Spring is on the way, and as always it’s a great time for growth, renewal, and reflection. SEO is a constantly shifting endeavor, so we need to keep on top of the newest thinking, ever ready to exchange worn out strategies for the newest and most effective techniques.
We like to help our clients keep on top of the buzz so they can adapt to changing time, so here’s our end-of-the-month roundup of the most interesting content we’ve come across.
The digital marketing world has seen more changes in the past two years than over the last 10 years combined, thanks to the release of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm updates. Both have changed online marketing best practices, including everything from how sites should be built to how “backlinks” should be created. Links that go from another site to yours are called backlinks because they point back…
The face of SEO has changed, and time will tell if it’s for the better. Now it’s extremely difficult for a site to rank on the first page for moderately competitive keywords. The days of blasting the web with your backlinks in order to rank are long gone. In some ways this has leveled the playing field, but it means that webmasters must be extremely cautious with their… Continue reading →
February may be the shortest month of the year, but that doesn’t mean there’s any less of the awesome content marketing, social media, and SEO content that we love to share. So, for your delight and edification, here’s some of the most informative and actionable content that we’ve come across this month.
Let’s get back to basics. If I’m to be honest, flashbacks of arguments with copywriters in ad agencies turn me off to the discussion of metadata. However the reality of the situation is that as Search and Social continue to rapidly converge, it is us SEOs that are left to pick up the technical end of the stick and metadata continues to land on our plate. The most …
When people are on your website they are either skimming through content to find what they are looking for or they have found what they are looking for and want to read it as easily as possible. Either ways, having readable text will help them achieve their goal. A small change in typography can hugely impact the interpretation of your contentWhat do you …
Now-a-days, if you have a small business, you probably need a website and ideally some sort of online presence, and unfortunately for most business owners that means finding your way through a myriad of new technical challenges, including SEO and internet marketing. Internet marketing is something that you can do yourself, but it’s not an easy thing to do and there is a lot of misinformation floating around, so it’s all too easy to make mistakes. Have a look at …
If you work in the search marketing sector it’s been hard to miss the penalty that has been dumped on Interflora this week. Is was first noticed on Tuesday but it wasn’t until SearchMetrics was updated today that the true picture of the penalty starts to take shape when you see such a dramatic fall from grace. This is plain to see that …
Every year, somebody proclaims that SEO is dead simply because Google has made some changes to its algorithm. But don’t worry, this post won’t be declaring that SEO is dead, dying, or even coughing up blood. However, the days of SEO as a distinct, independent discipline are certainly numbered. SEO is fast evolving into a more creative, diverse, and challenging profession. Over the …
As is common knowledge, the vast population of over 1 billion in China paves the way for fantastic consumerism which we Westerners should become involved with. All company’s need is to be recognised in order to succeed, and the best way to do this is through Search Engine Optimisation. However, when looking to heighten your company’s SEO in China, there are a few things you need to be weary of. Although Google is a large percentage of the world’s …
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about on-page optimization to last a lifetime. I don’t want to repeat the same mantras you’ve been hearing since last year. Yes, on-page SEO has become more important (I can hardly remember a time when it wasn’t), and yes, on-page SEO can make or break your chances at ranking high on Google SERPs. But what has changed is the way we …
When looking at a new site build or re-design, it’s important to build search optimisation into its development from the ground up. We are all very aware of the on page SEO optimisations such as Title tags, H Tags, Image alt tags, content and links. However, there is little value in building a website without building SEO into its design and site structure. At Gravytrain we work hard at integrating search …
The backlink within the practice of SEO is an ongoing topic of conversation for marketing, sales, delivery and reporting of SEO services. Even in a post Penguin world, SEO professionals are still asking questions such as: What’s the best way to …
The practice of SEO is a fairly results-oriented business. Increasingly, metrics dominate the focus of the SEO professional, whether rank, traffic, or conversions. While a move to more measurement is overall a good thing, it means that SEOs are increasingly head down, focused on the things—like link building, on-page optimization, and content creation—that they believe will move the metrics needle. A byproduct of a focus on tactics that can be closely tied to metrics is that activities that are …
Anyone who’s up on technology has heard of mobile web design and content marketing—two terms used with increasing frequency in the online world. Can mobile design and a great content marketing strategy be combined without sacrificing either content or design elements? Or does the content of a website suffer because of the restrictions imposed by design for small screens? The truth is that great content does not have to be sacrificed for mobile design and can even be enhanced by …
Brands are often (rightly) told they need to move fast in order to play in the content game. But that doesn’t mean planning goes out the window. Quite the contrary. Some brand managers — and the agencies trying to win business from them — seem to think that spending a few weeks or even (gasp) a month in audit, goal-setting and research is a colossal waste of time and …
In our last interview, Steve McKee asked if Big Data was the future of marketing. In previous interviews, Doug Kessler talked about creating a content culture, Todd Wheatland predicted that content and technology would combine to drive the future of marketing. Mark Schaefer discussed culture and the future of search. Marcus Starke predicted the rise of the science of marketing. Ann Handley called for …
If content marketing is part of your strategy, be it through newsletters, social media, advertorial and the like, the challenge is in creating meaningful, effective, and relevant content. The natural inclination is to simply pass along content found in a web search, but the legal implications of …
Everywhere I go, I find marketers who are challenged with creating more content. More blog posts, more eBooks, more videos, more podcasts… more, more, more. Even our latest content marketing research found that the number one challenge for business marketers is producing enough content. I’m done with more. Here’s a little state of the industry that I’ve noticed: There are hundreds of marketing gurus out there who will tell you that …
From a marketing and advertising perspective, Facebook is a game. It may not be very fun for businesses, but just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean that you don’t have to play along to be successful. On the other hand, some businesses have plenty of fun on Facebook. Whether you do or not makes absolutely no difference, though some will say that if you’re having fun with it that you’ll be more successful. I contend that fun or …
“It is contrary to etiquette to yawn in the presence of a king,” the monarch told him. “I forbid you to do so.”“I can’t help it,” replied the little prince, thoroughly embarrassed. “I have come on a long journey, and I haven’t slept…” “Ah, then,” the king said, “I order you to yawn.” Le Petit Prince, …
Do you want to make more efficient use of your time on social media? Are you looking for tools that will help you manage your social media efforts? In this article you’ll discover 3 tools to enable you to become more efficient and effective with social media. #1: Glyder – Social Media Marketing from Your iPhone Glyder is an iPhone app that allows you to share well-designed marketing messages as social media updates using predefined templates. You …
We’ll round-off this month’s round-up with a video from Matt Cutts addressing something a lot of webmasters are worried about:
The first month of what promises to be a year of change in the SEO industry is drawing to a close. As usual, we have for you the content that we have found most interesting, informative, and entertaining during January.
