Who Should Pay the Price? A business’ worst SEO nightmare is getting slapped by a manual penalty. Several months ago we landed a new client because their old agency used Grey Hat techniques. The client didn’t understand that their agency was cheating (going against Google’s quality guidelines). It begs the question about fairness. What Is …
SEO
Content Marketing ROI
Ways to Demonstrate Value to Leadership Typically leadership wants to know content marketing ROI as part of its investment of resources. Before you screenshot the latest Analytics report, think about your audience. A group of executives or managers isn’t likely to be impressed with a day-by-day blow of site traffic or your epic story about …
Branded Content Tips
3 Trends for 2014
According to eMarketer, around $118 billion was scheduled for use in content marketing during 2013. Online visibility requires quality (and quantity) of branded content. In this post we’ll share tips to make the most of your original blog posts, white papers, social media posts to get attention.
Hummingbird Content Tips
Writing for Search Intent Artificial intelligence is creeping into search. The SEO world changed last September with Google’s Hummingbird algorithm release. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing. Say hello to search intent. Hummingbird content now incorporates intent rather than simple keyword matches. In the post I’ll explain how a non-bear and tiny bird changed …
Penalties from Google: Part 1
Several Kinds of Manual Actions Hearing about penalties from Google can make a Webmaster’s blood run cold. Familiarizing yourself with the common warning signs and tactics — seen as risky behavior by search engines — can prevent a website from receiving a dreaded email notification. But what do you do when its too late and …
Google Algorithm Updates vs Manual Penalties
Key Differences that Impact Performance Contrary to popular belief, Panda and Penguin are not considered penalties. While these Google algorithm updates can have a dramatic impact on a website’s SEO performance, it’s a far cry from an actual manual penalty. In this post I’ll explain the difference between algorithm updates compared to the manual penalties …
Link Sculpting, What It Is and Isn’t.
Beware of Advanced Technique Link sculpting officially died in 2009 (according to Search Engine Land). Yet it’s an advanced White Hat SEO technique that some less-than-White-Hatters still use today. In this post I’ll explain what link sculpting is, why you should avoid it, and tips for building a better long-term strategy. What Exactly is Link Sculpting? Link Sculpting …
Link Profile & Negative SEO
Guard Against Negative SEO There are two main elements of SEO: content and links. In Google parlance, Penguin rewards quality pages and posts while targeting spammy links. Sadly we’re seeing an uptrend on negative SEO — the practice of other sites using malicious tactics like backlink spamming to damage organic rankings. In this post we’ll …
Structured Snippets in SERPs
Schema Comes To Life Today’s post is a bit geeky. OK, a lot geeky. Google recently introduced structured snippets in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). I’ll explain why this is interesting and big news. A Little History Schema.org is a collaboration between the major search engines (Google, Bing, Yandex). It’s a collection of schemas (models …
Private Blog Networks, A No-No
Google Smacks Down on PBNs Some SEOs are reeling from the recent number of massive manual actions taken by Google against Private Blog Networks. In this post I’ll explain why these networks are deemed thin content spam and what it means for those who generate schemes to artificially bolster rankings. What Are Private Blog Networks, Anyway? Private blog …