You can't ignore it. SEM and SEO are here to stay, and rule.

And Now for Some Common Sense SEO Jill Whalen 07/24/10 Everything we do in SEO has a purpose, and that purpose is to make the site better than it is so that the search engines will like it better.

Measuring Your Marketing Efforts With Google Analytics Jill Whalen 06/12/10 If you’re wondering whether your marketing efforts are paying off, rather than guess, be sure to review the information provided by your Web analytics program.

Link Warfare: A High-Level View of Running a Linking Campaign Jerry Work 05/20/10 What you need is a strategy for generating links from many different locations that contain your target keywords in the link text.

The SEO Devil Is Not in the Details Jill Whalen 05/10/10 Rather than worrying about each and every tiny detail of SEO which may or may not even have an effect on your bottom line, you’d be much better off to think about the big picture.

Does Size Matter in SEO? Jill Whalen 04/15/10 I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of businesses through the years -- from tiny one-person businesses to huge international companies. While there are many similarities in working with different sized companies, important differences exist as well.

You Can’t Learn SEO by Just Reading About it Jill Whalen 02/24/10 There’s something about search engine optimization (SEO) that attracts people to become consultants, even though they have no experience. It's definitely not rocket science, but if SEO was so easy, then every webmaster and company owner could easily learn it and start a successful SEO company overnight.

Expand Your Search Engine Visibility for Free Jerry Work 02/17/10 The rise of Bing has created more opportunity for advertisers and/or marketers and better information for search consumers. One recent innovation to arise is the mixing of retail product data feeds into organic search results.

Website Load to be a Search Engine Ranking Factor Nick Stamoulis 02/10/10 If you are not aware of the upcoming caffeine update scheduled from Google for sometime during the beginning of the year it might be one for the record books. Nobody really knows exactly what will happen...

Grab the Long Tail Keywords and Watch your Website Visitors Grow Nick Stamoulis 02/03/10 Everyone wants to rank in the search engines for the words that produce the most search results, don’t we all? The problem with this...

Why Duplicate Content on Your Website is Bad and How to Fix It Jill Whalen 01/26/10 One of the main reasons why having the same content across multiple URLs is such a problem is that it splits the link popularity (and PageRank) of those pages, which provides them with less relevancy weighting in Google.

Avoid Spam Comments at All Cost or You Could Lose Search Rankings Nick Stamoulis 01/18/10 Spam is one of those things that should be avoided at all costs regardless of what it is. Search engines get smarter each and every day. They pick up every change that occurs on a website almost immediately.

Promoting Your Business Online with Flex Widgets Jerry Work 01/06/10 Interactive widgets are a great way to keep your company name and brand in front of potential customers/clients or referral sources. It seems like something that would be very complicated and require a heavy dose of programming. But in reality...

SEO and Website Development Now go Hand in Hand Nick Stamoulis 11/18/09 Web developers have been around for almost as long as the search engine optimization industry so why is it taking so long for the two to really cross paths and just unite and work together?

Watch Out for SEO Consultant Red Flags Jill Whalen 11/11/09 So many businesses get confused when talking to SEO consultants that they give up and never optimize their website. Part of the problem is that they simply don't know whom to trust for SEO services.

How to Effectively Include Content Marketing into the Search Engine Marketing Mix Nick Stamoulis 11/04/09 It is no shock that content is a powerful force in the internet marketing world. Search engines love it, people read it and websites benefit from it. It is a win win situation all across the board.

A Cool Little Trick that Merges SEO and Social Media Jerry Work 10/21/09 I almost don’t want to reveal this strategy because I like it so much. But I’m not too worried about it being overused because first off, it requires a little bit of work, and second, most people are going to be too lazy to use this strategy anyway.

Black Hat SEO Techniques, Should You Do It? Nick Stamoulis 10/14/09 You might ask yourself is using black techniques unethical? If you cheat the system in order to get rankings for your website while your neighbor works hard building search visibility the long way with hard work and dedication it is unethical.

Real Time Search is Finally Here, Are We Ready for It? Nick Stamoulis 10/07/09 Search has revolutionized the way people react and shop. Now with real time search entering the very beginning stages of its cultural timeline you better believe that we will be seeing this technology grow much more in the next few years.

Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings? Jill Whalen 09/16/09 A guarantee in SEO is one of those double-edged swords. On the one hand a guarantee seems like it should be the norm. On the other hand, rankings in the search engines are not static.

Is Your Website Optimized Correctly for the Right Type of Search? Nick Stamoulis 08/26/09 Many online businesses are not aware that there are three different types of searches being conducted each and every day. Search engine user’s fall into one of these three categories: transactional, informational and navigational.

Will the Power of Twitter Change the SEO Landscape Forever? Nick Stamoulis 08/05/09 How long will this change last? Nobody really knows but the creators have brought forth a new tool for communication that has instantly allowed aspiring entrepreneurs to take their businesses to a whole new level.

No Magic SEO Formula Jill Whalen 07/22/09 If you think that having your keyword phrases “in all the right places for SEO” is a good thing, think again! Stuff that worked like a charm for many people in the early years of SEO may actually hurt rather than help now. Unfortunately, there’s just no magic formula for SEO.

Three Incontrovertible Tenets of Twitter Marketing Jerry Work 07/15/09 The rate of product development on the Internet is staggering. This creates a dilemma for the business person wanting to use the Internet as a marketing platform. There are so many options…so many ways to go about it…how does one know what to do?

How to Accurately Measure ROI from your SEO Efforts Nick Stamoulis 06/17/09 If you are new to the game of SEO it can be difficult to sometimes budget into your marketing approach because search engine optimization is one of those intangible approaches with no clear definition. It is something you know you have to do but everyone’s approach seems to be different.

How Twitter Can Complement Your Link Building Campaign Nick Stamoulis 06/10/09 Since trust factor is such a big area for online marketing right now search engines like Google have made it important and necessary to be utilizing all aspects of social platforms, including twitter.

The Time for SEO is Before You Need it! Jill Whalen 06/03/09 Sales are down for many businesses due to the slow economy. Business owners and CEOs are looking for that one thing that can pull them through the hard times and keep them afloat. When times get tough, many turn to search engine optimization, hoping that it will be the ticket to increased sales.

How to Create Your Personal Twitter Management System Jerry Work 05/27/09 To say Twitter is hot would be an understatement. It has exploded, and to "tweet" has already become a part of our vernacular, just like to "google" something did a few years back.

What Every Small Business Should Know About SEO Nick Stamoulis 05/20/09 SEO is not just something for the big players in any industry to use. Actually it is quite the opposite as it helps level the playing field for many smaller businesses. A small business that does not have the resources to purchase a one page print ad might have the ability launch online PR in order to gain visibility.

Proactive Reputation Management Hits Different Birds with One Stone Nick Stamoulis 05/13/09 Years ago before the internet a negative reputation for a business would take a great deal of time to travel and spread. Now with the power of the internet within minutes a negative post can find its way into the search results for a business’s branded name crippling new incoming sales and leads.

Participating in the Twitter Conversation for Fun and Profit Jill Whalen 05/06/09 Your goal with Twitter is not to directly gain links, but to be where people are already talking about your industry, participating in the conversation, and making them aware that you and your company exist. It's almost the opposite of SEO.

Search Engine Reputation Management: How Many Web Pages Does it Take? Jerry Work 04/29/09 How many web pages? How many web pages does it take for you to defend your reputation? Immediately you’re thinking…what the heck is this guy talking about?

SEO Link Building is also Pro-Active Search Engine Reputation Management Nick Stamoulis 04/15/09 Many people and business owners have a hard time grasping many of the different online marketing approaches and concepts that exist. Link building is one of those efforts that can confuse many.

Is the Landscape of SEO Changing? Nick Stamoulis 04/08/09 It has been pretty clear lately that the search engines have been working hard to tweak their algorithms to clean up search engine results as much possible.

Preparing Your Website for Optimal User and SEO Performance Jill Whalen 04/02/09 While it would be great if you could just throw up a website and start attracting visitors and search engines, it just doesn't work that way. You have to prepare your website to work the way it should for the people who visit it, as well as for the search engines that index it.

