EDGE of the Web - The Best SEO Podcast for Today's Digital Marketer

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.