SEO

Local search, newspapers, new media models etc.

by AnnB on September 07, 2009

Is it just me or is anyone else noticing Yelp and Examiner.com showing up a lot more frequently in Google searches? I’m seeing Examiner articles and Yelp discussion forums ranking on page one quite often, and I never noticed that before.

Strut your SEO stuff

by AnnB on April 26, 2009

In which I clarify my feelings about SEO

by AnnB on April 15, 2008

I’ve said in the past that I’m deeply sceptical about the role of SEO in achieving good Google rankings, but, in light of what I’m seeing as a result of my local search experiment, I think it’s time for a clarification. When I asked about SEO being BS, I should have been more specific. Certainly [...]

Update on my local search experiment

by AnnB on April 08, 2008

Almost two weeks ago I started an experiment to see how fast a web page on this blog, featuring Montreal Italian restaurants, would move up in the search rankings. My hypothesis was that newspapers could own this kind of local search if they’d just unlock some of the information hidden away in their archives and [...]

Why does Yellowpages.com rank so high?

by AnnB on March 31, 2008

Whenevever I look at comScore ratings, I’m always floored by the results, and not just the fact that Yellow Pages ranks as high as it does but that it supposedly has almost half the number of monthly unique visitors as Google sites. Frankly, I find that more than just a little hard to believe. I [...]

Local search experiment update

by AnnB on March 31, 2008

Not going gangbusters. I’ve started running Google AdWords whichis bringing in a trickle of traffic along with some minimal organic. Will keep you posted.

Local search experiment faces setback

by AnnB on March 28, 2008

Oh dear, this morning we had dropped down page four, from the number one spot to number six or so. I linked from a relevant post at another one of my blogs to try and give the page a bit of a boost. I’m also going to go in and freshen it up since Google [...]

Local search experiment looking positive

by AnnB on March 27, 2008

So far, so good. We’re now on page four of the results. If we stall, we’ll try some linking and publicity and maybe even buy a Google ad or two. Please feel free to contribute your thoughts.

First off, many thanks to Guillaume Bouchard of NVI for his participation in the comments at Friday’s “More Reasons to call BS on the SEO/SEM industry” post. I don’t want to monopolize his time but, alas, every answer he gives raises new questions for me. I’d be interested in his take on why making the [...]

More reasons to call BS on the SEO/SEM industry

by AnnB on February 08, 2008

I’ve said before that I’m sceptical about the SEO/SEM industry — and here’s yet another example of why. Guillaume Bouchard from the Montreal Montreal-based SEO/SMO firm recently told a conference how he used social media tools to generate brand awareness and increase the “online street cred” of Canpages, a Canadian directory company competing against Yellow [...]