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A Linchpin's Life in Pictures
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Marketing Infographics
Customer Journeys
Twitter Tweet Cheat Sheet
Facebook Post Cheat Sheet
Facebook Best Days to Post By Industry
Top SEO's As Lego People
Guide to Personas
Bill Ross's Biography and Resources
Quote: A Formal Education Will Make You a Living; Self Education Will Make You a Fortune.
Great quote – A Formal Education Will Make You a Living; Self Education Will Make You a Fortune.
Quote: Being Realistic is the Most Commonly Traveled Road to Mediocrity.
A really cool quote about business and living life. It says “Being Realistic is the Most Commonly Traveled Road to Mediocrity.”
Machine Learning: 5 Part Series About How Machine Learning Works
There has been alot of talk about Machine learning – most notably for digital marketers and SEOs in regards to recent Google algorithm updates. But have you ever asked yourself “what is machine learning”, or wondered how it actually works? BloomReach engineer Srinath Sridhar walks through probability, Bayesian models and …
[Infographic] Customer Journey Map Analysis By Channel and Industry
A customer journey map is a diagram that illustrates the steps your customer goes through when engaging with your company – whether it be a product, an online experience, retail experience, or a service, or any combination. The infographic below is an analysis of the customer journey of a product …
LinchpinSEO Named a Top 10 Infographic Design Company by TopSEOs.com
TopSEOs.com, an independent authority on search vendors, named us a top 10 infographic design company for March and April of this year. The other top 10 in the group included agencies such as Avalaunch Media, Column Five Media, Brafton, and Lumin Consulting.
[Infographic] Tablet Usage Stats and Figures Cheat Sheet
It’s no secret that mobile and specifically tablets are emerging as the primary device that people are utilizing to find information, play games, and engage with their friends on social networks. Even though this is a primary device type, marketers are still stumped as to how to properly monetize these …
Justice League of America Founding Members Graphic
Source: RIPT Apparel Designer: Linchpin SEO About: Hey DC Comic fans, this weeks graphic is all about the founding members of the Justice League of America. The Justice League originally featured Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter. Justice League Founding Members, designed by Linchpin …
[Video] The 6 Steps for Driving Innovation Within Your Company
In a great series about innovation on telegraph.co.uk, co-author of Innovation as Usual and lecturer at IESE Business School, Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg takes us through the 6 steps to drive innovation within your company or office. Step 1 Focus ‘Focus beats freedom’, says ‘Innovation as Usual’ author Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg. Give employees …
[Infographic] Avengers 2013 Roster from Marvel Comics
Source: RIPT Apparel Designer: Linchpin SEO About: RIPT T-shirts brings you the custom designed 2013 Avengers Roster graphic. The current Avengers roster is lead by Maria Hill and includes: Protector, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Thor, Wolverine, and Red Hulk. Avengers 2013 Roster, designed by Linchpin Infographic Design
Infographic: Twitter Tweet Cheat Sheet To Increase Engagement
Ever wonder about the little things that go along with Twitter that help increase engagement? Things such as how many hash tags you use, how long your tweets are, or if asking fora Retweet actually works to increase engagement for your Twitter campaign. As a follow up to our Facebook …
[Infographic] Evolution of the NES Controller
Source: RIPT Apparel Designer: Linchpin SEO About: In 1983, Nintendo launched the the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). So RIPT picks up in 1983 with the first controller that debuted for the NES. Below you will find a fun infographic outlining the evolution of the Nintendo controller. Embed This NES Infographic …
Baratunde Thurston: Getting Things Done Is Inspiration + Sheer Willpower
One of the most entertaining 99u presentations I have seen in a while. Hats off to Baratunde Thurston for making me laugh on a snowy dreary Friday Morning in Chicago. How does a life-long solo act join a creative team? Comedian and author Baratunde Thurston walks us through his own …
Quote: Being the Richest Man in the Cemetery Doesn’t Matter to Me
This is another great quote by Steve Jobs, which speaks to his passion about what he was trying to accomplish – and much like Mark Zuckerberg, the money was not a factor. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying …
Quote: Innovation Distinguishes Between a Leader and a Follower
Great quote about leading innovation from Steve Jobs. “Innovation Distinguishes Between a Leader and a Follower”. Embed This Business Quote About Leading Innovation by LinchpinSEO Business Blog
Quote: Key to Life and Happiness by John Lennon
This is one of our favorite quotes from John Lennon. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They …
Quote: In Business, Crazy is a Compliment
A great quote from Linda Rottenberg. “In Business, Crazy is a Compliment” Embed This Business Quote About Innovation by LinchpinSEO Business Blog
Quote: Remmebering That You Are Going to Die is the Best Way to Avoid
A great quote by Steve Jobs. “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart” Embed This
Quote: If You’re Not Creating Waves, You’re Not Pushing Enough
A great quote about disrupting the ecosystem of business branding to break through the normalcy. “If You’re Not Creating Waves, You’re Not Pushing Enough”. Embed This Branding Quote by LinchpinSEO Business Blog
Getting People to LOL or OMG Means Little If They Never Pony Up Some Money
This is one of my favorite @leeclowsbeard tweets of all time; “Getting people to LOL or OMG means little if they never pony up some $$$.”. It speaks to the many concerns I have with the direction that much of Digital (traditionally a very accountable and measurable medium) is going …
Motivational Quotes from Eric Thomas’s Secrets To Success Video
In our previous post we spotlighted a video by Eric Thomas about motivation and success. Below you will find some quotes from the video. Embed This Success by LinchpinSEO Embed This Life Success by LinchpinSEO Embed This Business Success by LinchpinSEO
Success: How Bad Do You Want It, A Motivational Video by Eric Thomas
Came across this video about motivation that really spoke to me and my mentality – good or bad. There have been days I arrive at Starbucks or a similar coffee shop to get my morning tea at 6am (which is my usual daily routine) and before I knew it, it …
[Infographic] Complete Color Guide for Designers
Source: RIPT Custom Tees Designer: Linchpin SEO About: RIPT Apparel, your custom t-shirt shop, has compiled some information in an infographic outlining the basics of color selection as well as dives into the psychology of color and how it effects the mind and body. Embed This Design Infographic Color Guide …
[Video] How Unique Does Content Need To Be To Rank Well?
