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News

Top Ten Organic SEO Myths

SEO myths get crazier every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it's often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction. ...full article

posted Friday, August 31, 2007

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Does Google Hate Search Engine Optimization?

Jill Whalen updated an article she wrote that she wrote on search engine optimization a few years ago and included it in her latest HighRankings newsletter. The article is called The Art of SEO. Overall, it's a great read and I agree with a lot of what Jill is professing, but there was one statement that Jill makes that tripped me up and threw some clouds into an otherwise totally sunny SoCal day. ...full article

posted Friday, August 31, 2007

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Revisited: The Art of SEO

As much as Google *pretends* to like SEOs by inviting us to parties at the
Googleplex and posting on SEO forums, the bottom line is that they don't
like us - or rather, they don't like what we do. Google wants to find the
best, most relevant sites for the search query at hand all by themselves.
Perhaps someday they will actually be able to do that, but for now, they
still need our help, whether they like it or not. ...full article

posted Friday, August 31, 2007

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SEO & Physical Fitness Metaphors

I've been speaking to a lot of people lately about the basics of SEO and I find myself using "Physical Fitness" as a metaphor to help people understand some the basic concepts and I thought it would be fun to share. ...full article

posted Friday, August 31, 2007

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Stop Digging Where There Are No SEO Potatoes

In the SEO world, digging where there are no potatoes translates to the non-art of arbitrarily picking keywords to optimize your site pages for and spending months waiting for high rankings... just to find out that either a) these are not terms targeted to your audience and therefore they are not driving traffic or conversions; or b) you've chosen terms that have little to no search volume because you didn't bother to use keyword research tools. ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 29, 2007

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The Eight Most Important Lessons I've Learnt as an SEO Trainee

In order to rebel against top ten lists, I have decided to publish this post describing the 8 most important things that I have learned since becoming an Search Engine Marketer a couple of months ago at Site Visibility. Hopefully my experience might come in handy wether you are a trainee SEO, PPC campaign manager or a SEM Vetran. ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 29, 2007

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Can PPC Listings Affect Organic Rankings?

Often the question is asked "Do PPC listings affect your organic rankings?" or "Will Google apply bonus points to your organic rankings if you spend money on their paid listings?" The simple answer is no. In 8 years in the SEO business I have never seen or heard of a confirmed case where your PPC listings directly affected your organic listings on any engine. Despite this, one of the best ways to increase your organic traffic is to start an aggressive PPC campaign. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 23, 2007

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Universal Search Revealed: How SEO is Changing

Something that's definitely part and parcel of the future of search technology is universal search. Indeed, even though it's only in its incipiency, its presence is already being felt. It now seems even more likely that universal search will simplify reputation management and that even Google opening up their Google Maps API will factor in largely in future SERPs. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 23, 2007

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Low B2B Click-Through-Rate: Inexperience Or Wisdom?

Have you ever analyzed the click-through-rates associated with B2B search listings? Organic versus paid? Business versus consumer? The data is interesting... and can be interpreted in several ways. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 23, 2007

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Lower Keyword Focus To Improve Search Engine Rankings

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 about the topic. As time passed it became clear that Google began to look for natural and unnatural patterns, and what I was doing did not fit the mold. ...full article

posted Friday, August 17, 2007

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Budgeting for SEO

Obviously, SEO is becoming more mainstream. Even the average small business knows that SEO exists and it's something they need to consider. So, now that we know it's something we have to consider, many clients are asking us "how much should I budget for SEO next year". Talk about an impossible question to answer off the cuff. At least it's difficult to answer honestly, off the cuff. ...full article

posted Friday, August 17, 2007

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Implementing Analytics: Don't Forget the Small Stuff

The web analytics implementation process can often be a long and grueling process which includes numerous resources and environments. When you're trying to focus on items such as accurately trying to integrate with a CMS or ecommerce solutions, forgetting the little things can often occur. Here are a few items worth double checking before you declare the implementation 100% complete. ...full article

posted Friday, August 17, 2007

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Search Illustrated: Black Hat Cloaking Explained

Have you ever clicked on a promising search result, only to find that the web page you land on has nothing to do with what you expected, or even worse, is a page of porn or other spam? ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 15, 2007

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Competitive SEO Evaluations: Individual Keyword Phrase Analysis

It is common for Web sites to rank very well for certain keywords but not very well for others. This makes sense since the competitive landscape changes from one keyword phrase to the next. There may be 300,000 search results for keyword A and 1,000,000 search results for keyword B. Presumably, it would be harder to outrank a million results than three hundred thousand, but this is not always the case. There may be a greater number of optimized pages in the smaller results set, making it more competitive than the larger set. ...full article

posted Tuesday, August 14, 2007

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Time to Look at MSN Live Search

Back in April I urged our readers to not focus blindly on Google when optimizing sites for search engines and to diversify; and the latest search engine statistics from Compete further affirm that recommendation. ...full article

posted Saturday, August 11, 2007

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How Important Is the Yahoo Directory?

