<p>Really interesting case study. Definitely gives a clearer meaning to "high quality content". Even long-form content that is written well and is of genuine interest to readers may not always be considered by Google to be so, it seems, if it fails to tackle popular subject matters that competing web pages do cover. Writers and bloggers should be conducting content analysis beforehand across competitors' articles/pages targeting the same keyword sets, to ensure that they can provide the same information as other pages <em>and more...</em> This is just good writing practice anyway.</p>

<p>Having read all the comments, I don't feel like I could contribute anymore to the discussion than others already have. Yet another fantastic Whiteboard Friday! (Even if I'm a little late to this one...)</p> <p>But I couldn't leave without bringing up the title. Does the question mark really go inside the quotation marks? It irks me. I feel like it should be: <strong>Is the New, Most Powerful Ranking Factor "Searcher Task Accomplishment</strong>"?</p> <p>I apologise in advance for being... <em>that annoying person</em>.</p>

<p>I'm still waiting for the day when search engines get so good, they will no longer have to rely on links. Chasing natural link opportunities for small companies/websites is becoming increasingly challenging. It can be a headache. Links being such a seemingly integral factor for ranking seems so old hat.</p>

<p>I love your "<strong><em>I want to do/know/go/buy</em></strong>" examples. By frameworking content ideas so simply like that, you've ignited my imagination! User search intent is <em>everything</em> when strategising content.</p>

<p>My solution for this has been using the URL Parameters settings in Search Console, but I don't see this mentioned. Is there a negative to relying on Search Console for telling Google not to crawl these filtered/tagged/sorted pages?</p>

<p>This is a lot to take in, I'm going to need to make notes!</p> <p>Couldn't help but notice though that schema wasn't mentioned in the survey at all. Do people really believe that schema is that irrelevant to local SEO? I always consider it to be a priority when starting local SEO on a client.</p> <p>A lot of very interesting changes in how people are prioritising their efforts now.</p>

<p>Content calendars are a thing of beauty! </p> <p>Content production is the easiest part of content marketing. Anyone can produce filler content for the sake of "constant content". Having it be truly relevant to your audience and then actually <em>getting that content in front of them</em> is the hardest part. A well organised content calendar, however, can help to strategise the topics to write about and when, and help to form a cohesive, well thought out plan on how to get each piece in front of its intended audience.</p> <p>Don't get me wrong, this is a great post! Lots of ideas in here to inspire idea generation for publishers with an existing and expectant audience. However, I believe that smaller businesses should be investing more in the quality than the quantity of content. At least, at first.</p>

<p>Great reminder to not neglect URL structure during the early stages of development. Thank you.</p> <p>Many developers/SEOs stop at "SEO friendly" URLs, but forget about "Analytics friendly" URLs.</p> <p>One thing you need to change in your article though: <em>"Let's here it!"</em> ....</p>

<p>Many people underestimate the content's ability to make or break a website in terms of SEO. Or simply disregard "content" as merely being blog articles, ignoring content site wide! Content is definitely one of the biggest factors that contributes to the performance of a website, and yet is so often overlooked or its very purpose misunderstood. More is not always better!</p> <p>Thank you for such an in-depth guide, has given me lots to think about when I next audit a website. Will definitely be sharing.</p>

<p>Great observations and study!</p> <p>You're right that these results suck! The closest businesses to my location are not necessarily the best. It makes sense if I'm just looking for the nearest ATM or café or supermarket, appending "near me" (or whatever) to my search query. But when I'm searching generally for just a local service provider in my town, the local pack results don't particularly fill me with as much confidence as before. I <em>want</em> to see the businesses with star ratings and reviews come up first. </p> <p>Ranking based on proximity is a good idea... but this is just overboard. Proximity has too much weight now.</p> <p>I'm mentally preparing myself for sponsored local listings.... Everything the past few months has been pointing toward this happening sometime this year. I hope I'm wrong...</p>

<p>I've helped quite a few websites be brought to launch, and this article is so much better than a checklist. You've actually given me things to think about in future, delving deeper than just strikethroughs on a list.</p> <p>Cross-industry competitors? I didn't even consider those....</p>

