Anchor text can be a very powerful tool when looking to get higher rankings in the search engines. Time and time again well meaning site owners will make the effort to find link placements and then inadvertently diminish the potential...
Today’s Internet shopper has a very short attention span. Despite faster and faster connection speeds, most users just don’t wanna sit still to watch a lame Flash intro. They have better things to do . . . like spend money....
When you're entertaining guests in your home, do you welcome them at the door, take their coats, ask about their kids, and then offer them a drink? Or do you yank them inside, grab them by the scruff of the...
Effective navigation can help both rankings and clickthroughs. Your website’s primary navigation should clearly indicate what each section is about. And if you can’t sum it up in three words or less, that’s probably a good indication your pages need...
One way way to find potential sites to link from is to use "related:YOURSITE.com" function. Sometimes I am just stuck for ideas and exhausted every conceivable place to establish a connection. I pretty much never use automated software for link...
A few hours spent writing unique titles and descriptions for each page of your site is insignificant compared to the increase in traffic that results. Page titles tell the search engines what your site is about, and meta descriptions give...
The only reason I can think of that most websites don’t capitalize on this tactic is that it just seems too easy. Yet the simple act of hyperlinking a call to action accomplishes two very important goals: (1) It increases...
Is there anything worse than landing on a web page filled with big long paragraphs of unformatted text, hardly a headline in site? You feel as if you’re being forced to study for a test, not get ready to put...
Google comes out with another webmaster tool, Google Search Engine . You can create your own customizable search engine for your website....
Yes- it’s another link building article! It is by far the most common question I am ever asked , (well maybe number 2 just after” how do I get my site to be number one in Google ?”). Talk to...
State what your company does at the very beginning of your homepage’s body copy. One or two sentences will do. Be concise and speak in terms of results for the customer. You don’t have to be Hemingway here. Just remind...
Stop talking about yourself and start talking about your audience. Run an ego check of your website’s content. How many times do you say “I” or “we?” Even once is too many for any page of your site except the...
An important part of the journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur is getting in the trenches and doing some of the dirty work yourself—at least in the beginning when cash flow is tight. And if you are online, it is...
Article in Washington Post about an Iowa woman's claim that she spends hours daily clicking Google AdWords Ads. The article describes how Jackie Parks, a disabled stay-at-home mom in Iowa spends hours each day clicking Google AdWords ads for- 1/2...
Does using PayPal as your sole method of online payment scare customers away? Browsing through one of my favourite forums, High Rankings , I came across the thread Does Paypal Scare Off Customers?. I had been wondering the same thing....
The biggest upgrade to the popular web browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, was rolled out last week. Steady reports of installation and usablilty problems have started to roll in....
SearchMash is owned by Google, but you really wouldn't know that by looking at it unless you click into the privacy policy or view the domain registration. So what does SearchMash do? Its a simple combined integration of standard and...
Part four of four of Seven Things Clients Look for In an SEO: Results...
My company has been using ClickTracks for a few years now and we love it. It's one of the easiest to use web analytics software I've run accross. Around the office I'm known as somewhat of a tightwad (despite the...
Last July I attended the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose. As I noted to my own blog readers I've been in the SEO business almost ten years and that was my first SES conference and only my second...
My company sells our optimization services in packages so we really don't have to keep track of billable time. But my organization fetish has recently let me to start having my employees keep track of exactly how much time is...
If you have not checked out Google's Webmaster Tools, you might want to do that. They have just added four new tools that the average site owner and self-SEOer might find useful:...
Part three of four of Seven Things Clients Look for In an SEO: Comfort and Size....
Part two of four of Seven Things Clients Look for In an SEO: Longevity, Trust and Assurances....
I'm of the mind that any targeted keyword is a good keyword. I don't much care for KEI numbers, or even looking at the competition level for any keyword, though this information has its place over the course of optimization...
Every now and then I see an article written about what people should look for when selecting an SEO provider to manage their web site's online marketing campaign. Most of these articles written by SEOs, or those intimately familiar with...
While it hasn't happened yet, Wikipedia is thinking of creating a spammers list to call out people who routinely try to insert links to their site(s)....
The Google algorithm is a closely guarded secret. Last week a post at Digital Point forums started a conversation about why the algo hasn't yet been leaked to the world. Rand at SEOmoz followed this up with a brief post...
Measuring success via search engine rankings isn't completely useless, but it's getting to be, and fast. There have been a number of times I've been on the phone with a client when they wanted to discuss their rankings but when...
