Search Engine Marketing

Looking to increase your traffic? V7N has a solution for you!

Written by Neil Patel on October 14, 2008 | 41 comments

As we all know, the more links you have coming into your website the more traffic you are going to get. The problem with this is that it can take hours to solicit and obtain links. Luckily V7N has solutions to solve your problem:

50 Kick Ass Keyword Strategies

Written by Neil Patel on September 3, 2008 | 174 comments

Aaron Wall and Wordtracker teamed up to release an e-book to help you learn which keywords you should pick for your online marketing strategy and how you can leverage those keywords.

Online SEO Tools - The Ultimate Collection

Written by Neil Patel on July 21, 2008 | 65 comments

Ann Smarty from Search Engine Journal, recently wrote a great article reviewing all of the SEO tools out there. If you are an SEO or want to be one, I highly recommend checking it out.

Alltop Top's Search Engines

Written by Neil Patel on June 16, 2008 | 55 comments

High search engine rankings is something that many of us dream about and very few of us achieve. To obtain these rankings, in many cases you have to manipulate search results, but what if you could rank high naturally?

SEO Catchup

Written by Neil Patel on April 8, 2008 | 18 comments

There has been a lot of new stuff been going around the SEO industry lately, so I thought I would do a quick blog post talking about the two things that were interesting for me:

Want to work with Neil Patel?

Written by Neil Patel on September 24, 2007 | 3 comments

If you are social media guy or an SEO and want to work with me, here is your chance. I am looking to hire talented individuals who can crank fast and work hard. Whether your a newbie or an experienced tech geek, we are looking to hire here at ACS. The most important thing is that you need to be willing to work in house here in Orange County California.

If interested email me at: neil@pronetadvertising.com

And Now: Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Searching

Written by Muhammad Saleem on September 14, 2007 | 1 comment

Remember that article from last month, encouraging you to start paying attention to MSN Live Search? Well the results from August are in and they're not pretty.

The Battle of the Google Search Ads - Why Web Ads are the Future

Written by Muhammad Saleem on September 6, 2007 | 32 comments

I'm sure most of you heard about the $200 iPhone price cut that Apple announced yesterday and the sound of hundreds of thousands of early-adopters scream. Here's a look at the ensuing battle of the Google Search Ads that resulted from Apple's move. And why television and print advertising is a thing of the past.

The Quest for PageRank

Written by Muhammad Saleem on August 27, 2007 | 16 comments

PageRank is a number that Google uses to represent how important a page is for the search engine. As more and more people start exclusively using Google, the PageRank method for assigning importance becomes a priority for content producers wanting to rank higher in search results. But as with everything, there are those who will accumulate rank organically and those for whom the end justifies the means.

The Search Engine Privacy Battle Isn't Necessarily a Win-Win

Written by Muhammad Saleem on August 13, 2007 | 3 comments

The argument we hear often is how different search engines offer varying degrees of privacy options and how that effects the end users. The quite straightforward jump that we often fail to make is how the search engine privacy scorecard effects content producers and search engine marketers; and in all these cases, who wins and how isn't always clear.

Time to Look at MSN Live Search

Written by Muhammad Saleem on August 9, 2007 | 21 comments

Back in April I urged our readers to not focus blindly on Google when optimizing sites for search engines and to diversify; and the latest search engine statistics from Compete further affirm that recommendation.

How to Compete with Google Search

Written by Muhammad Saleem on July 24, 2007 | 6 comments

It isn't easy to compete with Google. Many have tried and failed; but not because it is impossible to compete with the search engine giant but because competitors fail to realize the company's weaknesses unlike Google, which recognized and capitalized other search engines' weaknesses in 1997 and rose to the dominant position it holds today.

John Chow Speaks Out on Google, Technorati and More

Written by Chris Hemphill on July 21, 2007 | 4 comments

John Chow has been very successful at making money online, but with this success he has also made some big enemies along the way. Google has dropped John from the top position for his own name to the bottom 50, and Technorati doesn't show him on the list of top 100 blogs even though in his profile it shows he is ranked 48th.

