Thomas Schmitz is a longtime digital marketing professional who works with startups, SMBs, enterprise, media and not-for-profit organizations. Regarded as an expert in inbound and content marketing, search engine optimization and social media, Tom's an innovative growth creator and turnaround specialist. Follow Tom at @TomSchmitz.
Search engine optimization shifted dramatically during the first half of this decade. I wonder how it will evolve? Google Got Intelligent Google has always been smart. When it launched, the PageRank algorithm changed everything, so much so that Google devoured a diverse community of now all but forgotten search engines. As smart as the early […]
For many B2B businesses, good SEO used to be a side effect of other marketing efforts. But columnist Tom Schmitz warns that this strategy isn't sustainable in the long-term.
Big sites like Amazon.com can teach us a lot about SEO...or can they? Contributor Tom Schmitz gives us the lowdown.
Even if you don't have an enterprise company, the size of your website may necessitate enterprise SEO. Columnist Tom Schmitz addresses issues of importance to operators of big web sites, no matter the size of the business.
The responsibility for SEO is being assigned to various departments. Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the state of the industry?
If you’ve gone to SEO events, you may have attended one or more sessions where experts conduct live site reviews and make recommendations. For agencies and consultants, quickly assessing any website is a great skill to hone. Here is how you can do your own 5-minute SEO audits. Don’t worry if this takes you 10 […]
Ethical SEO is a popular selling point for agencies and consultants, but what truly constitutes ethical SEO? Following are some guidelines for performing ethical SEO. By sticking to these guidelines, you’ll keep your reputation, your clients, and the search engines happy! 1. Follow The Search Engines’ Guidelines First, the obvious. Search engines have rules of […]
There seems to be a fresh interest in link building. Why now? What do the search engines have to say? How should agencies and companies approach link building? Why The New Interest In Link Building? Why are search engine optimizers and agencies more interested in link building again? Because the search engines are getting good […]
Do you accept standard SEO practices? Or do you prefer to evolve beyond the basics? Before I get too far, let me state that just because you can apply advanced optimization techniques does not mean you should. In most cases, SEO essentials will provide more and speedier improvements long before advanced optimization techniques need come […]
As a search and internet marketer, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work with our employers and clients, as well as the task of keeping up with the latest developments from search engines, social media platforms and industry tools. Today, I’d like to step back from this and discuss search and social […]
Shopping cart SEO can range from the simple to seemingly impossible. In a competitive landscape, how do you separate your store from the competition? How do you balance SEO and usability? Here are six things I look at early in any shopping cart SEO project. 1. Maintain A Simple Site Structure Make it easy for […]
Single page websites are quite popular right now; I see more and more each week on sites like The Latest and Product Hunt. No doubt they look cool when filled with great fonts, graphics and transitions. But can you SEO a single-page site and rank? Google’s Matt Cutts had this to say: (video autoplay) It’s […]
Are you ready for 2014? Today’s column marks the third and final entry in my annual SEO Playbook. Part 1 primarily focused on what Hummingbird will mean for marketers in 2014, especially as it relates to content and authority. Part 2 took an updated look at on-page SEO factors, including content, HTML and architecture. In […]
Welcome to part 2 of my annual SEO playbook. (Click here for part 1.) I have to thank Danny Sullivan and the Search Engine Land team for giving me the perfect outline for the 2014 playbook, the Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors. Part 2 will cover on-page factors, including content, HTML and architecture. You’ll […]
It’s November, which means it’s time for my annual SEO Playbook for the coming year. Thanks to Google’s Hummingbird, Internet marketers and search engine optimization professionals are thinking a lot about content and authority, as well as what this new algorithm means for keyword relevance and link building. At the same time, SEOs seem to […]
This month, I’m going to discuss content marketing strategy as it relates to search engine optimization. A lot of businesses get this wrong by focusing too tightly on the sales parts of the marketing funnel. With PPC, Money Buys Placement Before I get into SEO, let’s examine PPC as a contrasting approach. In paid search, […]
Whether you mark it by Labor Day or the Autumnal (Fall) Equinox, summer is coming to an end — which makes this a great time to give your website an SEO cleanse and recharge the old batteries. Here are 8 things you can do to strengthen quality. 1. Fix Errors Listed In Webmaster Tools Both Google […]
Brands have a new way to pay for external or offsite SEO, a path to influence rankings. It follows the search engines’ terms of service and can lead to the type of links Google says are among the most valuable. Google spokespersons even endorse the principle behind this new paid form of SEO… well, sort of. Can Paid Offsite SEO Be Legal? Yes. Let’s […]
Perform a Google search for [depeche mode members]. Not long ago, you’d get something that looked like the image below (plus a few images of a video to fill out the universal search results). Today, the search results look like this: Google is transitioning from universal search results to entity search results. In […]
Last month, I showed you three tricks I use when gathering data on websites. I used these techniques to download webpages into a local folder. In and of themselves, these procedures are not SEO; however, a search engine optimization professional working on a large or enterprise website ought to know how to do this. In this […]