We've written before about keyword usage , but as Google has changed its goals and its algorithm over the years, it's important to revisit the issue. Two years ago we said: "At the present time RankBrain will not be significantly more important than the other parts of Hummingbird , but Google intends to see how it works and how it learns towards the eventual goal of making RankBrain the #1 ranking factor, making links and on-page SEO a much less important part of how it ranks a webpage." ...

Google has long been in the business of using incentives and disincentives to bribe websites into conforming to Google's vision for the web. 2018 looks to be the year that a secure web moves to the top of Google's list of priorities. Account hacking and data breaches are an enormous problem with long range consequences for internet users and companies of all sizes. Online payment gateways and contact forms are weak links that hackers target on HTTP domains, and both personal and financial d...

With the proliferation of new social media, every business must consider its audience in choosing which platforms to use for marketing and communication to their customers. There are too many of them to do justice to them all, and some of them will not give a good return on investment for time spent. Facebook is the most popular social media platform for all segments of the American population - men, women, Boomers, Millennials, educated, urban, rural, and high and low income. For most businesse...

In our August blog post we discussed how net neutrality is crucial for small businesses . Since then, the chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, has announced that the FCC will be voting on whether to roll back the net neutrality regulation that has been in place since 2015. The current regulation prevents "[i]nternet access providers from blocking content, websites and applications, slowing or speeding up services or classes of service, and charging online services for access or fast lanes to Internet ...

Back in May when we discussed how Google's mobile-first indexing may affect your company's search rankings , we said that if your company's website was designed to be responsive - that is, to accommodate both desktop and mobile devices - then your website should not be hurt by this shift in the way Google indexes. If your company's website has not been designed to be responsive, this new way of indexing may eventually render parts of your website, even large parts, invisible to Google searches. ...