Search engine optimization (SEO)

With each algorithm update, Google reinforces its stand that high-quality content, appropriately optimized for search, will succeed while underhanded tricks of the SEO trade will be penalized.

As a business person, you want to see your website rank high on the search engines and it can be tempting to fall for the seductive guarantees of SEO firms promising you’ll be number one in ten days or less.  

But you need to ask yourself, “what are they going to do to accomplish that?”

There are “black hat SEO” techniques out there that some marketing firms are using to artificially boost their clients’ site ranking, and unless you want to be crying, “Google banned my site!” you need to be aware of these poor SEO practices and avoid them like the plague.

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Video content can be a great way to engage with potential customers and tell more about what your company has to offer.  The challenge, however, is this: how do you make your video as accessible and easy to find as possible so that it stands out in the crowd?

YouTube is an ideal hosting choice if you want maximum exposure for your video.  Did you know that YouTube is the world’s second most popular search engine with over 1 billion searches each month?  Let’s take a look at some YouTube SEO tips to optimize every aspect of a video to make sure you’re capitalizing on all of that traffic.

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While seeing your content spread far and wide on the web is thrilling and might give your ego a little boost, it’s not the most important element of what you’re doing.

While getting comments on a blog post or Facebook Likes bring a smile to your face, they’re not really the goal you should be shooting for.

If you’re involved in content marketing, you’re really interested in generating leads and making sales. So, you need to determine whether your SEO is accomplishing those goals.  And that requires measuring the right things.

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If your company is like most, you’re looking for ways for your website to work harder for you.

As you think about gaining leverage in your B2B lead generation efforts, we’ve identified three strategies you can employ to get more leads (and customers) from your website. These strategies are driving traffic, lead optimization and conversion optimization.

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Back in the “bad old days” of search engine optimization (SEO), so-called experts could churn out fifty articles a day stuffed to the gills with every imaginable keyword designed to flag down the search engines and bring traffic to a client’s website.

That was stupid SEO.

Fast forward a few years, and search engines have grown a lot smarter and more protective of their users’ good moods.  Search leader Google, for instance, has made it very clear that trying to game the system by stuffing keywords into irrelevant copy will not only not get you a high search ranking, it may even get your site removed from Google all together.

So what’s a B2B marketer to do?

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When hiring an online marketing company, it’s important to set goals. You want to have something to work toward, and you want to be able to hold your online marketing team accountable.

But, as you’re setting your goals, be careful not to make this mistake: asking, “Can you guarantee that you’ll make my website #1 on Google?”
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