by Stoney deGeyter Getting the most value from your SEO investment isn't always easy. There are a lot of factors that go into every SEO campaign and it's not always easy to cut something out without negatively affecting something else, or worse, the entire campaign. I addressed some of these issues in my last post linked above, and here I wanted to provide some additional insights on ensuring your SEO investment is a valuable one. Comparing In-House vs.

by Dave Cosper For most business categories, Google uses customer reviews as a critical metric, among other things, to influence how listings rank in Maps - essentially determining how locally "prominent" the business is. There is also rising importance of Google's own Places reviews as a ranking factor. Coincidentally, as review citations from third party sites have recently become less visibly significant.

by Stoney deGeyter What makes a good SEO? Is it just about having knowledge of search engine algorithms, being able to tweak code for the biggest ranking impact, or inserting keywords into a page to give it a better keyword focus? Is SEO all about search engine rankings or is there more to this than meets the eye? Several years ago I wrote, "Gone are they days when SEO focused exclusively on top search engine rankings." I wish I was right about that, but unfortunately,

by Mike Moran Recently, I wrote a post that recommended, " Don't be afraid of fake reviews ," to help business owners know how to respond to an angry post in social media. To make a long post short, my advice was to always treat angry reviews as legitimate )not assuming it is faked by a competitor, for example(, because responding that way is best whether the review is fake or not. That advice was questioned by one correspondent, who asked,

by Stoney deGeyter Keyword research is an important part of the optimization process. There are thousands of ways, tools and resources to do keyword research. Every SEO has their own methodology, favorite data and ways to organize and sort through that data in order to create solid keyword lists for their SEO campaigns. But there is more to keyword research than just the research.

by Mike Moran In the quaint old offline world, things move slowly. If you have a good name for your business or your product, you know exactly what to do. You do a trademark search to make sure that no one else is using the name )at least within your industry(, you add a the trademark symbolâ„¢ to your name, and if you really want to go the extra mile, you register your trademark so you can use the registered trademark symbol®. It was so simple back then, wasn't it?

by Miriam Ellis Almost exactly three years ago, I published a post here on Search Engine Guide entitled User Reviews As Local Activism . In that piece, I encouraged citizens to make the extra effort to leave good reviews of their favorite locally-owned businesses as a positive form of supporting them in an economy that is often heavily slanted towards corporations and big box stores. Three years ago, reviews were just starting to take on the power that they have today,

by Stoney deGeyter Sometimes getting conversions is like trying to capture mist in a jar or water with your fingers. No matter how hard you try, you just can't seem to get a secure hold on them. There are countless test you can do with your website to help increase your conversion rates. A/B and multivariate tests can help you increase your conversion rate a couple of points, which can often translate into thousands of dollars of increased profits.

by Mike Moran Last week, I talked about how you really do know what to say in social media . I got lots of nice feedback on that post, but I know that some of you are still skeptical. I know that some of you still believe that old PR maxim to never dignify a scurrilous story with a response. Or that some criticisms are "one-day stories," and answering them just "gives them legs.

by Stoney deGeyter He doesn't know a thing about conversions or usability. He thinks his way is the only way to do SEO. Recommendations for your meta keyword tags are considered "critical." When all your competitors are buying links but your SEO recommends "playing fair." )via chrisfaron ( You can't get them to return your calls or emails, but they are burning up twitter with status updates. When your 404 error log is bigger than your referral log.

by Mike Moran If you're like me, you spend a lot of time looking at how Amazon does business. And for good reason. Amazon seemingly sells everything under the sun and they have been the standard for e-Commerce innovation since-well, since e-Commerce has existed. To me, their genius is in getting you to pay more than you would elsewhere, just because you like it so much. The experience is so easy, so trustworthy, so low-risk,

by Stoney deGeyter A recent discussion on Sphinn got me thinking about the value of keyword rankings in the overall scheme of measuring SEO performance. Do rankings matter? If so, should ranking reports be a part of the success metrics SEO's provide their clients? There are a lot of ways to measure the success of an SEO campaign and rankings can be a relevant factor, but that should not be the only factor. Heck,

by Miriam Ellis It's not a Harlequin romance novel nor even a better class of historical fiction. Google really is running away from the castle with their new Places contact form! When I read the announcement yesterday that Google had added a new 'Fix A Problem' section to their Places Help Center , and that the section actually drills down to a contact form ,

by Mike Moran I talk to folks about social media all the time. One of the things that I notice right away is the fear. Most people are worried that they don't know what to do in social media. They are afraid that they will make a mistake. That they will say the wrong thing. Or, they fear that they don't know what to say at all-even that they have nothing to say. All these fears are real and you might be experiencing some of them yourself, but you don't need to.

by Stoney deGeyter Social media has changed the way we work, think and communicate. It must also, therefore, change the way we write. Throughout history, communication has evolved. Common vocabulary has gone from "thou" to "you" to "u", and in some cases, to "fu!" Once common words change spelling, meaning and even become obsolete. )Anyone remember wearing "slacks"?( New is the new old. Soundbites have become essential to anyone wanting to make a point.

by Mike Moran As someone who has worked on ranking algorithms, I know how difficult they are to develop. No, check that. They are easy to develop. They are hard to develop only if you want them to actually work. All this was brought to mind recently when Advertising Age )"AdAge" to the in crowd(. changed the ranking algorithm for its Power 150 , the well-known rating mechanism for all marketing blogs, including this one.

by Stoney deGeyter SEO is like a car. You can't just ask "how much does SEO cost?" SEO is like food. Quick, cheap SEO and has little long-term value, while healthy SEO costs more but has a better long-term effect. SEO is like a chair. It's something you don't want to collapse underneath you. )via @mflem25 ( SEO is like ice cream. There are a lot of different flavors of SEO strategies that bring satisfaction, and you usually want to try more than one. SEO is like music.

by Mike Moran If you are in this business long enough, someone will come up and ask the question. To some of them, it is the most important question in their lives: "How do I break into SEO?" I honestly get this question several times a month. And each person that asks me is ready for my answer. Some seem ready to take notes. They expect that I am going to rattle off some kind of canned answer that will unlock the secret to their future career. But I don't,

by Mike Fleming Your site search data, the phrases your website users type into your internal site search engine, is data that is swimming with insights into helping to make satisfied customers with your web site. If you are someone that is responsible for the performance of a site, this is most likely information that you've never looked at and may have not even known existed. But,

by Mike Moran By now you've heard the news that Google has purchased Zagat Reviews. For those of you who aren't familiar with Zagat, it has a worldwide set of reviews that travelers have relied on for decades to choose the right restaurant. Google famously flamed out in its bid to buy Yelp in 2009, and has finally added the restaurant reviews it has craved. Not everyone thinks that Zagat was a worthy relacement for Yelp. One wag was quoted in TechCrunch as saying,