Businesses should consider their overall SEO health and how it fits into their overall marketing funnel. This is most commonly done by completing an SEO audit, which will give marketing and product teams an understanding of where the company is from an SEO perspective and provide next steps to building momentum towards organic search traffic…
Have you checked on your Meta Ads recently? We’re now in the final quarter of 2022 and Meta continues to roll out changes that directly impact the success of your Facebook ad campaigns. Despite changes, Meta ads are still one of the most cost-efficient paid advertising platforms available, making it worth your time and money to…
Launched in 2021, Performance Max Google Ads were launched as a way to use the power of automation and machine learning to make improvements over traditional ad campaigns. In typical Google fashion, these ads have evolved and continue to roll out new features aimed at helping you find new customers, analyze campaign performance, and easily…
Privacy has become a hot topic among marketers and business owners alike. In this new age of transparency, consumers are more keenly aware of how their data is being used, and streamlining their experience with unwanted touch points from cold emails, spam content, and more. Business owners can stay ahead of the game by creating…
Believe it or not, Facebook has been one of the most powerful social media platforms for nearly a decade. Over time, the social platform has successfully narrowed the options for targeting potential audiences. Granular targeting has been one of Facebook’s strong suits in targeting the 2.19 billion monthly active users on its platform, providing a…
The ultimate goal of every business owner is to see their site rank on Google. According to Moz, 71% of search clicks are attributed to sites listed on the first page, which could potentially boost conversion rates and profits significantly for business owners who are SEO savvy. This brings up the question, is your site…
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are some of the most important parts of your SEO strategy but often go overlooked by business owners. If you think about it, however, what better way to ensure your strategy is yielding results than monitoring KPIs for SEO that match your goals? Without SEO KPIs, you can’t effectively track your…
Even with all of the changes Facebook has undergone in the past few months, it’s still a great place to advertise your business. Ads are affordable and you have the ability to target your “ideal” customers. With billions of people actively using this social media platform, you’re bound to reach the audience you’re looking for.…
While email marketing strategy may not get the attention other avenues of marketing get, it’s still a vital and excellent way to foster leads, build brand awareness, and convert more clients and customers. The fact is, you’re more likely to stay top-of-mind if you have a regular stream of communication with your email list. All…
Digital marketing and successful campaigns are driven by the effective use of high-performing keywords, especially when paired with a compelling ad campaign. Instead of using the Keyword Planner to start over every time you need to run a new promotion, you can use the tips below to create high-converting campaigns in a matter of seconds.…
Google Analytics has always been one of the most important tools in a digital marketers toolkit. Google Analytics 4 is now designed to give marketers more data at their fingertips by allowing you to analyze important customer usage metrics. This allows you to go a level or even two levels deeper than you could with…
In 2021, Performance Max (PMax) was launched as a new automated campaign type along with many new updates to Google Ads since then. The campaigns are designed to improve your advertising strategy through the power of automation and machine learning. Performance Max primarily aims to help you drive conversions efficiently than traditional campaign types.. So,…
Looking for new ways to find keywords for your B2B SaaS company? You’re in the right place. More companies are leaning into the power of organic SEO to boost their overall rank in Google’s algorithm, and demonstrate their expertise. The SaaS industry is growing by leaps and bounds, approximately 18% every year. To remain competitive…
When it comes to earning credibility with search engines, the quality of a backlink is much more important than the number of backlinks pointing to your domain. You can achieve better search engine optimization with just a few ethical tactics. When you realize this, it makes most link building activities worthless and sometimes even damaging…
Ensuring a high-quality, user-friendly experience is crucial to the long-term success of your site. As user experience continues to be highly prioritized, the path to growing your business must include paying attention to Google Core Web Vitals. These metrics allow you another method of checking on the experience your website offers and discovering areas for…
When evaluating your SEO strategy, are you working as efficiently as possible? Adopting and maintaining an ongoing holistic SEO strategy is the approach to take in order to stay as relevant as possible as Google continues to shift focus and preferences. While many business owners take the time to focus on a few specific areas…
E-commerce businesses advertising on Facebook share the common goal of gaining more leads and customers. Understanding how to optimize your Facebook advertising campaigns will help your company generate more leads and increase your sales revenue. Here are the top 4 e-commerce optimization needs for businesses advertising on Facebook. 1. Define your Facebook advertising objectives Your…
