5 SEO Resolutions for Strong Rankings in 2017

Every year, scads of individuals set resolutions to make them a better person in the New Year. In 2017, why not take a different approach and resolve to amplify your SEO strategy and bring your business more prospective customers? Google, Bing, and similar search destinations are constantly tweaking their algorithms to provide a better search experience. Shouldn’t you be doing the same with your blueprint? If you are ready to kick off 2017 with a bang and develop a more substantial and effective SEO strategy, then look no further. Here are five resolutions to give your company a boost in the SERPs this year ... read more

5 Rules for Crushing SEO in 2017

Right about now, nearly every SEO on the planet is devising his or her blueprints for gaining organic traction on the SERPs in 2017. While there are more than 200 different factors that contribute to a brand’s overall placement for particular queries, there are certain trends emerging and steadfast rules for ranking that are important to consider as we move into the New Year. If you are on the hunt for the latest trends and SEO rules of engagement for 2017, look no further. Here are the top five practices you should be concerning yourself with throughout 2017 ... read more

What’s New With SEO Markup & Structured Data

Search engines automatically crawl your site and index the pages for searchers. But if you use structured data, it helps search engines understand what your content is about. This can encourage clicks – and maybe even help improve rank. The different ways to use structured data in your pages’ HTML markup to improve SEO are constantly evolving. Here are some new tips and tools I’ve picked up that can help you take advantage of the opportunities in SEO markup and structured data for your content campaigns ... read more

4 SEO Trends to Keep Your Eye on in 2017

SEO will never stop evolving ... read more

Why Influencer Marketing is SEO Gold

Influencer marketing can be an SEO goldmine and an extremely cost effective one, at that ... read more

All About SEO Audits: What You Should Know

Simply put, a SEO audit is a process to evaluate your business website, to ensure it is properly optimized for higher ranking in search engine results. This information can help you make decisions about how to make changes to your website to attract more Internet traffic, leading to more paying customers. A SEO audit should, at a minimum, always be done at the beginning of a new project, and at the beginning of a new quarter. Let’s take a look at the essential components of a SEO audit ... read more

WordPress SEO: The Definitive Guide

WordPress powers 27 percent of the websites around the world. When it comes to SEO it is one of the best content management systems. Still, you need to roll up your sleeves and optimize it for maximal performance. This WordPress SEO tutorial will help you to optimize your website or blog and get ahead of your competition ... read more

4 SEO Tips You Need to Know

When you’re talking SEO with most business owners, the majority think there’s a magic bullet that can shoot their business up Google’s rankings. Money and expertise tend to be the magic bullet that allows top companies to dominate search rankings, but the absence of such elements from your own armoury doesn’t mean you can’t compete. It also takes time and dedication to improve but, if you’re willing to put the work in, you could see great benefits from enacting small changes to your SEO strategy ... read more

Penguin 4.0 Rollout Complete: Are You at Risk?

Google is engaged in a constant, uphill battle against those who try to game the SERPs for profit, distorting search results with spammy tactics and questionable link acquisition. In 2012, the first Penguin update was implemented to deal with sites that were using unnatural links to boost their search engine ranks. As a result of the original Penguin, several websites were penalized, which ultimately removed them from visibility in the SERPs. It took some sites quite a bit of time to recover, and sites that made legitimate attempts to restore their rank in the search results were forced to wait for the next update of the algorithm. Now, everything has changed with Penguin 4.0 ... read more

4 SEO Cheats That Result in Google Penalties

Search engine optimization is a core tenant of today’s digital marketing practices. The rules are strict, the competition fierce and the discipline is constantly evolving. Things weren’t always this way, however -- in years prior, SEO was framed more like the Wild West of marketing; a dominion where anything goes. But as the Internet continues to mature and become more sophisticated in usage, search engines have enacted a series of stringent guidelines and algorithms to ensure that users are presented with the most useful and reputable sources on the Web ... read more

