How to Spot a Fake Link Removal Request

How to Spot a Fake Link Removal Request

Are your links unnatural or do they grow on trees? When Google invented “unnatural links” by simply deciding that some links are unnatural while others are not they also created the problem of large scale “negative SEO“. Then they professed…

Hey Google! Sunset Your Unnatural Oral Action!

Hey Google! Sunset Your Unnatural Oral Action!

Do you remember the days when “manual action” was something desirable and NSFW? Listening to Google spokespeople turns more bizarre with the years. Why? They have come up with their own language to hide the sour facts of Believe me!…

Content Creation Can’t Cure Cancer

Content Creation Can’t Cure Cancer

* Summary: Content is not a one size fits all solution, especially for small business owners who can’t afford to become publishers. When does content actually make sense and how? What else can small businesses do that don’t have a…

Case Study: The Value of a Blog Post

Case Study: The Value of a Blog Post

Sometimes when I tell business owners how much I charge for blog posts they tell me that it’s expensive. Of course it’s not. Why?   Creating content vs link building At the same time they would gladly throw that same…

Free Traffic vs Gatekeeper Traffic

Free Traffic vs Gatekeeper Traffic

* Usually I prefer to speak about visitors not traffic as in people visiting your site. Why? The term “traffic” is too fuzzy. It fails to really explain what is going on on the Web. It’s a misleading metaphor when…

Where Did All The Search Traffic Go?

Where Did All The Search Traffic Go?

* BuzzFeed reports that “Traffic from Google to digital publishers dropped 30% over the past eight months.” based on traffic statistics from over 200 major media properties, among them BuzzFeed Time Huffington Post Rolling Stone Sports Illustrated Overall social media…

The SEO Acronym Definition and How to Use Humor to Get it

The SEO Acronym Definition and How to Use Humor to Get it

What does the SEO acronym mean actually? Even in 2024 many people will still wonder what the SEO acronym means. I can’t blame them. It can mean many things yet on the Web it usually has to do with getting…

Dangerous Links: Why & How Google Wants to Abolish Hypertext

Dangerous Links: Why & How Google Wants to Abolish Hypertext

* Are links unnatural or even dangerous? The Web is built upon so called hypertext. Why is hypertext called hyper in the first place? Isn’t it just text published on the Internet? The hyper-aspect stems from hyperlinks. It’s not because…

The Best Free Feed Readers for Windows, Mac and Linux

The Best Free Feed Readers for Windows, Mac and Linux

Do you look for a feed reader? This is a list of those I think are the best ones. These feed readers work on Windows, Mac and Linux. The Web-based feed readers also work on mobile devices without the need…

Billions of Sites Subject to Manual Penalty by Google

Billions of Sites Subject to Manual Penalty by Google

Google recently released an “interactive infographic” titled “how search works”. I ignored it until Barry Schwartz convinced me to take a second look. The infographic starts with the number of “30 trillion individual pages” Google has in its index. Later…

What’s Your Message?

What’s Your Message?

The perhaps most important question when you publish is “what’s your message?” or in layman’s terms: what do you want to say? The problem with the ongoing “content is king” and “content marketing” hype is that it focuses on the…

Why Short Posts Beat Long Form Content

Why Short Posts Beat Long Form Content

* In recent years a new kind of debate has been taking place online. It’s about content length. The longer the better it seems. Why? The main point of the content length debate is that – let me summarize it…

How Link Building Really Works for SEO – By Attracting Links

How Link Building Really Works for SEO – By Attracting Links

* I don’t write a lot about link building on SEO 2. Why? I did for many years. Usually I attempted to expand the concept to go beyond “building”. I questioned the premise of “manual link building” from day one….

The Inconvenient Truth about SEO

The Inconvenient Truth about SEO

One fine day my online friends Patrick Altoft and AJ Kohn were mad at Smashing Magazine for not getting SEO. Why? The popular Web design blog published an incisive piece misrepresenting search engine optimization under the ominous headline “the inconvenient…

Are You Really a Content Marketer or Just an SEO?

Are You Really a Content Marketer or Just an SEO?

After the so called Google Penguin update many people in the SEO industry embraced content marketing. So far so good. In a way SEO was always about content. Why not name the game accordingly? Yes, true. Yet some of them…

How to Use the Google Disavow Tool for NOT Against Negative SEO

How to Use the Google Disavow Tool for NOT Against Negative SEO

* Google created the problem of so called “negative SEO“. How? By taking “manual action” on inbound links webmasters have no control over. Instead of just discounting “unnatural links” pointing to your site Google will make you responsible for them!…

Do Social Media Conversation, Engagement & Sales Suck?

Do Social Media Conversation, Engagement & Sales Suck?

* Some self-proclaimed social media experts try to get noticed by questioning the obvious! They declare all the social media best practices we take for granted to be nonsense or choose to ignore them. Do social media really suck when…

Readability Advice: Lorem Ipsum Yourself! Design Content!

Readability Advice: Lorem Ipsum Yourself! Design Content!

* One of the most important things on the Web is readability. Despite that to this day many webmasters, bloggers and even web designers neglect it. One day I asked a blogger to improve his post readability. Why? Otherwise my…

Web Design by Itself is Worthless

Web Design by Itself is Worthless

It’s strange how when you want to sell blogging, social media or SEO services you have to explain and prove ROI (Return On Investment) at every step. At the same time I rarely witness debates about the ROI of Web…

What is Your Value Proposition and How Do You Present it?

What is Your Value Proposition and How Do You Present it?

Many people like to optimize the call to action or other elements of landing pages. Yet they overlook the crucial aspect of every business website or even online interaction! What is the most important ingredient every site needs? It’s the…