Google Ads has continued its explosive growth in recent years, making it one of the largest platforms for online advertising. This should come as no surprise given Google itself makes up over 61% of all core search queries, allowing advertisers the opportunity to reach an incomparably large number of people and ultimately boost revenue. With…
Even the largest companies want to be smart about their social media marketing budget. After all, who wants to throw money down the drain when they could’ve taken steps to ensure they were maximizing their Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)? If you’re a small to midsize company, chances are you’re being even more cautious about…
Developing a keyword research strategy is a powerful way to amplify your SEO strategy for your B2B business. Leveraging the right keywords can promote your overall brand awareness and help you to gain visibility in front of key prospects, investors, and stakeholders. There are many elements to consider when developing this strategy, which you can…
Google is constantly updating their services in order to provide the best possible experience for both users and advertisers alike. This year, they’re continuing with a few Google Ads updates crucial to your overall campaign success. These updates are meant to optimize the user search experience, provide the most relevant ads, and push forward with…
The effectiveness of your data-driven digital marketing campaign and ad strategy relies largely on a single element: your ad headline. This is the single-sentence preview that will determine if your customer will take action on the interest that they may have in your offer, and is one of the hardest things to get “right” in…
Marketing, whether to businesses or directly to consumers, is an art that can feel rapidly paced. New content is being delivered to inboxes and feeds multiple times a day, new tips and tricks are going viral on Twitter, and there are more courses available than any one person could ever complete. As tempting as it…
In recent years, changes in how Facebook delivers content to users organically from commercial accounts has made it nearly impossible for businesses to avoid paid social advertising. The sheer number of daily users, targeting options, and evolving platform features have caused Facebook ads to become a leader in customer and user acquisition for companies of…
We are well into 2022 and Q1 is almost over, but, everyone is trying to navigate what digital advertising is going to look like for the rest of 2022. The burning question: “What does the future hold for online advertising and business?” This is the most unique business situation of our lifetime, and the pandemic…
Another year is here, and Google hasn’t stopped changing. As we enter and complete the first quarter of 2022, there are many different changes that we’re seeing that can contribute to your ability to rank your site effectively. Here’s what you can look out for in SEO in 2022 to take your engagement and organic…
Organic search results are meant to streamline the user’s search experience and provide relevant information to their query as efficiently as possible. To help with this, Google is consistently updating it’s SERP features to optimize user experience, providing websites with a variety of opportunities to improve their visibility. What are SERP features and how do…
Every business is spending more time, labor, and money on data-driven marketing. Despite that, email marketing still has some of the highest returns on investment for businesses! Once they’ve signed up, your goal is always to increase your email open rate. That’s more eyes on your content! Today we will explore ways to entice the members…
Marketers who are responsible for keeping their finger on the pulse of SEO strategies know it’s a delicate art that is undergoing constant evolution. For every new trick up a sleeve, the algorithm is able to adapt and filter. What reigns king? Authoritative, high-quality content which is well organized and thoroughly readable for the average…
Your link management strategy is a crucial component of your site’s success in ranking and gaining traffic through search engine optimization. Your strategy should include a variety of tools to help you enhance your site as much as possible — one of the most important of these includes link tracking tools. Your link strategy has…
Whether you’re an advertiser or business owner looking to grow your business with social media advertising, you should make sure you’re aware of Facebook ad targeting changes that may affect your strategy. In addition to forced changes caused by major privacy updates in 2021, this year is bringing a few key changes to Facebook ad…
If you thought SEO was something that only benefited national brands, think again. In fact, statistics show that almost 46% of Google search queries are looking for local information. This means if your business isn’t optimizing for local search, you’re likely missing out on a lot of potential customers. Put bluntly, local SEO is critical…
Launching a startup is one of the most turbulent and rewarding processes that you could ever go through. Ultimately, throughout the startup process, your goal is to continue to grow your brand perception and awareness while expanding your customer base. Growing your email list is an ideal way to do this in a way that…
Is your business taking a holistic approach to its marketing strategy? 97% of site visitors don’t ever return to your website, according to MailChimp. This can lead to astonishingly low conversion rates, and can significantly impact your marketing strategy. Retargeting allows marketers to increase their brand awareness and optimize their conversion rates through an entirely…