How SEO Fits Into Digital Marketing Strategies

If you are having challenges besting your competitors in your chosen industry, there is a good chance that bad SEO is partly to blame. Without a thoughtfully conceived SEO strategy used in conjunction with full scale digital marketing practices, your competition has an edge ... read more

Image Optimization: The Achilles Heel of SEO

As far as search engines are concerned, they cannot see images per se, but they still register and provide meaning to them. Images can be a SEO boon when properly leveraged because they provide further context to the copy and help to rank higher for the keywords they are optimized for. More than that, images can often sway readers into reading, or reading further into a piece of material ... read more

How to Rank Higher in Local Search Results

For any small business, appearing in a local search is crucial to bringing new business through your doors. While word-of-mouth is enough to stir up some new business, it isn’t nearly the same as what a Google recommendation could do for you ... read more

Artificial intelligence is changing SEO faster than you think

By now everyone has heard of Google’s RankBrain, the new artificial intelligence machine learning algorithm that is supposed to be the latest and greatest from Mountain View, Calif. What many of you might not realize, however, is just how fast the SEO industry is changing because of it ... read more

Google Revives Meta Content With Longer Characters

Meta descriptions and title tags: they’re difficult, yet critically important aspects of SEO. Designed to provide readers and search engines with a preview of a page’s content, “metas” are simply too important to do badly. Luckily, Google just made these elusive little lines a bit more forgiving for SEOs everywhere by increasing the character limit for both meta descriptions and title tags. Read on to learn more ... read more

SEO Forecast: How Google Will Alter Algorithms

SEO is a never-ending battle. Some relish the ebb and flow and have learned to ride the wave of change in immaculate form; ending up on the cutting edge of tactics and in one of the top seats on the SERPs. Others, however, feel that SEO is the bane of their existence as every new update to search algorithms brings fear, anxiety, and often a drop in rankings. SEO is not for those who resist change. If you’re settled in to the current state of things, get ready for more curveballs ... read more

The Top 5 SEO Metrics You’re Probably Misreading

SEO metrics can actually be quite deceptive and challenging to accurately interpret. To help clear up some of those misconceptions, here are the top five SEO metrics that you are probably misunderstanding ... read more

The Search Snippets That Could Win You Big Business

A meta description is an extremely powerful marketing weapon that you’re almost certainly not utilizing ... read more

Improve SEO With Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

Are you paying enough attention to your on-page SEO? I bet you’ve done your homework with keyword research and keyword density but how about LSI keywords? If you haven’t heard of the latter or don’t know much about it, now is the right time to improve your knowledge and start using LSI keywords as an integral part of your SEO strategy ... read more

How Google Will Shift SEO in 2016

To help save you the hours of research required to understand Google’s imminent changes, here is a taste of what you can expect to see from the search giant in 2016 ... read more

10 Ways Local SEO & Search Will Change in 2016

Consumers are constantly changing the way they search for products and services because technology is always changing. With the changes in both technology and the consumers search habits that means that social media, SEO, content marketing, local SEO and, of course, search will have to adjust to meet the always evolving needs of the consumer ... read more

The Seven Golden Rules of SEO

There is a lot of talk on the Web regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and how, if you just do this one thing, you will be at the top of Google. If only it were that easy. In fact, I believe there are seven distinct rules that a search engine optimizer needs to possess. Most people possess one or maybe two of these skills, very rarely do people posses all seven. In truth, to obtain all seven of theses skills will take time and effort — and, if you are running your own business, do you really have the time to do this? ... read more

Local SEO More Important Than Ever Now

When Google Pigeon launched on July 24, 2014, it changed local SEO forever. Suddenly, the layout of local SEO ran parallel to the traditional web search ranking results that Google users were used to. This change was right on point, however, because the goal of the Pigeon update was to provide more relevant local search results that were designed to look similar to traditional ranking signals... read more

SEO Best Practices: The Big 5 in SEO

Every couple of years, SEO evolves into a mysteriously new discipline. As traditional push marketing continues to die off and industries continue to measure the impact that organic search has on overall growth, inbound marketing strategies (like SEO) continue to grow increasingly more sophisticated and challenging... read more

