by Stoney deGeyter The single biggest resistance I get when talking to clients about engaging in social media is the amount of time social media requires. Most companies that are not using social media find it overwhelming and difficult to understand. And, they lack the time or resources required to make social media successful for them. I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.

by Stoney deGeyter If you ask people if they want to be successful, almost unanimously, they will say yes. But if you watch what people do, you'll see that they are neither interested in, nor committed to, doing the things that are required to become successful. Most people look for ways to "succeed" by investing the least amount of effort possible. That's why the lottery makes so much money for the government. One dollar can make you extremely rich. If you're extremely lucky.

by Stoney deGeyter In an effort to provide clarity between SEOs and their clients, I created a bill of rights for SEO clients . This post covers the bill of rights for the SEOs. The SEO has a right to... I. Receive payment from the client for entire amount contracted. A contract is a contract. If you change your business model, rethink SEO or decide to invest in other marketing avenues, you still have an obligation to fulfill your end of the SEO agreement.

by Mike Fleming When people come to your site, it can be really hard to know why they are there. The truth is the average conversion rate on e-commerce sites is only around 2-3%...and that's on sites that are specifically built to sell stuff. So, what happens to the other 97%? Why were they there? Did they find what they were looking for? If not, why not? Is the content they are looking for even on your site? If so, are they able to find it easily?

by Stoney deGeyter Several years ago I wrote a couple of posts about the billable rights of SEOs and their clients. I revisited these posts recently and thought it was time for an upgrade. Consider this version 2.0! There can often be confusion between clients and their marketing team as to expectations, due dates, goal measures and even invoicing. While many of these things can be, should be and are handled in the service contract, not everyone reads the fine print.

by Stoney deGeyter I often write about the various jobs, skills and talents that go into optimizing a website for search engines. As the owner of a firm that specializes in website marketing strategy and leader of an awesome team of talented people , I'm quite biased as to the need and value of having such a team working on all the aspects of marketing your website. Yet, optimizing a site isn't terribly difficult. Anybody can be taught the basics,

by Miriam Ellis Of all the nasty, contemptible things to do! It's not bad enough that there are reprehensible individuals out there spamming their local competitors' profiles with phony negative reviews, but things have just reached a new level of low with the idea of reporting your competitors' businesses as closed.

by Stoney deGeyter When you deal with big projects, it is often easy to overlook small things along the way. It's not that anyone is cutting corners, but rather some small detail gets overlooked. Sometimes even the smallest details can matter a great deal! Web developers and SEOs often focus on the bigger picture but forget to do what we learned in Algebra: check your work. If you're a developer,

by Stoney deGeyter When it comes to Web marketing strategies, sometimes it's difficult to know where to start. A question we hear often is: Should I start marketing my website with search engine optimization )SEO( or pay-per-click )PPC(? The response from our three in-house experts was unanimous! You need both. Here's why... Stoney ) @StoneyD (: While both SEO and PPC results are displayed on the same search results page,

by Stoney deGeyter I've always been an SEO guy. I like getting into websites, optimizing for keywords, fixing problems and then watching the rankings climb. Because SEO is relatively so inexpensive compared to other marketing efforts , I am often surprised by the amount of dollars companies are willing to invest into PPC )pay-per-click( advertising, while at the same time balking about a similar investment in SEO. In my experience,

by Stoney deGeyter Sometimes we get to doing something for so long and are so involved in telling people how to do something, that we forget that there are still people who need to be convinced they actually need to do it. In the last few years social media has jumped to the forefront of online marketing for many small businesses. Some business owners aren't even bothering to market )or in some cases even build( their websites anymore. They can just create a Facebook page.

by Stoney deGeyter A lot of people have trouble figuring out the "correct" way to optimize content for keywords. Copywriters are resistant to having to use particular words to get their point across and, rightfully, don't want their content cluttered with dumb sounding "keyword" phrases. It's unfortunate that "optimized content" has somehow come to mean something other than "marketing content" for a website.

by Stoney deGeyter Question: Is SEO a long-term process or can there be a quick fix solution? Before all you SEOs raise your hand with the answer, lets take a minute to analyze the basis of the question for all the small business owners out there. A lot of businesses are looking for ways to grow their companies without increasing long-term costs. They want profits, and in order to be )and remain( profitable, they have to keep expenses down to a minimum as much as possible.

by Stoney deGeyter Cost is not important. Let me repeat that: Cost is not important . What is important is ROI )Return on Investment(. When spending any money on a marketing campaign, you should consider the following: How much money you can you afford to spend? How soon will you see the return from that money? How much will that return be? If you can spend the money )1(,

by Mike Moran Every day, I run into people affected by the Panda update. "Affected" always means negatively affected, because when your rankings go up, it means that Google is finally recognizing the quality of your site. When your rankings go down, blame it on Panda . Now, none of this is to say that Google's Panda algorithm update, and its ongoing tweaking that has followed, is not a big deal. In fact,

by Stoney deGeyter SEO is like a complex machine. When all the gears are greased and everything is in place, all is well with the world )and your search engine rankings(. But sometimes all it takes is one little snafu to bring your entire SEO campaign crashing down around you. There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning to find that Google has forgotten who you are and kicked you to the curb like a drunken date the morning after. Since 13 is your lucky number,

by Miriam Ellis I just finished reading, for the second time, a remarkable book by New Yorker writer, Ian Frazier entitled On The Rez . This book was published awhile back, and has nothing whatever to do with SEO or SEM. It's an unsentimental and insightful account of the author's time spent on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. The tale is memorable for many reasons,

by Stoney deGeyter Moving your PR online opens up a whole world of new adventures. Not only do all the old rules apply, but many new rules are created to ensure that your content can effectively reach your audience. So far in this series, everything we have discussed has to do with the set-up and creation of your online PR. All of the online elements need to be taken care of before you can push your story out online.

by Mike Moran When I was a kid, sometimes my father called me a dirty little schema. )He's from Brooklyn.( OK, OK, he didn't spell it that way. It wasn't long ago when "schema" was a word only used by database geeks. Microformats and rich snippets are even more obscure terms, but they are becoming increasingly important. If you don't know what they are, remain ignorant at your own peril,

by Stoney deGeyter Crafting the Story, Part 2 In the last post, we started crafting our story by looking at some basic writing and optimization necessities. As we finish up this section, we'll look more at the content itself and how you can improve it for a better searcher and reader experience. Keyword Integration I talked a bit about integrating keywords into your content in the last post,