Everything Has a Return on Investment Jerry Work 03/20/09 I use the term “return on investment” a lot. The term is widely used as a financial measure. But return on investment is a concept that has much greater significance beyond measuring the performance of financial transactions. Everything you do is an investment...

How to Decide if You Should Hire In-house or Outsource Nick Stamoulis 03/11/09 There are many reasons why a company would want to pick either to hire an in house SEO manager or outsource this work to an SEO firm. Today’s economy raises many questions regarding which direction a company might take to make this decision.

How to Incorporate Search Engine Optimization and Your Opt-in Email Marketing Nick Stamoulis 03/04/09 These days anybody looking to grow a successful online business it really requires a very generous amount of information being put out in every angle possible. The days of launching a website and letting it sit and work just don’t exist anymore.

The 8 Stages to Learning SEO Jill Whalen 02/20/09 As with anything you set out to learn in life, you don't get from point A to point Z without touching upon all those letters in between. This is why every day for the past 7 or 8 years I see the same search engine optimization questions asked over and over again by people in the various stages of learning.

Begin with the End: The Key to Successful Web Site Design and Promotion Jerry Work 02/13/09 When it comes to building their web site, companies spend a lot of time thinking about what the site should look like, but far too little time thinking about what they want the site to do for them.

How to Use Social Networking to Improve Your Brand and Reputation In the Search Engines Nick Stamoulis 02/06/09 Every direction you turn these days you see an article or business speaking on the benefits of tackling the social media marketing space for your business. It shouldn’t come as a surprise...

How to use the Local SEO to increase sales/leads through Google Nick Stamoulis 01/30/09 Many local business owners are left sitting around scratching their heads through this strange economical time wondering just how they will drum up new business.They have spent many years either marketing themselves through newspapers...

When SEO is Put into the Wrong Hands Jill Whalen 01/23/09 Typically, a complete loss of rankings and traffic occur when a new content management system (CMS) is implemented and all the URLs of the website change. Many developers don’t realize they need to...

Content Sequencing: How to Distribute Your Articles for Maximum Impact Jerry Work 01/16/09 Being aggressive in creating and distributing content is a search engine marketing strategy that I advocate heavily. It works. But the effect of distributing content can be multiplied by distributing content in the correct sequence.

White Hat SEO Techniques: How to Build Relevant One-Way Links to Your Site Using a Blended Link Building Approach Nick Stamoulis 01/09/09 A casual search of SEO strategies will result in a lot of talk about White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO methods. Black Hat SEO methods are unethical, short-term link building methods...

How to Use Your Company Blog to Help Your SEO Efforts and Drive More Sales Nick Stamoulis 01/02/09 You might have a jaundiced view of blogs, since it seems that everyone has one these days. However, blogs are a vital and integral part of your company’s Search Engine Optimization efforts.

Learning Opportunities in the Search Marketing Industry Jill Whalen 12/12/08 Nearly every day I hear from newsletter subscribers, forum posters, and potential clients who've been charged with the task of learning how to optimize their company's website to gain more targeted search engine traffic...

Gain an Edge on Your Competition with Your Own Information Hub Jerry Work 12/05/08 Building and managing your own information hub can give you a real advantage over your competition. So what do I mean by “information hub”? I mean an informational site that provides...

Tips on Deciding What Type of Keywords to Select Nick Stamoulis 12/01/08 The quality and quantity of keyword research that you perform will have a major impact on the overall success of your Internet marketing techniques. There are more layers of complexity to researching keywords than merely looking at raw search engine data

How to Incorporate Social Networking in Your Search Engine Marketing Mix Nick Stamoulis 11/21/08 Social networking is here to stay and is becoming more relevant over time. The question is: Is your company taking advantage of this burgeoning trend and...

SEO Software for High Rankings Jill Whalen 11/14/08 It seems that every day a new SEO software tool comes out that promises to help your site get top rankings in the search engines with the click of a button. If only it were true!

Nine Tips to Make Sure Your Paid Search Marketing Costs You as Much as Possible Jerry Work 11/07/08 I don’t know if you’ve heard, people, but we are in a recession. Unemployment is on the rise…profits are on the decline…and everybody is going to have to do their part – do their part to preserve the profitability of Google and every other online advertising company.

