If you’re in the business of selling products or services online, you’ve probably heard that you need SEO. “So what is SEO?” you ask. The goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to improve rankings of websites and web pages in search engines’ “organic” (or unpaid) search results. Here is a list of the most [...]

SEO and SEM are two acronyms that are thrown around quite a bit in the world of online marketing. If you’re looking for consulting services in this area, it’s good to know what these acronyms mean and the difference between SEO and SEM. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is primarily concerned with [...]

If you’ve studied up on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you may have read that “external links” are a good thing. At least, I hope that’s what you’ve read! Because it’s true. So what are external links? External Links External Links are HTML links coming from another website to your website. For example, if you read [...]

If you have been poking around the Internet trying to figure out how to rank higher in the major search engines like Google and Bing, you may have seen the term “Organic Search Results.” Sounds like something good to eat, right? Well, not quite. Organic Search Results Defined Here is the scoop: Search engines have [...]

Every summer, I take my green Toyota Echo to the dealership for an annual checkup. I do this as a preventative measure to make sure that I address problems proactively and make the most of my investment. I love my car and I want it to do as well as it can for as long [...]

When most people hear the word “audit,” they think of the IRS, and a panic attack ensues. Fortunately, an SEO audit has nothing to do with taxes, and it can actually help you make money (unlike audits given by the tax man). But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with the basics. What Is [...]

If you’ve paid attention at all to the topic of SEO writing lately, you have heard that “content is king.” And it’s true! As search engines like Google and Bing tighten up their algorithms to punish so-called “content farms” and try to improve the relevance of the results to the keywords entered by the user, [...]

Earlier in the week, Google announced that it will begin alerting webmasters about duplicate content issues. That’s very exciting news, but it presumes that everyone knows what duplicate content is. Since I’m sure not everyone is as big of an SEO nerd as me, I thought I’d take a few moments to explain what duplicate [...]

In a previous post, we discussed the fundamentals of duplicate content (i.e., what it is, why it’s important, etc.). Now, we’re going to complete that discussion by describing various techniques for avoiding duplicate content. Solving The WWW vs. Non-WWW Dilemma Previously, we learned that http://www.webgnomes.org and http://webgnomes.org are unique addresses. Consequently, if both addresses are [...]

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular buzzwords in today’s marketing world. And many companies (including ours) advertise that they offer SEO for small business. But what does this really mean? Don’t the SEO best practices apply to websites of all shapes and sizes? Well, yes, they do. It’s always good to optimize [...]

If you have an online presence (corporate website, blog, eCommerce site), you have probably spent some time thinking about how to improve search engine rankings. After all, 97% of all consumers do research online prior to buying products and services, so being visible in the search engines is incredibly important. In this post, I reveal five key [...]

Yesterday, I was reading a how-to guide produced by the Iowa Get Your Business Online! initiative. (I enjoy reading and comparing SEO-related beginner’s guides – yes, weird, I know.) This guide covers areas such as how to create a website using Intuit’s website platform, how to drive traffic to the site, and how to be [...]

When we perform an SEO audit for a website, we analyze the on-page and off-page characteristics that search engines use to generate their rankings. One of the most important on-page characteristics of any Web page is its title because it very succinctly summarizes the page’s content. Users use this information to help them decide if [...]

We are so excited to introduce our new, FREE eBook Getting Started with SEO: The Definitive Beginner’s Guide. One of our goals as a company is to educate individuals and organizations about search engine optimization (SEO) and other Internet marketing best practices to help them succeed online. Part of our education strategy is to provide [...]

Blogs are a great mechanism for generating lots of fresh content on a regular basis. This is good for SEO and for promoting your brand. However, just the act of having a blog doesn’t mean anybody will read it. You have to create interesting blog topics. This is not as hard as it sounds. Check our [...]

Did you know that SEO image optimization can help your page rank higher? And not only that – it also gives your image a much better chance of showing up in image search results. If you are not optimizing your images for the search engines, you are missing out. Find out how to provide the [...]

One of the most common mistakes we’ve noticed during our SEO audits is Web pages with missing or poorly optimized meta descriptions. A page’s meta description does not directly impact the page’s search engine ranking (i.e., it is not a ranking signal), but it does affect the page’s click-through rate (CTR) in the search engine [...]

Your URL, the name of your page in the browser address bar, is a great place to look for optimization opportunities. First and foremost, you should make sure that the URL makes it clear what the page is about – to your visitors AND the search engines. This short SEO URL optimization video walks you [...]

Let’s face it. Not all SEO topics are sexy and fun. In fact, some topics are just flat-out boring, and unfortunately, the robots.txt file falls into that category. But despite its boring nature, the robots.txt file is still very important for webmasters, and we need to discuss it. So with that in mind, I have [...]

In the world of SEO, heading tags are one of the (not so) secret weapons. SEO heading tags help the search engines understand what the webpage is all about in addition to the title tag, image alt tags, and the URL (and the content of course!). It’s especially important to place your keywords in the h1 tag. [...]