4 Things We Can Learn From 'The Google Story'

Written by Muhammad Saleem on July 16, 2007 | 3 comments

Steve Case, co-founder and at one point chief executive officer and chairman of America Online once remarked, "Ultimately the Google story is about product." Here we discuss several things that you can learn from Google's history and some that are readily apparent even by giving the search engine a superficial look.

Why We Rank #1 for 'John Chow' and Why You Shouldn't Mess With Google

Written by Chris Hemphill on July 12, 2007 | 416 comments

If you came to this article looking for ways to "Make Money Online", you came to the right place. If you were searching for John Chow, and ended up here you must be wondering how we are the first result and if it makes sense.

Mahalo Will Compete with Search Giants and Vertical Search

Written by Chris Hemphill on July 7, 2007 | 7 comments

Human-assisted search engines such as Mahalo and vertical search engines such as LookSmart have the ability to provide very direct search results that broad-based search engines, such as Google and Yahoo cannot. At the same time, how do they stack up against each other?

How To Own Those 'Seasonal' Keywords

Written by Muhammad Saleem on July 5, 2007 | 3 comments

Yesterday was the fourth of July and though I am not an American and do not celebrate the holiday, I could not get away from it no matter how hard I tried. The reason? Everyone who had a chance to blog yesterday was trying to capitalize on the holiday of the month and consequently my RSS reader was full of the holiday. Here's a look at how other sites capitalized on this year's independence day and how you can do it too next time.

John Chow vs. Google - Guess Who's Winning

Written by Chris Hemphill on July 5, 2007 | 352 comments

Back in December of 2006 John Chow started a very aggressive link back campaign, in which he would give a link back for every review of his blog when the text anchor 'make money online' was used. John now has over 870 links from various sites as a direct result of this campaign. This has proved to be very successful for John, because since inception of the link campaign his blog income has grown from $2790.05 in December of 2006 to $12,569.61 in June of 2007, an increase in revenue of $9,779.56. All of this growth, however, has come with a price, and it is a pretty heavy one to pay.

Mahalo, an SEO's Worst Enemy

Written by Steve Searer on June 19, 2007 | 16 comments

Over the past several days I have been reading about a prank people (SEO's) played on the human-powered search engine, Mahalo. Granted, the prank got a laugh from me, but it got me thinking about why SEO's would be so vocal in opposing such a new service. Here are a couple quick reasons I can think of:

Engine Ready - Google Analytics Alternative

Written by Neil Patel on April 23, 2007 | 8 comments

Last year I wrote a guide to web analytics that discussed various types of tracking solutions such as Google Analytics which has caused many people to ask me about solutions other than Google. I personally am a big fan of Google Analytics, but if you don't want to use them for some reason or are looking for more advanced reporting, Engine Ready is a great solution at a cheap price. Here is why I like it:

SEOs Are A Part of the Problem

Written by Muhammad Saleem on April 20, 2007 | 20 comments

As an SEO you are neither the most liked nor the most respected person on the web. So what you should be doing is staying away from practices that perpetuate the negative image and stand up for the SEO community. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is that respected SEOs are doing the exact opposite.

SEO 101 for politics

Written by Neil Patel on April 19, 2007 | 4 comments

As the presidential race begins to heats up, search engine marketing is going to play a big role in the elections. It will be critical for candidates to have good visibility in the search engines for issues related to the election. It is also critical that candidates effectively manage their reputations as they don't want the dirt to be visible to those people using the search engines to help with their voting decisions.

How to Fix Your Rankings in Yahoo and Google

Written by Neil Patel on April 18, 2007 | 13 comments

We get quite a bit of emails from people asking why they are not ranking well in Google and Yahoo and in many cases these sites did nothing shady or "blackhat" and they have tons of organic links. We've actually had this problem in the past with Pronet Advertising but after email Google and Yahoo we're doing great with the search engines. If you are having some search problems that don't seem to make sense, here are three simple steps that should fix your problem

Don't Just Focus on Google

Written by Muhammad Saleem on April 12, 2007 | 11 comments

Why is it that we care about Google so much? I don't mean caring about the company and what it does, rather I mean optimizing websites specifically for Google, trying to get ranked on Google more than any other search engine, and above all, advertising exclusively on Google.

