SEO

After being involved in SEO for over half a decade, I’ve seen my fair share of search engine algorithm updates.  Like many industries, change is the only constant in the SEO industry, however over the years I’ve also seen my fair share of search engine optimization companies fail to stay up to date with the …

When it comes to online marketing, there’s typically three main ways a website can receive traffic: Search Engines: Both free organic traffic as well as paid or pay-per-click traffic Direct Traffic: People who directly type your website into the address bar or bookmark your website Referral Traffic: People who click a link on a 3rd …

No matter what type of business you have, the absolute best form of marketing is and always will be gaining referrals.  However as any business owner knows, getting referrals isn’t always an easy thing.  In this article we’ll talk about how referrals combined with search engine optimization (SEO) and other forms of online marketing can …

Email marketing has existed for almost as long as the internet itself, but for years it has been done improperly and today is still done improperly by most companies.  In this article we’re going to discuss how email marketing really should be utilized and how you can improve your lead generation by properly using email …

Not every small business wants to become a globally recognized brand, but for many small business owners their dream is to become one of the larger players in their niche or at least to become a recognized player in their niche.  We’ve worked with companies ranging from businesses with thousands of employees to traditional small …

We all know how important content is for our website these days.  It’s so important that a new industry has launched and is actually booming.  This new industry, known as niche specific content feeds or niche RSS feeds, basically has a team of writers who write an article, then send that article through the RSS …

There’s thousands if not tens of thousands of SEO companies out there.  Some of these companies specialize in local SEO, while other specialize in national SEO.  Some focus on content based strategies while others focus on social based strategies while others focus on link based strategies.  Some are based in the United States while others …

When it comes to search engine optimization, there are two sets of keywords that we can go after: competitive keywords and long tail keywords.  And like anything there are pros and cons to using each type, and different applications for each type. What Are Competitive Keywords? In short, competitive keywords are keywords that are very …

I know, you’re getting sick of hearing it and I’m getting sick of writing it, but content is extremely important in any sort of marketing, and website content is becoming even more important than ever for online marketing.  Does your website have quality content that is fresh, unique, and updated regularly?  If not, here are …

Do you have a WordPress site?  Well if not, then you should definitely get one, and if you do then you should definitely be taking advantage of one of the most attractive features of WordPress – plugins! Plugins are extensions that are coded for WordPress to allow website owners and web developers to manipulate the features …

Whenever we design a new website and add a blog or take on a new SEO client, the number one question we’re asked is “how often should I blog?”  The short answer to this is as often as you possibly can!  We’ve written tons of articles on blogging, such as fact vs. fiction about companies …

Last week we wrote a post about who handles your online marketing and explained what we think is the best option for small and medium businesses when it comes to online marketing.  But even if you follow our advise in that post and hire a firm that is a small business specializing in small/medium business …

Yes that’s right, an SEO company is posting information about companies that won’t benefit from SEO!  While the vast, vast majority of companies can benefit from search engine optimization and search engine marketing, there are some select types of companies that won’t really benefit from higher organic rankings. Low Traffic, Low Margins Businesses that have extremely …

The fastest way to get the word out about your business on the internet is through viral content.  Viral content is content that spreads across the internet like wildfire; it typically starts on a social site (such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube) and soon spreads across the social sites, through the internet, onto thousands of …

The world wide web is your company’s connection to the world.  Whether you’re a ma and pa store in a rural area connecting to your customers within a few miles of you or an international corporation connecting to tens of millions of people, your website needs to properly reflect your business, your brand, and your …

Over a year ago we wrote an article about why you should use WordPress for a new site, and today we’re releasing a new post about whether or not your website should use WordPress.  The fact of the matter is most new websites today can easily be incorporated into WordPress, giving business owners access to …

RSS stands for really simple syndication (it honestly does!) and truly RSS is a really simple form of syndication.  It’s been around for quite a while, but is becoming more popular once again as a form of content syndication, search engine optimization, and a tool to drive referral traffic. What Is RSS & How Does …

Many business owners and website owners still think they can put up a website, add 5 pages, and let it sit for years.  They then wonder why their website isn’t generating revenue for their business. We already wrote about how companies that blog make far more online revenue and even gave out ten fantastic ways …

Managing a business is a difficult task, I know it first hand, but managing your business’ online reputation can seem next to impossible.  As we wrote about a few days ago, it is certainly possible to manage your online reputation, but not something that is terribly easy to do for the average business owner.  With …

Reputation management is one of the most important things for any business to do.  But when it comes to the internet, anyone can post anything about anyone for any reason.  It may seem like the wild wild west, but there are things you can do to manage your online image. Prevent Negative Reviews Prevention is …

Back in February I wrote a post titled Fact vs. Fiction about companies that blog.  The post outlined some important information about businesses that have a regularly updated blog and why it’s so important to continually update your blog. Since then I’ve challenged myself to put out at least 2 blog posts every week.  Since then …

When it comes to SEO, getting high quality links can often be a difficult task, and probably one of the highest quality links that a website could ever gain can come from an often under utilized source — the media.  A link from a major site like Fox News, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street …

When someone calls me looking for SEO services, they typically think we’ll submit their website to search engines, build a handful of links, and after a few weeks they’ll be ranking on page 1 of results.  Ten years ago, yes, this was the case, but today search engines are much more complex and aren’t just …

I try not to watch too much TV in my free time (when I have free time), but I’ve noticed that when the TV is on I’ve seen three or four companies advertising all in one online marketing solutions for small businesses.  Surprisingly I was glad to see this, after all I want our business …

Businesses that already rank well in search results are often terrified to redesign their website, especially when it means moving from one content management system (CMS) to another and changing the URL structure.  Whenever a URL changes, search engines consider this a brand new page and don’t have any way of associating it with the …

No, I haven’t gone off the deep end.  There are plenty of situations where partnering with your competitors to form a strategic alliance could make perfect sense.  In the SEO industry things can get pretty heated and competitive, yet I’m very friendly with several SEO company owners and we even send each other leads from …

Wordpress is a platform we utilize for the vast, vast majority of our web design projects.  In fact it’s the most popular blogging platform and one of the most popular website CMS platforms available today.  In this post we’re going to talk a little about two tips we have when linking to third parties on …

One of the constant themes at Google in 2012 has been change.  So far this year we’ve seen more large changes than any other year in recent memory, and now it seems like change is sweeping across Google Places pages for local businesses. Many people may have notice some small changes to places pages as they …