Episodes

Companion article to the Internet Marketing Clinic, September 30, 2026. Presented by Beth Guide of Vertical Web with the Houston City College Center for Entrepreneurship and SCORE. Everybody wants to know how to get their business into the AI answers. ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Claude and the rest of the “ask engines” are where a growing share of your customers start their search. They assume those answers are curated and neutral. Here is the part most people miss. The AI engines are readi...

This how-to guide goes through the use of AI tools for content, YouTube, local SEO, social posts, and reviews without sapping creativity or hurting rankings. The emphasis is on keeping human expertise at the center while letting AI handle structure, cleanup, and speed. It is expected that by the end of the course, individuals will be able to: What AI Is Good For-And Where It Trips People Up There’s a difference between using AI as an assistant versus letting AI do the authoring. When the AI w...

[powerplay] For years, SEO professionals and website owners have been playing a guessing game with Google’s algorithm. We’ve analyzed rankings, tested theories, and tried to reverse-engineer what the search giant actually wants from our websites. But what if I told you that Google has actually been telling us exactly what they want all along—we just haven’t been looking in the right place? Thanks to leaked internal documents and Google’s own AI tools, we now have unprecedented insight into the...

As a small business owner, we all understand the plight of too much to do, not enough hours in a day and how we can cover more ground in less time. So enter AI. As alluring as it is and as helpful as it can be, when it comes to a website design and SEO, it can be toxic to your sites overall health if its not leveraged properly. So, before you let an AI tool write your next blog post or launch your entire website, let’s take a moment to pause and ask: Is this actually helping your business—or hur...

As digital marketing continues to evolve, artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful tool for website development and SEO optimization. In today’s video, we talk about how AI can streamline website creation, support SEO strategies, and save time on content generation. WordPress: The Foundation for SEO Success Before diving into AI applications, we need to establish a fundamental point: platform choice matters significantly for SEO success. While many businesses are tempted by the simpli...

Maximizing Website ROI with Google Analytics 4: Essential Insights for Business Owners In today’s digital landscape, having a website is the first step but should not be the last step. Understanding how that website performs and contributes to your business goals is what separates successful online ventures from those that struggle to gain traction. At Vertical Web, we frequently encounter business owners who have invested thousands in web design, SEO services, or SEM campaigns but have no idea...

Navigating the Future of SEO: Key Trends and Strategies for 2025 The digital marketing landscape is perpetually evolving, with SEO at the forefront of this transformation. As we approach 2025, it becomes imperative for marketers and business owners to understand and adapt to the latest SEO trends to maintain and enhance their online visibility. This post delves into the significant shifts expected in the SEO realm, offering actionable strategies to help you stay ahead in a competitive digital w...

Whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or digital marketer, understanding the fundamentals of SEO can help you gain visibility, attract leads, and grow your business. What is SEO and Why is it Important? SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of improving a website’s visibility on search engines like Google. The goal is to rank higher in search results, making it easier for potential customers to find your business. Why SEO Matters for Businesses Increases website t...

Keywords have been at the core of search engine optimization (SEO) since the early days of the Internet. Despite evolving algorithms, they remain crucial for ranking on Google. This guide explores the history, best practices, and strategies for using keywords effectively in 2024. The Evolution of Keywords in SEO Early Search Engines and Keyword Usage In the late 1990s, search engines like Lycos, AltaVista, and AOL used simple Boolean searches. Web pages were ranked based on keyword frequency,...

Unexpectedly, the SEO community was gifted a leak. Just as everyone was wringing their hands and lamenting SEO is dead (it’s not), here came a blueprint for SEOs. I have just begun soaking in all the information contained in this document. By way of background, Rand Fiskin, founder of MOZ, was contacted about the Google API being accidentally uploaded. But as I read through this, in many ways, it’s not telling me things I didn’t already know, but I feel very vindicated because it backs a lot of...

SEO Hacks: Ways to win at SEO SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a crucial aspect of digital marketing, and understanding how to navigate it can significantly impact the online visibility of your business. In this class we will explore the basics of SEO so that you can compete in this world and understand the do’s and don’ts and if you’re paying someone you can understand that they’re doing what they need to do. Google and SEO: Two Sides of the Same Coin Google’s relationship with SEO is const...

Fall is upon us, which means the holidays are soon to follow. For business owners, this time of the year is filled with opportunity – opportunities to develop your brand and capture a new wave of customers in the process. Of course, the competition is fierce during the holidays, especially as we near Black Friday and Christmas. That means SMB owners and online retailers must be ready to optimize their web presence to the extent they can. By strengthening your website, ad marketing, e-mail marke...