Your B2C business could be making hundreds of conversions on one of the world’s top marketing platforms. Instagram began as a humble photosharing app that users could download to share snapshots of their lives — and has grown to be a multi-billion dollar empire that results in countless conversions for B2C and B2B organizations around…
If you’re marketing in the B2B space, it isn’t a surprise to you that many companies have chosen to create outreach campaigns and content toward the 4.48 billion active social media users worldwide. Your Facebook Ads are just one of the components of your marketing plan – but can also be one of the most…
Social media marketing is a great way to acquire customers and achieve your marketing goals in 2021. Boasting similar benefits to Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest is among the top platforms when it comes to driving traffic to products, services, and brands. Many small businesses use these platforms to market their e-commerce products or service to…
Consumer shopping trends continue to drastically shift from brick-and-mortar stores to the e-commerce landscape year over year. In 2019, e-commerce sales made up 14.1% of all retail sales worldwide and are projected to climb to 22% by 2023. As the shift to online shopping continues to grow, new e-commerce brands pop up every day making…
When launching your business ads, it can be overwhelming to begin the optimization process. Many business owners are looking for new ways to save time on daily processes – which is where the power of automation can help. In this article, we’ll be exploring 5 key automation tips that you can use to optimize and…
Facebook is a prime place to advertise if you’re a B2C or a B2B styled business. Advertising on Facebook can market your unique brand offering to its advertising audience of 2.14 billion users…and, when done right, can give you an incredibly high return on investment. If you notice that your ads are struggling, there may…
Optimizing Google Ads campaigns are a constant, tedious, and time consuming thing. But, do they always have to be? There are many tools readily available when it comes to optimization and improvement of ad performance on all levels. Especially for paid ads, many tools promise stellar results and lead generation just by using their services.…
The ecommerce landscape has grown more competitive than ever as consumer purchasing trends continue to shift to online shopping versus traditional brick and mortar stores. With the recent coronavirus pandemic, not only has online shopping become the only options in some places, but 31.7% of shoppers now report that they will shift entirely to online…
Facebook Ads has obviously been a major part of the growth of many e-commerce brands, and their ability to market products to a wider target audience. As the biggest social media platform, Facebook is the perfect marketing tool for E-commerce brands to reach more people and increase revenue. Some would argue the main reason Direct-to-Consumer…
One of best things about digital marketing is it allows you to track and analyze your marketing efforts. This gives you an understanding which tactics work best and which are a waste of your valuable resources. Leveraging Google Analytics features you can gather data about your digital campaigns and make informed decisions about how to move…
Google Shopping Campaigns are regularly used because they are prominently listed in the Google Search Results. When searching for products in search, seeing an actual image of the product is going to lead to more clicks than blue links. Along with that, it’s also at the top of the search results or takes over the…
Online advertising in 2021 is an essential activity for any business online. Even though old school marketing tactics are still relevant for some industries, Customer Acquisition is be the backbone for any company that is looking for growth. At this point, it’s not even a competitive advantage, it’s really just table stakes and if you’re…
Over the years, there have been many discussions about manual vs automated bidding. Both have their pros and cons, but if I have to pick, I’d choose manual bidding. And this is a choice made from experience. My initial approach with any account is to use manual bidding, then, gradually apply automated rules to keep…
E-Commerce plays an incredibly crucial role in the marketplace today as it continues to develop and grow. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the importance and relevance of E-Commerce brands increase as the economy saw a new significant role for it in the marketplace. E-Commerce is more relevant now than ever before which is why…
Advertising on Youtube is unlike any other platform and has grown to be the world’s second-largest search engine following Google. The platform sees roughly 2 billion logged-in visitors per month. While Youtube started out as a video distribution platform and it has now grown to be so much more than that, offering tools like channel…
Scaling is wonderful because it means you are really starting to see the fruits of your SEO labor. You’ve more than likely found particular SEO tactics that work better than others, but you should have a comprehensive plan for scaling your efforts. Before you spend a lot of time and money, it is vital to…
Every digital marketer or business shares the common goal of getting their online business found, viewed and engaged with. While creating valuable content is a great way to give people what they want, those people will never see it if they can’t find it. This can be solved with good use of technical SEO. Search…
Very often PPC ads are the first contact potential customers have with your site. They do a (Google) search for something related to your business or product, and your ad shows up in the results. Other than relevancy, the determining factor of whether searchers click on your ad and get to you site or moves…