Rand from SEOmoz talks about content uniqueness and search engines. He talks about adding value to content, utilizing snippets from others work, how the Panda Update will eventually hurt your site if there is tons of duplication, and other content topics centered around duplication and uniqueness. He even answers the …
[Video] My Interview With @adamhousley From Tech Take Live on Fox News
I had the pleasure to speak with Adam Housley on Tech Take Live for Fox News about the best days to post to Facebook. This was in reference to the infographic I did – which was based on the Analysis by Buddy Media of 1800 Facebook Pages of some of …
[Infographic] Super Bowl Stats, Facts and Trivia
Source: RIPT Sports Tees Designer: Linchpin SEO About: RIPT Apparel, your premier place for sports t-shirts, has put together the ultimate infographic for the Super Bowl. This graphic talks about fun facts, stats, and helps you with Super Bowl Trivia. Embed This Super Bowl Infographic Super Bowl Facts, an infographic …
Top 250 Lee Clow’s Beard (@leeclowsbeard) Tweets
Lee Clow is currently the Chairman and Global Director of TBWA\Worldwide, and was formerly its Chief Creative Officer. Advertising Age referred to him as “advertising’s art director guru”. A young writer named Jason Fox began channeling Lee in the form of Tweets with emanated from the ad legends beard – …
[Infographic] Snowboarding Guide For Beginners
Source: RIPT Sports Tees Designer: Linchpin SEO About: This infographic covers stats about snowboarding, the basics of snowboard anatomy, types of snowboards, getting up and running, how to looks cool while carrying your snowboard, and even gives snowboarding world records; in case you want a challenge. Embed This Snowboarding Infographic …
[Infographic] Facebook Wall Post Cheat Sheet to Increase Interaction
With most marketing campaigns the devil and success lies in the execution and furthermore the details of the execution. Below you will find the follow up infographic to our “Best Days to Post on Facebook by Industry“, titled “Facebook Wall Post Cheat Sheet to Increase Interaction”. It contains facts and …
[Infographic] Facebook: Best Days To Post, Segmented By Industry
Ever wonder what the best day to post on Facebook is? Well one thing to note is that each industry is different. The infographic below by LinchpinSEO breaks out the best days to post as it relates to each primary industry type. The graphic also includes stats for other Facebook …
Friday the 13th Movie Trivia and Facts Infographic
Source: Friday the 13th Movie Infographic Designer: Linchpin SEO About: The people at RIPT Apparel, the leading site for movie tees, put together this in-depth Friday the 13th Movie Trivia infographic to help answer some of your questions about the series and Jason Voorhees. Enjoy! Embed This Movie Infographic RIPT …
[Infographic] How to Handle a Mini Tort Auto Claim in Michigan
Source: Michigan Auto Law Designer: Linchpin SEO About: This infographic from the people at www.michiganautolaw.com guides you down the path of mini tort claims in a fun and easy to understand way. Embed This Infographic Mini Tort Claim Flow Chart, an infographic designed by Linchpin Design
Evolution of the Video Game Console Infographic
Source: RIPT Apparel Custom T-Shirts Designer: LinchpinSEO.com About: RIPT Apparel, the premier site for video game t-shirts, takes you on a journey though the evolution of video game consoles from The Brown Box in 1967 through the Wii U that was just introduced this year (2012). Evolution of the Video …
10 Most Warped and Twisted Movie Villains Infographic
Source: RIPT T-Shirts Designer: LinchpinSEO.com About: RIPT Apparel, a kick-ass place to get movie t-shirts, has put together their list of the 10 greatest or most warped and disturbing movie villains of all time. Embed This Infographic Most Warped Movie Villains designed by Linchpin Design
Doctor Who Infographic
Source: RIPT Doctor Who T-Shirts Designer: LinchpinSEO.com About: The infographic below depicts the many actors who have played the great Doctor Who. Embed This Doctor Who Infographic Who’s Who, of Doctor Who is an infographic by Linchpin Infographic Design
Twinkie Infographic: The Life of An Iconic Figure and Food
Source: RIPT Pop T-Shirts Designer: LinchpinSEO.com About: This unique and fun infographic is from the people at RIPT Apparel. It outlines the rise and fall of a legend in the food world, namely the Twinkie. Embed This Infographic Life of the Twinkie, an infographic designed by Linchpin Design
How Custom T-Shirts Made, an Infographic Guide
Source: RIPT T-Shirts Designer: LinchpinSEO.com About: Ever wonder how custom t-shirts are made by some of the best online t-shirt stores? The infographic show the step by step process the team at RIPT Apparel goes though to create their awesome custom tees. How to make a custom t-shirt is an …
[Video] What is Co-Citation, and Is It More Important than Anchortext?