In a previous post, we discussed how to use the robots.txt file to prevent search engine crawlers from crawling sections of your website. But what if you only want to restrict how crawlers handle specific pages on the site? Is there a granular way to control how crawlers handle individual pages? Fortunately, there is, and [...]

Did you know that videos are a great way to increase your exposure in search engines like Google and Bing? In addition, the online video service YouTube is the second most popular search engine on the Internet. YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your videos on YouTube to increase the chances of  them showing [...]

Google Webmaster Tools is a great tool in the Internet marketer’s toolbox. However, how to manage your sites on Google Webmaster Tools isn’t immediately obvious. For example, you may have a scenario in which you need to add one or more users to specific sites that you manage in your Google Webmaster Tools. I know [...]

SEO and social media are quickly becoming inseparable. Even though they are very different things (SEO being the process of optimizing websites for search engines and social media being all forms of online “socializing”), they go together like a horse and carriage. Before we dive into why SEO and social media go together and how [...]

Today, we are very excited to announce our free SEO analysis tool. Our company already prides itself on providing an industry-leading SEO audit, and this new, free tool gives you an opportunity to sample that SEO analysis for your website. The free analysis is not as comprehensive as our full SEO audit, but it gives [...]

Nobody said quality link building would be easy… We all know that link building is a key activity in SEO. But it’s definitely one that falls into the easier-said-than-done category. Let’s face it: Quality link building is hard! So what is a small business owner to do? Who has time to write guest posts and [...]

If you like SEO tools and you’re a fan of free stuff, you’re going to LOVE this list of free SEO tools. The list is organized into 11 categories, and each category broadly describes a popular SEO task (e.g., Backlink Investigation, Keyword Research, SEO Analysis, etc.). I’ve included a brief overview of each tool’s free [...]

In case you missed it, the past couple of months have been wild and crazy in the world of SEO. We’ve seen an avalanche of unnatural links notices; Pandas and Penguins have completely monopolized the news; and negative SEO has become one of the most hotly debated topics of the year. This post represents my [...]

Here at Web Gnomes, we stay on top of the ever-changing world of Internet Marketing so you don’t have to. We enjoy learning new tricks of the trade and putting them to practice in the work that we do for our esteemed clients. Here is some of the most helpful Internet marketing info we came [...]

Writing well is hard. And writing great content that is optimized both for humans and the search engines is even harder. However, it’s the game of the Internet, and there is no way around it. Therefore, I have pulled together six SEO writing tips that will increase your confidence and entice people to read your articles [...]

“Inbound marketing” has quickly become one of the most popular phrases in the world of SEO. Numerous articles have been written about it; numerous people have become advocates for it, and numerous sites have been dedicated to it. But where did the phrase actually come from? Technically, Brian Halligan coined the phrase in 2005. However, [...]

Two years ago, Rand Fishkin (the CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz) wrote an excellent post about learning SEO: 6 Ways to Learn SEO. Many of the resources listed in that post are still extremely valuable; however, a lot has changed in two years. To help keep you current, I’m going to channel my inner Rand [...]

The biggest SEO story last Friday was Google’s announcement that they would begin incorporating “the number of valid copyright removal notices [they] receive for any given site” into their ranking algorithm. Then, a few hours later, Google quietly released a list of June and July algorithm changes. Due to the timing of these announcements, this [...]

A few months ago, I presented a massive list of free SEO tools that can help you accomplish various SEO tasks (e.g., backlink investigation, keyword research, etc.). I received a lot of positive feedback about that list, but people consistently requested more SEO analysis tools. Since I’m a man of the people, this post is [...]

As a responsible SEO, I’m supposed to fall in line with my SEO brethren and repeatedly chant the following mantra: “Don’t chase the algorithm! Focus on long-term strategy!! Do real company sh*t!!!” That’s all great advice, but you know what? Being responsible is boring… and I love a good chase! Plus, if no one chases [...]

Today, we are extremely excited to announce a brand new SEO contest: Free for Fall! How’d we come up with such a catchy contest name? Well, the seasons have officially changed, which means it’s now fall! And we’re going to give away a nice, big, FREE prize!! So add it all together, and you get: [...]

The biggest SEO story last Friday was Penguin 3. Two days before that, the biggest SEO story was Panda 20. And just a few days before that, the biggest SEO story was the EMD update. Needless to say, it’s been a wild week in the world of SEO. So wild, in fact, that many people [...]

On June 27, Bing officially announced a Disavow Links feature in Bing Webmaster Tools. Today, Google finally responded with their own Disavow Links tool. But I’m not going to waste your time by answering the who/what/when/where questions. If you want those details, Danny Sullivan’s coverage is excellent. Google also has an official blog post, help [...]

Almost 5 months ago, I posted a timeline of events leading up to the first two Penguin updates. After it went live, I planned to write a follow-up as soon as the next Penguin update was released. So I waited… and waited… and well, you get the idea. On October 5, Penguin 3 was finally [...]

Remember a few months ago when I said, Gnome Likes is “back and better than ever in 2013!” Yeah… me either In my defense, last month’s newsletter was jam packed with exciting SEO news. But you’re right: that’s not good enough, which is why I’m dusting off the cobwebs for an extra special edition of [...]