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Search Engine Optimization

What Matters in Today’s SEO

Google Search on Desktop

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about SEO lies and misconceptions. As a follow up to that post, I recently visited WP Tavern’s WordPress Weekly podcast and chatted with Jeff Chandler and Marcus Couch.

We discuss a number of topics surrounding SEO including what’s changed in the past five years, the purpose of SEO plugins, common misconceptions about search engine optimization, and the amount of effort involved in obtaining real, long-term results.

As Jeff stated, I was on fire and slightly revved up. As you listen to the show you can certainly hear my passion for SEO and the fact that I believe SEO education is critical for success.

Topics We Discussed in the Show

  • What matters in today’s SEO
  • Problems and perceptions with SEO consultants
  • WordPress plugins are an SEO tool and not actual SEO
  • WordPress as an SEO friendly CMS
  • Black hat SEO practices
  • SEO best practices and processes
  • SEO vs. PPC
  • HTML vs XML sitemaps
  • Google, Bing, and Yahoo
  • Directories and if they matter
  • Whether PageRank still matters
  • Reputation management and what works
  • The reality of DIY SEO
  • The value of meta titles and meta descriptions
  • Press release optimization dos and don’ts
  • The dangers of out dated SEO information
  • SEO experts to follow
  • Places where you can learn SEO

Listen to the podcast recording:

Resources Discussed in the Show

I recorded two other podcasts this week and you’ll hear me on upcoming episodes of How I built It and StudioPress.fm. Both should be released in the next week or so.

If you enjoyed the show and you’d like to hear more of WordPress Weekly, you can visit their website and listen to other podcasts. I was episode 244, so this means you have lots of past shows to browse through.

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Rebecca Gill's avatar

Rebecca Gill

Rebecca is the founder and president of Web Savvy Marketing, a Michigan digital marketing agency. She has a well-rounded business background within SMB and enterprise organizations, as well as over fifteen years of experience in sales and online marketing. She provides SEO consulting services for clients, SEO coaching on Clarity.fm, teaches SEO at diySEOcourses.com, and has a weekly podcast at SEObits.fm. Learn more at RebeccaGill.com.

Comments

  1. Reggie says

    Hey Rebecca!!! I’ve been a Web-Savvy-Marketing customer for years and am embarrassed to say that I’m just now noticing your SEO business. Absolutely loved the interview and will definitely be taking your online course! All the Best for your SEO Bootcamp in January!

    • Rebecca Gill says

      Ah thanks for saying so Reggie!

      I kept the SEO side of the business fairly low key for years due to time constraints on my part. Now that I’m free a little bit more, I’m jumping into SEO education and training as I truly love it.

  2. Chris Adams says

    Hi Rebecca, thanks for posting this – interesting listening material :-)I am curious to know what your opinion is when it comes to optimising a small website (that hasn’t a great deal of seo impact, not a great page rank or domain authority) for local search – should the home page be optimised for the website’s main keyword & location or should the home page only really be optimised for the brand and it be left to the internal pages to be optimised for the services + location keywords? I ask this as often it is the home page that shows the best hits in terms of traffic and (therefore) placement in the search engines, even if there are supposedly more ‘relevant’ keyword rich content in internal pages…
    Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
    Chris

    • Rebecca Gill says

      Chris I’ve always struggled with the home page and selecting keywords for it. This is because I’ve watched Google embrace it and totally ignore it in other cases.

      Thus I don’t feel there is one absolute way. In some cases it will work and in other it just won’t. So many factors that come into play and with the home page only some are within your control.

      I will say that the chances of ranking a home page for search terms at the local level are much greater than at the national level. So it is possible.

      My general rule is to use the home page for branded terms and the interior pages for specific phrases.

      That said, when Google’s local search results are shown in the map, it will return the home page but actually use phrases associated with interior pages. These results are highly dependent on the profiles category and selecting the right one.

      Before making any decision I would review your competitors and how Google is displaying results for the desired search terms. Let that guide you in your direction. I always do this at a national level, but I think it is very important at the local level as well.

      • Chris Adams says

        Thanks so much for your response – a slightly double edged sword in that one the one side it is comforting to hear that there is no one rule suits all approach to this (and so my position not quite being sure isn’t so all at sea!) and on the other hand it is a little un-nerving not having a certain action to follow knowing I am doing the *right* thing… but then that’s the ever shifting landscape of seo I suppose!!

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