Recently by Thomas M. Schmitz
Does it makes sense to move a blog from a http://domain.com/info/ subfolder to a http://domain.com/blog/ subfolder? I like this idea...under the right circumstances. If things are going well, don’t bother. If your blog already has lots of links from different domains or if you receive truckloads of visitors, you have little reason to change your blog’s subfolder. In fact, from a pure SEO perspective, changing the location may have negative SEO consequences. When you switch subfolders, old URLs must be 301 redirected to their new locations. These 301 redirects ensure that visitors will land where they are supposed to. They
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Continue reading Changing a Blog's Location
And so it begins... You may have heard that soon Bing will provide all the paid and non-paid search results in Yahoo. Or you may have heard some twisted version of this because the whole thing is so complicated. Personally, I like the Frankenstein imagery. Although it’s kind of cool to think of a Bing biting a Yahoo and the Yahoo becoming a Bing beneath the full moon. The good thing is we knew this was coming. Yahoo! and Microsoft signed the deal a year ago. In February, the European Commission and US Department of Justice Approved it. Yahoo and
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Continue reading A Flavorful Blend, Yahoo! Organic Search, Now With 25% Bing
I just got back from SMX Advanced and boy are my arms tired. Actually, it’s my brain that’s feeling overwhelmed with lots of fresh insight and illuminating data. The cast and crew over at Third Door Media and Search Engine Land produced an exceptional event; they outdid themselves. Except, I left Seattle’s Bell Harbor conference center with a ravenous bugblatter beast gnawing at my brain. Let me explain. Speaker after speaker kept saying that Search Engine Optimization should be guided by User Experience Optimization. For example: Instead of chasing after the search engines, chase after the user experience because the
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Continue reading SEO Is Not User Experience Optimization
When it comes to SEO, placing links on a web page is not simple. There are competing guidelines to consider. The best links are keyword rich text links. Google uses the link text or anchor text as a signal of relevance. For example, if 100 pages link to http://examplesite.com/baseball with the anchor text baseball, then Google will expect that the target page is relevant for the word baseball. Sometimes we cannot use a text link. As an example of this, often the first link to a site’s homepage is an image at the top of the page, in the header
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Continue reading SEO Link Placement On an HTML Page
Google made a change to their organic search ranking algorithm. Actually, Google make changes every day, over 500 last year. Most changes are small code improvements to optimize performance or minor ranking factor tweaks, likely based on statistical observations in past results. These changes go unnoticed except by the people at Google who make them. This time was different. People noticed and Webmaster World dubbed it the Google "Mayday Update." Lots of websites reported loosing up to 10% of their daily organic search traffic from Google, mostly in the long-tail. Thanks to a Q&A session during the Google I/O 2010
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Continue reading Mayday, Mayday - Google Algorithm Update
Many websites try to create perfect brochure content for their markets and prospects. Then they optimize those pages for SEO. After all, you want people to land on the perfect page when they arrive from a search engine query result, right? If only life were so Type-A. Except in this case the A stands for atypical. Search results are rarely neat and tidy. Many times people click on results that look hopeful, not ones that look correct. If yours is the best result, even if it’s not perfect, people will click. Search engine programmers know this too. At night they
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Continue reading The Myth of Perfect Content
Topeka, formerly Google, added 100 new ranking factors today increasing the known total to 300. Google, I mean Topeka, has always been secretive about their organic search ranking algorithm, but during various outings to Google’s, uh Topeka’s, Mountain View headquarters we managed to cobble together a short list of new ranking factors by reading the brightly hand-decorated construction paper posters that line campus walls encouraging Googlers - I guess that would be Topekians - to try out and test new beta products and features. Here’s what we uncovered: 1. Typing Speed: By measuring the length and frequency of your social
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Continue reading New Google Ranking Factors
Contests may be one of the most popular campaign tactics for linkbait and social media. They're easy to organize and they can get large numbers of people to promote on your behalf. Yet, many businesses stumble and fall. What goes wrong? Contests are good for Introducing brands When no one knows your business a contest can introduce your brand and get people to visit your website. Getting mentions on Twitter and Facebook streams Twitter and Facebook are fertile environments for making contests go viral. Design your entries to be invitations from contestants to enter. I just entered to win an
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Continue reading Should I Run a Contest for Linkbait or Social Media?
Did you watch The Oscars last night? It occurred to me that motion pictures are a lot like websites primed for organic search and social media. Movies as Websites Think about the meticulous attention to detail that goes into an Academy Awards caliber movie. It requires a compelling story - well written, skillfully performed, lovingly filmed and expertly directed. Likewise, a good website showcases its own products or services or solutions with wonderful copy, images and design. Movies are designed to sell tickets, rentals and DVDs. That's where the revenue comes from. Naturally, most of the marketing, promotion and publicity
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Continue reading Oscar Movies are Like Optimized Websites
Recently, I’ve heard about startups that want to automate enterprise SEO for large websites. I suppose they theorize that if Google, Bing and the other search engines can gather Internet content, categorize it and rank it, then it’s possible to write software that will recast your content as a perfect website. I do not believe enterprise SEO software can optimize a complex website without large amounts of critical thinking or decision making from real people who are familiar with your business and have a deep knowledge of SEO. The research, evaluation, recommendations necessary for good SEO are fraught with endless
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Continue reading Enterprise SEO Automation