With more than 79% of US internet users on Facebook, and a staggering 70% of all Facebook users returning to the site at least once a day, it’s clear there is a huge advertising opportunity on this platform. With a single ad click costing on average $0.27, and a thousand impressions setting you back $7.19,…
Remember when the only option available used to be landing pages to capture leads? We all know digital marketing is about testing and trying to find what works for your target audience. You need to run a couple of tests, with a couple of options, different creatives and then decide on what and where to…
As advertisers or business owners alike, we all have the same goal when advertising on Facebook – to generate conversions. So how do we get our audience to convert? Currently, the average Click Through Rate (CTR) for a Facebook ad ranges from 0.5% to 1.6% on average. Check out our top 5 best practices to…
In the past two years, AI and VR have been amongst the top trending technologies and topics on the Internet. We as marketers and consumers have had a chance to see how the marketing future will look like. AI and VR technology will revolutionize everything because as human beings, we love interaction and dynamic content.…
Launching a successful Google AdWords campaign requires a lot of testing and tracking. Testing is very often overlooked and considered unnecessary, when in fact it’s what makes all the difference, and allows you to move forward and get results. Many how-to guides and ebooks can give you guidance on how to create the best performing…
I was approached by a startup founder the other day about when to approach SEO? To say I get this question or the question of how to get started often, would be an understatement. I’ve been doing this since 2002, dating myself quite a bit, which is a really really long time. I’ve seen all…
Many people in the digital marketing world were impacted last month when Google introduced a Google broad core algorithm update. There has been an obvious and visible change in the rankings of search results for many websites. Google confirmed this via a tweet: This week we released a broad core algorithm update, as we do several…
What You Need to Know About Featured Snippets Featured snippets are short, direct answers that show up on top of Google search results as an answer to a search query. Featured snippets are a result of good on-page content best responding to search engine query. There are three types of featured snipped that…
Marketing content is a communication tool. Optimizing your marketed content will help drive results and create meaningful connections with your target audience. Building a content marketing strategy will ensure that your resources – time, energy and money – are set on reaching a particular business goal. Focusing on this goal will help you create relevant…
If you’re a digital marketer, you have probably managed Google AdWords Campaigns a few times or use it on a regular basis. The primary reason we love using Adwords is because of the precision to get down and target searcher intent, to get in front of the right people, not just the most people. If you’ve…
Web technologies change fast and with them, website optimization is constantly evolving, leaving many people confused about which SEO strategies are still relevant, and which have become obsolete. In 2017, good user experience makes the best SEO strategy. Optimizing content for users is the best way to rank higher since RankBrain rewards content, garnering clicks…
Google’s main goal is to provide the best possible results to a search query. And since most users rely on mobile devices for the majority of their online activities, Google’s focus is on catering to the needs of the ever growing number of mobile users. In the past years, Google has released several updates aimed…
It’s hard being a start-up. At the dawn of their lifecycle, startups have to keep up a steady growth of 30% every year or suffer a painful death. Up until a while ago, “growth hacking” was an odd buzzword on the lips of SEOs and marketing professionals alike. Today, it has become a synonym for…
If you are actively using Google AdWords, then you know that Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are the easiest way to reach customers that precisely match your offer on Google. The best thing about DSA is that they use your website to help target your ads and fill in the keyword-based gaps in your campaigns. Even…
Anyone who is involved in content marketing knows that effective customer engagement requires more than simply publishing content on the company blog and social media to the same aggregated audience. Reaching the audience that is most likely to take action – like, share, comment, sign up for your newsletter, click to get a special discount…
Whether you are writing content for your company website or the next company blog post, the goal is to create great content that offers value to the reader, while positively reflecting your brand. But at the same time, you want your content piece to be search engine optimized. Let’s face it; great content is not…
Facebook ads are a great way to increase your reach and expose your brand or products to new audiences. And creating them right from your Page is one of the fastest and most convenient ways to reach the people who matter the most to your business on Facebook and Instagram. Depending on the action you…
Businesses run on data. The majority of business decisions rely on solid facts and numbers. In a world where almost all business actions and marketing efforts are digital, reporting is one of the best ways to get these facts and numbers to help business owners and digital marketers analyze their results. Reporting and gathering data…
