Cheers to Google Authorship, having an image next to website search results, and all the added benefits it has brought my business over the past year.

If you have not a clue as to what I’m referencing, I invite you to read my recent post on the future of search engine optimization using Google Authorship.

As a major aspect of my content marketing strategy to gain greater visibility in search engines and an opportunity to increase click-through-rate (CTR) for search rankings, I implemented Google Authorship. I believe Google Authorship separates my website from my competition, adding a credibility boost to search rankings.

I’ve had Google Authorship implemented on my website almost a year now and amazed at the results.  

I’m back in the saddle for another SEO ride on a different day and many more SEO issues to tackle pertaining to GWT queries and impressions.

Today, I’d like to share with you an SEO experience that has driven a customer and me nearly crazy trying to figure it out.

The issue at hand was trying to identify why Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) shows minimal queries and impressions for their website.

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about performing SEO using multiple GWT accounts.

To my surprise, I thought that we had remedied the customer’s situation and all was well.

But as time passed since that post, nearly 30 days, we noticed that the GWT profile showed minimal data for queries and impressions.

Hmm, something must be wrong, right?

One of the things that drives me up a wall and back as an SEO professional is to have both potential and existing customers solely focus on the number of backlinks their competitors have achieved based on SEO tools.

I love SEO tools and I do use my fair share of SEO tools, but I realize that SEO tools cannot replace the hard work and effort that I must put into achieving and sustaining my rankings.

I use SEO tools as a gauge to monitor what SEO tactics are and are not working, but these SEO tools are not the end all, be all for how my website ranks across major search engines.

In most cases, people that are benchmarking using SEO tools are clearly wasting their time.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to benchmark and use SEO tools such as Advanced Web Ranking, Ahrefs.com, Moz, and OpenSiteExplorer.org to measure one’s website or compare one’s website to their competition.

The problem I have with customers using SEO tools is that most potential customers and customers are headed down the wrong or deceptive SEO path and proclaim SEO tools as the holy grail of SEO.

And why is this so bad, you ask? Well, any little discrepancy in the numbers or data shown by their desired SEO tool of choice causes such potential and existing customers to participate in reactive SEO, chasing things that don’t matter while neglecting to focus and stay the course executing sound SEO principles.

We all must remember that SEO is as fickle as the wind in general and especially can become a slippery slope when we start trying to use tools to reactively benchmark link building strategies.

That said, I wish most potential and existing customers would really take to heart and understand wholeheartedly what about about to say in the next paragraph.

If you’ve not used Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) search queries to track queries and impressions data for your website, then you are missing an opportunity to gain valuable SEO insight for and about your website, and increase its search rankings.

I know there are many of you that have tried free SEO tools in the past as well as paid SEO tools, but none can compare to GWT.

After all, GWT is a Google product and everyone is racking their brains out trying to figure out how to get their website to page one rankings or how to sustain page one rankings for their website.

For a free SEO tool, GWT packs a mean SEO punch and can hold it’s own as a phenomenal tool to use for webmasters and those with websites.

And today I’m going to let you in on a few secrets and how I use GWT to not only optimize my website, but to drive substantial search ranking changes and increases for my website in Google and other search engines.

Let the latest Internet fun begin: Here’s to the latest land grab of new internet domains!

There has been much talk and hype centered on how the new internet domains, technically known as generic top-level domains (gTLDs), will impact the current 22 domains that have been known by most since the mid 90’s.  

Afterall, internet users have become quite accustom to typing .com on the end of everything as it relates to the Internet.

Most people that know anything about domains question whether the new internet domains will cause .com to lose or gain in its luster, value and dominance.

From the existing .com to .net to .org to .me domains and on, the latest batch of new internet domains to be rolled out is somewhere near 1400 hundred new .whatevers.

I say or reference the new internet domains as .whatevers, because there will be a wide range of options for individuals, professionals and businesses entering into the internet space going forward.

No longer does a business have to depend on being the first to stake claim to .com domain either taken by a competitor or common person.  If you’re a plumber, there will be .plumbing.  If you’re a lawyer, there will be .lawyer.  If you are a tattoo artist, there will be .tattoo.  If you a shop of any sort, there will be .shop and the list goes on.

No matter what you feel nor how you feel about .com addresses, the new internet domains are yet another option for many people to bring their businesses online.

Which this brings us to the ask the question of whether or not existing businesses, as well as new small businesses, should be wary of new internet domains?

Before we get too far down the path on this post on social signals, let me start by saying do not attempt to take anything from this post as the law of the land for manipulating search rankings.

In the last few days, I’ve received a few emails from potential customers in regards to certain SEO strategies they stumbled across on this blog not *working*.

Of course, not *working* is a vague term with wide boundaries depending upon whom you speak with.

As for the emails, potential customers had read a few blog posts making mention that social signals are important to search rankings for websites.

They then took to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, and began posting content in an attempt to boost their website traffic and search rankings.

After a few posts and only days within their first couple of posts on each social network, potential customers were a bit frustrated by the following:

• Their website traffic did not increase
• Their search rankings decreased instead of increasing
• Their numbers on each of the social networks didn’t increase in any aspect

I mean, they had a few likes and a couple of followers, but they expected a monsoon of activity to boost their social signals and in return, increase search rankings for their website.

And of course without hesitation and not acknowledging the part they played, potential customers wrote me to inform me that I was fake and imposter SEO professional by their standards.

Recently, I assisted a long-time client in migrating their redesigned website from manual php files to a dynamic WordPress website with WordPress hosting to boost website speed.

As I do with most redesign launches, I attempted to determine the existing architecture by reviewing the various website directories.

The goal was to move their website to WordPress to allow for easy management of the website.

Unlike their manual website, which was crafted by hand and highly prone to human error, moving to WordPress would allow for fewer hierarchy issues and challenges by harnessing the power of WordPress automation.

In addition, moving to WordPress would help to preserve the existing website page and domain authority they had built over the last 12 or more months.