The Importance of Keyword Research in Search Engine Optimization

I see it all too often - aesthetically appealing and well designed websites that are generating no traffic, and as a result, are not realistically serving any purpose. I agree that there are some companies that have chosen not to market online and as a result, their website serves as a reputation and legitimacy tool. For example, someone walks in to your store, you hand them your card (that has your URL on it) on the way out, and they return home to check out your site to make sure you are "legit." On the other hand, if you are attempting to use online marketing as a primary medium to reach potential customers, designing a beautiful website can be all for not unless that website can be found in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The first step to ensure that your site ranks for relevant search queries is conducting sound keyword research.

Anchor Text Links and SERPs Rankings

The key to ranking high in the search engine results pages (SERPs) is having a high quality backlink profile. The more websites that link to your website, the more of an authority Google's algorithm will perceive your site to be. The algorithm was constructed to solve a complex problem - how do we return the best possible information to an online user that is searching for something? Links are the exponential factor that help Google partially solve that problem.

Have Blog Commenting Links Lost Their Value?

Last week I discussed the process of purchasing links from blogs, what webmasters who are considering buying links need to look for, and what the risks are of buying links from websites that are entirely unrelated in content. Ideally, webmasters should be working hard to acquire non-paid, high quality links from other webmasters that maintain sites that are in the same niche or industry as their own. As Google's algorithm develops and becomes smarter, acquiring high quality unpaid links has inevitably become increasingly difficult. One tactic that most relied on, the acquisition of valued links through blog commenting, may not be as sound of an approach any more.

Buying Links from Blogs to Increase Rankings

There will always be two sides to the story of whether or not buying links is an effective strategy to increase your rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs). All things being equal (quality of content, on-site optimization etc.), it is necessary to understand that a website that has a large number of high quality links will outrank a competitor that has a less impressive backlink profile. As a result, I don't necessarily think that whether or not you should buy links is the appropriate question to ask.

Google Tags Eliminated for Google Places Profiles

Two weeks ago, I discussed Google Tags advertising, an option that the search engine had rolled out recently that allowed businesses to increase their Google Places profile visibility in the map results. Well, merely ten days after writing that post, Google had officially eliminated Tags after a fairly short campaign. There hasn't been a whole lot of feedback from Google as to what caused them to remove the option for Places profile owners (no surprise here), however, I believe that there is enough information regarding local search to make an inference.

Google Tags Advertising

Most recently I have discussed the emphasis Google has put on Google Places, what businesses will benefit most from having a well optimized Places profile, and how the increased visibility of the map results in the organic results pages affects ranking positions. As the organic landscape continues to morph, it is essential that businesses trying to broaden their online presence understand and keep up with the supplemental features Google rolls out that can be incorporated in to a Places profile. One of the more recent features is Google Tags, and I want to address exactly what Tags are, what benefits may be realized from taking advantage of them, and finally, some of the potential drawbacks of using Tags.