Reading Time: < 1 min Marketing automation can be a great thing. If a user is interested in your service or product, creating a series of messages to go out to them can be a very beneficial for both parties. Too often, though, companies think that marketing automation is something magical that can solve all of their problems, and that’s […]
Content
Website themes are not content
Reading Time: < 1 min When building websites, people are often concerned about not duplicating content across pages or sites. While there is no specific penalty for that, if Google thinks your website has the same content as another site, one of you won’t have a chance in the rankings. So what does that mean for website themes and templates? […]
Classic tips to avoid the echo chamber
Reading Time: 3 min In this world where algorithms are increasingly dictating what content we see every day, I’ve been working hard to avoid getting trapped in an echo chamber (as I’ve mentioned before). This recently came up again when Darren Rowse pointed to a 15-year-old post from Chris Pirillo (summarized by Angelo Racoma) that had some amazingly timeless […]
Google may let machine written language rank soon
Reading Time: < 1 min There is a growing number of tools out there that can write (or at least help write) content for your website. As of today, that kind of content goes against Google’s guidelines — but probably not for long. According to Google’s John Mueller: From our guidelines it is the case that if it’s automatically generated […]
Fuel versus friction
Reading Time: 2 min When it comes to marketing, there are two main directions you want to work to push — adding more fuel, or reducing friction. This works in many areas of life, as explained wonderfully in a recent episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, but it’s particularly interesting with marketing. Fuel When it comes to marketing, fuel […]
News websites are starting to realize they should have worked to own the conversation
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve made no secret that I think individuals and organizations should work hard to own their content. This includes not only the primary content (like the actual story or post), but also the comments and interactions to the extent possible. The second part of that is difficult, as social media is the default for most […]
Why click through rate doesn’t affect search rankings
Reading Time: < 1 min There’s long been a myth that click through rate affects how well you rank in Google. In short, many people believe that if your results get clicked on frequently on Google, you’ll move up the rankings. It’s been claimed for years, and Google has always insisted that it’s not true. In a recent Tweet, Google’s […]
Images on your website pages don’t help with rankings
Reading Time: 2 min Over the years, much has been said about optimizing images to help rank better in Google, and it’s mostly accurate. The key is that images will generally only help you rank better in Google Image Search, not in the main search results. Google’s John Mueller laid it out pretty clearly in a recent SEO Office […]
365 days of blogging
Reading Time: < 1 min While I have over 900 posts on this blog, going back as far as 2004, the last 365 posts have been published in the last 365 days. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how long I’d keep up the daily blogging habit, but it’s a year in and going strong. If you have the desire […]
Fewer options = higher engagement
Reading Time: 2 min About a year ago, I shared the story of an insurance salesman I met that offered every kind of possible insurance there was, which made me realize that he probably wasn’t an expert in any of them. Too many options can be a problem. The same can be true of your website, though with different […]