Search Marketing News

2024 in Digital

Last year, global digital advertising spending hit over £325 billion – accounting for nearly 60% of all marketing spend. The question is no longer ‘will digital dominate marketing?’, but ‘what will future growth for the digital world look like’? With new technologies, approaches and opportunities constantly emerging, there’s never been a more exciting time to…

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Redefining Ethical SEO: Beyond ‘White Hat’ Tactics

When marketers consider ethical SEO, they usually think about how they’re adhering to (or going against) Google guidelines. Typically, the focus is on what Google deems to be right and wrong, and how you’ll be penalised if you take part in forbidden activities. Google is seen as the ultimate authority – the only compass for…

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2023 in Digital

As the world’s population crossed the eight billion mark, the digital world grew even more rapidly. As of the end of 2022, more than five billion people are on the internet, and over four and a half billion use some form of social media.  The global pandemic temporarily put more distance between us, and the…

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The Best Digital Jobs In The UK According To Data

According to a report commissioned by the UK government, 82% of job openings advertised online across the UK require digital skills. The same study attributes a 29% higher salary and a 59% reduced risk of redundancy (due to automation-led obsolescence) for these digital jobs. Not only does this illustrate the importance of digital skills –…

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Spotlight on Aleyda Solis – International Women’s Day

When searching for inspirational women in SEO, Aleyda Solis has to rank near the top.  On International Women’s Day in 2021, we asked our team which women in the industry inspire them… there was one name that came up a lot! Aleyda Solis has had a huge positive impact on our team, and this year…

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2022 in Digital

At the beginning of 2021, despite a world of uncertainty, we cast our eyes forward to what the coming year would bring for the world of digital. One year on, and with uncertainty still very much present, we are going to do the same. We spoke to some of our senior leadership team about what…

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2021 In Digital

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the corner. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, the world leapt to react and pivot – often more than once. We enter 2021 in another lockdown, but this time with the hope of a vaccine. Yes, no one saw it coming….

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Free Google Shopping Ads have now launched in the UK

Earlier in the year, Google shook up their shopping offering. They announced that, due to the pandemic, they would offer free listings to any merchants in the US: “With physical stores shuttered, digital commerce has become a lifeline for retailers. And as consumers increasingly shop online, they’re searching not just for essentials but also things…

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How the Tiger King used Black Hat SEO Practices

With all that’s going on in the world at the moment, SEO isn’t something that would typically stand out as an interesting topic. Most people are glued to the news, trying out a new hobby or falling down Netflix’s many rabbit holes. In March, Netflix released its latest gripping documentary ‘The Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem…

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UK Digital Ad Spend reaches record £13.44bn

The latest figures revealed by IAB UK and PwC Digital show that UK advertisers spent £13.44 billion on digital advertising in 2018. This figure represents a 15 percent year-on-year increase, and a rise of around £1.8bn compared to 2017. This demonstrates continued confidence in the market about the power of digital advertising. An analyst commented:…

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UK Digital Ad Spend soars to £11.55bn

Figures from the IAB shows that total digital advertising spend in the UK reached £11.55bn in 2017. This represents a 14.3% year on year growth compared to 2016. Almost all of the growth is coming from smartphones, as for the first time ever smartphones have overtook computers for amount of time spent on the internet….

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Google Launches Q&A Rich Results

New Rich Result Type – Question and Answer Google has launched new Q&A Rich Results to quickly present users with answers to question based queries. The question and answer results are in addition to other types of rich results on Google such as reviews, recipe cards and knowledge panels. The news was released on the Google…

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Google Rolls out Google Discover on Mobile

Google Discover Roll Out Last year Google introduced Google Feed to surface relevant content to mobile users. Dramatic growth has seen more than 800 million people each month use the feed to stay up to date with their interests and hobbies online. On September 24, Google announced that Google feed will be replaced by Google…

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Google Clears Up Anchor Text Confusion

