SEO Newsletter #59

Welcome to episode #59 of the SEO newsletter by #SEOSLY.

I am bringing you the most important SEO news & tips from the first week of November. 

Episode #3 of the SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY 

I'm happy to announce that the SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY has launched. Episode #3 with a recap of SEO news is live now. 

WATCH EPISODE #3
LISTEN TO EPISODE #3

Top SEO news from last week:

Google Search Features Bug Impacted Top Stories & Other Features On October 18th & 19th

Google has posted a short note in the Search Consoles data anomalies that says there was a bug in Google Search that affected some search features, including but not limited to the Top Stories search feature. LEARN MORE.

Links Will Be Less Important As A Ranking Factor In The Future

John Mueller said that he believes that over time, links as a ranking factor will be not as important and not as big as a ranking factor as it is today. In short, links won't be weighted as much as it is today in the future in Google's ranking algorithm. LEARN MORE.

Possible Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On October 28th

Glenn Gabe shared a number of charts on Twitter documenting some large publishers based in the United Kingdom and beyond that showed big swings on October 28th, after being hit by previous updates.  LEARN MORE.

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New content by #SEOSLY:

Starting in November, I am working full-time on SEOSLY and creating a lot of content for you (both written and in video format). Check my new articles and share them with your friends! 

Imposter Syndrome In SEO Is A Thing. Here Is Why.

As you’ve probably noticed, I produce a lot of content about SEO. However, it took me more than 8 years to start sharing my knowledge publicly. Even after now 10 years, there is still a weird pattern going on… 

How To Exclude Words From Google Search Results

Now let’s jump into excluding words from Google Search. Yes, you guessed. We will be using one of Google's search operators to do that. Check my full list of 50+ Google search operators as well. 

SEO Crawling With David Kaufmann From SEOcrawl

In the second episode of the SEO podcast by #SEOSLY with David Kaufmann - we are talking about SEOcrawl, an awesome SEO crawler. If you haven't known this tool before, you need to definitely give it a try.

With the coupon code (SEOSLY) you get 50% off for any plan forever.

Ahrefs [Main Sponsor] 

The SEOSLY newsletter is proudly sponsored by Ahrefs, my favorite SEO tool.

Have you already set up Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for your website? AWT lets you improve your website’s SEO and monitor how your site is doing, including how many backlinks it has, for how many keywords it is visible, how its visibility grows, and more!

Thanks to AWT, I can quickly check how my site has been doing. I can see its overall trends in 10 seconds or less. It looks like things are going OK.

SEO tips of the week:

#1:Size Of Your H1 & Header Fonts Doesn't Matter For SEO

Google's John Mueller said that the size of your header tags, i.e. H1s, H2s, etc, does not matter for SEO or ranking purposes. John said it might matter for users and conversions but for SEO, nope.

#2: Writing Content From Keyword Search Volume Lists Will Result In Mediocre Content

Google's John Mueller said that if you make your content creation decisions based off of keyword search volume lists, then those pieces of content will be mediocre, at best.

Google-only SEO stuff:

This is a new section where I share things specifically from/about Google.

LIVE Q&A from brightonSEO (Search Off the Record)

Join John, Lizzi, and guest, Myriam Jessier, SEO Trainer, for a live recording of SOTR from brightonSEO. They cover topics like which is better: subdomain or subdirectory, to criteria for penalizing backlinks, and the pros and cons to templated content outlines. Learn about adding schema types, image alt, and more!

Service worker sorcery (Google Search Central)

Dave Smart shares two cases where service workers, optional add-on features that allow offline capabilities, and push notifications were not functioning properly and were causing the site to not index or would partially index with no content on the page. 

JetOctopus [Sponsor]

This issue of the newsletter is kindly sponsored by JetOctopus. JetOctopus is the fastest and most affordable enterprise SEO platform that has top crawling speed, real-time log analysis, and detailed 3D SEO reports on a site’s health.

If you are not familiar with JetOctopus, make sure to check my guide on how to audit a site with JetOctopus and how to do a log file analysis.I strongly recommend you give JetOctopus a try.

Super interesting resources about SEO:

5 SEO best practices for Black Friday and the holiday season

Looking to boost your holiday sales this Black Friday/festive season? It's best to plan ahead of time and implement these seasonal SEO tips. By Maria White

SEO Testing: 8 Experiments To Improve Organic Traffic

Is your search engine optimization strategy stuck in a rut? Here are some things you can experiment with to improve your ranks and drive traffic. By Loren Baker

7 tips to turn Google’s Search Essentials into strategy

Building an SEO strategy around the Search Essentials documentation gives you the best chance to boost your clients' Google performance. By Marie Haynes

How to get the most out of the Google Search Console API using regex

Learn how to extract the maximum amount of data from the GSC API and filter difficult URLs using regular expressions. By Angel Niñofranco

Twitter Threads

Here are a few fantastic SEO threads you should check. 

By Alexis Rylko

Google October 2022 Spam Update: (at least) 7 types of websites shot down by Google. Techniques, patterns, impact. 

By Brodie Clark

Sitelinks are an important feature for SEO. They can make your result stand out + help with navigation. But did you know there's 4 different types? Each is distinct from the other & is important for your strategy. Here's how to identify each Google Sitelink type.

Rank Tracker by SEO PowerSuite [Sponsor]

With Rank Tracker you can cut costs on rank monitoring and track unlimited keywords for $12.5/month

Check out Rank Tracker which is an SEO tool that lets you check unlimited keywords, track geo-specific rankings for any location, get automated ranking reports, and a lot more. Even the free version of the tool lets you do so much!

Shout-outs to other SEOs from Olga:

I would like to give shout-outs to the following SEOs this week. 

Marie Haynes

Marie Haynes has impacted my SEO career a ton. I read her newsletter every week from cover to cover. I love her YouTube channel. If you are not following Marie, you are really missing out. 

Aleyda Solis

Aleyda Solis, as SEO everyone I think knows and loves, is just about to get 130K subscribers on Twitter. Let's help her get there.

See you in the next episode on next Monday!

Best,

Olga Zarzeczna
SEO Consultant & CEO at SEOSLY