Understanding SEO: What really matters?

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | February 27th, 2010

This isn’t going to be another one of those “develop great content and build quality links” type of posts. There’s more than enough of that regurgitated drivel on the Internet already. No, this post is about what sort of data you should be looking at to determine if your campaign is successful.

So, when it comes to SEO, what really matters? The short answer is results, but as we all know, nothing is ever quite that simple. Former President Bill Clinton artfully illustrated this in his statement to a grand jury when he stated, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” The same is true in this case; It depends on what the meaning of the word “results” is.

For most, the tried and true standard metric of SEO success is ranking. After all, if…

Link building ideas you’ve probably never thought of

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | November 22nd, 2009

We all know how important links are to produce organic search traffic. Unfortunately, the easiest way to acquire quality links, by purchasing them, has become too risky for many people because of Google’s stance on paid links. This doesn’t mean that you are stuck just waiting for someone to link to your content on their own. There are tons of ways to build links; a little creativity can go a long way. Here are a few ideas to get you going:

1. There are countless worthwhile charities and non-profit organizations out there, and many of them list and link to their donors on their website. This is a great way to build quality links while contributing to society.
2. Anytime someone receives a confirmation email from your company, such as after they make a purchase or when they sign up for your newsletter, ask them to review

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Is social media killing your SEO campaign?

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | October 8th, 2009

As social media continues to grow, it’s taking an increasing toll on your SEO efforts. The days of bloggers happily linking to relevant or interesting content are quickly disappearing, replaced instead by a snippet of text (lately, in 140 character increments) and a shortened, nofollowed link that’s all but worthless from a search engine optimization perspective.

But is it really the rise of social media, as some “so-called” SEO experts claim, that’s making it tougher to build quality links that corrolate to organic ranking, or is it something else?

The truth is, it’s a bit of both. Most social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, use a link shortening service and/or add the nofollow attribute to external links. This negates most, if not all of the potential SEO benefits of that link. But most people are using social media poorly anyway – you should be using…

Google now encourages trademark infringement

Posted by Wildfire Marketing Group | May 12th, 2009

Google now encourages trademark infringement, so long as you’re paying them.

Starting June 4, marketers in about 200 countries will be allowed to purchase rival trademarks as keywords to trigger display of “sponsored search” ads on Google. Honda, for instance, could bid to have one of its ads displayed when a consumer searches the term “Toyota.”

Maybe Google is feeling the financial crunch and needs to increase their revenue. Maybe they just felt like giving their lawyers some extra work. Whatever their motivations may be, you can be certain that they are going to create a lot of dissent among advertisers; especially those who have worked long and hard to build a successful brand. No doubt, the scavengers of the Internet marketing world will gleefully jump on this “opportunity” but I think it won’t be too long before the onslaught…

Why no one want’s to link to you

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | May 3rd, 2009

You’ve come up with a great and original business idea, invested in a professional website design, worked hard to develop quality content, and finally, emailed other website owners asking them to link to you. Then you waited. Then you waited some more.

You’ve followed the advice from all of the Internet marketing gurus step by step, but after several weeks, you still haven’t received a single link, or even a response. So where did you go wrong?

Most of the advice that you’ve been following probably omitted one key detail. Before you ask for something, even though you may be offering something in exchange, you need to establish rapport. When it comes to building links, you can establish rapport with a website owner by regularly commenting on their blog posts with well thought out responses, including links to their blog…