September 27th, 2016

If you’ve worked with an SEO in the past, you know how big of a deal an algorithm shift can be and the resounding impact it can have on the visibility of a brand online. Heck, even if you know nothing about digital marketing, you’ve seen some of these changes in your own personal searching. […]

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August 21st, 2015

For a search engine that keeps pushing for high quality local and mobile search, it seems incongruent that they would drop the 7-pack in favor of a more limited 3-pack. But that is what Google has done. Their local pack of seven listings has been reduced to three, while exact addresses and phone numbers have […]

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March 30th, 2015

The many billions of webpages that constitute the Internet are all connected via links. This is the glue that holds it all together and makes it possible to navigate between, and within websites. Link building is a major part of any successful SEO strategy and the key to ranking at the top of the search engines. Deep links are what makes it possible to get to what you are looking for rather than just landing on a company’s home page. Google likes deep links because it helps them achieve their quest for delivering the most relevant information to a user’s search query.

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March 23rd, 2015

A high ranking website is a terrible thing to waste. The result can be the downfall of your business and it can happen easier than you may think. To be effective, SEO must be done well and consistently. That is because the Internet is a constantly changing and evolving being. The change is driven by the search engines and the growth of the Internet itself. Search engine optimization experts know that you must stay current or you risk disappearing into the World Wide Web.

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March 16th, 2015

Google has made it official. As of April 21, mobile-friendly will now be a ranking factor for web pages. The company says this will help users get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

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March 9th, 2015

Many companies are undergoing major website redesigns. Some are driven by the passing of time and existing sites that are getting old and tired. Some are driven by Google’s new emphasis on usability and mobile-friendly. And, some redesigns are driven by SEOs who have been asking for this for years for the above reasons and are finally being heard. If you are going to the trouble of a redesign, do you homework, listen to your experts both on the SEO and the design side and spend the money to do it right this time.

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March 3rd, 2015

Search engine optimization is much more than tactics. There is a whole strategy that goes along with, and drives the various tactics. Google tries to make it clear what it wants to see and how it expects websites to be set up in order to make it to the top of the ranking. However, the way in which you implement those “suggestions” is entirely dependent on your business and customer needs. It is the strategic nature of SEO that means it needs to be pushed higher up in the organization.
This is not to say that your CEO and top executives need to become SEO gurus. What it does mean is that SEO needs to be part of the conversation at the strategic level. If not, you are forever playing catch up and trying to stuff the preverbal square peg in a round hole. It doesn’t fit well and it shows to your customers and to the search engines.
Marketing and IT have gone through this evolution and move up the food chain as well. Once upon a time companies built a product that they liked and then pushed it on a reluctant marketing staff whose job it was to go out and sell these things, dammit! Then companies started to understand that if they involved marketing, who represented the customer’s viewpoint, into the process from the beginning, they would create a product the market actually wanted and sales grew accordingly.
Technology has also earned a place at the top of the executive ladder. It used to be that computers were the problem of the IT guys who were kept in a dark, cold room with their servers and other computers. Now every aspect of business and manufacturing has a technology component to it and must be considered at the strategic level to be most effective.
SEO is primed for the same evolution and it is starting to happen. For example, if a company is planning a major rebranding campaign, SEO must be considered. How do you change the name and maintain all the great age and ranking patina that the old URL earned? If you are entering new markets, how can advanced SEO planning pave the way for a faster move up the ranking for the new market or product? And so on.
The tactics still remain the preview of the SEO team, but the strategy of SEO must be represented at the highest strategic levels in order to be successful in today’s Internet dependent world.

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February 23rd, 2015

The advent of semantic search created a greater need for truly interesting and engaging “quality” content. The headlines proclaimed content to be king. So it goes that SEOs are being asked to be content experts in order to help their clients and their own company rank high in the search results. Ultimately, this is a good thing because the strange and sometimes ridiculous content of the past is being replaced by information that customers might actually be interested in reading. Does this mean SEOs need to become great writers?

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February 16th, 2015

We seem to try and optimize everything for SEO purposes and for good reason. So it stands to reason that you want to optimize posting to social media sites to get the most impact. This has the added benefit of helping boost your search ranking because your social media activity and engagement are important ranking factors.

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February 9th, 2015

It’s no surprise that the load speed of your website has a significant impact on your ranking position. Google has been shouting that from the rooftops and the blog sphere has been happy to echo their message for good reason.
And if pleasing Google isn’t enough incentive, then the startling relationship between site speed and conversion rate should get your attention. No one wants to buy something on a slow and non-responsive website, and they typically don’t.
There is a well quoted statistic about speed. KISSMetrics reports that 47% of users expect a page to load within two seconds. So, if your site takes more than two seconds to load, chances are they have moved on – probably your competitor’s site.
To that end, Google now rewards fast loading sites and punishes slow ones.
Faster sites attract and keep customers on your site longer. When your site is optimized for load time, you have consistent load times across all devices. Mobile users are even more speed sensitive than desktop users. And, most importantly, faster sites provide a better overall customer experience and encourages them to come back and often.
Ways to speed up your site include:
Keep it simple. We ask a lot of our sites and things can get jumbled over time which can slow page loads. Combining style sheets can help ensure everything is consistent and works together.
Compress all that great content. We are adding more and more content to our sites in various forms including video. Make sure to compress large pages to help them load faster.
Utilize the cash tool to store necessary elements on a viewer’s hard drive.
Avoid too much of a good thing. We all want our sites to be visually engaging. Make sure all those graphics are optimized and not clogging the system. And we’ve gone plug-in crazy. If you have a WordPress site, check the number of plug-ins. They may be causing trouble.
And, the problem may not be solely on you. Check with your hosting service. Are they doing all they can to help site load speed?
This is not a one and done fix. Site speed needs to be constantly monitored. So keep an ongoing dialog with your SEO about the current load time of your website and how to go about continuing to improving that number.

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