The next DFW SEM meeting will be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson, Texas. The program features a presentation on local search optimization. Visit the DFWSEM site for more details.
Archive for the ‘seo’ Category
Optimizing for Local Search - featured at April 22, 2009 DFW SEM meeting
Monday, April 13th, 2009Interview with Smart Business Online, talking search engine marketing and SEO
Thursday, December 18th, 2008I was recently interviewed for a sidebar article in Smart Business magazine, a unique publication that customizes articles for 20-plus major markets, and is targeted at business executives. The interview in the link below was run as part of a bigger feature in the print edition. My uderstanding was that this was released across multiple markets, but I have inculded a link for the Dallas version below.
http://www.sbnonline.com/Local/Article/15671/71/0/3_Questions.aspx
Google SEO starter guide
Thursday, November 13th, 2008Google has just released a 22 page PDF document outlining recommendations for basic web site optimization principles. The guide covers a number of basic elements, such as titles, meta descriptions (yes, meta tags are not dead), no follow link attributes, and more.
Download the PDF here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
and read the full release info on the Google blog here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html
Google has pushed back on this type of information for years, and overall, I think it validates value of what a good SEO can do for a web site, and it validates the practice overall. Good SEO not only helps webmasters be found, it helps the search engines identify relevant content.
SEA, SEM, and SEM: Who invented these terms?
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008My latest Search Insider column takes a look at the origins of a few key terms in the digitalmarketing lexicon: SEM, SEA, and SEO. It was spurred by Bob Heyman’s article in Search Engine Land last week.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“A story last week on Search Engine Land (“Who Coined The Term SEO?”, by Bob Heyman) got me to thinking about the somewhat nebulous origins of the term “search engine optimization”, or “SEO”, as well other common search terms such as “SEM” and “SEA”. There are a number of claimants and facts around the term “SEO”, so I revisited a few of them, and found a few additional interesting facts along the way.
Before I go into the SEO claims, the origins of the terms “SEM” and “SEA” are pretty clear. In 2001 Danny Sullivan achieved a consensus with the readership of Search Engine Watch on the term “search engine marketing”, noting that the organic-centric SEO no longer covered the full range of tactics in the search space, given the rise of pay-per-click. “The phrase “search engine marketing”, or “SEM”, very logically covered a wide range of tactics related to search engine visibility, and somewhat relegated SEO as a subtheme within the overall practice of search marketing (see “Congratulations, You’re A Search Engine Marketer”).”
Read the rest here:
http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/search_insider/?p=891
Flash optimization, URL rewriting, and duplicate content are still important to SEO
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008My last column for Search Insider was posted on Sept. 24, and titled, “Despite What Google Says, Flash, Dupe Content And URLs Are Still Major SEO Issues.” In it I detailed a pattern of what I beleive is is flawed SEOadvice, or at least advice that is creating some uniintentional confusion with marketers and IT professionals. The Google Webmaster Central blog has been publishing some info that is simply not correct, and of course, every time this happens, the whole SEM industry has to go back and reassure their clients that they are not violating any rules that could get them penalized. The jury is still is out whether this is some kind of Sun-Tzu-confuse-thy-enemy-type-mojo coming from the Googleplex, but one thing is for sure: The more confusing the search landscape becomes with this kind of info, the more important a search marketer’s role becomes.