If you want to market a local business online, begin with search. Investing in, and optimizing for local SEO is a great way to place your business in front of a local target audience, while selling your product to people who will provide the most growth for your company. But, unlike optimizing for organic search,…
If you’re a marketer, you almost certainly already use analytics every day. The most common, and most obvious, way to use analytics as a marketer is to understand what brings visitors to your site, and what activities they engage in while they’re there. However, there is a second use of analytics, and that is to…
As marketers engage in Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, it’s vital that we keep our finger on the proverbial pulse of the latest PPC trends. While no one can predict the future, we can make some extrapolations based on trends we’re seeing in the present, and base some predictions on new features that have rose…
While there are many ways you can attract potential customers to your website, the best way to get the conversion is to create a specialized landing page for each of your offerings. Directing the interested customers to standalone pages, separate from your main website, improves your results. Simply creating a unique landing page is not…
Facebook Ads have elevated social media marketing to a new level, integrating advertisements into our Facebook feeds. For regular users, ads may be just another set of boxes appearing on the right side of the News Feed, but for marketers, they are an opportunity to promote their product or service to the desired audience. Luckily,…
Every content marketer wants to be able to measure the results of their campaign. But, very often they believe that they can’t accurately measure the results generated by their content. And the truth is, most content marketers give up after they check numbers of page views or social shares. The scope of metrics, however, goes…
Your work is only just beginning after you launch your campaign. To get the ROI you need from your campaign, it is crucial to determine the strongest keywords within your AdWords campaign as soon as you have actionable data. The only way to keep your campaign strong enough to meet your goals is to regroup…
Google RankBrain: What it is and Why it is important Over a year ago, in October 2015, Google announced they are going to use machine learning techniques of artificial intelligence in research. The topic raised a lot of questions and led to confusion about what Google RankBrain is, what it means for search marketing, and…
The process around online advertising has changed a lot over the last decade. Gone are the days of IOs and tedious back-and-forth that came with old school ad buying and programmatic advertising has now become the most dominant form of display advertising. Ad placement is guided by artificial intelligence, real-time bidding, and automated decision-making when purchasing ad…
Social media marketing has become a very important part of every brand’s marketing strategy. Existing social networks constantly enhance their platforms while new ones emerge. With new trends, the social media landscape is changing and evolving. That leads to shrinking of organic reach as leading networks increase the use of their paid channels to monetize…
We work with a lot of E-Commerce businesses and while many have a standard checkout funnel, many businesses have a very custom conversion funnel based on the goals of the business. Nonetheless, the basic concepts of a conversion funnel are pretty standard and straightforward. Obviously, at first, the goal is to generate customers into the…
Every year, e-commerce trends change, whether it’s improvements in logistics, product discovery, or brand building. If you want to keep up with the times in online commerce, you have to adapt and evolve, and be more innovative and updated on trends over your competition. To benefit even more, you need to be aware of the…
Building influence in your industry can greatly emphasize and amplify your marketing efforts. Becoming a trusted, credible and meaningful source of information and knowledge is crucial for establishing your business influence, impacting the attitude of people about your brand, and has the potential to change people’s minds and their purchasing behavior. One of the most effective…
Lead Generation is crucial in B2B marketing. They are a source of prospects, and eventually customers by which businesses can increase revenue and grow. While it might not be obvious because Facebook is not a “business” tool like LinkedIn is, you can still leverage advanced targeting techniques and its 1.86 billion monthly active user base.…
While banner ads may seem like a great opportunity for you, you’ve probably noticed that it’s rare to get click throughs. And, trust us when we say this, you’re not alone! Internet users have become increasingly weary of banner ads over the years and learned to simply block them out when visiting sites. So, it’s…
Click-Through Rate (CTR) is one of the most important metrics when it comes to online marketing and advertising. It can be pretty difficult to increase CTR, depending on the method you use. And, increasing conversion rates can dramatically increase the revenue your business drives. These methods also differ based on the marketing channel, whether its…
Storytelling is an ancient form of art of telling stories as a way of social and cultural expression and activity, often accompanied with improvisation and/or theatrics. Stories have been shared for generations in every culture as a means of entertainment and education about cultural and moral beliefs and values. Starting from Mahabharata, Odyssey by Homer,…
