There’s no doubt that a website hoping to do business has to invest in and have some knowledge of online marketing if they expect to be successful. The sheer amount of information going live on the internet every moment can mean that despite authenticity and quality,...
SEOs do not necessarily have a technical background, so for the marketer it is important to at least have some basic HTML and programming knowledge. This will allow you to do your job without having to get a programmer involved for some simple SEO implementation....
With new social communities popping up everywhere, it is hard to ignore them as a new means of communication with your target market. Social communities have broken the communication barrier between marketers and consumers. With Social Bookmarking sites like Digg,...
It can be difficult to know which directories should be restricted from search engines and which should be allowed. I thought it would be a good idea to create a robots.txt reference guide for popular content management systems and shopping carts. Depending on what...
At the beginning of the week I thought it would be a good idea to create an anonymous poll for other SEOs and Internet Marketers, to find out a little more about their current clients and processes. The survey includes questions about the client sales cycle, monthly...
Blog commenting has been and still is, an effective link building technique…when done right. Simply running a piece of software that blasts out irrelevant comments to 1,000’s of blogs will just piss off a bunch of blog owners and/or HURT your rankings. ...
I want to start off by saying that this post is a little bit of a different topic than I usually write about. However I think it is relevant to everyone and can be applied to any topic. Now that I am writing for my blog on a much more regular basis and recently...
No matter what the industry, the bad apples often get more publicity than the folks that do business by the book which can give any industry a bad name. The search engine marketing industry is no different. Over my 11 years in the business, I have encountered...
Many people think of article marketing as simply a way to build a backlink or traffic to their website, to build their reputation as an expert, or to make money online via article writing. But not many think about their articles as promotional items and actually...
Moderator: Jeffrey Rohrs, Vice President, Marketing, ExactTarget Speakers: Scott Brinker, President and CTO of Ion Interactive Robert Bergquist, CEO of Widemile Tom Leung, Business Product Manager at Google Jonathon Mendez, Founder and CEO of RAMP Digital Tom Leung...
Link Bait is simply creating a piece of viral content that people will want to link to and share across the web, typically through forms of social media. There are a number of differ formats that link bait comes in, however they all have one thing in common. People...
You’re online and you know you need to build links to rank your pages in any search engine that matters. But before you think about hiring a link building company, re-think your link building campaign. Would you rather pay money to have links built for you...
When ever I get a opportunity to speak about seo or social media to a whole new audience. I start to get a feeling of enjoyment because I feel like this is my time to not just teach but also help others to simply just understand online marketing. Meaning that people...
Over the course of the last week, I have seen people saying what works and what doesn’t in link building – and they all contradict each other. Some say the old fashioned link request from webmasters is dead and guest blogging is the way to go, while others...
I was recently contacted by Carlos Paulinich, who created this amazing infographic that shows a graphical representation of the Google Panda Update. I thought I would share it with the readers. Make sure you give him some props on his amazing job! Image...
Recently I wrote a post on how much knowledge a client should have, but along with knowledge also comes responsibility. For any internet marketing agency to work well with their clients, there must be a mutual understanding of the overall strategy, and most...
“SEO? Oh, we’re set. We’ve got links in the footer.” At some point in our careers every SEO has heard a client make an outrageous statement likes this gem from Ian Lurie. Anyone who has worked at an agency knows, when working with clients there are always bound to be...
For clients, it can be hard to see the big picture when it comes to an effective internet marketing strategy. Their initial response is similar to “I need to get traffic to my site immediately. How can I get results today?”. The mentality is always now,...
SEOmoz just updated their site with a new design, as well as some new resources. Here are the best SEO resources offered by SEOmoz without having to be a PRO member. Simply sign up for a free account and take advantage of the following resources. Free SEOmoz Tools...
I’ve been watching with great fascination as flocks of webmasters and business owners race to the latest website grader. They wait with eager eyes for the newest software widget to tell them why they aren’t ranking well in the search engines. I can...
Throughout my 5 years as a SEO and Internet Marketer, I have seen a number of tactics that were borderline unethical (depending on who you talk to in the industry). Even though people won’t admit it, SEO’s are using some or all of the tactics I am going...
Google’s two most famous ever algorithm updates of recent times (which funnily enough are named after black and white animals – Panda and Penguin) have changed the landscape of SEO forever. It’s fair to say that the tactics that worked to help ‘SEO’ your website...
For many websites, the primary goal is getting a user to sign-up or register. That may mean registering for an account, creating a profile, signing up for a newsletter, providing user info to download a whitepaper, registering for a free trial, etc.. It is important...
I have discussed with a number of people recently the debate about what is considered Search Engine Optimization and what is considered Social Media. To tell you the truth, I feel like they are starting to blend together to become the ultimate marketing machine on...
You’ve just taken over a client from an unscrupulous agency; title tags are stuffed with keywords, there’s a dodgy backlink history and the meta keywords are used on every page. Worst of all, your just not getting the traffic you’re expecting from the rankings you’re...
