The SEO Blog from cognitiveSEO

Many people don't know Blekko yet but already feel the influence of the search engine start up that offers customizable search results for advanced users. Blekko is actually the driving force behind much of innovation in the search industry right now. Blekko bragged to be spam-free by removing so called content farms that were flooding Google with low quality pay by the dozen content created solely for the purpose of getting search traffic. While Google claimed to have worked on [...]

* Like most average people out there Google hasn't yet let me test the new social network Google+. Only tech pundits, influencers, social media mavens and other early adopters have been allowed to use G+ at the beginning. Thus I have to trust their reviews of the Google+ service. Google's tactic of allowing only cheerleaders in has seemingly paid off. Most reviews are positive. Why? There are different reasons. Let me cite some of them. Gina Trapani of SmarterWare what I a [...]

Hashtags have become a powerful tool in digital marketing, with their roots deeply embedded in today’s pop culture. Some love them, others totally don’t. Few know how to use them strategically, while the majority just think it’s cool to throw in 1, 2, 5… or 50 hashtags in a post. While some play around with fun, embedded words following a hashtag, others focus on getting the most out of these little social media wonders. Whether you’re using related hashtags or just experimenting, they [...]

There's a big hype going on about chatbots. If you've heard of them but aren't quite sure what exactly they are or how they work, you're in the right place.   This article will explain what chatbots are and how they can help you take your digital marketing to the next level. I'm not using "to the next level" as an idiom, because chatbot marketing might just be the next big thing. Incorporating chatbots in marketing can streamline customer interactions and significantly enhance your market [...]

We have written and optimized - for our own blog or other pages - thousands of articles and SEO friendly blog posts in the last 10 years. What better way to learn from past successes and mistakes? We’d like to share them with you, not just as a holiday gift, but mostly because sharing our insights with others is what makes us and the people around us stronger and more resilient.   Google's rules and updates changed way too many times to be worth counting and the content writers on this [...]

You keep hearing around that the same way true fans like their Apples fresh (I'm talking about iPhones), Google likes its content fresh. Well, it's somewhat true, but not for the reasons you might think of!   Google doesn't necessarily favor "fresh" content. Some search queries definitely deserve freshness, while others not so much. However, fresh content can impact SEO through some indirect "freshness" factors.     What Does Fresh Content Even Mean? Freshness & [...]

So, you're wondering why SEO does not work for you and your website, right? Haven't you heard?! SEO is dead! Dead from all the bad jokes about it. Of course, SEO isn't actually dead, but there are a few reasons why SEO might not be working for you and your site.   We've gathered 14 top of mind reasons why your SEO might not be working for your website. Let's go through them and see if something rings a bell.   You don't stick to the basics You don't really understand wha [...]

Everybody wants to have the possibility of choice, but the paradox is that no one wants to be some random "one" in a crowd of a hundred. With this need of any digital marketer in mind, we've thought of giving you the opportunity of being just that marketer who stands out. The new year of H2H (human-to-human) approach is here and we should focusing our attention to build meaningful relationships with audiences in a creative way. After extensive research, we've put together a list with the top [...]

Web Directories have been the norm for the world wide web and for search engine optimization for a long time. But are they still relevant in this age of advanced AI Google Updates?   Well, as Head of Web SPAM at Google John Mueller said, "in general, no". But the key words in that answer are "in general". That's the usual answer we get from John and, as much as we'd like to say we will dissect it, the truth is that we can only be speculating and interpreting things based on own knowledge [...]

Faster, easier, higher. That's what we're all up to when it comes to ranks and traffic, right? Well, easy wins with little effort are rare in SEO. There are most likely SEO myths that will wipe out your business instead of boosting it.   As we are often being asked about many misconceptions from the SEO world, we've decided to gather and share with you the most important SEO myths that tend to keep you from improving your ranks and traffic. And of course, clarify them once and for all. & [...]