<p>(Happy Valentine's Day, Miriam!)</p> <p>I can definitely see paid local results coming out of testing and being rolled out sometime this year... Unfortunately, it just makes good business sense for them to get new markets into paid advertising. I think I might have a little cry when that eventually happens though...</p> <p>There will definitely be even more of a focus on local this year, whatever happens. You can certainly see the direction that Google is going based on last year's changes to local SERPs.</p>

<p>As someone who practically <em>lives</em> in Google Sheets, I'm astonished that I didn't even know this was possible... Definitely something that I'll have to have a play with. Thanks for opening my eyes!</p>

<p>All very worrying, but I wouldn't hang up my coat just yet... SEO is more than just Google. And even on Google, there will always be a need to optimise for search. It's just search itself may change in its format.</p> <p>Totally agree though that SEO specialists should be expanding their skills beyond traditional SEO.</p>

<p>Fantastically fascinating summary of GSC/WMT's reliability! Especially the experimental results of Search Analytics. I've always taken everything in Search Console with a pinch of salt... Even when it's "straight from the horse's mouth", it's hard not to get suspicious when Google's own numbers don't always align. Fantastic write-up. </p>

<p>Love the search ideas for finding influencers. Definitely a lot of untapped opportunities out there with local influencers. The most difficult aspect for me is finding the right angle for the content itself. With some clients, it's obvious. With others, it's like.... <em>"Who's going to want to read about this?! What angle should I take to make it more interesting?</em>"</p> <p>Some local service-based businesses just aren't that interesting, so the content ends up having to be something somewhat relevant to the nature of the business. </p>

<p>This has certainly given me a lot to think about. The actionable tips for snatching the "position 0" seem so simple and doable, I question why I've never thought of conducting featured snippet audits for <em>all</em> my clients before! I know for a fact that many of them rank first for a query, but have a competitor appear in the featured snippet above. Looking forward to seeing what kind of results I can produce based on this.</p>

<p><em>(I was wondering yesterday when you'd post this... It's been over a week, Rand! I've been waiting! XD)</em></p> <p>Some very interesting data, brilliant round-up of 2016.</p> <p>As for your 2017 prediction that stood out the most to me...</p> <p><strong>#8: 2017 will be the year Google admits publicly they use engagement data as an input to their ranking systems, not just for training/learning</strong></p> <p>I feel as if I've been waiting for this admission for years. But I just don't think it's going to happen. I don't even know why; just a heavy gut feeling. It would be <em>huge</em>, and I just can't think of a reason why they'd confirm it or admit to it unless the announcement were to follow something else of relevance.</p>

<p>I was thinking the exact same thing. I feel as if a line needs to be drawn between commands and actual searches. But then what about typed commands on desktop? e.g. "stopwatch". I'm not asking Google to search "stopwatch" for me, I typed "stopwatch" into Google as a command as I want to use the stopwatch functionality. But should that be categorised as a command or a search?</p>

<p><strong><em>"In fact, if you could find a way to test this effectively, I wonder if it would make a good qualifying question for the next moz ranking factors survey. Should you only listen only to the opinion of those experts who are capable of answering with reasonable accuracy?"<br /></em></strong></p> <p>Absolutely! Or, at least, a "trustworthy score" given to each expert based on their accuracy. So the opinion of those with a higher score of trustworthiness is worth more than someone with lower results.<br /></p> <p>I'm not entirely sure how well this test measures the competence of an SEO professional though. Are we basing predictions based on a quick skim of on-page factors only? Or are we expected to freely use tools in order to look at the bigger picture?<br /></p>

<p>Great article, but....<br /><strong>Am I the only one who wasn't actually <em>surprised</em></strong><strong>?</strong><br /><br />The three lessons:<br /></p> <ol><li>High DA sites don’t necessarily attract a lot of social engagement.</li><li>Most sites don’t consistently use the same types of links. </li><li>Certain publisher verticals are more likely to feature a lot of visual assets.</li></ol> <p>Whilst being able to come to a more solid conclusion based on a very impressive 26,000 links is brilliant, don't get me wrong, it only serves to further prove on a larger scale what we can already observe in the wild. It just backs up with data what should already be obvious through observation. Which is awesome in its own right! It can do better than this disappointing attempt at clickbait.<br /><br /><strong>I like the case study, I just wouldn't have thought that the results were "surprising".</strong><br /><br /></p>

