Stacey, Author at Spark Factory

Everything You Need to Know About Internal Link Building

In the SEO industry, when you hear the term “link building,” you probably assume the person is talking about external links or backlinks. This makes sense. After all, backlinks from other websites are a strong signal to search engines and a driving force behind organic search rankings. But there is another type of link building that is also important: internal link building. These are the links you build on your website that point to other relevant pages on your site. …

Google’s John Mueller Answers Question About Negative SEO

In a Webmaster Hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question from a web publisher who asked what to do about a suspected negative SEO attack. The web publisher asked if he should wait until he received a manual action from Google. Here is the question: “My website gets hundreds of links that seem to be spammy. I suspect that maybe one of my competitors is trying to decrease my rankings. Do I need to keep disavowing these links week after …

4 Reasons Why Your Content Isn’t Ranking

If you’re even marginally familiar with SEO, you’ve likely heard the maxim “content is king.” While I won’t be discussing that exact topic today, the claim still has some relevance here. Suppose you’ve done your market research, scoped out the high-traffic pages you’re looking to optimize, and written your killer, keyword-infused content. Then you slap it on your site and sit back and wait. Months go by, and those pages still aren’t ranking well. In fact, there’s almost no …

Google’s Danny Sullivan Responds Directly to DuckDuckGo’s Anti-Privacy Claims

ADVERTISEMENT In a rare move from Google, Search Liaison Danny Sullivan has responded directly to negative claims made by DuckDuckGo. Sullivan responded to a tweet from DuckDuckGo in which a video was shared that contains “five good reasons” why users should stop using Google and Facebook. Most people now know companies like Google & Facebook collect & sell your data. Yet some people still think, “So what? I have nothing to hide.” Here’s five compelling reasons to tell them why …

Small Business SEO: 6 Ways to Simplify Your Weekly Approach

Contributions from our friends at Boston Web Design Company Up And Social I doubt many small business owners wake up in the morning and think to themselves, “I can’t wait to do some killer SEO today!” If SEO crosses a small business owner’s mind in the morning, it’s typically accompanied by feelings of dread and confusion. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Contrary to what most people think, SEO is actually quite simple. SEO Doesn’t Have to be …

Why the Divide Between SEOs & Developers Is a HUGE Problem (& How to Fix It)

While we spend time arguing about what we think the latest Google algorithm update was focused on, or how many words or links to include on a page, we are neglecting one of the most pressing issues in our industry today: The divide between SEOs and developers. SEO success depends on developers more than you might initially think. From the noindex tag settings that need updating, to the performance of the website as a whole, a lot rests on the …

Google: Disallowed URLs Do Not Affect Crawl Budget

Google’s Gary Illyes updated his original writeup on crawl budget with clarification about disallowed URLs. The document now includes the following information: “Q: Do URLs I disallowed through robots.txt affect my crawl budget in any way? A: No, disallowed URLs do not affect the crawl budget.” The question refers to the “User-agent: * Disallow: /” protocol in robots.txt that blocks web crawlers. It can either be used to block an entire site from being crawled, or it can be used …

How to Choose the Right Facebook Ad Objective for Your Goals

Facebook Ad objectives are the backbone of any Facebook campaign: the objective controls your bidding options, your ad unit options, and, the way your campaigns are optimized. There are 13 campaign objectives to choose from but not much supporting content to help make that selection. Because of this, getting started with Facebook can be a little bit overwhelming. I remember back when I was setting up my first Facebook Ads account – I searched for tips or guides that would …