When I meet with clients or present at conferences, I am always asked: “How do I rank high on Google for (insert keyword-phrase-du-jour)?” I give the standard answer: “Only the search engineers and Google can tell you and they aren’t talking.” Inevitably, the questioner looks dejected, mutters a slur on my credentials, and walks away. [...]
Articles by Marianne Sweeny
Marianne considers herself fortunate to be able to combine her passions for search and user experience as a Search Strategist at Portent. Springtime finds her teaching Introduction to Information Retrieval at the University of Washington iSchool. Her aspiration is to regain her Google Adwords certification.
Get Found, Make Money: Optimizing Apps for Search
Have you ever tried to meet someone at Grand Central Station or some other incredibly crowded venue? It sounds so doable and yet it is so not. There are too many people, too many distractions and too much stuff in the way. App (tablet and phone applications) stores, both iTunes and Google Play Store have [...]
The Evolution of Advanced Keyword Research
Keyword research used to be so easy. You picked terms that the client wanted to rank high for, stuffed them onto the page, shake, bake and voila, the site is ranking in the top 3 search results for query. Bad SEOs stuffed keywords in all of the wrong places, all over the page, and [...]
What the Duck? DuckDuckGo Takes on the Big G
It’s hard to pinpoint when some of us fell out of love with Google. Maybe it was when they went from geeky Stanford students out to “not be evil” to the kinda creepy boyfriend who orders for us at restaurants because “that’s what we always have.” Like it or not, we were trapped. Over the [...]
SEO: Trading Tactics for Craft
I just finished 3 intensive days at MozCon 2012. Not for intellectual sissies or social introverts, the days were spent listening to presentations, demonstrations and exhortations from a list of luminaries. There was something for everyone: link building is the road to perdition, how-tos on link building, agile all over the place, data modeling, crunching, [...]
Predatory Online Advertising…and not from Google for a Change
I learned something the hard way awhile ago. There is a big difference between search engine advertising and social site advertising and just because someone looks up front and helpful does not mean that they are. Search engine advertising is affordable, configurable, reports a return on investment, can be turned on and off quickly, is [...]
Wanted: Enterprise Search Gods
Lately, I’ve been feeling like a grade schooler punished along with the rest of the class for one student’s bad behavior. With Google’s Pandas, Penguins and other pandemonium-producing updates yet to come, we’re all Bart Simpson being forced to write on the SEO chalkboard, “I will not outsource link building to third-world countries that spam [...]
