Episodes

Digital marketing is a huge field, encompassing several fields of study and changing all the time. And like with any technically-heavy field, digital marketing comes with its own lingo that’s used among industry members. Here we’ll start delving into those terms and what they mean to digital marketing professionals. That way, when someone starts spitting out SEO slang, you’ll know what they’re talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta4_8khnLZs Here’s the terms covered in the A-D Videos...

It seems like everyone is a web designer or an SEO expert these days. After all the years in this industry you learn to spot trends. When the economy is poor, the web designers come out of the woodwork. Everyone suddenly knows how to build a site and knows SEO. I am here to say that is an absolute fallacy. Reputable web designers are not part of the gig economy. And web design is not a side hustle. So what are some of the tell-tale, inside baseball signs, small business owners need to consider ...

Common Mistakes That Negatively Impact Website Success Errors Errors everywhere and not a person to help. We see errors everyday. Even sometimes we miss things. But what are critical mistakes that hamper you digital marketing success. Table of Contents The Platform And the Host We will start our list of mistakes at the most fundamental genesis. Two of the first decisions a person makes when they decide to start a website are where to host it and how to build it. Often this is the biggest mis...

Their back! Well I think they never went away. What I’m talking about is content silos, or as ahref called them a topic cluster. On a side note, recently there was a post on twitter about how people rename things and then go Eureka, I found something new. This Eureka, whether called content hub, topic cluster or silos, have been around since day one. It is just we have not seen the emphasis in the recent past. I guess really since they started cracking down on the over use of anchor text on a pa...

When a user does a search, Google determines if they are looking for something that is either close to them in proximity, or something that is further away. But with the passage of time, more searches are being pushed into a local space, and to be successful in that space, website owners have to understand how to make this perspective work for them. This is the core of what local seo is Every business owner should be identifying where they want to go in the future, how they get there, and how p...

This is the second part of our SEO for Beginners podcast. Because this section is vital for the success of any website when it comes to Google, I felt it best to put this section together all on its own. In SEO for Beginners Part I. I touched on some of the external decisions you need to make when creating a website that will rank for Google. We spent some time on picking web hosting. I built Vertical Web’s Hosting Infrastructure specifically to accommodate Google. And I did it long before Goog...

We finally got to kick off 2022 with our partner Houston Community College’s Center for Entrepreneurship. In tonight’s class I picked several points that will be the key items for ranking well in Google for 2022. Web Hosting There has been a dramatic focus put on Core Vitals. Because I have a long track record of working in SEO and understanding how vital quality web hosting is the process, it only seems fitting to me that Google finally caught up to me with ideas of how a server affects the ov...

When it comes to search engine optimization, people often overlook the value of basic SEO in their website and digital marketing operations. And some honestly may not even understand what to do or how to get started. It is never too late to make basic SEO an integral part of the website. As the owner of a company that offers SEO services as well as web design and web hosting, let’s talk about some ways you can get started today. What is SEO? And Why Does SEO Matter? Basically, utilizing SEO op...

Table of Contents Add a header to begin generating the table of contents One of the biggest mistakes I see small businesses make is underutilizing Local SEO practices. If you want your local business to rank better in Google searches, Local SEO is a necessity because it reveals things about your specific location that could have you appearing in a user’s local search. The key to success is learning what exactly Local SEO is, how to implement it in your own website, how you can support it with...

I was invited to give a talk on SEO for the Houston West Chamber of Commerce and decided to talk this and make a bonus podcast out of it. This is a quick sprint though core vitals and how to use and interpret Web.dev. It is important to have a strong web hosting company to help with making sure you site passes core vitals. And, if it doesn’t helping you make that work. We also did a quick on page technical SEO walk though to help business owners understand how to do a quick audit of your page....

As many know I have always been a big proponent of creating a comprehensive marketing strategy where the digital part, is just that apart. So in this week’s podcast, we go through and unpack what that should look like and what you should be focusing on to set up a long-term sustainable strategy. What Business is NOT Doing When It Comes to Digital Marketing. So sometimes it’s good to start in a place that highlights what we are not doing. There are 10 things that business owners don’t do or ove...

As we all know goals are important. At the start of the year, they seem to be front and center. Digital Marketing for your business is no different. There is no time like the present to get started with it. Two Sides of the Content Coin Content discussions have been going on since the start of SEO and internet marketing. Despite the topic sounding the same the reality is that the end user has become more demanding in what they want. In the past we have said we need to put-up high-quality conte...

