Search Engine Optimization

Why SEO Would Matter Even If Search Engines Stopped Running

by Andrew Hanelly · February 1, 2011

“Isn’t SEO just gaming the search engines?”

If you’ve ever had to make the case for SEO, this Molotov cocktail of cynicism has likely been lobbed your way.

“But good content doesn’t need an SEO strategy.”

Right. It doesn’t. And horses don’t need saddles. But things go a heck of a lot smoother if you have one.

“SEO is just a temporary solution; the way technology changes it’ll be obsolete in a few years anyway.”

Yes, you’re probably right. And this whole Internet fad is probably on its last legs, too.

But I’m not here to make counterarguments to SEO cynics. Because the larger argument is this: Even if Google folded, Bing disappeared, and Yahoo went back to being just another name for crazy, SEO would still matter.

Why? Because the practice of SEO will make your website better, stronger, and easier to use, even if the search engines stopped crawling. Think about it:

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Using Article Marketing To Drive Search Engine Results

by Heather Rast · November 11, 2010

When I was a 10, Denise Anderson gave me my first lesson in, shall we say, choice language. I think it had something to do with the Girl Scout troop leader and that blessed song we had to belt out while marching a mile to the campsite (and back!) in the peak of June under the Florida sunshine. *shudders*

Today, I have different words for the distasteful and often irritating aspects of life online. Spam. Bots. Cloaking. Memes. Link-dropping in comments. There are many more terms, and some people might throw article marketing into the mix. But I disagree, provided you have the right objectives and are committed to producing high quality content.

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We’re All Search Marketers Now

by Stephanie Schwab · October 7, 2010

As social media grows and matures, it seems pretty clear that there are a few aspects of this integrated discipline that are becoming increasingly important, yet are undeveloped skills in most social media practitioners. One such aspect is search marketing.

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An SEO Experiment: Targeting One Keyword

by Jason Falls · April 9, 2010

The more I learn about search engine optimization, the more I want to experiment and play with search. I’ve begun to develop my own opinions and instincts about search as a business driver, some of which I’m sure all the SEO dorks would refute and criticize me for, but nonetheless, I’m better armed as a digital marketing strategist because I’ve taken myself to school on SEO.

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Exploring The Myth Of The Repeat Visitor

by Jason Falls · March 25, 2010

You’ve likely read about my recent research project with Chris Baggott, Jay Baer and Debbie Weil into the web analytics of corporate blogs. Our underlying premise is that most corporate blog traffic is not what many social media marketers assume it to be. Our survey results actually found that upwards of 80 percent of traffic on most corporate blogs comes not from your passionate community of fans, but from first-time visitors.

If you subscribe to the notion that you want to serve the needs of the majority of your audience in order to maximize the efficiency of your marketing efforts, this metric shifts the purpose and focus of corporate blogging from engagement and community building to winning search results.

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How To Write For Search Engines Without Knowing SEO

by Jason Falls · February 17, 2010

You want to write smarter web copy to attract better organic search engine results. You want to know how to write blog posts and website copy that is optimized and makes it easier for prospective customers to find you. You want to be a good at SEO copywriting. But the layers of technology knowledge you assume you need are intimidating. So where do you begin?

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Corporate Blog Success Starts And Ends With Business Metrics

by Jason Falls · February 8, 2010

The social media purists will tell you that a corporate blog serves as a community hub for your brand. They say it gives your customers a connection point to your company and engenders a sense of community. In some cases that’s true, but you’re going to see me exploring corporate blogging a lot more this year to follow up on a theory that your “community” or “audience” for your blog isn’t what you think it is. That, and the ultimate judge of a corporate blogging effort must be more closely tied to success metrics than making everyone feel good.

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What Inbound Marketing Is And Why You Should Have It

by Jason Falls · February 1, 2010

I spend zero dollars marketing my business. “Marketing” in its traditional sense includes advertising, baiting media outlets with press releases and, to paraphrase David Meerman Scott, buy, beg and borrow for leads and attention. The way people find out about my business is through two primary mechanisms: Word-of-Mouth recommendations and finding me through search engine results.

Word-of-Mouth, in this instance, is inclusive of people passing recommendations online. If an account manager at a public relations firm is looking for a social media consultant and asks his or her network online for a recommendation and my name surfaces, that’s word-of-mouth. When that recommendation comes from an electronic source, we have a tendency to say it’s not word-of-mouth. Machines don’t have mouths so we can’t quite wrap our head around the inclusion.

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