SEO

Breaking Up Google

Google pushes the boundaries of fair data use. Whenever it changes its algorithms, it creates tidal waves of changes across the media industry, and directly impacts every single business with an Internet presence.

Google Author Rank and the Have Nots

Image by Mukumbura

Image by Mukumbura

The rush to become officially integrated into the Google Author Rank system or has begun. It’s unfortunate, because Google Authorship forces weighted search rankings that favor popularity and SEO skills over substance.

If content creators want to optimize our chances of being read, what choice do we have but to implement the system? Our search results depend on it.

There have been many blogs about how to implement Google’s Author Rank system, but this isn’t one of them.

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Vanessa Fox Discusses Search, Siri and Social

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Meet Vanessa Fox, one of the most brilliant minds in the interactive marketing space. I was first introduced to her at an event a couple of years ago here in DC.

In addition to running her own interactive agency Nine By Blue, Vanessa literally created Google’s portal for site owners, Webmaster Central. She just released the second edition of her book, Marketing in the Age of Google, one of the best resources you can buy to understand how search impacts business outcomes, as well as content creation and social media marketing.

Rather than wax poetic about Vanessa’s strengths, I asked her some questions about voice search, semantic data, social networking and more. Her answers are just amazing. And with that, here we go…

Will Voice Search Change Everything?

Geoff: How big of a disruptor does voice based search represent?

Vanessa: For the near term, voice search will likely not be all that disruptive but we’re in early days. The biggest initial change will likely be for searchers.
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Content, Search and Social: A Love Triangle

Caitlin Livingston & the Pyramids
My wife Caitlin “holds” a pyramid in her hands…

Experienced online marketers know there is no avoiding integrating content, search and social for a complete Internet strategy. They are irrevocably tied together, and increasingly so with Google, Bing and other search engines focused on adding social context to search.

I was reminded of this reading Top Rank Blogger and CEO Lee Odden‘s Optimize, which tackles the triple crown of online marketing – SEO, social media, and content marketing – with a deft hand. If you haven’t read it yet, Optimize does a great job of taking readers through the process of conducting research, choosing approaches, and encouraging familiar and new tactics alike to optimize just about every imaginable part of your online presence.

The dirty secret about social media was that in the beginning it was completely search driven with content and blogs sourced as primary content. Marketers began using blogs to compliment traditional marketing and trumping traditional web pages with fresh new content. Then social networks like Facebook and Twitter became entrenched in the online space. Search increasingly used social verification to qualify online content.
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