image(Flickr/Les Chatfield)

Matt Cutts recently made another of the videos in which he answers questions from the webmaster and SEO communities. This video specifically addressed whether to use “rel=nofollow” with widgets and infographic links.

Judging by the many questions and confused statements about nofollow links, one could make a safe assumption. Google’s message about which links should or should not pass “link juice” is likely unclear to most people.
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Since the release of Penguin 2.0, many sites have taken a dive in the SERPs.

One of the causes of poor SERP performance is an excess of anchor text containing specific keywords.

In the past, a primary goal of link building was to gain many incoming links. These links often used anchor text with keywords relevant to a site’s SEO strategy.

However, in recent years, Google has focused on the characteristics of natural link growth. They now penalize sites whose backlink profiles appear to have been artificially created by SEOs.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: pop-ups, pop-unders, intrusive Flash advertising, and content-obscuring modal dialogues all suck, both from an aesthetic perspective and for site users.

In modern web design, the trend is towards elegance and simplicity; providing awesome content that’s pleasant to consume is the order of the day. But, we have to make money, and that’s what intrusive advertising is supposed to achieve.

The web is growing up, and part of its developing maturity is that serious sites that want to make money from content – particularly bloggers – are tying to look less like the flyers we find under our windshield wipers advertising quack remedies in garish colors and fonts, and more like credible publications.

When people hear about SEO hosting, a common query is “Why should I use SEO hosting; surely I can optimize my site for search with any hosting company.”

That’s completely right, but SEO hosting has a specific place in the SEO strategist’s tool box.

In this article, we’d like to clear up some of the confusion around SEO hosting and help you develop an understanding of what it is and why you might need it.

image(Flickr/Peter Rosbjerg)

Traditionally, businesses have been broken into units, each of which has a particular area of expertise and responsibility. Public relations handled interactions with the media, marketing was responsible for getting the word out, and SEO for bringing in traffic by any means. Then there’s customer service, sales, administration, manufacturing, and so on. Each a little dukedom with feudal responsibility to its C-Level royal court.

SEO is changing;

SEO’s role is changing. Indeed, it’s expanding beyond its old core functions. These traditionally involved bringing in traffic through technical site optimization and link building. Now, people more accurately refer to this broader approach as inbound marketing. Furthermore, in today’s world, a strong web presence is absolutely key for any company’s income. Furthermore, Google strictly targets disapproved tactics. Therefore, content has become the most important element. Continue reading →