Startups often have issues gaining traction on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in general, so trying to make sense of the differences between desktop and mobile SEO can be painful. And, gaining real traction in search engine rankings and getting organic search traffic can feel impossible. There are so many sites that have had more time…
Most companies we talk to don’t have a ton of experience with conversion rate optimization and how to effect it in a positive way. Especially as a retail brand taking their products online, it can be overwhelming to understand things like traffic sources, conversion rate, exit pages, etc. And, even as we talk to startups,…
Many times, as companies, we get so laser locked in on “ranking #1” for our keywords that we lose focus on the real KPIs that matter: conversions, revenue, traffic. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen this in our SEO engagements where people are so focused on a ranking of a keyword or…
We’ve run into a couple instances where our clients are sitting on a large list of email addresses or are starting an email program and just want to blast everything out at once. Recently, a member of our team pointed this out to me and it was a really interesting conversion. Based on that, we…
Content is king. We’ve been hearing this for years, and, to this day it is still the truth. But, the type of content and mediums to promote it have been different and can vary. But, while I was working with one of our clients on marketing strategy, I realized how important it can be to…
Obviously conversion metrics can vary from company to company, but, overall there are metrics that are always important to track. Understanding where traffic is coming from and whether it’s converting will help you make better decisions about where to invest resources and dollars. At the end of the day knowing those metrics help you build…
At Quickbooks Connect I presented on all the available methods to help small business owners grow their business online. I discussed SEO, SEM, Content Marketing, Facebook Ads, and Email Marketing.
Whether you’ve started a new website or have an existing business and are looking to get some eye balls to it, SEO can be a challenging task. And, couple that with the fact there are over a billion sites on the internet, we know it can seem overwhelming. The truth is though, optimizing your site for…
So, you’ve got a new email subscriber! Whether it’s a product, service, or blog, the one thing you need to remember is that you’re now building a relationship. Think of it like a friendship. General rules of thumb for maintaining this friendship are regular communication, showing interest in their opinion, and making them feel important.…
At most large organizations, doing just the basics can help you out tremendously, the value of your domain itself is huge. That said, it doesn’t mean that you can implement the basics and just walk away, SEO is still a holistic process that is important to continuously follow up on. At the same time, it…
If a post goes up on Twitter or Facebook, and no one is around to engage with it, does it still make a sound? Not if you’re trying to build up a brand it doesn’t. Whether your social media efforts are for personal or professional gain, they still require a certain amount of — well, effort.…
If you are doing SEO of any form, you’ll know one of the biggest and most important challenges is finding links. A quick and easy way that I recommend to companies that I work for or with is to guest blog on various sites. It’s even better when you know about a site like Ranker,…
At SMX West, Adam Audette mentioned that he had some success with the canonical tag and that in some cases he noticed that the canonical tag had been much more effective. It stuck in my head for a few months and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to test this out. Also, at SMX West,…
Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to guest speak with Richard Knafelc to the UCLA x425 extension course on SEO and Social Media for communications professionals thanks to Erik Deutsch. I love teaching and it was a great opportunity to do so, on my favorite topic of course. We covered a lot of the basic…
Tony Adam is Founder and CEO of Visible Factors (a Prime Rank Media, Inc. company), has been in technology since 2000 and online marketing since 2003. Tony is an entrepreneur, startup advisor, and regular speaker at many technology and marketing conferences, including SMX, PubCon and SXSWI.
On Thursday of last week, I had the opportunity to present at SMASH (Social Media Advanced Skills Huddle) at USC. What I was really excited most about was the fact that we had many of the Master in Human Behavior students in attendance at the conference and was great hearing their thoughts and insights around…
Well, it turns out that Facebook has included all of the meta data and thumbnail info for the like button around the web. This is great news for publishers as it gives the content that we and/or our users “like” more visibility in the Facebook stream. Along with that, it will likely greatly reduce the…
Every time I write a requirements document for SEO, I make sure to address Usability and Information Architecture. I like to think that Google will reward sites that do have good Information Architecture because it is mostly always search engine friendly designs that support crawlability and indexing. This is usually the reason I spend a…
One of the most interesting things I’ve been studying over the last year has been the power social design and network effects. Even though many of us have used Social Media for quite sometime, it has typically been what I would call a disconnected and fragmented system of communication. Now, of course, I have to…
Thanks to Erik Deutsch, I had the opportunity to speak to a great class at UCLA tonight about SEO and Social Media for Communications Professionals.
