Delivering Value from SEO for People as well as for Search Engines
SEOs come in all colors. The black hats game the system. The gray hats sort of game the system. The white hats play by the rules. SEOs constantly assess the mood of Mother Google (as well as the lesser search engines, such as Yahoo!, Ask, etc). And, yes, it pays to pay attention to what […]
Organization: Why your SEO plan may fall flat without it
The forces of order and chaos are always at war, as anyone who has read (or watched) Lord of the Rings or Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland sequel will tell you. On the one hand, SEOs must have structure — guidelines that keep you focused on your goals and principles. On the other hand, […]
Value of Short-Term SEO Goals
SEOs tend to get infatuated with the latest tricks and techniques published on the hottest blogs. And while it’s enjoyable (and often extremely useful) to check out what other people are doing and to reassess your own process and projects, too much of this “blue-skying” can lead you down the road to severe anxiety and […]
Defining your SEO Core Competency – and Sticking to It!
What is a “core competency”? Simply put, it is the kind of work that you do best. We all wear multiple hats at our jobs. If you’re a journalist, you’re not only a writer but you’re also a reporter, a networker, a self promoter, and in some senses a psychologist (especially to your interview subjects) […]
6 Steps to Effortless SEO
What’s the easiest way to make fast cash with search engine optimization (SEO)? If we knew that, we would be too rich to lower ourselves to write blog posts like this.
Short-term SEO – Tactical Shots to Generate Traffic Spikes
Enough with the schtick about persistence, dedication, strategy, and patience. You want a fast acting SEO solution and you want it bad. While battle proven SEOs tend to frown upon the shortsighted path, every once in a while it’s nice to break down and give in and do something crazy. Kind of like cheating on […]
A Brilliant SEO Tip for Getting Links
Links. They are a key currency for any great SEO campaign. But how do you get them? Who do you get them from? How much time will it take you? And how do you maximize the investment of your resources so that you get the best, most SEO friendly links for the amount of time/money/energy […]
Great Read: How to Get an Influencer’s Attention
Every so often I read a blog post or article that really impresses me, and that happened this morning with Tamar Weinberg’s (@tamar on Twitter) post called How to Get an Influencer’s Attention over at Techipedia. She obviously put a lot of time into it, and received back a lot of noteworthy responses. Not only are […]
Twitter & SEO Keyword Research Tools
As some of you know, I have recently been trying to get into Twitter. It has been a very interesting ride. I have met many incredible people, and learned much about a variety of business models and ideas. The Twitter community is growing rapidly with Mashable reporting an astounding 752% increase in 2008. Many project […]
9 Steps to Land & Keep Fortune 500 Clients
I’ve been inspired today by a post written by Demian Farnworth entitled: What a Cocky CEO Can Teach You About World-Class Blogging. The post was excellent, and as a small business creator and owner, I loved the points made in the blog on keeping our companies “focused, lean, fast.” Embracing these attributes usually keeps you […]
Don't be a Victim of Online Fraud
Due to all the mortgage fraud around here, and throughout the country, there have been public service announcements popping up, to better “educate” us about the dangers of fraud. Fraud seems to be a part of life, with new ploys being developed all the time to take advantage of trusting individuals. The last comment of […]
Specialized Search is Simple Economics
There has been much speculation about how personal and local search, which I term “Specialized Search,” will affect search marketing strategies in the future. Although it feels recent, the discussion of more specialized search systems really started to heat up back in 2004, when Google’s Sergey Brin made comments concerning Google’s foray into Specialized Search […]
Learn SEO Basics: Long Tail Keywords
As you’re learning about search marketing and SEO, you will definitely run into the phrase “the long tail”. Let’s turn this odd term into a familiar one by looking into long tail keywords.
The 3 Legs Intro to SEO – A SoloSEO Sketchcast
Patrick Gavin of TLA and some others launched SketchCast.com today, and I was in on the beta testing. I created a SEO tutorial that helps people get started with SEO, which you can view below. And don’t forget to try out sketchcasting yourself!
Hey Businesses… Its about Blogging time.
A good friend of mine, Thayne Peterson, called up yesterday and asked what he should do with his website to just help it perform a bit better. As you can imagine we get that question quite a bit around here, especially now that more people have kind of figured out what SoloSEO is about. This […]
The Marketing 4 Ps and SEO
Much of a discussion on marketing can be broken down into what is termed “The Marketing Mix, or the 4 Ps” namely; Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Product being the service or product we sell, Price being the retail price a customer will pay for the product, Place being the locale where the product is purchased […]
Discount or Ignore Paid Links
There has been some post and comments lately which have expressed frustration with Google’s attempts to discount the referral power of links purchased to bolster rankings. Why people have a problem with this makes no sense to me. I personally don’t have a problem with any SE discounting paid links. Why wouldn’t they attempt to […]
SEO – Vital to Small Business
To small business owners, SEO cannot be seen as the “end all – be all” to their potential success, but it rightfully should be considered a “must do” in order to maximize their full business potential. Based on our own situation, and finally deciding ourselves we needed to spend time on SEO, we now understand […]
Stay Online Stupid…
Mike Moran’s post today, entitled Should Small Business Ditch the Web? discusses, well… I was going to say an “interesting point,” but I think instead I will say “ridiculously obvious point.” Mr. Moran essentially uses some of this post as a rebuttal to a comment to a prior post, by someone with the screen name […]
The Increasing Importance of Content
To really get an understanding of what good content is about and why it is so important, Copyblogger is a great site to visit. I subscribe to their blog and really find the advice and examples offered extremely helpful when it comes time for me to sit down and write. And because content will always […]
The Googlerithm
The Googlerithm is the “Google algorithm”, rolled into a single, catchy term. Ask a programmer what algorithm means, and he’ll probably tell you something like: “An algorithm is a set of instructions to accomplish a task.” In the case of Google’s algorithm, the task is to take a search term and end up with a […]
Google + SEO = The New “AOL Keyword”?
