SEO/PPC

Near me. Dentist near me. Chinese food near me. Pharmacy near me. It seems like almost half of our time spent searching Google is all in the service of this sacred term: “near me.” A quick glance at Google Trends shows that this term has been on a consistent upward interest trajectory for the last six years: This simple phrase illustrates why local SEO is so important to local businesses. Here’s the deal. Exhibit A: Google’s Map Pack In 2016 Google rolled out its new map pack. If you think…

Let’s get this out of the way: If you’re not using Google Local Services, it’s time to fix that.  Yelp is practically irrelevant these days. Facebook reviews are barely hanging on. Those are still important platforms, but Google, of course, is king. Google Local Services advertising helps searchers quickly find and contact a “Google Guaranteed” local business. And if your business isn’t Google Guaranteed, are you even a business at all?  For searchers, GLS is an easy way to find qualified, already-vetted businesses. For businesses, being on GLS means more…

We like to think that there are phases to SEO. Phase 1 is an often overlooked but critical component of SEO: technical SEO. This is not on-page or off-page, but almost “in-page”, including a lot of sitemaps, source code, crawling, indexing, mobile load times, and more. The purpose of this phase is to make sure that Google can find your pages, crawl them, render them quickly, and render them as a mobile device would. Other things like site architecture and scripts can also be meaningful in this phase of technical…

Is your website attracting the right visitors? Once on your website, are folks engaging with your brand and interested in what you have to say? Where is your best traffic coming from? What’s working for your business and what is a waste of marketing dollars? How do you know? The answers are waiting for you, in Google Analytics. While business owners and marketing managers may be tempted to leave analytics to the “geeks” in the office, in reality, your website’s data is crucial to measuring — and growing — your…

Give me a chainsaw and I will very quickly put it down and back away. I’m no good with power tools; I shouldn’t be in the same room with something as potentially deadly as a chainsaw. Hand that same chainsaw to an expert, though? They’ll use it to make something like this: They’ll make art. Believe it or not, SEO tools aren’t much different, and they deserve the same respect. Sure, an automated SEO audit or website grader may not cost anyone a limb (well, depending on your boss’ temper…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at keywords. So much time that I’ve found myself dreaming in spreadsheets. It’s just one of those situations where, suddenly, all the keyword research is due for all sorts of projects. For sitemaps, for audits, for on-page optimization, the list goes on. The thing is, SEO and optimizing for keywords isn’t the same as it used to be. I’m not generating a list of phrases where the rule is “you must insert these phrases, verbatim, onto your page.”…

On Friday, February 19, Google confirmed rumors  that had begun flooding Twitter. After a long period of testing, sidebar ads were officially going away, with additional ad space pushed to the bottom of search results and a fourth ad placement standardized at the top of results. Google’s announcement spurred further speculation over time as to the potential impact (or lack thereof) on AdWords advertisers, as well as Google’s motivations behind the change. With all the breakneck feedback on #AdWords‘s elim of right rail ads, surprising how few have pondered whether it’s…

Last month, an article on Skift.com included the comments of several moguls in the online travel booking industry. Within it, the CEO of Priceline.com joined a long line of prognosticators [here, I googled that for you, readers – Lisa] to proclaim the “death of SEO.” While Dennis Schaal is certainly not the first (see: here, here, and here, just to name a few), nor will he be the last, to make this assessment of the future of search engine optimization, there’s a lot more at play in SEO than just…

I’m not a surgeon. I don’t cut people for a living. However, even having never done it, I imagine being a surgeon is pretty difficult. I probably couldn’t read a few blog posts on the topic, or even binge watch a season of House, and then burst into the operating room ready to save your life. If I tried, you would die on the table (sorry). Lots of people would be sad. I’m not a contractor. Regardless of how many Saturdays I spend locked into HGTV, I can’t fix your…

The rankings, they are a’changin’! As you’ve no doubt heard, Google has announced plans to change its algorithm to award higher search rankings to mobile-optimized websites. This will essentially downrank those who continue to act as if having a mobile-optimized site is a luxury, not a necessity. The update will go into effect on April 21, 2015. Obviously, the news got the industry talking. Digital marketers began blogging (and blogging and blogging) about it, while web development firms started shooting out emails telling their clients to start making their websites mobile-friendly…