In a recent statement Larry Page said if you don’t get SPYW then maybe you shouldn’t work at Google. To understand why he thinks this is such a good idea–and why the rest of the world thinks it isn’t–we need to revisit the concept of filter bubbles and why they are such a bad idea.

Last year Eli Pariser released the book the Filter Bubble (see my review of the the Filter Bubble)…

When you run a corporate blog sometimes it’s difficult to come up with interesting topics on a regular basis. In the past I’ve spoken about a few options like creating a series, how to posts and evergreen content. In this article I’d like to tackle another option, blogging to your existing customers, and turning them into return/repeat customers.

If you are selling products or services, chances are you good you probably have 10 – 20 questions your customers ask about how to use products, correctly, better or more effectively…

Whenever you are involved in an ORM (Online Reputation Management) campaign, your goal is to displace negative results in the search engines with positive results. In a previous post we looked at creating microsites. In this post, we are going to look at leveraging social media profiles.

As with every search result in Google, the top results are generally made up of the most trusted and authoritative results, so it makes the most sense for us to talk about the most trusted authoritative social media sites at the moment: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google plus…

Generally speaking, Using Microsites is a bad idea. However, Using Microsites is a good idea is when you are conducting an ORM campaign (Online Reputation Management) and are looking to displace some negative or unfavorable results. In this post, I’ll cover the basic theory, give some tips on how to use them, and show you an example.

Unless there is a legal precedent or court ruling, it’s nearly impossible to get a page removed from Google…

When you are looking to build links and drive traffic, one of the time tested methods that continues to work is creating “how to” style posts. In this article, we’ll look at some examples and discuss how to get the most out of the tactic, how to take advantage of seasonal search/traffic volume, and some potential trouble spots to watch out for.

From the earliest days of the internet, people have turned to search engines to find information and to solve problems…

At the dawn of the internet websites were created without much thought as to what changes, if any, would need be made in the future. To keep your website relevant, gaining new links, keeping users satisfied and getting traffic from search engines, you need to have a maintenance plan. As with any maintenance plan small improvements performed regularly are better than large radical changes made infrequently…

Whenever Ajax enter the conversation for an SEO or internet marketer, chances are good there will always be a deep sigh or an “ugh” face. While it is true that search engines are getting better at indexing this type of content, we still aren’t at the point that you can realistically rely on them to index it properly or even at all. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it, it just means you need to take some extra steps to make sure that type of content is visible to crawlers and non Ajax users…

Microsites are often abused and looked down on as a tactic in the SEO world. They get used for the wrong situations, the wrong reasons, and to solve the wrong types of problems. In this post, I’ll talk about some of the bad ways Microsites get used and some of the ways you could use them to your advantage.

Link Pyramid

Creating an artificial link pyramid with the specific goal of creating fake link equity for your main website is never a good idea in the long term…

When I talk with people who aren’t involved with internet marketing about Google, I’m surprised by the amount of trust they put in Google and how they feel Google is making the world a better place … for truly altruistic reasons. It’s not until I point out how Google will gladly provide all the services “for free” because the data they get in exchange is worth more–a lot more–than it costs them to provide the services which are slowly eroding your privacy, both online and offline that their understanding of Google begins to change…

If you’ve spent any time on the internet chances are you’ve seen silly, funny, or just plain insane custom 404 error pages. However this article isn’t about creating one of those types of custom 404 pages, this is about creating a better 404 page that is not only helpful to your users, but solves technical problems you might not even know you had.

Make Your 404 Page Informative

Technically a 404 is an “invisible” code that is sent by your webserver to the computer or search engine that requests your page, and it tells them the page they were looking for isn’t there…

Who are you writing your blog posts for … people or search engines? Depending on your intended audience your posts can and should be radically different in tone and style. This concept is related to my my post on how to choose keywords for your blog posts. When you write a post or article on your blog you have to decide am I writing this for “today” and my short term day-to-day audience, or am I writing this as a long term evergreen content? While you are ultimately writing for people in both cases, how your intended audience will find your post matters…

Is having a high exit rate bad? In pursuit determining whether Google is using analytics data to ranks SERPS, many marketers put undue focus and weight on factors like bounce rate and exit rate instead of taking a more holistic look at the statistics in relation to one another and what they really mean.

determine if the high exit rate is because it’s part of the flow or natural process, like end of content series or checkout process… Is having a high exit rate bad? It depends…

While linkbait posts aren’t as popular as they once were, top 10 lists have been popular ever since Moses came down from the mount with his top 10 list of “thou shalt nots.” Magazines like Rolling Stone will always have top 500 playlists and AFI will always have top 100 movies lists. However, as a responsible publisher, marketer, and SEO with an eye for evergreen content, there are more responsible and better long-term URL options you can make for “top 10″ and list style posts than using a number in the URL…

How to mask affiliate links is one of the most common questions new affiliates often ask. In this post, we will take a look at the hows and whys of why you should mask affiliate links and how to do it effectively, with an eye towards maintaining long term low maintenance.