<p>To be fair, it was around this time last year that they said the Penguin would march before Christmas (2015)... Then they said after Christmas (2016), so that we could get over the seasonal traffic and trends. And then they went back to saying before Christmas (2016). A year later... XD</p>

<p>My thoughts exactly. Also gives a lot more opportunity for testing Penguin though... <em>FOR SCIENCE!</em></p>

<p>Definitely interesting, and something that I may consider implementing in future should I work on a website that may benefit from it.</p> <p>Do you have a list of real-life examples of sites that are considered PWA, so I can check them out and see whassup?</p>

<p>This definitely answered a few of my questions, so thank you for taking the time to clarify. It's certainly sad news, but I'm optimistic that the future of the Moz community is bright.</p> <p>It will be interesting to see what becomes of YouMoz and Q&amp;A in the coming months.</p>

<p>As someone who's a fan of the "barnacle" method for local SEO, you take it to a whole new level! Would never have even considered the extent to which local barnacle SEO could be taken.</p> <p>Thanks, Miriam. You are the Local SEO Goddess &lt;3</p>

<p>Thank you for settling an ongoing debate! Happy to see that you agree that I'm not wasting my time going after local links and citations for non-local businesses :D<br />And your suggestions for finding local opportunities in search are your brilliant.</p>

<p>This can't have been an easy decision to make... I always appreciate Moz's honesty and transparency, and I can imagine this was painful to write. I love the Moz community, and wish all the best for those 28%. But on the positive side, it will be nice to see Moz's focus return to improving the SEO features for Moz Pro customers.</p>

<p>This is so comprehensive (if not a little evil). Love it. I really wish I had a road map so well thought out when I was first starting out, instead of learning what I needed to do know as and when I needed it. So much more efficient this way, and I'll definitely be forwarding on to any SEO newbies. </p>

<p>God, that was intense. I think I need to lie down!<br /></p> <p>Well, worth the read though. I feel like you've taken points that every SEO knows and understands to be most likely in regard to where Google is heading... and just presented it in a refreshingly unique perspective. With actionable tips that lead us to view our "semantic SEO" strategies in a new light! Seriously fantastic stuff. Thank you.</p>

<p>As a desktop-only web browser user, I can really tell when a website was designed mobile-first-and-only and it really irks me. But analytics shows me that I'm in the minority... (At least, with the majority of websites. Still finding that many b2b sites have very few mobile device visitors.)<br /><br />Mobile-first design is great, but I wish some designers wouldn't just stop at mobile and neglect their desktop users.<br /><br />I need to start thinking more from the mobile-first POV, and this article is an inspiring introduction. Thank you.</p>

<p>This is brilliant, Miriam! As someone who's asked Moz Q&amp;A community about this very subject (a couple of times now!), it's great to read something so solid in article form. You've really clarified some points for me here. It can be a bit confusing getting a confident answer in Q&amp;A sometimes when different people are suggesting or telling you to avoid different methods. So thank you for taking the time to reach out to Colan, and getting some expert information!</p>

<p>This plagues a couple of the ecommerce sites I work on... With some, it's a case of too many similar filtered landing pages that don't need to exist and need a good culling, so products end up ranking for broader terms. And with others, like in Rand's example, main category pages are performing well whilst the filtered landing pages are 51+ and get no traffic. So I kill off the landing page, and further optimise the category page for the keyword it's ranking for - contrary to this week's WBF. Am I going about this all backwards? Looks like I'll have to dig deeper and reconsider this strategy...</p> <p>Very eye-opening WBF, Rand! Thank you!</p>

<p>Just had a play with it. This is FANTASTIC. 15,000 keyword queries available to play with each month. SO awesome.</p> <p>Thanks, guys! This was much needed.</p>