Improve Conversion Rates and ROI With Google Website Optimizer

Written by Muhammad Saleem on April 11, 2007 | 3 comments

In an effort to improve the user experience all across the internet, Google has been releasing tools for website owners to improve their content. One of these tools is Google's Website Optimizer (free to AdWords advertisers).

Search Engine Marketing Scholarship Contest

Written by Neil Patel on March 22, 2007 | 1 comment

Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim is holding a search engine marketing scholarship contest where he is giving away $10,000 in prizes. If you are interested in kick starting your online marketing career, I definitely recommend applying.

Hallmark Misses Out On Valentines

Written by Neil Patel on February 14, 2007 | 3 comments

During every special event there is always someone who gains a lot of backward links by capitalizing on it. During Christmas it was OfficeMax with their Elf Yourself game and during Valentines you would think it would be a greeting card site / company such as Hallmark. But if you take a close look at these E-Card sites you will notice that they are losing out on thousands if not millions of backward links.

Why Socially Driven Sites Hate SEOs

Written by Muhammad Saleem on February 6, 2007 | 43 comments

If you look at the list of domains banned by the socially driven news and content behemoth Digg.com, you will find that a majority of them are SEO-related sites. While many people think that Digg has an irrational vendetta against these sites, it's not entirely irrational, rather it's simply driven by a mentality of generalizing.

MyBlogLog widget comes up short

Written by Cameron Olthuis on December 29, 2006 | 15 comments

I have to say that the MyBlogLog widget is probably one of the most widely used widgets there is, and for that they deserve a lot of credit. It's not easy coming up with a widget that nearly every blogger will want to use.

Getting more backward links than Google

Written by Neil Patel on November 26, 2006 | 5 comments

Links play an important role in search engine rankings which is why webmasters go to great extents to obtain them. Most people think that if you want millions of backward links you have to have a large brand such as Amazon, but there are small companies who actually have more back links according to Google, then even Google.com.

Links are more than just numbers

Written by Neil Patel on November 19, 2006 | 4 comments

Last week at Pubcon I had a discussion with someone on backward links and their importance. His view point was that backward links where only useful for search engine rankings. He also claimed that the context of the links does not matter. I also think links are very beneficial when it comes to search engines, but there is a lot more that can be discovered by analyzing your backward links. Here's why:

Like.com's untapped search potential

Written by Neil Patel on November 12, 2006 | 4 comments

Riya, a visual search company just launched a new visual image search engine called Like.com. A few months ago I did a post on Riya and how they were making a lot of usability and search engine optimization mistakes. The CEO acknowledged my blog post and said that they were working on fixing these issues with Riya.

What I learned from FeedBurner TotalStats

Written by Neil Patel on September 28, 2006 | 2 comments

FeedBurner offers two main options for RSS tracking, the first is StandardStats and the second is TotalStats. Most people use StandardStats because it is free, but if you have an extra $5 per month to spare here is why I think you should upgrade to TotalStats.

BMW is sleeping behind the wheel

Written by Cameron Olthuis on September 21, 2006 | 10 comments

I've always been a big fan of BMW and if you've ever had the pleasure of driving or owning one you know why. Last night I was watching TV and a commercial for the new BMW 3 series coupe came on, since I also had my laptop handy I decided to hop online to see more. I went to Google and searched for "bmw 3 series coupe" and this is what I saw...

A comparison of SEO and SMO

Written by Cameron Olthuis on September 20, 2006 | 3 comments

Social Media Optimization (SMO), if you haven't heard already, is a term that was recently coined by Rohit Bhargava which refers to the process of ensuring that a website is easy to link to by utilizing the different social media sources including but not limited to, blogs, bookmarking websites and media sharing websites. There are a lot of similarities and differences between SEO & SMO. Because of this, and the idea that one cannot take over the role for the other, it is important to know when and why to use each optimization technique.

Snooping on a blog's FeedBurner stats

Written by Neil Patel on September 12, 2006 | 4 comments

Have you ever wondered how popular a specific blog is? You might be able to tell by doing a backward link check in Google or by looking up their Alexa ranking, but that will not always give you a full picture. If the blog uses FeedBurner you might be able to view their subscriber count to get another viewpoint on their popularity with a few simple steps.

