Earlier this week, Cindy Krum gave readers sound advice on URL structures for mobileso it makes perfect sense to follow-up on her excellent column with some additional thoughts on how to actually develop your mobile web content. It’s a topic that could — and does — fill several books, but every marketer should be aware of the basic options for mobilization of a website and how to select the right one for his or her brand. As we explore those options, keep in mind that in most cases a mobile web site isn’t a completely new product — it’s a re-imagination of an existing desktop site. So it’s very rare…

Prospective client: Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up! Me: Where are you? Prospective client: Massachusetts Me: I’m 3,000 miles away! Call 911! Prospective client: No, it’s my website! We lost 50% of our traffic overnight! Help! Me: How much can you afford to pay? Okay, that’s not actually how the conversation went, but it might as well have, given the fact that I came in and performed a strategic SEO audit, the client made all the changes I recommended, and, as a result, a year later they’ve increased organic traffic by 334%! Now, when you look at that data, you might assume several things. Ryan Jones saw those…

Like many webmasters affected by the Google Penguin update, Trent Harbour of Berkeyshop.com needed to find out why his site had dropped positions in the Google organic results and how he could reverse that. So he reached out to Search Engine Watch for some answers. What follows is a cautionary tale of missteps towards the complex problem of ranking on search engines and an examination into why small businesses are completely at a loss as to what constitutes “ethical” SEO. Before he was worried about Google and its algorithms, Harbour was a portfolio manager and investor. However, during the 2008 financial crisis he “hit rock bottom” and an illness forced…

Links matter. There’s no debate links are a big signal of quality to search engines, so you need to know your ABCs. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to further enhance your link profile, links remain a critical method of marketing. However, if you’ve been paying attention, you can see that link building is a constantly evolving practice. Certain tactics are overused then abused then penalized, with link builders running around trying to undo damage from techniques that worked well but maybe weren’t 100 percent safe ideas. What follows is a list and discussion of 131 (legitimate) link building tactics, some of which worked just as well 10 years…

Are you looking for ways to market your small business website with a limited budget? Whether it’s with established sites such as Google and Facebook, or newer outlets like Pinterest, there are plenty of options available to promote your site. There are at least 30 ways to market your website with a time investment and no credit card required. Some of these are oldies but goodies, while others are newer and exciting avenues you may not have tried out yet. Here are 30 things you can do today to get started marketing your website for free. Press releases still work. Granted a submission to PRWeb or a Vocus account make the…

Want To Move WordPress To A New Domain? Here Are 13 Steps To Make It Happen! I’ve moved a lot of domains throughout my career as an online marketer. There are many reasons why one would want to move WordPress to a new domain such as rebranding, domain portfolio consolidation, merger or acquisition, etc. Because it’s not uncommon to move domains, I thought it would be good to put together a step-by-step cheat sheet for the average guy/gal who wants to quickly and easily move their WordPress site to a new domain while salvaging as much link equity as possible. The process isn’t as hard as you might think, so let’s roll…

PPC management has definitely evolved over the past few years. Advancements in technology and the introduction of new online advertising platforms now sees PPC managers having to adapt. Continued research into these new opportunities is required in order to be experts in the wider field of online advertisement. These “new” opportunities are not just coming quick and fast but they are aplenty now, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to break into the PPC job market without knowledge of all of these technologies. Let’s get cracking. Looking back several years when I first entered the PPC industry my day to day tasks included (to name a few): Advert testing Competitor…

Ideally a blog post should be written and formatted for the web, meaning it should be short, snappy and image-rich. This post is exactly the oposite of that. Do as I say, not as I do? After beating myself up about it I concluded that the message I wanted to convey (i.e. Holy CRAP we need to know a lot of stuff these days!) is best “illustrated” as a wall of text… One of the exciting projects we’re working on here at seOverflow is to update our site audit and ongoing SEO task lists. Since the attrition rate of old tasks isn’t anywhere near the growth rate of new tasks our…

You’ve just finished writing a great new blog post. You’re excited that you’ve shared your ideas and expertise with the world. But what should you do next? As we work with companies to develop a regular content marketing and social engagement routine, blogging is always key. A strong corporate blog can pay big dividends in the form of increased customer engagement and search engine rankings. But what many companies forget is the “marketing” part of content marketing. Even Great Content Can Go Unnoticed We would like to think after hitting “publish” on a new post that the seas will part, angels will sing and Moses will lead customers straight into…

After Google’s announcement of the impact of site speed on search rankings, many articles were written about the benefits of setting expires headers to control browser caching. However, after researching cache control extensively I found no articles that explain how to determine which resources of a site should be cached- so instead of explaining how to implement them (there are tons of resources out there, like Apache.org) this article explains what expires headers are and how they benefit SEO, explains the dangers of improper implementation, and offers some insight on preventing issues. What Are Expires Headers and How Do They Benefit SEO? Expires headers tell the browser whether a resource…