Taming the Wild West The Search Marketing industry is trying hard to outgrow its Wild West roots. In fact, Google is demanding it by making a concentrated effort to rid its index of low quality content. Google’s algorithms continually evolve to demote and eliminate websites that employ such tactics as: keyword stuffing, manipulated links, doorway […]
Communicating Your Site’s Purpose This is the second in a series of three articles that focuses on how you can make a big impact on usability with small changes to your website. There are a few elements critical to creating a good user experience on any website: Users have to be able to find what they are […]
The New Google Maps Recently, Google has greatly changed Maps and it is now available to everyone. You can see a demo of it and sign up for it here. The new Maps was clearly designed with two related goals in mind: to assist searchers in finding what they need, and to show them that information right […]
Barnacle SEO for Small Businesses In Local Search, we often use the phrase, barnacle SEO, which refers to the practice of getting listings on websites that rank for the terms for which you wish to rank. Will Scott, my buddy from Local U, coined the term, “barnacle SEO” in 2011, and defined it as: “Attaching […]
Myth #1: A business owns its Google Places listing. Google Places owns all the business listings it publishes. Adapting to this fact may be difficult for some small business owners, because they are accustomed to having complete control over their listings in other directories, especially in the print yellow pages. Businesses pay dearly for print […]
I’ll be teaching a six week in-depth analytics course starting next week, so I thought it would be a good idea to go over a few of the topics we’ll be covering in the class to give a little preview as well as provide some good tips for our blog readers. In this post, I’ll […]
Your phone rings, and the person on the other end says they are calling from Google. How do you know if it’s a legitimate call from Google? Listen to what the caller says. Many of these calls are from salespeople at not-so-reputable companies, who have been given a script intentionally designed to mislead you. They […]
Here’s a quick website optimization tip for you: make your phone number more visible to users. A good number of businesses have the ultimate goal of getting people to contact them. Yet, on many business websites it is difficult — sometimes impossible — to find a phone number. There are many reasons why it is […]
Business owners often ask if they need a mobile website. The short answer is a resounding, unequivocal:YES! If you use the internet to serve existing customers, and you want to attract new customers, then you definitely need a website that renders well and is easy to use on mobile devices. This not only includes smartphones, but all […]
In many areas, a little knowledge can be just as dangerous as no knowledge at all. After all, if you admit to yourself that you don’t know how to do something, you’ll most often do one of three things: do nothing; learn how to do it yourself; or find an expert you trust to handle it for you.