Proactive Online Reputation Management Tips for Companies When Building an Online Brand Nick Stamoulis 10/30/08 With the speed and ease that information spreads on the Internet, companies wishing to protect their brand(s) need to stay on top of their reputation management at all times.

Top Landing Page Optimization Tips to Consider Nick Stamoulis 10/24/08 Achieving success with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising requires that you have a solid understanding of several different Internet marketing techniques. These techniques include...

Ten SEO Tips to Keep in Mind Jill Whalen 10/10/08 If you’ve been reading my "How to Avoid SEO Brainfreeze" series at TalentZoo, you should have a good idea of what you’ll need to do to optimize your website for the search engines and your users.

The Great Search Engine Marketing Scam Jerry Work 10/03/08 I am a professional search engine marketer. As such, I make it my job to investigate new tools and technologies that relate to the business of driving traffic to web sites via search engines.

How Do You Determine What Your Company’s Pay Per Click Advertising Budget Should Be? Nick Stamoulis 09/26/08 Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a great way for new websites to attract targeted traffic, and for established sites to roll out new products and build brand recognition.

Hiring an SEO Consultant vs. Hiring an SEO Company Nick Stamoulis 09/19/08 When choosing between an SEO consultant and an SEO company to assist with Internet marketing for your business, there are many different points to consider.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part 8 - Best Practices for Working with an SEO Agency Jill Whalen 09/12/08 If you've read the entire SEO Brain Freeze series up to this point, no matter how easy and organized I've made SEO sound, you may have decided that you don't have the time nor...

How to Use Squidoo to Drive Traffic to Your Web Site Jerry Work 09/05/08 I’ve been investigating Squidoo lately, especially in terms of using it as a marketing/promotional device. Squidoo is an interesting concept – sort-of a cross between an online encyclopedia and a social...

How a Company Can Manage Their Reputation in the Search Engines Nick Stamoulis 08/22/08 Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a sole proprietorship, reputation management is a factor in the perception of how potential customers see your company and its goods and services.

Tips on What to Look for When You Hire an SEO or PPC Firm Nick Stamoulis 08/15/08 Hiring a firm to help market your website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a bit like shopping for a car.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part 7: Measuring Your SEO Success Jill Whalen 08/08/08 Once your overall on-page website optimization is completed and you’re continuously working on getting the word out about your website...

Fun with Pay per Click Math – How Much Can You Afford to Pay? Jerry Work 08/01/08 As professional search engine marketers, we have clients asking us to generate X sales per day or per month while spending Y dollars.

How to Integrate PPC and SEO to Have a Well-Balanced Presence in the Search Engines Nick Stamoulis 07/25/08 Looking to dominate both organic search results and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising?

Tips for Lawyers to Manage Their Local Online Reputation in the Search Engines Nick Stamoulis 07/18/08 Lawyers everywhere exist in a very competitive market and their reputation online and offline can make a huge difference in how successful their practices will be.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part 6: Attracting Targeted Visitors and Links Jill Whalen 07/11/08 If you’ve been following along with the SEO Brain Freeze series and using your own website as a guinea pig, by now you should have...

Useful Techniques to Optimize Your Blog for The Major Search Engines Nick Stamoulis 06/26/08 By now, having your own blog may seem like a cliché since it seems everyone has one but the fact is that they continue to rank very well.

10 Local Search Engine Optimization Tips That Help Make Your Phone Ring Nick Stamoulis 06/20/08 As web users become more sophisticated at finding information online and using the Internet as their primary source of research, the importance of optimizing the local aspects of your business website are becoming increasingly important.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part Five: Writing Keyword Rich Copy Jill Whalen 06/13/08 The most important thing to know about this phase is that copy can’t be written by just anyone. It absolutely must be written by a professional copywriter who knows how to write compelling marketing copy.

How to Use Social Media Optimization to Build your Business Nick Stamoulis 06/06/08 When thinking about how to use Social Media Optimization to build your business, the best approach is to forget about the trendy title and associated buzzwords and focus instead on what SMO really is.

