Facebook Graph Search could be an important driver of new customers for local businesses as it continue to roll out. This post covers a number of local ranking factors for Graph Search, and includes key takeaways for local business owners.

Most Penguin work is reactive, where companies work to recover from a massive drop in Google traffic. This case study explains how one business owner uncovered a serious unnatural links situation, and had to race Penguin to the update line.

When performing SEO audits, it's incredibly important to dig into a website's source code to understand what's present. Unfortunately, coding gremlins may be sitting below the surface, causing big SEO damage. Here are some top source code problems.

Some sites hit by Panda or Penguin experienced a surge in traffic before being hammered. The secret lies in understanding the SEO tactics being executed, how those tactics were impacting traffic levels, and how those tactics could damage a website.

How do teenagers feel about Google, Facebook, smartphones, privacy, and Panda? Here are some lessons gleaned from the students' comments, questions, and feedback - and how those insights could very well shape the future of digital marketing.

Full-blown, robust SEO audits are not necessary for every website. Lite SEO audits can yield important insights. And for small to medium sized business owners, this process can be completed relatively quickly and without breaking the bank.

When performing SEO audits, the right tools can make it easier to collect the necessary intelligence. Here's a walk-through of 12 helpful features of the Web Developer Plugin )for Firefox and Chrome(, which provides a boatload of functionality.

As Thanksgiving approaches, there are a few additional things for me to be thankful for this year. And as you can tell by the title of this post, they have to do with cute black and white animals who like to ravage websites. :( In August I wrote a case study about a very interesting [...] The post I'm thankful for Penguin Recoveries During Panda Updates, for Manual Link Removals, and for the Disavow Tool [Case Study] appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

When launching an SEO initiative, it's incredibly important to perform a thorough inbound link analysis. Link audits can reveal a website's strongest, weakest, and riskiest links. It can also help you understand more about the domains linking to a given website, and which content attracted those links. And above all, a robust link audit can .

I remember the day I decided to sign up for Twitter. Like many other people at the time, I wondered why anyone would want to publicly broadcast their lives via 140 characters. It was early 2008, Twitter was about to skyrocket in growth, and I definitely wanted to get involved. Once I joined, it didn't [...] The post At 25,000 Tweets, My Thoughts About Twitter, Its Users, Business Impact, Advertising Obstacles, and Future appeared first on Search Engine Journal .

We all know it's coming. Actually, many of us in digital marketing are surprised it's taken so long. I'm referring to a real Facebook search engine, which has the potential to turn the search industry upside down. Mark Zuckerberg explained at Disrupt a few weeks ago that Facebook will tackle search, and that they are .

As part of my coverage of SMX East, I'm digging deeper with one of the killer sessions being offered this year in New York City. After reviewing the agenda, I decided to focus on an advertising opportunity that I believe is extremely underutilized in the industry. My post today is about AdWords for Video, which .

April of 2012 was a rough month for SEO. We had three updates all within nine days, with Panda on the 19th, Penguin 1.0 on the 24th, and then a Panda refresh on the 27th. It was like an algo sandwich, with a side of panic. Prior to that time I had already been helping .

In May of 2011, a team of 20-25 highly trained Special Forces troops landed in the middle of the night in a town outside Islamabad. They flew in undetected, and used their countless hours of training to take down the world's most ruthless terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. They were SEALs, and the world finally got .

In my opinion, SEO Technical Audits are the most powerful deliverable in SEO. That should sound familiar if you've read my column over the past few years, since I've written about the power of audits several times. The reason I think it's the most powerful deliverable is simple. Performing a thorough SEO technical audit reveals .

For companies looking to build strong SEO results, continually publishing high quality content is critically important. And, in a world where Pandas feed on low quality, thin, and duplicate content, you must strive to build ultra-valuable, world class content. For some businesses, the challenge in achieving this lies in resources, since it takes time and .

I've had the opportunity to speak with a number of startups during my career, and I have helped several with digital marketing strategy. If you've worked with startups before, you know how inherently fast-paced, exciting, and challenging they can be. The fact of the matter is that startups are facing an uphill battle that most .

In the fall of 2011, I was contacted by the Director of Marketing for a B2B company. The company's website had been hammered by Panda, and he didn't know what to do. I could tell very quickly that his team was truly baffled. The company and website have been around for a long time, the .

Three weeks ago I had the chance to present to a class of seventh graders at a local middle school here in New Jersey. The language arts class filled with 13 year olds wanted to know how they could actually use writing in a real-world job and career. You know, the classic, "how am I .

Ever since Google rolled out Penguin 1.0 on April 24th, I've been heavily analyzing websites that were hit by the update )I've now analyzed close to 75 websites hit by Penguin(. Based on my analysis, I have written several posts covering my findings. In my latest post, An Update from the Over Optimization Front Lines, .