The fanfare surrounding Google+ died down a long time ago (aside from a brief resurgence while everyone threatened to leave Facebook following their redesign in September).  Google’s “Facebook killer” has so far been nothing more than another flop in the line of Google Buzz and Google Wave.  There are a number of reasons why G+ has not lived up to expectations, but one big change yesterday may be Google’s best chance at turning things around. (more…)

While announced back in March, Google recently reinitiated the “Block all [URL]’s results”, causing an uproar within the digital space.  To remind everyone, this feature works as follows: (more…)

The holiday season is upon us and with it, lots of opportunity for increased traffic, visits, clicks and conversions.  In the world of ecommerce, it’s not just about the goods you have to offer or the free shipping that comes with every purchase (although that is a good idea around the holidays).  This is an important time not only to give and receive cheer, but also to employ some SEO to take advantage of the shopping spree many are about to embark on.  In an effort to spread some holiday joy, here are 10 tips on how to optimize your website and business for the holidays. (more…)

Search experts, search clients and web aficionados everywhere took to Twitter as news of Google’s new secure search roll-out broke.  The search giant announced that it would begin encrypting searches by default if people were logged into Google.com via a secure connection, thereby keeping the search query a user enters and any websites they visit afterwards inaccessible to third parties. (more…)

2011 has not been an easy year for job seekers and while many political hopefuls have plans to improve the dire job market, these changes will take time to take effect.  Many are left without jobs and in many cases, no amount of networking can put employees into a company that can’t afford to hire.  Even those who are employed and are looking to leverage themselves into a better position over time have found themselves struggling to find the right fit for their abilities and qualifications.  So while we wait for our government to sort out this job situation, what can we do? (more…)

On October 21, 2011, Jon Morris, CEO and founder of Rise Interactive will present a free AMA Webinar entitled SEO: How Understanding Your Analytics Gives You the Edge.

Morris will take you on a deep dive into understanding the key data points that will help you move the needle with your SEO investment. This session will go beyond the basics of search engine optimization and will give actionable items around Prioritization, Content Development and the Analytical data points you should be monitoring. (more…)

The goal of Google’s search engines has long since been to deliver a quality user experience, using a complex algorithm to deliver the most relevant search results to satisfy a user’s query.  It does this by crawling page content and identifying the most relevant and highest quality pages using keywords, title and header tags— to name a few.  This is, in essence, what drives quality SEO efforts, with page owners motivated to choose the best keywords for their page, putting those keywords into quality, useful and engaging content and avoiding keywords that may rank well but are irrelevant to the page. (more…)

In case you have been living under a rock recently and haven’t heard, Senator Rick Santorum, has gotten into a bit of a predicament in Google search results. These leave many people questioning how this even happens? How did a website with a false definition make it to the #1 position in Google? The answer: crafty SEO techniques. (more…)

Link building can be hard; link building for big brands can be even harder. Traditionally, link builders are at their best when they can quickly move around the web, reaching out to bloggers and web masters and looking for that perfect opportunity to make a connection. When link building for a big, corporate client however, this freedom disappears. The link builder is restrained by branding restrictions, employees looking to protect their online turf and perhaps a not so web-savvy executive or two. Even with these restrictions, a link builder who knows how to handle the situation can leverage the massive corporate structure and really move the needle. Here are five examples, though there are many more: (more…)

First things first, what is the Google Analytics Individual Qualifications Exam?

It is a test put together by the fine folks at Google to prove proof of proficiency in utilizing Google Analytics. Seems pretty straight forward, but why is this important, or even necessary? (more…)