SEO Strategies for Mobile Phones and Tablets

Experts have been espousing for years now that mobile is the next big thing to hit the technical stratosphere. The truth is, the (mobile) eagle has landed. We can no longer anticipate the relevance of small screens; it’s a bona fide reality. If your business hasn’t yet embraced mobile and tablet designs, you’re late to the party. But there is still time! read more

How to Do SEO for Now and Forever

SEO is still the same thing I said it was when I first started writing about it over a decade ago — that is, making your website the best it can be both for people and search engines. Still, that broad definition probably doesn’t mean much to many of you. You’re likely left wondering how exactly you should go about making your site the best it can be... read more

On-Page SEO Factors You Need to Consider

On-page optimization for your websites is often overlooked and is also the easiest way to rank for keywords in search engines completely free. These are the top ten factors that you should be considering when writing content and constructing an optimized layout for all of your websites... read more

The SEO Road Map to Success (Part 2)

In Part 1 of our series about SEO best practices we discussed maintaining correct source code standards. We talked about CSS, AJAX, ALT attributes, Page file size, JavaScript, and Meta tags. Now we're going to delve even deeper and talk about some of the often overlooked elements within a website as it relates to search engine optimization... read more

The SEO Road Map to Success (Part 1)

You may know the basic information needed to search engine optimize your website, but it’s easy to get sidetracked by the latest SEO trend and a short while later begin to feel overwhelmed by information overload. What I want to do for you right now is simplify SEO and put you back onto the path of tried, true, and ethical search engine optimization practices that will help you to focus on what works and what will stand the test of time... read more

9 Common Title Tag Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

A website's title tags are very important for many reasons... Here are some of the top mistakes and missed opportunities I've seen in title tags. Avoid these and you'll be ahead of the game. You'll rank higher in search results and entice more people to click on your site... read more

Google's First Page... Guaranteed?

“No SEO company can guarantee you a first page or top 10 ranking. I repeat: NO SEO company can guarantee you a first page or top 10 ranking. Here’s why: There are far too many variables involved in the ranking of a website – not the least of which are the age of the domain, relevancy and quantity of content, number and quality of inbound links, competition, and of course Google’s ever-changing algorithms. That’s why legitimate SEO companies don’t make those kinds of outlandish promises.” ... read more

10 Questions for New SEO Clients

If you could only ask 10 general (non-industry-specific) questions of your new SEO customers, what would they be and why would their answers help you help them? ... read more

The Meta Description Tag

The keywords and phrases you use in your Meta description tag may not affect your page’s ranking in the search engines, but this tag can still come in handy in your overall SEO and social media marketing campaigns... read more

12 Clever Ways to Boost Your Traffic

Traffic is essential to anyone who owns a website and/or blog. Without traffic we have no customers or sales. Unfortunately traffic does not just come to us, we have to work at it and we have to be consistent and persistent. Sales conversion rates normally average less than 5%. What this means is that only 5% of the people who visit your site will become a paid customer. So, to grow your sales, you need to boost your traffic and/or your conversion rates. Below are twelve things you can do right now to start increasing your traffic to get those sales... read more

5 SEO Things to do in the First Year of Your Site's Life

By now, most site owners realize the importance and value of SEO in the development and growth of their site. A properly optimized site is going to rank better in the search engines, see more targeted traffic being directed over, have a higher conversion rate and much more. However, SEO is incredibly long term and nothing can rush time. It takes time for a site to build a good trust factor with the search engines and until that happens, most of your off-site SEO efforts are going to produce minimal results. If you recently launched your site and are already looking into SEO, here are 5 things you should focus your time and energy on... read more

Ten Things to Avoid When Running an SEO Campaign

There are plenty of SEO companies and consultants on the Internet that can help you out and plenty of free forums and guides that will give you the basics. Even if you do decide to use the skills and expertise of an SEO firm, it is still important that you at least know the basics of SEO so that you can also work with the company to make the results even better... read more