Should I Mask My Affiliate Links

This is one of the first questions people who start adding affiliate links have to deal with…

In the last few weeks, Google has announced its support of Google Author Profiles. While the rollout and acceptance has been limited, for those of us who have been around the block a few times, it’s easy to see that this will become the next big spam tactic like link exchanges, article directories, guest posts, and page rank sculpting.

To be perfectly clear, at the moment this article was written, there is no evidence of any kind that having an author account in any way helps your website…

Is having a high bounce rate bad? It depends. In this post, we will be looking at bounce rate in association with other factors to help you spot a bad high bounce rate from a high bounce rate you don’t need to be worried about.

One of the positive impacts of Google’s Panda Update has been that more people are taking a look at the overall quality of content in their website and removing low quality, low engagement, low value pages…

While many webmasters and publishers use Google analytics without a second thought, smart publishers, marketers, and SEOs are left to speculate… Is Google using this data? What might they use it for? And am I doing myself more harm than good using it?

if you aren’t paying for a product or service, you are the product being sold… Truth be told, unless Google ever does a full disclosure about analytics data (which to date hasn’t happened), we are left to conjecture and guess…

Ever since the early days of SEO, the ideal title length has been the subject of much debate. Back then, it was important to use keywords that search engines would use to rank your pages near the top of the SERPS. Then you made the title as click enticing as possible so, when it appeared in the SERPS, people would be more likely to click it before they clicked the other listings. Lastly you had to strive to be concise enough that search engines wouldn’t truncate your titles…

How to choose keywords for your blog? If you’ve ever seen me at a conference, giving a presentation, or ranting on any of the social media  hangouts, chances are good that you’ve heard me pick on bloggers for not choosing their keywords properly when writing their posts. In this article, I’ll explain what I see as the real problem, why it persists, and what you can do to fix it…

Having a verified author profile picture appear next to your articles that show up in search results is a new feature Google recently added. In this post, I’m going to show you how to add the functionality to your thesis theme in WordPress.

If you’ve never seen a verified author profile in Google results, here’s an example.

A verified Google Author Profile in SERPs

Adding a link to your Google Plus page

Step one…

If you work on any aspect of SEO, Internet marketing, PPC, or social media, chances are good that you’ve come across a lot of tutorials or how to articles. Some of them are really good, and you want to use them in the future. But unless you have an organized, disciplined way of keeping track of the information and making it actionable, it’s just going to collect dust in your bookmarks…

If you are an run an online ecommerce program, it’s very likely that you have come up against the coupon code dilemma. You offer a deal that allows customers to use a coupon code for a free item, free shipping, or to get a discount. However, what do you do when the promotion ends? If you leave the box open, studies have shown that customers will pause in the transaction and go search for a code, sometimes leading to cart abandonment and lost sales…

When I talk with small business owners or look at their websites, one of the frequently-asked questions (or subject that I notice requires attention) is how often should you update your website, and how many websites are filled with outdated information.

To be clear, when I talk about updating a website I’m talking about the text, information, or pictures. I’m not talking about layout or design…

The following is part of a series on automation. In this post we will be looking at using two tools, Hootsuite and Bufferapp to complement each other. If you haven’t read my Hootsuite review and Bufferapp review already, it’s probably a good idea to read them first because I will be building on those two posts. It’s also probably a good idea if you read how to use the Hootsuite bulk scheduling tool as well…

With the launch of Google+, the inevitable tech fan boys preaching the downfall of Facebook–because a new shiny cat toy caught their attention–was laughably predictable. As SEO’s, internet marketers, and social media consultants, we have to be involved in these games, or we risk losing our competitive edge. However, what we really need to understand is that this is a war for consumer data and attention…

For today’s post, I present Chris Boggs, the current  president of SEMPO. 

When we spoke about SEMPO recently, I mentioned that one of the things that put me off about the organization was the membership fee. When I initially discovered SEMPO years ago, the corporate membership was the one suggested to me and, to be honest, as person just starting, out $5,000 seemed like a lot of money to join…

The following is part of a series on automation. In this post, we will look at using the tweet old posts plugin. To be honest, this is an extremely effective tool for automating your Twitter stream; that said, it is also one of the most controversial.

Most people are content to simply turn this plugin on and let it run. They’re making a mistake. IMHO you need to either curate your blog to create a group of your best posts to retweet or you need to exclude the posts that aren’t evergreen from your archive tweets…

Being a good content curator or curating good content is one of the latest social media buzz terms to emerge this year. While I loathe actually using the term, the concept is good, and I think it’s something everyone can use to add value to their blogging, social media, or outbound marketing strategy.

What is a content curator? At its core, it’s sifting through the mounds of information, separating the good stuff from the bad stuff, and giving it some context…

The following is part of a series on Hootsuite Social Media tool. In this post I’m going to show you how to set up a series of lists and custom tabs on Hootsuite to engage your followers and become part of you community–without needing to spend all day on Twitter.

This account was a local account. I was primarily following and looking to engage local followers in a particular city…

In the dawn of social media, pundits repeated the mantra that social media is about conversations. While conversations are part of the mix, I think it’s a small part, and, while it’s necessary, should be minimized with an eye for ROI

Numerous studies have shown the number one reasons fans connect with brands is discounts, coupons, promos sales. In some cases, these are existing loyal customers looking to save a few bucks…