Dealing with the limitations of AJAX and Flash can be an SEOs worst nightmare. There are so many issues that come into play & usually you can deal with many AJAX SEO issues by developing Progressively Enhanced code. While, I’ve written about how to address crawling and indexing with AJAX and SEO. I wanted to…
I’ve always been a big fan of quick page load times on sites from overall User Experience standpoint. But, ever since Google announced that they were using site speed in web search ranking I have become a big time stickler about this. After watching this for the last couple months, I’ve realized that my peskiness…
While at SXSW, Chris Winfield and I had our presentation on “Social media marketing for your business.” My biggest focus for the presentation was to help people realize the power of creating a plan, setting goals, and executing them. Overall, creating a marketing plan or strategy should not just involve trying to get some traffic…
Having spent a lot of my career doing a lot more than just SEO, I’ve had to wear many different hats. One of my favorite hats to wear is actually the Business Development one. I’m total people person and I love the sales process. The feeling of closing a deal to me is almost as…
I’ve had a few colleagues and friends lately ask me about Google’s real time search results since they launched real time search about two months ago. To some of you, this might be an obvious post, as Rae from Outspoken Media pointed out with her post about Google enabling real time spam. I was then…
I’ve been on this huge kick of creating visibility for products online lately. All I can think about is how to gain visibility for an online brand. Along with that, I’ve been really interested in two other things: Local and Location Aware applications. I’ve had my eye on Yelp for a bit, but even more…
I’ve spent the last week at my parents house in a little town in Los Angeles called LaCrescenta. It’s been the first time I haven’t been in an office for over 1 week in 10 years (side note: this is the first time I’ve been at my parents for this long for almost 5 years).…
About two months ago, I reached out to Chris Winfield, Brent Csutoras, and Todd Malicoat about putting together a Social Media Marketing for your Business Panel at SXSW Interactive. We all thought it would be a great idea and I put it together. All of us particpates in some sort of Social Media Marketing, Optimization,…
As an individual that works very hard at maintaining relationships and attempts to help anyone at anytime he possibly can, I see some pretty interesting mistakes that people make, DAILY! Sometimes, I have to admit, I’ve made the mistake of burning a bridge or two at past companies, just by the simple fact of not…
Over the last few months I’ve seen an interesting cross section of startups to large brands and marketers to developers that are all running businesses. There has been one thing that ties all of these people together, and that is gaining traction and visibility to your website or business online. If you are a…
The most trending topic on twitter right now as I am writing this post is #fixreplies. It is shocking to me that after weeks of proclaiming that twitter is all about social discovery, we see the biggest Bonehead Decision that twitter could have made. There are posts from around the industry talking about Twitter putting…
So, I wake up this morning and see a post written by Darren Slatten completely dismissing the importance of Online Reputation Management. And, I found the post a little comedic at best, so, I’ll give him a little bit of credit for that, but, one thing I won’t give him credit for is researching the…
I was listening in on Office Hours on WebmasterRadio.fm today and the question came up of how to find the referrer URL from StumbleUpon to your site. When you look at Google Analytics the referrer shows up as refer.php or toolbar. This won’t take you to the page that refers to your URL, similar to…
When you are working at an organization that doesn’t have the right analytics, its painful. This also goes for working with clients that don’t have the money to buy an analytics package like Omniture or WebTrends. I’ve been through this on both sides of the organizational and the client side as well. (A couple times…
I have been in SEO and Internet Marketing for some time now and I can’t tell you how many sites I have worked with or seen that have come to me after launch and said “I need SEO now!” Heck, I was even victim to that when I was tasked with my first major web…
We create blogs with tons of great content and we base our content on Social Media that attracts a link or two. (Boy, isn’t that the understatement of the year!) We rely on this content to create user engagement and get people to keep coming back. But something that is also just as important as…
With the “Web 2.0” world that we live in, companies are inclined to create “snazzy” new AJAX experiences for users. I have been dubbing this the AJAX Dilemma lately because organizations/companies/website owners are creating sites that are not accessible and SEO friendly. They are risking crippling their businesses in the areas of search traffic by…
When I started learning about SEO and the role it can play for any business, whether small or large, there was one quote that put it all into perspective. It was a business meeting that I was having with the owner of our company at the time and he said to me: “We have to…
