Blekko is a stealth search engine which aims to change the search game by being fairly transparent with ranking data. Since they will start out with limited search marketshare, they aren’t risking much in sharing data that other search engines have traditionally been rather secretive about. Further, they allow customization of results via what they […]
Returns for online investments are still so much greater than the offline world that it is easy to think that the money is somehow less real, or that there is greater risk to it. That perhaps we should diversify out of the web to help make our businesses less risky. Sure, the shift of a […]
I love organic search. The idea of building up from nothing to create something which is fairly sustainable and eventually has its own momentum behind it is an awesome feeling. But you have to start somewhere. Adding value is a great thing to say, but the phrase is often meaningless. Even if you do something […]
Years ago, on a planet far far away, people used to optimize for keyword density. But as relevancy algorithms have improved people have moved away from keyword density and toward keyword diversity. Covering a broader net of closely related keywords on your pages yields a better chance to rank for some of the billions of […]
Years ago, some of the leading pay per click advertising markets displayed the bids of advertisers publicly and primarily based the ad auctions on bid price. And a list of advertisers and bids might look like: Advertiser 1: $10.00 Advertiser 2: $9.50 Advertiser 3: $3.25 Advertiser 4: $2.75 Based on this publicly accessible information, marketers […]
With how much information SEO’s have available to them, it is easy to get lost in analysis paralysis. The opportunities are virtually endless. The only limits are time and capital. And markets keep shifting. Given that, sometimes seeing a visual abstract of the market can help you better understand your market position (or at least […]
Have you ever tried to create an interesting blog on a topic that people rarely interact with? Can you really build a thriving readership of loyal fans interested in a dry topic like root canals or debt consolidation? Most likely not. It is far easier to go where the conversation is than it is to […]
Organic links – the ones that just happen are typically driven by things like public relations, brand awareness, unique content, existing exposure, and social networking. In competitive markets, some aspects of the evolving SEO field should be baked into the core of the company’s DNA. When you get interviewed, you have to know to ask […]
You only get to launch a product or service or piece of featured content once. Is the best way to maximize economic yield to make it free or paid? If it is free is can spread far and get many links, but it does not produce any revenue directly. If it is paid a much […]
Many reporters would like you to believe there is a firm wall between content and advertising, but often they merge…particularly for niche or trade related publications. When my wife was getting started in business and wanted to promote her first website, a trade magazine kept trying to push her for an ad and she kept […]
There are literally thousands of SEO blog posts made every day. Sometimes it is hard to sound original or write something remarkable, particularly if you spend too much time reading too narrowly. It sets in a sort of tunnel vision that makes you think it has all been done. As the web grows richer and […]
Last week I was jolted by booting up my computer only to see the blue screen of death. The computer was dead, dead, dead and I had to replace it with a new one, going through the painful process of restoring all of my software, tools and data. The old computer was using Windows XP, […]
Some project ideas I just sit on and wait. And since time is money, sitting on a good idea is usually a bad idea. If the idea is good, someone else is probably thinking of it too, and if they beat you to market then you are not remarkable when you launch. Search engines tend […]
One of the things I frequently mention is that content and advertising are blurring so much that in many cases people selling information would be willing to pay to give that same content away in a few years. It is not that all old information is bad (in many cases older information is more pure […]
Change. It is a part of life, especially on the web. Evolve or die. But some things need not change to be successful. In some cases change undermines your momentum, particularly in the field of search, where most of the traffic goes to the top couple ranked sites. One of the biggest problems in the […]
Bob Massa, one of the original SEOs (though I don’t think he likes to be referred to with that label), always talks about SEO from a conversion standpoint, offering quotes like “traffic without conversions is the epitome of futility.” The SEO space is a bit crowded right now. So many people are fighting for attention […]
Three years ago Todd Malicoat published a blog post titled Balancing the Link Equation, which offered conditional tips about how to improve the link profile of a website. I think of that post nearly every time someone asks for SEO advice because the field has grown so complex that both yes and no are often […]
What is the difference between an unremarkable, no value added, thin ecommerce site, and a top ranked site? In some industries the difference is simply site age. Sites that were around a few years ago had fewer competitors, so it was easier for them to rank. As they aged they got trusted more, and some […]
It is no secret that human review has been playing a bigger role at Google over the past couple years. And we are emotional beings… no matter how logical the guidelines may be, emotions cause human errors. But not all sites that get penalized are penalized in error. Many deserve it. Sadly, Google’s guidelines for […]
A wide array of paid and free tools make it both cheap and easy to track your online reputation. The first point of contact is typically via customer emails, comments on your own site, or web analytics data. But not everyone who complains about you brings the complaints directly to you or links to your […]
Social media is hot. Everyone wants to be on Digg’s home page. Link baiting, especially using things like numbered lists, imperative rules, or controversial hooks is the SEM strategy du jour. There’s just one — major — problem with spending so much time and effort on capturing the eyeballs of social media users. Social media […]
Everything you do has a chance to provide a clean or dirty signal of relevancy to search engines and searchers. While a date in the URL may provide a signal of relevancy to some searchers looking for archived information, many people who are explicitly looking for old information will likely put a date in their […]
SEO strategy should be designed to provide optimal return within a given risk tolerance. If you can also plan for future changes while still having a good ROI in the current market, then it makes sense to do so. But you can’t always predict how search will change. When the Google Florida update occurred at […]
Google adamantly denies that payment influences organic search engine rankings. In an ideal world that might be true, but exposure begets exposure. Here are some of the cheapest and fastest ways to get your message to the top of the search results without paying for every click.
Part of making a site a success from an SEO standpoint is making it credible and trustworthy. Being trustworthy means a site is more likely to draw high quality organic links, more likely to be mentioned in the press, and more likely to convert for consumers in your target market.
Before November of 2003 it was easy to rank well in Google for just about anything just by using the keywords in your anchor text and plastering the term everywhere in your page copy. I appreciate that, knowing that back then I ranked in Google’s top 10 results for search engine marketing without knowing much […]