Co-citation is a evolving ranking metric that has become more important in the world of SEO. It relies less on the link and anchor text used within the link, and more about what the text located around the brand name says about that brand. For example, if you take the …
[Infographic] Fun Graphic About The Evolution of Super Mario
Source: RIPT Custom T-Shirts Designer: LinchpinSEO.com About: This unique and fun infographic from the people at RIPT Apparel. It showcases the evolution of Super Mario from his start back in 1985 up to where he is today. It also includes some fun facts that you might not have known about …
Content Analysis: Still Against Creating Valuable Content, Read This
In our attempt to become even more focused on building website value from data and focusing on psychographics and personas we have published another content anaysis. This case study is our attempt to prove to small businesses, mid-market companies, and large brands that they must adopt a publishing model that …
[Video] How To Do SEO When You Can’t Create Content
In order to increase SEO value and drive conversions I am a huge believer in creating high-value content that speaks to a website’s primary persona or customer types. But creating content or doing content marketing to help SEO is not always possible. We have all had clients that for any …
[Infographic] Teen Driving Safety for National Teen Driver Safety Week
Source: Michigan Auto Law Designer: LinchpinSEO About: This infographic designed for National Teen Driver Safety Week outlines stats about distracted driving among new teen drivers. Embed This Infographic Teen Driving Stats, an Infographic by Linchpin Design
[Video] Google’s Official View on Guest Blogging For Links
With the focused attention by SEOs on guest blogging as a great tactic for gaining links, building brand, and marketing your business, there has been a ton of questions about how Google will react. The video below comes directly from Matt Cutts, Google’s Lead Spam Engineer, about how Google views …
Engagement Peaks: The One Twitter Insight You’re Probably Missing
We’re all searching for strategies to grow our twitter following and get influential individuals into our community (in fact, we previously outlined some here). But you may be overlooking one stat that can drastically affect how many of your hard-earned community members see your tweets – and thus, how many …
Will Being on Google+ Help My SEO and Rankings?
The question of whether or not being on Google Plus as a business will help your Google rankings or drive more organic traffic to your website is posed almost daily. What is Google+ For those of you who don’t know what Google+ (Google Plus, G+) is, let’s start with that. …
Top Infographic Agencies and Data Visualization Companies
An infographic agency is an design agency whose primary focus is meeting the clients goals and objectives by utilizing content assets such as infographics or data visualizations. These assets help build brand, drive incremental traffic, and can earn a website high-value and high quality links. All these benefits can also …
The Human Element: Motivation & Passion Behind My Madness
The Motivation and Passion Behind My Madness I was meeting with a potential client yesterday and we got talking about careers and why people choose the path they do in life (yes very philosophical). John said,” I want to give you this business, but you have to answer one thing …
The Real SEO Value of URLs: Keywords, Clickthrough, & Social
I get asked weekly about URLs and the value they have from an SEO standpoint, or if a business should pick an exact match domain over one you will need to establish as a brand. We have all been told that keywords in the URL hold some weight in Google’s …
Twitter Insights To Grow Followers and Increase Engagement
Much like doing SEO correctly and thoroughly social media is not a quick hit. Building community (followers or fans), moderating that community, and ensuring that your community stays engaged is a full time job. I am, by nature, an observer. I enjoy listening, drawing conclusions, and gaining insights from things …
11 Lessons My Father Taught Me About Managing & Leading Teams
This is not going to be the traditional type of post where I write about SEO, Content, Infographics, or Web Design, but instead a look back at what I have learned from my father about managing and leading people. Preface My father grew up in Ridgewood, NJ. His father was …
2012 MarketingSherpa Study: SEO Is One of the Most Effective Lead Gen Tactics
MarketingSherpa surveyed 1,530 marketers during their 2012 B2B Benchmark Study to find what works in online and offline marketing. SEO came out on top once again as one of the most effective ways for B2B sites to drive leads. They broke it down into specific high-value tactics within SEO as …
8 Insights For Creating Awesome Infographics That Drive Traffic
Over the past few years of designing infographics, and executing marketing campaigns around awesome inforgaphic or data visualization designs, we have gained a few insights into what works well when executing an infographic strategy. At its core this type of strategy is about creating high-value in-depth visual assets that entertain, …
[Case Study] Infographic + Social Outreach = Huge Traffic Gains
So for anyone who thinks that investing in a valuable, well designed, and well planned infographic is not a smart investment (or not worth the money) we have put together a case study based on a recent infographic we planned, designed, and marketed for a client. This specific campaign targeted …
How To Find Valuable Keywords A Page Ranks For Using Google Analytics
Understanding which keywords are sending organic traffic to a specific page on your website can be helpful when trying to understand: Which keywords or phrases the page ranks for in the search results. Which keywords Google and other search engines value a specific page for. Engagement metrics (time on site, …
How To Find Keywords That Generated Organic Traffic But Don’t Anymore
When we talk about SEO measurement strategies we talk alot about keyword diversity as a Primary KPI. Ensuring that you are on a consistent trend of increasing the number of keywords or keyphrases that are sending traffic to your website from organic search is a great indicator of the level …
Yet Another Reason High-Value Content Is Key For Building Links
With links still being the primary metric that Google uses to help it rank its search results, it is still important (and will be for many years to come) to build high-value links. We have all heard about the traditional reasons for building links by creating high-value content assets (articles, …
Site Consolidation Strategy To Avoid Ranking Metrics & User Fragmentation
“United We Stand, Divided We Fall” had a different meaning when it was first said, but it applies to website design and site consolidation efforts perfectly. When it comes to site consolidation strategy there is one question that seems to repeatedly come up from clients, “What do we do with …
Big Brand SEO: Brands Need To Become Publishers To Succeed
As SEO evolves it’s imperative that not only small businesses understand and adopt the changing landscape, but brands do as well. Traditionally brands have relied on their “brand authority” to take over the search results for non-branded keywords, and much to all our surprise Google has allowed it to happen. …
Will Google Devalue Poorly Done Infographics Like Low-Value Content?
