There is so much misunderstanding of these two terms, how they relate to each other, and which to target. I’m going to try to diffuse that dichotomy. 
 
It’s not a case of the chicken-before-the-egg or vice versa. They are two completely different disciplines, though each can benefit from the other much as SEO and paid search [...]

I realize that spying on the competition may not seem to be of great importance when taken as a stand-alone SEO concept without understanding what you can actually glean from doing so, or knowing what insights the available tools can offer.
 
This post will try to demystify the issue.
 
Why Spying on the Online Competition Can Benefit [...]

Google apparently started blocking ranking software like WebCEO and WPB a few days ago. The subsequent horrified outcry followed by hard-line rebuttals of ‘sooo old hat’ and worse was really interesting to watch and read.
 
At the risk of putting myself in the firing line, I’m going to try to put my point across in defense of [...]

I hear a lot of questions that make me want to bang my head against a wall. This is one of them.
 
Make no mistake, this is a legitimate question. It is a good question. It is simply that I have had to field it so often, I am now going to write this post [...]

Gaining backlinks… Not my favorite pass-time. BUT…
Google’s ranking algorithm places an enormous amount of importance on how a web page is linked to from other topically related pages on the internet. Factors of importance that prompt Google to attribute ‘authority’ to a web page as a relevant, usable and topical resource for inclusion to their [...]

This post is intended to be a full guideline to creating and implementing an effective organic search campaign with reference to more detailed information on specific topics.
Creating a fully comprehensive and effective search campaign is more involved than many envisage – but it is not difficult. The step by step approach recommended here follows a [...]

I’m not going to introduce this post too much as each section speaks for itself, but the topics the post covers include:

QR Codes,
OCR (Optical character recognition), and
Reputation Management and Transparency.

1. QR Codes
The first time I heard about QR codes was when I read an SEOmoz post in September of last year.
QR codes are matrix, or [...]

This is one of those posts I’m writing simply because I wish someone else had written something similar when I was looking for this type of information a few years ago. This is the most current information I can find and is peppered with my own interpretations.
 
1. HOW PEOPLE SEARCH
 
People search in a variety of different [...]

In a nutshell this post will discuss alternative revenue models for SEO services. Many clients and SEO agencies have vastly different expectations of any specific revenue model. They also have their own ideas as to which revenue model is most suitable.
From an agency perspective, there are a number of options that can be offered to clients:

Pay Per Hour
Pay Per Page (full page by [...]

It is sometimes very hard to get clients to understand why and how SEO can be of benefit to them. The hardest part is conveying the importance of effective keyword research and placement.
This post is going to try to make it easy and fun for SEO’s to inform clients as to why SEO - and [...]