Digital Marketing Mastery: Insights, Strategies, and Tactics for Success

About SEO

The posts here about SEO, what is it? How do you optimize your website etc…

Does SEO Still Work in 2017

SEO is an Art

SEO is an ever changing world there’s no doubt. There was a time a few years ago when the SEO specialist worked diligently to figure out the “secret formula” for getting sites to rank high in the SERPs. For a long time SEO best practices were built around finding the right keyword density, building links from high ranking sites, image optimization, etc. But that was when SEO was considered a science and all the boxes in the forms just needed to be filled out. Today, SEO has made a shift from this type of pseudo-science to being more of an art form. It’s no longer a formulaic endeavor with well defined steps to follow. You cannot “do SEO” one time and then walk away and realize success. It takes a multitude of ongoing tactics, skills and strategies to get a site to rank.

content marketing circle

How Does Content Marketing Work?

Good content that resonates with the receiver will generate more leads and will increase opportunities for conversion. One of the best ways to conduct content marketing is by refreshing website content with frequent blog posts or to even publish a guest blog on someone else’s website. Here is the rundown of how content marketing works.

seo backlinks

5 Tips to Improve Your SEO

It’s sort of funny how you start a website and have no knowledge of how they work and then suddenly you are thrown into this unknown world.  People that don’t have websites don’t realize how beneficial they are, but they also don’t realize they are hard work.  This IS something you can just throw together, but chances are you won’t have very good results.  It takes time, some money, a lot of knowledge and a lot of luck to get a website up and running and to keep it running.  You need to not only rely on things like good design and good content; you need to rely on other things like SEO.  Maybe before you had a website, you had no idea what SEO is, but by now you are probably pretty immersed in this subject.  Still, things are ever changing in the SEO world and there are always more things, new things or quick things you can do to improve your SEO – website ranking.  If you are looking for a few new options to improve your SEO, or you want to improve it quickly, check out some of the tips below.

SEO Today

SEO Rank
SEO elements

We are all aware that the only thing about SEO that is constant is that it is continuously changing. This is due to the fact that Google and the other major search engines are always changing and tweaking the search algorithm in an attempt to improve search results for users. Of course this means that updates like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird have the SEO specialists running to keep up. But for those who observe SEO best practices there is still a lot of consistency with maybe a few tactical changes here and there. SEO practices that worked before the release of the Hummingbird update still work. That means that we should all continue pursuing strong strategies like:

  • Creating engaging and original content
  • Legitimate and relevant backlinks that are earned and not purchased
  • Using keywords to enhance content without overdoing it

The biggest change we may notice is the way that Google uses the new algorithm to interpret and deliver search results.

How Does Defensive SEO Work?

Defend Against Negative SEO
Defend Against Negative SEO

Over the last two or three years the entire SEO world has gone through what most would call a major transformation. This has caused digital marketing experts and SEO specialists to have to rethink and change a variety of strategies. It is true that it is now more difficult to rank high in the SERPs than what it used to be. Many think that many of the negative SEO campaigns that have begun emerging are a result of black hat SEO tactics that no longer work. Negative SEO campaigns attack competitor’s sites and cause damage to their site ranking and in many cases can cause a site to fall off the first few pages of the SERPs altogether. The good news is that there are some strategies that can help you prevent the negative effects of such an attack, and there are ways to protect your site from coming under attack in the first place.

How to Predict Results from SEO

Successful SEO
Successful SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) employs a wide variety of strategies that are designed to improve a site’s ranking in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Over the years,  there has been a lot of manipulation of search results and the search engines have responded by upgrading their algorithms. These updates are designed to penalize those who abuse the system and use black hat or spammy methods to obtain a higher ranking in the SERPs. Some strategies like buying links, cloaking and keyword stuffing were commonplace and in many cases did help improve a site’s ranking. But these types of practices are considered black hat now and can get a site penalized so badly that they fall off the result pages altogether. By using SEO best practices and ethical strategies a site can obtain a ranking near the top of the SERPs. But since it’s not an exact science, is there any way to predict the results?