There is no doubt that infographics are a powerful way to drive substantial traffic as noted in our infographic case study, but Google warns that low value, misleading, off topic, or infographics that have incorrect data could be devalued as well as the links they acquired. I would not be …
Microsite Strategy: How An SEO Thinks Through Microsite Strategy
A question that seems to come up alot from clients or internal team members is “How did we reach the conclusion we do in regards to a specific strategy?”. So I thought I would take a somewhat simple topic about microsite strategy and create a flow chart about how an …
Insights For Creating Successful Website Content
With the ton of content we have created for clients or for our own sites ranging from traditional articles to videos and infographics we have gained some positive insights in terms of content creation and content marketing. Below you will find a quick scannable list of some of the more …
SEO 101 Presentation and Training Session For Small Business
I recently had the pleasure of meeting with a group of small business owners, writers, and graphic designers from Chicago to teach them SEO 101. It was a great 2 hour training session that included topics such as: Personas What is SEO? Evolution of SEO TLCs of SEO What to …
I Know Someone at Google, I’ll Just Ask Them What’s Wrong With My Site
I think at some point every SEO hears this from a client, “I know someone at Google so I will just ask them what’s wrong with my site” or “we spend so much in paid search (Adwords) that we have an “in” at Google who can give us SEO advice”. …
SEO QA: New Page Creation Checklist Guide For SEO
Below you will find a basic QA SEO checklist for new page creation. It acts as a reference and guide for development, programming and QA teams to ensure that each new page contains all the basic SEO elements. Download The Page Creation PDF Here Create a unique URL Use all …
[Infographic] List Of The Best SEO’s Depicted as LEGO People
So a couple weeks ago I read Aaron Walls article that depicted Matt Cutts and a few online marketers as LEGO people (which I thought was very cool) and thought to myself, “why stop there?”. My imagination kicked into gear and I began wondering what the best SEOs in the …
Guest Blogging Tips To Build Value With Content
There are so many sites that could be utilizing guest posting and just aren’t, and many (not all) of the sites that are actually being proactive with guest posts are coming across as mini content farms because they are not thinking about how each post they accept or publish on …
Content Methodology: Creating Unique & Quality Content Isn’t Enough Anymore
As online marketing evolves and earned media (Social and SEO) becomes a driving force for businesses, it is important that our SEO and content methodology changes as well. As we wrote about in our “Evolution of Google from Robot to Persona” article, not only is the user expectation evolving from …
Infographic Creation Tips: The 3 D’s of Infographic Strategy and Virality
Over the last 3 years that we have been designing infographics for a ton of different clients across different industries, we have learned alot about succeeding with infographics; whether success means driving traffic, links, or building brand and social channels. Like with any piece of content there have been huge …
Measuring SEO: The 3 Primary KPIs You Should Care About
With the evolution of SEO and the Googlebot Persona, SEO has become more inclusive of other disciplines and relies on team members across a company or agency to work together to drive quality traffic that deposits the user-type onto the page that best satisfies their intent. With the many updates …
The Complete Guide To Online Marketing for Small Business
Transitioning From Traditional Advertising To Online Advertising There are many benefits that online advertising and marketing have over traditional media such as newspapers, TV, radio and direct mail. These benefits include the ability to track the value of campaigns in real time, the ability to see real data about your …
What is SEO: SEO Simplified Into Plain English and Video
What is SEO? In practice, SEO is a business strategy; inclusive of publishing, brand building, marketing, and traffic acquisition. It is about optimizing your website for high value keywords that drive both traffic and conversions by creating in-depth content that satisfies the users and the search engines. SEO in Plain …
[INFOGRAPHIC] Building Personas: How to Understand & Meet User Needs
Personas are used by some of the leading brands around the world to help guide their web design choices and marketing touchpoint strategies. Creating personas will help you understand your website’s visitor, how they’ll utilize your website, and the types of information they need most to support their buying decisions. …
Keys to Stronger Sentences from Linchpin SEO’s Proofreading Team
Every one of us writes. And for everything we write – from articles to emails to tweets – we have an audience of readers. Clarity is crucial Succinct, clear writing ensures that your audience spends as little time as possible in the “work” of reading so they can enjoy the …
Googlebot Persona: The Evolution of Googlebot from Robot to Person
Over the years, as we all know, SEO has evolved. With that evolution of SEO, I think it’s also time to think of Googlebot in a new light. The fundamental concern with Googlebot being a robot is it assumes at a core level that if you put the same thing …
[Video] How Google Handles Pagination Straight From Google’s Maile Ohye
Paginated pages that are often found on large ecommerce websites or large content websites are difficult for SEOs to optimize and can provide little value based on user intent. Most content websites utilize pagination within articles to increase their “pageview” count (which is what they base their ad sales from). …
Content 101 Training Presentation For Bloggers and Small Businesses
As we know content has regained the throne (although some would argue is was never de-throned) as the primary driving force for a website in regards to rankings. It is no longer acceptable to create low value posts that offer nothing more than generalizations about topics. Content in the post …
