SEO Strategy

There comes a time when a website owner wonders when it’s time to start running paid ads.

There is no question that paid ads can really move the needle for your business. Ads not only get your offers to the top of Google almost instantly but they can also help move traffic from one stage of a sales funnel to another.

The big question is:

How do you effectively run ads without wasting your hard-earned money?

In this post, I’ll be sharing some strategic thinking to help you get your paid traffic off the ground in the most cost-effective way. If you’re already getting organic traffic and you want to get started with paid ads, this post is for you.

How do you do keyword research when creating new blog content?

Do we look at the same old metrics, or has something changed? From my personal perspective, with every passing day, Google gets better at understanding the user. What this means is…

As content creators, we are no longer Search Engine Optimizers.

In this post, I share some strategies designed to truly understand the reader so that you can draw them toward your brand by offering helpful blog content.

You have your rank tracker all set up. You’re tracking your URLs. Now what?

If you’re wondering how exactly to use your rank tracking data to improve your rankings, this post is for you.

In this post, I’ll be sharing an SEO experiment I’m currently working on. I’ll be showing you where the experiment is currently at and what strategy ideas I’ve come up with to move the project forward.

I’ll be touching on:

• Google Search Console vs paid rank trackers
• How to choose which keywords to track
• Some strategy ideas based on the data

After hitting the top of Google for my client's top three keywords, I noticed something wasn't right.

Where was the huge jump in sales we were expecting?

After doing some analysis and research, I realized that there was something fundamental that was missing in our SEO strategy. Something small and obvious that would have gigantic ramifications.

In this post I'll be exploring what was missing and I’ll be sharing the one big picture strategy that could turn this failure into a colossal success.

This post is where SEO meets marketing. It’s about seeing your SEO efforts in the bigger picture of marketing and sales.

What do you do when your rank tracker is showing you unstable pages? Firstly...

Don't panic.

Yes, on the one hand, rank stability could be a sign that Google is thinking about demoting your page. However, did you know that rank volatility could also be an opportunity? That being said it is essential that you first diagnose the problem. Knowing what the cause is, will help you figure out the next steps.

In this post, join me in exploring three possible causes of rank volatility and strategies for dealing with each one.

Love it or hate it, Google is very good at what it does. While it certainly has had its share of flops (G+), it's main product, search, is head and shoulders above everyone else.

The question is, why?

Sure, I could go into all the algorithmic underpinnings that make Google unique. We could go through a history of Google and how PageRank was entirely novel, and so forth. But instead of that, in this post, I'd like to take a more thematic look at everyone's favorite search engine. Let's pop the hood and take a deep look at Google's traits and how that translates to it being the best search engine and more.

It's shocking but in a way not surprising. We have "SEOed" creating authoritative content. What do I mean? We have turned the very task of understanding what it means to create authoritative content into another cliched and superficial analysis filled with endless amounts of buzzwords. It's not only incredibly ironic, but it is quite the accomplishment.

You can already guess what I'm going to do with this post.... I'm going to explain what I think the foundation of actually creating authoritative content is while I rant and rave about some of the outlooks and ideas being floated around out there.

Let's get this fun started.

From its algorithm updates to its overall approach to the SERP, Google has been latently encouraging us to take on new content constructs and patterns. In fact, Google has been covertly pushing for the creation of more refined and targeted content. However, that nudge towards more targeted content leaves content creators and SEOs in a bit of a tough spot as Google has yet to adopt an ecosystem that truly supports the kind of content they're pushing for.

Here's a look at the content environment Google has been creating on the SERP, the problems with it, and what the search engine might do going forward

What is brand identity? Where does it come from? How do you build it? 

There's a lot that has been said about building brand identity. Unfortunately, a lot of it is just plain wrong. 

Here's my personal take on where real brand identity comes from and how the average company can build it in a lasting way. 

There's been an abundance of content production on how the Coronavirus changes marketing, content, and SEO practices. Unfortunately, I've found that a lot of it is simply fluff meant to capitalize on fear in the hope of driving clicks. I personally think a topic like this should be addressed in a careful and considerate manner. To this, I've reached out to some of the industry's top marketing and SEO professionals.

I've asked them to share nonsense-free, fluff-free, agenda-free ideas on how COVID-19 is changing the digital marketing industry, both now and moving forward.

These are their thoughts. 

Every once in a while, 'rank tracking' will enter the SEO conversation in a serious way. It can be some sort of study that relates to rank position or one of Google's many changes but whatever the catalyst, rank tracking is one of those SEO topics that rears its head with some regularity. The problem with rank tracking is that we tend to relate to it as an entirely automated process. So, leave it to the guy who works for an automated rank tracking tool to show why and how tracking rank properly means looking beyond automation per se.

It's obvious, Google is no longer a search engine. Rather, Google is all about offering answers and guiding users on their search journey. That's why Google has evolved into an "answer" or "discovery" engine, right?

Wrong.

I used to think the same thing. Until I realized Google isn't an answer engine, it's not a discovery engine... or any other catchphrase that focuses on Google offering content directly to the user and discouraging clicks. For Google, it's all about "authority."

Here's why Google is, in reality, an authority engine & why getting this right actually matters!