Ayodeji Onibalusi says, “Getting your business in front of the right customers is the key to business success. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most reliable ways to achieve this. With people performing over six billion searches each day, and visitors from search said to be closer to the purchase cycle than visitors from other sources, one would wonder what — if anything — could really go wrong with organic search marketing. However, not every SEO campaign is created equal. While some marketers see high performing numbers from their organic search campaigns,... [...]

Lydia Jorden says, “During the holidays, we often let a fair part of ourselves go: diet, exercise, budgets and more. But for local search engine optimization (SEO) professionals, there is something very impactful that can get away from us little by little, until it is completely out of control: Rankings. During the holiday season, we sometimes neglect a variety of strategies that help our businesses maintain positioning within the local pack during a high-traffic time. If you find yourself experiencing a case of holiday ranking drops, you may want to avoid a Scrooge-like boss muttering... [...]

Wesley Young says, “According to a recently released white paper by the Local Search Association (LSA) on co-op advertising programs, titled, “Breaking through the Co-op Clutter,” estimates of unused or unclaimed co-op dollars range from $14 billion to $35 billion. Even on the low end of that range, that’s a lot of cash. Estimates of the total co-op dollar amount available varies between $36 billion to $70 billion, which would place unclaimed value at between 39 and 50 percent. What’s also revealing is how co-op dollars are being used. According to Brandmuscle’s State of Local... [...]

Joe Goers says, “Every SEO has heard these four words: “I need more traffic!” It seems that websites are becoming less focused on top-of-funnel content (general informational and educational materials) and more focused on bottom-of-funnel lead generation offers. In my opinion, this is a short-sighted strategy, and one that will not drive a high volume of qualified traffic. Successful SEO programs require website content designed to reach prospects across the entire buy cycle. Excuses, excuses When bringing up the idea of having more informational content on a website to better support... [...]

Jayson DeMers says, “Few marketing channels have evolved as quickly or as dramatically as search engine optimization (SEO). In its infancy, SEO was the shady practice of stuffing keywords, tweaking back-end code and spamming links until you started ranking well for the keywords you wanted. Thankfully, Google stamped out those practices pretty quickly, and its search algorithm has never really stopped evolving. Much of Google’s foundation was in place by the mid-2000s, but how has its algorithm — and as a result, our approach to SEO — changed in the past 10 years? 1. The rise of... [...]

Marcus Miller says, “SEO and content marketing can be tough for small businesses. Creating content that answers the frequently asked questions in your industry may not be too difficult, but getting it found in search engines is not so easy if you are a small local player. Even if you could rank a piece of content nationally, would it turn into business? Could you handle the influx of leads if it did? The digital marketing channels and tactics you use are a strategic decision — and in many cases, traditional content marketing is not the best choice for small local businesses. This is a... [...]

Shris Smith says, “One of the first things I was taught when I started out in SEO a few years ago was that “your site speed is part of Google’s algorithm and can affect ranking performance.” My reply was something like “Google has algorithms?” Being new to SEO, I had many questions, but as this was one of the first things I was told, I thought it would be best to take a keen interest in it, and try to understand exactly how your site speed effects performance. Cue my head exploding. Yes, site speed can be a difficult thing for a newbie to get to grips with, especially when you... [...]

Casie Gillette says, “Last month, my colleague Derek Edmond wrote a column here on Search Engine Land discussinghow to improve your value as a strategic SEO partner. The post included suggestions around reporting dashboards, software knowledge and industry-specific networking. What I liked about the piece was the implication that to show value, we have to do more than just provide recommendations. But it also got me thinking about the value of the recommendations themselves. If you search “show SEO value,” you’ll get a slew of posts discussing how to use data and reporting to make... [...]

Amanda Zantal-Wiener says, “Tracing the history of SEO is kind of like trying to trace the history of the handshake. We all know it exists, and we know it’s an important part of business. But we don’t spend a ton of time thinking about its origins — we’re mostly concerned with how we use it day-to-day. But unlike the handshake, SEO is fairly young, and changes frequently. Quite appropriately, it appears to be a millennial — its birth is predicted to fall somewhere around 1991. And in its relatively short life, it’s matured and evolved rather quickly — just look at... [...]

MOZ team says, “Web technologies and their adoption are advancing at a frenetic pace. Content is a game that every type of team and agency plays, so we’re all competing for a piece of that pie. Meanwhile, technical SEO is more complicated and more important than ever before and much of the SEO discussion has shied away from its growing technical components in favor of content marketing. As a result, SEO is going through a renaissance wherein the technical components are coming back to the forefront and we need to be prepared. At the same time, a number of thought leaders have made statements... [...]