Category Archives: general-seo

New Instant Preview Overshadows Side Ads

by David Tittle David: Recently, my colleague Evan and I noticed an update in Google’s instant preview.  While it is a more user-friendly design, this new change has the potential to greatly devalue pay-per-click ads.  Before we get into that, let’s have a review. Evan: Long ago, on November 9th 2010, Google rolled out the […]

How We Do It: Link Profile Optimization

by Phil Golobish Legend has it John F. Kennedy once came across an especially upbeat janitor while touring NASA. When JFK asked the janitor what he was so happy about, the janitor stopped, looked up with pride, and responded, “I’m happy because I’m sending a man to the moon.” Whether or not this story is […]

Cyber Monday Recap: A Comparison of Before & After

by Casey Szulc As comScore recently reported, Cyber Monday 2011 was the heaviest online spending day in history, with $1.251 billion in online sales – up 22% from last year. Thanksgiving night and Black Friday are generally acknowledged as the start of the holiday shopping season and some of the busiest in-store shopping days, but […]

Sample Selection Matters: Wikipedia Ranks on Page One for 28% of Searches

by Mark Rees We saw the posts on Intelligent Positioning and Search Engine Watch earlier this month and did the exact same study but with a larger (2955 SERPs), more diverse (1-9 words in length) set of keywords. We used keywords serviced for real clients, which provide a sample representative of more competitive, valuable, and […]

s: How to Keep ’em Coming Back for the Long Haul

by Shari Finnell Writing a blog is a lot like exercising. You know it’s good for you. You know you should be hitting the gym — in this case, the keyboard — at least three times a week. But after about two to three months of keeping it up, the thrill is gone. You’re off […]

New Google Analytics Multi-Channel Attribution

by Evan Fishkin Multi Channel attribution is the Holy Grail of analytics. Fortunately it’s more like the Indiana Jones version than the Da Vinci Code version. The new Multi Channel attribution features give Google Analytics users a more complete understanding of the conversion process. Before, Google Analytics attributed all conversions to the last referring source. […]

In-house Vs. Agency SEO: What We’re Telling Clients

by Phil Golobish The search engine marketing (SEM) industry has grown to support a few major events. Perhaps the largest and most well known of these events is the series, Search Marketing Exposition (SMX), organized by the publishers of Search Engine Land. Last week, I had the opportunity of attending SMX East 2011 in New […]

Journalists: A ‘Dying Breed’ or an ‘Evolving Species?’

by Shari Finnell During a recent conference, I ran into an old colleague from my newspaper days. He had a vague look of disbelief written all over his face – one that I have become all too familiar with whenever I run into print journalists. I wasn’t at all surprised when he told me he […]