Search Marketing Wisdom

Google announced today that they’re going open-source to extend their “Living Stories” project, a platform cooked up in the Google Labs and initially tested in collaboration with writers at the New York Times and Washington Post.  The initial effort, rolled out in December, was billed as featuring
new ways to interact with news and the quality [...]

The Google Home Page is getting extremely crowded lately. First, they squeezed the sidebar AdWords listings closer to the organic results. Then they added “microformat”, Images in the sidebar product ads, “Google Checkout” buttons, snippets, and “Shopping results” WITH images, right in the organic results. Then came breadcrumbs, and what people are starting to report – THREE entries in the organics for some top listings. The result is serious implications for the visitor experience, and the job of SEO…

Often we as SEO professionals need to work with developers who create eCommerce web sites using their own proprietary solutions rather than an off-the-shelf product. When this happens, it’s up to us to work with the developers to ensure that proper SEO functionality is implemented. When I am working with a developer for the first time, I use the following rules and techniques as my ideal. Every aspect of these rules that can be applied, or adapted as necessary based on technical or budgetary limitations, adds one more SEO element to the online catalog system.

With enough time, leverage and client budgetary willingness, if you apply best of breed SEO techniques, you can achieve your SEO goals. In spite of the bloody knees you get along the way…

The new Bing Search Engine (Decision Engine?) launched tonight in “preview” mode, and I’ve done an initial test to see how well it does at general search, since that’s the focus of my primary business. While Microsoft’s saying it’s not going to supplant Google in the search market, we can expect that since they’re pouring $100 million into an advertising blitz, and that most people already assume it’s a search engine. So for now at least, that’s how I’m approaching my assessment. And so far, I’ve already found something that should cause Google to sit up and pay attention…

WordPress Optimizaiton begins with Functionality Setup
Some people may just rely on the native WordPress functionality.  Personally, I want to always squeeze every ounce of optimization out of my blog and the blogs of my clients as possible.  Here’s my boiled down list of the top SEO tips for WordPress administrative functionality to help you unleash [...]

Choosing the highest quality keywords is the single most important factor when it comes to getting not only more traffic to a web site but higher quality traffic. There’s a lot of information out there on how to seed your site and integrate keywords when building links back to that site. Unfortunately, the vast majority of blogs, books, how-to sites and expert articles don’t really go into the sequential process of choosing, refining and grouping keywords.

Most search engine optimization and Internet marketing people will tell you that building links back to your site from other sites is now one of, if not THE most important thing you can do for your site’s organic listing success. Personally, I feel that a site that itself is not properly optimized using best practices rules is not really going to serve your needs in the long run, and I consistently get great results for my clients in the organic listings with little or no back-links when I am brought in.

Yet in the long run, and in highly competitive fields, back-links are very important. If two sites are optimized identically within each site, the one that has the most high quality back-links will show up higher in the search engine results pages…

Blogging is all the rage – and it’s become a great way for business owners to help promote products or services beyond a standard otherwise static web site. But what good is a blog if nobody finds it? Search engine optimization for blogs requires proper planning. Here are eight key steps to help you optimize your blog for SEO.

So Adobe and Google have announced that Google is now crawling and Indexing Flash content.  You can read Vanessa Fox’s write up with details here at search engine land.  This is yet the latest attempt by Adobe to snow-job designers and developers.  Ever since they first claimed to add “SEO friendly” capabilities several versions [...]