There’s a scene in The Sopranos where an up-and-coming rap artist, named Marvin, makes one of the strangest marketing decisions in TV history. He decides to spend $7,000 to get shot. Yes, $7,000 not on social media or a radio spot but on one bullet to the “fleshy part of the thigh.” After seeing fellow […]
Update – January 12, 2017: There’s a new post about how to remove Google Analytics referral spam that addresses new types of spam and includes resources for stopping it. Referrer spam is becoming a problem. If you’re not familiar with referrer spam, it’s traffic from bots that impersonate a referral link. The pseudo traffic is […]
During a hiring phase in November, I interviewed one social media candidate who was an active blogger. I asked him how he optimized his blog for search engines, because a key social media skill is in understanding the interplay between search and social. He told me: I don’t do SEO. I don’t want to risk […]
If you’re new to the Raven blog, then you may be new to our online training classes also. I’ve conducted two so far (you can find them here and here) and have been amazed at not only how many people stay for the Q&A, but also the questions people ask through our Help Desk following these […]
Ever since Matt Cutts, head honcho of Google’s Web spam team, announced one year ago this month that Facebook and Twitter signals are not part of the search engine’s ranking algorithm, digital marketers have publicly expressed a collective “WTF?” regarding social media’s impact on driving organic SEO. While there may be digital marketers who identify […]
When it comes to WordPress, I like to use as few plugins as possible. As WordPress has improved, I’ve been able to drop many of the plugins I’ve used. However, the number of plugins I continue to use and recommend has actually stayed about the same. That’s because each new year brings new vulnerabilities and […]
In most parts of the United States, cooler, autumn weather is upon us. For many in the online marketing world, it’s a time to reflect on the past nine months of work and start thinking about your 2015 to-do list. One of the must items on this list is to perform an annual website audit, especially for […]
Customers using Raven software have asked, “What’s the difference between alt tags and title text on image files?” My response: Good question. So I went in search of an answer. For those using WordPress, the image upload module offers fields for Title, Caption, Alt Text and Description. Honestly, I frequently use the same words for the […]
Google doesn’t often disclose ranking signals, but when they do the search marketing industry works itself into a tizzy. A perfect example is its recent announcement that going HTTPS could provide a slight rankings boost. All of a sudden I have seen hosting and domain registrar companies offering SSL certificates “to give that ranking boost.” Here’s […]
Take a gander at recent “news” headlines involving SEO and it’s no surprise most people have a negative perception of search marketing. Forbes tells us about 7 critical SEO mistakes people make. The lesson: SEO is scary. Huffington Post relays a heartwarming story called “True Confessions of a Former SEO Whore.” The lesson: SEO is […]
