All Things SEO covers a variety of topics related to improving website visibility in the natural (free or unpaid) listings of search engine results pages by employing the best practices for organic search engine optimization (SEO). Columnists share technical expertise on how to build search engine friendly websites, how to use search engine tools and webmaster dashboards, how to avoid common SEO problems such as duplicate content and spam penalties, plus SEO advice from a marketing perspective, opinion and commentary about algorithmic shifts in the search engine industry.

What’s In Your 2013 SEO Playbook?

Dec 27, 2012 at 10:18am ET by Tom Schmitz

I've thought about writing my 2013 SEO game plan since I hit the submit button for last year's version. The problem is, since when my review of 2012 came out last month, I've read numerous SEO in 2013 articles, and many of them are quite good or complete. I have to give special kudos to Paul Bruemmer's Which Top SEO Tactics Will You Focus On In 2013? That is a tough act to follow. I don't want to be redundant, so I am taking a different tact this year. While there is no way to make this wholly unique, here's what's on my mind. Change How You Think About Search Engines Search engine optimi [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

Which Top SEO Tactics Will You Focus On In 2013?

Dec 20, 2012 at 11:54am ET by Paul Bruemmer

[caption id="attachment_141998" align="alignright" width="267"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] SEO tactics have morphed again over the past year, including the many Google updates we've seen. For nearly any type of business, keeping up with these changes can be a challenge, but if you prioritize the tasks necessary for success in search and social media marketing, the efforts can pay large dividends. Below are my picks for the top SEO tactics to focus on in the coming year. These tactics can bring you more relevant traffic and conversions for improving your bottom line in 2013. [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | Schema.org

Hot & Cold Trends In Search Going Into 2013

Dec 13, 2012 at 12:23pm ET by Nathan Safran

The end of the year in any industry marks a good opportunity to look back on the year and reflect on changes. This is particularly true in the SEO industry, given the volume and intensity of changes that have occurred in 2012 — from algorithmic changes to how SEO is perceived in the organization to changes in how SEO professionals work with data and everything in between. At Conductor, we spent a bunch of time sorting through the many changes we’ve all seen in the SEO industry this year. Below, we call out trends in search we think are on the rise and also those we think are trending do [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

5 SEO Audit Considerations For Publishers & News Sites

Dec 6, 2012 at 9:25am ET by Tom Demers

SEO site audits should all be at least a bit unique. Everyone has their own process for pricing and conducting SEO audits, but one of the important things to keep in mind is the different needs of different types of sites. The core issues and focuses in auditing a twenty page B2B lead gen site will be very, very different than the key things you want to think about and address in auditing a large e-commerce site. The same is true of conducting an SEO audit on a publishing or news oriented site, and as a result I wanted to call out five key considerations that you’ll need to account for [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | How To: SEO

New To Using WordPress? 3 Must Have Plugins To Power Your SEO

Nov 29, 2012 at 2:00pm ET by John E Lincoln

Some of you are likely already aware of these plugins, while others will be hearing about them for the first time. These plugins are specifically for WordPress websites. These are only 3 of thousands of plugins available for WordPress. But these 3 are considerably strong and I would recommend them for most Wordpress sites. Personally, I love working with Wordpress. It is the most popular CMS (content management system) for good reason. Building a simple website is incredibly easy and adding new functionality is only a plugin or development project away. Although this is true, there are al [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

2012 Year In Review: Important Shifts In Google SEO

Nov 23, 2012 at 10:13am ET by Tom Schmitz

During the last 12 months (November 2011 to November 2012), SEO professionals have witnessed stunning changes from Google that impact SEO. Reputation & Trust Two words I frequently saw or heard this year were reputation and trust. I am writing about the credibility of a website's content, design, and external links, not reputation management as an SEO service. Since day one, Google and its fellow search engines promoted consistent quality while criticizing trickeries. What changed is Google can police bad behavior more effectively and broadly than ever before. Google got teeth. Googl [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | Google: SEO

Overcoming The Catch 22 Of Investing In Search Without Proof Of Success

Nov 15, 2012 at 12:28pm ET by Nathan Safran

Some readers may be surprised to discover that despite the opportunity organic search offers — a recent Shareholic study showed organic search drives nearly half of all traffic, 5 times more than social networks combined — many executive budget holders are still reluctant to make an initial substantial investment in SEO. Other, battle-scarred veterans will not be nearly as surprised. Whatever your perspective, the reluctance by senior management to take the leap and make an initial substantial investment in SEO, while theoretically understandable, often leaves the SEO professional lo [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

Can SEO Be Your Business Advantage?

