We all know that content is king nowadays for those who are looking to boost their organic online presence. With most back links being devalued considerably, and Panda chewing up inadequate content left, right and centre, it is becoming incredibly daunting for those looking to promote their businesses online. How can they get ahead?  Google tells us to create as much useful and informative content as we can, both for our own websites and sites we are looking to promote our brand on. Links from [...]

When it comes to link building, the link request can make or break the deal. Webmasters can be immediately turned off by a request just from the introduction. This is because many have been overwhelmed by irrelevant, impersonalized link requests in the past. This is where using a link building persona can come in handy. It takes a little evaluation of the site you are targeting and the person (webmaster) you are going to email to decide what persona to go with, but if you choose the right one [...]

Want to take a new approach at link building in 2013? One way to do it is by taking the focus off of building links for rankings and start focusing on building links that lead to direct traffic and sales. Here are some ways to build conversion-oriented links for your 2013 link building campaign. Look For Advertising Networks / Directories with Real Customer Traffic There are lots of directories out there that receive tons of traffic, but that traffic isn't necessarily the kind that will lead t [...]

We've been talking a lot about competitor analysis, link building, content strategy, and other various online marketing topics. But let's back up for a post and look at the foundation of any online marketing campaign, whether it is content, search, or social. Keyword research is absolutely essential - if you don't know what keywords to target, then you might be throwing money into marketing without getting the results you want. Here are some tips for keyword research that should help you find th [...]

I start this post by saying: Thank you for such a Great First Year &  Happy Birthday cognitiveSEO!  This week we just moved up on the age scale. We just turned 1! Back in December 2011, after a year and a half of continuous programming & development, we launched the  cognitiveSEO toolset. Rewinding time, I can say that it was quite an exciting day. 2 hours before the expected launch time our ISP had a connection issue and we were cut off. You just can't imagine [...]

Brainstorming for content can be really difficult at times especially, when your job requires you to write about various niches at a short notice. Though there are many tools like discussion forums, content curation sites, social media platforms, social bookmarking sites, etc. that can help to overcome this problem. Using a lot of tools can be overwhelming. Hence, I have come up with some of my favourite tools that can help to do an effective brainstorm for content ideas. (more...) [...]

Once you've completed your competitor research and found some Google friendly link building opportunities, your next job will be to contact website owners to request your links via guest blogging, inclusion in a piece of content, or addition to a resource page. The link request is probably one of the most crucial parts of link building. If done correctly, you will ultimately get your link. If not, then you will lose the opportunity. The following are some tips to make sure that you get the li [...]

A few days ago Krumel told me about a weird ranking that he saw on the international Google search for the brand name "Skype". Google lists the Russian version of the main Skype page in places 2 or 3 depending on the search location. This happens on almost any international or local search. The first result is always the correct result (correct site language) for the tested countries (UK,Netherlands,Germany,Russia). On the US version it did not happen always. I started digging around and [...]

We all know that Google's algorithmic changes have impacted the way we do link building. But we also know that in some industries, there are plenty of competitors who are using risky link building techniques to rank well for their targeted keywords. So while you are doing your competitor analysis, ask the following questions about various sites that competitors are using to see if they will be Panda / Penguin friendly opportunities. Photo Credit: Matti Mattila on Flickr How to Evaluate G [...]

Last night Alex Graves from Bronco posted an article discussing the Payday Loans niche and how he thinks that the Google algorithm has been gamed, even after the Penguin and EMD update. I tweeted to him, the payday loans case study that I did back in June (this was the first case study of its kind, that ignited a series of articles talking about how the payday loans niche is abused in Google). He is saying that this new site ranking on the "payday loans" keyword in the UK was not a hacked [...]