Everybody thinks they know everything

Written by Neil Patel on September 5, 2006 | 6 comments

Last week a guest speaker came to one of my marketing classes at Cal State Fullerton. The college has guest speakers quite often and this time they brought in Boris Bugarski, the CEO of an email marketing company called mUrgent. ...

SEO is not dead

Written by Cameron Olthuis on September 5, 2006 | 3 comments

SEO is far from dead; in fact it is still one of the best ways to drive targeted traffic to a website. Normal people don't read technology blogs so they aren't going to hear about your company that way. You need to find a way to get in front of them in their own territory, which is through Google. Unfortunately most startups don't realize this; instead they would rather focus all of their attention on getting bloggers to write about them. Don't get me wrong, it is important to create buzz through the blogoshere but the majority of people won't find you that way. The echo chamber does not equal revenues but search terms do.

Learning from your referrers

Written by Neil Patel on September 4, 2006 | 2 comments

We all know web analytics can provide a lot of data about your website and its visitors. It can tell you how many visitors came to your site within the last month, your source conversion rate and even a breakdown of your search engine traffic. ...

Crazy Egg officially launches

Written by Neil Patel on August 21, 2006 | 11 comments

Have you ever found it hard to figure out how to improve your website? We have been having this pain for years which is why we created. We just launched Crazy Egg today. So what is Crazy Egg?

Getting Links 5 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on August 20, 2006 | 2 comments

Some people do not believe in link building, are not concerned with it, or do not know about it, and in these cases link popularity is achieved naturally over time. So how do these people increase their link popularity naturally?

Getting Links 4 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on August 19, 2006 |

Linkbaiting is word that has been getting some attention recently. It is getting so popular that Aaron Pratt created an award for linkbaiting. So what is linkbaiting and why is everyone talking about?

Getting Links 3 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on August 18, 2006 |

Text links have become a hot commodity in the last couple of years. Website owners have realized that they can earn money by selling links and businesses have realized that they can increase their search engine rankings by buying links.

Getting Links 2 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on August 17, 2006 | 8 comments

Reciprocal linking in its most common form is when website A links to website B and website B links back to website A. This link building tactic has been used throughout the web for many years and its main purpose is to help websites increase their search engine rankings.

Getting Links 1 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on August 16, 2006 | 5 comments

One subject that I seem to get asked a lot about is links. Is it better to buy links, reciprocate links, or to just try to create linkbait? Is a paid link better than a natural link? Are reciprocal links dead? Is this link stronger than that link?

Choosing between short or long URLs

Written by Neil Patel on August 16, 2006 |

Today I was posed with a question on URL structure, "is better to go with a short URL or a long URL?" Many websites/blogs have specific goals that they are trying to reach, and depending on your goals you can go with one option or the other.

Optimizing your blog for search engines

Written by Neil Patel on August 14, 2006 | 46 comments

Lately, blog optimization has been catching on like a wild fire. People have been blogging about their increase in search engine traffic due to SEO and others are starting to realize that they need to optimize their blog.

Avoiding bad traffic

Written by Neil Patel on August 12, 2006 | 6 comments

When people think about search engine optimization they think about increasing their traffic from search engines. Most people see it as a good source of relevant traffic and a potential way to increase revenue but there is one major downside of search engine optimization, bad traffic.

WordCamp: SEO speech

Written by Neil Patel on August 6, 2006 | 3 comments

Yesterday Matt Mullenweg asked Cameron and me to give a speech on SEO during WordCamp. Our session was on WordPress and how people can optimize their blog to maximize their search engine traffic.

My FeedBurner options

Written by Neil Patel on August 2, 2006 | 6 comments

I have been using FeedBurner on this blog and several others for some time now. One thing that FeedBurner has is a lot of options, they do well at explaining what each option does but I wanted to point out some of the ones that I use and think are important.

A breakdown of Google's ranking factors

Written by Neil Patel on July 26, 2006 | 6 comments

Have you ever wondered why some sites are ranked so high on Google and why other sites are no where to be found? Over the last 5 or 6 years Google has been tweaking their algorithm to analyze on page (code) and off page (links) factors which affect how websites rank on their popular search engine.