Nov 8, 2012 at 12:41pm ET by Trond Lyngbø

With Google having a bad case of frequent hiccups, websites are see-sawing up and down in their search rankings. Business owners, caught between a rock and a hard place, are asking themselves whether SEO really can be a winning strategy in these difficult economic times. By analyzing the process, the methodology and the sequence of involving SEO in business development, I hope to showcase the role that search engine optimization has, even in the context of frequent algorithm changes at Google and other engines, proving there will always be financial justification for SEO. A Quick Look At R [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

Structured Data Markup Was Inevitable, But Is It An Admission Of Failure?

Nov 1, 2012 at 11:35am ET by Ted Ives

The movement toward structured data markup (i.e., increasing use of standards like Open Graph, Schema.org, RDFa, etc.) has bothered me for awhile, but I could not exactly put my finger on the issues. A few weeks ago at SMX East, there were some great presentations on these topics, and I finally realized that I have many major reservations about the proliferation and use of these standards, on many levels (mostly from a publisher perspective; for end-users they are generally a very positive development). What Are These Standards? They sound complicated, but in layman's terms, I would say: [...]

Deconstructing The Google EMD Update

Oct 25, 2012 at 2:23pm ET by Christoph C. Cemper

Well, it's official - no more free lunch for EMD, now that the Google EMD Update has launched. It worked well, for a long time. A whole industry of exact match domain tools and brokers came up. Huge premium prices for good names just went through the roof when it was a real “money keyword.” For quite a while, it was possible to rank in the TOP3 with literally no backlinks, compared to non EMDs, often after only a few days in literally every niche you can dream of. Exact Match Domains (AKA Keyword Domains) are, in general, domain names that exactly match the keyword a website wants to [...]

Google Searchers 3x More Likely To Be Logged-in Than Bing

Oct 18, 2012 at 9:03am ET by Nathan Safran

A study we recently did at Conductor found that search engines still have work to do when it comes to integrating social search results in the SERPs: 62% of respondents reported they do not want or gain benefit from social results mixed in with search results. In the same survey, we asked the 150 respondents about their social network login behavior when using a search engine. Specifically, we wanted to know the frequency users are logged-in to the search engine’s featured social network (Google and Google+; Bing and Facebook) when searching on the engine. The data showed t [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

Google Lucky Number 7: Differences In New Google SERP Across Retail, Finance & Technology

Oct 11, 2012 at 1:33pm ET by Jim Yu

What do 26,000 keywords tell us about the latest Google 7 change and the new Google SERP? As the Google SERP continues to evolve and brands aim to increase their control over search results, the emergence of a new type of SERP has interesting implications for SEO Managers. Since August, Google has been serving for some keywords, SERPs with 7 organic listings, instead of the usual 10 listings as discussed in 7 Is The New 10? Google Showing Fewer Results & More From Same Domain. This fits in with what Google says is its ultimate goal – "Overall, our goal is to provide the mo [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | Google: Algorithm Updates

This Post On SEO Will Win The Pulitzer Prize

Oct 4, 2012 at 1:25pm ET by Rick DeJarnette

There is a certain segment of the population that firmly believes the world is a black-and-white, cause-and-effect proposition. They believe that doing task X, directly and inescapably, leads to result Y. They seem to believe that the world is easily whittled down into discrete segments that occur in a vacuum. That cause and effect are absolutes. That if you work hard, you will get rich. If you are nice, you will be successful. I suppose those folks sleep well at night. They live lives of quiet harmony and bliss, always doing what they believe is expected because that will always result in [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

Understanding SEO Friendly URL Syntax Practices

Sep 27, 2012 at 9:48am ET by Tom Schmitz

Poor URL structure is a frequent SEO issue, one that can impair rankings, keep pages out of the search engine indexes, and suck ranking authority from your other pages or even the entire websites. Some content management systems bake poor URL structures right into their websites. Lax rules can be a culprit, for example, not encoding spaces or special characters. Meanwhile, some CMS platforms devise URLs using illegal characters that should not appear in addresses. Others generate multiple URLs for pages, creating duplicate content. While it is true that search engines go to great leng [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