The free ride is over, that is free press release distribution via PR Web. This according to email sent out last night to PRWeb account holders. PRWeb has always offered free press release distribution with paid options as well. The...
Robin Nobles gives us ten common grammar errors that typically haunt web pages. In a day and age where web sites are so often the storefronts for businesses, it is important to not only having correct spelling in place but...
Google has announced that it is now possible to assign multiple custom channels to a single AdSense ad unit. This new feature enables publishers to track ad performance with greater flexibility and view more granular information. When generating ad code,...
We all saw it coming. With Google's acquisition of YouTube this week, many speculated that the search giant could very well face a string of lawsuits over copyright issues. Not even a week has passed since the big news and...
Ask joins mobile search with its release of Ask.com Mobile which allows cell phone users to utilize many of Ask's search products directly from their phones. Ask.com Mobile includes numbered shortcuts to access tools more quickly, remembers recent queries so...
ClickZ's Patricia Hursh has an interesting article on managing your online reputation. She looks at the power consumers have in this day and age of blogs, review sites and the like to either build up a company's reputation online or...
ClickZ has an analysis of a new study released by market research firm Compete, which looks at the convergence of traditional e-commerce and social media. The report which coins the phrase "social commerce" or "s-commerce" for short, finds consumer visits...
In lieu of Google's Docs & Spreadsheets launch today, Marshall Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch reports that online productivity company Zoho has finally brought all its various services together into one offering with the release of the Zoho Virtual Office at the...
What many have referred to as the future "Google Office" is actually called "Docs & Spreadsheets" and was officially launched today. This new product offering is actually a combination of the Writely and Google Spreadsheet product silos into a single...
Now that the dust is settling from the news of Google acquiring YouTube, many are curious as to how Google will actually make money off the web property. Even though YouTube has existed for a couple of years, it has...
Yahoo will finally support the NOODP tag, at least according to Tim Mayer who announced this after being questioned about it by Barry Schwartz on The Pulse last night. This following MSN and Google's support of the tag earlier this...
Niall Kennedy and Om Malik introduce the first ever conference on the emerging widget economy - Widgets Live!. Typically a widget is a generic term that people use to replace another "fill in the blank" term but in this case...
We've probably all contributed to a time capsule one time or another in our lives. You know, it is when a group of people compile things from their time and typically place it in some kind of box or chest...
by Tracey Simpson - When looking to maximise the amount of profit you make from your PPC advertising campaigns, one key factor you should consider is optimising your landing page- the page the user clicks through to from your PPC...
Web analytics programs will reveal a lot about how your web site is performing. Programs have advanced past the stage of simply providing number of hits and unique visitors data to things like "which navigational link receives the most clicks"...
It has been speculated all last week. Some thought it was just rumors but many news sources just confirmed it including Google's own press release. Google will acquire the rapidly arising video sharing start, YouTube for $1.65 billion all stock...
I just received an email from Business.com announcing a new site - Work.com, a Web 2.0 site built for business. The site features unique "How-to Guides" for more than 1,000 business topics, ranging from start up basics to advanced management...
Google has announced two new music deals that have the potential to benefit web publishers running AdSense. The two press releases announce that Google signs agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group to offer Google Video users...
I am pretty active on forums throughout the week when not overloaded with work. Because of my involvement in forums, I have enjoyed all of the following benefits one time or another - acquiring more information on a specific subject,...
According to a new study released by Forrester Research, the answer is yes. The study suggests that marketers looking for the best way to reach a specific target audience should consider generational differences in search and media consumption habits. Which...
by Andy Hagans - This leaves me with one question: since link baiting is among the favorite methods used by SEOs to promote their own sites, why isn't it being offered by SEO firms as a service to clients?...
There is a new interview with ClickTracks CEO John Marshall which gives a brief look into John's history before ClickTracks, reveals his passion for web analytics and provides some insight into what the future holds for ClickTracks after the their...
This is easier said then done and often overlooked when designing a web site. I don't know how many sites I have come across in my almost ten years in this business that completely left their users out of the...
It is so much easier to build a web site the right way from the ground up, taking not only usability into account but search marketing as well. Otherwise you find yourself in what seems like a never-ending process of...
Skaffe, one of the oldest human edited directories has launched a brand new directory called TeamSkaffe Directory. The purpose of this new directory is so non-profit and non commercial web site can have a place to be listed for free...
Just wanted to make a post and let our readers know that I had my baby at home (yes, as planned) on Thursday, September 28th. Emmitt Charles Laycock showed up a couple of days early at 11am weighing 9 pounds,...
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