SEO For Small Business: The E in SEO Stands For Effort
Running a few small businesses and a couple start-ups myself is exciting and quite the roller coaster for many reasons. I have been doing SEO for close to 9 years and have seen the evolution over time, and the complexity increase with the evolution. One thing that has not changed …
Google’s Content Reading Level: SEO Analysis of Top Colleges & Content Farms
As an SEO I’m sure I look at the world in a slightly different way than most people. I see most things in terms of optimization; whether that is optimizing time, value, or Google rankings. I also am a very visual person, which in some regards is counter productive to …
Competitive Analysis: I Don’t Have to Outrun the Lion, I Just Have to Outrun You
In my opinion one of the biggest mistakes SEO’s make is chasing the Google Algorithm. They focus mostly in part on trying to figure out the next big thing that Google will value, and lose sight of not only the user, but the competitive landscape as well; both of which …
[Infographic] MSNBC Mobile Offerings
MSNBC came to us to help them design an infographic that their sales team could use as a leave-behind with clients. They provided us with the basic information in a Powerpoint format and we designed their sales collateral based off the data sets they found important. Designer: Infographic by LinchpinSEO
12 Most Overrated SEO Tactics (That Don’t Work!)
Knowing where to focus your time and energy when it comes to executing SEO tactics that will have value and drive rankings, traffic, and conversions is key to building a long term strategy to grow your online business. Below you will find the 12 most overrated SEO tactics that don’t …
[Infographic] Ideas For Marketing Your Product or Business on Pinterest
What is Pinterest? Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful and inspirational things you find on the web. People use pinboards to get ideas about planning their wedding, decorating their home, or finding some mouth watering recipes. For businesses it’s an effective way to create awareness, drive conversation, …
Link Trades: Tips for Making Reciprocal Links Work For Your SEO
I recently received a link trade (reciprocal link) request email from another site causing me to ask myself, how can I make the tons of link trade requests that I get, work in my favor. Most of these sites are low quality or riddled with spam, but some of the …
What Is Content Marketing and Content Strategy?
What Is Content Marketing? Content marketing means different things to different online marketers. In my opinion how people define content marketing comes down to the level of effort that they feel they need to put into, or what to put into, producing content to get the ROI they are striving …
[Video] On-Page Optimization Tips For Advanced SEO
On-page optimizing is still a huge part of helping a site rank for primary head terms as well as mid and long tail keyword. A recent study by Conductor showed that optimizing on-page elements for the keywords marketers want to rank for is critical. On-page optimization for keywords identified by …
[Video] How To Make Boring Product Pages Rank Better
Almost every ecommerce site faces the issue of boring product pages that don’t offer much more than product features (and maybe a few reviews if they’re lucky). This type of product page has many issues such as thin content, low value, low link ability, and are usually duplicated when they …
[Video]: How to Increase the Odds of Your Content Going Viral
Having a piece of content go viral is a dream of almost every content writer, video producer, or average business person who has thought up an idea like “Will it Blend”. Getting a piece of content has many benefits such as gaining powerful links, driving traffic, and increasing brand recognition. …
Guide To Writing a Business Plan
People planning to start their own businesses are taking a huge step. There are many risks and rewards, and comprehensive planning and preparation are the keys to success in the endeavor. If the business requires funding from lenders or investors, entrepreneurs must convince complete strangers that their ideas are workable, …
A Charles Darwin Quote Explains Why Most Big Companies Fail At SEO
This post is more of an observation than a data driven SEO article as we usually post on Linchpin SEO, but I think it holds some weight when it comes to SEO in general for big companies. The post will be centered around the following quote by Charles Darwin (English …
Editorial Calendar: Tips for Creating an Editorial Calendar
One of the best ways to avoid writer’s block is by creating an editorial calendar. You skip all those sessions of staring at a blank computer screen and get down to business generating content. You don’t have to wonder about what you’re going to write next, with an editorial calendar, …
[Video] What is the Ideal Keyword Density, Directly From Matt Cutts at Google
What is the ideal keyword density: 0.7%, 7%, or 77%? Or is it some other number? What is the correct keyword density for seo, is keyword density real, or does keyword density even exist in the Google algorithm for seo? Below Matt Cutts, lead spam engineer at Google answers these …
Content Creation Techniques: Create Value & Build Editorial Calendars
With the Panda update going live back in February (2011) attacking shallow, thin, and low quality content, it is now much more important to write articles and content that is in-depth and valuable for a user. The days are gone when you could take 1 article and split it up …
Microsites for SEO: Adantages & Disadvantages of Building Microsites
I was recently asked by a client if they should create a microsite for a product set they were adding. This question really made me think about the value of microsites for SEO and branding purposes and if microsites for seo were good or bad. What is a microsite? People …
[Video] What Is Cloaking, The Definitive Answer By Google’s Matt Cutts
Video Summary A lot of people have questions about cloaking; what exactly is it, how does Google define it, and why is it high risk behavior. There is a lot of HTML documentation and Google has done a lot of blog posts, but Matt wanted to do this definitive cloaking …
12 Most Valuable Pieces of SEO Advice
