There is Nothing “Urgent” in SEO
I firmly believe that companies have to keep a clear line of communication open between themselves and their SEO partner. Bringing in a third party to handle your SEO is a great idea if none of your current in-house employees have the background or the time to handle implementing an SEO plan. But to create the most applicable SEO strategy, your outside SEO partner needs insider knowledge into your company. That’s why it is important you keep them well informed about what is going on with your company and brand, especially anything that deals with the marketing department. That being said, I feel that sometimes clients go overboard for the sake of communication. I do want to know what is going on at your company, especially CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
What’s New in SEO for May 31, 2011
We have compiled the latest news and updates from the big three, Google, Bing and Yahoo as it relates to SEO and the search engines overall. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH GOOGLE: Social Search goes global Google Social Search, which was first introduced in 2009 and designed to help you find more relevant information from your friends and the people you care about, is now available to more users around the globe. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH YAHOO!: Yahoo! Search Trends: American Idol Projections Yahoo! Search looks at geographic searches, demographic searches and overall searches to project a leader in the American Idol race and can often indicate a favorite in American Idol contestants. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH BING: Coming to CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Be Wary of SEO Firms That Spam You!
Google spells it out for website owners in their Webmaster Guidelines for SEO, “Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.” Regardless of what others may say regarding their motives, Google does not want to see website owners get taken advantage of by unscrupulous, black hat SEO service providers. While some of these “SEO con men” have the smooth talking skills to convince unsuspecting website owners to hire them on as SEO consultants, you don’t have to be one of them! One of the biggest red flags warning you about the motives and practices of an SEO provider is if they contact you first. Unsolicited e-mails or phone calls are annoying for everyone. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Blog Posts to Read for May 26, 2011
Below you will find our favorite blog posts that are related to SEO, search engine marketing and social media marketing from this past week. Please feel free to visit each, we hope you find them as helpful as we do! Bing Search Share Up Again – Slowly Catching Up to Google Bing’s search share continued to grow in April. Google is down 0.3 percentage points and Yahoo and Bing each gained 0.2 percentage points. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE When to Tweet This post discusses a Twitter tool called 14 Blocks, which analyzes your entire following’s behavior to determine when most of them are online. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE Writing for print vs. Web: 5 tips for catalog copywriters This post discusses the CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Black Hat SEO is like the Dark Side of the Force
Star Wars is a quintessential story of good versus evil. The dark side of the force offers limitless power—and even though Darth Vader’s suit is pretty much the greatest uniform ever, it also means he’s half machine. The light side of the force requires self-discipline, training and a lot of patience. In essence, the force is a great metaphor for SEO, where black hat SEO and white hat SEO are fighting for search engine ranking positions instead of Luke’s soul. But Luke wins in the end, and even Darth Vader realizes the error of his ways. Practicing white hat SEO is the only way to go to come out unscathed. Just like the dark side of the force, engaging in black hat SEO can be CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Creating Company Descriptions and Profiles – Video Tip
There are many places online where you'll have the opportunity to publish a company description (directory listing) or create a company profile (social networking site). Each of these descriptions/profiles needs to relate to one another, keeping the branding and messaging the same. By having a synergy across all platforms, your present a much stronger online brand personality and avoid confusing your audience with different messages. Watch the SEO video tip here: For more SEO video tips and lessons from Nick Stamoulis, check out the Brick Marketing SEO video lesson archive . CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
What’s New in SEO for May 24, 2011
We have compiled the latest news and updates from the big three, Google, Bing and Yahoo as it relates to SEO and the search engines overall. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH GOOGLE: Introducing our official search blog Google now has a blog that is all about search and provides information on updates of Google algorithms and features as well as stories from the people at Google. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH YAHOO!: Yahoo! Search Trends: Oprah’s Effect on Web Searches Anything recommended by Oprah tends to see an increase in searches almost immediately. As The Oprah Winfrey Show comes to a close, searches for Oprah herself are up 56%. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH BING: Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Finding the Right In House SEO Employee
If your company is lucky enough (or profitable enough or large enough) to have an in-house marketing department, why not consider adding an SEO expert to the team? Having your SEO handled in-house is great because it seamlessly falls in lines with your other marketing efforts. Your in-house SEO employee is going to be fully immersed in the culture of your company and values of your brand. They will know your business better than any outside SEO agency ever could, simply because they are there every day, working in the trenches with the rest of the marketing staff. But hiring an employee to handle your SEO involves asking the right set of questions, some of which may differ from your standard hiring procedure. Here are CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Branding Helps Your SEO