New Year’s Day always brings with it resolutions. As business owners, we often have a set of business resolutions for an upcoming year. But do you include your marketing, and specifically your Digital Marketing? Wherever you are in your digital marketing journey, start it or strengthen it by making sure you have the fundamentals in place and that they are working for you. Table of Contents Add a header to begin generating the table of contents Resolution 1 – Fix Website Issues Chances are, ...

I often hear what I do is voodoo or some kind of magic. That is simply not true. Optimizing for SEO has everything to do with math and common sense more than it will ever be about magic. So we have some basic steps that we need to follow to do optimization for each page. Step One: Define Objectives. Coming off my last topic of Keywords this should be fairly easy to do. Figure out the core words you want to rank on and write them down and put them next to your monitor. They should be the foreve...

There is a lot of confusion about how to handle blogs in 2021. From should I be running a blog down to how should I be running it. As a business owner, your website (notice I said website) needs to have a blog. That is not really optional anymore. And the blog needs to be a part of your website and not being run elsewhere. Everyone needs one. In today’s website world, there is a level of brand building that has to go on for a sale to be made. The days of being in the number one spot and the sal...

I hear a lot of different opinions on keywords and how relevant they are. I even had someone tell me that Google says there is not published keyword density and if Google says it we know it’s the truth. While it is true there is no published keyword density, the density of the keyword presence is still relevant and needs to be considered. Gone are the days of just adding words to a page with no consideration of what the user intended to get in results. And we now also have to understand what Go...

In last week’s Score class I got a a question about adding content to keywords after you wrote a page. In essence, what is an SEO content strategy. I answered the question no that I do not do that, but upon further reflection it got me thinking about the process I do use when I create a page and why I usually get it right, with very little tweaking needed. As I thought about it I realized that my process really was a great topic to the Internet Marketing Clinic. What I have noticed though the y...

In last week's Score class I got a a question about adding content to keywords after you wrote a page. In essence, what is an SEO content strategy. I answered the question no that I do not do that, but upon further reflection it got me thinking about the process I do use when I create a page and why I usually get it right, with very little tweaking needed. As I thought about it I realized that my process really was a great topic to the Internet Marketing Clinic. What I have noticed though the y...

So Google is FINALLY seeing things my way. Every year since I’ve been doing the Internet Marketing Clinic, I’ve tried to prognosticate where I think we will be or what will happen in the up coming year. I am often pretty well correct. But this year there is a some vindication for me I think. Google announced in December that it was going to make Core Vitals a boost if you past them. Finally Google understands how important your web hosting company is to your overall success. I have been preachin...

So Google is FINALLY seeing things my way. Every year since I've been doing the Internet Marketing Clinic, I've tried to prognosticate where I think we will be or what will happen in the up coming year. I am often pretty well correct. But this year there is a some vindication for me I think. Google announced in December that it was going to make Core Vitals a boost if you past them. Finally Google understands how important your web hosting company is to your overall success. I have been preachin...

In today’s episode we discuss social media and tips and tricks and how planning can make these efforts more effective. To that end we talk about: Why businesses need a Facebook page dedicated specifically to the business and what the About Us section can do for you. The importance of being an expert, owning your brand, and cultivating that persona across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Why you need a different strategy across platforms and why knowing y...

In today’s episode we discuss social media and tips and tricks and how planning can make these efforts more effective. To that end we talk about: Why businesses need a Facebook page dedicated specifically to the business and what the About Us section can do for you. The importance of being an expert, owning your brand, and cultivating that persona across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Why you need a different strategy across platforms and why knowing y...

No matter what type of business you have, for the holidays see a better buying time. Many small business owners though don’t always handle this all right. It’s passe’ but making sure your website is mobile-friendly is often and can work well with a mobile device. We are now to a point where more transactions are conducted on a mobile phone rather than on a computer/laptop. We discussed the issues you may have from a technical standpoint and how to make sure your website is a racehorse at the t...

No matter what type of business you have, for the holidays see a better buying time. Many small business owners though don't always handle this all right. It's passe' but making sure your website is mobile-friendly is often and can work well with a mobile device. We are now to a point where more transactions are conducted on a mobile phone rather than on a computer/laptop. We discussed the issues you may have from a technical standpoint and how to make sure your website is a racehorse at the t...