The power of storytelling in your online copy When I was young, I wasn’t allowed to play in our front yard. I couldn’t choose when I could – or couldn’t – flush the toilet. I wasn’t allowed to turn up the music and just dance, either. Now before you think that I had a deprived
Defending jargon as part of quality content (sort of) In 1981, my sister and I went to the movie theater to see Stripes, a film starring Bill Murray and co-starring Harold Ramis. Murray plays a character whose life was going nowhere: he’d just lost his job, his car was being repossessed and his girlfriend was
Content strategy: does outrageous behavior reap rewards online? For content creators and marketers – to paraphrase Charles Dickens’ book, Tale of Two Cities, now in the public domain – it is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness. It’s the
How to obtain keyword performance data in the era of (not provided) Much of the talk in the search engine world recently has centered on Google’s move to secure search, and its effects on the SEO community. While this change doesn’t really affect what we do, which is delivering great content to site visitors, keyword
The quest for the best domain names: how should you handle a domain change? Maybe you’re not getting the online traffic that you’d like. Or maybe you’re ready to push to become even more dominant in your space. Or maybe you now have the money to purchase a more competitive domain name. In any case,
Trusted sources: how to select the best interviews for your article or blog post In the late 1990s, I was asked to appear on a local television show about writers. I was happy to be asked, so I posted the news in the forum area of the online writer’s club to which I belonged. One
Craft persuasive targeted content through the creation of well-researched personas. Before creating effective targeted content for your site, it’s important to understand your site’s audiences – meaning both the current audience and the desired audience – and what they need and want. First steps in determining this can include: Intake: collect team knowledge about client/customer/prospect
Making lemonade from lemons: Google’s new 100% secure search This week at The Search Guru, we’ve been hearing a lot of buzz from clients about Google’s move to secure search (and the chatter hasn’t been favorable). We understand – and we’d like to clear up some misconceptions, from our perspective, about how
Discover how SEO and web marketing work hand in hand to boost success: what your marketing department needs to know about SEO. When your company is looking to hire a search engine optimization company, the marketing department might be just a little bit reluctant. Know two things: That can happen – and it isn’t a
On June 18, 2013, Google debuted its “Google Image Carousel.” Here’s what it means to you and your site. Because of its impact on local search – after all, this is the biggest change to Google local results in years – this Carousel is also known as the “Google Local Carousel.” No matter which name