With the vast amount of SEO knowledge, tips and tactics found on the web, it can be difficult for businesses and individuals trying to learn how to do white hat SEO to cut through all the clutter and find sound advice. Below you will find a list of the 12 …
Easy Infographic Ideas: 5 Places To Find Data to Make Cool Infographics
Identifying infographic ideas are sometimes the hardest part of creating a cool, interesting, and engaging infographic that is relevant to your local business. As we mentioned previously there are many benefits of infographics that include increasing brand awareness, building links to your website, and building social communities around your online …
How to Syndicate Content Without Hurting Your Rankings
Many websites and businesses operate on a distribution business model in which their sales come from other websites listing their products. These businesses sell their white label products into other businesses, and then the business utilize their own websites to sell the products through to the consumer. This business model …
[INFOGRAPHIC] SEO Pyramid: The TLCs of SEO Methodology
In December of 2008 SEOmoz debuted their SEO Pyramid in one of their popular Whiteboard Friday Videos. Since that debut, there has been many advancements within the search engine’s algorithm and evolutions within SEO. Below is a revised SEO Pyramid infographic which includes seo methodology and what Linchpin SEO labels …
Linchpin SEO Google Plus Page: Circle Our Company Page
Google recently opened up the ability for brands and businesses to create pages. Google Plus for businesses and brands is now a reality. Google Plus Pages is basically the Google version of Facebook Fan Pages, and gives businesses a chance to claim their profile on the social network and interact …
SEO ROI Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads
Webmarketing123 did a recent study to gain insight into how B2C and B2B companies were using digital marketing to grow their businesses, and how effective each of the digital channels were at generating leads and sales. The numbers come from the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, which was compiled …
Find Content Creation Ideas by Using Oprah.com, DoctorOz.com, & Talk Shows
What I am about to explain is a very unconventional, yet advanced way to generate content ideas. It will create high value content ideas. It will help you create quality content that is almost certain to drive traffic. It could get your content spotlighted on major media outlets and blogs. …
Top Content Creation Agencies and Firms in the US and UK
With the recent update to Google (Panda Update) content creation has come under fire due to content farms creating a mass amount of low quality content. If you are going to select a content creation agency or firm to create content for your website or do content marketing, it is …
SEO For Car Dealers: Tips to Increase Web Leads & Traffic
Below you will find the SEO thoughts from our analysis of the McGrath Audi dealer site and tips for other local auto and car dealers for increasing web leads, traffic, and sales of new and used cars from the free traffic that the search engines can provide by doing SEO …
SEO For Bands: Tips to Use Google to Increase Fans and Book More Shows
Website that are designed and SEO’ed for bands should contain a few primary features that visitors who click through to a bands website are searching for; tour dates, information about the band members, personal interaction points, and a way to contact the band to build that connection and remove that …
SEO For NonProfits: Analysis of the Salvation Army, Feed the Children, & ASPCA
As a small business agency we are always looking out for the local market or those with less than enough resources to reach their potential traffic or sales level from the search engines. This week we are going to do a high level SEO analysis of 5 Nonprofits to hopefully …
Huge List of Link Building Resources: I Got 99 Problems But a Link Ain’t One
Every week there is at least 1 article on SEOmoz, Ontolo, Search Engine Round Table, Search Engine Land, Distilled, or other blogs, that outline some great tips and techniques for getting quality links with different sets of content. They dive into in-depth analysis about how to find link partners and …
SEO For Recruitment: Tips For Optimizing Job Listings to Lower Recruitment Costs
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies. Some organizations use employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment instead of …
Google Sitelinks FAQ: Where Do They Come From & Can You Change Them
We get asked this at least once a week by clients or prospects “where do the links under the first Google result come from?”, or “how do I get Sitelinks to show up for my site?”. So we decided to give our readers a resource guide for Sitelinks to answer …
HTML and XML Sitemap Creation Process and Benefits
Sitemaps can be helpful in the indexation and crawling of a website. Below are the two types of sitemaps that we currently use and the process for keeping them up to date. XML Sitemap An XML Sitemap is created based on specific protocols and helps the search engines discover pages …
SEO Audit Process: How To Perform An SEO Audit
Executing a SEO audit is a very involved process that touches on many of the aspects that can help or hurt your rankings, indexation and crawl rate in the search engines. Below you will find a few of the high level questions we ask when performing a website SEO audit …
External Links and Inbound Marketing Campaigns Value and Benefits
History of The Hyperlink 1965: The term “hyperlink” was coined by Ted Nelson and his assistant Calvin Curtin at the start of Project Xanadu. Nelson had been inspired by “As We May Think”, a popular essay by Vannevar Bush. In this essay, Bush described a microfilm-based machine in which one …
Base 8 Logarithmic Scale of Google’s Real and Toolbar PageRank
The Google PageRank algorithm is logarithmic and not linear and most SEO’s believe the base is between 8 and 9. The following takes into account a base of 8 in the Google PageRank Algorithm. There are two types of pagerank. Toolbar pagerank with is the little green bar that can …
Where Does The Description Tag Come From In Google?