Writing Web Content For Search Engines or Visitors? Nick Stamoulis 05/30/08 Should you write the web content of your site for the search engines or for your site visitors? The short answer is: Your web content must be written for both search engines and your visitors but the needs of your readers must come first.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part Four - Marvelous Meta Description Tags Jill Whalen 05/16/08 There are a lot of misconceptions about how the search engines use and treat Meta description tags, as well as their overall benefit. This stems from the fact that all of the search engines treat them differently.

7 Things Clients Look for In an SEO Stoney deGeyter 05/08/08 SEOs can tell potential customers what they think they should be looking for in an SEO firm, but what the client actually looks for often turns out to be something entirely different.

Pay Per Click Ad Writing Tips – Get the Visitor and the Sale! Nick Stamoulis 05/02/08 If you want to maximize your return on investment with Pay Per Click advertising, achieve tangible results, and increase targeted traffic to your site, the most important decisions will be made before a penny is spent.

Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Keyword Research Differences Nick Stamoulis 04/25/08 SEO and PPC keyword research differences are more significant than you may think. While they both seek the same solution, increased site traffic, the way that they achieve this differs substantially.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part 3 - Creating Terrific Title Tags Jill Whalen 04/18/08 Writing terrific Title tags is one of the most important things you can do for your website. It’s not difficult, but it is much like solving a puzzle.

Search Engine Friendly is NOT Search Engine Optimized Stoney deGeyter 04/11/08 Most web design and development companies don't know the first thing about SEO or creating SE friendly websites. And most who claim to are liars. Sorry, but that's just the way it

How to Use Pay Per Click Contextual Advertising to Brand your Company Nick Stamoulis 04/04/08 Not only are there a lot more companies engaging in PPC advertising, there are also a lot more companies who rely on PPC contextual advertising as a significant part of their revenue.

How to Proactively Manage your Company Reputation in the Search Engines Nick Stamoulis 03/28/08 If a handful of negative posts about your company appear somewhere, you can easily turn a negative into a positive through a variety of proactive strategies that will help your company.

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part Two - Creating a Keyword Phrase Map Jill Whalen 03/21/08 These steps should keep you organized and help you avoid the dreaded SEO brain freeze when attempting to optimize your website on your own.

Guide for Writing Optimized Text Stoney deGeyter 03/14/08 Optimized text (OT) is first and foremost marketing copy for the website. Each optimized page must be written with the client’s products or services in mind.

How to Integrate your SEO and Social Marketing Nick Stamoulis 03/07/08 Social Marketing is an essential facet of SEO and one that is becoming increasingly relevant as social networking sites continue to become more popular.

The 8 Things Every Small Business Should Know About SEO Nick Stamoulis 02/29/08 The Internet is the easiest way for prospective clients to find your business, and SEO can help. Here's what every business should know

Avoiding SEO Brain Freeze Part One - Hunting For Keyword Phrases Jill Whalen 02/22/08 Search engine optimization (SEO) can sure seem daunting, but really it’s not. Today we’re going to focus on the very first step in your SEO process – hunting for the keyword phrases.

Mining for Keyword Gold! Stoney deGeyter 02/14/08 We've found that by knowing all the main and/or relevant core terms, you’re better able to find all the most important keyword phrases

What Every Small Business Should Know About PPC Nick Stamoulis 02/01/08 Today’s local business owner can take solace in a few facts about the nature of pay per click advertising, namely, that optimization and local advertising practices allow for a more effective campaign that can serve your business well.

The Dirty Little Secret of the SEO Industry Jill Whalen 01/25/08

Investing in SEO: Clients vs. SEOs Stoney deGeyter 01/16/08 Being in the business of search engine marketing I sometimes get overwhelmed with the sheer number of hours necessary to fully market a site online.

Pay Per Click Advertising is a Search Engine Branding Tool Nick Stamoulis 01/09/08 A lot has been said about how pay per click advertising can be used to drive targeted traffic to your website, but did you know you can also use pay per click ads to brand your business

Turning Chinese Dan Goldgeier 07/04/07 The world of global marketing is flattening, but ad agencies are in for a bumpy ride