Blog
SEO Is Bound to Fail If… (by Jill Whalen)
An article from Jill Whalen on how to ensure your SEO project will fail! Including…
…If you don’t keep your SEO abreast of website changes.
…If you think your SEO can work independently and not need (a lot of) your help.
…If you know enough SEO to be dangerous.
How to Hire an SEO. Tips from Google and Others
Seems like everybody is a Search Engine Optimizer these days! The last few years just about every web design and development company, marketing and advertising firm has added SEO to their offerings. Unfortunately many of these SEO’s have little optimization experience and some charge to perform tasks that won’t result in any meaningful improvement, wasting time and money.
The problem has become so bad that even Google talks about the problem in its advice to website owners and gives some suggestions on how to hire an SEO. This article covers the highlights from Google as well as additional information about hiring an SEO from other sources.
Going to Pubcon? I’ll Speak On “Improving Conversion Rates for Keyword Phrases”
Going to Pubcon? It’s “The Internet Marketing Event of the Year” a 4-day conference covering Search, Social Media and Internet Marketing from November 8-11, 2010 in Las Vegas
I’ll be presenting “Improving Conversions Rates for Keyword Phrases”
Read this post for session details and to save 20% off when you register for Pubcon.
How to Use Google’s Webmaster Tools to Check Keyword Rankings, Impressions, Click-Throughs & Improve Organic Search Results
The expanded search query data provided in Google’s Webmaster Tools is an excellent tool to help improve organic search results. Not only can you view rankings for most of the organic keywords for which your website’s web pages appeared in recent search results, but more importantly, Google displays data such as Impressions (the number of times one of your web pages appeared in the search results for a keyword phrase), the number of Clicks and Click-Through Rates (CTR) for every keyword as well as data on the web pages/files returned in the search results.
We’ll show you how to use the data to determine important keyword phrases to focus on, improve Click-Through Rates by improving the search listings, and check the pages being retuned in search results for issues.
An Update on the Yahoo & MSN Search Alliance Progress.
Looks like the merger is on track. Last week Bing announced that they would begin powering organic search results on Yahoo! Search for the English language in the United States and Canada within days. It looks like the paid search merger is on schedule to be completed by October as there are reports around the world of some Bing PPC ads appearing on Yahoo.
6 Steps to Successful Ecommerce Site Search Implementation; Features Short List
Six important steps to successfully implementing ecommerce site search as well as a few features to consider adding to your site search short list.
Yahoo & MSN search alliance update
An update on the Yahoo and MSN search alliance (the merger of these two search engines) schedule over the coming months.
SEO Myths. Which myths do these senior SEO’s agree are wasteful pursuits?
Here are six articles over the past year from four senior SEOs’s covering SEO myths and boondoggles (Wasteful Pursuits).
We then highlight myths that two or more of these SEO’s agree are mostly a waste of time. However, there are some of these myths that are disputed at least in part by other SEO’s so it’s worth reading these articles especially the rebuttal article from Rand at SEOmoz
Using Adwords Auto-tagging? Searchers may see “Page Not Found” errors instead of your landing pages!
You must test the actual ads or landing pages. Do not rely on the Ad Preview tool!
In this article we’ll demonstrate a problem that can be caused by Google’s Adwords Auto-tagging, which is turned on by default when you create an AdWords account. Auto-tagging can cause some landing pages to load incorrectly, often resulting a “Page Not Found” error, – Wasting many dollars in Adwords Click charges and missed business opportunities. We demonstrate the issue in a 4 minute video, show you how to test for problems, and suggest what to do if you have problems.
Do XML sitemaps improve rankings? When to use and when NOT to use XML sitemaps
There’s lots of misinformation about XML site maps including their affect on search rankings going around. In this article we outline when to consider using a XML site map, including specialized site maps and extensions, as well as discuss their affect on search rankings.