Testing can be a never ending battle, depending on how thorough you are looking to test. The idea is to find the most effective web page that will lead to the best results. Your results may be, increased time on site, increase in page views, increase in # of signups,...
Getting found on Google consists of 2 things: 1) content and 2) links. Since inbound links act as a voting system or currency for search engine algorithms, it’s imperative that SEOs acquire high quality inbound links on a consistent basis. One way to produce...
Recently I have spoke to a number of people who have wondered why their websites are not ranking well. Of course that is going to depend on a case by case basis, but there are 5 things I will check first before I give them an answer. 9 times out of 10, if they are...
WARNING: Blackhat SEO are things NOT to do to improve your website rankings. They can result in lower search rankings or get your site completely banned from search engines. It use to be that people could perform these blackhat SEO tactics on a website and increase...
So are you optimizing your pages the right way??? Brad Fallon, a leading search marketer, discussed a great way to structure your keywords/phrases on your website. He broke it up into 3 tiers. I will use the example he uses on his Stompernet video. Brad owns an...
It’s been several years since your website’s last major update. The design is starting to look outdated even though you’re still adding new content every day. You know it’s time for change, but you’re understandably hesitant because things seem to be working out just...
If you do business in a specific area, you want to make sure that your website is optimized properly for local search. Here are 10 quick ways to optimize your site for more localized traffic. Create a detailed directions/location page: Include an embedded map on your...
Nowadays, Google and many other search engines custom-tailor search results to a particular location. They identify user’s IP address or GSM location and provide results relevant for his/her whereabouts. This could be good for users, however, this often gives...
Google made two important algorithm changes last month; the first targeted duplicate content (so called ‘scraper’ sites) and the second, poor quality content sites typically referred to as content farms. The farmer change supposedly was leveled at sites such as eHow...
Search marketing and public relations have traditionally functioned as separate entities however in recent years it has become clear that there is a close synergy between the two. Many companies will employ both PR and search marketing agencies to help promote their...
Today, strong search engine marketing strategies are a survival necessity for any business, be it a small or big show. Even using this as just a general rule, the fact remains that B2B (business-to-business) marketers will have to think and act slightly different from...
Ever since Google came along and Panda-spanked article websites into oblivion, guest blogging has been the preferred choice for the internet marketer who is looking to squeeze a little more link juice from their articles. Guest blogging can be an effective way of...
Content is the heart and soul of any good SEO strategy. Creating unique and compelling content is probably one of the hardest parts of anyone’s SEO efforts. Search Engines love a website/blog that is updated frequently with lots of new, fresh content. The more...
Stepping into the corporate world of SEO is not a simple task. SEO is no regular desk job. As a businessperson who wants to make it big in SEO, you’re going to be meeting people from different industries, not only for the purpose of introducing and selling your...
Search engines such as Google are smart. They appreciate websites with creative and original content, and reward them with high page rankings. SEO (search engine optimization) is followed by some quality websites to get rightfully noticed by search engines, while most...
Darren Rowse from ProBlogger recently wrote a blog post encouraging people to write a ‘Bloggers To Watch’ post, to promote bloggers in your prospective industry. I thought I would do my due diligence and make a list of 10 SEO bloggers I feel you should...
Have you ever heard of Conversion Rate Optimization? I hope most of you are already aware of it but for those who don’t. Here is its simple definition – Conversion rate optimization is a process intended to increase the percentage of visitors who are converting...
Today, I’d like to speak a little SEO reporting. But, before I begin, what are SEO reports actually for? They are used by SEO’s to demonstrate the results of their work in a visual and easy-to-grasp mode. Is this all SEO reports do? For most SEO services...
The SEO Specialist and Web Developer relationship is very important. If the communication between the two is lax, the client is the one who suffers. I have been developing websites for the past six years, and until recently I have not had the opportunity to work with...
YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world, so why not leverage that. As you probably know, video is becoming such a large part in every marketers strategy. It is a great way to convey a marketing message and to tell a story, where plain text lacks. ...
There seems to be a rising popularity in developing what is called a “Link Wheel” for your blog. A link wheel is the process of creating backlinks to your website or blog AND other off-site properties. The goal is to create a system where all of your...
If your link building efforts have fallen flat as of late, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate your approach. Let’s assume that the key to content is the quality of that content. Does it inform? Does it instruct? And, perhaps most importantly, does it build links? The...
Article marketing is a great way to promote your blog. Many people might think, article marketing is dead or “old”, but the fact it, it’s not. It works, and it works very well. Basically, you submit an article to the article directories. Once approved, your article...
I am writing this post in regards to a recent article I read on HubSpot. Mike Volpe’s lists 7 reasons why marketing can’t trust the Webmaster with SEO. I agree with all 7 reasons but I feel the view from the Webmasters eyes needs to be known as well. I...