How To Leverage PPC To Discover High-Converting Keywords For SEO

Sep 20, 2012 at 9:44am ET by Nathan Safran

When starting out with a new search effort or performing a keyword refresh for an existing website, the options for discovering new keywords are limited only by the SEO’s imagination. From the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, to digging through analytics, to leveraging sites like Soovle that discover ‘suggest’ keywords across multiple search engines, keyword discovery options abound. Building a pool of potential keywords to optimize for, however, is only half the battle. For those websites driving visitors to a ‘conversion event’ (e-commerce, asset download, form completion, etc [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | How To | How To: SEO | Intermediate

The Evolution Beyond Technical SEO, Code & ‘Software Gurus’

Sep 13, 2012 at 11:13am ET by Trond Lyngbø

Before you set out on a road trip or holiday, you check the weather forecast to see how things are going to be. An SEO forecast is equally important while you plan your marketing strategy, because things evolve quickly in this area thanks to Google's frequent algorithm changes. This article will probe and provoke - with the intention of saving you time and adding value, as it delivers an important message - that even if you're great at SEO, coding, communication or any other area, that by itself isn't enough to help your business (or clients) survive and thrive over the long term. Not Th [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

4 Signs You’re Chasing The Wrong Goals In SEO

Sep 6, 2012 at 10:10am ET by Rick DeJarnette

Does it bother you as much as it bothers me? Surely you’ve seen it. Perhaps you know someone who’s done it in the past (or good grief, is still doing it!). I can’t imagine anyone who reads Search Engine Land on a regular basis would do it, but then again, many things in life surprise me. I’m talking about losing track of what’s truly important in an SEO campaign. Getting lost in the woods, and not seeing the forest for the trees. There are those who have learned a tiny modicum of knowledge about SEO; perhaps they picked it up years ago and decided they had figured it all out. B [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

SEO Basics: When Your Domain & Homepage Are Not The Same

Aug 30, 2012 at 10:59am ET by Tom Schmitz

Recently, I ran an audit on 56 music industry websites and received a startling result. Sixteen sites, 28.6%, forward people from their domain name to their homepage using 302 Temporary Redirects. These sites are tossing away valuable link authority! If your domain and homepage are different, determine how the domains forward visitors to the actual homepage. The correct way to forward visitors from one Web address to another is via a 301 Permanent Redirect. A permanent redirect tells search engines to take the authority from off-site links pointing at your domain and apply it to your rea [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | How To | How To: SEO | Intermediate

The Financial Justification For Search Engine Optimization

Aug 16, 2012 at 2:05pm ET by Trond Lyngbø

Every business grows by delivering value through products and services that fill a need, solve a problem or lead to a desired goal. To achieve this, your business must first be visible online to your ideal prospects. Enter SEO. Search Engine Optimization helps with this 'findability' problem. SEO can ensure that your business ranks high on search engines, attracts the right customers, showcases your value, and boosts profits continuously. No Business Can Ignore SEO Your prospects use the Web to research purchases. When a health-conscious family makes decisions worth $10,000 over the ne [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

The SEO’s Guide To Adding Content For SERPs & Sales

Aug 9, 2012 at 9:10am ET by Rick DeJarnette

Driving around recently in my hometown of Woodinville, WA, gave me a pair of contrasting marketing experiences I wanted to share with you: Scenario #1: I was driving to the grocery story along a two-lane curving road when I came up on a fellow in dark clothes, standing in the shade, probably 30 or more feet away from the side of the road. He was standing near some bushes, holding what appeared to be a loose-leaf sized sheet of brown corrugated cardboard. The "sign" appeared to be blank – at least, I didn’t see anything written on it (written with a ball-point pen, perhaps?), and [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO

Get Our News, Everywhere!

Follow @sengineland

Got a tip? Tell us here!

Most Likes
Most Tweets
Comments

Our Stories Being Liked on Facebook

Search Engine Land Sponsors

Advertise With Us

Free Daily Search News Recap!

SearchCap is a once-per-day newsletter update - sign up below and get the news delivered to you!

Click to watch SMX conference video

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

North America

SMX Advanced - June 11-12, 2013
SMX East - Oct. 1-3, 2013
SMX Social Media Marketing - Nov. 20-21, 2013
SMX West - March 11-13, 2014

EMEA

SMX Paris - June 6-7, 2013
SMX Stockholm - Oct. 14-15, 2013
SMX Milan - Nov. 7-8, 2013
SMX Israel - Jan. 2014
SMX Munich - March 25-26, 2014
SMX London - May 2014

APAC

SMX Sydney - April 2014

Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.