The axiom of search engine optimization is that your website will only rank for words that search engines can find on your website. If you learn nothing else about search engine optimization you must learn that one point. If you have learned that already; good, you don't have to read today, but before you go consider that many people aware of that axiom are still not applying.
I'm going back to my own jWAG website tracking today to look at the top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets of all time, that are still relevant today. I see that some of the Nuggets with the highest reader count are out of date because Facebook and Google have changed things, and a few others are very similar so I'll have to do some consolidating.
Popular Screen Resolutions
1. The most popular screen resolutions change constantly as new mobile devices and laptops are introduced. I publish an updated version of screen resol... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I explained a little about your website site speed and how to view the Google Analytics report that shows you how slow your website is.
While you could ask your website programmer to help you figure out how to fix your website, there's another report in Google Analytics that gives you initial ideas of what to do. It's called the Speed Suggestions report and it can be... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
After writing about code and speed optimized websites in my #TBT last week, I wanted to bring your attention to Site Speed optimization tools that are built into Google Analytics.
As a quick recap, the speed of your website will help increase your website ranking a little bit, and when it comes to SEO, every little bit counts.
To get to them, you first log into Google Analytics then click on Be... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In today's Practical SEO Guide, I will tell you about website "Blocked Resources," how to view this report in Google Search Console, and how Google alerts you when they find a blocked resource.
First, let me explain that a Blocked Resource is a page, script, or some file that Google cannot read because you are telling them not to read it; yet, that same page, script, or file is used on the public site.
There's a difference between your public site and your backend area that you use to manage your sit... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Did you know that it's possible to track the effectiveness of your offline marketing, as in, print ads, TV commercials, and even billboards? Yep, it's true, and it's simple too... Just use a different domain name on each ad.
The data reported by Google Analytics is really helpful for every website owner to look at. By default, the reports provide really insightful data over the last 30 days of activity for users, sessions, pageviews, and bounce rates, but that's only a small piece of what GA can do for you.
The big benefit of GA is being able to produce a report for any time frame in the past and compare it to any other time frame in the past. You can compare the last 30 days t... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
As I quickly approach my 1300th Daily Golden Nugget, I find myself pondering my existence. What else could I possibly write about that I haven't already?
Truthfully, a lot, but I'm also realizing that's I've never created a series of simple examples or how-to's for typical search engine optimization tasks. So, starting today, I'm going to work through several days (however many it might take) to show you how to tie together simple SEO procedures.
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm revisiting the URL restructuring topic from March 15, 2011.
I consider URL restructuring to be one of the more advanced SEO techniques that you can employ after a deep review of how your website is performing in organic search. It's the process of turning your long, messy looking website addresses into shorter, easy to understand addresses.
Welcome to the weekly edition of the Friday jewelry website review. Every week, I randomly choose a candidate website and put it to the test for design, SEO, usability, content, and a wealth of other website and business related issues.
I never know how they will turn out; sometimes good and sometimes bad. I always try to write these reviews in the order in which I browse around the site, providing my first reactions as I discover things.
I usually commemorate special numeric milestones when writing these Daily Golden Nugget. Most notably are the Google Maps updates every 100th Nugget, but there have been fun ones like 404 and 410 too.
This is Daily Golden Nugget Number 1234, and it's also #ThrowbackThursday... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This week I've been explaining the differences between Technical SEO,On-Site SEO, and Off-Site SEO.
While the technical aspects of search engine optimization include a lot of analysis and analytical thinking, the on-site optimization requires a creative flair for writing, photography, and customer satisfaction that... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Technical SEO is certainly something that computer scientists and programmers do best. Even though the technical SEO procedures are important, I don't often not... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In its simplest terms, search engine optimization is the process of doing something for your website that will help it to rank higher in search engines. Google maintains its dominance over the entire search engine industry because it keeps its users happy.
Users... Those are the everyday people of this world, like you and me, who keep returning to Google because it offers the best search results no matter which device you use. Google pays attention to what we all look for, how we use ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Over the course of the next week or two, I'm going to supply you with a bunch of shorter Daily Golden Nuggets specifically explaining smaller SEO topics. Instead of calling them "nuggets," I should call them "Grains of SEO Gold."
Today's SEO Topic: Page Titles and Header Tags
It used to be that the website's Page Title was easily readable at the top of your web browser window, but now that most web browsers use tabs, it's very difficult to see what the page title says.
I recently had a conversation with a jeweler who was worried about the declining foot traffic in their store. Some months ago they hired an SEO agency to work on their website and at the same time the foot traffic to their store started to increase. Then the foot traffic to their retail store started to decline shortly after they stopped paying for the SEO agency.
The assumption was that the SEO agency was the only factor in increasing their foot traffic. It would be every SEO profes... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
For the last few years, I've been telling everyday average business owners that the process of search engine optimization is not hard; it's just time consuming. There are still a few SEO consulting companies out there that will tell you that the process is technical, and it requires continual maintenance. I'd like to dispel some of this thinking.
Indeed there are technical aspects to SEO, but those are usually related to the computer hardware your website lives on, and the initia... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'd like to share with you my recent thoughts and experiences of the basic search engine optimization factors based on what I see in my daily tracking of many jewelry websites.
On a weekly basis, I mention a few of these during my Friday website reviews. This is by no means an exhaustive list of SEO techniques; just the 7 most important ones that I've noticed in the past several months.
Over the last 6 days, we've given you Black Hat SEO discussions and examples of how to avoid them. Unfortunately there are a lot of SEO "professionals" out there that want nothing more than to take your money and promise you results.
A quick Google search for "link building services" returns 35,300,000 results and tons of ads, meaning there is big business in link building. Do you think all those paid link building services will openly tell you that they use Black Hat techniques? Remember that Black Hat SEO refers to anything you do that will trick the search engines into ranking you higher in the SERP.
If you're not doing your own website SEO you will eventually need to hire someone to do it for you. Between today and tomorrow we're giving you 9 very blunt directions that will make working with your SEO professional mu... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
As 2010 comes to a close and 2011 brings hopes of a better economy, we'd like to present to you some basic SEO ideas that we've not yet covered through our Daily Gold Nuggets.
Before we get into any specifics, let's introduce you to some basic terminology and search engine ideas.
First, you need to know that there is no magic silver bullet that will make your website show up in the search engines easily. It takes a lot of hard, tedious work.
Second, if you spend just one evening researching SEO techniques on your own, you will find huge inconsistencies between what all of the search engine optimization professionals say to do. There is no way that everyone is correct, yet every one of those professionals seem to get the job done using their "proven" techniques. Google and Bing do not freely publish a real how-to d... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away." -Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm revisiting the 
For the last few years, I've been telling everyday average business owners that the process of search engine optimization is not hard; it's just time consuming. There are still a few SEO consulting companies out there that will tell you that the process is technical, and it requires continual maintenance. I'd like to dispel some of this thinking.
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'd like to share with you my recent thoughts and experiences of the basic search engine optimization factors based on what I see in my daily tracking of many jewelry websites.