Does Anchor Text Effect Site Rankings? In a recent Google Hangout session, John Mueller, Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, discussed if anchor text can directly affect a site’s rankings. Good internal linking practices have always been seen as a basic component of SEO and anchor text is a large part of this. What is Anchor…

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Google Launches New Voice Search Markup

Google Release New Voice Search Schema Google have launched a new voice search or “speakable” structured data to adapt to the rise in voice search. This structured data is code which can be added to your content to mark up sections which may be most relevant to be read aloud by a digital assistant. This is…

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Google Webspam Report for 2017

Webspam Report – Google Reduces Spam Links By Nearly Half   Google’s annual Webspam Report has recently been released, highlighting a series of statistics from their battle against “web spam” throughout 2017. What is Web Spam? Google defines “spam” as any action which violates the Webmaster Guidelines. The amount of spam sites currently in search…

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Google Have Their Say on GDPR Pop-Ups

As you will know, during May the hot topic of GDPR became a reality. There has been much talk of the “email bombardment” leading up to this but now Google have had their say on website reaction post-deadline. Since 25th May, many websites have chosen to display a notice detailing their privacy policy and GDPR…

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GDPR – How It Affects SEO

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on 25 May 2018. It applies to every business that holds, collects and stores personally identifiable information about EU citizens. The Economist recently called personal data ‘the world’s most valuable resource’. It’s so valuable, that according to UK Government statistics, nearly half of all UK businesses…

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New Search Console Brings More Data and Better Integration

Google have begun rolling out the new version of Search Console – formerly Webmaster Tools – to all sites this year after many months of Beta testing. The new Search Console features a much cleaner, modern appearance with the data laid out in a more interactive way. For those who use Adwords, you will notice…

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Google’s Flexible Sampling Replaces ‘First Click Free’

Google have announced that they will introduce flexible sampling to subscription based publications, in order to help increase their potential subscription rate. This new program comes in two forms, lead in or metering. The lead in format shows a part of the article without exposing all the content while metering provides visitors with a series…

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Search Marketing News

For more Search Marketing News, check our latest updates here. Major Ranking Fluctuations Fuel Algorithm Update Rumours The search marketing industry has been alive, once again, with rumours of a major Google algorithm update. Significant ranking fluctuations, which far exceed those that can be attributed to background noise, have been occurring since June 25th. The…

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Chinese SEO – tips on how it works and key differences

This week we met up with an expert operating within China to discuss all things related to SEO in China. Xuming He, the founder of SEO China, visited our head offices here in Sheffield and we had a fantastic afternoon with him where we shared our insights of the UK market and in turn he…

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UK digital ad spend passes £10bn per year

Digital ad spend in the UK has gone past a significant threshold, reaching £10.3bn in 2016, an increase of 17.3%. A report released by the Internet Advertising Bureau UK and PwC indicates it is the highest annual growth rate for nine years. The last time annual growth was higher was in 2007 (38pc). Marketing budgets…

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Ten key points from BrightonSEO

We thoroughly enjoyed the BrightonSEO talks this year. Held twice a year, it brings together some of the best speakers in the world of search. Content strategy driving an SEO campaign was a key theme touched upon in many of the talks. Here are ten of the main pointers we took from the BrightonSEO sessions…

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Site hacking on the rise by 32% year on year

The threat of site hacking, or hackers affecting your online business continues to grow as the number of compromised websites increased further during last year. Findings reported in Google’s #NoHacked review show that approximately 32% more sites were hacked when compared to the previous year. Fortunately, 84% of webmasters that applied for reconsideration were successful…

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March Industry News Round Up

Two Major Google Updates Over February At the beginning of February Google rolled out a new algorithm update which had an effect on their processing of backlinks. Some webmasters reported a high fluctuation in search rankings for their sites,  with some sites benefiting massively from the update and some losing rankings. One week after this on the…

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4 of the latest search developments

Here’s our roundup of some of the latest developments in search: Intrusive Interstitial Mobile Penalty Goes Into Effect Google have been rolling out their new ranking penalty which targets “pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results”. The ranking penalty was first announced in August….

