How to Lose Online Advertisers
Many websites rely on selling online ad space in order to turn a profit. Some will invest in a Google’s AdSense campaign, while others sell ad space for related companies. Many site owners, myself included, have invested thousands of dollars in display advertising in order to build online brand awareness, or maybe even take a more direct marketing approach with it to promote a white paper or webinar. And while paid advertising has its place in a broader online marketing campaign and can be incredibly effective (I’ve had display ads on sites where the conversion rate was 20-30%!), as a whole I find the practice to be just okay. One particular experience soured my whole opinion of display advertising, but it got me thinking—in the world of online advertising, the website selling ad space should always be focused on helping their advertiser’s campaign succeed. That should be their #1 goal. The more return an advertiser sees for their investment, the longer they will advertise on that site and the more money they will spend to do it. The site selling ad space needs to recognize that their advertisers are their clients and deserve great customer service! For many sites, if CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Will Your Site Be Flagged for Over Optimization?
The SEO industry exists mostly because of Google. Whether we SEO professionals love or love to hate the search behemoth, we all have jobs because of Google. Even whispers and rumors of an algorithm update can have a major impact in the SEO world, because the way we do our jobs is directly influenced by how Google does theirs. So when Matt Cutts, head of Google's search spam team, announces that Google is working on a tweak to the algorithm that will punish sites that are too optimized for SEO, everyone gets a little jumpy. Here is what Matt Cutts had to say about the pending algorithm update at a SXSW panel a few weeks ago; … the idea basically is to CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
How Do Social Signals Affect SEO? — SEO Video Lesson
Social media marketing and SEO are becoming more and more intertwined as time goes by. The search engines have freely admitted that they look at social signals to influence the SERPs. This means that the more times a piece of content is shared on the social networks the more valuable and trusted it becomes in the eyes of the search engines. Watch this week's SEO video lesson here! For more social media marketing tips and lessons from Nick Stamoulis, check out the Brick Marketing social media marketing video lesson CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google Analytics “Not Provided” is a Double Standard
Back in October Google rocked the world of SEO with their announcement that they intended to make search more secure by encrypting search data. When someone who was logged into their Gmail account searched in Google, their search query wouldn’t be sent over to the site owner whose site they visited, protecting their privacy. Site owners and SEO professionals alike where less than thrilled with this announcement. Without accurate data regarding visitor search behavior and what keywords they used to find our sites, how could we make accurate SEO recommendations and updates? Google assured us that the encrypted data would only impact about 10% of our analytics, which was something I thought I could manage. Having 90% of CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
New Keywords Will Lead to New Visitors
A problem I have run into with many website owners during the keyword research phase of their SEO campaign is that they are hesitant to incorporate new keywords into the mix. They have a core list of 10 keywords they want to rank well for and want to know why those keywords can’t be targeted on every page of the site. Surely the more times those keywords are used the better, right? Here is the thing, sure, you can target whatever keywords you want on any page of your website but if the content doesn’t back them up you won’t get very far. The search engines look at the page as a whole, not just what keywords you have in the Meta tags. If you CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
B2C Content Recycling – SEO Video Lesson
B2C content recycling is an excellent way to take one piece of B2C content, say a press release announcing the opening of a new restaurant, and re-purpose it across a variety of online platforms to gain more online brand exposure and increase it's SEO value. The key is to keep the messaging the same regardless of platform. Watch this week's SEO video lesson here! For more content marketing tips and lessons from Nick Stamoulis, check out the Brick Marketing content marketing video lesson CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
LinkedIn Has Some Interesting Issues
Let me start of by saying that I think LinkedIn is a fantastic social platform, especially for B2B companies. I have been an active, paid member since 2005 and have invested a lot of time and effort into building my personal profile and network, as well as the Brick Marketing company page. I am an active member of 30+ groups where I submit content from this and the Brick Marketing Blog daily. I am also an “Open Networker,” which means I am open to connecting with whoever is interested in connecting with me. I know that some people use LinkedIn to only connect with those that they have met face-to-face and have done business with in the past, but I look at LinkedIn CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
B2B Social Engagement is Really Lead Nurturing
Since the B2B buying cycle is usually much longer than the average B2C buying cycle, building a real relationship with your potential customers is crucial to earning their business. It’s important that your company’s Internet marketing campaign (including content marketing and social media marketing) hits people at different points in the sales process, reminding your target audience of why they should work with your company. Social media marketing lets you connect with various influencers and buyers, and is the platform that will distribute the content used to nurture relationships. At the end of the day, B2B social engagement is another form of lead nurturing! When it comes to connecting with B2B influencers and buyers, it’s important to remember that everyone has different goals. For instance, CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
B2B Keyword Research – SEO Video Lesson
B2B websites have to be sure to include those long tail, niche industry keywords in their B2B keyword research. Even if those keywords don't have a high search volume, it's important that your website be positioned well for when someone does search for those B2B keyword phrases. Someone using those highly targeted keywords is most likely your exact target audience. Watch this week's SEO video lesson here! For more keyword research tips and advice, check out the Brick Marketing Keyword Research Video Lesson CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Should Your Blog Be on a Separate Domain?
