SEO in a Nutshell (And Some Tips)

“Oh no, not another ‘SEO in a nutshell’ post!” I hear you scream. Oh yes! And to make matters worse, I’m actually calling this SEO In A Nutshell just out of spite! But why, oh why, must I litter the otherwise so clean and orderly forum that Internet is with yet another here’s-what-something-is-in-case-you-ever-cared-post? I promise, I’m only doing this for selfish reasons. I’m not trying to buy myself into the major league by posting about something that everyone else is posting about. Read More…

Penguin 2.0: Google's Next Major Update

When Matt Cutts speaks, the world listens. We reach out our hands to catch even the tiniest morsels that make up the bread that fills the basket that is Google. We hush in anticipation, as we know that we are about to be revealed another piece of the puzzle that is Google’s search algorithms. We want to know these dark, esoteric, technological secrets because a) as humans we are genetically coded to abhor secrets and shadow-talk, and b) as SEOs we are competing in a business where only the first place is rewarded. Read More…

Checklist for Optimizing Web Design

In this post, I propose that a combination of valid, accessible, and search engine friendly markup is the perfect recipe for optimal web design. For markup to be valid, it needs to conform to the guidelines laid out by the “governing body” of HTML standardization: the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. While the Internet anxiously waits for HTML5 to shift in status from candidate to recommendation, we’re stuck with ye olde HTML 4. Read More…

Content Strategy: Know Your Audience

For years and years, the one constant in the chaotic world of SEO has been a simple statement: Content is King. This statement has been the cornerstone of content strategy in SEO projects, and its validity has hardly been contested. This is not due to lack of trying. Many posts in the blogosphere have taken an opposing stand (Heidi Cohen: format is king, Carl Ocab: marketing is king, Bernadette Coleman: trust is king). Read More…

Modern CMS: Top 5 Features

You are right now enjoying the fruits of a very popular content management system, or CMS, whether you know it or not. This blog is published via WordPress, a modern CMS if there ever was one. In fact, if you add a comment to this post with the form below (hint, hint), you will be participating in content creation, using tools that come out-of-the-box in this particular platform. But what makes a modern CMS? Read More…

Search Trends and What They Reveal

I’m hooked on Google Trends. For example, it probably won’t astound you to learn that whenever search trends peak for flu symptoms, there’s a similar peak for vaccine. (See also how at some points vaccine comes first and only then do flu symptoms arise. Conspiracy theorists, the ball is in your court!) Probing this particular case further, I looked at the search trends for swine flu and vaccine. The former peaks in April 2009 and, to my surprise, vaccine actually declines over the following two months. Read More…