The world of search engine optimization is something that is changing at all times. Sometimes the changes are subtle and other times they are very drastic. The business world all-around is something that is constantly changing and evolving and things are not like they once were years ago. It is important to realize that branding plays a much stronger role in today’s online space than ever before. Clients and customers tend to spend just a little bit more time than usual trying to make decisions surrounding any purchase, and the more that they can remember you, the stronger your chances of a purchase. When a potential customer or client makes their way around the pages of their favorite search engine they might end up bumping CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Blog Posts to Read for May 19, 2011
Below you will find our favorite blog posts that are related to SEO, search engine marketing and social media marketing from this past week. Please feel free to visit each, we hope you find them as helpful as we do! Reinforcing Your Brand Through Chat Companies need to represent their brand accurately across all channels, including online chat forums. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE Dynamic Keyword Research – Keeping Your Online Marketing Aligned With the Rest of the World Things change and it’s important to incorporate dynamic keyword research into a campaign to keep it aligned with what’s actually happening on the web. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE Guest Posting Success – What Does It Take to Get In Front of a New Audience? This CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are Keyword-Rich Microsites Black Hat? – Video Lesson
If someone were to search for your branded keywords, and 9 out of the top 10 sites are microsites, that dilutes your brand and gives a poor message. If those microsites are ranking better than your actual site, you've become your own competition. A microsite has to be built with a real marketing purpose and have a solid marketing strategy behind it. Keyword-rich microsites that are just designed to rank clutter up the search results and could soon face a search engine crackdown. Watch the latest SEO video lesson from Nick Stamoulis here! For more SEO video tips and lessons from Nick Stamoulis, check out the Brick Marketing SEO video lesson archive . CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
What’s New in SEO for May 17, 2011
We have compiled the latest news and updates from the big three, Google, Bing and Yahoo as it relates to SEO and the search engines overall. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH GOOGLE: Google Transit goes to Washington In partnership with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), Google Transit is adding all of D.C.’s Metro and bus stations, stops and routes, as well as connections to other transit systems in nearby cities. You can find this information on Google Maps as well as Google Maps for mobile. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH YAHOO!: Yahoo! Search Trends: Mother’s Day – Mom’s Want More Than Flowers and Breakfast in Bed While both sons and daughters had been prepping to celebrate Mother’s Day, more than 62% CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Social Search Factors that Affect SEO
A few months ago Search Engine Watch writer Gareth Owen wrote a post entitled “Top 13 Social Media Ranking Factors for SEO” that discussed what social search signals the major search engines are likely taking into consideration when using social media data in their search algorithms. There are a few that I would like to point out and further discuss here. 1. Quality of followers Some would say that the more followers a brand/company/person has on Twitter, the better. While quantity is important, I would argue that the quality of those followers is going to be more heavily weighed than the quantity. Just like anything else deemed important for SEO, once the search engines started looking at Twitter as a part of their algorithms, the CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Blog Posts to Read for May 12, 2011
Below you will find our favorite blog posts that are related to SEO, search engine marketing and social media marketing from this past week. Please feel free to visit each, we hope you find them as helpful as we do! Send Share or Like Facebook Is Getting It Right This post discusses the new Facebook “Send” button. It’s similar to the “Like” button; however you get to select which friends to send the content to. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE The Google Video Patent This post provides a comprehensive list of the signals that Google might consider in ranking videos for a video search. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE 10 Rules to Play with Keywords for better SEO This post includes a list of ten ways to CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Best Practice Tips for Press Release SEO
Writing and distributing online press releases should be included in your monthly link building activities for several reasons: 1. They are a great source of publicity for your company 2. They can rank in the search engines, increasing your brand visibility and recognition 3.They provide quality, one way links to your site 4. They can get picked up by various media outlets and be transitioned into offline press releases and news stories The benefits of distributing a well-written and newsworthy press release are pretty straightforward. But it’s very easy to only look at them from an SEO perspective. This is a very dangerous thing to do! Yes, online press releases can have an effect on your SEO, but in the effort to make a press release SEO friendly, I’ve seen CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
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Nick Stamoulis:
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