A lot has been going on in the world of SEO lately. Blog networks are getting deindexed for selling links*. Sites using those links are losing rankings. Google is sending letters to seemingly random users, stating that their backlinks look unnatural. (Even sites with less than ten links have received this letter.) And all of this is creating a serious atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt. I’ve got my own opinions about all this, which I’m happy to share one [...]
Speaking to a client recently about internet marketing, I was trying to break down the strategies of SEO, Link Building, Pay Per Click and Social Media into their most basic elements - when I discovered that there were really THREE elements of each that were (IMO) the most important. I liked the symmetry of that and wanted to expand on it, so I created the following infographic. (No, I'm not the ARTIST, just the idea man.) One could argue that [...]
This is an update to the article Link Building Best Practices, that I wrote in January 2011. Let's start with a brief analogy. RADAR guns were invented in the 1950's. They were used effectively by police to monitor speeding motorists. In the early 1970's, Dale Smith invented the RADAR detector to alert drivers when their vehicle was being targeted by RADAR. After that, came advances in police RADAR and then RADAR scramblers were invented. Next came Laser speed detectors and [...]
Some people don't understand why Google had to get into the social media sphere. They figure social media and search are two very different areas of the web. They think there's little overlap and that Google just started Google+ to get into Facebook's space and generate more advertising revenue for themselves at some point. I disagree. I think that Google saw the writing on the walls. They saw a world where interacting with friends via social media actually meant LESS [...]
You know you need links. Links are the key to ranking. You can comment on blogs, write articles, build Web 2.0 properties all day, but what you really need are other sites to link to you - specifically authoritative sites that are relevant to you. How do you do that?! It's called Webmaster Outreach - the process of contacting authoritative, relevant sites and convincing them to place a link to your site on theirs. And it's probably the most difficult, [...]
Before we start today's post, let me define the SEO term: Webmaster Outreach. When a webmaster, or an owner of a business contacts another person, usually via email, but sometimes by phone or in person, for the sole purpose of asking for a link on that person's website, we call that webmaster outreach. They may be asking for the link for their own site, their client's site, or for some unknown client as of yet. Often, a monetary offer accompanies [...]
Will this mouse in a beer bottle video increase traffic to my blog or generate backlinks and a social buzz? Let's find out. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKUG4SM99qM] Want to find out if "Message" (that's what we named the little guy) survived? CLICK HERE.
The other day, my wife asked me if I knew why she was seeing so many display ads online related to insurance. I told her that “Big Brother” was watching her search history and serving up ads based on what she was most interested in. Note: My wife is an insurance adjustor and her search history clearly speaks to that. I seem to get a lot of ads related to internet marketing, Jeeps and beaches. Imagine that. Anyway, the “third [...]
Check out the latest issue of "thinking BIGGER BUSINESS" for my article on How to get your Facebook posts to populate in the news feed more often. Request a copy of the article
Social Media? Really? I've always been more of a search guy. It's true. I'm all about getting business owners on the first page of Google. That's what I'm good at. SEO, PPC, Link Building. That's the world I'm most comfortable in because that's a world where I can measure results and prove value. I've been slow to accept social media as a business tool but last fall I finally saw the light. That's when I attended a digital media conference [...]