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 […]
When conducting research, it’s not uncommon to perform repetitive tasks like downloading a group of webpages. A favorite tool I use to automate this is iMacros — it’s free and powerful. Just be sure to use the Firefox version, as its capabilities are limited in other browsers. Say you want a list of the Fortune […]
As my friends know, in January, I became an in-house SEO. Now that I have a few weeks under my belt, I thought I’d discuss some of the differences between agency SEO and in-house SEO, the type of traits it takes to succeed in-house, and some of the traps you can land in. Agency vs. In-house […]
Understanding the difference between the robots.txt file and Robots <META> Tag is critical for search engine optimization and security. It can have a profound impact on the privacy of your website and customers as well. The first thing to know is what robots.txt files and Robots <META> Tags are. Robots.txt Robots.txt is a file you place in your […]
They say the devil is in the details. When it comes to search engine optimization, those details include some important quirks you need to know about. Conforming to search engine behavior Keeping-up with changes in search engine behavior Playing well with other websites to protect your SEO Avoiding common practices that obstruct SEO Here are […]
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 […]
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 […]
Does your company use SEO for online marketing guidance? If you are a regular Search Engine Land reader, I suspect you will answer with something like, “Of course we do. We’re enlightened marketers, not Neanderthals.” And, you probably are. Actually, I would not ask you this question without reason. Being an inbound marketing consultant, I […]
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 […]
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 […]
Links are always a popular topic, and this year has proven no exception including Penguin, links vs. social media, negative SEO and disavowing links. Recently, someone asked me to distinguish between good links and bad links. First, there are really three types of links: Links that help SEO Links that hurt SEO Links search engines […]
Today, I want you to think about how a set of search engine optimization recommendations may be perfect for one website while lacking or wrong for another. I want you to think about strategic decision making. We know there is more to Internet marketing than search engine optimization and there’s a lot more bells and […]
Next month, I will speak at SMX Advanced as a member of the authority panel, so it makes sense to discuss authority in my column this month. Authority is a term that has been around as long as I can remember, probably longer than the term search engine optimization itself. That is because classic SEO […]
When you think about International SEO, it is easy to imagine Global 2000 companies with offices and employees around the globe. It can be equally important to the small business that sells globally from one location. How do you convince the search engines to include you in their international rankings on a country by country […]
My message today is to tear down the walls: not the ones in your website but in your company, between and within divisions. Too many businesses, especially larger companies, divide website responsibilities throughout different parts of the organization chart. Without strong central leadership, this can slow-down critical functions as each department fits their Web work […]
Website structure and internal linking is one of the most inconsistent topics within search engine optimization. Not only are SEO practitioners frequently at odds among ourselves, we must compete with the often conflicting goals of designers, usability experts, and marketing or sales teams. There is a lot of disagreement out there. Look for yourself. Pick […]
It’s a new year. Somebody needs to declare something dead. Recently, I gave a presentation on Google’s Search+ in which I said ranking reports no longer matter because there is no such thing as consistent Google rankings. What you see in the Google search results and what I see, for the exact same query, are […]
Search Engine Optimization is growing up. I am not ready to say the Wild West SEO days are completely eradicated, but in 2011 good search engine optimization is less about trickery and more about engaging content and audience development than ever before. Over the years, quality optimizers have become more prone to avoid technical tricks […]
Search engines want to populate the results with quality content written by experts as acknowledged by other Internet users. Documents with links from websites that have lots of links and documents with links from websites that have high quality links get rewarded. It is no wonder that when you ask a search engine reps how […]
Good keyword research is laborious. So is it no wonder that once you understand the basics, you may be tempted to use whichever tool you have at hand and try to automate or speed up the process. Except, should you want to do this? Keyword research is your time to understand the market you are […]
Is creating link bait good SEO? Emphatically, yes! If it does not get links it is not link bait. If it does, then people are finding value, which is exactly what the search engines want to reward. Whether you call it white hat or ethical SEO, link bait fits the bill. But what is link […]