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The future of search in 2017

We’ve been gazing into our crystal balls and planning for 2017. Here is what we think will be big this year in the ever-changing world of search marketing. Mobile Comes First  With the percentage of people using mobiles to search growing, Google are moving to prioritise mobile devices: mobile-first indexing was announced in November 2016 and…

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Twas the night before Search-mas

Here’s our take on “The Night Before Christmas”….Season’s Greetings everyone! Twas the night before Search-mas, and all through the office, Not a creature was stirring, not even a Laurence. The Meta was placed in the title tag with care, In hopes that St. Google soon would be there. Young Steve was dosing in his office…

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John Mothersole opens our new offices

John Mothersole, Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council, officially opened the doors to The SEO Works’ new offices this week. We recently moved to a new space that will allow us to grow further. It was great to meet John and discuss the role of digital in new business, whilst presenting our company and the…

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846 Million URLs removed by Google for Copyright Infringement

Google have just released a new transparency report which contains details of the volume of copyright complaints they receive. It appears that year by year, the number of requests has increased by a staggering amount. The figures show that so far in 2016 (September) over 342,000 sites have been affected by copyright complaints and over…

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The SEO Works grows into larger office space

The SEO Works have recently moved to new larger offices, located at Metis on Scotland Street. We found it necessary to move and find a space that will allow us to grow further, to meet the demand for high quality digital marketing services. Our new open plan offices allow the marketing teams to work in…

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Google Continues to Shape the Web

The dramatic impact that a position on the first page of results can have to a business has given companies like Google (who hold an 86.75% share of the UK search market) an enormous amount of influence over the shape of the World Wide Web. When a query can be answered by more than one…

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The EU Could Pass New Legislation Forcing Google to Pay Publishers

We are well aware of Google’s ongoing legal troubles with European government. Possibly the most dramatic being the raid of Google’s Paris offices back in May, as part of a long running investigation into their tax affairs. In the latest exchange, the European commission, which is the executive body of the European Union, has proposed…

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Top 10 Interesting Facts About Google

Think you know a thing or two about Google? We sure do, but even we didn’t know most of these 10 facts about Google. Prepare to be blown away! 1. 16% of Google’s daily searches are ones Google has not seen before Out of all the searches that have been made since Google was released…

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Google Processes “Trillions” of Search Queries per Year

“Every year there are trillions of searches on Google.com and over half of those searches happen on mobile. “ This is the statement made by Google during their recent performance summit, confirming that the global search volume for all queries is two trillion (2,000,000,000,000) or more. This is the first confirmation Google has made of its…

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Google Officially Discontinues Toolbar PageRank

Since it’s data removal from Google Webmaster Tools back in 2009, and the lack of updates since late 2013, the removal of PageRank has not come as a surprise to us in the SEO industry. However it will have an impact on how we evaluate websites when building upon and refining the backlink profiles of our clients’ websites….

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Google Warns Repeat Offenders

Earlier this month, the Google Search Quality Team put out a warning to webmasters who repeatedly violate the terms of their Guidelines, with more severe consequences threatened for sites which are obviously spam-focused. Writing on the Webmaster Central Blog, the post initially outlines the general process of submitting a reconsideration request when your site has…

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Apple Paves the way for App SEO

Last week Apple announced that they have created a way for content that appears in Apps to be indexed and searched on all Apple devices, using Spotlight and Siri. ‘Apple Search’ for iOS9 will allow indexing of deep-app content by using a trio of indices to organise app screens and formulate them into search results…

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Google release new Search Analytics Report feature for Webmaster Tools

Google has launched the Search Analytics Report within Webmaster Tools as a long-term replacement for the Search Queries report. Although the new tool, which is currently in Beta, inherently fulfils the same purpose, it provides a far greater amount of functionality in terms of the data it collects and how that data can be viewed…

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