June was a busy travel month for me. I spoke at the SMX conference in Seattle and SES in Toronto, as well as at our own High Rankings Search Marketing Seminar. The common thing throughout my travels (besides discussing search marketing) was the abundance of food! On the road, you can't help but eat, and eat, and eat, and eat. I can't count the number of times I felt stuffed, especially at the last event. I'm far from being a health-nut, but after awhile, when you eat so much you just start to feel stuffed and gross. So what's this got to do with SEO? In my last column, "Keep the Faith [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | SEO: Spamming | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

There's a fallacy that sellers create for themselves, that most people go online to spend money. -- Ammon Johns, from How Many Search Queries Are Really Unique?, I checked the AOL database :-) You research a niche for a business online, and find a genuine need in an area that larger businesses aren't filling. You work with a designer to create a site that's both easy to use and search engine friendly. You do keyword research for your products and services, and find the best terms to use that you expect your targeted audience to both search for, and that they likely would expect to see o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEO: Writing & Body Copy | Small Is Beautiful | Stats: Search Behavior

Just what do search marketing and dating have in common? According to Seth Godin, the keynote speaker at last week's Search Engine Strategies Conference in Toronto... plenty! When it comes to finding an appropriate partner and building a long-term relationship, there are some interesting analogies. B2B marketing challenges We know that business buyers go online - throughout the entire buying process -- to research, compare and finally select products and services. We also know that it's common for offline marketing campaigns to drive prospects online where they search for more i [...]

Related Topics: B2B Search Marketing | Channel: SEO | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

If you read SEO articles and forums, you've surely read over and over again how important "good content" is for your SEO efforts. You've heard how you need to write lots of informative articles about whatever it is you offer. Some SEO types even say to write an article a month or a week or even a day—all for the sake of the search engines. They'll often tell you to start a blog, and encourage you to post in it often. "Become an expert!" they'll advise with glee. "Or at least make it look like you're one." The problem with all of this is that not everyone is an expert, nor should they be [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

How do you get what you want on page one for your brand phrases? When facing negative content at the top of the SERPs, it’s a challenge many companies want to conquer very quickly. The good news is that it is doable; it’s just that not many people talk about how to do it. If you have unfavorable content ranking for your brand, the best approach is to just get the favorable sites on the Internet to outrank the unfavorable site, pushing the unfavorable down to page two. How do you do this? You merely need to give the favorable sites a nudge, by increasing their link popularity. The pr [...]

Related Topics: Brand Aid | Channel: SEO | SEO: General | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Content comes in all types, lengths, and mediums. From an SEO point of view, we simply know that it's important—no, crucial—to add content on a regular basis to our web sites. The content we add must be of value to our potential buyers. But truthfully, "writing content" is the most difficult and time-consuming part of the search engine marketing process. I've been in the SEO industry for nine years, and I can honestly say that writing content is the part that most SEOs dread. Optimization isn't a problem. It's writing content that's the problem! One solution: User-generated c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEO: General | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

In the offline world, companies make it a priority to influence the message people see in the media. However, in the search marketing world, very few companies make an effort to influence the message seen in search results pages. Instead, many companies ensure their website(s) are at the top of page one, and leave Google, Yahoo and MSN free to determine what to display in the remaining positions. What many companies and public relations professionals do not realize is that you can employ strategies to influence what the search engines display for your brand. As a search marketer, whether [...]

Related Topics: Brand Aid | Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: Branding | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Five Steps to Effective Keyword Research by Lisa Barone shares some of the basic steps to take when it comes to keyword research, which is the cornerstone of SEO. Complimentary to Lisa's article is an updated tool by SEO Book named New Keyword List Cleaner Tool. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: Search Term Research | SEM Tools | SEO: General | SEO: Titles & Descriptions | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Wordtracker, a very popular keyword tool used by search marketers, has added UK keywords to their existing tools. This means, those wanting to target the UK region, will have an option to specify UK keywords only and will be shown related keywords based on that data. How does Wordtracker gather such information? Wordtracker's Andy Mindel said: "We collect uncompressed log files from the ISPs. From these we extract the keywords from the major engines including Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN amongst others, leaving just over 4% of the original files." They then go through these log files, extra [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: Search Term Research | SEM Tools | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Aaron Wall has an excellent write up named Optimal Word Count & Web Page Copy Length. In short, Aaron explains that there is "no universal correct or incorrect answer to how much content is right." Aaron then goes through tips on how to write good content, that is easy to read and "optimized for user experience." The article is worth a read. Not only does it detail what type of content search engines may like, but it also gives examples by publishing format. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | SEO: Writing & Body Copy

There have been recent reports that the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool has been sporadically offline. In response to those reports, Yahoo issued a statement telling us that the Overture tool has been getting hit hard by users but will "continue to exist until we replace it with an improved product." The new tool is expected to be released "later this year" and will support an API and be found within the new Yahoo Search Marketing area. Since we don't have a free tool from Yahoo that is reliable at the moment, Aaron Wall informs us that Wordtracker released a new free keyword tool at http:/ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: Search Term Research | SEM Tools | SEO: Writing & Body Copy | Yahoo: Search Ads

Over the years, I've done many introduction to search marketing sessions where I talk about the value of having good, descriptive pages. Those let you tap into the search tail, the "onesies and twosies" terms, as I've called them, that might come up only once in a month. Add all those up, and they can outweigh or be as important as the top terms you deliberately target. Today, I had to chuckle at one particular query that brought us a visitor that illustrates the search tail concept: why did google have the scream That was the query that brought one person in from Google. We c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: General | SEO: General | SEO: Writing & Body Copy