There are 3 primary ways Google gets your description tag for the search results. The first being the meta description tag that is in the header of the code. This will show up most of the time if the keyword being searched for is in that tag (which is why …
Great Web Design Quote From Seth Godin
Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker. – Seth Godin This is so true and the main reason we have chosen to remain a small web design agency. Our primary team consists of myself …
Using FindPeopleOnPlus for Link Building and Blogger Outreach
What is Google+? Google plus is Google’s recent attempt at breaking into the social space and building a network to complete with Facebook. The benefits they have include a built in Gmail and Google profile base, and currently (as of July 2011) have hit the 10 million user mark. What …
Hit Counters: Why You Should Never Use Website Hit Counters
What Are Hit Counters? We have all seen those little counters on the bottom of older websites and blogs that count the number of “hits” (which is a word that nobody should use anymore) a website gets. Back in the 90′s during the time of GeoCities and other free site …
What is SEO: The Evolution of The SEO Job
The following post was inspired by Rand at SEOmoz A little background on me. I started in the SEO space about 8 years ago, after spending 6 years of building sites without SEO in mind. Over the years the responsibility of the SEO (Me) has changed, not in a bad …
SEO Friendly Directories: Directory Submission and SEO, Does It Help?
What is directory submission? Back in the day when SEO was easier, and Google was not as sophisticated when it came to detecting low quality links from directories, SEO’s and webmasters would submit sites to many different directories. They would do mass directory submissions trying and gain traffic from people …
Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Mac’s Version of Xenu’s Link Sleuth
What is Xenu Link Sleuth? Xenu’s Link Sleuth checks Web sites for broken links along with returning some valuable SEO data such as header code, title tag, page size. Xenu checks html links, image links, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets for broken links …
Link Building Tools: Use The SEOmoz Toolset To Find Link Opportunities
Competitive Link Research Tool Simply put it helps a SEO or link builder find powerful sites your competitors are getting links from but you”re missing out on. How to use the Competitive Link Research Tool Enter your site (the target for optimization) Enter at least two competitors to find links …
How to Optimize PDF Documents for SEO
Verify the PDF is text-based For this select Advanced > Accessibility > Add Tags to Document and then select Advanced > Accessibility > Touch Up Reading Order. Acrobat will then show you the various parts of the PDF, including what is actually text and what is seen as images by …
SEO Past and Present: Remember When SEO Was Easy
Remember when SEO was easy. When if you focused enough energy and time on the 5 things below you could rank for just about anything. Create a useful page for the user Use the keywords in the correct way Get high quality external links with focused anchor text Make the …
How to Build Links To Your Small Business Website
Link building for small businesses can be challenging but is a must have for local businesses doing SEO. If you plan to rank in your local area or a specific keyword, one of the keys is to gain links from the same community, city, or town you wan tot rank …
The Difference Between Facebook Like, Website Like, and Become a Fan
Facebook Like Button that is placed on a clients website (that is pulled from the Facebook developers page) This is a script that pulls in the specific page a user is on (or it can be set to just pull in a specified URL). Must be logged into Facebook to …
Fixing Your Content Affected By The Panda Update
Was your site impacted by the Panda Update? Do you know how to fix it, or at least how to do a basic content audit to come up with a strategic path to help your content rank better again. Below are a set of questions to ask during your content …
When to Involve SEO: Top 10 Signs SEO Needs To Be Involved
A big question we hear alot from clients is “when should I bring in SEO?”. This is a popular question since some companies are not well versed in what SEO actually can do or does on a day to day basis. Read our what is seo article for more information …
Increase Links To Your Website: Rules For Building Great Content
Links are the key to ranking well and driving user metrics for SEO, but to get links the content that is produced needs to follow some basic guidelines to maximize user engagement and links. What are these guidelines? How to increase links to your content? A recent content study came …
Best SEO, Technology, Social Media Websites, and Blogs
SEOmoz SEOmoz develops SEO software, provides a robust link intelligence API, and hosts the web’s most vibrant SEO community. They are based in Seattle, but are often found traveling the globe to participate in marketing events and meetups. website SEO Roundtable The purpose behind the Search Engine Roundtable is to …
Content Creation Tools, Online Software, and Secrets
Content Creation Tools, Online Software, and Secrets Niche Watch What is Niche Watch:”Find exactly which competitors are there for your niche keywords” and gain better search engine placement by targeting the technical aspects. How to use Niche Watch Niche watch can help determine the off-site metrics that a piece of …
The Key To SEO: Acquisition and Optimized Distribution of Metrics
If one could bring all the details of SEO down into two simple concepts it would be the concepts of acquisition and distribution. Acquisition and distribution networks have been used in the offline business world long before the internet was around. These two concepts are inclusive of most of the …