Google Panda Update: 11 Important SEO Facts You Should Know

On Wednesday, February 23, 2011, a category 5 hurricane named "Panda" swept through the Gulf of Google devastating businesses large and small alike... read more

SEO: Then and Now

SEO has been around more or less as long as there have been search engines. Although it seems like some blogger or another is heralding the impending death of SEO every few months or so, SEO has yet to fade into oblivion. The very core of SEO is to change; to make adjustments to one's site to adapt to the search engines' algorithms, the changes in consumers' online behavior, the expanding online world and so forth. SEO isn't about to die anytime soon, but it is constantly evolving to meet the needs and challenges of the times... read more

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

When you're starting off in SEO there's a lot of conflicting information about what to do and what not to do. There's a constant battle between White Hat and Black Hat and which is more effective. It's pretty easy to get frustrated at how long it actually takes to achieve a decent ranking... read more

The 10 Week SEO Diet

So you've noticed that your competitor's site ranks higher than your site on Google for *yellow widgets,* even though you are the premier widget provider in your area. So what are you going to do about it? You're going to take back control of the search results, that's what! ... read more

3 SEO Traps to Avoid During Your Redesign

I receive a lot of SEO questions from business owners who want to spruce up their aging websites, but are dead afraid of losing their existing search engine traffic. And for good reason. Going live with a redesigned website without considering the SEO implications is like being ensnared in a nasty trap that you cannot escape from. It's hard to make money while stuck in a trap! With that in mind, here are a 3 SEO traps to avoid before, during and after you develop your website... read more

Getting Your Site's SEO Right

You simply must get the SEO part right. Mainly because proper SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will boost your chances of obtaining those all important top rankings in the search engines. Besides, a well optimized site or page, will go a long way in weathering any abrupt changes on the Web... read more

9 Steps to Diagnosing Lost Search Engine Traffic

For the past few weeks I've been tasked with reviewing a few different sites that have seen a loss in traffic - their owners hoped to find out why. I love these kinds of reviews because it's like solving a mystery or figuring out a puzzle. While it's not always possible to determine the exact cause for the traffic loss, I can usually make some educated guesses based on what I dig up in Google Analytics. Here are 9 steps you can take to diagnose the cause of lost search engine traffic... read more

The Easiest Way to Increase Search Engine Rankings and Drive Website Traffic

To learn how to increase search engine rankings and drive website traffic you need to understand the concepts that govern the way the search engines work... read more

How to Control Your Listing Text in Google's Search Results

A Google Webmaster Help video from Matt Cutts released on Nov. 10, 2009 got me thinking how the listing text in Google's search results can easily be overlooked by some webmasters in their SEO efforts... read more

Sitemaps and SEO

Creating an HTML sitemap and a XML sitemap for your website could be the easiest thing you do to improve your exposure on the web. For those of you who pay close attention to the search engine optimization (SEO) of your site, this could be the one thing that gets you onto the first page of Google's results... read more

Keywords Are It! Seven Powerful & Useful Keyword Marketing Tools

After years of running websites and earning a full-time online income, I am constantly reminded that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, mainly Google... read more

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Relevancy and Link Popularity Explained

How does a web page get ranked #1 on Google? There is no doubt that the methods of the 1990s no longer work - and most definitely, not since Google went public in 2004... read more

Peeling Back the Onion: Metrics that Matter to a Good SEO Company

"I want to be number one on Google for (insert hyper-competitive keyphrase here)." It's usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine optimization - a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN... read more

Ten Of The Internet's Best SEO Tips!

A good tip is a great gift to those who are in need of advice, I love the quote "give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day - teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a life time!" If the tips are on SEO, they are bound to attract attention. So, we've compiled a list of TEN of the best SEO tips to be found on the Internet... read more

Using Long Tail Keywords to Your Advantage

A keyword is a simple word or phrase that is typed into the search engine by a user looking for information. Long Tail Keywords are simply the longer and more targeted phrases that people type into the search engines... read more

Is your competition beating you with SEO?