<p>This is awesome. Such a simple idea of having a prepared Q&amp;A form for new/potential clients, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner! <em>It just seems obvious!</em></p> <p>I always find that I ask the most obvious of questions, and then bug the client with further questions as I go on. But this kinda just takes care of all of that from the get-go, eliminating any nasty surprises, and giving a clearer direction from the start.</p> <p>Brilliant stuff, Miriam. Thank you.</p>

<p>Great to read a blog post actually sharing their data showing the results of link building.</p>

<p>Such a detailed analysis of the state of link building today. Wow. It's interesting to see how everyone is link building these days and where I fall into the majority or minority. I have to admit though, I'm finding the link building process (without having to resort to terrible quality sources) is becoming a real struggle for some industries. Whereas with others, it's so easy to just acquire them naturally through the production of good content.</p>

<p>Ooh, I'm a big fan of the Keyword Rankings tracker but rarely ever use the Page Optimization tool as its suggestions always seemed quite obvious. Related Topics I feel was a much needed feature that will probably have me using Page Optimization more as an extension of Rankings.</p>

<p>I'm super curious now as to the rest of your "routine".... And how that's working out for you.</p>

<p>This is a brilliant resource. Sometimes there's so much stuff to remember, it's so easy to overlook something obvious. Bookmarking this as it's a great way to check that you're covering all your bases.</p>

<p>This makes for an awesome checklist and definitely a resource that I will be forwarding to anyone who asks me about optimising their local landing pages. Off the top of my head, I really can't think of anything general that's missing from this article!</p> <p>There's a couple points here too that you've just reminded me that I need to address... So I better get back to work now with this still fresh in mind XD</p>

<p>Thanks for your transparency, Moz. And for encouraging more girls into STEM. I wish I had that kind of opportunity when I was younger, and it's good to see more companies actively pushing it this past year. Great report all in all!</p>

<p>Awesome to see Moz doing so well. I really do sometimes feel like Moz is the heart of the online marketing community.</p>

<p>All the constantly-clustering websites... Sick of these big brands clustering up the first page and pushing the smaller businesses off onto second.</p> <p>Interesting to look at the stats though, Peter. Cheers for putting this together!</p>

<p>June 16th 2015 looks nuts.... What happened? Pre-Panda poking?</p>

<p>Those are some crazy statistics about device-usage, etc, in regards to millennials and teens vs adults. Didn't realise so many people used voice search either... Really informative blog post. Makes a clear case for becoming a "10x brand". Engagement has become everything. And with so many points of entry these days, companies need to have clear brand consistency across all appropriate platforms to be just as visible as they were before.</p>

<p>Brilliantly written.<br /></p> <p>Buying fake followers is gross. You definitely get much better value for money buying <em>legitimate</em> followers through Twitter advertising. </p>

<p>Wow. I had my suspicions that Keyword Planner was inaccurate, but I didn't quite realise to what extent. This is crazy!</p>

<p>Can anyone pinpoint any actual <em>differences</em> between last year's "leaked" document and this one which they have themselves released? Without having memorised last year's word for word, it all seems to be the same message and quality guidelines.</p> <p>Maybe the wording has changed, but is there any significant update to it?</p>

<p>I think RankBrain was the inevitable direction after Hummingbird.<br /></p>

<p>Hard to find blog posts these days that are both equally inspiring <em>and</em> practical. You, sir, have done it. Thank you. Not only have I picked up a couple of immediately actionable tips, I don't feel so "gahhh content...".<br /><br />I especially love this: "An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements."<br />Might not be yours, but I'm going to hold onto that one.<br /><br /></p>

<p>What a brilliantly thorough look at different kinds of topical links! The process of linkbuilding has been evolving for years, and this post definitely showcases the importance of topical links, both for now and for in future. <strong>A naturally topical link from a relevant page of low authority should be considered just as powerful (if not more!) than an irrelevant link from a high authority page.</strong></p>

<p>This is <strong>awesome</strong>!! I have specifically been looking forward to a new Moz Beginner's Guide on content marketing, as I'm sure a lot of people have. But the fact that you have a feline content marketing mascot is <strong>GENIUS</strong>.</p> <p>Nothing sells a guide on <em>anything</em> to me more than a cat does! Well played, Moz. Well played. I see what you did there...</p>