SEO and URL Analysis and Planning Tools
KnowEm KnowEm allows you to check for the use of your brand, product, personal name or username instantly on over 500 popular and emerging social media websites. Grab your name and secure your brand before someone else does. Check out Linchpinseo KnowEm profile Website W3.org Check the markup (HTML, XHTML, …
URL Rules to Follow To Create SEO and User Friendly URLs
So your creating a new site, or thinking about rewriting your URLs to help your users and the search engines understand your website and its pages more accurately. URLs are important when it comes to indexation, marketing, click through, and when other sites link to your website. They should be …
Free WordPress Installation Service for Small Businesses
What is WordPress? WordPress is a free CMS (content management system) that has been incredibly successful and risen from a handful of users to the most-used blog tool in the world. It is steadily taking over Blogger’s users to the point that Googles own Matt Cutts uses WordPress instead of …
What SEO IS, and What SEO is NOT
Many businesses think SEO is all about the small things; the title tags, the description tag, the rankings or the XML sitemap. These are all part of SEO, but by focusing on these minor things, businesses are missing the big picture about what SEO is really all about. SEO is …
List of HTTP Status Codes for SEO and What They Mean
The following is a list of commonly used and returned HTTP response status codes that a website can return. This includes codes from IETF internet standards as well as RFCs status codes that have not been standardized. These codes are valuable for SEO when determining if the pages are returning …
Sketchup Intermediate Guide, Tutorial, and Cheat-Sheet
Topics Covered In This Sketchup Article How to use Sketchup Sketchup cheat-sheet for Intermediate users The following list is a great tool if you’ve read the Sketchup Beginner’s Guide. Print this out and leave beside your computer as you continue to build your first model. Included is a follow up …
Sketchup: Beginners Tutorial and Tips About Using Keyboard Commands
Sketchup Topics Covered Crash course in Sketchup How to Use Sketchup Great Sketchup Cheat-Sheet What is Sketchup? Sketchup began in 2000 as a “3d for everyone” tool. In the last ten years it has been bought by Google and transformed into one of the most well known and user friendly …
10 Tips For Designing a Winning Small Business Website
Designing an engaging Web site starts with clearly understanding what your message is and who you want it to reach. If your Web site is intended to be primarily an information tool, providing visitors with detailed background on your products and services, that’s going to drive the site’s organization and …
Utilize Q&A Websites To Spread Your Small Business Articles
History of Question and Answer Websites Question and answer websites have become more popular over the last few years with the rise of such sites as Wiki Answers, Yahoo Answers, and Answer Bag. Google was one of the original pioneers of the Q&A website, but they found it hard to …
Use Google and Yahoo Suggest To Create Business Resources
Keyword research is very important when it comes to creating articles and research topics that people are searching for. It also becomes important when you’re searching for supporting keywords that will add depth and diversity to your research. Below I have outlined one of our most popular tips in regards …
Using Wikipedia To Help Market Your Small Business
53% of American Internet users look for information on Wikipedia, up from 36 percent in 2007 The Best Way To Use Wikipedia To Promote Your Small Business Wikipedia, the popular community-edited website, is not considered a reliable source of information when writing papers or fact-checking information. Most believe that because …
How to Gain Incremental Traffic By Cutting Out Website Pagination
So you have a well categorized website that has thousands of products and there are some categories or subcategories which paginate. I want to take a look at a possible cost of pagination compared to what I feel is a better option. The first thing to take a look at …
10 Quick Ways To Become A Business Failure
I was listening to a book on my iPhone called “The Big Moo” by Seth Godin and came across a section that I thought was short and sweet and was a great part to summarize and share. This section outlines 11 bullet points about how to quickly become a failure …
Tips for Writing a Google Reconsideration or Reinclusion Request
So your site has been de-listed from the search engines, your losing money, you don’t know why Google would do such a horrible thing to a great user focused website, and you’re going to submit a reconsideration. I will start by saying that most website owners 85-90% can figure out …
Book Review of “How the Mighty Fall” by Jim Collins
So I started reading, actually listening to, “How the Mighty Fall” by Jim Collins for the 3rd time. I could remember back to companies I had worked for who were at the top of their game during the time I was there, and then suddenly, or over a short time …
Free Websites For Elementary and High School Teachers
Having been immersed (through stories from teachers in our families) in the constant struggle that educational facilities face when it comes to budgets and resources we feel we can offer something to help. Linchpin SEO wants to give back and help the educational community by offering free websites including design …
Comment Marketing: Market Your Small Business By Joining The Conversation
Participating in the conversation by commenting is a powerful marketing practice that can help build your brand as a writer and driving traffic to your articles. The problem that arises is since Google focuses heavily on back links in their algorithm, comments get filled with low quality conversation spam and …