Every time I hear the phrase "content is king," I cringe. That phrase is probably the second most over-used cliche in the SEO industry"right behind "SEO is dead." Yet, they both have something in common: They're not right, but not completely wrong, either. SEO has certainly evolved over the last decade and that likely will .

Everybody thinks their SEO is the best. Guess what? It's not. Not yours, not mine, not anybody's. I didn't say your SEO strategies aren't good, but there is always room for improvement. In light of that, here are some things you don't want someone to say about the SEO on your website. Bad SEO Thoughts' .

Are you afraid that you're missing out on an important event? Concerned that you won't know what's being discussed around the water cooler tomorrow? Worried that something is happening in the world right now that you don't know anything about and that you're missing out on some very lucrative keyword opportunities? Worry no more! Here .

Tweet There is a lot more to optimizing a page of content than just having an SEO research and throw in a bunch of keywords. The SEO "review" of content should be just one of the many steps in producing good, relevant, keyword-focused, and user-friendly content for your website. Personally, I like to make sure .

Not too long ago, I was wrapping up several hours of consulting when something amazing jumped out of my mouth. I almost immediately cringed when I said it because it's one of those things that backs you into a corner. It's kind of like a prophet wondering if his prophesies will come true or not. .

In a recent post, I provided a list of 10 Easy-Peasy Conversion Optimization Tips That Make Visitors Happy. That post barely scratches the surface of conversion optimization tips that you can implement to build a more user-friendly site that out-converts your competitors, but those tips are all fairly easy to implement, and it gives you .

If all our clients considered conversions to be as important as top search engine rankings, I think I would pass out. Or pass the beers! Unfortunately, conversion optimization takes a back seat to the age-old question, "Where are my rankings?" What businesses should be asking is, "Where are my conversions?" To paraphrase James 2:20, "But .

A while back I wrote about the need to have a search engine friendly website before worrying so much about having a search engine optimized site. I want to expand on that point here and to look at what exactly constitutes a search engine friendly Web page. Strong URL Many argue about the value of .

Successful SEO is all about leveraging the right amount of motivation. There are a lot of technical aspects of SEO. But really, take all the techno-mumbo-jumbo away and what you're left with is concepts of how to motivate search engines to pay attention to your site and apply the right amount of "value" to it .

In my last post I discussed using personas to create content that targets your potential customer. In that post I defined the differences between personalities and personas: Persona = motivation )what the visitor needs, why they are on your site( Personality = temperament )how they navigate, what they need to see or read to find .

Writing content for a website is easy. Writing good, search-engine-friendly content for a website is hard. Writing great search and user-friendly content for your website is, well, pretty dang difficult. There is a lot that has to be considered when trying to engage your audience because you're not writing for an audience of one, but .

Both Google and Bing told an audience at South by South West )SXSW( that they are actively working on an over-optimization penalty in order to make their ranking algorithms better. Obviously, this raised some eyebrows with many people who wondered if this might translate into penalties for their websites that are being "optimized" by SEOs. .

A few weeks ago I was thinking about how companies seem to haphazardly invest in various aspects of online marketing. Some throw their entire budget at SEO, leaving no room for PPC. Other businesses put so much money in PPC that they leave little room for genuine SEO growth. While Herman Cain's bold 9-9-9 tax .

Keyword research is important to online marketing efforts. But even more important than that is the keywords you select for your SEO and PPC efforts. Of course, you cannot select what you have not researched, but finding keywords generally isn't the problem. There are tons of keyword tools available that will help you do that. .

Engaging in online marketing is all about customer acquisition, ROI and profits. If you see growth in these three areas, you can be reasonably confident that your online marketing efforts are paying off in some form or another. But things might not always be as they appear. While it's never a bad thing to grow .

Over the past 15 years starting a new business has become easier than ever before. The daily dread of horrible bosses, annoying red tape and ringing alarm clocks that force you out of bed before God gets up is forever behind you as you make that long-awaited jump to start your own online business. Your .

I've worked with a number of website designers and developers over the years, many of them good people with a plethora of skills I couldn't even dream of having. But one thing gets under my skin: when developers claim to know SEO when they clearly don't. Many developers do have a solid grasp and understanding .