There has been speculation lately over the direction of the Yahoo Directory. What exaactly is the Yahoo! Directory you ask? The Yahoo! Directory is a human-created and maintained library of web sites organized into categories and subcategories. ...full article

posted Saturday, August 11, 2007

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The Right Way To Think About Site Maps

If you asked one hundred search engine optimization professionals to explain a site map and show you what an effective one looks like, chances are you will get 100 different answers. To many SEO professionals, a site map is an XML site map that one submits to Google containing URLs to every web page on a site. To others, a site map is a single web page with a semi-organized list of blue, underlined text links with keywords. For larger sites, a site map is a series of web pages (with only 100-150 links per site-map page) with a list of blue, underlined text links, usually organized in alphabetical order. ...full article

posted Friday, August 10, 2007

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10 SEO Tips to Remember While Launching a Site

It takes months to properly plan a new site launch or even a redesign. With months of time invested, and hundreds (or thousands) of man hours on the line - you need to make sure your new site is ready to rock from day one. ...full article

posted Friday, August 10, 2007

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How Some Companies Try to Take Advantage of SEO's

I was recently contacted by one of the top sites in the world of online travel. Seems they've been looking to fill an SEO position for quite some time. The initial contact came from a recruiter who wanted to know if I would be interested in working in their offices a few days a week here in NYC. I thought, "Sure...why not?" I stated my case and let it be known that I run a company and would work for them with the understanding that I wouldn't be a regular, full time employee. In other words, on-site consulting on a part time basis, under contract. ...full article

posted Friday, August 10, 2007

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Linking Building 101 & 201

I recently completed a massive ten part series on building links... the proper way. I am going to post a quick summary of things that you can do in order to build links to your home page and sub pages that are completely "white hat". In other words, links that Google will love and (hopefully) cherish. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 09, 2007

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Build Keyword Relevancy Through Off Page Optimization

As the search industry grows, off site optimization has begun to rely on more than simple backlinks. If you want to increase keyword relevancy for your site and pages, you will need to rely on off page elements. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 09, 2007

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Search Leads to Offline Conversions Too

While many search marketers design their campaigns to maximize online sales, recent research emphasizes the importance of taking offline conversions into account when building online search and advertising campaigns. ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 08, 2007

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Google's desperate gamble

Although it's still a little too soon to suggest that Google's downward spiral has finally begun, Google has lost search market share two months in a row. As near as I can determine (based on largely unreliable third-party estimates), Google began losing market share in late May. ...full article

posted Tuesday, August 07, 2007

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Answers to Ten SEO Questions & Some New Questions from Danny Sullivan

It looks like our ten questions post was a hit. To follow up, our own, intrepid point man, Scott Willoughby, will be crafting an advanced test/quiz on many different SEO topics - some fun, some serious - and should have it launched in the next 3-4 weeks. Await with bated breath (I know I am) ...full article

posted Saturday, August 04, 2007

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Your Guide To Google Adwords

The pay per click advertising arena is a complex place. As a Google adwords advertiser you compete in an auction every time a keyword prompts your ad to be shown. Unfortunately, many advertisers do not realise how complex that auction is. Find out more about how Google Adwords ranks your ads and how you can establish a profitable strategy for your online business. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 02, 2007

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12 Ways to Butcher Your SEO Campaign

Want to avoid putting your SEO campaign on life support? ...full article

posted Thursday, August 02, 2007

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How to Get More Pages into Google's Index

Many people obsess about every word Matt Cutts says, but there are plenty of other Googlers that can teach us a thing or two about Google's inner workings. At Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2006 I was on a panel with one of them: Dan Crow, who is part of Google's search quality group and is the Product Manager for the crawl infrastructure group. ...full article

posted Thursday, August 02, 2007

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Should You Hire an SEO Firm, or an SEO Consultant

So, you've been charged with the task of generating better search results and you're investigating your options now. Lets pretend for now, that the only thing you had to consider is natural search engine optimization, for purposes of keeping this post as short as possible. ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 01, 2007

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Is Google Misleading Search Marketers?

I started my Monday off with a strange phone conversation. I had put together a proposal for a potential client for both SEO and paid search management. The SEO portion of the proposal involved an initial cost which would allow us to develop and implement a strategy to optimize their site so that they could improve their visibility for organic search. ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 01, 2007

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5 Deadly Sins Guaranteed To Kill Your Link Requests

Here in the Link Week column, we mostly discuss intermediate to advanced linking related subjects, but I'm compelled to cover a very basic topic this week. Link requests. The link builders are out in force this summer. The proof is in my inbox. Over the two weeks since my last LinkWeek column, I've counted the number of link requests I've received. The total? Forty-two. ...full article

posted Wednesday, August 01, 2007

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