Rank Ranger Blog

While most of the advice content marketers get revolves around topics such as how to promote on social media or choose the best content automation tools, we've in a way forgotten what it means to be a content marketer.

The most basic truth is that content marketers are educators. Creating content means to teach. If a piece of content doesn't teach anyone anything, it's worthless.

So how do you go about effectively educating?

In this guide, we'll go through the various formats and types of mobile Knowledge Panels, highlighting what has changed and been upgraded along the way (when applicable of course). We'll also pay special attention to some of the newer formats of the panel as well. So sit back and get ready to explore Google's magnificently malleable mobile Knowledge Panels.

Take a look at the various forms of Local Panel Knowledge Panels Google offers on mobile. Explore the different features Google includes for a variety of different local entities.

Throughout 2017 we reported on what must have been nearly a dozen major SERP feature increases or decreases. These near-constant SERP feature gains and losses piqued my curiosity and made me wonder, just how stable are some of the most important features on the SERP? Is the perception that many features undergo significant fluctuations accurate? Just how volatile are SERP features likes Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, Local Packs, and AMP? 

While we may be in the new year, we're not done with 2017 just yet. Google closed the year off on the SERP with a heavy hitting algorithm update and some of the most interesting SERP feature tests and upgrades that we've seen all year. Whether it was images in AdWords ads or more content inside Featured Snippets, Google capped the year off in a way that was anything but boring. 

Another year in SEO has come and gone and it's time to look back at the stories that helped shape the industry in 2017. From algorithm update bombshells to ever-morphing ad abilities and a hint of mobile-first madness, 2017 definitely had a flavor all of its own.

There were a lot of important changes and updates that had an impact on the industry in 2017. We're both honored and humbled to be a part of reporting and analyzing the big stories that affect the industry. With another year behind us, let's have a look back at some of the weightier findings we brought to the forefront in 2017.

Our mission was to make 2017 unique, so we set off on an adventure to create new tools and reports that would give you additional insight and enlightenment. Along the way we threw in a serious set of new integrations so that you could create a fresh set of custom comparisons. Of all the years we've been bringing you the best in SEO and digital marketing reporting, 2017 was by far the most fun!

November was one wild month on the Google SERP. Google's update to its ccTLD policy sent SERP feature trends into an international whirlwind. On top of that Featured Snippets saw a mobile loss while Knowledge Panels jumped off the charts. If that weren't enough, Google revamped product search on the SERP with what was nothing less than a strategic SERP feature strike force aimed at its retail rivals. This, and a deluge of SERP feature data changes and upgrades!

What would Google do just to siphon some product search volume away from its retail rival? How far would it go? What tactics would it resort to? With Amazon under no real threat of having its kingdom toppled, Google has taken dramatic action to make sure it expands its piece of the retail pie. What might surprise you is how Google's going about doing cutting itself a larger slice of the retail pie, right under your nose.

Month in and month out, industry news sources report on what seems to be a constant stream of rank fluctuation events. In such an environment, it's easy to become fixated on a website's single visibility spike (or hit) and attribute the site's fluctuations to a single algorithmic act and declare insight victory. But that's not how Google's algorithm updates really work. 

In this case study, I'll highlight why analyzing a site's fluctuations in relation to one specific update often creates an incomplete picture that discounts Google's overall algorithmic relationship to the site (i.e. get ready for some myth busting action).

Accessing country-specific Google search results has been turned a bit on its head recently. When Google announced that you could not use a specific ccTLD to access a country's search results, international SEO underwent a dramatic change. Though, in typical Google fashion, accessing international search results was not the only thing to change. With the domain change, Google changed the data trends of some of the most important features on the SERP across the globe. Beyond the inherent interest in tracking such changes, these alterations present both new SERP feature trends as well as insight into the very domain-level change Google made in late October.