We all remember TV, radio, and even print ads back in the AOL era that left us with an AOL Keyword for finding their site. Over time, and as AOL became less important, TV/radio/print ads gave you a domain name instead. Today on the radio I heard a commercial from Honda Certified Used Cars that […]
Links vs Content and Long Tail vs Short Tail Keywords
Opposition in All Things, Links vs Content Everything in life has its opposites. There is light and dark, hot and cold, black and white, and of course links and content. Even years after the debate began, the debate still continues. Before I uncover some insight into the answer to links versus content, let me give […]
Does Punctuation Matter to Google or SEO?
Nope. Except for @, -, and ‘. @ is nice to find someone’s email address. – and ‘ are less helpful because Google goes ahead and searches for the word with the – or ‘ but also without them (substituting a space, or for – it combines the word).
Does Keyword Capitalization Matter to Google or SEO?
There are two types of people out there, those who capitalize and those who don’t. When you search for something, do you bother capitalizing your query? Whether you do or don’t, capitalization would seem to be an important characteristic of a search engine query.
Learn SEO Basics: Anchor Text of Inbound Links
Anchor text for inbound links is one of the most important factors in search engine optimization. According to SEOmoz’ search engine ranking factors (v2), anchor text is the 2nd most important positive factor.
Does SEO work in Hawaii?
I was gone all last week, in Maui. Yeah baby. It was our first time to Maui, and I loved it. I didn’t even think about writing a post the whole week, I am sure you understand. We had a great time, we enjoyed the beauty of the island, stayed in an amazing place with […]
Google… Here they go again.
I read an interesting/alarming Associated Press article by Dibya Sarkar, AP business writer, in the local paper yesterday. Four states, including Arizona, California, Utah, and Virginia, have agreed to “free consulting services” provided by Google. Essentially Google is going to help these states make searching and finding online public documents much easier. While I am […]
Google Categories – Changes to Competitive SEO
Lee Odden blogged about Google Categories yesterday. I wasn’t able to duplicate the categories look, but it did get me thinking about the ramifications to online competition if categories in search become commonplace. As well as how categories might influence our SEO strategies as business owners.
Accidental Page 1 Ranking for One Word Keywords
Have you ever found yourself ranked for a popular one word keyword that you never intended on ranking for? Maybe we’re an odd ball, but the top one word keyword (besides our company name) that drives traffic to our site is “tagged“. That’s right folks, as in tag you’re it.
How to Get a Double Listing in Google
The following are some steps on how to get double listing in Google. Step 1 – Pick a topic that you can write a series of posts/articles on. Step 2 – Start each post with the same topic name. Step 3 – Give each post its own unique title appended to the topic name. Step […]
Overture Keyword Tool Resurrected, 3 Source Keyword Tool is Back!
Overture’s Keyword Tool was declared dead by many, then Yahoo said it wasn’t dead yet, and now I can confirm it has been resurrected. Before it took FOREVER to load, and would often time out. Now, it runs like a charm. But don’t use it there, you can access not only Overture’s Keyword Tool from […]
Know your competitors, before they know you.
Many see SEO strategies as a process which is only used when you are constructing your web site, or after launch to improve the site performance in SERPs, but SEO tools can also be used effectively to analyze prospective markets, even before a decision is made to start competing in a particular market.
New Competitive SEO Report at SoloSEO.com
Watching your competition is an important part of SEO and it can take quite a bit of work to stay on top of it all. We are excited to announce that SoloSEO now includes a powerful Competitive SEO Report to compare your SEO statistics and rankings with your competitors. The report is included with a […]
Keywords – More Than Meets the Eye
When you were a kid, did you ever have one of these transformers? I had several transformers and even loved watching the cartoon. A transformer, like Optimus Prime, would be a semi-truck at first, but then you could move the pieces around and make it into a robot machine. The tagline for Transformers was, “Transformers, […]
PPC Advice – Good or Bad… or VERY BAD
Today, I took a few moments to take in a bit of the current online marketing blogscape. I eventually came across a post entitled “17 most common PPC mistakes web marketers make” by Igor Mor. It was posted on SEOMoz as part of their YOUMoz program where they “claim” posts from others they deem appropriate. […]
SEO vs. Paid Search Marketing Clash
If you have not gone over and read about the tussle between Dave Pasternack and SEO pros, you must take a minute to review it, it has been quite entertaining. Our friend Michael Gray has jumped in with both feet, and his post called Dave Pasternack of Did-it.com – How to Fix Your Problem is […]
Jumping on Keywords When they are Hot
Recently a big story hit the news about Google modifying their algorithm to fix googlebombing. When news hit, my first instinct was to start buying PPC ads for classic googlebombing phrases, like miserable failure. It was a good instinct, as we got some decent traffic from our market audience who, just like me, needed to […]