Catfight: SEOs vs. Ad Agencies

Written by Cameron Olthuis on July 17, 2006 | 3 comments

It's no secret that SEOs dislike traditional ad agencies and vice versa. The two have been fighting like a couple of school girls for years now about who's best to handle online marketing campaigns. Being an SEO, I'm guilty of taking a few cheap shots here and there myself.

FeedBurner and blogbeat, making my wishes come true

Written by Neil Patel on July 17, 2006 |

Have you ever used FeedBurner and wondered where your subscribers come from or how many of them are repeat subscribers? Back in April I wrote a blog entry about my FeedBurner wish list hoping that FeedBurner would provide more analytical data related to RSS feeds.

Ethics of SEO

Written by Cameron Olthuis on July 12, 2006 |

There's no denying the fact that search engine optimization has an 'iffy' reputation at best, and that's being generous. Many people think SEO is worse than the plague itself. I've actually heard someone say word for word that they're "allergic to SEO."

ClickTale, letting us watch our visitors

Written by Neil Patel on July 11, 2006 |

Have you ever wondered how people interact with your website? ClickTale is currently a web application in private beta that allows you to do this. You can see how people move their mouse across your website and what they click on.

Wufoo: Analytics for online forms

Written by Neil Patel on July 6, 2006 | 4 comments

Now-a-days it is common for websites to have submission forms, contact forms and many other types of forms that involve visitors entering information and submitting it.

Blogs need SEO too

Written by Neil Patel on July 5, 2006 | 5 comments

Paul Stamatiou recently posted on search engine optimization 101. He talks about some basic search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and how he used them on his blog to improve his traffic.

Technorati improves their SEO

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 30, 2006 |

Last week I wrote a post on how well Technorati has done in regards to their search engine optimization. I also mentioned there was a few key things they could do to improve what they've already done.

Leveraging Wikipedia

Written by Neil Patel on June 25, 2006 |

Wikipedia is a collaboratively built encyclopedia that has evolved into a great resource if you are looking for information on just about anything. Because of its popularity and the sheer number of people that use Wikipedia

Maximizing Google click-throughs

Written by Neil Patel on June 21, 2006 |

Millions of people search Google on a daily basis and thousands of companies are advertising on Google's sponsored listings using keyword targeted text ads. You may not always be able to afford the number 1 sponsored listing or rank above the fold in the organic listings.

Search marketing DOES build brands

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 21, 2006 | 2 comments

Leave it to someone who has little to no experience with any real world search marketing to make a ridiculous statement that "search advertising does NOT build brands." That is what Scott Karp from Publishing 2.0 is saying today.

Web Analytics: Advanced Stats

Written by Neil Patel on June 20, 2006 | 14 comments

The analytics market is a crowded space with many players. There are a lot of robust analytics solutions that can track conversions, goals, revenue, expenses, and even allow you to create flexible dashboards.

Technorati not just techno babble

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 19, 2006 |

If you search for just about any popular keyword on Google you will notice one site that continually comes up very high in the results, usually on the first page. This site is Technorati, a blog search engine, and when it comes to SEO they are absolutely killing it.

Optimize for people, not search engines

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 15, 2006 |

Don't you hate it when you click through to a search engine result only to find a site that has been overly optimized, without visitors in mind. We've all experienced it, you know, the sites that are so ugly you can hardly stand to look at them. The ones where the content is stuffed with so many keywords that it is clear that it was only written with the search engines in mind.

TechCrunch advertisers can get penalized by Google

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 15, 2006 | 2 comments

Each one of the four premium ad spots on TechCrunch currently sell for $10,000 per month. That may seem like a lot of money at first but when you consider you the fact you're reaching 3 million eye balls from a very targeted audience every month it's not so bad. But before you pony up the 10 grand for one of these spots you better take a moment to consider the potential consequences.

How to: Robots.txt

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 14, 2006 |

There has been some noise around the seo industry today about Google not obeying the NoIndex meta tag. Google is indexing pages that use this tag when they shouldn't be. I have actually seen this first hand myself when our company received an email earlier this week asking for opinions on the seo of a website. We noticed this site was trying to keep pages from being indexed in the search engines by using this meta tag. However, when we searched through Google we noticed these pages were still being indexed.

eBay wiki wiki wiki

Written by Neil Patel on June 14, 2006 |

The eBay Wiki launched today, it is a community driven wiki that eBay has created in collaboration with JotSpot. JotSpot was the first company to create a wiki platform, similar to the platform used by Wikipedia.

