One thing that you'll hear over and over again in the SEO industry is "make sure that you embed SEO in your business". I know I've said it a lot at conferences and in client meetings but what does it actually mean? Well this post is chock full of tips to help you actually embed SEO in your business. Since I've not long come back from the Seattle SEOmoz Pro Training Seminar (which was tot...
Coming up with the right SEO answer is just one part of improving your website's performance online. The strategy you devise then needs implementation and, more often than not, project management. The purpose of this post is to share what I (and a few others) have learned about managing SEO strategies over the years. There isn't much hardcore SEO though- I suggest you take a look at this if you want some of that!
Straight from the Seattle Lunch 2.0 meetup at SEOmoz on August 14th comes this light-hearted look at raising venture capital. SEOmoz CEO, Rand Fishkin, shares his experiences with raising capital with an amusing (but strangely appropriate) comparison to the dating scene. SEOmoz emerged from our first round of VC funding with a profi...
Not but a few short days ago I had the distinct pleasure of being included on a list of 51 of the world's top Search Marketers. Alas, for this great honor I did not receive an award statue or a shiny plaque, not even an ornate certificate. What I received was an email. A horribly executed email that would result in one of the most amusing email threads I've ever read, from some of the ...
My good friend, Aaron Kahlow, posed an interesting question during the Online Marketing Summit yesterday afternoon in Portland, OR. Aaron asked:
I've gotten a lot of email recently from folks asking what they can do to get involved in the world of search marketing and SEO. Tonight, Mystery Guest and I attended the Seattle Job Social event and had a really interesting experience talking to people about SEOmoz, the positions we're hiring for (SysAdmins of the Northwest, please email us!) and ...
The aim of this post is to describe a few of the ways SEO agencies (or, indeed, in-house SEO's looking for more budget from the boss) can use SEOmoz to pitch and close SEO projects. We use SEOmoz at several different stages in our sales process. Pre Sales A customer rings up and says 'I want to rank first page for bicycle shop'. While t...
I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony because I just don’t even know where to start with this one. Let’s just go for broke and see what happens: 1. You Can’t Manage People – Even if you think you can “out-SEO” Rand, Aaron Wall, and Wikipedia to boot while riding a scooter down a hill with one brain tied behind your back as you make fun of Matt Cutts’ momma to his face, then guess what? You still need some skill managing people if you ever want to scale your income up dramatically.
Dear 2007 Rand Fishkin, Hi there - it's me - your 2009 self. I know it's highly unlikely you'll ever get this email, but who knows? The flow of time could chaotically spasm and somehow drop a printed copy of this on your lap - stranger things have happened. And, in that unlikely event, here's a few quick things you should know:...
Dear Startup CEOs, CPOs (Chief Product Officers) & Founders, I know your time is valuable, so I'll be brief. If you currently have or are in the process of developing a business/marketing plan that includes the phrase "traffic from search engine," do yourself a favor and peruse the following diagram: ...
It’s been a while since I put together a Small Business SEO post. I thought it’s high time I tackled another key issue facing small businesses – deciding whether their SEO activity is progressing or not. SEO, and indeed SEM, is a unique marketing channel. It is quantifiable, responsive and flexible to an extent which I would argue other channels aren’t. However, that is my personal opinion. And the way in which I rate SEM successes is different, not unique certainly, but definitely different.
Seth Godin is someone I greatly admire, so it was a bit troubling to see him take on the broad subject of How to Make Money with SEO in such a surface-level fashion. However, after a few emails, I feel pretty good that his intentions were solid, and that he's just presenting a viewpoint that many others have on the subject in an easy-to-parse fashion. While that's not necessarily bad, I'm notoriously against surface-level analysis of our beloved profession, so I figured I'd try to expand on Seth's assessment and give the subject a bit more thorough (though hopefully not less usable) treatment.
One of my strategic objectives this year is to get Distilled access to decision-makers closer to the boards of some of our large clients. It should be clear to all of us in search that the companies winning the search game are those prepared to think about it most strategically. I believe that in 30 years' time, the people running large companies will those who understand the unchecked flow of information - the marketers - and more specifically that technically-inclined breed of marketers currently only found in search.
This year my trainer decided to branch off on her own and start a Seattle triathlon training company called TN Multisports. I set up her website and decided to try out Get Listed.org, David Mihm and Patrick Sexton's new site that helps local...