• Stop a search marketer on the street, whether a grizzled veteran or relative newcomer, and ask him/her to list the top goals of ranking in the search results; they will talk to you about traffic, revenue and conversions. Likewise, in reflecting what’s top of mind for search marketers, a perusal of industry websites shows a majority of articles are focused on the same. Far less covered — whether research, POVs or even “thinking-out-loud” blog posts — is content focused on other benefits of appearing in the search results, such as brand development. For decades, marketers have invested in getting their brand in front of eyeballs using traditional media channels such as TV, billboards and radio. Yet today, in the digital age, few … Continue reading

    In high-school, I was a total arts geek and enrolled in a performing arts magnet program. I learned the craft of technical theater and became a behind the scenes/backstage guy.  I helped build the sets, worked on costumes, installed lighting equipment, managed props, controlled the spotlights and had my hand in anything related to the stagecraft of a show.  Essentially, my job was to make the actors and performers look as good as possible by making sure they had the best technical support. The same thing can be said in regards to SEO and content.  It’s the SEO’s job to get the content the attention it deserves from search engines by making sure it’s technically sound.  I’ll be the first … Continue reading

    A few weeks ago Matt Cutts, Google’s anti-spam team lead, posted a video to his blog that “pretty much every SEO should see,” if his Twitter feed is to be trusted. The topic? Penguin 2.0, and hints into what Google is changing this time around with the algorithm. In other words, the (more immediate) future of SEO – and while there’s always a grain of salt involved with Google gospel, it does seem to follow along with what we knew – or suspected – about authorship: quality and trust signals are increasingly surrounding content and the individuals who write them. Pretty much every SEO should watch this video: goo.gl/K0CPE (unless you prefer surprises) — Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 13, 2013 … Continue reading

    If you’ve found yourself on a search industry website in the last few weeks, the odds that you’ve encountered a reference to the upcoming Google algorithm dubbed ‘Penguin 2.0’ are likely to be near 100%. Among other changes the algorithm update was to address, in a video released on his blog (below) just prior to the algorithm update Matt Cutts describes adjustments to host crowding, or clustering, in the SERPs. Host crowding is when multiple listings from the same domain appear throughout the natural search results for a particular keyword. For example: Google views this as a poor user experience and prefers to offer the user greater diversity in the search listings: Adjusting Strategies Based on Large Data Sets Here … Continue reading

    Our guest poster today: Kerin Foster is the Director of Content Development at SEMrush, an industry-leading service in search and PPC competitive analytics. She brings extensive knowledge and experience from the other side of search marketing and strives to provide the broadest perspective possible to achieve business goals. Kerin holds a Master’s Degree in Literacy from Columbia University and lives and works in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. There really is no threshold as to what you can discover when using competitive analysis. While many have heard of it, some may not even realize the many advantages competitive analysis can provide for any business, large or small. You can do things such as locate missing/new/lost keywords while comparing yourself against several … Continue reading

    In the last 12-18 months, several factors have come together to form what could be described as the ‘inbound marketing perfect storm,’ transforming content into the foundation of both Search and Social.  First, search algorithm changes that de-emphasized thin content in the SERPs pushed Marketers to focus on quality content.  Second, as is evident from the chart below, social developed into a legitimate content discovery platform for online users. The result? Content is now the foundation of SEO and Social—the bread to SEO’s peanut butter and Social’s jelly, if you will. Content has become so central for the online marketer that improving on their content development strategy is their number one goal in the next 12 months: The Brand as … Continue reading