Don't wait until the last minute

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 12, 2006 |

Sometimes clients will wait until the last minute to hire an SEO or bring them into a project. Nothing is more frustrating as an SEO, the amount of stuff the needs to be redone can sometimes be very over-whelming.

Riya: Photo search can be simpler

Written by Neil Patel on June 7, 2006 | 2 comments

Riya is one of those sites that impressed me with their idea and at the same time has been devastating me with their execution. They make photo organizing simple and photo searching seamless.

Web Analytics: Basic Stats

Written by Neil Patel on June 6, 2006 | 5 comments

There are a lot of statistic solutions out there and they can be used for a lot of different type of websites. Statistics solutions used to be basic, but nowadays these solutions have grown to become robust products.

FeedBurner's count goes crazy

Written by Cameron Olthuis on June 1, 2006 | 9 comments

Today I noticed what looks to be yet another glitch from FeedBurner. There was a serious overnight jump in the number of RSS subscribers on some popular blogs, and I do mean a serious jump. At least that's what we're seeing on the feed count chicklets, can't say for sure if the back end stats are matching this.

Usability and SEO

Written by Neil Patel on June 1, 2006 |

A good rule to keep in mind these days is that nothing stands alone. When it comes to website optimization, a lot of people conduct effective SEO campaigns but don't bother to put time and effort into the usability side of their website.

Leveraging links

Written by Neil Patel on May 31, 2006 |

Link popularity should not be underestimated as a way to increase your search engine ranking. There are many different ways to increase your link popularity including purchasing text links, people naturally linking to you, directories, and creating buzz.

Web Analytics: Blogs

Written by Neil Patel on May 30, 2006 |

Not all blogs are created equal. Blogs can be for personal use, business, and others somewhere in-between. Depending on the purpose of your blog you may require different types of stats.

Blog comments and SEO

Written by Neil Patel on May 29, 2006 | 8 comments

Blogging has come to the point where my mother actually heard of it. That means that it is not only popular but becoming somewhat mainstream. As a result, people are really starting to voice their opinions by blogging and commenting on blogs.

Web Analytics: RSS

Written by Neil Patel on May 22, 2006 | 2 comments

There are a lot of new toys out there for your website that can do a variety of different things. RSS feeds are one thing you can implement that are great for notifying subscribers that there has been new content added to your website. This can help keep you visitors "hooked" and coming back for more, or just make your website more valuable to them.

Web Analytics: An Introduction

Written by Neil Patel on May 15, 2006 | 2 comments

Everybody has different needs in this world. Unfortunately, things can become very confusing when companies try making all kinds of products to suit all kinds of different customers. All of a sudden you end up with too many iterations of one thing and absolutely no clue how they all fit together or whose needs they are supposed to fulfill.

Getting Ranked 5 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on May 8, 2006 |

Getting and maintaining ranking is critical to your online success. As discussed in the previous four posts, the way that search engines decide how websites are ranked is decided by three main characteristics: code, content and links.

Getting Ranked 4 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on May 6, 2006 |

Optimizing code and content is essential to get ranking with search engines, but another element that deserves attention is link popularity. Link popularity is the number of websites that link to your website. The difficulty with link popularity is that you have less control.

Getting Ranked 3 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on May 3, 2006 |

Content is key when optimizing your website for search engines. In order for search engines to rank your site, they have to see that your content is relevant to the keywords it is looking for. There are five main ideas to keep in mind when optimizing content for search engines: Quality, Uniqueness, Relevance, Themes, and Keyword Density.

Getting Ranked 2 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on April 30, 2006 |

One of the main things search engines look at when ranking websites is Code. Think of your websites code like you would think of decor when selling your house. You might have a great house, but if the decor is missing or bad then your entire house will be underrepresented and difficult to sell. Search engines are your buyer when you are trying to get ranking and they take a close look at things like URL strings, navigation, accessibility, headings and meta tags.