You have optimized your website for winning keywords, are mid-way with your link building campaign, and have been going absolutely crazy creating fresh SEO friendly content that pleases the users and search engines. You are obviously very serious about your online business, and yet you cannot seem to cross the Rank # 12, Page 2 barrier of Google search listing for your primary keywords... read more

SEO Explained For People with Real Jobs

When talking to clients about marketing their business online I am asked "How do you get to #1 on Google?" While this article is not specially about how to become #1 - I will explain what the process is and what's involved... read more

Secrets Your Web Designer Isn't Telling You

If I was to ask you right now "Are you absolutely certain that your web site is optimized for high visibility in search engines?", what would you say? What if I was to ask "What position in the major search engines does your site appear in for your target search terms?" Or how about "Does each page of your site have tailored Title and META Tags?" ... read more

32 Most Important SEO Tips

Following these simple tips will definitely boost your traffic and search engine rankings for free... read more

Ten SEO Mistakes Made on Database Driven Websites

Search engine friendly websites is one of those often heard phrases, both from web site development companies and from their clients. Everyone knows that this is important to have, and yet it is one of the things that is actually often overlooked... read more

Do-It-Yourself SEO - A Beginner's Checklist

There have always been do-it-yourselfers succeeding at web promotion and search engine optimization. In fact, many of the established businesses offering web services today came from humble beginnings, perhaps nothing more than a college student with a laptop, an internet connection, and too much free time. The Web evolves as the result of the innovation and experimentation of individuals. The sharing of knowledge. The do-it-yourself attitude... read more

Optimize Your Website... and They Will Come

What's the big deal about search engine optimization? Isn't it enough that you've put up a website, purchased some Google AdWords, and sent out an email to everyone you know announcing your site? In short, no. There is an art and science to search engine optimization (SEO), and it is critical for web-based businesses to know, understand and utilize if they want to drive quality traffic to their website via the Internet... read more

Website Optimisation Techniques

As well as link building and on-page optimisation, there are some other very important SEO factors which can help your website index and rank in search engine listings. The following techniques are grouped into the category named 'website optimisation' and should not be overlooked when preparing an SEO campaign... read more

Top 20 Contributing Factors For Google SEO

Websites are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways of advertising. Whether it be a business, its product or service or something completely different, everyone of all ages are turning to the web as a method of getting their message out there. With the popularity of this marketing medium increasing and the number of websites always growing, it is obvious that everyone wants to appear at the top of Google's search engine rankings. Achieving such a task is never an easy feat, however with a bit of perseverance, one can definitely increase their chances of reaching that glorious first page result... read more

What Google Thinks Of Your Site?

How Google views your site does matter if you want to succeed online because Google has become the dominant search engine on the web. It now has over 60% of the U.S. search engine market. In other countries around the world that percentage rises to 80% or more. In addition, the Google Brand Name has solidly permeated the popular psyche and any top rankings within Google will bring much weight and prestige along with all that traffic... read more

Top Google in Record Time in 2 Simple Steps!

I got into search engine optimization back in 1998. It sure has changed a lot since then. Back in the day you could use invisible text, load keywords to the point of overflowing and fill META tags with anything even close to what you had on your page. And you could do well on Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista; all the biggies. Not anymore... read more

The Ten Commandments of Search Engine Optimization

Most of the time when we pitch to a new client we are asked for SEO guarantees. "Your competition has guaranteed top results and submission to 100,000 Search Engines and Directories". We go all out educating clients that Search Engine Optimization is all about smart work and not just adding random keywords and submitting to every directory possible. I'm writing this article to reach out to the SEO buyers and help them distinguish the crooks from the genuine SEO cos. I've compiled my Search marketing experience over the years in this article. I hope this helps you in selecting your Search Marketing initiative... read more

8 Useful SEO Techniques Every Webmaster Should Know

Every webmaster should have some basic understanding of these simple SEO techniques if they want to achieve Top Rankings for their site. The more you know about these Search Engine Optimization techniques; the better your web pages will fare in the different search engines, especially Google... read more