Eric Schiffer says, “Digital marketing technology is rather like high fashion — trends that were acceptable and even widely emulated suddenly find themselves hopelessly passé without even a hint of warning. For the digital marketing community, innovations can fade into irrelevance as quickly as a pair of flared jeans, only the transition to the latest craze can be far more painful. Just got your Adobe Flash-based site developed? Here comes HTML5. Now you need responsive design — oh, and your obvious stock images are duplicated across the Web a thousandfold! In the case of search engine... [...]

Joe Chierotti says, “Search engine optimization is a burgeoning industry that continues to experience a fast rise in popularity—due, in large part, to an enthusiastic effort by Google engineers to create more relevant and organic search results for users. With constant updates and tweaks to its algorithms, Google is attempting to improve how websites are created, developed, and experienced. One way Google attempts to improve the user experience is to penalize sites that knowingly or unknowingly break Google’s rules. The usual result is the devastation of the penalized company’s... [...]

Erik Devaney says, “I sometimes imagine Google’s search engine as this massive, steam-powered, Jules Verne-esque machine. The machine is constantly guarded, and resides in a secret, subterranean bunker beneath Google’s Mountain View headquarters. As millions upon millions of search queries come in, Google employees feverishly shovel more and more coal into the firebox, and the engine roars and cranks out results. Sooo it turns out that’s not how Google’s search engine works … at all. Like, not even remotely close. For starters (and this may come as a shock) there is no... [...]

Adam Hansen says, “As the need for search engine optimization professionals grows, there is a growing debate: Is it better to “learn from the trenches” or get formal training through some sort of SEO certification program? While formal education isn’t necessarily an indication of workplace competence, most employers have certain expectations in regard to knowledge, fields of study and practical application. If you have a degree in chemistry, I can assume you have a strong understanding of the sciences”. Is Getting SEO Certification Worth It? Mark Ling’s  ’Affilorama’ Blog  [...]

Christopher Ratcliff says, “I’ve recently been making a point of plunging myself deeper and deeper into the murky depths of SEO.  It’s a fascinating place that can be filled with deeply satisfying victories, bafflingly contradictory advice, black and white hat gunslingers and requires dogged determination, nerves of steel and a strong sense of routine discipline. While writing various beginner’s guides to SEO and paid search over the last year, I realised that I still had many more questions to ask, in particular how these two disciplines relate to each other. And what’s the... [...]

Ian McKee says, “As you probably know by now, SEO and PR are getting more closely related. But there is one aspect that both have always had in common, and that is that both have long been labelled a supposed ‘dark art’.  PR and SEO; mysterious art forms that deal in the unknown, experts fixing things unseen, like wizards behind the curtain. It has suited both industries, to be known this way. “Oh, yeah, we just need to curbudgle your whojamaflip. It’s absolutely essential, or you’ll get befluddled. You don’t want to get befluddled. Yes it’s an extra thirty grand.” The importance... [...]

Yael Grauer say, “Do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) terms have you confused? Are you lost in a sea of inexplicable acronyms? Fear not! With the assistance of our SEO manager Chipper Nicodemus, we`ve hooked you up with a glossary of the most oft-used words and their definitions. 301 redirect A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect of one webpage to another, passing along a majority of thelink “juice” or ranking with it. 301 stands for the HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) status code. ALT text ALT text is a description of an image in your site`s HTML code. Spiders or bots (which... [...]

Sam Kusinitz says, “You likely know Rand Fishkin as the cofounder of Moz. In addition to his pivotal role in starting and growing SEOmoz from an SEO consulting agency to the SaaS company that we all know today as just “Moz,” Fishkin has also co-authored The Art of SEO and appeared on the 40 Under 40 List and 30 Best Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30. Rand Fishkin recently hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on inbound.org — the community for marketers to connect and share — in order to create the space for inbound marketers, SEO professionals, and anyone else... [...]

Eric Devaney says, “Ugh. Off-page SEO. How the heck are we supposed to do that stuff? Remember back in the day, when you could work out those sweet link exchange deals with your buddies? “Hey man, I have a site, and you have a site … how about I link to your site a bajillion times, and you link to my site a bajillion times?!” Boom. Off-page SEO = Done. Of course, such practices never really fit with Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information and making it accessible/useful. When a Boston-based seafood restaurant website has thousands of backlinks from a Tokyo-based... [...]

Isia McKetta says, “Write it and they will come. That’s the drum we’ve been beating for a long time now. We optimize our pages and our content to please search engines and cross our fingers and hope that customers will convert. We can do better. But to do it, we have to think beyond Google. Yes, you still need to check all your standard SEO boxes to make your site crawl friendly. Then it’s time to stop catering to the bots and start catering to the users instead. That means we have to—no, we get to—think bigger when we think of SEO. As Rand said in his Whiteboard Fridaylast... [...]