news.

We welcome the podcast’s first-ever repeat guest, the one the only, the magnificent and always pleasant Carolyn Lyden joins us to chat it up about the pros and cons of confirmation bias in digital marketing!

• How can confirmation bias both help and hinder your digital marketing efforts
• How far can you push confirmation bias in your marketing without being unethical? Where are the lines?
• How does confirmation bias impact our favorite search engine?

Plus, they’re here, they’re there… Google is spraying COVID-19 results around everywhere…. We dive into what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what it might mean for you!

There's a lot of advice out there on how to recover from and even prevent your site from being hurt by one of Google's core updates. Some of the advice is pretty good... some of it is a bit cliche. So let's go down the rabbit hole a bit by analyzing the data on the core updates, some site-level patterns that the updates have produced, and what you might want to consider for your site as a result.

Here's a data-packed (yet holistic) look at what you can do to prevent ranking and traffic losses at the hands of a core update.

Rachel Slovin of Kahena Digital chats with us all about how to push your SEO agency and/or SEO team forward:

• How to handle hard times while maintaining a growth trajectory
• How to best allocate resources and teams and stay current so your team doesn't become stale!
• And when times are good... how do you know when it’s time for your SEO team to grow?

Plus, we get into life under the weight of COVID-19 and some tips on working at home from two serial remoters… our own hosts!

You really don't want to give a potential consumer an excuse not to trust you. This makes knowing what shows on the SERP for your brand extremely important. Nothing can be worse for brand trust than a branded query that yields negative sentiment. With that, I am both happy and proud to present Rank Ranger's new Reputation Management Rank Tracking Suite designed specifically for tracking brand sentiment on the SERP!