SEO Blog Posts

SEO

Before I even became an SEO I learned to hate SEOs. After all, SEOs would take the beautiful, functional site the designers and developers spent their nights creating and cram it full of footer links, anchor text, H tags, nofollows, and any other piece of code they could think of until the site couldn’t breathe.… Read More

SEO

Recently, Team Portent has been writing a lot about local SEO best practices for US markets. And with good reason; mobile device usage is on the rise. Think about how often you reach for your smartphone or tablet to get directions to a local business, check their phone number, look at reviews or menus, or… Read More

SEO

In the brief amount of time I’ve spent doing outreach for link building, my approach and strategies have evolved. In my early days, I was over-eager and optimistic, crafting drawn-out messages and patiently waiting for the links to come flooding in. To continue with the theme of classic television sitcoms, I was the Richie Cunningham… Read More

SEO

Short version of this article: If you’ve been penalized for unnatural links by Google, either manually or under Penguin, you need to cut deep or you won’t recover. Now, the long version, with examples: Here’s a joke I learned in hebrew school, an unmentionable number of decades ago: Three guys are walking down the sidewalk.… Read More

SEO

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… Read More

SEO

Recently I did a survey of our staff here at Portent to see if anyone had any questions about SEO they wanted answered. I made the survey anonymous using Survey Monkey, because sometimes people feel more comfortable asking a question without their identity being revealed. In the spirit of sharing and transparency, we decided to… Read More

SEO

I’m going to play mind-reader for a moment. Here’s what you think about SEO: You think search engine optimization is a closely-guarded secret bag of tricks You think SEO means beating Google at their own game You equate SEO with “buckets of cash” which would be pouring into your bank account if only you knew… Read More

SEO

We’ve all been there. You’re in the marketing meeting and someone brings up SEO. I don’t know how they’re bringing it up, but they’ve done it one way or another. Maybe they used some of the phrases below. If they did, you need to know why you wish you hadn’t heard what they’ve just said.… Read More

SEO

Adding copy to your website can become a tug-o-war between the Branding and SEO teams. One side is representing the voice and tone of the brand.  At the other end of the rope, the SEO team is focused on increasing keyword rankings. This can lead to everyone walking away covered in mud. Avoid that unclean… Read More

SEO

Here’s the video from Josh Patrice’s excellent SEO for small business webinar last week. Enjoy:

SEO

For the first time in what might be ever, Google has followed Bing’s lead and announced a tool to disavow links. We asked (or demanded), and they listened! Cleverly named the Disavow Links tool, Google Webmaster Tools’ latest feature gives power back to webmasters and takes it away from spammers. Here are our tips for… Read More

SEO

I presented at Distilled’s Seattle SEO Meetup in September. My topic: Why link building is a lousy strategy, ‘content marketing’ as most marketers define it is just a way to sell more marketing books, and some reasonable alternatives. Here’s the annotated slide deck:

SEO

The “local SEO busters” are inspired by our favorite band of paranormal investigators and eliminators, which had to have been the coolest local business in the 80s, amirite? Who ya gonna call for local SEO help? By now, we hope it’s us. Two weeks ago we made an open call for questions related to Local… Read More

SEO

As we’ve discussed during the earlier parts of our Local Series, directories and social networks are vital to getting your business found online. Directories feed search engines the data that justifies your business’ inclusion in the local results. Social networks get the word out to your customers and let you connect with them online. But,… Read More

SEO

For the second installment of the Portent Local Series, I’ll go over why and how directories affect local search visibility and where business owners should focus their time and energy. Local search is like a gyro sandwich: it’s delicious when it works, but the process and criteria for the result can be mysterious. What exactly is… Read More