Getting Ranked 1 of 5

Written by Neil Patel on April 27, 2006 |

Using a search engine is not exactly complicated, and that's the point. However, what search engines do to produce those results is a different story. There is a lot that goes into how search engines work but it all comes down to a few basic things.

Text Link Grey Area

Written by Neil Patel on April 16, 2006 | 3 comments

When the going gets tough, the tough are supposed to get going right? Well, it seems that when it comes to ranking some companies aren't getting tougher, just a bit sneakier. I'll admit that it is more difficult to get ranking these days and more creative tactics should be used, but the difference between creative and borderline cheating should be examined more closely. The web hosting industry seems to have some of the most "interesting" tactics. A lot of free web hosting services put text...

Top 50 SEO Resources

Written by Neil Patel on April 7, 2006 | 5 comments

The sheer number of resources available on search engine optimization can be overwhelming. There are a ton of sites, tools, and conferences to choose from and it can be confusing and somewhat scary. I've compiled a list of good, credible resources here in order to steer you in the right direction and so you don't end up getting some bad advice. Information These are sites that have general information on search engine optimization and search engines. They offer news, information, and search engine optimization tips....

My RSS Wish List

Written by Neil Patel on April 4, 2006 | 1 comment

From a marketing perspective, RSS feeds lasso the market and bring it home. They connect your website with other sites and work to gather links and visitors for your website. Briefly, RSS feeds are a standardized method that is used to make content portable, so that it can be read without a web browser. Think of RSS feeds as a quick way to see what content is new on a website. By taking advantage of RSS feeds, your content gets exposure on news sites, RSS...

To PPC or not to PPC

Written by Neil Patel on April 3, 2006 |

A lot of our clients seem scared or overwhelmed by PPC advertising these days. We find this interesting, but not surprising. They are concerned that keyword costs are rising, there are too many advertisers, and the entire method is becoming cumbersome and overcrowded. Don't be scared! PPC advertising can be very effective and should be considered in your marketing campaign. Here are a couple of things that should help you feel more comfortable with PPC advertising. First off, I only need to say one thing...

Scamming PageRank

Written by Neil Patel on April 2, 2006 | 2 comments

In the last couple of weeks, I've gotten several emails from people trying to sell me text links based upon their PageRank (PR). The emails always make huge claims about their PR and try to convince me that I would be passing up a good opportunity if I didn't respond. If you ever get an email like the one below, be careful since they are probably trying to scam you. Here is how they typically go: Hi, My name is John Doe from whateverwebsite.com. I...

The little engines that could

Written by Neil Patel on March 30, 2006 |

The customer is always right, right? Unfortunately, sometimes doing only what customers want will hurt their business. This is a tough situation and it is our job to ensure that our customers understand what we think they should do and why. Recently, one of our clients was insisting that we optimize only for Google because they felt that most of their customers were coming from that search engine. While this might be understandable at first, here is why that path could jeopardize their business opportunity....

Unique Vistors or Visitors, Sandals or Snowshoes

Written by Neil Patel on March 28, 2006 |

Matt Belkin from Omniture wrote a blog post the other day that gave some great information about using Visitors versus Unique Visitors for traffic analysis. He gave detailed reasons why Visitors is a far better metric, but I'd say the question isn't an "or" question but an "and" question. Let me clarify what I mean here. I would use both Unique Visitors AND Visitors in your analysis. To me, they give you different information. Trying to use one or the other is like deciding between...

Beating down the cost of PPC advertising

Written by Neil Patel on March 22, 2006 |

The cost of PPC advertising is growing rapidly and people aren't making the same return on investment as they used to. In order to get the most out of your currently costly campaign, here are a few tips

Pay Per Conversion?

Written by Neil Patel on February 23, 2006 |

Valleywag reports that "Google wallet should end click fraud". Over the past few months. there have been rumors about a Google Wallet service coming out that will rival PayPal.

Ways to improve the conversion of Pay-Per-Click advertising

Written by Neil Patel on February 20, 2006 |

There are two main parts of a PPC campaign, the advertisement and the landing page. The advertisement is the text ad that appears above or to the right of the search engine's organic results. The landing page is the webpage that a visitor arrives at after clicking on an advertisement.