It's nearly over, the wave of ezine article submissions is in the tail end of its life. At least that's what we wrote about almost two years ago. Problem is, people still read old articles on web marketing that elevate this strategy. Does it work? Yes. Does it work well? No. What was once a viable method of both promoting content/products and getting one way links, has turned into an industry with only a handful of viable players. There once was a time where 300+ article directories would be active on any given day. That number is 10 percent the size today. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a brief outline of some of the other meta tags other than keyword and descriptions. We've learned how meta keywords and description tags remain viable, however, less important when it comes to ranking web sites today compared to the past. The leaves all the rest of the meta tags to discuss, and quite frankly, one doesn't need to mention anymore.

A number of web page builders will automatically implement a slew of meta tags, the majority, if not all, are unnecessary. Here is a list of meta items that should remain on your website.

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I'm sitting here in my office pondering my response to a question posed by a client. "I'm going to hire someone from India for $25 bucks to submit my site to 200 directories." Not bad I suppose, assuming a) he can actually get a link from 200 directories, and b) those directories are actually valuable. Luckily he didin't spend much money for these supposed links, however, I've seen countless clients/web site go overboard in their link acquisitions, trying to score one way links for cheap regardless of value.  Read the rest of this entry »

One thing we've noticed in our years in the SEO industry is that Canadian firms lag behind their American competitors when it comes to capitalizing on competitive advantages online. Despite being the most connected country on a per capita basis to the internet, Canadian firms are generally slow to explore distinct capabilities online to exceed competitors. In fact, it not only applies online, but Canadian firms tend to be much slower at innovating compared to other companies around the globe. For many manufacturing firms the low Canadian dollar gave them artificial capabilities to compete with American counterparts.

However, with advantages disappearing and the need to capture more sales at an all time importance given the current market climate, Canadian businesses are starting to discover the necessity and profitable benefits of applying basic to intense web marketing strategies for their web sites.

Distinct SEO: Serving Calgary and Beyond

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Distinct SEO.com continues its search engine optimization training program designed to give foundational knowledge to webmasters, business owners, web designers, and others. By popular demand we have created a program that teaches the basic components of SEO with the purpose equipping you and your firm with the skills necessary to perform competent and profitable SEO. Read the rest of this entry »

It's been over four years but still some people think keyword density has business being a legitimate SEO strategy. Ensure keywords account for 5% of your total content and the magic number should thrill Google. Nothing could be more wrong. In fact, Matt Cutts and other top SEO names have even suggested that keyword density that is similar across numerous pages will raise red flags.
In fact, keyword density is even less important than meta tags since some of them still hold purposes (look back for our Meta tag articles). Keyword density is the percentage of words on a web page that match a specified set of keywords. Old SEOs using this technique feel there exists a magic number that pleases the search engines, this couldn't be further from the truth. Read the rest of this entry »

The old search engine optimization adage read, "content reigns king." For those of you wondering what this means here's a quick explanation. When creating web sites SEOs, marketers, webmasters, etc., have been told by major search engines to focus on content. The better the content, the more unique, the value to the industry, how it is written, are all crucial factors of providing the internet community with quality additions. For some time, SEOs have specifically said the primary focus to any SEO strategy is to write and provide quality and relevant content on web sites.
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We're always very pleased when a client agrees to offer a review of our services for visitors and prospective clients to browse. Not all clients agree to let us post a testimonial publicly so we cherish every one!

Tom Frankel is CEO of Stamford Scientific Inc. located in Poughkeepsie, NY. SSI manufactures wastewater products for treatment plants; mostly they develop, innovate, and implement bubble diffuser products. They became our client in November, 2006, and we currently still offer SEO and PPC services (three years later!)

SSI were #3919 on the Inc. 5000 for 2007!

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Originally posted in 2006 and updated for 2008. Look around you, the SEO industry is routinely at least 6-12 months behind search engine trends be it good or bad. There is always considerable discussion, in an effort to stay one step ahead of the competition, regarding the importance of the various linking schemes available today compared to the past and the subsequent impact on a web site tomorrow. This article will provide a brief discussion on the various linking schemes and what SEOs should think about them today.

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We posted this in 2006, almost exactly two years ago. It's a chance for us to re-visit the SEO trends of the past and determine what changes in the industry have taken place since. Before one of the web sites we used to work on had a regular news feed. Searching for the post I noticed two years ago that the article was #1 for some cool keywords. Turns out upon closer inspection a special character--the ' wasn't a ' but a ’ [the appropriate HTML code is ’]--was the aspect that ranked and not the normal apostrophe. Has anything changed today?

Special Characters No Longer Affect Googlebot

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