Since I just bought my new Macbook Pro, I had to reinstall all of my Firefox extensions, plugins and tools. So, I figured, hey, why not write a detailed post with examples about my “Top 7 Firefox extensions, plugins, and tools” that are near and dear to my heart! Top 7 Firefox Extensions, Plugins, and…
I have been inundated with communities over the last couple years and recently it has been almost the only thing I am working on lately. I have learned so much about managing volunteer groups, creating an offline community of web geeks called “San Francisco Geek Dinners,” and in consulting roles. There are many methodologies that…
Keyword research is the base for any good SEO campaign and a large amount of your success will be truly dependent on how well you did your keyword research. Of course, this will be built into your overall SEO Strategy, but it should be the very *FIRST* item on your SEO to-do list. When you…
Being an SEO Evangelist within an organization requires lot of energy, a lot of knowledge, thick skin, and a lot of relationships. Success is hard to come by and will require a lot of hard work, but it is definitely attainable. I would almost say that this does not apply to just SEO, but to…
Tonight I updated WordPress from WordPress 2.0.2 to WordPress 2.5 and ran into some issues with permanlinks. Turns out that Yahoo! Web Hosting does not allow you to do Permalinks the standard way with WordPress and you have to use the Yahoo! Plugin for this. Essentially what happened was that standard permalinks in WordPress go…
Part of any link building campaign should always include the internal Link Architecture that you have within your domain and off the domain for link building activities. I tend to use the term Link Architecture because it is similar to the Information Architecture (I.A.) that is used within your site. The Link Architecture will give…
Over the past week I have seen two of the most horrific examples of why research is so important. It is what we base our decision making on in our work lives, it is how we evangelize our expertise on to others, etc. Doing the right amount of research sets you up for success. Here…
Over the years I’ve been practicing a lot of different techniques with my internal link architecture. One of the things that I have been doing more and more of is evaluating when to use the rel=”nofollow” tag on the internal links. Why is this important? Well, in order to make the content within your site…
Last week I talked about how to stay active, answer questions, etc. to keep brand awareness high and reputation management under control. This week, I’m going to give you an overview of how to dominate the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) by using Social Media to your advantage. We all know since the “Web 2.0…
I’ve wanted to start writing more about Social Media and I think the best way to start would be to talk abut what I love doing, and that is building my own personal brand and how it applies to an organization as well. I have always considered it to be tremendously important in getting my…
So, I figured to ring in the New Year of 2008, I would post about how the whole SEO industry should really start to take an understanding of Web Standards in the design of Websites. Semantic Web Design and using CSS for layouts is not really cutting edge people!! We have been doing this since…
I felt this was important for corporations and in-house talent to look at when writing a blog. Sometimes we tend to think about a blog as a way to push products, which is what I talked about previously. The truth is, this is o.k. to do, but ONLY as part of your blog content. Being…
Evangelism about SEO in an organization and spreading the word in a “grass-roots” sort of way is something that is very hard to do. I always think about it and get excited over the fact that I can make a difference and become a “thought leader” for an organization. The truth is, the evangelism of…
Many companies completely forget to include the following viral strategies or they are simply looked over. The sad truth is that these strategies are almost always EXTREMELY simple to implement. 1. Add to Favorites: One of the easiest tools and effective tools for getting people to come back to your website. There are typically pre-written…
After receiving a book about Creating Customer Evangelists, I was inspired to re-visit a post I had written a while back on the new generation of Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), Viral Marketing and Evangelism. Currently we live in a very technological and extremely different world than even as little as a 2-3 years ago,…
SEO has lately been a plethora of information about Linkbait, tricking engines, social marketing and such and I wanted to post something in my mind that really takes me back to what got me into SEO, using my creative side and copywriting for the search engines. After all, I still believe content truly is king.…
Recently I have been trying to get into the swing of reading up on articles in my time off, getting back into SEO/SEM and blogging. Soon enough I will try to enter the podcasting and vlog world as well. That being said I have enjoyed blogging every time I get a chance to and decided to…