The debate over the value of content marketing seems to be shifting away from straightforward cheerleading or naysaying towards a more nuanced dialogue. We expect that continue as the year progresses, and of course, we’ll continue to share with you the high-points in the inbound marketing landscape.
When I began my career in search marketing, organic search was often times a last minute consideration. It was more of the rule than the exception to have SEO brought in after content had been created and/or after a website had already been developed. And many times, once the cost of reverse engineering the damage was identified, stakeholders in … Continue reading →
As 2012 rolled to a close, the SEO and content marketing world was inundated with predictions and prognostications of what is to come in 2013. This month’s content curation round-up is going to include a lot of crystal ball gazing. It’ll be interesting to come back here in a year’s time and see who was right, who was wrong, and who was so wrong we can point and laugh at them.
During this session we’ve had some rather technical articles about SEO, so it’s time for a short breather. We’ll do this by taking a look at some of the tools that are useful for search engine optimization.
I can’t tell you how many links posts I’ve seen that are more boring than watching paint dry. More often than not they seem like they’re just a lazy blogger’s solution for getting a post out there quickly so they can take the day off. They put 10 or so links on a page and call it a day. But a links post can actually be quite valuable when done properly because they’re bookmarkable content.
The Mayan calendar ended this month. Contrary to the “predictions,” it wasn’t the end of the world, just the end of Mayan content. To avoid having your company come up short on content, let’s take a quick look at the history of web content and trends for 2013.
In this special feature of ‘Ask Entrepreneur,’ Facebook fan Cake Apps asks: What about buying high PR backlinks, will it hurt the SEO? How will Google know that I am paying? This is an easy question to answer: Don’t buy links. Continue reading →
As usual, this month we’ve trawled the wilds of the Internet to bring you what we think is the most informative, timely, and useful content. Enjoy!
Search Engine Optimization
Remarketing with Google Analytics – Building Targeted Audiences – Remarketing with Google has become more popular over the past six months and I think this is set to continue into 2013. Once you get the hang of it, it is relatively easy to set up and manage.
SEO Variables You Need To Know – Search engines use multiple variables to determine how good a website is and how relevant it is to a user’s search query.
Guide to Rich Snippets – Infographic – High rankings in the SERPS are no longer enough. Rich snippets are part of increasingly enhanced SERPs designed to help people make decisions before they click.
Building a Video SEO Strategy – The core tactics of technical Video SEO are pretty easy to pick up. You can read through the bulk of what there is to know about getting rich snippets, optimizing for YouTube, and driving links back to your site within a couple of hours.
Should You Focus on SEO or PPC when You Launch a New Website – There are so many different ways to attract targeted traffic to your website, and it is often hard to know which method is best for you. Two of the most popular ways to drive traffic are SEO and PPC, but is one of these better than the other?
October has been a interesting month for SEOs and webmasters. Google’s Disavow Links tool put the cat among the pigeons, and as ever, the Internet was abuzz with chatter about SEO, marketing, conversion rates, and design.
We’ve bravely ventured out into the wilds of the Web and brought back 20 of the most interesting articles we came across for your education and enjoyment.
5 Awesome Tips To Set Guest Posting Guidelines – Having a guest post submission guideline page will help you to reduce the chances of getting spam and useless article. Moreover when you reject a blog post, you can simply direct users to your guest post guideline page to tell them what they have done wrong and what kind of guest post you accept.
Keeping abreast of everything that’s happening in a vibrant and dynamic industries like SEO and inbound marketing is no easy task. So, this week, we’re pleased to offer our visitors the first of our monthly roundups of what you need to be reading in SEO, social media, hosting and web design.
We hope you learn as much from reading it as we did when we compiled it.
SEO and Inbound Marketing
Hey White Hats, Automation Is A Good Thing…Stop Whining – I see so many SEO guides floating around that advocate manually collecting all kinds of information, from contact information to broken links, and they almost always consist of digging around the internet for the information and copying and pasting…and copying and pasting…and copying and pasting.
Decoding Common SEO Acronyms – If you take some time to decode some of these fancy looking SEO acronyms, you may find that understanding internet marketing lingo isn’t as difficult as you think.
Blog Headline Writing Lessons from Mega-traffic Sites – What’s one of the most simple traffic building tools that even most top bloggers don’t use? Surprisingly, few bloggers take advantage of the ability to target a separate headline for people browsing the site and people searching via Google, Bing, etc. Continue reading →
