State of the Index Presentation is a Great Read

At last week's PubCon conference in Las Vegas, Matt Cutts gave a presentation on Google and recent Google advancements.  This is a good read for website developers, in-house webmasters, and SEO consultants.  From Social Search to Pagetest to Google Web Toolkit, Matt gives a number of good takeaways. State of the Index Read more

Google and Twitter Make Social Search a Reality

Last week Google officially announced their newly formed partnership with Twitter.  The officially statement indicates this partnership will allow social media updates on Twitter to appear in Google’s search results.  Google also demonstrated their new Social Search feature at the Web 2.0 conference to really get Internet marketing consultants excited.  Although this new feature isn’t live yet, Social Search will be launching soon on Google Experimental and Google Labs. What does Social Search mean to you? If you use Twitter for business, it means you’ve just had your world expand Read more

Google Officially Announces Meta Keywords Are Dead

Google, and in particular Internet guru Matt Cutts, formally end SEO consultant chatter and announce Google’s policy of keyword utilization by posting a video on Google’s Webmaster Blog. In the very direct posting, Matt said Google no longer uses meta based keywords for primary organic search, but quantified this statement by also stating Google does still use meta keywords for the search appliance. What does this mean? For some SEO consultants, it means meta keywords can be completely ignored. I consider this the lazy approach. For me, this means I will take note and simply not place Read more

Google Insights for Search is an SEO Consultant’s Dream

I love Internet marketing because each day I learn something new and discover more SEO tools that make my job easier. As an avid Internet user and passionate online consultant, I try to forward these tips onto others. Today my tip is Google Insights for Search. As usual, Google continues to provide free and valuable tools to webmasters and online marketers. Their Google Insights for Search tool allows users to view search volumes, geographical hot spots, and search volume increases. For my example search, I selected “marketing”. Internet marketing scored fourth with online Read more

Why SEO Experts Think Google is Googlelicious

You don’t have to be an SEO expert to know Google rocks. In fact, with the exception of exiled black hat consultants, most search engine optimization companies will give very positive feedback on Google’s search results and overall service offering. And this isn’t because we are fearful of Google. It is because Google makes it easy for companies to market their products and services via the Internet and Google wants companies to succeed in their marketing efforts. If we succeed at optimizing websites properly and by the rules set forth by Google, Google’s results will be more Read more

Top Ten Reasons I am Falling in Love with Matt Cutts

10. He knows SEO. 9. He knows SEO and is informative. 8. He knows SEO, is informative, and entertaining all at the same time. 7. He is a geek. 6. He is a geek and was an Internet geek way before it was cool. 5. He is a geek, was an Internet geek way before it was cool, and manages to make money while pursing his passion. 4. He loves cats. 3. He loves cats and lets his cats work with him. 2. He loves cats, lets his cats work with him, and proudly displays this to the world. 1. He makes me look normal. Read more

Wise Businesses Watch Google Search Trends

Google-Trends

A very wise business owner I know frequently talks about search volume and search trends when discussing Internet marketing and in particular search engine optimization. He is a data guy, an entrepreneur, and a highly technical individual who always looks beyond simple numbers to peek behind them or even in front of them. He wants to see changes before they occur and wants to know the future so that he can react quickly. He is smart and has used this business practice to ride out storms and downturns. That being said, we Internet marketing consultants know that this request is not Read more

Are You Calling Me Ugly? The Quest for Seach Friendly URL’s

Successful Internet marketing and search engine optimization involves a large-scale project that includes a number of steps, tasks, and owners. Keeping the process in check and the plan moving forward takes experience and attention to detail. One of the most common elements of the plan that can be forgotten or missed is the use of quality URL’s that are search engine friendly (SEF). Ugly or Just Confusing? Some may question if a given URL can be ugly, but to Google and other search engines, a URL can be as ugly as the shirt your grandmother gave you on Christmas. More importantly, Read more

The SEO Consultant’s Biggest Mistake

Recently I heard an experienced SEO consultant state with pride and confidence, "I write for search engine spiders and not real people." If ever there was a time to run for the hills, this would be the time. A quality and experienced SEO consultant will write solid content that is useful to website visitors as well as search engine friendly. There is no reason to select one or the other, because both objectives can live in harmony with each other. A bad SEO consultant will spend all of their time writing and optimizing websites for search engine spiders and forget completely about actual Read more

What is Organic SEO? I’m Not Talking About Cows!

A friend of mine asked what organic meant when discussing SEO (aka search engine optimization). Well, I've paraphrased his question because his words were not quite suitable for my online readers. Regardless, he was confused by the term and so are many small business owners. To my friend, the farmer, organic means the remains left behind by his cows. While the term means something entirely different, it does stem from the same concept. When discussing Internet marketing, organic means natural. It refers to the process of driving website traffic (aka people) to your domain (aka www dot Read more