Hindsight is 20-20. Knowing what I know now after blogging on this domain for 5 years (to the day, actually!) if I could go back and do it over I would have incorporated this blog as part of my company website and not as its own domain. Here’s why: Blogs on separate domains can’t piggyback on the trust of your website. When I launched this blog the search engines treated it as a brand new website, meaning it had a trust factor of zero. After five years and a massive, ongoing link building campaign the search engines have learned to trust this domain so new posts get indexed fairly quickly. When it was a new blog I didn’t have that luxury. If you are considering launching a CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Profile Magazine: Free Is Not Free
***UPDATE! PLEASE READ THE EMAIL THAT I RECEIVED FROM PROFILE MAGAZINE AT THE END OF THIS POST, IT APPEARS THAT THIS MAGAZINE MAY NOT BE AN ACTUAL SCAM, BUT I RECOMMEND THAT YOU PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST AND THE EMAIL AT THE BOTTOM, I HAVE ADJUSTED THE TITLE OF THIS POST AND REMOVED SCAM AS WELL...THANKS FOR READING!*** A few weeks ago I got a voice mail message from a representative at Profile Magazine. He said that Profile Magazine was interested in writing a feature article about my SEO company, Brick Marketing and that the first step was a 10-15 minute preliminary interview to learn a little bit more about me and the company. I was both excited and CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Keyword Research Advice for New Websites
Brand new websites that are just beginning their SEO campaigns should undoubtedly begin with onsite SEO, the first step of which is keyword research. The keywords you choose (based on the content of your site) will ultimately help determine what search phrases your site rank for and what kind of searcher will find your site. Because new site’s don’t have 6 months of analytics to jumpstart their keyword research, here are 4 tips to keep you on track: Use your competitors as a starting point. If you’re website is relatively new, you don’t have a deep pool of analytics and data to base your keyword research on—the numbers just aren’t there yet an it’s hard to pull the right keywords from thin air. In order to get CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Search Rankings Are Dead
I came across this great article on Search Engine Land a few weeks ago that explains why search rankings and SEO ranking reports no longer matter—something I have thought for a very long time. It’s nice to hear other SEO professionals agree that search rankings are too inconsistent and inconclusive to be used as a SEO success metric. Here are a few reasons why website owners shouldn't be so focused on where they rank: 1. The search engines personalize the search results. I don’t know about you, but I am constantly logged into my Gmail account. That means that whenever I search for something online, Google is able to see and remember my search activities and preferences. Google also has the luxury of CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Who or What is Your Social Persona?
When implementing your social media marketing campaigns, one of the first things you have to do (before you even think about building your profiles) is decide who or what is going to be your social persona. Are you going to build your social brand around an actual person (say the VP of Marketing) or stick with the company’s name (@CompanyX)? There is no “right” way to build your social personality, but there are pros and cons to each option that you should consider before you jump blindly into social media. The ever increasing reach of social networks means that companies can’t afford to make any big mistakes or try to change direction mid-campaign. Creating a social persona around your brand: The beauty of building your CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEO Agency versus In-House SEO: Does It Really Matter?
This is a guest post from Amanda DiSilvestro of ResourceNation.com It is no secret that SEO is crucial to the success of a small business, but what many do not realize is that there are different ways to fulfill this crucial need. Many new business owners work with SEO on their own; meaning they decide which keywords to target, focus on getting back-links and have worry about Google rankings and penalties. However, many more established companies choose to use an SEO agency. Consider some of the positives and negatives to each: In-House SEO 1.In-House SEO Advantages Control – You have complete control, so you will be able to change things instantly if you ever change your mind. Sometimes it can be time consuming to create an SEO CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEO Journal is Written by
Brick Marketing Founder,
Nick Stamoulis:
Nick Stamoulis - SEO Bio.
Tel. - 877-295-0620
nick@brickmarketing.com
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