<p>Wow, what a fantastic resource!</p> <p>Definitely going into the bookmarks. I've been meaning to get into Facebook Ads soon, so your timing couldn't have been better. Thank you!</p>

<p>No wonder I'm always furiously multi-tasking across dozens of tabs... Every website I visit is screaming for attention by creating a sense of urgency! ;)</p>

<p>More than two completely separate CTAs with different goal destinations, or multiple instances of the same CTA (perhaps worded differently) on the same page (e.g. one at the top of the page and one at the bottom beneath the content)? Definitely makes a difference which you mean.</p>

<p>This is a great approach to pitching your articles to third party blogs and websites. Far too many people think it's enough to send out a really well written piece, with the same copy-pasted email to a dozen different publishers. It might be an amazing piece of content, but no one will ever know if your spammy email deters them from even opening the attachment. If you don't take the time to address your email to <em>me</em> <em>personally</em>, then why should I take the time to even read your content?</p> <p>We all get those spammy emails from people asking to guest post from time to time... When you're pitching your content, you need to ask yourself: "if i were to receive this in my inbox, would I trash it immediately?".</p>

<p>Great discussion starter!</p> <p>I've noticed there's been a lot of panic and confusion lately in the community about what to do with thin or duplicate content. I'm personally finding that I'm spending a lot of time these days merging pages that are ranking for similar search terms, and grouping based more on search intent than search keywords. I think we could all do with a thorough site audit, like you said. I find it helps to get that bigger picture on how all these little details and aspects of the website work together. Kind of like piecing together a large wall map, then taking a step back.</p>

<p>I see what you mean... after an email like that, I could never unsubscribe! You'd be checking your inbox daily waiting for their next surprise. This whole "story telling" trend right now goes beyond blog posts and social. (And they quite literally told a story.) Email is becoming underrated, these guys prove that it's still a powerful and influential tool that we shouldn't be ignoring.</p>

<p>Soooo much valuable information in one blog post. Definitely something I'll have to bookmark and refer back to. Tempted to buy the book now too...<br /><br />And brilliant sources you've linked - I'm going to be reading all morning -_-<br /><br />I actually disagree with Samuel Scott on this, I don't think we're overthinking links at all. Yes, when it gets down to it, it can really be that simple and just naturally be a product of good marketing. But this in-depth guide does exactly what it says on the tin: it explains the anatomy of a link. And no matter how you're gaining or building these links, I think it's important to recognise and understand what makes a good or bad link.</p>

<p>So true that a mobile-friendly design isn't just redesigning your website to be responsive. Mobile intent is a key component on whether a website is mobile-friendly or not. You can't just fixate on the visuals, you have to make sure that you are tailoring the user experience to your mobile users. And this can differ from website to website. You need to work out yourselves the behaviour and intent of your users on desktop and mobile and go from there in terms of mobile-friendly design <em>and</em> content.</p>

<p><strong>I thought everyone knew that.</strong></p> <p>XD I kid, I kid... Why it's so important to use tools like Screaming Frog. Some things just left behind and forgotten about, from previous projects or people or whatever. As you said, things happen. And it's not a huge amount of effort to check whether there's anything like this that seems so minor but could make all the difference.</p> <p><strong>Thanks for the reminder! :)</strong><br /></p>

<p>YES YES YES! I am SO glad you mentioned other search engines. Usually the mention of "other search engines" results in the rolling of eyes and a sarcastic mutter of Bing. People underestimate the power and significance of social search engines, including all of these review sites/directories. </p>

<p>Brilliant summary of where the art of good copywriting is today. Users expect more from businesses and websites than ever before, and today's copy needs to reflect this new type of business-customer relationship. You can't just be emptily trying to sell your product anymore, you need to be initiating conversation.</p>

<p>Death to copypasta product descriptions! Even worse than the original manufacturer's product descriptions: 100 duplicate descriptions of the category's description. I see this so often....</p> <p>Great guide! Well worth investing more time into unique product pages written for the consumer.</p>