Auditing Website Basics: The Rules Every Business Website Should Follow Developing a business website is difficult work. To be frank, it’s a job that most small business owners aren’t prepared to handle on their own. The job is only getting tougher, too, as Google is constantly raising the bar on what constitutes a high quality, trustworthy site. And every business owner should want a website that Google considers trustworthy because those are the sites that secure top ranking spots. If your s...

WordPress is one of the internet’s most powerful engines, as something like 40 percent of all sites run on WP. Millions of those sites are professional or e-commerce in nature, and from the get-go, they must be configured properly to succeed. That means integrating the right tools into WordPress during and following the initial WP install. If you’re partnered with a reputable web hosting company, these tools may be included with your install package – a major convenience for site owners who don...

How to Write a Better Blog Blogging, it’s not why most people get into business, but written communication remains an important part of customer acquisition. And online, that means writing high quality blogs, articles and landing page content to help send the signals to Google that will equal long term SEO success. With today’s tech-based, always-online economy, the value of good writing may not be obvious. That’s where we’ll start before addressing how to write a more effective piece of websi...

If you’ve just launched a business website – or are about to launch one – your work is just beginning as the site’s owner. With millions of e-commerce and professional sites already online, it’s a real fight to get new websites noticed. In fact, it’s impossible to gain traction online without an effective SEO plan in place. That’s because search engines are picky when determining which pages to rank – those with better SEO fundamentals are much more likely to snag those coveted top spots. https...

For anyone who has been around the Internet Marketing Clinic for a while, knows we always try to stay ahead of where the road goes. AI tools have turned 2023 on its ear, and it is not even March. In this episode of the IMCH, we are taking an in-depth look at how to balance AI tools like ChatGPT and your website, content or SEO efforts. There is a lot of very dangerous misguided implementations ideas so we wanted try and stay ahead of it and let you know what we think you should be doing and how ...

Buckle up 2023 is going to be one for the ages. Every year brings a new set of challenges for the digital marketing industry, but 2023 may bring more upheaval than normal. Multiple content-related updates in late 2022 appear to be targeted at identifying and deranking pages with low quality (potentially AI) content. Google has also made recent updates to its Search Rater Quality Guidelines – with added emphasis on communicating expertise and experience in content. Additionally both Google and B...

Google has always prioritized content in its rankings, but in the second half of 2022 and into 2023, the search engine giant has gone all-in on content updates. In the past several months, Google has pushed over at least three significant content updates, and its latest includes major work to its search engine content guidelines. We’ll take a closer look at this latest update and what website owners will need to do in response. A few notable changes in Google’s newest content update The bulk o...

Looking back at 2022 – a year of major Google updates Another year, another slate of algorithm updates from the world’s leading search engine. Google making changes to its ranking algorithm is nothing new – it’s always going on, actually – but 2022 saw a couple of impactful changes that website owners should be aware of. Ideally, you will have already made some of the necessary adjustments, but if not, we’ve got a quick recap here you can use to get up to speed. Table of Contents Add a header...

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the primary components of digital marketing and is foundational to a successful website. Proper SEO gives your website the best possible chance at securing favorable search engine listings, and those top listings are valuable. In fact, the top 3 organic listings in Google gets an estimated 80 percent of all the clicks on a particular search engine results page (SERP). As your site moves up the rankings, its ability to attract traffic will also improve....

If you’re running an e-commerce website, then you’ve got competition. At last count, there were more than 20 million e-commerce sites in operation around the globe. Every one of those websites has the same goal – stand out, attract traffic and pick up conversions in the process. With millions of sites crowding the online picture, it’s never been more important to pursue best e-commerce practices when developing and marketing a website. That’s what we’re going to go over, along with some tips to...

When I teach class, I always advise using WordPress because it gives small business a way to level the playing field. At Vertical Web we do a lot of things, but client advocacy is one of the biggest. We talk about why using a platform like Wix or Squarespace in my opinion does not allow websites to have the best chance to rank in Google and that should always be a priority. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqEg5ROZrIk I know we often hear well I just need to have it for credibility from small b...

Each month I sit down to pick topics that are most relevant to the Digital Marketing landscape. Or, I am asked questions from clients that really can be a strong class topic. That is exactly what happened here. I had two different clients ask us to help them understand an SEO report. So out of that, this topic was born. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH9vglF2gAU&feature=youtu.be Google Analytics The reality is I used at least 2 and sometimes as high as 4 types of reporting daily for website...