The purpose of doing SEO site audits is to analyze a site for a number of compliance and technical issues that can positively and negatively influence search performance. There are a bunch of factors that go into a good, thorough audit, and we’ll cover them all in this series. Today’s kick-off post will focus on site infrastructure. In SEO terms, this refers to a website’s “back end,” which includes site platform, database design, server-side redirects, robots.txt, and other structural elements. Infrastructure is generally a function of the Information … Continue reading →

Today’s post is by Virginia Nussey, social media editor at Bruce Clay, Inc. My apologies for adding this phrase to the Web one more time, but give me a chance to defend once I say: content is king. No. Make that “content has no king.” Content spans the spectrum. Content is the substance of marketing, advertising, and media. Content bows to no form. Content is in all things Internet marketing. And yet, what is clay without form? Sand is just dust unless it’s held in a container. And website … Continue reading →

Today’s post is by Michelle Lowery, Exec. Editor of ChamberofCommerce.com. When was the last time you considered the content on your site before you fired up a new PPC campaign? Or did it even occur to you that maybe you should? A lot of people see PPC as a quick and easy win in the marketing sphere, and sometimes it is. Hit upon the right term at the right time, and you can watch your ad easily outdistance the top search engine results. But…what if there were more? More … Continue reading →

Today’s post is by Michael Cottam, SEO consultant and founder of the travel planning website Visual Itineraries. Ah, keyword research: few people’s favorite part of the job but one of the most critical. And if you’re doing it, you might as well be doing it right, so learn not to make the following 13 (common) keyword research mistakes: #1: Caring more about position than SERP decorations So much has been made of the click-through rates for positions 1 through 10 in the results. Various studies have put the boost in click-through … Continue reading →

How is it that companies cannot seem to get it together when it comes to SEO and SEM? I am pretty close to the subject, and it’s striking that with all of the talk about integrated marketing, more companies do not create synergies between paid and organic search. At one of my most recent employers, I literally sat across the aisle from the paid search team, and we rarely worked to integrate our efforts. It was only after some prodding with one of the SEM managers that we … Continue reading →