Eminent SEO News: Team Eminent Goes to the Movies!
Early in May, we took a midday break from work to go see “Captain America: Civil War” on its first day in theaters. Some of us were #TeamCap, and some were #TeamIronMan heading in.
One of us was especially inspired by the release of the new movie that he decided to don the costume of one of the film’s main characters. See if you can spot who that individual is (wink wink):
Reviews of the film were largely positive among the Eminent staff, and the entire movie outing at Cinemark in Mesa Riverview was a great team-building experience heading into that weekend.
What’s the best event you’ve attended as an official company outing? Leave your answer in the comment section below this post.
What’s New in SEO: Learn About the Latest Google SERP Change
The Google SERPs (search engine results pages) continue to be a moving target. The tech leader never stands still when it comes to developing new ways to display and deliver search results to its many users and their many devices.
After removing the sidebar pay-per-click (PPC) ads earlier this year and expanding them to as many as four at the top, Google has made yet another change: expansion of the main search results column.
According to TheSEMPost, the main search results column on Google has been expanded significantly from 500 pixels wide to 600.
Why Is This Change a Big Deal?
First, the expansion of the search results column should pull a result or two above the fold, whereas they were only found previously by scrolling to the bottom of the SERP. This is good news in light of all the PPC ads, local packs and carousel news articles that can show up near the top of a results page. If you owned content that showed up just below the fold before, it now could be movin’ on up to the main stage.
Also, this change has got to give you more room to fill out your meta titles and descriptions, right? TheSEMPost claims meta title displays are now able to handle up to 70 characters, and that the meta description limit is increasing by 16-20 characters.
But, let’s look further into this claim. If you search “NBA Finals” from a desktop, for example, the top of the results page will look like this:
That’s one PPC ad at the top followed by a Knowledge Graph that shows the Finals schedule and then three recent news articles before the first organic result.
If you scroll down the SERP, you’ll see more of the organic entries.
You might notice that the first two organic results show way more than two lines of meta description text and the standard 160 characters. From there, all entries appear to be restrained to roughly a line and a half of meta description text.
If you copy the amount of text shown in the meta description (before it gets cut off) and paste that into a word-counting tool, you get a number that’s roughly 160 characters. If you do the same with the longer meta titles on the page, you’ll see a number as high as 70 characters.
What this means for you is you can now officially go a little over 60 characters with your meta titles for a webpage, but it looks like you’re still capped at 160 characters with your meta descriptions – even though another 40 or so characters could logically show up for each entry without spilling over to another line.
So, it appears that you’re going to have to wait a bit longer to be able to have a little more breathing room when writing meta descriptions for individual pages on your website. Although, we all know Google is pulling in rich snippets for metadata anyway.
To learn more about what Google’s expansion of the main search results column means, particularly for local packs and rich snippets, see TheSEMPost’s report on the topic.
May Social Media Roundup
Besides the new “Captain America” flick, we also took in several holidays throughout the month of May, such as May the 4th (Star Wars Day), Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, National Pizza Party Day and more, as celebrated in the office and on social media.
Also worth noting is we stayed ever vigilant about sharing relevant news to our followers on Facebook and Twitter. In fact, if you follow us on those two platforms, you’ll be caught up throughout the month on the most relevant news and latest strategies in SEO, marketing and workplace productivity. For the best of our social media posts from May, see below. And if you haven’t already, stop on by our Facebook page.
It’s the first Monday of a new month and a great time to set your financial intentions! #Monday #Motivation #Beyonce pic.twitter.com/4q0zXtrfnm
— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) May 2, 2016
My buddy @JimPeake is chillin with @randfish at #SearchLoveBoston. I am so jealous! Hi from @EminentSEO in Arizona! pic.twitter.com/wMy6C38Clm
— Jenny Stradling SEO (@dayofjen) May 3, 2016
Calm you shall keep and carry on you must! May the fourth be with you! #StarWarsDay https://t.co/n0rGl6HZTc pic.twitter.com/ndN5QcAX0h
— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) May 4, 2016
A photo posted by Eminent SEO (@eminentseo) on
Happy Mother’s Day from the Eminent SEO team! We are grateful for all the awesome mom’s out https://t.co/yVE003p8tA pic.twitter.com/BekrczEeuG
— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) May 8, 2016
Kevin Spacey’s Top 3 Tips For Better Storytelling. Yes, That Kevin Spacey https://t.co/qTdcdcxDbo
— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) May 25, 2016
May Blog Roundup
On our company blog in May, we stepped out of our usual box and delivered relevant info on topics such as internet addiction, reducing stress at work, and more. As you look over the highlights of our May blog posts, you’ll see that we slightly deviated from our usual stream of SEO/marketing news and tips. But, we think you’ll find each topic highly relevant to your life as a business professional and internet user. See the latest highlights of our blog below.
Internet Addiction: How Prevalent Is It, and What Are the Consequences?
You can’t really be addicted to the internet, can you? Well, you’d be surprised at how hard it is for some to unplug from the digital world (or maybe it won’t surprise you at all). This post will tell you how to identify internet addiction, the risks that come with it, plus how to treat the problem. Also, see how seriously some countries (China especially) are addressing this emergent issue.
More Big-Box Retailers Bite the Dust: What’s to Blame? (Besides Online Shopping)
Three major big-box retailers with a once-prominent presence here in Arizona recently announced they are closing all of their stores for good. *Pause for tears here.* Take an in-depth look at all of the factors that led to their demise. Was the rise of online shopping really a major influence on these retailers’ exit from the market, or does it go much deeper?
How to Reduce Stress and Boost Productivity in the Workplace
How do you find your “om” amid all of the hustle and chaos at work? How do you keep yourself healthy and your mind clear to be at your creative best? Get a wealth of tips here that will not only help you with reducing stress at work and on your personal time, but you’ll start to see your professional productivity increase as well.
Featured Service: Website Content
Is your site littered with pages that are poorly written, thin, short, outdated, not unique or otherwise in need of an update? If you answered yes to any of those, it’s time to give your website a boost – if you want it to have any shot of ranking in the search engine results. It’s all about the content, baby!
Even well-written content will have trouble ranking if it’s not properly optimized – with headers, keywords, metadata and more. This is where Eminent SEO comes in. We have a team of experienced writers who can not only make sure every webpage and blog post on your site is thorough, well-researched and engaging, but they will optimize each and every piece to give it its best chance to rank in search.
Eminent SEO’s Website Content Services include, but are not limited to:
- Fully Optimized Webpage Content
- Authoritative, Frequent Blogging
- Resource Article Creation and Optimization
- Press Release Creation and Distribution
- Optimized Weekly or Monthly Newsletter Content
- Creative Social Media Content
- Other Custom Content Requests
To get started with upgrading the content of your current website – or if you’re in need of high-quality content for your marketing campaigns – get in touch with Eminent SEO today! We’re standing by at 800.871.4130.
Great Blog, such a fun month! Turned 33 thou 🙁
42 in 3 days 🙁