 March 31, 2011 More Ways to Stay Updated:  Dear Client: I Love You, But Will You PLEASE Stop Obsessing Over Your Search Engine Rankings?by Stoney deGeyterI get it, you hired me to perform Search Engine Optimization on your website. Why do we optimize for search engines? For rankings, right? Well, no, not anymore. It's been almost a decade since the SEO industry began it's turn toward a fuller website marking experience, looking beyond search engine rankings as a metric of success, and instead looking at business growth, conversion rates, and return on investment.
 Are you overlooking paid search optimization?by Mike MoranIt's yesterday's news. It's no longer sexy. It is less about inspiration than perspiration. I'm talking about paid search. If you remember the exciting days at the turn of this century when paid search was the hottest game in town, times have certainly changed. Paid search is now a normal, boring part of almost everyone's digital marketing program, but have we become so anesthetized to its presence that we've overlooked what we need to do to really make paid search work? I have to admit that I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to paid search either, but... Why Small Minded and Small Marketed SEO Doesn't Workby Stoney deGeyterIt's nearly impossible to analyze the quality of the results of an SEO campaign without factoring in the budget. That's not to say you can't analyze work that has been done, you can. But, you can't give an opinion as to how much SEO, Link Building, Social Media, etc. has been implemented unless you consider the monthly investment.  Web Analytics - The ROI of "Why?"by Mike FlemingSweet. So, let's everybody meet at Outback for an awesome blossom with some extra awesome, right? Not so fast my friend. Let's add a little context to that little observation we made above.... The Farmer update and "feeding the content machine"by Mike MoranI've been doing a lot of thinking lately about Google's Farming update and why it has caused such angst among search marketers. Part of that answer is simple--a lot of sites with high rankings suddenly saw them plunge. That will cause some angst, for sure. But I think there is something deeper going on here. I think part of what is upsetting everyone is that we are feeling overwhelmed at what is expected of us. We don't feel capable of feeding the content machine. It feels like no matter what we do, we have to come up with more and...
Who Needs Profits...When You've Got Good Rankings?!!by Stoney deGeyterSearch engine marketing is an intense game of strategy, analysis, and patience. But, it's also a game with multiple, sometimes even conflicting, goals. Depending on who you talk to you, some will tell you SEO is about rankings, while others will tell you it's about conversions. It's a classic political struggle trying to answer the question, "what will bring in the greatest profits?" Are you policing your domain from spammers?by Mike MoranIt was not a pretty sight. I watched the look on his face as he was shown a page from his domain that should not have been there. Precisely how it got there, no one knows, but it was clearly placed on his site by search spammers, out to get an advantage for some of their Web sites. It was a lovely little page about prescription drugs chock full of links to other places. How could that page have gotten there? And what was it there for? Welcome to the seedy little world of black hat SEO. If you don't... Why You Should Never Duplicate Your Competitor's SEO Strategiesby Stoney deGeyterIt's not too difficult to be so inundated with info. that you get information overload or conflicting advice. That leads to decision paralysis. You don't know the right course of action to take, or you can wind up using good information to make bad judgment calls. Do I have a content farm?by Mike MoranI was at the Boston SEO Meetup last night talking about why white hat SEO is the way to go. The attendees were a mix of newbies (trying to find people to help them with SEO) and a number of us grizzled veterans. (I am not sure what it means to be grizzled, but it just sounded right.) But I was surprised that many (both veteran and newbie) wanted to talk about the same thing: content farming. Some wanted to know what content farming is, some wanted to know what Google's algorithm change is affecting, and others wanted assurance that... Telling the Story of Your PPC Ad Tests With Timeby Mike FlemingChad Summerhill wrote a nice post recently about something you should be doing if you manage your own PPC account and something you should be showing your clients if you manage accounts for others - visual statistically significant ad test results by time period. Check out the "how-to" in that post.... How do you leverage social media for SEO?by Mike MoranYou can't look up without reading about another link between social media and search engine optimization. Bing is now integrating Facebook "Like" data into its rankings and Google has just started integrating activity from Twitter, Quora, and FlickR. So the question is starting to be asked, "How do you leverage social media for SEO?"... Three Easy Steps to Achieve IA Greatnessby Stoney deGeyterOne of the tasks that often takes us away from our computer monitors and into the world of post-its, index cards, and cork boards has been when working on a site's information architecture. This can be a big task, that often requires a lot of table or wall space. But, it doesn't have to. Here are some ways to go paperless, and still achieve IA greatness! Return to the Top of this Page
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