Articles by Tom Schmitz
Tom Schmitz // 11 Jan, 2010
Google Caffeine – Don’t Let It Keep You Awake at Night
It appears that Google’s new infrastructure, code named Google Caffeine, is rolling-out live to data centers. Why is this important? Expect to see ranking changes. Don’t freak-out. We’re not talking 2012 or Alderaan upheaval here. That said, expect disturbances in the force. While most well and legitimately optimized websites should remain unscathed, it’s likely… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 2 Dec, 2009
Spin Your Social Media Marketing Flywheel
I’m going to tell you a secret that people in social media marketing and social media optimization don’t like to talk about. Fame begets fame. If you’re a celebrity or popular brand then social media will be particularly easy for you. For those of us who are celebrities only in our own minds, you and… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 1 Sep, 2009
Write Short Simple Obvious Story Titles
Keep your titles short, simple and obvious. Look at the image below. It’s a partial screenshot of my RSS reader. This is your space to hook me. If you don’t, I’m not opening your story. I have 241 unread items. I don’t have time to read them all so I’ll pick and choose based on… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 14 Aug, 2009
230 Link Bait Ideas
Generating great link bait ideas is hard work. When link bait works it’s magical. Watching the page views, unique visitors and server load all go up at the same time is like watching the wheels spin on a slot machine right before it lands on 777. The difference is that a slot machine depends wholly… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 7 Aug, 2009
Interactive Marketing – Ever Changing & Often Unclear
Keeping up to date in interactive marketing is painstaking and frustrating. Yes, we are knowledgeable experts, but if you think we will have the answers at our fingertips every single time…you need to rethink your drink. Let’s take SEO as an example. Things Change This year Google announced that the nofollow attribute no longer reflects… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 31 Jul, 2009
Is This How Vince’s Change Works?
Early this year Google made a change to their organic rankings algorithm. Named Vince’s Change, after the engineer who worked on it, the search marketing industry describes it as favoring brands. Here is what Google’s Matt Cutts had to say about Vince’s Change in March. A few things that Matt says about Vince’s change caught… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 23 Jul, 2009
Where is Your Social Media Marketing Headquarters?
This post is about the nature of social media. The premise is simple. Your social media marketing needs a centralized location, a headquarters. Notice I did not write that you should centralize your efforts. That would be too much like those classic cartoon scenes in which the characters disappear behind skinny trees. When you hang-out… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 11 Jun, 2009
Nofollow frenzy: Google Makes Major Policy Reversal on PageRank Sculpting
On June 2, 2009 Google reversed itself when it announced that the nofollow attribute (rel=”nofollow”) can no longer be used to redirect PageRank. Google’s Matt Cutts stated that nofollow tags would now evaporate PageRank. This is a major policy change by Google’s, one that impact advanced search engine optimization. I want to discuss What is… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 28 May, 2009
The Future of Search – Bing It On
Sometimes when I walk through book stores I read the titles on spines and imagine what the story is about. I’ll develop characters and elaborate plots which could make quite convincing stories. Except, usually my story is nothing like the story in the book. I mention this because I watched Microsoft’s Bing video today. Supposedly,… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 16 Mar, 2009
Seattle SEO Dysfunction at the PI
I hate when good people suffer from bad SEO: Us Seattleites love the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Tomorrow will be the last print edition. Here, in the Emerald City, we already knew the venerable newspaper was to become an online only publication. And as much as we hate to say goodbye to the broadsheets, we want the… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 11 Mar, 2009
Notes from Danny Sullivan Keynote at SEMpdx SearchFest 2009
These are my notes from Danny Sullivan’s keynote address to SEMpdx’s 2009 SearchFest on March 10, 2009. Danny Sullivan’s All Request Keynote at SEMpdx SearchFest 2009 Definitions SEO = Organic PPC = Paid SEM = Everything, both paid and organic What type of SEM are you? Link builder? Social Media? There are a lot of… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 2 Feb, 2009
Are Long Tail Keywords Dead?
Are long tail keywords dying? I’m just asking? I started using long tail keyword strategies well before Chris Anderson’s book arrived on the scene. Back then I called them embedded keywords. And yes, for the sarcastic readers, this was long before the Iraq war too. I coined this phrase because a more popular keyword was… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 23 Jan, 2009
The Microsite Mistake Macro Fight
Microsite Macro Fight! Today Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz published a video proclaiming that microsites are a bad idea. Then, Michael Martinez, from Visible Technologies, countered that microsites can be effective on his SEO-Theory blog and his Best-SEO blog. What gives? Who’s right? Actually, they’re both correct. What is a microsite? You create a microsite… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 23 Jan, 2009
It’s 2009! Are You Ready to Fail?
How’s that web site thing working out for you? If you market a business, knowing how people use the Web and how people might find your web site and how they want to use it is critical. Notice I wrote might find and how they want to use it. Face facts; it’s not about what… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 29 Dec, 2008
Google Oops – Tukwila Hotel Meets Seattle Coffee
Here’s something you don’t see everyday, Google displaying the wrong website address. I ran a search on Tukwila Hotels and Google gave me the results pictured below. Take a look at the listing for the Red Lion. See the URL? It’s www.tullys.com. Tully’s is a Seattle area coffee company. They make the best espresso milkshakes… Read More